22 December 2016, Thursday ... Reemergence: trying to find a mission with small steps, working toward meaning, away from despair

22 December 2016 ... a mostly sunny Thursday morning as OnPoint starts on the iPhone radio NPR app for WBUR in Boston:

12 June 2016, Sunday -- Gala Concert of Italian Festival Cultural Event ...

Took photos at the 13th annual Gala Concert in St. Anthony of Padua church sanctuary of the Delaware Youth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Simeone Tartaglione and one of the pieces played after the youth group was by a solo violinist and it touched me because it was a favorite of dad's, a piece foisted on the public by the multi-talented Fritz Kreisler, a recasting of an old masterpiece by Gaetano Pugnani, his Prelude and Allegro in his style:                           

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJUvPa7qC0Y

                       

11 June 2016, Saturday ... Doug's 58th birthday ... photo shoot of DSO Youth Orchestra at St. Anthony of Padua Church ...

                                                           We were milk drinkers.

Addendum (6/11/16): Coming from Maplecrest on our bikes, Peg and I saw Steve and Annie walking Kirby (Annie's leash) and Harriet (Steve's) at the park in Sheridan Square. They're such dear animals, perfectly named, and the abused one, used as bait (teeth filed down) for a dog fighting ring, Harriet, was quite affectionate and did not growl once. She even rolled over for Peg as she pet her. So nice to run into the two of them with their canine charges on a beautiful summer evening.

It's those lazy, hot, thirst-inducing days again ... "sumer is a cumin" ... and I drink three glasses of ice tea, which really doesn't quench thirst but entices it, at Peg's from a circular glass pitcher with a curved lip; but the day is hot, the interior of the car baking (need a reflector).

10 June 2016 Friday ... Peg's 2nd day on job @ Stacy's ... Patti visits shortly after Famatta comes to care for mom ... bought tail light for Honda ... bent to gather bush clippings

Beer Barrel Polka JibJab sent to Doug, Nick, Lindsay
Norma Clara, Norma Virginia, Peg and Susan, too,
for the first individual's 58th birthday tomorrow.

Went riding with Gordon last night starting about 6:30 from the baseball backstop at the park, whose name always eludes me for some unknown (early dementia perhaps) reason, and we hit the trails as we rode the Judge Morris course, which seemed endless and then through fields of glorious oats, we think (or at least Peg surmised, after I got home and she cooked a great steak dinner on the grill with corn on the cob and brussel sprouts).

9 June 2016, Thursday ... Peg handyman @ Stacy's ... lawn cut w/clippings for backyard ... brushed Dancer (lots of hair) ... birthdays of Eleanor Huether & Jay Gibson

    
She loves to have her belly scratched but dislikes when you pull on her feathers in the rear. That's her sensitive area. And boy did she produce a lot of hair that Peg said the birds would love for nesting material.

Today is the birthday of Peg's daughter Eleanor, who turns 29 today, and who, with her husband Chris, just bought a home in New York near her in-laws, a 4-bedroom place for just over $700K. It is also the birthday of Peg's second, adopted mother, Jay Gibson, who just loved the e-cards that I sent her from JibJab and AmericanGreetings.

Jay Gibson sheds light on her birthday.


Holy Trinity Greek Festival - 41st Anniversary, June 7 - 11, 2016
http://greekfestde.com/

A good time, a filled space where the seating is limited (we sat with young couples to eat our Moussaka and Spinakopita and Dolmades and then left, just as we finished, when another young couple came to join the other three at our table ... we did not have a conversation as many of the young people were invested into their smart phones) ... and then out to the dance area and the infectious Greek music and spirit and the line dancing holding hands or arm and arm. Peg pulled me out and used her international dancing expertise to get me on the right rhythmic path with feet and body movement. All in all, a good time for the evening.

26 May 2015, Tuesday ... Mary Ellen Mark dies ... treated mom's hurt arm ... Peg rubs Dancer the right way ... Doug's gift in the mail ...

Mary Ellen Mark, the influential photographer known mostly for her humanist work,
has died. She was 75.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/05/26/409806219/photographer-mary-ellen-mark-dies-at-75

Dancer just loves to roll over and have her stomach scratched. 

23 May 2015 Saturday ... Susan's graduation from seminary, meet the neighbors, silence & together last night

 

Oh, it's been far too long not to have jotted at least a short note to the passage of days, which progress with too quick rapidity, but on this brilliant and actually cool Saturday morning, I write as Susan and family and friends (mom and Nick & Lindsay and other Shuping kin) at the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary of Lenoir-Rhyne University have their graduation ceremony (Susan is on the home page of the school's web site with this cutline description next to her smiling face ... 

"Get to know America's warmest Lutheran seminary — and we're not just talking about the weather.

We are intellectually curious and spiritually courageous, but supporting each other is the glue
that keeps it all together."

I have to be heading off to Peg's for the housewarming at Christine & Tom's new home, near the church. It began at 11 a.m.

Well, on a walk this morning I met and spoke to three people and I don't want to forget names and before I do:

• Rob and his 11-month-old chocolate lab, exuberant and playful, Luna on the hill of Pickwick. He's a truck driver of liquefied sugar and works long hours. He bought the home at 31 and he and his wife want to have a child. I suggest he meet Bill, my neighbor from across the street, who is an immaculate yard keeper and who is a new father with the birth of his 2nd son (first child from his 2nd marriage), Liam Joseph, born in late April (27th, I think). Together now with his wife, Nicole, and their vibrant daughter, his step-daughter, Avah, they make a wonderful family.
• Across the street where all the work is going on, I spoke with Jeff, who grew up in Maplecrest and is moving to Sherwood Park II. The home is owned by a couple who are renovating and have a contract on it. They still have to bring in a lot of topsoil for the backyard and finish cementing the sidewalk. 

                           

Found this photo on the Facebook page for the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary and it shows my ex-wife, Susan Katherine Thisell (on the right), at the school's graduation ceremony. It is a remarkable accomplishment and represents a lifelong goal of hers to be a Lutheran minister
in the ELCA. Congratulations Rev. Thisell.

https://www.facebook.com/LutheranTheologicalSouthernSeminary/photos/pcb.10155595968925646/10155595967775646/?type=1&theater

On a much more mundane and ephemeral front, the Phillies beat the Nationals 8-1 ...

We hiked White Clay Creek (Bryan's Field Trail) in the brilliant afternoon, Smith Mill Road off Paper Mill Road that ends with at the parking lot and a request for a fee payment of $4 and the stub to be placed on the driver side's dashboard, and we got lost. In the process, we walked a good 4-5 miles with Dancer in tow and got tuckered, so did our dog. But the day was beautiful and Peg gave me botanical and ornithology lesson as we walked the trail dug deep by the passage of myriad mountain bikes. 

Phillies break out to back stellar
 Hamels.

Ryan Howard, who hit his 10th homer in the game, congratulates the new Phillies 3rd baseman, 22-year-old Maikel Franco, on his 2nd homer of the year against
Stephen Strasburg, one of the Nationals' aces.