Saturday

The mistaken Garvee chair happens to work quite well.  Rick Evans called yesterday afternoon; good to talk with him and I think we will go with him to his new set-up.  Apparently lots of former tiaa people who want a leaner operation and return to the personal approach they were trained in years ago.  Very happy he seems to want to continue with us as clients (friends!).  Over the last year or two he has been assigned between 400-700 families to look after!  Co says they have trouble finding qualified people especially in this upper NE location.  Wonder if he will say any more about that.  He is a little guarded in what he says because of the regulations in the industry about moving around and client and company security restrictions.  Hope it will work for us to join him and this new venture.  And that it will be safe!  As safe as tiaa has always been?  How can they guarantee that??  

Short video chat with PT yesterday evening.  Had forgotten they came up to be with us when Bela had her first valve procedure seven years ago.  She added that Chris has moved back into the house with Astrid and her mother, Danni, for financial reasons.  Too much to pay for two households, even on Chris's tech income.  He works from home; she works at the beauty salon.  Astrid in school.  

Message from Dave, he wants a face visit today.  Anxious to hear how it is all going for him.  What the family is doing.  

Those book booster nerds on X never hinted, that I recall, that Moresco's first volume features a seminarian as our hero-observer-narrator.  I enjoy that much because the details every now and then do remind me powerfully of the three brotherly years I spent--away from the world.  In fact our roller skating narrator is much more free, able to come and go it seems between seminary and home villa.  

Cool day again but gloriously sunny.  Black flies in the house going crazy.  One approach I just ordered from amazon places sticky panels in the corners of windows so I look forward to seeing if that will work since the flies do stay on the big windows, most of them.  Just pulled the big drape to keep them there.  

Pausing to see if my cortisol levels are good.  Have to look up the chat about the vargas nerve.  Not the right spelling.  

ok sympathetic is fight or flight system (heard about that in college psych); parasympathetic is rest and digest!  

Bela said earlier she was planning lots of things.  Mind racing ahead just as mine has been--all week?  David will come here and live with us; kids will go to college here and Dave will teach here!  Ha!  well, about as realistic as my racings are too.  

Vagus nerver not vargas, but close.  Vagus and sciatic, two largest nerve stems in us.  

Biggest question facing me now is whether on Tuesday I should go up to Owl's Nest for lunch and scope out the set up for the massage scheduled there in three weeks for Bela.  Why not?  Other options are pretty usual and not pressing.  At the moment.  You never know.  Still have not found the fly swatter!

Next pressing item is to put the new green plastic table cloth on this table!  Found the flyswatter; under the pile of papers on the table!

We have two Aho catalogs, or rather, books.  Rizzoli.  Peak of his career.  Certified and collected.  Looks like he has had about ten serious collectors buying his works.  Pretty darn good.  Aho moved to Hudson, NH in 1974.  He was born in 1966 in Melrose, MA.  His father worked for the Boston and Maine RR; first generation in US, he parents moved to MA from Finland.  Must have moved here in 1940ish.  So Aho himself is first generation son of immigrants.  Same generation as Catherine Taylor??  "Catherine Taylor (born 1964) received a BA from the College Scholar Program at Cornell University, studied Classics at Somerville College at the University of Oxford, and earned a PhD in English from Duke University. The author of You, Me, and the Violence, Apart, and Giving Birth, she is also a founding editor of Essay Press, and associate professor in writing and co-director of the Image Text MFA at Ithaca College and of ITI Press."

So Aho is two years younger than Catherine!!

The new table cloth is a wee short but looks so fresh and lovely.  Now to smooth out the folds and wrinkles over the next two years.  Will we eventually sell Casa Alegre?  Will we even go there this winter?  When will the valve procedure take place?  Can we get it done at Hanover?  

Dave called and talked for a good forty minutes.  While he was walking home I kept noticing beautiful details on the buildings behind him and the bright sunny sky.  His birthday is coming up.  He and C have not told the kids yet about the separation.  He sleeps in the living room sofa "because of his snoring."  They are negotiating point by point how to do the next steps.  He realized she had been looking through his phone the other night while he was asleep.  C thought it could be moved along quickly by having him start to live at some other location.  He wants to do things more slowly.  So, he is a musician and one note after the other would make sense.  Realize how different we are and how little I really know him.  He sees C as overly emotional about everything.  She has been talking with a counselor for years, not a professional therapist, it seems.  When C's mother died this counselor said, Oh, grief, I do not do grief.  Big help there! C's problems with her mother go way back, don't know the details.  Is Dave an alcoholic?  On our side of the discussions, no one has raised that question, that I know of.  Is he the Golden Boy?  According to his song he is.  He surveyed his past year's behavior and asked ChatgPT how long he had been away from the house on late night gigs and job duties (rock u etc) and Chat said pretty much average, not excessive at all.  

We chatted with the kids too.  They already look three months older more than one month older.  Both liking school and teachers.  Eliot the only one in his Spanish class to give correct answers and earned some green points for it.  Emma very keen on her roles in drama class, both this year and projected into next year.  

David did consult some free legal clinic help and I think that did help him think about things in that regard.  They want to avoid going before a judge at all cost, so they have to try to agree and work things out.  

I can't see how he will manage to stay in the apartment for much longer, really.  But perhaps money will insist that they do, that and the concern about avoiding legal process.  They have their marriage therapist and D his private therapist.  I was tempted to text him and suggest he find a way to insist that C get a real therapist to replace her long-time confidante counselor.  But I think I should stay out.  

Unsuccessful at finding a fly bait trap at walmart.  That section emptied out completely so looks like everyone is having pest troubles.  Chat says close all window shades and open one bright window and the flies will go outside, they are drawn to light.  I've opened the front and back doors!!