Nag-a-vation

Kate and I have spent lots of time over the last two weeks (and over the last 33 years) driving to and from places. In the beginning, I was most often the driver (I, after all, have a Y chromosome). There were major flaws in this approach for us. First, I have attention span issues. Though I am probably better than Kate at knowing precisely where the car is on the road, my mind wanders. Second, Kate is, by her own admission, a terrible rider. The frequent sharp intakes of breath are distracting and offensive to the driver. I can read in a car. Kate gets nauseated if she reads (even if she reads a map - which, by the way, isn't a great skill of hers even outside a moving car).

So long ago, in an aggravated and less than pleasant state, I stopped the car, handed Kate the keys and said, "All right, you drive!" Though it was intended as a rebuke, it was inadvertently a great decision.

Kate always pays attention. Look at that classic "10 and 2" hand position! Her speed is reasonably rapid, but safe. She's a little shy about passing on two lane roads (the Y chromosome might help out a bit there), but she keeps us safely heading down the road, rain or shine (yesterday, as we were driving to Montreal from Saratoga Springs, NY it was light rain, but quite beautiful). A fact I could observe in detail since I was in the role of rider.

I have done a bit of driving on this trip - most notably a nighttime drive to a restaurant in Somerset, PA. I did OK. Only ran one red light when my mind wandered off to consider the exact location of a Mexican restaurant we had considered but rejected for what turned out to be a surprisingly good Japanese restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

But I do have a role in this operation. I am the Nagavator. As we travel I ponder maps and routes, sights and points of interest. It's not a passive activity. I am excellent at converting the images on a map into real world action. It is with no little pride that I report that in grade school I always was in the 99th percentile in "Work-Study Skills" (much of which involved map reading for some reason) on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills.

And with the frequent availability of cell phone service, I have been able to take my nagavation skills to the next level. It's much easier than it used to be to find fun, off the beaten path, restaurants. On our last trip, finding "Thai Smile" in a small town in Kentucky where the alternatives were fast food was a masterstroke. Yesterday, we breakfasted at The Triangle Diner in Sarasota Springs. 

Trust me, if you are in Sarasota Springs this is a better alternative than coffee and a croissant at Starbucks - although to be fair the coffee at Starbucks is much better.

Sometimes too much reliance on the phone has its downsides. Yesterday as we drove into Montreal, I trusted the Google Map's directions without checking the map on my own (our atlas doesn't include Canada - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. But I did have a small map in a Montreal travel book I bought before our trip and I failed to use it). Google had us make a left when we should have gone a few blocks to our right. This led us right into a protest being made by thousands of angry teachers! At least they were teachers. And they were angry about certain teaching issues in Quebec that aren't particularly clear to me. They were able to separate their anger about those issues from any particular anger at two Minnesotans driving a green Toyota. Unfortunately, they seemed to fail to grasp the subtle nuances of not walking across the street like a herd of lemmings against a red light. The result was two stranded, confused and - it must be said - tense and snappish retired persons in a car going nowhere. It gave us some time to determine where we really needed to go. Which we were unable to do until we got the assistance of a nice man who was not a teacher (he was walking in the opposite direction of the swarm of teachers, getting nowhere fast). He was kind enough to help us find our way. I even took the wheel for the last part of the drive. We made it to the wonderful apartment where I sit now without too much further trouble.

I think that many of the divisions of labor Kate and I have settled on are a good examples of what couples can, or should, do. We fill gaps for one another. It's sometimes a little hard to admit that your partner is better at something than you are. On matters of style or party or menu planning, it has always been impossible for me to deny Kate's obvious superiority. And it's probably obvious to Kate that I can do math in my head better than she can. But we have also discovered lots of more subtle ways that we can fill gaps for one another. For, example, in preparing some meals (which Kate has planned beautifully) I can add some value right at the end in helping to ensure that all the food is ready more or less simultaneously.

And now for something completely different, a bit of a trip summary:

Oddly, this trip has seemed to involve lot's of M's. 

Sailing in Lake Michigan with our good friends Dan and Francine. Sometimes Kate was at the wheel.

Other times we had normally crowded bays all to ourselves in the unseasonably warm September days.

And we somehow were also able to find our way to shore for some refreshments.

My nagavation skills enabled us to spend a nice evening at the very north end of Lake Michigan in Manistique. We dined at an odd but good Chinese restaurant instead of the Bob's Big Boy that was our alternative.

We crossed over the Mackinaw Bridge to leave Michigan's Upper Pennisula.

We took the ferry to Mackinaw Island for a lovely day walking there.

Then it was on to Rockford, Michigan for a really fun evening (and an amazing lamb chop dinner) with Kate's long-time friend Barb Stuart and her partner in meal preparation (and life) Sally Klokkert.

Next we headed to Kate's Mother's house in York. Peter and I planned his surprise appearance there - and it went wonderfully. Kitty and Bob wondered who the beardless young man walking into their house on a Thursday at 10 pm was!

While there, we had to make the obligatory trip to the Market.

Then it was off to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY to explore the baseball heroics of Musial, Mantle, Mays, Mathewson, Manush, Maranville, Maddux, Marichal, Matthews, Marquard, Martinez, Murray, Mazeroski, McGraw, Mize, Morgan, McCovey, McGinnity, Medwick, Molitor and Clemente and Stargell.

We are now in Montreal for five days that promise to be glorious. They know food here. The city is beautiful. They speak French here (I'm told in a slightly different way than in Paris, but I'm sure I can butcher both versions of French with equal skill).

Then it's on to Maine and eventually Minnesota. A great trip so far. Two thuMbs up!

Limits of Enjoyment

How does our enjoyment or approach to experiencing something affect others? Kate and I went to a Weepies concert recently. If you don't know the Weepies (or I suppose even if you do know them), they are a married couple who make what Spotify calls "folk-pop" music. Probably "The World Spins Madly On" is their best known song. I'm pretty sure it was a background song on Gray's Anatomy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWHnO9c-97U). "Painting by Chagall" is one of my favorites. Six players at this concert, including a drummer. So the music was slightly upbeat, once in a while what you might call light rock and roll. They are not AC-DC or the Grateful Dead. They aren't the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra either.

We saw them at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, where the Prairie Home Companion is often performed. Seated right behind us was a middle-aged guy named Fred (his pre-show monologue enabled me to know his name and much more information about him, and about the Weepies, singers like the Weepies, early albums by Deb Tannen [aka Mrs. Weepie], and a variety of other topics). He was completely jazzed to see the Weepies in person. Probably his favorite group, or at least it appeared that way. He was just excited. When his date went to the rest room after the opening act I whispered to Kate, "He'll find someone else to talk to while she is gone." And so he did, bubbling over with information and opinions. When a song started he could hardly contain himself. He had to yell "Whooo!!!!!!" or "Yesssssssssss!!" at the start of each song. At least for me, these were not "Whooo!!!!" songs. He was so excited that he took a photo from our balcony seats during an early song. He had already informed his date that he didn't take very good photos with his iPhone. I could see the truth of that statement when a minute into the second song a flash went off, startling both Kate and me and confirming at least one reason his photos weren't much good - since the flash ensured that he had a photo consisting of mostly a flare which was my bald spot and perhaps some definition on the others in my row. None of the flash reached the stage until it was too late. Just a guy enjoying the concert in his own way. And the concert clearly meant more to him than it did to me.

In the row in front of us at the same concert were a couple that had a Jack Spratt quality. She was short and sort of squat. He was rangy. But his most remarkable quality was his hair, which rose in a tufted mountain over his scalp what must conservatively been six inches. For the warmup act Ms. Spratt sat in front of me, and Jack sat in front of the woman to my right. After the break they rightfully changed seats, in deference to the shorter woman on my right. Ms. Spratt was careful to inquire of both of us if we could see (I could with a small adjustment of my seating position - my neighbor really couldn't). Ms. Spratt even said that they considered bringing a swimming cap to deal with the problem. But I really appreciated her effort to minimize Mr. Spratt's impact on his fellow concert goers.

Life is full of examples like these. Two of our neighbors at the cabin are "motor" guys. They are happiest on a mower or an ATV or driving a backhoe or revving up the Jet-Ski. I'm happiest watching birds or reading or staring into space - and their enjoyment affects mine.

And it goes both ways. My cabin habits are quieter (and therefore to my eye less intrusive). But I don't hesitate to wander onto their property when watching a bird or throwing a bocce ball. I don't think that's offensive but they might just be too nice to say anything.

Also, I humbly admit that I like to think of jokes in the run of a conversation. And I also must admit that once they are floating around my brain I have a nearly compulsive need to "share" them. I know I have interrupted and deflected many a serious conversation and not a few business meetings to share something I thought was funny, often when someone was making a serious point. I'm just another excited guy enjoying myself and doing what I love. Reacting to a situation in a way that feels natural and right. But it does affect other's ability to make their point. To say what they want to say. To accomplish what needs to be accomplished. To enjoy the conversation.

So what is "the answer"? Like most things, there isn't "an answer." People get enjoyment in different ways. Some have fun in a noisy way, others quietly. Some love a little controversy and argument to spice things up. Others hate that. I know I should do better at respecting the situation and the needs of others. Perhaps next time I will apologize after making a joke at an inappropriate time. But I will probably still make the joke.

Structured Spontenaeity

The first goal of our just completed trip to points east, my mother-in-law Kitty's celebration of her 90th birthday, can be put in the "mission accomplished" category. It went really well. Great food. An interesting and fun crowd at the party. A great week with Madeline leading up to the party (completed with an exciting Badger game right after the party where Madeline and I led the Badgers to victory with clever celebratory clinks of our drink glasses after positive plays by the Badgers). 

There was lots of laughter and fun. At least from my perspective, a success in every way.

But, like many of the trips we have been on, the initial part of our trip had a clear direction and endpoint - in this case the party itself and getting Madeline to the airport for her flight back to Madison. 

Then Kate and I set out on a somewhat different type of journey. One with a much less defined structure. It reminded me in some ways of 1980 - a year I spent being "a bum", wandering from place to place in an almost completely random way. And particularly of the time spent in Europe with a Eurail pass and later a bicycle. At that time I would go places and change directions on a whim with no particular destination or time parameters built into the equation. 

We are once again free to choose at any time to speed up or slow down. Turn right or turn left. But we aren't kids in our twenties anymore. We have some need, at least at this point, for structure. A plan made with at least a little forethought. So there was some learning and adjustment to make.

Sometimes on the second part of our trip we began in a fog, unsure if we were even going in the intended direction, to the extent we had an intended direction.

But in almost every case the fog quickly cleared to allow us to see our way more or less clearly - even if the fog and clouds were still in the area.

It was really fun to make choices and change directions, especially since we had at least a modicum of structure - plans to visit Kate's friend Carolyn and her husband Gary in Ashe County, North Carolina (now "our" friends Carolyn and Gary) and at some point after that to visit our friends Tom and Kathy Seymour in Washington, Illinois.

Our newfound freedom, with its lack of time constraints, let us have a great little side trip lunch with Kate's long-time friend Barbara.

 To scale the heights of Whitetop Mountain (in Carolyn's car).

To go on a "goat hike" around Carolyn and Gary's farm. And when the rains came, the planning we had done enabled us to find shelter.

We could spend a Friday night at Phipp's Store near Lansing, NC.

 And go on nice long hikes.

 We even got to stop by Kate's childhood home -

 and find the mark she had made in the sidewalk in the late 1950's.

And we found time for some horse racing at Keeneland in Lexington, Kentucky.

Where we more than broke even on the day thanks in part to this horse's run to the wire (fortunately he chose to speed up and not to slow down).

We were even able to share a glass of wine (well, several glasses of wine) with great friends.

What a deal!

I'm sure we will continue to improve on our newfound ability to "stop and smell the flowers" on future trips. There are definitely lots of flowers out there.

Adjustments - An Extrovert on the Tundra

I always knew that the first few months of retirement would involve adjustments. The trip that Kate and I had planned was planned in part as a segue into that new era. A fun time to adjust to a new life stage for me and for us. Then that trip was derailed by my heart attack, creating a new set of adjustments that "trumped" the retirement changes, at least for a while. 

The fact is that the physical challenges of my heart attack were quite short term. I felt fine except for one hour or so and was only a little bit uncomfortable afterwards - and what little discomfort I had was due to a few tubes and ports that remained in my arms for a day or two. I didn't really feel any different than the days before. No worse and also no better. Just about the same. There were some physical adjustments to new medicines, and there are certainly mental adjustments to make as well. "How hard can I exercise?" "Is that pain or discomfort or feeling anything to worry about?" And oddly, my experiences with cancer 16 years ago prepared me quite well for the process of answering those questions.

One adjustment that I hadn't really anticipated was the effect on me of the relatively quieter life of a retired person. If the many Myers Briggs tests I have taken during my corporate lives at Pillsbury and Scoular are accurate (and at least on this metric I believe they are), I am an extrovert. I'm not always bubbly and outgoing, but I get energy from interactions with others. At least in part, I had apparently long been being "energized" by diverting serious discussions with my work colleagues down mostly useless but entertaining side roads by means of jokes and puns and silliness. And in retirement there was less opportunity for finding that energy. Kate can only accommodate so much of my silliness. So I need to find ways to replace that energy source. And during the winter in Minnesota idle conversations over the back fence are few and far between. It's been fun and energizing to get together with my buddy Harry - also recently retired - to watch soccer matches and hang out more than we used to have the chance to. 

Another "energy source" was the annual get-together with friends to watch basketball for twelve hours a day during the first weekend on the NCAA basketball tourney. Great fun, and lots and lots of silliness.

It also gave me a chance to work on my cooking skills with my new smoker.

Believe it or not, this is a staged photo. The actual cooking results have been excellent. 

My retirement adjustment process is going well. But it is a process, and not always in the ways I had anticipated.

Kate and I are now off on Opus 2 of our trip east (the short version). We picked up Madeline in Madison for her spring break week, and went on a lovely walk in the Madison arboretum as she taught on Friday. This spring-fed stream had sprung madly to life way earlier than its surroundings, covered with green aquatic plants that looked to us like they would make a lovely salad. Amazing.

We are now in Pennsylvania seeing childhood friends of Kate's and preparing for Kate's mother's 90th birthday party - which was delayed for a few weeks due my health issues when we first tried to head east. I'm looking forward to the party and to exploring the city with my camera in hand. York is an old city, and a fun one to look around in. And we'll be joining friends here in York to watch the Badgers and Spartans march on in the basketball tourney. Then it's on to Baltimore, North Carolina and who knows where? This part of retirement is easy to adjust to.

Back to the Keyboard

I've told lots of people to "watch this space" for updates on the retirement trip Kate and I had planned to start my retirement. As most of you know, our trip took a really unexpected turn. At the end of our first full day on the road, I felt very strange and ended up having a "medical episode" (aka a heart attack). Thanks to my brother-in-law (who henceforth will be known to us as Saint Woodrow) we called an ambulance quickly and dealt with this before any serious permanent damage happened. Two of the major arteries feeding my heart were partially or totally blocked. I was getting care from paramedics almost immediately and was on the operating table at Iowa Methodist Hospital in Des Moines having three stents inserted less than an hour and a half after my first symptoms. Great medical care and acting promptly averted what could have been a very serious problem. I feel great, and really have all along (other than for the two hour period described above, which was remarkably weird).

Also quite weird, at least in retrospect, was the blog entry I had posted just before we left (see below). Part of the entry reads "wouldn't it be ironic if I retired and only then, after 16 years, had cancer return? And we have all heard those stories. Person retires and soon has some fatal or near fatal experience." Perhaps just a little too close to home.

I think the oddness of that posting has had a chilling effect on this, my next post. What if some random writing in my blog like "Jon Stewart is going to retire from the Daily Show" causes just that to happen? Plus, while I'd looked forward to writing a bit of a travelogue of our trip, spiced up with observations and thoughts that occurred to me along the way, I have no desire to do a medical travelogue describing electrodes on my once-hairy chest or the very minor side effects the new medicines I'm taking are having on me.

Life goes on - and in my case it's going on really well. And plenty of thoughts have been rolling around in my head, whether or not they are of any interest to others. 

Nevertheless, I'm going to keep this first post-medical-event entry pretty non-substantive, just in case. Kate and I went to the condo of our friends Don and Phil for a wonderful (and heart healthy) dinner last night. So there is a bit of a travel component to report upon. The view from their condo is as beautiful an urban view as I can imagine.

And the view from my end of the table was great as well.

There is nothing much more fun than sitting around a table having a fun and wide-ranging discussion of life with great friends. Especially after a period of pleasantly following the precept of the old Spanish proverb - "did nothing and rested afterwards."

We will be around Minnesota for a while. I will soon be back at the keyboard writing something a bit more substantive. Now that the coast is clear.

P.S. We took some tulips to Don and Phil's when we went for dinner. They were really droopy and sad when we arrived, and putting them in water didn't help. After we left, Don gave the stems a fresh cut and they came back beautifully.

Since these tulips seem to me to be analogous to my heart attack experience, and since I've been thinking about serendipity and metaphors and "messages from god" lately (it's certainly a possible topic to write about), I thought I should add this PS as a sort of trailer or teaser for an upcoming blog entry.

Is Worry Good?

A week or so ago I had lots of fun giving my retirement speech at the great retirement party thrown by my friends from Scoular. As part of the speech I repeated a couple of "principles" I had come up with years earlier as I left Pillsbury - one of which is that "worry is good." In the speech I was referring to the fact (at least it seems like a fact to me) that any potential problem with a deal that I had worried about in my professional life never reared its ugly head. It was always the "random violence" of the unexpected that kicked us in the head.

This principle became more real to me a couple of years later. As most of you know, I was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor shortly after leaving Pillsbury. It was treated successfully and I have been healthy ever since. But I do get blood tests several times a year to ensure that there are no blood-borne signs that some form of cancer is returning. Those tests (by now about fifty of them) have always been fine, though they have been a source of worry for me every time. Except for one - about a dozen years ago. I was feeling great at the time and didn't get at all nervous and worried about the potential of bad results. And wham!!!! - there were some bad signs in the test. MRI's and some fairly painful bone marrow testing followed. And in fact everything was normal on closer inspection. But I have since taken it to be one of my obligations to worry about each and every blood test. I hardly think about cancer until my blood has been taken for examination. Then I do worry. Because I illogically believe that it's the safe thing to do.

The day after I retired, I had another blood test (as well as my annual bone survey - x-rays of every bone in my body. Unrelated but funny side note, my skull x-ray was rated as unremarkable). One fairly recent development in the testing process, on the whole a very good one, is that the results are quickly available online. I don't have to call a nurse and bother her. I can simply check the online site (every 10 minutes) until the results arrive.

Most of the results came in quickly, and were normal. Except for one, a test for "immature Granulocytes." The range of "normal" results listed on the web site for these immature little beings is between zero and zero. That seems a pretty small range. Here's what I saw:

Granulocytes, immature, automated (IG #)

0.02 x 10^3/uL

0 || 0

Of course, I didn't know a Granulocyte from a stick. But still I was worried (even more than the preventative worry mode that I was already employing). So I read about Granulocytes, learned that they were just a symptomatic marker for certain problems, can occur in the absence of any serious problems. I also learned about the three types of Granulocytes, and noted from the other test results that I was in the range of normal on each one. So that should have calmed me down. Of course it didn't.

My online research was conducted at 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Fortunately, my regular doctor is also a friend and neighbor. So when I was sure that he and his family were moving next door, I took my laptop over for a professional read from someone who at least knows what Granulocytes are. Tony was reasonably sure that this was not anything to worry about. And that helped. More results which were also good helped as well. But my worry was still at a heightened level. 

I guess my worry continued was because I was concerned about irony. Cause wouldn't it be ironic if I retired and only then, after 16 years, had cancer return. And we have all heard those stories. Person retires and soon has some fatal or near fatal experience. The story I remember is that of our old neighbor at the cabin. She and her husband built their retirement dream home, retired to it, and he died a month later. Of course we all tend to imply cause and effect when we hear those stories. At least I do. Though if you think about it logically, if you know a thousand people who retired at age 60, it's statistically pretty likely that one or two of them will die in the next six months. Of course, there are no stories told about the 998 who are fine. But boy do you hear about the two who aren't. [Here's an interesting article I read recently which gives some insights on this general subject - http://timharford.com/2014/12/learn-from-the-losers/ ].

Believe it or not, I am not the worrier I was when I was a kid. In those days, if my parents said they would be home at 10 p.m. and it was 10:10 p.m., I was reasonably certain that they were dead on the highway. I've made huge progress in this area over the years. Actually, it was when I had cancer that I internalized the idea that you should solve the problems you have, and not worry unduly about those that you don't. Still, progress is not perfection.

A friend of mine once told me long ago about Maeve Binchy novels. I've never read any of her works. The friend said they were all the same. The main character spends most of the novel worrying about ____________ (fill in the blank, for me it would most often be cancer) and then in the last chapter or two they are _________________________ (I fill in this blank with run over by a bus ). There is a good lesson there, so I'm not going to read any Binchy novels in case my friend was just making this up.

I had my oncologist appointment last Thursday. Tim, my oncologist, could hardly have been less concerned by my Granulocyte reading (mature or immature). I had a pleasant conversation with him and headed on my merry way completely reassured.  I probably won't give any thought to cancer until my next blood test in June. Was the worry good? Probably just a waste of energy. Will I worry next time? You bet. You can't take chances with this stuff.

Happy Holidays - 2014

Happy Holidays! Joyful Solstice! Merry Christmas! Happy Hannukah! Best Wishes! Joyeux Noël! Feliz Navidad! Kung His Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan! Glædelig Jul! Gajan Kristnaskon! Hyvaa Joulua! Buorrit Juovllat! Gledileg Jol! Nodlaig Mhaith Chugnat! Buone Feste Natalizie! Natale Hilare et Annum Faustum! Pozdrevlyayu s Prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom! God Jul and (Och) Ett Gott Nytt! År Ruumsaid Juulup! Season's Greetings! Peace!

I hope this holiday greeting finds you well.  It does us.  And once again together for the holidays. Traditionally I've used this holiday post as a bit of a retrospective on the year just completed. And I'll do some of that this time as well. But with Kate's mid-year and my impending retirement, I may be a bit more forward looking than is traditional. The possibilities opening to us are too much on my mind these days to ignore.

But first the facts. We are all healthy and well. Madeline continues to enjoy teaching in Madison. She is working on her masters in Experiential Education - which seems to me could be loosely translated as "having fun in the great out of doors." The program has included spelunking, canoeing, and the "experiential" part culminated in a backpacking trip in the Big Horn mountains this summer. It's been fun to vicariously enjoy her advanced education (though to be fair I should add that the program has turned a bit more traditionally academic during the fall semester).

Peter continues to love Denver. In addition to his job at Academic Impressions, he seems to find time to hike and snowboard and refine his beer sensibilities. He definitely is following in his mother's footsteps as a chef. "Food porn" is an important medium of communication between St. Paul and Denver. He and Kate both know how to prepare and present food. And it makes me happy that he hosts a Thanksgiving dinner for friends in Denver (traditionally a meal that I play a larger role in than normal - and one that he has sous cheffed with me since he was young). We miss having him around St. Paul - especially when he informs us that it is 62 degrees in Denver on days where it is 13 in St. Paul, but love his joy and enthusiasm about his life in Denver. 

Kate has had the most dramatic changes this year. She retired in June after 39 (and a half) years at the Minnesota Attorney General's office. We promptly headed to California and wine country with the kids.

What a wonderful trip it was. It gave us much pleasure!

Kate has become a regular at a wide variety of exercise classes at the Y. If she isn't body shredding she is core conditioning or Tabataing or combining aerobics and style in her line-dancing class. I joined her at that class one recent Friday and it is clear that she is the leader of that particular pack. She is looking and feeling great.

As for me, I'm feeling great and looking as good as my facial and physiological structure will allow. I've enjoyed what will be my final year of work at Scoular, many pleasant hours riding my trusty Bridgestone MB-5 mountain bike and paddling my Old Town canoe, much laughter, trips and time with family and friends.

The future excites me as well. I retire from Scoular on January 15th after nine years working with a wonderful group of lawyers and clients. Kate and I will have a level of freedom we have never enjoyed. We'll exercise that freedom first by heading to Madison to celebrate Madeline's 30th birthday. Then home to pack for a sojourn east to help Kate's mother Kitty celebrate her 90th birthday. From there it's a bit further east, then south, then west, then north. We have a few general plans, but are trying to remain unstructured - taking each day as it comes and letting things lead us wherever they do. Watch this space for updates on our progress. 

All the best to you and yours!  Enjoy the holiday season, and every season. We'll do the same.

Stan, Kate, Madeline and Peter