Juddmansee.com

First off I have to apologize to Max Sheldon. After three weeks I’ve finally figured out that he did not make me sick on his last visit. I love my godson, but being a toddler in daycare his visits frequently turned into some sort of illness so when he came to visit for the first time in months and I felt sick the following day I naturally assumed it was his cute but germy fault.

At the same time I had a runny nose and low fever, a strange rash appeared on the side of my neck. I have a history of getting heat rash during the summer so I didn’t think too much of it, despite its strange round pattern. My fever stuck around for 3 days and my other symptoms appeared to clear up. Over the next two weeks I was tired and had sinus headaches that I chalked up to fall allergies, the Red Sox, and a trip to Vegas.

After I got back from Vegas my headache gradually worsened all week until it awoke me Friday night and I decided to take my temperature again. I knew something was wrong when my temperature was 102.8. When I finally got out of bed the next morning I did a bunch of digging on the internet and figured out that my symptoms (particularly the shape of the rash) were all consistent with Lyme Disease. I went back over the previous three weeks and remembered that 2 days before the mysterious rash and cold, I had been hiking in the White Mountains. A tick must have found its way onto me and into my beard where I wouldn’t have noticed it. I called my doctor who agreed with the assessment and phoned in an antibiotic prescription for me. I’m going in for a follow-up appointment on Wednesday.

Needless to say the past 4 days haven’t been a lot of fun. My temperature has been rocketing between 96.9 (my normal) and 102 over the course of a few hours. My whole body is exhausted and vaguely sore. I’ve managed to get winded taking out the trash or doing the dishes before I end up crawling back into bed. Today I have been awake for about 6 hours and I’ve managed to do a bunch of chores without wearing myself out. Hopefully this means the antibiotics are working and I’ve turned the corner on the worst of the symptoms. Three weeks is a relatively quick amount of time to catch the symptoms in, so a simple course of antibiotics should clear things up. Further updates as events warrant, but I’m feeling pretty good right now!

Idea borrowed from my friend Abigail who borrowed it from her friend jydog1.

These are the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users. Bold what you have read, italicize what you started but couldn’t (or haven’t) finish, and strike through what you couldn’t stand.

By the way, Ab, your score is 46/5/3/52

Read/Started/Hated/Unread
Brian: 28/6/2/70

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and punishment
Catch-22
One hundred years of solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The name of the rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and prejudice
Jane Eyre
A tale of two cities
The brothers Karamazov
Guns, germs and Steel
War and peace
Vanity fair
The time traveler’s wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The kite runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great expectations
American gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The historian : a novel
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave new world
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi boys
The once and future king
The grapes of wrath
The poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & demons
The inferno
The satanic verses
Sense and sensibility
The picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
To the lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s travels
Les misérables
The corrections
The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune
The prince
The sound and the fury
Angela’s ashes : a memoir
The god of small things
A people’s history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A short history of nearly everything
Dubliners
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The scarlet letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud atlas
The confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger abbey
The catcher in the rye
On the road
The hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s rainbow
The Hobbit
In cold blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The three musketeers

I am, fortunately, involved in groups that frequently thank their volunteers. Hardly a church council meeting goes by without thanks being expressed for people’s time and insights. The AILG board, on which I’ve been serving for at least 6 years, just received an award from MIT. As Abigail noted, they held a nice dinner with hundreds of other alums, where we could be duly applauded. I even got some much-needed kudos at work from my supervisor for tackling some difficult challenges this week. I know they say hard work is its own reward, but getting heartfelt compliment, thank-you note or the occasional public recognition really keeps me going.

Yesterday was a whole new level of appreciation. Normally when I cook for Otherworld I get plenty of personal compliments and thanks. I admit I often brush it off a bit – people are tromping around the woods having adventures, and of course they are happy to have warm food when they return to the tavern between activities. For those who haven’t cooked for large groups of people, it can be daunting to think about scaling recipes and prep for 120 people, but it’s really old hat for me and I have a ton of help. At the end of the event when we do “curtain call” it’s gratifying to receive a round of applause for the work we’ve done. This year, it finally sank in that I am personally appreciated by this terrific group, not just my cooking.

Otherworld recognizes 5 years of volunteer service with stories about the person’s involvement and a gift of an engraved silver chalice. It was my 5th year, so I was very curious about what might be said. I don’t interact with participants much, and my role as the food captain/cook is a bit different from the other volunteers. As she seems to do for each of us, Kristi knew what would be most touching. She said the award was really from the whole group, that while most staff get to interact with a subset of the participants, I influence the experience of everyone who comes to an event. She started passing the chalice around the room for everyone to hold before it made its way to me. It is a very similar practice to a tradition we have at my church; we send a teddy bear around the congregation for each person to hug and pray over, so the recipient will be reminded that we all care for them and are sending our thoughts and prayers to them. When I received the cup, it was warm from being held by each person, which was really moving.

While it was being passed around, Kristi lightened up the mood a bit by sharing a few funny stories and anecdotes about the history of cooking at OW. As I came forward for a hug, I also got a standing ovation. I was floored, beaming inside and out.

I know we say that Otherworld is about giving the participants a great experience and helping them to learn more about themselves, but the staff keep volunteering because we all get so much out of it too. Whether it’s seeing someone approach a challenge in a new way, doing something we didn’t think we could do, or interacting with a group of amazing people, we all get so much more than we give.

We all need nudges and encouragement now and then. I have a full cup of encouragement to take home from this weekend.

The contents of my trunk at the moment:

• 6 cans of cocoa
• 6 rolls of paper towels
• 4 boxes of herbal tea
• 4 different flavors of vegan granola bars
• rice milk (chocolate and regular)
• 1 large bottle of cinnamon
• 6 rolls of toilet paper
• 17 burger-sized portobello mushrooms

In addition, I have a food processor, a garlic roaster, a box of wine, a bottle of dry sherry, 12 freshly filled salt shakers, and an ice pack.
the question: what on earth is Susan doing, especially purchasing the bulleted list at 10:30pm on a Tuesday night?

the answer: preparing for Otherworld.
A big thank-you to Sarah SanClemente who was my Costco shopping buddy. In addition to the short list above of items I couldn’t find at Costco, I also have about 20 lbs of assorted cheese, 6 lbs of Dunkin Donuts coffee, 8 lbs of pecans, 1 gallon of maple syrup, 2 bottles of lemon juice, 64 oz of olive oil, over 100 gallon storage bags and a fresh roll of industrial saran wrap, and the list goes on. Between Costco and the friendly Putnam, CT Stop and Shop we acquire enough ingredients to feed 120 hungry adventurers for a weekend.

(and a few hints – hot cocoa supplies and some additional ingredients for vegan lactose-intolerant cocoa lovers, mushrooms for a hearty vegetarian dinner, wine for coq a vin for the set-up crew, sherry for marinating stuffed mushrooms, the salt shakers were poorly positioned under the slightly dripping water barrel so they clumped and needed to be rejuvenated with fresh dry salt, and and ice pack because we always need one for a twisted ankle or bee sting – ask if you have more questions.)

First: The Sox won the AL East today. Almost as good as if they’d done it yesterday (when Dan and I were at the game, and the date I had predicted back in March that they’d clinch. Pretty close though.). Probably even cooler, since Sox fans who witnessed tonight’s win stuck around to watch the outcome of the Yankees/Orioles game on the jumbotron at Fenway and thus got to celebrate the event together.

Sorry Cleveland, I just can’t root for you for a few days.

Second: The Sheldons visited this week. Brian taught Max a new game, “Don’t Taze Me Bro,” when he started getting sleepy toward the end of dinner. There was much “zapping” and laughing on the way home. Evidently this new distracting game came in quite handy on the flight home though fellow passengers might wonder what’s gotten into Dan and Sarah. We enjoyed a quick but happy visit.

Also, after much deliberation and discussion, Brian and I decided… to buy a new TV. We are the proud owners of a 50″ Samsung HDTV. Yes, count them, 50 inches. Our previous owned TV was the 27″ that Brian bought in 1998 to watch the World Cup. (For those of you who have visited us, that’s the one that blinked annoyingly. We’ve since borrowed Nate’s old 27″ TV which has fewer amenities but doesn’t have the annoying flashing of info whenever the action changes.)

There has been historic celebration in the Juddmansee household.

Last Friday I had the honor of attending the retirement ceremony for CDR Dean Wilson, US Navy. I have known Dean for about 4 years, since we worked together on a data fusion project for the E-2C. We kept in touch, and to make a long story short, he will be starting to work at BAE Systems on October 1. We at AIT couldn’t be more excited to have him join the group. So, I was invited to attend his retirement ceremony at Patuxent River.

The ceremony was held in a hangar, with an E-2 as the impressive backdrop. Probably 100 of his family, friends and colleagues attended. The ceremony had both a personal and very formal tone at times. There were funny stories, for example how Dean met what would become a lifelong friend, because his future wife and one of her closest friends sent a joint care package to Dean and this fellow while they happened to be deployed on the same ship. There were also very formal moments, like Presidential Commendations, awards and the flag ceremony.

I can’t help but appreciate the closure that such a ceremony allows. The Navy is not just a job, it is a lifestyle for the person and for his/her family, so it does seem fitting to recap the highs and sometimes the lows, that transpired over his 26 years serving in the Navy. It’s a shame that most non-military people don’t get the chance to reflect on where they have been, what they have learned, how they have grown, and who they have become, at least not surrounded by friends and family as this venue provided.

Many thanks were expressed for support, encouragement, friendship, and opportunities, both by Captain Bell (who was the guest speaker) and CDR Wilson. Not only were the stories and comments personally interesting, but they all provide a foundation for working with Dean that I would not otherwise have. I appreciated learning how his inquisitive nature grew, how he tackled challenges, what he expects from leaders. I got to meet his wife and son, who will be moving with him to Boston in a few weeks.

A particularly moving conclusion to the ceremony was reading “The Watch” as CDR Wilson walked across a red carpet, with sideboys stationed on either side. The symbolism reflected how British Naval officers would relinquish their command, assured that someone else had relieved their watch and assumed their command. The outgoing officer would be rowed to shore by the team of sideboys the Boatswain had mustered, and as the pipe sounds, the sailor comes ashore.

I spoke with Dean today, and he mentioned how great it was to have so many friends and family attend, that he had a rousing party with all the family afterward, and how excited he is to embark on this next phase of his career. They are selling their home, preparing to move, and having said their farewells to the Navy lifestyle, are gearing up to settle in to life in Boston.

We’ve been missing Project Runway. Between Heidi Klum continuing to generate baby Seals and Tim Gunn leaving the Parson’s School to join Liz Claiborne, the show has been on hiatus. We happened onto a preview of Bravo’s new spin-off, Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style, and then watched the first episode.

In this format, Tim is just as sincere, frank, and caring toward this show’s participant as he was to Project Runway’s designers. He doesn’t make fun of people for their odd, outdated, or simply awful fashion choices, but instead tries to instill self-confidence and bring out the person’s individual style. It’s inspiring.

Part of the process on Guide to Style is getting rid of clothes that are old, ill-fitting or unflattering. Tim and Veronica Webb go through the person’s closets and help sort the clothes into four piles – keep, mend, give away, and throw away. I decided it was time to do some sorting of my own.

I have been holding onto lots of clothes. First, I can physically wear many of the clothes I had in high school, and some of my mom’s clothes from college, so if an article of clothing still fits, it’s hard for me to get rid of it. Second, I have had plenty of places to store these clothes (parts of three closets, not counting our workout clothes). Brian’s been encouraging me to at least get rid of tacky 80s outfits that I wore in middle school, but it was time to take things a step further. I was ready to be objective and make some decisions.

I’m pleased to report that I have a garbage bag full of clothing ready to go to Goodwill. It was fun to try on my high school graduation dress, parachute-shaped Outback Red pants, and my classic 1989 black denim jacket, but it was also easy to see that I didn’t need to keep those. I said goodbye to the suit I wore to my first real job interview, and the next suit I bought for tent-side presentations (it’s army green with a velvet collar, shudder). Thank goodness my style has matured a bit in the last 10 years, or at least I met Brian and he’s nudged me in the right direction. It was a little harder to admit the vintage 1950s houndstooth skirt and a who-knows-how-old but always-made-me-feel-professional navy blue wool blazer were looking too tired and faded to keep, but with a strong second opinion from Brian they too made their way out of the closet and onto the pile.

I am very happy that TV was a good influence this week. If Tim and Veronica happen to stop by, I won’t be embarrassed to open my closets. Next step – work on my list of 10 Essential Items: Basic black dress, Trench coat, Classic dress pants, Skirt, Blazer, Classic white shirt, Day dress, Cashmere sweater, Jeans, A comfortable alternative to a sweatsuit. I’m about halfway there.

Ok, this isn’t a novel title, but I’m not feeling very witty.

We didn’t make any big plans for the weekend, but we had a string of fun activities that made for a nice end to the summer season. Friday evening we hosted friends from church for our Natural Church Development kickoff. After enjoying Brian’s excellent cooking, we had a great discussion and came up with lots of ideas for new activities and getting more people involved.

Saturday, Brian got to spend time on line with his friends and changed my burnt-out headlight, while I dusted the car interiors, enjoyed catching up with 30-year-old Carolyn (just before she attended her first Michigan football game, and Michigan lost!), and squeezed in a run before heading to Scaz and Kristi’s for their Pirate Party. They have a beautiful mid-1800s farm house, a pool, and plenty of room to host a whole passel of pirates (and their mates, and their kids). It was a bit of a hike to Cheshire, CT, but a good excuse for us to finally go see them, and lots of other friends who make the trek from various points around New England.

Sunday morning was church, a easy-to-apply sermon to Do One Nice Thing (D1NT), meeting some visitors who ended up in town when their boat broke down but are making the best of it, and bringing home a plethora of tasty vegetables from the ever-generous Eatons. The banana-shaped peppers were definitely hot, evidence being Brian’s taste buds and my burning nose (don’t rub your nose after slicing the peppers. Phew! Opens the sinuses!). More evidence was burning contact lenses that held onto some of the pepper oil on my hands, despite a careful cleaning, as well as a red spot on my cheek from a thoughtless brush with the contaminated hand. This is actually good news, despite the mis-marketing, as it provided a new opportunity for pickling. By the start of football next Sunday, we should have sweet/hot pickled peppers to enjoy. On Sunday after church, I spent a little time in our garden, picking another 2 gallons of greens and a few tomatoes and green beans. Then it was off to Dan and Nate’s to watch the Red Sox and have lunch. We had an impromptu feast of grilled tubular meats, garden salad, and beer. Yum.

On Monday, despite how tempting it would be to hike, I opted for dispelling the grey cloud of work hanging over my head instead. I knew I needed to get a couple pages written for a proposal, and I hadn’t checked email since Friday afternoon. I was done with my “must-do” work by 1:30pm so Brian could get his head shorn and we could take a leisurely walk around town. It was still very busy, with plenty of residents and visitors attending the Busker’s Festival. There was a warm breeze but fall is still in the air. It’s always fun to walk our errands, and we decided to swing for a few minutes at the play ground on the way home. We’ll wrap up the evening by cooking hamburgers on the grill and getting a few more tasks off the “to do” list.

We’re excited for our town to return to “normal” and for football to begin. Happy Labor Day, gateway to autumn in New England.

I like Brian’s name for this Tabblo.

Anyone know what’s growing on the caterpillar?  Is that his natural skin, or are some other little insects attacking him?  Or laying eggs on him? Is he going to eat all my tasty tomatoes, or will he balance the fragile ecosystem of our back yard?

This weekend we traveled to Vermont, where some of the White Mountain Jackasses (also known as Steve, Rich, Brian and Susan) decided to enjoy the Green Mountains for a change. Brian and I left Saturday afternoon, checked into the Thatcher Brook Inn, and then went exploring the town of Waterbury. Yes, that’s the home of Ben and Jerry’s. We each enjoyed a scoop (Brian had Triple Caramel Chunk while I savored Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl), then poked our nose in the lobby/gift shop and reminisced in the Flavor Graveyard. I didn’t think we’d eaten that much ice cream in college, but I think we’d both tried nearly all the flavors introduced between 1992 and 1999. A thunderstorm was rolling in as we returned to the parking lot, and we managed to depart just in time to avoid the deluge of rain. We drove through town to explore dinner options, scope out the road to the trailhead, and went back to the Inn to await Steve and Rich’s arrival. The weather cooperated – our dash from the car to the Inn coincided with a lul in the storm, before “round two” poured down.

We settled on the Alchemist for dinner. Their herbed fries with garlic mayo were very tasty. Then again, we were hungry. Overall, dinner was a “thumbs up.” The menu had fresh and varied options, the server notified us of a big party being seated so we could get in our food orders ahead of them, and the company was excellent. It was fun to catch up and fuel up before the hike.

Sunday morning, Brian and I enjoyed the “country breakfast” of quiche or waffles with fresh fruit and sausage and tasty OJ and coffee. Good thing we were getting ready to burn 3000 calories on the mountain. We met up with Steve and Rich at 8:30 and were to the trail parking lot by 9am. The weather was beautiful – in hindsight we were very glad that Steve had a shift at REI on Saturday so we ended up avoiding the 90 degree heat and sweltering humidity of the previous day. It was in the mid 70s on the trail, with lots of shade among the maples/ moosewood and birches, with a thick carpet of ferns. We passed two lakes on the way up the Monroe Trail. We were particularly pleased with the gradual increase in grade, as it allowed a nice warm-up to the hike before tackling the steeper sections.

Shortly after turning a corner, exiting the forested area and starting the steep ascent on the Long Trail, we were knocked back by 20-30 mile per hour winds and stepping into a chilly cloud, where the temperature dropped about 15 degrees very quickly. No views of Lake Champlain and three states today! We pulled on some warmer gear and made haste scrambling for the summit, tagging the marker and keeping our momentum going until we were off the alpine zone and back into the trees. I said, at one point, “I feel like a drowned rat!” and Brian assured me “you look like one too!” You can see me squinting through the rain in Brian’s photos – very invigorating! No stopping for a relaxing lunch and taking in the scenery on the summit that day. We waited until we were below the clouds and on a flatter section of trail before eating our sandwiches and snacks.

We made excellent time on the way down, connecting to the Alpine Trail to make a loop, returning to the parking lot at 2:15pm. We did note the remnants of a WWII plane that crashed into the mountain during a training flight many years ago, just off the trail. This was definitely the preferred way to loop the summit, with more gradual grades on the way down to save our knees. Martina workouts seemed to help immensely as well. This loop had three very distinct sections, probably more if you are very sensitive to elevation and flora. The only fauna we saw were a salamander and several happy dogs. Brian took photos of the hike that you can enjoy.

After changing into dry clothes (but not washing the mud off our inner calves), having a bite and a celebratory beer in town, and feeling confident that the Sox were on their way to a win, we headed home. It took less than three hours on the way up, and almost exactly three hours on the way back with a little traffic, so I think we’ll be visiting Vermont more frequently in the future.