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We arrived in New Orleans Thursday for Jazz Fest. We got settled into the hotel mid-day and grabbed lunch at Mother’s across the street. This deli-style hole-in-the-wall had a line even at 2pm. We had a classic Po Boy (sub sandwich with ham, roast beef, pickes, cabbage, some sort of mayo, with “debris” pan drippings as a sort of gravy sauce – mmm, messy but tasty), gumbo and a pair of iced teas. The building’s old bricks, the friendly greeter at the door who pointed us to the menus, and the cursing but incredibly efficient cooks who assembled our food made this a good intro to New Orleans. After a nap for Brian and, unfortunately, wrapping up some work for me, the party got started around 6pm when Dan, Nate, Loren, and John assembled at the hotel. We learned that Zapp’s chips and Abita beer (Restoration and Turbo Dog are much superior to the amber) were staples for snacking.

Then we were off to Fan Fest, a few blocks away. It was a free concert at Lafayette Square (mainly to recruit sponsors for the Jazz and Heritage Festival Foundation, and to be more inclusive of folks who don’t want to pay the $$ for the festival tickets) but provided a good warmup for the rest of the weekend. The Charmaine Neville Band was the main feature. Evidently you can’t listen to much music in NOLA without hearing a Neville. Charmaine had a terrific voice, and gave a rendition of “What a Wonderful World” that made us all do a double take that it was still she who was singing.

For the rest of the weekend, I’ll provide an overview of each day, and separate posts for some of the bands we heard in the evenings.

It’s been a week.

– I am ecstatic to report that I successfully briefed someone else’s slides with less than 12 hours of notice (10:30pm notification that colleague was stuck in Texas to 8am meeting, and I did sleep). It’s a minor milestone in building my marketing, technology breadth and adaptation skills, and went off much better than I could have expected. Necessity is the mother of BSing.

– Any open time in my schedule can and will be taken up by emergencies. I knew I had slack (PM term for “nothing on the critical path”) on Thursday and Friday this week, but also knew I would want to help at the church dinner and probably need to fill in on a proposal we’re shipping Friday. Sure enough, it feels like all waking hours (and some non-waking ones) are now double-booked until at least 6pm Friday, with about 2 days of work to do this weekend.

– The “I can’t wait until…” keeps getting pushed off. I think I initially said I can’t wait until the end of April when life will return to normal. Now it’s May 11. I hope it doesn’t slip again.

– I miss my friends. I was supposed to see the gals a week ago Sunday and had to miss a birthday party because of a business trip. I haven’t managed to squeeze in lunch with Ab this week. The Sheldons are in crazy pack and move mode, and I’m not able to help (I’m barely able to help Dan on the work side of things). I haven’t watched Snakes on a Plane or Heroes with Dan and Nate. Right now WILG is my small port in the storm – I had a great time having quick dinner and meeting with the corp last night, and am looking forward to the Alumni Dinner on Sunday. Did I mention I can’t wait until May 11?

Despite Brian’s cold, we decided today was the day to get the Sheldon’s piano. First we did a thorough cleaning and re-organization of the living room to figure out where we were going to put it. We pulled up the braided rug, took most everything out of the room, and did lots of vacuuming and dusting before moving on to the windows. Everyone knows it’s more fun to wash windows with a buddy (you don’t have to keep running in and out to figure out where the streaks are). It’s spring, and the weather was beautiful, so it was a perfect time to keep the windows open and clean them. Then Dan arrived with the piano (thank you Nate and Ben who provided muscle and truck, respectively) and to Dan for bringing it up to our place. Dan and Brian carried it in, and after a little polishing, voila! We now have a very shiney living room and I am very excited about the piano.

Nick Karanovich, Principal of Memorial Park Middle School (he introduced himself that way, as if that were his full name), liked to boast about who his students would become. As a fine arts magnet school, he always believed we’d turn out to be the next generation of writers, singers, actors, and educators. (I’m sure engineers are ok too.)
Turns out at least one of my classmates is a Pulitzer Prize Winning journalist!

http://www.boston.com/news/specials/savage_signing_statements/

As an added bonus, it appears at first glance that I find his writing interesting. Bonus.

I won’t post any pictures of what he looked like in 6th grade.

When I became a Section Lead, people advised me about how much I’d have to travel. I didn’t notice any major upswing, though I did go on a few more customer trips.

When I became a Director, my colleagues were more cautionary, “Now you’ll REALLY be on the road a lot.” But I actually travelled very little over the past year, sort of uncanny.

It seems I’ve finally found the right set of programs to make those predictions come true. I’m going to DC on Sunday, coming back Tuesday night. Going back for a day trip on Thursday. Going back to DC on May 1-2, squeezing in Jazz Fest in New Orleans (fun) May 3-7, then I’ve been requested to go to San Diego May 9-10 but I have quarterly division review meetings (not to be missed) on May 10 so I am betting I’ll make sure our part of the design gets reviewed on the 9th so I can take the redeye back. Then I have a trip to TN planned (also fun) May 18-20. My luggage is about to get a workout.

I see two benefits. First, I can finally do some reading, which I never seem to find time to do at home, but enjoy very much on a plane. Second, I’ll be racking up miles for our next big vacation.

I have been on my own since Brian left on Tuesday morning for the vowel states. After three full days, I’ve noticed the following:

• Slinky meowed insistently on Wednesday morning. He barely moved from his chair on Thursday morning. Friday morning he meowed to make sure I was up, but then let out only a very wimpy “mro?” in the kitchen. my hypotheses are that he realizes the “See if I can get fed twice” game isn’t worth trying because The Man isn’t there to feed him. He may be confused that The Man is gone but I’m not Gail. Since I’ve not been shutting him downstairs at night, it may be that his usual morning greeting is as much “hey, let me out” as “hey, I’m hungry.”
• I hadn’t had a hot meal until today at lunch. I’ve been packing a yogurt, some fruit, and a scone for lunch the past couple days. Reasonably healthy but not warm. I brought pork loin for dinner Tuesday night, but ate it cold while working late. I snacked on bacon on Wednesday night, but I would scarcely call that a hot meal. I had luke-cold pizza at a meeting at MIT last night. I was thus very happy to devour my saag paneer and hot-from-the-oven naan at lunch today.
• Without Brian as incentive to come home, my default mode is to work. I’ve not gotten home before 10pm any night this week, and tonight doesn’t look that promising either.

Summary – left to our own devices, Slinky and I are rather lame. Good thing Brian’s coming back on Sunday. (And lest you worry, I am actually planning to go to a party on Saturday night and have Easter Dinner with friends on Sunday, so I will eat properly and be reasonably social this weekend.)

The Sheldons and Juddmansees have had many fun weekends in Newburyport over the past 5 years. We’ve enjoyed late nights of sipping wine, eating cheese, playing games, and talking about the stuff you can’t talk about with anyone else, and this has continued fairly seamlessly even after Max was born. In some ways it’s even more fun, because we get to hang out and play with Max, see him grow and change over the past 20 months, and we still have adult time after he goes to bed.

The Sheldons are preparing to move to Chicago, which means our Saturday night hang-out times are likely to be severely limited in the future. So, we decided to have a “last hurrah” before their big move and go out on the town to a nice dinner at Aquatini and also introduce Theo to Newburyport and the adoring church ladies.

The concept that this might be the end of an era in our friendship was on my mind the whole weekend. Dan admitted he might get sad, and I was starting to realize the futility of my denial that the Sheldons are moving in a month. Even though we’ll still get to talk on the phone, play WOW, email, read one another’s blogs, and visit, it won’t be the same as calling up on a Saturday at 5pm and saying “hey, let’s get together” and see each other 45 minutes later.

We’ve seen Max change from a 4 pound inch-worm to a good-humored little person, and we know it’s rare to participate so much in our godson’s life. We’ve enjoyed every minute and learned a lot along the way. As we played on the playground with Max, I thought about how he’ll continue to get bigger and learn new words and new skills, and maybe he wouldn’t need me to hold his hand going down the slide the next time we got to play together. We did lots of things we usually do – Dan and Brian stayed up late talking, Sarah and I did our worship service choreography of handling the kids, the hymnal and the bulletin for one another, and we all sat around drinking coffee, eating pastry and talking after church. It is a comforting routine we’ve developed. I wonder if anyone but me noticed that I held Theo whenever someone else wasn’t, that I spent a little more time than usual talking and playing with Max.

Even though I’m sad as I write this, I’m optimistic. The fact that we’ve shared so many experiences together means that we’re in a good place to continue our friendship, despite the extra 976 miles between us. I’m really excited for Sarah to start being a real Doctor, for Dan to get to live in a new place, for Max and Theo to get to spend more time with their grandparents, and for the Sheldons to buy their first home. Our lives change and our relationships change too. Sure, we may have to trade “special occasion” visits for “just because we need to turn this day around” visits. Brian may need to solicit Beth’s help in providing a healthy bit of “raised by wolves” influence. We’re gearing up for the next phase, with at least a little look back over our shoulder.

Saturday morning was spent running errands around town – literally. I wanted to get some exercise and fresh air but I wanted to get a bunch of things done before the Sheldons arrived in the early afternoon. So, I put on my running clothes, laced up my shoes, and headed off. First I ran up the Nature Trail to the train station to pick up Brian’s car and then drove it home. Then I ran to the cheese shop to pick up snacks, walked over to the bakery at the other end of the Tannery, then walked over to the Richdale to pick up milk before walking home. I figure I got in at least 3 miles, and while it wasn’t a hard “workout” it was better than not jogging.

We took a short nap before tidying up the house and cooking and cleaning up. I made two batches of Rice Krispy treats for the choir concert; one with mini marshmallows and one with toasted coconut marshmallows. The coconut ones were crispier, but really tasty! Maybe a half regular/half coconut batch would be the perfect flavor and consistency. I even made a batch of scones (thank you Bisquick and the internet!) that came out of the oven just as the Sheldons arrived. Good timing! Given the right ingredients, I have finally found a set of snacks I can make in less than an hour, a heretofor elusive entity.

Mike and Dan both had birthdays this week so Amory planned dinner on Friday evening at the Green Street Grill to celebrate. The atmosphere was cozy but clean, the food was excellent, and we had a great time telling stories and talking. Dan brought Tabblo photo cubes – one especially for Mike, and another of Brian – as table decorations. (Tabblo got bought by HP this week, and the photo cube idea was generated as Tabblo’s first “print at home” concept.) Several of us continued on to The Field since we’d not been there in a long time. (The Field was one of the places Brian and I would go to escape our roomates while dating.)  Happy Birthday!

We’ve heard that we won two proposals (see Feb 5 post) and have gotten a “call back” on the white paper, which included a 3-hour briefing and cost estimate. So far, the hard work of proposal season seems to be paying off. Yay!