As a rule, Jeanine cooks a great deal of vegetarian food. When she does cook with meat, she prefers to use locally sourced, grass-fed, antibiotic free cows. Today we drove out to the Wheelview Farm in Shelburne Falls located in the Berkshires to pick up our winter’s supply of beef. I interviewed some of the cows and they confirmed that they were being treated well and getting plenty to eat. The fall foliage was spectacular and I would venture to say at its peak. We paused en route at the French King Bridge for a photo. I have shot this angle on a few previous occasions but never tire of the majesty of this bridge or the composition of its surroundings.
My sister Alissa has been staying with us and was joined by her husband John this evening. The four of us went out to see the Martian, a film I can give my highest recommendation.
It is a 12-minute walk from where I work to the campus of Harvard University. A perfect fall afternoon was the only excuse I needed to make the short stroll in search of lunch today. In addition to a magnificent grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, I found a pygmy pig, baby goat, and several rabbits at a make-shift petting zoo for students. I had no idea that Harvard took campus diversity to such lengths.
Maya played a terrific match today against Westford helping her team to a 1-0 win. When I asked her why she was so full of energy she reminded me that she had gone to bed at 8:30 last night. I wonder if there is a lesson for her in this. She had several nice shots on goal and made many attacking passes setting up her teammates for shots on net. The weather could not have been more perfect and it was nice to get some fresh air after being cooped up in planes and a car for the last few days.
The second day of my mid-west business trip took my to Ashtabula, OH to visit with a supplier. The drive to Cleveland for my return flight went right right past the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I only had time for a quick visit so I decided to stop at Brandywine Falls, arguably the park’s most iconic landmark. Not satisfied with the perspective from the viewing platform, I ventured down to the base of the falls for a different angle. I will let you decide if that view (below) was worth spending the rest of the day in water-logged boots, the result of falling into the river after slipping on an algae covered rock. I think not.
Last night I flew to Detroit and then drove to Ann Arbor where I spent the evening. I was up before the sun and embarked on the remainder of my journey to Battle Creek where I had business with a vendor. A twenty minute excursion took me to Hell and back. More accurately, I went through Hell to get to my destination. It was a cold day in Hell but there were no signs of ice or snowballs. Contrary to popular belief, the road to Hell is paved in asphalt rather than good intentions. I was also surprised to learn that there are only 266 people in Hell, I would have thought the number was much higher.
I usually budget 75 minutes when traveling to Cambridge for meetings at the offices of Matrix Partners, one of the venture capital firms backing MarkForged. This morning, I made the trip in half the time because of the Columbus Day holiday which many in Massachusetts observe. With an extra 40 minutes to spare, I took a walk across the Longfellow Bridge and took this photo of the Community Boating docks. I returned to Matrix with 5 minutes to spare and could not understand why everyone else had already gone inside for the meeting. Only later did I realize that I was 5 minutes early for a 9 am meeting that actually started at 8 am.
My soccer team had to settle for a 1-1 tie this morning against the Mariners. We had to leave Concord at 6:15AM to arrive in Fairhaven in time for warmups and the 8AM kick-off. It was a disappointing outcome given that we had a 10 to 1 advantage in shots on goal.
I returned to Concord by noon, just in time to join Jeanine, Maya, and her friend Sarinnagh on an excursion to Crane Beach in Ipswich. There we enjoyed lunch on the beach and the fresh sea air. Later we toured the Inn on Castle Hill and the surrounding estate. Within the area known as the casino complex, we discovered a magnificent croquet court and introduced Sarinnagh to the game. Despite a strong showing, the girls fell victim to Jeanine’s sharp shooting and my strategy.
When a fair weather and peak fall foliage forecast align on a weekend day you can assume with high confidence that I will be in the car headed for the mountains. I left early in the morning and drove to Franconia Notch in New Hampshire where the color was great but the sky was overcast. I paused for a few shots and then set out for Smugglers Notch in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont where the light was better and the color just as nice. I failed to find a perfect shot and spent more time enjoying the scenery with my eyes than trying to capture it with my camera. Realizing I was less than an hour from Burlington, and decided to drop in on my sister-in-law, Susan for a brief visit. By the time I returned to Concord at 8PM I had logged 515 miles on my trip odometer.
I was too busy at work to make it to Maya’s soccer game today. She scored a very pretty goal which I am very sorry to have missed. I am scheduled for some business travel next week and have a number of urgent items that need to be addressed before leaving the office. This photo of Maya’s friend Fiona was taken earlier this week.
The weather could not have been more perfect for fall soccer today. Maya still has to tape her ankle but is back to full strength and the starting line up at center midfield. Her distribution was excellent and she had a couple of nice shots on goal. Her team defeated Wayland soundly by a margin of 2-0 in a game that could have just as easily seen another four goals for the Patriots.
On this day, twenty five years ago, I married a woman who I continue to find as interesting, inspiring and sexy as I did then. The time has passed all too quickly and I can only hope that this is merely the half way point. Had I to do it all over again, I would make the same vows to the same woman.
Jeanine, today we stand before each other, amongst our family and friends, ready to embark on a life long journey together. In celebration of my love for you, I make these vows.
I PROMISE:
to care for you in sickness and in health
to nurture your emotional, spiritual, and physical well being
to honor you and remain true to you forsaking all others
to respect you as an individual and as a partner
to appreciate your uniqueness
to learn more about you as we grow and change over time
to share in your dreams, challenges, and accomplishments
to support your growth and development
to encourage positive change which you desire to make
to understand you well enough to give you the nurturing you need
to accept that there are some things about you that I wish were different but may change only in relatively small ways
to foster healthy communicating and problem solving
to forgive you when you seek forgiveness from me
to play with you
to seek deeper levels of emotional, spiritual, and physical intimacy
to create and nurture our own family (including a dog) further extending the union of our two families
Jeanine and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary tomorrow. This evening we curled up to watch a romantic comedy, oddly named Something’s Gotta Give, featuring Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson. It was actually the perfect movie for the occasion and we both laughed our heads off. Given my exceptional romantic instincts, I seized the moment after the movie finished to present Jeanine with a gift to celebrate twenty five years of marriage. When she opened the box and discovered an iron inside (our current one, I discovered last weekend, has a broken handle being held together by packing tape) she was nothing short of furious. I believe her exact words were “this is the WORST anniversary present EVER!” I tried to console her by explaining what a high quality iron it was and encouraged her to take it out of the box and examine it more closely. She would have nothing to do with the iron or me. I persisted, however, and she begrudgingly took the iron out and then the special cup used to fill the iron inside which she discovered a lovely sterling silver bracelet. I was forgiven in the nicest way possible.
I played the worst soccer of my life this morning after missing two practices and a game last weekend while in Colorado. In all my years of playing, I cannot remember ever allowing a man I was marking to get an uncontested shot at the net, let alone score. Today I was so exhausted that I could not keep up with the man I was defending when he made a move to the goal and released a rocket from 25 yards out. Not only did I fail to block the shot, I shielded our keeper who had no chance of stopping a ball he could not see until the last instant. My only consolation was that we lost the match 3-1 which meant that my failure to defend was not the sole reason for our loss. My team also lost last weekend and we have moved from the top of the ladder to the bottom and must now fight for our lives to avoid relegation. This after winning the division last season. I was not in the mood for any photography after the dreadful morning and am posting a few gems from last week.
This website is dedicated to sharing, with family and friends, the day-to-day adventures of the Calabria family.
