It is hard to photograph 9-year-old Rose because she is in a constant state of motion.  I gave her an eyebrow massage which slowed her down long enough to get a nice portrait.

I travelled to Minneapolis today where I will be spending the remainder of the week with my brother Mark and his family. Mark spent last week in Boston helping me with the tiny house project and I will be helping him this week with his deck project. The best part of my visit is seeing all my nieces and nephews. This is 11-year-old Sophia.

My birthday celebration was postponed from Friday until this evening so that Maya could join us. Jeanine prepared Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes and broccoli for a wonderful family dinner which also included my nephew, John.

Unfortunately,  I was not treated so well on the soccer pitch this morning. My team suffered a real drubbing in a 0-5 loss to the current first-place team in the league. I had the only shot on goal of the entire match and managed to find the crossbar rather than the back of the net.

Our home is located relatively close to the Hanscom airfield but we rarely see or hear planes. Today I was convinced that one was about to crash into our home based on how loud the engine noise was. I quickly ran outside to see what was going on and spotted two single engine aerobatic planes circling overhead.  Apparently they were training for low altitude synchronized maneuvers and had decided to do this directly over out neighborhood.  The geese that are feeding in the field behind our house found this none too pleasant and took flight en masse when the planes began dropping fireworks.

Normally this would be enough excitement for one day but just the beginning as Jeanine had planned a mystery date. We attended, with close friends, a play entitled “Disgraced” which offered a poignant look at the challenges of being a Muslim living in the US as well as a balanced but provocative examination of some of the religion’s not-so-attractive tenants.

I started my first day as a 59 year old in the shop with my brother. We fabricated covers for the insulated trailer fenders on the tiny house from MDF. All joints are mitered at 45 degrees and it was much much easier to complete the glue up working as a team. By 9:30 AM it was off to the airport for Mark’s return flight to Minneapolis and then on to an 11:30 AM meeting with a venture capitalist in the Seaport district considering investment in one of the companies I am currently consulting for. I had given myself plenty of time to make my next meeting in Cambridge at 2 PM but when I returned to the place I had parked my car it had been towed away triggering a mad scramble to locate it, get to it, pay to have it liberated, and travel to my next destination. I arrived with minutes to spare for what turned out to be a very enjoyable visit with a company I admire greatly. I returned to Concord just in time to gather up Jeanine and set out for the 60th birthday party for one of my soccer teammates. I really enjoyed being at a birthday celebration on my birthday and not being the center of attention. All in all, a very hectic but ultimately satisfying day. Not unlike my life to date.

Before returning to Minnesota tomorrow, my brother Mark wanted to visit his niece at Olin College where she is studying engineering. Maya gave us a tour of the campus, her dorm room, and of greatest interest, her first project. All Olin first-year students create a biologically inspired hopping mechanism that must meet their self-imposed design objectives. Mark was delighted to see Maya and to welcome another member of the Calabria family into the field of engineering. Earlier in the day Mark and I mitered all of the window trim and  fabricated all of the window sills for the tiny house.

After countless hours of painting, something neither of us particularly enjoy, my brother and I got a chance to do some actual woodworking this afternoon. This 1/2″ thick plywood panel is destined for the bathroom. The cutouts are not particularly difficult to make. The challenge is to locate them in exactly the right positions which requires extremely careful measurement and layout. A single mistake can ruin the entire panel. Working together and checking each other’s work we were able to achieve a perfect fit.

Later, we joined Jeanine at Open Table for their annual meeting and volunteer appreciation dinner. The keynote speaker shared her story of unexpectedly falling into poverty, the struggle to feed her children, and the importance of a food pantry to her family’s survival and rebound. It was a moving validation of the important work done by Open Table and organizations of its kind.

Working together with my brother Mark,  we painted the entire interior of the tiny house. It proved to be more time consuming than I would have ever imagined and I was grateful for the help. I was hoping that a single coat would suffice but that was not the case.  Not exactly the most creative of choices, the white color is meant to match the window trim so that these features are minimized and the sense of connection to the outdoors is increased.

In the last year, my brother Mark has independently survived both a stroke and sudden cardiac arrest. He survived the former because of quick treatment with a clot buster and the latter because his son was well-trained in CPR.  The only lingering impact has been a difficulty with speech and word forming, both on a trajectory to full recovery. The same cannot be said for his hair which has migrated from the top of his head to the bottom. He arrived this morning and will stay this week to help me with the tiny house build. Next week I will travel to his home in Minneapolis to help him with a deck project that he has underway. Working together is much easier than doing so alone and gives us a great chance to catch up with each other.

Kyle was in charge of dinner this evening. He prepared a wonderful Italian feast including rigatoni with marinara sauce, meatballs, two types of salad, and freshly baked apple crisps for dessert. Despite having a cold, Jeanine completed the Ride for Food 25-mile bike ride this morning. This year the hunger relief fundraiser brought in close to half a million dollars. I played soccer this morning and scored a pretty goal with seconds remaining in the half to equalize the score at 1-1. We went on to dominate the second half as our opponents began to wilt in the 80-degree heat.

I took advantage of today’s nice weather to work on the underside of the tiny house.  The area that is built out over the tongue is where the water line enters and the drain line exits the house. It is important that this area be especially well insulated and it took several hours to complete the work.  The house is now entirely sealed from top to bottom. Working with me under the house was this wasp. He did not bother me and I did not bother him except to grab a few photos. Peaceful coexistence.

Until now, I have taken over 2 out of our 3 garage bays to serve as a work area for the tiny house project. With cold weather approaching it was time to consolidate into one so that Jeanine could park her car inside again. To that end, I organized all of unused building materials in a much more condensed fashion and returned tools no longer in daily use to my basement workshop.

I spent the afternoon in Somerville at one of my consulting gigs returning home just in time to catch a glorious sunset.  It has been very windy with intermittent rain all day, the effects of distant hurricane Jose.

My sister Alissa had a dance performance last night and shared this photo from the event. My parents were passionate ballroom dancers (it is how they met) and she is the only child who has carried on the tradition. My mother, who will turn 90 next year, still goes out dancing every week. A link to the performance can be found here.