From one sibling to another, I arrived in Boston this morning to be met at the airport by both Jeanine and my younger sister Alissa.  She is in town to watch her daughter compete in a ballroom dance competition being held at Tufts tomorrow.

My youngest sister, Mayela, also touched base to share the sad news that her beloved Jake was no more.  I was touched by her “eulogy” and have included it below.

Jake 2003-2016

I dug my dog’s grave today. It was the least I could do for my little old man. Mr. Fuzzy Butt, little lamb, Gigi, Master Gee, Cujo. Jake was the best bad dog anyone could ever hope for.

I cannot imagine a more condensed version of sheer determination, loyalty, sensitivity and ferociousness in a smaller package. He was a repeat offender and tested my patience but Jake was my protector. He defended not only me with his life, but that of his siblings against any dog no matter the size or brand of vacuum.

He licked away my tears anytime I cried. When I was hurt or sick he would be at my side in bed for days at a time only getting up to relieve himself or to eat.

Jake was a role model of strength and independence. He ripped out his own staples for wounds rather than allow a veterinarian to do it. He would tangle with any dog, steer or horse to assert his dominance and chase deer into the woods for miles. A cast on his leg would not prevent him from running at full speed, leaping off a deck or a boat whether it was safe or not. He was his own dog and smarter than I.

Jake played hard and growled like a Harley. He played ball by himself. He was a proud and voracious hunter and ate like a good Italian. He tried to be everybody’s best friend but struggled when he had to choose between two at a time. He hated to share and loved to chew on his sibling’s ears.

He taught Peachy bad habits. He would fart and then leave the room. Jake demanded attention but charmed little old ladies. He danced the two-step if you scratched his hindquarters.

I saved his life once and he enriched mine. His body lies in our woods next to a tree as big as his personality and in a patch of sun for his light in my life.

My week in Minneapolis to visit with my brother and his family has flown by in an instant.  According to his doctors, only 1 in 100 survive a heart attack with so little subsequent impairment. This due, no doubt, to his healthy lifestyle and having received high-quality CPR immediately.  The cause of his heart attack still remains something of a mystery but with Marie on the case I have little doubt she will extract the answers from his medical team or, more likely, will figure it out for them. The implanted cardioverter defibrillator he now has will detect and correct anomalous heartbeat patterns and restart his heart in the event it tries to take another siesta. Although he still suffers discomfort caused by an assortment of broken ribs and sternum, Mark has appeared stronger each day and is on a path to full recovery.

This evening I was treated to a wonderful lasagna dinner at a fine Italian restaurant after which we returned home with a nice collection of ice cream.  Later my nieces taught me how to play Catan and I taught them the swing to the music of Diana Ross and the Supremes.

My niece Sophia is an avid reader devouring huge books in days. Her sister Rose, not so much ….  unless motivated by the proper content. Pictured above with a Weekly Reader she is engrossed in the story of a woman who lifts a car off of her father trapped beneath.

My day started and ended in French Park.  Alerted to the presence of radiation fog by Marie while dropping off the girls for school, Mark and I drove down only to find it had already dissipated. At the end of the day, I returned with my nieces for a dinner picnic (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese and crackers, salami, baby carrots, gorp, tootsie rolls, snickerdoodles, candy corn, and lemonade). After dinner, we played several different games (gerbil hunting, tiger stalking, tag, jumping through the open window of a moving car). The middle of the day was filled with a range of honey-do projects which Mark took the lead on demonstrating much-improved stamina now that he is completely off his pain meds.

Maya helped to create a video designed to encourage other high school students to join the Anti Defamation League. We are very proud of her involvement in the organization and the leadership she has demonstrated.

I returned to Minneapolis today to help out my brother and his family as he continues to recover from the heart attack he suffered two weeks ago.  Realizing I had failed to take any portraits of my nieces on my last visit I quickly rectified that oversight.

On the home front, Maya’s soccer team advanced to the Division 2 North State quarterfinals with a decisive 8-0 victory over the Snowden School.  Maya played for almost the entire game and I am looking forward to reviewing video footage of the match.

Motorized boats on the Sudbury River are very uncommon and generally unwelcome by the much larger community of paddlers of which I count myself a member.  The one pictured above, however, was very much appreciated, arriving at just the right moment to provide an interesting foreground for my photo.  A kayak would not have left a wake mirroring the path of the river which I feel adds to the interest of the image.   My soccer team accepted a forfeit this morning and we opted to have an intra-squad scrimmage rather than miss an opportunity to play.  Depending on other results within our division we still have a slim chance of making the playoffs, otherwise our outdoor season has come to an end.

Much of our lawn succumbed to this summer’s severe drought and our observance of the watering ban. Fortunately, our shrubs and ornamental trees survived offering a nice distraction from the bald patches which can be seen all over our front and back yards.  I missed peak color but was pleased I caught the last vestiges of a lovely fall sunset.

Their win last week against undefeated Newton South earned the CCHS Women’s Varsity team a berth in the post-season divisional championship tournament.  With 2 minutes left to play in the second 10-minute sudden-death overtime period, Concord scored to defeat Reading High School and advance to the next round where they will face the number two seed.  Maya played during the first half and displayed the fine form that helped her team win last week’s crucial match.  I will be in Minnesota helping my brother and his family next week and will miss the next two matches if the team continues to advance.

For the second year, the folks at the Emerson Umbrella have organized an Empty Bowls fundraiser for the benefit of Open Table. Adult and student artists collaborate to create beautiful ceramic bowls to be offered at the event. Patrons make a donation which entitles them to the bowl of their choice. They then proceed to the dining area where their bowl is filled with food donated by Comella’s, Crosby’s Markets, and the Nashoba Brook Bakery.  Of all the fundraisers that support Open Tables’ mission to help those dealing with food insecurity, I find this one the most poignant.

Although I threatened to take a sledgehammer to my recently failed hard disk drive, I decided to dissect it instead.  This unit was fitted with three magnetic platters each storing 8 trillion bits of information and six flying heads, one for each side of each platter. When I was born, IBM was selling the 350 Disk File, a drive with fifty 24-inch platters and a total capacity of 30 million bits.  It was the size of two refrigerators with only 1/800,000 of the capacity.  As sophisticated as this technology has become, we will soon look back and scoff at the idea of storage based on spinning magnetic disks.

While I was returning from New York City last month there was a severe thunderstorm in Concord.  Our house experienced either a power surge or lightning hit which damaged our flat screen TV, cable box/DVR, BluRay Player, Sonos, and AppleTV boxes beyond repair. Comcast replaced the cable box at no cost and I found a spare Sonos unit that was not in use.  I replaced the 5-year old, 60in HDTV with a 65in 4K UHDTV which was delivered this morning. Thanks to a thinner bezel, the larger screen just fit into the media center I built for the smaller one. The new TV has an operating system that largely duplicates the AppleTV functionality and we rarely used the BluRay player so I have opted not to replace those devices.  Upgrading the TV software and programming all the new devices took the better part of the afternoon. Despite the financial hit (loss not covered by insurance due to high deductible), I am pleased to have a 4K display which will serve as a large picture frame for my photos when not being used as a TV.

When I returned from grocery shopping with pancake mix and a hankering for a flapjack dinner, Maya and her friend Fiona seized upon the opportunity to create chocolate chip Halloween-cakes. I was too busy enjoying the ones pictured here to document the subsequent works of culinary art.

Jeanine spent the weekend in Indiana where she celebrated her Lebanon High School 35-year reunion. Pictured here with life long best friend Kris Earle (above) and high school beau Jake (below) it is clear she is enjoying herself thoroughly.

Today she spent the day with sister Lauren and brother-in-law Bob Basile getting out for a hike on the Monon Trail.  It has been more than a week since we have seen each other and I am looking forward to her return tomorrow.