‘TIS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY, AND, INSTEAD, I’M BURIED UNDER A TUTORIAL FOR MY NEW “EASY-TO-USE” I MAC COMPUTER. EASY FOR WHOM?

Sound familiar?  Hey, I’m all for challenging the old brain, but why did I pick the busiest time of the year to do it? Blame the Black Friday sales and my children, who are dedicated Mac users and are tired of my PC complaints. End of story.  Be prepared, dear readers, for a wealth of new photos, once I learn the I Photo system and 900 other details necessary to make it all work. As I said, I’m up for challenges!

I finally raked all of my leaves, with the help of Adam, my youngest grandchild, and now I’m waiting for that big snowstorm that is promised, just in time to guarantee a white Christmas.

You can't rake without an iPod

And a blower makes it even easier!

This year it was quite a gala Thanksgiving celebration, with Martha’s family and two other close families down the streets, the Galantes and the Vitellos. Daughter Cary is still roaming around northern India and Nepal and I’ll have a report on her as soon as she returns on December 20^th.

Cheryl Galante, MP, and Gary Shippy

The end

Last week I treated myself to a two-day visit with Judy Wyman-Kelly and her family in West Hartford, CT, very near Hartford, where I spent four years of my early childhood.  The occasion was Leah Kelly’s Christmas concert. She did double duty playing the trumpet in the school orchestra and singing in the choir. I never thought I would voluntarily take myself to an elementary school concert, but let me tell you that they have improved, vastly, since my children were in the early grades, when the only way you could survive was wearing earplugs.  It was a delight and very much appreciated by this surrogate Grandma.

An opera update includes the dress rehearsal of the magnificent production of Richard Strauss’ Electra with the stunning Deborah Voight, and an unusual, very dark rendition of Janacek’s From The House of the Dead at the Metropolitan. Concerts include Peter Serkin and the Shanghai Quartet at Montclair State’s beautiful new auditorium, and plays include Sarah Ruhl’s unusual In the Next Room (the vibrator play), the delightful The Marvelous Wonderettes, and the mediocre (in my opinion) Burn the Floor.

Just to see if you’re keeping up, here is my Rule #5 for efficient travel. It may seem self-evident to young people, but there was a time when we did NOT have ziplock bags. How we survived is anyone’s guess. These wonderful plastic containers can be found in every possible size, including huge ones that I’ve used to line my duffel bag when trekking in the mountains. I pack everything in them, which allows me to organize my belongings for quick reference: sweaters in one,  underwear in another, toiletries and medicines separate. You can even label them with permanent ink so you can find them (using your headlamp, of course) in the middle of the night. I’ve even used them to cover my pack on rainy days. I don’t bother with an umbrella, by the way, since I wear a rainproof jacket and my hair is drip dry, so why bother? I’m not vying for Miss America.