Christmas Letter 2023

This was a year with a lot of ups and downs, but the three of us have arrived at the end of the year healthy and happy.

 

The new year started quietly. Brian’s Akron Aviators basketball team was in the middle of a bad season marked by a couple of coaching changes and the retirement of a key player. Chris found out in January that he needed surgery for a significant chronic problem. Pam continued teaching a basic accounting course online for the University of Akron and she hasn’t taught on campus since before the Covid year in 2020.

 

Early February was quiet except for a Valentine’s Day party held by some friends. Then, in late February a work crew showed up to clear a 40-foot-wide swath across the back of our yard. There is an easement for a natural gas line and a petroleum line on the rear section of our lot. The crew took down several trees including a couple of tall spruce trees that blocked the view of our house from a parking lot for a nearby bike-hike trail. 

 

In early March, Chris had his surgery and spent several weeks at home recuperating. Fortunately, there were dozens of March Madness games to keep him occupied and he continued to work on his first book that he released in July on Amazon.

 

The book is titled “First Alumni”, and it is based on Chris’s experiences attending a brand-new high school in the 1960s and being a member of its first graduating class.

 

By May, Chris had recuperated enough to attend a couple of Akron Rubberducks baseball games and we began to plan for a trip to Europe in August to celebrate our 50+3-year anniversary. We also took Pam’s brother Jeff and his daughter Veronika to a special exhibit from the Tudor dynasty period in England at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

 

In June we had a beautiful quartz countertop installed in our kitchen. We also entertained Chris’s niece Angela and her husband Kevin as they traveled to New Hampshire to visit their son Braden who is attending law school at the University of New Hampshire.

 

On August 7, we flew to Paris to spend eight days in the “City of Lights.” We also planned to visit Copenhagen for another five days before returning home.  We celebrated our Anniversary on August 8 with brunch at a sidewalk café, a walk through the Jardin d’ Tuileries and a stroll along the Seine River. We had dinner at another sidewalk café. During our week in France, we went to Giverny to visit Monet’s house and garden, toured the Musee d’ Orsay and visited the palace and gardens at Versailles.

 

After a week in Paris, Chris was not feeling well, and we went on to Copenhagen. Once we arrived there, we both tested positive for Covid. Following the CDC guidelines, Chris self-quarantined at the hotel while Pam found to a nearby grocery that had prepared foods for meals that enabled us to eat in our room. After five days, we both masked up and flew home.

 

In September, Chris hadn’t talked to his brother Ed in over a month and Ed’s best friend in the Dayton area contacted Chris saying he couldn’t get Ed to answer the phone either. Chris called the local police to do a well-being check and they found that Ed had passed away. We held a private graveside service and Ed was buried next to his grandparents in Columbus.

 

In October, Chris shaved his goatee and went to a Halloween party as Johnny Carson’s dowager Aunt Blabby. Other holiday events included a tour of Stan Hywet Hall in Akron and a holiday music concert by the choral groups and brass choir of the University of Akron. 

 

And finally, a crew from Ohio Edison arrived this week and dug an eight-foot-long trench in our front yard to repair an underground electric line. So, we began and ended the year with excavation, and I’ll need to get some grass seed next spring.

 

We hope all of you have a great 2024!

Covid Interruptus-Again

 

It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime. We had planned to return to Paris and then visit other locations in Europe in 2020 to celebrate our 50^th Anniversary on August 8, 2020. However, the Covid-19 pandemic was in full swing by then and international travel was all but impossible.

Fast forward to 2023 and the pandemic is mostly a memory. Pam and I had isolated ourselves at home for much of the 2020 as restaurants, theaters, sporting events and other public gatherings were shut down. Things were still uncertain in early 2021, so we postponed our big trip until this summer.

Then, this past March, I had to have a significant surgery that put me on the shelf for several weeks. By late May, I had recuperated enough that we began to plan our “50 plus 3” Anniversary trip. In early June we booked a flight to Paris and reserved a hotel there for about a week. Then we booked a flight to Copenhagen, Denmark and planned to spend four days there before coming home.

We were scheduled to leave from Cleveland the evening of August 7 and return on August 20. That way, we could celebrate our Anniversary on August 8 in Paris, visit several sites there and then have a few days to explore Copenhagen. We had spent one night in Denmark’s capital in 2017 and were looking forward to seeing more of it.

While I had recovered from my surgery, I was still concerned about my chronic asthma condition before the trip. I had gotten a respiratory infection at the end of our trip in 2017 and that messed up our three days in Rome. But we went ahead with our plans and scheduled several tours in Paris for this trip. 

The day we were scheduled to depart, I received a text from American Airlines saying that our flight from Cleveland to Philadelphia had been cancelled. We were scheduled to go from Philly to Paris later that evening. Less than two hours later, I received another text saying we could take a flight to Chicago and then connect with a flight to Paris.

Brian had a work commitment that evening, so his girlfriend took us to the airport, and we boarded our flight to Chicago. That flight left about 20 minutes late and we only had about an hour to make our connecting flight to Paris from Chicago. We made a 20-minute sprint to get from one concourse to another at O’Hare but made our flight.

After the overnight flight, we arrived in Paris at about 11AM and took a cab to our hotel. They stored our luggage because the room wasn’t ready, and we found a nice sidewalk café to have lunch and then returned to the hotel to get our room. Our hotel was located near the Garnier Opera house and the St. Madeline church, and it turned out to be an excellent location.

That night we had a pleasant dinner at another nearby café and crashed at the hotel. The next day, we walked down to the Jarden d’ Tuileries and then to see the Seine River. The following day, we were scheduled for a trip to Giverny to see Monet’s house and garden. The tour guide met us at the hotel, and we boarded a van for the hour-and-a half trip. There was another young American couple of in the van with their five-year-old daughter along for the trip. As we started, I noticed the young girl coughing often, but she was wearing a mask. I put on my mask, and we proceeded to Giverny. 

The tour went well. Monet’s home was impressive and there were plenty of examples of his paintings as well as those of his contemporaries on display. We then saw the extensive gardens that covered several acres and were the inspiration for many of his paintings. We returned to Paris with the same couple and their coughing daughter.

The next day, we toured the Musee d’Orsay and had a very good guide named Humberto. He was from Portugal and very well-educated about the artists. I also like the fact that because he wasn’t French, a few of his comments were somewhat “tongue in cheek” as he discussed the significance of some paintings as they were related to the French Revolutions of the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

The next day was a rest day and Pam wandered around the area near the hotel and went window shopping while I sipped coffee and watched people. That evening we went to dinner at a restaurant near the Eiffel Tower and waited until sunset to see it lit up. There were thousands of people on the plaza near the Trocadero with multiple food and souvenir vendors and a DJ playing pop music. It was a very festive site, and I took a selfies of Pam and I in front of the tower. After taking my last picture, I turned and stumbled on the edge of a step and fell, banging my knee. 

We took a cab back to our hotel and I wanted to put ice on my knee, but there were no ice machines in the hotel. Fortunately, there was a small refrigerator in the room and placing a bottle of chilled water against my knee provided relief.

On Sunday, we got an unpleasant surprise. That weekend was the Catholic feast of the Assumption and nearly all the restaurants near our hotel were closed. Fortunately, about a block from our hotel, there was a small shop like a bodega and we bought ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch. 

That afternoon, we were scheduled to meet our tour guide for our trip to see the palace and gardens at Versailles. About 15 of us met our guide Oscar at a Metro station near the Invalides. We then got on the Metro for a couple of stops before boarding the train to Versailles. Once we got off the train, we had a very taxing walk to get to the palace. 

It was warm and humid that day and I couldn’t keep up with Oscar and the rest of the group. Pam tried to keep up with the guide but stay in visual contact with me. The station was 1.9 km from the palace (about 1.2 mile), and I didn’t think I could make it. We arrived at the entrance to the palace grounds and a new guide, Marie, was handing out the wireless receivers and headsets for the tour. She saw how late I arrived after the rest of the group, and she suggested I skip the garden tour and meet the group later at the entrance to the palace.

So, I went to the snack bar for a bottle of water and rest while Pam and the rest of the group toured the gardens. Pam said later that the garden tour involved a lot of walking, and it would have been very difficult for me.  About 45 minutes later, I met the group at the gate to the palace.

The Versailles palace is very impressive, and Marie did a good job explaining the history of the palace and the art pieces there. What bothered me was the size of the crowd. We spent at least an hour crowded with hundreds of other people as we moved from room-to-room through the palace.

When the tour ended, we were told that we could board a train to Paris at a closer station. The ride back was more relaxed, and we took a cab back to the hotel. We found a Japanese restaurant close to our hotel for dinner and I bought a bottle of Cutty Sark Scotch at the bodega.

 

We awoke Monday morning, and I didn’t feel well at all. I had a cough and had awakened during the night covered in sweat. We had a cruise of the Seine River scheduled for that afternoon, but I told Pam I didn’t want to take it. She found a coffee shop near our hotel, and I spent a lot of time there on Monday and Tuesday afternoons resting while she explored the area around our hotel.

Wednesday morning, we were scheduled to fly to Copenhagen. Our hotel normally provides a complimentary shuttle bus to the airport, but none were available because of the holiday. So, they provided us with a free breakfast that would have cost 32 Euro. But we had to take a regular cab to the airport that cost 60 Euro. 

Terminal One at Charles de Gaulle International Airport is a massive multi-level structure serving a couple of dozen airlines. It took us about 30 minutes to find the SAS Airline counter and then we had to stand in line for another 30 minutes to check our bags. Then we proceeded to go through security to get to the gate. But to get to security, we had to traverse an escalator and then we got on a long and hilly automated walkway. Yes, it was hilly and in my weakened condition I almost fell twice, the second time when we were getting off at the end.

As we waited in the security line, I noticed this one senior agent giving me the “skunk eye.” I was sweating profusely, and I was worried that he might pull me out of the line to check for Covid. At this point, I was beginning to believe I might have Covid, but I hadn’t tested myself yet. 

When we arrived at our hotel in Copenhagen, we were able to check in immediately and we dropped off out bags in our room and went to the bar to have lunch. After paying 26 Euro each for a large hamburger with fries, we went back to room. Pam went for a walk around the hotel. I decided it was time for a Covid test and it was positive. 

When Pam got back, we started to explore our options.

While she was out walking, I turned on the TV and one of the few channels with English was CNN international. Fortunately, there was a segment about the uptick in Covid cases around the world and Dr. Sanjay Gupta reviewed the current CDC guidelines for Covid—five days of isolation from the onset of symptoms and then wear a mask in public for the next five days. Since my symptoms started Monday, we figured I should stay in the room until the weekend and then wear a mask when we were scheduled to fly home on Sunday. So, I spent the rest of the week mostly in my room with an occasional visit to an outside patio off the bar area.

The Tivoli Hotel is about 14 stories and has 700 rooms. It also has the most phenomenal breakfast buffet I have ever seen that was included in the room price. I would put on a mask go to the buffet each morning and select my food making sure to stay as far away from people as I could. For lunch, there was a room service, which was expensive or some less costly prepared food at a small coffee shop.

Pam went sightseeing and did some shopping one day using the Hop-on-Hop-off bus. She also discovered that there was shopping mall about a 10-minute walk from the hotel that had a sizable supermarket with a prepared food section. So that’s what we ate for lunch and dinner during my quarantine. 

Finally on Sunday, we checked out of the hotel and went to the airport for the flight to JFK. The Delta flight went well, and we arrived in New York about a half-hour early. After nearly 8 hours in the air, we had to wait another 15 minutes on the plane for a gate to open. We then spent an hour going through immigration, getting our baggage and the rechecking it before going through TSA security again.

We had about four hours before our last flight was scheduled to leave for Cleveland. Then there was a mechanical issue with the plane we were supposed to take, and it took another two hours to before we took off. Brian picked us up at CLE and we finally arrived home at about 2AM.

We left our bags in the living room, and I filled a glass with ice and Evan Williams Bourbon and sat down in my favorite chair. After the Bourbon, I promptly crashed until morning. 

It was so good to be home!  

Robin Nests-Part 2

For the past two months, we’ve been able to observe a drama on our front porch. It was a life and death struggle that showed both the beauty and cruelty of nature.

The last week of May, we noticed a robin paying a lot of attention to the hanging plant hanging from a hook on the ceiling of our front porch. Whenever, I would sit on the from porch, a robin would fly out of the plant to a nearby branch of a tree and chirp at me incessantly. My curiosity was piqued and on May 28, I held my phone over the nest and took some pictures. I was astonished to see four colorful eggs—colored the distinctive blue labeled in paint samples as “Robin’s Egg Blue.”

In past years, we’ve noticed a nest in this location, but they were usually smaller birds—sparrows or finches. This was the first time I had seen a robin’s nest there. We didn’t know how long the eggs had been there, but research said the chicks usually hatch 12-14 days after the eggs are laid. I observed the nest for the next few days, and three of the eggs hatched on June 6. The final egg hatched on June 7, and I named that chick “Pam” after my wife. 

She enjoys sleeping in and taking her time to get moving in the morning and at her accounting firm, the word was don’t speak to Pam for an hour the first thing in the morning until she’s had a cup of tea.

Back to the robin chicks, on June 8 I noticed the mother feeding her babies, most likely insects or worms that she has chewed first. I took a picture and two of the chicks had their beaks wide open and pointed upward for easy feeding. For the first days after hatching, the chicks are blind because their eyes are covered and they don’t have feathers and are covered by orange fuzz. 

About two weeks after hatching, the chicks can see and their feathers have appeared. On June 14, we noticed the chicks had feathers and their eyes were open. One of them looked as if it was giving me the “skunk eye” when I took its picture.

During the nesting period, both the female and the male share responsibility for gather food and protecting the chicks. The fledging chicks usually leave the nest about two weeks after hatching. On June 19, I was sitting on the front porch when one of the parents came to the nest and was squabbling with the chicks for about 15 seconds. A few minutes later, another robin (I think) came to the nest and squabbled with the chicks for a few seconds.

The next morning, I found the nest completely empty and totally cleaned out. My hope is that the chicks were able to leave the nest and get on with their lives. As a side note, when the chicks hatch the mother eats the shells which provide a healthy amount of calcium to strengthen her bones. I wonder if the squabbling I heard the day before was the parents telling the chicks it’s time to leave the nest.

Female robins typically lay two brood of eggs each year between April and July. And another robin might lay eggs in a previously used nest during the same season or in future years. 

So, it wasn’t a complete shock that about a week later, I noticed another robin hanging around the same hanging plant. I was curious and on June 27, I was surprised to find a single robin egg in the nest and another egg appeared the next day and another next day and the fourth egg appeared on June 30.

I can’t be sure if it was the same mother or a different one, but I was surprised that the nest was occupied again so quickly. We are fortunate that when houses in our neighborhood come up for sale, they don’t stay on the market long. Apparently, the same is true for robin nests.

I continued to monitor the nest and two of the eggs had hatched on July 11, followed by the other two on the twelfth. I didn’t follow this brood every day like the previous one, but on July 17, I noticed the chicks had developed feathers. Again, I didn’t check on the nest for a couple of days.

On July 20, I was shocked to discover that only one chick remained and it had been mauled by a predator. Cats and raccoons are the usual suspects, but I don’t think so this time. The plant basket was hanging a couple of feet away from the wall of the porch and there was no easy way for a ground-based predator to reach it. Blue jays and crows have also been known to attack a robins’ nest and this seems to be the most plausible scenario. 

Since there was no trace of three of the chicks, I hope they were able to escape. The statistics say that only about half of the robin chicks hatched will survive to the next year. Since the chicks had hatched less than two weeks before the attack, I am not optimistic about their fate. But the one whose corpse I found in the nest was well-developed, I have a faint hope that the others may have survived.

I said at the beginning of this story, that it was a drama involving life and death and indeed it is. The beauty of this story was observing the very young chicks develop from blind, orange-colored helpless babies to young birds ready to leave the nest two weeks later. The average life span of robins is only about 13 months, but that is a statistical anomaly because the mortality rate for robin chicks is about 50 percent during the first year. Robins who survive their first year typically live 5-6 years and robins in captivity often live for a dozen years or more.

It’s been an interesting process. We decided to bury the mauled robin in its nest in the back yard and move the hanging plant from the porch. So, there won’t be any more nests this season. But Pam will probably hang another plant on our porch next year and I hope as the song says: “The beat goes on.” 

 

The Four Robins

For the last couple of weeks, we have been entering the house through the garage and not using the front door. The reason, a momma robin built a nest in a hanging plant next to our front door and she produced four “robin’s egg blue” eggs and had been nesting there for a couple of weeks.

The babies hatched on June 5 and 6 and left on June 19^th or 20^th, right on schedule. It’s been a fascinating experience to follow the process and I tried being as unobtrusive as possible while taking pictures every day or so.

 

Pam hangs a plant in the same spot under the front porch roof nearly every year and we have had smaller birds nest there in the past, usually chickadees or finches. But this year a fully-grown robin couple decided to set up housekeeping in our plant. I noticed a robin sitting in the basket in early June and when she was away, I took some pictures and observed four eggs in the nest.

 

 

The next day, I took another photo and noticed three chicks and one unhatched egg. According to the Audubon Society’s website, it usually takes one or two days for all the eggs to hatch, and those four eggs is an average size clutch. 

 

 

I jokingly named the un-hatched egg chick “Pam” after my wife who is a notoriously late riser. And, true to form she hatched a day later than the others.

 

 

It usually takes about two weeks for the chicks to develop enough to be able to fly away. Right after hatching they hadn’t developed feathers yet, but they did have an appetite! Both parents gather food—worms, insects, and berries—and bring the food back to the nest for the babies.

 

For the first five days after hatching, baby robins can’t see as their eyes are covered while they develop. So, need to be fed and kept secure by their parents.

 

By day nine, the robins had developed some feathers and their eyes were open and they could see. At this point, one of the chicks seems to object being photographed. I hope I don’t hear from their lawyer!

 

At this point, the chicks begin to make more noise and I observed them sticking their heads out of the nest and making more sounds and they are only about four or five days away from leaving the nest. After they leave, neither the chicks nor their parents will return to this nest. Robins always build a new nest for the next family. I have read that cowbirds will use a robin’s nest, so this one may be repurposed in the future.

 

The day before they left, I observed one of the adults return to the nest and have what appeared to be a heated discussion with the chicks for about 15 seconds. That adult then flew over to the maple tree in our front yard and sat observing the nest. About five or ten minutes later, another adult flew into the nest and had the same type of animated conversation with the chicks for about 15 seconds. I wonder if mom and dad were giving their “kids” orders that it is time to get on with life.

 

 

The big day finally arrived on schedule. That morning I didn’t hear or see any activity around the nest. And my photo confirmed that the chicks and momma had left the nest. Also, the next was totally cleaned out with only a single leaf remaining. Once the chicks hatch, the mother typically eats the shell fragments as a source of calcium for her diet.

 

The four baby birds are now out in the big bad world and will have to fend for themselves. One tragic note is that the analytics by researchers say that only one of the four chicks will survive for more than a year and the average length of a robin’s life is two years.

 

Depending on her age and ability to escape predators, momma robin may produce one or two more clutches of eggs this summer. So, she could eventually produce about a dozen chicks and have a very busy summer.

 

I wish the four robins good luck as they begin their new adventure. They are going to need it.