A mansion is what you make of it

Imagine owning a dwelling that had:

— More than 50 rooms.

— Eight to 10 bathrooms.

— A hillside location.

Seeing singers signing songs

In the last year or so, Suzi and I have made the “amazing” (as in, it shouldn’t have been amazing) discovery that any musician on tour who we like will probably come to the Boston area at some point.

Which is why we’ve seen Sugarland, Josh Groban (with Idina Menzel), Mumford & Sons, Leslie Odom Jr. with the Boston Pops, Maren Morris and Kacey Musgraves.

I gotta tell ya … it hasn’t sucked.

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Get your cheap flights to London!

As the Brexit saga continues in the UK, I am reminded of a British Airways tweet from June 27, 2016 (that wasn’t there when I scanned their account before posting this), trying to look at the bright side of the vote to leave the European Union.

This is what you call “owning it.” 

Sure, British Airways didn’t say why American dollars have never been able to go further, but don’t we all kind of know? 

Maybe I’ll be there someday, but not yet

They took his office.

They took his parking space.

He still took his students to lunch.

Reaching back into the archives

I’ve been writing this version of the blog for about two years, but I’ve been sharing my thoughts on the world in various ways for almost eight years.

And I have to tell you, as I look back, most of it has been absolutely tragic.

Seriously, I read some of it and wonder, “What in the actual hell was I thinking?”

God, country and Alan Jackson

Between watching Ken Burns’ terrific “Country Music,” and seeing great concerts by Maren Morris (pictured above) and Kacey Musgraves in the past couple weeks, I felt like revisiting this item from March 1, 2014.

The other day, after I dropped my wife off at the train station, I got behind an SUV with a bumper sticker that read, “Alan Jackson: Country Music the Way God Intended.” (Apparently, it also comes in T-shirts.) — Or at least it did, when I checked the link, it was dead.

‘Skagway Bill’ and ‘Aunt Jane’

The first part of this post is from a recent event, followed by the original post from Aug. 26, 2017. Then there is a pretty massive update.  

“Two tickets, one book.”

I’m in line at the local bookstore, buying tickets to Samantha Power’s upcoming talk about her new book.

“Your name?”

I tell her.

As she starts to write it: “Like Henry?”

Or maybe it was Peter.

“Yes.”

The start of a wonderful relationship

From March 9, 2017. Perhaps you remember Jamie, who teaches my exercise class and got me to walk a 5K while wearing a pink T-shirt. She recently was out for a time, and when she came back, there was much rejoicing. This is the story of when we first met.

“Lucky for you I didn’t die.”

And I wonder why I have trouble meeting new people … in this case, the cardio-kickboxing instructor at my gym whose class I had just completed for the first time.

Farewell to the big dude

From Nov. 8, 2014 (has it been almost five years already), about the cat for whom this here blog is named.

My wife and I both knew it was going to end this way, ever since we met with the oncologist.

He told us that treating cancer in cats isn’t the same as in humans, explaining that one of the reasons why people get so sick during chemo is that the treatment is intended to kill the cancer. It’s milder for cats, but that’s because the intent is only to hold the tumor back as much as possible. 

In the most-aggressive treatment, which is surgery and chemo — which Silly couldn’t have because the doctor also thought he saw cancer in his lung along with his pancreas, so it was only going to be chemo — he said maybe you get a year.

We got 11 months … 11 mostly great months.

Really … this isn’t a golf story

By my usual atrocious standards, I actually played pretty well … but this isn’t a golf story.

Even though the course is less than 10 minutes from my house, I had never played there … but this isn’t a golf story.

Because we are who we are, one of us hit a shot off a tree that careened directly back into a sand trap … but this isn’t a golf story.

We laughed at the return of my 3-iron, which he had last seen when I bent it over my knee while we were playing in a tournament in Maine … but this isn’t a golf story.