9/1/09 – Yikes, is it Labor Day yet? Sure feels like summer is over, or never started. I got a call from one of the carpenters we’ve hired to finish up our house in Katrine, and he told me that Gravenhurst, about an hour south of us, had had a damaging tornado – I think he said it was an F2. He was bidding on some rebuild work down there. Vaughan, just north of Toronto got hit as well, rendering 38 homes uninhabitable. I don’t remember a summer with this much rain or cold weather, and now, I watch with some interest as the hurricane season fires up. Hurricane Bill has already soaked the Maritimes, and the Frisbees of bad weather are beginning to hurl themselves towards North America. I understand a pretty sizeable F4 (Jimena?) hit the Baja Peninsula last week. Summer in Buffalo is always short-lived, and about the second week in August, when we get our first north wind, that’s when we know we will soon be seeing the leaves turn. Up in the Great White North, Fall is ushered in by the invasion of one of my most unfavorite birds, the grackle. The Hell's Angels of the bird world, these miserable black birds travel in flocks and chase away all the other birds. It’s a fitting way to say farewell to summer.
9/4/09 – I’m back down in Buffalo, where I have just sold Dad’s car, and spent last Monday packing up and giving away most of his clothing. I remember him wearing a lot of that clothing, and it was weird to give it away. Lately I have been making an effort to pare down some of the personal possessions in our Chapin Pkwy. house, knowing as I do that a lot of this stuff needs to go. Mom was pretty good about getting rid of junk in the house, but over the last ten years, quite a lot has accumulated in the basement and attic. We must have thirty half empty cans of paint in the basement, as well as remnants of old carpeting and wallpaper, vestiges of long past remodelling projects. Of course, Mom is still living in that house, and I wouldn’t remove anything she might notice or want to keep. Still, there is A LOT of stuff stashed away in this big old house. There must be some kind of service that collects not-so-valuable but usable stuff from a large house and liquidates it for you, but I haven’t found it.
Mom’s 90th is next week, and I will stay down here until then. Shauna ordered chinking and backer rod for the new house which will be delivered to Buffalo late next week, so I have an excuse to stick around. We originally thought we’d have the materials sent directly to Katrine, but the shipping costs as well as the time delays with customs brokers was going to make that an expensive and complicated process. Speaking of cross border hassles, I needed to mail a letter up to Canada, and I went to one of those Mailbox places to buy a stamp. They wanted $1.60 for ONE STAMP, over double the actual cost of the postage, claiming the post office charges them a premium. And we wonder why they are closing post offices all over the place! I hope I can fit twelve five gallon pails of chinking along with 4600 feet of backer rod in the SUV. We should have Dad’s estate matters squared away by the end of next week, and my duties as an executor will soon be less demanding. I can’t say my time in Buffalo has been all that bad. I have enjoyed spending time in my childhood home, as well as being walking distance from my best friend.
Notable deaths: Ted Kennedy finally succumbed to his brain tumor last week; tests confirm that the anaesthesia drug Propofal killed Michael Jackson (big surprise); 60 Minutes founder Don Hewitt died, and acerbic Vanity Fair columnist Dominick Dunn also bit the big one.
9/7/09 As I end this report, I am sitting in the living room of my family beach house on the north shore of Lake Erie. This belonged to my grandfather, and has been in our family for over seventy-five years. I have many happy memories of summers spent in this house, but I have not spent the night here in six or seven years. I am looking forward to falling asleep here, because something about the sounds on this lake at night puts me right to sleep. A belated Happy Labor Day! Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
9/4/09 – I’m back down in Buffalo, where I have just sold Dad’s car, and spent last Monday packing up and giving away most of his clothing. I remember him wearing a lot of that clothing, and it was weird to give it away. Lately I have been making an effort to pare down some of the personal possessions in our Chapin Pkwy. house, knowing as I do that a lot of this stuff needs to go. Mom was pretty good about getting rid of junk in the house, but over the last ten years, quite a lot has accumulated in the basement and attic. We must have thirty half empty cans of paint in the basement, as well as remnants of old carpeting and wallpaper, vestiges of long past remodelling projects. Of course, Mom is still living in that house, and I wouldn’t remove anything she might notice or want to keep. Still, there is A LOT of stuff stashed away in this big old house. There must be some kind of service that collects not-so-valuable but usable stuff from a large house and liquidates it for you, but I haven’t found it.
Mom’s 90th is next week, and I will stay down here until then. Shauna ordered chinking and backer rod for the new house which will be delivered to Buffalo late next week, so I have an excuse to stick around. We originally thought we’d have the materials sent directly to Katrine, but the shipping costs as well as the time delays with customs brokers was going to make that an expensive and complicated process. Speaking of cross border hassles, I needed to mail a letter up to Canada, and I went to one of those Mailbox places to buy a stamp. They wanted $1.60 for ONE STAMP, over double the actual cost of the postage, claiming the post office charges them a premium. And we wonder why they are closing post offices all over the place! I hope I can fit twelve five gallon pails of chinking along with 4600 feet of backer rod in the SUV. We should have Dad’s estate matters squared away by the end of next week, and my duties as an executor will soon be less demanding. I can’t say my time in Buffalo has been all that bad. I have enjoyed spending time in my childhood home, as well as being walking distance from my best friend.
Notable deaths: Ted Kennedy finally succumbed to his brain tumor last week; tests confirm that the anaesthesia drug Propofal killed Michael Jackson (big surprise); 60 Minutes founder Don Hewitt died, and acerbic Vanity Fair columnist Dominick Dunn also bit the big one.
9/7/09 As I end this report, I am sitting in the living room of my family beach house on the north shore of Lake Erie. This belonged to my grandfather, and has been in our family for over seventy-five years. I have many happy memories of summers spent in this house, but I have not spent the night here in six or seven years. I am looking forward to falling asleep here, because something about the sounds on this lake at night puts me right to sleep. A belated Happy Labor Day! Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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