South Fork of the Madison

So I got my work done today and then my employee Dan showed me one of his favorite fishing spots on the south fork of the Madison River near where it flows into Hebgen Lake. Beautiful back country, expansive land and sky, beautiful fish... Dan caught a lot more fish than I did, he's an amazing caster, but I did just fine...

Gone Fishing...

The river is high and green, but the last 2 days I've managed a hike down to the river with Buddy, where we caught some fish and spotted a couple of elk carcasses. Today we even saw a couple of beavers swimming quietly near one of their damns. Plus walking along the river as I approached this house made of branches up against a hole built into the river, I heard this big woosh, and loud noise, it had to be a beaver?! Not sure, but I always wondered about that spot...

Memorial Day weekend turned out to be mostly rainy, snowy, with a little bit of sun. Today I walked down to the river during some sunshine. Started catching fish as the rain came down, then it turned to sun again. Buddy does well. He was well trained by Murray. Haven't been taking Murray with me as I think it's too much for her, her hind legs and hips give her a hard time, so no Murray. So Buddy and I fished. Now back watching Mets game with Stan. A very mellow weekend... actually stayed in bed till after 10 am this morning... resting.

Buddy scopes things out

Buddy checking out the elk carcass, hardly eaten... yet...

a colorful rainbow trout...my biggest fish of the weekend...

the view of porcupine from the river.

view of our neigborhood from the river... our house is the first off white house from the left...

Beach Blanket Bingo Barbecue...

Well, the food was great, the friends were awesome, and fun was had by all, but the weather outside was cold, and this morning we woke up to rain and snow and fog and more cold, the weather prediction is 10 -15 inches over the next 36 hours, but it's basically just cold and wet out there, still thinking about going fishing. Mets are winning 8 - 1 in the 5th. Stan and Howie are watching the game together. Stan looks like he's falling asleep, his head back on the couch, eyes closed...snoring, sound asleep

Last night Micah cranked the heat up and the house was hot! so it was a tropical evening just the same, we all just hung out, drank listened to tropical music, ate and played Buzz Words, a new word game which was really fun. We played 2 rounds, boys against girls, and the girls one by just a few points. Kids hung out downstairs playing games on the tv....

there was one family missing... but the Sarms are currently traveling the world...

Stan & Joan, together in Boston about 10 days ago...

Stan, Joan and their older brother Edwin, about 70 years ago...

Howie on the mound...

Howie up at bat...
against his friend, Holden on the mound...

At the 8th grade art show, Micah and his friend Rachid in front of their art.

Andrew and Micah
Micah's copy of a Picasso cubist still life... which one is better?
Micah with his (and Andrew's) art teacher Sharon, with Andrew and Jackie...

Waking up to snow on the 28th of May... the day of our beach blanket bingo barbecue...

They're back.

Stan and Jackie returned from Boston late Friday night. So on Saturday, Jackie took Micah to his soccer games in Bozeman and I spent the day checking in on Stan. Around 9:30 am I drove over and walked into Stan's condo and found him eating a bowl of dry cereal at his kitchen table. So first thing I did was go over to the store and grab him a half gallon of milk. I sat with him as he ate his breakfast, drinking my coffee, got him his 8 morning pills, and then watched him a bit befuddled, trying to orient himself. He wanted to know where his razor was. He wanted to know where his rust colored Life is Good long sleeve t-shirts were. But he was tired. So he sat on the couch with his foot up. Then he got up and we went and unpacked his suitcase together and we found everything he was looking for. I found his razor and we shaved his face together. While I was at it I got his electric nose hair cutter, and we did that together. And he showed me were everything went and then we moved back to the living room.... And so we spent the day together. I happily discovered that the Mets-Yankees game which was going to be on Fox East and therefore blacked out for us Montana Mets fans was also on Fox Deportes which was not blacked out and so the Mets game was going to be on, we would just have to listen to it in Espanol!

And the Preakness was on post time at 4:15 pm, and so that was something else we could plan on. At about 12:30 we walked over to the store for lunch and to shop for groceries for his house... and then back to his living room where we watched the t.v., pre race Preakness. Stan and I picked our winners. And he napped on the couch. His phone rang, it was Uncle Sidney, I answered it, but it didn't wake him up. So I talked to my Uncle Sidney. He was calling Dad for his Preakness picks, which I told him, 11 animal kingdom, 14 Mr. Commons, and 1 Astrology. Sidney told me Astrology was a "chinese" horse, if you don't know which horse to bet on you go through the alphabet and when the letters match that's the horse you pick. "Your Dad taught me that." Not sure why it was called a "chinese" horse. I'm sure there's not a good reason for that... We talked for awhile, I checked in on how he was doing as he lost his sister, Marilyn the first week in May. She was my mother's good friend. Marilyn was the one with the cigarette when Stan and his friend Murray came up to them on a beach blanket in Florida. The boys walked up to the girls and asked for a cigarette. Marilyn had one and the rest is Robin Family History. Sidney had gotten to California to see his sister, he got there to see her and fifteen minutes later while he was with her she passed... Uncle Sidney sounded good and as soon as I hung up the phone Stan woke up and asked me, "Who was that?" And so Stan called him right back...

And so we sat in his living room, watching the t.v., and answering Stan's phone. Patty called with her picks for the race, Dialed In, Shackelford and Animal Kingdom, 6,5,11. My picks were Animal Kingdom, Mr Commons, and Concealed Identity, 11, 13, 14. We were all making mind bets... that way the only thing you can lose is your mind...

We watched the race at his house, and then we went to our house, where we watched the Mets Yankees play in spanish... and I made dinner and waited for Jackie and Micah to get home from Bozeman, and Andrew to come back from hanging out with his friend, Grant.

It turned out to be a long day for Stan. I took him home sometime after 9 pm and helped him get into bed. He was very tired and when he is tired he appears to be very disoriented and I am always afraid to leave him alone when he is like that because I am afraid he might fall. So I set up his breakfast for him, water to make hot in the microwave and a bowl with a packet of instant oatmeal and his morning pills in a teacup. Then I helped him get undressed, watched him brush his teeth and watched him climb into his bed. I kissed him on his forehead and as he closed his eyes, getting into the fetal position, he repeated to himself 3 times, "I need to get stronger, I need to get stronger, I need to get stronger."

Today, while watching the Mets Yankees game, the Mets up 3-1 Stan says, "I would be a lot more comfortable if the Mets would score a couple of more runs." I reply, "what do you have a bet on the game?" "I don't bet baseball, just horses," he laughs, and then starts singing, "horses don't bet on people, they have too much sense..." Then he starts talking about his mind bets from the day before, "I made a mistake yesterday, I should have bet 400 on Animal Kingdom to place..." "Shoulda, woulda, coulda," I reply, "If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a merry christmas." So I guess Stan did lose his mind and he was right about the Mets, as he napped this afternoon they ended up losing 9 - 3. After his nap Stan walked around the house saying, the Mets suck.

We are sitting here on Sunday afternoon with Stan. Ashe was napping he had been listening to Jackie's phone conversation which he says sounded like this, "uh huh, yeah, yes, uh huh, yes, yes, oh my god, oh my god..." Stan is a funny guy...

"I don't like holidays"

"Why? because you can't check on your stocks?"

"Yeah that's one reason."

5/15/11

The wind could destroy your marriage...

It has been an extremely windy and busy weekend, here is a blow by blow starting with Saturday morning...

7:15 am, Micah picked up for his morning soccer game. He had 2 games, one at 9 am, and a second game at 4pm. I couldn't go to the morning game so he went with Curly. As he left I walked the dogs around the hood.

8:40 am. Howie and I leave for town and Daniel's 9:30 bar mitzvah service at the synagogue in Bozeman. We arrive seconds before it begins, it's a full house, but we still get seats in the front. It's a beautiful service with lots of friends there, the singing is great and the love of Daniel's family is quite touching, over 20 members flying in from Australia and London. During the service at random times I found myself tearing up, memories of Micah's bar mitzvah already almost a year ago, plus spiritual thoughts of how lucky I am, or from the love I find myself surrounded by, or just because I cry a lot.

Noon. The Kiddush lunch. Lots of chatting. Then off for the afternoon, we picked up chocolate at La Chatelaine for the store and then coffee at Rockford for the store. Then we went over to visit my buddy Josh and his son Ethan. Josh made a pot of coffee, Howie and Ethan played x-box.

1:50 pm. Took Howie over to little league baseball practice, 5 minutes from Josh's house.

2:15 pm. Josh and I took a solid bike ride on bike trails all over the east side of Bozeman, around the railroad tracks, under the interstate, up Pete's Hill Trail, the wind was howling, pushing us back, knocking me over at one point going up a slow steep hill towards the top of Pete's Hill.

3:25 pm. Phone rings. Just pulling into Josh's driveway on the bike. Howie's baseball coach. I thought I was late, but no Howie got hit in the face with a throw, cut his lip pretty bad, letting me know he's in the bathroom. I apologize for being late, tell him I will be right there. I grab an ice pack from Josh and head to the field. Howie is still in the bathroom cleaning up. It had been bleeding pretty badly. It's those damn braces, he's got quite the fat lip, but he's doing O.K., I can tell he's trying super hard not to cry. Later in the car when he tells me how it happened he starts to cry, but holds most of it in. He's trying to be brave. I give him a tylenol and tell him to keep icing it as we drive over to Micah's soccer game in Belgrade.

4:05 pm. Micah's soccer game. Game has just started. We sit with friends. Howie taking it easy, and icing his lip. The swelling goes down quite a bit. Good soccer game, Micah's team dominating and then Micah scores a goal! A nice shot, from a good distance away. Micah's team, the Belgrade Rage, is up 1 - 0 at the half. They go on to win 2 - 0. Howie spends most of the game playing tag with other kids.

5:00 pm. Phone call from Boston from Stan. He's calling to check in on me. He sounds great. He saw my niece Emma play in her basketball tournament and she scored 13 points. He was raving about her and how much she loves basketball. He is surrounded by family, his sister Joan is there as are her 2 daughters, plus my brother Lou is there with his kids and of course Ben and his family - that's where he's staying. Sounds like he is doing just great!

5:40 pm. Game over. We head to our car where we all change into our bar mitzvah party clothes. Drive over to the Riverside Country Club, where we go to Daniel's Bar Mitzvah dinner party. Wine, lemonade, good food, and dancing! Micah seems to have all these younger girls coming back and forth with messages from some older girls. Howie is dancing and having lots of fun. I'm hanging out with good friends, everyone asking for Jackie... Micah tells me yes he actually did get a new phone number...

7:30 pm Text from Andrew, he's going to a dance party and staying in town, unless the party sucks, then he's coming home.

9:30 pm. We head home. Both Micah and Howie sleep most of the ride home. Micah's big 8th grade trip to Washington D.C. leaves from the school at 3:40am.

10:30 pm. Arrive at home, Howie goes straight to bed. Micah takes shower, makes sure all his bags are ready, sets alarm, goes to sleep.

3:20 am. Micah is up and ready to go, we drive over to the school and drop him off for the ride to the airport.

3:40 am. Back to bed for me.

9:30 am. Up and about. Take shower, walk the dogs.

11:00 am Neighborhood clean up, tennis court wind screen set up, barbecue. Howie and I walk down to the neighborhood park. I spend most of the afternoon, picking up trash, hanging out and helping set up the wind screens.

3:00 pm As I walk up the driveway, Andrew pulls in from Bozeman. Back home I watch the last 2 innings of the Mets game. They win 7 - 4!!!

3:30 pm Talk to Jackie on phone. She is at Grand Central Station in NYC. Sounds like she is having a great time visiting with her Boston College girlfriends, now in the city to see other girlfriends...

4:00 pm Head down to store to drop off coffee and chocolate and do a little shopping. Store looks good, not that busy, but busy enough.

5:00 pm. Back home, make a smoothie for Howie and Andrew, and a quesadilla for Howie.

5:30 pm The wind is still howling, need to take dogs for a walk, thought of taking bike ride, but it just sounds so so windy!

Stan and Jackie off to Boston

5/11/2011

25 years ago today, I woke up and called Jackie Roberts, this very attractive and smart woman that I met the night before at my friend Roger's 25th birthday party. She was working as an Air France telephone reservationist. I dialed the number she told her girlfriend very loudly in front of me 3 times 247-0100 and miraculously she answered the phone, "Air France, this is Emily (that was her Air France alias)" I said, "Jackie?" and the rest is history...

Today we went to our friend Debby's yoga class together. Last week we celebrated with our little getaway to the Sanctuary in Scottsdale, Arizona. I was telling Debby about the books I read while away, Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com and When Things Fall Apart (Debby's favorite book) by Pema Chodron. They were actually great compliments of each other and I am still thinking a lot about both of them. Yoga class was awesome as always, today's theme being one's attention is the fertilizer, give attention to what you want to grow... After yoga it was off to get Stan and for Jackie to get ready at home. We left for the airport around 11:45 am for their 2:10 pm flight. It was a beautiful sunny day, first warm sunny day in Big Sky in quite awhile. So I dropped Jackie and Stan off at the security line and drove back to Big Sky where I went straight to the store to try to get a little work done. I sat with Lauren for an hour which was great and I told her about these 2 books and we discussed a whole bunch of stuff. At 5 I had to run off and pick up Howie at gymnastics, and then we went home . Micah, Howie and I rode our bikes to the Porcupine Trailhead, we would have kept going, but the trail was still snowy and where the snow was gone it would have been way too muddy, so we just turned around and rode back home. It was a great warm up ride, maybe 3 miles roundtrip. As we rode our bikes up our steep road almost to our house, Andrew pulled up in his green Subaru. So we were all home, Andrew, Micah and Howie immediately started playing basketball in the driveway. I decided to take the dogs for an evening walk. As I was saying hello to our neighbor Polly at the bottom of the hill I saw 3 boys flying down the hill, two on longboards and one on a scooter. I did a double take before I realized it was Andrew, Micah, and Howie. Andrew was flying juggling the basketball in his arms as he made the turn around me towards the new neighborhood basketball court. Micah and Howie were flying behind him and off they went down the street. Buddy was pulling me hard on the leash, and Murray was walking slowly and gingerly behind me. I looked at our friend and neighbor Polly and said, "I was wondering who those hoodlums flying down the hill were and then I realized they were mine, my three boys, my three sons..." The sun was shining, the white covered mountains were shining, I was shining.

I walked the dogs around the neighborhood, lots of neighbors out in the sun, lots of hellos, then back home to make dinner, the boys didn't come home till after 8 pm. But I timed it perfectly, we had chicken pasta primavera and garlic bread, and the boys were hungry and devoured it.

Back from the Sanctuary

Jackie and I got back yesterday evening from the Sanctuary at Camelback Mountain in Scottsdale, Arizona. We arrived in Arizona on Monday night. Spent our first night at an inexpensive Best Western and then moved in the morning to the Sanctuary which turned out to be pretty much a sanctuary. We had massage treatments, did yoga classes, hung out at the pool, took steam rooms and hot tubs and relaxed a lot, just leaving a couple of evenings for dinners out. Otherwise we spent most of our time at the Sanctuary, doing a lot of relaxing, some reading, some thinking, and the usual talking to each other. It was a very good week. On Friday evening we arrived back in Bozeman and had dinner with Stan and Patty. Today is Saturday. Jackie and I woke up at about 5:45 am. Jackie made some breakfast sandwiches and got Micah and his friend Cooper up and into the car for their drive to Butte (about a 2 and a half hour drive). They had 2 soccer games today. They won both. Micah scored the first goal via a header in the second game which they won 7-0. The first game they were winning 3-0 and held on to win 3-2. Right after Jackie left I walked the dogs around the neighborhood. When I got back I put some laundry in and went back to bed. I woke up at 8:45 and moved the laundry along and got myself ready to go get Stan out of Rehab. He was being discharged today. I drove over to Stan’s condo and turned on the heat, dropping off a box of stuff Ben had sent while Stan was in Rehab. I picked up Howie from his friends birthday party sleepover and then drove him back home. He fell asleep in the car immediately. I put him into his bed for a nap. I let the dogs out for a couple of minutes. I talked to Andrew about getting Howie awake later, and taking him to his next friends birthday swim party at 3 pm. Then I left for Bozeman to get Stan. I arrived at the Rehab center at about 11:15. Patty was there and had Stan all packed and ready to roll. I signed him out, they gave him his noon pill, Patty and I packed his stuff into my car and we were out of there. Stan walked down the stairs no problem. He looked great and he was moving around well! So then we went to lunch. After lunch we stopped at the pharmacy and picked up his drugs. Then it was on the road for Big Sky. We arrived in Big Sky around 2 pm. First Stan sat down, then he went to the bathroom. I unpacked his stuff and did laundry. I put on the Kentucky Derby and he sat in this big chair in front of the t.v. and watched all the pre race hype. I unpacked the box my brother sent which was falling apart, but the albums seemed to all be in tact. The long shoehorn was cracked in half, and it might have bent some pages in Stan and Pearl’s wedding album. All the albums were full of shredded paper, but I cleaned it all up, the box had been falling apart and someone at the post office shrink wrapped it while in transit so nothing got lost. The albums are classic family albums and I am sure Stan will have fun showing the albums to Patty and his grandkids. So I took the box and the shredded paper to the store garbage can, and grabbed Stan some Kleenex, Cheerios and milk. We watched the race together, then I went to pick up Howie from his second birthday party, but he was still swimming, so I went home and walked the dogs, pilled and fed them. Grabbed my work and clothes for tomorrow as I am staying at Stan’s tonight. It would be his first night alone in a month so I just want to be here just in case, plus the fact that he is traveling with Jackie on Wednesday to Boston, we are being necessarily cautious. So I picked Howie up at his party at around 5:50. Then it was back to grandpas for the Mets game and eventually dinner. Howie fell asleep in Grandpa’s t.v. chair. He was so asleep that when I didn’t see him because he waws sunken into the chair and I yelled his name he still didn’t wake up. Grandpa and I thought he gone upstairs, but when Grandpa got up for a minute he saw Howie asleep right next to us. Howie was extremely tired. We eventually went out for Chinese food, got lots of extra for Micah and Jackie who showed up at Stan’s around 9 pm… They ate their dinner here. Stan got ready for bed, they went home, Stan fell asleep, I’m still up writing this.

During all this there were of course lots of phone calls: Had to call Stan’s doctor to get the prescriptions ordered because there was some kind of mix up while I was away. Call from Patty telling me she was with Stan, had been there when I called Stan earlier, but he was asleep – my phone call must have woken him and he hadn’t seen Patty yet. Texts and calls to and from Jackie with soccer updates. Calls to Andrew to make sure he made lunch for Howie and got him to his other party, and to just check in with him. Today was his Senior Prom. Texts with brother Ben.

So after Micah’s soccer games Jackie took Micah shopping at the mall. After that Micah and Cooper went to a movie and Jackie went to take pictures of Andrew and his prom date, Casey and all their friends. 20 of them were loading into their super stretch limo which was taking them to dinner in Livingston… Then after that it was pick up Micah and Cooper and head back to Big Sky where they came to Stan’s to eat our Chinese left overs plus whatever I ordered for them.

Then after making sure Dad was asleep I pulled out my computer and wrote up instructions on all the pills he’s taking… Now it’s time to get into my bed and read a little bit and sleep. So after a week of very little tasking, we are now back in full mode multitasking insanity…but I am (trying to be) much calmer, and I am more mindful of what I’m doing, and I am aware of the fact that my words can be somewhat harmful and that is the beginning of changing my world for the better. I want to be a nicer person to all of those around me… it’s like I want to lose my negative edge – mostly around the people who don’t know me well enough to understand, lose my sarcasm and become more sincerely appreciative of others…

Howie's 11th Birthday

After dinner at Mackenzie River Pizza. Grandpa Stan was fatigued and cold, but we got him to slow down for a second for this photo, left to right, Jackson, Micah, GP Stan, Birthday Boy Howard, Rhett & Holden.