Sun, May. 11th, 2008, 10:03 pm
Chicago in the Twin Cities

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Sun, Apr. 20th, 2008, 09:14 pm
On the Roller Coaster

Tom is better, at least for now )

Sun, Apr. 6th, 2008, 09:14 pm
Taxes--2nd pass

As I wrote previously, our 2007 tax situation was chaotic. It now looks like we will be getting a record refund from the Feds and paying a record amount to the State. Still, that works out in our favor.

Our son J has a separate tax return, but I am stuck on that, He is getting Social Security Disability payments, but we do not yet have the SSA-1099 for him.

While writing this I realized we have a similar situation for our younger son, Tom. We will be contacting their social worker.

Sun, Mar. 2nd, 2008, 03:12 pm
Tom Update

We saw Tom yesterday. We decided to treat this like our regular visits since he moved out of our house back in 2006. So we picked him up from where he is now staying, the crisis center in West St, Paul, and took him to lunch at the Highland Grill. This worked out very well, although Tom was very hungry. We saw once again that Tom likes quite spicy food, and despite his food allergies, has a much wide range of taste than his brother. Afterwards we took a walk around the neighborhood, a very pleasant part of St. Paul. It had a delightful sense of normalcy. Tom was in good spirits and seems to be doing very well at the Crisis Center.

Thu, Feb. 21st, 2008, 06:35 pm
A long, successful, and exhausting day

Moving Tom out of the hospital )

Wed, Feb. 20th, 2008, 10:29 pm
Latest on Tom

From [info]mia_mcdavid: King of all he surveys.

We are doing better: We have a problem, a very serious problem. But we no longer have a crisis.

Tue, Feb. 19th, 2008, 09:58 pm
Tom and work

[info]mia_mcdavid just wrote about what is happening with Tom. I will be taking the day off from work for this. Fortunately, my cred at the office is pretty good right now. The weekend's server work was way more exciting than I like--there was a really obscure problem with different versions of Microsoft software, but in the end we opened for a normal business day this morning (as a branch of government we were closed yesterday, although I was still working).

Mon, Feb. 18th, 2008, 09:39 pm
Tom Update

From [info]mia_mcdavid: Yesterday, today, and Tom.

Sat, Feb. 16th, 2008, 07:38 pm
Updates on Tom

From [info]mia_mcdavid:

Thu, Feb. 14th, 2008, 08:43 am
Preoccupied

Thomas, our younger son, has been hospitalized. Mia has been writing about this:Also, my mother is in the hospital. Her hip popped out on Sunday. That was quickly fixed, but she was kept in the hospital because of congestive heart failure. It sounded like another episode of the trouble that caused me to make an emergency trip to see her back in September. I called her at the hospital. The reality is not quite so alarming: The congestive heart failure is the same issue as last year. At age 82 it doesn't really go away. She was actually in good spirits, in a hospital room with a great view of the Rockies.

On a totally different front, I have to work on Sunday, thereby missing the second day of [info]colgaffneyis at the St. Paul Scottish Ramble. I have two big system implementation projects to complete. These are the sort of thing that can only be done outside of business hours, and require extensive coordination with my co-workers. So scheduling is always hard, and compromises have to be made.

Sun, Jan. 27th, 2008, 09:27 pm
Good Weekend

Late last week at work was difficult, and when I got home Friday night I was in something of a funk about all I had to do. However, I settled down to what had to be done, did it (insert Powdermilk Biscuits commercial) and had a good time.
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Sat, Dec. 29th, 2007, 10:07 pm
Towards the New Year

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Mon, Dec. 24th, 2007, 09:43 pm
Christmas Eve

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Sun, Dec. 23rd, 2007, 10:17 pm
Icons and visions

A remark by the rector of our church, in this morning's sermon, reminded me of visit I made in 1973 to the house of the Order of the Holy Cross in Santa Barbara, California. There I met Fr. John Walsted, who is an icon painter. Our talks made a deep impression on me, which sustained me through the dark years when we were realizing the full extent of our son Tom's disability. I had the good fortune to meet him again in 2003, and to thank him for what he had said, and shown, three decades earlier.

Sun, Dec. 16th, 2007, 08:31 pm
Lessons and Carols, followed by dinner

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Sun, Dec. 9th, 2007, 09:49 pm
Tom in Church

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Thu, Nov. 22nd, 2007, 10:01 pm
Thanksgiving

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Sun, Nov. 4th, 2007, 09:32 pm
Sunday morning

It is not often that I can be brought to tears, especially in public, but it happened this morning in Church. Nothing wrong happened--quite the contrary. The parish was observing All Saints and All Souls Day, translated from last Thursday and Friday. Our Rector preached on grief--You can hear what she said here. That got me thinking about Tom, and hence the tears.

It was not easy, but it is important to deal with these things. So on balance I do not regret missing [info]colgaffneyis pleasant and successful expedition to Fargo. What happened here was important. It was difficult at the time, but I am glad I went through it.

Sat, Oct. 20th, 2007, 07:30 pm
"Six Days shalt thou labor, as much as thou art able...."

"The Seventh the same, and clean out the stable."

cleaning )

work )

Other activities )

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