October 28, 2009

Almost time for the ghosts and goblins to roam the streets. Not much in the way of pictures this week since we didn't take the camera anywhere with us. But we will steal an idea from Sheri and Bruno and use a face from our vegetable harvest.

Not sure why I didn't get a post up this past weekend. The time just slipped on by. Jo and I were both up very early on Saturday. Jo jumped on the computer to do some initial planning for our 2010 trip to New Orleans and as a result I got busy doing other things. The weather was raining on Saturday so after our usual lifting and shopping chores we came home and mostly puttered. Jo read a little, napped, did some work for Pfizer - things are beginning to heat up now that the merger is finalized - and napped some more. I mostly read and napped (I think there was more napping than reading since reading kept making me sleepy). Not sure where the whole day went, but before I knew it, it was gone. We went out into the wet weather to enjoy dinner at the Old Lyme Inn with Deb and Rich, and Mary and Dave. Everyone had something to celebrate which was nice - Deb got a new job post-merger, and Mary and Jo were celebrating October birthdays. For those tracking shifts in cultural norms - which is probably all of us really - the three girls sat around dinner discussing work most of the evening while the three guys discussed just about anything but work. What a great change, since I'm fully behind being a stay-at-home house keeper whenever I finally get Jo to sign off on that.

Sunday dawned bright and non-rainy which allowed us to get out for a run before yoga. Then it was into the yard to tackle the built up chores that we aren't getting around to. We worked on our path up to our garden and then moved one of the pathways in our garden to try and maximize the growing space that actually gets sunlight. Also started a little planning for our 2010 garden - since the perfect growing season is always just around the corner. Trying to decide if we need to remove a few more trees to increase the available sunlight. I'm sure it would help, but I hate removing trees from our forest. In the afternoon, it was grass mowing and removing the built up leaves. We then had to call it quits early as I needed to travel to our new Princeton facility for a week of meetings with our new Pfizer/legacy Wyeth colleagues. Meanwhile, Jo packed up for a whirlwind visit of the Pfizer sites in four states - Collegeville, PA on Monday, Peapack, NJ on Tuesday, the home office in New York on Wednesday, and then back home to CT on Thursday. I'm not sure how she keeps up the energy to travel like she does every week. I was only gone Sunday to today at one location and I'm exhausted.

We are looking forward to watching the Phillies/Yankees baseball games but we'll have to root for the Phillies due to our long time in the Philadelphia area (plus I'm a National League fan - comes from rooting for the Cubs as a child).

October 18, 2009

What can you say about this week but, Brrrrrr. Like much of the nation, Connecticut decided to see if we could enjoy a little winter in October. The temperatures plummeted and certain parts of northern CT enjoyed their first snowfall of the season. Down here on the coast we got the precipitation as a cold rain. Made you want to bundle up and stay indoors. Still better than the temperatures and snowfall my brother and his family were experiencing in Wyoming. Yesterday and today we are enjoying more rainfall as a nor'easter hits us - yesterday with clouds and cool weather, today with the rain..

Big news this week was Joann entering her next decade - appropriate modesty and a desire to be able sleep peacefully at night prohibit me from describing which decade. But since I decided to insert a picture of the chocolate birthday cake I made for her - you can do the math. And yes, that is made from scratch, no chocolate cake mix or pre-made frosting. Jo enjoyed her day as she got flowers from several co-workers and we went out for Mexican food with friends, Sheri and Bruno. Then it was home to open her birthday gifts - a Coach bag to use as a briefcase was my main gift to her. In case you keeping husband points - one for going to a purse store and actually having to look around, second point for knowing she wanted a Coach bag for her briefcase (ok, she has been saying that for about a year), and third point for making her a birthday cake from scratch. That gets me up to about 5 points for the year - I always like to bloom late in the calendar year.

The other big excitement on Jo's birthday was the news that Pfizer was finally approved to acquire Wyeth. Or as Jo likes to say, Jeff Kindler (Pfizer CEO in case you don't faithfully track Pfizer) bought her a company for her birthday. This has meant a flurry of announcements, meetings, and coming in the next couple of weeks travel for both of us. Where we are going continues to fluctuate - New York, New Jersey, and overseas have all been discussed. You'll just have to wait to read it here on where we actually land up.

As I mentioned last week, Joann was at the University of Illinois last weekend for a football game and fun-filled memories. She had a great time, even though Illinois lost the game, and remarked on how much the campus has changed in the almost 30 years since we were there. But the chemistry building is still present and the main quad remains pretty much unchanged. I at least got some pizza to enjoy - Jo bought two Papa Del pizzas, froze them, and then carried them home in her luggage. Worked great and now we have two pizzas in the freezer - yeah!

I'll close there, going to do some baking/cooking today. I'm planning to make granola bars and a vegetable soup for dinner. We had a nice surprise when we went to harvest our carrot crop - we actually had some. So decided dinner tonight would be a soup using only the bounty of our garden (carrots, potatoes, and beans).

October 10, 2009

What a quiet week, we were all thinking that our big news from the FTC would be coming through and Pfizer could finally get on with the merger of Wyeth. Well that didn't happen, so here's hoping it is next week. As you might imagine, everyone at Pfizer (and probably Wyeth) is eagerly waiting for clearance so we can begin finishing the process that started at the beginning of the year. We have certainly trained us all to be good at waiting.

Last weekend we finally did get a sunny day on Sunday (see how that works - sun on SUNday) so Jo and I spent the morning mortaring in the several of the loose bluestones on our patio. This is a yearly chore as there always several of the joints that loosen over the winter. Was good to be out in the sun and we had a good chat while doing it since mortaring leaves a lot of time for a talking. That afternoon, I got to play lumberjack as I took down our dead elm tree in our side yard. If certainly convinced me that lumberjacks are way underpaid (no matter what they currently earn) as it is a lot of hard work to cut down a tree - even with a chain saw. Of course, it didn't help the task that my chain saw is about 16 inches long and the tree was 30 inches wide. Jo did a good job of staying out of the way and capturing the tree felling in action. As I was doing this it did make me wonder how the heck our fore-fathers cleared the land after landing from Europe. It was tough enough to do with a chain saw - I couldn't imagine tackling it with an axe and handsaw. Especially since, getting the tree down is only 10% of the work - you then have to chop it into small enough pieces to move. All I can say, they must have been tougher, stronger, and have more endurance back then. Of course, they probably didn't spend their days sitting in meetings deciding on the next enabled formulation.

After we got the tree down the next step is to get into smaller pieces, which is my chore for this weekend. The rest of week was fairly quiet. Jo went to Madison, WI where she presented at an HR conference - that just happened to conveniently be in Madison. She also had the opportunity to meet with some of the HR students at UW in the Business school. It was an open question and answer session where Jo got to share her experiences on working in HR in a global company. She said she had a blast (imagine Joann having fun just talking about her experiences) and she is hoping to come back next year and do it again. This weekend, she and her sister are going down to University of Illinois for a football game - so she will have hit both her Alma Mater's in one week. I'm of course very jealous, but as Jo is supposed to be bringing home Papa Dels pizza I'll get over it. Papa Del's in case you aren't in the know - is the best thick crust pizza on the planet. I lived on it as my Sunday meal as a freshman/sophomore since we didn't have cafeteria service that day. Which might, of course, be coloring my opinions.

That's pretty much the week and weekend except for me doing some shopping for someone's major decade birthday coming up (I'm not allowed to say which one or who, but I'm married to her and she is a year younger than I am). And I need to watch the Illinois game in case Jo gets on TV.

October 3, 2009

The photo for the week, as I always like to have a photo to break up reading all this text, is of Trish's cat. This cat is the only cat that I have personally ever seen that will purposefully let running water hit it. The cat has learned to drink from the tap by letting the water hit its back and then drinking from the run-off on its side. Strange cat!!

Well fall is certainly showing its arrival this week with rainy weather and much, much cooler temperatures. In fact, we (as in I) had to break-down and turn the heat on in the house as the temperature had slipped to 60 degrees with no warm-up in sight. This was in the best interest of household bliss and happiness.

Jo actually got to enjoy an entire week in her home location for once with no travel anywhere. I had a couple business dinners this week - wouldn't want both of us home at the same time - as we had a leadership team meeting in Groton this week. We are hibernating this weekend as we had no plans and needed to catch up on some work items (Joann) and home repair items (that would be me). Need a sunny day tomorrow to tackle some mortaring of our bluestone patio and there is a tree waiting to be removed - yes it is the Osprey tree and Jo has already made all the required impassioned pleas for its safe keeping (my retort in case you were wondering - we have enough other dead trees in the forest for the Osprey to enjoy sitting on top of).

We are still waiting on the FTC announcement on the Pfizer/Wyeth merger but that is expected soon. Hopefully it is a yes since most of the rest of the world has already agreed. Other than that, not too much planned. Enjoy the change in the season - especially the leaves for those where trees grow.