ok, soooo much has been going on that i haven't had time to post anything in OMG 3 months!!! so... here's the flash....

in september we had the annual Open House at BGS, called "Expo 2005" and was it a success!  it went so smoothly i wasn't sure it was my company!  no out-of-stock issues, no theft, no real complaining... over 400 people attended over the 2 days, and the vendors really loved it!  i even got to use it as an opportunity to turn some customers bitter with our largest vinyl supplier into big beacon fans, which was a v. good, v. lucky thing...

in october, i drove my mom up to buffalo for a china painters' convention (sorry > 'porcelain artists' is the current pc phrase, i believe)... it was the first convention she had been to without my dad, and it was also the first time i had been a captive audience of hers for more than 1/2 a day at a time... 8 hours to drive up, and she talked the entire time.  it must be very hard for her to be so lonely.  and all of her china painter friends at the convention kept coming up and saying how sad they were to hear about my dad and how much they missed seeing him there.  that was difficult for both of us.... BUT the wednesday of that week was opening day for the NHL season!!!! and i did not miss it > went to see the buffalo sabres defeat the islanders, and it was sooooo good to see hockey again!  exciting to see how an arena welcomes its fans and its team back... everyone was riding high... and since i went by myself, i was able to get really good seats behind the goal that the sabres attacked 2x -- no one bothered me, even in my devils' jersey, but i did get alot of guys calling me 'brodeur'... made for some good convo... 

in buffalo i was able to walk to most of the places i was going, and that led me to St. Paul's, the Episcopal cathedral in buffalo.  i met the canon of the cathedral, Ethan Cole, who celebrates one year of ordination to the priesthood this month. he was v. interested in my postulancy and had asked me to e-mail him and let him know how i prospered.  i also met the vocational deacon, leann mc conchie, there and she is working on establishing an interfaith center for victims of domestic violence -- since 3 of my friends from st. mark's are ordained (or soon-to-be-ordained) interfaith ministers, i have put her in touch with them as a worship/healing service resource... nice to be able to network with clergy and feel accepted by them. 

another thing that marked my time in buffalo was how many random people would come up to me and just start convos... along the waterfront, where i was walking wednesday morning after finding the hockey arena, i was snapping photos when someone said "be careful not to say 'watch the birdie' or you'll have a giant seagull fly in your face".  looking up, i saw a little old man that looked remarkably like my dad (except for his face), with the same type of clothes, tee shirt, dockers, baseball cap... he was only 2 years older than my dad would have been, and so he and i talked about the buffalo river (the water we were on), the niagra river, and lake erie, and the 80 years of city history that he had seen.  it was a shame, in a way, that i had to go back towards the hotel to attend noon Eucharist , because it was way cool talking to bill.  he even said he hoped to see me again before i went home, but that never happened. 

i also met another elderly gentleman, when i was sitting on a low wall waiting to go into the cathedral for Eucharist. again, he just came up to me and we started to talk.  i learned all about his home parish, which was in another town about 20 minutes away, but how he loved to come to the cathedral to worship.  and i met one of the painting teachers at the convention, a woman in her forties who is from brazil, but is only home for about 2 weeks out of every 3 months because she goes all over the world to teach china painting. 

i did not get to do one of the main things i wanted to do in buffalo, which was to check out the music scene.  Rk had told me that there is a lot that goes on, if you know where to look, but i did not get the chance.  i also did not get the opportunity to walk around the section of the city that is supposed to be more like greenwich village, either, although i did have to detour through it one night, due to construction.  i tell you, i could live in that city!  i loved it that much.  and i seemed to fit in seamlessly, for after the first day, folks would stop ME on the street to ask for directions.... lol 

up until the last day, it had been in the high 80's to low 90's, but when we were driving home, a front moved in, autumn came, and summer was officially over.  it dropped into the 60's, which was seasonal, but it meant misty rain as we set out.  another 8 hours, with my mom still going strong talking, but i got her to listen to some of the jazz stuff i had brought (i had subjected her to metallica's s&m - the one with the symphony - on the way up), and the jazz made her cry... the cd that really got her was the most romantic cd ever made, imho -- John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman.  she said it reminded her so much of what she and dad used to listen to and go dance to, which was what i thought she would think when she suggested it.  sorry i made her cry, but glad i gave her a memory...  by the time we got to binghampton, it was raining so hard, that i was having an...interesting...time driving, and after we came out of the delaware water gap, the rain was sheeting off the mountain onto the roadway like a shower.  i was never so glad to get home in my life.

but i can't wait to go back to buffalo.