Our two sons, Dan and Dave, are settling in to respective situations.  Dan is attending graduate school at CalArts, in the greater LA area and Dave has begun his year long internship at the National Institute of Health, in Washington D.C.  This makes our family bi-coastal.  We’ve got one son on each coast, east and west.  Meanwhile, Anne and I continue to homestead our hardscrabble lot out here in flyover land.

The picture of David and Anne together was taken last Friday, outside the Saint Louis airport terminal.  Anne later complained that Dave is too tall to sneak rabbit ears behind anymore.  Anne and I were on our way to Columbia, MO, to ride this year’s MS-150 charity bicycle ride.  We dropped Dave off at the airport and he flew off to Baltimore.  He spent the weekend there with friends. 

On Monday, he signed his apartment lease, checked in at his place of employment, the NIH, got fingerprinted and enrolled in a graduate school class in human neuro-anatomy.  On Tuesday, his shipping container from Rochester arrived and he moved into his apartment in the District.  Dave had his first day on the job at NIH on Wednesday.  He is a self professed young urban professional, but he had to drink his cereal from a cup before work, because he didn’t have any spoons.  Maybe his roommate will bring some?

Dan had his first day of classes at CalArts on Monday.  We spoke with him on Wednesday night and he has had most of his classes so far.  He likes the classes that he has had so far and looks forward to the rest.  He looks forward to getting his studio at school, because that will give him more opportunity to interact with his fellow students outside of the structure of the classroom. 

His roommates seem like quiet people, maybe too quiet, but it he is happy that they are not too loud.  Apparently, the neighborhood watch wouldn’t be too pleased with too loud either.  Read senior citizens on patrol in golf carts, who are especially on the lookout for art students exhibiting artistic tendencies. 

It is all uphill to the school and almost all other places from his apartment and steeply uphill at that.  Dan has found climbing these hills with his bicycle a bit of a challenge.  Maybe a triple would have been a better option than a double chain-ring?  I’m just saying. 😉

He has taken to walking a lot because of the hills.  The divide between civilization and the wild is abrupt.  On one side are golf courses, swimming pools and tended lawns.  On the other side is near desert sagebrush, rattlesnakes and coyotes.

Annie is fifty miles down the road from Dan and two weeks advanced in schedule too.  She already has an art show scheduled for early October.  It will be good for Dan to become similarly engaged.

Buffalo [socks] won’t you come out tonight
Come out tonight, come out tonight
Buffalo [socks] won’t you come out tonight
And we’ll dance by the light of the moon

Anne has allowed me to display the first of what will be my pair of buffalo socks.  She bought the yarn for these socks on my birthday, while we vacationing in Yellowstone.  One sock is done and one sock is yet to go.  Anne has asked me to point out as part of her MS-150 knitting offer, that buffalo yarn is not included.  Anyway, the sock is soft already, I can hardly wait to try them both on after they have been washed.  I bet that they are even warmer than my best Wooly Booly winter socks.  How do they shear those buffalo anyway?