Soggy Taters

In Boise from June to November, more or less, you can bet on it being dry. Sure, you probably need to give some thought to how many layers to wear to the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, but you can count on one hand the number of days it rains. Similarly, that's about all it does from March through May. The point is, the weather's pretty consistent.

It appears to rain in Pennsylvania about twice per week. Sometimes it's a mist that reminds me of Portland or Seattle. Sometimes it's a gully-washer reminiscent of my childhood in GA and AL. But we've been reminded - FREQUENTLY reminded - that there's a reason there are so many trees, plants, grass and moss here, and nary a sage or tumbleweed in sight.  Heck, we even have moss as ground-cover for part of our yard.  Makes finding dog droppings easier when it's time to clean up, but doesn't hold up well under their toenails.

Car windows fog up on the outside from the humidity, not on the inside from respiration like in Idaho. Glasses holding cold beverages sport beads of condensation (that of course seek out the least convenient spot, like a necktie, when raised.)

Upside is, no dry-air related nosebleeds or cracking skin here (Tina likes that part.) And the humidity brings out the natural curl in our hair! Seriously, my hair is curly - ALL FIVE of them!

"Hold, Please"

It's been about a month since we've last posted and we didn't want our hundreds (OK, handful) of dedicated followers to think we'd forgotten about or shunned our blogging duties. Far from it: We've continued to collect interesting (at least to us, and hopefully to others) anecdotes that highlight the similarities and differences between our new East Coast stomping grounds and our beloved Idaho.

To give you a sense of our activities, since we last posted on 20 November, we've:

• Entertained our first house guests - friends from Boise, their son who's attending West Point, and their son's friend
• Kenn studied for and passed his securities licensing exams (again) - those registrations weren't required or were waived (because of his holding the CFA charter) while he worked for banks and Harmonic Investment Advisors but he had to take them all over again as a requirement of working for Vanguard. Imagine sitting down to the SAT exams in your mid-40s...
• Speaking of taking college entrance exams again, Tina's been studying for the GRE, getting her recommendation letters in order, writing her "personal statement" and doing everything else required to apply to graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania.
• She also did the lion's share of unpacking all of our worldly possessions, finding effective places to store them in the new house, and otherwise getting a household up and running.
• Lots and lots of other stuff - the kinds of things that you do, that at the end of the day/week/month you think "I know I was busy, but can't seem to remember exactly what I was doing - you know, that stuff.

We won't be sending old-school paper holiday cards (again) this year. Next week we'll be sending a (hopefully) clever e-card, like last year, that we hope finds everyone in fine holiday form. In January, after Tina's submitted her application to Penn, we'll send a longer note to friends and loved ones.

Since we won't see or speak with most of our friends in the next week, rest assured that we send our best wishes for a great holiday season and look forward to connecting ASAP.