Here you'll find all the news that's fit to print about Ben, Kathy, Ariana, and Ross.
News
Jan 15 Update
Closed on the house this morning, no hitches! We now are the proud owners of 37 Fletcher Road in Bedford.
Last night Ben's hockey team won the championship game for the fall season, an exciting game - we were missing our goalie for the first period!…
Happy New Year, 2010!
We just got back from a lovely trip to Costa Rica. It was the four of us, plus our nephew, David. We left on Boxing Day after having celebrated the holidays with Kathy's parents and family at their place on the Chickahominy river in Virginia. The…
RIP Raphael Littauer, 10/19/2009
Ben and Celia's father, Raphael Littauer died on 10/19/2009. His obituary can be found at the Ithaca Journal. There is a guest book there as well, and we fervently request that visitors contribute any stories about our "Papa" that they might have.
…
Summer Update
We've had a fun and busy summer, so far. We're both trying to keep active, as well as trying - with good success! - to lose weight. We've done a lot of bicycling: Kathy rides the 11 miles to and from work three or four days a week, and Ben sometime…
Renting the Ithaca House!
We've decided to start renting the Ithaca house. If folks are interested, please get in touch. See more about Cliff House here.
Italy Trip
Kathy and Ben just returned from a fabulous two and a half week trip to Italy. We spent the first week in Venice with our daughter, Ariana, and niece, Jessica. Then we met up with Toronto friends Tom and Michelle for a bike tour from Venice to…
First Ride of the Spring
Kathy and I got out for our first ride of the spring, a 17 mile loop around the Concord river. First north through Bedford into Carlisle, then south to Concord, then back again. Lots of horse farms along the way. Image from Google Earth.
Spring Update
It's finally spring here in Boston, and it's beginning to look like Mother Nature is agreeing that it's going to happen. I took out my bike last week for a short ride on the bike path, and most of the snow is gone off the ground - just a few small…
Holidays
We had a great time over the holidays, visiting Kathy's sister Lisa in Vienna, VA, where the grandparents, siblings, and all the cousins joined us as well. The only one missing, sadly, was Al J. Ross drove down from Philly with his friend Sabrina,…
Welcome Artie
With TC's sad departure from the household foreseen by us for some time, we had decided that we should get another cat to be a playmate for Casey as soon as possible. So we've been back to the shelter, where we found Artemus, or Artie for short. …
RIP TC 1992-2008
The last of the four pets we had while Ariana and Ross were growing up has left us for good. Ross's cat, Teela Comet, usually known as TC (except for RIck, who thought she was Tei Sei, or something like that), was suffering from cancer and we ended…
Obama Wins!
OK, we'll admit it: we were nervous. We did our small part by giving to the campaign, and Ben spent a few hours in New Hampshire on election day helping get out the vote, but we still feared that "our guy" would somehow not get the prize.
Se we are…
We've moved, etc.
Well, it's been an exciting, though difficult couple of weeks. We leased the new apartment as of September 15, and started moving on that Monday, having scheduled movers to pack and transport the bulk of things over on Tuesday the 16th. I came…
Hub on Wheels
Kathy and Ben plan to ride in the Hub on Wheels charity ride, which raises money for Technology Goes Home, a local group that trains inner-city families on the use of technology.
Kathy convinced her employer, Fortress Technologie to sponsor a team,…
Kathy's new piano
Since we're moving we're going to have space for a "real" piano, so we went to the Steinert piano sale at Symphony Hall and found a nice Boston upright. This is Steinway's mid-line: main components made in Japan by Kawai to a Steinway design, cased…
Finger Lakes Feasting
Ben's sister, Celia, runs a blog called Finger Lakes Feasting that talks about restaurants, wineries, food-related events, and has recipes that often feature local ingredients. Basically everything about food in the Finger Lakes Region of New York…
Various updates
Since the vacation we've kept busy, as usual. Kathy's now a project lead at work, which means that she can't afford to work from home as much as she used to - her people need her.
I've continued my work with the Boston Harbor Angels, trying to put…
Famous Littauer
Ben had minor surgery with a couple of stitches that the doctor figured he could take out at home. So a sterile suture removal kit was provided. Kathy looked at the contents and pointed out that these really were deigned for Ben. The scissors…
Welcome Casey
We have a new cat to keep us and TC company. Her name is Casey. You can see her first pictures here.
Hockey Academy Championship!
It was another championship hockey season for Ben. This time with the "gold" team (officially the Penguins) of the Hockey Academy league in Reading. Actually the jerseys were a rather sickly green, so they simply called themselves "puke". A guy…
Great Vacation!
We had yet another wonderful trip to the BVI. With our good friends Rick, Gitte, Erik & Emilie. Ariana was with us, but Ross was finishing up at Swarthmore so could not join us.
On a 40 foot catamaran. Very luxurious, but the jury's still out on…
RIP Gandalf 1992-2008
It's been a hard year for us with our geriatric pets. First Beta in October at age 14, now Gandalf has left us just before his 16th birthday. He developed a hard-to-diagnose but apparently fast-moving cancer. He had surgery in January, but after…
Photos Updated
I think I'm mostly up to date on the photos now, hooray! There a bunch of stuff from our Mexico City trip, Xmas at the river, and a few things from this year. In addition all the old photo content has been linked in so it's accessible again.
February Doldrums Update
We're expecting another snowstorm tonight -- it's been a pretty snowy winter so far. One nice thing about apartment life, though, is that we don't have to shovel ourselves out. Here's what's happening with all of us.
We all went to Mexico City the…
New Website
OK, maybe that's not really news, but I've certainly been working hard on it. I've abandoned FrontPage to use a Macintosh-based tool called Sandvox. It's pretty new and has a few misfeatures, but does much of what I want it to, so here it is.
The…
Back in Boston!
We're back in Boston now, at an apartment in Woburn. Address is on the contact page. Next step is a new job for Ben, though we have fun things planned for the holidays, including a trip to Mexico City and a visit to the Kerby folks in Virginia. …
Beta Doggie 1993-2007
Our wonderful dog Beta passed away on October 4th, after 14 happy years with us.
We have put together a memorial page for her at http://www.blkk.com/beta , where there are a few pictures of her, along with links to many more and a couple of videos…
Returning to Boston
We've been in Ithaca for over a year now and the job situation for Ben remains pretty bleak here. We're moving back to Boston imminently. Our current Boston area address is in Winchester, but we have not yet settled on a more permanent living…