I woke up from a dream last night, about 2:30 am.

Big lawn.  It needed mowing.  I got out the old red power mower.

It was in April, right after the spring thaw, so the mower hadn't been used since October.  It would be near impossible to start.

Dan was there.  I told him I would pull the starter cord a few times, then when I was tired out, maybe he could pull it a few times.  Eventually, we'd get it started.

At the moment I was ready to pull the cord, Jerry showed up.  I explained to him what we were doing, and in deference to him, allowed Jer to go first.

Jerry gave that cord one phenomenal pull.  I had never in my life seen anyone pull a starter cord with as much force as he did in that moment.  It was a magnificent performance.  If there were an Olympic event for lawnmower-starting, that pull would have certainly passed the qualifying event.

You know how an engine sounds when you pull the cord and it doesn't start?  It's a short, throaty "RERRR" sound.  On this occasion, the engine made the same sound, only because of the magnitude of the pull, it was a prolonged "RERRRRRRRRrrrrrrr."  It took seconds to die down.  But it was the sound of an unsuccessful attempt.  Even before the sound had fully died, Dan and I knew there would need to be a second pull.

And yet.  When the sound of the pull had fully died away, there remained a low, quiet, purring sound, of an idling engine ready to work.

And then I woke up.

Today during my lunch hour, I did an experiment using the Google language translator.

I typed in the common proverb, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch."

I had Google translate this saying into Swedish.  Then, I took the Swedish translation and had Google translate that into Spanish.  Then I had it translate the Spanish translation into Russian.  I continued in this fashion, translating the output of each language into another language, in the following order:

English > Swedish > Spanish > Russian > Romanian > Portugese > Polish > Norwegian > Korean > Japanese > Italian > Hindi > Greek > German > French > Finnish > Dutch > Danish > Czech > Croatian > Bulgarian > English

After iterating through 20 translations, the final one (Bulgarian), was translated back into English.

What do you think the result was?  Do you think it might have come close to the original phrase?

The final English translation was: "I thought before the chicks."

After I laughed at its silliness, I thought about it a little bit, and realized that it is not quite as far off from its original meaning as I expected.  But it's still not accurate enough to use as an exhortation: "Verily I say unto thee: think before the chicks and thou wilt prosper."

Yes, I know, I hear you. "Get a life, Andy."

Just remember. I may be writing this stuff, but you're reading it.

Yesterday was a day of great joy in the Sifferman family.  My beloved niece Tara gave birth to her first child - a daughter.  The baby, Davina Michele, is healthy and robust.  Thank you, God!  And congratulations, Tara and Peter!

The birth of Davina marks a subtle, yet profound, transition in my life and in the lives of my immediate family.  Tara is the first in her generation within our family to have a baby.  So not only is Tara now a mother, but Aunt Kathy is now a grandmother, and my mom is now a great-grandmother.  Uncle Jerry, Uncle Dan, and I are now great uncles, and Aunt Karen is now a great aunt.  Everyone in the family now holds a new relationship he/she hasn't had before.  My boys now have a first cousin once removed!

Big deal, you say.  Well, it's fresh and novel to me.  So there. 

Welcome to Earth, Davina!

Now, about Uncle Jerry.

It was January, 1968, at 1705 Berkshire Place.  I was 8 years old.  Upstairs, in the north bedroom, lay my father.  Today he had come home from the hospital, three weeks after having suffered a heart attack.  I was sitting on the edge of his bed, and we were surrounded by my mother, brother Danny, and sisters Kathy and Karen.  17 year old Jerry was not yet home from track practice.

In the hospital, Dad had been visited by a number of well-wishers, some bearing gifts.  One of his coworkers brought him a simple puzzle that was the craze at the time, Instant Insanity.

Instant Insanity was composed of four plastic cubes.  Each side of each cube was one of four colors: red, green, blue, white.  Although the cubes were identical in size, they differed in their arrangement of colors.  The object of the puzzle was to stack these cubes in a column so that each long side of the stack showed each of the four colors. Sounds simple enough, until you learn that there are 41,472 arrangements of the four cubes, only one of which is a solution.

Each of us tried our hand at the puzzle (though admittedly I probably hogged it).  None of us were having any luck.  We had spent probably about an hour visiting with Dad and fiddling with the puzzle, when the front door slammed and up the stairs came Jerry.

He came into the bedroom and greeted Mom and Dad, and then we explained the puzzle to him.  Picking up the jumble of cubes and turning to leave the room, Jerry said only this: "Give me five minutes."

With a "hah", Kathy checked her watch as Jerry entered his bedroom and closed the door.

We waited.

To our surprise, he emerged a little more than four minutes later, triumphantly carrying the stack of cubes.  He set it on the nightstand and said, "There."

We checked, and double-checked, each side of the stack.  To everyone's astonishment, Jerry had solved the puzzle, with time to spare!

Naturally, our astonishment quickly turned to skepticism.  Poor Jerry was now on the defensive, insisting that he had never seen the puzzle before in his life.  He stood his ground.

Years later, Uncle Jerry admitted he was never able to solve that puzzle again.

So happy birthday, Jer!  May you conquer the rest of your life as easily as you mastered Instant Insanity.  (But may it seem to take longer.)

Today's entry is in honor of Uncle Dan.

I didn't always call Uncle Dan Uncle Dan.  When we were kids, I referred to him as Danny.

I recall one episode when Danny and I were in the kitchen together.  I was probably about 6 years old, Danny 4.  Mom was somewhere else in the house, probably doing laundry.  I spied a glass of what looked like 7-Up on the counter, immediately to the right of the sink.  Although back then, we didn't call it a counter, we called it a drainboard.  Why did we call it a drainboard?  Because that's what Mom called it.  (I just looked up "drainboard" in the dictionary.  It's not listed.  But "counter" is.)  Anyway, the 7-Up was up against the back of the drainboard, out of my reach.

Now in those days, we didn't have soda pop in the house.  I had previously tried 7-Up only once before, in a restaurant.  It was definitely something special, and I remembered how cool and sweet and bubbly and good it was.  And I saw that 7-Up up there, and I wanted it.

But was it really 7-Up?  It sure looked like it was.  It was in a clear drinking glass.  It was bubbly.  Tiny bubbles clung to the side of the glass.  Oooh, I wanted it.  But, just to be safe, I sought confirmation from Danny.

Don't ask me why I considered 4-year old Danny to be an authority on 7-Up.  I think it must have been the way he carried himself.  He had the smug appearance of someone knowledgable about many things.  So I asked him a simple, direct question: "Is that 7-Up?"

In retrospect, of course, it is clear that Danny had no idea what was in that glass.  So there are a few options he could have considered.  The most obvious response would have been to tell the truth, by simply saying "I don't know."  Or, he could have offered some helpful advice, like "Let's ask Mom."  Or, realizing that his beloved older brother was walking a dangerous path, lusting after a glass of mysterious bubbling potion, he could have played it safe and said "No, it's not" to deter me from my perilous course.

But instead, he confidently and with sincerity in his voice gave me the answer I so wanted.  "Yes," he said.

Yes!  Good old Danny, I knew I could depend on him.  And, so as not to disturb Mom, I quickly and quietly climbed to the top of the drainboard, and I took a gulp of that 7-Up.

To this day, I don't know what poison was in that glass.  Whatever it was, it was bitter and it tasted terrible.  It was the worst tasting stuff I had ever had in my life up to that point (except maybe cauliflower).

I jumped back down to the kitchen floor.  Danny's authoritative air was now replaced, not with concern, but with laughter.  Clearly Danny needed to be punished.  And since Mom wasn't there with the Red Stick to exact his punishment, I did what obviously needed to be done.  I slugged Danny in the stomach.

And so, like a thousand times before, and a thousand times since, I was the one to receive the hot end of the Red Stick.

So today, Uncle Dan, on the occasion of your 46th birthday, here's to you.  Have a 7-Up, on me.

I love each of the seasons here in glorious New Hampshire, but there are two scenes that thrill me each time they present themselves.  Both of them involve trees.

The first I have seen only three times in our twelve years here.  It is in winter, the ground covered with snow, just after a serious bout of freezing rain - and then the sun comes out.  The freezing rain sticks to the tree branches, and coats them with maybe 1/8 inch of the clearest ice.  But if the sun then comes out, it is the most glorious sight.  Trees as far as the eye can see, like crystal chandeliers sparkling in the sunlight.  Breathtaking.  (It is also treacherous - if the wind comes up, as it did in the winter of '99, those very heavy branches coated with ice will come down.  That year many trees in southern NH fell - but four large pines on our land in particular were problematic for us.  One fell on the house, one blocked the driveway, one fell across Gage Road, blocking traffic, and the fourth fell into our neighbor's yard.  We lost power for four days.  After that winter, I bought a generator, a wood stove, and a chainsaw.)

The second scene that thrills me occurs every year in October.  It is the presentation of the fall colors.  I think there is no place on earth where the colors in autumn are more vivid, more magnificent.  Brilliant yellows, greens, reds, oranges, purples, of every shade.  Many trees are two or three colors simultaneously: maybe red-orange, yellow, and green, as the trees transform gradually from top to bottom.

One of my favorite spots is in the Manchester Country Club golf course along Meetinghouse Road.  There are two sycamore trees side by side.  During the spring and summer, these two trees are twin sisters.  They are tall and majestic, the same height, the same fullness, the same shade of green.  But ah, in the fall.  In the fall the left one turns completely yellow.  The right one turns completely red.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold,
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Lucy the Cat died quietly last night, surrounded by her human family.

Lucy was a rescue animal, born sometime in late January.  My bride brought Lucy home with her one day in early March.  Still a tiny kitten, Lucy brought much life and laughter to our household.  She quickly became part of the family.

Lucy's seven months of life were brief, but full.  She was loved and enjoyed by all of us.

We buried her this morning in the backyard, not far from the tree house.  In attendance were my bride and me, and B, C, D, and E.

Rest in peace, little Lucy.