Author: Andy Smallman

Melinda forwarded to me an email that included the message below, which I have italicized to help make it stand out. In short, it’s a statement of appreciation for Michele, Melinda’s mom, who is being honored for 20 years of volunteer service at the Seattle Art Museum. I thought the sentiment deserved a little highlighting here, given my audience of family and friends who all appreciate Michele for her ongoing selfless acts of support, generosity, and kindness. Kudos to Michele, my mother-in-law!

SAM Gallery volunteers and SAM Shop staff-

I’m guessing not everyone reads the annual report, so I’m sending you this link and calling your attention to at least one AWESOME fact:

Michele Shaw has contributed to the success of SAM Gallery for over 20 years! If you scroll all the way down, you’ll find your name listed either in the staff or volunteers and note there’s a little indicator next to the names of people who have been with SAM over 20 years.

I simply cannot say enough about the positive contributions Michele has made to the successful operation of SAM gallery. She holds down many shifts, has never once been late (except during the Nisqually earthquake when she told Dwight to keep the car on the road and then SHOWED UP for volunteering). She’s always willing to lend a hand with moving, hanging, and hauling art. Most of all we love Michele for her winning smile, smart wit, and playful approach to life.

THANK YOU – Michele!

I fully intended to take a picture of Celeste with one of our dinner companions tonight, 15 year-old Sarah, so Christine and Bérnard could see Celeste connecting with someone her age who attends the school she’ll be going to this fall. You see, we had Sarah and her parents, Julie & Mike, over for dinner tonight. They were here for a good 4 hours, plenty of time to take a picture of the two girls (who, apparently, exchanged cell phone numbers while I wasn’t paying attention and may be making plans to watch “Parks and Rec” on Netflix tomorrow or something – I can’t be sure).

But Julie, Mike & Sarah just left and I forgot to get the picture. Darn!

So instead of a picture of the two girls, I’ve got this one of Celeste cleaning the kitchen after I made a mess of it by fixing a big barbecue dinner for everyone. Chloe decided to head out to have dinner with Alex, taking her dining restrictions with her. So I was free to BBQ both salmon and kalbi marinated beef. I made a couple of salads, too, and some cocktails.

Sarah and Celeste drank ginger ale, in case anyone was wondering. Hmmm, ginger ale does kind of look like beer…

Well, meet Pearl and Janet.

In 1998, when we moved to our house, we met Janet. I was walking door to door to see if there were any families with kids the ages of Chloe and Ella. Janet answered her door and we met Carly, who quickly became Chloe’s best neighborhood friend. A couple of years later, Janet, Carly and family adopted canine, Ned, who became one of Ella’s best neighborhood friends. As Ella grew and Ned got older, Ella did regular dog-sitting. Sadly and as happens, Ned died earlier this year.

So I was heading out to the grocery store tonight and saw Janet out in front of her house with what looked like a Ned-look-a-like. I pretty quickly figured out what was going on and went on over to be introduced to Pearl. Pearl is 6 months old and came to Janet via a trucker who discovered that puppies and truck-driving don’t mix. I quickly took this picture to send via text to Ella. Within minutes, I got this reply, “Oh my God!!!!! She’s so cute!!! When I’m home I’ll have to go meet her.”

I did not add any exclamation points.

I considered calling this post “TMI” because I was going to tell you all about the colonoscopy I had today. You know, once you hit 50 (I’m 52), you’re supposed to have your colon checked for polyps.

The pre-procedure involves an extended period of not eating, an extended period of drinking 4 liters of an unpleasant-tasting liquid, and an extended period of allowing the unpleasant-tasting liquid to liquefy and expel the contents of your colon. The procedure itself involves being drugged, which made it the most pleasant part of the experience. This photo of me was taken by Melinda seconds after I was roused back to consciousness. And from what I was told, I have no polyps, which means my next colonoscopy won’t take place for 10 years.

Good thing I didn’t tell you about my colonoscopy, right? Really, TMI.

Instead, I’m pleased to present this photo that was sent to me within the last hour by Chloe and Alex. That’s right, as I wasn’t telling you about my colonoscopy, Chloe and Alex were being served by Ella at the Oregon Culinary Institute in Portland. Ella is an old hand at this by now, having served Melinda and me last Thursday. As they were eating, Chloe sent me this text, “The food is sooo good!”

By this time tomorrow, Chloe and Alex will have returned to Seattle, their road trip vacation to California behind them. Ah, all good things must come to an end, I suppose.

I think there’s a colonoscopy pun in there somewhere….

That’s right, we have officially adopted Celeste for the next four months, meaning Melinda and I now have three daughters. I’m thinking of pitching this as a TV show called “My Three Daughters” and I’d like the modern equivalent of Fred MacMurray to play me.

Just who would be the modern equivalent to Fred MacMurray, though? I honestly have no idea, but I like that it could be George Clooney. Maybe I just like the idea of George Clooney playing me. It’s our incredible resemblance, you know. George and me, doppelgangers.

Anyway, Chloe just sent me this photo of her and Alex watching the San Francisco Giants have a big inning at home against the Nationals. They put up 6 runs and I got to see a couple in a text-video Chloe sent. Technology is pretty cool.

Meanwhile, back in Seattle Celeste made three different salads for dinner tonight. Given it’s her first full day in Seattle without her mom and she’s going to be here until December, Melinda said she needed to start contributing. As such, three salads and Melinda was in heaven. It looks more like dishwashing duty to me.

Ella sent this picture via Snapchat yesterday and I think it’s a semi-selfie of her in one of her classes. Clearly, she is being studious. Just where are the other students, though? And if this culinary arts thing doesn’t work out, maybe Ella could take up photography. She seems to have an eye for it (get it, an eye?).

First, Melinda and I just returned from SeaTac with Celeste who has been back east visiting family for the last week. It was a long travel day for Celeste, in that her plane was delayed out of Washington DC and then she had to sit on the ground at SeaTac for about 30 minutes for a gate to be made available. See how happy she is to be done with air travel for a while?

Next, here is a picture I took of Ella in Portland this afternoon. Framed by the entrance to her micro apartment, she is prepping for her class on restaurant management that she had today. Yes, as you may have gathered from last night’s post, Melinda and I drove down to Portland yesterday to be served by Ella at the OCI restaurant. The meal was fabulous and the service perfect. I’ll post more about that soon, along with a couple more photos.

I *met* Fish Astronaut back in 2011 while my family was living in France.

I say *met* because Fish and I have never met in person. We met online because he and I have similar musical tastes. We both connected to a social network site called last.fm (in fact, go check out my profile) and were directed to each other. I “friended” him and then saw his great artistry. I asked if he’d illustrate one of my online kindness classes. He quickly agreed. See that first collaboration here.

In the last 4+ years, Fish has provided dozens and dozens of images for Melinda’s and my Kind Living project. A couple of years ago, Jon Ramer, founder of the Compassion Games, asked if he could use some of Fish’s images to help promote the annual games. Fish again complied. Yesterday, Fish sent me 10 new images for the upcoming games (they start on September 11th and I facilitate something called The Secret Agent of Compassion) to go along with 5 he had sent earlier.

I present one of these new images tonight so YOU can admire Fish’s artistry.

Does Fish have a name other than Fish Astronaut? If he does, I don’t know it.

I’m calling this post “Empty Nest” because Melinda and I are the only two in our home tonight.

22 year-old daughter Chloe is in southern California on a road trip vacation with her boyfriend, Alex. Yes, that’s the two of them in this picture and I think they are at Venice Beach. 18 year-old daughter Ella is, of course, attending culinary arts school in Portland and at this very minute (~9pm) should be helping close up the school’s restaurant. 15 year-old French “daughter” Celeste is in Washington DC, having had an adventure-filled travel day that involved lengthy weather delays. And BFF Christine is 7+ hours into her flight to Amsterdam, the first and most lengthy of her two flights home to Nantes.

So what did Melinda and I do tonight with our empty nest? We had a PSCS board meeting to attend, of course…