L’Shana Tova

Happy New Year.

I just received this nice emailed New Years greetings from my cousin Hadar, who is living in Boston (from Israel) for a few years while her husband receives his PHD at Brandeis.

They have a blog — with a similar title to mine — and I just read through it. Have a look at the pictures of their California National Parks trip. My God. That is really beautiful. Those pictures made me feel homesick more than anything has in a long, long time. I have never seen a sequoia like that.

Things are going to get a little nutty around here. Today, Emily Galpern is arriving. She is the little sister of Steve Galpern, my best friend froma bout ages 3-13. I haven’t seen Emily since she was about 12 and it’s hard to remember that a young teen is not arriving here in need fo constant supervision. She works for the very interesting looking think tank. I read through their site and still don’t fully understand where they stand but they deal with the ethics of biotech and genetics issues.

She will be here for the New Years tonight and tomorrow and staying on for three-four days more. Tomorrow night is our birthday party, which has grown in scope since I invited everyone I chatted with in the last two weeks. We have an African band playing who are really good and it is going to be on the island in the back of the Orchard nearby us, a great place. Becky is a little concerned that the party has grown too big but I say you only turn 40 once.

Then on Weds. my parents are arriving for about 10 days. It’s unfortunate that they are going to just miss the bash but we couldn’t delay it because the following weekend is the start of the October Holiday and many of our friends will be leaving town. On Weds. we are going with folks to Yunnan province, visiting Lijiang and Shangri La, which is at 3500 m and on the Tibet border. It is ethnically Tibet and as close to Tibet as you can get without going to Tibet.. which we still want to do one of these days!

Anyhow, it will be a busy time so updates may dry up for a while. We are excited to have my parents here — kids are fired up to show them around and of course it is especially exciting to have my dad coming.