comfort and joy

ok, so.....i figured out sometime midmorning that if my brother was on FB then he was not in the car driving to ky and would certainly not be here in time for the annual dinner at Shakertown......and so i sent a simple text....'coming?'....and went about my errands....the reply came just before i picked up my mother for her hair appointment.....not sure if and when he can come given that his roommate just had back sugery and his son has bronchitis.....gentle readers....the post that existed int his space temproarily was removed....as one should never leave a trail when one fusses about one's blood kin about the second year in a row that circumstances beyond their control has prevented them from visiting either their closest blood kin.....so where is the comfort or the joy in this post?.......it was in the short time i spent in my mother's beauty parlor...chatting with an octogenarian from my church, the estranged grandmother of my ex-partner and an elegantly dressed woman who looked 70 but was likely in her 80's (cream cashmere sweater over a taupe sweater/skirt set with lovely Italian cuffed boots with a heel that was not too tall nor too stumpy) named dolly who looked like she could be russian royalty...she told me that i had 'good hair'.....coming from a woman who has inspired me to grey gloriously, this was a compliment indeed.....at this time of year, and at my age one finds comfort and joy anywhere one can....

look in fridge

ok, so.....i slept in til nearly 7:00 am this morning....and as i was shuffling through the kitchen toward the coffeemaker i saw a note on the counter that read.....'look in fridge'.....so i looked in the fridge.....and saw nothing that was not there last night, nothing out of place, and certainly nothing that looked special enough to warrant a note.......will wait for the person with that distinctive handwriting to return with an explanation....

smoked salmon dreams

ok, so.....the few times i get around to blogging seem to be for the sole purpose of recording my dreams.....i was moved to blog on this particular day because i am still thinking about dream from earlier in the week....the one about the hunk of unsliced smoked salmon wrapped up inside a bread-bag and secured with a twist-tie.....the unsliced part was the problematic theme to the dream.....i wanted to have a few bites of the salmon, but the chunk has never been thinly pre-sliced....as every package of smoked salmon that i have ever opened has been so sliced, i had a problem to solve.....that si the part that i cannot remember these days later....just the salmon in the bread bag.....i could go for some smoked salmon right this very minute....preferably with a poached egg over a toasted enlgish muffin topped with hollandaise......oh my.....that is the stuff dreams are made of.....

hannah coulter

ok, so i came to the part in this novel by wendell berry where caleb comes home from college and his father nathan starts to make plans for him to take over his share of the farm, and caleb has to tell his father that he is home for a visit but that he will not be staying....he has plans beyond the farm......this conversation is part of the vocal heritage of my father's side of the family......of my own grandfather sitting down with my father on a visit home after graduation but before my parents wedding to discuss the future......and my father having to tell my grandfather than had he purchased the adjoining farm when it came up for sale as my father had suggested, there would have been enough acreage to support two families but as things stood, there simply was not an adequate living for two families on the existing farm....and my father had made other working arrangements......i write this with great regret, now that a child of mine has voiced an interest in the livelihood that used to be a given for both sides of my family....my mother's father gave up all hope of passing on his farm when he fathered two daughters.....he sold off the farm for a housing development......i treasure the copper stencil that my great-grandfather used to paint 'stephan' on each of his crates of produce....the stephan family grew fruits and vegetables on a farm above the canal just south of cleveland, ohio since the civil war days......the family place i visited in germany actually includes several fields now worked by a tenant....which means that as far back as the 1500's our ancestors have worked close to the land..... and so i admit freely that there were tears in my eyes as i listened to this part of the novel....because i knew that this conversation is not singular to the coulters, nor to the crowns, but to far too many dwindling farm families.....

latkes

ok, so......i view the making of latkes as a sign of a leisurely Saturday or long-weekend off....the variations depend on the available potatoes: white, red, yellow, sweet.....or a combination of those tubers....this morning we enjoyed sweet potato latkes with a sprinkling of parsley and sour cream........i get out the copper pan often enough that the latkes have become simply a sign that mamma feels like making them.....and i am therefore caught off-guard for a moment or two when i see articles in culinary magazines or the nytimes about the association of these wonderful fried potato confections with religious observances.....like Hanukkah.....i am not remotely Jewish according to my next-of-kin......but I suspect that I have Jewish roots that go deeper than the living memory of loved ones.....the connection between me and fried shredded potatoes is essential.....and too intense to be coincidental...

1/2 bottle of riesling

ok, so.....yesterday at my in-law's home we gathered for a Thanksgiving feast......i arrived with our car-full around 1:00-ish to find the questionably-done turkey already on the counter covered in tinfoil.....and to witness another extended family member empty half a bottle of riesling into a large tumbler, drop in a few ice cubes, and move on......gentle readers......if i had married into such a household i would have drank the other half of her bottle, despite my loathing for sweet wines.....i did go out of my way to avoid the turkey, having suffered a severe case of food poisoning in that very place over a decade ago.....and i when i happened to see second half of the bottle go the way of the first, i smiled and went on about my business.......

In Mass....on our way to supper....have not been in New England since Stephan looked at colleges

In Chicago halfway to Albany and our weekend with Stephan

wine and cheese

ok, so i started my round of errands with a visit to v the market.....i went in looking to buy goat cheese and ended up not only with Mont St. Francis from Indiana, but also Heinrich Red to go with it....and then several others bottles for upcoming occasions...and a jug of a pilsner from the tap....i like the notion of buying a jug and refilling it from a tap.....i will admit that i spent more per bottle than i spend per week on a boxed white.....i was determined to select my bottles based on their attributes rather than price....isn't that why i work that second job?......not only to fund my addiction to travel but also to add to the local economy by supporting home-grown entrepreneurs.....the red wine is delightful.....which i suppose proves that you get what you pay for when it comes to wine.....

ok, so.....the day has come when Peggy Noonan and I have something in common....this piece is excerpted from Ms. Noonan's column in which she rips into the half-term governor for comparing her career to that of Ronald Reagan.

"Excuse me, but this was ignorant even for Mrs. Palin. Reagan people quietly flipped their lids, but I'll voice their consternation to make a larger point. Ronald Reagan was an artist who willed himself into leadership as president of a major American labor union (Screen Actors Guild, seven terms, 1947-59.) He led that union successfully through major upheavals (the Hollywood communist wars, labor-management struggles); discovered and honed his ability to speak persuasively by talking to workers on the line at General Electric for eight years; was elected to and completed two full terms as governor of California; challenged and almost unseated an incumbent president of his own party; and went on to popularize modern conservative political philosophy without the help of a conservative infrastructure. Then he was elected president."

"The point is not 'He was a great man and you are a nincompoop,' though that is true," Noonan continues. "The point is that Reagan's career is a guide, not only for the tea party but for all in politics. He brought his fully mature, fully seasoned self into politics with him. He wasn't in search of a life when he ran for office, and he wasn't in search of fame; he'd already lived a life, he was already well known, he'd accomplished things in the world."

WWGCD?

ok, so i enjoyed the daylights out of watching the rally for sanity livestreamed on comedy central....while i was supposed to be outside helping my spouse build the faux rock wall that will add yet another terrace to our slope and give us a far deeper vegetable planting area.....i was moved to tears watching yusaf (AKA cat stevens) sing peace train.....that song really takes me back....and i so enjoyed the signs....especially the one pictured here.....WWGCD?.....ky's own george clooney would be a voice for sanity in the politcal debate....and i so grateful for patirots like jon stewart, whose poignant closing words summed up the rally quite nicely...really wish i had been there.....

ok, so...this song was not only in my dreams last night, but also sung in church this morning by young children

Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh (clap) do remember me.
Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh (clap) do remember me.
Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh (clap) do remember me.
Look a way, beyond, the blue.


in my dreams...my dad was singing this song, not just the above refrain but also verses which i tried to recall when i woke up.....the vision was quite clear...my dad was leading the group of young people in song at some sort of church retreat along a creek-bank...i know the place...troyer's hollow.....in ohio.....i also recall that we took home plastic bags full of tadpoles, which never gre into frogs......ah well.....

the ghost writer

ok, so.....we watched the latest of the netflix arrivals last evening......wow....what a thrilling surprise from roman polanski......and how clever he was to make the north/baltic sea look like martha's vineyard...i was totally sucked into the angst and the edginess of the impending doom....and never saw the end coming....

back to reality

ok, so....it has been a long week......and i did find myself fantasizing about the time when i will not have to work each and every weekday.....i came to home to garden mostly dead....i try to tell myself that it is hybernating early for the long winter ahead but i will not be surprised when it is a vast empty wasteland come spring.....no matter...i will start from scratch with some planting scheme or another should the wrost case scenario turn out to be true......it is a bit soon to rake leaves.....so rather than get out early and tackle yard work i am still in my robe, sipping coffee, and playing wordtwist on facebook.....i could get up and start the laundry.....

home again.....

ok, so......all's well that ends well....my rolling black duffel that was not at the post-passport control carousel in charlotte actually turned up in lexington......i had no clue as to how that happened...not until i got home and opened up the bag.....there was an official card from the TSA explaining that my bag has been searched as part on behalf of national security...or words to that effect....which kinda means that they had my bag when i was searching for it as well as when i was making inquires with the us airways folks.....ah well.....happy to be home....in one piece given all fo the terror warnings....

Ok so I am in Charlotte and my black duffle is not.....numerous black duffles and the attendant suspects that someone mistook mine for theirs...cannot fi

le paperwork until it fails to show up on the belt in lexington....mostly dirty clothing so it is the principle that counts here

same time, same station.....but tomorrow instead of today....

ok, so the US Airways connection to Charlotte that was to arrive with a 90 minute window to catch our 6:30 pm flight to London......was in the line for takeoff when the captain announced that we were taxiing back to the gate, where we must deplane and await further instruction.....essentially we stood in line to inquire about rebooking til past the time when the flight to London was wheels-up and gone.....and so now we are back home, with confirmed reservations on the same flights we had to day....only a day later than expected.....i will call expedia to rearrange our hotel reservations and side trip to Bath/Stonehenge/Windsor......all places we must see now that we have spent so much time in 'queue' chatting with women on their way home from the WEG who happen to live in Windsor and Bath......seems WEG was part of the problem....all flights out of LEX are booked up with folks heading home....if we could have gotten to Dulles we could have had a late flight to Heathrow.....a group ahead of us in line were so task-oriented as to split up: part of the group rented a car to drive to Cincinnati while another group rented a car to Louisville while the remainder waited in line to rebook flights from either place or both places.....these folks wanted to go home very badly.....ah well.....i have devoured a lovely omelet, and now i must call expedia before i fade......

Ok,so......let's see mobile blogging works...

terror alerts

ok, so the terror alert scale has been ramped up a notch just in time for my departure....and while it gives me a good excuse to skip the London Eye......i can hardly avoid the Tower or Trafalger......i am certainly not frightened to the point of staying home.....but i will admit to being unnerved just a tad......on the other hand......ig one has to make an unplanned exit from this life it might as well be while traveling, one of my favorite pursuits.....

kitty

ok, so our aging feline is going blind as she goes bald.......as i sit on the office desk chair in front of the pc in the hall....the poor dear attempted to jump up onto the arm where she likes to perch while i type.....she missed and fell awkwardly to the floor.....we have to pick her up to her food bowl, which is kept on the plant window in the guest room where the door can be closed and the dog kept away while the cat eats at her leisure....she seems to be hesitant at jumping up the shelf these days.....hard to tell if her eyes are clouded by cataracts, or if something just as tragic is going on......her gaze now has a crazed, wide-eyed look......she has slipped onto my lap from the arm....and is purring madly.....ahhhh......

people i don't know

ok, so in my dreams there were numerous folks in my 'house' in all states of dress and undress that i do not recognize......they appeared to be present as guests of my in-laws, and appeared to have been invited without regard to there being adequate sleeping arrangements.....at one point i asked my m-in-law about her plans to accommodate these people, and she said that she had booked a condo at a good rate...except that she had booked the condo in florida and no where close to where her guests were milling about......and so my spouse and i gave up our room and invited ourselves over to the home of friends, where we were set up on a sofabed in the living room....and we awoke to our friend holding a very thin child, and suctioning out her lungs.......cystic fibrosis?......and then our friend sat down on the side of the sofa bed and started doing needlework inserts for wooden box lids.....she had a bag full of boxes and she told me that i could choose one for myself....but the lids did not match the boxes.......

hearts of palm

ok, so.....i just got back from a round of saturday shopping...starting at the big lots, where i was thrilled to find jars of roasted red and yellow peppers, as well as cornichons, nicoise olives, and hearts of palm....all at bargain prices.....and there were more of the rose bubble bath that i bought out the last 2 jars the last time i dropped by.....on to the krogers and the aldi....and then the bonafide liquor store, which has relatively empty shelves and none of my favorite box white.....i did leave my picks on a wish list......and so now i have a pork shoulder roasting in the crock pot for barbecue, and a load of wash going, and the oven on self-clean.....and the luggage dragged up from the basement for the preliminary packing for london.....that trip is less than 2 weeks away......the birth mother's annual visit comes first and i must survive that weekend before flying away......i have downloaded 2 books for the trip.....in all truthiness, i had already downloaded pride and prejudice, but i couldn't help but listen to it now that i am walking at lunchtime at the h-burg baptist church....and so now i must hold myself back from listening to these books.....it is not like i have nothing in print available to read in the numerous stacks and shelving units spread over these three floors....i am simply spoiled with the luxury of being read to......so now.....i have water boiling for pasta (salad using those lovbely hearts of palm and roasted peppers).....and then i could either start into the upstairs shower stall with the lime-remover i remembered to purchase....or i could sit out on my terrace with the new yorker.......

sunday.....

ok, so i had earnest intentions of sleeping late this morning...or at least til 7:30 am.....but my dog took up the spot next to the bed where his whining could best resonate in my upturned ear......and so i dragged myself out of bed, grabbed my robe and cuppa....and walked with him up the road.....where he could not be bothered to actually accomplish the only task for which i would drag myself out of bed to aid/abet.....and so i am fixing to take my iphone and my growing library of audiobooks out to my terrace for a few minutes before i get ready for church.....i am listening to Michael Pollan's Second Nature......his tome dedicated to gardening.....so far i find his observations on the growing of roses and the grappling with weeds to be satisfying.....especially when one listens to the book read by the author while sitting in one's own work-in-progress......i have felt validation in that sense.....that gardens evolve....or at least that people who live to garden cannot quite see their planting schemes as complete and/or finished.

i do need to point out that i sat about listening to the book yesterday rather than actually working in my garden.....i DID step off the terrace from time to time to deadhead cosmos and take out completely dead stalks of phlox......but mostly i sat and thought about what i will do with my beds when i have the time.....and the money and cook weather and a bit of help......the next garden project is a low wall at the bottom of the garden just up from the brick walk to the compost pile..... this will add at least 12 inches of depth to the plot where we hope to grow vegetables in summer and install a purchased cold frame for extended season goodies like lettuces and onions.....we did get the played-out privet hedge taken down, but the stumps must be dug out before we can move ahead......and neither of us had the gumption to get out the ax in 95 degree heat......i could slip in a secondary project while i wait on the hedge job.....the drought kinda burned off some Achillea that had gotten out of hand and spindly to boot.....the empty space could accomodate rosa shailer's pink provence that resides behind the deck by the wall.....where the dirt is deepest and possibly problematic for transplating a settled-in plant.....after i move the rose i can put in a new display of srping bulbs.....hopefully may-flowering to complement this rose that tends to bloom in early may.....ah yes......so many things one can do to upgrade one's garden....or at least day-dream about on this glorious sunday morning....

altercation

ok, so.....someione in our neighborhood had it out at 3:30 am......loud voices that become screams...with at least 3 people contributed to the argument.....could not discern whether the voices came from a boat on the lake, or the cabin on the bend of our circle, or neighbors prone to disagreements who live up the creek.....i suppose i drifted back off to sleep at some point despite my determination to listen intently enough to make out actual dialogue.....i could really use a nap right about now.....

the pound and pedal

ok, so.....the annual pound and pedal is over, possibly over forever.....this event has evolved over the past 23 years(give or take a year) from a one-way 20 mile bike/run from a friend's law office in downtown d-ville to his home in forkland.....when the friend moved his family to town, the venue changed to our house, and became a 10 mile out and 10 mile back bike/run.....in those 20+ years the original participants have aged, moved away, or passed away.....young blood has been recruited, the particpation choices ammended to include the option of biking the entire route has helped keep the event alive.....but the competition from the uk/uofl game as well as the tri-for-sight dramatically diminished the crowd this year.....we still ended up with 30 for lunch.....but it is disheartening to put time and effort into the preparations only for your friends to say that they have better things to do that morning.....

making progress.....

ok, so.....we made great progress this week as parents.....in that we survived the reality of a child who managed to move without our physical presence.....granted......we packed up his selected possessions from home and sent them up east with another child to act as proxy.....and we conferred several times daily in hopes that said child had communicated with the other parent for advice and/or good counsel...'oh, he didn't call you either?'.......we may have located an aerial view of his new neighborhood, but we have no confirmation of which house he now calls home.......as for us.....our lives will remain much as they have always been.....our child will be able to call up snapshot visions of our kitchen, and my terrace, and the porch.....but we have only our recollections of the last time we saw him-on graduation day with his gown and diploma under his arm waiting for us to insist that we take this things home for safekeeping......i have created a summertime reading nook in his basement bedroom.....the club chair and hassock up against the sidewall with a pole-light....it is private and cool and a pleasant place to read on a Sunday afternoon......when the weather gets colder I will be back upstairs by the woodstove...but for now i enjoy the solitude of a room that has passed from eldest to the middle child but not to the youngest given the secluded outside entrance.....in my dreams the door opens into the greenhouse......problematic with the blue plush carpet......if we tunnel into the large cistern that sits unused just uphill, we could seal-off the bedroom door and create a new entrance by the hotwater heater.....on a winter's day the greenhouse might just be warm enough for yet another reading nook.......i reflect on these potential scenarios as i break from the book at hand.....not that i am actually reading these days....i have moved into the audio age full-force.....with an entire book downloaded onto my phone.....i listen even as i type.....as i drive to work, as i take time for lunch at my desk.....there is enough room on the....chip?..... that i have 3 novels downloaded for that day when i finish the current book....as well as talking points of the major works i will see at the national gallery in london this october....as well as a narrated walking tour of westminster.....ah.....making progress....

unconventional

ok, so.....i got into a spirited discussion with several of my closest kin over the weekend about the notion of whether or not i am unconventional.....of course, the discussion started out not really being about me, but me being me i somehow made it so......below is the dictionary version, which is worse than i suspetced as the definition of unconventional....

Main Entry: unconventional
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: very different; odd
Synonyms: anarchistic, atypical, avant-garde, beat, bizarre, crazy, eccentric, far-out, freakish, freaky, free and easy, idiosyncratic, individual, individualistic, informal, irregular, kinky*, kooky, nonconformist, oddball, off the beaten track, off the wall, offbeat, original, out in left field, out of the ordinary, unceremonious, uncommon, uncustomary, unique, unorthodox, unusual, way-out, weirdo*
Antonyms: conventional, formal, normal, standard, usual
* = informal/non-formal usage

sadly, the synomyms that i feel best describe my life choices are in the minoirty of the list....on the other hand, i have never desired to be descrbed as standard, normal or usual......so i suppose that unconventional IS the more desirable of the descriptives.....

the audit

ok, so......this week was dominated by a local accountant and his very pregnant assistant.....who performed, under a pricey contract, our required yearly audit.....yikes.....the former director was asked to leave upon the results of an audit....and even though i have done my best to avoid his controversial ways.....i still hold my breathe that all of our accounts are in order.....

million (and a half) dollar houses.....

ok, so......i took 2 vacation days off to drive my mother and my daughter on a whirlwind tour of ohio memories.....including dresden where my favorite aunt and three of her four children live on the family orchard....and then through holmes county...the amish country where i was born and thrived til 5th grade.....and then on to cleveland where my mother was born/raised and where her only sibling still lives and where her niece lives in the family homestead that dates back before the war( read that as civil war).... when my mother's father died, the newspaper published not a photo of him, but of the house and its role as one of the last stops on the underground railroad.....but i digress from the trip....made tolerable by 'the help' on cd.....the lives of my cousins (on both sides) make my life seem like a cake walk by comparison.....and may i say for the record that my mother is no more senile than either her blood kin or extended family.......my aunt's catch-phrase 'million-dollar houses' has become family legend to describe all that is ostentatious, indicative of northern ohio and better than anything we (from the south) could aspire to......on this trip the price of this standard jumped up to a million and a half......which i immediately texted to my middle child....and then covertly angled the text message to my daughter in a conspiratorial gesture...... we had a quiet chuckle of the inflation.....that moment may have been the best on the trip.....

amen, amen, and amen....

ok, so.......i have three reasons to rejoice.....my eldest is back from his two-year Fulbright stint, mu middle child has a (perfect) job lined up for after his internship, and the first-ever meeting between our youngest child and her birth father went better than expected.....

beating back nature.....

ok, so......i am convinced that should i neglect to weed my beds for more than a a few days....such as a 9-day vacation....my beds would be taken over completely by vines......time was when honeysuckle was the plant to rip out whenever it raised its ugly head....but this is clearly the year for vines..... thick, ropey vines....vines with thorns.....vines with pods (milkweed?)......vines that snake up the long canes of rambling roses, and hydrangeas, and.......even the dead daylily stalks......i have alrteady spent time this morning ripping vines off of the back fence....i swear they were not there yesterday.....i heard on NPR that the excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere makes for exceptional vines growth...as evidewnced by the huge poison ivy clumps that i must get around to ripping out with disposable gloves.....on the other hand, there is a lovely trailing ground cover that has hybernated in the boxwood oval that is peaking out from the nooks and crannies of the stones and bricks....it is from an Amish farm in northeastern Ohio.....Miss Fanny Schlabaugh gave me the original clump.....we were there with my parents, spouse and children.....visiting her father who was nearing 100 at the time....when we arrived he was out on the thresher......and he came rising into the barnyard waving his arms at my parents who had known him since the mid-50's....but i digress from the vining ground cover......which could possibly get out-of-hand and be just as pecky as the vines i did not plant and do not want in my beds......

jane austen's fight club

ok, so this link is to the youtube version of jane austen's fight club......

"The first rule of fight club is one never mentions fight club. No corsets, no hatpins, and no crying."

book club selection gathering.....

ok, so....we hosted the annual book club selection dinner last evening......and it was preceeded by a months of property upkeep projects....like restaining the deck and latticework, relaying the brick walk behind the garage, repainting the porch, spraying for chiggers, fixing the pond lining......last night the temperature at 7:00 pm was still above 90 degrees.....so we opted to eat inside rather than on the pristine deck area....and we found a workable solution to a gathering that exceeeds the maximum of 12-13 at the table expanded with all leaves....we left the table as it was and borrowed 2 lightweight folding tables from work that sat 6 each....and so we could have accommodated 18 folks for supper.....we dined on grilled citrus marinated salmon, pasta salad, a bean and barley salad, marinated asparagus, cumcumbers in sour cream, strawberry/spinach salad, and strawberry-pretzel salad...plus jan's peppermint patty cupcakes.....we will be reading several books that i have already read....which works out well as my spouse can take his time reading those books......we selected a book that our eldest was asked to read for discussion purposes.....which means we will host the january gathering and worry about clearing snow rather than upkeep projects......

humboldt fog....

ok, so i dragged myself out of bed early to water the flower beds before driving into town to go to the farmer's market......i bought yellow tomatoes and 'bodacious' sweet corn from the only gut who appeared to be selling his own produce.....the other stand appeared to have boxes clearly labeled tomatoes under the tables......and then i popped into V-the market for the humboldt fog as promised on her facebook page.....omg.....i came close to eating it all when i got home from the stop at the aldi store.......if there is a flavor of this earth better than goat cheese i would like to know what it is......

incorrect spelling.....

ok, so.....in my dreams i was editing the headlines for a blog that looked like the huffpost......and every time a word was spelled incorrectly i would correct it....and this tedium went on and on....no action, just spelling errors...i had my fill of headlines yesterday....especially the one that i found on the clipping ripped from wednesday's newspaper by my spouse......uk student in critical condition after police tazing.....seems we know this fellow.......seems he was on the roof of a two story apartment house.....a bit out of his right mind...and the police came to save him from himself by tazing him twice...he got back up after each tazing.....and when they went to taze him the third time he jumped off the roof.....omg.....i feel great sympathy for people who find themselves temporarily out of their right minds.....it is only by the grace of god that i cling to sanity on most days...i cannot fault those who struggle with their own....

world cup......

ok, so.....we talked to our dear middle child after lunch, after church....then rather than heading outdoors to do manual labor....we settled onto the sofa for a nice afternoon of air conditioned world cup final play....which i am certain involved short naps for each of us.....i have no recollection of the first half after the group photo ops and handshaking.....and then i waited for the brilliant professional soccer moves that i have been led to believe comes with this level of play....but mostly all i saw was chaps dashing to the ground and holding various parts and screaming indignantly....well, all except the guy who got kicked in the chest.....that looked like a bonafide foul.....in my humble opinion, the dutch looked a bit meaner and rougher than the spaniards......

riding for reading

ok, so.....my eldest child blogged his way across america last summer.......62 entries give or take.....with the blog hosted by the local newspaper....at some point after the ride was finished, the paper took down the blog.....which made the links to the blog broken, and made the actual content of the blog inaccessible.....phone calls and emails to the newspaper asking for access to the content by the author have produced no results....sad to lose such a valuable piece of writing and scrapbooking.......and then yesterday, while i was whiling away my lunch hour catching up on my favorite blogs on google reader......i saw riding for reading as a blog that had not been recently updated.....and there, drawn up into that site, was the entire blog, pictures, verbal descriptions and all.....and so i have copied and pasted my way through 160 pages of blogged memories, tidied them up a bit by downsizing the photos a tad...and downloaded them onto my thumbdrive......the days are not in actual order, and the end is somehow in the middle....but i will leave the final editing to my child when he gets back from his latest ride.......

true

ok, so.....i was driving back into d-ville with errands plotted out for minimum carbon foot printing, when the song that was playing just before ATC was scheduled to come on had a lyric that almost brought tears to my eyes....'so true'......and i missed my friend gail so very much at that moment.....she who often described realities as 'so true'...or just 'true'.....and she has been gone for so very long...or has it been just the other day......i last talked to her on my birthday.....but i cannot remember which birthday it was.....

stain.....

ok, so......i spent the afternoon staining the latticework that hangs below the deck.....mostly because now that the deck has been restained, the latticework looks grungy.....because it has never-ever been stained....and because i have a planting scheme for the bed beside the under-deck gate.....i figured i might as well go ahead and stain that entire area before i planted the new things and before the existing roses grow back from severe pruning......and so i managed to get all but the higher parts....and i found myself in a curious daydream as i dabbed down the long strips and across the counter-ribs.....even more curious is my reluctance to record the daydream for posterity...suffice it to say that gardening was involved.....

a moment of feline amusement.....

ok, so...on this freebie day-off i started out early with the mid-summer weeding, removal of dead day lily stems, etc....and i ventured outside the fence to weed out the wild shrubberies that want so badly to grow between my boxwoods.....and 'all the sudden' as we like to say in these parts...i noticed that the dog had strayed off and so i called out to him with several extra-loud rounds of Buddy,Buddy,Buddy......but instead of the dog running obediently my way....the cat sprang out of the underbrush and came scurrying to me.....i decided to reward her with a little morsel of leftover porkchop out of the refrigerator......one must reinforce such loyalty......eventually the dog came home, but he missed out on the treats....

zones.....

ok, so.....i appear to forget from sunday night to saturday sometime midday that our house is temperature and time controlled to maximize comofrt while we are home and/or sleeping to save fuel when we are not at home and/or sleeping......and so when i try to take a nap on saturday or sunday afternoon i wake up almost feverish only to recall that the daytime temeprature upstairs is way higher than the evening temperature....this is not huge news, gentle readers......just a window into my current state of confusion...

torn....

ok, so recap my life for the past 4 weeks.....i discovered the day before we were to travel to our middle child's college graduation that she had not submitted her tax return...and soon after figured out that she was not taking her medication....and since that day i have been granted power of attorney, and have taken over her finances, cancelled credit cards, confronted the shysters who were soliciting repetitive charitable donations......tripled her loan repayment for early payoff....and entertained her nightly with supper and observed medication dosing.....and felt that she was really getting back to 'usual'.....and then the letter came today from the state folks advising her that she had failed to submit medical reports that supported her continued driving liberties....and that is where the angst comes into play......i was with her when she renewed her license....and nobody mentioned a medical statement.....and i have seen every bit of mail she has received in the meantime...and i have seen no request for a medical statement....and so i am torn.....this would be the perfect excuse to take her keys.....but then again...she is so much herself these days it seems wrong to take the keys without an exhaustive study of the facts...so i will call the state folks on tuesday, and take her to see her doctor, and suggest an evaluatuon of her skills before i relingiqush her license.....

sick and staying home.....

ok, so...i was up at least four times in the night....lost count....and i have decided that sick time is for staying home when one's body is out of sorts.....and so i am getting ready to go back to bed......

just to recap...

ok, so this from the daily kos...Let me see if I have this straight: in the last few days members of the GOP have savagely screwed the unemployed, protected the bankstas, trashed Thurgood Marshall, implied rape and incest is part of God's plan, defended BP, threatened to either end social security or screw over 20 million plus people who have paid into the system for at least 20 years by making them wait until age 70 to see their benefits, and screwed homeless veterans with children. That about it, or is there more?

a trip on the horizon

ok, so....i booked a trip this morning on Expedia, with airfare from Lexington to London through Charlotte.....only the single stop.....and 4 nights at a South Kensignton hotel that managed to have only good reviews in non-Expedia forums....along with a bus/fully escorted 12-hour side trip to Stonehenge/Bath/Windsor......all for far less through Expedia than I could do on my own using RSteve's hotel picks...go figure.....

painter's remorse

ok, so.....i stained the upright and cross pieces of the deck.... all sides......which involved getting out the ladder and carefully holding the paint can in one hand while i leaned in and painted with the other.....clearly this side was never stained when the deck was built.....neither was the fence or gates.....or trellis..........but i digress from the remorse part.....i should have left my glasses in the house, and covered my hair, and drank more fluids....as now my hair smells of paint remover and i feels quite out-of-sorts.....and now that i have started in on the gate nearest the deck...the rest of of the fence looks wretched......and old and frail.......could be a long summer of staining

saturday and sunday

ok,so.....i got up early on saturday to plant the amethist mist heuchera plants that i have accumulated from the half-price tables of area road-side nurseries....12 in all.....in the space once-removed from the trellis rose....and then i cleaned up and drove to h-burg for the first annual books and arts festival to hear ed mclanahan read......holding my book-club (hard-back) copy of a natural man in hopes of a dedication.....enjoyed the reading from his newest work.....which included tales of high school basketball, courting of young women, and egg-tossing drive-bys......he did dedicate my book...to my eldest who knows him....and i bought the newest volume as a gift to my eldest as well......and then back by the plant-stand by the taco bell to buy their last remaining heucheras (6 of black currant) to put behind the deck......at half-price.....too hot to actually plant them soi watched wimbledon tennis, and then world cup soccer.....gentle readers......i have spent 25 years, give or take, watching children of varying ages play the game, and i have yet to recognize 'offsides' when it happens.....ah well.....but i digress from the heucheras....which have lovely burgundy foliage.....a pleasing contrast to the grey of our fence/deck and the silver of the lamb's ear....those that i planted by the trellis rose look out of place.....so i will move them elsewhere and figure out something else to place by the rose......my sunday morning was less ambitious...coffee on my terrace studying the lesson to teach, then a last-minute rush to water the beds before getting ready for church....i impulsively selected a little worn pair of strappy sandals, which broke when i stumbled on uneven pavement coming in from the parking lot.....i took them off and walked the rest of the way barefooted.....i suppose as god intended.....we are waiting for grandma to come home from church to eat lunch.....our youngest found her cell phone under her sofa, so she is not likley to call and let us know where she is....she so rarely goes to church that i never thought to make a plan with her for afterwards.....there is a sweet rain coming down now, with just a hint of thunder in the distance......a gift....as we cannot go out to stain the fence until it has dried......might try to take a nap in the downtime......

nightgown gardening.....

ok, so i got in an hour of weeding, trimming and other assorted garden maintenance chores before 8:00 am......i even tackled the task of staking up the shasta daisies, which have become so leggy as to fall backwards into surrounding plants.....all this work while still in my nightgown....and robe for a short time until it got too hot and too damp from the dew.......the downside of this weekend habit of come-as-i-am work is that i cannot wear the same nightclothes to bed, and my fingernails get pretty nasty for lack of gloves......the upside is that i get a lot done and still maintain the illusion of leisure......a woman who is still in her nightgown is technically lounging about.....and a working woman needs to have lounging about time.....

weary

ok, so.....the week really got away from me....in so many ways at so many levels.....dealing with my mother's decline has started to resemble a video game......just as i resolve an issue, another issue is revealed which takes the magnitude of the scenario to the next level......i have no hope that the shuttle will go off and the russian dolls will dance as they do when one wins at tetris......and i feel all the sadder for admitting that i feel no hope as we hit the three-week mark of the 'grandma takeover'.....i know that i am not the first and certainly not the last to struggle with this reality.....

ok, so we watched this quirky Dave Eggars film on netflix last night.....it is a sweet piece about a couple who search for the pefect place to raise the daughter they are expecting after they discover that the parents they have moved cross-country to be 'near' are moving to Belgium just before their first grandchild will be born......they visit friends/family in Phoneix/Tuscon, Madison, Toronto, and Miami before realizing where they really need to set down roots......I enjoyed the movie......cnanot say that others with me like the talk/talk sort of non-action film....

digging up daylilies

ok, so.....given that i was already hot and sweaty after my 5k walk this morning, i changed shoes and headed out to do battle with nature.....on this morning i chose to dig out the daylilies that had been between the privet hedge, now gone, and the limelight hydrangeas that are now the back-bed focal point......and when it was all over i had a huge bouquet of daylilies....a flower one does not usually consider for cut arrnagements.....but given that the bottom end of each plant was gone...might as well enjoy their single 'day' on my table.....

twenty-nine

ok, so......it just occured to me that tomorrow is a triple-dip day of sorts....sunday at the band festival, father's day, and our 29th anniversary.......which means that monday is our eldest's birthday.....he was just starting his cross-country bike trip this time last year.....this year he is getting ready for his rhine ride.....i do treasure all of the years we were able to celebrate birthdays together, but i suppose it is most important that we were together for the first.....

brass band 5k

ok, so.....i got up early and walked the brass band 5k.....out of nostalgia mostly....the race directors have been doing this event in some fashion for 12 years.....the first version being the montessori run for reading......all four of us did the event.....which was memorable as my best ever 5k time- just over 30 minutes.....a feat accomplished not out of fitness or competitiveness, but out of material protective instinct.....my youngest (at the time) child was jogging with me slowly through the green acres course when he decided that he wanted to go faster....and he took off in an outright run.......i can recall panicking over potential hazards, like 'would there be somebody at the intersections to make sure he doesn't get hit by a car' and i took off running to try to catch him......for the record, there was no catching him.......i thought of that episode this morning as a mother of five we know asked me if her little one could walk with me to the pavilion after i finished the course.....the mom called after us 'i just want to make sure somebody is with her when she crosses the road'......

commencement and closure

ok, so.....we are trying to get back to status quo after a very long weekend of commencement activities in New Jersey. We missed the P-Rade, which is a transitional activity between The Reunions and Commencement. This parade is a procession of classmembers, wearing their distinctive class beer jackets. Seems this year's event was led by a 105-year old member of the Class of 1920. Wow! Kinda wish we had been there, but we were driving the obligatory 13 hours from Ky at the time. Sunday's Baccalaureate was our first taste of the pomp that is Princeton graduation. The procession, led by a mace-bearer and gonfalons (residential college banners) filed solemnly into the Gothic-style chapel, which we watched from a remote location given the restrictive size of the chapel. Jeff Bezos, '86 spoke of choices and challenges. Next came the Class Day procession, whereupon the Class of 2010 filed into the Cannon Green wearing their own jacket (orange and black and white with 2010 across the back), and listened to several student speakers as well as Charles Gibson '65, who regretted skipping out on his own Class Day. We did not arrive in time to find seats in the shade, and ended up moving our chairs when the heat became offensive. Box lunches followed, then on to the departmental receptions. French and Italian had a relatively small graduating class, so the reception held in Rockefeller College's vaulted common room was intimate and convivial. Commencement festivities started early with the finding of the shadiest seats possible that still had a decent view of the dais. The salutorial address was given in Latin, with the text provided. Clearly, it is a testament to the caliber of Princeton professors that they laughed heartily at jokes in the presentation that alluded those of us who do not know this ancient language. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was on hand to receive an honorary degree, which was a special moment given her health, and the state of the current SCOTUS nomination. The president of the university gave the sermon, and then it was on to Forbes College (our child's residential college) for the actual presentation of the diploma. The reception was quite lavish with white table clothed tables under huge tents and a lovely champagne buffet lunch. Whew.......a three-day lovefest. The diploma is entirely in Latin, and the only words i recognize are his name, and Summa Cum Laude. We are so very proud. And thankful that his summer internship with the Princeton Community Garden project is manual rather than acedemic. A little downtime might be welcome after the rigors of the intense final semester. I hope that gardening's cerebral qualities will be healing and restorative.

Hyphen lower level

Ok,so......E. and i are hanging out in Air-conditioned Nirvana in Hyphen lower Level......Til 2:00 when we will Meet our Special graduate At the French reception in the Rockefeller Common Room.....Class day ceremony was enjoyed by two out of Three of us ....but i digress from the Events that we drive 13 hours to attend......i especially appreciate the old-ness of the buildings, the Awards,and the traditions......this is the 265th graduating Class....and i am in awe of the intense dedication to Learning that inspired it all.....

ok, so this from the mudflats blog from alaska.....

coffee

ok, so i was supposed to have the afternoon off to make up for travel time the next two days.....but early on it was clear that leaving early was neither prudent in terms of budget completion, nor politically correct given the last-minute tasks that would be left to others......and so i got home nearly an hour late....and dragged myself into the house with the starving cat and hyperactive dog.....and at some point after feeding the cat and dog..and strolling about my blooming roses......i smelled coffee......seems i had lasped into my morning routine of putting on the coffee, letting out the cat and dog while i walk to the mailbox for the newspaper..... and feeding the cat and dog when they come back inside.......omg.......i have too much going on to be senile at age 54........heavy sigh....and so i turned off the coffee after it brewed, with plans to simply heat it up just before i leave for an early meeting in frankfort......

ok, so this from the huffington post....

ok, so this from The Mudflats.....

up in the air....

ok, so....since i cannot remember the last time i blogged, i should be asking for both forgiveness and understanding....thanks.......we signed up for netflix this week.....a huge move for us in that we skipped cable and satellite entirely as media options......and since we have signed on we have only watched a single dvd- Up in the Air with George Clooney...more on George later......the best part about Netflix is the streaming.....I have watched 7 episodes of The Tudors, mostly walking on the treadmill.....wow!...despite the historical inaccuracies .....I have been enanamored of HVIII since PBS showed the Six Wives of Henry VIII in the 70's.......and after every viewed episode this week I feverishly research the accuracy....which has already been researched by Wikipedia.......saves time.....but I digress from George.....I am distressed that it was not George but the female lead who was un-truthful.....though she never actually lied about having a husband and children....she never corrected our assumption that she did not......and George seemed so very lonely as he flew off at the end......must focus on Henry VIII whose life is an open book and less open to fret............

James Joyce Pilgrimage

ok, so...Andrew and I walked nearly 9 miles round-trip through Zurich and up the mount overlooking the city to find James Joyce's grave and statue......maybe not quite as long as Bloom's circuit of Dublin but certainly an adventure....

easter with extended family

ok, so....i have enjoyed a lovely day with two of third cousins in Lassee....Gunther and Werner...and their spouses and children....19 in all.....brunch was eggs and meats and bread....afternoon was a jause (pronounced yow-sa) that was a buffet of desserts....they are loading up the table for round three.....looks like champagne......

bon voyage...

ok, so my plane leaves at noon...first leg to cincinnati...then to paris for a three hour layover between 6:00 am and 9:00 am.....will be lucky to find cafe creme available at that hour.....then on to vienna at 11:30 am....where upon andrew and assorted kindred are to meet and greet me....a few days in austria and then we travel to zurich....where we will pilgrimage to the grave of james joyce among other things.....a side trip to luzern and then on home.....lots to pack into a week.....nice to get away.....and it will be nicer to get back home to my blooming garden.....the redbuds are just coming out......

pruning

ok, so......i have unloaded 3 scoops of mulch in the past 8 days onto my weeded beds.....or mostly weeded....after a while one figures out how to smother the finer of the wild onions with mulch rather than taking the trouble to yank them out......i also dug out yet another section of daylilies and random perennials to make way for a line of shrubberies the variety yet to be determined....the phlox i transplanted...the daylilies are in the compost pile......my aim is go for more year-round interest, especially along the fence......thinking of boxwood, but then i already have oodles of boxwood....i have plenty of time to worry over the particulars when i get back from my trip.....maybe the gardens in vienna will be inspirational....after lunch today i took to pruning the city of york trellis rose.....lots of dead wood to cut away.....thankfully the rain came again just as o managed to cut away a length that was only mostly dead....yikes...i felt sick as i tossed the greening strand onto the pile....i did a practice packing run today as well.....pruning away this and that until i have only the really useful clothing in the carryon.....of course, the really useful clothing are the things i wear most days......and now that they are carefully arranged in the bag i will attempt to finish out the week wearing my least favorite clothing.....life is complicated, yes?

mulch and mayhem....

ok, so.....i took my mother to lunch at the red lobster in lexington today, before stops at j.beth to purchase a travel journal and tuesday morning.....and then home again....whereupon i traded out my car in her driveway for the truck...and drove over to h-burg where one can stil purchase bulk mulch....and a topiary alberta spruce that is delightfully twisted....the spruce is now in a pot on my newest terrace....the mulch....is spread over the spots closest to the truck......i calculate the need for at least 3 more truck-loads of mulch before the critical beds are done.....thankfully the whirlpool bathtub is there to negate any pain and suffering.....

another sandwich generation installment......

ok, so.....i tried to call my mother this morning, only to hear from the recorded message that her phone number had been temporarily disconnected.....and so i stomped up the street clutching my cell phone with the intention of finding the unpaid bill and getting her service re-upped.....and what i found was piles of mail beside each of her sitting places......as well as beside her bed and on her desk....and on the round table in the back room.....actual bills mixed in with scads and scads of solicitations to charities i have never heard of......and by the time the dust settled she had paid the 9 real bills and i had tossed three bags of junk mail.....i know that my mother gives to many of these groups through loyalty to my late father.....the Parkinson's people, the Alzheimer's people, numerous veterans groups and the heart association....the list goes on and on.....but it is also clear that she has gotten on so many lists that even the better groups seem like vultures........ah well....she is caught up for now and i must find a way to keep her that way.....

vivid details

ok, so.....i dreamed last that i was working again at the hospital, somehow attched to the kitchen, andf i was meeting with kithcen managers in an office with 2 doors that empited out into the same hallway. The first door opened into a tiny area just big enough for three people to sit with their backs to the wall and their knees to the low counter......the remainder of the office was essentially emty behind the counter....except for the boss who sat on the other side of the counter....i asked why we were squished into the smaller side of the room, and i was ignored......there were candy bowls on the counter.....wrapped cinnamon hard-candy but no little red-hots....and i clutched my belongings (purse, cell phone, coat) and asked if i was to have a desk and a place to hang my coat, and i was ignored....and handed a printout for doing inventory of the storeroom, but no pen, and when i asked for a pen i was ignored....another curious detail is that i do not remember smelling any cooking aromas.....and i asked why nobody was cooking for the next meal.....and was ignored.....

in the zone.....

ok, so......one my favorite places to be emotionally is in the travel-planning mode....whereupon all options are available for lining up sites to see and places to eat once the plane ticket has been purchased and sleeping arrangements made......this time around i have also added some serious clothing purchasing to the mix.....a chili pepper red nylon rain coat with hidable hood and zippered and snapped pockets as well as a black vest that has zippered pockets inside and out.....and to make sure the ensembles all matched i invested in a chili pepper red sweater set and a few classic longsleeve tshirts in white and black....oh yeah....and european-style long scarf to wrap and drape casually......i suppose with enough time i could have assembled the same sort of travel garb through the area goodwills.......but it was ever so much more fun to buy it all to match and to fit perfectly.....

senile senator

ok, so i took the time to contact senator bunning yesterday, about his foul language on the senate floor,m hius rude hand gestures and his blockage of the extension of unemployment benefits, citing deficit spending....seems in his dotage he has forgotten that he voted for 2 wars, medicare drug benefits and a host of pork projects,,,with deficit spending.....

a special thanks

ok, so a heart-felt thanks to Dixon Design for my new avatar, designed especially for my birthday. i think it is lovely.....

the silver- make that gold- lining....

ok, so i went to the dentist this morning to have a loose front filling replaced.....and when the dentist found that he could wiggle a back tooth with a gold crown i was a bit surprised.....this was a tooth that had given me no trouble whatsoever.....and to be loose.....yikes....my first thought was that i could have scurvy and my teeth were starting to fall out.....the xray confirmed that the tooth had to go.....and it was only after it was extracted that it was clear that the root had cracked and the tooth had died.....the anethesia is wearing off and i am fixing to take a little something for the pain.....i have to look on the bright side in this situation......the tooth lasted 30 years with that crown, and the gold in that crown is worth a whole lot more now than it was then......i lost the crown directly below this tooth a few years back....and i suppose i could look for the baggie that holds that bit of dental gold.....eventually i will have enough gold to make something nice, but i would rather have the teeth with intact crowns than the jewelry from the gold.....

the last of the mohicans

ok, so sometime around 3:00 am i woke up and could not get back to sleep because of sinus congestion....and for some unexplainable reason i could not get the film version of the last of the mohicans out of my head......i could not quite recall the story line, and could not recall why the younger sister throws herself off of a cliff.....and so today i looked it up on wikipedia......the next tiem this movie keeps me awake i will have a better shot at recalling the particulars...

hedging my (travel) bets....

ok, so after weeks of serious deliberation i have finally purchased a plane ticket......lex to cincinnati, cincinnati to paris, paris to vienna.......the return is zurich to atlanta, and atlanta to lex.....my theory being that terrorists have no reason to fly into CDG, and certainly no reason to fly to the USA out of Zurich where the bankers keep their terrorist dollars safe and sound....in between there will be an easter dinner with our austrian kin, a train trip, and a side trip to luzern......i btw...i have walked 60 minutes a day since december 12 to make sure i am up for the see-it-all tourist challenge....

from Mudflats....

ok, so i wish I had this refrigerator magnet....

103 degrees.....

ok, so when i got to my office at 9:00 am this morning...after our one-hour snow delay.....our ustairs offices were 103 degrees.....so much for the guy who spent all day friday 'fixing' our heating and cooling system by installing new thermostats......

rice milk

ok, so...today is valentine's day.....whereupon I remembered to buy my valentine a card weeks ago, but forgot to buy milk for his cereal at the grocery yesterday...thankfully there was a container of rice milk in the basement refrigerator bought wad the best intentions for a vegetarian child, but never used.......sometimes these things work out....i take the non-vegetarian son back to the airport this afternoon.....and this week plan to actually buy my ticket to visit him in austria.....the highlight of this adventure will be easter sunday with our austrian/german relatives.....descendants of my grandmother's 1st cousin.....the ticket i plan to buy involves an open-jaw....into vienna and out of zurich....with a train ride and a side trip to lucerne.....it is not venice but is a german-speaking country not yet visited by my german-speaking child....and that is good enough reason for this doting parent.....ah well..must figure out what to eat for breakfast that does not involve rice milk....

back to four at dinner.....

ok, so our eldest child has returned for a brief visit...he is interviewing for a TFA spot....sadly, TFA has no program spots in Ky....at least my boy will be living in this side of the atlantic.......he arrived at the airport in lexington wearing his xmas gift from our astrian family- a full lederhosen costome, complete with hat, knee socks and shoes......sadly, i had arrnaged for one of his Uk friends to pick him up.....his flight was delayed til near midnight.....so i missed the grand entrance.....he did wear it for lunch with grandma yesterday.......he really does look quite european in the get-up.....glad to have him home.....looking forward to visiting, though i cnanot decide on my itinerary and have not yet bought a ticket....

finding fault....

ok, so yesterday someone in my sundayschool class was lamenting the possibility that arts might be shaved from schooldays to make way for more physical activity, and this heinous change would be obama's fault......fault?......the fault is not with obama as much as it is with parents who find it easier to sit their children in front of televisions and computers and video games and let them eat highfat packaged snack foods rather than fix them meals that include vegetables and fruits and whole grains and play with them outside.....we are raising a generation of diabetic hypertensive heart patients.....who are projected to live shorter lives than their parents for the first time in recorded history.....and while this reality is tragic, we cannot blame a president who clearly exercises most days a week and encourages his wife and children to do the same.....and one who makes a point of eating fresh fruits and vegetables so his children will emulate him and do likewise......no, we cannot fault the president for this....

snow on table

ok, so.....a lovely overnight snowstorm.....a timely 48 hours of off-time.....an hour walk already taken.....life is good....

loading up the car....

ok, so......the long-awaited return to school begins shortly....after we stuff a semester's worth of stuff into a small car......

poetry panties....

ok, so at some point in my scattered dream sequence i was getting a massage, and a pair of sales clerks were showing me a line of panties that had lines of poetry covering the surface, handwrtitten with a quill, or so it seemed...the underwear were wrapped in cellophane, so i did not get a clear look at exactly what sort of poems were available.....i make otu that several sizes and colors were available......an amusing notion to lighten my monday morning doldrums.....

a carrot in front of my cart....

ok, so.....i am going to vienna over spring break......by myself.....to spend time with my eldest child and to meet our extended austrian family.....and now that this decision to travel has been made.....i am amusing myself with numerous scenarios...such as flying into vienna then taking a night train to venice midweek and flying home from there......i have also priced similar variations with prague and berlin.....i would feel much more comfortable with the german=speaking options if my child were to travel with me.......i suppose i could navigate venice on my own with my trusty rick steves guidebook......i am also toying with the possibility of traveling with my youngest to london over fall break.....with a chunnel trip to paris before heading home.......she and i have been to paris, but one can never spend too much time in paris.....to pay for this second trip in a single year i am further toying with the notion of teaching a 6-week summer version of my eku health class......sadly, this would mean teaching 3 nights a week for 6 weeks.....yikes.......i am thinking of 5:30-7:30 mtw......it would still be light out when i got home so i could conceivably keep up with my gardening chores.......then again, by late june i would have already finished the mulching and would have planted all of the annuals....so i could just sit amongst my flowers when i got home and relax.......but i digress from my spring break plans.....figuring out travel schemes is one of life's greater pleasures....

the day-off shopping circuit

ok, so......we dropped off 3 boxes of cast-offs at a nearby goodwill, then sifted through the cast-offs of others at a few area locations before arriving at orchid thai cafe in lexington for a lovely lunch of crispy spring roll and shrimp fried rice......ahhhh.....and then on to j-beth and wild foods.......where i spent far too much money on delights like yellow beets and pine nuts, and punjab simmering sauces amongst my selections......and though i had intended to stop at a few more goodwills and marshalls before heading back to town, i was suddenly exhausted and wishing i could take a nap......but after i got home i could not manage to fall asleep in the sunshine of my upstairs loveseat reading a magazine in a prone position....and i ambled back downstairs to make spinach and onion-stuffed wontons to go with the baked tofu and vegetable sushi rolls and vegetable dumplings.....also from whole oats....wish we had a trader joes instead of this wildoats/whole foods combo.....maybe one fine day...

the new steak house.....

ok, so....the running community (30 folks) decided to have its annual gathering at the new steak house.....which proved disasterous on so many levels......beginning with the band.....the band was decent enough, but it is hard to chat and catch up with folks over the sound of a harmonizing trio.....and then there was the service...or lack therte-of.....we arrived at 6:30....and by 8:50 pm the folks in my section had been served only drinks and salads......2 couples actually got up and left rather than continue to wait on food.......the waitress appeared unseasoned and only a few steps up from 'deer in the headlights'......the manager tried to comp our food....which is fine and dandy for everybody else, but it would have been unethical for my meal to be comped in a county where i regulate certain aspects of the business.....so i pulled out a twenty to cover my beer and my meal.....and tip.....the poor waitress needed something to show for her time....

the painted bathroom....

ok, so.....after 25 years of wallpaper in the upstairs bathroom we have finally finished and primed the wallboard and painted in a lovely honeydew melon shade......every time we took off old wallpaper we surveyed the walls and decided it was easier to paper over the imperfections than to fix them.....ah well.....so now that i have washed the 25 year old curtains i find that they have disintegrated in spots along the rod end.....and now it is time to make new curtains......thankfully there is fabric onhand that matches the walls enough to use without having to go out and buy more.....and at least one un-hung piece of art complements the new scheme......the only question now is whether to make the curtains using the old as a pattern, or do something new.....ah, to have so many choices.....

time trap versus blessed diversion

ok, so.....i spend far too much time trying to beat the bejeweled blitz scores of those with far quicker reflexes than me.....to the point that i hear the sound effects in my non-facebook moments......and while the time spent playing games could be far better spent elsewhere....it does serve to keep my mind off of the impending doom......

aging in place.....

ok, so on the way to work yesterday i heard a piece on npr about the 50th anniversary of sun city in arizona....a planned senior retirement community......and one of the issues covered in this piece was the need for such communities to expand from the original premise of these locations....such as a loosening of the minimum age restrictions.....seems more folks desire to 'age-in-place' in their current homes rather than to move to such communities because of these restrictions......i especially liek the notion of aging-in-place.....given that i intend to stay put in my own home until the bitter end....i really like where i live, and i like most of my home's features.....yeah, if i won the lottery i would install an AGA stove, and a greenhouse and a lap-pool......but other than these embellishments i think my house suits me just fine.....

happy new year...a day late

ok,so.....pictured is the group that ventured out from our house on nyday morning to walk/run...not pictured is our youngest child, who opted to be contrary by RIDING her BIKE in sub-20 degree weather.......i walked a single mile partly because i was juggling brunch items in the oven, but mostly because the windchill was far below my idea of a good time......but i digress from brunch....i got up at 6:30 am to make pineapple kuchen, a yeast-dough breakfast patry that my grandmother taught me to make......and so i slept in this morning til 8 to make up for not sleeping in yesterday......still glowing over OUS's Rose Bowl win......amen to small mercies.....