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.....