Summer so far

I've managed to partly clean out one closet and get the liquor out of the same closet and into a new liquor cabinet, but that's really about it for housework. Lots more to do. Lots.

But, I have spent quality time with friends and family, I've learned a lot more about facebook, I've crocheted some cute hats with flowers, I've read a book (not a very good one), I've caught up on New Yorkers, I've had lunch out frequently, and I've stayed up at night as late as I want to ... night after night.

Not a bad summer so far.

The picture is Indian Boundary lake where we swam last week. Great, except for the biting flies.

aging

this aging sucks. everybody i know has ailments, elderly parents to care for, or some other major problem. i need to play with the dog more, watch less news, and stop thinking about
the rough spots.

I saw this beer truck while waiting on a ferry on the Outer Banks of NC in March. I've never been to any islands in the Carribean so I'd never heard of this beer. At the next stop we found a store that had LOTS of beer on a 'wall of beer' so you could mix and match and make your own 6 pak. They had Carib, too. We bought a lot of beers from all over the world. This Carib was really good, too. And so colorful.

I got out of the habit of blogging regularly. Occasionally I would be driving and thinking about something and it would cross my mind that I should blog about it, but mostly life has been like most other peoples' lives...full of work work work and expending energy to relax from work work work. I've wasted a lot of time playing Breaking Bubbles on my pda, reading CNN and MSNBC, and recently watching Clean House. I've been engaged in little dramas at work, away from work and in semi-public, none of them especially fruitful or interesting.

One of the memorable experiences I've had in recent weeks was listening to the White Album (yes, the one by the Beatles) that everyone in the world has listened to many times but me. I was in a friends little truck, borrowed for the day, and was listening to the CD that was in the player. I was half asleep (and I wasn't even driving) and really got into the music. I didn't know who it was. After a few songs I had a clue that it might be the Beatles. I asked my husband, who confirmed it was the B's. He couldn't believe that I had never head the White Album. I've heard of it, seen the cover but didn't have a clue about the songs on it. I recognized many of them, but not all of them. I thought it was great. I felt a little out of step, like somebody's grandmaw who had never heard rock and roll, but then I thought that I was probably lucky. I heard the music for the first time. It was fresh and new to me. It wasn't THE WHITE ALBUM but a surprisingly good collection of songs. I felt like I had discovered something special. And the fact that everyone else discovered this many years ago didn't diminish my enjoyment one bit. it did take me aback a bit that the CD was actually the property of the 10 year old daughter of the truck's owner, who is really into the Beatles.

check out this website

www.grocerylists.org

Rhoda

This is Rhoda, the new dog. She's a real sweetie. This was taken a few days before we actually got to bring her home from the pound. She's been here for about 3 weeks now and is fitting in well. She's very playful and sociable and grateful for a family, and we're grateful for her. Dogs are wonderful things to have around.

xmas 2008

Here is one of the highlights of this holiday season...we took a ride on a fast boat down the river and back. It was very beautiful and exciting and surreal. It was a cloudy, foggy day but not too cold. We couldn't see the mountains well, but we did see lots of birds, including a bald eagle that we either saw twice, or two bald eagles (one going downriver, the other coming upriver). The black and white pictures I took look like something from the civil war era, which is apropro since where this shot was taken is exactly where a battle was fought during the civil war. Not hard to imagine, is it? I'm glad the holidays are over and now I can get on with my winter obsessions, which so far have included puppies, trailers, and blue purses.