Winter Wonderland

Here in WV, this is the present Sandy left us Monday night.

As you can see, it was a mixed blessing; many trees continue to break as the icy wet snow burdens the branches that still have some of their leaves.  We hear "Snap"  and then "whoosh!" as they fall.  Daughter has more photos of this, I will post them later.  Meanwhile, I apologize for the bold text; for some reason I can't turn it off.

Hope everyone of you is safe and dry at home. And has power too.  So many who don't!

Aftermath

I'd send a photo to show all the debris and the pile in the bedroom of all the rescued computer room stuff, but it is all so depressing.  When we arranged for the upstairs bathroom to be remodeled, I thought there would be a certain amount of dust and yucky stuff in here, because the drop ceiling gives access to the plumping upstairs.  But I never anticipated that there would be a massive leak all night long where a copper joint didn't quite seal.  I think I have the room dried out (fans, high speed) to hopefully leave no mildew producing residue, and tomorrow I will start with the vacuum.  My favorite activity.

Meanwhile back at the ranch.. N lost his consulting  job as the agency ran out of funds; the contract runs to April, but without money that scarcely matters.  At least we had considered (and rejected) the purchase of a new car to replace the Lincoln, so we aren't on the hook for car payments.  And the bathroom job had money set aside in advance, and boy am I glad of that.  Anyway, in the end the chaos will be forgotten and the lovely bath, gutted now, will be the result.  Now if only the printer is OK...

I slipped and fell again; isn't it funny, whenever you fall, how you look around to be sure no one saw you being a clumsy  nerd,  as if someone will point and say, "what a doofus".  Anyway, I am fine for once, now if I can keep my feet from arguing where we are going (" this way!  No, THIS way!") I should be OK.

Time to return to bed.  Hope Hurricane Sandy zips out to sea and spares the east coast. but meanwhile I am thinking of my Florida BFF (hello!) and sending good thoughts for the meantime.  Also hugs.

Bumper sticker of the day:  "Where's Robin Hood when we need him?"

P.S. Did you notice there is no political content here?  I already voted but the emails and the TV ads still haven't stopped...
update:  the vacuum broke!

In Brief

We have had a new flood downstairs (plumbing) and it is all over the computer room, where the acoustic tile fell into the room.  I am writing this on husband's computer and he has this weird keyboard that I have to search for each key.  back soon.

Where has the Time Gone?

I have just been merrily poking my way through the weeks, never thinking of the poor neglected blog.  Still, if you have been following this for any time, you know that I sometimes post three times a week, and other times 3 times a month.  Or less...

In my defense I must remind  you that my computer died the death about 3 weeks ago, and I now have son's cast off computer (too slow for gaming).  It suits me fine, and he helped a ton with setting it up for me, but it runs Win 7 and not XP, so that has been taking me a while to master.  And then there were the files backed up, luckily, on a flash drive, that were really precious (photos mainly) that had to be exported once the program itself was installed.  Busy times.  I think I am good to go now.

So over the next few days I will catch up with all the blogs I love to read, and hopefully resume regular Programming.  As I mentioned before, I have been knitting, hand and machine style, but most of what I did I unraveled again as I was not pleased with the way it looked/fit.  Like a winter cap that two people could wear at the same time, if they are friends, I guess-- anyway, off it goes, and the yarn rewound for future use.  I only have over a hundred skeins of yarn on hand, and boy do I need a bigger closet.  But pretty yarn is so hard to resist.

The long anticipated remodeling of the upstairs bath is set to begin in two weeks or so.  We have bought a tub, cabinets-- sink, over the tank, medicine/mirror-- and the sink, counter top, toilet, towel bars, paper holder, shower rod, the list goes on and on.  All we need at this point is for the contractor to get going.   Both son and daughter, who use this bath, are dismayed that the bath will be unusable for two or three weeks once demolition of the old bath is under way.  They have been spoiled I think, by having three full baths in the house, and now they will have to come downstairs and use the master bath.  Horrors!

My thumb has healed, I am glad to say, just the odd twinge if I turn it just so.  If I can only stop tripping, I wouldn't have these problems.  Two left feet, like I said (below).  Now I have this nifty wrist brace just waiting for the next episode, which with my luck could be any day now.

Bumper sticker for the day:  "If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong."

Meme

I did this meme back in the '06 days, but I thought it would be interesting today. 
With some editing.

1) Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4.

"I've been talking to some people here at Houston.  We started re-evaluating the collision dynamics and trajectory when you found the core was hollow."

from In the Ocean of Night, by Gregory Benford.

 

2) Stretch your left arm out as far as you can and see what you touch.

An HP Officejet 6500. Ow.

3) What is the last thing you watched on TV?

NCIS

4) Without looking, guess what time it is.

6:30

5) Now look at the clock. What is the actual time?

6:25~~ Five minutes of Do Over!

6) With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?

A gurgling aquarium, the AC..

7) When did you last step outside? What were you doing?

About 3 hours ago, to hang throw rugs to dry.  No rain!!

8) Before you started this survey, what did you look at?

The Joy of Cooking.  Tasty stuff in there.

9) What are you wearing?

Brown sweatshirt, jeans and fuzzy slippers.  (such a fashionista).

10) Did you dream last night?

Yeah, something about losing my car in this huge parking lot.  Frustration dream, again.

11) When did you last laugh?

Reading some of my old blog posts.  Probably not too funny for anyone else..

12) What is on the walls of the room you are in?

Diplomas, a bulletin board, a photo of the old farmhouse.

13) Seen anything weird lately?

In West Virginia? No, do you think?

14) What do you think of this quiz?

It's an easy way to create a new post....

15) What is the last film you saw?

Cowboys and Aliens.  Harrison Ford, not so much, but Daniel Craig, rrrowl.

16) If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy?

I'd hire a full-time housekeeper. No, a cook. No, a chauffeur. An accountant?

17) Tell us something about you that we don't know.

I'm actually a famous star.  Or not.

18) If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what

would you do?

I'd have all the world leaders meet and thrash out their conflicts mano-a-mano, with dull

butter knives.

19) Do you like to dance?

Not at all. Two left feet. Maybe more.

20) What do you think of Obama?

I think she's terrific and so is her husband.

21) Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?

Draconia

22) Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?

Apeteryx (a wingless bird with hairy feathers). Just thinking of his first teacher struggling to pronounce it gives me the giggles.

23) Would you ever consider living abroad?

Nope. West Virginia is about as "other worldly" as I can manage.

24) What do you want God to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?

"You look great for your age!"

And not to forget the all important bumper sticker;  "Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?"

Uh-Oh

And now for a moment of silence OK that's long enough.  My computer died, not my fault, it just sat there humming and doing nothing.  We tried several ways to revive it, but in the end I got my son's old (nearly new) computer for the cost of a new HD.  It is one terrabyte, and I had less than 320 mbytes before.  Unfortunately although I had backed up (regularly) my main files, I didn't back up my favorites bookmarks.  Learn from my error and back your favorites up from time to time, you'll be glad you did at some point.  Anyway, I eventually remembered that my MacBook had mostly the same bookmarks, so I used a flash drive to transfer them here.  So!!  I still have all of your addresses, and don't have to wrack my brain to remember who was where.

We have closed the pool, although it is still warm enough to swim in (mostly), fishing out the the falling leaves just overwhelmed us.  I really miss it.  The broken thumb is pretty much mended, although my grip is still a little weak.  As part of the new computer I have a new keyboard, which does not have the letter "B" on the b key; instead it has a small red "b" in a circle, which puzzles me.  Any ideas?  The keyboard does not have all the extra buttons, CD drives, Internet shortcut keys, and so forth, so I have to stop and ponder how to do things that were so simple before.  But as I then had Win XP and now have Win 7, the connection of the USB as well as the extra functions were not compatible.  A term I have been seeing a good bit of, these last few days.  I used to use a little program called HP Image Zone to do a fast and simple touch up on my photos, it is incompatible too now, and I can't seem to find something similar.  I guess I will have to use Adobe Photo Ready, which is way more complicated.  Does anyone have a recommendation for a simple photo editing program? 

I did get out my knitting machine and knitted up some practice pieces.  I still want to learn to knit by hand, the local Michael's will have two classes in October so I will try that.  The first class is "Knit" and second one is "Purl", don't you think that is strange?  I can do both now, but I don't hold the yarn right and I keep dropping a needle (not just a stitch, the entire needle!).  The diagrams in the book are only so much help, at some point I need a real person to help me.

Bumper sticker for the day: "Computers do not damage your thinky thingy."

Worshiping at the porcelain throne...

Sigh.  If it isn't one thing it's another.  The orthopedic dr. allowed my thumb was cracked in two places and put on a black splint with lots of serious velcro straps.  Of course I can't do Anything so I leave it off a bit more often than the dr. intended.

Something has my tum all upset, And since I feel better sitting up I can post here, even at 2 am.  I think the worst is over, though.  Still munching on saltine crackers.

Meanwhile, we are waging the battle of the wisteria.  It is lovely, don't you think?  It blooms ferociously in early spring, the bees just love it, it smells nice,BUT BUT BUT nobody told us it is the flowering counterpart of Kudzu!  The main great mistake we made was planting it along the lattice work that surrounds the pool.  It is a climbing specie and boy does it ever climb.  All along the deck side, the deck walking area, it even invades the pool, growing under the lattice and up and over the coping of the pool.  When it grows on the lattice it fractures it as it forces vines thru the gaps in the lattice that thicken to the size of a man's arm.  It also reaches up and grows on the trees choking them and spreads,  even to tiny branches that are used to bootstrap to all the trees around it.  So it is chain saw and hedge trimmer time, and removing the vines wearing leather gloves because it has thorns.  My daughter says in biology it is listed as a noxious invading weed, Choking out other species and will regrow from the roots several seasons, so you have to keep cutting. Our big mistake...  My major was chemistry and medical technology; the hubby is sociology, what do we know about plants?  And the guys at Lowe's know next to nothing.  It sure looked nice...

The other thing I have been doing is trying to re-learn how to knit.  I made several things the last time I got into it, and I'd like to do so again.  But the thing is, all the big things, sweaters, any pattern other than stripes, I do on the knitting machine.  So fast, so even, so frustrating when it messes up.  But other than a pair of mittens, I have not made anything using hand needles.  It is really slow.  And having my thumb broken is not making things easy.

Well, onward and upward!

Bumper sticker for the day:  "Boobs!  Proof that men can focus on two things st once."

Imagination

I'm going to have to cultivate the habit of leaving my camera out, accessible, so I can get some neat pictures to post here.  Last night there were these incredible cloud formations, thunderheads lit from behind by the setting sun.  The view didn't last long, and of course I couldn't lay my hands on the camera until it was mostly gone.  So you have to use your imagination...

Friday I fell and landed hard in a parking lot.  Besides my dignity, I also damaged my right hand.  I waited until yesterday (Tuesday) to have it checked out, and the x-ray shows that I broke my thumb.  Now I sit here pecking away at the keyboard one key at a time.  And you should see me inching my trackball across a page, oh it's a wonder the screen will wait that long for me to click on something.  Next week I go to the ortho doctor to have it evaluated.  Meanwhile I am in a half-cast, I can at least remove it to shower.

All because I tripped.

Prior to my face plant, I have been trying to knit.  I once knitted a pair of mittens (which I soon lost) and a sweater (too small), well, actually I only knitted 2/3 of it and my friend, bless her, finished it for me.  She is gone now, but I have several things she made for me that I treasure.  Anyway, I seem to have forgotten how to knit, and have had to refer to a beginners book and try again.  However that will be on hold until the cast is off, since I can't even hold the needle, and I don't want to lose what I already have done (on a practice piece).  I unearthed my boxes of yarn and my! there is a lot of it.  Luckily it doesn't spoil!  And some of them are especially lovely.  I'll put some of them together so you can see.

Today I go see the oncologist for my 3 month check-up and a check of my liver enzymes to see that they are marching along in there as they should.  Also to ask if my dizziness has anything to do with the cancer treatment.  Probably not, but still good to ask.

Anyway, back to bed for a while.  Hope those of you who soldiered on with Hurricane Isaac blowing around are doing OK by now.  I remember what it is like to hunker down in the house and wait for the storm to pass, 19 years in Miami gave us a fair sampling.  My thoughts are with you.

Bumper sticker for the day:  "Incontinence Hotline...Can you hold, please?"

Migraine

This is going to be one of my shortest posts.  Migraine, heading for the dark and quiet place.

Bumper Sticker for the day:  "DUCK TAPE:  turning 'No!  No!' into 'MMPH!  MMPH!' since 1943."

Hair today goon tomorrow

As I sit here dieing (my hair) I am reminded of how long I've been doing this.  Decades, let's just leave it at that.  Why couldn't I have taken my mom's inheritance, she who didn't ever turn gray from her light blonde.  Instead I start going gray at 25.  I plucked them out back then, stopping when I realized I was making a bald spot.  Another swell thing about going old.

So when the doorbell rings by UPS with a package, and you are still in your nightie, do you answer the door?  That's what I thought.  Well I answered, but I was wearing a long T shirt, so hopefully not too obviously night wear.   Of course the UPS driver is also a friend and the owner of a black Newfoundland, about the same age as ours.  And probably he has seen everything in the course of his deliveries.  Got to get dressed earlier in the day, instead of just lolling around until noon.

When I was young, one of the most common things you would see is girls wearing hair rollers as they ran errands and so forth.  The wire mesh ones with a scratchy brush inserted in the roller.  No one thought much of it ~ this is before (and here I really show my age) blow driers.  The first time I had my hair blow dried I stopped on my way home and bought one, and when I got home I tossed all the rollers and my bouffant hair drier.  What a feeling of freedom.  Now I am sure there are none of those rollers left, outside of a movie prop room. 

I am going to start accumulating a list of all the things that I remember having that don't exist any more.  Things like pogo sticks (too dangerous) and pop beads (swallowing hazard) and chemistry sets (!!).  Some of them I can't think of why they are missing other than going out of style (like most board games) and weird stuff (like silly putty, or pet rocks, or chia heads).  Not that I want those things back, most are good riddance.  Just that it is interesting.

bumper sticker for the day:  "The older you get, the better you realize you were."

Lame post

I had a post half written when I realized that it was so dull, even I didn't want to read it.

And now I am stuck trying to write something that isn't just as lame as that one.

When my kids were little, a LOOONG time ago, I would read them a bedtime story.  Once in a while they would ask for a REAL story, one that I made up from scratch.  Pressure!!  So I did what any mother would do for her kids ~ I plagiarized!  After all, what are the odds they would read a similar story at day care?

So of course they DID recognize one of them and insisted that their mother had made it up herself.  Quick!  Salvage ttime ~ so I told them I must have read the story and then forgotten and used it myself.

But if I fob off my readers here you'll catch on right away, so I can't write some lame send-up about Paul Ryan, as much as I would like to.  So I'll just include a link to satire site The Onion. and you can read the article that says "Admit it, I scare the ever-loving s**t out of you, don't I?" by "Paul Ryan".
It says it all.

Bumper sticker "Originality is the art of concealing your sources."

Wordless Wednesday

Wishing you all "well"

Family

This, my friends, is my grandfather.  We never met ~ he died when I was 4 years old, but in all honesty I doubt we would have met had he lived another 35 years.  A bitter divorce and total disinterest together made him uncaring about his son and family.  We always sent Christmas cards, and got ones in return from his second wife, but when we sent word that Nana had died (in 1969), back came the reply from his stepdaughter that grandfather had passed in 1955, didn't we know?  The second wife had developed Alzheimer's and couldn't place who my dad was, or thought that she had sent word of his death at the time.  No mention of Dad as son, or my sister and me as granddaughters in his obituary.  So Dad lost his mother and his father at the same time.  He is buried at Gettysburg.

I am having trouble with my genealogy on this line, simply because there are so few players ~ and a name not sufficiently unusual to screen out similar sounding families.  Grandad was illegitimate, never acknowledged by a father, and as far as I have found, he had no other children himself.   So half of his antecedents are a mystery, and likely to remain so.  The ones that remain, on his mother's side of the family, suffers from the bane of all genealogists : given names that are repeated over in a family.  In this particular case, Josiah had a son John, who had a son Josiah, who had a son John and on and on, so there are only the dates, birth to death, to distinguish one from the other.  I bet their family reunions were hell.

Anyway, enough of that.  I've spent a fair amount of time cleaning house, I've really let it go too far over the last year and a half, I simply felt too bad through the chemo and the adjunct therapy.  But our house is our main asset, and we can't let things slide that need attention.  Hence the painting and so forth.  One project accomplished just seems to point out all the other projects left to do.  Oh, for a handyman to keep us from getting any further behind!  I mean, the hub is nearly 70 and I cringe when he goes up the ladder to clean gutters...

And how about the Olympics?  I cannot watch very much, I hate when an athlete flubs up, knowing how many grueling hours they had spent practicing, practicing just for this moment.  I want them all to do OK, and leave feeling they have done their very best, regardless of their score.  But more than that, I want them to smile, smile, showing us that all that work was worth it, medal or no medal...

Bumper sticker of the day:  "We have enough youth,  how about a fountain of smart?"

Here, at least, is why I have been busy these last two weeks.  A freshly painted porch, new flower bed, and a new front door (not shown) that is also just painted.  Also painted the back deck, upper porch, and cleaned the pool.  Loads of work!  Looks really good!

Drives me nuts

I promise I won't write about the weather.  OK?

I thought I had my genealogy stuff pretty well organized, and then I found an entire box of miscellaneous records for all 4 lines I am researching.  All scrambled together, wrinkled, staples coming loose, bad photocopies, now what do I do with them?  So I came in here and decided to ruminate on my blog.  Just like my subtitle, better living through denial.  Manana. I have found some stuff my dad would have been interested in, but I found it after he passed, it's been 10 years now.  I found that his dad Floyd, of whom very little is known due to an early and bitter divorce, is in fact illegitimate.  The family name is Floyd's mother's maiden name (is this too confusing?) and her name changed only after she married another man and Floyd went to live with his stepfather.  The mother was a housekeeper in 1850 for the family next door to her parents, a man of 30 with a wife and 3 small children.  It isn't hard to speculate as to who was the father of Floyd, but of course no records to prove this.  It is just interesting.

I have a friend who is also into genealogy.  Several years ago she discovered that her ancestor who was a Revolutionary war soldier of some status was black.  She just thought it was interesting and was glad that a good bit had been written about him and his 12 children, back in those days when WV was VA.  Her mother, however, was appalled, and insisted that my friend keep this as a secret.  I mean, what would she do with this information, go on Dr. Phil?  Anyway, the scoundrels and ne'er-do-wells are the interesting members of the families, as long as they are far enough in the past.  All of my ancestors were farmers, drat it.

I ran across my old report cards when I was sorting through old papers.  My mom kept everything, even a receipt for a spring for 25 cents.  Old cancelled checks from 60 years ago.  Everything.  Anyway, I read the "comments" part at the end of each grading period, and most all of them said that I started projects and then didn't complete them.  And I thought, what else is new?  I STILL do that.  Like that kiln sitting in my garage, all wired up and empty.  Or that guitar in my living room, tuned, but I can't play it with long fingernails.  Etc.  Anyway, I threw the report cards away, I don't want them and for sure the kids won't either.  I threw away a lot of stuff.

Today I mailed off three 3.5 inch floppy disks to a company that transfers them to a CD for $1.99 per disk.  It turns out that when N transferred these files to a CD back in the day, there was some error and the CD is blank.  There are only 4 jpg files on them, but no other way to get them, luckily I had kept the floppies.  I am my mother's daughter.  Hope it works.

Bumper sticker(s) for the day:  "Master of obsolete technology." and also "Grandmas ~ the original laptop."

It's actually Raining!

It is so lovely raining, just a light steady rain storm that is dumping significant water on our parched withered greenery.  The lawn, the shrubs, everything looks better (I don't want to think about the sprinkler we ran yesterday).  No one waters in this place, sprinklers sold are mostly for kids to play in, but everything looked so dry, we watered.  Of course it would rain today!

I have been working on my genealogy today.  I  ran through my notebook on the family, and I found that the last time I worked on it was 1995.  I had no idea it was so long ago, but the amount of information available online has increased exponentially.  I still need to go to the courthouse of certain WV counties to check land deeds, but N still has his consulting to do, so it will need to wait a while.  Less than 17 years, I hope.  My database has 2500 entries on Family Tree Maker so far and I am paranoid that I will lose it, tho it is backed up in several places.  There just isn't any way to print out hard copies for all of that, much less to enter it all again.

I just received the photos from our Hawaii trip, I had them printed at Walmart, for only 9 cents each ~ there were 147 of them.  I had no idea it was so cheap, it sure beats printing them out here.  The ink, and the paper, I bet they are 10 times as expensive, at least.

My son just bought a Kindle, that makes 5 for this family.  He went to Barnes and Nobel and couldn't find anything he wanted to read, so he decided to get a Kindle so he can browse online instead of standing in the aisle.  Have you ever noticed, when you are browsing at an actual bookstore, you cannot see the bottom two shelves unless you are hunkered down near the floor, crabbing your way along at knee height.  No doubt I've passed over lots of good choices over the years because my knees wouldn't take the stress.  My only complaint with the Kindle is that I spend way more on books than previously.  I read about a book per (laid-back) day, so even choosing among the 99 cent offerings it adds up.  I've read around 100 books on the Kindle so far.

Bumper sticker for the day:  "Honk if you think I'm a great driver!"

Losing weight

I've been on Weight Watchers before and lost around 30 pounds, but then I got the big C diagnosis, and dieting seemed like the last thing I needed to think about.  But now, the time has come to get back in the routine.  I haven't actually re-joined, since I have all the materials to just go on without the meetings.  I would have to drive to the meetings and driving is one thing I haven't mastered  yet.  I mean, I have driven since I was 16, in big cities like Miami, Memphis, San Francisco ~ so why do I find it so difficult now?  I try to force myself a little, because the psych. doc says I have to go beyond my comfort zone so that I won't, step by step, become completely house bound.  I feel a little that way even now, so I am working on it.  But weekly Weight Watcher meetings aren't going to happen anytime soon.

The heat has moderated a bit today, only in the 80s after the weekend of over 100.  All the lawns and trees are suffering from the lack of rain, although it did rain a little in the wee hours this morning.  I am anxious to hear how the hay crop has been, I'm sure there won't be a second cutting with the lack of rain, so will hay cost more?  How much more?  Another thing to worry about.  It's too bad that worry doesn't cause me to lose weight, you know?  I do so much of it.  Like, I wonder why crying isn't good for the complexion, all it does is make my nose red and my face all splotchy; not like in the movies when the heroine just quietly drips down her face.  Maybe they teach that in acting classes.  The only thing that I drip down my face is sweat...

Bumper sticker for the day:  "HERE I AM.  Now what are your other two wishes?"

It's HOT

We had to bring the dogs in from the barn today, it is too hot today and forecast to get even hotter as the day goes on.  They seem to be tired, just zonked out, probably because a panting dog doesn't pant while sleeping.  I lost a dog to heat stroke many years ago and I am wiser now than I was then. 

I got another book order through ABEbooks (see link on the right) and I am bummed because it is going to Australia and I lose money when I ship there.  Essentially I pay to have the book ordered.  This particular book is a paperback called Thin Air, a fictional story based loosely on an actual program during WWII called the Philadelphia Program.  In the book, the military are involved in a program to make ships disappear from radar and from sight, with devastating results.  It is an interesting story, although the book is pretty old.  The buyer is a bookstore in TAS, Australia, so I would guess it is a special order for a customer.  One who isn't clued up about out-of-print books and how to buy them directly.  At least it isn't a hardback, which is yet more expensive to ship.

Thanks to storms in the area, the 4th of July was pretty quiet here, so the dogs and horses weren't a total wreck the next day.  Now if only it would cool down, that would be fantastic.  The horses can sweat in the heat, unlike the dogs, so as long as there is plenty of water available they do OK.  We go out and top off their buckets at midday, just to be sure they are drinking.  It's pretty rare that horses that are at rest have problems with the heat.  Knock on wood.  After all these years of owning horses (37 and counting) it is still remarkable how much work is involved with it ~ and this is without actually riding, which my knees and hips prohibit.  Not even taking into account the geriatric horses (21 years and counting ).  They were born here, and other than sending them off to be broke to ride as youngsters, they have always been here.  And spoiled by the easy life.

Bumper sticker for the day: "Help stamp out and eradicate superfluous redundancy ."

Happy July 4th ~ Wordless Wednesday

Almost the 4th of July

The weather here, like nearly everywhere on the eastern half of the country, has been brutally hot for this time of year, making everyone dread the really hot month of August.  We opened the pool this year ~ last year we were too distracted with the chemo, etc., and it was a horrible black gloppy mess.  It is all clean and shiny, better living through modern chemistry, as was said decades ago.  And boy does it feel good, especially after working on the deck and mowing the grass (and weeds).  The grass is very dry and we need rain ~ just not the kind of rain we had Friday night, when the huge storm front went through and toppled tress and power lines and left thousands without power even now.  Luckily we had flickering and one brief outage, and the trees that fell didn't hit anything, although the pool had a huge branch fall into it.  I've never seen lightning like that night, one continuous peal of thunder and the entire sky lit up for 10 or 15 minutes.  I was sure the dining room windows were going to be smashed, and what would we have blocked them up with?  Locally there is not a generator to be had, and supplies of bottled water and camping stoves are depleted too. 

Tomorrow will be hard on the horses and the dogs, who do not appreciate fireworks.  We will leave them all in the barn for the whole day, so they don't panic and run through the fence.  I don't appreciate fireworks either, come to think of it.

I spent an hour this morning looking for the thumb drive that I used to back up all my important files, only to find it right in plain sight, with a post-it stuck to it listing the files.  So frustrating!  My desk is a mess, I have way too much stuff.  A lot of it is stuff that I had on my desk at work, memo cubes and such, that I feel attached to for some bizarre reason.  Heaven forbid I throw anything away...

I just heard of the death of Andy Griffin.  The last thing I saw him in was the video with Brad Paisley, "Waitin' on a Woman" , a bittersweet song.  He was 86.  I'm old enough to remember the Mayberry show the first time it was on...


Bumper sticker for the day:  "I don't exercise; it makes my coffee spill."