Catch-up

May 1, 2008

Happy May Day! Happy Spring! There is no doubt it is spring even if it doesn't feel much like it. So many trees in bloom and the daffodils are already fading. The pansies went into the ground last week. Well, half of them did. I am hoping that as the coreopsis grows between the pansies and the sun, the life of the pansies will be longer.

It seems like blogging and keeping up to date on forums is a winter time activity. I have started working in the yard a couple of days a week, sneaking it in between the rainy days. Every day I say things like -I need to catch up on the blogging, I need to go look at the forum. I don't know where the time goes. I used to really think all those old crazy people were exaggerating when they said things like that.

There are lots of flower pictures in this blog but I just can't resist. Tis the season! This is one of the two pink lavender bushes I put in this year. I have never have had much luck with lavender but I will keep trying.

Ms. Sylvia has had a hard start to the spring and summer season. She is a kind of high strung dog to start with but when I open the windows when the weather is nice, she has a very hard time. We live in the flight path to LaGuardia airport and sometimes the planes fly over very frequently and sometimes very low. We are pretty used to it and don't even notice it until Ms. Sylvia is plastered to my leg or my lap, trembling like a leaf. It usually goes on for a couple of hours and is really sad to watch. It is the same thing during thunderstorms but that is very common in dogs and since thunderstorms are pretty time limited there is little to do about it. But the planes start at about 6A some days and are pretty intense for a couple of hours in the morning and then pick up again for about four hours in the afternoon/evening. Every day of the week. I talked to the vet about it this week and we are going to try her on a very low dose of Prozac for the summer. Yep, Prozac. We'll see how that goes. The idea is to take the edge off enough that although she hears them, they don't bother her and hopefully she will get used to that idea and we can just take her off the Prozac for good in the fall.

Nick and Janet's wedding plans seem to be moving right along. They are very organized and on top of it all. I am actually pretty excited about all of this because a lot family is coming for that week. It is going to be a nice wedding and I think a fun week for the people who are around. Nick is currently in Las Vegas for three nights with his six groomsmen for his bachelor party.

Dahlias. Probably my all time favorite flower. I have bought four this year and will probably get a couple more. Too bad they can't just stay in the ground and come back year after year. Every fall the tubers need to come out and be left to dry over the winter and be replanted. Most of the time I lose the tubers and have to buy new ones but sometimes one or two of them will survive.

The Yankees are rolling over and playing close to dead at the moment. They lost two games to the Tigers this week at the Stadium. We were there the first night and it was probably the coldest night I have ever been in the Stadium. It was a good time but it is always more fun when we win. I talked to a couple in front of us who were there with Zak, their seven month old son. Although it always seems like a crazy thing to bring kids, especially little, little kids, to a baseball game, he was as cute as he could be, playful, just watching everything going on around him or sleeping. Never a peep out of him. I assumed he was with his grandparents in their Michigan sweatshirts and Tiger baseball caps. Talk about Michigan (they're from Grand Rapids but live in Jersey now) was the conversation opener and I said something about how cute their grandson is. Like I'm not old enough to know never to say something that stupid. The father (who definitely is at least five years older than I am) looked shocked and introduced me to his wife. She was 45 if she was a year. Anyway, the baby was gorgeous.

Speaking of which, babies and all, I have made some progress on the baby blanket. Dave sent me the sonogram the other day. Ji is in the beginning of her second trimester and they are getting used to the idea now. It is amazing to see the guys slowly getting married and now starting a family although this is only the first baby in the group. So much fun. For those of you who can't tell, that is a baby chick. The life sweater has taken a serious back seat to this.

Have been reading "The Race" by Richard North Patterson. It is fiction and really a pretty good book. I am quite fascinated at how much an author can write as "fiction" without apparently crossing the line. It is about a presidential campaign. The main character in the story was a pilot in the Gulf War, crashed his plane and was held by the enemy and tortured. The only thing missing is that they are not calling him John McCain. There are two other men running from his party at this point. One an extremely conservative religious zealot. But the main character happens to be divorced and is now involved with a black movie actress. He has all the issues of the current campaign personalities in the book. It is pretty interesting, although fiction, and very scary how some of the things are done. I think what is scary is that most of it is probably true, how the process still works.

It was my hope that a lot of my flowers would be in bloom when everyone was here for the wedding. But it won't be the lilacs that are about half open now nor the lilies of the valley which will be open and gone before too long. But the yard does smell intoxicating at the moment between the two of them. The weather forecast is for about seven days of rain so I am guessing today is the last day to enjoy them in the yard.

Yesterday would have been this lady's 92nd birthday. A year later it is hard to believe how much I still miss her.