On the Road

July 15, 2009

Am at the Holiday Inn in Tonawanda, NY, right by Niagara Falls. This is actually the town where Al's mother was born 89 years ago. Left City Island at about 7:30A this morning and was here about 4PM. It really was a nice drive, not a lot of traffic until I got very close to here and the weather was beautiful.

A Holiday Inn is a Holiday Inn but all I am doing is sleeping and will be on my way in the morning.

Wireless internet access is great but I just can never figure out how to send email out. I can get it but I cannot send it out. I am sure it has something to do with some setting buried somewhere.

I also can't get images/pictures into this blog. Can download them and all but then it just shuts down.

Travel

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Leaving for Michigan tomorrow. Staying in Niagara Falls one night and then off to my sister's for one night. Up to Paradise, MI for two nights, Mackinaw City for one night. Back to my sister's to stay at her friends and take care of their dog for four nights and then back to my sister's for two nights, off to Syracuse for one night and back home. Who dreamt up this crazy trip? I called my brother-in-law today to try to figure out in my head about clothes. What was I thinking? I was asking someone who wears shorts outside in January to feed the deer?

One of these times when I go through Niagara Falls I may actually stop and look at the falls. I think the last time I saw them was when I got married in 1968 and we were driving through from Saginaw to Syracuse NY. Actually I may have been there once since then.

July 7, 2009

So many conflicting emotions about this man. Yet I sit here riveted to the TV watching the memorial service. Right now I would be happier if there was more music and fewer long winded speakers. This story is sooo far from over and we are only going to hear sadder and sadder things about all of it. Financial issues, court cases, his children, his family. I think we will see a lot of his final rehearsals for his comeback tour. So many pictures of him. Has anyone ever been so photographed as he has? Has anyone else ever had so very many different looks?

When I was a kid my family spent the week of the Fourth of July on Crooked Lake in Michigan where my grandparents had a summer home. Every year since then I find myself spending so much time thinking about those days. It was an idyllic time. We swam, ate outside, boated, watched fireworks. I don't remember a single bad thing about any of it except that I was afraid to go into the woods behind the house on the other side of the road. Sometimes I would be a big girl and walk about three feet into the scary woods.

Such a good, good book. Three more chapters. Just learned yesterday that this was Stieg Larsson's first book and that there are two more books written by him, may or may not be the same main characters, etc. This young man commited suicide after the third book was finished.

July 4, 2009

What a beautiful day! The weather was perfect and there were so many reminders of what a wonderful thing it is to be an American. Tonight there was a knock on my door and one of the neighbors invited me over for a barbecue. Another one of our neighbors joined us and we ate skirt steaks, broccoli and potato salad. Drank a lot of wine and had cake for desert. It was one of those evenings that just happened. Then about 9PM we started seeing fireworks going off all around us in the sky. It was amazing. I have never seen that many serious fireworks going off right here in the neighborhood.

Still a good book but I am only about half way through it. Have too many other things going on to read much.

I have wanted to knit or crochet a shawl for quite a while and I finally found a very pretty pattern and someone to make it for. I am thrilled so I bought yarn yesterday and started it today. It is going to be sooo pretty.