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.

Two months and more....

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

One gets easily caught up in Twitter, Facebook, etc. and two people have asked me in the last few days what has happened to my blogging? Almost everyday I have had it on my list of "things to do today" and then it has been moved to the next day. That is what has happened to it, exactly.

It seems like there is a lot going on.

We had a visit from Uncle Nick. He was on his way to his summer "home" up on Cape Cod, passing through NY. It was good to have him here for five days and we managed to do quite a bit with him. Will see him again in October when he is on his way back to Florida.

Liz was in Utah for a week at the Best Friends Sanctuary volunteering to take care of the cats and dogs there. I admire her a lot for giving up her vacation time to do something like this. So many animals there and so very many with sad, sad stories. But now they are living in a wonderful place and it almost seems being adopted is a step back. Well, not really.

My yard is in good shape this summer. The hydrangeas

are particularly impressive right now. I was worried they were not going to make it, that I had perhaps pruned them too much but they are looking better than ever.

Let's see. Yankees vs. the Mariners tonight at the Stadium. Weather forecast calling for thunderstorms, hail, high winds. Hail? Hale? Why doesn't that seem right?

A good book. Started reading it and it was going slowly the first couple of chapters. Was going to quit--life's too short. But it definitely picked up after that and now I am enjoying it.

Have been spending hours and hours and hours writing a newsletter for the Shelter and a lot of people got a really bad email this time around so I am getting pretty beaten up for it. So little of it was my fault. Hey! What part of V-O-L-U-N-T-E-E-R don't you get?

Nick's friends

Sunday, April 19,2009
























OMG! Going for another world title? Most runs scored against in the history of MLB? the world? Same old story. They don't get paid enough.

Time to put away the Easter finery....



and get some yard work done....

Ooops!

April 18, 2009

About four or five years ago, my beautiful lilac tree had a serious mold/mildw problem-whichever it is that they get. So I pruned the hell out of it to let in more air and more light, etc, etc, etc. It totally took care of that problem. What I did notice was that since then it produce in inordinate amount of suckers. I religiously cut away the suckers, preferring to save the growing energy for the blooms, etc. and filling the bottom of the trees with lots more bushes. So this morning I was cutting away the suckers and it seemed that there were more than ever. So many more. I just kept cutting and cutting and cutting them away. I was about 2/3 done and I thought-gee.....where are the lilies of the valley? I guess I won't be seeing them this year.