To her: You look mahvelous!
And Her: It is only a curtsy (it could be worse).
And to she and he: Golly, we’re all so surprised.
My flight-attendant (egg-frying) friend has really good taste in candy. We gobbled this stuff up on Saturday. And guess what? Zero Points.
You saw how hot it was on the Tuesday afternoon drive through the city.
Well, it was crazy hot all weekend in Indiana, too. This is the thermometer on our kitchen porch. And this is the egg that my friend Maria (yes, a grownup) tried to fry on the blacktop. It didn’t actually fry, because — dur — we forgot the butter.
Writing from the road this afternoon. We are trying to get out of town, along with one million other people. I tried to take some photos of the holiday traffic, so you can feel sorry for us. But the photos never really looked as bad as reality, so scratch that. And then the temperature display caught my eye. Now there’s a photo to elicit some sympathy!
Oh dear, I didn’t mean to make you worry. Let’s set it to Celsius. Feel better? Me, too.
Have a safe and happy Fourth! See you Sunday, hopefully with some good stories.
I would like to think that my storytelling muscles are in fine shape, but the more I do this daily story-workout, the more I find that there are all kinds of new ways to flex and strengthen. Tonight, my husband asked if I would like to take this pile of stuff to the lake — or would I kindly like to find another place for it that is not under his feet on the patio.
There you go. A story. Shaped from a pile of rocks and shells.
These are geodes from a creek down in the “forks” of Kentucky. You can see some are open and full of quartz. Those are the ones we took from the creek to the roadside and threw ’em on the hardtop to crack ’em open and see what’s inside. The other ones are waiting for another day to hatch. The whelks are from Wilmington Beach, North Carolina. These bleached bones remind me every day — that’s not covered in snow — of my tar-heel roots and of my baby brother’s proud accomplishments as a marine scientist. (The four Virginias combed the beach while we were there for his graduation.)
The gray stones are from our honeymoon in Petoskey, Michigan. They’re not “real” Petoskey Stones, but they are stones from Petoskey. And I love ’em.
Bits ‘n’ pieces make me really happy.
Because we are going to the lake for the holiday weekend, we decided to stay home this weekend. And teach the boxwoods a lesson. They are out of control. It looks like crazy old people live here. But I just hate dragging around the big ol’ orange extension cord and the electric trimmer thingy. And Bill pretends he doesn’t know how to trim boxwoods. Riiiiight.
Oh look! Storm clouds! Yes! Drive me inside, where I will fix a bloody mary to read a book and listen to the rain!
Dang. The storm missed us. Boxwoods, prepare to…
But wait! What is going on next door? A wedding party! It turns out that our (new) lovely young neighbors had their American-style wedding yesterday, and their traditional Korean wedding was this morning. The after-party is in their back yard! Woo hoo!
Brrriiiiinnnggggg. Hello, this is the Governor. May I please speak with your boxwoods?
I took this afternoon off, to go to the races with Bill and some friends, but for the first time in about EVER it rained, and then it got muggy. So Bill and I decided to go check out a suburban Mariano’s instead. We’re getting one in our neighborhood, and it seems everyone in the world but us has been to one. And they’re all kinda born-again about them. But what the heck. Let’s take a field trip. At the very least, it is air-conditioned.
Mariano’s is nice. We got the hard-to-find farro that I was after, so that’s good. The bakery was full of children, so we ran away from there. There are a lot of cheeses in the world, and Mariano’s seems to have all of them. That’s cool. And then, the expedition took us into the middle aisles, where all the ethnic food is shelved.
And dontcha know, I lost my husband? But 11-year-old Billy was right there!
“Hee hee hee, look it!”
He was just so tickled by these cans in the “ethnic” British section, I just had to take a photo.
What is it about treacle that makes boys so silly?
Today was a good day, but it was not one to inspire an appropriate blog post. So I was just sort of tinking around in iPhoto to see if I had something to illustrate a nice, brief note to the world.
I found these three random photos of horseshoes that are hanging around in home and office and summer kitchen.
No wonder I am the luckiest girl in the world.
I think the recent bouts that my daughter and I had with Royal Wedding Fever and Diamond Jubilee Fever have weakened our immune systems. We have taken to the easy chairs in front of the television to catch prime-time qualifying events. We crave the sound of cowbells. And national anthems — any and all of them — weaken our knees.
Diagnosis: Early-Onset London Olympic Fever.
Just last night, we were talking about our Bucket Lists. On mine, really close to the top, are Have a Swimming Pool and Be a Blonde.
Guess what! Our next-door neighbor just came over to tell us they are putting in a swimming pool! Better than owning a pool is having a friend with a pool, right?
What do you think I should do first? Dye my hair? or drive the Zamboni?
ginnygram 