Oh, Canada!

I have way too much to say to enter Friday Fragments, but I'll have to read everyone's Frags when I get home and have time.

We have spent this week on the road. We visited with good friends in Troll-land where Good Guy taught school. That was a fun time catching up on all the news.

Then we left the country, via the Blue Water Bridge between Port Huron and Sarnia, Ontario, for several days of enjoying plays at Stratford, Ontario, and visiting with our good friend in London.

We saw Grapes of Wrath, Camelot, and The Homecoming. All of them were well acted, and beautifully staged and we enjoyed them. All were thought-provoking and have held up well over time.

We have experienced some unsettled weather. As we traveled on Monday we were warned of upcoming wind, cold, and raid. But mostly it held off until today, Friday. Today we had a rough crossing on the ferry to Manitoulin Island with all three predictions coming true. We were lucky with the rest of the week, though.

My baseball team begins post season play tonight meeting the Mighty Yankees. Que sera, sera.

I will post faithfully when we return home. Cross my heart. Thanks for dropping by.

Friday Fragments

I guess if I can't get my act together enough to post a proper cohesive entry, I must be a good candidate for entering Friday Fragments hosted by Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissin Time. Thanks Mrs. 4444.

I love the ads for the Venza, which feature the dull kids worrying about their parents who are out having fun. I especially love the daughter who moved away. " What are they doing? I'm their only child------except for my sister."

I have no idea why that cracks me up, but it makes me laugh out loud every time.

Do you remember the month you commented so I could send a goat via Heifer International? I get mail from them now telling stories of the livestock and the education Heifer International provides, plus the policy of having the donation paid forward to others. It is very heartening to me to read of the success stories. Part of the Kiva loan has been repaid already too.

Since no two economists seem to agree, I am happy there are grassroots movements to give help to people we will never meet. Our economic picture seems pretty bleak if you look at it from the point of view of the world scene.

I can not believe the number of people---even men I thought quite sensible, who sit all day in front of the TV watching the stock tickers. People!!! The stock market will do what it always does anyway. Fluctuate wildly! It's all a shell game. Go outside, take a walk, plant some bulbs. Get a life!

Our leaves are finally showing some lovely colors. As soon as it quits raining, I'll venture out with my camera. Note to self: Don't forget.

Another job I have to do today is find the travel alarm clock that begins to beep at midnight every night and continues for about a full minute. Not long enough to find it, in my groggy return to consciousness------just long enough to rouse me from a good dream.

I am excited and delighted that one of my kids is moving closer to where we live. We haven't lived near one another for a couple of decades. Now to the task of finding lodging that will accommodate her critters. Hmmm.

What cartoon character used to say, "That's all, Folks!" That's my message. thanks for the visit.

Ennui

I guess it's a good thing----when real life is way more interesting than virtual stuff. And that's where I am right now.

It's fall and many changes are afoot that aren't mine to share, so I don't have much to tell you about. Plus it's Fall (in 48 hours) and it's grand to be outside, rather than inside tapping away on a keyboard.

No commenting for charity this month, since many charitable "obligations" came due already this month.

Hoping for the best in blogland. Thought I'd better post something so you weren't worried about me.

Books, Books, and More Books

I spent the afternoon with my reading friends and I can officially report to you that we unanimously agree---and we do not encourage you to run out and read our latest book.

It is a good book, and it is well written, and thought provoking----and it even won a Pulitzer Prize.  However in our experience, we tended to nap during the middle of our reading sessions.  Unanimously.  

Shhhhh,  our book was Gideon by Marilynne Robinson.  It is a fictional memoir written by an elderly father to his son, who is a child.  It is not a page turner.  

Our next book will be "Cutting For Stone", which was highly recommended to me by a reader I respect very much.  (Stay tuned.)  Another feature of our afternoon was a nice book grab when our hostess found an armload of books for us to read for fun and then swap around.  

My library books this month and last have all been knitting and craft books.  I enjoy them but there isn't much plot.  I will fall far short of my goal of reading 100 books this year.  I can't claim to have "read" a book a sock patterns, for goodness sake. 

For once, Good Guy is way ahead of me in reading at 74 books already this year.  (But, on the other hand he hasn't knit anything at all!)

So, my dears, if you have any good recommendations for our reading group, don't hesitate to suggest them.  The worst I can do is ignore you, and the best I can do is love the book and hope everyone reads it!

Spending Time With the Shredder

Yesterday morning I tackled one of those jobs just slightly above oven cleaning on my hate to do list. Did you know that once you relegate papers to a file cabinet you are unlikely to ever look at them again?

Well, at some point the whole thing gets so crammed with stuff that you can't fit one more "dead papers" file in there, and somebody has to cull. (I'm not complaining that it will have to be me, but Good Guy would just go buy another file cabinet.)

So I situated myself in there with a mug of coffee and the shredder, and a timer and I shredded old check registers, and a couple hours worth of useless papers. I probably could devote another morning to going through the rest of the stuff. I got a little sidetracked in looking at old pictures I found, and reading letters from people no longer among us.

Gone, the warranties and directions to appliances long gone. Gone, duplicates of pamphlets of wise advise about retirement. Gone, old dental bills and insurance info from years ago.

Now I will feel that the job is completed when I drop off the bags of paper and shredded stuff at the paper recycling center. Indulge me with a pat on the back. Please.

(About the header------I fiddled around endlessly making a new collage, which turned out to be a tiny thing instead of a full across the top header. Back to the drawing board, or Photobucket, as the case may be.) I must be a very slow learner......

I'm Hopelessly in Love

This handsome creature is my new friend, Cooper, the Bernese Mountain Dog. They are bred to be handsome, sturdy, affectionate, good-natured, and gentle. And Large. Quite large.

He was one of the pack that Jane was tending at her house/dog sitting gig at her friend's house. He's also the youngest and most recent of her friend's dogs. He would wrestle with little Daisy, who's about the size of his head, and he was so gentle and sweet with her. When they were done "fighting" they'd lie side by side and his put his leg over her side and they'd take a nap.

We had great weather all weekend-----though somewhat warm, and I got to visit with my nephews and see their kids, and dogs, and hamsters, etc. So I had a grand visit, but headed back home this morning because I was missing Good Guy and the Fuzzies.

I missed you too, since I didn't have much chance to connect up and read what you've been up to. Are any of you having Blogger troubles? I got the question about why comments wouldn't post. I've never blocked anyone that I know of, and wondered if anyone is having the same issue.

That's all for now because the yarn arrived for Carole's Knit along, and it is seriously gorgeous! Thank you, Kim of the Woolen Rabbit. (I paid for it and am not receiving any remuneration. It is just plain beautiful and I can't wait to work with it.)

What did you think about the tributes on 9/11? I was very moved by almost all the remembrances I saw.

More tomorrow.

Friday Fragments

Fascinating (facetious) Friday Fragments. I was really going to call this collection by this title and then thought of all the typing to link it..... Nahhhhhh! No way.

But, if you would like to write down all stray snippets of this and that, and link up to Half Past Kissin' Time with them, you could do it too, by just clicking HERE.

This was a busy week for me beginning with a visit from my son and his family. Samuel is now taller than I. That's always a big milestone for kids to get "taller than dad" or taller than grandpa.

School started this week, so our morning walk is now 45 minutes later. We had one cool morning but the rest of the time we were almost too warm in sweatshirts. By the time we got back home, anyway. (Yes, I know that's a sentence fragment. I don't care.)

My nursing classmates reunion was great fun and good eats. We heard the exciting tale of Maria frightening a large bear away from her bird feeder using her voice and a fly swatter. Her husband told us this with a wry smile on his face. We aren't sure if she's brave or crazy. Sometimes they coexist, I suppose.

I finished a mitten and a prayer shawl, and am trying to decide what to bring along for the weekend with my sister. She's house and dog sitting and craves company so it's a good chance for us to hang out and talk. Her dog, Daisy got a short clip at the groomers and her skin spots are showing through. Jane said she looks like a dalmation (in the shape of a teddy bear.) Sound like a photo op to me.

And the NFL real season has begun. Woot! Talk about an offensive treat to watch those two teams last night!

Good Guy has golfed three days this week. It's hard for him to fit in the testing his doctor thinks he should have. I consider that a good sign. Let him get some exercise, doc.

Please go wander around and read other fragments. There are a great many interesting and funny folks there.

A Great Yarn

Once upon a time in a happy valley not far from here, there lived a sedentary grandmother who yearned to do kind deeds for others.

In her little home, she had every nook and cranny, every drawer and shelf crammed with yarn, and at every opportunity she purchased still more. "You never know..." she would intone, shaking her head wisely, as her husband would roll his eyes.

When she decided to join her friends at the prayer shawl ministry meeting, what should they present her with but a monstrous bag of yarn ? And she decided that "this time" she wanted to make something lacy and not just a long rectangular fringed thing.

(Behold the result. There is a crocheted loopy edge on the lower triangle edges which doesn't show until I wash and block it. I was just anxious to show you.)

Wordless Wednesday

Our Neighborhood

First off, I need to explain that we had frost warnings last night. This is quite a dramatic change from the 50 degree weather we have had most nights. And I was quite startled to hear the furnace running when I got up.

We have changed our time for walking from 7 AM to 7:45 AM, hoping to avoid the school buses. This morning by that time, the pea soup fog had turned into this romantic hazy stuff that you can see above. We could walk in our sweat shirts, with the hoods down because there wasn't any wind to speak of. I wore my fingerless mittens that I made last spring and the temperature was just right for them.

The big maple tree in the picture in the left hand corner is in the yard directly across from our living room. There are only a few yellow leaves on it now, but I will keep you up to date on its progress through the season. It is a lovely big tree, and I watched it from my hospital bed the first year we were here and I was healing from my fall.

There isn't much color to photograph in the neighborhood yet, but I promise to do it. Our hazy damp morning turned into a glorious sunny day in the 60's, perfect for golf and for the first day of school here. School, the surest sign of the changing seasons.

I finished a lacy prayer shawl today too. I'll tell you about that tomorrow. Tonight I need to start another project to take along to the reunion tomorrow. (Busy hands are happy hands. I need something to do, so I don't talk too much.)

I will get to do the driving tomorrow. We don't have a long journey, but we do need to carpool. One classmate and her husband are here from Sacramento, CA, and another is meeting us from about 15 miles west. After we meet we need to drive north for about an hour, but there's no traffic to speak of, so it's an easy drive.

And, of course, it goes without saying (like everyone else who drives a car), I'm an excellent driver. Isn't that funny? That everyone thinks they are an excellent driver? I'm actually just an ordinary driver, and I hate to drive in heavy traffic. So I'm a timid driver too, I suppose.

See you soon.

My Camera and I

I need to record the changing seasons with some records of what's what in our neighborhood. We have already had our morning walk today, and leaves are falling (a bit) but they aren't colorful or beautiful. They are brown and dried up because of our dry, hot summer weather.

My friends have changed their headers and it's months since I took the peaceful lake pictures that have been up all summer. In spite of carrying my camera all over Chicagoland, and while my son and his family were here yesterday, I have nothing to show you. Nothing. Nada.

We may have drawn some stares last night at the pizza joint when we were prepared for a long wait with a game of Uno, and a ditty bag of other games too. No impatient sighing for us! They warned us at the outset that our pizza would take 40 minutes, which was good of them. But that was no problem for us. Especially when I actually won a game!

I solemnly promise you, I will make the effort and get out to record some of the UP. Let me write that down. (I also need to clean out my car, since I have to drive to a nurses' reunion on Wednesday morning.)

For once, I have a busy week. Happy Labor Day. Take a rest today.

Friday and Home Again

I have only one subject today, and so I won't link up to my favorite party, Friday Fragments.

For we have just returned from Chicago's northern suburbs where we attended a wonderful concert at Ravinia , featuring Mandy Patinkin and Nathan Gunn.

Ravinia, for those of you who aren't in the know, is a beautiful acreage in Highland Park, which has an open air venue surrounded by picnic grounds, and people can watch concerts from the roofed area, or can picnic with their friends on the grounds and still hear the music.

You may know Mandy Patinkin from his long and distinguished career as a baritone on Broadway, or as one of the grim profilers on Criminal Minds on television. In person he is energetic, funny, and talks and sings Yiddish. His son was in the show, too.

I didn't know Nathan Gunn at all, but keep an ear out for him. He's got a voice well suited for opera, but lucky for him, his wife is his pianist. Because he is drop dead handsome and could have been mobbed by females----in a less sophisticated environment. He is really something special. Google him and see for yourself.

The Chicago weather was unseasonably HOT, but not too bad for the audience by evening. But the performers were really hot under the lights. Mandy put a bandana headband on to catch the sweat, but Nathan just kept on sweating in his suit. (I guess opera singers are used to sweating in those big fancy costumes.)

In addition to the concert, the other noteworthy event was the purchase of a new laptop. I have done everything I do online on this little Netbook for more than a year. The sound on my Skype doesn't work, and I want to be able to talk to my grands and have the sound work.

We did get lost a few times, but that is Good Guy's worry. We are safely home in good time and the Fuzzies are happy to see us. And we are happy to be home. 'Nuff said.

I will post this and add the totals for the charity of July and August to the top header. Thanks for commenting. We did great!

Happy Labor Day weekend!!!