It's A New Day

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

We spent the evening last night "root, root, rooting" for the home team. It was a new experience for us as this is the first year for the Blue Wahoos, a Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. Not that it mattered to me that the team was new...I don't follow baseball so all the players would have been new to me even if they had played here for several years.

The "new" I wanted to see was the stadium. And it's pretty awesome. It's not big...only seats 5,000...but that's good because everyone is close to the action. And let's face it, I'm not the only one who doesn't follow baseball. In this community, 10,000 people will show up for a high school football game but a professional baseball team won't draw that nearly that crowd. The town is, however, filling up the stadium at this point in time. Ticket prices are reasonable...less than $10...so we saw plenty of families out enjoying America's favorite past time.

Our friend Hiram had been given four tickets in connection with a golf tournament hosted by the course and they were for the party deck. As you can see, it's along the right field line...not exactly the best spot for catching action at the plate but we had an excellent vantage point when the right fielder had to make a play on a deep fly ball at the warning track and throw to second to keep the runner from advancing.

Seating in this area is tables and chairs instead of stadium seats which is kind of nice as you can move them around for a better view. And it's called the party deck because they serve free food. Well, free is probably a misnomer as whoever reserved the deck clearly paid for it but the wristband that comes with the ticket allows you to eat and drink with no cash outlay. Wayne snapped this photo of Hiram chowing down on a giant hamburger, potato salad, and fruit with cookies and brownies in the background. Why is that photo-worthy? The four of us went out to dinner before we went to the ballpark. That's Hiram, what can I say.

Bonnie and I, on the other hand, just chilled. We watched a little baseball but did a whole lot more people-watching. And, of course, carried on a good bit of conversation. It was a perfect evening for being outside.

I wish I'd thought to go take a photo from this angle before darkness descended as the ballpark is right down on the water. It's one element in a larger community park that is basically a giant square of land protruding out into Pensacola Bay. That means not only lovely breezes coming in off the water to keep you cool but also a spectacular view. Last night one of the big oil platform repair ships was docked out on beyond that light pole and with all the lights twinkling on it's many cranes and derricks, it was really pretty.

That guy on second base in the photo above made it home when the batter hit the ball over the left field fence, one of two home runs we saw last night. Unfortunately, the Blue Wahoos were in white and they only saw home plate when they came to bat. Still, it was a fun night out. I didn't have any peanuts or crackerjacks but I'm ready to go again.

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'

Allow me to introduce you to the newest instrument of torture accessory in my yoga class. It may look like a giant piece of styrofoam into which you could stick artifical flowers and the like to craft some tall, round centerpiece but trust me, you can't. It's hard as a rock; no floral pick is going to penetrate that baby.

It's a foam roller, a piece of equipment that's crossed over from rehab training into fitness workouts because it's lightweight, versatile and inexpensive, relatively speaking. Mine came from Target and it's about 24" long and 6" in diameter but they come in longer sizes too. Given that I'm a rule-follower, I got one exactly like the instructor held up when she asked us to start bringing them to class.

And what do we do with them, you ask? She took it pretty easy on us the first class but I don't think that's going to last. We laid on them and rolled back and forth, first with it in our lower back then down on our glutes, progressively working our way over to our hip. You put your body weight on the roller then use your arms to roll yourself back and forth. It's a cheap form of deep-tissue massage that hurts but in a good way and your arms get a workout to boot. Since this came at the end of the class, my complaining body was glad to have a rubdown even if it did have to work a little to get it. In fact, I used it again after I got home to soothe my quads and glutes after four miles on the treadmill after class.

That massage-thing is just the beginning though. One glance at the box my roller came in tells me it won't be long before we'll be sitting on for core work. Unstable surfaces just make the muscles in your stomach and back work that much harder so I see sit-ups balanced on the roller in my future. And she's bound to know a way to work it into our stretches as well. I like the massage idea...the rest I'm not so sure about.

Let's Get Excited!

Is it just me or have the summer blahs struck earlier than usual this year? Right now this blog seems a fair representation of my life...yawn-inducing.

Debby flirted with us then turned her back and headed east, leaving us without so much as a drop of rain. Apparently she was saving it all for the rest of the state because they're inundated.  She did make for some dramatic pictures of the surf at the beach, however.

And I took advantage of the cloud cover and hefty breezes associated with the storm to work in the flower bed on Sunday. Good thing as this week's forecast for upper 90's makes it unlikely I'll be out there again for a while. Throw in our good ol' Florida humidity and the heat index with rival all my family members who are enduring temps over 100 degrees. Now if I could just figure out how to get the yard mowed without having to leave the house....

One other chore I managed to complete outside was replacing one of the sprinkler heads. The rule held true: No home repair project can be done with just one trip to the home improvement store. In this case it was two. In my defense, however, they've quit selling the sprinkler head we've always bought so I was thrown by the new options.

The main topic of research and conversation in our house of late is the merits/drawbacks of annuities and long term care policies. Yes, indeedy...life is sure exciting here but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. Or at least evaluate it.

We're suffering from a case of vacation-envy. Our friends Hiram and Bonnie are about to head west, stopping at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and several of the National Parks in Utah. While it's been fun to help them plan and listen to their excitement, it makes us wish we were going too. We even dug out of the scrapbook of our first big trip there in 2001. It was fun to re-live those memories. And if someone could tell me where my creativity is hiding, I might make a few layouts of some other trips we've enjoyed since no new ones are on the immediate horizon.

Yes, the blahs have struck. I think I need a marching band, a squad of cheerleaders or a Model-T full of clowns, complete with horns and water-spraying fake flowers, to come in and create a little excitement around here. Heck, it just might take all three.

'Round and 'Round She Goes; Where She Stops, Nobody Knows

Most people think there are only four seasons in a year. Those of us who live in coastal areas, however, know that there are five. And that fifth season most people don't get to enjoy? Why, it's hurricane season, and it runs from June 1 to November 30.

Needless to say, it's not my favorite season of the year but when you live here, you learn to accept it...just like those who live in northern climes learn to accept, and maybe even enjoy, snowstorms. I know more than I ever expected about weather patterns in Africa, the temperature of the Gulf and wind shear. It's the time of the year when one ear is always tuned to the nightly weather forecast no matter how busy life seems to be otherwise. And even though we're less than a month into this season, it's already one for the record books. With Debby, we have the fourth named storm of the year.

The one good thing about tropical storms and the hurricanes they may eventually become is we get plenty of warning, unlike the tornadoes in Kansas that dropped down out of the sky one minute and disappeared back into it the next. For the most part, tropical systems are plodders, creeping their way across the water towards their date with the shore.

Debby, it seems, is playing hard to get. Not only is she essentially stalled out in the Gulf as I write this, she's confounding all the experts trying to guess where she's likely to go. This morning the National Hurricane Center was predicting a path that took her ashore in Louisiana; tonight they're saying Florida, about 100 miles east of here. I don't think I've ever seen the NHC describe a storm's path as "meandering." Maybe that's why hurricanes used to always have women's names; they seem to have a mind of their own.

And while this storm isn't strong enough to merit constant attention, it has been entertaining to watch the forecasts yesterday and today. Our local television station uses multiple computer models to predict where a named storm is likely to go and the graphic on tonight's news looked like this:

Each of those eight colored lines represents a different model with the yellow line being the one on which the National Hurricane Center relies. It's hard to get very excited about it coming your way when there are plenty of good reasons to believe it's going elsewhere. I wish I had copied the map from last night's weather; it really looked like a bowl of spaghetti with the lines going every which way.

I have my own theory: The storm will be wherever Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel is and, unfortunately, that was Pensacola Beach this morning. Don't get me wrong...I like Jim Cantore, and it's fine for  him to stand on our pretty white sand beaches and talk about how high the waves are today. But tomorrow...I'm hoping he'll be broadcasting from on down the coast, maybe Panama City. But if the forecasters are right, Debby may take a day or two to decide exactly where she is going to go.

I Came. I Saw. I Barely Remember.

When I was in high school (those many years ago), we didn't have a lot of options in terms of foreign languages. It was Spanish or Latin. In fairness, there wasn't the emphasis on a foreign language that there is today so even enrolling in one of these classes was optional. And if you were planning on college, you were encouraged to choose Latin since so many of our English words have their roots in Latin ones.

Latin was taught by Vera Newcomer, a very nice lady but one who seemed as if she might have been a contemporary of Julius Caesar himself. I'd probably be mortified to know her real age given mine now but she was definitely grandmotherly. Mostly I remember her constantly fishing through the neck of her dress for some errant bra or slip strap that had escaped her shoulder and ran down her arm. That didn't, however, stop me from enjoying Latin enough to enroll for a second year.

Mrs. Newcomer didn't exactly make the dead language come alive but I did learn a good bit about the foundation of words which was, of course, the whole purpose in taking it. Beyond that...not so much. I often say that I only have so much storage space in my brain and when something new comes in, something old has to go out. And most of the Latin was gone long ago. I do remember from the translation of Julius Caesar's writings that the whole of Gaul is divided into three parts and veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, I conquered), both of which have little practical application.

Tonight though I was able to put something I learned in Latin class to immediate use. Clue 57 Down in the evening's crossword puzzle: Amo, amas, ______. That's quite possibly the very first thing we learned in Latin I...to conjugate the verb love.

Amo: I love; amas: you love; amat: he, she or it loves; amamus: we love; amatis: you (plural) love; amant: they love.

With memories of that third-floor classroom, bouffant hairdos and sock hops flooding my memories, I filled in those four little squares. So thanks, Vera Newcomer...who knew I'd be using what you taught all these years later.

Hard Times

The email was simple...really nothing more than a subject line and a link.
     Subject: Want to get up early?
     Link: This website

Now those who know me very well wouldn't expect me to be the author; after all, I'm the one who thinks if people were meant to pop out of bed, we'd all live in toasters. I'm the last person you'd expect to suggest getting up early. And it's not just early, it's REAL EARLY. Like o'dark thirty early. But I've always wanted to see a bunch of hot air balloons float off into the sky, and if that happens at 6am, well, I'm going to have to get up early to do it.

And early it was, 4am to be exact, when the alarm went off and we rolled out of bed. Fifteen minutes later we were in the car headed to Foley, a small town just across the Alabama line. The passing miles were punctuated by a gradual lightening in the east and Wayne's numerous comments about how he couldn't believe I was really up at that hour of the day...voluntarily. That's OK; it wasn't the first time he's given me a hard time.

Finding the launch site was easy...we just followed the line of cars. We parked and then trooped across a muddy soccer field to a collection of tents with people milling around. There was just one problem: There weren't any balloons. They need the winds to be less than 5mph in order to safely inflate the balloons and Mother Nature wasn't cooperating. And the direction could have been an issue too as Foley isn't far from the coast. Balloons floating out over the Gulf might be a lovely sight to look at but if you're in the balloon with no way to get back to shore.

So we hiked back to the car and drove home. All total, it was 90 minutes over, 15 minutes there, and 90 minutes back home. There were other activities later in the day at the festival but not for quite a while and it just didn't seem to make sense to stay. We were back home before I normally get out of bed, a fact that did not escape my better half.

You can imagine the hard time our friends gave me when they found out I had arisen well before the sun came up. Some questioned if I was ill and even our oldest son said he was reluctant to call on Sunday afternoon because he figured I was still sleeping to make up for it. My shoulders are broad; I can take their hard time.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning. As is often the case, Wayne hit the snooze alarm on the clock radio a couple of times, claiming a few extra minutes of sleep before getting up for his regular round of golf. As he finally pulled himself out from under the covers, he thought it seemed awfully dark for 6am. Was it raining? Nope...he'd forgotten to reset the alarm and he was up at 4am. We're retired so we don't need an alarm all that often and it stays set at 6am. Well, unless there's a reason to get up earlier, that is. He'd forgotten all about our Saturday morning adventure by the time he turned the alarm on on Monday night.

Guess who's getting the hard time now?

Summer Dining

Here we are already at the longest day of the year. Yes, I know...it has 24 hours just like every other day; it's only the amount of daylight that's longer. Oh, if only we really could make some days longer than others. I don't know about you but I could use a few extra hours to finish up my ironing or to do something crafty. But I digress.

While the temperatures and the attitude have screamed Summer! for weeks now, the season officially makes its debut for good ol' twenty-twelve. I'm ready for refreshing swims in the pool (there have been a few) or a baseball game at the new stadium (we keep saying we're going). Most of all, I'm excited about summer dining.

We had a taste of it just the other evening. It was hamburger patties smothered in peppers and onions and grilled yellow squash fresh from Tom's garden. The meal also included fresh corn on the cob although we didn't grill it. We have and it's good but we were in the mood for it fixed the traditional way, and boy, was it good. I even had some cucumbers and onions in a little vinegar, also from Tom's garden...took me right back to my childhood dinner table as my mother used to fix them that way. I ate way too much but loved every bite of it.

And last night we had Mexican food complete with jalapeno poppers with peppers right out of my own garden. It took almost every one that was on my plant as it isn't very big yet but they were delicious. If I do them again soon, I'll have to buy jalapenos.

It's the time of the year when I could happily be a vegetarian because there are so many good choices. Our stop at the vegetable stand last Saturday yielded juicy red tomatoes, fat green beans, sweet Vidalia onions, tiny little new red potatoes and the prettiest red and green bell peppers. And don't get me started on the cherries we're enjoying every day at lunch.

Yes, it's prime time for fresh fruits and vegetables and that's a good thing. I like the soups and warm comfort foods of winter but summer dining has to be my favorite.

Fields of Gold

Despite the fact that Wayne's old boss used to call me a farm girl from Kansas, I was raised in the city, albeit a small one. That said, you don't have to grow up on the farm to feel a connection to it. Wayne and I both had grandparents who farmed in their younger days, and even though it was part of a very nice subdivision, the last house we lived in before moving to Florida was right next to a wheat field. Agriculture is just an integral part of the culture of Kansas.

So we're tuned in to the state of the wheat crop when we travel back to Kansas...the lush green fields filled with grazing cattle in the early spring, the white-gold waves that seem to ebb and flow in the summer breezes, and the almost-sweet smell of the scorched earth where it's been burned after harvest. And while we'd never time a trip just to see the harvest, we're always hopeful we will when we visit in early summer. Usually we're too early or too late, or it's rained and the wheat needs to dry out before it can be cut.

And I thought that's how it was going to be this year as we drove through Texas and Oklahoma where the wheat had already been cut. A mild winter and warm spring made for an early harvest and as we rolled into Kansas, it appeared the combines had already done their job there too.

But we got lucky.

Many of the fields were already cut but as we cruised down the highway heading to Springfield, we spotted this crew hard at work in Dennis, Kansas. Actually, we knew they were cutting well before we saw the combines as we could see the clouds of dust in the distance.

This particular field was sort of L-shaped and I took the photo as the combine was working the short leg of it. As he'd reach the end of a row, he'd lift the blades then make a three-quarter circle so he could start cutting at 90 degrees. While it required a bit more maneuvering, it meant he didn't miss any shafts of wheat on the corners.

It was cool to stand so close to the combine as it began its march this direction through the stand of wheat. Straw rains out the back, falling into amazingly neat rows that will be baled at a later date. The whole process is dusty and dirty but the driver doesn't seem to mind; he's sitting in an air-conditioned cab.

There were two combines working this wheat field, likely a hired crew. They were like two turtles, lumbering slowly through the golden grain but it's not a process than can be rushed.

Who knows how long it may be before we time our trip to Kansas to coincide with the wheat harvest but not-a-farm girl certainly enjoyed the fact that we were there at the right time this year.

History, Old And New

We spent the last two days of our trip in Springfield, Missouri, sharing old memories and making new ones with our friends Tom and Durlene. We tried at one point to nail down just how long we've known one another and gave up, concluding it was in the neighborhood of 43 years. We were fast friends when we all lived in Wichita then we moved and they moved, so it's been nice to connect again. And the good thing about dear friends is it's easy to pick up right where we left off all those years ago.

Just outside Springfield is the Wilson's Creek National Battlefield, site of the second major battle of the Civil War and the first one west of the Mississippi, and we spent a few hours taking in this historic site. Between the short film at the visitor center and the terrain of the well-preserved park, it was easy to step back in history and imagine the events of August 10, 1861, when so many lives were lost.

When the ranger in the Visitor Center was explaining all it had to offer, he mentioned the fact that there was a large library where visitors could look for ancestors who had been in the Civil War, so after watching the film, we headed there. A really nice young man who worked as a volunteer in the library dazzled us with his ability to track down information quickly on Wayne's great-great-grandfather, Martin Vaught, who we knew had served during the Civil War from Kansas. As it turned out, he wasn't at Wilson's Creek but had chased one of the Confederate generals and his troops from Kansas at another time.

The exciting part, however, was that Martin was in the 5th Kansas Regiment and this volunteer had been working on documents relating to that very regiment before we walked in the door. Spread on his desk were neatly-written letters sent home by a commanding officer of one of the troops in the regiment as well as other documents relating to the unit. The volunteer had been scanning them so the digital image would be available for researchers. Seeing these frail, old documents in such a historic setting was amazing in itself but it was almost eerie given we were looking for information on a soldier who had served in that regiment. The volunteer was ecstatic; it was like history came to life for him.

The Springfield area was also home to some of my mother's ancestors and I was hoping to track down something on my own great-great-grandfather, Thomas Hedrick, about whom I know very little. Durlene, who used to work in county government, fixed me up with the head of the Archives there who was as dazzling at his knowledge of records and resources as the volunteer at the National Park. We didn't come up with much on Thomas but he did give me a few ideas of where else to look as well as some more info on Nancy Logan Hedrick's family.

You never know where shaking the family tree might lead you and in this case it was the wastewater treatment plant. Nancy Logan Hedrick's father, Tarlton Logan, is buried in a tiny old cemetery, land that now lies within the boundaries of the sewer plant. Tom knew just who to call and before we knew it, we were being escorted down long drives between buildings and those big round in-ground spray tanks containing stuff you don't want to think about. In the back corner of the property up on a small hill sat the cemetery where Tarlton has rested since 1877. I love old cemeteries but they're even more interesting when someone you "know" is buried there.

We didn't spend all our time doing family history. We managed to find this cache just down the hill from Tom and Durlene's house. It's a testament to Tom's friendship with Wayne that he's down there on his hands and knees under the bridge waiting for Wayne to finish signing the log so he can return the cache to its hiding place. And Durlene indulged me in a visit to Scrapbook Generation where a few new pieces of pretty paper might have asked to come home with me. Wayne's wallet is probably happy this awesome store is too far away for me to visit regularly.

While we did our share of running around, we spent plenty of time on Tom's new deck as well, watching the lightning bugs glow here and there as darkness descended and laughing at old stories from when the four of us and our kids were constant companions. And we admired Tom's amazing garden too. The basket of vegetables in this photo are his morning's pick the day we left and not only are they huge, they're delicious. I know because he was kind enough to send some home with us.

Nothing quite compares to the history you share with old friends...and it's even better when you continue to add new chapters to it.

Reality Check

Sigh. Vacations don't last forever; sooner or later you have to come back to reality. And today, reality was this:

A mountain of dirty clothes. Since there were two bags of them that came out of the trunk, it was just easier to dump them on the floor of the laundry room and sort from there. It was a very full laundry basket when all was said and done.

I did, however, get an earlier start on them than I expected. Our intentions were to spend last night in Jackson, Mississippi, driving on in to home this morning. But we arrived in Jackson earlier than we expected and with only four hours to go to reach home, it didn't make much sense to spend the night. We canceled the room and boogied our way on home. Sleeping in our own bed made driving later than we might have otherwise well worth it. It also meant I could get that pile of dirty clothes all washed today. Ironing it all is another matter.

Another chore on today's back-to-real-life schedule was the pool. In case you haven't heard, we had a little rain in our corner of the world while we were gone. We were lucky...we only got about 16" here in our neighborhood. That's a lot of rain but it would be worse; it was 20"-24" in Pensacola. The biggest share of that fell last Saturday with several other storms dumping 2" or more over the days since. It created some problems in some places but we're kind of used to big rains and our sandy soil can handle it pretty well. We weren't concerned about our house and our friends were kind enough to come pump down the pool for us. I took care of the chemicals and vacuuming it today so it's all ready for swimming again.

We made the most of our time away from home...dinner with one of Wayne's high school friends and his wife in Dallas on Thursday night; dinner with Wayne's dad, brother and his wife on Friday night and the brunch with them again on Sunday; dinner with my brother and his family on Sunday night; lunch at Doc Green's (my favorite) while we ran some errands in Wichita on Monday; and catching up with my gang of friends from school days on Monday night before heading off to Tom and Durlene's on Tuesday. There are lots of stories to tell but I'll save them for another day. The reality is I need to catch up on some sleep.

Home, Home On The Range

There's a reason I've been absent from the blog the past few days...we've made the trek to Kansas again. And while family and friends are definitely a draw, the this visit was timed to coincide with the Symphony in the Flint Hills. We joined Wayne's brother Maurice and wife Marsha last year at this annual festival and had such a great time we wanted to do it again.

When you think of symphonies, you think of ornate concert halls and fancy dress clothes but this one is different. A seemingly-endless blue sky and miles and miles of wide-open tall grass prairie are the setting and folks come dressed in shorts and blue jeans.

And the ushers work on horseback too. It's definitely unique.

We spent the pre-concert hours going from tent to tent, checking out the various activities that were available to us, and we went on a nature walk with an archeologist. He was really interesting, telling us about what life would have been like for the Indians who called these prairies home long before the first white settlers arrived. We were on the hunt for Indian turnips but didn't find any; Spring came earlier than usual to the plains this year and they were gone already. But he did point out a number of other plants and flowers as well as tell us about the geology of the area.

And we rode in the covered wagon. Our short ride was enough to make us appreciate the fact that we didn't have to spend weeks crossing the prairie to find a new home like our forefathers did. This page on the event's webpage has more of the activities that were available to fill our pre-concert hours. The second picture will give you an idea of just how large of an area this venue encompasses.

The biggest challenge this year was holding on to our hats. Oklahoma isn't the only place where the winds come sweeping across the plains and yesterday those winds were 25-35 mph with higher gusts. The pre-concert entertainment was watching people chase down the head-gear that tried to escape.

And as the sun began to sink in the west, the music started. It was a mixture that ranged from classical to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and the conductor even donned a Western hat during The Cowboy Overture. During that particular piece, a group of wranglers on horseback drove a herd of cattle across the ridge behind the band shell tent. I had to chuckle at all the people who jumped up to take photos. You'd think they'd never seen a cow.

The final piece of the concert? Home on the Range. It's the Kansas state song and everyone joined in in singing it. Sitting there on the open range, it was a fitting end to a unique event.

Bits and Pieces

Like the weather today, this post is all over the place. Don't get dizzy trying to keep up.

We got more than 2" of rain this afternoon...most of it in an hour's time. Some of it even came down sideways, the wind was blowing that hard. And there were tornado warnings and threats of hail; you'd think we were in Kansas. When I went outside afterwards to check and see how the plants in the garden handled the storm, I was struck by the beauty of the water hanging on many of the plants, especially those with long, slender stems. The sun was trying to find its way through the clouds and the soft golden light made each bead of water sparkle like a diamond. It was like the plants were draped in gems.

Like so many things in nature, a photo just can't capture the extent of the beauty but it's still cool.

Rainy days are good for one thing...my ironing is all caught up.

There's a new spin on the Week in the Life project that has been so popular with scrapbookers since Ali Edwards introduced it several years ago. The 100 project is sending disposable cameras to 100 people and asking them to document a week in their lives then plans to consolidate the results into some meaningful display. It's kind of a super-sized Week in the Life scrapbook project with a twist...the ages of the 100 participants will range from 1 to 100. You can apply to be one of them, assuming your age hasn't already been taken. Go here for more info.

Fresh blueberries are plentiful here now and I made this Blueberry Coconut Cake the other day. Juicy blueberries, sweet coconut and a tangy lemon sauce...sounds like summer to me. We were lukewarm about it the first go-round with the lemon sauce but I stored the cake in the fridge overnight and when we ate it cold without the sauce, we really liked it. It was really easy to whip up so if you're looking for a light and not-to-sweet treat, give this cake a try.

I had to chuckle to myself this evening at the diversity of our entertainment interests. Wayne was in the living room watching Venus transit the sun on NASA TV...fascinating for about two minutes and after that it's like watching paint dry. I was in my scrapbook room tuned to the broadcast of the Diamond Jubilee festivities from London, at least the last few minutes of it. I guess that's why we have more than one TV.

And if your head isn't spinning from all this hopping from one subject to another, go check out the Google doodle for today. It totally made me smile, both for the creativity behind it and the memories of nights at the drive-in theater it evoked. As they say in the movies, that's all folks.

Ain't Love Grand!

We went to a wedding last night, a sweet little ceremony held as the shadows were growing long on the back patio of the golf shop. It was a fitting place since the groom was working there and the bride was a member when they met.

They've both had their trips down the aisle before so they chose a simple civil proceeding and it couldn't have been a better fit. Pat's son gave her away and both Pat's and Charles's daughters stood at their respective sides during the ceremony. Our friends Hiram (Charles's brother) and Bonnie were the best man and maid of honor, and Mrs. Cook (Hiram and Charles's mother) was among those flanking the bride and groom. In short, it was very much a family ceremony the rest of us were privileged to watch.

And I loved the words and symbolism the man officiating at the rites invoked. He had asked the couple to hold each other's hands right before the photo above was taken and he proceeded to go through what those hands meant to each of them. He told Pat the hands she was holding were strong to protect her but gentle enough to wipe away her tears and other characteristics one would associate with a man's role in a marriage. And he told Charles the hands he held would create a loving home and while small, would give him strength when he needed it. Best of all, he told each of them they were holding the hands of their best friend. I can't think of a better message to share at the start of a message, especially when it comes later in life.

And after they shared their first kiss as man and wife, each of them made their way around the crowd, giving hugs and accepting congratulations. Forget that stuffy receiving line; this was warm and personal. And there aren't many weddings you can attend in your golf cart either.

So we danced and drank and closed the party down. Well...OK...we enjoyed the dancing from the sideline, I had one glass of wine, and the evening came to a close at 9pm but we were there to the end, enjoying conversation with friends and basking in the glow of two people who seem incredibly happy to have found one another. Ain't love grand!

Virtual Piles

One of the things I used to do when I worked in a law office was write appellate briefs. It's not normally a duty a paralegal would undertake but I worked for an attorney who hated doing them and therefore put them off until the last minute, making the whole thing more difficult for everyone involved. I began with the idea that if I drafted something...anything...it was a starting point and maybe the whole brief-writing experience wouldn't have to be done on the excitement plan. Besides, I liked to write and it sounded like a fun challenge. Well, you know how that turned out; my boss was thrilled someone else was willing to do the bulk of the work and all he had to do was fine tune and sign his name. We were both happy with the arrangement.

And when I'd sit down to write, I'd clear everything else off my desk then surround myself with piles of the materials needed to make my arguments. My work surface would be covered with trial transcripts in one corner, pleadings and court orders in another, documents and evidence in a different pile, and a stack of law books waiting to be quoted cascading across the far reaches of my desk. Heck, sometimes more books would be teetering on a chair hastily pulled up to the side of the desk as a make-shift desk-extension. It was a little like a fortress but it worked for me. And as I finished with each item, it went into a different pile...usually on the floor.

I couldn't help but think of that today when I looked at my computer screen and saw this:

It's a little hard to make out all the icons at the top and bottom of the screen but I was doing some family history research when I realized I had seven tabs open in Internet Explorer, four documents open in Word, three PDFs of books open in Adobe Reader as well as Windows Explorer, Family Tree Maker and Photoshop all open. And I had just closed two IE tabs when I took this screen shot. Good thing my computer has plenty of memory.

They were a lot like the piles I used to make on my desk only now I was doing them virtually. Pages from books found and downloaded from the Internet are copied, resized in Photoshop and pasted into a Word document to substantiate names, dates and other information about the individuals in my family tree. Maybe that's why this family history thing resonates with me; it has some of the same logic and proof associated with it that brief writing always seemed to have.

One thing is clear about these virtual piles: They're a whole lot easier to clean up.

The New Routine

To say I am not a morning person is an understatement. Left on my own, I'm still sleeping soundly at 8am, an hour when most of the world is moving and groving. What can I say...my body clock is set for a different time zone. Oh, I managed to drag myself out of bed and be at work/school all those years when I had to but then there was no other choice. Retirement, however, is full of choices...and I choose not to get up early.

That's how it has been anyway; now it seems there's a new routine.

My feet have been hitting the floor before 7am on Tuesdays and Thursdays since early this year in order to dress, eat and make the short drive to the gym for yoga. While I'd prefer something other than an 8:00am class, it's the only choice in my area and I enjoy yoga enough I'm willing to make that sacrifice two days a week. It worked out especially good that I was up at 7am this morning as Wayne needed a ride to the golf course when the battery on his truck decided to play dead.

And the last two weeks I've just stayed at the gym after yoga to get in my miles. We've had record-breaking heat lately so walking in air conditioning seems like a really good idea, and since I'm there already, I'll just walk at 9am and be done with it for the day. It's a different kind of workout on the treadmill instead of the street so I'm enjoying that change.

Shocking as it may be (at least to Dr. Dale), I've also been up before my usual lazy hour to walk in the neighborhood two days a week. We eat out with friends on two evenings, making it impossible to walk after dinner...well, safely anyway. We've had record-setting heat here these past two weeks so afternoon walks are a thing of the past, at least until fall. There seems to be no choice but to walk in the morning on the nights we're going to eat out as I know I'll get bored if every walk is on the treadmill.

So that means ol' dead-head me is now crawling out from under the covers bright and early four days out of every seven. Don't worry...it's only temporary; a leopard can't change his spots.