Sunday, September 07, 2008
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I’ve been begging the Grebens for a picture of Sophia. Preferably a school picture. They make empty promises and then leave me hanging for days and weeks. Then, today with absolutely no begging on my part he posts several including this little gem:
It’s not a school picture, but it’s so sweet I’ll never complain.
Meanwhile, back in Dallas. Somebody is looking awfully grown-up.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
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We’ve been making this salad a lot lately.
You can make pretty rows of tomato slices, mozzarella cheese, basil leaf and then drizzle with the dressing or you can just toss them all together. This salad is dressed with basalmic vinegar, olive oil and the teeniest pinch of sea salt and some fresh ground pepper. Serve with anything or eat alone. Cut a chunk of the bread and soak up the dressing that now has tomato juice in it. Sweet.
Monday, September 01, 2008
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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
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We finally got some rain Monday and Tuesday. Actually a lot of slow and steady rain! - 3 1/2 inches. Considering we've only received 2 inches of rain in the last 3 months, it was wonderful. You could amost hear our garden screaming THANK YOU.
Another bonus is that the lake where I sail came up about 2 feet. Another storm like this one could fill it up. It hasn't been full since March. Hopefully hurricane Gustav will come our way next week.
Our rain gauge shows almost 4 inches of rain fell here in the last 2 days. More coming.
Needless to say, Ger has been down at Beaver Lake enjoying the changes to the shoreline with all this wetness.
I have been at the easel having a good time. If I can get the sailor to put on his photographer’s hat, you’ll get to see what’s been going on.
Monday, August 25, 2008
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I guess I still have it in me. We had a regatta on our lake last Saturday, with the winds blowing like crazy. Probably 15 to 20mph. I came in second overall, with Don Hightower winning, and Jim Farley coming in third. Second is not bad, 'cause the ribbon color goes with my shirt.
I just got re-dressed after shedding my clothes and dancing NAKED for about 7 nano seconds in the RAIN!
It had been misting since 9:45 but I kept saying I wasn’t stripping until there was some serious precipitation. You would think the threat of me baring it all would be enough to frighten the rain gods, but no.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
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I have been out in the dried and crusty remains of our pitiful garden. Everything is brown and shrivelled up or if it is green it is drooping. It is heartbreaking. Even the weeds are dying. When you walk across our brown lawn you raise a cloud of dust. The earth is cracking open and that is something I thought only happened in Texas gumbo, you know, that clay they call dirt.
At the moment, it is cloudy and some of the clouds look promising.
I told Gerry at breakfast that if it rained I would do a naked rain dance. I'm seriously considering it. I've also hidden all the cameras, just in case.
Monday, August 18, 2008
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It’s almost impossible to loll about watching the Olympics when there are 5 bears running around your backyard.
I was sitting on the futon and saw a blur of black through the glass in the downstairs door. I jumped up and hollered “it’s the bears!”. You don’t have to tell Gerry twice, he ran up the stairs to grab the camera.
We tiptoed out onto the screened patio and he cautiously opened the door. He started snapping pictures but it was after 7 and cloudy and the light was dim, they were too far away for the flash and there was no way he was going to try to get closer.
The cubs are almost to German Shepard size and are starting to look for food on their own. One of them clawed at an old stump for a few minutes looking for bugs. Mamma wondered up the hill and left two of them staring back down at us.
In the video you’ll see what they do when the neighbor’s dog started barking at them. Well, you’ll see what 3 of them did, the fourth one (I’m sure it’s a boy) was rambling around and came running up later.
This video is one of the little buggers looking right at us. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDHL46iXLds
Saturday, August 16, 2008
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“Here we are, Socrates, true to our agreement of yesteray…”
Well, maybe. Sophia told her mother “I’ll read any book you give me.” So Angela handed her this and said “have at it.”
She read for a while then picked up a Carl Sagan book that she carried around for 3 days.
If I ever learn to use our camera it will be a miricle. It drives me crazy, plus I never have on my glasses when I shoot and I can’t read anything on it. Squint and it looks pretty good.
When Darrin told me Griffin was playing football I about had a heart attack. I said “he’s so skinny, they’ll murder him”.
D said “he’s the second fastest on the team, they’ll have to catch him first.”
Griffin got a buzz-cut. He says it fits better under his football helmet. Yes. Football. Check it out.
Had a nice birthday. Lots of flowers, phone calls, singing (see Julien’s performance) and lolling about. Gerry worked on some picture frames for me. We went out to dinner at Cucina24. The wine and appetizers were great, the meal only so-so unfortunately. Dessert made up for it. We walked around town a bit, drove up to Longchamps to see the sidewalk project and then came home to drink champagne and watch olympics.
I was just reading some news on the net and saw this ad for Equus, with little Harry Potter. Not so little. The photoshopped image is so eerie and perfect it just stopped me in my tracks. That play brings back sooooo many memories. Ardmore Little Theatre, Ed Cook, the proverbial good old days. EC was taking some sort of post-grad course at OU and co-directed and also portrayed one of the “horses” in their production of Equus circa 1976–77 (?). We drove up to see it and had one of those magical theater evenings.
He was so proud of the production, the hoof devices they wore, appearing half naked on stage. EC was big into shock at that time. He wanted to be cutting edge. Alas, he became a statistic in the AIDS scourge and never got a chance to fulfill his dreams.
Melange, a great word and also the name of the little boutique art supply/oddities shop where I took painting lessons a zillion years ago…in Ardmore.
Well. That little time trip made my head hurt. Could be the champagne.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
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The bears were in our yard when I got back from the store yesterday. I drove up, scanning the yard and woods as we have learned to do because there are so many wildlife sightings here and there was mamma getting a drink from the birdbath. The cubs were scattered around, two in the woods on my right and two on my left. I turned off the key and waited, grateful that my groceries had not included ice cream.
I must have sat there 10 minutes and during that time I called Gerry, who was on his way to the doctor, and Becky who worries about this mamma bear and her unusually large brood. I can report that they are all healthy looking. I suspect people are feeding them, which is so dangerous. We are in a drought that has affected most of their natural food sources and they didn't look like they were suffering.
They got far enough from the car I felt safe enough to grab my bags and run in. I went to the kitchen and watched them go up the mountain behind the screened patio. I have to apologize to Griffin at this point. Every time Griff would hear a noise in the woods he’d think it was the bears and I’d say “oh, you’ll never hear those bears.” Uh, wrong. They were a noisey bunch romping about and meandering up to the road.
We went to a small dinner party at Carl’s last night and met Star and Mary. They told us that their neighbors had a birthday party on their deck last week and a yearling bear came up on the deck WITH THE CHILDREN looking for food.
Then I read in the paper this morning that a yearling bear attacked a boy in The Great Smokies yesterday. Feeding bears makes them aggressive. Don’t do it.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
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I admit to not looking at the pictures from this summer very carefully. This one is so bad it’s good. I like the jiggy glowing bits. Check out the doomed magnolia tree in the background.
