Just Wondering

Wondering why your fireplace is not drawing as well as it did last fall?

Wondering why you are getting snowy TV reception so suddenly?

Wondering why your roof looks like it is covered in snow so early? (It is really gull droppings.)


(I have returned from my extensive and wonderful trip to Calgary and Banff and the Badlands of Alberta, Canada. Took hundreds of photos and will post just a few as I weed out summer's photos such as shown above! Catching up on your blogs this week...I hope!)

Autumnal Reverie

This is my favorite time of year.  Days are cool enough for roast chicken dinners.  I harvested the last of the garden vegetables and the farmers market completes the rest.  I do not mind having the oven on for over two hours to let the big bird brown as the afternoon cools.  The fall rains have started and after our two-month drought, this is like champagne from the sky.

While I can no longer run outside barefoot across the wet grass to harvest the rosemary and sage for the chicken, I also do not have to avoid the hot sidewalk on the quick return.

I can no longer watch the moon rise in my Chinese pajamas (pink "silk" which my Princess granddaughter loves) because the evenings are most chilling now on the back deck, but I can still BBQ on the deck and enjoy the earlier sunsets through the flame red and yellow trees.

Perhaps I will also finally have time to search the back seat of my car and find the injured grasshopper which my grandson saved, wrapped carefully in a napkin, and then somehow lost on our trip back from the ice cream booth this past summer.

The Luncheon

I attended a 'thank you' luncheon for my volunteering the other day. There were about 30 people there...staff and volunteers from all the county libraries. Yes, our county is quite rural with only 30 in attendance from 4 libraries.

I was not eager to go because I would only know the head of the library where I volunteered. I rarely crossed paths with the other volunteers in my library because it is so small that only one volunteer can be working at a time.  Everyone else at the luncheon would be a stranger.  But I told myself to grow up and go up.

I arrived at the restaurant about 5 minutes early and at the same time as a librarian-looking lady. I smiled at her across the parking lot assuming we were going to the same place. I entered the restaurant which was quiet and only a few tables busy and waited for a waitress or hostess.  The lady from the parking lot stood behind me and then pushed me aside gently and said, "We are supposed to go straight on back."  She huffled on ahead to a noisy room at the far end of the restaurant with not so much as a smile or look-back .

Wow, such friendliness. I put my tail between my legs and followed her to the party room. There were several long tables with a few scattered ladies sitting and talking and others standing in small groups. I looked around to see if there was a table or greeting area or name tag place. Nope. I didn't know anyone.  I stood blankly for a minute and another lady, at least she was smiling, told me to take a seat and the waitress would come take my drink order.


I crossed to the table at the far end of the room with about 4 people sitting and found a chair.  When I looked around I was happy to see the Director of the library where I volunteered seated just down from me.  The 2 women across from her were talking intently about some town festival and I sat there waiting for a pause in the conversation, or at least eye recognition from the lady I will call Trudy.  No such luck.  I sat with the stupidest smile plastered on my face pretending I was understanding whatever they were laughing about for at least 5 minutes.


Finally I caught Trudy's eye and she smiled and then introduced me to the others.  At just about this time the din of conversation in the room got quite loud.  Several more people arrived.  Librarians are a noisy group when away from the shushing of the library!!  I worked hard to hear what people were saying and to actively put in my two cents, trying to be as sociable as I could without screaming or saying what again and again.


By the time the food arrived the noise became lower as people stuffed their faces.  Only one brave man (a black man) was at a table.  The rest of the people knew each other but seemed to be in little clicks from each library.


One of my reasons for volunteering was to get to know people in the community a little better and since these people came from county wide, it probably wasn't the best venue for this goal.


I ate my lunch, and made as much small talk (which I hate, hate, hate) as I could to make nice.  At least I talked.  The other volunteer across from me only said about three sentences the whole luncheon. 


There were the traditional little speeches.  We got our little certificates and a mag-lite gift and our photos taken for the newsletter.


After about two and a half hours of this fun-filled time, I got back in the car and went home.  Still looking for some fulfillment.  Also, surprised at how being a hostess at an event such as this is a lost skill.


(Heading out for a lengthy trip to the to other side of the continent.  May not have Internet access.  Will be thinking of you and making mind posts that I am sure I will forget when I return!)

The Answers--- Read It Like You Really Care.

For those who live out-side the country, do not dismay.  The answers to some of these are U.S. news items.  (Congrats to Peruby and others who got many right!)

1. Give a speech two steps lower than a national icon and that makes it excusable. Course you are forgiven...you didn't realize it was the iconic day! (Glenn Beck)
2. It is almost 500 pages long and a pathetic excuse for a best seller.  I think Abby on NCIS is more exotic and believable than this girl. (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Between the sado-masochism, incest, and 50 year old protagonist with numerous girlfriends of all ages jumping into his bed...I found the mystery not worthy of my time.)
3. Guess who is the next star... young mom who needs money and is willing to use accidental fame to dance with the stars ? I do not watch so have no bets down. (Sarah Palin's oldest daughter on Dancing With the Stars.)
4. Since I have a gate and a fence (for the deer) I can expect a reasonable amount of privacy in my driveway from guess who? (Remember the news legality of searching your car even while parked in your driveway? The Feds can now also confiscate my laptop without reason at customs points and hang onto it for days while reading everything on it.)
5. I am going to get a third one it appears...but I will only have two at a time. (Yes, I have mixed feelings.) (My daughter is pregnant with the third Grandchild.  Lord help us all.)
6. It missed us, thank goodness, but not by much. (Hurricane Earl)
7. I did like the dream within a dream within a dream story.  But there were a few holes at the end. (The movie, Enception.)
8. I mashed them, then ground them in the coffee grinder and they were wonderfully pungent as well as sweet like sugar! (My cinnamon sticks from Indonesia.  These are so much more pungent than store bought!)
9. I met #3 (nothing to do with #5).  I hope this is the last one. (My son's new girlfriend spent the weekend at our house.  She is pretty cool...has won an Emmy.)
10. Someone told me the other day that when I wear the clip to pull back my bangs on a hot day I look 'ugly.' (Can you guess who?) At least there is potential for not looking ugly. (My too-honest granddaughter whose standards for beauty will get even higher as she grows older and I get uglier.)
11. Heading out for travel for a week...can you guess where? (Calgary and the nearby mountains of Canada!  Lots of photos to follow.  I will probably have some pre-written posts for you to read.  Don't want my fans bored, after all.)
12. We were given a Princess and we returned a Power Girl. (My granddaughter, of course.)
13. How much weight I have lost after a month of pretty intense exercise? (One lousy pound!!!  I run pretty close to 3 ten-minute miles on the elliptical, do 30 minutes of arm and leg free weights and then about 15 minutes of stretching and yoga at least 3 times a week although sometimes 5 times a week, in case you want to commiserate.)

Thursday Thirteen---Can You Guess? (Perhaps more relevant...Do you care?)

( I admit I am never very good at this...)

1. Give a speech two steps lower than a national icon and that makes it excusable. Course you are forgiven...you didn't realize it was the iconic day!
2. It is almost 500 pages long and a pathetic excuse for a best seller.  I think Abby on NCIS is more exotic and believable than this girl. 
3. Guess who is the next star... young mom who needs money and is willing to use accidental fame to dance with the stars ? I do not watch so have no bets down.
4. Since I have a gate and a fence (for the deer) I can expect a reasonable amount of privacy in my driveway from guess who? (Remember the news legality of searching your car ?)
5. I am going to get a third one it appears...but I will only have two at a time. (Yes, I have mixed feelings.)
6. It missed us, thank goodness, but not by much.
7. I did like the dream within a dream within a dream story.  But there were a few holes at the end.
8. I mashed them, then ground them in the coffee grinder and they were wonderfully pungent as well as sweet like sugar!
9. I met #3 (nothing to do with #5).  I hope this is the last one.
10. Someone told me the other day that when I wear the clip to pull back my bangs on a hot day I look 'ugly.' (Can you guess who?) At least there is potential for not looking ugly.
11. Heading out for travel for a week...can you guess where?
12. We were given a Princess and we returned a Power Girl.
13. How much weight I have lost after a month of pretty intense exercise?

Answers in next post.

Home Sweet Home

I have a lovely patio beneath my deck at the back of my house.  I have carefully placed some rattan furniture that we bought while living in Indonesia which I painted weather-resistant white and paired it with some plastic furniture (on it's last seasonal legs) that I inherited from my mother-in-law who lived in Florida.  I bought a cute little outdoor rug (actually fought with two gay guys over who would get to purchase it).  We have a small iron fireplace unit.  And yet, after all this careful design we use this place only a few times a year as we are busy people.




Yesterday I went out there to clean the place of leaves and spider webs to get ready for some company that were coming.  One of the faded cushions with the ties that have long since broken was flopped over and the chair was covered in wind blown leaves.

Or so I thought!  Those determined little wrens will build a nest anywhere.  I have chased them outside of my garage many times.  Fortunately there were no eggs inside this nest.  Maybe they were just practicing and this was just a 'test nest'.

Sigh!!!

I will not be posting anything for a while. I have a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old until late Thursday the 2nd and then I have company from out of state for another 4 or 5 days. Some one send me one of those energy bars...there is a reason we become sterile after a certain age!