Well, finally! Tuesday was Hallowe'en, so now that all the Fright Night/Spooky Season stuff is over, there will be better stuff in the stores. Watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, of course, and the Hallowe'en episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, "Masquerade," with a very troubled Liza Minelli playing the mother of a little girl who was murdered years earlier, but whose attacker, a spaced-out child molester, was just recently escorted by Goren and Eames back to the United States; they soon begin to believe he was not the murderer. Would have watched other things, but James just discovered there were new episodes of Forged in Fire, so we got on Philo and he watched those instead.

The other "event" of the week was the weather: it was cold enough on November 1 to wear my Vermont sweatshirt. In my world, this is exciting!

Otherwise it was nicely routine, with no falls, the usual physiotherapy for James on Wednesday followed by our weekly doughnut treat. Also tried a new breakfast/lunch place with Alice and Ken, Eggs Up, in the shopping center at Brookwood near Hobby Lobby. There was also a trip to Barnes & Noble (finally the November/December "Yankee"!), and I put up the Thanksgiving decorations while James was at his club meeting on Saturday.

The fly in the ointment: it got hot over the weekend, into the 80s. It was disgusting. At least there was a nice breeze so that things didn't sizzle. How ridiculous to have beautiful leaves on the trees and the scent of autumn when the air smells like a heating pad.

And we are happily back to Standard Time, where the clocks need to stay.

Labels: decorations, friends, Hallowe'en, seasons, standard time, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:53:00 PM

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A new "thing" has been added to our medical routine.

When we went to Dr. Jefferson on Monday, he removed James' foley catheter and we thought he was going to do a cytoscopy (urethral scan) as well as a void test. However, Dr. Jefferson has decided all this trouble is caused by nerve damage stemming from 20 years of diabetes; since it is uncomfortable for James and also a UTI vector, a long-time foley was not acceptable. He has been put on intermittent catherization, which means he has to manually empty his bladder three to four times a day. Unfortunately due to his back problems and mobility issues, he can't actually do it himself. Guess what! Yes, a new skill in my "nursing career." I got a chance to do it once, and then we got sent home with red rubber caths and lubrication. What fun.

(I told Dr. Jefferson: "Oh, like Airplane Guy." "Airplane Guy" is what we call the dude who advertises urinary catheters on whatever side channel it is, how he's happy he can now fly his airplane again with his cath.)

The rest of the week was a little more cheerful, especially as September 1 rolled around so that it's meteorological autumn finally!

On Thursday we did our monthly drive to Canton to eat at Uncle Maddio's (yes, one guy still running the entire show!) and Books-a-Million. To my surprise, I came out with no books, but I did find one for Emma. Then on the way back we stopped at BJs and stocked up on fruit cups and other items to get us through mostly payless October. This week we also hit Nam Dae Mun for the first time in months since Publix didn't have any slivered almonds for my oatmeal.

Saturday we bounced: Sam's Club to Costco to Best Buy in search of a television. Since James is retiring, I'm hoping he won't be spending all his time locked in front of his computer screen anymore. So I told him that as a birthday/retirement gift I would get him a new TV for downstairs. Combined with the Amazon Fire Stick we got as a Christmas gift, it would make good entertainment while he's modeling. Well, turned out neither Sam's nor Costco carries under 40 inch TVs anymore! (Funny, they were there a few months ago.) So we went to Best Buy, but the TV we picked out was cheaper at Target! So off we went up Cobb Parkway and got the TV, which I spent all afternoon setting up. It's a Roku TV, so not only did I tune in all the local channels, but all the Roku channels he'd be interested in. Or rather I had to tune out the ones he wouldn't be interested in, which took a while, since the darn thing loaded about 300 channels. (I'd be willing to bet James will be watching the Caught in Providence channel, since he watches Judge Caprio every chance he gets.) I also had to log in on all the other services we get, like Netflix, Acorn, etc. before I could carry it downstairs and actually plug it in. (It's better to tune it in upstairs, where the Leaf antenna gets the most channels. But this television seems to be stronger at picking up signals and he's getting most of the locals downstairs, except for GPB which we can't get upstairs anyway and what I call "the God Squad," all the local religious channels.)

But...that's done.

Labels: books, electronics, food, health, illness, seasons, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:25:00 PM

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Summer's fading away...and good riddance. It's been a crap summer, from the temps to poor James' perpetual illness. I started the last full week of August by "drowning" the dog—Tucker always makes me laugh; he looks pitiful through the whole process but is happy and smiling once I'm done and enjoying his nice clean coat, and the inevitable cookie. The next day we had the first of James' post-hospital doctor's visits, to his GP. 3:20 p.m. appointment; didn't see the doctor till five. Sigh.

Started the weekend early as we had some friends come into town on Wednesday staying over until the next day. First I did laundry and cleaned off some of the kitchen, though; they didn't come over until this evening, where we finally exchanged Christmas gifts. I had a nifty little pocket knife and also a Barnes & Noble gift card, so maybe I will get Ali Hazlewood's new book after all. James got a knife sharpener, which I hope will improve the performance of our steak knives.

On Thursday we met Maggi and Clay at the Tin Drum at Perimeter Mall for lunch, and to our surprise ran into Lin Butler there as well (she was having a monthly lunch with her old Coca-Cola co-workers. They got both Clay's and my lunch wrong, so it took a while. Then we all went off to Penzey's (the spice store). James and I picked up some sweet curry and ground celery seed, and he wanted to try some Aleppo pepper. Penzey's is next door to Trader Joe's and we filled two Trader Joe's shopping bags with goodies like their orange chicken (which is a nice quick lunch) and the chicken apple sausage, and they finally had fruit bars. James has tried the fruit bars at Lidl, but says they are too much cookie and not enough fruit. We parted ways at Trader Joe's; Clay and Maggi went south back to Warner Robins and we headed home.

Friday was our only morning appointment at the infusion clinic, then we went to JoAnn, where I picked up a couple of gifts and a mug for me that says "I've been ready for fall since last fall." (That's not true; I've been ready for fall since winter was over, which in north Georgia is the end of February when it starts going up to 70...). James said he wanted to go to Hobbytown USA; he didn't buy anything for himself, but he bought me a gift to make up for the horrible hospital week, a miniature Squishable white-and-blue budgie I named "Robbie." He is the cutest thing (but nowhere near as cute as Snowy).



And then we got the truck inspected so James could renew his license plates for the year, and finally we had the podiatrist appointment and we could go home.

Because we didn't go grocery shopping on Thursday, we had to do this Saturday morning. It actually wasn't too bad, although after Lidl James was stuck in the truck with the A/C on since we got leg quarters on sale for $1.67/pound and three pounds of ground beef out of the "too good to waste" bin for $1.50! Had to play freezer Tetris when we got home. Saturday I also made "gravy" with the boneless pork ribs I got off the manager's special bin at Kroger. We'll have a pair of leg quarters tomorrow for dinner and then macaroni on Monday because it will be easy (cook the macaroni and warm up the sauce) after James has to go for his cytoscopy.

Labels: chores, dogs, food, friends, gifts, health, pets, seasons, sickness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:52:00 PM

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How amazing! It seems like we wait years for October to arrive and then the whole month goes by like the wind.

Still looking for some real fall weather, but the temperature is dropping to better levels, and next week looks heavenly: nothing over 68℉! (Fifties would be better, but beggars can't be choosers, as they say.) Plus I had a first this week: cooked my first "stir-fry." It was actually pork bits in a sesame-seed sweet sauce, and it came out pretty well, especially when I did a reduction on the leftover sauce.

Thursday was our usual shopping day, and then I started uploading some of my fanfiction to Fanfiction.net. This is fine for my Remember WENN fanfiction, since there's already a category for it, but there's no category for the other fic I want to put up there: my Lassie, Doctor Simon Locke, and Addie Mills stories. I contacted someone at the website and still haven't heard from anyone yet.

Friday James had two doctors' appointments. In the morning we went out to Glenlake to see his cardiologist as a followup for him being in the hospital a few months ago. That worked out fine, and he doesn't want James to have another echocardiogram as his last one was so recent. Since we were so close we went to Trader Joe's, and it was actually chilly enough for us to buy things and leave them in the back of the truck! So we got chicken sausage and pub cheese and other good things; alas, no more pumpkin bars.

There was a Mellow Mushroom nearby, so we had lunch there. Their crust is almost, almost as good as Uncle Maddio's, and I got quite full on a personal pizza and still took a slice home. Then we went next door to Half-Price books for about a half hour. I bought Jill Lepore's history of the U.S., Mike Douglas' memoirs, and The Autobiography of Jean-Luc Picard, plus a Blu-Ray copy of Jurassic World for only $6!

Then we got to go to Kaiser again, Cumberland this time, for James' podiatrist appointment. He was only supposed to have his nails trimmed, but the nurse didn't like the look of his "ring" toe on his left leg and got us in to see the podiatrist. He has this small ulcer on the toe and it had become a little irritated on Wednesday night, so we were glad we were seeing the doctor. He didn't like what he saw either, and gave me some collagen to put on it and says James is not to get that foot wet (so I basically got chewed out by the doctor for not treating it the way he wanted me to). He also gave him doxycycline for any infection.

I had kind of a bad night on Friday. Snowy had been acting kind of quiet when we got home, and I was worried something was wrong with him, so I spent a lot of the night crying and James a lot of the night comforting me, and of course that did a number on my lower GI. He seemed better in the morning, but I was a mess. Finally we did go out—we had to go back to Half-Price Books because the Blu-ray disk in my Jurassic World combo pack was actually a copy of Jurassic Park. There was a new Lidl two stores down and I went in and found eggs for James and some pork chops for dinner. We also had lunch at Panera, but that was a dead disappointment. I haven't been to Panera for a couple of years, and I don't know what the hell they've done to their chicken soup, but it's dreadful now: tastes like a can of Progresso!!! I ate half, enough to dispose of the nice big piece of French bread they gave me and some of the noodles, and James dipped his bread in it and ate the rest of the noodles, and we left some of the soup. Ugh.

Labels: books, food, health, movies, seasons, shopping, sickness, weather, writing

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:59:00 PM

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The autumn equinox arrived this week to great cheering by the folks here at Autumn Hollow. Now only if it would feel like autumn—although we did have to wear flannel shirts Thursday morning to drive with the windows down on the way to Costco. But by the time we got to Costco (ten minutes) it was too warm for them. (We were also windows down a couple of other times, one early morning, one nighttime return trip. But it's not enough!)

I have been attempting to go on my longer walks again after just surrendering due to the heat and my inability to get outside before 10:30 in the morning (blame needing sleep and that extra trip to the bathroom), and have come upon a large patch of "Scotch" thistles among the weeds that grow along Smyrna-Powder Springs Road (these combined with goldenrod, pin oak, timothy, Virginia creeper, honeysuckle, holly, and others). They were in great purple bloom a few weeks ago, attracting yellow swallowtail butterflies, silver spot skippers [a type of butterfly], and big fat bumblebees, but now they are starting to go to seed, and two days in a row, sans camera, I ran into a beautiful male goldfinch who let me get into six feet of him. Third time's the charm and I finally got a photo of him.

Went out to walk the dog Wednesday night and discovered abruptly that sometime today they changed out all the streetlights. I think they are those new lights that only aim at the street and don't glow upward, and so don't interfere with migrating birds. It's a weird effect; they make what they're shining on brighter, but the light doesn't extend as much, so our front yard is now darker. There's also a rather large dark area near the upper cul-de-sac because all the lights appear to have two light fixtures except the one on the cul-de-sac itself.

We hit Costco Thursday morning because Procter & Gamble was doing their "buy $100 worth of stuff, get a $25 gift card" thing again. Since we can easily spend that much buying Swiffer pads, Oral B toothbrushes, Metamucil, and Downy, we went for it, plus we needed "plastic cheese" (Kraft cheese slices) as James calls it, and both BreatheRights and generic Flonase were on sale...needed almonds for my oatmeal and mandarin orange cups as well. It is so nice when it's not broiling outside and we don't have to rush into one store, dump perishable items in a insulated bag with an icepack, rush to the next store, etc. We were able to drive to Publix in a leisurely fashion and finish most of the rest of the shopping (although I still had to go to Kroger on Saturday morning for milk, yogurt, and no-salt-added mushrooms).

Friday we did a little of everything: paid our property tax, picked up a gift, had lunch at Okinawa with all the Spiveys and John Bouler, drove down to Kaiser so James could have blood drawn for what the doctor says is a minor problem, and then went to Barnes & Noble. James bought a book and I didn't, which seems ironic, but I'd already gotten three in the mail this week: a used copy of Madeleine L'Engle short stories (The Moment of Tenderness), a used copy of Hal Borland's Book of Twelve Moons (nature essays), and the new Vanderbeekers novel.

We also bought a new gadget that is three plugs that are operated by one remote. Since I was depressingly unsuccessful in trying to set up a "smart home" system to turn on the lights through Amazon wifi plugs and Amazon Echo devices—two of the wifi plugs worked flawlessly for a month and then quit working; I contacted Amazon and they walked me through all sorts of remedies that didn't work for one and they finally told me to send the plug back for repair, but when I tried to set up a third plug I had bought, brand new out of the box, it wouldn't work either. They supposedly work on the 2.4GHz portion of the router, and I tried resetting the 2.4GHz, which reset perfectly and everything else that worked on them, like the Roku box and James' Kindle, worked perfectly. Then we ended up resetting the router anyway, and the plug still didn't work. We have to press a remote button instead of doing a voice command, but it works!

So Saturday I did the Kroger thing and James had to cook meat and breakfasts for the rest of the week, and we broke up the time with original Law & Order episodes on WE. I've become so besotted with Law & Order: Criminal Intent that I am reading fanfiction, most of it of the "shipping" sort, but I appreciate that the stories that I really have enjoyed have chosen to actually have a mystery plot among the romance. One story has Mike Logan down so pat I can hear Chris Noth doing the dialog. Unfortunately I think that was the one that got to part eighteen and then never was finished—and, darn, I wanted to know the solution to the mystery!

This week I also worked out a way to get all the videos I've saved on YouTube to show up in the YouTube app on Roku. I have so much saved that the idea of re-bookmarking them gave me the horrors. It's a great big dog's breakfast worth of stuff: old British black and white films, 1930s black and white films, the Old Indiana Jones segments they cut out of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles DVD sets, an uncut version of the 1960s animated The Night Before Christmas with Olan Soulé as the voice of Professor Clement Moore, Lucy Worsley specials, Lassie episodes, and more.

Today I got all my weekly chores done and there was still time to go to Alice and Ken's house after James finished work to celebrate Aubrey's 28th birthday.

September 22 was the Autumnal Equinox! All hail Queen Autumn and her colorful court! (Now for cryin' out loud, do something about that big bully the Sun!)

Labels: birds, events, exercise, food, friends, plants, reading, seasons, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:36:00 PM

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Well, it was a week things got done.

Some of them I might have wanted to avoid.

Some of them I didn't. I did get to cancel Snowy's appointment with the new vet. I don't want to find a new vet for him without being able to check them out, and how can I do that if the vet is only doing curbside visits? I want to check out the office, see if it's clean, see how the workers act when they see customers, see how the animals react to them. Our vet says Snowy can be given a polyoma shot whenever he might come to board, he just can't get a checkup right now. So I am hoping he stays well until my current vet either gets a new avian vet or I can find one. There are none that I can find on this side of town; I can either drive forty-five minutes or more northeast, or go down into Buckhead (and with all the car break-ins in the latter place, why would I want to go to Buckhead?).

Did get more stuff thrown away, including ten-year-old "PC World" magazines James had in a file box under his bedroom window! What on earth...? I changed the bed. I shredded more stuff. I swapped out the old "pigtail" compact fluorescents in the front porch lanterns for real LEDs, with the help of the exterminator, who showed me how to get the tops off them. Over the weekend I finally got new cotton sheets to replace the dreadful microfiber ones we have now with the fitted bottom sheets that won't stay on the bed! I took down the winter decorations and put up the spring ones.

And I had just just finished putting away the winter decorations and sweeping the foyer. I was taking the broom back to the laundry room, preparatory to getting the dustpan and brush...and missed a step. I went backward, banged my back against a solid wood stool we keep outside the laundry room door, and whacked my head on the doorframe of the laundry room. Ow! My hand went to the bump already rising on my head and I immediately yelled out to James, "Come help me, I've fallen!" I heard him say to the customer he had on the phone, "I'm going to have to let the level two guy take this call; my wife just fell and I need to help her." Then I took my hand away from my head and it was covered in blood.

Well...crap. "James! You need to call 911! I'm bleeding here!"

So the rescue squad came and the firemen, too—it was too absurdly funny because the firemen remembered James from his fall in December and kept asking "You've got high blood pressure, right?" James said, "No, that's me." "You've got diabetes, right?" James again: "No, that's me, too." "You've got kidney trouble..." James: "No, that's me, too."—and they had to haul me off to Emory St. Joseph. It wasn't a bad trip and they didn't even test me for COVID, I just got popped in the back and waited a bit and finally the doctor came and said she was going to numb my head, clean the blood off, and put four staples in, then I'd have a tetanus shot because I couldn't remember when I had my last one, a CT scan just to make sure I hadn't busted any blood vessels in my brain, and an x-ray of my back, and then off I could go. They even sent someone in to bill me for the emergency room visit so I could go home as soon as they got done. Well, it's a pity they didn't numb my stupid lizard brain, too. The lidocaine and the staples were nothing, as was the x-ray, but when they laid me out flat on the CT scan platform and started raising me up, my eyes saw that ring getting closer and closer and scrambled off the platform at light speed and full freaked out panicked so badly that I drove my heart into palpitations. They finally took me back to my cubicle where my heart finally steadied down after fifteen minutes and they offered me some atavan to get through the CT scan, but I've had that before and it doesn't work on me when it comes to the claustrophobia reaction, and I spent the rest of the time there sobbing at my own stupidity. Several nurses tiptoed in telling me it was okay, that others had bad reactions like that, but I just felt dumb and vulnerable.

James finally got to pick me up at 8:30 and I went home feeling as stupid as I've ever felt. The lidocaine worked really well and even after it wore off, where they gave me the tetanus shot hurt worse than my head. James said if I couldn't sleep lying down he would sit up with me in the spare room like I sat up with him when he banged his head and hurt his shoulders, but the pain was no different lying down than sitting up, so we went back to bed.

I was so careful with that ladder and the stepstool replacing the bulbs on the porch and I went and missed a dumb stair! Argh.

And the worst of the whole thing was when it came time today for us to get our second COVID shot James was allowed to have his, but I couldn't have mine because of the tetanus vaccine. The doctor was afraid having two vaccines within four days of each other would spoil the effectiveness of one or both. So now we have to truck all the damn way out to Gwinnett County again at the end of the month!

“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”

Labels: birds, decluttering, decorating, pets, seasons, sickness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:27:00 PM

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It was quite a week!

It began with the cold, the first time this year it's really felt like winter. Monday it was 25 degrees with the wind chill and it was almost as cold on Tuesday. I kept warm Monday updating the copyrights on my web pages; usually I do this on New Year's Day after the Rose Parade, but I had other things on my mind. 😞 In the late afternoon I went out to the mailbox and discovered the last document we needed for our taxes, so I sat down and did them. We owe the Feds a small amount, but do have a refund from the state.

It was also a bit annoying because I was feeling rather blah at the beginning of the week and it nagged on for days, even into our weekend. Thursday was the usual trip to the infusion clinic. They told us unless they received orders to the contrary, they'd be removing the PICC line next Thursday, so next Wednesday is James' last infusion! I sure hope there are no contrary orders and they indeed think he is well; it would be such a blessing.

Friday when we went to the podiatrist we got even better news. I was still worried about the leg because he has a few little spots that, even with the medi-honey, are not healing but instead are being irritated by the edges of the non-stick gauze that's covering it, even though the arch of his foot is looking almost perfect, with only some thick hard skin remaining from the blister left on it. The podiatrist peeled most of that off, took a look at those pesky, tiny raw spots, and finally, finally dredged out a calamine unna boot kit and wrapped up his leg in it and told us to let the nurse remove it on Tuesday. 😀 I am crossing fingers this will do the final trick.

Oh, the other thing is that James is out of the walking boot and the thick sock and into a regular sock, so he could wear a complete pair of shoes this weekend! He said he was tired of feeling like the villain in "Ship of Spies" (on Get Smart) who walked with a "clip-clop" noise. Plus today his new slippers arrived; these are the Velcro kind that fit around your feet. So he doesn't need to "clip-clop" any longer, and he was very pleased with this development because he was planning to go to the IPMS meeting on Saturday. It is now being held in a larger venue than previously and he would wear his mask during the meeting, so it seemed safe for him to attend. Came Saturday morning and all the forecasts said it would be pouring that afternoon, so he did the Zoom meeting instead.

So, of course, it never rained. Typical.

Labels: events, health, seasons, sickness, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:51:00 PM

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I still can never understand it.

Look at it. It's almost Christmas. Summer went by like a constipated sloth wearing a body cast. The weather finally turned cool (and not until October 3, for God's sake!) and since then it's moved like the Indy 500, days just tumbling over days in their haste to go by: leaves turning, Hallowe'en, Veteran's Day skidding into Thanksgiving, with Christmas decorations already up everywhere, and suddenly it's less than ten days until the 25th.

Which is why after popping into Publix on Thursday to do the weekly shopping we returned home, I obeyed the spinning clock, pulled the divider out of the oven, prepped the dining room table, and commenced to baking wine biscuits. This took all afternoon and filled the house with a pleasant odor. I managed to finish one bottle of hearty burgundy without having to start another. Then at suppertime James practiced his culinary alchemy and we had turkey wings done in the air fryer basted with maple teriyaki sauce. To say this was divine is wayyyyyyy underpraising it. Oh, goodness, that was delicious, and eating them did not make me ill the way eating baked ones usually do, probably because all the fat leached out into the air fryer, leaving just crispy skin and juicy meat behind.

Thursday evening we also watched the new version of A Christmas Carol with Scrooge played by Guy Pearce, who is only in his fifties. This helped bring to life Dickens' description that Scrooge was aged by his miserliness rather than years. The producer of this is the guy who does the often bloody and violent Peaky Blinders series, and he commented that most versions make A Christmas Carol so cozy that you don't see what genuinely hard times Dickens was railing about. He wanted to make a Carol that more reflected the type of dreadful life the poor had in Victorian London. Well, the cast was excellent, it all looked good, and it did really bring home the horrors of poverty in that era. But in this version Scrooge isn't just a guy who decided money was more important than people (something that must have come from his father sending him to such cheap boarding schools), he's a sociopath made that way by a brutal father who basically traded Scrooge's innocence for free tuition. Scrooge isn't just greedy, he's damaged psychologically, and that shows in his character; what he does in this version of the Carol isn't just unfeeling, it's downright cruel (especially what he inflicts on Mrs. Cratchit). So when he does see the error of his ways at the end, it's not the happy reclamation of a soul. The end is a real downer instead, where it's implied that instead of other Scrooges that can be reclaimed, that there's just more of them and the spirits have more work to do, basically that it's an endless job that will never be finished. We aren't welcoming the one Prodigal Son back to the fold, we're instead emphasizing all the lost souls that will never be reclaimed. It's not hopeful, it's just more pessimistic.

It's also been tarted up to give a couple of female characters more to do. Intriguing idea to make Scrooge's sister one of the ghosts, but she just pops up that she's always "been interested in science" in the dialog like that updates her somehow, but seems to be there for no reason for that choice but to note that women were actually intelligent back then but were not given a chance to show it. It's Mrs. Cratchit's role that's been expanded the most, but the fact that she is played by a woman of color and then has some special connection with the spirit world smacks of stereotypes of Caribbean women and voodoo. It's like the stereotypical convention that Native Americans all have some type of spirit guide who can save them in times of crisis, a clichè that even made it into Star Trek: Voyager. So: looked good, excellent cast, but very grim, no hope, very bloody at times (check out the decapitated pet mouse). Would love one that kept the reality of the time with the story of the book!

Very surprised that I woke up on Friday morning with no nightmares after that one. (The intrusive and badly timed commercial breaks for no movie I would ever want to see except for Rise of Skywalker probably helped.) I had a good Hallmark coupon and wanted to add to a gift that was woefully inadequate. So James and I packed up the truck and headed for Amy's Hallmark at Town Center, where I found something quite nice, and also, with a second coupon, a gift to put away. We then went into the Publix next door (mostly to use the rest room, but also to pick up something we'd forgotten), and then stopped at Barnes & Noble to spend all of James' huge Christmas bonus, a $5 Starbuck's gift card, on a peppermint hot chocolate and a brownie.

Saturday we had a busy but fun day. We went to Lidl for bread, milk, and juice in the morning, then once home did a few other chores. Cut it really close to the time we had to leave (didn't realize it was so late), but got on chat with Verizon and cancelled those stupid Hum devices for the car. They're costing us $30 month and James' has never worked with his truck. In fact, he ended up getting a new one, which they made him pay for, and it still didn't work, and I was incensed when I discovered they wanted to charge us a termination fee for the "new" account. We told them we didn't want a new account when we had to get a new unit; we wanted to put the new unit on the old number, but apparently they didn't do that. Anyway, I got the dude to waive the termination fee, and we got the 55+ Unlimited plan so James doesn't have to worry about using his Surface at work and eating up all the data. (Unfortunately this doesn't seem to make us eligible for the free Disney+. Ah, well, I already pay for three streaming services we almost never use.)

We had supper at Fried Tomato Buffet and tanked up the truck at Costco up the hill, then set out on the freeway for the city of Tucker and specifically the Tucker Recreation Center, where the Atlanta Radio Theatre was putting on this year's version of An Atlanta Christmas. The rec center is an old school, and the show was in the auditorium, and we enjoyed this year's version with all of our old favorites, including "Are You Lonely Tonight," "Davy Crockett Christmas," and "USO Christmas." Stopped to talk to Clair and Daniel and Ron and Lin afterwards.

On the way in I'd noticed there was a tiny little white building set in front of the rec center on brick pilings. As we came out, used the flashlight on my phone to see what it was. In front the rec center people had planted a butterfly garden, with signs letting you know what each thing was. Turned out the "little building," which James thought might be 15 feet by 20, was an old courthouse! The "Browning Courthouse," specifically, from Tucker, original structure built in 1860 (!) and used until 1977! Wow. They must have had to sit on each other's laps!

We managed to beat the rain home and Tucker had his walk that did not turn into "a bath."

And then "click!" and our weekend was over.

Labels: autumn, baking, chores, Christmas, events, food, friends, gifts, holidays, movies, seasons, shopping, summer

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:37:00 PM

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Encouraged by a weather report that predicted a cloudy but dry day, we slept until nine and then went through the usual morning routine, although I had to cut the dog walk short for a call of nature. However, this gave me enough time to write out some Thanksgiving cards and address and stamp them. These came with us as we left for lunch a little early so that we could swing past the Austell Road Cobb County complex so I could renew the registration on my car and get this year's tag. Even with this detour, we arrived at this week's lunch venue in plenty of time and had a nice long meal and convo with Alice, Ken, Aubrey, Mel, and Phyllis. We were eating at Okinawa and discovered that Aubrey's good friend from her school years, Kayla, was working there and had just been promoted to head server. Alice was keeping warm by the window, as she had come home from Conjuration with a cold. Nothing worse than good ol' fashioned con crud. We talked about everything from the weather to the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.

Lunch broke up after two, and I had James swing by the Mableton post office to drop off the Thanksgiving cards. Instead of coming back up Floyd Road/Hurt Road to return to the East-West Connector, we did a slight variation on the directions being given to us by the GPS and drove a street called Fontaine Road. We're so used to being surrounded by suburbs that we are surprised when we find the small places in Cobb that are still country-like. The road leading to Fontaine was filled with small, older homes, but Fontaine itself paralleled an old railroad line and looked almost like the road we take up to Helen, GA, with widely-spaced homes, some with stables and acreage behind them, and many stands of trees, all in various stages of autumn color. The railroad tracks were out of sight in a little valley at the right side of the road. It was like a little five-minute vacation in the middle of our day.

We were headed for Barnes & Noble to get the cocoa we got cheated out of last weekend when the Acworth Books-a-Million showed up missing in action. The doors were wide open and they had been doing some rearranging inside, with big upright shelves of the newest and recommended books right up front. Before we had our cocoa we wandered around both floors, checking out the magazines (but I'm not buying any this weekend, as they usually have the magazines on discount on Black Friday), and then the books. I did find a book that was discounted, so picked that up (a humorous memoir about a woman who is an introvert attempting to act as an extrovert) and a paperback involving a paranormal mystery. After surveying the reading material and getting ideas for the few gifts we have left to purchase, we sat and had peppermint cocoa and shared a chocolate chunk cookie. No dessert for us tonight!

James wrapped up the power chair before we left the bookstore and a good thing, because we ran through a rainshower on the way home—say, what happened to that dry day we were supposed to have?—but luckily it was barely spitting when we pulled into the driveway. So we got the chair put up safely.

Spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening watching some things on Netflix. First up was a British special narrated by Stephen Fry about the elaborate courting behavior of several types of tropical birds, including birds of paradise and bowerbirds. The narrative was very tongue-in-cheek and the birds beautiful to look at, but with the most extraordinary courtship rituals: dancing, decorating elaborate nests, even a type of bird where the male has a male "wing man" to help him court his lady friend.

While James was cooking up some burritos for his breakfasts, I watched the documentary Harry and Snowman, the story of which is told in Elizabeth Letts' The Eighty Dollar Champion. Snowman, a former plow horse, was on his way to become dog food when a riding instructor named Harry DeLeyer bought him for eighty dollars. The horse turned out to be a natural jumper who won prestigious jumping contests in the late 1950s against younger, fitter horses. It wasn't the first time I had met Snowman. He appeared in a childhood book I still have, More Than Courage by Patrick Lawson, stories of real-life dogs and horses, where I also first read about "Sergeant" Stubby of WWI, Chips the war dog (whose real story was much better than the Disney telefilm), Roman war dogs, the famous Lipizzaners, police dogs, race horses, rescue dogs—and even a chapter on performing dogs and horses that talked about Lassie, Fury, and Rin Tin Tin.

Later we watched a series of short Disney films, including little shorts based on Rapunzel and Frozen, the enchanting nearly black-and-white "Paperman," the Prep and Landing "Secret Santa" short, etc. Totally delightful! The Mickey Mouse cartoon made of half vintage animation and half CGI was very inventive.

Labels: animals, books, Disney, friends, holidays, seasons, shopping, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:57:00 PM

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Seriously. Here it is nearly October and it's still over 90 bloody degrees during the day. No rain for days, just some rumblings of thunder on Friday night that came to naught. Just relentless sun over trees that are looking more limp and tired by the day, some of them desperately trying to change color, some of them just giving up. The two oaks out front of our neighborhood have just thrown up their branches in dismay, turned their leaves brown, and shed them posthaste. The scuppernong vines bore fruit, then wilted, leaving mashed grapes thickening to fruit leather on the concrete sidewalks of the main street.

Misery. Sheer misery. We took the opportunity to sleep late on Thursday, James exhausted by three days in the office and the relentless new lights overhead (he calls them "the Nazi interrogation lights"), so ended up at Costco near noon to find out just how many people of all ages are out of work on a Tuesday afternoon. Not just retirees and stay-at-home parents, apparently. We were there to buy additional things that would go off sale on the 29th: more flonase, BreatheRight strips, and Swiffer wet cloths. Better to buy them now when they're cheaper. Also bought Skinny Pop on sale. Came home by way of Publix to pick up twofers.

And that was it. By then it was airless and broiling. We just went home.

Friday we headed out for lunch early. I had done a dumb thing: ordered a book I already had from Barnes & Noble when I had fully intended to order a different one. So I brought the book I was delivered on Thursday and exchanged it (with a 35 cent upcharge) for the one I wanted. James got a "Wargamer" magazine, and then we headed back (we had gone out to Perimeter Mall because James prefers their magazine selection) to Austell, arriving at Hibachi Grill only a few minutes late. Ken wasn't feeling well, but Alice had come, and Mel and Phyllis. Phyllis was already done reading Becoming Superman and passed it off to Alice. We were trading pet stories today, and parental discipline tales.

Normally we would have gone somewhere else after lunch. You guessed it. Too hot.

Saturday all we did was go to Walmart. James needed suspenders and diabetic socks. (His favorite socks were very low in supply; we only found two pair. Nosing around online later I couldn't find them, either. Damn.) Also got some formerly Grade B maple syrup (now classified as Grade A Dark Amber Robust Flavor—could they get any wordier?) and low sodium soy sauce (Walmart brand is lower sodium than Kikkoman), sugarless candy and wild bird seed. I really can't afford to feed them, but I miss seeing my little flock.

Came home by way of Lidl for bread, milk, ground turkey, and chocolate. Found chicken thighs for 79¢/pound. Sunday dinner taken care of [Later: I made cacciatore and there was so much left over we have two more meals]!

We came home, and James was feeling ill for the rest of the afternoon. Not that I was feeling much better. It's not like this is a new thing. I've never liked summer, even when I was a child. The sun gives me headaches, the heat gives me rashes, and if I'm overly hot for too long I get the runs. And after I turned sixteen it was no fun any longer because I had to go to work. I hoped it would get better as I aged; instead I've gotten worse. The heat saps me, saps us so much. Sometimes its scary.

I just wish it would cool off. I know I'm flaky about summer, and I'm used to it. But I worry about James.

Labels: autumn, books, food, magazines, seasons, shopping, summer, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:21:00 PM

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After the wonderfulness [sarcasm alert] of this week, which included being sick on Monday and Quasimodo on Wednesday due to a fall on Tuesday, I was ready for a better weekend. The end of the week did trend better: we had a "fall festival" at work and Friday went normally enough, but sadly James had to work today.

Yeah, I took the opportunity to sleep late. As a Facebook post said, "The best treat this weekend is an extra hour of sleep." LOL. It was nice because I mostly tossed and turned during the night. (Once again I have better dreams in the daytime. Was I nocturnal in a previous life?)

As Aubrey Spivey can probably attest, Tucker's "magic cookies" make him instantly walk into his crate at night. He was down to four. So I harnessed up the "terror," put him on a solid instead of a flexi leash, sat him on a towel in the passenger seat of the car, and took him downtown with me. The parking lot at Cobb Parkway was full, so I worked around the back of downtown and parked at the public lot behind Johnnie McCracken's pub.

Wow. Not only was the Farmer's Market going great guns, but there was a big Hallowe'en event in Glover Park. They had school choirs performing, kids in costume, scarecrows, a big Scholastic Book Fair table, and boxes of free books, mostly children's books, but also some adult volumes. I found an old Dell Yearling book about Ethel Roosevelt; when you see books about Theodore Roosevelt's children they are usually about Alice. The park was filled with families with kids in and out of costume, and even some dogs dressed up. Tucker greeted a pair of schnauzers, many mixed breeds, a shy chihuahua, two toy poodles (one dressed up like bumblebee), a diffident greyhound, and a cocker spaniel. Then, as we were rounding the second row of Farmer's Market booths, there ahead near the Big Daddy dog biscuit tent was a big German Shepherd, even bigger than Tucker's "deadly enemy," the Shep down the street. Tucker did not bark at him, but confidently trotted up until he was about two feet from the big dog, who was standing calmly looking at him, not hostile, just interested. Tucker looked at him for about ten seconds, then retreated behind me. No question who won the dominance game that time.

We walked past the Corner Shop to peek in and say hi to the proprietor, then walked all the way down to DuPre's before returning to the car. Stopped by Dunkin Donuts and got a chicken salad on a French roll for lunch (as I said, not much on chicken salad, but suitably bland for my dang freaky digestion, and the bread is good), then returned home. I think I tired him out. :-)

Later I spent time resetting most of the clocks—Daylight Saving Time being gone, gone, gone finally—and decanting all but one of my calendars (the other is for work and is in my bag) and putting them in place for the New Year. Discovered FX marathoning The Simpsons annual "Treehouse of Horror," so stopped there until it was time for James to come home.

About four o'clock someone knocked on the door. I was busy at the moment and didn't get downstairs until after they'd gone. Figured it was the mailman. Sure enough, the mailbox was crammed with medications  James ordered from Kaiser, my coupon book selection from Barnes & Noble (The Santa Claus Man), and miscellaneous mail. I just had them in hand and was heading back to the porch when I heard a shout from down the street and there was big old plush Max lolloping toward me with his kid following behind. I collared him for her and he rolled over on his back to get his tummy rubbed. What a sweetie.

I noticed that our neighbors across the street were out for Hallowe'en (their little boy usually goes trick or treating) and had blocked their stairs with "caution" tape. I didn't have any of that, but used Tucker's long leash to block ours. I hoped this would stop the kids from coming up on the porch like they did the past two years and banging on the door (as late as 9:30!) even though we had no lights on. [It did. I think four houses in our neighborhood had lights on.]

At six I took Tucker outside and when James got home we were off to West Cobb Diner for supper. We were held up for about ten minutes while police cleared yet another nasty accident at Dallas Highway and John Ward Road (there was one yesterday), and then were served almost supernaturally quickly at the Diner. I guess the advantage of going out to eat on Hallowe'en night is that there aren't any crowds out there. We both have turkey leftovers. And I finished the next Mary Russell mystery, The Moor.

Came home to watch The Real History of Halloween, the For Better or For Worse Hallowe'en special "The Good-for-Nothing," and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. (Oh, and more "Treehouse of Horror" episodes.)

Labels: books, dogs, food, Hallowe'en, pets, seasons, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:58:00 PM

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...seasonal change in Holiday Harbour.

Labels: Holiday Harbour, seasons

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:30:00 PM

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I was so sleepy last night and busy on chat that I didn't note in yesterday's entry the one thing that struck me the most on the way to the Marlay House—spring has sprung. I don't get out much during the week, except when I drive to work, and then it's pitch dark. On the way home I usually have a headache from the fluorescents and I need to keep my eyes peeled to the road anyway because of the sheer idiocy of commuter traffic. I have noticed an increase in flowers, if nothing else because of sneezing and itchy eyes!

But going into DeKalb County...holy smokes, wisteria everywhere! You couldn't turn more than two corners without seeing wisteria vines spilling from the sides of overpasses, or draped over dead trees, down the sides of freeway cuts, on old fences, a wash of violet and green. And the dogwoods are out! They have a different white color from the flowering cherry trees; the cherry blossoms look a purer white, but the dogwood blossoms have this odd luminosity—during a full moon they almost glow.

Not to mention the azaleas dotted everywhere: rich magenta, carmine red, pink, white, salmon.

A funny: we hadn't been in that neighborhood in ages, so I plugged the address into my phone. It kept searching for GPS, kind of silently "popped" and suddenly I was in North Carolina, or, rather, it said I was in North Carolina. LOL. Google Maps sometimes freaks out like that. So I plugged the address into the GPS and we went on; in the meantime I rebooted the phone and then I was back in place racing down I-75 southbound. The GPS and the phone indicated two different routes; the phone wanted us to get off the freeway one exit further down (Freedom Parkway). Traffic was backing up, though, so we took the earlier exit (North Avenue), but turned left where the phone told us to (Piedmont Road) rather than turning left at Peachtree (the GPS route) which was backed up (apparently something was being held at the Fox Theatre). It was funny hearing the two navigation systems talking; the GPS pronounces things better—you should hear the Droid GPS do "Smyrna"; it comes out as "Smy-er-na"—but it pronounces Ponce de Leon as no one in Atlanta does. To everyone here it's always just "Poncey."

Labels: allergies, seasons, travel

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:08:00 AM

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Yes, and it's only three days after Valentines Day! It's supposed to be 72°F tomorrow and 71 on Saturday.

Granted, we've had enough warning. The birdsongs have been changing for at least two weeks—if you don't watch or feed birds it might not sound any different to you, but it does to me. More birds are singing, and different songs, and the woodpeckers have started to drum. A year or so back, I saw one canny woodpecker drumming on our gutters; it magnified the sound and made him sound like the world's sexiest male. :-)

Making sure I have the feeders stocked so that I can have some good viewing this weekend!

Working and listening to BBC History Magazine's January podcast, having already listed to a "Tech Guy." Think I'll do a Mugglecast next.

Labels: birds, podcasts, seasons

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:04:00 AM

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Friday proper was involved in tasks that are covered in Holiday Harbour. I worked until James got home from work, then we went to dinner at Fresh2Order, since we had a twofer coupon for our anniversary. They had not had my favorite, the Creamy Chicken Vegetable Soup, during the summer, so I happily enjoyed a bowl with dinner. This is a thick, delicious soup full of chicken, carrots, and other veggies, very filling, so I ended up taking 3/4 of my dinner home.

We also went into Buckhead to the big Borders, cutting through the "ritzy" homes on Mt. Paran Road and the others north of Chastain Park. "Mr. Inflatable," the guy with the myriad inflatable seasonable decorations, must have gotten read the riot act by his neighborhood association, because while he had his yard and house strung everywhere with Christmas lights and also had an illuminated Santa Claus, there wasn't an inflatable in sight. (I don't like the things anyway; they look cheap.) James had some $10 credits and wanted to go to the largest store where they had the most choice in the history section. Alas, the history section has been denuded; the book James wanted was not there. I fared better: two magazines, a Windham Hill Christmas CD, and two books, one about philosophical discussions about Christmas (such as telling children about Santa) and the other S.J. Rozan's newest Lydia Chin mystery. (I don't usually buy a book without a coupon, but Rozan's books are so hard to find I wouldn't leave that behind, and the Christmas book was nothing I'd ever seen before, so I got both, plus the newest Entertainment Book. We may need the Atlanta History Center coupon for the Candlelight Nights, anyway.)

Had dessert at Bruster's—James had peppermint stick ice cream, which tastes like a soft candy cane, but I would like it better if the base was chocolate instead of vanilla!—and came on home.

Saturday morning started early because it was not only the last Farmer's Market of the season, but it was Hair Day to boot. We got salad veggies and some green pepper, stocked upon homemade dog biscuits for Willow, bought jalapeno pimento cheese to take to Hair Day along with the sun goat pesto and crackers, got some chocolate chip cookies for dessert and a turkey pot pie for Monday supper, and James stocked up on boiled peanuts. We got stuck waiting for the train, but did get out of downtown eventually.

When we go to Ron and Lin's house from the Farmer's Market, we cut cross-country behind Whitlock Road via Polk to Dallas Highway, then go diagonally through Villa Rica Road. Most of Villa Rica is country-like, with horse farms or acreage, and it was like an autumn impressionist painting come to life, all soft edges and lovely colors. You would never think it looking at the Bradford pears in the spring, when they're all fluffy with white blossoms, but they turn extraordinary colors in the fall, from green to saffron to orange to scarlet shading all the way to maroon on one tree. Some of the maples are like molten butter in the sun.

We had a great time at Hair Day. Ron had told everyone Juanita was bringing lunch, but actually Andrew was bringing it, with a birthday cake for his wife, Shannon, and she was coming along later. There were birthday banners strung all over the house, and when she walked in the door and we yelled "Surprise!" she clapped hands to her face in a reproduction of Kevin in Home Alone. LOL.

A little after one we moseyed along home to put up the spoils of our final trip of the season, then went out to the hobby shop. I suggested to James that perhaps the Borders at Perimeter Mall might have the book he wanted, as they have always had a good history section, so we headed in that direction after our visit. We enjoyed our ride through the "ritzy" part of town, then stopped at the Container Store on the way there to buy a few organizational odds and ends.

Alas, when we got to the story there were big yellow banners outside screaming "Store Closing." Son of a bitch! You never see any of those wretched endless shoe stores closing. Looked around, then came home.

Glory be! Jen was on chat! She found a spot in her barracks that accessed the wi-fi in the galley and sat talking with us until very late. (The watch passed her twice without reprimanding her, so I guess it was okay.) She thought she would have a late school start, but there was a sudden opening, so her A-School begins on Monday! So needless to say we were up rather late and didn't get up until ten this morning. Had to go to Publix (good twofers this weekend) and Kroger, then came home to put the perishables up and went to Ikea for the afternoon. We hadn't been in...ages. I can't even remember the last time we went. Had lunch in their restaurant, then walked around. I am looking for a comfy chair to replace the old papasan downstairs. It's been a good old chair, but it's too bulky and it creaks and crackles when you sit in it anymore. I'd love a wing-back, but those are terribly expensive. I just want a comfy, sturdy chair, one you could sit in to read.

I also would love to replace that totty old microwave cart in the dining room. It's doing china cabinet/cup duty and I've always wanted something prettier. But the only thing small enough would be the buffet, which doesn't have a top half. We'd have to put up some shelves or a small cabinet. Not sure I want to mark up the wall like that.

On the way home, checked out the Brookwood Borders. James found a historical book he wanted, and also a collection of short stories, but we had to go out of our way back to the Buckhead store to get the book I wanted, the newest of the Bryant and May books. I'm really loving these, especially the little esoteric details about various London things like the courses of the river or the Underground.

And of course we enjoyed the splendid autumn color in all the older neighborhoods like North Druid Hills Road.

Listend to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on the way home, and a couple of "Splendid Table" installments, including a Thanksgiving edition where they talked about turducken. Later we had turkey soup for supper with whole-wheat egg noodles and watched this week's This Old House and two R5Sons Alaska episodes.

Labels: autumn, books, friends, furniture, gatherings, Holiday Harbour, seasons, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:42:00 PM

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Gawd, what a frustrating morning. I got in at seven, but couldn't do anything on the computer until nine, since there were sporadic network outages. Ironically, the woman across the hall from me and someone down the hall from me both had their connections, but I was high and dry, even after rebooting three times. I made a couple of phone calls, and stewed. Then when the network was back, I had to print on another printer because ours was out of toner and we had no replacement. This wouldn't have been bad except someone else was printing what looked like a 300-page document—and then it started saying it was running low on toner, so instead of shaking the cartridge, someone kept shutting it off. I guess they don't know you can extend the life of the cartridge that way. Heck, I once got several extra days out of a cartridge by just shaking it twice a day.

Thankfully, this afternoon was calmer.

When I got home, I walked Willow, then ripped all the summer stuff down and put it away. I simply cannot stand looking at it any longer. Did the porch and the foyer, and even put the mailbox wrap on. Had to throw the summer banner away; it was on its second summer and the sun had made the bottom panels rot away and get stringy. The fall flag is looking very faded. Sigh. The sun is so hard on these things, and the porch faces dead west, so it simmers in the heat.

Willow also got a bath tonight. She hated it and so did my back. :-) But we watched an episode of Pie in the Sky and the 2010 RV show...oh, goodness, one of those looks like fun!

Labels: decorating, dogs, seasons, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:20:00 PM

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Actually, I pulled down all the indoor spring decorations at lunch time. They were making me morose. The best thing about spring so far has been seeing fledgelings come to the bird feeder, still fluttering their wings at Mom and Dad, begging to be fed. The parent birds are incredibly patient—after a while, you would figure they would peck them: "You're sitting on the feeder! Feed yourself!"

Been irritable and "off" since I was sick in February. I'm pretty sure now I had the flu sans fever. The hot flashes feel worse, not better, compounding the hot feeling on my skin that I've had since my thyroid was removed. Bleah. Heat.

We have succeeded in keeping Willow in her shirt. She seems resigned to it. If I hit Walmart tomorrow I may buy her one that fits, maybe a women's small. James said I should try to find one that says "Bad to the bone." :-)

Listened to podcasts as I worked today: "This Week in Tech," a "Hardcore History" about the Apaches, "Mugglenet," the Whocast that was broadcast after the airing of the second part of "The End of Time," a BBC history magazine broadcast for this month, and Leo LaPorte's "Tech Guy."

Watched American Experience about the history of American whaling: a combination of a general history, the specific incidence of the whaleship Essex (as written about by Nathaniel Philbrick, who appeared in the program), and pieces about Herman Melville and Moby-Dick, which was based on Essex. The person narrating/glimpsed briefly as Melville was so familiar that I went scrambling to PBS's website: well, yes, of course it was Robert Sean Leonard.

The new theme song to American Experience sucks.

It looks like they are going to do "Hurricane of '38" next week in widescreen. A pity Dish doesn't show GPB or WPBA in widescreen, or I could re-record it.

Oh, and my copy of Lillian Gilbreth's biography came today. Looking forward to reading that. Has photos of the real Cheaper by the Dozen children.

Labels: birds, books, dogs, health, podcasts, seasons, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:44:00 PM

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When that alarm rang this morning, how I hated it! It was 7:30 and we went to bed after one and it was so nice and cozy under the blankets. But we did get up, muddled about, and managed to get out of the house and on the way to Ellijay for the Apple Festival by 8:30.

What a morning! The low, dark clouds had vanished and the sky was bright blue with some marshmallow clouds dotted about. It was in the high thirties—yes, you heard that correctly!—with a nice breeze. I was still sleepy, but we put the Marcelle Willis Celtic CD we bought at Yellow Daisy (she plays dulcimer, and the CD also includes Irish whistle, some lively, some more sweet), and that brightened me up a good deal. Once we arrived at the Lions Club parking lot, however, and emerged into that brisk, clean air, it was if I just woke up from hibernation and was finally alive after another stultifying summer.

Wow, wow, wow. We got there about 9:30 and walked around for two hours and weren't even tired afterward. Previous years we came early, it was cool for about an hour and then the sun switched to "roast" and we'd leave sweating and exhausted. This was just glorious! We checked out all the booths in turn and did the following:

• Bought two Christmas gifts.
• Bought a new cinnamon scented hot pad.
• Bought five pieces of Ginny's Fudge for dessert.
• Bought a peck of Granny Smith apples fresh from the North Georgia orchards.
• Bought a cute small ceramic statue of stacked jack o'lanterns and also a small ceramic Holstein calf that sits on the edge of a shelf with one leg hanging down.

And two most wonderful things: first, we went into the one building there, and they were selling sweat- and T-shirts after applying iron-on patterns of your choice on them. They had a fall design with chickadees on a dogwood branch with rusted leaves and the dogwood "hips" berries, and a winter/Christmas design with chickadees on a holly branch. Lovely sweatshirts like these are usually $35-$45 each from catalogs, and they had them two for $25! So James bought me the Christmas one for my birthday and I got the fall one myself!

And then, the lady with the little "feather" trees was there. (Hers are not actually made from feathers; they look like the branches are done from some type of thread, but it's designed like a feather tree.) Hers was the little feather tree that I turned into this last year, a perfect little jewel. Well, when I conceived it last year, I debated either decorating the way I ended up doing it (the 1890-1910 look), or doing something old-fashioned, like handmade-looking ornaments and wooden toys that looked like someone living in the country made the decorations. So now that I have a second tree, I can try the look I didn't try. Cool!

And we tasted the dips and the jellies without being disturbed by bees and hornets, enjoyed browsing each of the booths, and after we bought our apples James sat under cover watching the cake walk while I ran back for the pumpkins and one of the gifts without him having to tow twenty pounds of apples.

The only thing wrong with the weather was that I felt bad for the vendors. They are in these little pavilions with plastic roofs and plastic sides you can button down for inclement weather. Yesterday they had rain, which is nasty when you're out in the middle of a grassy field that tends to mud (there was still mud today left over from yesterday), and today the wind was blowing so hard that several of the vendors had to take down the plastic sides, which they had erected to keep warm, because the wind picked up so much that it was rattling the merchandise on the shelves. I had to pick up two little plaques for one lady because the wind just swept them off the table they were set on.

But this wasn't the end of the wonderful day. We left the festival through downtown Ellijay and started back south. Just south of town are two "farm markets" on the east side of the road. The one on the right is the larger of the two, the Panorama Farmers Market. We wandered the building looking at the things available: more fresh apples, dried fruits, jellies, salad dressing, goats' milk lotions, cookbooks, canning supplies, and a room devoted to penny candies. For a moment it was like being back at Tom's Superette again. They had candy buttons and candy cigarettes, licorice and Mary Janes, buttons on a string and peppermint pillows, and all sorts of goodies including peanut brittle (yes, the peanuts predominated...LOL). We bought a big apple pie, some dried cranberries and cherries, and a jar of blackberry spread that was like something from heaven, strong-flavored and sweet with no sugar added. Yum!

The other place was more of a plain farm market, selling mostly apples, and also some ciders, gourds, and pumpkins. I did get a nice trio of Indian corn. I love Indian corn!

On the way home we stopped in Canton for lunch. We at first headed for Olive Garden, then didn't want to spend so much money and decided on Subway instead until I noticed the little Asian place next door. Frankly, it wasn't very good. Very slow service and the little appetizer I ordered in lieu of lunch, "beef triangles," had very little beef in them. Oh, well, live and learn. The wonton soup was okay.

Visited the Books-a-Million in the adjacent shopping center and did find a copy of "Country." I let my subscription lapse because I really only want the fall and winter issues, and I was finding the magazine quite regularly last winter and spring. Of course the moment I really wanted it, all the supplies dried up! So I suppose I should re-up.

As a bonus this issue has an article about Rhode Island in it! They are in Chepachet.

Had to stop at Kroger for gasoline and a newspaper, and then the lovely day was over. Just finished watching Clark Howard and are now on Adam Hunt-Davis' What the Victorians/Tudors Did for Us—great stuff! Love these British history shows!

Oh, and tonight is the newest "Treehouse of Horror." We quit watching The Simpsons ages ago, but always make a point of watching the "Treehouse" ones, even if lately they've been injected with annoying political humor. This is the first time in years that it hasn't been on after Hallowe'en, I guess to take advantage of sweeps. Guess that means Homer and the gang aren't ratings fodder anymore.

Labels: events, food, seasons, shopping, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 4:39:00 PM

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By the time I was in my late teens I had a considerably large collection of Readers Digests. We were getting them by subscription from the late 60s and every time I went to yard sales or flea markets I bought old ones; you could get some for a dime apiece. Eventually I had a collection from the late 50s all the way through the 1970s.

(After I left home Mom had them up in the attic until the one day she called me and said she was trying to clean up there. Could she get rid of the Digests? Oh, how I didn't want her to! There were lovely articles on the space program, and Corey Ford's wonderful pieces, and marvelous book sections, like The Triumph of Janis Babson and On This Night and Time Out for Happiness (about the Gilbreths of Cheaper by the Dozen). But at that time I didn't have anywhere to keep them, so I told her to go ahead. Only to find out later she tossed my Readers Digests and kept stuff like six dozen drinking glasses and old sheets with holes in them. Sigh.)

One of my favorite "Humor in Uniform" shorts from one of those issues was the story of a man who had been sent to a remote Pacific island. It was a dot in the ocean, with nothing to do there when you weren't on duty. One day he took a walk on the beach and wondered what time it was. He came upon another sailor who was wistfully staring out to sea and asked him the time. "July," the sailor said mournfully.

Oh, how I relate! July. Mid-July, in the midst of the soul-searing sadness that is summer. From May through September all I want to do is hibernate, to escape from the sweltering sun that gives me headaches and rashes (Gawd, my right shoulder itches) and the claustrophobic stuffy cubicle that takes over my life from June through mid-September. End-of-fiscal-year and summer seem to go together in more ways than one.

I am literally homesick for fall, breezes, cool air outside and cool blankets inside. I have brought home a nice box so I can dismember my fall magazines and toss the recipes and the cute kid stories and keep the fall scenes to dip into when I need them for refreshment. Maybe I'll burn the gingerbread candle tomorrow while I try to determine just how many advertisements I need to do (you have to advertise procurements over $25,000). I think there's ten. A long, long trail a'winding indeed.

At least there are "hibernation breaks." We had one for Timegate, and the unfortunately wonky weekend in Sevierville, and the nice cookout/fireworks launch for the Fourth. And coming up are Jen and Meg's visit in three weeks and later Dragoncon followed by the Yellow Daisy Festival and a Blue Ribbon Affair, and then, maybe, please God, a little bit of cool?

In the meantime—Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince tomorrow night with friends—but still, how much nicer it would be if it wasn't summer!

In the meantime I came upon something called Moonwalk One on the NASA channel tonight, from 1970, narrated by Laurence Luckinbill. Really trippy special...not just moon footage, but film of the crowds watching the moon landing, commentary by ordinary people, footage of celebratory parades, and then a rather lyrical ending about the analysis of moonrocks and where we belong in the universe, accompanied by otherworldly music akin to The Andromeda Strain (the real one, not the remake!). Some neat film following, and there's supposed to be an Apollo 11 special on later on GPTV. Hope to see lots of cool moon specials in the next few days to celebrate the 40th anniversary, and I am reading Andrew Smith's Moondust as well.

Labels: anniversary, events, history, magazines, movies, seasons, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:48:00 PM

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Today was frustrating.

Oh, not work. Work was fine. I did three orders and a modification, gave someone advice on how to write a sole source justification, asked where two other SSJs were, did a payment authorization, and a bunch of other little things.

For lunch I went to the library (I know—other people go to restaurants...LOL). I borrowed Revolution at the Table and Paradox of Plenty (American eating habits) by Harvey Levenstein and "Just a Housewife": The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America by Glenna Matthews (a sociological study).

When I got done with work I stripped the spring decorations down and turned everything back to autumn, except for the little table and the plaques in the foyer. The table now has seashore-themed things on it and the plaques are of lilacs. Also washed the bathroom floor. Got some tidying up to do before Monday, when we're hosting a cookout (which we hope doesn't get rained out).

No, the frustrating part was having the windows open. As much as I despise summer, there's always a point when one morning you open up a window because it's cool and that peripatetic breeze comes in, calling you. It's what I call the "vacation smell," that cool scent of grass and wind and longing that marks an early summer morning. Dad always insisted that we start on vacation about six in the morning and this was the very breeze that lured me out of bed to answer the siren song of the road. Never mind that I don't want to go anywhere anymore when it's warm. Never mind that with James' work's new vacation plan he won't get anymore time off until October or November. That old seducer the summer vacation breeze is working his alchemy. Memories flit in my head: Disneyland, driving across Nebraska or Wyoming, Williamsburg, Disney World, the coolness of the Flume in New Hampshire, and, oh, Lord, Lake George...my dearest Lake George and Lee's Motel and miniature golf and Fort William Henry and the excursion boats and driving up to Fort Ticonderoga...

Not fair, not fair, not fair.

Labels: books, seasons, travel, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:32:00 PM

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