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List Friday - SHOW ME YOUR FAVORITE SUMMER PLACES

OK, so it's not technically a list, but think photo-journalism-type list. We're midway through summer ( I know, you southerners are going back to school in a week - yuck!) and I'm sure many of you have gone on trips to your favorite summer  haunts.

So for List Friday, please send a link to photos of your favorite summer places -OR- just list them in the comments.

Thanks!


Here, in no particular order, are mine:

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Bevhtl


Foxglove

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For Badger

Because Badger said that no one else remembered it, that she couldn't find it, that she thought it had disappeared from the face of the earth.....



The Teen and Mrs. Pom present all the way from Skaket Beach on Cape Cod,







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That sublimely icy, day-glo mutant blue, icy confection known affectionately as:





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Complete with not one, but TWO bubble gum balls in every one!


The Teen's verdict: "We wanted cherry, but all they had was blue; gum ball is disgusting". And she  verily spit it out the window.


Summatime List Friday, Vol. 3 - A Baker's Dozen of Beach Necessities

Board


1.   Perfect chair that is close to the ground but reclines plus extra chairs to place around you so the guy and girl with the big tattoos, cigarettes, and boom box are outside the perimeter of your sanity.

2.   Book of choice - or several. I'm thinking one book about a beach house  to read in meta fashion while you are on the beach; a Jen Lancaster book so you can act all that like you know her and of course you don't at all but Blackbird does and isn't that the same thing? And then something you want everyone to see you reading whilst you are really sleeping behind your

3. Foster Grants (another age reference: insert RayBans, Oakleys etc.), which you will hide behind when you see a nebbishy attorney you only know from court, so you can pretend that you don't have the slightest idea who he  or his whining, screaming 5 year old and hectoring wife are so you don't embarrass the poor guy.

4.   Latest magazines that you wouldn't be caught dead having in your house but seems perfectly appropriate for the beach when books are too heavy for your little arms to hold up and that you can hide inside your weighty tome (see #2).

5.   SPF high enough that you probably could have just stayed home under your bedside lamp.

6.  Hat unless you want your highlights to turn green. Make sure it is sufficiently ugly enough or stylish enough that all your teenagers sit far away from you and you can't hear their music or their conversation.

7.   Ipod loaded with summer songs -  C'mon Baby, Light My Fire, or Donna Summer, or some other golden oldie that shows your age and complete lack of taste in serious music, and most importantly, that you can sing along to just in case #5 doesn't work re teens.

8.   Towel, which you use to prevent your feet from touching sand.

9.  Bathing suit "in case you decide to go in", which you know will only happen if there is a tsunami and you can't run fast enough.

10.  Water bottles filled with gin and tonics.

11.  Edamame encrusted with wasabi, thereby necessitating multitudinous refills of #10.

12.  Cute baby nearby for you to ogle whilst being smug that your beach equipment does not involve a portacrib, tent,  infant seat, and mother in law.

13.  Cute lifeguard nearby for you to ogle whilst forgetting that the only way you could get his attention if you start choking on #11 or #9 occurs.


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Post your comment or link to your blog on what YOU bring to the beach. Please.  Unless you are the beach and it's not raining like it was here until I actually sat down in the coffeeshop and then the sun came out - so gotta go!


Greetings from the Cape

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Isn't this a lovely space from which to  blog? The town we stay in has hotspots downtown where we can go online for free. If one is going to waste anytime on the internet while on the Cape, this surely is the only place to do it.

The weather has been typical mid-summer Cape: hot, cool, sunny, overcast, rainy, smurry, breezy, clear. In short, we've had a little of it all and we adjust our activities as the fronts roll through. We go to the bay beach early- really early for me - in the day, walk on the tidal flats, collect shells and crab claws and angel wings, and drink our coffee  on the beach. By lunchtime, we're ready for a second breakfast at the coffee shop, and then it's anyone's guess.

Today the weather is cooler and cloudy, so I decide it is THE perfect day to rent bikes. And it is. But for the fact that I tend to forget that the right knee, she don't bend no more, and so my biking on the trail was limited to a half mile of downhill coasting, trying to learn to keep my balance with only one foot on a pedal.  After nearly being pitched headfirst into the briars and worrying my poor little niece to death, I opt to walk the half mile back, and allow her to ride ahead without waiting for her decrepit, elderly aunt.  So, it's a good thing I didn't buy that old lady bike I saw a few weeks ago as it turns out that I am indeed a candidate for a knee replacement. I said I'd never do it, but facing a lifetime of not riding a bike has changed my mind.

Of course, you may laugh when I tell you that I haven't ridden a  bike in about 13 years. But now that I have this new body and new energy and I actually was on the bike, it all came flooding back to me: the balancing against gravity, the wind in my ears, the sounds and smells of traveling without a box of steel around me and four tires cushioning the road. I really miss it and now I am dejected that I can't do it in my current state. But it's the kick in the pants I've been waiting for and when I come back next year, I'll do it with a titanium joint for powerful pedaling!

It's always lovely here wherever you stay. The hydrangeas are magnificent, the lilies are gorgeous, the rudbeckia and black-eyed Susans line every road. We've had lobster rolls - hot and cold - and for lunch, we split a lobster omelette and cranberry pancakes. We've eaten tuna on crackers and peanut butter sandwiches for dinner at the ocean and nothing, frankly, tastes better.

We're headed to a dinner of hummus and grapes at the ocean. Or I may just sit here all day and stare at the flowers. Mr. Pom has assured me that my garden is fine and that he has even added a little to the cache. Oh, and the refrigerator is dead as is the big a.c. for the first floor.Sigh.

Seems even the house can't get along without me!

I miss my kids and hubby but I am enjoying being with my niece Franny and looking forward to The Teen and her cousins arriving at the end of the week.

Love to all my internets!


Leaving on a Jet Plane....Er..No, Just In a Honda Pilot


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What fantastic recollections of summertime eating! You posts and comments were so beautiful and moving and DELICIOUS that you have me craving everything from radishes to macaroni salad! Thanks for playing along and sharing with all of us your sumptious and simple Proustian treats. What I love most about them is the core of family that resides in the midst of it all: the barbecues and picnics and Grandmas' kitchens filled with family and cousins and breaking bread. That, after all, is the nourishment we truly seek when we are hungry: to fill the soul with the love of those around us.

I am off very early tomorrow morning for a week on Cape Cod. Sister #2 has rented a condo for two weeks and I am going up for the first week. We will be joined towards the end of the week with Sister and Bro In Law #5 with their kids and Sister #4's daughter. The Teen may or may not come as she has a camp overnight and The Princess will make an appearance for the second week.

My  art and reading bag is bigger than my suitcase! I am looking forward to beach, swim, pool, read, writer, paint. What else could be better?

Love to you all - there's an internet cafe that I'm sure I'll get to, but till then, behave yourselves and eats lots and lots of cake!


Summatime List Friday, Vol. 2

Blrhod1

Some of the brilliant members on my writing list were posting about the foods they remember from their childhood summer days. Remember being able to eat anything you wanted - or could get away with before your mother realized you were eating Fluff for breakfast for two months while she thought you were actually eating the Cream of Wheat that you were actually dumping down the sink?  What are the snacks you ate in the heat of the afternoons or after dinner while your mother washed the dishes or on the boardwalk on Friday nights?  Tales of popsicles and burgers and cotton candy. What are the summer feasts and treats that whisk you back to your family's picnic table, beach blanket, camp dining hall, or roadside stand?

These are mine:

  • Bowls of supermarket ice cream, carefully stirred and allowed to melt into a sludge that I would slurp out of the bowl.
  • Corn on the cob!  When else were we allowed to eat with our fingers??
  • Roasted marshmallows - we didn't know from s'mores, not until we went to camp and my mother wasn't gonna go buy all those Hershey bars so we could eat MORE sugar, but roasted marshmallows were great by themselves. We had these long metal skewers that went up and down and fitted into nifty red round handles. I've looked and looked for them nowadays and can never find ones with wooden handles.
  • Cold suppers: eaten on very hot evenings on the porch, a meal of cold cuts, potato salad (sometimes the regular kind from the supermarket and sometimes the homemade Italian style made with red bliss tomatoes, oil and vinegar, and a little or oregano), potato chips, coleslaw, pickles, and black olives, and lots and lots of
  • Watermelon. Summer in a mouthful.
  • At the beach: tuna salad on toasted seeded Italian bread. Yum. Memories of my sweet Aunt Anita.
  • Candy apples - the last thing we bought at the end of the night on our once-a-summer trip to Playland Amusement Park in Rye. They ran coupons in the newspaper for ride tickets all summer and we'd carefully clip them out and my mother would save them in the dining room breakfront until we finally went late in the season. 
  • French crullers and cups of coffee in paper cups  with my mother, her cousins, and aunt and uncle, sitting on the pier at the city beach at 3:00 every weekday. 
  • grated carrot and raisin salad - ok, I didn't say your summer food memories had to be food you liked. At girl scout camp, this salad appeared at every meal. It sort of grew on me but I mentioned it the other night to my kids and they all made vomiting noises. Charming children. 
  • Good Humor Chocolate Eclair ice cream pops. With the candy core. Need I say more?
  • Lastly, lemon Italian ices in paper cones from Saccones up the west - (up the west means on the west side of town, which was the Italian side). Saccones's Italian ice was smooth, tart and sweet, no artificial lemon flavor, and most importantly, no weird lumps of lemon peel, just cold, smooth lemon-ness melting in your mouth.

So - tell me your list of summer foods - either leave in the comments or link to me in your blog. I'm hungry.
And waiting!


My Fickle Friend

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The summer wind, came blowin in - from across the sea



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It lingered there, so warm and fair - to walk with me

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All summer long, we sang a song - and strolled on golden sand


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Two sweethearts, and the summer wind

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Like painted kites, those days and nights - went flyin by

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The world was new, beneath a blue - umbrella sky

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Then softer than, a piper man - one day it called to you

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And I lost you, to the summer wind


And the Winner Is.....

Books


THE TEEN PICKED THE NUMBER OF THE WINNING COMMENT. Congratulations to Bella of Mama Muses!

I wish I had a goodie to give each and everyone of you!

And before I post such a request for books again, I must remember to be careful what I wish for! I thought I had my summer reading all in place, but after these wonderful suggestions of  authors new to me, books I'd forgotten about, and books new to me by favorite authors, my list has grown and I will have to read a book a day to keep up with itBut you know what is the best part about summer reading lists? They easily morph into fall reading lists and winter reading lists and on and on. The day I am "finished" with my reading list is the day I will take my last breath. And spit - spit - may it not be for many years! (Avoiding the mal'occhio!)

There were a few other books I've read recently that were fabulous and entertaining.

  • The Unlikely Lavender Queen: A Memoir of Unexpected Blossoming by Jeannie Ralston -
    A freelancer for national magazines, living a life most of us will only dream about, marries the love of her life, a National Geographic photographer,  who promptly transplants her to the hill country of Texas and involves her against her will in starting a lavender farm.  It's an interesting read, not the least of which for me is the behind the scenes of how freelancers get published in national magazines - boy, am I doing things wrong! And I was also fascinated by how they began a lavender farm and turned it into a profitable business they ended up selling and retiring to live in Mexico with their children.

  • The Glass Castle - On my wish list for a long while, I ran across it in Stop and Shop of all places and bought it along with the groceries. A memoir written by  national journalist who works for MSNBC,  she was raised by two parents who lived in utter poverty by choice and addiction. Extraordinary, perplexing, and most importantly, told by a gifted storyteller.
  • How the Heather Looks: A Joyous Journey to the British Sources of Children's Books by Joan Bodger - another Cornflower recommendation, I bought this book used and expected to skim through it.  Can you imagine having the wherewithal and time to take your two very young children to England for an extended period of time in order to visit all the places they've read about in English literature - Wind in the Willows, Camelot, etcetera? My heart was racing as I read  their adventures of finding the settings for many of the major novels, legends, and stories familiar to all who have been brought up on the classics of children's literature. The entire book reads like a fantasy of travel, family time, and tracking down mysterious haunts and rivers and camps where their favorite characters and stories came to life.  Granted, this was in the early 60's when trips could be afforded through the use of guest rooms in farmhouses and campers for rent, but what an incredible adventure!

  • The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff. I loved this book. It has all the elements of an old-fashioned gothic novel set on the leatherstocking trail in upstate New York, one of my favorite places, this edgy fable is replete with legends and ghosts and contemporary issues and mores.



LIST FRIDAY - WHAT ARE YOU READING?

RhoDIA
Some summers are marked by long stretches of compulsive reading; some are remembered for immersions in a genre, such as mysteries or biographies. It is too early this summer to tell what literary features will shape it except to note that I am not tackling any weighty matters.

I seem to be drawn to bright and glittery or marshmallow light concoctions that I can glide into with minimal concentration and be entertained
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Balancing out the fluff are some satisfyingly rich books and a few solid Graham cracker bookends of substance.

Gracious, I've just described a s'more.

How fitting round a summer campfire.

POST YOUR OWN LIST IN THE COMMENTS OR LINK TO YOUR BLOG AND YOU WILL BE ENTERED IN A DRAWING FOR A $25 GIFT CERTIFICATE TO BORDERS!

Without further ado, I bring you








What I Am Reading This Summer



MARSHMALLOW LIGHTNESS
  • BAREFOOT - ELIN HILDERBRAND.  Set on Nantucket, 3 women come to terms with illness, pregnancy and cheating husband, and ruined careers. A great beach read set at the beach.
  • THE YEAR OF FOG - MICHELLE RICHMOND. A  story built around the irreparable consequences of a split second of distraction. Wonderfully written and so suspenseful that midway through I had to jump ahead to the last third of the book just to find out enough to allow myself to slow down in order to enjoy it.
  • RUSH HOME ROAD - LORI LANSENS. The first novel author of last summer's favorite, The Girls. I get a little nervous when white authors write about the black slavery experience, but I'm assuming it gets back to the present and I'm sticking with it since her second novel was so amazing. 
  • THE RED BOOK/A DELICIOUSLY UNORTHODOX APPROACH TO IGNITING YOUR DIVINE SPARK - SERA BEAK. It's being touted as a book for younger women, which I take up as a dare. I'm withholding judgment
RICH CHOCOLATE CENTER
  • ANDREA BARRET - THE AIR WE BREATHE. One of my favorite authors, her novel is set in a turn of the century tuberculin sanitorium. Her storytelling skills coupled with her scientific knowledge make her books compelling and immensely readable.
  • PEOPLE OF THE BOOK - GERALDINE BROOKS.  A very intricate story that flies on insect wings through eras of history and layers of archeology. The passages about book preservation and restoration are fascinating. 
  • THE MORVILLE HOURS -KATHERINE SWIFT. When I began writing my list, I was tempted just to put a link to Cornflower and say: go there. But that's not fair and I do read other things, but for the Anglophile gardener in me, what could be more fascinating than a book that is organized around the Medieval Book of Hours and traces the restoration of her Shropshire house and gardens? Sheer bliss that I read a tiny bit at a time, savoring the words and imagery.
  • GUARD YOUR DAUGHTERS - DIANA TUTTON. Written in 1953, it is a modern-day Little Women and just charming, literary, whimsical, and all things goodly English.
  • THE PERFECT SUMMER/ENGLAND 1911, JUST BEFORE THE STORM - JULIET NICOLSON. The jacket describes it as "a portrait of that sunlist season, transporting us to a time nearly a century ago to experience the sights, sounds, and feelings of a society on the brink of a changing world."  The book is based upon nonfiction sources that the author was privy to such as royal archives.  Enchanted and I haven't read a page yet.
GRAHAM CRACKER GOODNESS
  • AT LARGE/AND AT SMALL - FAMILIAR ESSAYS BY ANNE FADIMAN.  The essay is my personal literary genre and Ms. Fadiman is masterly in her ability to write poetically about familiar and simple subjects. An elegant collection that you can dip into and feel satisfied while wanting more.
  • SEASONS ON HARRIS/A YEAR IN SCOTLAND'S OUTER HEBRIDES- DAVID YEADON .  This is the book to read when you are tired of "I found a villa in Italy/France and restored it with the colorful local folk and now make a living giving tours and pressing olives with my movie producer husband".  An incredible travel writer, Yeadon spends a year in the dramatic Outer hebrides and writes about the people, the geogrphay, and the Celtic traditions. It just lifts me up and takes me to a place I'll probably never get to but yearn to see.
  • A THREE DOG LIFE - ABIGAIL THOMAS.  A short memoir written by a woman whose husband's evening walk of the dog turns into a tragedy that irrevocably alters both their lives.  I read it in one big, emotional gulp. The writing is honest, finely crafted, and raw. 
  • MISSISSIPPI SISSY - KEVIN SESSUMS. A hilarious memoir by a good ol's Southern gay boy, the little I've read so far is entertaining and amazing as he throws around names of who he hangs out with - like EUDORA WELTY.
I'm enjoying all your lists so far and looking forward to more. I think I have enough to get through the summer and the last week of August, we'll be on the Cape and I'll be ready to go to The Brewster Bookstore.

It takes so little - just shelves and shelves - to make me happy!






THE SUMMER RETURN....OF LIST FRIDAY!

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OKAY, for those of you who tuned into this frequency in the later years...and my lordie, I've been blogging four or maybe five (?) years in November!.....List Fridays was a regular feature here on...Fridays.

Based upon my capricious and arbitrary ways, I would select the list topic and then you go and write your list and either post it as a comment or link to my blog.

Capische?

Really, it's fun! For summer! And brought back by a landslide of requests (OK - one SL - )

Now we haven't done List Fridays in a long time, so we're easing back into slowly, going for a simple and easy but extremely fascinating topic. The first topic for List Fridays is........drumroll please.....

What Are You Reading This Summer?



Really, could it be any easier? Am I giving this stuff away or what?

 Yes, I am!

Leave a comment with your reading list or leave a comment linking to your list on your blog and you will be entered into a drawing for a



 

$25 gift certificate to Borders! 

But don't forget the rules: you must leave a comment with your reading list - let's say at least five three books - or a comment linking to your blog with your list.

Gosh, I love making rules. I love being in charge. I love being...me, a control freak lawyer by day and a whimsical, creative being by night.

But most of all, I love getting book recommendations and I'm looking forward to seeing your lists.





Nominations and All That Jazz

Brilliant


I've been nominated for a Brillante Weblog by Ellen  and Terri and I am very flattered and delighted to receive such a lovely award from two great friends!

This is a pass-it-on award which is really nice and the whole purpose of these memes, no? I am very happy to nominate some of my favorite blogs, an eclectic collection,  that never fail to be interesting and entertaining:

Dispatch from LA 
A hugely talented artist and writer who is also an elementary school teacher, her blog is just chockful of gorgeous journal pages. If you don't have the urge to run out and buy spray paints and stencils after you look at her work, then you will soon!  Her travel journals from Italy are mouth-wateringly delicious!

Cornflower
Being the Anglophile book reader that I am, Cornflower is a marvelous resource - witty, well-written tales of the books she reads, the book lectures and conferences she attends, and a smattering of home lifed knitting. I have picked up so many books through her recommendations.

The Inspired Room
Filled with creative vignettes and photos of very inspiring rooms, her blog has been responsible for many of my late night decorating forays. Her series of posts on outdoor rooms had me drooling and is responsible for a major impact on my decorating budget!

Amusebouch
A great blog filled with mouth-watering photos with simple, very clear recipes, plus lots of interesting trips and behind the scenes posts.

A Fresh Start In a New Place
 The author of this blog had a prior blog that took place in a senior citizen assisted living center. There was some controversy about whether it was an actual blog or fiction. Now this blog is supposedly by the same author and is a retrospective of her younger years when she moved to Vermont. Whether it is fiction or nonfiction really doesn't matter because it's beautifully written and reads like a novel.

Indigo Pears
Lila is my art buddy in the South, reminding me of our very happy life there. Her blog is a delightful collection of her art, her life, and things that strike her fancy.

Hue/For the Love of Color
Be still my heart! A blog devoted to color! Relatively new, it's loaded with photos and great posts about the use of color in your home. I've already gotten some great ideas for my house.

Enjoy!





Wave Hill







A soft, grey Sunday morning, just chilly enough for a light jacket and the desire for someplace quiet to work. I find my way to Wave Hill and walk amidst the beautiful specimen trees and pergolas built along the Hudson River. There are herb gardens and perennial borders and wild flowers to admire and sketch. I almost have the place to myself as the threatening skies keep most at home.


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Brava, brava Christina! The Italian family across the terrace are enjoying sandwiches and cappuccino with their two small children. It’s wasn’t hard to spot them as Europeans even before they began speaking mellifluous Italian. I am enchanted by the  young couple and their noisy, lively children. The wife is tall and slender, just visibly pregnant with a third. Her hand is gracefully pulled into a chignon and she wears oversize sunglasses despite the overcast day. The husband is lanky and attractive, with a curly head of slightly unkempt hair and a backpack full of bottles and toys. The grandmother is clothed in a long skirt and walking sandals and they are busy feeding the sparrows with the crusts fo their panini.

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Santolina Rosmarinifoliaand Lavandula Grosso

How could I not be mesmerized by their foreignness? It is so quiet and solitary that I can fool myself that I am anywhere in the world but in the Bronx within eyesight of the George Washington Bridge. For the morning, I am in Tuscany or Umbria or Greece.   I decide that Umbria it is and expect Maggie Smith to stride by any minute and invite me to lunch by the lago.

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I drink my own cappuccino and read my novel. I am indulgent with the antics of children other than my own and smile conspiratorially at frazzled young parents. Yes, I was you once, my smile says. The spilled yogurts, the juice down the shirts, the feet that would rather stomp down the metal ramp that admire the honeysuckle, the stroller traffic jam.  I can survey it all with fondness as I sit by myself on the cool terrace and decide whether to write or draw.  Later, I will wander on the paths, tarry under the pergola, or find myself a seat from which to draw the exotic plantings and mysterious niches.

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But for now,  since Maggie has not come by yet, I will nibble at a salad of asparagus and shaved parmesan. I will review some art books, finish a chapter in my book, and write about summers in Italy. Just as I imagine them to be.


Dance While You Have the Chance

I'm taking a break from garden blogging today to ask you to pray for another gardener, my sweet friend Carolyn and her husband, Arnie. Carolyn has been an elist friend of mine for several years and she writes the lovely blog, tumbleweeds and thyme.

Flip Arnie is fighting for his life right now. He has been a parapalegic for several years after a doctor's life-changing mistake on an operating table. He and Carolyn have changed their entire lives after this terrible event and they have shaped a new life in which their love and kindness for each other prevail despite all odds.

Arnie had to have a very serious operation last week and severe complications occurred and he is back in the hospital.  They need your prayers, your thoughts, your healing messages, your white light, and your love in every way you can.

The flip flop? it is Carolyn's and it is inscribed with a theme that has shaped these  last few years of their lives: Dance while you have the chance.

Please send them your love in messages and thoughts and in your hopes and prayers that they will have more time together to dance as only they know how.


Garden Destructo

I can't write too much today because  Mr. Pom is restraining me. He has me in a headlock because I am threatening to go outside and wreak havoc with my elderly neighbor.

See, between his very, very wide lot and my little narrow one, there's a very old, very ugly, very rusty chain link fence. The type of fence that surrounded our house and that we've slowly replaced over the last 8 years. This section of the fence is or was very low on the priority list. It's on the side of the house with few windows, next to the path with the garbage cans. Wasn't really an issue until we took down the tree and began this garden. But the budget wasn't there to replace it, especially because in summer, pretty bushes with glossy green leaves grow all over it and obscure the fence.

[There also used to be lovely cherry and apple trees between our property lines. I used to gaze out my studio windows at the cherry blossoms. Until he cut them down. He was too old to take care of them anymore and I guess it was weighing on his mind. The pile of abandoned construction material in the back yard doesn't seem to have the same effect. ]


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Last week, Mr. Elderly (87 years old) told Mrs. Pom that he was going to trim it back, that he was sorry he hadn't gotten around to it. No, no! Mrs. Pom politely replied. No need! The bushes are lovely and hide the fence. Oh, okay, Mr. Elderly replied.

Flash forward: Today, Mrs. Pom came home to devastation - shirtless (!) Mr. Elderly cutting the bushes down to the ground. And pulling out the old lilac that we've been nursing for a year from the last pruning attack by Mr. Elderly. Mrs. Pom is feeling faint. Mr. Elderly seems to have forgotten the conversation. Mr. Elderly has no idea what happened the lilac and does not know what was in the gaping hole that has now appeared. Mr. Pom, recuperating from hernia surgery in air conditioned bedroom, is oblivious to all.


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Whenever Mrs. Pom writes about herself in the third person, you can be sure that there will be no peac e in the valley tonight.