Henry’s Cousin, Leo

 

Baseball mascots: Wally the Green Monster for the Boston Red Sox, Jake (another of Henry's cousins) from the Worcester Bravehearts. Joining them is Gompei the goat the mascot for Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).

A lion costume

Send a Tiny Lion greeting

A story about lions getting a foot massage.

Whatcha Doin?

 

Inktober  starts on Friday. Vincent and I are looking over the prompt list. We decided I would need to make a journal for the challenge.

Whatcha doin?

T Stands for Play Day, All Day

 One day last week, I ran away from home to my friend, Teague's house. Next to Himself, Teague is my oldest friend, and the one who got me addicted  interested in genealogy. The last time I saw her was in early July. At one time when my girlies were small, Teague came over once a week. Now we're lucky if we see each other every few months or because of the pandemic in a year.

Anyway, we spent the morning catching up and then decided to head out to lunch. There were intermittent showers, but it wasn't a washout of a day. The sun came out so we decided we'd go to the local Dairy Queen and have lunch. If it started to rain we'd do a buy and fly, but

it actually was nice so we could sit outside at the picnic tables and have our lunch. 

Just as we were finishing up, it got very windy and the umbrella at our table blew away.  I put a chair on it so it wouldn't blow further away. We went in to order some ice cream to take home, and I told one of the staff about the umbrella.

No patrons were in the restaurant so you wonder how an order could be mixed up. Teague ordered a mini cookie dough Blizzard (soft service ice cream with bits of cookie dough in it) and a small cookie dough Blizzard for her husband. I ordered a mini Heath bar (toffee bits) Blizzard. When we got back to the house, there were 3 mini Blizzards. 2 were cookie dough and the other was M & M candies.  Hmmm. Well, M&Ms  and Heath bars are both candies so it was all good.

For the afternoon, I had brought my laptop so we set up in Teague's sunroom and played genealogy. Last week, I had mentioned finding cousins. Teague has a subscription to Newspapers.com so was looking up obituaries so we could find where everyone was buried so we can plan a road trip to go cemetery sighting. 

A few years ago, we were trying to come up with a cool name for going to the cemetery. Cemetery hop, sounded frivolous and maybe disrespectful. Head Stoners, fun, but maybe not. So Cemetery Sighting or Siting.

Teague's husband left to go to a meeting and we were deep down the rabbit hole of genealogy. Late in the afternoon, I had a cup of tea, and Teague also had some delicious apple turnovers. It was well past supper time when I noticed the clock and how late it was. So we shut down for another day.

Drop by hosts, Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog to find out what the rest of the T Stands For gang is up to. If you want to play, include in your Tuesday post a beverage or container for a beverage. Don't forget to link your blog to Bleubeard and Elizabeth's page.

For The Hitchhikers

 

How Does Your Garden Grow?

 Good ol' Blogger rearranging the photos backwards

The sedum the Eldest plunked in the ground several years ago looks pretty. Pink, her color.

Lots of little tomatoes

Busy bee in the Heath Aster

Nice to see the bees coming back

A milkweed pod exploded

Milkweed pods ripening

Petunias trying to make a come back.

In a few weeks, the morning glory seeds will be ready to harvest

Ugly tomatoes. Too much water

Three little eggplants

A ripening pepper

The leaves are late this year. Usually by this time, the lawn in ankle deep in leaves.

Two different colors on the hydrangea bush

The leaves are late in turning this year. This red maple normally turns color at the end of August. Too much rain and hot, humid weather.

A weird light at sundown. The camera didn't quite catch it

Heavy rains and the ground so wet, the windchimes fell over. Tiny bunny didn't mind. Just ate around them.

The mums didn't get planted into the rail boxes. Forse domani. Maybe tomorrow.

The large mum looking good.

Little purple flowers trying to hang on to Summer just like me.

Full moon through the trees. A reflection off the lens looks like an eye

Full moon. Or is that Saturn? 😉

How does your garden grow?

Saturday Morning at the Library

When I was 5 years old, I was forced to take dancing lessons while the Brother was forced to take accordion lessons. I hated dancing class. The Knights of Columbus Hall where the classes were given had no heat or it wasn't turned on. I hated wearing the pink beginner tights. I liked clacking around in the tap shoes, but Ma wouldn't let me practice inside the house on the wood floors. I spent most of my time in class being miserable and crying. Eventually, I was taken out of class.

While the Brother still had to endure accordion lessons, Dad took me to the library. He would leave me upstairs in the children's library where I could look at the books and choose to take some books home with my own library card. As I got older, I would go downstairs to the adult library and wander among the stacks enjoying the scent of the books before going to find Dad in the reference area consulting the law books and catching up on his work.

So for the next several weeks, a list of my favorite books, some I have read as a child, others as an adult and some  I have read more than once.

This week, Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach. From 13th century Germany, an epic from Arthurian romance (stories about King Arthur, Knights of the Round Table, the Holy Grail). von Eschenbach was a German knight, poet, and a Minnesinger (a kind of troubadour)

If you haven't read this you can read it free online at Project Gutenberg or you can find it at the library or at your favorite bookstore.

The Friday Five Good Things

 Five good things that happened this week.

1. Had a nice long chat about dealing with Weebles (elderly parents) with my cousin on the heart from Portland, OR

2. The new clock with the moon phases arrived.

3. Had a nice long chat with my friend, Red

4.  Finished the Celebration of Life invitation

5. After Himself's doctor's visit we stopped at Uno's for deep dish pizza.

How was your week?

Effects of the Full Moon

 

I got a new clock that is supposed to synchronize with the atomic clock, Tick, in Fort Collins, Colorado.  I guess I'm too far away as I had to set the clock manually. I did find an app that will supposedly boost the signal, but will have to try that at a later time.

I was trying to explain to Mr. Spock how a full moon just brings all the crazies out of the woodwork. Yesterday, two cars one right after the other, changed lanes in front of us without looking to see who was coming up behind. Trucks were driving in the passing lane where they are not supposed to be driving. The parking garage at the hospital was so full Himself couldn't park in the handicap spot and could barely find a regular parking space. 

The effects of the full moon are with us for 9 days. Like a cold virus. 3 days coming, 3 days with you, 3 days leaving. We're also effected by a new moon which is just a full moon we can't see. I learned about and experienced this phenomenon when I worked in a hospital laboratory. Mr. Spock failed to see the logic. Dr. McCoy would.

So we still have a few more days of the full moon. Stay safe out there!

Whatcha Doin?

 

I'll be leaving Mr. Spock and Ink in command. (Okay, Spock is really holding Isis from the episode, Assignment Earth, but it could be Ink, and we really know who would be in charge.) 

Himself has a doctor's appointment today. I'll be tagging along, but only because there was the promise of going out to lunch and no cooking today, and maybe stopping to pick up some more mums.

Whatcha doin?