Taking a Glass Class this Saturday

To make Sun Jewels Suncatchers. 

Read Two Great Books Recently

Love Among the Ruins by Robert Clark - about a teenage couple in the sixties trying to escape the insanity of the war, riots, politics.  An absolutely amazing author.  His writing is so good it's like poetry.  It made me feel like I don't know how to construct a sentence after all - or a story.

Girls by Frederick Busch - about a man whose daughter had died who becomes obsessed about finding other missing girls.  This is rather dark, not gross, but very good, not a typical crime novel I don't think.  I read it in two days.

BTW if you gave me this book, tell me.  I don't remember where I got it and there's no name in it.

The Western Horse Lubber Grasshopper

My cousin Pam got me more curious about this big bug.  I found it on Wikipedia.  Isn't that a hilarious name for a bug?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taeniopoda_eques

Ever see a bug this size??

He left his skin in my back yard. He has wings bright red like a butterfly's. Saw one flying this week. Very beautiful Mr. Cricket.

Living Room Transformation

My living room is being painted while I work from home, yesterday and today.  Wow!  Can't wait to see it all put back together.

Benji's New Girlfriend

Hi, folks. Benji here. I have a new girlfriend! She is just the right size to play with me and she is cute and energetic and loves to play tussle and chase in just the same way I do.

I met her at the dog park and her Mom is really nice with my Mom, too.

Her name is Mango and she is half Papillon like me and half Pomeranian. She is only one year old.

My Frame of Mind: Lonely

It's hard these days because it seems everything that happens, I think, "Mom was alive at this time last year." We went to the fair together, took her out for a day-trip from Autumn. Brother Charlie was so awesome with her, gentle and solicitous, as he wheeled her over all the bumps at the Guernsey County fair.  She enjoyed it, but without her quilts at the fair, the quilt show was definitely lacking.  She had been the star there for many, many years.

On 9/11, I thought, "Mom was alive last year at this time." I cried my eyes out Sunday when I played the piano and found in a library book "Try to Remember". Because I remembered being with my friend Katrina in Columbus for a concert her church put on and a man sang that song so beautifully. They were practising for an upcoming concert at the art museum on 9/11. I'd taken a break from the grind at Autumn with Mom, and cried at that concert as I thought about 9/11, and her, the way the world had changed, and the way my world was changing.

In case you need a good cry, too, here are the Lyrics.  It's an absolutely beautiful song.  I'd rate it right up there with Susan Boyle's "I Dreamed a Dream" (which is really from Les Mis, but boy does she own it now).  With Mother having died in December, this is even more a killer for me than it was last year.

"Try To Remember"

Try to remember the kind of September
when life was slow and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
when grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
when you were a tender and callow fellow,
Try to remember and if you remember then follow.

Try to remember when life was so tender
that no one wept except the willow.
Try to remember when life was so tender that
dreams were kept beside your pillow.
Try to remember when life was so tender that
love was an ember about to billow.
Try to remember and if you remember then follow.

Deep in December it's nice to remember
altho you know the snow will follow.
Deep in December it's nice to remember
without the hurt the heart is hollow.
Deep in December it's nice to remember
the fire of September that made us mellow.
Deep in December our hearts should remember and follow.

That line about "without the hurt the heart is hollow" just kills me. I certainly have a full heart by that measure. I'm feeling really lonely lately out here. Even Dave is no longer in my time zone, having moved to Indianapolis.  I'm glad for him, though.  Sad for me. 

If anyone is feeling mellow late in the evening sometime, call me.

Christmas Plans Already

Guess what. I just finalized my Christmas time off with the boss and made flight reservation today. I will be coming in-out of Pittsburgh and will be there the 19th through the 3rd. And I only have to work remotely on the 20, 21, 27, 28 that whole time!! I am so psyched!!


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