billy bob & bubba joe

 now that i no longer have my chocolate lab mr. kyle, two turtles, billy bob and bubba joe live here and it's their job to keep me connected to that immediate animal sense of being in the world.  most days, when i have my coffee on the front porch, i take them for a "walk" on the grass. they love the freedom from their watery home and I get some down time to sit and enjoy them trying to escape. sometimes, they succeed, more often than I care to say. luckily though, so far, we've been able to find them, once quite miraculously. we had been searching for close to forty five minutes and had almost given up when I thought, I should just stop and look around.  out of the corner of my eye, i spotted bubba joe racing up my neighbor's driveway. "oh my god, there he is, I screamed," and we dashed off to get him. how he crossed the street unharmed I'll never know. most times, they burrow in under the grass. maybe it's the cool earth that feels good or maybe they're trying to hide from me. maybe it's both. anyway, they are fun to watch. it's funny and amazing how they watch me and know my voice. billy bob and bubba joe, here to stay.

The North Pole

August 19
the notebooks, backpacks and ipods are on sale. The school buses have started their practice runs. yellow leaves and early red ones are announcing, ever so subtly, what is coming, looming on the horizon. college kids are buying out all the supplies needed and unneeded at major stores. parents are frantically signing their kids up for whatever is left of summer camp. basketball teams and fall swim lessons are almost set. It's getting darker a bit earlier every day.
But, the pool is still open.  i'm still wearing sandals and the toes don't need socks. It's still August and my birthday hasn't even come yet. the sun is still warm.
 for me, the summer isn't over yet. I don't let anyone say when the summer is over until I'm ready to throw out a kiss to summer.
but tonight, i just wanted ice cream.  The summer isn't over and I wanted ice cream, soft vanilla ice cream.
So, after my walk/run, I drove to the North Pole. The kids are older now and I can no longer be spontaneous and say,"who wants to go out for ice cream?" But, I can be spontaneous with myself and so I took myself to Chittenango and had the best ice cream there is.
 there's something about driving to a local ice cream stand that's only open in the summer. it says rural, local and delicious all at the same time.
 only a few more weeks left.
 enjoy.

Beautiful smile

Mondays are always busy at the Y. I enjoy greeting all the members, new and old. It was so amazing when a lovely senior lady told me I had a beautiful smile. Wow, that was so unexpected and great to hear. She later complimented me on something else I was doing! How little it takes to make someone feel special.
Home now, time for a swim & a walk/run. I'm in training!

Hazlitt

Today started off with an apple pancake breakfast courtesy of our personal cook, Chef Gohar.  Then, we were off to our  winery tour at Hazlitt to celebrate my sister's birthday last month. We took the back roads from Ithaca, past rolling hills, bed & breakfast homes and small family farms nestled in among the small towns. I love driving through the covered bridge in Newfield. Once at Hazlitt, Jeff was our personal guide/server and he was generous. After sampling quite a variety of sweet and dry wines, we all agreed White Stag was our favorite.  The port was especially warm and made me think of Christmas with family and friends. We walked through all the facilities and met Mike the official lab/wine tester. He admitted that testing the wine was a tough job, especially right before his Sunday softball game. Our limo driver, Tina Andretti took a different route home and, although it was a drizzly and dreary day, we had fun. We stopped at Upper Treman Falls Park and hiked to see the amazing waterfalls and stone structures that the wind and water have carved over time. that was neat.
We had lunch in downtown Ithaca and then met a friend dropping her sister off at IC. Coffee at Ithaca Bakery and finally the ride home. Great day.

That was close

After work, Mr. Kyle and I went to the park. I've tentatively committed to a beginner's running program and thought I should at least be out walking more. So, there we were walking along and I managed a little walk/run, respectable enough for a woman my age. It seemed liked a good idea to go down by the lake to let Kyle have a drink. All was well and I decided we should walk over to the ladies room after all that exertion.  There were two very mellow dogs parked next to their owners. One was actually a little comatose as he didn't blink or even move as we walked past.  Okay, the next dog was also pretty still and I was going to walk past when the lovely lady says her dog wants to visit and that he's really friendly.  Well, ok, the two dogs immediately take to sniffing the lower realms of the canine calling card and immediately Kyle's leash gets caught on the other dog's fur. They start spinning around, ahh chaos! They start crying, growling and barking all at the same time. The lovely lady sticks her hand in to stop the madness and thankfully a jogger stops to help me hold Kyle's collar while I unhook the leash and she untangles it from her dog's fur. Unseen under the fur was a choke collar that was probably causing a lot of pain for her dog.
Phew!  I couldn't believe how fast that happened. Thank God, both dogs were good. That was close.

Hello, this is my new blog on my new computer.

Today I discovered that I am healthier than I was last year. This made me feel powerful. I was so happy I wanted to get home fast but I have a very old car who flirts with 200,000 miles to its credit so I'm lucky to have gotten home at all. We went for ice cream and to the mini farmer’s market for last minute bargains and jewelry. We took the scenic ride home through the forbidden forest. I cut the grass very slowly and felt like a fat farmer plowing the field except there were no vegetables just chairs on the lawn and pieces of some menu from some party we had. My son came to enlighten me that I could go faster which of course I knew, I just enjoyed going slow and getting all the blades at a uniform length. That had to be the most ridiculous activity I've ever done. I went for a bike ride with Maria and met Budd the bee man who yelled at me for not wearing a helmet and tried hard to get a bee to sting me for my punishment. When that didn’t work, he tried to have a swarm of mosquitos bite me, that worked a little until Craig was also annoyed at the pesky little biting bastards himself. We fled just in time. We got home before it got dark so we did not get in trouble. I biked so fast I beat a kid on his four wheeler. Then we had burnt corn, I mean roasted corn and oats from Denmark. It was a good day.