HERONS AND TURTLES AND WHY THERE ARE NO PICTURES

I take too many pictures.  (FYI - pictures for this blog are from same pond but a few weeks ago.  Keep reading; you'll know why.)

This is not news to those who have recently been inundated with my latest discovery: Google Photos on my phone.  I accidentally activated the app a year ago, and it has been storing up my pictures (even the deleted ones) for more than 365 days.  I spend an entire day putting photos into virtual albums and sharing them with friends and relatives.

Sorry, folks.

Today my pal and I decide on a late afternoon paddle in a nearby pond, and by "pond," we actually mean lake, but it's called a pond.  I have paddled this pond many times, most often in a kayak but also in a canoe.  I know the wildlife that lives around here.  I know there's an elusive heron that resides on the reedy part of the pond that is only accessible on rare occasions.  I know this because I've heard it and because I've seen it fly overhead.  Turtles live here, too, and lots of surface-dwelling water bugs.

Combine my penchant for taking waaaaaay too many pictures with my familiarity of the local environment, and I decide to leave my cell phone in the car.  I mean, really; what am I going to do?  Take yet another pond selfie?

Nope.  Today it's all about the experience; no pictures will be taken.

Wrong. 

The pond is clear today and smooth as glass.  The sun is shining done on us, creating the optical illusion that everything along shore and in the water has its own exact twin attached in colorful shadowy form.  Damn.  I could've taken about a dozen fabulous pictures of mirror imagery in the water.

Best of all, the wildlife is not hiding this afternoon.  Paddling along we round a bend to see a heron, working hard to swallow what appears to be a fish or a frog or a chipmunk.  It doesn't seem remotely bothered by us and allows us to drift silently about twenty feet away.  When we reach a better distance, the giant bird casually strolls around its perimeter in search of more food.

Do I get a picture?  Nope.  My cell phone is back at the car.

Next come two turtles, sunning themselves on a stick.  There are several small islands in this pond, but there are countless downed trees that have been absorbed back into the ecosystem creating a labyrinth of natural atoll-like designs that act like turtle resorts. 

Do I get a picture?  Nope.  My cell phone is back at the car.

We swing along the front edge of the pond that is bordered by a relatively busy street.  I tell my friend that I have spotted a heron here before.  The island has a nature-made damn that creates a natural peninsula.  Rowing our kayaks near-noiselessly around the bend is another heron, different than the first one.  This one is more timid; it steps lightly to its right, further away from us.  The heron, however, allows us within twenty feet of it, posing over and over again as if it knew we were coming to see it model for a centerfold in Yankee Magazine.

Do I get a picture?  Nope.  My cell phone is back at the car.

Of course the one day I'd be taking amazing pictures, I am without the ability.  Oh, the irony.  Yet, if I'd had the cell phone, I'd have been receiving texts and emails and IMs, and it defeats the idea of nature and peace and quiet.  Without my possible pictures,  I cannot visually share today's nature experience with you.  I can, however, hold on to the memories made today. 

Do I need that picture?  Nope; not really.  Hence why my cell phone is back (where it belongs) at the car.

LIMERICKS IN LIMERICK

Driving through Limerick, Maine, my sister and I decide it's necessary to speak in Irish accents and invent limericks.  After all, limericks in Limerick seem the best way to pass the time on our way to the final 2017 Summer Sister Sensation Safari of Silly Situational Adventures.

The last time we drove through Limerick (in June on the way to her concert in North Conway), we probably pulled the same stunt, and I probably even wrote about it.  Here is my edited version of today's winning Limerick limerick.  Enjoy, and happy end of summer -- hope it has been a wild one!

There once was a girl from Mass'chusetts
Who tried hard to put in her two cents.
Through Limerick she went;
On her way she was sent.
About that girl no one gives two shits.

You're welcome.

LAST LAZY MONDAY NIGHT OF SUMMER

Oh, lazy Monday night,
Last carefree Monday night of the summer,
I miss you already.
I stay up until midnight, knowing this is it;
This is our last moment together.
Next Monday will be
The annual tossing in the bed,
Sleepless,
Fleeting,
Thoughts racing through my brain,
Keeping me from slumber,
Gnawing away with reality.
Oh, lazy Monday night --
Monday whose cousin I will not see until December,
Whose other cousins will visit briefly in February and April --
Lazy, Lazy Monday Night of Summer:
Please don't forget to come back.
Sincerely,
Teachers all over America

SUITCASE HANDLE - I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING ... SORT OF

Apparently, I don't travel much.  I mean, I do travel, but I'm relatively "no frills" about it.  Still. I know how to use and how to pack a suitcase.  Don't I?

I know that my suitcase has a zipper to open and close it.  It also has a zipper to expand the area available for packing.  There is a zippered large pocket inside the suitcase, and two outer pockets, one small and one medium, on the outside.  I know that I should pack my liquids and my electronics in the outer pockets for easy access at security.  And, hey, I even know how to use the handle and the rolling wheels!

How is it that after all these years, I am just now discovering the handle on the bottom that I can use to lift the suitcase overhead into a compartment or on to its back to make it flat and easy to pack and unpack?  How have I NOT known about this little device?

When I do discover it, I try to recall, "Have I used this before?  Have I picked up my suitcase using this handle underneath, or have I simply grabbed the bottom of the suitcase and flung it above my head like an ape?"  Honestly -- I have no flaming idea.

The thing is, I really and truly do travel quite a bit.  Most of it is driving places to have my packable adventures, but still.  I have to haul the suitcase around into the trunk or into the hotel and onto the bed.  Seriously.  I feel like a failure as a traveler that I had no conscious knowledge about this great addition to my suitcase.

Oh, well.  This last trip of mine, three days to New York's North Country, I finally utilize this wonderful invention.  Please don't tell me that all suitcases have this, and don't tell me that you've watched me haul my suitcase around like The Hulk.  I'll still use the excuse that I'm "no frills," even if that isn't supposed to mean ignoring the obvious structure of the suitcase.  I'm just going to pretend that I know what I'm doing.

JIMINEY KAYAKER

I'm trying to get into my front door. This seems like a really simple concept, especially since I do, indeed, have the correct key and it is in my hand.  The problem is the giant black hornet that is aggressively taking over my patio.  I yell at the hornet, as if it can actually hear me, and, even worse, as if it will listen and do what I tell it to do.

The damn thing finally flies away enough for me to get into the house via the front door (which is on the side of the house), but I can still hear the little shit buzzing around.

Come on, insect; get the hell outta here!

I wait about twenty minutes before going back outside.  I'm not just standing around; I'm actually accomplishing something.  I notice there is a small bag of recyclables, the contents of which needs to go out to the recycle bin on the patio.

I carefully open the door, peek out, and decide that it's safe to make my move.  I have the bag over the bin and am just about to shake things loose when something catches my attention in the corner of my left eye.

Is it the hornet?  Is it back to sting me, aggravate me, chase me around the patio?

I look down on the kayak that rests against the patio fence, totally ready to flail my arms and scream and run like hell, if need be.  Nope, there is no need.

Sitting about two feet away from me sunning itself on the kayak is a cricket.  "Jiminey," I say, like the bug can hear me and respond.  "It's Jiminey.  It's damn Jiminey Cricket!"  Eventually this one-sided conversation isn't entertaining, so my kayak guest hops off into oblivion.  This time when I go back into the house, I'm not fighting any dive bombers.

Also, crickets are supposed to be good luck, or so I've been told.  I suppose it's good luck that Jiminey hasn't jumped into the kayak while I am already in it in the middle of a pond or river or lake somewhere.  Not very lucky, but I bet it would be damn funny to anyone on shore.  I can flail around and scream.  It's all good -- I've practiced with my hornet friend.  I know what I'm doing.   :)

SCHOOL IS NOW INFECTED AND IT'S OUT OF CONTROL

My massive home purging extends itself to school.  I don't mean for it to happen; it just does.  It's like osmosis for maniacal organization.

I have a couple of hours to spare for my classroom today, so I start with important stuff, like copies I need to make.  Ooops.  The tech people are attending a Webinar in the copy room.  I hustle to a different copier, but it doesn't work as well and it's really far away.  That's the bad news.  the good news is that I find a pirated copy of the instructions for the new online grading program, the same info I am supposed to stay after school to learn.  Probably wouldn't hurt anyone if I were to make myself a copy of the manual, right?  After all, someone just left it out here in the open, and nobody else is around.

I sneak the dual manual into the pile of papers I have just copied.  I need to put away the notebooks from which I just made copies when I realize that I have a lot of books and booklets out of order on the shelves inside my large, built-in cabinet.  This is when I discover that the skinny booklets are indecipherable along their teeny spines, so I get some labels from the office and create my own mini-spine titles.

Well, if I'm going through the trouble of labeling, I might as well get them into a workable order: Grammar, literature, reading, vocabulary, writing...  Oh, and why have them all spread out on four short shelves when I can have them all spread out at eye level on the longer shelves in the cabinet to the right.

But, look!  I have too many multiples of the same workbooks that we don't use anymore.  I cannot throw them out because it's not my call, but they're taking up precious shelf space.  I decide to give them away, so I move them to a corner desk.  No, I can't give them away; they're germane to my grade-level.  I look up and see errant boxes on the very top of the cabinet unit.  Hmmmm, if I take those boxes down, I can carefully and in an orderly fashion store the extra books up top.

This is a great idea, except that I am short.  The only way to get the books on top of the cabinet it to build a step ladder out of a chair and a rather unreliable desk.  Using the empty boxes to break my fall should that be necessary, I spread the cardboard on the floor and gingerly balance while hauling pounds and pounds and pounds of books up over my head.

Suddenly I'm out of time.  I have things to do and places to go.  I have made some headway today, not at all what I planned, but it looks much better.  My back is killing me, but, damnit, I'll be organized at home and at school if it takes me all year; it's an obsession and, quite honestly, it's getting a bit out of my control.

IT'S NOT THE NINE OF CLUBS

In a continuation of the game blog from the other day, I need to admit something a little shameful.  Here it goes.  Get ready.  Hold on, let me change out my glasses...

I can't really see clearly anymore.

I need reading glasses for driving now, and I need the strongest reading glasses available at the local discount store just to see large print.  In other words, I'm going to have to get the real deal glasses this winter.

I still passed my eye test last fall to get by without them while driving, but I use the low-level ones now to be safe.  I can still see very well, but I cannot see as sharply as I used to.  If you're wearing sneakers, I can still tell.  Whether or not your sneakers are single or double knotted, that's the part that's starting to get fuzzy.

Yes, I am one of those people who switches out glasses for glasses.  Sometimes I'll try to put another pair on while I still have the first pair resting on the top of my head.  I can't keep holding papers and books at arm's length anymore because my arms need to stretch a few feet more.

I'm still kind of proud but mostly lazy and cheap, so I'm still working on pooh-poohing the eye doctor in November, but I may want to rethink that strategy.  You see, my sister and I are playing cards, a heated match of Rummy, which is normally an easy game of straightforward rules.

But, wait.  There's more!

The deck of cards I grab is mostly fine: not a Pinochle deck or anything like that.  The deck is decorated with Looney Tunes characters but no numerical symbols on the cards to explain how many.  For example, the nine of clubs doesn't have nine clubs on it, but it does have one Pepe LePew.  Excellent to see this because I have already put down the other three nines, and this fourth one will be a nice five-point addition.

I throw down my nine of clubs and discard a different card, all the while being stared down by my sister.  I am slightly annoyed; it's only five lousy points.  She starts laughing, so I change out my glasses to a stronger pair and am embarrassed to see that the nine of clubs I throw down is not a nine at all but rather the Queen of clubs, worth (at this point, anyway) zero points.

I don't win the Rummy hand, but I will win in November when I pick out new frames.  I'm just saying.

MY FERRY HAIR

Isles of Shoals are a group of islands and rocky outcroppings off of the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and owned via an invisible line down the middle-ish by both New Hampshire and Maine. 

To get out there and see them, a boat is necessary, so I hop the ferry with my sister and one of my nieces. The boat ride is about an hour long, approximately six miles.  When the ferry leaves Portsmouth, my hair is picture-perfect -- or as manageable as it can be with high humidity and searing heat.  (Okay, I brushed it.  Are we all happy now?)

Halfway to the islands, the air changes.  The temperature is fabulous: cool, breezy, and refreshing.  Compared to the instant sunburn conditions we left behind twenty minutes prior, my relatives and I are thinking we probably should have brought sweatshirts.  Really, though:  We've been at this before.  My niece worked on a research vessel out of Mystic Seaport.  My sister and I have been ferry riders for as long as we can remember: Fire Island, Block Island, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Peak's Island ... We all live on or near the ocean and lakes; what else would we do for entertainment?

Forty minutes into our ferry trip, I decide to take a potty break.  A woman is exiting the bathroom as I am waiting to enter, and she looks at me strangely then grins a little.  Okay, I think, that's polite; potty pleasantries, ya know?.

Until, of course, I look in the mirror.

HOLY MOTHER OF DON KING!  My hair is standing completely on end.  I look like a clown, or maybe Phyllis Diller on a bad day, or Carrot Top on any day, or Larry Fine when he's super-surprised by Moe or Curly (but not Shemp because no one likes Shemp).

My hair is about as far from my scalp and in as many different directions as may be humanly possible, perhaps even inhumanly possible.  I attempt to tame it down to no avail.  The wind and the salt and the sea spray have combined to make tiny cement out of each and every follicle.  I pat it down with water and it literally makes that cartoon SPROI-YOY-YOY-YOY-YOINGGGGG sound as it screeches right back toward Don King status.

Later, on the island, I take a selfie just to see if my hair is still as bad as on the ferry.  It's close; damn close.  But, it's also quite fascinating in an "I see a train wreck and cannot pry my eyes off it all" kind of way.  I position the ocean (pretty much everywhere -- we're on an island, right?) behind me and snap the photo.

When I see what nature's jokesters have wrought, I create a colorful montage and post it to social media.  It reminds me of the trip to Hartford weeks ago when I saw several Andy Warhol pieces, including a self-portrait and a montage of Marilyn Monroe.  Well, I'm closer to Warhol than I'll ever be to Monroe (that includes the hairdo), so I submit my photo evidence.

Ladies and gents, I give you My Ferry Hair (not to be confused with Mon derriere), my pop art homage to Warhol, and a reminder that growing hair out is a total bitch but can also be remarkably hysterical.

THE SKY IS FALLING!

I'm going to visit my brother and his family in upstate New York -- NOT that FAKE "upstate" where everyone in Syracuse calls themselves "upstate New Yorkers" (for the love of gawd, look at a MAP, you dumbasses); the REAL upstate New York near Plattsburgh, about an hour from Montreal.  I'll be staying for a couple of nights, and there's one thing I really hate about sleeping (in general, not just at someone's house): Being awakened by thunder.

I mean, it's no secret that I am not a thunder fan when in a house, in a quiet building (like a school where there's no consistent white noise), or caught outside.  I actually like that shit in a big building like a mall, a building with constant white noise like a restaurant, and if I am in a car.  Yup, I'll drive head on into that bad boy like a storm chaser on steroids.

However, I despise waking up like that.  (It works with errant fire alarms, too -- I'll jump out of my bed and my skin if a loud, screeching, danger-signaling alarm pierces the middle of my sleep patterns.)  So, I am relieved to see that the weather for my stay in upstate (that honest to goodness upstate) New York looks like clear sailing.  Why?

Because tonight my brother and his family are getting whacked with terrible storms.  (Yeah, yeah, yeah, that means they're on their way here, too.  I'll worry about that in a couple of hours.)  My brother posts on social media that they're under a tornado watch.  This is serious stuff.  At least, it's supposed to be, and, for the most part, everyone is reacting relatively appropriately; even I am ... at first.  "Stay safe!"  (No need to add, "Thank you for getting that crap out of the way -- keep it out of there for my visit!")  Other people chime in with "Be careful," and "Get in the basement," and good advice like that.

Then, someone posts something about sharks.  Watch out for sharks.  Yup, a great cultural reference to the horrible yet popular Sharknado films (all bazillion of them).  Another person tells my brother not to worry because they're too far from the ocean for Sharknado to strike.  True.

He does, though, live right near Lake Champlain, and Lake Champlain is home to the mythical Champ (Champy?), cousin of the Lock Ness Monster.  Of course, this makes me post about Champnado, and the thread continues to disintegrate after that.

I shouldn't make light of it.  I haven't heard from my brother since his post, and the radar shows that they're out of the worst of it.  Hudson, Troy, and Albany -- not so much.  The storm is huge, a long and damaging line of severe thunderstorms, spawning tornado-like conditions in areas, and tearing right across the Northeast.  It's blasting Bennington all the way to Norwich, VT, and it's coming into western Massachusetts as I type this. 

There will be no sleep for me until it has passed.  I'd rather stay up late and play games on my phone while battening down the hatches (often hiding in the basement or the bathroom depending on the microburst factor of the radar) because losing sleep while being annoyed by the storm is better than jumping out of skin and sleep with a sudden heart attack as the sky crashes down. 

Yup, just call me Chicken Little.  Doesn't bother me.  Chicken Little will have great adventures on the road to Plattsburgh, too, but, kiddos: Thunderstorms are NOT going to be part of it, so pass that along to the weatherman when you see him, or I swear I will run around screaming. "The sky is falling!  THE SKY IS FALLING!"

GAME TIME

My sister and I are mildly competitive.  We like to play games, and we like to win those games.

One Christmas Eve we met at a Panera that was halfway between our houses so we could do the hand-off of family gifts.  We grabbed our cups of tea, sat at a table in the restaurant, and proceeded to play cribbage for about two hours (yes, we were still buying things not just hogging a table). 

Our go-to games, in addition to Cribbage, are rummy, gin rummy, Quiddler, Banangrams, Yahtzee, and crossword puzzles. Yes, even crossword puzzles are competitive.

We're also altruistic in our competitiveness.  Sometimes one of us will be yelling, "Come on, Yahtzee, come on, Yahtzee," when it's the other person's turn.  If the other player is being skunked at cards, we tend to drag out the game so it's a little more evenly scored by the end.

On Sunday we have time to play two rounds of Yahtzee.  First game, our score is only twenty points apart.  The second game, a heated round of Triple Yahtzee, we are separated by ten points.  She wins the first game; I win the second.

One thing both of us hate, though, is losing to the computer.  Sometimes the games and scores are so skewed, that we bail.  The bad news is that the cancelled games still count toward the total games played and lost.  The good news is that the computer quickly figures out it needs to let us win a few games if it intends to stay in business.

We are going on a cruise out to Star Island.  Maybe I'll pack a deck of cards, just in case.  Much like Panera, you never know when we're going to break out a fabulous winning hand.

FIRE'S AFTERMATH

(Methuen FD photo)

I haven't been around many house fires.  When I was twelve, a fire broke out in a house up the road and a young child died.  Not long after that, our house was struck by lightning, and we had a manageable electrical fire.  The volunteer firefighters thought they were returning to the same house that had burned near ours, that's how close together in weeks (days?) the incidents occurred.

As an adult, I've lived in very old houses.  Several of these houses had faulty wiring.  When my kids and I lived in the house two away from where I live now, every time we turned on the furnace in the basement for the first time in a season, the attic would spark up and the fire department would have to come -- every October like clockwork.  I currently live in an old house that was remodeled decades ago, but it's still a little nerve-wracking considering the house's age.

My worst fears, though, come to roost this week.  A house I used to live in with my late husband and my two oldest children caught fire and incinerated in less than an hour.  We used to live on the third floor, and I always worried the place would go up.  It's something that you keep in the back of your mind always when you have children and sleep in separate rooms from them on opposite sides of a house.  There's that latent fear that you won't wake up in time, or the alarms won't work, escape is too high from safe ground, or you're just too far to reach them, grab them, get them to safety.

(Lawrence Eagle Tribune photo)

The end result is disaster for the house that burned the other day; it's gutted.  One person was injured, but no one died.  This fire happened after dinner but before bed, and only one of the apartments, the third floor, had multiple bedrooms, so there's a good chance no children were sleeping in the house.  I don't know.  I cannot seem to get any news updates; everything is very generic.

The pictures and the videos, though, are not so generic.  They are absolutely horrifying.  Chilling.  Frightening.  Shocking.  It's a reminder of why I keep safety escape ladders in the upstairs bedrooms.  It's a reminder why I took the smallest bedroom, the one in the back of the house, as my own; it is the farthest away from escape in case of a fire.  It's a reminder that not only are structures fleeting, but life is fleeting.

(Lawrence Eagle Tribune photo)

And, I'm sorry for those affected, but it's a reminder how damn glad I am that I don't live there anymore, and how horrible it would be to lose everything, and how close my family was to total abject horror.  I look at the after-pictures and think, "That was my daughter's bedroom.  My son slept there.  There's nothing left of my bedroom, my living room, my kitchen..."  Worse is knowing there were only three choices out: The long back staircase over the addition's roof, the front staircase straight into the fire, or a three-plus story leap onto the pavement.

Nope, I haven't been in nor seen many house fires, but this one, even decades removed from living there -- this one hurts.

THROWING AWAY TOY CARS

The massive purging continues.  Today: Cars. Nope, not real cars; Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars.

Some of these little cars have been around since my brothers were young, so they've aged reasonably well.  I am hesitant to get rid of the cars because they're sentimental and they're good to have around, like when my nephews were younger and would come to stay for short visits.

Saving every single Matchbox car and Hot Wheels car that has ever crossed the paths of my kids and me?  Something has to give or else I'm going to have to open a toy car museum.

I haul out the plastic car carrying cases and start going through each and every car.  The test is quite simple: If the car might still be able to win on a Hot Wheels race track, it gets to stay.  Many of the older cars are too beat up to pass this test; many of the newer cars also fail.  Into the bin they go; No mercy.

If the cars are riddled with broken parts or have obviously been run over repeatedly by bikes or skateboards or other implements of destruction, into the bin they go.  If the car is a repeat or the repeat of a repeat, such as when McDonald's gave out Hot Wheels cars in Happy Meals, only the best racer of the multiples gets to stay.

This helps to dwindle the cars down to a manageable amount.  Once the Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars are done, I go through all the Micro Machine vehicles, and then I tackle the much-larger cars and trucks.  Finally, after a couple of hours, I have two bins full of "to be tossed" toy cars.  No, I am not saving them to auction them off online; the cars that are leaving this house are cars that are not worth diddly-squat.

Fear not, though; Many of them still work just fine, they're just not Hot Wheels Track Champion material, so I donate every single one of the rejected vehicles.  Someone else can enjoy them.  Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the space that frees up post-cars.  Yes, the massive purging indeed continues, and it's wonderful.

FIGHTING FOR THE PLANTS

I finally re-pot some of my plants.  The dang things are growing fine on their own, but they really could use more room and healthier soil... like I know what I'm talking about.  The only thing I grow successfully is mold. 

Three of these plants I got several years ago from the Wal-Mart Charlie Brown Christmas Tree section, where all plants are up to 75% off and look like dried herbs and sad little representations of plant-like species.  To my great surprise, the Wal-Mart plants keep growing and prove even me, the World's Worst Gardener, to be a successful plant momma.  For now, anyway.

After re-potting the plants, I notice a few things.  First of all, there's a huge-ass, ugly, horrifying spider in one of the pots, and it's running around the rim between the the plant and freedom, unable to make it over the edge.  The second thing I notice is that my gardenia plant appears to be making some buds that will, with any luck at all, bloom in the fall.  The third thing I notice is that one of my Charlie Brown plants suddenly droops and wilts and appears to be committing suicide now that I've given it room to grow and fed it some water.  The last thing I notice is that one of my other Charlie Brown plants is suddenly growing like crazy, and the pot I originally choose is going to be too small, so I'll have to improvise a catch-basin out of foil for a bigger pot.

After two days, the plants are still alive and seem to be surviving their new digs -- bigger, badder pots with some decent soil.  I am so bloody confident in my ability that I go out and buy an amazing basil plant at the grocery store.  The basil plant not only smells fabulous, it's about a foot tall and also a foot or more wide, looks healthy, and only costs $6.

I have faith that my plants will survive, but give me time.  No matter how nice I am to the little darlings, they always turn on me.  There will be no Charlie Brown ending for these plants, but I will fight for them until they're shriveled and brittle and obviously ready for the dirt pile across the street.

BLIGHT FIGHT

A blight is affecting the trees in my small neighborhood.  Two giant trees out front have already come down.  I notice that the maple tree hanging over the driveway from next door is pissing something all over my car every single day.  (No, it's not caterpillars this time.)  Even worse, leaves are coming down from the neighborhood trees as fast as if it were autumn already.

I decide to sweep my patio since it looks more like early October out there.  I'm lazy, so I sweep the giant pile of leaves right off the back edge and into the backyard.  It's okay; no one tends to the backyard, anyway.  I sweep and sweep and sweep, and still more errant leaves fall into my path.

Then, I tackle the driveway and front path.  For this, I collect all the leaves into my big recycle bin and dump them all across the street in the woods.  I could have done this with my patio leaves, but I am less and less motivated here to do anything that resembles improvements.

I get everything done, go to sit outside, and there are already leaves in my way.  The leaves are brownish and seem almost burnt in places.  I'm not a tree doctor, so I've no idea what's going on here, hence why I believe it is blight.  As if the leaves aren't bad enough, I have one black hornet that keeps dive-bombing me.

My outside experience turns out to be surprisingly brief.  I really don't give the day another thought until I pass through the den on my way to the kitchen.  There, in the middle of the den on the hardwood floor, is one of those goddamned leaves from outside.  One of us, either my kiddo or me, brought the leaf in on a shoe and accidentally planted it right in the center of both the room and my line of vision.

Apparently, now the blight is picking on me.  My roots are pretty strong, but it might be time to start thinking about uprooting.  Seriously.  This blight fight is starting to take its toll on me and my car, and I'm not sure just how many more times I can bang my head against the same tree without the tree eventually winning ... or being sawed in half by the town because it's infected.  I just want the trees to hold off dropping their leaves for another few weeks -- not an unreasonable request mid-August.

TO BANGS, OR NOT TO BANGS

Bangs or no bangs.

I'm at the crossroads yet again.  I like my hair long; I like my hair short; I'm not so fond of the in-between stage.  I am currently in the in-between stage.  Now, I have to make a decision whether or not to keep my bangs, which look a little better but are a royal pain in the ass to keep in place, or go with the grown-out bangs, which gives my face a look of eternal surprise but makes my hair a thirty-second adventure every morning.

To bangs, or not to bangs -- Is that even a question?

The original decision was simple when I let my hair go gray because my hair just kind of sat there on my head, all old and .... old.  With long gray hair, I looked like a crazy English teacher.  Okay, I'm sure you see the irony here.  So I chopped it all off.  Then I started growing it.  Then, I chopped it.  Then, I grew it out almost long enough to being able to make a pony-tail.

My stylist is the best.  She tolerates my hair-cutting-Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde personality.  Whatever length it is, she makes it look fabulous.  Of course, I cannot recreate the looks because I am hair-challenged, but she is patient to near madness.  Finally, I said to her, "Cut it.  If you cut it the way I want, you can color it any way you choose."

Well, she colored it soooooo well that now I HAVE to grow it out because it looks and feels FABULOUS.  (Besides, the older I get, the more I look like my mother when my hair is short.  This is not a compliment.  This is a reality I need to accept.)  My stylist is totally convinced that my bangs can be side-swept.  I have tried this before many times.  When the stylist does this to my hair, it looks marvelous; when I do it, I resemble Twiggy after a week-long bender.

Anyway, I guess it will be a big surprise to us all.  Yesterday, I had no bangs and pulled them all off my face with a headband.  The day before, I had bangs.  When I have bangs, the look accentuates my eyes but the bangs don't behave.  When I pull my bangs back, people can see the widow's peak hairline that resembles Bela Lugosi in Dracula. 

Either way, I cannot win, and I cannot lose.  My hair isn't gray anymore, and I don't look so much like my mother anymore; it's got to be all good from there.

FAT FOOD FILE

In the ever-evolving organizational task of Project Home-Clean, I finally attack the giant hanging file folder stuffed with random recipes.

For years I have clipped and torn out and scribbled down recipes that I swear I am going to try someday.  Right.  Sure I will.  I finally organized my cookbooks earlier this summer and actually used them to ... gasp ... COOK.  Now, though, I need to empty the four-inch thick file of random paper scraps.

First, I separate the entire pile into two: file-ready, uniformly-sized papers with neatly printed recipes go into one pile; small and mis-sized cut-out recipes go into another pile.  Then, I start organizing each pile.  I start with the papers that are all the same size, and I toss out repeats and recipes that I probably will never make.  After that is done, I start in on the random cut out recipes. 

What shocks me is my sudden disgust with spending inordinate amounts of time in the kitchen when no one is home consistently enough to indulge in my creations.  I don't despise cooking and baking.  I despise cooking and baking that involve so many intricacies that I'm exhausted and ready for IV fluids when I'm finished.  I despise a kitchen so destroyed by creativity that I need a vacation after cleaning up the mess.

Seriously, though, am I ever really going to make Pecan-Encrusted Maple Leaf Pumpkin Cookies?  No, not ever.  Will I ever again hand-make pretzels?  Maybe.  But, like the five variations of homemade play-dough, I'm sure if I want to make pretzels from scratch, I'll be able to readily find that recipe online.

When it's all said and done, my recycling bag is stuffed a little fuller, and my recipe file is a helluva lot slimmer.  Now, if only my waistline would follow suit of the file folder, I might be on to something.

METEOR-LESS SKYLINE

So excited for the meteor showers over the weekend!  I write on my calendar, I make a note on the whiteboard stuck to the fridge, and I plan my day and evening so I am home and watching the sky until the wee hours of the morning.  I am prepped and ready to drive further into the dark boonies if necessary to get a glimpse at the meteor shower that is being touted as "the brightest in human history!"

I start checking the sky around 9:00 p.m., then again around 10:00, then 11:00, then more frequently.  I have all of the lights out.  The house out front has all of its lights out (probably because no one is home).  I know I live a little close to the urban side of suburbia, but I can still see stars and the moon on a clear night, even with all of the lights on -- my lights, neighbors' lights, industrial lights, street lights.  Tonight, though, the sky is merely gray and star-less.

I check the weather radar.  Rain is to the west with a few thunderstorms further behind.  My area, though, is in the clear.  I should be able to see to Infinity and beyond.  Tonight, though, Infinity is no closer than it is every night; there are no streaking stars in the sky tonight.

I stay up until 2:00 a.m., waiting and searching and hoping to see what the scientists claim we will all see.  Instead, it's all just a huge pile of bullshit.  Tonight's sky is no different than any other night sky, and, quite honestly, I am bored out of my mind and probably look like a flaming idiot peering outside every few minutes.

Give it up, kid.  Jiminey Cricket isn't singing to you tonight.

BLOODY GOOD TIME

In a continuation from yesterday's spontaneity blog, I have a confession to make:  Sometimes I am moving so fast and so furiously that I have no idea what I'm actually doing.

For example, a couple of weeks ago, I was in the water at the beach.  The waves were not very big and I wasn't in very far, but I still managed to get knocked down when I accidentally wedged my foot under a rock.  Somehow, I emerged with a cut hand.  I don't know how or why; my hand wasn't even involved in the accidental dunking.

And then there was the incident with the grill.  I was moving the grill back into its normal spot, about six inches from where I had moved it, and I cut the back of my leg open on the stone stairs.  I don't quite know how or why that happened because I was actually going forward with good momentum at the time.  I doubt the stairs jumped out and attacked me, so it has to be all my fault.

Well, tonight it happens again.  I meet friends for a drink.  This is all very spontaneous.  I'm considering showering and going to bed early when I receive a text:  Meet us for a drink.  Well, sure.  Why not, right?  It's a small but crowded bar, and I spend a lot of the time standing, but no one is crowding me or anything.  Then, I grab a nice tall bar chair, into which I climb without incident; I don't fall down or get my leg caught in the spindles or anything.  After one drink, we leave the bar and walk to our separate cars, parked right there out front in the street.  I don't have to climb through thickets or thorns or anything; it's the sidewalk, the street, and my car.  When I get home, I pull into my driveway, walk about twenty feet to my door, and go inside.

Somehow, some way, please don't ask me how, I have managed to cut a toe wide open. Yes, I am bleeding rather profusely from an injury I've no idea has even occurred. 

Judging from the fact that I don't have blood on my sandal nor on the bottom of my jeans, this accident must have happened between the car and the front door.  Did I catch my foot on the stone steps?  Is the property attacking me yet again?

Honestly, because honesty is the best policy, I've been a bit of a klutz my entire life.  I've fallen off bikes, roller skates, and swing sets.  I cut my foot almost in half on the top of a boat mast (a special trick, I assure you).  I've broken my nose no less than four times, once from an ice ball thrown by teenagers at the bus stop.  Usually, though, I own the scrapes and scars.  Lately, though ... lately it seems like my body is just spontaneously self-destructing.

Oh, well.  Old age, I suppose.  It is a lovely evening, and I have a wonderful time.  How do I know?  I've got the battle scar to prove it.  Just remember if you invite me out in the future, a tourniquet may be required.

SPONTANEITY CONTINUES

The summer of spontaneity continues.

It has long been known that I hate to make plans ahead of time.  The longer I have to think about plans, the longer I have to regret making those plans, devising ways to cancel my involvement.  "Uh... my liver exploded.  Ummmm, my pet fish died.  Errrr, I have to water all the plants.  Geeeee, I've suddenly developed a migraine that will only last as long as this phone call."  I don't mean to do it; it just happens.  Everything sounds like such a great idea -- at the time.  Then, when the time arrives, it's not so special anymore.  People are wonderful; plans, not so much.


Therefore it's far more likely that I will interact with people and do fun things if you totally approach me at the last possible moment.  Go to lunch?  Ask me at 11:50 a.m.  Drive past your old home?  Ask me while we're in the car on the wrong side of the state.  Meet you at a bar for a drink?  Text me while I'm getting ready to turn in for the night.  Impromptu history scavenger hunt?  I'm in if you ask me five minutes before you actually want to go.  Drive 45 miles to meet new people right this second?  Call me and invite me; I'll probably show up.

But, buy tickets to an event that's happening a few weeks or even a few months in the future?  I'll do it, but I'll twitch and get hives and start hyperventilating as it approaches.  It doesn't mean that I don't love you or the event; I simply don't like to be locked in by my own schedule.  It's a quirk; please don't take it personally.

The conundrum is that my friends tell me I am the most active person they know.  "You're always on the go!"  This is true.  I don't try to do just one thing when I'm out; I make a mental or even a real list, and I check off things as I go.  This is why I cannot tolerate people who dawdle.  If I'm in a museum, I look, I see, I read, and I move on.  Go, go, go!  If I'm someplace new, I want to go somewhere or do something and take in as much of it all as I can possible stuff into the time and energy that I have. 

When I traveled for my kids' sports, I got to see all kinds of things just from making sure I had a to-do list.  I got to see signed documents from the Revolutionary War in Connecticut.  I visited Washington Irving's grave and the locations for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" when out near Tarrytown.  I went to the most excellent flight museum, The Cradle of Aviation, on Long Island.  I got to have lunch with a cousin I'd never met before when I went to Vermont. I touched the Liberty Bell before some yahoo hit it with a hammer so that no one can ever touch it again.  All of this stuff happened pretty spontaneously.

Kind of silly that I work in a job that requires me to make short-term and long-term plans, and that I already know my working days, my days off, my professional development days, my required evenings, my conference days, etc., for the next eleven months.  Talk about long-range scheduling.  I even know already that on Wednesday, June 13, 2018, I will be in the control booth of the performing arts center from 8:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m. running a movie for the entire seventh grade (and that my team leader will be walking the cat walk above the students because it's what he likes to do for entertainment).

Perhaps this is why I enjoy spontaneous activities in my personal life: I am simply rebelling against the strict structure of my professional life.  Or, it could be that I'm just a last-minute kind of gal.  You have a ticket to a concert in three months?  Don't ask me.  Your date cancels at the last minute for a concert?  Well, kid, CALL ME.  I'm your girl.

TYPING ANOTHER TIME

I finally start tackling (for real, not just on the surface) the bin of stuff I brought home from school in June.  Some of this stuff is cosmetic -- putting papers into file folders and marking them so I can file them when I go back to work.  Some of it is organizational -- going through different resources and figuring out which books I want to keep at school (all of them), and which ones I want to keep at home (that would be a giant NONE).

I have files of student work and scores, all of which need to be computed into statistics for my teacher evaluation.  Some of it was supposed to be done by July 1; some of it isn't due until late this coming fall.  Either way, I cannot put off the folders much longer; school is three weeks away.

I take out the files for my classes and my students.  First thing I realize is that I have my grade book from two years ago instead of last year.  I have no frigging idea how that could be since all of the two years' ago papers have been recycled, but here they all are, grades for kids I taught not last year but the year before.

Where are the grades for last year?  In my desk, which, to my dismay, I discover cannot be accessed for three more weeks ... right before school actually starts.

I madly go online.  Yes, our grades are supposed to be there, but we are changing servers and web companies.  Perhaps my grades from last year have already been dumped from the old site.

No worries.  Everything is still live, and I am able to print out the two grades I need to complete the paperwork. After entering the grades, I realize that the differential not only has to be calculated (quantified), it needs to be qualified, as well.  So, I start calculating out the totals, the differences, and the percentages, and I mark everything as I go along, then I get them all ready to type up.

However, I stop here.  I could type the information into the Google document that awaits my input.  I'm not sure, though, if I've really had enough or if I am disappointed at wasting an entire day to statistics.  I put everything back into a pile (much more organized and complete than it was hours before) and plop a small weight on top of it all: a sculpture one of my students gave me that says, "#1 TEACHER."  I guess I'm #1 because I don't tolerate #2 in my class.

No typing in statistics and results today, kids. It's still summer. Sun is still OUT ... I'll do the typing another time. 

GARDEN WITH THE BUTT CHEEKS IN THE WOODS

Completing this week's Childhood Revisited Extravaganza, my sister and I re-visit our early days in Framingham.  We've seen our house (muchly changed), her school, and places we used to go in nearby Sudbury (Wayside Inn, Grist Mill, and the Wayside Country Store). 

These places are merely decoys, perks in our quest for the real reason we travel back in time.  We used to live across the street from the Garden in the Woods, and we have always claimed to want to come back.  Today is the day.

It's a little overcast with occasional light sprinkles when we arrive at the Garden in the Woods.  Other than the back edge of it being across the street from my bedroom window when I was a toddler, I remember only one thing from this place.  The day before my birthday when I turned either four or five, my grandmother brought me into the Garden in the Woods so my mother could bake my cake without me being in the kitchen bothering her.  In the Garden in the Woods, I climbed a tree off the path, which was a terrible no-no, and my grandmother and I were both scolded and kicked out of the place.

Today when we arrive, my sister and I read through the rules, check the notices for plants in bloom, and head off down a large path.  We have not gone a tenth of a mile when my sister steps off the path to smell some flowers.

Damnation!  If I get thrown out of here again, I'm pretty sure my name goes on a Frequent Offenders List that gets sent out to all of the state horticultural societies.  I'll be black-balled from the Black-Eyed Susans all across the state of Massachusetts.

My sister doesn't get caught, and we continue around the gravel paths, occasionally taking the smaller dirt paths through the woods (which is how we discover the wonderful stream running along the property).  Occasionally we come dangerously close to civilization (like our former house that peeks through the trees along the southeast edge of the fence), but mostly it's like we are in a magical world of plants and sights and sounds and, most of all, smells.

This place is mesmerizing, and I think, "Who luckier than we to have lived so close that we could just walk in here with our families and make ourselves at home... in trees..."  I remember when the giant trucks would come by our neighborhood to spray mosquitoes.  Did it harm the plants?  We used to run outside and play in the mist, which probably explains our health and mental quirks.

The plants are amazing, and the Garden is landscaped beautifully.  So many fabulous things to see and smell and photograph.  Of course, though, my favorite thing is the bottom of a giant tree-trunk, the only remainder of a massive tree with a circumference the size of a dining table.  Yes, the tree trunk has butt cheeks.

"Come and look at this!" I urge my sister.  "What does this look like to you?"

She sees the formation, looks at me, smirks, and shakes her head a little bit.  Yes, we are kids again.  Here in this gorgeous place, a place of high-brow plant aficionados, we giggle and snap pictures.  Butt cheeks.  Of all the things we see -- birds and flowers and plants and landscaping and water features -- I am obsessed with this au naturale Mother Nature ass-crack fanny sculpture.

I'm not quite sure which is worse: being tossed out for illegally climbing a tree or being tossed out for tittering about the bark butt cheeks.  Either way, I'd hope my late grandmother (whom I got into major trouble with her garden club friends for my tree-climbing stunt) might appreciate the gesture.

FINDING THE CANDY OF MEMORY

My maternal grandparents used to take my sister and me to the Red Stone School (aka The Little Red Schoolhouse) and the Martha Mary Chapel in Sudbury.  After seeing these places and hearing my grandmother's version of the "Mary Had a Little Lamb" tale, they would take us to the old-fashioned store for penny candy.

This store was fascinating, a little dark, and had a player piano at which sat a life-sized doll of a little girl.  The doll was electronic in that she moved at the waist while perched on the piano bench, seeming to play as the sheet music rolls powered the music.  She moved exactly like the animatronic figures from the Jordan Marsh Enchanted Village display, and, to a small child like me (I was about four or five at the time), I believed the magic.

My sister and I are on a one-day adventure exploring the old days.  We drive by our childhood house in our old neighborhood, drive past the park (that, despite it being a school vacation day in a nice neighborhood, had no one in it), and stop by my sister's elementary school.  We swing past the old Nobscott shopping plaza (pretty desolate with shops long-closed-down).  We follow my handwritten instructions to the letter, but my sister doesn't know where we are going.

The night before, I decide to do some snooping.  I open Google on my computer and put in such strange combinations as: penny candy near grist mill in 1960s.  Nothing will come up, I tell myself.

But, I am wrong.  While there are no pictures of the doll at the piano, it appears that the store still stands.  Even better, it will be open when we are a few miles away on our exploration extravaganza.  I jot down the address, and this is exactly where my sister and I are headed in my car.

We're going to a secret place, I tell her, driving along route 20.  I cannot keep the secret long, though; she recognizes the place as soon as she sees it.  I park and we go inside, and, for the most part, it's more of a tourist attraction than a candy store, but the working candy store is still magnificent and takes up an entire room the size of a small home.

Some of the old attractions are still there: cast-iron wood stove, carved candy cases, wooden boxes and crates for merchandise, and the upstairs old-fashioned post office with antique stamped letters in the slots.  The piano, however, is gone.  The doll playing the piano is nowhere to be seen.  I vaguely recall she was gone the last time I went there decades and decades (and more decades) ago.

Still, the adventure is there, another childhood moment re-lived and reckoned with, brought out from cobwebbed memories to spend time in another dimension; a melancholy yet sedate Twilight Zone.  We resist the trinkets and the candy.  We decide instead to split a piece of fudge for old times' sake.  The fudge isn't that great, but the time spent together is.

A LUDICROUS LUDACRIS PHOTOGRAPHER

Today I have a Ludacris moment.  Okay, not a full on Ludacris moment; more like a semi-Ludacris moment.

My sister and I are on an epic adventure, retracing some of the footsteps from our very earliest youth.  One of these steps is a place we've visited before: Wayside Inn Grist Mill in Sudbury.  This stop is in the middle of our epic adventure experience, so we spread out a blanket and throw our lunch feast all over the space.

This is when we notice the two women.  They are overdressed for walking around in the woods of the Grist Mill property and underdressed for the propriety of the Wayside Inn down the street.  One of the women starts posing rather provocatively in front of the Grist Mill while the other woman snaps picture after picture with a cell phone.  Then, they switch places.

Although this is a lovely place for a photo shoot (people shoot photos here all the time), this seems more like a low-budget pre-porno promo model shoot than a scenic landscape shoot.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a third woman arrives, professional camera in tow.  She shoots a few pictures of the two women; she checks her camera; the the duo departs.  Camera Woman remains behind, mere feet from the trickling waterfall (if one can call the slow but steady drizzle a waterfall) that spills from the top of the mill's outer wall.

She focuses on the water and takes picture after picture after picture after picture ... of the same spot.  We would like to snap photos of the Grist Mill, too, but Camera Woman refuses to move.  She can see we are trying not to snap pictures of her ass, but still, she stays right where she is.  Snap.  Snap snap.  Snap snap snap snap snap... Photo after photo after photo of the same damn spot on the side of the building, then she checks the camera after each and every single shot like she's a photographic idiot savant.

My sister and I pack up the remainder of our lunch, walk to the car, put everything away, then walk back to the Grist Mill, clearly jockeying to take pictures.  Nope,  No can do.  Camera Woman, now also known as My Fat Ass Will Be In Everyone's Photos Woman, refuses to yield.  I even make some loud commentary.  No way.  She's not budging from that spot on the wall.

We walk to the back of the mill, climb the stone steps to the high lawn, and attempt to sneak to the top of the mill where we can look down on Camera MFAWBIEP Woman.  My sister calls me back, deciding a stroll to the nearby Wayside Inn should give the idiot savant enough time to take more professional photos of the one spot on which she is fixated.

We take our damn time ambling along the stream and laughing at the strange people in the inn, like the old guy with no luggage who walks up the stairs to an expensive room with a clerk in front of him and a young woman behind him.  "This is my WIFE!" he yells to the entire inn, as if we should either congratulate him or all nod that his afternoon delight is not with a hooker (as it appears to be).  So much for Wayside Inn propriety.

The trip to the inn, the lollygagging at the nearby schoolhouse and church, and our lunch break on the mill grounds has given Camera Woman an hour to work.  When we return, we are certain that she must be done.

No.  We are mistaken.

Now, I am certain I could ask her politely to move, or I could say to her, "Listen, honey.  Other people want to take some pictures.  Could you please stop taking photos of the tiny speck of stone beneath that exact water trickle long enough for us to take two or three photos of the Grist Mill without your left butt cheek messing up the ambience?"  You know, or something equally friendly, said as sweetly as only I can say it.  (Stop laughing.)

I mean, I really, really, really want to say something to this woman.  She is beyond rude at this point.  Truly, bitch.  Get out of the way.  GET OUT OF THE WAY!  My sister sees me twitching.  "Please. don't say anything," she begs me.  Ah, yes; she, along with the entire rest of my family, knows that I am exactly the one who will go up to this insane and selfish asshole and ask her something along the lines of whom exactly she thinks she is and why the holy fuck is she taking the same, and I do mean THE SAME exact picture over and over and over and over ... for a goddamn motherfucking HOUR?!

And here is my Ludacris moment.  Suddenly, in my brain, I am singing along and banging out the rhythm with my clearly annoyed footsteps and huffing.  "Move, bitch, get out the way.  Get out the way, bitch, GET OUT THE WAY!"  Sing it with me; you know you want to.

It must be me.  Honestly.  Somehow they find me; they always find me.  I am flypaper for freaks, and while we do not get any truly great pictures of the Grist Mill due to the OCD photographer, I do snap about five pictures of her because I know in my heart that the bitch is going to get out the way right into my blog, and it doesn't get much more ludicrous than that.