The Day I'd Been Dreading for Months

Thursday, July 10th. 15 miles to Wall. I had been dreading this day for months, wondering if I was in good enough shape to keep putting one foot in front of the other for fifteen miles.

It turned out to be a lovely cow and sheep day.

On Ms. Jacqueline's front porch, I slipped into the high-top boots Kathie had grown out of after she'd thoroughly broken them in. We donned our rain gear, and set off through cropland – some sort of grain. Not being farm people, none of us knew what the grain was, but it sure was purty – especially with orangey red poppies volunteering here and there.
We looked for the wall, vallum, and forts, but there wasn’t much to see. What the heck is a vallum anyway?

I slipped going down a muddy, poopy hill and caught myself from landing on my butt by landing on my hands instead – special.
Stanley Plantation – fairy forest! Where are the leprechauns?

Walk, walk, walk! Thank God for moleskin. By now I was layering it on my heel and left ankle.

We stopped at Heavenfield and looked around. St. Oswald Chapel sits atop a hillock in the field where the Saxons and Celts waged a fierce battle in 635 A.D. The site is kinda eerie. Or maybe I was just tired.
By the time we found the Hadrian Hotel in Wall, my knees were stiff as a board. This “hotel” was pretty dumpy too but again the people were nice.
Kathie and I had to share a bed but I was so doggone tired I could have slept standing up.

In the bar/restaurant downstairs, Kathie asked the barmaid about local beers that might be similar to Corona. What is there about us Americans that we expect people in other countries to know what we’re talking about when we ask for a Corona? We noticed that the guy behind us – another American - was snickering.

After dinner, Kathie and I found some muscle soak stuff on the edge of the tub in the public bathroom on our floor. We promptly filled up the tub with hot water and some muscle soak, and sat on the tub rim soaking our poor puppies. I also tried to massage out my shin splints. Notice I said “tried”.

(Photos of me getting ready to fall on my butt and the leprechaun forest were taken by Joan. The rest were taken by Kathie and me.)

On to Heddon

Wednesday, July 9th, was a 10 mile walk to Heddon. It would have been a 15 mile walk if we hadn't done the 5 mile walk the day before. Fifteen miles on our first day out would have been a killer.

On Wednesday morning, we took the metro to where we'd left off the trail the evening before. From here, we walked along the Tyne River – past the rest of Newcastle, office buildings, car dealerships, etc. Once, we got lost by (my) ignoring a trail sign and going way the heck out of our way up the A1. A nice postie straightened us out - plus we asked directions a couple more times! After getting back on the trail, we sat in the grass of a field/park to eat lunch. Walking farther along the river, we saw swans swimming and a lovely recreation area.



Approaching Heddon, we turned up the hill to go to our bed and breakfast, but Joan decided to go further up the river path to check out George Stephenson’s cottage. The rest of us cut across a golf course (Fore!) and trudged, trudged, trudged up to our B&B, the Heddon Lodge.
Our hostess, Jacqueline Ryan, let us collapse in her patio furniture and brought us out hot tea and KitKat bars – it all tasted wonderful! Our room was very, very nice. Ms. Jacqueline said she had rented out her home to a Newcastle football (read “soccer”) player and his family, who had utterly trashed the place. Jacqueline had obviously put a lot of home improvement time in since then.
Joan finally arrived around 5:30 or 6 – she hadn’t been able to find the B&B. (This would not be the last time we’d have difficulty finding our lodging…) Then we went for dinner at the Swan Carvery. The vegetables were cooked almost beyond recognition. (Also not the last time…)
The following morning, Ms. Jacqueline cooked and served us breakfast, then left for work...
...and we left for Chollerford/Wall.

(Postie photo from Joan's smugmug page . All other photos taken by Kathie.)

Start of the Trail

This is the first installment of my notes dump from the Hadrian's Wall trek...

On Tuesday, July 8th, we took the train to Newcastle, England, which was a two hour ride from Edinburgh, and then the metro to Hadrian’s Lodge Hotel at Wallsend. The “hotel” was a little dumpy but the folks were nice. We walked to lunch at a local pub, where the guys at the bar said “GEEZ!” when I told them we’re doing the trail in seven days. (Kathie’s comment – “Loved the pubs!”)
After lunch, we visited the reconstructed wall portion across the street from Segedunum. Segedunum was a fort, the layout of which is on the ground. It was kinda hard to imagine what the actual fort was like.
Then we walked five miles along the Tyne river, where there were lots of wild flowers – foxglove, thistles, stinging nettle (OUCH!). Tetsu did lots of sneezing; Hisako snapped lots of flower pics.
Finally, we came to Newcastle. On the river is a pedestrian bridge that the locals call the “winking eye” – the semicircular pedestrian walkway arcs up to “close” on the superstructure archway to let river traffic through. Quite cool.
This is just one of about seven or eight bridges in this smallish city. On the other side of the river is the Sage Gateshead, a center for musical education, performance and conferences, which struck me as a glass version of the sandworms in the Dune trilogy. Weird but nifty.We hiked up to the castle, then on to find dinner at a little Greek restaurant called Café Neon. Quite good it was, too! Afterward, we walked to the metro station for a train back to the lodge. There were oodles and gobs of flowers in front of the train station – most impressive. Why can't we have flowers in front of our train stations?

A Tail of Two Cities

Late in the afternoon on our first day in Edinburgh we trudged up Candlemaker Row in the drizzle looking for the statue of a famous little dog and the churchyard where he and his master are buried. His master - some say he was a local farmer, some a policeman - died in 1858, two years after he acquired Bobby, a Skye terrier. Bobby stayed on his master’s grave until he died 14 years later, leaving only to get lunch about one o’clock at a nearby pub, then called Traills Coffee House, now Greyfriar’s Bobby Inn.


Famous even in his time, he was buried in the Greyfriar’s churchyard and a Baroness erected a fountain and statue in front of the tavern a year after his death. His is the most photographed statue in Scotland.

Greyfriars Kirk, Bobby's grave just inside the entrance

What is it about Bobby’s story that makes visitors like Joan and Patty and myself endure the elements and jet lag to search out this little guy’s statue? Is this kind of faithfulness and loyalty missing from our lives today?

In 1886, soon after Bobby, San Diego had its own dog story. Bum, a St. Bernard - spaniel mix (that must have been some union!) stowed onto a steamer from San Francisco and got off in San Diego to become a fixture in the Gaslamp area of town for the next 12 years. He hung around downtown restaurants and bars where, unfortunately, patrons fed him alcohol and he had to go through detox. He hitched rides on streetcars and lost a front leg on a train track. Famous also in his time, he rode the fire engines, participated in town parades, and his picture was put on dog licenses.


Bum was a vagabond loyal to a town. Quite a contrast, but both dogs are immortalized with their statues in a little park at 4th and Island in the Gaslamp.


San Diego’s sister city, Edinburgh, brought over a statue of Bobby in 1998



and last month a delegation from San Diego traveled to Edinburgh to place a statue of Bum in Prince Street Gardens, just down the hill from Bobby.

Why all the fuss about these two? What is it about these two guys that makes them heroes?

More Evidence for Animal Magnetism

Those pesky cows. Every Kentucky farm in the 1940’s had a cow. Ours was pretty scary, an ill tempered witch of a beast, more so if you happened to be only 4 years old. My brother and I were chased more than once, fast as our little feet would take us across the pasture.

Fast forward sixty years to Hadrian’s Wall country where we walked through cow pasture after cow pasture. Mostly peaceful beasts they were until we came near Bowness-on-Solway. Lord, I think they were reincarnations of that Kentucky cow, come back to get vengance for those times Ray and I climbed over the fence into her pasture.
Methane belching cows are a major factor in global warming. Deforestation for pastures, feed fertilizers and cow burps of methane, twenty three times more potent than carbon dioxide, are a greater threat to climate change than all the world’s transportation.

And now -- this just out -- the beasts align in a north-south direction when grazing or resting - do they do anything else? - according to this week's Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences.

Had I known I wouldn't have been so worried walking across England when we couldn't figure out how to use Joan's GPS.

75, the new 35

Just as Hayley's last boat was getting out of the water at the Long Beach Nationals I vaguely heard the announcer say something about 75 and older. No, it couldn't be.

I walked down to the launch area and, sure enough, four single sculls were racing down the Marina. Muscles rippling, upright postures, eyes fixed on the finish line.


John McCain, move over.

Coxswain Courageous

My 13 year old granddaughter, Hayley, rows competitively as a Junior (ages 13-18) for ZLAC Rowing Club and sometimes serves as a coxswain for a boat. That is, she is the boss, she gives the directions, sets the stroke rate, implements the race strategy, and steers the boat. Last weekend, she was the coxswain for two boats at the Long Beach Masters’ National Crew Regatta. One boat was crewed by younger women, 30’s-40’s, and the average age of the second boat was 63. Speaking of Courage under Fire, it takes some chutzpah for a 13 year old to tackle coxing a team almost at an Ancient Mermaid age. And, she had to give up some time previously committed to her band to do their first recording session. I asked her to do a guest blog for us. I told her to show some humor, some vulnerability, and that she was welcome to include that her mother hadn’t asked her before volunteering her services. She wrote,

I don’t know how I was dragged into this. It happened rather quickly. My mom, without asking me, volunteered me to cox a boat at Masters Nationals in Long Beach if they couldn’t find another coxswain. This was three weeks before the actual event. For two weeks they strung it out and didn’t tell me, and didn’t tell me, and didn’t tell me. Fast forward to one week beforehand. They told me I wouldn’t be coxing, they had found another coxswain. So I went and said to the band on Sunday: “Yes, I will be at church next Sunday, packed and ready for the recording session.”

The next day the Masters’ rowers emailed my mom and said

1. We actually need your daughter to cox two boats,
2. Neither of them is the one we originally thought she would be in,
3. If the first boat makes its final, the final is 20 minutes after the second boat’s race, so we don’t know what to do, and
4. Could you possibly cox another boat at 2:00?

I said NO to the last, I have something I really have to attend, and I’m already going to be late for it. Then, the day before, my mom realizes she didn’t finish our hotel reservations for that night, and the hotel is now full. Our reservations do not exist.

So we wake up at 4:45 the morning of, leave at 5:30 from San Diego, and arrive at the Marine Stadium in Long Beach at 7:00 AM. I took my sleeping bag and all my overnight junk for the overnight recording session that I was supposed to go to at 10:30 that same morning. My iPod headphones were glued in my ears for about three hours waiting for the first race.

At this point, I was fairly sure the ladies I was coxing hated me, because the rowing club had made a rule stating that no Junior could cox a Masters’ boat. This was AFTER I had started coxing their practices. Well, they didn’t hate me -- as proved by the never-ending chorus of thank yous after the races.

I discovered that it is much more stressful coxing people who not only know what they are doing, they know what YOU should be doing and will call you out on it. The Juniors have no idea what you should be doing, although sometimes they think they do. I had an experienced Masters' coxswain rowing in the second boat I coxed, and she sat right behind me in the bow. She had to tell me how to do things once in a while during the race, like backing into the stakeboat in a crosswind. That was useful. The time conflict with the final was irrelevant, because we weren’t even close to qualifying. That was disappointing, but it was also a relief.

My first boat was very nice; they were the younger boat.


There was no wind at all for that race, and there was just the right amount of time for a warm up.
Boat #1, the "younger" crew

There are a multitude of brain-busting things for a coxswain to think about, so everything was easier than Junior events. Junior Events are badly organized and usually run late, the start officials are bow ball Nazis, and no one knows what to do.

[The bow, or front of the boat, is marked with a ball stuck on the end. The coxswain in a bow loaded bow is facing front, almost in a lay down position, the rowers are facing back, toward the stern. K.]


The Nationals race was well organized and had perfect conditions. It was fun, but I couldn’t think of much to say during the first race. That is bad for a coxswain. You are supposed to talk to them the entire race. Coming into shore, I was too polite, I guess, and let all the other fours land before we had any room. Oh, and I think we finished fourth out of five.

The second four were older of the two racing teams and had an experienced coxswain in bow seat. [The bow seat is the rower next to the coxswain in a bow loaded boat. K.] We had a little too much time to warm up, so we came to the start line 15 minutes early. We pulled up five minutes before our race time, and it was “two scull bow, two scull bow, two keep sculling bow, please”, until the official finally called, “2 minutes.” Then, thirty seconds later, “Attention. . . row!” I don’t know what happened to 1 minute. . . but we were still sculling bow when he called it. Oh well, bad start.

Bringing in boat #2, the "older" ladies

I had more to say during this race than the last one: I had actually thought about it this time. We came in and I was too polite again, so we waited ten minutes to actually land on the beach. When we finally saw the times, we were fourth. . . by half an second! I’m sorry, I neglected to mention that this was a straight final, and we could have medaled. Oh well. I got a shirt. And a Jamba Juice gift card. And experience.

I’ll probably be the only Junior to cox in a major masters event. Anyway. I made my recording session! Not at 10:30, but 3:00. That’s okay. I didn’t miss anything. We recorded until midnight, and woke up at 6:15 to record some more. We got two songs done with 11 hours of recording. Ouch. This is Kathie’s granddaughter, signing off.

Skinks and Sinks

When we got to Edinburgh on Monday, our room at the Radisson wasn’t ready, so we went to Hisako and Tetsu’s room where we left our bags and took off for lunch at Hadrian’s Brasserie on South Bridge. This was the salad.

Eww - glad I didn't have that!

Hisako and Tetsu had cullen skink, a chowder kind of soup; they loved it but the name put me off – in South Carolina, a skink is a tailless fat black salamander-ish creature.

From the Scottish Recipes site: "Cullen is a wee town here in the North east of Scotland and Cullen Skink is traditionally made with Finnan haddock, potatoes and onions. Finnan haddock is often called Finnan haddie. The word skink means soup or stew. The Cullen Skink recipe may also be called Smoked Haddock Chowder in some restaurants."

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the restaurant is located in the Balmoral Hotel. Probably explains why there were pretty little pink flowers painted on the sink pedestals in the ladies’ room.

(Salad photo by Kathie - who else takes pics of her food? Sink photo by Joan.)

Bits and Pieces

Colors of the Hadrian's Wall Trail
Green with a touch of yellow (grass, trees, ferns, etc., etc., etc.)
Brown (mud)
Grey (sky and wall stones)
Red violet (foxglove and thistle blossoms)
Orange red (poppies)
Bright yellow (buttercups)
Periwinkle (Harebell and meadow cranes bell)

Flashes and impressions
Kathie’s cough

Turnstiles

Tetsu – “I kept up with Joan!”


Joan’s helmet and blue poncho hunchbacked over her backpack (isn't she cute in that helmet?)


Ladders up and over the wall - fifteen gazillion of them

Windburn – fanning my face every evening in the pub - no, it wasn't hot flashes!

Black-faced sheep

Hisako humming and waving to the sheep and cows

Good food and yet my saddle bags are gone!

Tips
• Take two pairs of low-cut boots – both well broken in. No high tops unless you really need the support!
• Go at your own pace - even on a 15 mile day. Take a break every so often – not just at lunch. Sit down at a milecastle, rest, and feel the place.
• If your time is limited, don’t do the whole wall. Start at Cholerford and go to Bowness.
• Consider going west to east. The wind will be at your back. The hazard of this direction, however, is that Newcastle isn’t as beautiful an ending as Bowness is.
• Carry maps from the B&Bs’ websites that’ll help you locate your lodging at the end of a long day. It’s no fun getting lost trying to find your room when your dogs are already dead.

(To see Kathie's smugmug photos, click here. Joan's are here. Trust me, you don't want to see mine - they're mostly blurry shots of cow poop.)

Lessons from the Wall

Somewhere years ago I got the idea that I'd like to walk across England. I'd look at maps of England and dream that the Peak District would be a great place to make the big hike. (You'd think the name "Peak District" would have been a big tip-off for me. Funny thing about maps though - by nature of their flatness, they just don't give you a good feel for the real thing. Unless you're talking about Charleston, of course...)

After our Russia trip last year (yes, I still haven't finished the stories on that trip yet), Kathie was trying to figure out what a good next trip might be. Truly, it's tough to beat Moscow, St. Petersburg, and a river cruise on the Volga, but I gamely suggested walking across England.

Kathie did some research. The distance across England at the level of the Peak District is roughly 200 miles; at the level of the Lake District, it's a bit less - more like 160. Since I could only take a couple of weeks off, neither of these routes would work. Being a history lover, Kathie thought the Hadrian's Wall Trail would be a good option, and the distance of 84 miles was doable. I thought sure, I could do that. We can do it in one week, Kathie said. 7 days. I must have been on acid when I agreed.

In July, Kathie, her friend Hisako and Hisako's husband Tetsu, Joan, and I did walk the trail. The entire length of it.

I learned a lot about myself on that trip. For one thing, I learned that I'm not a hiker. Sometimes I'm a walker. Often I'm an ambler. But on this particular trek, I was a stumbler. I stumbled on rocks, stumbled on uneven ground, and stumbled trying to avoid cow and sheep poop. I stumbled going uphill and then stumbled on the other side going down. I tripped over my own feet. Fortunately, I was usually the sweep - so usually no one saw me tripping and stumbling.

I also realized (yet again) that, when faced with adversity, I am able to do what I gotta do, even if it means stumbling twelve miles through hill and dale in soaking wet sneakers. (I kinda wish I'd had a chance to enjoy them - brand new $95 Mizunos - a bit before getting them caked a half inch thick in mud and manure, but what the heck? They're only shoes.)

I'm sure there were other lessons that I kept muttering to myself as I stumbled, trying to keep up with the group, but these are the two I remember. The rest are justifiably lost; what I'll always remember is the wonderfully chilly wind, the soft rain, the heavy gray clouds, the awe-inspiring vistas, the friendly people, the cozy bed and breakfasts, and the great pubs. Oh, and the flowers! Magnificent!

This is my absolute favorite photo of the whole trip. Joan took it in Stanley Plantation. The light was magical, the colors surreal, the textures delicately exquisite. If you look closely, you can see fairies and leprechauns peeking out from behind the trees and ferns.

Stay tuned for more from the trail.

Che is a She

It's official. He's a girl. The imp in the last blog went for surgery today and the mystery is solved.

Two kitties smuggled across the Mexican border at four weeks old to save them from being put to sleep came to the household in April. "A brother and a sister", the rescuer said. She thought maybe they were snowshoe siamese, but that's a mystery, too.

Appropriately for their Latin heritage, she was named Xochitl for the Aztec princess, and "he" was named Che after the Argentinean revolutionary who trained with Fidel in Mexico.


Looks like a revolutionary with that black mask, little black goatee, and piercing clear blue eyes. Well, maybe a Latin revolutionary would have brown eyes. In the movies he would have blue eyes.

"Hm-m-m. Not so fast", said the vet at the first well child visit. "No parts". Not good news if you're a boy. And the female parts were ambiguous. "Bring it back in 2 months".

Two months go by. "Hm-m-m", that noise doctors make when they're not sure or frankly don't know. Still no parts. No clear girl parts and definitely no boy parts. I'm thinking $500 CT scan to find out and the thought that here's a real cat scan didn't make the price tag any funnier. Worse, Che's been raised as a boy and has a boy name. Che has seemed a little "light in the loafers" but how can he/she do this to me?

Today, skipping the CT scan, was the day. Looks like we're going to be raising two girls. Love 'em both. Now, what to do about that name?

Caught!

We had excuses of being away walking England for a couple weeks and Patty's computer breakdown, but the rest of our hiatus is unforgivable. My blogging hero is our England co-walker, Joan, every day a blog and photo. Unbelievable discipline! Patty, here's a simple blog to get back into the swing.


Turned my back this evening and Che was on the table in a minute. Not a pang of guilt on that sweet face. Does the five second rule apply? Karma will bite -- she goes in for a spay tomorrow.

Hadrian Conquered!

Well, actually, make that Hadrian's Wall. Kathie, Joan, Hisako, Tetsu, and I finished the 84 mile trek over hill and dale, through pastures and forests, pub to pub, B&B to B&B - yesterday afternoon! Yea! I can't seem to stop looking on the ground for the next cow plop to avoid stepping in. The scenery was fantastic, the weather usually good (wonderful cool winds as opposed to muggy, sweltering Charleston), the people all friendly and helpful...I just can't get over that we made it!

Back in Edinburgh for a couple days then flying home. Can't wait to see my babies, but I sure will be sorry to leave here. Wah!

Et Tu, Brute!

I've often yukked it up over items that Joan's included on her blog from Old Horsetail Snake. This evening I almost blew my soup out through my nose (sorry, Kath!) when I read one of the "Mangled Moments of History from Actual College Students" from the Snake's blog:

"Cesar was assassinated on the Yikes of March when he was reported to have said, "Me, too, Brutus."

We had to read Julius Caesar out loud in Latin class. I can just imagine stuffy little Mrs. Mynderse's reaction if our Caesar (Mark Gilson) had said that. Woulda served her right...

Surf's Up In Montana

Not much surprises me these days on my trips up to Missoula, Montana to visit my chick, Jennifer, and chicklet, Isabella. In a state where the highway speed limit was whatever was "reasonable and proper" until 1998 and a city where the townfolk gather twice yearly to parade for the Day of the Dead or in the Walk of the Wild Things, all dressed as wild things, no one seems to turn a head at the offbeat, the unusual, or outright eccentric.


This is the town where A River Runs Through It, the Clark Fork River, usually a tranquil, meandering river in the summer and fall.


Watch long enough from the Higgins Street Bridge and you can imagine Robert Redford or Brad Pitt stepping out with a fly rod.



In the spring, the rains and snow melting from the mountains raises the river to a cold and raging torrent -- and Montanans do what's natural for them. They get out in the middle of it.

Kayaking,


And yes, surfing...


Missoulians have built a barrier off the shore to create a waterpark, Brennan's Wave. Brennan Guth was a kayaker who died at age 32 in an accident in Chile. The barrier causes a perpetual eddy and lets a kayaker or surfer do their thing while not going anyplace.



Those Missoulians know how to have fun.

Vote or Leave

From the AT&T home page this morning...

"A CNN poll released Friday shows that the (Democratic) party is divided after a primary season that stretched over nearly 18 months and 57 contests.

"Sixty percent of Clinton supporters said they would vote for Obama, but 17 percent said they would vote for Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee and Obama's rival in the general election. Nearly one-quarter, 22 percent, said they would not vote at all if Clinton were not the Democrats' nominee.

"The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 7.5 percentage points. The poll was conducted after Obama clinched the Democratic nomination Tuesday."

Count me in the sixty percent. Shame on those in the 22 percent category. Vote or leave. As Kathie would say, "No whine, no cry."

Guess I've had a little too much caffeine this morning.

Fun in Ava

Over Memorial Day weekend, Kelly and I drove to Ava, Missouri, to visit my brother Ray and his wife Janet. They only moved there in October after Jan retired, but they had bought the house (read “wreck”) some time before and spent some major time and effort rebuilding/renovating it. Even if I hadn’t seen “before” photos I would think the “after”/finished product is stunning! See?

They have a double lot with several nice big trees - elms, redbuds, maples, etc. There's a great deck on the side right off the dining room.

If you think that’s nice, you should see the inside…Brazilian cherry floors (gorgeous!), beautiful cabinetry, a great layout, and excellent craftsmanship throughout. Such a nice home!

On Friday afternoon while Ray went to pick up Kathie at the Springfield airport, Janet showed us around Ava. Well, we did other stuff too since the Ava tour only takes about ten minutes. The town is small (we think about 3200 residents) but packed with lots of stuff. It’s the county seat, surrounded by cattle farming, and has a quaint town square, affordable housing, low humidity (ahhhh!), a nice grocery store with low prices and great produce, a good variety of churches, a few restaurants and bars, and a park with swimming pool, tennis courts, and a walking path - just down the street from Jan and Ray’s. I was favorably impressed.

So Kelly and I were hanging out with Jan and Sam the Dog when Ray and Kathie walked in the door from the airport, Ray shaking his head. Kathie had just realized when they pulled up in the drive that she had left her checked bag back at the airport. Hadn’t even thought to go pick it up from baggage claim! We teased her mercilessly all weekend for that one.

After Ray and Kathie returned on Saturday morning from the airport (again), we all went over to Ava Drug for hot dogs, fresh squeezed lemonade, and five cent ice cream scoops. I’m not kidding – the ice cream was five cents a scoop! Needless to say, the place was hoppin’. Then we toured the square, checking out the shops. The one that caught my attention was Eliz Arts, owned by artist and art teacher Elizabeth Ann Jackson Brown. Hanging throughout the shop are large discs she makes of stained and not-so-stained glass. Very cool.

Unfortunately, the natural food store had just closed for the day, so we didn’t go in there, but we did see where the tornado of a few weeks earlier had damaged the front of the store. Yikes!

Here's Ray's new project. He's planning to paint this cute little VW black and white before he takes it up on Route 66 for his birthday this month. It's got a little kitchen and a bed in the back! My son-in-law has been eating his heart out over this photo.

Saturday evening we went to the Ava Family Theater (also on the square) to see the new Indiana Jones movie. It was the only show and there were only two showings that evening, but really - who needs more than that? I was amazed that Indiana Jones was even showing, since it had only come out the day before. And my soda was one dollar. I haven’t seen a dollar soda at the movies since…well…a very long time ago.

I didn't get a good pic of Janet (except in her housecoat), so here's a shot of her "garden sculpture". Heh heh. That girl knows how to have some fun, I tell you!

On Sunday, Ray barbecued up some ribs, hamburgers, and dogs to go with the excellent salad their friends Pat and Lynn brought and the yummy lemon meringue pies their other friends and neighbors Sue and Jerry brought. The weather was perfect and we all had a great time. If only I was independently wealthy…I could get used to this kind of life.

Can you see Sam the Dog under Kelly's feet?

Sunday evening and Monday we feasted on leftovers (did I mention the breakfast casserole Pat brought over?). We did walk some, but I could have definitely used some pants with elastic waistbands! Everything was delicious.

Sadly, we took Kathie back to the airport on Monday evening and Kelly and I left Ray and Jan on Tuesday morning. The drive home was long and tiring, but I figure we’ll go back again in the not too distant future. Thanks, Ray and Jan, for a wonderful time!

$41.8 Million Heads Up

According to the AARP's monthly newsletter in May, the IRS spent $41.8 million "to mail notices alerting taxpayers to expect economic stimulus payments". Guess they figured we'd all miss that $600 being deposited into our bank accounts. Or did they just want to make sure Bush got the credit?

Kathie says my blogging leans toward the political side. Go figure.

Weird Words

I just finished reading Charlotte Bronte's last novel, Villette. Would I recommend it? Not really. I much prefer Jane Austen's novels, all seven of which I just finished a couple of weeks ago. I did pick up some weird new vocabulary words from Villette, though. Here they are:

• Hebdomadal, which means weekly, as in "Lucy hadn't had time for her hebdomadal bath. She wondered that Dr. Bretton declined her offer of tea." (I just made that one up; it's not a direct quote from the book. The book is much, much wordier.)


• Contumacity. Merriam-Webster Online only had a definition for contumacy, which means stubborn resistance to authority. If I hadn't seen it in a novel written in the 1850s, I'd swear that one was invented to describe Kelly.


• Condign, which means deserved or appropriate, as in "condign punishment". Why couldn't she just write "appropriate punishment"?


• Collyrium, which means eyewash. Somehow, this word comes from the diminutive of kollyra, Greek for a roll of bread. How on earth did we ever get from breadroll to eyewash?


• Palsp. I think this may have been a typo because I couldn't find it anywhere online. It's kind of a cool word, though - don't you think? It could mean the sound a cat makes when he's coughing up a hairball. "Kathie was startled awake by a palsp in the other room. Might Pork Chop have accidentally swallowed the new kitten? Che was nowhere to be found..." (Hey, believe me, that's as believable as the plot of Villette - maybe more so after this weekend's cat perch incident.)

There were more weird words, but I didn't start marking the pages - so I could go back and find them later - until I was more than half way through the book. I'm not rereading the first half to locate the ones I missed now. Someone else read it and let me know, ok?

Nurses Week is done!

By Wednesday afternoon, I'd already put in my 80 hours for the pay period. I was exhausted and happy! It was a successful Nurses Week. If you don't believe me, read Janet's opinion here.

Yeah, it wore me out but I truly didn't mind. I love Nurses Week because I love nurses. Of course, I may be a little biased - Jessie is a nurse and Kelly is working diligently on becoming one.

So you'll understand why I love nurses, read the following post I wrote on our nursing blog back in November of 2006. (Sorry, it's not accessible to the public or I would just link you to it.)

"I have worked with nurses for seventeen years. They are the best kind of co-workers to have, and this is why:

• Nurses can fix anything – not just patients. Nurses have to be resourceful because they’re on the job 24/7, while most other departments close down over weekends and nights. Probably the maintenance guys hate it when they have to come behind and try to fix something the nurses already “fixed” (do I hear grumbling in the background?), but I think it’s great. Katie W. in the Dream Pool told me this weekend she’s building her second fence. I am so-o-o impressed.


• Nurses appreciate every little thing you do for them. I used to run down to Dietary and pick up bedtime snacks for the diabetic patients on PCU. The nurses just thought I was wonderful. Last month, I made arrangements for everyone to attend the Spartanburg Magnet Hospital workshop. You’d think I had given each and every one of them diamond earrings for their birthdays. They were all so sweet and appreciative. I don’t even get that kind of appreciation at home.


• Nurses are trustworthy. According to this year’s Gallup survey of 1,000 Americans, nurses were the professionals that were trusted most – even more than doctors and police officers! That’s saying something, I tell you.

There are other reasons I love working with nurses. They like food, I like food. They work hard and they know how to have fun. But mostly, I love working with nurses because they are among the most caring creatures in the world. Most of you know that my daughter is a NNICU nurse. How she does it I will never know. She didn’t get it from me. "

So it was my pleasure to bring you strawberry shortcake, Janet, because - yes! - you are marvelous. Next trip, maybe you can come along with us! (If you didn't read Janet's "opinion" at the link shown above, that last may appear to be a bit of a non sequitur to you...)