At the Table

I'm the oldest of five children. The youngest two girls are only eleven months apart. As of Thursday, they are both fifty years old for a month. The women in my family (missing only one of my daughters) gathered at my house this weekend to celebrate.

We ate, we made books and jewelry, we laughed and talked and read, (and yes, cried some). We played Apples to Apples and asked each other thoughtful questions from the Family Edition of Table Topics. On Sunday, my father and brother came up and we had lunch at the University Club.

It was a weekend spent around the table. Now that the table is bare, the rooms put back to order and the linens done, I feel sad that it's over. It was a magnificent, empowering weekend.

Thematic Photography: Signs

I just want to tell Carmi over at WrittenInc that I have been waiting for this theme. Storing up. Here they are, my signs:

Election time is hard on a cat. Especially when he has to guard campaign signs from the enemy.


My daughter is a high school English teacher. This sign is her way of bringing humor to a seriously enforced dress code. Worth enlarging if necessary to read it.



Another daughter attended school in Chicago for a while. This Chicago Theater sign is the heat! Frankie Valli? Who knew he was still making the rounds?



When we told this little girl that she looked pretty, she smiled smugly and said, "I know. I'm a model."



This sign is my most valuable offering this week. No explanation needed!



Got a sign? Post it and let Carmi know.

Thematic Photography: Human

Since last week's theme over at WrittenInc was "Yellow" I assumed we were going down the color chart for a while. But Carmi threw me a curve by choosing "Human" this week. So I choose to post photos of colorful people!

Full Moon

Last night was the full moon. On the way to the beach, I glanced at the clock and it was 11:11; when I looked again it was 12:12.. Then the resettable odometer and the clock synchronized so that for several miles the time and the mileage were the same: 1:01, 101; 1:02, 102; etc. I'm a freak for that kind of thing!

At Bald Head we are having astronomically high and low tides. In fact, in all the years we've been coming here I've never seen the tide so low on the beach.

The flowers are in full color and so are the animals. And the birds are back at the rookery. We've seen pairs of birds chasing each other all day.

It has been one of the most beautiful days I can remember, and tonight we're headed to the beach to watch the moon rise over the ocean.

I Am Curious...

Yellow: This is the theme of Carmi's Thematic Photography this week. Today I rode my bike all over Bald Head looking for good yellows.

I went to the bath house without my camera, knowing that I would run across a good yellow thing and be sorry I didn't take it. And of course I saw this little guy on the steps. He's a stinger, but I wanted his picture badly, so I put him in a paper towel and rode like the wicked witch to get my camera. As I was nearing the dock, he started crawling creepily out of the paper and I fell off the bike I was so scared!!


The rest were taken under less duress. Enjoy!







Stay tuned: tomorrow I have to share some numbers craziness that happened on the way down, and pictures of the full moon.

Thematic Photography: Music

Visit Carmi at WrittenInc for more Musical goodness!

Correction on Simon Van Booy's book

I had the name of the short story collection by Van Booy wrong. The new book is called Love Begins in Winter. (The other is a previous collection. I haven't read it...yet.)