This past weekend was a whirlwind of music for me. On Saturday night a friend and I joined 30,000 other Parrotheads to see Jimmy Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band play in a soccer stadium in Chicago. It was crazy, with beachballs bobbing everywhere and women dressed in hula skirts. The men wore crazy hats, and some of them removed their shirts and swung them around their heads. Beer flowed, even at $8 a plastic glass.
On Sunday Earl and I went to see “Jersey Boys,” the “true” story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. That was just as amazing, although nobody disrobed. Instead, we were transported in time to 1963 when four guys from New Jersey began to make it big with such hits as “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” and “Walk Like a Man.” I admit you probably have to be a certain age to remember these songs, but they helped define rock and roll at the time.
Which did I like better? Truthfully, I liked the boys. But, if any of you have seen either show, let me know what you think.
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Earl and I are in Indianapolis, IN, this weekend for the annual Drum Corps International competition, which was held last night in the new Colts football stadium. I had hoped to share photos of the finale, but neither Earl nor I brought our cameras. Duh! So all I can do is send you to the DCI web site and also provide a little historical background on the city instead.
This is Monument Circle, which is in the center of the city. It has a long and interesting background and is today a hub of activity for tourists and locals alike. Our hotel is about six blocks from here, so I walked over to purchase a Starbucks and see what’s changed since I lived here forty years ago. The monument itself is the same, but the neighborhood is oh-so-much-nicer. Here’s a shout-out to all our friends in Indy.
By the way, the drum corps we were rooting for came in fourth. We were hoping for better.
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This Tuesday Earl and I head north to Canada for our annual fishing trip. And when I say “North,“ I mean northern Saskatchewan, almost to the Northwest Territories, hundreds of miles beyond the last paved road. It’s called Wollaston Lake Lodge (pictured above during the day), and there are no televisions, no telephones, no Internet. There is tranquility and natural beauty and great fishing instead.
Guests have their own cabins but congregate in the main lodge for meals and games and the requisite bragging about the size of the fish one caught that day. After dinner we gather outside and watch Aurora Borealis, the northern lights, mesmerize us all before we turn it. It’s about as far away from Brooklyn as one can get.
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I’m here in town to work for fredflare.com and just checked into my hotel room. I’m on the eleventh floor and the window runs floor to ceiling. Normally I’m pretty wimpy when it comes to standing on the edge of something high and looking down. But I just had to capture the glory of this day. I understand the city has been inundated with rain, but there isn’t a cloud in the sky. Thanks for the great welcome, New York.
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You’d have to live in a cave in Siberia not to have seen the commercials for the Topsy Turvy®, a contraption that promises bountiful tomatoes without the hassle of planting a garden. Well, meet Ike and Tina Tomato (Tina is on the left) who have been hanging upside down for six weeks just outside our back door.
We’ve watered them and fertilized them and named them because I believe things with names grow better. To date, they’ve produced lush leaves and a few flowers. But no tomatoes.
I didn’t know how long it takes to grow tomatoes, so I went to the Topsy Turvy® website. The site offers the usual testimonials and boasts that its product will produce up to 30 pounds of tomatoes per plant because the root systems explode inside the plastic planter. The site does not, however, offer any tips on how long this takes.
So I went to Google® and learned that some tomatoes are ready to pick 50 days after being planted, while others take 90 days. Doing the math, I figured we’re at Day 42, so there’s still hope. I’m already hungering to bite into a juicy BLT sandwich.
Preferably before Labor Day.
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Here is a picture Earl snapped of me earlier today. Well, you’ll have to trust it’s me, since I’m sleeping under my snowman quilt in my new hammock. We just got this hammock at the beginning of June, and it is the perfect place for relaxing. As for the snowman quilt, I keep it out all year long even though some people wonder why. The answer is simple: I love snowmen. And since fredflare.com is gearing up for holiday already, I’m treating you to a revisit to my snowman collection. Happy holidays everyone.
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I often blog about life in Michigan, especially life around our home. I’ve featured squirrels and birdhouses and willows. I’ve shown flowers and the river and the change of seasons. And so I wanted to show you the ironwood tree that came down last night in the middle of a frightening rainstorm.
The ironwood lived outside our bedroom window and was the first thing of beauty we saw on wakening and the last thing we saw before closing our eyes at night, thanks to some beautiful lighting we installed three sweet summers ago. The tree held court for birds of all hues, especially since Earl kept a feeder filled on a daily basis. It also was home to a special kind of bell that would ring in the wind. We’ll never hear it ring again.
We’ve spent the day being melancholy about this. There are fifty trees on our property; and, of all of them, the two ironwoods we had were our greatest pride. Now there’s only one. And we’re as bereft as we would be if a human member of our family had perished.
So I urge you: if you appreciate some special thing of beauty, do so wholeheartedly. Revel in it. Take photographs. You never know what can happen. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Forever. We are in mourning today.
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Chris and I are spending the weekend in the Big Easy, otherwise known as New Orleans. We’ve eaten ourselves silly, but we’ve also been making new friends. Like the Chicken Man and Big Al. Al E. Gator lives in the swamps to the east, where we visited him in his natural habitat. We learned he has a penchant for marshmallows, which seems rather unnatural to us. But then when we told him we had a passion for cocktails, he just shook his head.
Did you know you can tell the length of an alligator by measuring the distance in inches from his eyes to his nose and converting that number to feet? Using this most scientific method, our guide estimated Big Al was approximately 13 feet long. So I guess Al can eat anything he wants.
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On our way to Colorado, we stopped at the World’s largest truck stop. On our way back, we visited a different kind of attraction in Gothenburg, NE. What you see here is an actual relay station for the Pony Express. For nineteen months (April, 1860-November 1861), riders carried the mail on horseback between St. Louis, MO, to San Francisco, CA. Along the way, they rested and obtained fresh horses at strategically located relay stations.
Prior to this, it took 6 month to get info across our country, as the telegraph, telephone, television, and Internet were still waiting to be invented. So were automobiles and trucks. And Facebook too. Times have certainly changed.
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Tomorrow is Memorial Day, and Earl and I are in Denver, CO. We drove here for a sixtieth wedding anniversary; and, while the highlight of the trip certainly was the party last night, we have seen some interesting things along the way. On the top of Earl’s list is the I-80 Truckstop at Exit 284 in Iowa. The main entrance is pictured above.
Earl has never been a trucker, but he is fixated on this truckstop. It has room for 800 trucks at the same time. There is a 70 foot buffet, and salad is not particularly well represented. There is a dentist and a chiropractor on staff. The auto parts department is large enough to hold one sixteen wheeler and two other cabs and still have room for product. In fact, these vehicles really ARE in the showroom. Then there are the gift shops and the food courts. It’s about as far away from fredflare.com as one can get, but it’s also about as close to a slice of Americana on this holiday weekend too.
Happy Memorial Day, Everyone.
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Is for the birds. A friend of mine presented me a gift of this handmade birdhouse. I thanked him but asked if the hole was large enough to accommodate a bird. “This is a wren house,” he said. “Wrens are very tiny birds, and the hole cannot be larger than a quarter, because other birds move in. You want wrens because their songs are so beautiful.” Last week I blogged about the deer in my yard. This week, it’s more wildlife. I’ll let you know if any warblers move into the neighborhood.
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I was making the bed this morning and just happened to look out our window at the birdfeeder. Usually it’s filled with finches and cardinals and other wing-y things who are feasting away. But this morning, there was an unusual visitor. I slowly backed out of the room so as not to startle the deer and ran for the camera, figuring he’d be gone before I returned. But he wasn’t. He stayed and finished breakfast, and I got this shot. I just had to share it.
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This blog is dedicated to Tommy for his brilliant idea of Weekend Words. He made me come from under my rock and declare my love of things English, as in grammar, punctuation, spelling, and syntax. In fact, I was the Grammar Grandma for Google ® a few years back until I was so inundated with questions regarding pronouns, antecedents, participial phrases and the like that I had to resign or be eaten alive by verbs and pronouns.
Which is why I’m recommending the two books pictured above. Since I no longer give grammar advice, here is where you can find it. The first book, The Elements of Style, has been around in one form or another since 1919, although the most recent edition — replete with illustrations by Maira Kalman — was published just a couple years ago.
The second, The Elephants of Style, tends to dispute the ancient laws of grammar laid down in the first book. But that’s all right, since language is a living thing and changes over time. The important thing is that when you have a question you use a reputable source to divine your answer and then follow accordingly. You can then defend your choice of words. I give both these books a possible five out of five exclamation points.
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I rarely watch movies, either in the theater, on DVD, or on TV. (I don’t know why. Well, yes, I think I do but that’s a sequel blog.) Anyway, yesterday I watched two movies from the late nineties back to back. With commercials — yes, they were on regular TV — I clocked in almost five hours of film time. (Cory, you’re probably shaking your head right now.)
“Good Will Hunting” and “The Truman Show” received great reviews when they first came out, and I can see why. Over a decade later, both are still substantial and provocative. But what I liked most was that Robin Williams in the first film and Jim Carrey in the second didn’t act like caricatures of themselves. Their roles were more on the serious side, and each actor kept his slapstick personality in check.
If you haven’t seen these films, I recommend them. And, if you have some other favorites I should try viewing, let me know. It was a great way to get my ironing done.
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This is the entrance to our house. What you don’t see is the “For Sale” sign staked in our lawn just out of view. It’s been there almost a year. And when I’m not working for fredflare.com, I’m running around trying to keep both the inside and the outside picture perfect. In a way, I suppose it’s how we want to keep Store Cute.
I know real estate is tough these days, but I’m wondering if all of you out there who believe in cosmic energy would send some my way. Or, if prayer is your style, then send one up in our favor. We really want to sell our house. Thanks.
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While my son Keith and I were basking in the balmy Key West weather last weekend my other son Kevin was part of a sandbagging operation in Fargo, North Dakota. Keith and I checked in with him every day to make sure he was safe… and dry. Well, he was, although the Red River had become a giant lake, most businesses and schools were closed, and life was anything but normal. See for yourself.
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