genetic

I had a great idea and priceless fodder for today's blog post! I even hinted about how amazing it was going to be in a series of emails to my family on Wednesday. I had received something awesome in the mail from Mom, and I was psyched to build a post around it. I scanned documents, cropped and color corrected individual elements, and uploaded all of the photos to a draft which I entitled "September 6, 1972."  

Later that day I was emailing with Ellie to wonder if we should remind Beth that she'd missed her turn that day when a thought occurred to me: 

Sigh. Here is Ellie's righteous post about the glorious thing that mom had mailed to her favorite daughter and granddaughter.  Here is the glorious thing:

BUT.

There was a second, stealthy glorious thing in the envelope from mom! It was a newsletter from the hospital where my dad was born, where he worked all his life, and where he died. Mom's handwritten note told me to check out the back page of Hospital Hi-Lites, so I did. At first I gave it a cursory glance, looking for key words that would spark recognition. Hmmm. Nothing. So I went back and read every word of that last page. It was pretty boring yet weirdly riveting, mostly because I was expecting a big aha moment, which never came. The next day I emailed mom about it, confused about what I was supposed to find, and she clarified that I should look at the inside back page. I had it with me, for scanning and preparing the Glorious Blog Post as previously discussed. So I took another look 

and there we were

me and my dad

Me and my dad, September of 1970

I really can't stop staring at the photo. It is the very best thing ever, isn't it?

I know, I thought so too. Until the next day, when Ellie posted the photo below with the caption: "I guess it's genetic"

Clara and her Jidoo, summer of 2002

Glorious.

A Ride In The Woods

My Girl Nancy called Saturday morning and said she and her man Jonny were thinking about coming down with their bikes for a ride at Bluff Point. What did we think?

What did we think? We thought, "Yes please."

And what a ride in the woods it was.

We had the wrong bikes for it, of course . . .

Between us, we had a fabulous mountain bike (Jon), a decrepit old mountain bike with one gear and no front shocks (Nancy), a newish hybrid with fat tires (Mistah), and an oldish hybrid with thin almost-road bike tires (me).

The perfect combination of bikes . . .

. . . because we are the perfect combination of people . . .

. . . see?

It was a gorgeous fall southeastern Connecticut day, and although it was gray, it was warm. And the colors were beautiful. The four of us never knew where we were going on those trails, and had the wrong gear for the technical downhills over gigantic boulders, but we never cared . . .

. . . because we were all about, "Wanna stop here?"

"Sure!"

"Ooh, look. How 'bout here?"

"Why not?"

"Oooh, look at the riders demo-ing those phat-tire bikes!"

We thought we'd made a wrong turn and landed in Asheville.

We've been doing this hanging-around-together-thing for a long time, the four of us . . .

. . . well, especially the *two* of us . . .

. . . but, really, the four of us. And luckily, none of us can get enough of stone walls . . .

. . . or state park views . . .

. . . or tooling-through-the-woods-if-we-can't-be-on-the-beach . . .

. . . but mostly, we can't get enough of Nancy:

. . . who can, really?

We call this, "Is that the one where I almost drove right into Schleckah and turned at the last second and he took my photo right before I almost took him out?"

Yes, that's the one, dude.

After all these years, we can't get enough of eachother.

Nuggets

Yesterday when I woke up and enjoyed my leisurely morning routine of checking email and social media, Facebook greeted me with one of those cheesy "memories" posts, because they care about me and my photo history. I usually ignore/hide those posts because they tend to feature random drink pics, but this time? Oh, it was my babies. And they were ca-YOOT. It put me in a nostalgic state of mind, which inspired me to dig back into the archives for more evidence that these snarling, eye rolling teenagers of mine were once teeny tiny little love nuggets. May I present the evidence?

MONDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2008

Is there a Doctor in the house?

I couldn't help but notice that there was something odd about this suitcase....





It almost looked like someone was trying to claw their way out of it.

But wait...



Oh hello there! Were you resting in that outside zipper pocket?


Girlfriend, what happened to your forehead?


Oh dear.

And look at your poor doggie, up there on the bed



His sutures are harder to see, but I count at least nine, right there in the abdomen.




How will you keep him from chewing and scratching at them?



Perfect.

Could all of this misfortune have been inspired by actual events?



We might have another surgeon in the family after all, Dad!

Ha ha Halloween

I'm not really a big holiday person, and of all of the various holidays, Halloween is not one of my favorites. But that said, it will be weird to be somewhere on October 31 that doesn't celebrate Halloween the way we do here in America.

Perhaps I like Halloween more than I think, and am missing it in advance.

Whatever the reason, please enjoy some early Halloween humor.

The Happiest Saddest Day

Everybody who lives in the greater southeastern Connecticut geographical region knows that there are two sad days every year.

The day the clocks turn back and all of a sudden it's dark at 4. That's a sad day.

And the shortest day of the year. The winter solstice. Mom's least favorite day. That's a sad one, too.

But for me? My least favorite day of the year is The Day Big Cacti Comes Inside.

They don't call him Big Cacti for nuthin'.

We had our first cold day yesterday . . .

. . . but we didn't mind, because we had the Tin Man to keep us warm . . .

. . . and we got to hang out with our late-season plants, who had no idea that their lives were about to change, dramatically.

Oh, Morning Glory, on your last day on Earth . . .

. . .  oh, Big Cacti, about to be stuck inside for the next six months . . . 

. . . oh . . .  Hey that's me!

There is one person and one person only who helps Mistah and me bring Big Cacti in and out, twice a year, and that's our friend Bruce.

Yes, he has a family and young kids, yes, he's super busy. Yes, it's true.  But twice a year we need him, and twice a year he delivers.

It's a sad day, but it's a happy sad day, because we get to see Bruce, and his lovely girl, and their adorable kids.

It's the happiest saddest day ever. . . . 

. . . but at least we've got good help.