Carded . . .

We have . . . there is a . . .why is there a . . .

I don't know how to ask this:

Do greeting cards have a mind of their own? Do they disappear for other folks the way they do for us? Do other people buy birthday cards and graduation cards and baby shower cards which silently disappear?

Do we buy too early? Probably. This gives the cards more time to plan their getaway. There is one beautiful card which has an eagle on it. Somewhere. We lost it before the scheduled birthday arrived. We found it some months later and it again disappeared. If it turns up again, I will capture it and hand it to the recipient whether it is his official birthday or not.

I am beginning to feel that cards might be an unnecessary evil. Unless, of course, the birthday in question happens to be mine . . .

Now where . . .

Ever put something away carefully to keep it safe until you need it? I am in the middle of one of those situations, now.

I would write more about it but I have to keep searching. I have looked everywhere except the freezer and the garden storage shed. The scary, rusty one. I don't like to go there so perhaps there is a tiny shopping trip in my future.

Oh, Hall-(oween).

No celebrations . . .

This was a sad sports weekend for our football enthusiasts. There were hard contested losses-by-inches. Close, they said. Tried hard, they said.

The cat, at least, remains calm. Not too much triumphant yelling going on. She gets a little fussed when that happens. BigEd says she just needs to get used to it.

Echo of the Echo . . .

Just closed An Echo in the Bone. Knowing that there would be loose ends left unbound at the finish of it helped greatly. I do not have a feeling of outrage at the way the book closes because there are foreshadows visible to allow the imagination to voyage on past the written word.

People are separated and some find one another. Even the wolf finds his happiness. All in all, there was plenty to savor.

It was like an excellent banquet at Valentine's Day with the dessert promised for Christmas, probably.

Maybe two-three years or so away, though . . .

Silence is . . .

Our house is not totally quiet with the air conditioner running and a television on in the living room. We are used to these background noises and think little of them. Unless they are not there.

Day before yesterday, I cracked one living room window and cooled the whole house. Fall had dropped by without calling first and brought some friendly winds from the North.

I sat alone in the living room with my newest, long awaited, library book. It was quiet, peaceful, silent.

I couldn't stand it. I had to turn on the ceiling fan . . .

Falling into books . . .

Finally Fall fell. It took its time arriving down here.

I R reading "An Echo in the Bone." Will not be doing much else but wallowing in it. I am trying to make it last a while, but it's difficult, once I get going, to remember to slow down.

o1 Doc, I did finish "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and am waiting for "The Girl Who Played with Fire." Did you know the author had died? And that there is a third book of his that was sent to his publisher but who knows when, or if, it will be released.

I was thinking the girl was mildly autistic but did not tumble to Asperger's Syndrome. "Tattoo" got better and better as I got into it. It is sad that there is only the possibility of three books in this run.

D. Gabaldon had better not *finish* before her series does. There would be some ticked-off readers, no? :p

It's the little details . .

Charlie's Auto Glass has amenities such as fresh coffee, snacks, huge HDTV, lots of hard but contoured chairs. Charlie's tech said that the crater in the Camry's windshield was too deep to repair and so they replaced it this morning.

They also vacuumed the car and washed the side and rear windows. Can you imagine how clean it looks? Window-wise, I mean.

The rest of it is receiving a free rinse courtesy of some semi-tropical squalls moving in.

All I need is a Sham-Wow to dry it off when the rain stops. It will look like we had it detailed.

Maybe . . .

No whine with dinner . . .

I don't need any whine, thank you. I have a sufficient amount for myself. We (meaning I) are tired of feeling like cwap.

Yesterday, we (meaning BigEd and I) went to the (big box) store.

It was too soon. We are all worn out. Today, J (who put away what we brought home) is back to sleep on the couch. Today, BigEd went back to sleep in his room. I (yawn), after loading the washing machine, am headed for a nap also.

For the evening meal, there is left over spaghetti with Dreamfields pasta and I don't think they had better wake me up to ask what's for dinner. Not that they would ever do that, but, especially not today . . .

Wa-Hoo!

* * * HAPPY BIRTHDAY * * *
ZETA!

This is as close to cobalt as I could get.

Vroom, vroom, with regrets . . .

We all three received our flu shots. Not the Swine/H1N1, but the regular, garden variety, only-one-available-now, flu shot. Mine didn't sting when injected, J's did, and BigEd felt his too, he said. Strange, no?

The day after BigEd got his, and waaayyy before any immunity could have built up, BigEd began with a sore throat. This was late Friday afternoon and on Monday he went to the doctor, who gave him an antibiotic.

Of course you can guess that J and I came down with it sequentially, J first and me afterward. Antibiotics for all. We're an equal opportunity family.

The worst aspect of this commonplace tale is that Zeta's birthday is Sunday. The family, minus the three of us, is meeting at the coal fired pizza place on the Dixie, tomorrow.

Not wanting to provide the family with a total equal opportunity experience, the three of us have text messaged our regrets. We texted because Zeta and M are at an event and the noise can prohibit conversation. They usually are that close to the cars. Nice, huh?

Believe me when I say we really regret not helping Zeta and M to celebrate. Her birthday will, therefore, be extended for a week or so.

Still, we regret . . .

INCOMING . . .

Be it officially recorded, via this document, that no one asked me if we should bombard the moon with a rocket. It's not my fault.

I know it has been dry, here in our end of the state. Temperatures have been above the norm and bouncing against the glass ceiling of becoming a record. Personally, I don't blame the moon.

Poor thing . . .

An Echo in the Bo- . . .

Yeeeeaaars ago, when I bought the first book in Tolkien's "Lord of the Ring" trilogy, I had never heard of it. I read to the end and was completely indignant at the idea of such a cliff-hanging finish. It was as if the last sentence was not intended to be the end of the book at all. As if the publisher had made a mistake in the book-binding process and omitted the final few pages.

Of course, I finally clued up and, as of now, the whole world has heard of Strider (well, Aragorn), Gandalf, and Frodo. They no longer belong just to me.

According to the reviews by readers on Amazon, author Diana Gabaldon has done a similar thing with the latest book of her "Outlander" series: "An Echo in the Bone." She even put a (sort of) disclaimer on her web site which I quote:

A word about the ending...I did say, did I not, "Nobody's going to hit the end of _this_ book, and think it's the last one?"

One of the reader/reviewers on the Amazon site recommended that people not read this one until the next one comes out.

If it were not already in transit to my account at the library, I might think about doing that - for about two seconds. I do appreciate the heads up, though. I won't gallop through it in order to find out what happens next. I will savor and enjoy as I go, in the knowledge that the end will indeed leave me a-la-Tolkien.

Forewarned, and all that . . .

Little, bendy-legged . . .

It really is all o1 Doc's fault. I blame her, completely. She has a link to Woot on her website and I clicked on it, today. They had a little, bendy-legged tripod. I have been thinking about getting small one because when we went up a mountain, I became shaky from the altitude. I am never shaky. As long as I reman near sea level, my hands are steady enough to perform brain surgery. If I were capable, that is.

Up high, say 3,600 feet, I needed a tripod and probably a keeper for the first couple of days. This particular Woot item is not for heavyweight cameras. But then, neither am I.

So little bendy-legs and I were made for each other. Thanks o1Doc.

Fold up the tent . . .

Today's Origami class was a little different. We finished three projects when we usually do one or, at the most, two. We listened. Those inclined to take up time with jokes or questioning kept quiet.

There is one lady who is a bit of a a control freak. Even though she needs instruction and admits the fact, she still rebels when told to wait and not get ahead. But today, even she kept quiet for the most part.

We were all a bit subdued because we discovered that our county's head librarians are all being transferred to other locations. This is in an effort to even out the coverage, so to speak, and prevent job/budget cuts. We could not argue with the reasons behind this action.

Since our Origami instructor is also the head librarian at our branch, next Saturday will be our last class.

I dread to think that we might be folding a penguin as the farewell project . . .