Month: August 2007

Got to the air show yesterday, but the Thunderbirds demonstration was canceled due to cloud cover. I got to sit in the Pratt & Whitney pavilion at the flight line, which was a mercy considering the heat.
It was easy getting in, and hard to get out, but while I was there, I did enjoy seeing the many airplanes on display and picked up some info on the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.
The next air show is in 2009. Maybe Nature will cooperate then.
Earlier in the day, the young folks who are visiting across the street planted a decent-looking mountain laurel – salvaged by a landscaper friend from a job – where the rhodie used to be. Rather than pay $8 a bag for mulch, I picked up half a yard for $20, so the front of the house looks a bit more cleaned up.

Woke up this morning to find that I’d left the freezer door ajar last night.
Hamburger and veggies for everyone today.

Continue reading The Good and the Bad

Summer is almost over, Labor Day weekend is less than 2 weeks away.
Emme and James slept in this morning, they stayed over last night after a very full late afternoon/evening of outdoor activities.
They told me they decided earlier in the week to try to patch up the differences that have been driving their parents and older brother nuts all summer.
Two grandchildren are a lot easier to manage than three, and Emme and James love to be outside, which makes a big difference.
It’s been humid and hard to sleep, but we got drier air on Friday night, and yesterday it was warm enough for the kids to swim in my neighbor’s pool.
We had supper on the deck, made bright and cheerful by the colorful beach towels hanging on the railings, the open patio umbrella and the flower boxes. Although we’re nearly at the end, it finally felt like summer, the way it’s supposed to be.

The Perseids meteor shower will peak just before dawn (around 5:45 am) tomorrow, Monday, August 13. This year should be good viewing, there’s a new moon and clear skies are forecast.
Yesterday, Onset Village hosted the annual Cape Verdean Festival. Centerville wrapped up its Old Home Week.
A new NOAA research vessel, the Henry Bigelow, was open to the public yesterday at the Mass. Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay.
The Falmouth Road Race begins at 10 am tomorrow (Sunday).
Even as late as 5 PM last evening, traffic on Route 25 headed to the Bourne Bridge was backed up five miles.

Laws that force parents and caregivers to put children in the back rather than the front seat have tripled the number of hypothermia deaths in the United States.
In other words, three times as many children have died of hypothermia (heat exhaustion) after these well-intentioned laws were passed than before such laws were on the books.
This, according to an AP article that recently appeared in the Boston Herald.
No one should be riding in the back seat of a car or truck unless they are physically able to extricate themselves, whether they are children or adults.

Withdrawal from Iraq is a foregone conclusion, so for me, this is not a pivotal campaign issue.
Here’s a few I’d like to see discussed on the campaign trail:

Continue reading What I’d Like the Presidential Candidates to Say

We’ve all heard “get over it” and variants thereof.
The thing is, I don’t believe that people do get over certain “its”, like poverty or abuse. Rather, they get better at hiding the effects so as not to irritate everyone else.
I wish people were more honest about the impact of hard times or trauma on their lives. Their experiences are instructive in the school of survival.
What’s to be learned from a trust fund baby? Knowing how to build a house from scrap materials or make hard cider from apple orchard dropping would be infinitely more relevant, not to mention more interesting, than a lesson in avoiding capital gains tax.