Some other pictures

Water of Love -- The Dire Straits (Dire Straits, 1978)



The changes in my kitchen space are my most favorite of the last six months. The changes we've made have really increased the warmth of the space and added a great deal of comfort. Visiting had become difficult because my Mom is SUCH a sit-at-the-kitchen-table kind of girl and I found our previous table and chairs quite not comfortable. I'd like to replace some of these chairs with the bench. Maybe I'll do that today. This stuff came from Pottery Barn and I love it. I has two 18 inch leaves that expand the table to 60 X 96. Lots of space and our eat-in kitchen could accomodate it if need be.


The shelves are sometimes less messy than in the photographed state but they were truly intended to help us manage the amazing volume of stuff that comes and goes and gets used frequently. I think messy is OK for this space. I was a little disgruntled to note the power cord coming off the amplifier; I spent a lot of time doing cord routing 'cuz I hate the danglin' cord thing. Gotta fix it.

Lindsay has been my faithful companion throughout this illness. She does insist upon being photographed once the camera comes out. OK by me; I think she's a super cutie.

I hate the big white wall that runs the entire length of our family room, the kitchen. The thing is, to paint it, we'd have to pick one color that we'd like for both rooms and frankly, I don't want to paint all of these walls. Not one bit. It would be such a major pain in the butt. So until we exhaust a great many other priorities (note to file: we've been working a priority list for better than 8 years and we're not even CLOSE), it will wait for a contractor.

Bethy Blue
When I was little, many of us called my late sister "Bethy Boo". As an adult, she was Auntie Boo to my kids. On November 17, we'll have been two years without her---I've been feeling Bethy Blue for days. I think its been worse today because I wasn't able to go through with plans to visit Mary in Vermont this weekend because of my illness.

Retail Therapy
In a belated anniversary gift, I bought some of the most luxurious sheets I've ever seen in my life. And they're beautiful, too. A new blankie from Land's End and our bed will be as lovely as any of the really fine beds in the great hotels I've been fortunate enough to lodge in over the last couple of years. I love me some fine linens.

Big Girl Stuff
Halebug was invited away to a beach house for the weekend. It was not easy to make the decision to allow her to go. But going she is. She has her Daddy's cell phone for emergencies and missing home (HA!). Rob protested momentarily about a weekend without his cell phone but when I reminded him that he never turns the thing on he had to give in.

Weird Harold music
I have (had?) a good friend for eons beginning in High School. She went to Ball State for college so we kept in touch pretty well by virtue of my family visits to Indy and both of our parents settling in central Florida at about the same time when they each retired from military service. We both shared a great love for music; she was a trombone player in the marching band but really she's always been an absolutely stunning guitar player; she just played trombone in band to get some music instruction in school. Anyway, our shared affinity for music, boys, the beach and beer provided the basis for a long friendship. Funny, I no longer drink so much and she's playing for the other team now... I still love her.

Today as I was driving around in the miserable weather, missing Beth and listening to some random music on my iPod, a cut from the Dire Straits Alchemy album came on. I remember discovering this album in college, not having the money to buy it on cd for a couple of years after I started earning my own real money and thinking how much my good friend would love it, particularly for Mark Knopfler's heartbreaking guitar work. He is some kind of wonderful. I carefully, lovingly checked recording levels across every single track, adjusted the equalizer settings just so, purchased the very best 100 minute Maxell chromium oxide tape I could find, and sent her this wonderful gift of music. I waited for her enthusiastic reaction.

Nothing. I didn't even know if she had received it or not.

When I asked her about it, she said---"oh, that was some Weird Harold shit-music". Crestfallen, I was. At any rate, Alchemy is, to my way of thinking, the most essential road-trippin'-all-night album ever. I was having a little trouble selecting a good track to put up here from it, though, because all of the live tracks are so long and have so much ambient noise. But trust me; if you can find it on Half.com, buy it. (Its actually worth paying full price) It is a rock and roll masterpiece and serious proof that musicality CAN make for great rock. My personal favorites from the Straits are pre-Brothers in Arms but Mark Knopfler has done some really excellent solo work as well as collaborations---most recently with Emmy Lou Harris, I think.