The Difference Of A Year

What a difference a year makes. As I took Chuckles' picture this morning after a kitchen haircut, I found a picture taken exactly a year ago today.




In the kitchen.

I guess we spend a lot of our time in the kitchen...

This is my daughter...

...that is outside right now, playing "Fighting-Peter-Pan-Hide-and-Go-Seek" with two of the little boys from the neighborhood. I keep looking outside and seeing her standing over the boys, like Boudica in her fury. I can only imagine what the rules, if any, might be.




Earlier, she was sitting on the front step with the older of the boys, playing dolls. It was very sweet and reassuring to me to see that. This little fellow is mildly autistic and my daughter had been unkind to him earlier today as we walked home from school. As she was walking, holding hands with a friend who I was watching this afternoon, she spun around and said to him "Why are you following me?" in an horribly snotty voice.

I spun around and busted her hard. "You apologize to C.C. RIGHT NOW! Tell him you are sorry and thank him for walking home with you!" She did, promptly. All this occurred in front of her friend, who's a much bigger girl than mine, though the same age. I hope, probably a foolish hope, that such behavior isn't the only product of starting school.

But, all must be forgiven and something must have been learned by today's episodes for as the sun is setting, she's out playing Peter or Wendy or Hook (not sure who she is channeling at the moment).

Do you think it's hard to play such a game... in pink metallic high heels?

Autumn Fluctuation

Okay, we have officially entered the time of year in Wyoming where anything might happen weather-wise.

A few days ago it was in the 90s and I was running the air conditioner in the kitchen.

Yesterday, it was drizzly and I put the glass insert into the storm door that has the cat hatch. Too nippy to have the screen-only over night.

As soon as I went to bed last night I had two lard-ass cats sleeping on my legs, snuggling with all their might. The old cat was snuggled in with Chuckes.

This morning I had to run the furnace because it was 36 degrees. The kids were up just after 6 complaining that they were cold. Hot chocolate all around.

The sun is out now, the air is crisp, the sky is periwinkle, there is a nice breeze and I'm going to go pick some apples. We may see a high of 74 by the time school lets out.

Ahhhhh, AUTUMN. Those tomatoes in the back yard better get a move on, as should the pumpkins

Beware The Bears

Twenty Years On In 4.5 Minutes To A B-52s Soundtrack

I won't be able to attend the twentieth reunion of my graduating high school class from that little town, at the Sierra Nevada foothills, surrounded by citrus groves, in the hot hot San Joaquin Valley... from where I originate in Central California.

I'm sending this along, just as an update-slash-explanation about where I evaporated to after graduation. I didn't go into my history of education, employment, romance, foreign countries visited, marriage, infertility, business operations, medical operations, respiratory arrest, children, time-wastes, books read and unread, political and social affiliations, movies memorized and other less than ideal cocktail-hour conversations. I'll just have to save all that for the tell-all book.

So do I appear as self-involved as I feel after putting this little life-log together?

WAIT, don't answer that...