It Took A While

I am not always a patient person.  I don’t like waiting in lines.  I don’t like waiting for someone to return a call.  I don’t like being stuck in non-moving traffic.

When I start a project I like to work on it until it is finished.  I get a sense of accomplishment when I see a project I have completed.

Some things, however, can’t be rushed.  Baking a cake requires you give it the full baking time called for in the recipe.  Sometimes, depending on the oven, it takes a little longer.  Painting a room takes time also.  It is not something to be rushed or else the finished job looks like time was not devoted to it.

Well, at the end of May I did something that I hoped would yield results.  I planted some seeds around the sign post at the front of our yard.  I knew the seeds wouldn’t sprout and bloom overnight.  So I waited.  And I waited.  And I waited.

In June I finally saw some little leaves pushing up through the mulch.  Hooray!  The seeds took.  Still too early for flowers, but the promise of blooms is there.  Every day when I went out for the mail I stopped to see the growth process.  What I was most interested in were the Morning Glory seeds I planted around the pole.  Would they grow?  Would they climb around the pole?

I kept a watchful eye on them.  The shoots sprang up and attached themselves to the pole.  They started their climb.  Each day they climbed higher and higher.  Leaves unfurled and filled in the vine.  Flowers haven’t appeared yet, but I am hoping it won’t be long.

Meanwhile, some of the other flowers I planted have started to bloom.  I am ready for this blast of color at the front of our yard.

Although I don’t like waiting, this is one wait I did not mind.

I think something has been feasting on the leaves.

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Surprises

Father’s Day weekend we were invited to a surprise 40th anniversary party.  We received an invitation from Foster, our nephew’s wife’s mother, saying that she was having a surprise 40th Anniversary party for her sister and brother-in-law, Rosely and Harold.

We haven’t had a chance to get together since we were all out in California for our other nephew’s wedding so of course we accepted the invitation.  It is always nice to get together with family.

When we got to Foster and Gift’s Rosely’s son acted as car valet.  All cars were moved from around Foster’s house so that Harold and Rosely wouldn’t see any cars around the house that they might recognize.

Harold and Rosely were coming under the pretext that they would meet Foster and Gift at an event near their home.  Because they were all to meet at this fictitious event there had to be a way to get them to the house.

Someone in the car told Harold that there was something leaking in Foster and Gift’s house and would he mind stopping to take a look at it before going to the event.  He said he would.

When they walked in all of us there yelled, “Surprise!”  They were.  You could see it on their faces.  From there the party began.  There was an abundance of food as there always is at Foster’s parties.  There was a cake, of course.  Here are some pictures of Rosely and Harold cutting and eating cake.

Of course, it isn’t a party at Foster’s without dancing.

 

Kathy with Rosely (left) and Foster (right).

We also had a nice surprise.  Our niece, Melisa, was there.  We all thought she was in Florida where her husband, our nephew, is doing his residency.  We were thrilled to see her.  We didn’t know she flew home for this and to see her father for Father’s Day.  Here she is with Kathy, me, and her brother, Shad.

We are blessed to be part of this wonderful family.  We always have an enjoyable time when we get together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I Might Need a Plumber

There are some things I can do around the house and there are others things I can’t do.  I can run the vacuum cleaner, I can do laundry, and I can cook.

When it comes to electrical work I shy away from it.  I have changed receptacles and light fixtures.  I have installed ceiling fans.  More than that I won’t tackle because I just don’t trust myself when it comes to playing with electricity.

Another thing I won’t tackle around the house is plumbing.  I might do minor work like changing the wax seal on the toilet or changing a washer in a faucet.  However, big jobs call for a professional.

I was struck with such a big job the other night.  Why is it that things seem to happen at night when service people are done for the day?

Anyway, it was around 9:30 at night.  I thought I would go into the bathroom and brush my teeth before the 10:00 news started.  That way I would be all ready for bed after the weather report.

All things were going fine until I was ready to rinse.  The water would not go down.  Oh no!  The sink was clogged.  Of course I could go out to the kitchen to finish brushing my teeth but that would not take care of the clog.

What do I need to do?  Must I remove the stopper and try to dig out the clog?   This might work if the clog was not too deep in the system.  Would the snake work?  I didn’t feel like playing around with that at 10:00 at night.

Maybe if I just left it alone the clog would magically disappear on its own.  Yeah, sure it will.  Maybe I will have to call a plumber to remove what is a big clog.  I could see the blockage.  I knew what caused it, but I was at a loss as to how to unblock the sink.

I did get a picture of what kept the water from freely flowing down the drain.  What do you think I should have done?

A Day in NYC

Usually Kathy and I take a trip to New York in August to celebrate our birthdays.  We will do that this year as well.  However, last week we also took a trip to NYC.

We wanted to see Kiss Me, Kate and since that show is only playing until June 30 we knew we couldn’t wait until August to see it because it wouldn’t e playing.  Now, we have seen the show before, but there was a special reason we wanted to see it this time.  Corbin Bleu was one of the featured actors in the show.

Some of you may remember from a previous post that Kathy and I had a chance to go backstage to his dressing room when he was in Holiday Inn.  This happened because his cousin was engaged to our nephew.  We were thrilled when Marissa’s mother arranged backstage passes for us.

We met him again at Marissa and Jason’s and through convoluted thinking we consider him part of our family.  Because of this we wanted to see him on stage again.  We got tickets and we went.

We waited for him at the stage door after the show.  We really didn’t expect him to recognize us of know who we were.  However, when he came out and we called his name, the recognition was there on his face.  He might not have remembered our names, but he knew that he knew us from somewhere.  We had a nice conversation with him before we left so that he could talk to the others waiting in line to meet him.

Of course since we went to NYC on a Wednesday that means we had to see two shows.  Kiss Me, Kate was our evening performance.  So, what did we see for our matinee show?  Well, this might seem a bit strange for a musical, bur we saw:

I admit that the only reason I wanted to see this was because I wanted to see the King.  Kathy did not want to see this at all but she agreed to go with me and sit through.  She had never seen any of the King Kong movies because they are not the kind she would go to.  She really had no idea what the story was except that there was a big gorilla.  Usually they don’t allow pictures of the curtain in theatres because they are considered part of the set.  However, here we were encouraged to take pictures.  Here is what the curtain looked like.

Now. what about the show?  The show itself was OK.  However, Kong was unbelievable!  How they made him move, the facial expressions, the roaring that shook the theatre was well worth the price of admission.  We were center orchestra about 7 rows from the stage.  Near the end of the second act they bring Kong to the center front of the stage, stand him up to his fullest height, and stretch his arms out over the audience.  Amazing!

The projections of him running down the streets of the city and climbing the Empire State Building were something to see.

I am sure that most people know how the story ends.  It is fair to say that at the end of the show there were quite a few eyes in the theatre that were not dry.  I highly recommend this show just for the spectacle that is King Kong.

We are good now until August when we have tickets for Moulin Rouge and The Cher Show.

Finishing Up at Quiltfest

For the last two weeks I have written about some of the special exhibits at Quiltfest in Lancaster.  For this last post on the show I thought I would concentrate on the displayed quilts not part of any special challenge or special exhibit.

This quilt is what I would consider a medallion quilt because it has a center block surrounded by many borders.

This quilt just reminds me of Fall with its leaves and colors.

I happen to like the color blue and I like flowers.

This one is a popular star pattern.

If you like bright colors then this quilt is for you.

Of course you know I can’t pass up a cat quilt.  Here are two quite different quilts.  I was interested in the first one because years ago Kathy and I went to MOMA where they had a special exhibit of Mondrian’s work.  If you like film noir you might get a kick out of the second one.

Here are a few to end this post.

If you like classic literature how about this one celebrating Alice in Wonderland?

To bring this post to a close here is a quilt depicting the four seasons.

And just in case you can’t make out the critters in the log here is a close up.

Hitting the Road

There is no doubt about it.  I like to travel.  Although I’ve been abroad, I still like domestic traveling the best.  I like to hop in my car and take off.  It might be an hour’s drive to Harrisburg.  It might be a half hour drive to Pottsville.  It might be a 6000 mile trip across the country and back.

To me it just feels good to get in the car and get out for a bit.  This makes me think of how vehicles have change over the years.  I thought I might share with you some vintage means of traveling.

I was a kid of 3 in 1954.  My parents had serviceable family cars.  We never had a convertible.  Somehow I can’t imagine my dad driving a Buick Skylark convertible like this one.

Some of our family’s friends owned a Pontiac.  I don’t remember if any had a ’56 Pontiac like this one.

My dad’s car of choice was a Ford.  We had a yellow Galaxy 500 which I referred to as a canary. I know we never had a T-Bird.

A Rolls Royce?  At our house?  You’ve got to be kidding.  Maybe if we had a chauffeur.  Nah.  Dad was our driver.

Lincoln’s were well our of our family’s price range so you would never see a Mercury Comet sitting in our driveway.

I realize that some people would rather hop on a bus for traveling distances.  Maybe a Greyhound like this one although this particular one is a bit before my time.

Finally, let;s not forget about air travel.  Maybe if you are a friend of Jimmy Buffet’s he might lend you his plane for that cross country trip or a trip to Margarittaville.  I’ll drink to that.

 

 

A Visit to Some National Parks

I have never been to any national parks.  I know that this is something lacking in my travels and I hope to soon rectify it.  I have seen pictures of some parks and they seem to be calling me to come.  At the Lancaster quilt show there was a special display of nation park themed quilts that also fueled my desire to travel.

Here are some of those quilts.  Hope you enjoy them.

Let’s start with a visit to Yosemite National Park.  I can picture the clear blue sky as a backdrop to the mountains.

From Yosemite we travel to the Great Smokey’s.  I like traveling roads that go nowhere.  Always makes for an interesting ride.

Before we leave the Great Smokey’s let’s take a look at the magnificent sunset.

We now head to Saguaro National Park.  The orange sunset and cacti would be something to see.

Next on our list is Yellowstone.  Would love to see the buffalo roam.

Bryce Canyon offers amazing rock formations.

What would a trip to a national park be without seeing some of the wildlife?  Here is a prairie dog enjoying the sun at Bryce Canyon.

And to close our national parks tour here is a snowy owl at Acadia National Park.

As I said earlier, these quilts make me want to travel and see these places for myself.  Hope to one day do that.