http://www.wwltv.com/

Considering the picture of the flooded American Red Cross vehicle in Mississippi on the home page of CNN, I’m happy to know that an ACR vehicle left Burlington this morning to head down south to help.

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Shelley applies her poetry and beautiful camera work to her little kitty, umlauts and all, the sweet little ….. ahem.

I have to say, re: claws, G.B.’s got quite long because I, too, am a complete wimp about clipping them. Imagine a 15 pound cat launching off your lap using the claws for traction as Shelley so aptly describes. Or worse yet, the cat that realizes he is sliding off your lap and uses those daggers to grab hold. G.B. also snuggles with me in bed at night. I wake up frequently if he’s not there, wondering where he is. Of course I wake up frequently when he is there too for various reasons having to do with…. those claws. Last week, GB got the daggers cut back at the vet. He is now working hard all over the house to get them sharpened back up again.

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I had the most fun interruption today. Four of the girls who live on my street (ages about 8 – 11 and two are only visiting) wandered up my driveway in hopes of playing with my dogs. You have to understand, I have no kids, so there is never enough of this in my life. I allowed myself a good two hour break while we played with the dogs, drank pink lemonade, brushed the dogs and cat and naturally, all four of them drew pictures and practiced their handwriting on my tablet pc. Ahhh summer. 🙂

They promised to come back when the heat wave breaks to come bake cookies with me. That is *my* idea of fun!

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Once upon a time, my mother was flying somewhere – long flight, maybe cross-country. When she got on the plane, she was really tired, found her seat and fell right asleep. At one point she woke up and the person in the seat next to her offered her a newspaper. WIthout looking up, she said, “oh no thanks. I’m so tired, it would make me cross-eyed to read right now.” The man retracted the paper, got up out of his seat, gathered his things and as he went up the aisle to request another seat looked back at my mom. Of course, he was cross-eyed.

This is not a joke or an urban legend. It’s a true story. And I’m afraid it might be a family jinx. What’s worse for me, is when you are trying to make someone feel better, but still saying *just* the wrong thing and only making it worse. It takes me a while to realize that it’s time to just shut the heck up.

This happened years ago on a week long cycling trip in the colorado rockies. There were1600 riders of varying skill. At one point, I was climbing up a mountain pass road and passing someone – a woman who was probably a good 20 years older than me. But hell yeah, she was rockin’ on up that mountain. I always felt bad passing people (because it sucks when people pass you and you are working as hard as you can). I said something as I passed that I had completely meant to be encouraging. I probably should have either said “hello” or just nothing at all! The woman was a complete stranger and whatever words I chose had a very different meaning to me. She approached me a few days later and was very aggressive in telling me how I much had insulted her. She actually made me cry. (Though I didn’t do that in front of her) I was trying to be nice and a) made her feel bad (which I truly hated since it’s something like my job in life to try make people happy) and b) got yelled at for being a bad person. This was six years ago. It still upsets me. On the same trip, I did have a few women actually thank me before they went home for one thing or another I had done during the week that had meant a lot to them. But it’s that one woman who I made feel bad, bad enough to really give it to me, I will never live down. Rich says I’m ridiculous to let stuff like that bother me, but it’s just my nature.

Anyway, I guess sometimes it’s better to shut up since you don’t know a person’s entire story.

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Did I forget Peter Jennings’ announcement that he had lung cancer? Or did I somehow think it was in really early stages or that he would beat it? (probably the last) I was really startled and saddened to hear the news this a.m. that he died last night. Peter Jennings was definitely an American (though Canadian) icon.

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(I wrote this on Saturday and held off on posting this. Finally someone blogged about Egypt! Why are we so damned used to killings in the Middle East/Africa region?)

London 7/7: 4 bombs, 50+ killed, 700+ injured  The western world goes crazy

Egypt 7/22: 3 bombs, 80+ killed, 200+ injured: all quiet on the western front (so far). It’s already fallen off of the CNN headline news in favor of more info about the London bombers – well actually about the completely unconnected person that the police killed.

Well, my summer hasn’t really gone as planned (or should I say: fantasized) and I keep thinking maybe it’s just not here yet- summer. A few things that remind me that it really is summer – fighting with the Japanese Beetles who are after my hollyhocks, roses and beans, watching the tiger lilies disappear (deer grazing) and yes I have been in my kayak some 4 times. What’ been missing in its entirety and normally defines summer for me is cycling. But I don’t want to talk about that – too disheartening. However last night I actually had a little summer fun – going to the Vermont Mozart Festival event at the famous and beautiful Round Church in Richmond (12 miles away).

And to continue my summer journey, I actually picked berries around my property this morning. Mmmmm. Now back to the grind…

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My 2 year contract was ending with Verizon. They have called me 3 times now to renew a contract and see if I’d like to pick a new phone – either free for heavily discounted. Each time they have called I have looked at the phones while on the phone with them and couldn’t make a quick and informed decision. I know I would like a camera phone with Blue Tooth. Their “free” phones don’t have blue tooth. I can get one with bluetooth for $100, but then I think – geeze, maybe I should just fork it over and get a BlackBerry or better yet, a smartphone, but they don’t have those in their promotion. I finally just said forget a new phone – just renew my contract. So now I continue with my plain old phone. I cannot justify $500 for a phone. I have a pocket pc and I have a phone. Yes I want to smoosh them together and have just ONE device (and have it also be an MP3 player that I can listen to in my car). It was easier just to make NO decision, than to have to choose. So welcome to the life of a Libra!

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Allergy season and I went out to do a bit of weeding this morning – in and around our meadow. Now my right eye is nearly swollen shut from an allergy attack and I think my neighbors can probably hear me sneezine.. I tried the homeopathic stuff and will give it some time, then it will be on to the Claritin. Sniff sniff.

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what can I say that would add to the sadness and anger about the bombings in London today. about the fact that every day we here “2 killed in bombing here” “10 killed in bombing there”. The numbers in London will increase as they dig deeper in to the tube system – injured and dead. It’s awful. I keep working but am obviously thinking about it. I noticed Kate’s i.m. display said her sibs that live in London is okay. That some girls from Wally’s community were hurt and one is in bad shape in the hospital. But I didn’t know what I could possible add, then I saw this  post by shelley that I had to point out….

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