Day of Rest: A Few Weekend Pix

Blue skies and tree yesterday in my back yard:

Short Old Lady Story of this tree: No, I don't know what kind of tree it is. These appear to be some kind of nut. They're pretty, but they drop down and it's like standing under a spray of ball bearings. I know, right? Ouch.

Down on Fisherman Willie's lot.

Overall Bridge thru heart shape of trees.  :-)

River reflection.

Reflection of moon in water.

This a.m.'s sunrise. I was up v. early because SOMEbody was howling in her sleep.

Quote of the Day

Oh My Gawd!

Last week, my friend Aida from sunny CA came for a vizzie. She had flown to Boston where she met her friend Chairdain, and together they were traveling down the east coast. I'd not met Chairdain before, and we were all off for a whirlwind of activity! We met in the parking lot of  Luray Caverns and from there, went in for the grand tour. Chairdain is larger than life, and a fun character. She had me laughing thru the caverns tour. She has the exuberance and curiosity of a child, that I really appreciate when I see it in adults. OH MY GAWD! she exclaimed, throughout the entire tour. IS THIS REAL? she would ask with each new rock formation. As we approached each new stopping point, she would ask a series of questions to the guide. Her delivery comes rat-a-tat-a-tat, like a machine gun. Who-discovered-the-caverns-and how-did-they-get-down-here-and-OH-MY-GAWD-is-this-real? 

Our guide leads the way.

Chairdain takes a pic of a REAL rock formation.

After the tour.

Really cool sculpture on the way into Luray.

 We ate at a local restaurant which I call the Remember Restaurant because I can never remember its name. The irony is that it has Remember in its name. A Place to Remember? A Time to Remember? Moments in Time? Oh, right. A Moment to Remember. Chairdain walked in and said, (you guessed it), OH MY GAWD! And started snapping pictures right away. How-long-has-this-been-a-restarant? What-did-it-used-to-be?  Oh-look-at-that. Was-this-a-pharmacy?

See? There's the "-ment" part of the name on the window.

 Then we did some sightseeing along Main St.and went into the shops. I don't usually do that, but they're sweet to go browsing in. More OH MY GAWDing ensued, along with a few Is this real?

Chairdain wanted to see the rest of the town. I said, "This is it." She looked at me, dumbfounded. What-do-you-mean-this-is-it? Where's-the-downtown? Where-do-you-go-shopping?  I told her we could cross the railroad tracks and head up to the plaza where the Radio Shack was. So we decided it was time to do a provisions shop before heading home. I told her that we needed to get whatever she wanted, because once we got home, we weren't coming back out. Why-aren't-we-coming-back-out? Is-it-that-far-out? How-far-do-you-live-from-here? So we did a shop in Walmart and then Aida & I decided this would be a fine night for Margaritas, so we headed to the liquor store. [Click HERE for John's AWESOME Margarita recipe, scroll down to the end]  

Love the name of this!

OH MY GAWD? This-is-the-liquor-store? But-it's-so-small! What-do-they-sell-here? Why-is-it-so-small?  The three clerks are giving her the "You're-not-from-around-here" stare. Chairdain, meanwhile is OH-MY-GAWDing around the store, and gets a few mini-bottles of something.

Armed with provisions, I lead the way to my house. Aida & I together, and Chairdain following behind. Even tho I can't actually hear her, I can feel her OH-MY-GAWDing down my road. No matter what I say, or how descriptive I am about my road, until you experience it, you just don't have a clue! So we got to my house. As we're walking to the house, Aida says with a big smile, "Oh my God, look at this! It's so beautiful! Look at all the trees! We're in the mountains!"  Chairdain says, "Oh my Gawd! We're so far out! We're in the mountains!" But she is not smiling.

So we went for a labyrinth walk:

Me & Aida in the center of the labyrinth.

And here's Chairdain:

Sometimes a picture really is worth 1000 words!

She looked at my labyrinth. OH MY GAWD. Is this rock real? And here's the short list of other things she didn't think were real, besides various rocks & rock formations:

• ground hogs
• flying squirrels
• wild pear trees

Except. Except for bears. Those were real to her and she kept insisting that bears would come up on my porch at night. Oh, you city slickers.  ;-)

M&M say hello to Chairdain. She was really sweet to them, and they loved the extra attention!

The girls are just a tad bigger than Aida's dog (a chi-wow-woo)

We drove up behind my house  . . .

. . . to the overlook:

And thru the woods, back home again. A quiet evening where Chairdain took a long soak in the tub, and Aida & I had a coupla margaritas, and we were all in bed by 9 p.m. The next a.m. they were up & out by 8:15 on their way back up the east coast. Whew! What a fast 20 hours!

M&M Monday

I had a scare last week with Maggie. I'd noticed she was having problems walking; her back legs were slipping. But then it was her front legs and then she would try to stand up and fall down. She couldn't walk at all. I thought perhaps she'd had a stroke or something. Other than that, she was her usual, cheerful, waggy self. My waggie Miss Maggie. She was even playing her food-bowl-growly game with Millie. I called the vet to bring her in, thinking it was the beginning of the end. I was preparing myself for the worst, and even tho I know that she's old and the end is inevitable, I didn't want to say goodbye.

I loaded both girls into the car. Early on, when I first got them, Millie had a vet appointment for her ear. She wouldn't come off the porch without Maggie, and Maggie stood in the kitchen, howling thru the French doors. Then Millie started howling. Anyway, so I ended up taking them both, even tho it was just Millie with the appointment. They're both very used to loading up in the car to got to Mystic Pet--altho, I'm thinking that they're going to put 2 & 2 together and figure out that when I don't have a suitcase & their beds, they're not going to Mystic Pet, but to the vet. Not that they mind getting loved over by Dr. Clark.

So back to to this visit:  I called Neighbor Dave to see if he could help me carry Maggie to the car. No such luck, he was at the dentist. So I managed to get her to the car. Millie trotted behind. I called Lena at Mystic Pet and told her what was going on. We were both boo-hooing. I got to the vet and went to the front desk. The woman behind the counter was just doing her job; completely oblivious to my sobbing as she's verifying my address and phone number.

A vet tech come in behind her, and without saying anything, handed me a tissue and a sympathetic nod. "Thank you," I croaked out. I pulled the car around to the back, and Dr. Clark came out. Maggie sat up. Hey! "She wasn't doing that before," I told him. "Well, we tend to inspire dogs to be on their best behaviour."  He looked in Maggie's ears and her eyes and then carefully lifted her and put her on the grass. She wobbled-walked and then plopped down. He said, "Well, I see 17-18 cases of this a year. It happens in older dogs. She has vertigo." Vertigo? Really?  "It's not life-threatening, and she should slowly get better." WOW! My day just got a whole lot better! I called Lena and told her the good news & stopped by on my way home. Disaster averted! And she has slowly gotten better, except that yesterday she got wobbly again with the drunken sailor walk. But I think she's getting better again. We'll see; will keep you posted. In the meantime, here are a few pix from this past week:

Maggie fell asleep with her ear in her food bowl. SO CUTE.

Asleep with her bone.

Whenever Millie's lying down and I go up to her, she stretches her front paws against my foot and groans her happy groan. This is our ritual first thing in the morning, when she's still lying on her bed.

Still nice enough for Millie to be Porch Girl. Maggie stays in with me, unless I'm on the porch, too.

Autumnal Gloriousness

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.  ~Stanley Horowitz

I haven't posted nearly enough fall pictures! My favourite season & I've taken oodles of pix. We're past the peak now, and it's getting more wintery, altho the weather this week has been in the 60's.  :-)

Chiro-sister's stained glass looks different thru the seasons.

View out my kitchen window.

Directly off my back porch.

Neighbor Dave's river lot. So inviting for trespassers!  ;-)

Along the river on the way to Indian Grave Ridge.

And a few pix from Mum's driveway:

 BEAUTIFUL fall foilage.  ;-)

Road Trip to Indiana

A few pix from Dee's yard:

 Largest Cottonwood Tree in the World.

On our way, we drove over Cumberland Gap & stopped:

Into our Ether Chakras: Appreciating the wonder and beauty of Nature. :-)

 View of the valley.

And then we came upon a really horrendous accident. Dee said, "Pull over," and as I was pulling over, a tire went rolling across the road in front of us. The car was on fire, but fortunately a passerby had a fire extinguisher. They passed a baby thru the window. Horrible, but everyone got out. I've googled to find he accident, but haven't been able to. I think we were on I-68.

The FABULOUS Chloe Wordsworth, creator of Resonance Repatterning, with Dee.

Dee researched before our trip & LOOK!

Chartres labryinth. AWESOME!!!

On the way back, Dee said my tires were looking low. So we stopped. I am now the proud owner of a tire gauge. YAY, me! So Dee checked the pressure & for $.75 we filled the tires with the proper poundage of air.

Check yer tars fer ya, mam?

We stopped at a Cracker Barrel somewhere in Ohio. They had these v. cool trees with the berry-thingies on them:

Then we went inside and it smelled like gas. I said to the hostess, "It smells like gas." And she said, "Yes, we have people on the roof. But it's OK in here."  Well. Not if I can SMELL the gas INSIDE, it's not! So we left. But I got cool pix of the trees, so there's that. Then we had breakfast for lunch at Perkins.

We made it home v. late and have decided that next time, we're flying! Will have a full report of  the class with Chloe soooooon.