Gone for a bit

I've been away from the computer for awhile because my daughter has been having an awful time with her asthma. The doctor said there's just something in the air right now that is triggering it, and we've had to stay inside with the air conditioning on. No car rides with the window down, no golf-cart rides in the woods, no bonfires at dusk. The same thing happened around this time last year, so at least we know it will pass in a week or so after the mystery culprit finishes blooming. In the meantime, it's been all about inhalers, books, and boardgames around here, and lots of extra attention to my little dear to ease her sadness as big brother goes out to catch frogs.

Thoughts on a Screen Porch - Book Passage

"My idea of bliss is a screen-in porch from which you can watch the sun go down, or come up. You can sit in temperate shade and not fry your brains while you eat. You are protected from flying critters, sandstorms and rain and you can still enjoy a nice cool breeze.
One year my husband and I rented a lake cottage - a rustic cabin set in a pine grove just a stroll from a weed-choked lake. With it came a war canoe and a screened-in porch. The motto of the owners seemed to have been: "It's broken! Let's take it to the lake!"
We ate on the screened-in porch all the time and with great success. Friends with beautiful houses came to our broken-down lake cottage to eat on that crummy porch and watch the sun set over the lake."
- Laurie Colwin in Home Cooking


This sounds heavenly to me! Wish I had a screen porch.

Independent America

I'm hoping to make it to a free screening tomorrow of a documentary called "Independent America: The Two-Lane Search for Mom & Pop." Have any of you seen it? It sounds interesting to me - it's about a husband and wife reporter team who set out to find towns where small, local retailers are winning the fight against the big chains of the world. During their journey, they stick to state highways and secondary roads - no interstates - which I'm sure makes for very interesting characters and stories along the way. My town, which despite it's small population has a Target, Walmart, and Home Depot nearby, still has a local hardware store, butcher, pharmacy, florist, and appliance store, but I always worry that at some point we are going to lose them. I always wonder: What if all of us townsfolk were a little more careful with our purchases - for example, if besides going to the hardware store just for that chainsaw part we need and are grateful they carry, we also bought our garbage bags, paper towel, and other day-to-day needs instead of automatically throwing that stuff in our cart at Walmart? Or if we didn't use the pharmacy only for prescriptions, but also our vitamins and shampoo, on a regular basis? These little changes in shopping habits just might help keep the Mom & Pop stores we love around. :)

Friday's Quote

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.
~Erma Bombeck

Floating Flowers

Early this morning I took a walk around the yard in search of blooms to make a little arrangement in my favorite vase for the kitchen table. I don't have much to choose from yet - the coneflowers, beebalm etc. are on the brink of bloom but not quite there. My blanket flowers have started, but were covered with too many busy bees for me to dare reach in and pluck even one. I had to turn to my containers of annuals, and cut a few scarlet zinnias while under attack of wretched mosquitoes. My daughter insisted on "helping" by bringing them to the house in her bike basket, and I didn't notice when she folded, actually more like snapped, the stems to make them fit inside for transport. I exchanged my tall vase for a glass bowl filled with water, snipped the flower heads from their fractured bodies, and let my daughter set them afloat. Lovely!

"Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning
can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day."
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Song of the Screen Door

I must have told the kids to "either go out or stay in" 20 times today. This poem came to mind!

Song of the Screen Door

The screen door sings a homey song
Of cozy creaks and crangs
That kids just love to punctuate
With nerve exploding bangs...
They wait until you're nodding off...
(As grownups often do)
Or better, 'til your coffee cup
Is full of scalding brew.
And then, just as if shot from guns
At deadly point blank range...
Wham! They're in!... Or, slam! They're out!
And splash!...
You have to change.

by Tom Hegg from "Up to the Lake"

Luau Music?

My brother and sister-in-law are having a luau-themed party at their farm next week, and they have asked me to supply the music. I'm pleased that they view me as having an eclectic music collection, but unfortunately I don't own any Hawaiian music. Unless you count my dear Jack Johnson, which I was told was not "luau-ish" enough. Do any of you have any suggestions?