Playing With My New Camera

Oh, I love a good camera with good glass.  I know it's not the skill of the operator because I use the "auto" setting so I'm not fussing with f-stops and aperture settings, I'm just pointing and shooting, but having a great time.  One of these days I'll read the 382 page owner's manual or even just look at the picture with all of the parts labeled and figure out what it can do.  Right now I need to figure out how to take a video.  Well, not right now right now, it's 11:30 pm and I'm not doing anything video-worthy.  (oh, put your eyebrows back down, I'm a widow and don't have anyone handy to do any of that with.  geez.)  I took the camera on my walk this morning and around the yard so all I've got are flowers and stuff.  You'll like them.




See the bee?  There on that spiderwort flower is a bee industriously collecting pollen for the hive.





 
Oh, oh!  A hummingbird came to visit and spent a split second investigating the view in the patio door.  It isn't in sharp focus but I was thrilled to be fast enough to get the lens cap off and remember how to turn the thing on.  Bird!





I met DD, DIL1, LC, OJ, and DIL1's parents at the Botanical Garden for supper and the weekly concert.  It's so nice to go sit in the shade on the hill so that the kids can run around and play or someone can take them for a walk while listening to music.  Near where we sit is the Memorial Garden and in it are eight or ten steel pillars with an infinity symbol shape strip of steel connecting them.  Cut out of the strip is the bible verse that says, to everything there is a season...  It costs $500 to have someone's name engraved on a pillar; I was thinking I'd get in touch with Durwood's brothers to see if they'd like to contribute to that.  I'll ask DS and DD too, of course.  I think Durwood would like that.  Of course he'd like the Durwood Memorial Tomato Garden or Durwood Memorial Raspberry Patch even better but the shiny steel memorial sculpture's what they've got.


Here's the stage.  Tonight's headliner was a Steve Miller cover band.  That's one of DS and DIL1's favorite bands so they sang along and even danced some.  Fun!  It runs into bedtime so LC and OJ run out of tolerance before the concert is over so we leave a little early but I'm so glad that I joined the Botanical Garden so I can go along without having to pay a fee every week.

After my trainer session this morning I zoomed over to Aqua Center, where I used to work, and picked up a couple of those chamois towels that you dry off with, wring out, and dry some more.  Lala and I talked about them and they'll be great for swim towels because they won't take up much suitcase room.  I also bought myself a new red snorkel because my original one somehow broke last fall.  Not blaming anyone, it broke.  I admit that I bought it in 1990 so it had given good long service.  It was time--and I got the last red snorkel in the store.  Woohoo!


I didn't knit today, didn't sew either.  I stopped at Meijer on my way home from the Y and found that they have the Stella D'oro day lilies I hoped to plant on top of the retaining wall for $2.50 each.  That's $2 off the regular price.  I bought six and got three planted before time to clean up for the concert.  There are a lot of weeds to pull before I can plant them.  I'm spreading them out far apart and plan to put Shasta daisies, Rudbeckia (aka Black-eyed Susans), and Coneflowers in between and behind them because those plants will spread and fill in behind the day lilies.

25 July--Barbara Malcolm, Horizon. 

June

I got an invitation to Lydie’s son Jack’s wedding, his second wedding.  Or was it his third?  Jack had been a charming boy, but a little wild.  It always amazed me that he and Sam were good friends.  Sam was such a serious boy, thoughtful and cautious, and had become a serious man. Jack was another story.  As a kid, he could be counted on to swing from a frayed rope looped over the barn rafters, fall, and break his arm.  Or try to catch fish when the creek was in spring flood, fall in, scramble out on the banks nearly a half a mile downstream and try to convince Sam, who had run along the creek side screaming in fear, to “go again” with him.

The adult Jack, and I use the term “adult” lightly, had been invited to leave several colleges before he managed to graduate.  And his job history covered the gamut from car sales to fast food manager and almost everything in between.  Lydie said he was working as a salesman for a paper company, liked his job, and his boss, and was doing very well.

So this expensive-looking, creamy envelope was a sign of Jack “going again,” taking another turn on the marriage-go-round.  I checked the date of the wedding, June 29, and the location, Madison.  That gave me three weeks to find a suitable dress and wedding gift.  What’s appropriate for a third marriage?  Luggage for yet-another divorce?  Paper plates and plastic silverware so they don’t have to argue over who gets what?  It was a good thing Lydie couldn’t hear me.  She had a real blind spot where Jack was concerned.  She was always convinced that this job was the perfect one, this girl was the one he’d been waiting his whole life for.  If what I’d overheard my boys saying years ago was true, there were many, many Miss Rights in Jack’s past.  But I hoped for both Jack and Lydie, that this was the real Miss Right, the final, permanent one who could help him live up to his mother’s dreams.  It would be an interesting weekend.  

            Sliding the invitation back into the envelope, I caught sight of a glint of gold on my left hand.  My wedding ring.  Eight years since Bert died and I still wore it.  Wearing that ring seemed like the most natural thing in the world.  But I wasn’t married anymore; I was a widow.

            Last week it had slipped off my finger into the dishwater.  I felt panicky while groping in the water to find it.  And my hands fumbled a bit when I put it back on.  Then I felt a spurt of anger course through me.  I knew if I took it off someone would notice and feel entitled to express an opinion.

Why shouldn’t I take it off?  What if I wanted to go on a date?  Whose business was it but mine?  It was just a plain gold band, nothing special, but taking it off and putting it away felt like I’d be denying the life and love we’d built.  Maybe I’d take it off when I gardened.  Just as an experiment.  Then if anyone noticed, I could say I had forgotten to put it on afterwards.  Maybe.  Or I could quit worrying about what everyone else would say and get used to the fact that I’m a widow and getting on with my life.

I'm up too late again but after I got home from the concert I had to hose the grass clippings off the underside of the lawnmower because they were rotting and smelling bad.  Then I went downstairs and started sewing one of the dresses I cut out last week so maybe I'll have it done to wear to the reunion. Way to wait until the eleventh hour, Barbara Sue.  Ah well, such is the life of someone who does too much. Sewing until after 10 o'clock also means that I didn't tidy up the house because I know that TW and BV will be here this weekend, it's our 50th class reuntion and we both know that I'll invite them over to visit.  Why sit in a motel room or restaurant when it's more comfortable here?
--Barbara