McKenzie's sick --day 6

Hayley cannot believe McKenzie is still sick, but she's coughing, and even though I was on the way to school with her this morning, we just ended up visiting teachers and getting work.  She has to be well enough to go to Mt. Evans next week.  

Here are our new kitchen lights.  Scott N.'s back today to do more painting and lighting.  Yea!!!!

A Most Delightful Day

Want to hear about the perfect sort of day?

This a.m., I saved The Women (classic version) for breakfast, watched it till 10:30, showered and took the doggies for a stroll.  The day was absolutely gorgeous, 60's sunny, no wind.  

Anyway, after the hike and a peanut butter and jelly, I was off to the library to use the internet since I don't have Microsoft Word.  Natalie ( a friend of McKenzie's) has an enormously talented writer mom who sent me her first romance novel via e-mail.  For 2 hours, I shuttered myself, sometimes plugging my ears, in a library cubicle to read it.  I laughed out loud and smiled throughout.  This is a happy, fun story, with a buoyant, optimistic main character and the story takes place in Evergreen with familiar restaurants, etc.  Very entertaining!  I was able to be perfectly frank with the author and tell her she's the next Janet Evanovich.

Then....I picked McK up at the bus and we went to Baskin Robbins, picked up Wonder Bread, and made for home.  French toast and eggs for dinner, as G's out of town.  Yum.  In the mail I got a gift from the Mini people--lots of door prizes for buying the Clubman last month.  Included some peel off stickers for windows--you come up with your own curious statements.  Gotta think about that!  And I got wheels!  For this chair I'm sitting on.  Crate and Barrel came through with replacements, because I have been coasting around with two broken wheels duct taped.  One had a big spool on it.  The other, the April Fools fake dog poo.  Now the dog poo has sticky residue, and can be used on the ceiling this April.  Pity the poor fool sleeping under it.  Oops!

 

Girl Scout murders in 1977

Weird, but I had one of those threading thoughts that occur at 3 in the morning.  Last night, I started thinking about the 1/2 summer during college spent in a little bitty town outside Tulsa, Oklahoma.  I was a counselor at a horseback riding camp there....

The place was run by two couples, sisters and their husbands.  They'd just opened it.  It had 3 cabins, one for boys, and two for girls.  The boy's counselor was from some East coast prep school who thought it was hilarious that Tulsa had streets named after schools like Harvard.  He stayed in the cabin a lot and read books before the kids came.  Kate was my co-counselor, and a real sport.  Very gregarious, happy, and athletic.  There was another girl too, Carolyn???, who was younger than either of us, and beautiful, just horse crazy.  

When we first got there, we could choose a horse from the pasture, one who hadn't been ridden for the winter, and get on.  I chose Blue, a dapple gray appaloosa.  He only cantered wildly through the field when I got in the saddle.  He was a good boy.  

So...why did the sisters get so depressed over the first month and a half that one could not even leave the little house where they lived together?  Here's what happened:

First two weeks:  during a hay ride, one sister's puppy was run over by the wagon.  A girl who was afraid to get on a horse the entire time, decided to brave it when her parents came to pick her up from camp.  The horse took off into the woods with her, and one of the men leapt on a horse to chase the runaway down.  They served no fruits or vegetables there, and I got a terrible case of constipation!  They had to put me on a diet of yogurt and offer their house bathroom to me!!!

Second two weeks:  the swimming hole, which was a mucky pond, started to dry up in the heat.  Still, swimming was an activity, and they made kids go in.  One boy came down with a horrible ear infection and had to be sent home.  Can you imagine the microbes lurking in that hole?  Then something happened that they kept very hushed up about....

Three girl scouts were murdered in a camp "not far away".  This was June, 1977.  That's all I knew about it.  We didn't have TV or newspapers or even radio.  From that point on, we couldn't keep the windows open or sleep on the screened porches.  We had to be locked into the cabins with windows shut tight.  This was Oklahoma in the summertime, remember.  The two husbands took turns staying awake all night to patrol the camp with pistols.

Turns out, the police never pinned down the rapist/murderer of the 8,9, and 10 year old girl scouts.  Whoever it was, was "an animal," according to the doctor who did the autopsies.  

All I knew was that it was hot, discouraging, and I got a spider bite on my leg that started streaking red up and down like poison spreading.  My best friend, Tweedledum (I was Tweedledee), drove down from Tulsa to take me to the emergency room.  I packed my bag and never went back.

Odd, those thoughts about a summer so many years ago.  But if you look on the internet, there's a ton of stuff on the girl scout murders.  To us, it was just an event that closed the windows.  

Star from the lone star state

Here's Star (Izzy in the old days), newly shampooed, conditioned and cut--with jewelry!  Isn't Jaycee a doll too!  Kim says they're doing great down in Houston.  

Geoff and I finally met Mike's mother last night, over dinner at Abrusci's.  She's a very personable, athletic Hawaiian woman, eagerly looking forward to her move to Nevada next week.  No wonder Mike's such a good guy!

Hayley has started the War of the Sisters.  She's been stalking McKenzie and waving scratched DVD's in her face.  When that doesn't work, she calls her on my cell phone or leaves notes.  She wants all her DVD's replaced, even the seasons of Friends.  It's just lovely around here.  And just when I thought they bonded over winter break.

Made curtains for Mom's kitchen window last week.  I had to do every cut, stitch and ironed seam just right, and positively agonized over hanging the rods straight and firm.  If it were for me, I'd have just thrown them up there, pinned (take a look at our living room drapes some time), but for her--perfection!  Now it looks like she has a checked drape over french doors on one kitchen wall.  In reality, the little bitty window looks out onto the hall fire extinguisher, but you'd never know.  I like her house better than mine now!  It's so cosy (and clean, and quiet, and calm).  I drive McKenzie to the middle school and stop off to say hi in the morning, or we roar off on an expedition to buy wires, fabric, or milk!  Very nice to have her here, and she's so happy getting to know the neighbors.  Oh, and her dog Penny was adopted last week!  See the Pinecam forum:  http://www.pinecam.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=80786&sid=1d99b221fb3ca5f041f31940feb8c456

Mom's Mae West, living next door to Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn, Mom's smart, slender condo neighbor from NY, had told Mom to remember her name by thinking of Marilyn Monroe.  Mom decided to make herself Mae West.  What a corner on the 4th floor!  Anyway, Mom told Marilyn about her new name association yesterday, and qualified it with, "well, not Mae West in the chest."  Marilyn said she used be.  So Mom said, she used to be too.  I totally ruined her reinventing her life--bad me!  I told Marilyn she never had a Mae West chest!  Moms going to kick me out of there!  Honestly though, the women we've met there have been quite delightful.  And Geyza, the next door neighbor on the other side, was an ambassador to Hungary!  Quite a condo.

Mom's Remodel -- C'est Fini!!!

Here it is, TA DA!  Mom's happy as a clam here.  I love it.  So does she!  Take a look at the "before" photos to the left.

Paint in Photoshop 1st?

Here's an idea....  Ok, I'm slow to catch on.  But this morning I was sorting through photos we've taken to choose some for the acrylic and oil classes I'm going to take.  I would like to get more into abstracts.  In class in the past, we've eyeballed the photos, blown them up, cut out things, etc.  So I started doing this in Photoshop and thought--this must be what professionals are doing a lot of these days.  Here are some of my results.  

Ok, off to Mom's to hang her pictures.  A snowy day is descending...but that's ok.  This time I will take photos of Mom's place--if we can get through the picture hanging!