Seven quick disjointed takes

1. Oh politics. So very tired of you. Really would like to divorce you. But since I have to live in the same country with you and I care about the future of said country, and especially the future of my children and grandchild, I must soldier on. But you really have changed completely and are not the government I remember or the one I voted for. At all. You have really let yourself go. You are content that my fellow countrymen and I work like dogs to just stay afloat, while you run up the credit cards, take elaborate vacations, play golf, and have the nerve to look down at us and even mock us.

Here is a blogger who said it better than I.


If it weren't for the children, I would run away with Ireland.

2. Here are some of those children and young adults having a nice day together on the 14th birthday of the youngest.

We had just gone horseback riding, and then to this super ice cream place called owowcow.

mmmm.

3.   One of the perks of Bob working at the Academy of Music is that sometimes I get to go for free. This past week, I saw Diana Krall, who has such a singular voice and mastery of the genre she does -- not sure what I would call it, jazzy ballads, jazzy standards, jazzy standards and older folk-y ballads, standardly ballad-y jazz tunes...anyway, she's good.

I was seated before anyone else, so here is the stage before the show. They did not want picture taking during the show.  I think I may have been the only person to take that to heart.
Diana Krall, a Canadian, is married to Elvis Costello; they have twin boys somewhere around five. She made references and jokes to those facts during the show, and I, of course, did not get them, until I got home and looked her up. Many of the people in the audience were HUGE fans, I could hear them talking about how many times they had seen her. When the lights went down, a group of middle aged men sitting off to my left pretty much swooned and said (with tremulous voices), "here she comes!" So, yeah, she has a pretty devoted fan base. Not for no reason.





This one shows off her piano playing.


This is more characteristic of her voice:






4. I finally got around to putting my hydrangeas in my planter out back, along with my tomato plant. Most of my other plants are still going strong. It is a nice little sheltered spot. If only the squirrels and other critters would leave it alone! You would think it was the only soil in the city. Sheesh.

-the tall one is my basil, flanked by ivy and my transplanted-from-Meghann's fern and a few begonias.

This is the other side. I will bring most of the potted ones in when it gets really cold.

My parsley from the Kalamazoo Farmers Market.

Thrilling, right? Seriously, this little bit of gardening is closely tied to my thin grip on sanity.


5. Here is the wall sconce Meghann gave me right off her kitchen wall. She would be happy to see we lit it. In fact.........drumroll.........they will be here for Thanksgiving again this year! So she can see it in person!

Wait till I take all nine million pictures and compare them to the nine million I took last time they were here, and see how much Kaden has grown up! Never saw that one coming...

6. Here are the hydrangeas mentioned in number 4. You dont see them in the bed because I cut them back and am drying the blooms. Hydrangeas dry well.

                                                                I think so anyway.

 7. This guy 

 

is now 6!

I heart him.