Congratulations are in order

Congratulations to Jimmie Foote who has slaved away at Best Buy these last few years! He has been rewarded with a promotion to a management position in the Ithaca store! Great news!

Fried Green Tomatos!

Why weren't these a part of our family's heritage? I had my first ever fried green tomatos on Saturday, and boy were they yummy!!

Thanks to our neighbors Judy and Connie for cooking up and sharing such a wonderful treat!

Mother nature's party

The Village of Lansing maintains the park and marina next door, and this year they decided to celebrate with the first annual Lansing Harbor Fest. It was to be an all-day event with music, food, and good fun, and we were looking forward to attending.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to throw her own party last night, and today's events had to be cancelled because of all the debris and damage caused by a major storm that blew through just as I was coming home.

No one was injured, although a tree did fall on a camper, and although our marina experienced the high winds and driving rain, no trees went down here. It seems that the winds tore through the park, and then up the road to the main highway, where it knocked over three huge telephone poles with connected power lines. The road was blocked, and I had to detour quite a way to get home.

A tree fell on the train tracks too, which is why the engineer is out on his deck! We were amazed to find out that you can enter and exit the train engine through a door in the nose of the train, right behind where the engineer is standing!

It's funny how such events seem to bring people closer together. We met several nice folks last evening, including the train crew, as we walked around looking at the damage.

Where's the camera?

Sometimes things happen much too quickly to capture with the camera. This morning I was drinking my coffee, and leaning on the kitchen sink, staring off into the west. It was a morning that reminded us that fall is almost here- grey and overcast, with fast moving clouds scudding across the sky.

As I was thinking that my swimming days are probably over, I noticed a long, slender, black pointed object rising from the water just outside the window. "What the heck is that", I wondered aloud.

Tom came over to look too, and as we watched, a head and body emerged from the waves, and we realized that we were watching a cormorant who had been fishing underwater and had come up for air. As we watched, the bird dove again, and this time came up with a rather large perch held crosswise in that long, pointy beak. He expertly turned the fish and gulped it down, and we were amazed that he had been able to swallow such a large fish whole!

Groton's "Old Home" Days

Tom & I decided to capitalize on Groton's annual "Old Home Days" theme, and we had an Open House last Sunday for prospective buyers of our old home.

Many thanks to Susan, who spent an entire day helping us "stage" the house.

The kitchen is obviously not in use!

It's a good thing we're actually living on the boat- it's hard to keep those counters so empty.

We hope that someone falls in love with, and can afford to buy, this wonderful property before we move back from the boat. It's going to be hard to find a place for all of our "boat stuff"!

Lost treasure

Well, after 37 years of continuous wear, the unthinkable finally happened. The diamond fell out of my engagement ring. It was definitely worth more in sentimental value than anything else, and I doubt I'll find since it could be anywhere here on the boat or even in the lake.

Hmmm..anniversary coming right up - time for a new one?

Celebrating the Change!

Ladies!! I don't care how old you are-if you ever have the chance- go see Menopause the Musical!

I went to see a production of it in Syracuse, and it was hysterical! I would definitely go again if I ever have the chance.

PS- Some of you men out there might like it too!

Tom Quixote and other silliness

We folks at the marina are so easily amused! This time, Tom has been the source of merriment!

Instead of tilting at windmills, Tom fought with our patio umbrella, and the umbrella won. During very high winds the other evening, Tom attempted to close the umbrella. Unfortunately, the pole snapped right off, and the wind blew the open umbrella into him so that the wooden spines of the umbrella frame caught him around the neck. He was really worried that he would choke to death, and had to struggle quite mightily to rip the umbrella off his head and away from his throat. Once he finally freed himslef, he looked around to se how many people were coming to his rescue, and to his amazement and disgust- no one else had noticed anything amiss! Luckily, no lasting ill effects for Tom.

The other story making the rounds is the night the new TV blew up! Not really, but that's what I thought had happened. We used to have an older style TV (a very heavy one) on a shelf above the head of our bed. When we finally broke down and bought a flat TV, we put it on the same shelf. Tom then sits in the captain's bench so that he can plug in his headphones and watch the TV, and I don't have to listen to it. When he is sitting in his captain's seat, he is often looking for a place to rest his foot. On the night in question he set his foot on the top of the fire extinguisher- which he has frequently done before, but this time- the pin had come out- and the fire extinguisher went off! When I heard the noise and saw the "smoke", I ran out of the boat. The neighbors all saw the "smoke" rolling out of the back of our boat, and came running over to see what was wrong. We all had a great laugh once we knew Tom was safe, and he told us it was only the fire extinuisher. Unfortunately, that stuff makes quite a mess, and it has taken us a while to clean it up!

We have also moved the TV so it's not over our heads anymore, and I got Tom wireless headphones so that he no longer has to be tethered to the TV.