Moving day disaster

So the u-haul broke down within a couple miles of the starting location.

Jeremy showed up for comic relief.

We are still here after like three hours.

Help.

We are in moving day hell.

Summer Afternoon?

What is the best way to spend a summer afternoon in late August?

Answer? See image at right.

What is the not so best way?

Answer? Moving furniture form one home to another. Ugh!

It is moving day for Patrick and Tina. And the family is being mobilized because that's how we roll!

Hopefully, we will be able to minimize injuries--the team is not as young as it used to be.

Riding the Rails to D.C.

I took a half-day off Wednesday to take Ethan, along with Chris, into D.C. to do something I always love doing--visiting the museums.

The national museums are free--and so the only cost is getting there--a metro ride, which by comparison for the traffic it avoids is really pretty inexpensive.

A five year-old in a museum is an experience.

It is pretty much point and shoot--see something and look at it then move on.

It takes a bit to get into it and then you can really get going. Ethan seemed to like the movies a lot--where he could watch what was being presented. Although he did appreciate the dinosaurs and the animals. He spent some time playing with the ancestors, too.

I've been to the museums so much, I pretty well have the big exhibits memorized--but I still love looking at the airplanes in the Air and Space Museum.

After Ethan bored with the Natural History Museum, we had some ice cream, shopped till he dropped in the museum stores and then it was off to the National Air & Space Museum. Yay!!!!

We were incredibly lucky to miss getting dumped on by the rain which came down in buckets just as we walked into the Air & Space Museum.

Of course, since he was already tired this museum went by much too fast--but that was O.K. because it was his day! I think he enjoyed the Skylab space station the most--although the exploration of the planets was right up there.

And then, except for the ride home--that afternoon was done. Although we had to navigate the rush hour mess--we did O.K.

Well worth the effort and twice the fun.

That was a day to remember.

Dino-riffic

Spending the rainy afternoon in the Museum of Natural History with Chris and Ethan.

Scary.

And then I lost them both, I hope they are together. I'd hate for them to become Dino food.

Rain, Dark, and Cool

I figured out what it is I don't appreciate about August: rainy, dark, cool days.

The rain really dampens my spirits, although I was able to turn off the sprinkler system which kept the gardens alive, barely, during the scorching heat of July. The rain is here and really coming down as the cooler weather bumps against the humid heat we have been experiencing.

The high for today (Wednesday) is only supposed to be 77 degrees. Cool compared to the 99's of jsut a few short weeks ago.

While we were in Ithaca over the weekend, there was a smattering of 50's in the hills and Ieven saw some early signs of autumn in some of the stressed trees and bushes.

And this morning I noticed that it was dark again--no dawn in sight, as I let the dog out for her moning business. I paused for a sad moment to consider what this means. Of course I was also listening to the raindrops splat against the front walk and encouraging the dog to get her feet wet at the same time--so it wasn't much more than a passing thought.

August, at least the last half, seems to segway into September.

I am reminded of a Paul Simon song--April, Come She Will and the last verse being:

August, die she must

The autumn winds blow chilly and cold

September I'll remember

A love once new has now grown old

I feel as if Paul got it right. My love affair with summer--is becoming old and gives way into the autumn.

But the darkness is creeping across the area again. The hours of light are shorter--by almost 3 minutes every day now.

August, then can be reduced to three things--Rain, Dark, and Cool.

Sadly--

Up in the Air

Sometimes, things are not what they seem.

Usually, when a loud noise is heard in the air I can usually correctly identify it as a jet, or a propeller driven airplane, or a helicopter.

When I was a lot younger--I could often even determine the type of aircraft it was--although those were usually military aircraft. The venerable C-5A has a distinctive sound as does the B-52G.

On this day, I could not identify the air vehicle. I was snorkeling about 100 yards off the beach and I looked up to see the Goodyear Blimp. For real, slowly, and almost gracefully flying overhead.

I kind of wished that I could have just stood and watched it, but as I was in about 10 feet of water, that wasn't going to happen. So I snapped a couple of pictures with my now dead camera, to remember the moment and then went back to looking at the fishes.

I had forgotten that a blimp is based in Miami--and so while it was unusual to see one, it was not something highly out of the ordinary for the area.

I was happy to be in the water snorkeling.

But I still think about flying, sometimes.