A Couple of My Favorites

I think of Dad so often.....and even more so at the holidays. His passing left such a hole in my heart and in our family. We function; we have fun, but it's not the same...it never will be the same. We just do the best we can and try to appreciate what (and who) we have right now. 

These are a couple of my favorite pictures of Dad and me together. It reminds me of the happy, silly spark that lives in me and runs through my family. Any display of humor from Dad was actually rare and therefore so much more appreciated. He had his moments and we all loved them!

It Gets Better Every Year

The gathering at Marie and Tom's house for the annual Christmas eve party started out quite normal as you can see by this photo of Mom and some of the menfolk of the family. 

Everybody smiling and happy; taking pictures with their best friends...or anyone that happen to wander by.

But it wasn't long before the family trait started to show itself. We can only appear 'normal' for just so long. And if you find yourself looking a bit too closely or a bit too long....well, you never know what you'll see. 

Christopher (my nephew, the licker) did the family proud with this shot. Tess is nearly hysterical and David (the lickee) was clueless. We never told him why everyone was laughing. I thought it would be more fun for him to see the pictures the next day. 

Some of the guys decided to do a toast in Tyler's honor (he's a Marine and currently stationed in Okinawa) and David (Tyler's Dad) was finding that the shot was VERY heavy!

My sister's father in law was about to get a surprise from his girlfriend...he also knew nothing about what was going on behind him. There was a lot of that going on that night. (Big points to Lori! She's not even family and she's crazy!)

Then I tried to get a 'normal' shot of some of my siblings...but someone told them there is NO SANTA and this is the reaction they had to the news!!

We did manage to take an ALMOST normal shot.........

But honestly my family just can't hold normal for very long!!

And then I just HAD to get away from all the crazy!!

New Car

Sometime in August I think it was....I bought a new car. It's a Toyota and it's black. It's also a little used but that's fine with me because I could afford it and I really needed it. 

When I started driving it to work everyone kept asking me how do I like it and some asked me to show it to them. I still remain confused over these reactions to my car. I don't like or dislike the car...it runs fine; it saves me a lot of gas; it frees me to travel more. I have filled a need in my life, nothing more. It's no more impressive than buying a new stove as far as I am concerned. And when people at work want me to show it to them my reaction is to bring them to the closest window, point at all the numerous small compact cars that are in the parking lot and tell them it looks pretty much like any one of those only it's black. 

I'm not trying to be obnoxious, I just don't identify myself with my cars. I eventually will form some kind of affection for the vehicle when I've had it for a long time. I'm assuming it will feel somewhat like a friend some day. However at this point in time I am still very much aware that I was forced to trade down when I bought this car. It doesn't have the ride or the power that my Buick had and that's a pretty noticeable difference. So while I've bought a car that is practical and saves me money, I have had to let go of a car that I had a deep sentimental connection to and that protected my bum from every bump in the road. 

My Dad helped me buy my Buick (pictured above) and at the time I bought this car I had no idea how much my life would change by the time I bought another car. For one thing I had no idea that the car would outlast my Dad and therefore become more important to me than it normally would or should. 

But you can only hang on to things for just so long and no longer. I had to get a newer car because I intend to travel a hell of a lot more than I have been. 

I donated the Buick to a place that sells the cars and uses the money for Veteran services. Dad was a veteran of two wars and a purple heart recipient. I'd like to think that he'd approve of the car going to help veterans. 

Putting The Best Foot Forward

On October 10th I had foot surgery...bunion surgery to be more precise. I don't like that they call it bunion because that sounds like something that grows on the foot and is easily removed. Just lop it off and all is well. Bunion surgery is not really that simple and it's a hell of a lot more painful than I expected too. Bunion surgery usually involves cutting or shaving off whatever bone is sticking out from base of the big toe for starters. I was hoping the bones would just be kind of shoved back where they belong and pegs inserted in strategic areas would hold it in place. I was way off, although I still prefer my surgical ideas over the actual surgery.  With the actual surgery as I said, they cut off the offending protruding bone on the side and then make v-shaped cuts into the bone of the big toe area to insert pegs (2 in my case) into the bone to help keep it in place while it heals. The pegs are made of a very thick cat gut so it dissolves over time. 

That's a very nice incision picture right there by the way....doc said so.  The funny little white lines are bits of string that got caught on the tape when the dressing was removed. 

This is the best picture I could get of the colors that showed up all over my ankle and foot although it doesn't show much. I didn't think to take the picture until a lot of the bruising had gone away.  I don't know how they held my foot still during surgery but when I started to see the amount of bruising and swelling I was getting I started thinking they must have put the foot in some kind of a vice. 

This is another picture that was taken late. It's part of the old bruising I got when I ran over Bell on my scooter. My dogs do NOT get out of the way! I cut right; she cut left; I clipped her and she yelped...while the scooter fell over with me on it and it all was captured in slow motion in my mind. This was my 'good' leg until that day. The other spots that were bruised could not be photographed. 

This is the nifty surgical boot I got right after surgery. Unfortunately I am STILL wearing it. The swelling is way down from what it was and mostly all the bruising is gone now too. However, putting a normal shoe on is still difficult and something I can only do for a little while each day. If I do a lot of walking in a shoe the pain just intensifies to the point of no return so I wear a normal shoe every day for a little while and then after massage and ice I put the surgical boot back on.  I also do range of motion exercises every day. That's a ton of fun too and causes the foot to swell more but it's got to be done. 

This is how my foot looks when it's happy. Covered up to stay warm and not being walked on.....aaaaaahhhhhhh, that's much better!!

A Long Time Ago.....

 When I was still working in Hartford, across the street from my building was a nesting site for Peregrine Falcons. There was a couple of cameras set up to record all nesting attempts; failures and successes. When I discovered the webcam on the internet I would periodically forward the pictures to my co-workers. I think I was more interested in the birds than anyone else. This went on for a few years. I'd check every Spring and then follow the results of the nest via the pictures and the cameras. As you can see these pictures are from 2011 and I believe budget cuts among other things have contributed to the shutting down of the cameras for the last two years. It has been a source of frustration for me to keep looking at the website only to see that there is no camera action going on at all. 

Another thing I never liked to see (but realized it was an unavoidable part of their lives) was the baby birds sitting out in the rain...especially because the rooftop that held the nest would often flood somewhat. Not the best design for a roof I guess but come to think of it that nest is nothing more than a shallow box with mostly rocks in it...how comfortable can that be?

So this was the last successful family of Peregrine Falcons that I was able to get photos of. It was a family of 4 this time. In years previous I rarely saw more than 2 live baby birds. Sometimes they would have more eggs but for various reasons (mostly unknown to me) the babies would not hatch or would not live. Some times the people monitoring the nest would post notes as to what happened to the eggs or the baby birds. Sometimes there were no notes. One year the baby birds were all eaten by another bird of prey and the adult birds didn't stay much longer after that. I was so upset to read that! But the adults did come back again the following year. It is my understanding that they come back every year.  

Knowing that the babies are so vulnerable, I watched almost every day for new still shots and even tuned into the webcams so I could watch the birds live. When I first saw these babies all splayed out like the one in the corner above, I thought he was dead. He wasn't...I think they exhaust themselves moving around and then just lay there until they gain their strength back. 

Then as they got bigger they moved more. Sometimes they would move out of camera range and that may be for days. My heart was in my throat every time I tuned in....thinking someone had died. Then they would pop back up in a picture or suddenly peek into the camera lens and I would take a deep breath and relax once again.  

Mom and Dad would take turns feeding the babies. They are considered to be good parents in the bird community but they never really cut the mustard as far as I was concerned. In a perfect world they would never lose any babies if they were good bird parents. 

But at least they came back faithfully and brought food nearly every time too. 

See....the fella in the corner by himself is fine....just faking it. :)

Mom (or Dad...I can't tell the difference) has brought food. The babies are lining up for a meal. Boy are they getting big! It must be hard to keep them all fed. 

And in this picture if you look around the edges of the rooftop you will notice the babies all standing on the edge looking around. They are HUGE for babies....but still babies none the less. At this stage I imagine they are learning to fly and will be finding their own food soon. Sometimes I'd see the large birds flying around when I went out to catch my bus. I never could tell if it was a parent bird or the babies...they grew so fast. But I also noticed that all the pigeons in the area made themselves scarce when the silhouette of a Peregrine Falcon was in  the air.  

Shovel Head Halloween 2013

Carol was kind enough to bring me out for a little sight-seeing on Halloween. We went to a well known, although new to us, house in Enfield. A side note is that one of the members of the band Shovel Head happens to live at this house. He also made ghoulish replicas of the band members and they were sprinkled through out the lawn display too. This fuzzy fella jumped up and scared the crap out of Carol....I enjoyed seeing that I must say and so did several other people who witnessed it. 

Now I can't say that I know the band members and I've never listened to the band actually either. I will be taking an interest in the band now that I've seen their alter egos.....kind of would like to compare for accuracy if nothing else. 

This fella introduced himself by jumping out and saying boo at Carol too. It's like she had a bulls-eye on her or something but he failed to scare her. His name is AJ and he seemed to be VERY impressed with himself and expected us to be just as impressed with him. Well low and behold he made me aware that I needed a picture of him with his Halloween replica! And me, not being able to say no....really, he wasn't about to hear no, took the lovely photo shown above. 

I have since spoken to a few other people about meeting him and was told they also met him and did not appreciate his love affair with himself either. Ah well...it takes all kinds. 

This guys eyes lit up and he spoke but I couldn't hear what he was saying......probably programmed to tell everyone how awesome AJ is. 

Now this table was interesting...it's hard to see but that's a skull in that container, boiling in some kind of yellow liquid. Very gruesome. 

What would a Halloween house be without some poor soul being electrocuted  all evening? He's gonna have a wicked headache in the morning. 

Another good reason for going to the Halloween house is that instead of taking money for the experience they charge a food donation to be given to one of Enfield's local shelters. They are aiming for 600 lbs but I'm sure they've gone over that amount. I brought a bag of food only because bringing one item felt cheap and then every item I selected really needed something else to 'go with it'. 

Another good point in their favor is that the donation at the Halloween house also served as your payment into a haunted house further down the road. Carol and I stood in line for a little while and after viewing the crowd I started becoming more and more nervous. Too many people running out screaming coupled with standing in line too long made me realize I don't want to get my foot stepped on and I can't take standing for long periods of time yet. Next year we'll go before Halloween...but we'll see it. 

This creature was amazing...not because of what it looked like, we've all seen them before. No, this was amazing because it was floating far above all our heads....way up near the top level of the telephone pole. Now how do you suppose they got that up there??

Witch Fingers

I don't know about your Halloween traditions but mine is that every witch that stops (or flies) by has to forfeit a finger. I got a good haul this Halloween!

Now I'm sitting with my feet up; a cup of tea and enjoying the take for the evening. Yummy!

Island Party- 2013

Every September the German Club in Broad Brook (of which I've been a member for a long time) throws an island party that consists of friends; family; a kick-ass live band and an awesome meal consisting of a variety of seafood favorites. The band this time was Drive Time....one of my favorites. And this year I tried the seafood bisque and I am never going back to regular old clam chowder again! The chowder is delicious too but the bisque was something new to me and I was blown away by it. If I had a choice I would have brought home a bucket of the stuff but lots of other people loved it too so there wasn't any left over.

There was a huge food line that didn't move quickly enough for SOME people. The odd duck in line here is my son Justin. He's every bit the ham I am when a camera is around. 

My friend Carol decided to see if she could still hula hoop. Like most of us at a certain age, we've had hula hoops when we were little and some of us used to be really good at it. Carol, encouraged by a little girl of about 6 yrs old, decided to give it a try. 

And she tried many many times while we took tons of pictures and laughed our butts off. 

But eventually she got it and won herself a little cheer and a round of applause from the people who had been watching and cheering her on. 

This party animal was one of the door prizes although I don't know who actually won him. 

I don't think he had a clue what was coming. 

Return to Scantic River Park West

When I returned to the Scantic River Park West it was to explore the trail with 'eyes' and I brought along Justin and Bunny. Both have been accompanying me on hikes quite a bit lately and both were interested in finding another beautiful trail so close to home. 

And judging by the signs that someone had written 'loser' on, we determined we were on the loser trail. It's always good to know what trail you're on in the woods. 

I was so glad we took the loser trail. Look how beautiful it is!! I have tons of pictures I took but had to narrow it down to just a few. Hopefully you can get a sense of how awesome the loser trail really is! Never shun the loser trail without checking it out first. 

Beautiful colors of fall just starting to edge the trees around the water. And the property across the river is a farm with cows roaming free....and occasionally wondering who we were. No doubt thought we were losers.

And then we came across trees across our path. As you will see below we each found our own way around these obstacles. Bunny tried her version of the limbo....

For Justin and Zack it was a hop, skip and a jump.....

But me? Well it appears I am slightly tree challenged.....

Oh yeah....slightly challenged alright.....

Ok. I'm a loser on the loser trail!

But on the other side of all those trees was THIS and it was well worth it!!