It's a beautiful day
I went for a ride at lunch, to run errands, and picked up my pictures. Mostly they are pictures of my cousins' children and their children (these would be my first cousins twice removed). There are some very nice pictures of some very nice children. They will go in the camp photo album, and in 10-15 years these children will really enjoy looking at them, as we all enjoy looking at the albums my mother put together over the last 40 years. I didn't take any good pictures last year, nor did I put together the collection from 2003. I need to do that, and to put these in the album I have. We have a picture taken each year of the family meeting (as my brother said, some families have reunions, our family has a meeting) and I include that in the album as well.

Last night my friend Linda had her annual campfire party. It was unusually big this year because more people were around for it. Some of my favorite people were there, and I sat in the middle of the gathering, next to the fire, surrounded by my tribe of friends, feeling very happy and very much part of the group. A nice group. Among them is a woman who used to date Christopher Reeve. Yes, Superman has been to Silver Lake. Two of her daughters and her niece put on a musicale for us, selections from the show Oliver! It was totally wonderful and sweet and reminded me so much of my sister and me when we were that age, around 8 and 10. They sang and acted out about 4 scenes. This was one of the musicals my father really enjoyed, and he used to play it for us when we came home from school for lunch, every day. When we left the house he would quote the play and say, in a British accent "I shall be waiting for you hear when you get back." It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized how much he enjoyed feeding his daughters their lunches every day.

Anyway, I had a wonderful time at the campfire, and after the 35 or so people all left, Erdvilas, Linda and I sat around the embers and reviewed the evening. The little girls who put on the play were the same ones who had my dogs last year, and one of them said to me "Tessie visited us the other day, she swam out to our float with us and stayed for a really long time." I didn't say "Yes, and I cried my eyes out with worry while she was gone." I just said how nice they had been to her. But the evening was truly special and made me realize what great friends I have and how much I like being part of the community I live in. I'm not sure I could stand it all year long, though, but I sure do enjoy the summer.

Tomorrow is supposed to be 80 degrees and sunny. Sounds like a dock day to me. Better vacuum the living room, clean the bathroom and finish the laundry tonight! Ken said he had the liquor bottles out and ready for me last night, but I never showed up. I got my hair cut instead, and honestly I can't stop there every single night, I have to have my own life. I told him I'd stop tonight.

I tried to pick blackberries last night but the deer had eaten them all in one spot where I pick. They nipped the branches right down. On my way to Linda's there was a doe and fawn standing at the edge of the road, just standing there, not even swishing their tails. It was a stand-off, me in my car and them. Their ears were huge and they refused to move. Finally little fawn flipped its huge white tail, as big as the tail on a dog, and leapt into the woods. Its mother waited until it was a safe distance away, then followed. They were really pretty. But they've eaten all the blackberries!

Steve worked on my deck yesterday. He has the front finished, but has come to a grinding halt on the side and stairs connecting to the mud room door because there is a huge (2-foot wide) paper wasps' nest in the corner of the door. Very dramatic. I don't know when they built that, sometime in the past few weeks. He said he would spray the poison into it if I bought the stuff and left the can on the deck. Yeah! for him, I'm too short to have a stable grip on the ladder and spray at the same time.

I must finish stacking my firewood this weekend too, since Ken wants another load, Linda wants a load, and I need another load. There's no place to put my load until I clear out the spot where the first load was dumped. Then I'll have to stack the whole SECOND load! And soon, too. Winter is approaching.