I love autumn weather, and we're having a good bunch of it these days. A tad hot tomorrow, but nice, cool evenings--thoroughly enjoyable. Last night I turned on my electric mattress pad to warm my feet. Dogs thought that was great.
The leaves are starting to turn, mostly the sugar maples getting orange & red. There's plenty of speculation about whether this is early, due to drought-stressed trees. I don't think so, I think this is just the normal turn of events. Fall comes.
I've been fairly busy, mostly socializing. Can't complain about that. I had a wonderful cocktail party last Friday night--made wonderful by the people who were there. The location promotes itself, but I heard plenty of comments about what really, really nice people showed up. When I first started living alone in Hawkeye it became very important to me to have friends. Well, that's not unusual. What I found was that the people I made friends with are exceptionally nice people. Not just the summer crowd, though those are a lot of my good friends, but the friends I have in the winter are great, too. I've felt really proud to be counted as a friend in these groups, which makes me really happy. Rush is always asking me what people in the North Country think about things, but I always have to tell him that I've surrounded myself by like-thinking liberals, so I can't really answer him.
I'm president of the shore owner's association, and we had a meeting on Saturday at my family's camp. It wasn't very well attended, but the program that Linda arranged for was great. Two men from the wildlife rehab center in Wilmington came, bringing with them a peregrine falcon, a merlin and a kestrel. Really, really cool. The crowd was impressed, and we all enjoyed the whole thing. We had a short meeting after that, then I went to dinner at the Ruders, with friends of theirs from home as well as Linda & Erd. The friends had lived in Westport, CT, where I lived after college. I couldn't remember where my house was, only the name of the street, which was hard to forget (Fragrant Pines Court). It was a nice house, in the woods at the end of a street on top of a hill. I lived there with 2 male friends, and all started out fine but things deteriorated as the year progressed. So I don't have only happy memories of that time, but I enjoyed living in W'pt. We used to drive past Paul Newman's house, and once I saw Robert Redford walking down the street. My brush with greatness. I did enjoy being in Conn., and had plenty of good times. I've only kept in touch with 2 people from that era of my life. The woman I lived with through college and after was killed in a car accident when she was in law school & I was in graduate school. That was tough--she was bright and successful but apparently fell asleep at the wheel and hit a bridge abutment. Sad time.
Whew! That was into the way back machine. Not as far back, just the weekend, I had a nice visit with Lin while we attended a Plann. Parenthood fundraiser Sunday afternoon. What a beautiful day it was, and the setting was a farm so it was really pretty. I got to spend time in the morning sitting on the dock reading with my dogs (as opposed to reading TO my dogs), and spent time Saturday afternoon doing the same. Ahhhhh. One of my favorite things. The water is still very warm and good for swimming.
Work has been fine. I've been busy this week--doing some cataloging at the Platts. Public Lib., and filling in for my co-worker who's on vacation. I'm cataloging the local history collection at PPL, as I do at lots of our libraries. Right now I'm into NY history, working my way north geographically (because that's how the books are arranged)(not north/south, but in subject by county). I'm as far as Albany so should hit the North Country soon. I hope. It's nice cataloging there, the collection is good and it's just challenging enough without being boring. It's a quiet office and I'm by myself when I'm there. Oh I do enjoy being alone, don't I.
The dogs are great. Treasure is VERY bouncy, and Tess has more energy than a 9-year-old dog should have, but they're sweet. The went visiting yesterday when I got home, down to Bill's camp, where I had dinner after their visit. They were gone for a while but I had no idea where they were. I suppose I should worry when that happens, but they're always nearby.
Three day weekend coming up, which is great. GREAT! Sat. morning Bill is coming with his crew to move my firewood to the wood shed. That will be good, then I can buy a load of wood for next year. Right now I have no place to put a load, and I don't seem to be motivated to move wood myself, so this is a nice thing. Can I afford to buy a load of wood? Embarrassingly, not really. But I'll work on it. I also need to have my chimney cleaned, which is cheaper.
Still a lot of summer people around, with some coming next week as well, for the month. Then we'll cruise into Columbus Day, then Hawkeye will be a ghost town. And I'll get used to that. I had a nice summer.
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