Do you know that person that just seems to “step in it” all the time?

Well, me too and I’m married to him. My husband is just one of the luckiest people I have ever met. If there is a raffle prize to be won, he wins it, sit him at a slot machine, Jackpot, etc. You get it, you probably know someone like this. Grace Kelly. Goes to Monaco to shoot a picture, strikes up a casual conversation with the guy standing next to her between takes. Next thing you know, married to the Prince of Monaco, has her own new title of Princess, living atop this majestic mountain in the fabulous castle overlooking half of Italy. Well okay so maybe she didn’t end up so lucky but that beginning was pretty magical. Anyway, back to Mr. Lucky, my husband.

I’m sitting at the computer yesterday morning when he comes downstairs, looking alittle under the weather. “What’s wrong Hon?” Well turns out on his way home the night before, he tells me, he sees three deer on the side of the road. Without warning, says he, one of them just runs out and attacks his car. Oh my God, thank God you are allright hon, I say with genuine wifey concern, did it do alot of damage? No he says, actually, the deer hit his head on my side view mirror and pretty much ripped it off (the mirror not the deers head) but that’s all the damage.  Well I’m visualizing in my mind this 300 pound animal seeing Tom drive down the road and choosing that moment to run into the car with his head only and manage to hit just the sideview mirror.

Now, I have never ever known my husband to be anything but honest with me. This however was difficult for me to wrap my mind around. All I could do was laugh hysterically as I was picturing this. Now as MY luck would have it my camera was not immediately available or I would have definately photographed his little face. The fact that I was laughing maybe or the fact that perhaps I wasn’t buying the story was all over his face. Now I feel realllly realllly bad.

So we go out to look at the deer damage and sure enough, the mirror is hanging off the car, not one scatch other than the destroyed mirror. But there, on the car door, believe it or not were hairs from the deer. If I wasn’t so old I’d be looking for a job with CSI.

Now if this had been me, at the very least, the car would be totalled and I would have been lucky to escape with my life. Or the back window could have been opened and the deer would have jumped through it into the back seat, we would stuggle for control of the car, and I would lose.

Maybe it has to do with Karma. Tom is ALWAYS the person to lend a helping hand even if it is detrimental to him.  Whatever it is, he is lucky to a point of ridiculous.

I’M BAAAACK!

Home from Sunny Cali and LV. A whirlwind trip but a whole lot of fun. Flew into Las Vegas with my favorite honey and then hung around the airport and flew on to Long Beach, CA to spend two days with Ryan. Had a wonderful dinner and then spent Sunday at

What a great place. Our first memory was made at a Tribute to the fallen soldiers of Afganistan and Iraq. It was an incredibly moving experience.

A field of crosses in the sand in memory of those that have been lost. It really was quite moving, nothing political for or against war, just a simple remembrance of those lost. I am so fortunate to have been standing there with my son.

I also got to get connected to my very favorite movie of all time.

Yup, that would be it. What a wonderful world if everyone was Forest Gump.

We rode the Ferris Wheel, I must admit, I had to be talked into it. Well truth be told embarrassed into it. But I did it.

Me taking a picture of Ryan taking a picture of me.

It really was nice to see Ryan, sooo many changes since venturing out on his own.

Ryan before leaving for California.

 

And Ryan, now.

Wow!!

Also got to see a doggy halloween parade, only in California.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Had so much fun seeing all these guys dresssed up.  One thing you absolutely must give to people who live in California is that they find and make fun whereever they are and with whatever is available. Remember the gas crunch. When if your license plate began with an even number you went on one day and if it was odd you went on the next day? Well I remember it well. I remember the lines, the horn beeping, the screaming people and general kind of out of sortsness (is that a word?) that prevailed here in the East. NO ONE found amusement in the fact that you had to wait sometimes up to an hour for a tank of gas.

I had the opportunity to visit San Diego during the time where the exact same thing was going on only multiply that by a gazillion with all the people that lived there. However, interestingly enough, there was an abundance of long gas lines but the crankiness you found here in New England was replaced with people turning it into a social situation. They were sitting on tailgates conversing, tossing a big colorful beachball up and down the line. Just makin the best of a bad situation. Just a different way of life. So, my point here was that this big ole doggy halloween parade was just another Sunday in sunny California!

The Quest for the Apple Cider Doughnut

It seems that there are things that are so vividly etched in your minds when we were young that they continue to be triggered every year throughout our lives. For me there is the smell of freshly mowed grass in the spring. It ALWAYS makes me think of clean (maybe because Spring is when Mom opened the windows and cleaned EVERYTHING).  Freedom (I knew the end of the school year wasn’t far off) and I was finally going to ditch that winter coat and put on a pair of shorts and PLAY non stop. Another trigger is the first day that you see all those brightly colored leaves start to flutter from their trees. That makes me think of Apple Cider Doughnuts. Not just any apple cider doughnut but really fine apple cider doughnuts. I grew up in a rural town with an honest to goodness working Cider Mill. I remember being 8 or 9 and as soon as those leaves started flyin we headed for the Cider Mill. The smell usually reminded me of rotten apples but that didn’t matter because as soon as I had my glass of fresh pressed apple cider, I didn’t care how it got made. That amber fluid, sweet, yet tart, was worth anything my nose had to deal with. The real treat though was the apple cider doughnut. Again, sweet, yet tart, and I could chew it. It just didn’t get better than that.

As the years went on and I had my own family, we occasionally made the trip to the Cider Mill in the Fall. Not every Fall because sometimes there just wasn’t money for that and the other reason was that they replaced the apple cider doughnuts with get this, “A PETTING ZOO”.  Great for the kids, although I’m hearing now they are not great for the kids, full of germs and other horrific diseases (they should have stuck with the doughnuts, sometimes progress just isn’t progress).  We did go a couple of times and my children did pet the animals (I even once spent two days at the Catskill Game Farm with them), don’t let that get to DCF, and I never lost one child, but that isn’t the issue here. The real issue was NO APPLE CIDER DOUGHNUTS. I think of them fondly every Fall but for some reason there was more of a draw this year. I actually searched the internet.  Did not find much of anything. I was willing to overnight them. Then yesterday as I’m sitting in the kitchen watching the leaves swirling around on their way to the ground, this first windy day here in the Northeast, and the phone rings.  My BFF, Martha, calling about us getting together this weekend to attend a fall fair.  Out of the blue, she says “Come early, I have the BEST apple cider doughnuts from the farmstand down the road.” Are you kidding me? I hope that s on the end of the word doughnut is for “slew of”. I’m settin the alarm. Thank God, for best friends, they never cease to amaze me.

Hello world!

I really have been wanting to do this for a long time but here I finally am. Today is my first day back home from a Photography Retreat in Stamford. Photography is a new endeavor for me. I really started out as a scrapbooker and that parlayed into photography for which I have a serious passion. I am not all that good yet, truth be known, I’m probably terrible, but as with any journey I am sure I will improve greatly along the way. I am really a self motivator and self educator. My love of reading has helped me learn so many wonderful things in my life. So anyway, here I am on this new path at 55 years old and I’m really excited. The difference I think is that 20 years ago this sponge between my ears was like one of those little totally dehydrated sponges that you buy at the Fair, add water, and BAM, you gotta mega sponge.  Nowadays its more like adding water to an already damp sponge, some of it gets absorbed and some doesn’t. So to counteract the cruel ways of Mother Nature I take a ton of notes, read things a couple of times instead of once, and practice, practice, practice. The end result is the same but the road is different. I suppose alot of things could be described that way as we start the aging process. Anyway, not really wanting to talk about aging, wanting to talk about photography.

I am a lover of fine things.

This is a fine thing!

Found the PERFECT cappachino in Lucca Italy. It stole my heart. I swear to God. I looked and looked at it then realized this beautiful cappy was getting cold so I snapped a picture with my nifty Canon 30D and now it is forever with me and beautiful enough to headline my blog. Just wanted to give you a little history behind my headline up there.

Blogging for me was inspired by Karen Russell, a really talented gal, and great blogger and it really made me want to do this. Follow me if you wish, some of it may be of interest to you, some not, but all important to me.