Good question! I guess I had nothing to say in the early part of last week, but the latter part of the week was spent in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Sounds like a lot but they are all within three corners of each other.

Reflections of the sun in windows at the church in Great Barrington, MA. Taken during daylight hours.

Rick was attending the Skip Barber driving school (Lime Rock, CT) and I was along for the ride, so to speak. We left on Thursday and arrived home last night. It was interesting for sure, and in some ways unanticipatedly interesting. Who knew borders of states were so finely drawn?

As for the fireworks part of this entry, we were rudely awakened multiple times in the night from 11:30 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. by fireworks. Someone in our neighborhood (we could never figure out who) was shooting off very loud fireworks about once per hour. So, it seemed like the moment we got back to sleep from the last one, we were abruptly and rudely awakened by another one. Sam, who was sleeping curled up by my side, jumped every time one went off. So did I! These were no little firecrackers, but arial displays that I happened to glimpse as I opened the window and looked out. What the? Who in their right mind is awake on our block at that hour, and why are they shooting off one or two fireworks every 45 minutes to an hour? We finally called the local police and asked them to please drive up the street. The fireworks seemed to stop after that, either from the police intervention or the people in charge of setting them off finally went to bed. So, I am a bit sleep deprived today and not thinking clearly enough for a proper blog entry.

More to come. Just wanted to check back in case anyone was wondering why I haven’t posted.

Here’s to a night without any fireworks!

It was kind of a strange weekend weather-wise. Saturday dawned murky and humid. The sky was a washed-out gray. We took Mia down to Wayne to the farm stand to buy the ingredients for our veggie-loaded menu. They have the best sweet corn and Jersey tomatoes. It was so humid and hazy that as we drove, drops of moisture collected on the windshield and it was not raining. The air was that dense.

We came home and took advantage of the pool for a little while, just sitting out there reading while Robby the Robot cleaned the pool. I looked at the radar and saw that a storm was headed our way, so we got the robot out of the pool and came inside. And just in time too. The heavens parted and rain poured down from the sky. And it just kept coming. We got over an inch of rain in very little time. It rained on and off for the rest of the day and was still drizzling when we went to bed.

Dinner was delicious! We tried a new recipe: Corn Fritters with Roasted Tomatoes.

The tomatoes were slow roasted in the oven for about an hour and half, melting them down to intensely flavored rounds. The fritters were light and fluffy. The recipe called for topping it with a slice of prosciutto, but we thought it was basically not necessary. In fact, next time we’d probably leave it off and also make a different aioli to dress it with.

Prosciutto is pretty though, isn’t it?

We had fritters leftover, so breakfast also featured fritters under our over-easy eggs. I can’t tell you how good this was!

Sunday morning kind of looked the same way that Saturday morning looked: hazy and gray. It didn’t stop us from taking Mia again, this time up to Warwick for the farmer’s market. We had originally thought to buy ingredients for a simple salad, but we realized that we had bought a watermelon at the farm stand that we needed to use up.

I had seen a recipe for a Watermelon Gazpacho but couldn’t remember exactly what went into it. Thank goodness for technology as Rick looked it up on his iPhone right then and there at the market. We bought bread, (not in the gazpacho recipe!) a gorgeous cucumber, a jalapeño pepper, flat leaf parsley and shallots. No red peppers were available at the market so we had to stop at the grocery to pick one up.

It was so refreshing! Delicious!

Half of the ingredients were pureed in the food processor, but some were kept out to stir in for texture.

We ate out by the pool and it was lovely. I cut a couple of hydrangea blossoms to put on the table and stuck them in one of my favorite little vases.

Just as we finished up our lunch it started to rain. At first it was just a light rain and we were under the umbrella so it didn’t bother us. Then it started to rain hard and the dogs didn’t all fit under the protection of the umbrella and they were getting soaked, so we packed up and came inside not trusting it to stop anytime soon.

It rained for a bit, then the sun came out. We went back to the pool and in the pool. Another round of clouds came by. We got out of the pool. The sun came out. We got back in the pool.

By that time it was time to start on guess what? More food! It does seem like all we do is eat!

I was mostly in charge of the risotto.

Rick was completely in charge of the chicken done on the grill with indirect heat. Chickens cook faster when they are spatchcocked. (I know it sounds a bit nasty but all it means is it’s split down the middle of the back and flattened.)

The weather cooperated and it was a nice evening complete with a swim. The cicadas started in as we completed our swim and nearly sang us to sleep as we sat and watched night fall more deeply around us.

Water lily reflection, Skylands Botanical Garden last week: visit 2.

Maybe this name will ring a bell with my sister. I don’t know if she will remember her or not. (Sis, do you remember??)

The mind is a strange thing. At least mine is. I was sitting here this afternoon reading a book, The Age of Miracles, a dystopian novel about how the earth slowly stops spinning. The girl in the book is twelve and it’s her voice that tells the story. I read the sentence where she looks down in disgust at her never-ever-been-shaved legs and Debbie Ginder pops into my brain. POW! There she is. Now where did that come from I have to wonder? I have not thought about her since the 60’s. It was so weird that I had to write it down immediately.

I know exactly where it came from but how my brain made that leap is amazing to me. It’s because Debbie Ginder was responsible for me shaving my legs and under my arms for the first time, and right around that same age as the girl in the book.

She lived in our subdivision around the lake from us (we were living in Florida at the time) and if Snookie on Jersey Shore would stage any competition with hair, it would have been with Debbie. She had a bouffant hairdo with side burns and wore tons of eye makeup. I think her hair was reddish. Hey, it was 1968!

She was older than I was and very worldly in my eyes. Hey, she had breasts; I did not. (Well, maybe I had bumps at that point and a “training bra,” which leads me to the question as to why breasts had to be “trained?”) She went out with boys; I did not. I’m not quite sure why my parents let me hang out with her.

Anyway, one day when my prepubescent self was over at her house she looked at my legs and underarms and casually said “Why don’t you ask your mom to let you shave?”

DUH. It had not occurred to me before then. I went home and asked my mom and she agreed it was probably time.

Thank you, Debbie Ginder wherever you are in the world today.

Now I ask you, doesn’t the mind work in mysterious ways?

I know most of you out there don’t like posts with bugs and insects in them. But I do. So there!

I came across this spider yesterday after I mowed the back yard. Its web is right next to the pool deck in the honeysuckle bush.

I thought it’s markings were pretty and unusual. Look at those long legs!

I wasn’t happy with the first bunch of photos I took, so I went back out later to try again. This time the spider was doing something weird. Take a look.

It looks like it’s folded back on itself or something. I don’t know. I couldn’t figure it out. Strange.

A little later I went back again and this is what I saw. Aha! A tasty captive!

Spiders eat other spiders?

And here is the spider as seen from behind this morning. Waiting for more hapless captives I assume.

When I looked my spider up to see what kind it was I found that it was a Common Garden Spider. So, not so unusual at all. But still pretty. You might not agree!

Taken the other day after we had the bear visit and the near empty bird feeder was just sitting on the deck. Brazen little rodents!