A Day with Elaine

Today I spent with my friend Elaine. I'm too tired to blog about everything we did right now. The middle of the day was really great and it deserves its own blog post. I'll just share the other parts tonight.

If you've been around long enough to catch a couple of the visits with Elaine, you know we like games. We played Scrabble twice- each won once. I won this one.

And we played Upwords twice- each won once. She won this one.

One game of Carcasonne. I like this one a lot, but only play it with Elaine, so I forget the strategy. She won, but it was fun.

We went out for lunch, and the important stuff. Like ice cream.

And what was Bill doing? He went for a little hike on the Finger Lakes Trail. Very, very hot, but he did about 10 miles.

The rest of the day was filled with something quite special but it needs more brain power than I can muster right now to do it justice. I'll write about it another day.

Have to get some sleep now.

See Transition to Civilization?

Gardens of the Future

 The theme of this year's Philadelphia Flower Show is Gardens of the Future. The entry exhibit is called Signature of Time. The "future" idea is supposed to be that when someone creates a garden they impart it with their own signature, but as it grows into the future it acquires the signature of time. I have no idea how these elements of the display showcase that. But, hey, the entry exhibit is supposed to be the "Wow" of the show. It did that pretty well.

This huge hanging part of the display is all flowers. Almost everything has to be flowers or flower parts except for structural elements.

There were colors other than red in the display, and some lighting effects, but I'm focusing today on the red which was the most prominant.

There were two large and novel fountains with water running down from the frames over containers of flowers. This one is more magenta with orchids.

And this one has red roses. It's hard to see the running water in the pictures because it's subtle like a soft rain, but you can see the splashes in the pond.

This is just another part of the entry display (it is always huge) that emphasises red.

Sometimes I think that the more interesting the theme is, the more trouble the exhibitors have in being creative with it. But you'll see more of what I mean in days to come.

My stamina lasted for five hours. I didn't see nearly as much of the show as I usually do because I definitely wasn't moving as fast. Others were also ready to leave after that time, so I didn't cause anyone else any distress, and a nap revived me. I'm really happy that I managed 5 hours. That's certainly the longest continual activity I've done since being sick.

We came back and had pizza and played some games. I like this one, Forbidden Island, which only gets played when I'm here, apparently. It's a collaborative game, not competitive. You have to work together to place the statues in the correct places and then get off the island before it sinks. Tonight we lost, but that's OK. Fun was had.

Now it's time for another nap!

See The Garden Electric

How to Flip a Day

 You can see how the day started. The deer don't care if I mow or don't mow. They just take over anyway.

I was working on various projects. But I ran into (temporary, I hope) roadblocks on a couple of them. So I decided to deliver something to Cathy.

Ha! That turned into playing Mexican Train Dominoes with her and her mother...

And of course, she had a jigsaw puzzle going in her basement. She had most of the yellow done already. The rest is detailed and fussy, and more difficult than a lot of the Charles Wysocki puzzles. This one is called "Ice Riders on the Chesapeake Bay."

We got a lot of it done, and she fed me pizza. So I'm happy. I always hate to not be in on the finish of a puzzle, but it's ok.

I edited, I tried to do some other things with online tasks attached... some serious issues there. Sent support emails. I worked outside a little, but then it started raining. So, I went to Cathy's!

See Table Fix

Just Fun

 It's been a long time since I've posted about any online games I might play. Actually, I gave up both of the ones I liked before the big hike, but Marie got me playing one different one again. Royal Match.

It's fun. It doesn't take the time commitment the other ones did. I usually play it to wake up in the morning. Anyway... recently they had a card set (you get extra stuff for collecting sets) with a hiking theme. I thought it was interesting what they chose.

Cabin, cliff, trekking poles, climbing rope, lighter, hiking shoes, rucksack, sleeping bag, "on top."

In other news: I edited, I did a bunch of behind the scenes work on my own books, bell choir, shopping. It's enough.

See Lazy Self-Indulgence

Mini Typhoon

  Turned out we probably could have hiked our planned distance twice before it actually started storming, but there were severe weather warnings renewed all day long, so we never went.

Finally about 3 pm. we actually got a storm. To be fair, it was pretty impressive.

Big winds, and it brought down two tree limbs. It put a divot in Joyce's driveway, but missed Marie's car except for a brushing of leaves.

We taught Joyce how to play Quiddler, and we have another aficionado! She's a good player, too.

I did a fair amount of work. Got IngramSpark to accept my text file, and after way too many tries and some help from a friend, I got the cover accepted too. Here's the final full cover.

A utility pole came down at the end of the street, so there's been no power here for about 4 hours. I have to shut down the computer now. We should be good to hike tomorrow.

See Tonawanda

The Party's Almost Over

 Wow. We played even more games, although most of them not for points. Steve basically dictated what we did. He's here so seldom that we pretty much let him choose the activities when he does come. Josh is happy to have family time that is more fun than just being here with me alone. I can't sustain the party atmosphere with just two people. Frankly I can't sustain the party atmosphere much longer than a couple of days. I was almost too tired from the cleaning to get the game board set up and organized, even though I'd planned it all way back in Decemeber. But I'm sure glad I did. Steve said he had a great time, and he had a chance to get some much-needed rest.

The prize board was pretty nearly cleared, although no one went for the gift cards, which surprised me a little bit. The numbers on the hooks are game points that have been exchanged for the prizes. However, that big stack of points on the upper left hook will be a donation to Peace Trees, as I explained last night.

We got the nicest family picture we've managed for years. Since Steve has this aversion to being posted on line, I cut out most of him, but you can see that it's a nice photo. The last family picture was in 2018. Of course the green background helps make a good picture.

Steve did let me take a picture of his Star Wars shirt.

Tomorrow morning, I take him back to the airport.

Omer said he might just sit at the dining room table for a while to enjoy looking at the cleaned area. I said all that open space was just screaming for me to start another project. So goes our lives.

See Game Day!

Game Day!

 We had a leisurely morning, and then went out for lunch.

After that... we always pack in the games whenever Steve comes home. The trick is to find ones that all four of us can play and are willing to play (Each of us really dislikes at least one of these). Some are traditional ones. Sorry works.

It's become something of a tradition that I come up with some silly things that are different each time.

The biggest drawback to this has been that I haven't been really successful at finding prizes that people actually wanted. So this year, I made an "Easter Basket" board with prizes on them that we had to earn game points to acquire. There were various things ranging from 3 points for a snack, 5 or 10 for some small items, and several were for gift cards of the winners choice for 20 or more points. So anyone could choose something they wanted, and not get stuck with something they didn't want.

And how did one amass points? The winner of each game got 3 points, second place got 2, and third place got 1 point.

Oh, you want to know what that ball was for?

There were point tickets wrapped in plastic wrap around a basketball. You had to unwrap it to get the tickets. But each person only got to unwrap until the next person threw doubles with a pair of dice. And, wait... You had to wear work gloves while unwrapping. There was one 5-point ticket in there, and Steve got that one.

This game involved finger shooting weird stretchy plastic chickens and trying to knock over the targets.

Another standard game we like is Waterworks. Steve has decided he doesn't want me to show pictures of him, so you are basically getting random body parts of his.

We did several more regular games, Uno, Cootie, one called Trash, and Old Maid.

But this was the super silly one. I wan't sure I could get them to play it, but they did. We played in teams. One person is throwing something at the other one.

But what? The reciever was wearing a shower cap covered with shaving cream. The thrower was tossing cheese curls. Despite all the protests about it being gross, everyone played. That's a win for me! (P.S. Shaving cream really stinks! How do guys put that on their faces?)

One of the most rewarding things for me is that one of the prize choices was trading points for donations to an organization I discovered this past year called Peace Trees. It was founded about 30 years ago by Vietnam Veterans. They work to disarm live ammunition that is still being found in Vietnam, and to then replant trees in the areas that were so dangerous. A significant number of the prize points were traded for that.

And, we still have one more day together! We may play some games, but not the crazy stuff for points.

Yes, this was a lot of fun. No, I do not want to do this every day. But every few years is great.

See Got Him!

Larry's Here!

Today's treat is that Marie's brother, Larry, has joined us for the rest of the hike.

We had quite a few miles of off road trail, and they were in pretty good shape. We are definitely happy about that. While we ate our snack, we watched several mother spiders hurrying around carrying egg cases.

There were a couple of nice vistas, usually at road corners.

We found this really large and old maple tree. The top was still alive.

Best find of the day for me was this plant gone to seed. I've almost certainly seen the plant before, but never the seed pods. It's Canadian Woodnettle, Laportea canadensis. It is one of the stinging nettles, although the strength of the stinging hairs varies a lot from plant to plant.

We spent the evening playing Quiddler. It's a very different game with more than 2 people, so this was fun.

Now I have to go get in the sleeping bag. It's actually quite chilly.

Conservation Trail, Vermont Hill Rd to Wagner Hill Rd. 9.0 miles.

See True Blue Gumby II

Hometown Time

No guessing games tonight. I'm now with Dick and Darla. I was able to chill out for the afternoon which was perfect. I needed that.

Before I left Elaine's, we had time for one fast game of Carcasonne. I got beat badly! But it's a fun game anyway.

Marie is here now too!

Program tomorrow at 10 am at the Interlaken Library.

See Cayuga Lake Loop

Philadelphia Flower Show - Eye Candy

  Another of the major commercial displays, by Schaffer Designs of Philadelphia, was called "Eye Candy." Their sign said we should share the electric energy of this floral sugar rush. It was a walk-through exhibit with a lot of "store windows." One was possibly the best single display of the show for complexity, but some of the others were not nearly as good.

The good one was "Cotton Candy." These three girls are dressed in plant material, with a lot of cotton as the medium.

Here's a close-up of the boots, purse, and ground cover. Also, check out their hair.

I thought the next best window was "Ice Cream." Here's the catch line- works pretty well for me after "hiking solves everything."

The ice cream cones were clever. This display was boy manekins with waffle cone shirts and flower-icecream heads.

The sprays of soft serve were really delicious looking. This is chocolate, and you can see a bit of vanilla behind it.

Another of the better ones was for cake- we usually see icing roses. Here the flowers are real.

And I'll incude the lollipops because they are literally electrice. There were 3 or 4 other window that were fine, but didn't seem as great to me.

Today's new fact is tied up in the game Marie and I love called Quiddler. I knew that you could make words like shrive, shriven, shrove, shrived... but I did not know if shrive was also a noun, so that you could have a person who is a shriver. The answer is yes. And, I won that hand.

They all come from Middle English- to shave, because a penitent often shaved his head as a symbol of shame. To be shriven is to be shaved or to take confession. A shriver is one who is penitent, a confessor.

The familiar phrase, "to get the short shrift," refers to being given only a short time for confession because the sentence has already been given and is usually harsh, such as death. Yikes! We usually don't give it that bad a context any more.

Oddly enough, "shrivel" comes from a completely different root- from Norwegian for wrinkled.

I am blogging early because Marie and I have to leave for Albany very soon, and I'll be on the train tonight. Tomorrow night I'll be blogging from home if all goes well.

See PFS- Ikebana See We Hiked