"Hooray sunshine." Sunshine today....and only yellow leaves (no red ones here) thick on the ground, last week's snow melted, but car in garage for snow tires today, rain-washed snowless close-by mountains. 

Life is pretty much of a sameness; after all, as Isabel says, in Final Payments,  one thing about taking care of an elderly person, you never have to wonder what there is to do. Imagine if every single thing you do for yourself, from getting out of bed to getting off the toilet, had to be done for you.........you could still feed yourself and brush your gums while dentures cleaning, but every single other thing has to be done for you. Think about it.

I really hang out at the library. I can get anything I want to read, well, almost anything. Finished The Da Vinci Code and  Secrets of the Code and Digital Fortress, but returned Madame Bovary unread today. So still on light reading.......with the serious for the day when I settle from the inside out. That means my mind settles, alights on this flower in the bed of life that is 'now' and drinks the nectar; that means my tummy settles from the siroccos and chinooks that swirl in it; that means that I get centered. It is the age thing, though, a younger person sees care for the elderly as a passage, but on the brink of elderliness onself, that constant eldercare takes on ominous overtones.

My article on weblogs, written in fragments in August and turned in August 22nd should be up on the SWET Web site real-soon-now, but for the impatient, it is on my own web (where you are now) at "weblogs". My attempt to be a real, existing, member of the big world.

Favorite Big Times Out are walking the trails here in the Eaglewood subdivision, with my pepper spray and my alarm for encountering stray grizzlies or moose, or hanging out on a couch with a book and a 20 oz. cappuccino in front of the fire at Jitters Coffee Shop in Eagle River. The special Big Time Out was dinner in Anchorage's best, Orso's, then off to see Riverdance, a spectacle worth going to. This was to celebrate my birthday and thank me for staying Home Alone with Mother for a couple of weeks. Even had a glass of champagne, my first for these six months. Of small things are great pleasures made.

             
                                <***>

One of Mom's favorite outings, down to the
river on a sunny afternoon.

          --Me, on my birthday evening, going out to dinner and to see Riverdance

.

           --At Orso's for birthday dinner  

 Remember May 21st, , planting flowers on Mother's deck...
...now September 26th and the snow's got 'em

and my other Blog Buddy's blog   

  Thanks again, Richard.

  A fun read and I'm even in it....