What's your favorite fruit?

I was asked that recently and the answer was blueberries. Love them in cereal, love them in jam, love them as is.
I make several pies every summer - usually a lattice top so this one is a variation on a theme...
...so what's your favorite fruit?

Time to clean house!

Much too much stuff piling up so here's a sampling from the inane to the profane, pick your poison: http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/ (very funny, especially if you've got passive aggressive people in your life - and who doesn't?), http://www.kerismith.com/explorer/title.html actually a promo for a book but it's a mini book in itself..., bunnies acting out hit movies http://crackle.com/c/30_Second_Bunnies, more later, drop in guest...

Goodbye, Professor

Sad news upon opening my mail this morning that Randy Pausch, a computer scientist and professor at Carnegie Mellon Univ. and all around spectacular human being, has died. You probably all know him from his famous last lecture that has been on the internet and You Tube and reprised on Oprah and finally, in book format. When I first heard it, I emailed it to everyone I knew - not so much for the content although it was excellent, but because I wanted everyone to "meet" this incredibly decent guy. I have had a link to his home page under my items "of interest" on the side of this blog. If you haven't yet seen his lecture, please go to it. It's lengthy, make some tea, settle in. It's worth the time and the listen.

Tech query...

Okay, experimenting: I want to insert a link to a Feist youtube (mainly because her videos are fun and in this case, the sort of thing I think about doing on moveable walkways and escalators...although I think I would look somewhat demented and a tad alarming so I will leave it up to the young, skinny, and far more agile....)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWrNCCx2p5U

poodles. It did not work. Dearest blog readers, what am I doing wrong? How does one say something like "here" and then you click on it and up comes the link?

Although this color thing is fun.

Library Mermaid up and running

Have just started up a new blog over at http://librarymermaid.blogspot.com/

Why? I need more distraction besides family, guilt and rogue cicadas all of which I am blaming as to why my YA is such a slow slog... However, I do love being a librarian but I do not love all my endless baskets of papers and ideas and neat urls to other librarian's great sites. I need a place to put it all. So wander on over for a library fix some time. It'll get better. I promise.

Good Advice

Altered road sign somewhere near Guilford, Ct.

We call them lightning bugs...

...but some people call them fireflies. I guess it depends on where you hail from. After a dinner date with the husband, we went on a walk in Manor Park, a beautiful park by the Long Island Sound (in the small town I happened to grow up in). Lovely to watch the sun set, the lightning bugs start flirting, a handful of children giving chase, and one lightning bug lands on the husband. I let it crawl on my hand and enjoy watching it light up, forgetting about it as the sun sets, the water is a gorgeous slate gray, the bridge lights up like a string of emeralds in the distance, and...hey - lightning bug still on my leg, lighting up. I set him in the grass as we go to the car. Funny feeling in an interesting place as we are starting the car. Lightning bug in my bra (!). Husband quite amused. Open car door, set him (bug, not husband) in grass again, tell him he is not my type but nice meeting him. Driving home, who do I see clinging on to my half open window? I rescue him (devotion must be rewarded, yes?) and promptly lose sight of him (black linen pants at night, dark beetle when not lighting...). It must be love or off kilter pheromones or something. He may be in the car yet (and yes, I checked, not back in the bra). Of course, I now have the crawlies, imagining bugs on me... ah, well, new friends have their quirks. Here's an interesting link or two about them: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/units/basics/firefly/
and http://www.backyardnature.net/lightbug.htm
I only realized from looking at some sites tonight that not all places in the states have lightning bugs. I didn't realize they were mostly an east coast magical addition to summer nights. I wonder - do they have them in Europe? Asia? More research awaits.

Farewell duckies, I knew you well

When my youngest son was ready to move into his own room (he slept in ours well into his toddler years but used his room for play), these were the curtains I had there - to match the blue rug and yellow and white walls. I had gone to Country Curtains to hunt down some cute curtains, was about to leave empty handed, and noted the cloth shower curtain collection...and voila! Great duck curtains which were a big hit - plus they make a cool sound when the metal pins slide across the curtain rods.

He is a very non-demanding kid, pretty sunny most of the time, but even he was weary of his "baby" curtains. So now his brother's hand-me-down "these are cool, Mom!" curtains (action figures on material I sewed for the brother a decade or so ago) have now been placed in the 9 year old's room. I did add holes on top so we can still use cool pins and get neat sliding sound. But I am going to miss those happy little ducks.

neighborhood creatures

This tree struck me as so odd the other night during a dusk to dark stroll - and of course, the husband and youngest son inform me it is long known to them ( I had walked past it a million times and never really noticed it before) as The Squid Tree. It does look very deep sea spooky especially hi-lighted by the flash.

The other creature mystery is solved - a few bits back I mentioned Mungo the Mysterious Monster - some large dog-like creature supposedly roaming about... well, what do I see (no longer alive, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on one's view) on the side of the Parkway when I was shortcutting from one part of town to my neck of the woods - this ENORMOUS coyote. I mean truly huge. ( I was near a large white wolf at a tribute to Jean Craighead George - and Mungo was about the same size only broader). So it did exist - and probably a dog/coyote hybred as one of my neighbors suggested. Big enough to merit the Mysterious Monster tag, especially if you are two wee dogs like my two who would have made a proper snack for it. I am sure more coyotes abound, the dogs still don't want to step off the terrace at night.

However I am grateful not to have bears in the backyard, that would do me in to encounter one hanging around the trash can (just read of such an event in a several months old "O" magazine...) Anyone out there have to deal with bears? Moose? Bobcats? Loose roaming dogs like at our elderly Aunt's farm? Just curious.

what does he sing as he weaves amid blooms?

Old obsessions still haunt...

Ah, bliss. Sure, there is the joy of great literature (just reading Mary Oliver's amazing poem, Spring, the other day knocked me out once again...
http://www.panhala.net/Archive/Spring.html
but in my world there are many surprising bedfellows coexisting... and this makes me happy - the fact that I can find my tween obsession - Gull Cottage - online:
w.macwombat.com/images/PhotoofGullCottage.jpg
and that I can hunt down The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (the tv version, of course!) and find that someone has taken the time to create a Barbie Theatre version of the show - now that is just sublime: http://www.angelfire.com/art/dollmemories/gmm/gmm_promo1.html
Of course, the fact that I am checking this all out after midnight instead of writing or, gee, I don't know, sleeping, says something about my level of creative productivity and priorities, I suppose, but - it's THE GHOST and MRS. MUIR and GULL COTTAGE. What could rock more?

Evening sky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kieyW-FKyQ