All those heartfelt conversations

Thank you for all the wonderful comments. My father is amazed that people around the globe have wished him a happy birthday. He thinks I'm making you guys up. You're like my imaginary friend Cindy. She used to do mean things to my brother and color on closet walls and melt those fat crayons in my sister's Easy Bake Oven. That chick was a pill. Issues, you know.

But no, I tell him. These people are real. Just ask Denise or David. I think they read the blog sometimes. They'll tell you.

So what if he feels like that time I insisted he ask Cindy if she'd like a red popsicle or an orange one, the thing is that he says Thank You.  Too bad for him he never figured out that Cindy liked the purple best.

S our phone call went well. Better than expected. We talked about the birds that are visiting his feeders these days. I do identification for him because, you know, looking it up in a bird book just isn't as much fun as our semi-lucid conversations.

"I've got this bird, but I'm not sure what it is. Maybe a finch?"
"Is it reddish? Brown stripey? Could be a female. Yellow?"
"I'd know a Goldfinch, I think."
"Right. Right. What color is it?"
"It likes thistle."
"Pointy beak?"
"It goes upside down."
"Oh! It's a nuthatch!"
"Whadjoo call me?"
"Pointy beak? Sharp?"
"Yes. It walks up and down the pole."
"Nuthatch. It's a nuthatch. What color is it?"
"Which one?"
"Nevermind. Any bluejays?"
"A few."
"That's nice."

We talked about the weather. They still have snow. We don't.

I even hollered at my mother. 

(That means said hello and a bunch of other stuff, but there wasn't really any shouting.)

And the subject of my very short commute didn't come up at all.

It's almost as if they'd read the blog. But of course that would be silly.

If my mom read this blog, I wouldn't be typing this.

I'd be tweeting frantically for someone to come bust me out of my room where I've been grounded.

At the end of the call, I told Dad about you guys and he made that funny noise he makes when he thinks I'm kidding around with him. And I was like No, really! They say happy birthday. And then he asked me to thank you and he whispered something to Mom that sounded like golf ball.

Seriously, thank you for the birthday wishes and all the comments - funny, warm, kind, interesting, intelligent. Thank you for coming around here so I can stand on my head and show you my panties.  Except that's not really me. That's Cindy.

It's Wednesday, right? What have you done with your week besides make an oldish man happy?

She Laughs As She Runs

My little grey cells are brimming over with things I want to blog about. And here I am still repeating "I have to get this video editing done" and fretting about a conference brochure that has to be in a draft form, ready for J's okay tomorrow.

Yesterday was filled with those little necessities in life like grocery shopping purchasing toilet paper. And then there were the kids' things that suck up a weekend, but good. Garbo's school chorus performed in the park down the road from us. It was so nice to get out and walk and just hang out for a little while, catching up with friends and eating (more) junk food.

Later, MathMan, The Dancer and I drove over to Gainesville to one of the schools being considered by The Dancer. We were there to attend a dance performance of original pieces choreographed by the school's seniors. I hope the additional visit helped The Dance with her decision because if she doesn't decide soon, she's going to see just what a control freak I really am.

For the record, MathMan has already decided for her. I'm still just playing the psychological game of having The Dancer think that this is her decision and hers alone. Maybe that's a Mom Thing?

The Actor has really taken to this new location. Not only does he have friends to hang out with, he's also discovered our local history museum. See, we've moved into a town that has preserved its old "downtown" or main commercial area. And by that, I mean, the old Commissaries built in 1860, the 1850 general store (still in operation), a 1900 blacksmith shop, the 1830s district courthouse, the calaboose (jail), and the grist mill ruins next to the community's crown jewel, the covered bridge. Beyond that, there's not much else. Oh, there is a fabulous barbecue place and a couple of churches, a nice park. I don't want to slight anyone.

The Actor, one of his friends and Garbo have been going to a small tributary creek that runs behind the history museum and into the larger Euharlee Creek. They're excavating pieces of a drag harrow that's buried in the creek bank. It's just the kind of thing I loved doing when I was a kid.

So that pretty much catches you up with the new place. Although I'm still concerned about how to redirect the birds from the old place to here, I'm happy to note that we've got a bunch of American Goldfinches, a nest of baby robins in one of our holly bushes, more mockingbirds than I care for and a fair amount of cardinals filling the trees around the New Golden Manor.

We've also got new birds that bring out my bird watching tendencies. We've had visits from eastern towhees (who have a funny habit of hopping from one branch to the next as the travel up a tree) and cedar waxwings, whom I just adore with their taupe bodies and masks of mysterious black.
Now I'm trying to learn their calls. The other evening, right before dusk, I was in our bedroom which faces the back yard, and the window were open. I could here all kinds of songs and non-computer-related tweets and twitters and calls. I looked out and realized that another good name for this location would be Tall Pines. When the developers built this subdivision, they did a good job of leaving a lot of the natural growth and existing trees. We have a stand of tall pines right behind us and they are just alive with bird sounds. It's amazing.

Oh, speaking of songs, at last night's performance, I heard music by the Vitamin String Quartet for the first time. (Well, The Dancer tells me that she did a piece to some of their music a couple of years ago, but whatever). I don't know if I've ever shared with you my love of the violin, but when I heard this music, I was blown away. They take popular music and adapt it for the Quartet. For example:

Old classics like Led Zepplin's Stairway to Heaven, AC/DC's Back in Black, and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Newer classics like Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and R.E.M.'s Shiny Happy People. The Smith's There Is a Light That Never Goes Out. Other newish music like Foo Fighter's Everlong, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Snow (Hey oh), Muse's Supermassive Black Hole, and 3 Doors Down Here Without You.

Their complete library is here. Call me dork, but I love this. Love it.

I have a prize for the first person who emails me at lisahgolden at blogspot dot com and tells me what the title of this post means. No answers in comments, please. Understand though, if you win and the prize arrives and demands food, directions to the nearest XBox360 and grumbles that it didn't think "Mom would really follow through on her threat," I'm absolved of all resopnsibility. You win it, you keep it.

Okay - now I have to get that conference brochure done or I'm going to be up all night. Ah, who am I kidding? I'm going to be up all night anyway......