Max's Thanksgiving Caper

Ahhh! Thanksgiving! That most comforting of holidays. Surrounded by family, good food, and - comfort. Aromas waft from the kitchen - pumpkin pies baking, ham, turkey, celery and onions sautéeing in the pan for dressing. This year we were taking some food to my sister's and joining family there.


Mom and Dad were getting dressed. Dad got his new coat out;

Mom was smiling and had her makeup on.

That's the background.

Max knew something was afoot. He is no dummy.




Dad put something in the car...and left the doors open. Max jumped in. He was going too! (He decided.) He loved being around the family, and he wanted to be a part of the action. He would see the girls,
Aunt Chris,
Justin
and more.

Max would not get out of the car. Minutes ticked by. He was not budging. In the meantime, where were the car keys? They were not in the car ashtray where they'd been left. Frantic search ensued. No keys. Max in car. After 15 minutes or so, plan B was to use Mom's keys. Mom tricked Max out of the car with a solo game of fetch complete with lots of laughter - Max was too intrigued to not investigate.

Bang! Fence locked - Max inside. Lured inside house, safely tucked away.

Inside the car, yet another puzzle. The ashtray was missing. What on earth? Steve/Dad blamed Max. Jan/Mom had a hard time believing that.

Thanksgiving Dinner with family was good, we stayed to play Pictionary with Marcia and Natalie, Bobbie Jo and Landon. Marcia and Natalie beat Steve and Jan - it's a terrible thing when the mind can get 'gorilla, King Kong, monkey', etc. but can't get 'ape', and when the mind can come up with 'planets, galaxy, meteorite, universe', but can't think of 'asteroid'. Quite fun anyway, and the trouncing wasn't too bad. We were within 5 squares of the end, I think.

Friday morning, however, the search for the missing keys and ashtray began again.

Max searched high.

He searched low.
Max searched all around. Helpful guy.
He looked innocent. He looked guilty.
Aha! Dad remembered a favorite burial spot for biscuits, etc.
- there were the keys and the ashtray! It would have worked, Max, but you didn't know Mom had a second set of keys. Curses! Foiled again!

Turkey Run State Park Weekend

Spent the weekend at Turkey Run State Park in Marshall, IN...how fitting with Turkey Day coming on Thursday. I attended a Joe Fettingis watercolor workshop with my good friend Donna. I can only dream of being the maestro of the brush that Joe is.

Enjoy the scenery...covered bridges abound in Parke County, IN and we discovered a few of them.





Here's Donna's car turning onto one of the covered bridges.



When he was about three my oldest son wanted me to call him "Bubby". Probably should have. I wonder if he did this grafitti inside one of the bridges.



We stayed at the Inn in the park. The place is really nice, but the kitchen is not. The best place to eat was this 'saloon' in Rockville ten miles away.



Here is Joe's palette setup.



And here is Joe demoing.



He complimented my beginning work, but I see ALL the flaws - I'm sure he did too.

Snowy country landscape:


Value study using only Payne's gray:



Cropped:


We also found this little log church in the woods. (Well, it wasn't lost...) There is a huge deep ravine (big drop off!) just a few yards from the church. We hiked into one of the ravines just before our little hike to the log church. (Hiked - I, replete with walking stick that I had found on the trail. Needed it too.)



This carved tree was near the church. Memories.


Scenery is nice here. We're headed back in May to get pix with dogwoods and other spring flora.



Here are a couple of photos of the sunset the night Donna and I broke away to do a little photography. (Can't wait to see what she got with her super-duper new camera.) The first one was taken from inside a covered bridge looking out onto a creek.


This second one has our third covered bridge 'find' sharing space with the setting sun

end of the week jetsam - or is it flotsam?

Closing in on the last of the Fall color...and isn't it rambunctiously bright?



Messages in the cemetery. Some pretty cool last names.



My new office. I arrived before they were ready for me. Wish I'd had a camera that first day...what a mess! Not a bare spot to be seen. This looks exceptional by comparison. Work in progress.

Vatican Says Alien Life May Exist

I've been reading reports that the Vatican says intelligent life may exist in other galaxies (sorry for our earlier disagreement, Galileo.) It turns out that they have a super duper observatory at Castel Gandolfo - whoda thunk it? - outside of Rome. Now, I'm down with all of that. I may actually enjoy watching movies about aliens now. But - I want to know if we can transport some of that intelligent life to earth.

Birthday cards! Lauren! Fun!

One recent day on my way home I was in this traffic jam...my guages tell the story.



Lauren's corner. My fake-daughter is named Lauren. It would have been my real daughter's name had I had one. Had to take this photo.




Scenery on my way in to work one recent morning. Sunset scene is the same silos.






Friday night began my birthday extravaganza. A friend and I went to Fourth Street Live - saw and heard the amazing Monarchs - a band from my youth that still sounds phenomenal. (How come the crowd was so white-hair heavy when I'm not? - They made me feel young, which is a great way to begin a birthday.)



Here are the handmade birthday cards I've received so far this year. Below is the full contingent of cards (not including the many Facebook wishes and emailed greeeting cards) and also some family photos during part of the near week-long birthday celebration...hurray! I can't even notice I'm a year older because everyone has kept me too busy having fun! Tomorrow we're going to dinner...this birthday keeps going and going and going...



Below: Mike and Celeste; Mom and Andrea; two sisters.

Those Blue Bottles

Those blue bottles have captured my imagination. I have photographed them with the sun shining through them, catty-whompus, head-on and 'regular'. Here are a few other views of blue glass in a sunny window. That's about it for the blue bottles. Something else will call to me soon enough. (Yeah - the last one I bought was actually a Goodwill purchase of a purple rather than blue bottle...50 cents!)