blue, blue, my world is blue

Old songs sometimes spring to mind, songs from a childhood so very long ago, far from the present time of responsibility and deadlines and finances.
This photograph was taken on the tail edge of a summer storm, on the tail edge of a summer day.
No special effects were used, no tricks to enhance colors.
Just the natural fade of the light, facing eastward as the day slipped quietly into twilight.
i thank You, God.

buy some shades or cheap sunglasses

It seems like the end of an era.
I had known for some time that the cheap sunglasses would not make it through the summer. Heck, in all honesty, they hadn't made it through the spring. Still, I persisted in wearing them, training my eyes to see through the increasingly scratched lenses.
You know how stubborn I can be, the crazy amount of importance I can attach to inanimate objects.
Such as these cheap sunglasses.
I originally had received them at a Sand Gnats' game. A free promotional item, courtesy of that night's sponsor, a free paper which listed ads for everything from yard sales to jobs. I had originally intended to slip them into my glove box, as a back-up pair of shades. Nothing to be worn continuously, you see.
Instead, the sunglasses had ended up in a drawer in the bureau, waiting for some use to be made of them. They waited for years. Years. Perhaps even a decade.
After all, I had some snazzy new "movie star" shades I was sporting, with bits of sparkly stone in the corners of the large, brown-tinted frames. These shades were replacements for the cat's eye-lens, black-framed "movie star" shades I had worn for years. The row of little jewels set into the browline of the frame had sufficient missing stones that the gaps detracted greatly from the glamour. I gave that pair of shades to my bff's daughter (who, as I recall, promptly lost them) and started wearing the new pair purchased from a Chinese restaurant at which my stepmom and I had lunched.
Unfortunately, those shades were made of a more brittle plastic. They graced my face for only a few months before the frames shattered, rendering them useless. Drats!
What to do? The day was sunny and my eyes needed protection now. Plus, it happened to be a school day, meaning I had no time for plowing through racks of eyewear in search of a replacement pair.
And I remembered the ones in the drawer, still in their plastic sleeve, waiting. Fine, they would have to do!
They have done, too. The bright neon-green against my dark hair made it easy for my students to spot me across campus, to come ask me "just one more question." They thought I must be "cool", too; after all, none of their other professors wore such youthful eyewear.
Anyone looking for me in a crowd just had to espy those nearly-fluorescing sidearms to find me. That was very helpful when I was in a large group of people, at the beach, at loud concerts, in crowded restaurants, at the ball games. Even in other countries! I had worn the sunglasses on the trip to Italy last year and any stragglers had no fear of losing sight of the group as long as they could spot my neon green eyewear or butterfly-bedecked totebag.
That neon green even helped me after the trip! Our travel bunch had formed a social page to share pictures and I could easily spot myself in the photographs taken by the future nurses. Very nice!
And so I had continued to wear them, scratched lenses and all. The frames were actually in very good shape, still qs sturdy as they ever were. That, no doubt, is part of the reason I persisted in wearing them. They fit just fine and still looked as they ever had, so why give them up?
Well, no more. I realized this morning, as I departed Williamsburg for points south that I was tilting my head to better adjust my line of sight through the least-scratched edges of the lenses.
Seriously.
There are no words for that kind of crazy.
I actually had to break the sidearms off from the body of the sunglasses.
When I reached home, I arranged the pieces and took the above picture to post with this entry.
But I found it difficult to actually throw away the three pieces. Why? Well, maybe I could put them into a scrapbook for the trip to Italy? Sure, that might one day happen, even though more than a year has now elapsed since the trip.
Maybe there would one day be a cure for badly scratched and scuffed lenses? Sure, for eyes. Not for sunglasses. For those, you would need to buy replacement lenses.
Oh, hey, I might do that some day!
Really?
Really???
No.
Into the trash they went.
Meanwhile, I had bought a new pair of shades just recently down in my favorite place in Florida.
You get three guesses what color they are.
(smile)

sea poetry

These two poems accompanied two of the many black and white photographs which graced the "Fragile Waters" exhibit at the Mariners' Museum in Virginia. The exhibit was less than a month old and is only scheduled to remain until Labor Day of this year.
As much as I enjoyed the captured images, I also enjoyed the sidebars. Sometimes, the photographer added a little background or explanation of the work before me. Sometimes, these little poems or quotes from other artists would appear.
I am so glad I take the time to read the plaques by the displays!
You should, too.
Try it, you'll like it!

cheers! (Anyone speak Belgian?)

Who would have expected a Belgian restaurant in a tiny town like Carlisle? Not I!
Yet, there it was, in the heart of downtown, down the street from the cannon-blasted columns of the courthouse. (But that is another story.)
Café Bruges is small, but not too small. We were part of an early group of diners, but we were spread out all over the restaurant to maximize privacy. Very nice! We had started with a flight of their summer beer selections and the tastes ranged from a a banana dessert-style beer, greatly enjoyed by the Melaness to a hoppy pale for her hubby, and a third pale which we all enjoyed. But my absolute favorite was the Bourgogne des Flandres.
Oh, my! So rich and plummy! So smooth and full-bodied! The Bourgogne was almost a wine, it seemed, due to its aging in oak barrels. Dreamy!!! Dark in color, delightful to the nose and tongue and head! I drank the glass of it in the flight, then ordered a bottle to accompany my dinner. To my surprise, it even had a special glass to enhance its bouquet and the drinking experience... wow!!!
My dinner was one of the specials that night. Delicately-grained meatloaf, topped with a light cherry sauce. Ah, melted in my mouth! The entree was accompanied by parsleyed new potatoes and perfectly prepared green beans. The rest of the group had the lamb burger (the driving motivator for our trip to this site) and mussels.
Such a good recommendation by my dear friends! I look forward to more encounters with Belgian cuisine - and dark Belgian brews!

eis kald lemon drinka

Today, Melaness and I and her hubby did something a little different: we went to the Kutztown Folk Festival! Actually, I was the only one who found it to be different, as they had gone several years ago.
This was the 65th year of the festival and the generosity of the people there was evident from the moment we parked. Several folks came up, offering us the $3 discount passes and one woman even gave us an adult pass! Nice! Then, because of my new age, my ticket was another $2 off. Sah-weet!
There was hoe-downing by the Miller family - aka square-dancing and clogging - and the Sonon Brothers making hay into rectangular bales. Harry Serio educated us on the spirituality of the Mennonites while Leroy Brown and Bill Meck translated jokes in the Pennsylvania Dutch language. There were hex signs and peppermint oils and repurposed tin ornaments elaborate puzzles from different woods.
There was even a Quilt Barn, housing the hundreds of quilts for sale during the festival. Several of the quilts even had ocean and fish themes! One design was fairly simple, consisting of a single, simple line, fish in a four-square space, repeated in different colors to compose the quilt. It certainly would require a lot of sewing, but then again, so do ALL quilts! I know from experience!
In my early 20's, I made a quilted travel pillow for my Grandmama, using remnants from some of the dance clothes I had made. The color scheme was a white background with a starburst of shades of pink. That pillow took quite a while to make! Every moment of that time was well worth it, too. I have the pillow now and can still feel the love I stitched into it for her.
But let's not overlook the FOOD available at the festival! Pierogi with horseradish dipping sauce! Grilled, thick slabs of sweet bologna, with mustard of your choice! A tall, cool pitcher of birch beer to quench the thirst of tired walkers! Yum, yum, yum!!!
And that's just what I ate! There were grilled brats and wursts and roasted ox! Corn fritters and funnelcakes and shoofly pies and apple dumplings! Even sarsasparilla and orange drinka and lemon drinka!
Yep, I had one of those, too, that lemon drinka. I had hesitated to do so, expecting something absurdly sweet. Nope! The juice of three large lemons, pressed right before my eyes, then the addition of ... club soda? Something fizzy, but not sweet. Very refreshing!!!
The photo above is the only one that still exists, of all the ones I took that day. You'll notice that no faces are showing. Although I had tried to be careful, perhaps the other pictures did have recognizable people in them. I don't know, I only know they never reached my email address. I had assumed they had, so I had deleted them from my phone, all except the one for the lemon drinka.
Ah, well. That was the one I most wanted, so all is well!

dream so real

I would have sworn that I was held this morning as I slept.
I had awakened earlier, then gone back to bed, but not to sleep. Tossing and turning, I tried my usual tricks to regain slumber. Start on my right side, until I'm drifting, then roll over to the left to the land of Nod.
Nope. I was still awake.
Try it again. Slow the breath, bring the sheet over my head for a little extra darkness, let the mind go blank.
No. No, no, no. This was not working. And I was to leave for Pennsylvania today and would need to be rested.
And, as I lay there, with the sheet partially covering my face, I thought I felt someone come and lie down against my back, then drape an arm under my own and pull me near.
I didn't dare open my eyes for fear that I would find I was dreaming.
I didn't want the sensation of being held to be proved false.
Yet, it had to be... right?
No.
I chose to believe it to be true and snuggled into the embrace, relaxing into the deep, and not stirring until my alarm clock signaled the time for me to rise.
No one was there with me. I woke alone.
I wanted to talk to the peace Guy about the sensation, but I couldn't. Instead, I found myself fighting back tears.
I want touch.
Not sex.
Touch.
Is it really so impossible to have one without the other?
Sex would be good, too, but that comes with so many expectations and baggage. Also, it would be breaking one of my laws, as brothers, whether by blood or by choice, are out of consideration.
But why would it be wrong for two friends to cuddle while watching tv at the end of a night? Why would it be wrong for those two friends to hold each other while they slept, to wake up next to a smiling face? Why must the solace of such comforting touch only be obtained through sex with strangers?
The situation makes no sense to me, makes me crazy.
The situation makes me very sad.
For now, I need to leave.
Maybe I can talk about it when I return home in a week.
Maybe.
Probably not.
And that makes me sad, too.

baby, you can sleep while I drive

Okay, so I fudged the time of the posting of this entry.
We actually pulled into my first niece's driveway about thirty minutes later as we returned from a full afternoon and evening at Jekyll Island. The children, exhausted from a day in the sun and surf, were sleeping soundly in the back seat as soon as we hit the highway. Even my niece, riding shotgun, was sleeping.
It was really nice.
We had all ventured down for the release of the loggerhead, Hugue, a newly rehabilitated patient of the turtle hospital at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center. After more than two years of care, she was finally seaworthy again. Yeah!
And what better time for her release than the date which coincides with our celebration of our nation's freedom? Indeed!
And how better to celebrate than with fireworks several hours later, as the night sky darkened and the stars twinkled? Fireworks over our beach, with the fireworks of Brunswick and Saint Simon's Island visible behind and to the side of our own! Fireworks for more than twenty minutes in three directions!
Yes, it has been a magical time I have spent with this family for the last two evenings, complete with fireworks on each night! Such a lovely end to my 55 days of birthday!