postaday – Page 26

Shades of blue.

Rachel is back home. Julie is studying. Monte is at the lake. And I’m getting ready for a Sunday afternoon full of work-work.

We went to brunch at Güero’s this morning, then I dropped Julie back at her apartment, before taking Rachel to the airport. This is a shot of some of Julie’s many glassybaby pieces. These blue ones are pretty. I also like the taupe/beige/cream colored ones. But I guess I’m feeling blue today.

We had a nice weekend. But we all have a busy week ahead.

Tomorrow is Rachel’s first day as a surgical resident (u go girl!). Julie has a test. And I have a full slate of meetings and presentations.

Here’s to the next girls’ weekend.

And, Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there! My dad is gone – for several years now. But he would be very proud of his progeny, especially the two very talented, determined and self-reliant granddaughters that I got to spent the weekend with.

Stumped.

Today we headed out to the lake: Monte and I, Julie, Rachel and Rachel W. We schlepped everything down, piled aboard, and sailed out of the cove. We beached ashore in Arky South. There were lots of boats out today.

The air and water temps are getting just right. Whew, HOT!

We floated for quite awhile. Long enough to watch the boats come in to tie up for the raft-up.

We made it back to the marina before sunset, and then home in time to fall asleep on the couch after dinner.

A good time was had by all!

Happy Friday.

I’m glad Friday is here. It’s been a long one.

Rachel baked Julie a cake for her birthday. We went to Musashino for dinner, and then had birthday cake for dessert.

Le pâtisserie.

Monte made a beautiful dessert tonight: tarte aux pommes. Right out of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Fantastique!

My niece, Rachel, arrived today for a few days visit. We made cedar plank salmon and leek & mushroom risotto for dinner. The apple tart topped off the evening.

Julie’s birthday is tomorrow, so we’ll have to celebrate in style.

18 carrot gold.

061312 — 1st batch o carrots from the garden.

When I planted the carrot seeds, I put them way too close together. They really need to be thinned out. This is the first batch of carrots from the garden. They are small, but this will hopefully help thin out the bed, allowing the others to grow bigger.

They’re small, but they’re tasty!

Salad and suds.

I was hankering for a salad for dinner. Monte was too. After a brief tactical evaluation, we decided on BB Rover’s.

This is a pic of the suds. The salads disappeared pretty quickly.

Nite nite!

One more time.

Tonight was my third foray into painting at Painting with a Twist, this time with Jen. The shot above is the palette we used.

And…. VOILA!! I give you…. Wildflowers at the Park:

Please hold your applause.

The one the teacher guided us through didn’t have any bluebonnets (!). Well, i simply couldn’t paint a hill country scene without bluebonnets, so we improvised.

I’m just realizing that the clouds look a bit like hats. Oh well. I’m sure Picasso had to work at it a bit before he got the hang of it, too. 🙂

Happy National Marina Day!

Today is National Marina Day. Coincidentally, we were headed to the lake anyway because our good friends Teri and Jim were in town for the weekend. What a great day. We had lunch at Shades, then went for a sail on Cupholder. Then floated for the rest of the afternoon with friends off of B-Dock. Dinner at Flore’s. Then home before we turned into pumpkins.

It was great to see Teri & Jim. We miss them and Island Time. But….once a b-docker, always a b-docker! We’re looking forward to seeing them again, whether by land or by sea.

Bye-bye Audi.

This was one of the hardest weeks for me in a long time. Very little sleep due to work. Long days, very difficult projects and meetings. And yet another critsit.

It was 7:00 tonight when I was finally able to get off the phone. Then I drove down to pick up Julie to take her out to eat. We had a lovely dinner at Zax. Everything they have there is delicious!

Some of Julie’s friends from school were eating dinner at another restaurant, and she was supposed to meet up with them there. So I drove her down to that restaurant, and just about as we got there…. Crash!

No one was hurt, neither us or the other guy.

I was a bit shaken from the accident. Ever so thankful that my guardian angel is still on duty. And sad to have to say good bye to my dear Audi companion of 15 years.

The perfect omni-tool.

One of Monte’s vast array of swiss army knives is missing. Probably in a bilge, or perhaps at the bottom of a cove. So we ordered another, which arrived today. Did you know that there are about 100 different models of swiss army knives, with different combos and numbers of gadgets attached? This one is called The Tourist. Upon opening the box, Monte declared it the “perfect” swiss army knife. So, go get you one!

You have to check out this one though: http://www.amazon.com/Wenger-16999-Giant-Swiss-Knife/dp/B001DZTJRQ Monte doesn’t have *it* yet. 🙂

Plyboo?

Our friend John has been working in the shop all week on a desk for a client. Monte’s been out there making tables. It is a magnificent shop, if i must say so myself. 🙂

The material that John is using to make the desk sides and top is a plywood made out of bamboo, called plyboo. Pretty cool looking.

The last transit of Venus of the 21st century.

While it was possible for us to see the transit by looking through our welder’s glass. It really wasn’t useful for taking a picture – it was too small. Monte mounted a pair of binoculars on a tripod and used that to focus an image of the sun and the transit of venus on a piece of paper. That’s what these are images of.

The transit started right on time. If you look just to the right of the top of this image, you can see Venus just starting to show up. You can also see 4 or 5 sunspots in each image.

A little while later, Venus is clearly visible on the face of the sun.

This was one of the last images, taken shortly before sunset.

Partial lunar eclipse.

060412 — June 4, 2012 partial lunar eclipse, through a hazy sky.

The moon is full today – the Strawberry Full Moon. This morning there was also a partial lunar eclipse. The sky was covered with clouds, so I didn’t think I would be able to see it. But when I walked out a little after 5 AM I was pleased to see that there were several brief breaks in the clouds through which I could get a glimpse. This is one of the few shots I was able to take. Not great, but you can see the little bite taken out of the moon.

In honor of the occasion, I’ll leave you with Grover Washington, Jr’s Strawberry Moon.

Green & black denier.

I drove down to Julie’s apartment this morning to pick her up so that we could spend the day together. We came back home and watched a bit of the boat parade for the Queen’s Jubilee celebration on BBC America. Before too long we were at the marina. Lots of the usual B-dock suspects showed up at some point. We saw Marty, Sue, Joe, Kurt, Wally, Kevin, Robert, Tasha, Jay, Mike, and Dave. Summer is here! But the day was pretty overcast. We put up the shade and floated for most of the afternoon.

Afterwards we opted for dinner at Jardin Corona and then we deposited Julie back home.

Twas a nice day.

The shot above is a swatch of my official “bound-for-the-lake” backpack.

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