Cleaning Day

For those dear readers who once lived in Orlando this one's for you!

First off, let me just say how thrilled I was to read this: Flattered All I can say is people have been so good to me in my new venture.

As anyone who has a mother-in-law knows, when she is coming to visit it is time to spruce things up a bit. Mom Peck is staying the night with us before her trip to see our newest member of the family, Annabelle, the granddaughter of Bruce's sister, Michele, who lives in St. Paul, MN. She is around two months old now, and from the pictures I've seen on facebook, a living doll. She is Mom's first great grandchild and the daughter of her youngest grandchild Mallory.

Actually, if you follow this blog, you know Friday is my cleaning day, such as it is, most weeks. I also do laundry on Fridays, a change from years of Saturday wash day. I believe I'm one of the few people who do laundry once a week. I talk to people who do it almost daily, even those with small households, which I find weird. Even when all six Pecks lived together, I did wash once a week. I have fond memories of those long ago days with 35 pairs of white Hanes on the clothes line! I also used to say we could do a Gap ad with all the Gap clothes hanging out to dry!

I did my best to stay on track, dusting, vacuuming, and cleaning the kitchen floor along with the bathrooms. Speaking of bathrooms, remember my beautiful new paint color in the hall bathroom inspired by a rug purchase? Did I already tell you that I ruined the rug in the wash???? That's not something I do regularly, thank goodness, because believe me it has not been easy to replace. I've returned three different rugs for lack of color match. I've tried Ross, Marshalls, Dillards, JC Penny, Bed, Bath & Beyond; I believe that sums it up. For the moment I've settled on one from Marshalls which looks nice but you can't open the closet door because it is too thick! Ugh!!!

On Tuesday, while biding time at the museum, I scanned a Winter Park Magazine. Much to my delight, I came across a picture of one of my all time favorite radiologists, Dr. Tom March. You may, or may not, know that I was just 17 when I entered x-ray school. Dr. March not only taught some of our classes but entertained us with both his wit and intelligence. The son of a postman from Hoboken NJ, never forgotting his past, he always behaved like a normal person. Although I didn't find his name in the phone book I did find his middle name and called that number yesterday. When Bruce and I arrived home from our little pizza date last night we were greeted with his voice on the answering machine. Turns out it was his daughter's number and she passed the message along. Today I returned his call and we chatted away as if it hadn't been more than fifteen or twenty years since we last spoke. I learned today that he is 78, the age our mother was when she died. His health remains excellent, with thrice weekly tennis games part of his repertoire. I'm very much hoping it will work out that he and his dear wife can attend the gallery opening night. Yikes, only a few weeks away!

Today would have been Mom's 84th birthday. We celebrated her last birthday with pink champagne!

Mom has arrived and it's time to cook. I'm making another version of that delicious risotto. Here's what she'll say when she eats it--"Now, that's different."

She Got if From Her Mama

As they say, if you want to know what a girl will look like when she's older, look at her mother. We were blessed to have a mom who looked great almost till the day she died. When I took her to the hospital to be diagnosed the first thing the nurse said in the ER was--you can't be sick, you look too great! Shows you what she knows--stage 4 ovarian cancer.

Nonetheless, my sister Lisa's daughters will be lucky if they look as good as their mom. Yesterday I went out to Lisa's house with the red hat to photograph Emily. She has a stunning face with the most beautiful eyes you can imagine. We had fun taking the pictures, especially after she got more confident. There were so many fantastic ones I can't imagine how to choose the best.

As you may recall from an earlier post, Lisa took up running about six months ago. She has been diligent in her training with the benefits showcased here. She asked me to photograph her running, something I've never tried. Unfortunately I did not bring my camera manual with me so I had no clue how to use the panning mode, but I did use the sport mode, and it worked quite well. I like this one, but as was the case with Emily's pictures, there were lots of good ones. I swear, Lisa has the tiniest waist possible to support a torso! She is my baby sister, six years younger than me.

Her house is filled with interesting things to photograph, particularly some vintage hats and gloves which you will be seeing soon. I had to leave before I could take all that I wanted because I had a 3:00 appt. to get an oil change in the MINI--it requires them only about every 10,000 miles.

So far they have not needed Bruce for jury duty--that's both good and bad. He wanted to get called right off so he could move on with his life.

Did I tell you I have to give four speeches in my class? One is a movie monologue which I have to memorize. I'd better find it quick so I can get on it. I wonder if she'll cut me a little slack for my age? It's just so much harder to remember stuff as you get older. I guess my motto of "a good memory is overrated" won't hold water.

Camera Overload

You will remember that Matt was in Moscow when Yeltsin died, and quite possibly you will remember I made a big deal about his being there during an historic moment.Future students will study his life and the role he played in the history of the world. Because he knows I like that sort of thing, he brought The Moscow Times documenting the event. As well, he brought the box pictured to the left of the papers. It contains dried apricots and nuts with a chocolate coating. His Russian hosts gave it to him as part of a gift basket; being the vegan that he is, he re-gifted it. The box is quite lovely in person.

I named this blog before I used a manual camera. I may have to amend the name to state Panasonic Lumix crazy. I needed a manual SLR camera for the class I'm taking and a classmate said she had a film one I could use. I e-mailed her Sunday night with the expected no response. She had my phone number, however, I neglected to get hers--that'll teach me. At any rate, I was on a mission to find one. I did not want to invest in a DSLR at this point, so this was my compromise. I wasn't crazy about the guy at the used store thus I looked in the newspaper when I got home. Nada. Next I thought, I'll be a modern woman and check craigslist. I found two that interested me that weren't too far from my home. I was hoping for an immediate response from my e-mails. Nada. Next I thought--Ebay! I had forgotten all my info for that, so retrieved password etc from them and for PayPal. I bid on a camera and was winning until the last 30 seconds. Swept out from under me. That was just fine as in the meantime I heard from Elmer. He had the Canon with more lenses and filters than I can list for $100. I went out there this morning and scooped it up. At this point the amount of equipment is rather daunting, but, if I can learn algebra and biology, I can probably learn how to use these tools.

I stopped, bought a roll of film, and put it in--you have to put it on a spool, then turn the crank. I took a bunch of pictures lakeside, however, I'm pretty sure I wasn't focusing right. They are being developed as I type. I had to call him and find out how to get the film back out of the camera. Additionally, I didn't notice the counter and I kept taking pictures and thought wow, I thought I would have reached 24 by now. Indeed I had; when I discovered it, the counter said 36!

Wouldn't you know it, when I arrived home, Whitney (classmate) called to loan me hers.

My friend Paige in Ottawa has two small boys, 2 and 5.This morning through e-mail she was talking about the chaos around her house. I assured her she would live through it. I told her little boys--little problems, big boys--big problems. Not one hour later, Jonathan called with a crisis. It seems the tires on the yellow MINI must be replaced and the price quote for run-flat tires was $1200!!! Bummer under any circumstance, double bummer as it is a lease car and the lease runs out in 7 months. What to do, what to do?

I think I'll go pick up the pictures now and I'll see if I did anything right.