Weekend Update and Finally Home Again

Everyday this lovely tree greets me when I arrive for work....I have always thought that it looks like it is dancing, especially on windy days when all the branches are swaying. Halloween morning as I arrived for work and saw this beautiful dancer in her lovely yellow dress, I just had to have this photo. The trunk is twisted in an interesting way giving the illusion of movement. A former resident of the condos which are to the right of the tree, wrote poetry inspired by this graceful beauty and I feel so very fortunate to have it in my sight all day.
(Double click on any of the photos to make them bigger and get the full effects....especially the Halloween shots)
A little later Halloween morning, Waldo, AKA my friend and co-worker, Eric, appeared at my door and he continued to pop up around the office all day.....it was such fun.
On to the rest of the weekend.....
Busy, busy but really nice.
Being with the dogs each morning and night kept me happily at a beautiful house in the woods surrounded by lovely foliage and sunlight. I was delightfully surprised when LM was able to join me on Friday night. We did welcome 2 very funny trick or treaters....the dogs welcomed them, too, with HUGE barking which rocked the house but the minute we opened the door those two hooligans were all wagging tails and happy greetings.

Saturday morning I was off to see Dad....such a perfectly sparkly pretty day and the foliage is still really lovely. We had lunch at his dining room and then went for a nice ride along one of his favorite routes, to the beach at Nantasket. The two photos below are of Boston Light and taken from high on Allerton Hill.

Next on our ride was a trip along some of the lovely streets in Hingham and we came across this wonderfully decorated house just outside the center of town....luckily, there was a place to park where we could take it all in and have some great laughs. Each one of those pumpkins was exquisitely carved. After that Dad decided he need to have ice cream! This request came out of the blue as he had, within the last hour eaten a HUGE lunch followed by a large piece of Boston Cream Pie. I was happy to get him ice cream, though, as he really loves food and is underweight. His ability to keep going just amazes me, especially after the awful week he had. He had surgery to remove a nasty skin cancer from his lower eyelid and upper cheek. He just has such a resilient spirit and during our ride was commenting on world affairs (better informed than I on most recent events), listing all the new projects being built in the area, and all the books he is reading....WOW....for 97 he is amazing. It was also heartening to see how he greets all his fellow residents in the dining room, asking them caring questions and proudly inroducing me as his "first born baby and beautiful oldest daughter"!



When I dropped Dad off he was going to rest and get ready for the evening movie. They were showing "Little Miss Sunshine" and I assured him it is really great movie. He was happy that they would be showing something a little more contemporary as they usually run very old movies. I sort of chuckeld to myself Saturday night as I found myself watching "Face in the Crowd" with Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal as well as some other very well know stars when they were really young. There I was watching one of the old time movies and Dad was getting a newer one!

Anyway, before I came back to Chatham that afternoon, I stopped and had a lovely visit with one of my dearest friends, Sue. I am so ashamed to say that we have not gotten together for almost a year. We do keep in touch on line but with many family obligations for both of us and the fact that she is working full time as well as attending college classes a few nights a week, just seems to eat away our free time.
This was the greeting party when I arrived.....her beautiful, crazy-funny and inquisitive cat, Jaxson. I noticed that he has "trimmed" all those pretty plants behind him and Sue said he will look right at her and start chewing...he is a naughty boy!
After the royal sniff from Jaxson and lots of pats, Sue welcomed me into her wonderful living room and the warm fire and we spent the next three hours talking non-stop, drinking delicious ginger tea, sharing all that has happened recently and taking up where we left off. We go back a lot of years and have seen each other through some very tough and very happy times.
As I drove away after my visit with Sue, I suddenly felt alive and so very happily renewed in many ways, and today has been a day different than many I have had over the last few months. There was a genuine happy light feeling about my spirit.
Being with friends who really know you, with whom you can just be yourself, be open and honest, is so so important. Her friendship is such a gift.

Today started more leisurely. I finished up with the dogs and made my way home to MS G. She is very needy at this point and I am trying to give her as much lap time as possible, in between doing a few things around the house in preparation for colder weather....put up some heavy drapes, as that makes a big difference. I was also able to have a leisurely breakfast, talk for a while with my FL daughter, and read the paper in the sunshine. LM left very early this morning to give a talk regarding his recreational fishing legislation.

This afternoon I attended a great lecture by the design principal of my firm. The lecture is part of a series which are being held in conjunction with the exhibit at the Cape Cod Museum of Art which features photos, plans, models of many of the projects the company has done in the last 10 years. The lecture was really well done and explained the design process of one of our largest projects. It was particularly nice that the lecture evoked great questions and discussion. It is very nice to see the exhibit in the main museum gallery designed and built by our company. I had invited a new woman friend to attend the lecture with me and she really enjoyed it. Having worked for architectural firms it was of great interest to her.

Well, that about winds up the weekend and I will leave you with several laughs....after I dropped my friend Katherine off this evening, I passed a boat parked along side of the road and its name was "The Silence of the Clams", and from the totally inane department....for 3 days I have been searching for my big bright yellow box of plastic food wrap....I've looked everywhere then decided that somehow I must have thrown it out in the trash. Well, tonight I came home opened the refrigerator and there it was!!! Bonkers, I tell you, bonkers!!
Have a great week....early to bed for me.