familiarity

Last night I had dinner with my old gang of friends. Ann (pink shirt) who has moved away was in town on her way home after a Grand Canyon raft trip. Penny had us all over for dinner. The husbands had drinks with us and then left for dinner together at a restaurant.

Carolyn, Michaele, Deb, Penny, Kathy, Ann. It was kind of like putting on your favorite pair of most comfy jeans. We have shared a lot of lifes ups and downs and shared a good bit more again last night. Women friends are a joyous gift.

The guys came back several hours later and we all had dessert. Art, Denny, Rob, Bob.

Sweet Gracie, a fairly new addition to Penny and Bob's household had a good time, too.

Happy Birthday, Mandy!

Here I am with Amanda 34 years ago today. Both my babies came with quite a bit of hair. Mandy was a sweet baby.

This is Mandy's 6th birthday with Strawberry Shortcake decorations. Those hard things off a card from the commissary.

This is my beautiful girl today. We will all celebrate her birthday in Tucson next weekend. Love you very much, Mandootie.

Little dinner, big price

Or another title might be 'you can take a girl out of the country but you can't take the country out of the girl.' After having read many glowing reviews of this restaurant, my friend Linda and I have been wanting to go on a Wednesday night and try the lobster roll. Well, we did it last night. And it was very good and I enjoyed myself. But it was one of the smallest things I've ever had.

Linda suggested I might label this photo "shown actual size." It was a cute little thing and tasty. But I did remark to Linda that she spent more on the tip that we usually spend for dinner.

However, we did get these complimentary little shortbreads with chocolate chunks. And it was only the 2nd restaurant I've ever been to that I was served an amusee, also pretty miniscule, I might add. Guess I'm just not quite ready for fine dining.

My gram would have been 103 today

My maternal grandmother was born on this date in 1906. Unfortunately I do not have a 5 generation picture when she was little. In this photo my grandma is on the left with her little girl, my mom Barbara who has always been called Bob by her family.

I am the baby here and my grandma is still on the left.

My little baby Becky came along when my grandma was 65 years old. She is on the right in this pic.

This is on her 100th birthday taken at the nursing home. She was a feisty little lady. I learned an awfully lot from her. Sometimes I have to try really hard to be less opinionated than she was but it's often a losing battle. She was certainly an influential part of my growing up. She had difficulty expressing affection but I know she loved us all very much. And I loved her a lot, too. I miss you, Gram.

My sweeties

A quiet Evan, hard to come by. He is usually expending much energy.

Love this of Jack. That hair, those freckles.

The incredible eyelashes of sweet Aaron.

He said, "I make 'yots', Mama Dee."

My girls

Really like this picture. This is the expression Mandy gets if something is a little naughty.

New granddog

Brock and Mandy's family have added a new member. Meet Oliver, a very nice dachsund.

Papa Dee meets Oliver and liked him very much. Oliver really doesn't seem to realize he's a little smaller than the others and everyone got along very well. Oliver is a "brown good dog."

Fun grocery shopping

Dennis came home from his trip to the air show in Wisconsin on Friday. One of the benefits of a trip to the airport taking the 44th St. route is the Ranch market which is a big supermarket full of every possible thing you can think of for preparing oriental recipes.

I usually enter with grandiose ideas and become completely overwhelmed. This time there was a whole aisle of various types of bok choy and cabbages. The produce is fresh and less expensive than most other markets.

There are rows upon rows of various dried things, noodles, crackers, vegetables trail on in an endless array.

I am always fascinated by the live fish tanks though would be rather intimidated to take any home. I had a good time and left the store with 4 kinds of fresh mushrooms and some pocky for the boys.

A really, really bad day

Dennis left for the air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin last Sunday so the dogs and I were here by ourselves. On Wednesday afternoon, I was playing fetch with Jake and he reached for the ball among some plants and got totally ambushed by a fairly good sized rattlesnake. I checked him over about the head and snout and he didn't seem to have been bitten. After a few phone calls and a lot of stress on my part, a lovely gentlemen from the Phoenix Herpetological Society came and lifted the hideous creature into a large bucket and took it away. I had managed to irritate it enough that it rattled for a solid 40 minutes while I sat on the patio keeping a wary eye on it. After the whole hoary episode, Jake came over and put his head on my knee and I discovered a big swelling and then found puncture marks in his big thick neck ruff. I loaded him up and made an agonizingly slow and frustrating trip to the animal emergency hospital. They were wonderful.

Jake had an IV drip going the entire time he was there. Not sure if his leg is swollen from an IV infiltrate or snake venom.

The puncture. When the snake removal man got the snake in his tongs, it released it's jaw hinges and those things can open their mouths big enough to eat a watermelon. It was an ugly creature. Thankfully, Jake came through the episode okay. Is still fairly swollen and a little droopy. I'm a little droopy,too.