Harry Potter

I finally finished reading Amy's copy of this after spending a whole week in it, and doing the last 200 pages straight through til well past my bed time. Then my adrenaline was pumped up and I had a hard time going to sleep. That last big fight at Hogwarts was AWESOME! I promise not to reveal anything so those of you who are still planning to read can read on without any worry. I also had a compelling urge to do some underlining in the book as there were several quotes that I thought Rowling must have pulled right out of the Chronicles of Narnia. There were certainly quite a few parallels. Hmmm. Anyway, I just have a Couple of minor details that are bothering me and I'm wondering if someone else caught this so I'll ask first rather than go back through and re read (I might do that later) How did the Gryfindor sword end up back at Hogwarts? I thought the goblin took it and that was that....

Then there was-Snape. I predicted him perfectly. Wow! I like being right!!

On heat and air

We built a house once. It was an expensive proposition. When we got to the new ground water heat pump and water heater I was moaning over the fact that no one would even notice such expensive things. They should at least be able to go down and admire them and tell me how wonderful they were along with the rest of the expensive stuff in the house...i.e. cabinets, windows, blah blah blah. But alas, no one notices such mundane, albiet expensive, things unless they're not there. Well, our new air conditioner and furnace are being installed even as I write this. So I thought I'd let you admire our new appliances. They were, after all, very expensive. Go ahead..Tell me how beautiful they are. Compliment me on my wonderful taste. Come visit me and enjoy the cool in the middle of awful heat, or enjoy warmth on a bitter winter day. Here they are:

Cottage cheese and Olives

I discovered something about myself the other day. How can I be this old and am just now figuring this out??? Actually I've known it awhile. It's just come into clear focus:

When I was 9 I went with my 10 year old cousin and my grandfather to visit a (childless) aunt and uncle living in Seattle. This was quite an adventure for two young girls, not to mention what an undertaking it must have been for my grandfather!! We visited Denver and Salt Lake City on the way, but that's another story.

One night for supper my aunt served cottage cheese and a olives as part of some larger now forgotten meal. I have to tell you that i love cottage cheese, I hate hate hate olives of any kind. My cousin hated them both. She muttered under her breath that if her dad was there he wouldn't make her eat that stuff. I'm sure that set my aunt off. (She knew exactly how she would raise two girls, and part of her plan would be to force them to eat what was set in front of them.) She told my cousin that her dad wasn't there and she would have to eat what was there. And according to my cousin, I happily ate both the cottage cheese and the olives. My aunt liked me better than her. It just wasn't fair. I was such a brown-noser! This story was retold just recently by my cousin and she remembered it quite clearly even after 40 years!! Truth be told, I remember it quite well myself. And she's right. I did eat both the cottage cheese (which I like) and the olives (which I despise) only to please my aunt. I remeber so clearly choking down those bitter olives and giving a fake cheery smile and telling how much I "loved olives". All that to make her happy. So here I am some 40 years later and that little girl hasn't changed too much. I am a people pleaser. I would do anything to keep people happy and pleased about me. I want them to like me no matter the cost to myself in honesty. My cousin probably doesn't have any trouble saying what she thinks to most people. She probably doesn't worry too much about rocking boats, or disharmony, or other such utter nonsense. I still struggle mightily with that! I set the pattern for it early.

Luxury

I guess I could go on and on about this super vacation in the wilderness that we just had, but everyone else will soon be bored by it. Can't resist, though, to include some of the more unusual "luxuries" that we had that are normally never even considered in a wilderness Boundary Waters trip. Real things to sit down on. A refigerator. A stove. Windows all the way around with screens! Potty in a real room, lights for the evening, a furnace for heat (as if we needed it!) So check it out!!

Critters

When we've been in the boundary waters before we are always prepared for the big critters-Bears. It's prudent to be clean--To put your food in a bag and hang it from a very tall tree. We have had contact with them before and it's never a good thing. One year, Ron woke up at the sound of his pans on the bag trap and charged a bear trying to steal empty plastic food bags. That was a treat. But usually the worst the woods yields are the mosquitoes and flies. This year our critter encounters were a bit more tame...squirrels, birds, frogs, 1 northern (that we ate) leeches (ugh. I mean really ugh. I hate those things) a GIANT spider in the outhouse...(a wolf spider I found out later) and a gazillion (seriously) mosquitoes. We were actually in the boundary waters two years ago and we were able to be outside well after dark and didn't even have problems with them on the portage trails. But this year...YIKES! We had to move indoors before the sun even went down. We had to be indoors or be doped up all day to stay away from them. I was bit to shreds. I was one mass of itching flesh. But have you ever tried 'Gold Bond'? Wonderful stuff to take away the itching. Ha! Then there were the brown bats. They were awesome. We discovered the first one on the first night when it flew into the cabin. Ron actually managed to catch it and release it without killing it. The next night we noticed one coming from behind the sign over the door. When looked-5 bats were snoozing there! Wow! Well, they eat those pesky mosquitoes, so we left them to their own devices and didn't have any problems with them. Anyway : my wildlife pictures :

On the necessities of Life

Back to work today. And here I am blogging again. I'm sure to have plenty of new materials for the next few days!!
In some ways it's good to be back into the routine. But I have to tell you about our week in the wilderness. Who would have believed northern Minnesota would be so HOT! It was blazing, and we were in the woods! There were tons of mosquitoes this year so I came back with lots of war wounds. (Did you know Gold Bond is great for mosquito and deer fly bites?) We didn't really get much canoeing, or hiking in, though we did do some swimming and that's a leech story. I have a picture to go with that, but I'll save that bloody story for later. Caught one measly fish. (I don't eat fish personally, but it was an insult to everyone else!) It was too hot for them too. At any rate, I had a chance to sit around and eat. Think. Read. Sweat. Play games. Write. Eat some more. Sleep. We had a down filled sleeping bag, but believe me, we didn't even need the sleeping bag it was that warm. Oh well, It was truly worth it. I could, and did, forget about everything that wasn't important. Funny how you really can survive without the air conditioning, light switches, running water and other such lovely things. Believe me I really appreciate them much more. Now that I'm back I'll have to forgo the mid morning, mid afternoon and mid evening snacks and naps. Hope that works out ok! So Of course here are somepictures:

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs...or rain would be good.

Oh for rain!

So we're off for a vacation from normal life here. No computers. Cell phones. Electricity. I'll have plenty of pictures to post I'm sure.