2008-09-09

It was a delightful day, a welcome departure from the sweltering heat we have been experiencing. The temperature never quite reached 80 F and a gentle mid-morning rain cleaned the humidity from the air and gave us a sweet breeze. After Morning Offering Mick set about his day’s work, which included much less mowing and much more gardening. He is weeding and refurbishing plantings for two customers, and he worked on both of those in the morning.

He spent his afternoon undercutting limbs for a customer in a copse of trees under which grass has refused to grow, and then tilling the ground under the trees, sowing shade-grass seed and covering it all with straw. He says that the rain that is predicted for the next few days makes this the perfect time for growing some new grass, and with more sun able to penetrate the canopy of branches in the copse, the new grass should thrive. I love the thought of his beautifying Anchorage one yard at a time!

I spent my morning work time catching up on some office work. I wrote a thank you note to Fran and Dee for their thoughtful gifts of organic skin lotion and a lovely wire mesh pendant that is an exact duplicate of a Full Moon Maple leaf. I wrote another one to Dianne for her gift of a copy of the biography of Solomon Wickey, who is the healer Talitha, Melissa and I have been to see in Indiana.

I also wrote a snail-mail letter to my beloved friend Aubine in Igny, thanking her for new photos of her children, Ariane and Tercy, and her grandson, Fassely. She reports that Tercy is now working for a Japanese video company, dancing through the moves that are then replicated in the company's video games, as well as voicing the dialogue of his action figure in French

I wrote Vara twice, first in response to her e-mail and then to thank her for her post card, which arrived today. Its face had a photo of Alaskan grizzlies, which looked for all the world like teddy bears. Vara and Sean have trekked all the way to Fairbanks, Alaska, now, where they will settle while Sean is deployed overseas. Sean is an Army man.

I came across a recipe of Vee’s for spiced pumpkin bread last week and, picturing all her things still in boxes from their cross-country move, I sent it along so she would have something from her store of recipes to make for Sean before he has to leave.

Talitha wrote to ask about our next trip to see Mr. Wickey and I gave her the dates for the proposed trip. When she confirms that she is going, I will write Mr. Wickey and request an appointment for Talitha, Melissa and me.

Finally, I wrote our web guy for our archive site, noting that our date for a telephone conference may well have to be changed, as Gary may be working with Mick on Thursday, when our call was scheduled, rather than Friday. Ian had also noted that the date was iffy because he is doing some renovation of his “this old house” on the outside and his time is not his own while workers are there and decisions are being made. It’s OK to put this conference off a bit, as the subject of the call is what to move to B4, if anything, when B4 launches. It is not yet launched, doggone it! B4's webmaster said two weeeks ago that it was just about there. I am so eager to see it launch!

In the afternoon I went out for errands having to do with Mel’s upcoming birthday celebration on Friday. She asked for box lunches from The Cheddar Box, so I got take-away menus from which we can order. Then I stopped in at Kroger’s Grocery and got a strawberry cake mix and strawberry icing, plus some really good vanilla ice cream so she can have birthday cake and ice cream for her dessert.

I also found a really sweet card and one last present for her, a University of Louisville baseball cap. She is fond of baseball caps and always wears one, often backwards and she's a U of L alumna. It is to be noted that she looks very cute in baseball caps!

I finished my work day by getting into the Alphabet Mosaic material at last! I am so excited about starting on this project for Dana Redfield. First I will edit her text and put together the printed version of her amazing, provocative and unique little book and then I will organize the e-book version, an expanded version containing an appendix for all her art work and another one for memorial material. Dana died a little over a year ago, and I promised her before she departed the fix outbound that I would make sure this book got published. What a joy to keep that promise!

Gary manned the L/L Research helm today and also, very kindly, put up new blinds in my bedroom. The old Roman shades had been destroyed by kitties. Gary cleverly wound the pull cords for the Venetian blinds around high hooks after setting the blinds at the correct height so the cats can no longer chew up the cords. This finishes the refurbishing of my bedroom. Now all my previously grungy horizontal surfaces are newly painted and my window treatment is pristine! Ah, bliss!

Gary joined us for some sci fi and the Gaia Meditation over supper. I offered the closing prayer tonight. Romi was due to visit tonight but could not make it as he felt a bit “off”. Hopefully he will recover very quickly.