Booming Banter

This morning at Zumba there was a lovely group of teenage girls. They reminded me of disco days of the seventies when four friends and I would regularly go dancing at the weekend. The very last thing in the world I could ever envisage though is my Mum dancing disco!

How times have changed! Girls now work out to the latest hits with women old enough to be their moms or even like me their granny!

Better still the grannies do just as well as they do in keeping up the pace. Not claiming though that we could kick our legs quite as high as those youngsters this morning.

When we were kids our parents seemed so different from us. They wore grown up clothes, they had sensible flat shoes and they had funny hairstyles so unlike ours.

Now we all look alike from the back. The only clues to age are posture and maybe grey roots if you haven’t been to the hairdresser in a week or two.

Face forward given that dentistry has come such a long way our teeth may even look better today than they did when we were spring chickens. I know mine do!

Of course time tells it’s story in every face! That radiance fades even with all the magic potions we slap on each day. Wonder what the future will look like for today’s teenagers will they Zumba when their grannies too!

Blessing # 348 – Mixing it Up

 

 

The pool opened at 11:00 and by 11:45 I was all set for a good tanning session and possibly a dip.

Aaron and his girlfriend were joining me later but I couldn’t miss a moment.

In a yard sale a few weeks ago Krishna had found a book for me. A new Maeve Binchy. It is a compilation of some of her short stories that her husband and editors had published just recently.

Its a hard back so not ideal for sun loungers but heh it is a new publication so that’s not going to happen again!

Maeve was one of my all time favorite easy read authors and like many of her fans when she passed to the big library in the sky more than a few tears were shed.

Everything she wrote offered complete relaxation. No need to think too hard or ponder the depths of the universe. Just pure enjoyment and a bit of dreaming.

What better than a book of her short stories for the pool no need even to concentrate on where to snooze off.

So all set for an afternoon of Maeve and sun bathing I dug in.

Well the second story was not even finished when boom in rolled a thunder storm.

Everyone out of the water and undercover for thirty minutes. Just enough time to do a bit of banter and let the rain pass.

We have the all clear to take the plunge again but there’ll be no need for the aloe vera tonight!

Or maybe just a little bit!

Blessing # 347 – Base No Burn

 

The Memorial Day weekend has arrived at last. Schools out for Summer as Alice Cooper once said and there are two brothers very happy about that!

We are now set to do all things that spell summer. The fridge is full of sweet corn, brats to make dogs, burgers and all sorts of salad stuff.

The seasons first watermelon was  brought home today along with some peaches and mangos so it will also be a fruity fiesta too.

The local water park Zoombezi Bay opened today and our pool opens tomorrow.

My friend Laura and her daughter are coming to see us so we’ll have some good girl times tanning too!

This time of year is the very best. The whole summer lies ahead. We want to feel warm and lie in the sun and swim.

We just hope those scary storms stay well away

Blessing # 346 – Favorite Weekend

 

The bench is still a work in progress. Over the weekend some rope was purchased and some decorative braid to make the seat.

Monday a first attempt was made to weave these together into a masterpiece.

It was robust but ugly.

The work was a step in the right direction but that rope hurts. It gave me two huge blisters on the old fingers.

Pain resulted in a brainwave though. Could both additional strength and more appeal be achieved by crocheting the rope into a chain?

Yesterday the fingers were given a rest but today a second attempt to make the seat started.

Well this turned out to be a disaster.  Half way through it was deemed appropriate to test the strength of the seat. It was not nearly as strong as Monday’s effort and I went straight through it. That really hurt!

Next up came the weaving of the braid into the rope. You would think with a grandmother and mother both weavers by trade it would be in the blood. It’s not.

After multiple attempts the only way to describe the work was weak and woeful!

So after three hours plodding out came all the pins and we are back to square one.

Saving grace of today got to use my little sander and paint the bench again. Lesson learned anything requiring this level of patience and attention is not for me.

Blessing #345 – Mistakes We Learn From

Last week at our Tuesday Morning Group we came across an intriguing question.

In our study of Saint Peter we had come to the point in the Gospel of John where Jesus appears to Peter and several other disciples after the resurrection.

The disciples had been out fishing during the night and caught nothing. When Jesus appeared to them at dawn he asks them to cast their nets again and low and behold this time they catch a whole load of fish.

The question we encountered was why did John record the exact number of fish that were caught, specifically 153.

Had I read this alone I doubt I’d have given it a second thought but because we talked about it as a group it took on a whole new significance.

The number bugged me. Was there anything special about it? After a little playing around I found it could be divided by 3, 9, and 17. As 9 is a the square of 3 and both 3 and 17 are prime numbers it already took on a different aura.

A google search showed even more  intriguing things most of which I don’t understand. Two stand out though it is the 17th triangular number and also surprise surprise The Measure of the FISH!

This called for an email to my mathematical genius friend Michael to see if he agreed that this was a special number.

Happily he did and better than that he revealed the most interesting thing of all.

If 153 is turned into a binary number it becomes 10011001 that reads the same in both directions,  a Palindrome and a reminder that God is everlasting and unchanging.

Blessing # 344 – Puzzle Solving

The mint is doing a good job keeping the deer away from the other plants and is growing like a weed.

Time already for the first harvest and for the chef to get busy blending.

With the finesse of a maestro Krishna has transformed an armful of the green stuff into what can only be described as heaven.

Subtly blended with chilies and cilantro plus who knows what else we now have a load of chutney that will keep us hot and spicy for weeks to come.

Just a dab of this potion is sure to transform the blandest bite into a rip roaring riot.

It’s such a vibrant green it must be good for the body as well as the soul. If only we could get it to burn a few calories that would be magic!

Blessing # 343 – Versatile Veggie

 

The furball was awake at the first streak of dawn.

With his Cushing he is thirsty all the time. Now, with the beautiful warm weather finally here he is absolutely desperate for his breakfast bevy. He got a few ice cubes tossed in this morning as well.

Of course the consequence of the rapid intake is a rapid output so off he went to do the necessary.

The moon was really big and bright but it is so hard to get a good picture of it. Why is that?

Since it was cooler outside than in Dibs and I decided to toss the windows open and chill together he will his iced water and me with my coffee.

In the still of the morning we got to listen together to the birds chatter. They really did have a lot to say today.

Reminded me of the first time I ever heard a cuckoo. I was just four and had broken my wrist playing. I had to go to hospital a few times to get it checked on and on one of these trip with my Mom we heard the cuckoo.

We stopped to listen and Mom told me a sweet little rhyme that came back in my mind today just to let me know she hasn’t flown too far!

The cuckoo come in April 

She sings her song in May

She whistles her tune at the end of June

And then she flies away

Blessing # 342 – Early Call

Was super psyched up this morning as one of our favorite annual rummage sales was taking place.

So after Zumba and a quick trot with Dibley, Krishna and I hit the road convinced we were going to find many treasures.

The sale is so popular that it had been moved this year out of the Church halls to the county fair grounds. That gives you some idea of the scale of this event.

Along with hundreds of others we plodded through the field to the huge barn where the treasures were buried.

Everything was well organized and there was a lot to rummage through. Now absolutely convinced this was going to be a bank buster!

Well after a good hour and a half of searching all we’d found was a little dish no bigger than a mango!

Thanks to the find we’ve learned though that Senegal is a producer of fine China.

Must be fairly rare too as we can only find one other like it for sale online.

It has a number two marked on the bottom. What does that mean? Is it a second? Or part of a pair? Maybe one of you might be able to tell us some more about this.

Anyway it’s sweet and cute and may just get to stay here to be admired and cooed over for a while.

Blessing # 341 – Trinket Trove

Columbus is a fine city with great sports teams, entertainment, restaurants and parks.

The airport has good infrastructure and generally runs efficiently. There are connections to Mexico, the Caribbean and Canada as well as most major cities in the USA. What the city lacks though is any direct flight to Europe.

For years there has been talk of this coming and I’ve always dreamed Aer Lingus would step up and offer the must desired connection to Dublin.

So far no good!

Today though I thought I was dreaming when the morning news covered a direct flight to Edinburgh by of all things an airline run by a beer company.

Seems the BREWDOG company already ran a charter to London in the spring and this is a follow up to the initial success. How did I miss that?

A bit of research turned up that the flight is available to Brewdog “Equity Punks” aka investors for the sum of $1780 for return flight and five nights at the Brewdog HQ in Ellon Scotland to visit whisky distilleries.

A special brew will be served in the flight too along with Brewdog Blankets for a snooze when you’ve had a few!

So why is Columbus getting this special treatment. Seems our brewery district is the US HQ for Brewdog. 

Know what I’ll be serving with the hotdogs and burgers this summer. Might buy a share or two too! Next stop Bushmills?

Blessing # 340 – Charter Cheers

There was nothing good on TV last night and only so many HGTV makeovers or My 600lb Life shows that a body can take.

So thinking of something fun and wholesome to watch the decision was taken to find a free on demand classic movie. We hit on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

Must be at least forty years since I last saw it and Krishna never had. Well what a surprise it was.

Of course I remembered Howard Keel and all the singing and dancing, the men in their long johns and the remarkable matching of the multicolored shirts the brothers wore with the girls dresses!

What I completely forgot though was the part of the story where the Brides were forcibly taken from their homes against their will to live in an isolated cabin with seven men!

Of course all was well in the end. The girls fell in love with the boys and danced and married them! BUT those girls were kidnapped!

It may have been set in the Wild West but under no circumstances would we tolerate this plot today. Or would we?

Just makes you wonder how many classic family movies are out there that reinforce stereotyping. Can you think of any?

Blessing # 339 – Changing Views