My three dads…

I have been blessed with three wonderful dads.  Michael is technically my step-dad, but in reality he is a good friend and a great dad.  Joe Henderson is my father-in-law…I have loved that man since the day we met.  Last, but by no means least, is my dad, Al Pallas.  As I am the oldest of four girls, I introduced my dad to fatherhood.  We have been so lucky that our communications have improved as time goes on.  We don’t wait for holidays to tell each other how much we love the other.  Dad has a computer!<G>

Happy Father’s Day to the dads in my life.

Michael

Joe (my father-in-law)

Dancing with my Dad at my daughter's wedding

Golf…

My husband plays golf.  He grew up playing with his parents on incredible courses in exotic world locales (my beloved f-i-l was with the State Department and my husband and his brother lived in Brazil and Mexico and London, with home stays in VA in between, plus my beloved m-i-l is Australian, a WWII war-bride).  Twice I have given him travel cases for his clubs for Christmas so that he could safely transport his clubs wherever he was traveling…golf and baseball games are the his diversions when he is on one of his long work trips.  Obviously, golf is an integral part of his life.

That said, certain golf tournaments are treated as national holidays in our home.  This weekend, it is U.S. Open weekend and our lives revolve around it.  My husband is home for this one, so I don’t have to run around like a crazy, trying to be sure that I set the DVR correctly to record every moment of the tournament.  The good news is that chores around the house get done, as we have TVs in almost every room of our house.

This U.S. Open has been quite an adventure for the world’s best golfers.  Pouring, soaking, drenching rains have stopped play and have thrown the order of things into a mess.  It took two days for the players to finish one round.   They have started the second round now and are hoping to get that in before the next surge of pouring, soaking, drenching rains blow in.  My Tiger is so far off the lead, he will be hard-pressed to catch up.  Phil Mickelson is up there, riding the wave of sympathy and love from the crowds, in support of his wife’s battle with breast cancer.  The amateurs are making a good showing, with one of them currently on the leader board.  This one should be interesting.

P.S.  No, I don’t play.   My father is a really good player but I was a tennis player and a swimmer…never felt the urge to pick up the sticks.  Then I met my husband and allowed him to talk me into playing with him and his family…I even took a couple of lessons.  I am a natural, have a good swing and occasionally hit a really good shot.  But then there are the ten shots inbetween each good one that make the game intolerable for me.  I am too ADD to think that hit walk walk walk wait wait hit walk walk walk wait wait is any fun.  I’ll hit balls at the range, but otherwise, I go shopping when they all hit the links.<G>  I do, however, watch golf with my husband.  People think I’m nuts, but…

More bits…

Rain, gloom, humidity…days at a time…the weeds are starting to outpace the beets and onions…but it is too wet to even weed much.  The good side is that everything is bright green and lush.

The baby herons are growing up.  A while back, I wrote about the three huge heron nests that fill each spring with parents and then eggs and then chicks.  Those chicks are now HUGE birds, still in the nest, but definitely not for long.  Two days in a row I was greeted by the sight of two big chicks standing tall, beak to beak, playing together like my kittens do.  It was a wonder to behold.

Our kittens (now young lady cats) are LOVING spring.  My husband told them all winter that they would love spring.  Now he reminds them that he told them so!<G>  Anytime I am out, they are out with me.  I weed, they grovel and roll and look entirely fetching.  It is hard to stay focused on weeding.<G>

OK, it is Friday…love Fridays because they become Friday night.  I have a date with my husband tonight to go to dinner with another couple and then on to a staged reading of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross.  A show that is presented by my group but for which I have done almost nothing…a treat.  Knock ‘em dead, fellas!

Rainy little bits…

It has been a gloomy, dank and sprinkly last few days, but today it is pouring!!!  The gardens, the lawn, the new pear tree…they are all drinking in the liquid gloriousness.  The down side is that the veggie garden is looking totally weed-choked…I guess that’s where I will be spending what non-rainy moments there may be this weekend.

I have a new Thursday night date with my daughter on Twitter.  Thursday nights, 9-10pm, tweeters from ’round the world log on and join the #ageop chat…the focus is on issues of interest to 50+ Boomers, but all ages are welcome.  My daughter, the executive producer of GrowingBolder.com, started the tweet chat and it is now the highlight of my Thursday evenings.  I participate through tweetchat.com, which makes it easier to follow, but it is fast-paced and interesting and fun and a real brain-stretcher.  Even better is to go back after it is all over and read everything that flew past so fast the first time around!<G>  That hour passes in the blink of an eye.  If you tweet, come try it.  You’ll find out more at http://growingbolder.com/ageofopportunity.  And, no, I am paid nothing to express my appreciation for #ageop.<G>

I haven’t talked about the cats lately.  Puck and Phoebe are young cats now; they turn 1 on July 4.  They are such a joy.  They are fun to watch and snuggly (when they want to be) and make us laugh.  I LOVE our cats.

Snuggle cats

Love hearing good news from family…son sounds so happy with life, it is a joy.  He and his girlfriend are enjoying the wonders of Vermont in the spring with lots of camping and hiking and fresh food.  I like it when my kids are happy.

Theater stuff is wearing me out…I need a change of attitude…a change of something, anyway.  All I ever wanted to do is act and direct…I wish that’s all it was now.  That said, I don’t know what I’d do without it, so…

I’m directing Prelude To a Kiss (by Craig Lucas) in the fall; even though auditions won’t be until August, the fun starts now as I work on the script and figure out my plan.  As much as I would LOVE to audition for the second show of our season, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, I don’t think I have the stamina it would take to even audition for the part of Martha.  My plan is to audition for our third show of the season, Nuts (by Tom Topor), as I haven’t acted with our group in a while.  Steel Magnolias was with another group…kind of a trip to be JUST an actor.<G>

I guess this does qualify as little bits…what a collection…

So much to do…

I find Spring absolutely exhausting.  There is always more to do than there is time in which to do it.

Spring in community theater is finishing up the current season and preparing for the next season.  It is “out with the old” and “find a place for the new”.  It is recruiting new members, applauding longtime members, advertising, marketing, website rehab…we do it for love, but I wish there were more of us to feel that love.<G>

Spring in the garden and yard is huge…thank goodness I LOVE to weed.  The veggies out in the main garden are flourishing (except where one of our cats adopted a corn plant and has loved it to death), the irises are full and bright patches of royal purple and maroon and cream and bright yellow, the wet garden my son planted last year is in full glory with bleeding hearts that are STILL beautiful, violas, irises, violets, mint and some names unknown to me plants that the boy needs to name for me.  I love it, but it never ends.  Then there are the rock gardens and the asparagus patch and the blueberries and raspberries and grapes…all that needs to be done haunts me, makes me feel guilty for not working on it all the time.  But it is very forgiving.  A few hours here and there and everything looks so good, even if just for a moment.

Spring indoors is yearning to be outdoors.  I still have to do the big clothing and shoe switchover and the paper piles are tipping over and the vacuuming and the dusting and the decluttering and the…

When push comes to shove, Spring is wonderful.