Springtime in NC

My office is in one building but my work is sometimes in another. On nice days I like to walk along the lake behind the buildings; here's a tour of what I saw the other day.















The heron on the rock. He likes it there, but sometimes he's on the shore. Then, when you get close, he suddenly takes off, startling you with his prehistoric-like wings.

Nice path? Where does it lead? From the walkway to the building, actually.






Azaleas in bloom.








Momma wood duck had 10 -- count 'em -- 10.

They hang out close to shore in the shallows, then scurry down to the water and swim to the other side when you get close. Wouldn't it be nice if human babies followed so closely without needing to be herded up?

Here is one of two beaver dams. The other was dismantled last year, and this one must have been foreclosed on because I haven't seen beavers here in awhile. But you can see exactly where they dragged the logs across the path. The turtles like to hang out here in the afternoons. It's sort of like a turtle bar.


The Canadian geese are nesting, and the males can be mean. The morning after this one I got chased three times and hissed at. But there's no way to avoid walking past the nests because they build them between the water and the path. One male even came running down the walkway at me, chest all puffed out like a cat trying to look big. I didn't get his picture.



Two years ago, THIS is what I got to see. Bambi junior is watching us watching him. Several workers complained that mom ran at them when they tried to get close to the baby. Duh.

C.H.U.M ten-fifty, Toronto. Pow, pow, pow!

I just found out that CHUM AM 1050 is gone. Vanished, sold, dead air. Toronto teens grew up with the station, back in a time when AM radio was much more heavily patronized than FM radio. In fact, a lot of car radios didn't even have the ability to tune into FM. I had an official CHUM bug card, and tuned in faithfully every day after school. I once won a Neil Diamond record from them, the first thing I ever won.

I first listened in 1966, on a transistor radio I got for my birthday. Mine looked something like the one on the left. Realize that they're just a bit bigger than the palm of your hand. The on/off switch on mine was so worn I had to press down to make it work.

These babies took one 9 volt battery, which had the life of about 10 milliseconds. I used to kill mine by falling asleep while listening under my pillow.

CHUM put out CHUM Charts for years, and I started collecting them in 1966. I still have mine, and read on eBay they're worth about $4.00 each, more for the ones before 1970, and more for the ones with pictures of famous singers on them. Maybe I should start a side business.

I'll miss CHUM. I haven't lived in Toronto for years, and never listened, but I'll miss just knowing it's around.

See Spot Read

Last night we took Princess Dog and 100% Dog out to work at a boys and girls center. See Spot Read is a program that lets kids read to dogs. It's much less intimidating and much more fun for them then it would be to read to old people. The girls mauled 100% and I as we were walking in the door then they all fled to maul Princess and Ward. I was impressed with how well behaved everyone was. I now have Green Eggs and Ham memorized -- it seems to be a favorite.















The kids on the couch are waiting their turn. The Maltese on the left is Happy, and she stole the show with her gorgeous long coat (Happy's mom has a lot of work in that!) and her roll over tricks. I'm in the pink sweater reading to a boy who likes to scare his friends in the dark, but only kids, he would never scare an adult.



















Princess dog seems non-plussed as Ward reads to a boy who has the sniffles and is just leaning to read. Good thing Ward has daddy credentials.

















Here I am with bad hair showing a boy each word as I read to him. 100% Dog is camouflaged on my lap. He wasn't completely thrilled. 100% that is, not the young boy. This was his first reading therapy job and he usually likes to be more active.

Photos are all courtesy of Cindy Golden, Happy's mom.

Lunch at Tossed

Tossed is a New York based salad restaurant which opened their first N.C. location in Morrisville only a few weeks ago. We'd been meaning to go, and finally did for lunch today.

I was expecting a Panera Bread or Bear Rock clone, but the restaurant wasn't like either. It's layout was more like a Soup 'n' Salad, except that the long veggie bar was for the staff to wreak havoc on, not for me. And the seating didn't have the warmth of Bear Rock. No fireplace and magazines, even though Ward never likes to sit in that spot anyway because the chairs lean too far back to eat.

What it did have was a large salad menu (no surprise), and sandwiches for meat lovers who come along kicking a screaming with their party. Nicest of all, we had a server who brought our food, cleaned up after us, and was every bit as professional as we'd get in a sit-down joint.

I did find it unusual they didn't carry french dressing among their 21 varieties. There was, however, 11 different kinds of oil & vinegar combos. I had only two complaints. The tomatoes were chopped too small and turned to mush in the bottom of the bowl is one. And, my salad was light on "lettuce accessories" -- those extras which make a salad exciting the way pepperoni and onions make a pizza exciting. So, while the salad was very fresh and tasty, I did become bored half-way through.

I had also ordered the turkey vegetable soup which was outstanding. I hate to see what kind of MSG, salt, and soy products were buried in the broth, but I try to leave the healthy eating for home cooking. It's not just that it's easier that way, it would be impossible to eat out otherwise.

Sorry, Nadia, I forgot to take pictures until we were well into our plates.

Oh, and they offered green tea iced tea. Nice touch. I will go back. No tomatoes next time.

Do They Sail to the Bermuda Triangle?

For some reason, about once a month I get an e-mail from The Yachts of Seabourn. This month they want to get to know me, and tried to entice me to click their link with a pentad of tray-bearing, tuxedoed valets with soggy shoes.











I clicked.

They asked for my name and address, the usual stuff. Then they had a check list, I Dream Of . . . which has items on it such as:

• Discovering the kings and Czars of Scandinavia & Russia

and,

• Discovering the gilded shrines of Southeast Asia (Asia, India & Arabia)

Maybe someplace where people don't mind getting salt water up their rented tux leg there isn't a recession. But this is their business niche, so good luck to them.

Here's where we have a problem; further down the list they had a Grand Voyage, which they promised to be the "Journey of a Lifetime". But wait a minute -- under that, they had the "Ultimate Voyage". I thought the journey of a lifetime was already the ultimate. Now we have a paradox; an impossibility created by thoughtless and sloppy marketing folks.

I hope the time-space continuum doesn't have a fit.

Come Fly with Me

On Saturday, RDU had an open house for their new terminal. There were freebies and big-beaked mascots, but the one of the coolest things was to pass through security and know I didn't have to fly anywhere. The absolute coolest was that there *was* no security. It felt like we were in a whole new world order, one where people are actually safe doing day-to-day things and don't need guards, metal detectors and McAffee Firewall.

The in-terminal restaurants had food samples (which we didn't line up for because we had already eaten). But got chocolate money at the newsstand and entered a few drawings.

Here's the Eagle for American Airlines. I can't find his name on the Internet, so I'll just call him "Eggleton" for my Toronto friends. AA held a drawing for air miles and gave out pens, pads of paper and magnets shaped like 737s. We're all stocked up now.



















Below, the people mover. And shiny, shiny floors.




















These two photos are of check-in, what you see when you first come into the terminal. BTW, all photos are courtesy of my husband and his snappy cell phone.

Courtesy of LOL Cats

Some much needed smiles courtesy of http://icanhascheezburger.com/. I'll be back with more deep thoughts after I get over having to fish my 401K out from the bottom of the lake.