What made you smile today?

We do!

Meanwhile, I'm really enjoying the varied benefits of living in a single place for coming up on three years (and no move on the horizon! I still haven't quite gotten my mind around that piece of wonderfulness...)

I went to the local camera store to drop off some film. The place has a core group of 5 or 6 employees who I really like, then a rotating cast of clueless minions. A new clueless minion was at the counter. When he asked for my preferences I mentioned that I wanted web upload, and he said "we don't do that." I said, very nicely, "Oh, you stopped?" He kinda stammered for a minute and then yelled over my shoulder at another employee, "Uh, do we do web upload?" The other employee came over, and turned out to be one of the core guys I like. In the course of saying "yes, we have it," he was explaining it, mostly to clueless minion but in a way that generic customer would overhear, then looked up and saw it was me and said, "Oh, YOU know!" Then to clueless guy, "She could explain the process to you better than I could probably...!"

Clueless minion was duly chastened and as he entered stuff in the computer I said, "I come here kind of a lot..." and he had the good grace to smile sheepishly anyway.

Three years in Columbus, Sozobe? It doesn't seem that long at all.

As for the "Bus Stop" story: stay tuned. It could have been covered in a paragraph but now seems to be taking on a life of its own in my brain. Bouncing around in there. It may come out tomorrow night. In the meantime, talk on.

I was walking around with Jordon, my yard guy, today. We found a large stand of wild blackberry stalks on the far edge of the property.

Long stories? We never post long stories! (crossing fingers behind back)

Hmmmmm...what made me smile today? Everything.

Hm. The Postal Service must have dropped Stanford's invitation letter.

The little girls playing in the stairwell, excitedly dithering to and fro

I was in the park today, and as I was walking along, I saw a bird's nest on a low branch. I stopped and watched as the mama bird fed her little baby birds. Awwww!

After a while, a small crowd gathered around (I guess they were wondering what the hell I was looking at) and we all watched the mama feeding her babies.

Yeah, I need to get a life. But it was cool though!

After a longish walk at the beach, we sat down to watch the lifeguards practice.

Watching them run back and forth across the sand with their rescue boards and backboards, and then racing to the rowboats, and then row really badly to the markers ... made me smile.

The first day the lifeguards are in the rowboats are not the day you want to drown - they'll crash into each other long before they reach you.

Great examples of physical strength (and beauty), but rowing's a bit of an old-skool art.

Good evening. Feel free to skip this post. It is long and convoluted and ends with nothing too meaningful in the grand scheme of things. But if you have nothing better to do, put on your jammies and read about

KAREN'S BUS STOP

When I was a lad of about twelve, some fifty years ago, I would jump on my bicycle and I would ride. I would ride. It was a clunky bike that had been passed on to me from my older brother, and I had painted it blue with house paint.
I would ride and ride. Back then when it was okay for a twelve year old to ride and ride without fear, down Hilltop Road to Rugby Road and then onto Hydraulic Road and Rio Road and then Park Street. Miles and miles.
But then I would have to turn back, not because I couldn't go any further. I could have. Park Street to High Steet to Preston Avenue would reconnect to Rugby Road. But I couldn't do that.
I had to turn back because I would start out with my dog running behind and her friend whose name I forget joining in (one of the dumbest dogs I have ever met). And along the way. like the Pied Piper, I would attract other dogs. And so I would have to reverse direction so that they with their tongues dragging, tired but happy, could sleep well at home.

The roads, all of them, were sleepy two lane roads, with Rio Road being the most rural. Rio is pronounced with a long I and and a long O. It is an old, old road, originally, in the early 1800's called the Charlottesville/Harrisonburg Turnpike. It was the main route between our side of the Blue Ride Mountains to the Shenandoah Valley in the west.
It was a plank road, meaning that trees were felled and split and laid across the road so that wagons could get traction while going uphill.
It got the name Rio Road from sometime in the mid 1800's, when there was a train stop called simply R-10.

But I digress. I rode this poorly painted bike, dogs trailing behind, along Rio Road until I got to a little country store twenty feet off the two lane road. I would stop and get a soda pop on the way out and on my way back, shedding dogs, I might get another soda. Or maybe a popsicle.
Next door to the store was the owner's house, dominated by three huge oak trees. Three huge oak trees.

Eventually I wasn't twelve anymore. I was eighteen and off to college and then Vietnam and then a job in Atlanta and then sometime spent drifting around the world. But I ended up back in Charlottesville and on the still two lane Rio Road. And I saw a for sale sign on the house, the store owner's house (the store was long closed and the property sold to someone else) and I bought it the next day.

And things went well. The house was sound. A couple of new dogs lounged around, untethered. I managed to buy the store property back. Sadly, one of the oaks, which was sick, came down in hurricane Hugo, but the remaining two are healthy.

But I don't have a dog anymore, because Rio Road is now five lanes wide, and I don't believe in tying up a dog. Putting them in a cage, well don't get me started on that.

I converted the old store into a two bedroom cottage. Really nifty place that tended to get passed from one UVA grad student family to the next without a for rent sign ever going up. But then, about three years ago, I tucked in a five unit townhouse project. It was a bit noisy during construction so I rented it to one of my employees and her friend Karen at a low rent.

And that is when I began the quest, three years ago, for Karen's bus stop. There are bus stops on the other side of the road, this five lane road, but nothing on our side, even though the bus goes past our houses on our side.
Karen is very sweet, and I realize that in today's terminology, it is incorrect to say this: "mentally slow." The sight of her crossing five lanes of traffic was scary.
So I started writing letters and making phone calls. Unfortunately, the lady who ran our transit system was terminally ill, and then she died and there was an interim director who knew he ws an interim director and therefore wouldn't or couldn't make any decisions. But I saved every letter and notes of every phone call to the Transit people, to the County planning staff, to the Virginia Dept of Transportation. And on June 1st I sent the whole packet to the new Transit guy. I got an email from him within 12 hours, and several subsequently, about this bus stop and, lo and behold, it is now up.

Karen doesn't live in the cottage anymore. She moved on to some other place. But this will always be Karen's bus stop on our side of this old road: Rio Road. -rjb-

<smiling>

rjb is sweet, too.

When my siblings and I were young we used to get together with my mother's family for fathers' day. My mom has 4 siblings and we started doing this before two of them even had their own kids. We went to a park somewhere between the CT and NH families (usually in central MA). There was BBQing and beer drinking, watermelons and dips in the lakes. We stopped having these festivities at some point - I don't remember when. We revived the dealio this year (a little late for fathers' day) today. We had so much fun! My cousins are of three generations. I am part of the elder set, there are 7 of us in two families. Later, one uncle had three boys - they were about 12 years younger than us and we got to watch them grow up. Then came round three - they are about 25 years younger than the elder set. The family of three boys split up and my uncle remarried - they adopted two girls in much the same way that Boomer adopted her son. My youngest uncle had three kids, the eldest who is 15. One aunt is on te west coast and has another of this younger set as her daughter, but we never see them.

Anyway, we had this fathers' day reunion today. Not only were almost all of this side of the family present, but two fiance's and one fiance's parents were there. We had BBQ and potluck. We had volleyball and badminton. There were swings on the hammock and many many photos taken. It was lovely. Loads of smiling.

Great story, rjb. Worth waiting for.

I knew it would be.

Indeed, a great story, RJB!

A lovely story, rjb. Thanks for taking the time to type & post it.


What made me smile today?: A dismal cold & grey morning here today & I was driving along, half awake, to meet my friend W at our usual meeting point, to do our usual Sunday walk around the river ... Then a stunning sight. Two beautiful Indian women, wearing gorgeously vivid red & blue saris, sort of gracefully floating down the street. It was as though someone had turned on the lights, or transformed miserable winter to a beautiful summer morning! Wow.

Buddy of mine told a funny ass story today about his mentally challenged brother. The brother lives in some kind of assisted living community...he's pretty high functioning, just slow I guess. They were eating dinner with their parents one night, and the mom asked how he was spending his food stamps.

"Hookers."

Guess his councellor would take him to an escort service, and he paid with food stamps. The mom slapped him, then called the guy and told him her other sons would go down and kick his ass if he did that again.

Hookers paid for with food stamps.

That's hilarious, Slappy. What's wrong with that kid's mom? He's getting a good deal.

I don't know how many of yall know A2Ker's Mr and Mrs Cowdoc from Salmon, Idaho. But, golly gee, they are coming to Cville to meet Johnboy next Thursday!. Well, actually that is a bit a a stretch. He will be in Richmond (an hour away) for a conference and they are planning on coming to Cville to see UVA and Monticello and, by the way, hook up with me for lunch. Cool!

I spent about 4 hours after work with a colleague, 4 of her kids and a spare kid (someone's friend).

As we were parting, her stepson asked if he could come downtown and hang out with me again next week. Apparently he'd like to make this a regular thing. The word is I'm "chill". At least to a 13 year old boy

I agree with the kid.

You're totally chill.

Ha! That had me do a double take. Post of the month, that one. And a really good follow up story too.