What made you smile today?

So, this evening I am hosing water at the lavender in sand (plus, y'know, amendment stuff, which catapults on down past the sand, watch money move), and the boy (I see I mentioned twice that he might be ten) wasn't out there. No one is out there.

I shovel sand. This is my sisyphus job while the day cools, as there is nowhere to put the excess sand that the developer threw on the property, and in order to contrive some kind of garden I'm putting the sand in some of my bigger plastic moving boxes. Maybe someone will want the sand for luminarias...

Then I relent and start watering the lavender blobs, and there are some drops of rain. A young girl rides by on her bicycle. I wave slightly-lightly and she waves slightly-lightly.

Ok, I think she is 11 1/2, wild guess.

Next time around I say, "seems silly watering in the rain", she says "yeah".

Next time, by now I'm trying to make the rose survive, she says "I so like the smell of the rain!!" I say, I have a poor sense of smell, but I'm a painter, and I love the rainy sky...
She smiles.

Maybe through the children I'll get to know the parents.

When I was a kid I used to listen to an American radio station AFN (in Europe) where Casey Kasem aired the top 40 every Sunday. I never missed it.

Today, when I went to my 11 year old daughter's room, she was listening
to the radio - Casey Kasem and his top 20.
Made me smile Some things never change!

Was Casey out of LA? I listened to him for a while too.








On that watering in the rain... sometimes, round this time, rain is only a hundred drops total. Hard to tell, so one waters minimally, if one has starter plants.

This made me smile today (even thought it is morning)
bobsmythhawk post on:
"WA2K Radio is now on the air"
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2751011#2751011

So Cowdoc and Mrs Cowdoc from Salmon, Idaho, stopped by my shop in Cville, VA, this afternoon. They are in Richmond for a conference he is involved in.
They came to Cville from an hour away in Richmond to see Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello, and UVA.
The first A2Kers to visit me here.
It was fun to meet them.

We're moving the showroom so there's a two huge red signs on the window "MOVING SALE." For the umpteenth time, someone just came in and asked if we were moving.

(Sorry, I lost it and the customer).

Haagen-Dazs Cinnamon dulce de leche ...... heaven .......on ......earth

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=7240855

We added another a2ker who will be attending our San Francisco gathering in late August.

I got my "miles" from my USA-trip really very fast: the day after I landed.
But only for the connection flights in Germany.

So I waite 30 working days and then called the hotline.
They were really sorry, they said (and sounded sad, too) but since I didn't have any boading cards or similar, and since it were UA-flights (though operated by Lufhansa) - they could do nothing but only say ... well, that they were awfully sorry about.

Okay. So I wrote an email over the weekend, admitting that it was my fault since I really had to keep those documents in case I wanted to claim etc ...

I went on (translated): "So please allow me to just let of a bit of steam: the US-authorities knowmy banc accounts, where I've been seated and which seat I actually took, what meals I had ... and 31 more personal deatails. But Lufthansa Mile-and-More can't find out that actually flew on plane No xxx, xxx, and xxx - though all got booked via Lufthansa.
Thank you for reading -.) . )

Some minutes ago I got an email that they were able to track my flights. And they had asked UA to confirm my US-domestic flights (those were updated to business class).

And all my miles (besides 'business' for USA) are on my account.

Ah, that's neat, rjb. Wish I could have been there to see all three of you again.

We went out for lunch -- sozlet was wearing longish capris in this print:



and a lime-green top, with fuchsia Crocs.

At the restaurant, sozlet immediately got some attention from the cooks, who were Latina (not sure if Mexican or Ecuadorean or whatever). They smiled and head-nodded towards her and talked to each other and I couldn't quite tell what was up. I smiled back at them uncertainly, they got shy and went back to what they were doing.

Then later as we were eating, another restaurant person (also Latina) came up to sozlet and told her she absolutely loved her outfit. Sozlet was happy, blushed a bit and thanked her. That person said something like, "it is very bright colors, it makes me happy to see." And a big smile. It was sweet.

I had the impression that they considered it the proper way to dress, not all of this American drabness. But maybe the first people were just making fun of us. :-) (The second person really seemed sincere.)

Today I smiled when one of my best friends from college called to tell me that her job is having her travel to my area for the next month! I'm so excited and can't wait to spend time with her! It's hard when friends live all over the country and even better to know that there is a future date planned for a reunion

I'm also new to this community and just wanted to say hi! I'm a young professional in the DC area and work in PR/Marketing. I originally started searching this site to find out some info on a trip that I'm planning and then started browsing other areas. I'm excited to get involved!

So last Sat night my friend/colleague Cs called again at some nightly hour, very happily drunk, to yell, over the relentless din in the background (some parade), "I love you!!"

Now I'm getting worried..

No, I'm not, I'm lying. She's just funny, an unstoppably cheerful ball of energy and happiness. Cool to have people like that around

Plus, can I once again say I love my job? Even just because we're just perfect, the four or five of us in our office.

As a group, we're like a mix of colleagues, friends or flatmates, and family. Cs being the little sister, and A the mum, sort of; S (the techie) would be the somewhat outlandish but endearing cousin, and me somewhere between the benevolent dad and fun uncle, I guess

Came in today (after the morning part of my job which I spend with laptop in the coffeeshop - like I say, I love my job), Cs calls out hello in bright-eyed cheer and comes up to hug me, S recounts some convoluted but funny story, and we're shouting from one room to the other about something that came up in the email. Then Cs showed us what dance moves she learned in class last week.

(Sometimes we work for hours on end without saying much at all too.. no, really..)

Hi YellowRosebud, and welcome aboard!

I think it's adorable, and it does look very Latina!

Very appropriate restaurant attire -- looks like some wild fantasy ingredients of a gourmet omelette.

Hi, YellowRosebud. Welcome. There is a lack of participation here in the mid-Atlantic region.
NPR has this occasional segment where they play tapes of famous people's voices and ask for listeners to send in short descriptions of how they would describe the voice (10-20 words or so) People like Elvis, JFK, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mama Cass etc.
Most are positive, except for one in today's segment. A singer who I don't know. Something like (phonetically, to my ear) Scion Dione, described as "a melted Moon-pie on a dashboard" by one contributor.
Awesome imagery.

Do yall know what a moon-pie is?

Hi YellowRosebud. Welcome to A2K!

Sozlet's outfit would have made me smile

rjb -- I was curious about moon-pie's 'til I saw one in the flesh (so to speak); then I decided I didn't really want to try one.

I had to smile while at my t'ai chi class today. Attendance really drops over the summer so I was the only one there -- which was nice in a way because it meant my sensei and I could work on the long form. He forgot to hit "repeat" on the CD player and instead of finishing off the last few poses to quasi-classical/new age music, we finished up to John Lee Hooker. I had to laugh.

rjb, I'm guessing that the singer was Celine Dion.

Tai, that reminds me that I want to look into tai chi classes at the Y. Last time I checked they were only offering weekday morning classes - not much help to those of us working fulltime.