What made you smile today?

Because the alternative was dental surgery for an extraction.
<shudder>

Yikes! I have had that done and it ain't fun.

I did smile when I awakened to my birthday balloon floating from room to room!

Happy birthday with lots of love, Letty.
J.

This made me smile last night: I have a little friend named Francesca - she's nine and the daughter of two of my friends here. I babysit for her sometimes. She's very bright and imaginative - she's the one I've written on before who told me that she doesn't like school very much because she doesn't have very many friends and when I said, 'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, ' she answered - 'It's okay - I have about twenty-three imaginary friends'... - talk about seeing the sun through the clouds...

Anyway - I spent Guy Fawkes (or is it Falke's?) night with her family last night.
This is her 'Guy' that she made to throw on the fire:



but she couldn't do it - she'd grown too fond of him - so this is what she made quickly to take his place:



And she still couldn't do it - politics be damned in the mind of a nine year old -
But she did enjoy the bonfire (and the fireworks later):

I think Francesca will remember you all of her life.

BBB

I'll remember her all of my life- she's a special little girl-very intent on the business of living. She's passionate about a lot of things.

intent on the business of living--what a very interesting phrase.

What I mean is, she approaches everything she does with such obvious intent, focus and energy.
She's always interested and committed - at least when I see her- which I have to admit is usually only in situations in which she can choose what she will do.

was listening to internet radio today when my browser crashed.
the music inexplicably continued playing.
for gits and shiggles, i reopened the web page and launched the player.

so i now have two separate channels playing the same thing, which is creating a much fuller sound through the headphones...

Nigel was in a class at the psychiatric hospital where he works, listening to
one of the staff explaining some methods of using conversation as therapy.

"Anybody here done fencing?"

Reluctantly, Nigel raised his hand.

"C"mon up here."

Uh-oh. Nigel is not fond of being front-and-center.

"What was your weapon?"

"Foil."

"I would've figured you for epee."

"I grew ." He's not fond of attention called to his appearance either.

Then the doctor put him in the en garde and they went back and forth,
miming thrusts, parries and ripostes, while the doctor compared these
moves to parts of a conversation.

Finally, to his immense relief, Nigel got to sit and listen.

My son, the visual aid.

Not today...last week.

As part of my outback work, I was with my team at a tiny airstrip, waiting in the dust with our luggage for the plane to come.

We had been left there by a colleague.

We hear a car coming...and the local cops roll up in their four wheel drive land rover cum paddy wagon.

"The plane's not coming" they say. "You're kidding" say we. They weren't.

They said they had a job to do so they had to leave us...but they said they'd try to catch the colleague who drove us to the strip. If they couldn't find him, they'd try to get someone else to come out at some point to pick us up. We hoped our accommodation would be there for us for another day.

Some dismay ensued....but the thing that made me smile was my colleague calmly sitting down in the dust, taking out her laptop, and quietly getting on with the court report she had been working on.

In my all out effort to avoid paperwork, I'm attending to sorting my photography stuff. Egads and little fishes, this is both fun and a large task that'll take more than a day or two (so I'll still have to do paperwork, but tomorrow). Anyway, I dragged in the last small box of photo miscellany in from the garage (I already have a "linen closet" and a cabinet full of photo stuff) and found.. aha, some of my old 8 x 10s. Most especially, my Lascivious Banana series. Snort... I haven't seen those for years now. I may have to frame them. Giggles.

Or share them here.

8 x 10s are probably too big for the page..
giggles some more.

Our son visited us since last Sunday, and we took him to the San Jose airport this morning for his flight back home. It was really nice to spend time with our son for the past four days. <<smile>>

Got good news from my doctor. The CTI dye test of the large node on my neck is not cancer. That means I have another year to irritate Dyslexia.

BBB

That's worth a smile any 'ole' day. Congrats.

Good news!

my soon-to-be 80 year old FIL has joined FB...

Gonna friend him?