A Charming Tale in Which Julie Sticks Her Foot in Her Mouth...with the Amish

Okay so yesterday morning Andrew and I were at the chiropractor's office, sharing the waiting room with a young Amish women and her adorable infant. The baby was dressed in baby boy blue, complete with knit cap, and wrapped in a black wool coat folded like a snug carrier. I said to the young lady how adorable her little baby boy was...only to be told thank you, and it's a girl.

Oh, I said, I'm sorry I took her for a boy just because she was all dressed in blue. The Amish lady just smiled at me and Andrew was giving me this weird look.

A second Amish woman came back into the waiting room, with another baby girl...dressed in blue...and it slowly dawned on me, the gray dressed the women wore, the blue baby outfits.

After the Amish family left I looked to Andrew and said. The Amish wouldn't dress their baby girls up in pink would they? Because pink is not a neutral color.

Well Duh.

Oh well, I can only hope the Amish mother took my compliment with the good intention behind it and not the handsmack ingnorance of her culture.

Sigh

Fall Continues

The picture posted here was taken in September. Do not be deceived. The picture is doctored in the sense that it was full sunlight and I was watering my Mom's roses. So it's not like I was in the right place at the right time after a rain shower. But, it's not a bad shot.

Speaking of great shots, I was driving home from my ahem, fitness class on Monday night and on the drive home I counted 10, count 'em 10 combines in a mile stretch of fields on 29 at the route 38 intersection. I had never seen that many combines at once. It was a little crazy. There was so much dust in the air that in a quarter mile stretch felt like driving through the fog.

You may have noticed more deer hit on the roads and ditches lately. That's because we are right in the middle of the white tail rut (translation: boys chasing girls). I saw a doe, a yearling and a fawn off of 270 the other day, and a doe in the corn just outside of Marysville today on my drive up to bowling green. I also saw two red tail hawks and some white heron like bird in a pond while taking 75 north.

I may post a picture of a red tail in flight, I have a couple that are just okay.

I'm not crazy...

Last night, after producing 4 pages, I decided to swith gears and actually take a look at a book I've had out forever, "The Forest for the Trees" by Betsy Lerner. After a brief perusal I decided I would want to pull some things out to record so I opened up my lilac rubbermaid tub full of blank books...I will talk about this another time. And I selected s smallish one, magnetic flap, light blue with a white vine/floral pattern.

I selected a pen to use and began to record a few things from the book. Andrew had just gotten back from the gym.

Molly, the cat who chews like a dog, was under the guest bed chewing on something. I found this so irritating that I got up and began to slap my hand against the mattress to distract her--nothing doing.

I yelled, I cajoled, but she continued to make the chewy tuggy noise from somewhere under the bed.

I've been a little short tempered lately so I kicked the boxspring without realizing that even though box springs are relatively light, they are framed with wood.

So I hurt my big toe. It hurt so bad. I flung my pen in anguish, yelled at Molly and collapsed on the bed...and Molly continued to make the chewy tuggy noises.

Andrew assured me that even though I had cracked the toenail and there was a little blood, it was not broken. I recovered, and when I got out of the shower, decided to look for my pen. I could not find it.

"So just use a different pen." Andrew suggested.

"But I don't have a second pen in that color."

"So just use a different pen."

"I can't, I already started writing with this one."

"You are crazy."

"I am not, I just need that pen."

I found it this morning...while Molly was chewing on something.

Tis Fall

The picture attached with this blog was taken from a treestand, about twenty feet up in an undisclosed location.

Generally I don't like height, I don't like being on the third floor of the library and looking down to circulation...but the treestand I don't mind a bit. I have this special vest that attaches to a safety belt on the tree so if I were to fall, I'd just dangle until Dad came to get me.

The evening I took this picture, there was a trail of corn cobs and husks leading to the tree and about a half dozen cobs on the foot platform of the stand...racoons.

I sat for two hours watching the colors of the field and trees change with the setting sun and clouds of birds fluctuating from ground to tree to sky.

I did not see any mammals to take any pictures of...unless you count a huge white cat. I heard some turkeys. Just as Dad was coming to unhook me, we heard two raccoons squabbling behind me in a tall tree. They had spent the day sleeping in a hole and were just getting ready to come down for more corn. By then it was too dark to take a picture.

I like fall. I like not having to water trees after four months of solicitude. I like the commute...seeing deer in the evenings at the edge of woods and in the corn fields. Watching clouds of dust around the combines and grain wagons in the morning and evening. The moon is always so cool in the fall, larger, richer, and better colored than any other time of the year.

I love turning the air conditioner off and not turning the heater on and I love wearing hoody sweatshirts on my way to work and casual days off. My current favorite is the Nightmare before Christmas hoodie I got at Disneyland when I went to ALA.

Last night, as I was driving home from class, I passed three combines in the fields. Seeing their lights in the dark was a comforting feeling. About a mile from my house I passed a corn field and at the base of a hill, between two sections of corn in a wide flattened aisle was a combine and grain wagon side by side. The lights of the combine illuminated the grain dust and it was just a really romantic scene--I'm serious. I wish I could have a picture of it...even if I had a camera it would have been too dark. Aw well.

The other great thing about fall is the Brach's candy pumpkins. Candy corn is for wimps. Each pumpkin equals five candy corns. They are even made with honey...and high fructose corn syrup. I eat them at work and Katheryn is very good at taking them away from me before I get sick...but they are so delicious...(homer simpson salivating sound...)

Contradictory items

Later this week I will post a new picture taken from a surprising spot and wax poetic about the fall season.

Im the past 24 hours I have seen:

A customer in line to purchase generic immodium i-d and two regular size reese's cups packages--so technically 4 regular size reese's cups I mean, isn't that a little weird.

And I saw a guy on 670 this morning driving an ice cream supply truck with a cigarrete in his mouth.

I thought they were contradictory but maybe I am just being weird.

One flash drive found and another freakin' lost

Um, last night I discovered that the photos my Mom took during my parent's vacation to CO are really hard to import into my photo program from the cd made at the photo place in Colorado and by really hard I mean it's probably simple and I couldn't figure out how to do it.

So I am emailing all of the cd pictures to myself so I can put them on a flash drive to put in my photo program.

But, my Mom had a bunch of photos on her memory card so two nights ago I painstakingly (har har) uploaded them, did some cropping and some tonal adjustments. And saving them on a flashdrive.

I *thought* I brought my flashdrive with these memory card pics to work to work on my dinner and when I put the flashdrive in guess what.

None of the Colorado pictures from the memory card were there...but my Michigan Vacation pictures were!

I do not know how to explain this...

It just goes to show, if you can't find your flash drive with your precious vacation pictures then just order a replacement cd from shutterfly, spend 15 bucks, what a week and then...

find the lost flash drive.

bang head
on key board



now...

Whatever, here's a vacation picture, mine, not my parents.