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jimsjournal

Catching up -- 05/23/10



There always seems to be a lot of stuff going on here and I think "Oh, that would make an interesting journal entry" but there seems to be so much stuff going on that I end up not finding time to post an entry. And, as I noted in my last entry, when I ended up with a few days of not being able to be active, I just slept through them.

A lot of activity went into prepping my vegetable gardens. That is plural because I now have an area in the back yard (where I'd had those trees taken down last year) planted as a vegetable garden that is about the size of the garden I've had for years. I had to get that ground prepared and planted and mulched with straw so that it would not need much weeding effort (since I expect to have several weeks of restricted activity ahead of me because of my heel). A few hours also went into preparations for the most recent book sale put on by the friends of the library. This time I had to skip working the sale itself because of home obligations -- since Jill and Jeremy have just six days between their birthdays, they thought that this year they might have a combined backyard birthday cookout party... and the obvious date to pick was the Saturday that fell between their birthdays.

"Some assembly required..."

We have not had an outdoor grill for the past several years. Jeremy enjoys outdoor grilling so he went and bought himself a propane grill... and then had to put it together. (Actually, he is quite handy with tools and such and the grill was assembled much quicker than I could have managed.)

On the right you see a piñata that Jill made for the party. She blew up two balloons and then covered them with paper-mâché made from hundreds of strips of colored paper. The was a project that took many hours. Once it was dry, she filled it with pounds of candy.

And, below, you can see Jeremy cooking on his new grill (burgers and hot dogs and chicken (spiedie-marinated on wooden skewers).

These days I guess every party has to be at least partly digital. Thus, a TV monitor and a lot of electronics was moved out to a table on our back deck (which has its summer-time gazebo in place with canvas roof and mosquito mesh walls) so that partiers could play Garage Band. (That's Jill on drums.)


Tiger has become quite brave with age. Once upon a time having this many people over would have sent him off to hide down in the basement or upstairs under a bed, but he has now become quite accustomed to visitors (and has learned that visitors will pet him and scratch behind his ears and give him treats). He spent most of the party in the living room but eventually curiosity overcame caution and he couldn't resist sneaking out onto the back deck. Jill spotted him sitting on the back corner of the deck, hidden in the dark, and she scooped him up to bring him back inside.


Ah, yes, beer pong. It wouldn't be a proper party without beer pong. This was first set up like this in the back yard, but as night descended it became more difficult to play so soon after I took this picture, it was relocated to inside the garage.


The party lasted into the small hours but Nancy and I had gone to bed and were asleep before midnight. The photograph below is from the next day, Jeremy's actual birthday with his traditional birthday cookie. (This is a chocolate chip cookie the size of a large pizza.) Nancy drew a picture of his new grill and wrote "Happy Birthday grill meister." (Jeremy has turned 25.)

And then I had my surgery on Tuesday and basically slept until Friday (*grin*) and this weekend I mostly worked on web updates for some local sites I built and maintain. (A new look for the Kinney Bungalow site and adding events for July, August, and September to the Culture Coalition site.)

Right now Nancy (and sister Janet and her husband Tom) are at the Providence Performing Arts Center enjoying Jersey Boys. I enjoyed Frankie Vali and the Four Seasons 'way back when (even saw them in concert back around 1964 or so at SUNY/New Paltz) and hated to miss the show, but I just could not picture successfully navigating through the crowd while on crutches without falling down or further injuring my foot.

I have an appointment tomorrow morning with my podiatrist and am hoping that everything has been going well.




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