12 Oakdale

I don’t know if I caught something on our trip to Atlanta or some other place, but I’ve been dragging the past few days. I’d wake up with a scratchy throat, but a cup of coffee would make that go away. After a week, I was coughing. No fever. Wednesday and Thursday, I laid in bed and read, getting up to present a solstice invocation in Kip’s memory at EarlyBirds but skipping the Tree Board meeting after. They didn’t want to sit next to me coughing anyway. Before that, I was able to do some gardening in the mornings, then laze around all afternoons. We did get my sundial installed. My watercolor and other activities have been put aside. I called Delta and persuaded them to change our Sydney to Auckland flight to Wellington instead. That’s a relief. Another day, I reserved a hotel in Wellington, bought Zealandia tickets, and decided to take the train up to Auckland to meet Betsy and Keith. We will save money on that, because the upscale seats were all sold. Means we will have to bring our...

On a whim, I bought tickets to the Atlanta show of The Rolling Stones’ Hackney Diamonds tour. They’d played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on June 3rd, but I was in Fort Lauderdale at the tree conference. Other tour dates didn’t fit our calendar, so Atlanta it was. Friday, we walked 6.7 miles between at the airport, getting to the hotel from MARTA, visiting the Georgia Aquarium, going to dinner at the Twin Smokes BBQ where they serve chitlings rather than chips as a freebie, and trekking to and from the Mercedes-Benz Stadium for the concert.We are tired. Of course, we were amazed by the energy of 80-year-olds Mick and Keith plus 77yo Ronnie, but the fact that most of the audience seemed about their/our age was as impressive. We old geezers still can stay up past 9:00 PM. Of course, at the hotel breakfast next morning, we mostly looked like something the cat dragged in.  Best part? The Stones tour is sponsored by AARP. Saturday, we visited the High Museum to see the Dutch maste...

The rain finally came: almost an inch last evening. Plus lots of wind. We lost a big screen panel, so time to call Terry from Integrity Screens. He’d just been out to replace 3 lowers panels that were getting rather loose, and I worried Gracie would figure out how to escape. Little by little, I’m having him replace all the screens. I probably should just have him do it all at once, but the piece by piece approach seems less painful. I know, crazy thinking. (We were lucky. On the east side of town, a tornado knocked over a tree onto a car, killing a 14-year-old.) Before this rain, the yard was dry and crispy, no matter how much I watered. When the wild coffee and hamalia, both natives, start wilting, it’s dry. I’m having Cooper run a line down the south side, using city water, so we will have total coverage when needed, which I hope won’t be until next dry season. Crossing my fingers that the rainy season has finally started. He’s already extended the canal intake out another foot, and ...