Out of the Mouths of Babes

As you might recall, I was in NYC last Wednesday to help forward along plans for the Norwalk Hospital Foundation's annual fund-raising gala with our caterer, Gracious Thyme.  Along with Miss LaLa, Jules and I, Maria and Bridget of the Hospital Foundation were also there.  The two of them drove in, so when it was time to go to lunch at Asia Society's Garden Court Cafe, the five of us drove there together. As women (and men from my own personal observation) are wont to do, we gabbed on the way there. Along the way, Bridget told us the following story:

She and her hubby met and married rather later in life and were blessed with a boy child about seven years ago when they both were around the 40 mark, give or take a few years.  

On weekend mornings, the three of them have a long-standing routine that as soon as the boy child (BC from now on) wakes up in the morning, he barrels onto his parents' bed and snuggles between the two of them. Nice!  

Last Saturday morning, BC came in as usual and the three of them are snuggling away when out of the blue, BC abruptly sat up, perplexedly looked at his mom who is lying on her back with her tee-shirt pretty night gown covering her, and asked: "Mommy why are you so flat when you lie down? You aren't flat when you stand up." (Bridget said at this point her hubby turned toward his nightstand and became intensely focused on the books there.) She answered her son:  "Well, that's because my boobs are in my armpits."  (With that, Hubby sat bolt upright on the side of the bed, looking like he knew he's seriously out of his realm.) BC then asked her why that was. She answered:  "It's because I'm in my 40's and that's just what happens, and also because I had you and babies do that to mommy's boobs." BC: "But when mommys on TV lie down, they're not flat." Bridget: "That's because they've had work done so their boobs stay up there and are perky. When you're older and are dating and the girl lies down, if her boobs stick straight up, you'll know she's had work done. But, of course, BC, you'll want a girl just like mommy!" (She said at that point hubby fled the bedroom without a backward glance.) BC: "Ohhhhh. Well, ok!  Let's go make pancakes!"   

~~~

xoabb

Photo courtesy of Asia Society

P. S.  Judy and her husband, Chef Mark Cummings, proprietors of Gracious Thyme, have taken over the reins of Asia Society's Garden Court Cafe. The Cafe is located within the museum on the corner of Park and 70th and is only open for lunch and Sunday brunch. Please do yourself a huge favor! Go visit and dine in this little gem. You won't be disappointed! We were treated to lunch there and everything we tasted was beyond excellent, from the food to the tea of the day (oh, they also serve wine, etc.).  Yes, truly a "sublime secret spot!"  Click on any of the links for more information.

Sunday Serenity

Classified a weed*,

To me, it's a beautiful,

Delightful flower.

~~~

xoabb

*Above is a photo of Common Chicory.  

You can also go here for more info on it's "weed" classification. 

Update of a previous post:  I've found out what those funny looking ducks are I wrote about a few days ago!  Click here and read the update at the bottom if you're curious!

Stella Helps in the Garden

Stella quite effectively ignoring Rem's pleas to 

"Please get OUT of the garden!"

My eldest daughter, Remy decided to plant some pepper plants in among my tomato plants. Stella, who is curious about everything helped by lying down only after getting as close to Rem as she possibly could, and then moving whenever Rem moved to another section of the garden so the closeness could continue. Remy decided it was time for a fence to ward off Miss Stella's insatiable curiousity, so off she went to the hardware store.  She returned and began installing the fence. Notice Stella decided to lie down exactly where the next part of the fence was supposed to go. And she had no desire to move.  Each time Rem crawled under the bush to haul Stella out by her collar, she was thoroughly licked to the point she was laughing so hard she couldn't do anything, let alone drag Stella out of the garden. Needless to say, she was fighting a losing battle. A little later in the day, after Remy had finally been able to install all of the very short and flimsy fencing, she caught Stella carefully stepping over that puny fence into the garden, headed for her shady spot. Remy yelled at her and told her she was very naughty! Stella guiltily (and quite easily) jumped back over the fence. Only two pepper plants were trampled beyond recognition in the process. I wonder if we can get our money back...for the fence, not the pepper plants.

  

~~~

xoabb

Sky Watch Friday...

Connecticut's shore...

Such beauty with it's ever

Changing sky faces.

~~~

xoabb 

Sky Watch Friday has a new home! You'll find us here, but don't forget to keep visiting Wigger's World.   Tom and his wife have been nurturing SWF for a long time.

Ace Bandage

Yep, the foot's done in and so is the shin. Underneath those bandages is a long continuous scrape and bruise. It's bad....it's ugly....and now that I've gotten so damn old, probably permanent as every scrape or cut I now get seems to forever stay pinker than my unscarred skin, so I'm sure it will be bad and ugly forever. (sigh)

Yesterday Miss LaLa, Jules and I trained in to NYC to meet with Judy and Nancy of Gracious Thyme - the fabulous company that is catering Norwalk Hospital Foundation's annual gala fundraising event - to discuss our theme, menu, etc.   

Jules said she would pick me up, so when I saw her in the circle, I locked the side doors and went out the front door.  We have well shaded flagstone steps leading to the front door, and when our sprinkler system goes on, the last step before the pathway gets wet. Algae has grown in the wet shade on this last step. I walked down, purse in one hand, a glass of iced tea in the other, hit the algae patch and went flying! Purse, tea and me splattered everywhere.  Another fine moment of grace and beauty. I'm good at that. Good thing I didn't have on a skirt.

Needless to say I hurt like hell! Jules took one look at my face and asked if I wanted to go to the ER. Of course not - my leg would have had to be dangling by a thread of skin to warrant that. As luck would have it, she had just bought a first aid kit for her car, so we were able to patch me up. Got a bag of ice at the coffee stand and off we went on the train. I iced only my shin for the hour long trip as my foot hurt not one bit. Stepped on said foot to get off the train and thought I would just collapse. It was killing me! I think I've probably chipped or broken one of the many bones that reside down there.  

Got home and it was apparent I wouldn't be doing any of the final prep for the evening meal. (By the way, did I mention GB and I were having 14 for dinner?) Miss LaLa and Jules to the rescue! Those two dearest of friends came over and finished everything for me! We had a most lovely evening (I even got my ankle wrapped by one of the attendees who happens to be a nurse). And I wasn't even allowed to clean up! A most excellent evening! 

I'll leave you with a prettier picture - it's the antipasto platter Jules put together for our apps. last night.  Beautiful! Delicious too!

~~~

xoabb

ABC Wednesday - Z...

...is for Zinnia

Yes, my favorite flower.

Well, among others...

Single blooms are nice

But I think I like doubles 

Better - more showy. 

Bugs munch zinnias,

Holes are eaten in petals,

But beauty shines through.

~

ABC Wednesday is brought to us by Mrs. Nesbitt.  

Hop on over to her neck of the blogger woods and join us! 

~~~

xoabb

What do you get...

...when wild ducks and domestic ducks "get together" (if you know what I mean) and make baby ducks?

Aside from some obvious pompadorable,

you also get a whole lot of strange and unusual! 

~~~

xoabb

POST UPDATE:  The above are Manky Mallards!  If you hop on over to Charlie's post he wrote about these ducks on 10000 Birds, you'll find a wonderful explanation of these wonderful ducks.  Thanks to Charlie (& Louise who led me there). Oh, and Mike, another writer of 10000 Birds also posted about the ducks - and I'm really not sure mine are Manky's after reading all of this!

Gone Fishin'

As some of you know, we live on a pond.  There are four families that share this wondrous piece of water and it's shores, and we have worked diligently to make this a living, breathing, healthy entity.  As a collective foursome, we decided to "save" this water hole, and for our efforts, we've been told what we can do to further our pond's life, by our local governent, though we four pond owners had that very same intent in the first place.  Ah well, at least on this very minor of levels, there wasn't a huge disagreement on how things should be done! Government...local or country-wide...what a crock!!

Anywho - the above fish is a healthy bass caught in our pond.  It's a testimony to the well-being of the balance of this very dear body of water.  (Oh, and below are some of the 25, not counting all the little ones we threw back, bluegill/sunnys we caught.) 

Whatever - freshwater fish???  Good Eatin'!!!

BTW - I cleaned 'em all - my dad taught me well!

~~~

xoabb

Sunday Serenity

"People from a planet without flowers would think we must 

be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us."

~

~ Iris Murdoch,  A Fairly Honourable Defeat

~~~

xoabb

Flower pictured above is a Lacecap Hydrangea.

Above is also my entry for Kacey's (wineonthekeyboard) 

Red White or Blue July photo contest.

Ahhhhhhhh....

We've spent the last two days purging our garage and shed. After lots of vacuuming, cleaning, and organizing, along with five trips to the dump, four trips to Goodwill and three trips to various folk's home with their stuff we somehow had, we have a garage and shed that's positively gleaming! Now on to the basement. (sigh)

The above photo has nothing to do with anything. It's from my mom and gorgeous, at least to me.  As she wrote:  "It's hard to get the tomatoes and cukes picked when there's so much needing to be photographed. One drop of dew looked like amber, and how about the brilliant cut diamonds to the side?"  Since I've lost the majority of my photos, every so often I'll be stealing I'll be borrowing photos from my photography-minded family.  Yep, shameless family exploitation at it's best! Oh, I'm sure they won't mind!

~~~

xoabb