I was happily sight-reading music by Handel that I downloaded free from the internet, enjoying playing the piano again. When I picked up the iPad and looked closely at the page, I realized there were lots of staccato markings – little dots under the notes to make them very short. I couldn’t see them when the music was on the rack. If I had played the piece as marked, it would have sounded entirely different. The solution? I put a red dot on each mark, highlighting what I needed to see. The dots look a bit like a child’s face with measles. It worked fairly well. I think I can easily delete the marks with a few taps on the screen, although I intend to keep them there.
Neighbor Logan (13) had this week off from school, and going fishing was one special treat. He and his dad Bob rented a cabin at Lake Logan for one night. Bob sent this photo to Shawn, and she shared it with me.
I saw father and son as they drove in and commented on the fish. Logan was still excited about all they caught, and especially this big one. At first he thought he’d gotten hung up on the log, but then the line came alive as the fish moved. All the fish were thrown back, so they couldn’t have weighed them. How marvelous that Bob had his phone with him and thought to take the photo!
The next day Logan wasn’t around when Bob talked about the trip. He said they were in the boat near trees on the bank, and he told his son it would be a mess if he got hung up in the trees. It was amazing that Logan cast sideways with great accuracy, avoiding those hanging branches every time. It was such a delight for me to hear the pride in Bob’s voice. Oh! If only all boys had fathers who were proud their sons!
We invited family friend Brittainy (Brit) to live in our spare bedroom for a while. Grandson David opened the door as she began to bring in her things. I didn’t realize she was in the house until I heard her beautiful laugh down the hall. Her laugh is musical and so pleasing to the ear.
Brit knew I was struggling to deal with my iPad and offered to help. I knew little more than how to turn it on and off. She quickly taught me several vital things like how to get to instructions and tips and how to close open apps. I thought that was enough to remember for one session, but I did mention that I hadn’t been able to use a wireless foot-operated page turner daughter Lise gave me. It is for turning pages in the music app. I had tried to pair it to the app several times, with no success. In less than five minutes, Brit handed the turner to me, held the pad up with music displayed, and had me push the button to turn pages. Impressive!! I will use it for real when I play today.
When I headed home from my walk, this scene reminded me of a story my friend Becky told.
Becky was a volunteer at a visitor’s center for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This is the most visited of all the national parks in the US, so visitor centers are very busy there. A couple with children came to her and asked with all seriousness, “When do they turn on the smoke?”
Becky can TALK, but I think she was struck dumb for a moment or so. I have told that story many times, and it cracks me up every time.
There is a chemical reason for the haze we see in the Smokies. The plants not only give off oxygen, but also chemicals that form the haze. My photo shows just mist that would likely be gone before I got home.
I knew grandson David and neighbor Logan were throwing a football outside. After a while, I looked out and was shocked to see someone wearing a kilt.
My eyes are not what they used to be, so it took a few seconds for me to realize David had gotten too warm and had tied his flannel shirt around his waist. If your vision was a bit blurry, would you have seen a kilt at first??
Yesterday I had finally had enough of annoying notification dings on the phone. There were few things I really wanted to hear, so I tried to turn most of them off. They were canceled at the system level and at the app level. Many still got through that net. David offered to help, so last night he went through turning things off. It seemed like magic. Suddenly there were no offending chirps. Those few moments before I went to bed were very peaceful.
This morning was quiet, also. I woke up fifteen minutes after the alarm should have gone off. What I skipped was the morning exercise routine. I went out to walk at the usual time, to the accompaniment of constant notification chirps. When David silenced things the night before, it coincided with the night hours set to be silent from 11 pm to 6:30 am. I suspect my phone is a compulsive talker, impossible to stifle.
While walking, I saw a large worm-sized creature on the road and took a photo of it. The Lens app identified it as a milk snake, found from Maine to Tennessee and Western North Carolina. I thought it rather cute but would not be tempted to have one as a pet, as some people do.
We stayed busy while daughter Kate was here for a week, but we never felt rushed. I usually take photos when we go out to eat, making it appear that we never stay at home. I have only two from this visit – eating dumplings at China King and going to Jukebox Junction, modeled after roadside eateries from my childhood. Neither place was busy, and both had wonderful food.
Mother and son do heavy chores, making them look easy. I wrote about their burning the garden trash early on. They trimmed the Wicked Wisteria, making me hold my breath. Kate held the ladder, while David reached wayward branches. He felt safe bracing his knees against the top of the ladder. I wouldn’t look too closely, but was relieved when the job was done.
Kate noticed I had left a pile of branches from a nasty thorn bush. She loaded them on the broken wheelbarrow without touching the sharp thorns. It looked like she was running with the wheelbarrow, but she said she hurried because one of the handles was hard to hold.
Seeing neighbors was fun. Joyce brought mail that was put in her box by mistake and stayed to sit on the porch to visit.
Logan came over to play games with us. Kate was putting a jigsaw puzzle back in the box while he and David played a computer game. I didn’t take a photo of our visiting with Shawn and Bob in their living room, but we did enjoy it.
Although Kate has always been very afraid of dogs, she paid lots of attention to Kasey and often took her on short walks. These were two of the photos she took of the dog in her playpen and a favorite pose when looking at the neighborhood from the front porch.
A most exciting moment was seeing a bird flying at full speed and crashing into the porch wall. It didn’t move for a long time. I eased past the bird, took a photo of it through the front door, fetched a dustpan, and gently put the pan next to its feet. It stepped on. As I rose to take it to a tree, it suddenly flew straight to the top of a tree across the street. When Logan (13) saw the photo on our frame, he asked what kind of bird it was, looked closer, and said, “It’s a waxwing. No other bird has markings on its tail like that.” I was very impressed with his knowledge. I had planned to look it up but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
David and I were chatting with Kate on the phone as she drove home to New Jersey. Grandson Nathaniel called to talk to us, so David propped the phones up for a four-way family conversation. We had had a lovely visit, and that was a fine way to end it.
The day after daughter Kate drove down from New Jersey, we walked to the stop sign with neighbor Brit and grandson David. I normally walk in the morning, but this was Sunday afternoon. It was dark by the time we got home.
Because David had an appointment, we went to the closest restaurant, only to find it had closed early that day. We drove a bit further to get dumplings at a favorite Chinese restaurant. He still had plenty of time to meet the person he was seeing.
The three of us love going on the Blue Ridge Parkway, so we did that early in the visit. On the way, we went to my favorite waterfall, Sunburst.
Later, driving on the parkway, we spotted any number of mountain ash trees with their red berries. I have never before seen so many of those trees with such vibrant fruit. As far as I know, the berries are not edible.
Back home, Logan saw us on the porch and came over to visit. He lured David out to pass a football, probably long enough to make David sore. Can you see the football in the air above them? That was a happy photographic accident.
Kate and Kacey stayed out of the way while watching the fellows.
Another day David went to the dentist for his checkup while Kate and I got my car inspected. I am not currently driving because of my eyesight, but we keep the car here as a spare for David or wheels for Lise when she visits. Later that day, David, Kate and Kacey burned the garden trash. The fire was hot enough to make the K’s move back so that only David was near the fire.
If you are an Apple device user, prepare to laugh at me. Popular opinion says Apple products are easy to use. Lise bought me this refurbished pad, and I’ve played with it every day since it arrived. It must be several weeks now, and I am no nearer mastering it than the day I started. If Apples are intuitive, then I have no intuition worth speaking of. Neighbor Shawn took pity on me when I was bumbling about and showed me how to close sites I had open. I might never have found that on my own.
I did learn how to scan my own music with forScore, an app I installed on the iPad. I’ve practiced four pieces that I had started playing several years ago. After my retina leaked (Age related Macular Degeneration), I could no longer see the notes of regular music. Now, with the music backlit and expanded, I can see fairly well.
One super day I stumbled into an online store and was able to download one free piece of music that I had never seen before. That was really exciting. I kept looking for that store and could not find it. David was sitting in the room with me when I began to grumble. He offered to look at it, even though he has no experience with Apple things. He bumbled around, too, but at warp speed. He found the store, which was accessed through the music app. I THINK I can get back to that place again.
I downloaded a free set of pieces by Handel and found there were 13 in all. Most are one page long. What a delight! I sat down and sight read seven of them, finishing the rest the next day. Perhaps a second grader would be challenged by them. I am going to have to look at them closely, because I found I couldn’t see the little dots under the notes indicating staccatos. Meanwhile, I am so grateful to David for unlocking this music for me.
I’ve been riding on county buses for a year now, and today was the first time I didn’t think I was going to make it to my appointment. Riders are warned to be ready one and a half hours before appointment time, giving the scheduler time to fit everyone in. I was ready at 9:25, and the bus pulled in my drive at 9:30. The driver said she had a full schedule, figuring people wanted to get out and get things done before the holiday weekend. Buses will not run on Labor Day.
For the first time, the bus turned toward I-40 instead of Waynesville. The roads got progressively smaller. We headed down a twisty lane that I would have hesitated to drive a full sized car on. We were in a BUS. GPS said we had arrived at our destination, but which small trailer was it? No numbers showed. The driver honked. No one came out. She was about to go knock on the door when a woman hurried toward us. When she made her reservation for the bus, no one told her to be ready so early. We really didn’t wait long and still had plenty of time to get back to town.
Retracing our route, we passed my area, but instead of going to Waynesville, we veered off to Maggie Valley. GPS was confused. We wandered down three roads, contacted headquarters, made another wrong turn and finally were passing trailers with not three feet between them. A man laboriously climbed into the bus, pausing at each step. He advised us not to get old. I wanted to know how old is old. He said 85. I said, “Good. I’ve got five years to go.”
In silence we headed for the fourth pickup. GPS dithered. The driver had a proper address, but only a few lot numbers showed and fewer house numbers were visible. Headquarters said the house had a car parked there with lots of stuff in it. We all laughed, saying that applied to almost every car in the area. We passengers were peering out the windows trying to help the driver. The road was one-way, and we were going the wrong way. A truck came toward us and veered off to another tiny road. He evidently knew a way out. The houses were tiny house size but lacking in modern attractiveness. Small trailers were packed in so tightly that we wondered how they ever got there. GPS ( I now say short for Go Punch Something) said we were at our destination. After a couple of calls to headquarters again, the driver sighed and got out to knock on the door of a decrepit trailer. She came back, saying the back door was wide open, but no one responded. Headquarters said no one answered the phone, so we were free to go. The driver kept her cool, but the pressure was on. She knew my appointment was at 11, and we had barely enough time to make it. By this time we felt like old friends and chatted all the way to Waynesville.
Noah, the acupuncturist, was standing in the waiting room when I rushed in. He said I wasn’t late, but I’ll bet I wasn’t more than 15 seconds early. I had planned to arrived relaxed and peaceful.
Here is a video from the porch cam showing the bus gingerly backing out of my driveway. The drivers do a marvelous job of navigating our circular mountain roads, and they do it cheerfully every time.
My name is Suki, my human is a writer, and this is about my world. The world according to Suki The Cat. My humans smell funny, look weird, and I can't understand a thing they say, but they feed me, so hey, what are you gonna do?
Mehrling Muse 