Stephanie says

In a few blinks the first four months of 2011 have disappeared into the past. Contrarily however, since the onset of my diet*, 14 weeks within those four months sputtered and dragged. Go figure. * Live-it actually

I enjoy listening to “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross on NPR on my daily commute home. The wide ranging subjects and the typically articulate speakers are a delightful and stimulating interlude. One program earlier this week interviewed the two authors of “Bang Bang”, a story about the hazards and hardships of investigative reporting in war zones. Listening away I was caught up in the telling by one author until I kept hearing “you know” in just about every sentence. I found myself counting “you know” and lost the thread of the story. (This counting is an annoying habit formed during my Lamaze training.) I found myself waiting for the next “you know” until I couldn’t take another “you know” and changed the radio station. My daughter developed the lazy speech pattern of “you know” which drove me to distraction. We two were together practically every moment during a four-week trip when the “you know” phrase broke me. I began consistently replying “Yes I do know” and by the end of ...

A hellacious windstorm blew through my town recently and a huge Douglas Fir tree toppled in its wake. It fell straight down my property line and took out 100 ft of my fence. The porch roof was damaged but I counted myself fortunate that it didn’t land on my house. The butt is six-foot in diameter, I stopped measuring it at 76 ft with a six-inch diameter. Big, big tree. Just so you know, according to the insurance company the property owner where a tree lands has the liability. So its up to me to get rid of this behemoth. And replace the fence. And repair the porch roof. With a cash influx from the insurance company minus my deductible. My neighbor helped me put up some temporary fencing on either side of the porch so the dogs wouldn’t be able to climb out over the tree. This didn’t work at all as both dogs jumped off the porch rail onto the lawn. Much to my dismay Rosie discovered an escape route. On two separate occasions she took off when I was out in the yard. I called her name, s...