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IT'S QUITE AMAZING THAT I'VE already got another personal Guinness record to tell you about--the second such in less than a month! This fact about which I'm reporting is undoubtedly a record for me, and I have a sneaking suspicion it'd be a record for you, as well. But I'll just let you be the judge: I have wooden shoes on my doorstep that are the largest pair of wooden footwear ever to sit outside my door. For sure.


If truth be told (and since, Dear Reader, I suppose the truth in this case is already a grave suspicion, I feel it best to go ahead and blow away the notion that there's been much competition in this category) the pairs of wooden shoes outside my door have only ever numbered two.

Still...it is rather extraordinary to see 14-1/2" (yes, I measured them) ones resting on the porch. They are the footwear of a quite delightful Dutch guy. The runner-up pair belongs to his equally charming friend and traveling companion. These two guests from the Netherlands have been in the U.S. for three months, the final three weeks of which their shoes have populated this porch of ours (mine and the man who lives here and houses his seven Belgian horses in the barn).





Ties and Jelmer, you see, are nearly as enamored of working with equine as that husband of mine with his barn full of them. The two have crossed the country working on (mostly Amish) farms and learning to speak English quite fluently.





I'd have to say, even more impressive than their shoes is the pleasant congeniality of these two, the way they each make us laugh with their fine sense of humor, and their earnest desire to work and learn.









We've gotten accustomed to having them around. When they leave next week, I will miss hearing those (record-breaking) wooden shoes making a pleasant clatter on the porch.

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JUST FOR THE NOVELTY OF IT, I decided to cut a watermelon into plate-like slices. Only after I finished did I realize how it simplified the task of tossing out the rind.


And the chickens clucked their approval to one another--hey, girls, would you look at this! Don't you think she's done a fine job with the presentation?!



It seemed to enhance their eating experience.

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WE BUTTED IN LINE. I'll just say it quickly, before you quite recall the continuing story of Nitabee and me at the ticket counter in the Philadelphia train station, and the snaking line of people, and the three minutes or so to make a decision about fetching the fetching pitcher that I'd left at our previous stop...but, geez, we're in a hurry, I can't re-tell it all! We must have looked like damsels in distress, the gentleman at the front of the queue waived his place and waved us to the counter. And before you know it, my sister and I had another hour and a half to spend together. We got a cab, got the pitcher (minutes before the shop closed), got back to the station, and, after taking our time and studying the whole impressive array of food available there, we had ice cream. After which we said thank-you, thank-you and goodbye, goodbye and hey, we could do this again in cooler weather. She boarded her train and headed east. Soon after, I got on mine and headed west.




And then-- twenty minutes into the western journey a flurry of announcements informed the passengers there was trouble ahead--a severe storm had brought a tree down onto electric lines over the track. The delay could be a half-hour--or it could be hours, they said. No one knew. Friendly Guy across the aisle shrugged his shoulders and gave me a commiserating smile. The conductor strode purposefully through the car. The passengers resigned themselves and settled in (speaking for myself, at least, and, from all appearances, Friendly Guy.)

It's for just such events as this that I rip the NY Times crossword puzzle from the Sunday paper each week. (How forward-thinking, wouldn't you say?) And then there's that other item with which I am able to entertain myself: I took lots and lots of photos--shots of Friendly Guy (sorry I can't show you his smile--I was always discreet), the conductor each time he made an appearance, my puzzle, my feet (getting a little desperate for subject matter, it's true). When I went and stood in the cell between the train cars in order to warm up (the engine may have been turned off, but the cold-air production continued in force), I took pictures of every knob, door, sign and other accouterment. (I'm thinking of publishing an illustrated book "My Time Between the Cars Between the Rails").




Eventually the crossword puzzle got a little old. After all, I was expected to figure out how the answer to *Social reformer Margaret Fuller, to Buckminster Fuller (it just had to be "great-aunt") could fit into seven spaces! Good grief. Enough brain-wracking for one sitting!

Furthermore, fresh subject matter for the camera had dwindled to zilch, Friendly Guy went to sleep, and...yawn, it was about time for this saga to end.







Which it abruptly did...an hour and a half later.
And now this telling of it, too!

*the end*
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YESTERDAY I CELEBRATED WITH MY SISTER, Nitabee. She's the much younger one of us, although I love the way the occasion we were celebrating briefly takes away the much. We visited the Museum of Art, which was simply a cool place to spend the day, coolness being highly sought after at that time and that place--that time being just about the hottest day of the summer thus far. That place being a mere pleasant little train trip away for each of us. So we met at the train station. We then discovered that the walk to the museum, despite what the guy at the info desk had told us, was not an easy little jaunt, but a sweating-profusely and resting- often and searching-out-shade sort of a trek. Had the guy been oblivious, or did we actually look much younger than our ages? We agreed it was the latter for sure, dragging ourselves into the welcome chill of the museum entrance.

Now that we'd arrived at this air-conditioned arena, it was first things first: We had to eat.


And so we dined. Dining, especially when celebratory and with a sister, is more agreeable, and extends much longer into the afternoon than simply eating.


Next on the agenda was shopping. And don't worry, there's plenty of shopping to be had at this museum. Celebratory shopping, especially with a sister, is quite agreeable and can extend until the museum is about to close, if one isn't careful.











There was still some time for art perusal, though. Hence we got to share commentary on the nude paintings (only with each other, of course, and the one man who overheard, much to his amusement), imagine ourselves in 1850s French apparel (and choose dresses for each other--my choice for the birthday girl being simply the best!),













ride a very unpopulated trolley to a separate building of the museum, and view more--etc. etc.--art.




Celebratory afternoons, especially... (alright, alright) do speed away, however, and it came time for a very hot ride on a now very populated trolley (crammed to the gills, actually) back to the general vicinity of the train station--general vicinity meaning that it was close enough we could survive the trudge back before our scheduled return trips, and still in the area where we were likely to find some refreshment for our gasping, parched, dehydrated bodies (I do exaggerate somewhat, but hey, it was really hot, and we were really thirsty!)

And that's where I'm going to leave you...schlepping along the sidewalk with us...because, you see, there's more to the story than just to say that we hopped on our return trains and headed home. Oh, heavens yes, there's more.

...to be cont'd
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JUST RETURNED FROM A brief vacation back in the Beautiful Valley, where I and my "I do" man spent time with many family members. Okay, yes, he's my husband; and yes, the family members were all extended relatives of his (and mine, due to "I do") --descended via his maternal grandparents; and certainly yes, as you've no doubt deduced, it was a family reunion.





I'll tell you why I like this family and why my weekend was quite well-spent: One-- The members of this clan enjoy being together, which means that they all get along, they like each other. They have these reunions every two years and most of those who can make it attend each time. Two--They generally find good places to meet, always where we are served our meals and don't have to be scrounging around and spending time in a kitchen. Three: They like to laugh. Maybe it got passed along in the DNA--these people love to have fun! Jokes and story-telling abound, as well as stunts to produce more laughter, so that, you know, there'll never be a shortage of stories to tell and more amusing stuff about which to reminisce.


Four: Do whatever you please, as far as how you spend your time at the reunion. If you want to squirrel away and do your own thing, no one seems to be offended. Possibly that's because

there are always plenty of people to join in the excursions (are you kidding? always excursions --this past weekend it was antique shops, Amish stores, road-side stands, gift shops, a winery--the beautiful valley had them all, and the van-load of women [yes, well, the men aren't as big on this kind of jaunting] investigated as many as possible). If one prefers to stay put, one can always join the league of jigsaw puzzle-piecers. Or sit on the porch and chat (where much of the laughter occurred), or study the table of family history albums and geneologies. Whenever hunger strikes, one can cruise the snack table; alas, I neglected to capture a picture of that. Too bad--it was impressive!




Equally impressive, I thought, was the hummingbird that came to the feeder at the porch, and just look at the shot I got of her.










When it came time to say goodbye to the grand view and the people who had enjoyed it for the past two days, it seemed a little too soon.







So we drove very slowly out the quite awesome tree-lined driveway, making it a shorter time until the next get-together with these dear folks.












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