Fall, a Full Moon and a Homecoming Parade

What a lovely weekend!

Despite temperatures in the 90's yesterday and a local homecoming parade that physically felt more like July than late September, this morning's early rain brought through a cool front that feels like fall.

The change of seasons was heralded this week by one of the most gorgeous harvest moons I remember seeing in recent years. The traditional reddish-gold cast to the rising moon was beautiful, and this year we had the added spectacle of a super-bright Jupiter sitting at 3 o'clock to the full moon. Clear skies were our friend during this true cosmic delight.

One interesting coincidence about the full moon photo at the top of the blog and the one included in this post...

Jack and I have a friend named Jeffry, who has been traveling with his wife and a group of colleagues in South Africa for the past couple of weeks. Their party returned yesterday, and once Jeff started getting caught up with all of his social networking, he noticed that MY moon picture looked very much like the moon picture he'd taken hours before mine, rising over Johannesburg. Here's the comparison from half a world away -

Jeff said the moon they saw was a bright, hot red. Ours wasn't quite so dramatic, but gorgeous nonetheless.

I've loaded up an album of the photos I took yesterday at the DeKalb County High School Homecoming Parade as a Photobucket album, and the slideshow is posted below. It's amazing that with all the things that have changed since "we" were in high school, a lot of things stay the same. The respectful camaraderie between coach and player. The human drama of young couples. The intensity of band kids preparing to play during "the count". Boys and girls riding in cars.

There are cell phones now. And while everybody has a camera, there's no Bundy Bratten hanging back with his camera and taking pictures of everybody and everything, finding those things that don't change. I'd like to think that I learned a few things about how to capture the mood of a gathering from him, though.

DeKalb County's Tigers lost their homecoming game, but if the gathering in the square yesterday says anything about the appeal of this young team and new coach, they're winners despite the outcome of one particular game.

Ah, nostalgia.

DCHS Homecoming Parade 2010

Oh Deer...

This morning it happened. That thing I have dreaded and avoided and exercised nine kinds of cautious to not experience.

I hit a deer on my way to work.

She came out of nowhere, as if she had been dropped from the air above into the path of my car. In a split second I saw animal and heard a thud, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to avoid it.

Numerous friends of mine have had encounters with deer in their vehicles, and dreadful as the whole thing was, I'm actually lucky that the impact was no worse. I wasn't driving very fast, so when the front driver's side of the car hit the deer, there wasn't enough force to deploy the airbags, which would have totally sucked, considering the quite minimal exterior damage. I'm glad I didn't smack into it with the front-end of the car. I know people that have ended up with deer - either dead or mortally wounded and panicking - in the passenger compartment of the vehicle with them. Thankfully I experienced nothing quite so dramatic, though watching the injured deer trying to get up and run away was horrible.

The deputy who came to file the report was going to check on the deer on his way back to town. He hadn't spotted her on trip to our house. No harder than I hit her, there's a chance that she was able to get up and trot off to the woods for some recovery time. I like to imagine her chance of shaking this off are better than they probably are in reality. While I can't blame myself for what happened and I hate that my car is going to be in the body shop for who knows how long, leaving an injured, frightened animal in a ditch leaves a terrible feeling in my heart. I like to believe that the old saying about God's compassion for animals and children is true.

The car is drivable and only looks bad on the one side. Jack's going to help me limp it to the body shop in Franklin tomorrow morning. Insurance is going to pay for a rental, which the body shop is making arrangements for. Inconvenient as it is, I wasn't hurt and my car is going to be fine.

Happy Monday.

Indian Summer Sunday

It's been another lovely Indian Summer day here in Middle Tennessee --

I've almost completely recovered from yesterday's photo angst and am simply looking forward to the next opportunity to hit a fair or local street festival to make up the ground I lost at the push of a button yesterday. Everyone worries so much when Lucia is checking out my camera and pushing around on the buttons - I always have it "off" when she's doing that, just in case. I'm obviously far more dangerous...

Here's another handful of photos for your enjoyment.

Fair Photo Faux Pas

Ah, the last weekend of summer... Where have the weeks gone?

Jack and I enjoyed the final gasp of what has been a wonderful season by spending some time at the Warren County Fair. While "going to the fair" was a big part of both of our childhoods, neither of us have been too excited about it in recent years, and this is the first time we've made the trip since 2000. The prospect carrying our cameras and getting all kinds of cool photos of "fair people" fattened the potential of the experience, so last night and then again this afternoon, we loaded our gear into the car and headed the fair.

I'm going to go ahead and let everyone know that at this moment - as I type this blog post - I am so mad at myself I could stick knitting needles into my eyes...

After a shaky start with the photos last night, I was ready to roll today. I figured out what settings I needed to use for everything, cleared my memory card and went with a fresh perspective. For reasons too lengthy and irrelevant to include here that include discovering how to change the format in which I save and edit my picture files (which is a good thing), I inadvertently erased half of today's photos from my camera.

The horse show warm-up - gone.

The trio of cute children riding the ferris wheel - gone.

The woman pouring Sundrop into her baby's bottle - gone.

Oh well. I still got more great fair pictures than most people care to take, so I'm not going to beat myself up too badly about it. I learned several things about my camera that I didn't know already, which will come in handy the next time I'm in a dark and tricky situation or need to capture fast action. And I will ALWAYS make sure that I've saved everything before I start cleaning out the camera and reformatting my memory cards.

At least it wasn't a camera full of unsaved Lucia pictures.

I'm still mad, but not as mad as I was five minutes ago. It'll be all right...

As I was goofing around with the camera, preparing to take the best pictures of the Warren County Fair that have ever been taken, I strolled out to the hummingbird feeder, and using my new knowledge, I took what is perhaps the best hummingbird photo of the summer...

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, everybody!

Sunday - Part Deux

Here's the rare "second post of a day" that I sometimes think about doing but don't... Perhaps getting up at the crack of dawn on a weekend has something to do with it. I really don't know.

Our hummingbirds have been super-active today, swarming the feeder like locusts, and I've been out with the camera a couple of different times, playing with my settings to optimize the photographic effect and experimenting with some different things.

In the past couple of days, Jack and I have seen an increasing number of "wood hornets" hogging the feeders and acting aggressively with the birds. Jack got out with an old tennis racquet a bit ago and laid waste to most of them, so hopefully our hummingbirds will be less intimidated when they come in to feed.

I'm really going to miss these little guys when they migrate to South America for the cold months.

Sunday Update

If morning is any indication, this will certainly be a gorgeous day.

I woke up early, an unusual happening for a weekend, but during a short "photo session" with the hummingbirds yesterday, I amassed quite a collection of mosquito bites. And if we know anything at all about mosquito bites, we understand that they always itch worse first thing in the morning and late at night. By 6 a.m. I had finished slathering my legs with a thick application of Calagel and decided I might as well stay up rather than risk getting the bites fired up again by trying to get "in position" under the covers.

Perhaps I should drag myself out early on a more regular basis, as I really did enjoy the loveliness of sunlight filtering through the front windows, illuminating things in a way that I'm generally too busy to appreciate during the week.

Thursday and Friday of last week I had to attend a conference in the city and opted to spend the night at the baby house, taking care of Lucia for a couple of hours while Sis & Chris went on a date to the gym. Lu is beyond cute and such a fun little person...

I'd hoped to get another batch of great photos of her to share, but I was much too busy playing with her and having a big time. I did get a couple of shots that are worth sharing --

Also in "Lu News", Uncle Jack showed up at the baby house with a big surprise on Wednesday. A bike especially designed for growing toddlers that was recently featured in "The New York Times" and has gotten rave reviews from parent and early childhood development specialists.

Called a "skuut", it has no pedals or training wheels and assists toddlers as they develop increased balance. The article in The Times pointed out that kids who learn to ride a two-wheeler from the get-go have no need for training wheels when they do make the transition to a bicycle with pedals and experience a lot less anxiety than toddlers who have to switch from the wide three-wheeled ride of a tricycle to bike.

Lucia loved it even though she needs to grow just a bit in order for her feet to touch the ground.

9/11

Nine years ago today, Jack was scheduled for minor diagnostic procedure at the hospital where I worked, so on that beautiful September morning, the two of us left the house and drove together. Our only worry was what might be causing Jack's esophageal reflux.

By the time we made it to the hospital, that had all changed.

Halfway through our drive to McTown, we heard a radio news report that a "small plane" had flown into the side of one of the World Trade Center towers. At that time, nobody anticipated the horror we would experience as the events of that fateful day unfolded - it was simply a random tragedy. A confused pilot. An accident.

Pulling into the parking lot at five minutes after eight, the news report was back with an update. A second plane, a second jet-liner, had plunged into the other tower of the World Trade Center, and the words "act of terrorism" became part the national dialogue that has haunted all of us since.

Bewildered and horrified my co-workers and I gathered around television sets in empty patient rooms and computer screens in offices, trying to understand...

One of my colleagues desperately called her daughter's cell phone over and over again, hearing a message that "all circuits are busy" and advising her to try again later. Her daughter was attending a business meeting in New York and had checked into a hotel just steps from the World Trade Center complex the previous evening.

Somber-faced news anchors introduced footage of fireballs and desperate people plummeting into infinity. We were told that a third plane had crashed into The Pentagon, and a fourth, Flight 93, had gone down in a field in Pennsylvania, likely on its way to strike another target in Washington, DC.

Later we saw the collapse of the towers and learned that the count of lives lost would be in the thousands.

Jack's procedure was completed without a hitch by mid-morning, and once it was finished, I drove him to his parents house in town. Joan and Jay were in Tennessee for their annual September visit, and we'd left one of our vehicles in their driveway the night before so that Jack wouldn't have to wait around all day for me to finish work before coming home.

Once back in the office, my parents called to tell me they love me. And to fill up the car with gasoline.

Normally diagrammed with the random hen-scratchings of the jet-streams of planes overhead, the sky outside my window was beautiful, blue and pristine as the federal "no-fly zone" was implemented.

Speaking only for myself, I accomplished nothing that day as far as my work was concerned. I surfed the internet, reading and watching news, holding my heart in my chest with both hands sometimes. I cried and hugged my friend June when she stopped by the office to let me know that she'd heard from her daughter, who was holed-up and terrified in her Manhattan hotel room but unharmed.

May we never forget. I know I never will.

Some New Lu

2010 Page Family Reunion Photo Album

Big Fun at the Page Family Reunion

We're having a gorgeous weekend here in Middle Tennessee. At this point the only thing that could make it better would be a five day extension of the Labor Day holiday. And, perhaps, winning the lottery...

Yesterday was the annual Page Family reunion at Mom and Dad's farm, and while the gathering was smaller than some we've had in the past, the day was a terrific success. Aunts, uncles and cousins were all on hand to take part in the festivities and came with healthy appetites, which was good since Mom laid out a spread that could have easily fed a small army.

Lucia was the only "little one" in attendance this year, and she really seemed to to enjoy being the center of so much attention, providing entertainment for all the grown-ups with her developing grasp of the English language and her willingness to have big fun no matter how grubby she might get.

For Lucia, as usual, the center of attention was Papa, her best buddy and most favorite-ist person ever. To my delight, I'm up there at the top too, sharing "tied for second" with NanNan most of the time.

Chris' mother, Martha, came to the reunion this year and is such a natural fit with our family. Though she'd thought that Lucia would follow suit with her other grandchildren and call her GiGi, Lu had other plans and almost immediately started referring to her as Ma-Ma when she arrived on Friday, which I think is sweet, since that's what Sis and I always called both of our grandmothers.

Once again the famous "wheel roll" competition ended in a three-stage, sudden-death playoff between cousins Billy and Brent, who Jack and I have decided are the Roger Federer - Rafael Nadal of the wheel roll circuit. After a fierce and closely-matched final course, Brent was the winner of the grand prize - a gorgeous Susan deMay platter that both Sis and I wanted but stood absolutely no chance of bringing home...

Lu was the other winner of the day, taking the cash prize in the "clothespin-bottle drop". Being short (and the cutest little thing going) sometimes has benefits.

By the end of the day we were all exhausted, but the happiness and satisfaction of a successful family gathering and having caught up with loved ones that we don't spend nearly enough time with were well worth the effort.

I will be posting a Photobucket album of the reunion pictures shortly.