The Queen's Day Trip

This is your intrepid court reporter (court.  Queen.  get it?) with the high/low lights of the Queen's recent road trip.

HQ (Her Queenship) had been wanting to see some of the country surrounding her world.  A day road trip was in order.  Diane would drive the big black SUV and princess would go along, too.  HQ spent some time researching the area they planned to cover (one of her favorite things.  researching.) and came up with what she thought would be  a reasonable trip.  It would include antique shops, garden centers, a festival billed as 'vintage', food of course, and even a thrift store (another one of her favorite things).

As luck would have it, it was a beautiful day for a road trip.  Clear and sunny but only about 60 degrees.  A little wind.  A scenic highway winds along the eastern side Lake Michigan and all the trees are in full green leaf.  The little -- admittedly tourist oriented -- towns are old and billed as historic and charming.

First stop a town called Three Oaks where an old factory has been turned into a collection of stuff.  Most of the stuff was very nice quality and fairly unique, if a little over priced.  Passed by a vodka brewery (thinking we might come back, but it is, after all, only 10 a.m.).  On the main street is the thrift shop.  This actually produced a couple of nifty things.  Something for all.

By this time, Diane is squeaking about being hungry so we troop into a fun looking little cafe/dinner house a couple of doors down.  Menu looked good but a little heavier than what we were wanting.  HQ ordered an iced coffee to go.  The door opened onto a small raised cement platform - which they all obviously had to traverse to get in.  Just as HQ pushed open the door, princess overstepped slightly and stepped on the back of HQ's shoe.  They both laughed and HQ turned slightly to say something cute to princess.  Well, that wasn't smart.

Picture it:  Slow motion.  HQ takes a step totally forgetting the 'step' and slowly rolls down the step, onto her right hip, right elbow hits next and coffee becomes Vesuvius.  Next to hit was right shoulder, then head hits advertising sandwich board before resting on cement sidewalk.  HQ tries to maintain her dignity while lying on the sidewalk.  Princess yelling.  Diane had been watching from just inside the door and comes running, also yelling, "Are you alright?"   Hmmmmm.  Taking a quick body inventory HQ says she thinks so.  Doesn't think anything's broken.... Getting up with Diane's help is still tricky but there is a chair right there!  And wonder of wonders  only a little bit of the coffee spilled and not a drop on HQ!

Result?  Slightly scraped and bleeding elbow, large lump in pretty colors on hip and very sore muscles.

Slight pause.

Next stop the Blackbird Vintage Fair.  A tad misleading but neat stuff.  'Designer' priced, but interesting.

Heading out on what are now back roads we pass - almost - a yard and garage sale sign.  Woooops.  U turn.  Tricky.  But Diane is a wonderful driver.  After following the country road - admittedly a very nice drive - for a while and seeing no evidence of sale, Diane notices another sign and turns to follow that.  Another sign pointing down a dirt driveway to Karen's Flower Barn.  Interesting outside but we have no idea what the inside will be like.  But being the curious sort, we adventure in.  OH MY GOODNESS!  This is a wonderland of every imaginable and some previously unknown types of dried flower/grass etc.  ever.  Wonderfully displayed.  Attended to by - we assume - Karen.

The problem was how to limit what we wanted to take home!  HQ has a thing for dried lavender and there was some imported from both France and England and some just recently harvested from Karen's own farm.  Bingo.  There is no way to adequately describe this little barn so I'm going to put her website here and you can see.  This little accidental excursion turned out to be the most outstanding thing of the day.  Practically worth a drive just to get there.

This gets us to lunch.  A place called Fitzgerald's in the town of Sawyer.  Good food actually on the gormetish side.

By now the day has pretty well passed.  We make a couple of more little stops and Diane garners a piece or two of her rare glass pattern.  Then we head home.  Again a beautiful drive.  Mostly on back roads.

What a wonderful day.  And HQ has the bruises to prove it.  The other 5 towns and numerous spots will have to wait for another day.

Signing off for now, your
ICR (intrepid court reporter)

www.karensflowerbarn.com

THE HAPPY BIRD

There is a bird Here In My World and he has to be the happiest bird ever.

Every morning (!) at 4 a.m. he sits on one of the highest peaks of the roof across my driveway and sings his heart out.  Notice it's really not even dawn yet!  But he'll sit up there and sing his little voice out for about 1/2 an hour.

Then he probably needs a short nap.

He'll be back again about dawn -- 5:30 or so -- and start again.

Now sometimes I don't notice when he comes back during the day as I'm up and doing myself.  But he is ever faithful proclaiming his happiness to the world.

(Haven't actually identified this bird yet, but will at some point.  Maybe a robin.)

But it occurs to us that we could take something from this bird.  Every morning, before morning, he's happy. So happy he can't wait to tell the world.  An optimist?  Surly.  Now knowing something of the life of birds, his little life has got to have tough times.  Where are those worms, anyhow?  There has to be somebirdy around for me to talk to?  My throat hurts.  Maybe I don't want to get up and sign this morning,

But there he is.

Hmmmm

Queen thoughts while observing her world.

The Stranger

THE STRANGER

We have detected a strange woman  Here in My World.

She isn't around all the time but it's often quite a shock when she is seen --A glimpse in a reflective surface --  Suddenly, as we go around a corner or prepare for slumber.

She  is obviously 'old'.  Where she is from we do not know.

But her posture is slumped.  There is a look of sadness about her.  She has that 'turkey neck' and her boobs do the Maxine saggy thing (and are uneven even).  Age spots show on her hands in between those large blue veins.  When she does smile there are obvious teeth missing.  Oh, and she was seen once in shorts!  Those blue veins with lightening patterns are on her legs!

Her silver hair is a beautiful color but there isn't much of it and her little pink scalp shows thru on top.  (We really hate that part!).  Eyelids droop over skimpy eyelashes.  Even when you know she isn't frowning, her mouth turns down at the corners.  She probably had pretty skin once, but now there are those 'age' spots on her face and places that the tone is uneven.

Who is this strange person?

The really scary thing is that she looks familiar!

We really hope her visits are few and that she doesn't decide to stay.....

Here In My World

The Queen

DREAMS

Dreams........tons written about them and many different 'theories'.  Many different 'types'.

Are they prophetic?  Sometimes we believe they are.  Personally I don't remember a prophetic dream.  But I listened when Diane did and because of that, we were able to see our mother before a serious surgery that she didn't survive.  Diane never told me exactly what the dream was, just that she knew we needed to see her before she went into the surgery.  Prophetic?  I don't know.  Premonition?  Hmmmmm.  Is a dream the visual form of a premonition?

Are they signals of things past that need to be examined in the present?  Why do they bring back past experiences or people long out of our lives or deceased?  Are our brains trying to tell us it's time to deal with a past experience?  Are they warnings that these feelings not handled will keep occurring?  Problems in life not dealt with that are going to affect present or future life?

Maybe the symbolic dream is the most important?  But who really knows how to interpret those symbols?  Which study do you believe?  Or do you just believe your own inner 'gut'?  Honestly.

Then there is the theory that everything in your dream represents you or a part of you.  This one seems the most far fetched to us.  And the most difficult to figure out.

And some of these keep recurring either in part or whole.

Tons.

So muses the Queen after a troubling night.......

NOT AGAIN!!!!!!

There is this nifty (as advertised) thing that attaches to your tv and lets you stream programs from the internet. Margaret, one of my trusted advisors, got one and said it was so easy to install.  I also heard that from other sources.  We got one for Christmas.

For some reason it's taken til now to get the right cable (not included) and so we decided to do this easy install so that we could watch the Kentucky Derby preshow.

Well.  Plug ins easy.  Instructions easy.  Push the button and the setup appears on the tv screen.  And why shouldn't we be surprised that it didn't?  Because we're in my world.  20 more minutes trying to follow instructilns without results and we went on line to the 'support' site.  Waited 20 minutes in the chat.  What followed is now funny.  Not then.  45 minutes later and still no setup on the blank screen and the chat guy is blaming my tv.  Almost a direct quote "We're going to have to work with the manufacturer of the tv....."

At this point smoke is coming of this Queen's ears.  I thanked him very much.  Said I was totally out of patience and was 'done'.  Still not hooked up.

Then there is an email apologizing that my chat session was inadvertantely cutoff (hellooooo?  I hung up) and asking if my problem was solved.  Duh and duh.

I guess this will be continued.  Maybe I can recruit someone who is not electronically challenged.

Old fashioned in My World,

The Queen

The Misremembered Man

Book Time My Peeps.

A novel by Christina McKenna.  Got this ebook free from my library.

Story takes place in Ireland (for which a sucker I always am) and follows the lives of two people til an unexpected -- sort of hair of your chinney chin chin - meeting.

There are several reasons why I liked this book (other than all things Irish).  McKenna is new and I really liked her style -- Nice to read but not boring -- she slips between the two principal characters and within their childhood experiences to present day.  There are one or two hints as to the ending but they are easy to miss and she keeps you wondering how in the world this is going to work out.  As I came to the end of the book I kept saying to myself:  Self, if she ends this book______________I'm going to be royally (teehee) ticked off.  Well.  No.  You must wait for it.

I must admit that there is a very troubling aspect to this story that revolves around the Roman Catholics.  I was very grateful for the author's note at the end.   Come on.  Do Not Skip Ahead.  (Now I know my peeps and several of you automatically did anyway.  Shame)  But the note helped in a way.  Enough said.  Would love to hear your comments.

All in all, a good read my lovelies.

The Queen