Summertime

I think last time I wrote an entry we were getting ready to go to Saugatuck.  We went and had a nice vacation there.  The weather is the best thing about Michigan, warm days and not so warm nights.  It was fun being with the sisters and their families. Susie came this year too, which was a nice treat.  I hadn't seen her in over a year.

Now we have one more vacation left.  We are going to Hilton Head from Sept. 5-12 with John and Chellie.  They rented a four bedroom house with a pool, so it should be a lot of fun.  Chellie's mother and partner will be there too. 

All of the grandkids are back to school except the ones in Boston.  They don't start until after Labor Day.  Erin and Abbey started last Wednesday and Katie, Sara and Michael started this past Tuesday.  Both Abbey and Sara started middle school, and Corinne will be starting at Boston Latin, which goes from 7th through 12 grades.  Lots of changes.  I'm not taking a class this fall but I am going to teach a class, College Writing.  It is a "late start" twelve class which doesn't start until Sept. 15, which is perfect as it will be after we get back from Hilton Head.  Wayne is taking another history class, but I decided to pass on that.

We have a busy week coming up--birthday week.  Tomorrow is Erin's birthday, Saturday is Patrick's and Sunday is Michael's.  We are going to Olive Garden Sat. Night to celebrate their birthdays. Then Tuesday is Julie and Kay's birthday, and I'm having the Fancy Aunt lunch here on the thirtieth for Kay, Marisa (whose birthday was last month) and for Annie whose birthday is next month.

Lanterns at the Garden

We went to the Lantern Show at the Botanical Garden last night with Jeff and Judith. I had seen the displays a couple of times during the day but not at night when they were all lit up.  It was beautiful!

I highly recommend going there if you haven't been yet this summer.  It is spectacular!

We are getting ready to go to Saugatuck.  We leave Sunday; our rental is from Sunday to Sunday.  It will be nice to be in the cooler weather.  This past week has been awful, though our summer up until then was mostly rain.  Wayne does not tolerate the heat at all, so he is really looking forward to Michigan.  

Vacation

 I know it's been awhile since I posted, but I am having one heck of a time uploading pictures.  If I take them on my phone I have to download them to my picture folder then upload them into Picassa then hope I can transfer them into here.  It is a lot easier with my i-pad, but I didn't use it so much on vacation because it is bigger and bulkier.

We had a great vacation this year, though the house was a huge disappointment.  Advertised as "an extremely upscale home," it was anything but.  The deck furniture was old and rusty, the air conditioning did not cool the house, the internet did not work, the windows were dirty, the oven was filthy, the dishwasher broke, and the decks had nails sticking out which cut Erin and Corinne's  feet. In addition, when we arrived there was dried blood on the deck and down the steps.  Since there was no hose at the house, John bought a hose, scrub brush and bleach and cleaned the decks.  He also shoveled out all of the sand that was accumulated around the pool when we arrived.  On Friday a young fellow came to clean the pool, saying he was the owner, and complained because there was sand in the pool.  John told him there was no hose to clean and rinse the decks, and he had to buy one to wash the sand away from the pool.  The young man said they did not have a hose because the renters left the water running and ran up their bills.  A little while after he left John went down to the pool and realized the young man had stolen the hose John had bought!  I called the real estate company and they contacted him and told him to bring back our hose, which he did sometime in the middle of the night.  In spite of the problems with the house, everyone got along great and we had a memorable vacation.  Next year, we are staying at a new house in Orange Beach, which is about ten miles from Gulf Shores.  It is right on the Alabama/Florida border.  Here are some pictures from the week:

As A Woman

Someone posted the quote below on Facebook, I think it is from Jon Stewart, and I thought it was worth reprinting:
   
"As a woman, Jenner can now look forward to her physical appearance, not her talents or mind, being the object of daily scrutiny. Should she ever need to work, she can look forward to earning roughly 77% of what a man makes. Should she ever face physical or sexual violence, she, not her attacker, will be treated with suspicion.

As a woman, Jenner will also have to get used to hearing not just new pronouns but other fun words like "shrill," "nagging," "bossy" and "emotional." And then, of course, there's the catcalling, which a "beautiful" woman like Jenner can now expect daily.

A person transitioning to live as her true self is a wonderful thing and America has come a long way toward accepting transgender people. As Stewart so aptly pointed out, though, the real struggle now is to bring up the lives of all women. On that front, there are still miles to go."

As the grand mother of seven girls, I worry about their future.  It bothers me that females have not come much further than they were in the sixties. Wayne and I love watching the Cardinals, but they still have Hardees commercials with barely dressed women eating huge burgers with slop running all over their bodies.  Last summer I saw complaints in the letters to the editor in the Post Dispatch, but they haven't stopped.  I supposed enough men watch them and support Hardees.  

Now direct TV has a television ad with a young, pretty, bikini-clad woman lying suggestively on the beach talking to a horse.  What in the hell does that have to do with direct TV?  These commercials are during sports casts and during prime time, which are viewed by young people.