Along the Water

Interesting day today. I met the Clean Crawls guy at the lake house so he could make sure all the rats were gone. They were and the next, final step is to put in the new insulation. While I was there Fran came over with a nice check for me. A book seller who had bought a stack of books at the estate sale found one that was quite valuable. He sent her a check for 45% of the amount he sold it for. (Nice guy. He really didn't need to do that.) And she gave the check to me. I tried to give her part but she said it would be too complicated at this point since the sale and all her books were wrapped up. (She didn't have to do that either. What great honest people.)

I went home and began doing a few chores. The phone rang and it was a gallery calling saying that the purse I had ordered there had come in. So I drove over to Fairhaven to pick it up. It was lovely out so I decided to drive down to the spot where the heron rookery is. I took this photo from the path there. There were nests but no herons yet. I want to be sure to catch their arrival before the trees leaf out.

Back home and I finally had some free time to open all the cards and small gifts people brought to my birthday party yesterday. How sweet that was. To my friends on Facebook who will see this, thank you so very much. One gift had a reminder of a show on TV tonight, "The Secret of Tuxedo Park". I knew I wanted to see it, so I set up to tape it and then called my brother Steve who doesn't have a TV so he could watch with me. Our dad was one of the scientists who worked on radar there. And our uncle was Earnest Lawrence who invited Dad and many of the other scientists to work there. Lawrence's wife Molly was my mother's sister.

The show was fascinating. I learned a great deal about Alfred Loomis. I don't think I ever met him but I remember that he and Manette had taken our parents to Jamaica on at least one occasion. Mom had told me about an English woman whose last name was Salmon and who lived in Anchovy (Miss Salmon of Anchovy is what Mom called her), and in 1979 Arvin and I went there with my ex Tom, his lady Stacy and Tom's and my son Jason. We met Miss Salmon and saw many birds at her sanctuary. And we fed humming birds who sat on one hand while they drank sugar water from a tiny feeder made from an airline whiskey bottle held in the other hand. It was magical.

But I digress. The show was fascinating and it was heartening to learn that it was radar that helped us win the war.