Took mum to the airport today, and she is gone. The dogs are bereft, I am bereft, when I left the airport this afternoon the Carolina blue skies seemed a little greyer to me than normal, and my heart was just a little heavier. Her time here is always so brief (despite her being here a month), and I am always sad to see her and Norman leave. The dogs will no doubt sit outside their bedroom door for a week, not understanding why they do not come out, they will pine for a while, cry at the front door, wondering where Grandma and Grandpa are, why do they not come home? Eventually they, like me, will settle back into the realization of life without them. Doesn't mean I have to like it of course.

Earlier this week Mum and I were having a discussion about the state of things today. We were talking specifically about the expectations of people today as opposed to the expectations of people say, 40 years ago. 40 years ago there were two parent families, generally the man worked, the woman was a homemaker, (or the politically incorrect housewife) her job (an incredibly important one) was to keep the house and raise the children. Dinner (and not a fast food, or frozen one) was on the table when the husband got home, kids were bathed, homework was done, family time in front of the one TV was the order of the day. Once a year the family loaded up the one family station wagon and took a vacation, not Europe or a cruise but generally camping somewhere. Today on Neal Boortz I was listening as Neal was talking (with a caller) about despite the economy being so wonderful people are still having trouble making ends meet, both spouses have to work just to pay the bills. BUT as the caller pointed out the expectations of people these days are far in excess of the expectations of people even 40 years ago. Let me ask you, for instance, did you grow up in a house that was 2,500 square feet or more? No, of course you didn't, your house, like everyone elses was probably between 1,200 to 1,500 square feet (or even alot less). How many cars did your family have at the time? My guess would be one, (if that, my family until I was 14 had 0 cars.) How many TVs were in the home, my guess would be one, in the living room, and you didn't have 200 channels of cable or satellite, you had the regular channels using an aerial sticking out of your house. No-one had a computer, no-one had a cell phone, in fact how many people had a phone? There were no game boys, no dryers (people used to hang their laundry out on a line to dry - well you know I still do but then I am like that), there were no microwaves nor dishwashers. People did not spend $40,000.00 on a kitchen makeover to have a designer kitchen that they never use because they don't bloody cook, except perhaps once a year at Thanksgiving. People did not need walk in closets to accommodate all the clothes that they never wear, people did not have 50 pairs of shoes. People had their work clothes and their best clothes, which were worn on Sunday and special occasions, have you seen a wardrobe from the 50s? It wouldn't hold most people's underwear these days. Is it any wonder that both spouses have to work these days to keep up with what they believe is a "decent" standard of living, let me tell you, having a TV in every room is not a decent standard of living, it is pure unadulterated luxury, having four cars and as many cell phones is not a "decent" standard of living it is excess. It is about time we stopped whining about not being able "to make ends meet" when we keep moving the ends to accommodate our increasinly luxury lifestyle and then complaining about how we can't make them meet. I think every person in the west (both in the UK and the US) should be forced to spend a week in a village in Africa to get a handle on what the "necessities" are, that should sort out some credit card bills right there.

I have said this before and my heart is heavy because of it. While I actually love the season, it heralds the arrival of winter, and that is when I sink into a deep blue funk. No butterflies to photograph, no flowers, no lizards, no tree frogs. On the bright side, since I have erected my bird feeders there are a miriad of birdies to photograph as they stuff their faces in the dead of winter with seed that I have provided. This weekend I was reminded in the most beautiful of ways that fall is here, and soon the green of summer will be replaced by the gold and reds of fall, a simple leaf, laying in my now abandoned pond, which has been overtaken by a tiny, tiny (but obviously prolific) weed....



I think this says it all, well that and the honking of the geese overhead. *sigh*

Went to see it this evening and I am still contemplating it as we speak, there were several aspects of the movie which I found very distressing, but then war is distressing so it is to be expected. I cannot help to think how different things would be today. To begin with the press would not have concentrated on the wonderful image of the flag raising on Iwo Jima, the press would have done all their major stories on the fact that women with babies were throwing themselves off the mountain into the ocean to avoid being taken captive by the Americans (as ordered to by their generals) there would have been no photo of the flag raising in the papers today, there would only be photos of the broken bodies of the Japanese women with their children. My husband tells me that 6,000 american soldiers lost their lives taking Iwo Jima and 21,000 were wounded, I am not sure how accurate this figure is, but can you imagine the press of today? "6,000 troops killed, enough is enough, time to withdraw" "Is a mountain worth 6,000 American lives?" "Why we should negotiate with the Japanese" Let us all give thanks that calmer heads prevailed in those days and right now we are not all speaking Japanese. Think about that when you go to the polls in November. Nevertheless, Flags of our Fathers is a relatively good movie, the actors are excellent, the story somewhat flawed, and the overall premise, again flawed. See it though, see it for the sheer horror of war, and the sacrifices that have to be made to secure freedom, it will be a good lesson.

Just before the D-day invasions there was a rehearsal. Not many people know this, in fact it was kept under wraps for quite some time. It took place in England, in Slapton Sands, it was called Operation Tiger. As a result of several mistakes the rehearsal turned into a massacre, botched communications resulted in german U-boats sinking several of the ships that were part of the rehearsal. Depending on which report you read between 500 and 800 troops were lost. As history tells us, D-day went forward and was successful. Now let us fast forward to today. Not only would the New York Times have blown the story about the disaster at Slapton Sands HEADLINE "800 US troops killed in rehearsal" but more than likely they would have then splashed across the front page "DOES NOT BODE WELL FOR D-DAY LANDINGS IN THREE WEEKS" at which point the democrats would have had a fit and said "we cannot lose this many troops, this is disgraceful, pull out, we cannot lose anymore troops".... end of D-day, dead in the water. Think of that for a second folks. No D-day. You, me, and everyone else in the free world would be speaking german right now.

Is it not amazing? This afternoon, for almost the entire afternoon, the songs of "Stop the World: I want to get off" were going through my head. "Vote for Littlechap" "Why would someone nice like you Evie" "I wanna be rich" you name it, every song from the musical were running through my head, lyrics and all, in fact I was merrily singing them. This is the strange thing though, when I got home I told my Mum this, she looked at me strange, I began singing the songs to her, word for word when it came to the lyrics, she looked at me wide eyed and said "but I only ever played that album when you were a baby, I never played it after you were about 5" and yet I know the entire musical word for word, in my head, every song, is that not strange?

This weekend I took Mum to various places. On Thursday we went to the Maritime Museum at Beaufort and then the new Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. I would have spent three hours by the otter exhibit but I was forced to go on, phooey.

On Friday we went to Airlie Gardens in Wilmington, a wonderful place not least for the 450 year old live oak tree and the bottle chapel, a small chapel made entirely out of wine and other bottles, the sight of it, when the sun hits those bottles just right it is spectacular....



From there we went to Lake Waccamaw, a band booster parent owns a house on the Lake and they graciously gave it to my husband for the week, so it meant that we could go down there and stay on Friday night... Lake Waccamaw is just wonderful and another place you should visit if you ever get the chance....