A Picture is Worth 17,000 Words

Barb has this tree out in front of her living room that is always full of small birds such as finch, cactus wren, and doves. Unfortunately the local well fed hawk also knows that this is where he can feast on his next meal. Hence the name- Hawk Bait Birds. But Barb keeps on putting the birdseed out – question is for whom is she putting it out for - the small birds or for the hawk?

Barb also has lots of hummingbird feeders here. Hummingbirds are sort of aggressive little birds. They look so dainty and fragile but if you ever catch them fighting it will change your mind.

It is so quiet here sitting on Barb’s back covered porch. Amazing! Just the sound of the wind chimes, her little rock water fall and the birds. The view of the mountains at sunset reminds me of a watermelon with its pretty pink color.

Hawk Bait Birds

Barb has this tree out in front of her living room that is always full of small birds such as finch, cactus wren, and doves. Unfortunately the local well fed hawk also knows that this is where he can feast on his next meal. Hence the name- Hawk Bait Birds. But Barb keeps on putting the birdseed out – question is for whom is she putting it out for - the small birds or for the hawk?

Barb also has lots of hummingbird feeders here. Hummingbirds are sort of aggressive little birds. They look so dainty and fragile but if you ever catch them fighting it will change your mind.

It is so quiet here sitting on Barb’s back covered porch. Amazing! Just the sound of the wind chimes, her little rock water fall and the birds. The view of the mountains at sunset reminds me of a watermelon with its pretty pink color. Photo is July Folder!

Barb's Fashion Accessory

I was waiting for Ric to pick me up at the Albuquerque airport in his white truck. but instead this really hot looking sports car stops and my sister climbs out. It is a Mercedes SLK hard-top convertible. She calls it her ‘fashion accessory’. It is really nice looking but has a real small trunk. We could not fit my 2 suitcases and 1 backpack into the trunk I ended up sitting in the front seat with my carry on suitcase in between my legs. Both my legs were asleep when we got to her house. She had to help me out.

I have already gotten to drive it and it handles great. Barb always seems to buy hot looking cars – she has owned a 300 ZX Twin Turbo Nissan, Corvette, Audi, BMW, and assorted British sport cars. She really does and did look good in all of them. I may have to put a little thought about getting a fashion accessory type of car when I get back in January instead of just a ole boring reliable car.

Paula & 'Sparky'

Paula had been complaining about her shoulder for the last couple of trips and she finally gave in and got the recommended rotator cuff surgery. She now has a weird sling contraption that she has to wear 24-7 and a torture chair that she calls “Sparky”. She straps her arm into it and the arm of the chair moves her arm up and down so many degrees for 3 hours a day. Worse part of the recovery is that she can’t drive for 6 weeks, so I have been attempting to get her out of the house between the scheduled ‘Sparky’ tortures. The rest of you reading this have to take over- don’t let her go ‘stir-crazy’.

Since Paula works for Georgia Virtual School she spends a large amount of her day emailing and on the computer. Because of this surgery she can’t type so she had the perfect excuse to buy the new Mac speech to type software program. The first couple of times she used it was rather entertaining. It was like a puzzle trying to figure out what she was trying to write. The first message that Harriet received, she called Paula immediately on the phone cause she was worried Paula had had a stroke. She has finally gotten much better using it.

Because of not being able to use her dominate hand she can’t clip or polish her nails so got me to drive her to get a manicure and pedicure. Since I was already there I decided to indulge and get my first pedicure ever and I am already hooked. Good luck on your recovery Paula! PS – Bob is being a great caregiver!

Mr. Mao

I am not sure if that is his real name or a name he made up because he knew we could remember and pronounce it. This is one of the front views of him. I only saw the back of his head most of the time because he was our driver and more important a really safe driver, which is a rarity here. He did not use the horn more than necessary he only passed one car at a time and he generally stayed in one lane. He bribed us with water and gum to keep us happy. He was even willing to travel with us alone when Tom, our LiJiang guide, finished his part of the tour in the next town. We were not going to meet up with Marching, our Shangri-La guide, until we reached another town 2 hours further up the road. Leaving tourists alone without a guide is usually a no no – but we felt totally safe and obviously Mr. Mao felt safe with us too. This saved Tom from having to go those extra couple of hours to the next town and then having to wait and take a long bus ride back to LiJiang.

Adver-Sailing

Since it is sort of hard to just pop home for those special occasions, we are substituting a few dates. I am sadly going to miss Christmas, Thanksgiving, and of course Zac’s and my birthday. Thank goodness for Amazon and online stores cause I plan on ordering from there and having them deliver directly to my friends and family. Since my 58th birthday will fall when I am with Barb in New Mexico, Zac & I decided to celebrate my birthday early.

For my pre-Birthday present Zac made me pancakes for breakfast and then took me sailing. Rather he called it adver-sailing – because we were advertising Barry’s Beach Service rentable Hobie Cats. Nice wind and fast sail, and one person rented a boat after seeing our adver-sail-ment. Nicole’s pre-Birthday present was a free hair cut and color job. NO MORE GRAY! Because I really miss Italian food, for my last night in Georgia, Nicole (of Italian decent) made a great Lasagna. “The Court” neighbors Larry and Rosie joined us. Zac, who makes the best chocolate chip cookies EVER, made a batch for us. It was topped off with an Ice cream birthday cake and a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday to you. I am so lucky to have these people in my life.

We are eating out most nights so I can get my fill of Georgia cooking. One night we went to the 4th of May a local down-home southern cooking restaurant. In lieu of Thanksgiving I had turkey and cornbread stuffing with cranberry dressing and mash potatoes. (But it still wasn’t the same as Larry’s deep fried Turkey)

Yunnan Province Trip

I was so worried about being able to catch a taxi out from our campus out in the ‘Xiasha boonies’ that we started our Yunnan trip an hour earlier than necessary. After much crazy jestering to my hotel/apartment desk people we were able to get them to call a taxi for us. It came quickly so we got to the airport very early. So early that we were first in line and were ‘?lucky?’ enough to get the exit row seat with lots of leg room. Unfortunately, before take off the Chinese gentlemen behind us talked to the flight attendants and right after that we were told that foreigners couldn’t sit in the exit rows. We were made to trade with the gentlemen behind us. It seems strange that Cathy who has literally traveled around the world and myself with many, many air miles were deemed too ignorant to figure out the PICTURED directions of how to take off the exit door. It was real obvious that most of the passengers were first timers- cause they actually cheered when the plane got off the ground.

Side Note- Chinese flights actually feed you a meal – remember when American flights did that?