Seventeen!

Yesterday was granddaughter Megan's Seventeenth (!) birthday. It was also the first day of school (Senior Year). She had a long school day, followed by two hours of marching band practice.

Needless to say, by suppertime she was exhausted and barely functioning.

Stay awake just a little longer!

Last year her birthday fell before the first day of school and we had quite a party with all her grandparents and her boyfriend included. The highlight was when she discovered that her parents had bought her a car (used, but well-rehabbed by her dad).

This birthday was a lot quieter. She had requested a spaghetti dinner and a dinosaur cake. Anne Marie makes a great spaghetti sauce; the bakery made a cake with a dinosaur motif. Since it was a school-marching band practice day, we just had our little family, which includes friend Gwen.

Megan was so wiped out that she dropped on the sofa and napped until the meal was on the table.

Before birthday cake she opened her gifts--nothing to match last year's car! In fact, they weren't even wrapped; they were just in the mailing packages they came in, because they arrived just before dinner time. (Whew!) So there was opening, but no pretty paper.

Trying out her new manga art pens.

Megan had perked up a bit by the time the cake was brought to the table. In fact, she had a goofy contest with her mother: as Anne Marie lit a candle, Megan would blow it out. Finally, both candles were alight at the same time and we got to sing "Happy Birthday."

Do you remember a nutty video that was on You Tube last year in which a couple of young guys did a "Do you want to see how animals eat their food?" demonstration? If you do, you will understand the final photos. Take one tired-silly teenager, cake, and the above-mentioned video, and this is what you get.

And that was the end of her brief energy revival. She washed her face and headed off to bed at 8 o'clock.

The rest of us visited for a while longer.

Pirates of Penzance

Yesterday I posted on Facebook a quick review of the local production of Pirates of Penzance that I attended with my sister Grace and niece Tina. It was done by the Gillette Community Theatre group with the High School Drama Club.

It was terrific fun!

It will be performed again on August 15 and 16, and it would be a bargain at many times the $5 price of admission.

The piratical orchestra on the ship's deck. The pirate hat in the back is on the head of
grandnephew Steven Matsunaga, trumpet player. From where I sat I never saw his face.

Pirates is an old Gilbert and Sullivan musical comedy, totally nonsensical and totally fun. We have some good singers and actors in this town! It was a tremendously ambitious undertaking, as it is not only a musical with some challenging vocal ranges required, but it has a huge cast. And they pulled it off!


I snapped a few photos, but put my little camera away when I realized it was on an auto setting that was using the flash even though I had manually cancelled the flash (flash forbidden in the theater). In the dim lighting I could not see well enough to reset the camera for low light and no flash. So I did not get any photos of one of my favorite parts, which came in the second act, after the intermission. The (very goofy) troupe of Her Majesty's Royal Police Force was made up of children--some as young as five years old. There were a lot of them and they did their part amazingly well. A five-year-old in a police uniform and a mustache can't help but be funny and adorable. I was amazed at how well they did their part. It was quite complicated in action, song, and dance.

I want to go see this great show again!

Yesterday

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day. . .

Can't you just see Mr. Rogers hanging up his jacket, taking off his shoes, donning his cardigan sweater, and sitting down to put on his sneakers? That song ran through my head all morning yesterday, as a perfect summer morning pulled me out onto the deck with my coffee and a good book.

After a time, I put the book down and got my watering pot. The flowers and tomatoes looked a bit thirsty. My watering pot holds two gallons, and it takes six fillings to get everyone watered. (About the only thing I forgot when planning my house, was to have a water spigot on the deck. So I carry water from the bathroom--I tell myself it is good, and needed, exercise!)

After watering, I decided to take some photos of my flower "wall" around the deck. While I was doing that, I had a visitor. I hastily tried to get some photos of this fast-moving target, but didn't know until I downloaded and enlarged the pictures whether or not I had captured him (or her, as the case may be). I was delighted to find that I had, twice.

I don't know the name of this insect. Can anyone help me with that?