Well It's About Time! (That I posted Again)

I have not written on my blog since April 30, almost five months ago. In that five months another school year has ended, I had my fifth operation for kidney stones, and my third since 1998, my middle daughter (Commissionercoat in blogspot speak) was married, I lived in Rotterdam for the month of July teaching at Erasmus University, came home resolved to empty my house and live like an aging middle class college professor, spent August in an endless round of medical examinations focused on a (benign) cyst on my right kidney, and the stage of the basal cell skin cancer on my face, then my car went out of commisiion and I could not get out to the Green Frog at all before school started again. Now my lover has left for the hotel of friends in the Catskills because of stresses in trying to get people to move on and stop freeloading on us. I made a quick trip to New Orleans in late August to help Colin get settled in his new apartment, and now Colin is coming back to New York as a homeless refugee who may (horrors) have to study for a semester at Hofstra (free) and live in my home.

Today I got a family newsletter from cousin Dorothy Sipe Mull, who also had the wedding of a child this summer, and who also informed me that she is using a pseudonym in some on-line communication which employs my last name. THAT makes me feel good.

Both my digital camera and scanner are out of commission, which is one reason why I have not posted for so long. I am reduced to cadging pictures from the flickr sites of my children if I want to illustrate my own blog.

Speaking of Blogs, my daughter Amanda has a great blog, when she finds time to write. I am amazed that people even comment on it. Amanda was going to law school, but then she had a baby and now she is going to culinary school. She seems much happier. I could never image going to law school, it always seemed to be one of the dullest things a person could do.

I am very happy that Colin will be in New York. We never got much done on the dark room over the summer, but maybe we can get it going this Fall. Colin seems to be much happier now than he was last year.

Our back yard has taken a large amount of work this summer, but is actually in a pleasing state for once, with many pretty flowers, thriving grape vines, a jungle of tomato plants, and even some peaches off the ancient peach tree. We have been sitting in "the garden" quite a bit, and I find it pleasing to water the flowers and other plants, and wish them well as they grow. We have a lot of tomatoes this year.

I worked all day today to put a door back on the living room, and then to install locks on it. If Colin lives here this Fall he will have to use the living room as his room, since all the other rooms are occuppied by "guests."

Now that I have actually written something I will go into various topics in more detail in future posts: the wedding, the quest for the holy grail in Metz, France, deciding to emigrate to Holland, studying Dutch, the feeling of doing something for the last time after doing it for many years, and other topics.