To Dream Perchance?

           I walk into the opthamologist's waiting room...I sign in and sit down..I am about 8min early.  The lady calls me to the desk...I am not on the list for appointments...They have no record of my ever being there or calling for an appt.   I am told they will take me but I will need to fill out a couple jillion forms...I sit back down and begin to fill out the papers. To my right is a black and white tv playing an old "I Love Lucy" show...I had forgotten how annoying her voice can be when I am slightly stressed!  Oh, and this man with a utility belt and a roll of electrical tape keeps coming in, going down the hall, coming back up the hall and leaving....several times.  I have finally filled out all the papers, have my ID cards photo'd; I ask how could this happen when I KNOW I have called and made an appt.!  The nice lady says "who knows, maybe they forgot to hit save"...I also notice everyone else in the waiting room is wearing a name tag. I am not given one.  Okay...now I know...I am having a nightmare!

        At least a half hour has passed and "I Love Lucy" is still playing!!!  I cannot decide whether to laugh hysterically or cry!  Finally, I am called back by the technician...I need to explain to her that I have not been to this office for probably 14 years...the doctor I had before has retired; they still have no records of my having ever been there....I explain that the reason I am there is because my optometrist and I have decided it is time to have my second cataract removed, but I had gone to another opthmalogist initially last spring.  I have to explain that I wanted to change Doctors because I had walked out of my third appt. this summer as I decided life was too short to spend nearly four hours waiting to be seen!! (Every time I had an appt., I had to wait for hours!!!  Not me..no more!!!)

         Now...the truth!!  Everything I wrote about above is TRUE!!  But from the time I got into the back with my tech until I left, everything went GREAT!  I am so glad I made a change....once we got my appt. settled, and all the papers filled out, I could not have been happier. It seems they had a real shut down with their computer system three-four weeks ago, after I had made my appt. and they just had to take people's word for the times when they came in...new patients that they could not get a hold of...I had extensive testing done very professionally; met my new Doctor...very impressed with her!  And now am set for the future health of my eyes!   Oh, and they didn't have my records because after so long, they put old records "in storage", whatever that means....and "I Love Lucy" was still playing in the waiting room!! I guess they didn't want to have any controversial shows on so they were running DVD's of old shows!!

I still need to get to DC for the Rally on returning to Sanity!!!!

Musings on This and That

"No individual raindrop considers itself responsible for the flood!"  Anonymous 

I like this quote...since it is anonymous...I think I will claim it!  I finished reading "South of Broad" by Pat Conroy ("Prince of Tides" author) and found it to be very good...a little of "The Big Chill" feel to it on a little different topic. 

And I am now reading "The Postmistress" by Sarah Blake.  I've not read anything by her before but will try to find more of her books....really good.  It takes place in a small seaport town off Cape Cod and Europe at the very beginning of WWII..1941 to be exact, before we entered the war officially.  I highly recommend it to all...just for the value of remembering what occurred in that time frame...the persecution of the Jews and our country's fear of anything "different" (immigrants from Germany, Japan, etc).  With the current feelings towards Muslims and illegals, we need to recall the error of our ways sixty years ago against those who were innocent of any crimes just because fear existed.  Unfortunately, it seems to me that even with all our sophisticated technology and supposed enlightened intelligence, we are still in the dark ages as to our compassion and understanding of other cultures and beliefs....a very closed minded attitude prevails, I am afraid! 

What I really want to do is to go to DC next week and participate in John Stewart's Rally for the Return of Sanity!!!!  That is certainly needed in this country!!

On a more cheerful note...had a great time playing poker last night with our buddies...I was actually ahead at one time, and almost broke even!  And...Texas Rangers are World Series bound!  TCU won their game tonight against Air Force.....and....my alma mater, Missouri, tromped on #1, Oklahoma for the first time in 12 years!

Go, Frogs!!!

Rainy day here in our part of Texas...the North Crowley band was to play at Regionals for UIL today; I haven't heard whether they got a chance to or not....will talk to the kids tomorrow.

Now Back to the Real World!

"Vitality is radiated from exceptional art and architecture!" Arthur Erickson

Just as I decide to blog for the first time in a week or so, the "moderators" have a note that the Image uploads is disabled due to maintenance.  And I love to see pics on blogs, so I may have to just do the writing now...knowing what pictures I hope to post.

I am watching the Rangers/Yankees fifth game as I write....not looking very good for the Rangers at this time, but there are still three and a half innings to go....so.."Go, Rangers!"  If they win this one, they are on their way to the World Series!  A big first for the boys!

I am having the Creative Crones..better known to the members as "studio Q" on Monday...we haven't had a full membership meeting for awhile..vacations, quilt show, etc.  getting in the way.  We are going to do a little "design" activity...several already do design their own quilts rather than do patterns, but some do not so I thought it would be a good idea to share how to go about it!  We are also going to start our next "challenge".  Each is bringing a 12" batik square for each member of the club...then we will take all 12 squares as well as our own fabric and make a quilt to enter into the next year's TVQG show....no other rules other than you have to use all the squares in some obvious way, can add one other fabric that no one else has...any size, any style, any embellishments!

I did finish a tote bag for my TCU fan daughter...The Horned Frog is a fusible pattern by Susan Cranshaw... www.susancranshaw.com ... a very fun pattern to do....then I just made the tote to put the little guy on.  She also has several other patterns for her "Desert Series"....I know there is a road runner but not sure what else.

And I am continuing to work on my project from my class at Arrowmont with Martine House.  I really like all the beading and other embellishment techniques she taught us, but it is kind of tedious so I have to break it up with other things to give my neck and eyes a break!!  The class I took from Larkin Van Horn last spring has been very helpful also.

This is "capturing the wild cabachon"!  (A Larkin term for beading around a large jewel (glass or button or whatever)  The background is one of my gelatin prints from a studio Q activity a few months ago.  I have quite a bit of beading done on top I will show at another time.

Looking back at the Moderators note...I realized that they are operating on Pacific time so I had a couple of hours to get ahead of them...must be a Silicon Valley thing!!!!

Closing off with another "Go, Rangers"....at this moment it is bottom of the 6th...Rangers-2/Yankees-6....the game is not over yet!!!

One more trip blog!

   "Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."  Degas

                                                       Quebec At Night

We came into Quebec late afternoon, got our hotel room, parked and took out on foot.  We were right in the heart of Old Quebec City, so we felt we really got to see everything we wanted.

The Interior of the Cathedral

This is probably the largest and fanciest church I have ever been in.  One of the sacristy lights was a gift from Louis XIV.  Very awesome...

Cannons on the Ramparts, Overlooking the St. Lawrence River

Quebec was quite a fortress in its early days...a perfect location above the river.  These cannons and many other artifacts remain to exhibit the power of the city.

Looking Down on the City from the Ramparts

And the river beyond...we also went up to the Citadel which was even higher above the city.

Quebec and the River from the Citadel

Quebec still remains quite a seaport.  All the signs everywhere are in French, although most of the wait people spoke English.  Where the striped canopy is in the center left is a pavilion area being renovated.  It was part of the walled city originally.

Toronto, Ontario

Toronto is HUGE!  It took us forever to drive through it and this was not even rush hour traffic!  It had been raining on us ever since we left Quebec but had cleared up as we got into Ontario.  Notice the weird clouds formed behind the buildings.  And this is only one little stretch of what went on and on!

It was good to get into some good ol' Iowa farmland...we had our fill of the big city life!!  Then headed on home to Texas!!!

On to Prince Edward Island

                   "The power of Imagination makes us infinite." John Muir

The Coast off Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Cape Breton is the fartherest NE part of NS.  It is most rugged of the whole province and most of it is a National Park.  The coastline drive is reminiscent of Big Sur in California, but not quite as "thrilling"; the road didn't quite follow right on the edge as in CA!

A Farmhouse on the Coast on Prince Edward Island

We really like PEI...it was very green and clean and UNtouristy!  To see a farm house right on the coast like this was an interesting sight for us.  It was not uncommon to see the horses grazing in the front of the houses.  This particular shot  reminds me of an Andrew Wyeth painting!

Surfing with Kites on the north coast of PEI

There is a National Park on the Atlantic Coast, north PEI that was basically closed for the winter but we could still drive around the coastline and get out at the beaches.  In the summer, it must be a very popular place to surf and sun as there were cabanas and boardwalks, etc.  As we came around one of the large sand dunes, we saw these three people out in the water surfing!!!!  The wind and waves were really high so they must have been having quite an adventure!  We enjoyed watching them from the warmth of our car!

Flowers at the Cairn's Motel in Summerside, PEI

Flowers were just lush everywhere!!  And we met the nicest people whereever we went.  A young couple owned and ran this motel...they were born and raised there and lived in a nice home right next door to the motel.  In Canada we were able to stop at the visitors centers and they would make lodging arrangements for us once we told them what kind of rooms, etc we were looking for...we were never steered wrong!