Peach time

 The very first peaches of the season and this is how they get treated?  You bet.  But cutting into it will have to wait till tomorrow's dinner company.

Keeping up

Busy weeks of summer entertaining and partying!  What can be bad about that?
Do you remember the strawberry pie I make in June - after waiting a whole year for?  Well, strawberry season is over and we are on to blueberries.  This is the same basic idea.  Fresh berries, a set gel and good eats. Peaches are next. 

 We shared with Friends Aina and Terry. After a dinner of paella and wine and salad and wine we dove into that pie.

 Daughter had a birthday which we celebrated with a small chocolate cake (is there any other kind?) on her day but because Elizabeth was away at camp we saved the dinner party for when she was home.

OK, sometimes I take pictures of food.  Pies and cookies and baked things predominate but during our daughter's birthday dinner SIL ordered roasted bones for the marrow.  This was a menu item and we had a good laugh over it because while PH and I babysat our grand-dog this week I found the only way she would chew on the bones I bought her was if I baked them.  SIL said that's going a bit far for the dog considering that marrow bones are a menu item in some restaurants.  When we were out, well, there they were.  AND  I ate some AND they were very good!  We have a photo of them because, like roasted brussels sprouts, I never, ever thought I'd say I ate this. Or that I'd say it was good!

 After dinner we celebrated with ice cream and macarons.

 When it was time to turn off the lights and head to bed, our grand-dog decided to get comfortable. And yes, everything was washed today.  If she wasn't so cute....

 Quilt projects include sandwiching and pinning this and tucking it away for future mojo

and working on quilting this.  It was hot enough to have the air conditioning on so I could sit under a quilt and work, and now, it's cooled down enough to sit under a quilt and work.

Saving Beck

 
Saving Beck by Courtney Cole

   The things we fear the most are things we don’t even see and then it’s too late. Sometimes those things slide in under the door and other times they ring the doorbell.  But it doesn’t matter, the outcome is usually the same.

   Beck  and his dad took a tip to visit a college that Beck wanted to go to and though he was a little bit of an inexperienced driver, coming home late at night, dad offers to let Beck drive, to get a little experience at night on the highway.  There is an accident and his father doesn’t survive.

    This sends Beck and Natalie, Beck’s mother,  into a downward spiral.  Natalie spends her time in bed, rolled up in the covers and not taking care of her younger children.  Beck assumes this role, he knows the kids need someone to care about them.  All the while he is fighting his own demons about the accident and the consequence.

   The relief for Beck comes in the form of hard drugs. With drugs he can forget the pain and that’s all he really wants to do, forget it.  As Beck sinks lower and lower into his drug induced state his hold on reality is absolutely gone. Natalie rises from her depression,  never giving  up on him and one night Beck hits bottom.

     I’m not going to tell you how this one ends because not all endings are predictable.  There are plenty of people who were once someone’s child, who spend their lives forgetting, and there are plenty of parents who live with the pain of their child’s decision.  The big question the author asks in this fictionalized true story is this.  What wouldn’t you do to save your child’s life?

I'm back!

I can receive comments again!!!  Believe it or not!!  Gail and I held a telephone conference and she got me back to the land of the living!  Thank you, Gail!!!

So far in July

   I'm still talking to myself.  I thought nothing of this comment catastrophe when everyone was in the same boat but now I'm the only one out there so I'm not feeling the zeel of blogging right now.  I have an SOS in to Chooky and she promised to straighten this out but it's not like I expect her to drop her life to take up mine. I don't.  So, in the interest of July, here's a quick synopsis of the month's activities, which would all have merited their own post, but the air is slowly seeping out of my balloon.

 We attended the great unveiling on the 4th of July.  The beer this year came from Texas and mostly everyone liked it as a good light summer beer.

 Been to the beach

 Listened to the symphony under the stars and

 sat mere feet from the fireworks display. Astounding!

 Cleaned out the garage and found a new purpose for the toddler wheel toys

 They went down our driveway and thus back up again, numerous times until

 they were hot and exhausted

The daylilies have come and gone

Elizabeth held her own among the uncles (and an aunt) at a euchre game during the family reunion.

That brings things up do date.  Sigh.

Half Moon Bay

Half Moon Bay by Alice LaPlante

    

 Deep in grief, after the accidental death of her teen age daughter, Jane moves to Half Moon Bay to start over.  But starting over can be highly overrated – or just plain easier said than done.  As an expert in local plants, Jane finds her work in a nursery something that she can cope with. Watching new things grow is something she can control.

     Ever so slowly, Jane finds she can also encourage the sprouts of a normal new life for herself.  She is accepted in town, meets a few people, Adam a co-worker, Helen, her boss, Alma and Edward whose lifestyle both mystifies and fascinates Jane. She works at keeping her daughter’s ghost at bay but it works only if no one asks about her.

     Then children start to disappear.  Little girls are found dead but primped and posed in playful positions.  It’s a tragedy the small town can’t come to grips with.  They need someone to blame and Jane is the newcomer, the loner, the one who takes walks in the middle of the night and can’t give an accounting of her whereabouts.  Sometimes her grief makes her wonder about her own sanity and innocence. 

     The author takes us back into Jane’s life as she was growing up and we see what torment can really be. Then when her daughter turns into a surly teenager much like the teens Jane had to survive, we come to think, “hmmm…maybe, maybe.”

     We are never quite sure who, of the people the author introduces us to, might be taking these little girls.  We start to see things Jane won’t see. And just when you think living in a small town is the good, safe life!