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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary
Week of 15
November 2004
Latest Update: Sunday, November 21, 2004 1:50
p.m.
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Monday, 15 November
2004
I am back into the regular routine with my
normal rushed Monday. Work, home, dinner, and gym. I dropped off roll
of film and a prescription at the drugstore before my step class. I had
some drugstore items to pick up and Bob needed a couple of soda's to
hold him over until tomorrow when I go to the store.
Bob will get my pictures transfered sometime this week for me. He did
the white and dark loads today, I will do the towel load when I get
home tomorrow from work.
Last night I started a new David Handler mystery. I manged to read a
couple of chapters before almost falling asleep with the light on. I
will update you later in the week after I have read a few more chapters.
We had a fairly hard freeze last night. The temperatures warmed up
to around the mid 50's during the day but will take a plunge back down
tonight.
Last Wednesday morning after I finished up the house cleaning I did get
my bulbs planted. While I was out
digging around in the yard my neighbor gave me a purple shamrock plant
and some small iris to plant. I have a green shamrock out back. I put
the purple one in the front. The bulbs I put in the natural areas by
the driveway, the ones along the front of the house and under the big
oak by the street. Most of them were snow crocus along with Grecian
windflowers and a new purple flower scilla litardierei. Hopefully they
will all come up early and late next spring.
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Tuesday, 16 November
2004
I left this morning at 7:30 to go over to the
DMV to renew my driver's license. When I arrived around 7:40 there were
only a couple of people standing outside the door waiting. I was in and
out of there in about 20 minutes arriving at work just a little after
8:30. By working through lunch I was able to make up my time and leave
at my normal 4:00.
I made the weekly library and grocery store run on the way home. Since
dinner time I have been plowing through mail and stuff on my desk to
see what needs attention first. There are a couple of CBCR orders to
get out and I need to write up my review of the book I read over the
weekend.
Bob has downloaded my pictures. I will try to go through them and get
them up tomorrow night.
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Wednesday, 17 November 2004
With the long range forecast looking like
rain, I decided to leave work this afternoon at 3 to come home and
vacuum/mow the lawn. If I wait another two weeks that should be the
last time I have to do the lawn for the season. Bob can blow out the
gutters one more time and I will do all the natural areas for the final
clean up.
Just as I finished up the yard, about 5pm, Mimi called to ask if the
dogs could come over to play. I spent 25 minutes or so visiting
with her while the dogs romped around having a good time. By the time I
fixed dinner, walked the dogs, and checked my mail it was too late to
get the pictures sorted for my page.
Have a great evening.
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Thursday, 18 November
2004
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I picked out the best of my pictures and Bob resized them for me while
I was at the gym. No class tonight, I just worked out on the cardio
machines. Last night I sat up, AGAIN, until 11:35 finishing up my book.
I highly recommend the David Handler series starring Mitch Berger, New
York film critic and Des Mirty a black police detective. Set in
Dorsett, Connecticut, the most recent title in the series, The Burnt Orange Sunrise, takes
place in an old castle on the outskirts of Dorsett. A fierce winter
storm traps Mitch and Des along with the family who are visiting the
castle for a large party in honor of the owner...a famous actress and
director of whom Mitch has idolized since he was a young man. As guests
start dropping like flies, Des and Mitch try to determine who among
them has the motive for killing off the family member.
___________________________________________________
Now on to the pictures. We have a wonderful three days in Savannah of
which these pictures show only a small portion of all the many
wonderful things we saw and did. Tonight our Internet connection is
acting up. I will go back and add more text and links to the pictures
below tomorrow or over the weekend.
Once of the main reasons for my mom
and Frances to go to Savannah to was to eat at Paula
Deen's restaurant. They watch her on the food network. From humble
beginnings she raised her two sons on her own and became a renowned
cook with her own southern cooking show, cook books and restaurant. The
link is to a nice story about her and her two sons and how she got to
where she is today.
Below, mom and dad are sitting outside the side entrance to the
restaurant waiting for the line to start forming to get in. We got
there about 10:00am. They start taking names at 10:45. The line forms
to the left of this bench and usually winds all the way down the
street. However, the building, three stories tall, seats a lot of
people on both the first and third floors. We ate on the third floor.
They use the second floor for offices. The food, served buffet style,
was down home southern cooking at its best.
When Paula is in residence at her restaurant, she will pose for
pictures, autograph cook books, etc. Unfortunately, she was not in the
day we ate there but one of the sons, Jamie, was. He, like his mom, was
very gracious and down to earth. He signed Frances' copies of the
cookbooks and talked with her and others waiting to have their pictures
taken. That is Paula in the poster behind Frances and Jamie.
After we ate lunch, we walked around the downtown and city market area.
Dad and I walked back to the hotel about 3:00 to let him rest. The day
started out cloudy with a fairly steady rain falling by the time we got
back to the hotel. Mom, Al, and Frances did a couple of more things
before heading back.
That evening, the clouds broke with a beautiful rainbow and the sun
setting over the capital dome. Savannah is a beautiful city laid out in
square blocks. At the end of each short block is a park. The hugh Live
Oaks with the Spanish moss hanging from the limbs span large areas of
the parks around the city, along the streets, and in the outlying
neighborhoods.
We spent Saturday driving over to Tybee
Island
This mural is on one side of the main entrance out to the fishing pier.
Unfortunately it was cold, windy, and drizzly. But we did walk out on
the pier and back then ate lunch at a nice little place, Fannies on the Beach,
right on the waterfront.
After lunch we drove over the light
house, still on the island. This light is still used today.
Across the street from the light, along the waterfront sits Fort
Screven Battery Garland which houses the Tybee Island Museum.
This bridge, going over the Savannah river, is the main entrance to the
city on Highway 17. I took this from the River Front on Saturday
evening. We had been down there on Thursday night to eat dinner and
again on Saturday night. Frances took a picture of me in front of the
Waving Girl and then I took one of mom and dad. That cargo ship was
just coming into the docks at Savannah loaded with Sea Land trailers.
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Friday, 19 November 2004
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No Update!
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Saturday, 20 November
2004
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Sorry about last night. I rushed home from
work, loaded Malcolm in the car, and took off for his vet appointment
for 4:45. He was in for his regular annual checkup and shots. When we
switched vets back at the beginning of the month, Dr. Taylor noticed
Malcolm had broken off one of his big canine teeth. Yesterday, he
noticed the area above the gum had become red and somewhat inflamed
which indicates it has started to get infected. Otherwise, he checked
up fine. We scheduled his dental surgery for the Monday after the
Thanksgiving Holidays to have the tooth removed and his others cleaned.
After dinner I decided to tackle the growing piles of "stuff" that has
accumulated on my desk over the last couple of weeks as well some major
clutter on my office floor. Between the Vermont trip and the Savannah
trip I have not had time to put things away, etc.
First, I organized the desk stuff, filing and taking care of whatever
needed to be handled. Next, I cleaned up, removed, and otherwise
organized my office floor. An hour and half later I pretty much had
things back under control once again. Whew!
I am reading the third mystery in the Sarah Shaber series starring
professor Simon Shaw. In The
Fugitive King Shaber starts the novel off usual setting of
Raleigh, NC but moves the plot and action to Boone, NC. As many of you
know I attended Appalachian State which is in Boone. As with Shaber's
previous two novels, she brings home to me a lot of places I have lived
and visited in her books. She reminds me a lot of the Luke Thanet
mysteries written by Dorothy Simpson. Like Thanet, Simon solves
mysteries which are often twenty or more years old but have a modern
day connection. In Fugitive King Simon
is held hostage in his house by an escaped convict from the Raleigh
prison. Freedman had been a model prisoner for over 20 years with
minimum security privileges such as working at the Governor's Mansion.
When the body of a young girl who had gone missing back in 1958 is
discovered in some woods in Boone just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, it
turns out to be the young girl Freedman confessed to murdering.
However, his claims he confessed under threats from the family and law
enforcement officers but did not really commit the crime. Freedman
heard about Simon and held him hostage to get him to listen to his
story and plead with him to help get his conviction overturned. Simon
takes off for the cool mountain air of Boone to get away from the
stifling summer heat and humidity in Raleigh and see if he can turn up
clues to help Freedman.
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This morning I was up and off to the gym
for my 9am spin class. After a shower, Bob and I took off for my folks
house so Bob could look at the outside bell on their house. That
outside phone bell was installed sometime back in the early 70's. Dad
said it no longer worked and wanted a new one. After checking the ring
tones and connections then spraying everything with WD40, it seems to
be working fine. Bob was anxious to get back home to work so we made a
quick stop at the library then came on back home.
This afternoon I have some things to do in my office between taking
breaks to play with the dogs. The weather for this weekend is dismal
with gray clouds and periods of rain. Just as well, since I have a lot
of things I want to get done today and tomorrow.
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Sunday, 21 November
2004
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Good afternoon. The weather forecast for
today had been for rain. Based on that information and the long list of
things I needed to do we decided not to play golf today. I left around
8am for WalMart to get some shopping taken care of. Very often when I
am going out there on a Sunday morning I combine my odds and ends
shopping with my grocery shopping to get it all taken care of at one
time.
Back home, I finished up the downstairs area cleaning project I started
a couple of weeks ago before tackling the upstairs. It is always
amazing to me how two adults and two dogs can creat so much mess and
dirt in a week. It of the morning to get both the up and downstairs
back into shape. Even though it has been ten days rather than my usual
six since I cleaned last the Wednesday before I left for our trip to
Savannah.
After a break for lunch I walked the dogs, put the towels in the to
wash, and sat down to "rest" at my PC to check my mail. I still have
some other minor projects I want to finish up today.
So far, other than a few clouds from time to time the rain has yet to
make an appearance. It is quit warm, mid 50's to lower 60's.
As Bob mentioned, it will be a short week for us. I am looking forward
to the break. More than likely I will post tomorrow but the remainder
of the week may be sporadic.
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Copyright
© 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 by Barbara Fritchman
Thompson. All Rights Reserved.
