in the newspaper

My picture is in the current issue of the Laurel Gazette! This is a weekly, free newspaper. This means it gets thrown in the general direction of the houses in our row. Most of my neighbors don't even bother to pick it up. Or if they do, it goes directly into the recycle bin. So you can see that having one's photo in this paper isn't worth much. More to the point, I did nothing worthwhile to warrant a photo. Here's what occurred: a week ago a photographer from the paper came to the ceramic studio where I and other students were working. The center is celebrating "30 years of art" and she was looking for material to use in an article about that. She took photos of three or four women who were all in class that evening. She interviewed each of us, briefly. After she left, one of the other women said to me, "Your picture will probably be used because you are the only one of us who lives in Laurel." Voila! She was right. The photo, which I will not attempt to put up here (very poor quality) shows me bent over a vase that I was carving designs into. I'm not quite frowning, but it do look very serious. At the time, I was just wishing she would go away because it's hard to concentrate when someone is watching you closely. So that's the story. I find it worth telling - an amusing story.

Wednesday was an amazing day in more ways than one. I received a phone call from my non-communicating son, Steve. He was at home that day and his wife, bless her, suggested that he try calling me. We had a nice long chat. Nothing new and exciting in his life, but it was great to hear from him. I talked to my daughter-in-law as well. It's feels good to be back in touch with them. Andy, (my ex-husband) also phoned me that evening. This is not as amazing as the call from Steve. Andy calls me about once a month, just to chat. We have a very friendly relationship, as long as we don't spend a whole lot of time together. He wanted advice about sending birthday presents to our grandchildren in England. Both girls have fall birthdays. I tried to talk him out of mailing anything, as it is very expensive, but he wanted to do it. Hopefully, the items will get there safely. They are somewhat breakable. I offered to take them with me when I go over in December, but no luck. I'll keep my fingers crossed until I hear that they arrived safely.

Weather here is cold and rainy and just nasty. But, I won't complain (at least not much) because I just received an email from a classmate who lives in the town I grew up in. (Bath, NY - located in the finger lakes region of the state). They currently have a couple of inches of heavy, wet snow which is breaking branches and causing a big mess, but looks very pretty. Even for that area, it's very early to have snow. I'm just glad we had our reunion weekend at the beginning of October!