The sky and her late afternoon artistry.

This is a shot I got by walking out my front door into the street, about 10 yards from my front door. There were thunderstorms around but none on top of us, it made for some beautiful sky shots.

Today's post, by necessity, will be short - I've got classes from 8 - 8 today and therefore little time this morning to get creative. I had wanted to go on another waiter rant, but there will be plenty more fodder for that throughout the summer. Instead, I thought I would publicly comment on private correspondence.

We'll start with Serge. Last night, after having met up with the Halifax men for a couple of beers on the rooftop patio of a Village bar, (Oh my God, the sky was incredible - nobody seemed to be noticing that though) Serge read my post with me sitting next to him. He had something to say about nearly each one. The two things that stick in my mind are #75, he scoffed at me for my "feelings" for plants and then he said, "I just think of it like, now I'm giving the little baby branches a chance to grow." I thought this was a healthy approach, and I'll try to adopt it. But number 40 was the best because he said"What, you don't like umbrellas?" You would think that anything even remotely related to rain would please me, but no, I said something like "Umbrellas are a pain in the ass, they are clunky to handle, messy, drippy, ill-made things that don't agree with wind. Plus, whenever you have an umbrella you have to give up one half of your available hands. This leaves one hand for everything else. I need two hands, and I find the umbrella uses too much of this resource." But then his eyes lit up and said, "No, you don't like umbrellas because you can't see the sky, what you need is a transparent umbrella." Oh my God, what? A transparent umbrella? Imagine, if you will, my eyes glazing over and the visions playing in my head with me trotting around town with my transparent umbrella and (maybe there was some singing and dancing) walking in the park during thunderstorms watching it unfold. (Yeah, I know thunderstorm - park - umbrella, I might be inviting instant death) As I imagined it, the umbrella handle might have been pink. I thought about how rain on the plastic would make it hard to see clearly through it, but then again it's the same thing when I'm plastered to the window during a storm. A broad smile crosses my face. "That's the best idea you've ever had!" I tell him. He responds, "Those are for girls, and anyway, they don't have those anymore." Well, quite honestly, I don't care if they are for girls, I will have a transparent umbrella, but it will only be used for going out in storms. Anybody know where I can get one?

Rebekah writes that her favorite line is "When life gives you lemons, I pretend that there are no lemons." I did think it up myself, but that doesn't mean that someone else hasn't thought it up already, unbeknownst to me. (I'm sure that's spelled wrong) Incidentally, Rebekah has a blog now too which you can see over here

My grandmother writes that she finds the blog "very interesting". I'm going to take this as a compliment. (Let's not mention that I can't help imagining her reading #30)

My mother tells me she hasn't had time to read the blog yet. Better get with it mom, there's some juicy stuff here.

Em points out that I have two number 30's and 31's, and I am mortified. Looks like it should have been titled 102 juicy details.

Dee writes that she too has paid for gas and then not put it into her car, but that she went back once she remembered. (I remembered when the car was on fumes and I had no choice but to pull into the nearest place and repurchase.)

My father says "I think you write well". Shucks, that's about the nicest thing you could say.

And as far as I know, that is my current audience. I've let a few others know about the blog, but have no idea if any of them have checked it out. But anyway, any audience greater than 1 is all I need to keep it up.

I'm filled with love for all of you precious audience members. Have a superlative day!