My Strange Problem

Foir the past three or four months, I've been receiving an invoice from Perricone (make up/skin care) addressed to James B. Smith and my address. The first three or four, I sent back marked "not at this address" and "return to sender" with no result. The invoices kept coming. Oh, I know they are invoices as I finally opened one. I decided to stop wasting my time and started shredding them instead of returning them.

So today, the plot thickens. I get this envelope from London (England) addressed to him and I opened it. It is a magazine called "Trans Life" for transgender people. What's odd is that this magazine was airmailed so it seems like something someone paid for. Ana was here so I paged through the magazine for literally five seconds and out it went. It did occur to me to cut the label and return it, but frankly I resented having to pay anything toward this.

I asked a friend if he thought this could in any way be a scam and he didn't think so. Meanwhile my friend has recently been plagued by fake IRS calls telling him he's in big trouble.

Any thoughts? The only thing I can come up with is to alert the post office to not deliver James B Smith mail to me. I don't know how successful that request will be.

Long time, no write

The days fly by and if I don't have anything particular to share, there goes another day. My news of late is that Mary, Michelle and I celebrated 50 years of friendship this past weekend in Washington DC. We met in September 1967 when Mary and I were freshmen and Michelle was a sophomore. By a lucky (for me) twist of fate, the computer put us in three rooms right next to each other.

Mary had these photos from 1967 -- Mary on top, me, and Michelle in her hair curlers. Anyone of our generation looks at those curlers, you just can't believe we slept with those things digging into our scalp. And took 15 - 20 minutes each night to "set" our hair. Yikes... so here we are:

I actually remember when that photo was taken. We tried to make it look as if I was standing next to Warren Beatty, who was the sex god du jour due to Bonnie & Clyde.

We couldn't find any restaurants/bars we remember from college days, bu we do remember a chain called Hot Shoppes, similar to Howard Johnson's, where the signature dish was a forerunner of the Big Mac called the Mighty Mo. I have no idea what Mo is.

Mary found a recipe for Mighty Mo's on line and at the last minute we decided to skip the middle bun and extra patty of beef. Then, of course, we had French fries. I have to say the Mighty Mo (with its secret sauce which is like 1000 island dressing was good. Here's what it looked like:

It really was good -- one of those three napkins required burgers.

That was Friday and then on Saturday we went to our alma mater American University and met with a woman (a sophomore named Emma) who filled us in on what's what. Lots of new buildings, but enough of the campus was the same that we recognized it. We drove around campus for a while and then got great deli sandwiches and went back to Mary's.

We just stayed in, gabbed, etc.

On Sunday, we played a game I'd brought called Spontuneious which involves coming up with (and singing) five words of a song with a certain word in it. Lots of laughs with that. We like games that are simple and don't take hours to finish. And this one is.

Later, some other friends came over and Michelle made shrimp tacos, and shredded beef tacos and Mexican corn, and cole slaw and Michelle's daughter and husband brought a peach cobbler and mult-berry pie from this wonderful farm stand.

I left early on Monday and had a really wonderful weekend.

Harvey Reports

This is from a woman I used to work with who lives in Houston:

Hey! Yes we are ok. at home safe and no water in the house. We are very lucky to be on higher ground. This has been quite the experience. Didn’t have to worry about these things in Denver/ABQ  lol!   I have never seen this much rain in my life.

And here's Melissa's front yard. She told me she slept through it although she had noted that the tree was "wobbling" a bit more than normal... but she hadn't realized it fell overnight until her neighbor texted her.

At least it fell the right way, right onto her neighbor's fence but it didn't leave a scratch. Her son came and cut and carted the tree away so that was that. Thank God.

Eclipse Happenings

I totally weenied out on anything about the eclipse... kept looking outside and it seemed to get a bit dusky, but that's about it. I had no glasses or viewing device and I didn't want to take a chance (says the Old Lady in me.)

So Mary reports:

I decided to go outside and try the colander as a vehicle to see the eclipse (I got the suggestion from Neil Degrasse Tyson and others).  I hope you can see it from the picture - I thought it was pretty, every hole showing the pattern of the eclipse.  We didn't get a full eclipse, I think it was up to 82%.   Jill joined me and my neighbor Matt in the alley so we were able to look at the eclipse through her glasses.  It was pretty cool.

And Fran:

 I made a shoebox viewer which worked well and joined some neighbors out on the patio/tennis courts.

 A neighbor Michael made a big box viewer which was neat (see big white box in photo) and several others shared their eclipse glasses (best views). It was heartwarming to see we are attuned to the cosmos. Spectacular even though d.c.only had 80% coverage.

My favorite tweet was Madeline Albright who said that the eclipse proves that darkness is temporary.

Amy in Alaska

Amy and her husband are on an extended trip to Alaska... here's the lodge they've stayed in and her room.

She says:

Finally a room I'm not a little embarrassed to send you a picture of. This is the Mantasuka Lodge right across the valley from a glacier

Baby Lily

Here's a growing Lily who was born last week, or two months ago or I guess sometime in June. Lily is Mary's great niece.

Michelle and the Polar Bears

Michelle is somewhere in Northern Canada (way Northern) on a polar bear trip and here are some she saw and she brags that she didn't get attacked or eaten.