Today was quite a day. It was hot. In the upper 80s.

It was a day of triumphs for the Deeley women. George and Betsy went to Hilbert, I guess actually Appleton and ran in the Cheesehead Run. I am SO impressed. Betsy won her class and Kathy won hers also. The announcers commented on the fact that two Deeleys in a row were the winners of the event. Betsy won a cheese tray.

I went to the Aestival Festival with Jane and Sylvia from Writer's Club.
The Aestival Festival is really a great day for Wisconsin Writers it lasts from about 8 to 3. They provide a really nice continental breakfast and a great lunch. They always have a well known Wisconsin Writer as the keynote speaker. This year the author of The Final Frontiersman, James Crawford. There are two workshops, one before and one after lunch. You get a choice on these. Three choices in each time slot. I chose Journalism and Poetry. Then there is a final speaker and away we go. All of this is in addition to the writing contests and the prize drawings.

Jane got an honorable mention in the poetry contest and I GOT FIRST PLACE. I was SO excited. It was for a poem I wrote several years ago called They Soar. I will add it here for you.


THEY SOAR

They Soar.

We send them – Emissaries to the edges of the grasp of the planet.

They stride
These heroes of our time,
With joy and pride and courage.

With reckless abandon, they enter the capsule
And we fling them into the void.

We name them astronaut – cosmonaut.
These names make our hearts and minds ache with pride
Because they are human – like us.

We thrill as they rise from the shackles of Earth,
Feeling as they rise, the thrill in the pit of our stomachs.
As they experience
The ultimate carnival ride-
A journey beyond the clouds –
A reach for God in his heaven.

They satisfy
Man’s eternal curiosity,
His need to see a little further down the road.

We see them leave the womb of the capsule and float in the nothingness
On a man-made umbilical cord.
So Brave – So foolhardy.

We watch them walk on other worlds – with Giant Steps.

They talk of God, and of Pride and of Beauty that leaves them breathless.

In view of the whole world and yet beyond our reach,
They perform their deeds in glory.

And sometimes our emissaries don’t come back.

And we cry for them.

Have a neat Sunday.

Monday we leave for D. C.

Love

Mary

Another BUSY day. The church is decorated. That was my last stop.

The morning started quietly enough. I did my usual Friday kitchen cleaning. Then ironed Dick's shirts. At noon, Dick and I joined George and Betsy and Betsy's mother Dorothy, Jeff and Kathy and Mother at The Other Place for a really great fish lunch. I had not been in the Other Place in years. When I was a kid, it was called Fitz's and had a bowling alley in the basement (we wonder if the alleys are still there.) Jeff used to make money setting pins. There were no automatic pinsetters at Fitz's. The Other Place has expanded some in the past several years and now has a larger dining area that takes up the ajacent building. Interestingly enough, that adjacent building was my Uncle Jack's, Deeley's Men's Wear store.

The fish lunch was fantastic. I ate every bite and just snacked a bit for supper.

I had to leave at about 5:00PM because pistol league started this week and since I won't be here Sunday OR next Friday, I decided that I had better get a start. The first target was a bit wild, but the other two were better. I still have a long way to go, but am improving each league.

After I finished there I went to church. The church looks beautiful. We have decorated in green, white and orange, the colors of the Irish flag. Stan and Linda brought lots of beautiful fresh asparagus ferns and we have them mixed with white and orange mums and green plants.

Tomorrow, I will be going to the Aestival Festival with Sylvia and Jane from Writer's Club. I am looking forward to the break and feel that I have done all I can for Celtic Faire anyway.

I even am all packed for the trip to D. C. So, I should be able to relax and enjoy the conference.

Hope you have a great weekend.

Love

Mary

Nice day today after the rain yesterday. Yes we did have rain and it was quite heavy for a while, with thunder and everything. It cooled a bit this evening but is warming up to the mid to high 80s on Sunday. Just in time for the Faire.

Dick and I went grocery shopping today and had several other errands to run also. We were gone for three hours which is really a long time for us. I dropped a quilt off for the quilt turning at the Quilt Show, we went to the bank and the drug store and stopped at Discovery to pay for the Mystery Tour which we will go on in October.

This evening we had choir practice. The words I wrote sound pretty good. I think it will go quite well. We are also singing several other traditional Irish songs. Be Thou My Vision and Christ Be Near at Either Hand. Jim Wilsing, the bagpiper, told me that he is taking a crash course at the Red Cross and then will be sent down to the Gulf Coast to help with the rescue effort. I told him that I was glad but that he must be so careful and to let me know when he is leaving so that I can get him on our prayer chain whild he is gone.

When Dick went in for his test on Monday, we were talking with one of the nurses about the situation in the Golf. She said that the news was not on much in her house because she has a very impressionable 5 year old daughter. When the tornado did all the damage in Stoughton Wisconsin, her daughter started getting obsessed with the "tomatoes".

I was amazed at her daughter calling them "tomatoes". When Bart was about 4 years old, I was living in Santa Ana California in one of my previous lives. We planned a visit to Wisconsin. That year a tornado had swept through Sheboygan County and actually caused the death of a baby in the Sheboygan Falls Area. Bart kept saying he didn't want to go to Wisconsin. I finally got out of him that he didn't want to go because they had "red tomatoes" in Wisconsin and he didn't think it was safe because it killed that baby in Sheboygan Falls. Two little people both misunderstood the word tornado but knew tomato. How funny is that.

Another quote from John O'Donohue. "I am always amazed that poems are willing to lie down and sleep insid the flat, closed pages of books."

Appropriate since I am going to a Writer's Conference on Saturday.

Have a good Friday.

Mary

Another day closer to Celtic Faire and then the trip to D. C. I will be very happy when we are finally on the bus and I can relax for 6 whole days with NO phone calls or problems. Someone else will make all decisions and take us where we need to go. WOW. Such a deal.

Another day of uncertainty for the poor victims of Katrina. I pray each day that some of their problems be resolved. The government has stepped in with debit cards, a new concept, for clothing and necessities. This will at least get them out of rags and get the children outfitted for school. I heard some of the children being interviewed. They are brave little soldiers but are so lonely for their OWN homes and the friends and lives they are familiar with.

I heard a very disturbing interview with some people in one of the affected areas, not New Orleans. The victims had been put up in hotels in a larger town because their homes are destroyed. FEMA officials FINALLY arrived several days after they were first needed and made the REFUGEES living in the hotel leave so they could use the facilities. Talk about insensitive and defeatest. Let's throw a few more sheltered homeless people out into the street. What was that anyway? FEMA seems to be doing one insensitive thing after another stupid thing.

At least the American people themselves are jumping in to help in any way they can.

Enough of that for now.

Dick was fine today, though this afternoon he got very tired and slept for two hours. I know he needed it. After all, any time one is sedated, even mildly and "invaded" there is a shock to the system. He is really just fine.

I am doing a daily reading from a second book by John O'Donohue called Eternal Echoes. He is the author of Anam Cara which I have referred to quite often. I would like to share a quote that really impressed me for the end of my little entry today. I hope it impresses you as much as it did me. This is from the first chapter called Awakening in the World.

"Children come here without knowing where they are landing."

What a concept.

Love

Mary

Dick's colonoscopy went very well. They did find a couple of more pollups. Dr. Genji removed them and we will have the results in a few days. He did not think that they were malignant, however. Dick was tired but did not suffer much discomfort besides a little tummy ache which went away after a nice nap. Anyway, it is all over and we can put it out of our minds.

Aside from that, I made sure that all the vendors for Celtic Faire are on track and if they needed tables and/or chairs and did some sewing. So it was a quiet day. It remained cloudy all day but was rather warm and muggy.

I read that Wisconsin will be getting some of Katrina's refugees, at least for a while. The State Fair grounds and a few other sites are capable of housing lots of people and will do so. A long way from home for these poor people, but then most of them do not know if they have a home any more. I cannot even fathom such a thing.

Bret and his cousin, Britt, my sister Nora's daughter, are only 9 days apart in age. When Leif left the Navy and they were moving to Kansas City, Nora and Britt came to visit us in Santa Ana Heights while Leif was doing some interviewing or something like that for his new job. They had packed up their house and Nora had dropped Leif off at the airport and poor little Britt saw her Daddy leave and was confused by their empty house before they drove down to visit me and my family.

She and Bret were less than two years old. I will never forget the expression of total joy on that little girls face when we went to the airport to pick Leif up. She grabbed him around the neck and laughed and hugged and gave him Eskimo kisses. I often wonder what was going through her little mind. First her home is gone, then her Dad and then - miracle of miracles - Dad came back.

Some of these little people from the south will never have the joy of anything coming home. Fortunately, they are also risiliant, these little ones and with love and care and reassurance, they will be fine. Are we up to it? I hope so.

Love

Mary

Today was a lovely day. Mid to high 70s, sunny with blue blue skies. Actually I was in most of the day. Didn't have to do any cooking because Dick had his liquid diet thing going today and I the chili for Jim and me. Boy is that chili good.

I started sewing a Christmas Tree Skirt together today. I found an easy assembly pattern which I am tweaking a bit. Instead of pieced squares all around, I want to applique the animals of Christmas, one in each square. I can think of sheep, camel, donkey, dove and cow. Can you think of three more? Let me know, otherwise, I will have to repeat some of them, as I need eight panels filled.

Now I am worried about all those poor housepets that had to be left in New Orleans when the evacuations were conducted. I think I may do a little investigating. I sent some money when all those zoo animals were starving in Iraq. I feel even more motivated to help animals in our own country.

Tomorrow I get to be the nurse.

You have a great day

Mary

The day started out gloriously. Chelsea and I started on our walk at about 5:45AM. It was just getting light and was kind of cloudy. As we came back down the street the sun rose high enough to send coral glow onto the clouds to the west and then all of a sudden - A RAINBOW appeared in the west. Such a surprise. As we got to a clear spot I could actually see the other end of the arc between the houses. What a special way to start the day. Must mean luck, since this was the sign of the Lord in the Old Testament. Why Not!

This afternoon, I worked at Rhine. It was quite slow, so I was able to practice my pistol shooting. It was mixed today. The first was really bad but my gun was jamming. The second was better and the last was good. I was also able to shoot a round of trap and got a 16 so it was and OK use of time.

Then Dick, Jim and I went over to Randy's for the party. It was a good time had by all. Lots of hugs, good food and visiting. We decided to acknowledge that three of our own will be hitting the magic age of 60 this year; Jeff, this month - Ken - November and Fred - December. We then found out that Aunt Joan, Pat's wife, is turning 60 in October so we had another to add to the list. They were surprised and pleased.

I made them all cards and found a quote for each of them. Here are the quotes.

"If you live long enouth the vererablility factor creeps in; you get accused of things you never did and praised for virtues you never had." I. F. Stone

"I'm just turning 40 and taking my time about it." Harold Lloyd (in his 70's)

"So, lively brisk old fellow, don't let age get you down. White hairs or not, you can still be a lover." Goethe

Tomorrow Dick starts his all liquid diet, so we will not be a cheerful place around here. Thank the Lord it is only for one day.

Mary