Just kidding. But, wow, that is one orange shirt.

Anyway, the day was perfect for the maiden voyage of the as-yet-unnamed Subaru. The sun was actually out for once, and since Wright State University’s women’s basketball games are, apparently, poorly attended, we had access to an almost empty parking lot.

This is the Nutter Center. That’s right, Nutter. That name has always made me laugh.

Kory shows great promise, and I’m certain he will be an excellent driver. I hope he will have a better sense of direction than his mother. Fingers crossed.

We also visited Tara and her lovely daughter Addison last weekend. Addison is growing SO fast, and she’s utterly adorable. She was fascinated with Kory’s hair, and really, who wouldn’t be? I love her face. And she loves her lamb.

Tara is expecting another daughter in June, to be named Molly. I am expecting Molly to be just as cute as her big sister.

Stay safe and warm, everyone!

Fair warning – don’t click around on those photos unless you want to see a little more of me than I normally care to show. Just trust me on this one.

Anyway, I love the new piece. The last few times I’ve gotten tattoos I’ve said each one would be my last, so I’m not going to say that this time. Many people don’t “get” tattoos, or shudder at the thought of putting something on their body permanently for fear they will regret it later in life. Others worry that when they’re older the art will wrinkle and fade. My take on it is this: I don’t regret any of my tattoos because they are bookmarks for my life … places where I have stopped to mark something forever, and each mark has it’s own story. As to the wrinkled and faded part, I figure all of me will be wrinkled and faded at some point, and I’ll enjoy telling my grandkids about each of my bodily bookmarks.

A note to all three of my readers: I can’t BELIEVE none of you pointed out I spelled “among” wrong in this post. I’m an ENGLISH MAJOR for crying out loud, and that embarrassing mistake was up for months! Kory pointed it out, rather gleefully, last night. My defense is that I have always had a mental block on that word and I consistently put a “u” in where none is needed. Also, Wordpress doesn’t spell check post titles. And among doesn’t look like a real word. Among among among. See?

First of all, Misty met me at the airport with a fruity drink to welcome me to Florida, effectively ending my lifelong embargo on grapefruit juice.  I thought Ruby Red was legitimate grapefruit juice; I was mistaken.

For a few days I got to see what’s it’s like to live on a sailboat, and I have to say I was surprised.  One of my first questions to Misty was “so, what do you do all day?”  She gets that a lot.  Trust me, there is plenty to do when you live on a floating vessel, even when you don’t have a vacationing guest to take care of.  Besides keeping the boat stocked with water, which involves hefting full tanks from the dinghy into the boat, meal planning and food storage is tricky business due to limited space.  However, “limited space” doesn’t necessarily translate to “cramped.”  I love all the nooks and crannies that are built in to boats, and even though there was an extra full-sized adult person on board in addition to Jeff, Misty, and Janus (my boyfriend for the weekend), we didn’t really step on each other’s toes very much.

This is Janus.

He’s a very attentive boyfriend.

In addition to running the boat like a streamlined little household (which is pretty much what it is) Misty is an indescribably good cook.   In fact, it was eating her cooking in the early years of our friendship that inspired me to start cooking more often, and I will confess to copying more than one of her recipes.  It was no surprise that she has managed to adapt to cooking in a tiny galley with minimal power … everything we ate was delicious, and I came home with a few new tricks to try.  Lobster, however, is not going to be one of them.  I will leave the lobster killing to other, more capable persons.

We toured the harbor, ate fabulous sushi, listened to great music, practiced yoga by the water, and scouted some local wildlife.  We stayed busy, but it certainly still felt like vacation.  Did I mention that I didn’t fix my hair or wear makeup for five days?

Misty DID make me walk down the most terrifying ramp I’ve ever seen on our walk to Pigeon Key.  I was increasingly convinced that the rotting wood planks were going to give way under me, four ton weight limit or not.  She calls it wusification; I call it a well developed sense of self-preservation.

While Jeff had to work for part of my visit, he was kind enough to indulge my desire to get out for a sail and photograph his little floating palace on a beautiful, if not terribly windy, Sunday afternoon.  I showed uncharacteristic restraint and only took 300 photos of the Sailing Vessel “Exposure.”  It was nearly impossible to narrow down which to use here, because they all look like something out of a dream.

This is Karen.

Karen is h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s, especially when she’s a little sleep deprived.  She was my pilot for the afternoon, since operating a camera and a dinghy at the same time is beyond my expertise.  I was only a little nervous when the dinghy ran out of gas and Karen said “what plastic thingy?” in response to Misty’s instruction to “use the plastic thingy” to pump the gas from the can to the tank.

This is the funny little dragon boat that belongs to one of the other locals.  He had a little too much fun that afternoon, so it’s probably best that we woke him and suggested he head back to the harbor.  I only took 150 photos of his homemade boat … obvious restraint, again.

I seem to have caught what Misty calls “Keys Disease” during my stay.  No, that’s not a rash.  I simply fell in love with the ease of living and the abundance of sunshine, so it has become my new goal in life to own and live on my very own sailboat.  I’d have turned around and gone right back (after coming home to 17-degree temperatures) but Kory wouldn’t let me.  Fear not; the kid’s gotta leave for college some day, and then you can all come visit me on my very own floating palace.

One at a time, please.

Isn’t that a cute book?

Kory forgot about it for a while, but he recently picked it up while looking for some new things to teach Riley. Hello, Riley.

Kory was a little taken aback, and highly amused, when he reached the chapter on How to Teach Your Dog to Detect Marijuana. Go ahead. Enlarge the photo and read a little.

The reference to the “friendly neighborhood drug dealer” and the claim that “everyone knows someone who smokes grass” were my personal favorites. And not just a little grass, either:

And then there’s the actual training:

I can’t help but laugh every time I imagine Kory out in the yard with Riley and a bag of pot, calling “Where’s the grass? Find the grass!” I’m sure the police station up the road would be enthralled. Either that or the neighbors would think my brain damaged son was trying to get the dog to identify the lawn.

I honestly thought the book would have been published some time in the sixties, but it came out a little later:

Lucky for us, Riley is not interested in becoming a drug dog.

She thought the book made a pretty good pillow, though.

My point is, I had a very uneventful trip to Louisville last weekend.  It was lovely, don’t get me wrong.  I spent some much needed and much appreciated time with my mother, my father, my sister, my niece, and my brother.  But we didn’t do anything special, other than hang out at my parents’ house.  And yet … I took sixty-three pictures.  Sixty-three!

I’m obviously not going to curb my photo-taking habit, but I feel as though it bears mentioning … sometimes it might be better to enjoy the moment, rather than take a picture of it.

That being said, my niece is as cute as ever, and I did come away from the weekend with a few lovely photos.  Thank goodness I wasn’t shooting film – I got roughly five good ones out of sixty-three.

To celebrate, we met the Koch family at the Cincinnati Zoo. It was hot out, but we had some cloud cover that made it bearable. The Cincy Zoo is really cool if you haven’t been, although it’s HUGE compared to Louisville’s. And the bird show was lots of fun.

It was not a good photo day for the niecii. They really just weren’t having it, even though they obviously had a great time.

I think the girls have been over-photographed. You bust out a camera and ask them to smile, and they just look at you as if to say “Again? Really? We’re tired of that.” And then they look away like this:

I had to have a monkey do a stand in.

Speaking of monkeys, I love this guy. He’s The Thinker of the animal kingdom.

I also love this guy. He’s a bad mo’fo monkey.

Now, I think my mother is beautiful. However, I can’t help but draw similarities between these two photos:

And it goes without saying that Kory is right at home in the zoo …

As is Vicki

As is Karen

As is Michael

Really, my family just consists of monkeys who fool you into thinking they’re people.

Dawn is less monkey-like, but she’s very well hydrated. Seriously, it’s hard to get a photo of her without a bottle in her face hiding that great smile.

Kory actually held Emily for once and I got that on film, rare occasion that it is:

Chip managed to get this lovely shot of Katie and the seal fountain, since she had no idea there was a camera in the vicinity:

All in all, we had a lovely time celebrating the fact that my only baby is one year closer to heading into the big bad world on his own. Can you imagine how I’m going to be when he hits sixteen?

This is how the ‘fro looks on an average day.  Kind of frizzy, a little out of control, and rarely symmetrical.  You would think that’d drive an OCD-affected person like Kory insane, but apparently his disorder only extends to alphabetizing the contents of my grocery cart and making sure the volume on the car stereo is always an odd number.

However, when you add water … strange things begin to happen.

It absorbs the water and repels it at the same time.  It’s fascinating.

While swimming, his hair never gets completely wet.  I’ve never seen anything like it.

This is Caesar’s Creek Lake, by the way.  It’s a lovely spot we discovered recently – I would spend much more time there if I could.

They have seagulls.  If I squint just right, it’s like being in Florida.

The lake is lovely, even if it reinforces my futile desire to own a boat.

Kory is turning fifteen next month (!) so I will, at the very least, have photos of that blessed event.  Until then, continue to be bemused and amazed by the ‘fro.

Ariana’s hair was incredible:

Ariana didn’t really drink very much:

Bells and Cooks get along quite well:

Monkeys are, in fact, allowed to attend weddings:

Old friends are often the best friends:

Little girls love to be upside down:

Newly engaged couples are often adorable:

Small children dancing are ALWAYS adorable:

And, we all witnessed the marriage of a couple who will last forever. Congratulations, Ariana and Ryan!

I’m committed to taking some fabulous photos this summer, though, so stay tuned!