I haven’t ever seen a tornado either except in the movies, but I have been in the middle of many hurricanes, many of them causing tremendous damage and outages for a week or more. After Bob, the roads were filled with downed tree, huge trees and wires and litter, leaves, branches, was everywhere. The leaves all died in August.

I would want to now if I am going to die. There are things I’d want to do, a sort of finish to my life.

I have a landscaper, and I haven’t seen a dandelion since he sowed the grass seeds and started taking care of my lawn.

I don’t remember voices either though I do remember favorite sayings my mother and father used. My sisters and I come out with them all the time and then laugh when we realize it was something my dad or mother would have said. I think we remember family in so many ways.

Memory can be triggered by current events. The tornado in Oklahoma yesterday reminded me of the one that came through Dallas in 1955. That was one of the first tornados that was tracked on radar and was the most photographed funnel cloud at the time. I remember my mother being very scared in our house because we didn’t have a basement and my father assuring her that the storm was hundreds of miles away. My mother came from NYC where a tornado was something that she saw on a movie screen like in “The Wizard of Oz”. The tornado was only a few miles from our house but in those days men told there wives white lies to spare them having to face up to bad news. Several years later while my mother suffered from stomach cancer he never told her that she had cancer because he didn’t want her to worry. I think she knew near the end.

If you are a connoisseur of a golf green type of lawn, Dandelions are among the nasty weeds that spoil that green carpet look that makes all the neighbors jealous. My dad always took pride in his green weed free lawn. After the rain he would run outside and pull up all the toad stools. Memories are wonderful, too bad I can’t remember the sound of my mother’s voice.

I do know how that goes and how painful it is and sometimes how joyful to find some wonderful mementoes she’d tucked away.

Nope, no gateway drug here either. It was the gate and the whole fence.

It was actually 76˚ here today. I left Gracie home while I did errands as the car was too hot for her. I sat out on the porch and read a while. Tonight is supposed to be in the mid 50′s-quite a drop in temperature. Reminds me of the harmattan with those brutal hot days and cold nights.

On Sunday we had over two friends from Durham to celebrate his birthday. We have known them since UNH days, 46 years, but it is always like yesterday. We commiserated on aches and pains, and trials and tribulations of family members. They are getting ready to sell his mom’s house, and cleaning it out–you know how that goes.

The Doors opened up a lot of doors for me–I smoked my first dope to their music. It was not a gateway drug, though.

Warm and mostly sunny here in NH. We’re looking forward to a cookout and the pool this weekend.

I haven’t ever heard of Annie Sellick and the Hot Club, and I really like their music!

I thank you, Birgit, as do my chickadees!

My landscaper puts down something to keep the lawn weeded so no dandelions. I loved it when they were wispy and you could hold the stem and blow them into the wind.

Hardware store guys know exactly what you mean. I think they are trained to translate ambiguities.

Warm here now. Earlier Gracie and I went out for on errand, and I still need to do one more, but I wanted to bring her home so she didn’t wait in the hot car.

Not having the jeep is a perfect excuse to sit and read.

I think it’s a combination. Remembering you’re forgetting is the victory but forgetting in the first place is the defeat.