Today was car shopping day. We set out at about half nine with the goal of ending the morning in Loogootee, Indiana. On the way we stopped at two dealerships in Bloomington. The first salesman was a bit on the slicker side as far as trying to get me to buy things went. We'd found a Mitsubishi Lancer online on the lot that I liked, so I took it for a test drive. It behaved as well as could be expected and had a moon roof as a perk.

Having escaped that salesman, we went on to the next car, a Dodge Neon. The salesman there was an older fellow with an enormous Panama sunhat, who casually gave us the keys and let me take it for a drive. Again, it behaved itself. Its brakes were slightly better than the Lancer's. Always important.

Not terribly impressed so far, though both of those cars were 2005/2006, in my price range, with no terrible flaws, we set out for Loogootee. It's a fair drive from Bloomington, a good forty-five minutes or so. But the highway winds through some of the most beautiful countryside: high, rolling hills covered with thick hardwoods and the occasional grove of pines, sloping fields rich with corn and soybeans, pastures full of white Queen Anne's lace and yellow goldenrod, limestone quarries. It was about noon, and the distant hills were hazy, deep blue. Very peaceful to drive through that landscape.

Loogootee turned out to be a small but mostly prosperous town. The salesman was another older gentleman who put the least pressure of anyone: he actually handed us the keys and didn't stay around to sing the car's praises, but went inside and let me test drive it. The car was a Volkswagen Beetle, and it drove much more nicely than either of the other two. I couldn't believe it. I had set out wanting a Honda Civic or Ford Focus, but neither one of those cars existed in the market at a price that I could afford. It seemed ridiculous to be driving a buggy around, considering the amount of goofiness we always gave them as kids, but it was smooth and solid.

So we went inside the tiny office, and I told the salesman that I wanted to buy the car. After some phone calls to his boss (which were hilarious to overhear--small-town Indiana people are about as laconic as they come), he managed to take off six hundred dollars, which was almost enough to cover the sales tax. So away I went in a little tiny silver VW bug, over to the main dealership to pick up the title, and then back to Bloomington. I was so happy on the drive back that I couldn't stop smiling and thanking God. Had been praying for the last wee while for Him to provide, and He has!

That was just the beginning of the day's adventures, though. Mary came over at about half four, and while Scott kept us company, she and I made pesto and whole wheat noodles for tea tonight. Eric came over, too. Mary had never made pasta before, and I'd only made it with a pasta-maker, so it was rather an adventure. Homemade noodles cook fast, in about two minutes, and swell up to about three times their original size. Whole wheat pasta is pretty heavy, too. All those things were a surprise to us. With fresh pesto (from the basil on the back porch) and a strawberry-peach-spinach salad, though, it wasn't too bad.

We sat around joking for quite awhile after the meal. Laura had joined us; Lindsay has work in the evenings. Scott and Eric teased Lisa no end, which is about usual. At seven we went to the Hs' for our small group on Holding Hands, Holding Hearts. Somehow the Hs manage to pack a ridiculous number of people into their house even in the summer. Adam and Anne were there with wee Micah, and Scott, Mary, Lisa, and me; Laura had come with us, as had Eric, of course; Tom and Mary were there, and so were Russell and Nathaniel.

While Amy cut up brownies for dessert, Mary and I played with Anne and Jane. They rode piggyback on us, and we dashed around the house, with the two of them howling, screaming, and giggling from our backs. Ice cream and brownies for dessert. Scott, Laura, and I chatted with Tom's Mary about wedding plans. The small group discussion was about as usual, just talking about the book and its take on relationships. Good, plain, practical advice.

And so the evening ended with Scott and me back at the townhouse, saying good-night in the little buggy. Makes me laugh every time I think about it.

Now Playing: Jon Foreman, "Leaves and Branches," "House of God Forever."

Photos from Colorado are here.

We hiked up the Dry Lakes trail, with Horn Peak on the right. This is the basin that awaited us at the top, where we ate lunch.

More pictures from today here. Good times....

Scott, Laura, and I went to Waukomis today for gelato. Quite a sight, a BMW in Waukomis! The gelato was delicious, and on the way home we saw a tornado.

A small elephant trunk tornado, but a real tornado nonetheless. It was just hanging out in the field, not going anywhere, but it definitely prompted us to go somewhere much more quickly.

For being on holiday, I've spent a ridiculous amount of time in coffee shops over the last few days. Working on this project for Gale has been a bear. They've assigned us to write about one twenty-first century play a month as part of their push to put together a database of articles about twenty-first century plays.

The play I wrote about for June was a snarl of offensiveness, but for July I'm writing about an adaptation of Shakespeare's history dramas, the dramas centering on the War of the Roses. It definitely has its unorthodox components, but as a study in contemporary adaptation it's quite interesting. Thankfully the entry is nearly finished.

Highlights from the week so far include meeting Anna and Ruth for coffee on Monday, the traditional Enid Fourth of July party Monday evening, and baking thyme focaccia bread with Laura. Also introducing Scott to Braum's ice cream and Hideaway pizza.

The heat continues to be nearly unbearable. I'm not sure how anything is surviving, and if the heat and drought continue like this, the whole state may go up in flames before autumn comes.

Bridge between two (empty or nearly empty) office buildings in Oklahoma City.

Scott and I are in Oklahoma for the next couple of weeks. On Thursday we went to Tulsa to see TU and hang out with people, and yesterday we went with my mother to Oklahoma City and walked around downtown. It's been brutally hot, but we've still managed to spend quite a lot of time outside somehow. Yesterday afternoon we discovered just how desolate Oklahoma City can be in the middle of the afternoon when it's over 100 F outside: it looks like a set from Inception.

More photos from the trip so far here.

A few photos from Eric's welcome back party yesterday here. Eric has been in Mexico for the last two months, so Scott invited people over to his house to celebrate Eric's return. Thanks to the fact that Lisa's sister Lindsey was in town with her daughter Caitlin, and also to the fact that the Petras and Niesses came (the Petras with baby Eli, the Niesses with wee Micah), the house was comparatively full of kids. It turned out to be a perfect evening to be outside: the kids played with inflatable balls and a frisbee on the grass, while some of the rest of us sat around on the back porch and talked.

Now Playing: Notre-Dame de Paris.

 My zinnias have finally started to bloom. So far, they're just pink.

 One Sunday at church, Annie gave Lisa and me a pot of pink splash, miniature ivy, and petunias. Unfortunately, the petunia buds look a lot like the dead flowers, and since they need to be deadheaded regularly, I'm always in danger of pulling off the buds instead of the dead ones.

Our tomatoes have reached absolutely monstrous proportions, as has the lantana. Hopefully the tomatoes will now turn to producing fruit instead of trying to grow higher than the house.

Indiana is lush in June! The top photo is from woods northwest of Bloomington; the bottom one, from the Lilly House formal gardens in Indianapolis.

More photos added to this album.

Now Playing: Indelible Grace, "Rock of Ages."

It's been some month so far...! Last week was VBS in Bloomington. Angie and I were teachers for the first and second graders, which meant that we had five boys and three girls to shepherd around the church all week. More like herd, actually. Some of the boys were quite unruly, which made teaching memory verses, doing worksheets, and even lining up to go outside for games an adventure. I was hoarse by the end of the week. During the closing program on Friday evening, though, all the kids were able to say their memory verses in front of a large group of assembled parents and guests, which was quite encouraging. At least they were paying attention some of the time.

During VBS week, Rachel visited from Illinois, so it was good to have her around. She helped Scott with games for the kids and was invaluable in that role. She also cooked for us two nights in a row, which was pretty delicious. One of those meals was her family's special tacos, white corn tortillas fried in a pan of oil on the stovetop.

The first summer session ended last week as well. We had our French final on Thursday. Now it's down to working on my own in order to pass the French reading proficiency exam sometime in September. I'm just thankful not to have to dedicate so much time to class anymore. Of course, I need to test for Latin proficiency at some point in the near future, too.

Now Playing: Nick Drake, "Five Leaves Left," "The Thoughts of Mary Jane."

It's gotten so warm here this week that birds are panting as they fly. Yesterday evening, while Scott and I were making tea, Laura befriended a cat who's been hanging around our house. She's a young calico cat, mostly grey, and she was lying on our back porch, panting. We sat outside after tea, and the cat stuck around, purring so hard that her whiskers vibrated. The cat didn't even mind when Laura started strumming her guitar. Lisa and Lydia, Lisa's sister who's living with us this summer, were both totally disgusted by how much we were enjoying the cat and how much the cat was enjoying us.

Now Playing: Notre-Dame de Paris, for which I have Laura and Peter to thank.

Photos from this weekend here.

Love this photo. So happy to have a new sister in the family!

Philip and Alyson were married this past Saturday. Scott and I drove over to St. Louis for the wedding, and it was a pretty wonderful weekend. Stressful, yes, since Laura, Stephen, and I were all in the wedding party, but really good to see everyone, not only family members, but also TU friends and old family friends. The wedding itself was beautiful and the reception elegant.

After the reception the wedding party went to Forest Park for dinner. It was good to be able to relax in that smaller group (by no means intimate, though it felt intimate after all the panoply of the wedding ceremony and preparation!). We sat on a green lawn by a small lake and watched ducks and white egrets on the water. Philip and some of the other groomsmen threw grapes at the ducks. Caroline, Alyson's wee sister, walked across a tightrope that a couple of random guys had set up between a couple of nearby trees. She was so excited with the experience that she made Alyson walk across it, too, in her wedding dress, with Philip's help--the photographers made the most of the opportunity. (The random guys, thankfully, didn't mind all the attention that their tightrope-walking lesson was drawing!)

Laura, Keith, and I were the last ones at the park. We got to wave Philip and Alyson good-bye as they drove away in a wee red Ford, very similar to the wee red car our parents drove away from their wedding reception.

Trees in Yellowwood. Being from Oklahoma definitely makes one appreciate these magnificent old forests!

Photos from this past weekend added to this album.

 Now Playing: Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6, "Pathetique."

This afternoon Cindy and Scott came over, and the three of us drove out to Yellowwood State Forest to hike. The drive into the forest was barely marked and turned out to be a pitted gravel road, slashed across by shallow creeks, which Cindy’s small Ford Focus bumped across. We walked a 4.5-mile trail that ran in a long loop around the lake.

The trail ran up and down the spurs of the hills. It snaked up into small valleys between hills in order to ford creeks where they were narrower, before they fanned out into marshes around the lake. We splashed across several small creeks on flat stones, the clear, shallow water flowing fast under ferns. On the hillsides marched the great beeches, red and white oaks, and sugar maples. Massive: the beeches with skin-smooth silver bark, the white oaks with deeply corrugated pale bark, the red oaks with their darker, more finely ridged exteriors. On the hillsides across the lake, sycamores made splashes of celadon against the jungle green of the other trees. We entered arcades of pine trees, again, straight, immensely tall. Our feet were silenced on pine needles, and that wonderful, aromatic smell mixed with the smell of masses of wild white roses growing over fallen trees. 

We came across a much larger creek, dammed with fallen logs. Scott tried to teach Cindy how to skip rocks on a wide patch of smooth, deep water. We walked through a pine wood, absolutely silent, and then back up into the hardwood forest again. The forest was almost absolutely silent. As dusk fell the light deepened almost imperceptibly, until we were walking in a silent greenness. The wind rose in the trees. We finally came out at the dam at the bottom of the lake, where people were fishing. Wild daisies, red clover, and spiderwort were growing there, with Queen-Anne’s-lace. 

The trail required that we cross below the dam, but because of the amount of water flowing over the spillway, we turned back and took the road instead. By this time it was nearly seven. We marched on the extra half-mile to the trailhead. The drive back to Bloomington was lovely: the sun was just seeping through the clouds. Sheets of water on either side of the road shimmered in its vague light—so much water in the fields after all the storms! In Bloomington we went to Kroger to buy things to grill. Courtney came over to our house, and Lindsay came downstairs from her room and joined us. 

Starting the fire on the grill was an adventure. I didn’t put on enough lighter fluid to begin with, so it took several attempts with the lighter and quantities more lighter fluid (thanks to Scott) before the coals were actually burning. We finally put the top on the grill and left it to sit and heat, while we sat inside, snacking and talking. When the coals were hot enough, I went outside to put brats and hot dogs on the grill. Smell of smoke. Cool outdoors. Watched the clouds continue to roll away from the periwinkle sky. 

When the meat was ready, we all sat around the small table, eating hot dogs, brats, chips, fresh cilantro…. Suitably summery. We made s’mores, too, of course. Oddly enough, by this time the coals were properly on fire and extremely hot. Those perfect little rose-petal flames simmering endlessly over the coals. It would’ve been easy to cook meat on them by now, but it had taken them so long to get to this temperature! 

Three leggy Mayflies snuck into the living room, and a big Junebug buzzed onto my shirt and, when I flicked it off, slammed into the porch light. At about eleven Scott, Cindy, and Courtney went home. Sleeping with the windows open tonight for perhaps the last time for awhile—it’s supposed to be hot this week.

Now Playing: Second verse, same as the first.

It's been a busy few weeks since summer session has started. Lisa and I have French every afternoon from 1:10-2:30 p.m. supposedly, although the instructor usually ends about ten minutes early. Tomorrow we have our first exam, and I'm trying to understand direct object pronouns and verb tenses. Been revising my notes since class ended this afternoon. Lindsay is also taking summer classes, though hers, which are in the counseling program, are much more intense.

You might say that that doesn't sound too busy, but somehow since the summer term began our house has contrived to have a crazy social schedule on top of coursework. Last Thursday, of course, was Poetry Dinner III, which featured readings from Jorge Luis Borges and Dr. Seuss, among others. Saturday night Laura grilled for us, and we made s'mores afterward on the back porch over the hot coals. It's been chilly here, so we were all bundled up in blankets.

Monday was Scott's birthday party, which we hosted: mostly people from church. In order to carry on the grand tradition started by Laura-my-sister (remember that angel food cake we baked from scratch last year?), I made a chocolate cake from scratch out of the Joy of Cooking book. It took a solid hour to make, but the process is half the fun (until your wrists start to ache from using the beater for so long!), and anyway, the results were worth it.

Apart from having the luxury of time to spend with people, though, it's also been good to have time for other things: staying on top of e-mail, practicing my flute again, baking scones, a bit of gardening, and reading Dorothy Sayers mysteries. Lisa has been blazing through the Harry Potter books; she's on number five right now, and Laura and I giggle delightedly whenever she drags herself away for long enough to tell us how great Sirius is or whatever.

Now Playing: Corelli, Concerto Grosso in F., Op. 6, No. 3, Largo.

Once again, having fun with the camera: these chrysanthemums have lasted a ridiculously long time, ever since the end of April.

 

Baked blueberry scones today! Loving the new camera....

Some photos from this weekend here.