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| USING THE TIMER ON SABRA'S PHONE WE ALL MANAGED TO GET INTO THE SHOT AND YA, I'M THE OLD GUY IN THE CENTER WITH THE ALMOST KNEE HIGH SOCKS:(( |
Friday:: Another beautiful summer's morn for a walk with the butterflies, the warming sun, the sounds of crickets along the roadside, and a soft, gentle breeze under clear blue skies to make it a perfect morning. After my walk, I came straight home and got myself busy. Wanting the place to look nice for my special guests today, I scurried about cleaning up this, rearranging that, and getting things all ship-shape. Outside, the day before, I had mowed the lawn, whacked a bunch of weeds, and blown all the sunburst locust leaves and peanut shells off the front porch and deck. I haven't been able to convince the Chipmunks not to eat their peanuts on the porch. I also cleaned the pond pump and set out a couple more chairs for Friday. It was around 6 p.m. when Kelly's oldest twin daughter, Sabra, youngest son Ben, his two boys, Kye and Darian; (Sp) and Kelly's granddaughter, Ella rolled in. Readers will remember 'little' Ella from my posts over the past years. Well, would you believe it, little Ella is 13 years old now and closing in on 6' tall. She flew all the way from Spain to Canada all by herself around the beginning of August. She flies back to Spain on August 29th. She has come for summer holidays and is staying at Sabras. Ella's mom and dad, Rebecca (Kelly's youngest daughter) and her husband Ricardo, (in Spain) arranged a special security package with the airline, whereupon airline personnel and attendants would keep an especially close eye on Ella's well-being by assisting Ella along in her long journey. Sabra and Ella had come to Goderich earlier Thursday and booked into the Harmony Inn Motel in Goderich. Ben and his boys had arrived later and also booked into the motel. All five of them did manage to spend some time at the beach both Thursday and Friday. When they came here late Friday afternoon, they came bearing three large pizzas, and with the weather being nice, we all sat out on the front porch for the next couple of hours and had ourselves a great visit. The last time I had seen Sabra was a little over a year ago when she and sister Rebecca came here and spent a couple of days going through their Mom's stuff. The last time I had seen Ben was the day of Kelly's passing at the Huron Hospice Residence west of Clinton. And it had been well over a year since I had last seen Ella and Ben's boys, Kye and Darien. And of course, the biggest surprise was how much Ella had grown, as well as Ben's oldest son, Darien. We all had a great time catching up on everything, and I especially enjoyed our conversation and remembrances of Kelly. There were tears. And then, all too soon, it was time to say our goodbyes. Parting is always sad, and I knew chances of seeing them again were iffy at best. Especially Ella, with her life now in Spain. One of the first things I said to Ella when she got out of the car was, I thought I'd never see you again, and my parting words to her were, I hope to see you again someday. She gave me a lingering, heartfelt hug, and then they were gone..........
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| IT WAS NICE WE COULD ALL SIT OUTSIDE ON THE FRONT PORCH |
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| THE BOYS WERE OVER AT THE FRONT YARD FROG POND |
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| I DON'T NORMALLY FEEL AS OLD AS I AM UNTIL I AM AROUND YOUNGER PEOPLE AND KNOW IT TO BE SO |
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| ELLA SURE HAS GROWN BUT I THINK WE ALWAYS KNEW SHE WAS GOING TO BE TALL AND SLIM LIKE HER DAD |
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| THANKS TO TECHY GUY DARIAN FOR HELPING TRANSFER PHOTOS BETWEEN SABRA'S IPHONE AND MINE....I COULD TELL THAT DARIAN IS MATURING INTO A WELL-MANNERED, SOFT-SPOKEN YOUNG MAN |
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| BEN TRIES OUT MY E-BIKE FOR SIZE WHILE KAI HAS A FEW TIPS FOR DAD ON HOW TO RIDE A BIKE....ACTUALLY BEN HAS HIS OWN BIKE AND HAS BEEN BIKING FOR YEARS |
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| HERE, ALMOST ALL EYES ARE ON ELLA AS SHE TRIES HER HAND AT RIDING THE E-BIKE |
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| AND, HERE SHE COMES NOW |
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| AND THEN, ALL TOO SOON, IT WAS TIME FOR OUR GOODBYES |
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| LOADING UP |
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| THREE RAGAMUFFINS IN THE BACK SEAT |
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| AND, THERE THEY GO |
Feeling emotional after the visit, I was soon in the car and headed out to my walking road. I noted that the mown alfalfa field had already been cleaned up and the field fertilized. With a weather front pushing a large cloud front in from the west, there wasn't any sunset. Following my deep-in-thought walk, I headed into Clinton's Tim Hortons and picked up a coffee and a donut to go and slowly made my way west to my hilltop night sky spot. Before reaching there, I watched the large incoming cloud front slowly overtake the night's nearly three-quarter moon. I backed into my spot and turned the car off. Knowing there were no stars or moon to see, I pulled out my phone to have a look at the photos of my visitors I had just taken an hour earlier. And it was while looking at the pictures and doing some editing of these photos that something strange occurred. I heard a faint sound to my right. I had both my front windows down and music playing softly. The night was as black as could be, with no Moon or starlight visible, and I always cover up the dash lights glowing from the Subaru's entertainment screen. I quickly determined the sound in the darkness was right beside me, and it sounded like crinkling paper. Had something come in through the open window? The crinkling stopped, and with nerves on edge, I slowly reached up for one of two dome lights above the front seat area. With my head turned, looking into the blackness, fearful of what I might see on the front seat, I pressed the light switch, not knowing what might be there. And of course there was nothing there, but yes, there was. The empty bag that my donut had come in lay just where I had left it on the front seat. Something, or somebody, had crinkled that bag, and I thought of Kelly right away, and knew it was her. Readers may remember me writing about how, for the first few days, weeks, and a month or so after Kelly's passing, strange and unexplainable things had happened. I felt at the time that they were definite signs of Kelly's presence. And, here over a year later, it happened again. I believe it was the direct result of Kelly's son Ben, daughter Sabra, and three of her grandchildren visiting me today. There is no other explanation. Thank you, Kelly......... I miss you dearly.
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| FRIDAY NIGHT'S MOON ABOUT TO BE OVERTAKEN BY THE ADVANCING CLOUD COVER |
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| JUST SECONDS AFTER TAKING THIS PHOTO, THE MOON WAS LOST BEHIND THE CLOUDS |
Saturday:: Woke up to a cloudy morning and heard my first rumble of distant thunder at 9:25. Minutes later, the rain came down in buckets. It became so dark out that the night lights in the front yard came on. Water pooled everywhere and lightning flashed. It was kind of reminiscent of a day fifteen years ago when, on August 21st, Goderich sustained major damage from an EF3 tornado. One man lost his life down in the harbor at the salt mine, 37 people were injured, and the damage was estimated at $130 million dollars at the time. You can see my aftermath tornado damage photos here.....The Goderich EF3 Tornado Damage.....The rest of today remained mostly overcast, with random sun splashes traveling across the rain-sodden landscape. I felt sorry for all the folks who had undoubtedly worked hard for the annual Zurich Bean Festival today. I think it might have been rained out last year as well. Zurich is the little village where we first met the Pheebs slightly over twenty-five years ago.
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| RAINING HARD THIS MORNING AND THE CARPORT'S NIGHT LIGHT IS ON |
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| WATER POOLING ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE FRONT PORCH |
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| NIGHT LIGHTS IN THE FRONT YARD ARE ON |
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| EVEN THE PORCH LIGHT CAME ON....IT'S AMAZING THAT OUR POWER DID NOT GO OUT |
Al's Music Box:: Everybody Wants To Rule The World by Tears For Fears. (one of my favs)
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Did you hear about that cat who swallowed a ball of yarn? She had mittens!
Q: Where do one-legged people eat?
A: IHOP.
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The man was in no shape to drive, so he wisely left his car parked and walked home. As he was walking unsteadily along, he was stopped by a policeman. "What are you doing out here at 2 A.M.?" asked the officer.
"I'm going to a lecture." The man said.
"And who is going to give a lecture at this hour?" the cop asked. "My wife," said the man. 
-----------------------Al's Doggy World
Meanings::
Al's Art Gallery
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