Better Than Expected Results

 An update of yesterday's post, the failed TV series was in the 1980s and not the 70s. The documentary was on again last night about Lucy. 

Yesterday morning the western sky looked like a snow sky only it is the middle of September and while we anticipated cooler temps, snow wasn't in the forecast. Now after seeing the weather report last night some of that was due to smoke coming all the way across the country from the fires on the west coast. It made for a very steely gray scenic sky though. The consideration of a short road trip was briefly contemplated but the option of sticking around the area won out and after errands, came yard work. Ok, really after a short nap came yard work. I also experimented with one of the bags of rocks for the backyard. Trying to see what looks good with the flat stones. I got some white drainage rocks and they look the best against a structure. So back on the hunt for river rock or some kind of Pebbles, no not fruity pebbles or pebbles associated with the Flintstones. That bag of drainage rocks, pretty dang heavy. I didn't even mess with the second bag but the rubberized mulch, those bags felt so light. Back in March they didn't. Roy is impressed with the distance I get throwing those bags down the hill to the big flower garden in the yard. I also laid out the last garden path from Gardeners Supply. Made a safer path to the gate at the top in the new fence. 

********

New day with a new hair stylist at the same salon. Really like her and her style thus my hair style. So each stylist does something different and usually they all begin with let's change this. Okay, sounds good. Always need texturizing on the front part of my hair but she did a twist cut and she officially cut off the last remaining vestiges of highlighted hair. It is a little shorter than I like but with not being able to get my next appointment for six weeks, it is probably a good decision. My hair feels so healthy since not having highlights since March. Still love using Oribe products and Jen introduced me to one I have not used. We will see if I get the same results as she did and knowing how this has worked in the past, I won't. 

***********

Sally rain wasn't too bad here on the dry ridge. It was steady but never too heavy. It felt like a Houston rainy day where the whole day is rainy. Here, we are apt to have late afternoon into evening rain most of the time. Sally moved faster than anticipated in our area so today is forecast to be a beautiful one weather wise. Just saw a funny on Twitter by a local TV weather guy, it is a kid wrapped up in coats and his mom is putting a knitted scarf around his head...the caption what people from Florida will be wearing this weekend in the mountains. We will have a taste of fall this weekend and hopefully it won't be like last year where we would get the taste and then go back to warm temps. 

Well, just when it looked like the dentist appointment this week would be uneventful, even got props for flossing better, the original tooth, implant...that started this whole dental journey way back to the year of our Lord, 1977, is having a bit of trouble. I am trying to find out the manufacturer of the post used in the implant. Oral Surgeon who did the work is dead and it seems no one bought his practice, so I will have to go another route to try and find out. I'm guessing he used a generic post cause that is what he did on the last work he did and if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have gone back to him but I was blinded by his good looks. What is likely to happen is, my dentist will take the crown off, take pictures and see if anyone recognizes the type...this implant was put in 21 years ago, then he will try and have a new crown made for the implant that will protect my gums etc...

In the past month two authors that I liked have passed away, Julia Reed and Winston Groom. I loved reading Julia Reed early on and then as a columnist for Garden and Gun. She got a little too boozy for me but she was so very interesting. One of her friends described her as a foreign correspondent to her own land.  She had been writing about leaving New Orleans and returning to the Delta of Mississippi. She built a small home with a great deal of planning and input. She had moved into her treasured little home and then she died of cancer. I didn't so much mourn her passing as much as I mourned the work and dreams she had put into that home and she wasn't going to enjoy the fruits of her labor.  Yesterday, the news of Winston Groom passing hit Twitter. He wrote Forest Gump. I met him once at an Alzheimer fund raiser in Houston. I had to buy his newest work of fiction to get him to sign my copy of Forest Gump. Only 30,000 first editions were published...he said to me, you were with me from the beginning. The truth was, I bought the book cause I liked the cover way before the Gump craze set in. My friend Linwood was there with me and she had him sign her University of Alabama yearbook, they graduated the same year, knew the same people. When Linwood and I went to a tea to hear Anne Rivers Siddons, she and Ann had lived in the same "trendy full of characters" apartment complex in Atlanta and while their paths never crossed there, they shared mutual friends. Linwood has always been the southern entry to into literature and politics. She knew Ellen Gilchrist's mother and Linwood regaled Ellen's mothers with my quirky adventures and of course Linwood's full decorum, in a southern sense. Linwood's husband was one of the first to see the balance sheet of Enron didn't look right and she was front row and center for the trial of Jeff Skilling.  The last time I saw Linwood was a chance meeting in a Sports Authority store. I was down to a size 10 after the heart issues and she could not believe the change. She wanted me to come to lunch at the University Club, where we had played tennis together, but now the club was called something else...when I quit playing tennis, I kind of lost interest to what happened in tennis world. I couldn't come the day she invited me for lunch because I already had lunch plans and when I talked with her again, I asked about making a lunch date. In that syrupy strong southern drawl she set me in my place, she had extended an invite, I had turned it down and in her book, we were done. Ah, the strong southern woman who can cut you so hard in the kindest kind of voice.  It seems I have written more about Linwood than I did Winston Groom. I did enjoy those tennis years with Linwood though. We played on several teams together and she was the queen of lobs.

On Monday, it was truck errand day so after dropping things off at Goodwill I stopped at Ingles for a brief moment. In the parking lot a man on a medical scooter and a sacker were approaching the car next to me. The man asked if I was the "girl" that owned that truck and thinking that he couldn't get into his car cause maybe the back end of the truck was a little crooked, I volunteered to re park the truck. Nope, he just wanted to know if the truck was mine. He stood up gingerly from his scooter and said I sure would like to have a girl who owns a truck...As I walked away, I said well I am already taken. Later on I thought Roy would get a kick out of the encounter because when I tell him about flirtatious behavior in the Mustang, he just says, they were flirting with the car. Being in the truck struck him serious, as he gave me answers I should have given to that man. The answers didn't fit but would have if I had felt threatened. 

Buddy woke me up at 11:07 last night. I had gone to bed early since I was tired and needed to catch up on sleep. Well, the wake up made me wide awake so I got up and continued reading The Last List of Judith Kratt. So far, the details in the story was barely holding my interest but it seemed that this many details held a surprise and last night, I came to the surprise part and I was hooked. This is one of those books that you go back and read the first chapter once you've read the complete book and see if hints were given, but you didn't know you needed these hints while reading. I see that Fannie Flagg has a new book coming out in October as well as Rick Bragg. Those fall/winter reading lists should be coming out soon. 

Oh, an update on the new hair product...I did okay with it and got better than expected results.