the pattyo

***A Little Rant

I just returned from a Target Store. They had an ad for a camera that was very interesting; a good digital camera plus a coupon for a free 128MB Compact Flash media card. I have wanted to get a better digital camera, and this Canon they advertised was a 3.2 megapixel. Much better than the 1.3 that I have. So Kelsey and I went to the store, and visited the camera department. We stood there for a time while one clerk stood reading the Target ads while another stood near him, glanced our way, and looked down. Finally, she asked if we needed help. Not in a friendly way. She clearly didn’t want to be the one to help us. But she had to so, poor girl, she came our way, only to say that the camera I was interested in was sold out, and that no rain checks would be given. She seemed a bit happy to tell me this. The deal only began today, so I said “You must have had a lot of sales this morning,” to which she responded, “Yes, four.” Turns out they had all of four of these cameras available. Talk about a come on! I was quite annoyed.

Trouble is, part of me wants to visit another Target store, while the other part wants to never frequent those places again. (sigh)

And yes, I have a link to the Target Store above. You might wonder why. I might wonder too. I guess I’m just hoping they check out who links to them and see my little complaint here.

As if they’d care. (sigh, again)
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***Gorgeous Pictures!

Dan has done it again. Check out his Outside site. He has some stunning pictures from a hike this morning.

***Changes

So now Jameson is in school. Opera started today. Life is getting “back to normal” … whatever that means.
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***Pictures

Looks like Dan has been putting pictures of the Giants game back up at the Mitchell family site. Check ‘em out here!

***Subscribe!

A friend of mine has this great magazine, with no advertisements(!), and the next issue should be out soon. Check out Beyond.com, and then subscribe. Why? Because I’m telling you to!

***School & Growing Up

Jameson began school today. This is his first day of high school. Wow. I remember bringing him, in a convenient little snuggly carrier thingie, to visit this house I’m sitting in as it was being remodeled back in 1989. (He was born the day after we moved out of here and into my parents’ house.) So what happened? How did he get to be fourteen? (What have I done with all those days in between then and now?) Four more years and he’ll be going off to college. What a thought!
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***Server Problems

Poor Dan. He was up nearly all night the night before last, and I suspect last night wasn’t much better. He’s trying to fix our server. (I wish we could just get a real server, but oh well!)

Soooo … whatever it was I typed on Sunday has been lost. Gone. Nearly forgotten. I remember I did write about going to the Giants game. And about how hot it was. And about seeing Greg, Jan and Hendrik there. I also included a link to pictures, but since everything that was put up Sunday was lost, those pictures are gone from our Mitchell news site (no Emerson news there – sorry! Maybe I ought to start another site?). It could be that Dan will get those pictures back up later today, but I know he is busy.

Today I meet with my poetry pals! I always love going, and always leave happy, feeling a bit more poetic (well, sometimes) and exhausted. I wrote a poem that I’m not bringing because I don’t want to bombard everyone with my silliness, so I’ll put it here for kicks. It’s a poem I wrote for my Beyond friends. Funny … they didn’t comment on it. I suspect it was too … um … silly. Who … me?!

TOMATOES

Tomatoes, such a wondrous fruit to eat
I’m told, and even just to gaze upon.

The lustrous reds, the yellows, tender greens
can make the toughest person nearly fawn
over them. Still, I choose to look,
I choose to hold, but never will they, truth

be told, go near my lips. I’ll gain your ire;
tomatoes simply aren’t my heart’s desire.

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***HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!

And many happy birthdays to come too.

***Greg, Jan and Hendrik

… are here, visiting from Germany. I only wish Vanessa could have joined them. And, well, Tim, Margaret, Henry and Sara would make the family reunion complete.

But I guess I can’t ask for everything now can I?
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***Tomorrow

… is my mother’s birthday! I am 46, which makes my mother … older than that. Funny, though … I don’t feel 46, and my mom doesn’t seem “older than that”. Go figure!

***MacBragging

So do I care about “SoBig”? Do you even need to ask? If you do, just read this and smile. (Or weep if you don’t have a Mac, you poor person.)

I’m feeling SoSmart. Tee hee!
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***It’s been a while …

Somehow I tend to update my oboe site a lot more than the pattyo. Maybe it’s because I find music much more interesting than what I have to say?

But it’s been over two weeks. So here goes …

I have a friend who has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I don’t want to write too much about it, because I respect her privacy. But I’m very concerned for her, and I continue to pray for her recovery. Her cancer is at stage 3.

My sister has a friend who has breast cancer and it is, as well, at stage 3. She stays with my sister when she comes here for radiation treatments at Stanford.

It’s a difficult time for many, though, not just those close to me.

And that’s just life, right? But it sure has been tough.

***Meanwhile …

Aida is over. I played two shows of Phantom when the oboist wanted a day off. I made a mistake in the first show that I’m still fretting over. I want to be perfect, darn it!

… now you know why I’m not posting here. Between attempting to keep the oboe site up to date, and life in general, the pattyo just has to take a back seat.
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