I believe....

 Today, according to my west coast brother, who knows such things, is "National Sea Serpent Day."  Locally, the closest thing we have to a sea serpent is the "Beast of 'Busco." A legendary giant snapping turtle said to inhabit Fulk Lake near Churubusco, Indiana.  The first sighting of this beast was in 1948, and it was described as having a head as large as a child's and a body the size of a rowboat. You can Google more about it, and even see a video, or visit Churubusco during Turtle Days to learn more. The Turtle Days Festival is held in June so, if you start now, you have plenty of time to train your turtle for the 2026 races. 

But the Beast of 'Busco isn't really a sea serpent.  For that you will have to travel to Loch Ness in Scotland.  If you are incredibly lucky you might catch a glimpse of Nessie, aka the Loch Ness Monster.  There have been many "sightings" over the years.  The fact that there is a nearby Scotch Whiskey distillery may have been a contributing factor sometimes.  If you consume enough of the local Scotch you may be pretty sure you have spotted her.  Drink a little more and you won't even care.  But never, never, never claim not to believe in Nessie.  The locals will be mightily offended.  

As a bonus, if you gaze out over Lock Ness, even if you never see the monster, you will be rewarded with a fabulous view.  Can you tell that I love Scotland?

at the lake

 When people in northern Indiana speak about going to 'the lake' it can mean any one of a few hundred lakes in the northern Indiana, southern Michigan area.  Today, for us, it was a delightful day of fun and food with my spouse's family at Lake Wawasee.  We rode in the boat, ate at the Inn, enjoyed a delicious dessert back at their condo and engaged in some lively conversation about topics ranging from acceptance policies at a variety of colleges to Zambonis.  Did you know that you can buy a used one for only $20,000?

Possibly best of all, I received the picture I had requested of dinosaurs dancing through a field of sunflowers.  Since it's a pencil sketch I can't reproduce it well bu here it is along with a couple of other shots to prove we were there.  

Too tired to write more.  Thank you all for a fine fun day.

Old Blue

 As I was driving to church this evening I saw a car that was just like mine except for the color.  Now you may think "Big deal."  and if you're driving a Subaru or a Jeep you would be right not to be excited by the sighting.  However the car I drive is much more distinctive than that.  It is a Fiat 500L, and so was the car I spotted this evening. 

I have heard all the jokes, but let me assure you right now that FIAT does not stand for "Fix it again Tony."  At least not in my experience.  My trusty little Fiat is ten years old and it still takes me anywhere I want to go, with very decent gas milage.  It doesn't have heated seats or a heated steering wheel and I have to put a key in the ignition to start it, no fancy fob, but it starts every time. 

Of course, where I want to go is generally somewhere around town. It has never been on a cross country drive.  Today it was church for a committee meeting, tomorrow I will be meeting friends for lunch on The Deck.  You get the idea.  

I sometimes have a funny vision as I drive around town in my little car.  Do you remember the white haired grandma in the old Tweety Bird cartoons? She always drove a little black boxy car.  My car is blue not black, but otherwise I think I look a lot like that cartoon grandma.  I even have a yellow bird, not in a cage but in my back yard.  It comes to our feeder quite regularly.  Maybe it's a tweety finch?

On no....

 Say it isn't so.  My spouse and I have started another jigsaw puzzle.  Happily this one is only 1000 pieces.  My granddaughter, the recently graduated art major, gave me this as a Christmas gift in 2021 according to the note I had taped on the box, and asked me to send her a picture when I finished it.

Here's the picture. As you can see, it's a copy of a painting by Vincent van Gogh.  As you can also see, it has only two dominant colors.  I don't think this will be as challenging as the notorious 2000 piece puzzle but it will keep us busy for a while.  My granddaughter asked me to send a picture when it's finished and we will certainly do that.  Meanwhile it will keep us off the streets and out of trouble.

family ties...

 Today, according to my west coast brother, is "Sister's Day" and "American Family Day." I don't have any sisters but I do have an amazing west coast sister-in-law.  She has been making me feel at home whenever I have visited there over the last many years.  I told my brother once that I feel more at home at their house than anywhere else in the world except for the house my spouse and I share now.

When my spouse and I visited them last summer they made him feel just as welcome as they have always done for me.  They are, as well as being relatives, a great American family, worthy of celebrating.

And speaking of American families, which come in all shapes and sizes, my current spouse and I (a second marriage for each of us) have a wonderfully enlarged family now.  We're not exactly a blended family, because all of our children were married and had families of their own before we married in 2024.  But I think we are a wonderfully entangled family.  Because of our history as friends, my children and my spouses children have known each other since they were babies.  I have pictures to prove it.

At this point in our lives my spouse and I together have four children, four children-in-law, ten grandchildren (two of whom have significant others) and one great grandbaby on the way.  You knew I'd get that one in there.  

If that's not a fine American family, I don't know what is.  

they might have danced...

 My west coast brother, who retired yesterday after 50 years engineering work in the television industry, informed me that today is "Dinosaurs Day."  I think he might have taken it personally but I assured him that you're only as old as you feel, which means, at our age, that your "feels like age" can vary wildly from day to day.

He then informed me that today is also "National Sunflower Day."  This created an image in my mind of dinosaurs dancing in a field of sunflowers.  They were, after all, much too large to dance among the daisies. 

As it happens today is also our youngest granddaughter's birthday.  She is eight years old today.  As it also happens, she is quite a good artist and loves to draw dinosaurs.  We have one of her pictures hanging on our refrigerator.  

We will be visiting with her and her family next week and I think that I will ask her to draw a picture for me of dinosaurs dancing in a field of sunflowers.  If she does, I will post a picture of it on that day's blog.

Meanwhile my brother will be enjoying the carrot cake with maple cream cheese frosting that his wife made for him today.  He's beginning to really appreciate the benefits of retirement.

a cereal story...

 When we were young we ate a lot of shredded wheat at our house.  I think my father liked it and it was probably relatively inexpensive.  Which was good because my two brothers each grew up to be 6'6" tall and they did eat a lot.  My spouse teases me because I eat fast.  It was a lesson learned in childhood; necessary if I wanted to get my fair share.

The shredded wheat we ate came in large pieces, I guess I would describe them as pillow shaped loaves, each about 5 inches long and 2.5 inches across, 1 inch thick in the middle. Certainly not the mini wheats you can buy today.  In the winter mom would pour boiling water over the shredded wheat in our bowl, then drain it off and put milk and sugar on it.  It was a quick and easy warm breakfast.  

However my favorite memories of shredded wheat do not involve the food itself.  Instead it was the packaging that was fun.  Lots of children's cereals came with little plastic toys back then, until someone decided they were a choking hazard, which they probably were.  

Shredded wheat, on the other hand, was layered into boxes, I think four pieces to a layer, three layers in a box. Between the layers were flat pieces of balsa wood (later replaced with cardboard) which had airplane pieces that could be punched out along the perforations and assembled.  One piece would have a silhouette of the body of a plane and the other the wings, which could be slid through a slot in the body.  Then, wonder of wonders, you could throw those planes and they would glide through the air, usually for at least several feet.  Much more satisfying than folded paper airplanes.

Of course writing this made me curious about the origins of shredded wheat.  I discovered that Henry Perky, a vegetarian focused on healthy simple foods, was granted a patent for Shredded Wheat on August 1, 1893.  The patent covered the process of boiling, shredding and baking wheat into pillow-shaped biscuits.

So how appropriate is it that I'm writing this on August 1?  This should be "National Shredded Wheat Day" if it isn't already.  

I just checked and it's not.  Instead today is celebrated as "National Girlfriend Day."  Maybe you could at least give her a box of shredded wheat as a gift.