Time is flying by. Here it is, Monday afternoon, and I haven't posted anything since Friday! I apologize to my faithful readers for this dereliction of duty! Friday evening is so long ago now that I can barely remember it. But I'm pretty sure we were watching the Wyndham golf tournament at Greensboro, NC, in the evening because it was well underway, and Rob records it so they can watch it after he comes home from work. Tiger Woods had a good day - better than he has had for some time - and he was in contention for the lead. And I think Ellen prepared a lovely mulligatawny soup, with lots of diced vegetables as an add-in, plus diced chicken for those who wanted some extra protein.
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| Condiments for the mulligatawny soup |
Then after we went to bed, we watched the PBS Newshour on our laptop, because we felt a little out of touch with national and world events.
Saturday morning, after Betsey got set for the day in the living room (watching the golf tournament), Ellen and I went to the Boulder Farmer's Market again. It is a happening place. In addition to all the stands, there is usually something going on, on the sidelines. I got a crepe for lunch at a Thai stand, and it was fun to watch them make it:
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| My crepe in the making | | | |
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We ate on the grass in the park next to the Farmer's Market. Nearby, a man was entertaining children with a huge bubble-maker, using ropes attached to two sicks, which he dunked in a bucket of bubble mix. I commented that boys always try to break the bubble as soon as possible, and that girls were less apt to do that, but then several girls proved me wrong.
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| The bubble-maker |
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A little further on, a group of Boulder High School boys were demonstrating a robot they had made. It was a complex thing, and they had to keep making adjustments, but they had a fascinated audience of children.
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| A complicated robot that moved along, powered by solor panels |
On our way back to the car, we went down Pearl Street Mall, and as usual, there were street performers. One had quite a crowd - he was a fire-eater, a juggler, and an acrobat. Here he is engaging the crowd from atop a stack of chairs.
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| A little circus act on the Pearl Street Mall |
After the Farmer's Market, I went to the Library for a while to continue my footnote-checking. As I went on campus, I noticed all the new students were on the quad, organized into various work groups, trying to build something out of plastic tubes. I figured it was some sort of group-building exercise that was part of orientation.
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| New students in building mode |
I noticed for the first time a small exhibit in the foyer the east entrance concerning the 100th Anniversary of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. It caught my eye because Ellen's mother, Elizabeth Tolles, was an officer of the WILPF, and Ellen herself worked one summer as an assistant to the President, Mildred Scott Olmstead. The exhibit dealt mainly with the earlier years of the organization, from 1915 when it was founded at the Hague, up to WW II, so it didn't have any pictures of Ellen's mother or M.S. Olmstead, but it did have a poster about the founder, Emily Greene Balch, whose names Ellen recognized. Ms. Balch lost her teaching job at Wellesley College in 1919, because of her peace work. Shirley's mother, Florence Langley, graduated from Wellesley in 1919. I wonder if she knew Ms. Balch?
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| Emily Greene Balch, Founder of the WILPF |
Saturday evening we watched golf again. The buzz at the tournament was about Tiger Woods, who seemed to have found his game again after a really bad couple of years, and was in second place just two shots off the lead; a real contender for the championship.
Sunday morning, Ellen and I went to church, but this time we went to the other UCC church in Boulder, the much larger, First Congregational Church, UCC, which is conveniently located on the northwest edge of downtown Boulder, easy for us to get to. We liked it very much. We happened to come at a time of transition. A new Associate Pastor, Pedro ___? , had just been hired, and he was preaching. His topic was "Failure is Part of the Plan," and his sermon could not have been more pertinent to our situation. The Senior Pastor, Martie McMane, will be retiring in January. The congregation also has a new Youth Minister. Next Sunday, the candidate for Senior Pastor, the Rev. Christina Braudaway-Bauman, is being presented to the congregation. She is coming from the UCC Church in Wellesley, MA. So, the "times, they are a-changin" at First Congo, UCC, Boulder! We may get to go back next Sunday
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| The sanctuary at First Congregational, UCC, Boulder |
After church, we texted to see if we were needed at home, and we weren't, so we got a snack at Alfalfa's and decided to hike up Bald Mountain, which is up Sunshine Canyon Drive, not far from Rob and Betsey's. It was perfect hiking weather, and we saw many wildflowers. We noted that the view had become much more hazy in recent days - those wild fires in Washington state are beginning to effect the atmosphere here.
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| Gayfeather, or sometimes called Liatris |
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| This is one we had seen many times but been unable to name. It is Sub-Alpine Gumweed |
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| Our old friend, the Prickly Poppy |
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| Hazy view from the top |
We came home and found that Tiger Woods had triple-bogied the 11th hole on his last round, thus putting him out of contention for the lead. It must have been humiliating for him to have all eyes on him - several thousand people had signed up at the last few days just to see him - and to have made four egregiously bad putts at the 11th green. He went on to make three birdies on subsequent holes, so if he had made par on #11, he would have tied for first place. Oh well!
We're on sort of a Paul Newman movie kick. I think it started several weeks ago when we watched The Silver Chalice, a really bad movie, which came out in 1954. Shirley saw it in Pittsburg, KS, and mentioned it in one of her letters that I had sent to Katie. So we then watched The Young Philadelphians, with Newman playing a young corporate lawyer trying to extricate himself from the stifling influence of Philadelphia society. Sunday night we watched Somebody Up there Likes Me, in which he plays the role of Rocky Graziano, a boxer. Last night it was The Hustler. All really fun movies to watch - beautiful black and white (except for the Silver Chalice which was lurid Technicolor). Not sure what's next.
Today, Dawn got Betsey off in the morning. It was sort of exciting here. A truck arrived with a load of roof shingles. They are going to re-shingle the roof. It's only three years old, but has some problems, and the landlord got her insurance to pay for a new roof. They came just as Betsey and Dawn were about to leave, so that took some juggling of cars and a truck. It all worked out.
Loading shingles on to the roof at the house
We then went shopping, picked up Betsey at work, and she is now napping.
