Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Tuesday, October 11, 2011 -- Mattie died 109 weeks ago today.

Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2005. Though Peter is a huge baseball fan, this was not something that Mattie gravitated to. As you can see here, Mattie had his own way of holding a bat and played with the ball on his own terms. In fact, balls did not fascinate Mattie for the most part. With that said, he had a huge ball collection, because Mattie liked examining the shape, texture, and the color of balls. He loved to sort them and to see which ones would float in water or bounce higher. He was my budding scientist, as I always told him.

Quote of the day: The pain passes, but the beauty remains. ~ Pierre Auguste Renoir


As promised, the question of the day is....................................................
Have you voted for Tricia (Mattie's nurse) today?
(Remember you can vote ONCE every 24 hours!!!)

For more information about the Johnson and Johnson Amazing Nurse Contest, please read my September 28, 2011 blog posting. Your daily vote is important and will bring Tricia closer to becoming a finalist.

Click on this link to vote for Patricia Grusholt: http://wildfireapp.com/website/6/contests/157336/voteable_entries

I find it ironic that we have been on the Cape for the past five days, and each day we were there, the weather was glorious. By each afternoon, the temperatures were up into the 70s and even 80s. However, last night as we were packing things up, it became windy. This morning on the Cape it was overcast and in the 60s. A big difference from the summer like weather we had been enjoying. In some ways the change in weather was symbolic to us that our vacation was ending and it was time to return home. We drove for close to 9 hours today and along our journey we saw about 10 wild turkeys and 5 deer, all along the side of the highways! Peter and I are exhausted from the commute and unpacking, so I will leave you with a few pictures of our journey home.

As we were leaving the driveway of the house we rented, I snapped a picture so you could see the road the house was off of. Notice there is NOTHING around and there are no street lights at all. In fact, the entire town of Truro has NO stop lights.

Down the road from the house, trees were beginning to change. Somehow I hadn't noticed this breath taking color display the previous mornings, but this morning it caught my eye.

This is another road in Truro! Get the picture..... it is remote. Yet once you get used to being isolated and secluded, it actually becomes a very special feeling. A feeling where you can simply enjoy the fresh air, the trees around you, and the wonderful signs of nature that exist all around you.

While driving in Massachusetts, near Fall River, I saw a sign with big lettering that said MATTIE. I couldn't believe what I saw at first, and therefore I did not say anything to Peter. But when I saw this second large sign, I grabbed my camera and snapped a picture of it. I am used to getting Mattie signs and signals from Nature, but I will accept BIG bill boards too! Clearly Mattie is a VW dealer in Fall River, MA, however, for today, on the 109th week of Mattie's death, this sign seemed to remind me of Mattie's whimsical nature.

As we drove over the George Washington Bridge, I snapped a picture and we gave a virtual hello to my lifetime friend Karen (who lives and teaches in NYC). She emailed me to tell me she was waving as we were crossing over the bridge!

One of the final pictures I took was of the NYC sky line. Even though we were driving and the picture came out a bit blurry, it still captures the sea of buildings that form the landscape of down town Manhattan. Peter and I are settling back to our DC lives. We clearly are NOT surrounded by trees, we do not have access to the ocean or the bay like we did in Truro, and as I am writing tonight's blog I do not hear any coyotes howling. The ONLY thing I hear is street traffic. However to some extent these are very soothing sounds to a city mouse like myself.