Suzanne Calling

A friend traveled cross country to run in tonight's Wine and Dine half marathon, an event that coincides with the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. One of the attraction to this festival is all the wine seminars, and the friend booked one for a favorite Washington state winery-without checking the date. It was for this afternoon, and the race was tonight. She didn't want to do both on the same day, so she sent me an email as soon as she noticed the error, "would you like a pair of tickets to a seminar for Chateau Ste. Michelle?" Heck, yeah was my response-I love the information given in the seminars. So, I contacted a couple of friends and found that Jill could join me for the afternoon. This meant we were going to check out the World Showcase afterward, as it's the first weekend of this annual event. As I didn't have the Hipstamatic app for the iPhone the last time I was here, I took several shots today and I love the retro feel of them. Sampling of the wine...

For the same price as two fast food dinners, we're having surf and turf.

Five years ago today, after being gently nagged for months by a friend, I started this blog. 1700+ posts later, not only am I still at it, but addicted to posting every day. In that time, I have read some great stuff, once in a while wrote some decent stuff myself and made more than a few friends along the way. I've been inspired and humbled, shared joys and failures. All along, the best part has been that what I write has triggered hundreds of conversations, both in the comments and in real life. It can be said that writing is a solitary pursuit, but that's not quite true. When people respond to the message you've crafted, it takes on so much more. Thank you for sharing the journey with me.

Water should quench you thirst, right? Check out the ingredient list. No wonder why two bottles of it made me so thirsty! No, I won't purchase Dasani ever again. I want pure water to have ONLY water.

A letter showed up today. Addressed to Ed's mom. It was from AARP for Roadside Assistance. For a woman who never obtained a driver's license. And passed away nine months ago. Do people need roadside assistance in whatever comes after this life? (Yeah, I know. We can't stop some junk mail from coming for her.)

It's crunch time. I'm working on the first exam for Spanish 3. It's a power point presentation that will be accompanied by me speaking to the class. In it, I'm supposed to talk about tres o cuatro personas famosas. One of the people I talk about must be a spanish speaker. As soon as I got the assignment, I knew who I wanted to do my presentation about: Tom Cruise (he of crazy, couch jumping insanity) Penelope Cruz (the native Spanish speaker who was wise to leave him in the rear-view mirror) Katie Holmes (the kool aid drinker) Suri Cruise (the love child who may or may not be Tom's and is overly pampered) So, I had to come up with a title for this thing and at first, I thought "Todos los amores." Then I realized that didn't work, since he was married to Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman, too, and has two other children, Isabella and Connor. So I changed it, with strike through and all. Now, it's "Algunos de mis amores." Let's hope it...

The Psychology of Aging class has been fascinating, much more interesting than I ever could have imagined. Some of the things that have come up in the class reinforce what I suspected. Unfortunately, looking at a family member's penchant for ignoring medical advice, then taking this class and hearing all the medical support that backs up those suspicions has been a little unnerving. Meanwhile, there are two projects for the semester. One is due tomorrow, and requires that we take life-expectancy surveys on two sites and compare the results. I was a little worried about this thing, as I figured all my chronic issues don't correlate with a long life. However, these studies aren't very scientific. I mean, I'm going to get points off for not using condoms when I've been married for 13 years and don't have to worry about pregnancy? I think they'd need to be far more in depth to really answer this anywhere close to accurately. The results? For one, it say...