Saturday

My brother Glenn was here for a couple of days this week, stopping in on his way to a conference in Utah.

I always enjoy hearing about his experiences as an insurance claims adjuster handling big money bodily injury cases and his work as a social activist specializing in transgender issues.  He's been an active voice in Cincinnati, where he lives, for transgender rights, successfully pushing the city to extend health-insurance benefits to transgender employees and making "conversion therapy" illegal.

On Thursday we went out to dinner with our friends Ray and Paula, and then headed back home for some after dinner refreshments and tales of Glenn's work, both his career and his activism. It was a great visit.

I took Glenn up into the mountains and then through the town of Estes Park where we saw this huge elk.  It was my first elk sighting and I was very excited.

Here's part of his harem, who lay in the grass patiently waiting for him.

For Paul's Digital Arts class he had to do some self portraits.  I love this one he composed.  The background is from a photograph he had made previously in Photoshop.  He's holding his saxophone and displaying a deck of cards -- a reference to his love of cardistry, the art of card flourishing -- with his photo on the most visible card, which is, of course, a king.  I think it's pretty clever!

I have to tell you the story of this purple shirt.  

Paul plays in the school's Drum Line and for the school picture taking day the group decided to dress in purple, one of the school's colors.  He found this shirt on the Kohl's online site and asked me to go to Kohl's and buy it since he needed it quickly.   I went to Kohl's and after searching for a while found this one shirt and it happened to be in his size.  What luck!  Only one shirt left and it would fit Paul.  I was feeling pretty good about that and then the cashier rang it up.  The bill came to $5.25!   Talk about luck.

It's windy, sunny, and delightfully cool today, just perfect for making and eating apple crisp.  A friend left me some home-picked apples the other day and we made a fabulous crisp which Ben and I ate up right away.

On Thursday she left me some more and another crisp is in the oven now and smelling mighty good. But first we'll get out for a walk on this lovely day.