Packing after a long sojourn is, in a way, like preparing for death. Don’t mistake me…I mean no morbid undercurrents, though yes, taking leave is a bit sad. But to know that one will not be in a certain place any more, means that one has to take stock of one’s belongings, make one’s adieus, and make plans for some amount of continuity and some amount of cold-storage of relationships, and the unavoidable breaking off of some.

These three glass bottles were a dollar total…and I bought them mainly because of the lovely picture they’d make….

Today the weather was muggy, but somewhat cloudy, so I decided to go for a long ramble in Forest Park (I start Biddly duty again tomorrow, and won’t have time for such a long ramble again, perhaps, before I leave)

In the very short time I had at the Reserve (I hardly walked about half a mile from Bascom House!), I snapped these….

We decided to celebrate D’s birthday by going to