Attack of the vampire
8:05 p.m.
Summer has come to the Townships. It was hot today and I was grateful for small mercies, like air conditioning in my car and a cool basement. Two (count �em) loads of laundry were washed and hung out today and Hubby with the help of Buddy Boy (who has finished classes and is now supposedly studying for exams) moved the telescope and its house off the deck onto a platform they constructed in the side yard from the long cement blocks that used to line our driveway.
Several years ago, when Hubby was going through his first mid-life crisis (yes, ladies, men experience several of these things, each entailing an enormous outlay of cash), he developed a passion for astronomy and at the suggestion of Vlad�s husband (who knows a thing or two about these things) bought a 16" Dobsonian telescope for viewing the heavens. It lived on the back deck in a little house which he had constructed especially for it (which also weighed a ton), but it proved to be problematic because the deck wiggled and you couldn�t get a nice steady view through the eyepiece. Now when I say 16", I�m referring to the aperture, or diameter of opening, of the tube, which also corresponds to the size of the reflector. This is one mother effer of a telescope. The tube is as long as I am tall (approximately 5') and when collimated properly, you can see deep space phenomena such as the Ring Nebula and the Andromeda Galaxy, as well as closer things like Jupiter�s stormy skies and Saturn�s rings.
It now lives out in the yard and the deck is cleared, needing only a good scrubbing (Hubby gets to try out his pressure washer tomorrow). I am very glad to get the telescope off it. It took up so much room and the little house just looked wrong there, as though someone had moved a tool shed onto the deck. However, while they were working, they left the screen door open a few too many times, and I am presently being plagued by a buzzy mosquito who is intent on sucking my blood.
A former colleague who retired from Bushop�s three years ago is being named a professor emeritus at convocation this Saturday, and is travelling all the way from Newfoundland where he now resides to accept this honour. We are having him and his wife, both extremely good friends of ours whom I miss terribly, the couple they are staying with and the Duke and Duchess (depending on how her treatment goes) over for dinner on Saturday after the convocation exercises, and I am planning this menu. Tell me what you think.
Appetizers: Artichoke pat� and le Saint Aubin cheese served with a baguette;
Barbecued whole salmon; multi-coloured marinated pepper salad; penne pesto salad; saut�ed broccoli;
Cheese cake
Yes, that�s what I thought too.
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