Friday Orts and a Blurb

This week's FO&B photo was chosen to illustrate that it wasn't always Boy#1 who was the onion in the petunia patch of our group pictures. This shot was taken when the four were 4- to 10-year-olds, and six-year-old Boy#3 was cute but acting goofy. Or, to put that a different way, he hasn't changed a bit.

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Husband and I are leaving today to take a second car to Boy#1 and Lovely Girl, followed by a Labor Day trip to see relatives in another state.

It marks the return to an almost-forgotten status for the House on the Corner, that of being a two-car family. We have always been folks who drove cars until they fall apart like the One Hoss Shay. But since the owner of the One Hoss Shay can't count on that shay to not fall apart at the least opportune moment, since the early days of our marriage we've kept at least one extra car around. (To those who have spare tires instead of spare cars, we say, "Whazzup, slackers?")

At one giddy point in our family's history when all four Boys were drivers and Husband's mother had given up driving but still needed the accessibility of a mini-van, we had seven cars in our family of six persons. It was a parking nightmare and a carbon footprint embarrassment. As the Boys have moved out and taken their cars with them, though, the number of combustion engines clustered at the curbs has diminished until as of Friday, we will have only Pearl and the pick-up.

The street sweeper is going to be delighted to not have to drive around our parked cars on the curb, but when we need to take one of the flivvers in for repair, I'm going to ask him for a ride to the grocery store.

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I love this place

Okay, I know all of you QueenBee hive occupants know about these cool things a long time before I do, but if you live in Kansas, may I direct you to a resource that is fabulous? And will save you a ton of money? And will make your wobbly neck skin tighter? Well, maybe it doesn't do that last one, but so far it's doing everything else I ask of it.

The next time you are tempted to click on the fast-purchase button on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, click over to the Kansas State Library instead. Did you know you can download e-books OR audible books, in the privacy of your own home without having to put on your shoes? And that they are FREE?

During these past few weeks of long drives I have been happily whiling away the miles listening to best sellers on my iPad instead of  frantically trying to find NPR while I'm in radio station purgatory and silently weeping when I fail.

Of course, if you do not live in Kansas this resource is not available to you, and I'm sorry. Sorry that you can't access the library but mostly sorry that you don't live in Kansas. What is WRONG with you?

Ad astra per aspera, baby.