Monday, August 27, 2007

Bigsy

My cat Bigsy lives with my parents in England he's 14 years old and I love him to death. He's like a big tiger (in a big tabby cat kind of way). He's a very handsome cat and a big flirt (especially when he wants food which is why we sometimes call him pigsy) also very occasionally a bit of a scaredy cat. Anyway lovely, gentle bigsy has a nasty skin infection on his little ears and swollen paws which the vet says may be a auto immune condition which could develop into cancer. Of course Bigsy only knows that he has sore feet and ears and people keep taking him to the nasty vet. I hope my little man makes a full recovery.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Lake George

Was invited by Christine to join her for the weekend at Lake George. She spends most weekends up there in the summer, staying with her mom or friends and for 2 weeks every year rents a boat house on the Lake. I'd had this weekend in my diary since January and was looking forward to a relaxing weekend by the water. The boat house was right on the Lake. Christine had her boat moored on the front of the dock and the owners of the main house had their boat inside. I arrived at around the same time as a storm came in over the Lake and Christine's boat was being thrown around on its moorings, hitting the dock every so often. Christine kept an eye on the window for the first hour or two, then when the storm died down we headed out. We went to Christine's local bar 'The Sands' for a few drinks and got to bed at around 1. During the night the boat hit the sides of the dock and made the whole boat house shake!! I slept well though and it was nice to wake up to the sound of the water lapping the shore and struts of the boat house. Christine went shopping and I had a shower and took another sleep - the fresh air knocked me out! Then we took Christine's 16 year old niece Taylor on a hike up a small mountain called Pilots Knob. The hike took only about 45 mins but was pretty steep. The views from the top were awesome: We then went outlet shopping. I know, I know a crime in this beautiful setting, but I was cold and the lure of a bargain is sometimes difficult to resist:) I bought a really nice black cocktail dress. After a sandwich we decided to take an afternoon snooze. Awesome sleeping weather - I was out cold for 2 hours!! Then we got dressed for dinner and drank cocktails while watching the sun set with Christine's family. Her sister, cousin, brother and family, and Mom were all there. Really good people. The sun setting over the lake was beautiful. We headed out to the 'Farmhouse Restaurant' for dinner. Apparently the vegetables they serve are all home grown. Christine's friend Megan joined us for dinner. Megan has a daughter and is a chef and reminded my very much of the Gilmore girls:) She works only through the summer months and volunteers for ski patrol in the winter. She hikes, bikes, boats and ski's all year round. A life very different from mine in the city.
After dinner we went again to Sands bar. On the way we saw 4 deer right up close to the road. They just stood and watched as Christine pulled slowly up to them. I went on to club soda after the two glasses of wine I'd had with dinner. We left after a swift drink and Chatted back at the boat house (Christine updated me on what had been going on in her life recently). Then bed and another great night's sleep. In the morning we had breakfast and then decided to go for a boat ride. Christine took me up to Paradise Cove. We'd been there the year beofre with Bradley and that time it had been warm enough for swimming. This time it was still very beautiful, but only was boat was in there: On the way back to the boat house we saw a group of people who'd ran out of gas and had to tow them back to their dock. We also got gas there as Christine realized she had less than 1/4 of a tank left. After the boat ride we BBQ'd and feeling stuffed I said my good byes and headed back to Hoboken.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Colleen

Good news today. Colleen's surgery went well. She was in an ICU unit, when I called, but all signs are that the operation was a success. Jimmy was dying to tell us all about it. He said she was twitching in bed and he thought she was pissed because he was telling the story to everyone before she woke up. Apparently the doctor refused the custom scar that Colleen requested (hammer head shark bite!). Very good to hear all is well. My advice to Colleen: Don't let anyone tell you surgical socks are not sexy!!! Hey I wear them every time I fly and they ARE hot.

Monday, August 13, 2007

BLUE FATHOMS



On Sunday afternoon we dove from the BLUE FATHOMS owned by Capt Tony. Michele works on the boat as Mate and her boyfriend Bill was also there. Hans & Allie, as well as a new DMC who'll assist me for the rest of the season, Stuart all dove with me. The other mate was a guy called Justin who was on the boat last time I tried to dive with Charlie, Fernando and Jose. The ocean was perfect - 1 ft swells. The visibility was excellent and we saw, a huge fluke, two types of rays, what looked like cat fish, lobster & eels. There were also lots of anemones. I stuck my finger into the middle of a few - to see if they would close up - and yes they do! Stuart was easy to dive with and it was very relaxing diving with Hans and Allie. Hans ran a line, as the wreck was pretty broken up and he stayed down for around 20 mins longer than we did on his re-breather. Allie and I sat out the second dive basking on the front of the boat. It reminded Allie of 'Rio' by Duran, Duran. I felt that we were a little less glamorous than that - more like a pair of bedraggled two year olds with sandals and messy hair. We almost convinced Capt. Tony to serve us cocktails. When the divers returned we headed for the dock, in the direction of the setting sun. Two beers and fish and chips and we were all ready for bed. Unfortunately we had a long drive home in traffic. I slept for England!!

Beach with Allie & Hans Sunday 8.12



After a long lie in, an hour catch up on the telephone with my parents, and breakfast with Paula and Margie, I sat and played with the kitten for an hour and then went to the beach for a pre-dive swim with Allie and Hans. The ocean was warm and the waves were good fun. Unfortunately we did not have the time to stay in the water for long as we had to rush off to catch our charter on the BLUE FATHOMS to dive the MOHAWK.

Sat night Bob's House

Saturday night I decided to go and spend the evening at my beach house. When I say 'my beach house', I really mean the beach house I have rented a room in, on and off for about 5 years now. The house is owned by my friend Bob and he usually divides the summer into two groups of share weekends. Tonight was not a share weekend. Bob's sister Margie, who I really like, was there with a friend Paula and her two children. We had dinner, two glasses of wine and chatted. I'd not realized Margie and her friend were therapists, so that was interesting. The kids had a kitten with them and I enjoyed playing with him. Went to bed early (after an out door shower) and slept really well. Lovely day with good people. I always have a picture of Bob watering his garden first thing in the morning when I think of the beach house.

Hoboken Dive Center Picnic 8.11

Dutch Springs is my second home in the summer....
Saturday was the dive shop's summer BBQ. It was a nice day. Allie, Hans, Janet, Eric, J's friend Darren and Trish did a dive along the wall I often dive on with students. I'd been excited to do this dive with no one to keep an eye on. I took a few pictures which unfortunately do not really show how beautiful this wall is. When you look up you can see the sun shining through the leaves of the trees which overhang the limestone wall of the quarry. Fish play in the sunlight - its very dreamy:
After the dive I played in the water park with Hans and Allie. This was really good fun. I jumped on floating trampolines, tried and failed to climb up 25' floating icebergs. Hans managed this and made some dramatic splashes! Good, clean, fun.

Dinner With Colleen - Friday Aug 10

So Friday night Cat, Jeff and I took Colleen out for dinner. Colleen manages the dive shop I work for. We had an early Birthday celebration for her because she's off to have an operation this week and will be out of commission for a while. We know she'll be fine - but thoughts and prayers will be with Colleen this week.