Tree Climbing and Toddler Snuggling

I drove to Ithaca on Monday. I'm shooting pics for a story about a BU researcher going to Cornell for a one week tree climbing course for researchers. Andrea has been studying the eating habits of Orangutans and will be returning with her new knowledge and climbing the trees for s better vantage point. Pretty cool.

not terrible considering I don't like heights.

Tuesday night I stopped at my friend Kelly's place and it was a ton of fun spending the night there. Her middle child, Wesley, was turning eight Wednesday morning, and even though it happened at 6:30 in the AM, it was really fun to hear him come downstairs and discover the new bike they'd left out for him complete with a "Happy Birthday" banner on it.  "Holy guacamole! I gotta BIKE!" he exclaimed.

Tuesday night Beth Beer came to visit Kelly and me. Beth, Kelly and I worked together many moons ago at The Auburn Citizen about a half hour from where Kelly lives. Beth still lives in the same town, but has become a librarian.

When Beth arrived, she came in the front door where Kelly and I greeted her. "It's a Citizen reunion!" Kelly said, "I feel like we should go out and scoop some stories!"

"Yeah, it makes me want to go cover a council meeting" Beth added with her often dry delivery. Covering council meetings was part of her beat and the bane of her existence. Ironically, her husband is now a city councilman.

It was a lot of fun to get together. Beth and Kelly both are whip smart and have very very sharp senses of humor and the conversation was really stimulating. It's nice to be around such interesting and smart women.

On Tuesday, I got an email from the dog walker (who was boarding Harlow while I was gone). The subject line read "OMG" and she wrote, "(My son) passed out and she plopped down and put a paw over him. I just about died.   :) "

As did I.