Summer's passing

It is hard to believe that it has been a month since my last post. Mark and I have continued to have some great bike rides. His family has a reunion at Snowmass every year and the rides to the Maroon Bells and up Independence Pass were beautiful. The berries had not matured yet because of the cool summer. The bears depend upon these berries to get ready for winter and with them still not being ripe has brought the bears into town looking for food. One elderly woman who has feed the bears for years despite the insistence of the Wildlife department asking her to stop was found dead and partially eaten by a bear. They killed the bear that ate her. I think she would have been sad about that.

Our garden is providing us with about 20 pounds of vegetables a day. The tomatoes, squash, eggplant and peppers have been great. The cucumbers are gone now. I think about my grandfather when I eat tomatoes as he ate them three times a day everyday of the year. This was long before we knew about the beneficial effects of lycopenes that are in tomatoes. He lived to be 99. I think about him in the garden too as he encouraged me to plant my first one and was always there with good advice. I think about my grandmother when I eat onions because she loves them. She turned 95 this week. She once told me that if she was about to leave this world she did believe that if you just put a little onion on her lips it would revived her. I love that.

Mark and I are heading to Mexico to visit Larry, Viny and Alberto the last two weeks of November. We had hoped to get there sooner however we did not plan our schedules well enough in advance to accomplish that. We would like to be there during the rainy season one year. We are hoping to take a cooking class during our visit. We both love to cook and the food there is quite tasty.

Halloween is on a Saturday this year, so we are planning a party. I love Halloween. We decorate the house and go all out. We have a 15 foot Spider that John built out of scrapes that we light with black lights. It looks great.

Last weekend Bev Cobain, Kurt Cobain's cousin was at our house for dinner. I had bid on a catered dinner by Gourmet Catering at a fundraiser for the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Colorado. She said she would attend the dinner with whomever won the bid. The auctioneer offered a second dinner to the next highest bidder for the same price as my winning bid. We decided to combine the dinners and so we had 17 people around our dinning table. The caterer did all of the cooking and serving. It was a wine paired dinner and the chef came out to describe each course. It was delicious and the wines were good. Bev has written a couple of books of which I have the once called, "Dying to be Free". Her books are about helping families after they lose a family member to suicide. Bev was the family member that was called when Kurt killed himself. The two groups mingled well. It felt a bit odd for me to have a dinner party at our house and not be in the kitchen. When the party was over the kitchen was spotless. I loved that part.