I'm learning a lot of very interesting things "reading" The Feather Thief - stayed up later than I should have last night listening to it - and seem to be enjoying it more than Lisa (who has finished it) and Terry (who is still working on it.)

This morning at the Apple Pool I enjoyed a poetry discussion with Marie and Chris.  After that I gave them an introduction to The Cremation of Sam McGee.

When I got back to the house Cheryl had arrived, so Neil now has three of us as care givers while Terry is on R&R.  I got my spaghetti sauce going, and about the time I finished that Kestrel popped in to say hi to Terry and Neil.  Haven't seen her in years, and had never met her husband Michael, or sons Luke (8) and Wesley (4) though I've seen their pix on FB.  Kestrel grew up here at Valley View (her dad Doug now runs it) and when I first met her she was just a little girl.  (Somewhere I have a great pic of her and her older brother Alan in the swimming pool when it was drained for cleaning.)  Luke and Wesley had a blast feeding the hummers this morning! 

When I headed back up to the pools I had (once again) forgoten to bring a plastic grocery bag with me to collect the old rusted tin cans hidden behind the Apple Pool.  Luckily I was able to get a full-size one from the folks driving the cleaning cart.  Good thing, because once I started I just kept finding more and more can "hiding" (plus a huge chunk of broken glass) and ended up filling the entire 13-gallon bag! No idea how long that stuff was there (and who thought it was okay to just dump stuff and leave?!)

During the heat of the day is a fine time to paddle around in the cool swimming pool, when the water temperature feels just fine.  Then I had a delightful book discussion poolside with Steve (the bat cave tour guide) and Denise (a retired art teacher.)  Our conversation started when I noticed him reading Shantaram, which Marilyn had highly recommended.  However (despite two tries) I just couldn't get into it; same with Cutting For Stone, which we also discussed.  However I do have a list of other books to try, and also gave them some of my recommendations.

Got back to the house just in time to help Cheryl change Neil.  That's the one thing that I can't do by myself (though I can do transfers, thanks to the Hoyer lift!)  While she can manage that task alone thanks to her training and experience, she did agree that it's a WHOLE LOT EASIER with two people.