Nikki with Straight hair

I love the youngest one in curls, but Nikki desparately wanted straight hair. She said she wanted it to move in the wind when she ran. So... a lot of work, chemicals, blow drying, and grease later....tadaa Nikki with long luxurious hair!

Grape Arbor

Each year the garden grows a little more, not only the plants but also the hardscape. This May Donnie added to the Twin Towers, the original grape arbor. The Twin Towers were built sturdy enough to withstand a climbing Joe. Originally they towered over the garden landscape. But this spring it was apparent that the grapes had taken over! Now they are covering the new arbor! Soon we shall get a big barrel and re-enact the Lucy grape stomping scene!

Looking to the Stars

Joe looking through his telescope at the moon. Our scientist wants to study dinosaurs, or the stars.

Rosie and MY View

Amanda Ginzburg wrote a fascinating article about Rosie and her exit from The View. When mentioning Rosie’s blog, she said “the sometimes-confusing typographical trenches of her blog.”

I like that, the sometimes-confusing typographical trenches of her blog. It appears I am not the only one whose chubby fingers hit the wrong keys on the keyboard and who believes that spelling the English language is a rather fluid thing.

I am sad that Rosie left The View, I had looked forward to watching her final few weeks on it, now that college is done and I am in job search mode. Rosie makes me laugh and reminds me of real people.

She almost never leaves a thought unspoken (remind you of anyone, ahem?) She is apt to be loud and certain she is right. (Also ring a bell with anyone you know?) But I truly adored her old show, done in the Mike Douglas/ Merv Griffin mode. It was fun to fold laundry and watch Rosie in the morning with the little ones playing underfoot. It reminded me, of when I was little and my Momma ironed, while watching Merv. Therefore, I was happy Rosie was joining the ladies at The View and was eager to see the changes she would bring.

While conspiracy theorists make me uneasy and very political debates leave me anxious, I admire those with deep convictions. So although I saw nothing wrong with a show whose Hot Topics were often bits of fluff (just who is Paris Hilton sleeping with, and who really gives a flying fig?) I could understand how it could be frustrating to want to talk about REAL things and have that share equal time with stupid things.

But whether celebrities are REAL friends or just good actors doesn’t really interest me as much as how creepy the reporting of Rosie’s arrival, tenure, and departure became.

It seems that since OJ’s famous slo-mo car chase, regular news has devoted more and more time to pretend. But until the Rosie business it never occurred to me that they would just plain make up stuff and report it as true.

Does that sound naïve? Foolish of me I guess to believe what is said on the news. Of course I was taught to look at the source and to carefully think about not just what was being said, but who was saying it, and why. I took journalism classes. Heck I went to Catholic high school while reading the Boston Globe and its subtle anti-Catholic bias, each morning. (Of course the church in the last few years has been its own worst enemy, who needs the Globe to make you look bad when you have Cardinals and Bishops to do that for you?)

But I assumed the basic news stations and the respectable papers in general stuck with the truth. But the Rosie stuff has really given me pause.

Ok so each morning I check out her blog where she comments on her life. Perhaps she stole my idea!!!! I wonder which came first the chicken or the egg, Susie’s blog or Rosie’s?

But then when I watch the news (and I do not just mean Rag shows like ET, I mean regular news) there would be quotes about this or that coming from Rosie and her blog, or The View----except, what they reported WAS NOT TRUE. What they said she said or wrote was incorrect, misquoted, out of context, or just plain wrong.

Now in the scheme of things, who really cares, right? I mean you like Rosie or you don’t. People with strong personalities call up strong responses from people, so most people either love her or hate her.

What makes me creeped out though is not necessarily that they made up stuff about Rosie, but that if they so blatantly did this on a topic I had some knowledge of, what else in the news is a lie?

Never watch fox news is a great motto to live by and click right past those foolish news magazine shows like Bill Reilly and Nancy Grace. But that isn’t really enough. Because those shows spout their silly lies over and over and soon it worms its way into regular media.

First of course the regular media tries to be above it all, and they report like it’s a news story, what is being said on the stupid shows. But eventually they also do stories whose basis in reality is tenuous at best.

Certainly the National Enquirer can be a funny read I guess. But what is the scariest thing of all is the amount of apparently reasonably intelligent people who believe it to be TRUE.

I can comfortably ignore the silly rantings of BO, but it gives me pause to realize that many people take his foolishness as gospel. To also now have to be leery of the legitimate press is really scary.

I enjoy Regis and Kelly, Letterman, Jay. I see nothing wrong in watching movie promotions or hearing the latest comic. But I want the real news to be just that, real.

If they will lie about something Rosie said, when it is so simple to google her blog and read EXACTLY what she did write…. what else is a lie, that we cannot as easily ferret out as truth?

Geez, Rosie may turn me into a conspiracy theorist after all!

On top of Mt Carrigan

Photos become a little fuzzy with time. (Also I am taking a digital of a picture which is a lot trickeir than it sounds.)
May 24, 1980. Donnie made me the hat. What you cannot see is that I had carefully coordinated my socks to match my daily outfit. Happy Anniversary...first kiss.

Thorau Falls

May 23 1980-May 23 2007

Twenty seven years ago today. We shared out first kiss.
" What I give you since you asked, is all our time together, take the rugged sunny days, the warm and rocky weather. Take the roads that I have walked alone, looking for tomorrows time, peace of mind....We have seen a million stars, lying by the water. You have climbed the hills with me to the mountain shelter.... this is what I give, this is what I ask you for, nothing more."

The Gang

Pomp and Circumstance

Graduation

Just in time to feel like a cute little young thing again. I got a big zit!

Confirmation

Class Musical

Did we mention Corey had the class musical this weekend as well? He was the evil dentist who gets what is coming to him in Little Shop of Horrors.

Quite a Day

Graduation and Confirmation.
Tim: BA in Spanish
Julie Marie CATHERINE Blauss
Susan: BS in Psychology

Graduation

We posed with. President Mohler-Faria at graduation, the only mother and son duo at BSC Class of 07

Almost grown

Had his license for five hours and has already happily gone on three errands. That will change soon enough.

Mr. Smooth

Corey working on his charm. He is wearing a knitted baby blue owl sweater that my Mom made. This photo was take in East Bridgewater 778 Bedford Street.
In two weeks he graduates from high school. Where does the time go?

circa 1990

Corey and Donnie at Brant rock. The hair (on Corey!) is still red but started to go blonde. (Note to Nikki: see Dad did once have more hair!)

Corey and driving

I am trying to get this picture to go with the Corey getting his license blog!

Corey learns to drive

This morning I picked Corey up from school so he could go to the Registry and take his Driver’s Test. He passed of course! He is actually a good, cautious driver.

The trooper who tested him, an officer McCormack, was rather gruff but thorough. He spent some time at the end of the test lecturing Corey on driver safety.

“Machines are replaceable, people are not.”

It is still so amazing to me that Corey winds up his high school career in a couple of weeks. He and Julie were always the little kids (lately they have been the middle kids) to Mary and Tim’s big kids status.

But on June 3, he dons cap and gown and plans on taking Criminal Justice in the fall at Northeastern. How fast the time went. Just a year ago for instance, he was recovering from lung surgery. At six foot two, he barely moved the scale, a way –too- trim 132 pounds.

Further back in time: Dr. O’Toole and my Mom both thought he would be a girl and a roly-poly one at that. But he weighed in at 7’ 11” and was barely 19 inches long. A peanut compared to the older two Blausses.

There was a lot of laughter and chatter in the delivery room that day. We had two miscarriages before Corey and during his pregnancy gestational diabetes and other complications required close monitoring and bed rest towards the end. So his healthy delivery and surprise he is ALL boy was a moment of great celebration.

His nicknames are “Special” and “Honey.” He dates the wonderful Aimee. His friends are delightful. He has had moments of great glory…..baseball victory pitching for the Red Sox in little league….and credited with 16 of the 18 outs of the game… hiking in NH, “Sayonara Suckers” and Tiny Tim….

He talks non-stop and is always in motion, when he is not a total lump on the couch that is! Now he is preparing for graduation and adulthood. A long way from that sweet little toddler who was speaking in full sentences at 19 months…red hair has turned blond, except on the sometimes beard. He can be the most annoying of all our kids, but also the funniest. And he has a soft sentimental side that he would NEVER admit too.

Corey got his license today. “For every thing there is a season…”

cat napping

No worries.

Pale Face

Potted cat anyone?

Cluck cluck

Michaela is lonely now that Flanagan the other
Rhode Island Red has moved on to greener pastures.

Donnie digging out the bed.

You can see the rock wall behind the apple trees
that he also built. Funny how gardens change
over the years. What started out as a shady,
sandy corner of our front yard- so acidic and
dark that nothing but moss grew- has
transformed into Our family garden.

St. Francis

I moved him to overlook my cranberry bog.

Big fish in a little pond.

The fish weathered the winter in the pond
just fine. But one of them must've eaten a number
of his hibernating buddies!

farmboy

Jamie and tractor.

Nikki and tulips

Spring bloom.