Heroes seems like it will be an interesting show, though it borrows from X-Men.

Jon probably won't like it : "What's the point?" (He abhors Lost because it is a show built on nothing. When I countered that Seinfeld is a show about nothing, he retorted that at least it's about finding humor in everyday occurences. Contrast that with an island of lost passengers whose story seems to have taken a dive down a rabbit hole just to keep the show going).

Jon, his parents, and I drove out to Middlesboro to look at a P-38 that had been dug out of a glacier several years ago. I found the story interesting, even if I didn't want to linger for an hour poring over the plane itself and all the artifacts associated with it.
Apparently, back in WWII, a fleet of P-38s were abandoned on a glacier somewhere near Iceland or Greenland because they ran out of fuel. In the subsequent years, they were buried under more than 200 feet of ice!

This has been a week for mushrooms!

When Jon and I first stepped onto the Pinch-'Em-Tight trail, we spotted these hippie mushrooms (one literally thought of those gnomes, and of all those psychedelic drawings from the '70s). They were squat little things, the flesh like rich butter and the tops an unusual orangish-red speckled with pale spots. You could imagine a gnome furtively sawing the tops off to use as hats.

We also saw mushrooms that literally looked like pancakes (not the best thing to see if you're a hungry hiker), down to the spots that looked like the bubbles that rise to the surface when pancakes are almost done cooking. There were shockingly orange, spindly mushrooms, plain dirty-sock colored ones, tiny ones, huge ones. There was even a mushroom that looked like a delicate ironstone cake stand, complete with drips of frosting curling off the edges. I had to stop and examine it!

Here in Lexington I've seen two fairy rings--one that spanned a twenty-foot front yard. It's hard to imagine that we are treading an organism that large--who'd have thought of fungi spreading so far underground?

"The Evergreen Tree of Diabolical Knowledge"

I found this deliciously titled book while browsing the rather mundane, tweedy library/librarian section of the Young Library. It refers to the rise of circulating libraries in the 18th century, which enabled young, virtuous people to read things like gasp popular fiction.

I also came across the bibliography section, which is proving a great delight to meander in. There's a thick tome of bibliographies of the mention of Western outlaws in pamphlets and books, a bibliography of Woodrow Wilson's life and times, the rose, etc. etc.

Our computer does not like secure websites, so writing for this blog isn't the most pleasant experience when an entry gets lost because the computer throws a fit. We probably have a virus somewhere in this thing.

We went to the Gorge this weekend and hiked a 12 mile loop, starting from the Pinch-Em-Tight parking lot and working our way around to Gray's Arch. It was a very pleasant weekend--nice to get away from the city and actually see the Milky Way in the black-blue sky. Gray's Arch is an epic arch that commands the little rhodendrhon-flushed ravine below. Quite neck-achingly impressive.

Jenni finds out the sex of her baby this Wednesday. I'm rooting for a girl. Sue is hoping for a boy. This is war!

A new shop opened up in the old Paisley Peacock space. I ducked inside for a look and was blown away by the cornucopia of lushly colored yarn and knitting books, and other such crafty things. It's called "Rebelle : Reinventing Domesticity." On a side note, another yarn shop opened up on High Street, Magpie Yarns. I can't believe my luck! Lexington went from a city with Michael's and its hideously colored yarns (think UK blue and canary yellow) to having two indie crafty shops with gorgeous yarns.

Do not eat at Kashmir's.

Jon got salmonella from them and was laid up for a week with severe cramps, losing 9 pounds in 4 days. A friend of his got it as well, and got sick the next day after they ate there. He heard of someone else who also got sick around the same time as they did.
The lady from the health department called him to let him know the results of her investigation. She did a food inspection of Kashmir's and they got a 74. Some of the things she found: their fridge was not kept at the proper temperature, there was no hand soap (this bit makes me recoil), their hood was malfunctioning, and there was an overall sense of "general filth". When she went back, they got an 84. She's going back a 3rd time, and if Kashmir's hasn't improved, they will be shut down.
Food inspection results are published in the Wednesday edition of the newspaper. After what Jon went through, we will be checking it regularly.

Jon's Life Adventure Camp reunion was this past weekend. The property is out in the Gorge area, up some winding, pot-holed gravel road past Stanton. We camped behind the trailer of Wolf & Renata Hicks. While giving us a tour, they said that the bathroom inside could be used for number 1, and there was a composting toilet in the back corner for number twos. They get water from a stream that runs out back, but they don't use it for cooking unless it is going to be boiled. It looked like they brought in drinking water. Imagine living a life like that!
The property was cleared of trees, and it looked like nature was waging a war to reclaim it. Any part of the property that wasn't clearcut was swelling with grass and weeds. It seemed like it swelled a bit everytime you blinked.

Jon's Life Adventure Camp reunion was this past weekend. The property is out in the Gorge area, up some winding, pot-holed gravel road past Stanton. We camped behind the trailer of Wolf & Renata Hicks. While giving us a tour, they said that the bathroom inside could be used for number 1, and there was a composting toilet in the back corner for number twos. They get water from a stream that runs out back, but they don't use it for cooking unless it is going to be boiled. It looked like they brought in drinking water. Imagine living a life like that!
The property was cleared of trees, and it looked like nature was waging a war to reclaim it. Any part of the property that wasn't clearcut was swelling with grass and weeds. It seemed like it swelled a bit everytime you blinked.

-A boy came up to me at Joseph-Beth and asked to look at the Harry Potter brooms. While caressing the handle, he looked up and asked with that innocence native only to children: "Does this fly?"
I told him, "Well, if you make-believe, yes it does."

-A bumper sticker I saw today: "How sad -- Kids run wild while dogs go to obedience school." I can certainly relate to that after experiencing the kids floor at Joseph-Beth.