Missed the Book Sale This Year (gasp)

For 16 years I've been going to our library and historical society's blueberry festival to buy chances on a handmade quilt and buy tons of books at their book sale. This year I didn't get there. It's on Friday and Saturday. Friday we had appointments in Binghamton. Since it's been a busy week and fatigue is a problem for me because of my lungs, I really didn't feel well enough to go anywhere Saturday. Besides that, it started raining mid-morning and just rained harder and harder all day.

This morning the humidity is 100%, so this will be another lost day for me. Oh well, when I saw the pulmonologist on Friday, he said my breathing test results were about the same. They haven't changed much in the past year. Whoopee!

In August it normally starts cooling down a little here, although when we go to the local fair we get pretty hot. That's an excuse to sit in the shade and listen to local musicians at the little bandstand. Remember Aaron Kelly from last year's American Idol? He's a local boy and he'll be at the fair again this year. I'll be interested to see if he has changed after his Idol experience.

Now that we have a wheelchair for Dave, I'm determined to get to the New York State Fair again. We haven't gone for several years but I love it. It reminds me of the Illinois State Fair, one of the best in the country, which I never missed when I lived there. I remember when I was a child and my grandfather (a staunch Republican) took me to see the races. Harry Truman was visiting that day and went by us sitting up on the back of a convertible. Unfortunately for Gramps, he looked like Truman's double, and Truman definitely gave him a second and third look as the motorcade went by. I was glad Truman didn't know Gramps thought he was the very devil.

Dave grew up in a little town in Maine and was used to a tiny fair in the fall. When I got him to the Illinois State Fair, he was in awe of the size of it. He never did stop talking about the corn and wheat fields in Illinois, and the size of the farm machinery at the fair. We love looking at the animals, buying salt water taffy, and eating other fair food. We rationalize by telling ourselves we're walking it off.

August is a lovely time of year with the promise of cool nights, and lazy days as everyone seems in limbo before September brings a restart of everything that keeps us busy. Thankfully we aren't living in an area of long, long heat waves or flooding and I feel so badly for my friends who are suffering from heat or too much rain. September, my favorite month, is just around the corner.