August | 2016 | Wherever you go, there you are.

Magical…Whimsical…Enchanting…Brilliant…Colorful…Kaleidoscopic…Capricious…
Eccentric…Fanciful…Humorous…Witty…Imaginative…

Obviously, it was wisp-clad pixies with wands made of spider webs and spun glass who created the 2016 “Art in the Garden” exhibit at the Hahn Horticulture Gardens at Virginia Tech. The fanciful displays are spread across the garden’s six acres which are, as always, stunning.

It was impossible to pick favorites, but certainly Richard Hammer’s “Glorious Glass Flowers” and “Kaleidoscope Flutters By” by the Textile Artists of Virginia (TAVA) are magical. I wished for a thesaurus specific to the exhibits created by the more than 50 ~~pixies~~ artisans of southwest Virginia.

As we did last year, daughter Leslie and I toured the installations first, then retreated to the blessedly cool wisteria arbor for our lunch of cheese and crackers, grapes and tea. We’ve had torrential rain for several weeks, so Thursday’s blinding sun felt doubly hot. Sweat poured off us as if we were standing in a shower without benefit of soap and towel. The Floyd Quilters’ Group “Leaf it to Quilters” fluttered above us in the breeze while we ate. Autumn’s cool to come sighed through.

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For more information: http://www.hort.vt.edu/hhg/elemental/2016/Flyer.pdf

When I began writing this blog three years ago I planned to write about our travels and other topics that could fit, however loosely, under the heading wherever you go, there you are. The scope of that plan has narrowed as if I were looking through the wrong end of my binoculars. What used to be limited only by our wallets, is now limited because going anywhere at all is an upset to my husband’s worsening dementia.

Nowadays, going to the grocery with me, a meal at a favorite restaurant, a movie at the Lyric, a walk through a different neighborhood, are “trips.” I tell Peter, any place we go is some place!

Travel these days is so difficult that I don’t mind. Peter would like to go like we once did, but knows it wouldn’t be the same. So I show him photos and remind him of the funny things that happened on our travels, our final trip for instance. We headed southwest to the Canyons, with a piggybacked week at Yellowstone.

Yes, there was a big scare, but also events worth remembering and laughing about.

I had to be helped in and out of the vans we traveled in because of my bum knee. Hiking was painful, bone grating on bone. Plus, I huffed and puffed like the magic dragon. I’d trudge a few yards on a trail, then rest. So much for telling our guide that I was conditioned and could hike several miles easily. There were only five in our group and I was the drag, the lead weight, the anchor scraping bottom.

After we got home, I saw the doctor for a follow-up to a stress test I’d had earlier. He asked where we’d been. I told him and said that between my aching knee and my breathlessness I wasn’t able to hike like I used to. “Why didn’t you tell me where you were going?” he asked. “That altitude is tough for anyone not used to it. I could’ve given you something to help.”

“It never occurred to me to call,” I said. “I’m in good shape, except for my knee, and we’ve hiked a lot over the years…”

“But I could have prescribed something — Cialis probably— so you wouldn’t have a problem…”

“Um-m, excuse me, but why would that have helped me?”

He explained that the med reduces pulmonary artery pressure at high altitudes, and thus increases ability to exercise in low oxygen conditions.

Oh how we’ve laughed over what might’ve “cured” my breathlessness.