"Sad to say, I miss my friends ..."

August is determined to fly on outta here, is it not? I swear. I know I was in Wilmington when it began. And when I came home, I started those infernal classes 3 nights a week. Other than that, I can't figure a good reason that the month has all but disappeared for me.

Yesterday would have been my Dad's 84th birthday. I can't imagine him at that elderly age. I did think about him many times yesterday, especially during my hours with Miss Squish. He would have simply adored her. I like to think that some of his love that was left floating around overhead has landed on her.

I miss you, Daddy.

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Other than going to class, and ... uh, nuthin', I've been doing the same old, same old since I updated here last week. I did get another nice chance for some time with Miss S. last Saturday when her Mama and Daddy went boating with friends. And then Sunday, we cooked dinner and took it over to their house to share a meal together. Well, I prepared a meal ... Adam did the actual grilling of the meat. It was a nice weekend!

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Now that the Olympic games are over, what the heck are we going to do with ourselves? Ohhhh yeah, the conventions are starting. (blech) Somehow I don't think that's going to work for Jimmy's high-def fix every night.

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Congrats to Michael and Patti, celebrating (I don't know how many) years of happily-ever-after tomorrow! I do remember that they got married the same August that Greenville had "the big flood" ... I just don't remember what year that was.

Happy Anniversary, you two. We'll celebrate THAT next weekend, too.

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MAN. I wish I had something to write about.

But since I don't, let's move on to the newest pictures, shall we? I left our camera over at the kids' house on Sunday, so I missed an opportunity to get some pictures from yesterday. (She was awesome, as usual ... she played hard, she napped hard, and she rang the living daylights out of Daddy's old brass bell that hangs in our kitchen. I thought that was pretty cool, since it was his birthday.)

The first pictures were taken last Saturday ... she was standing at the table beside my chair, and pretty damn proud of herself.

New Trick Alert! If she's in a mood to play along, you can now say, "Gimme a kiss!" And then make a kissy sound ... and she'll think a while, and then kiss right back. It's guaranteed to make my eyes get all misty. Still haven't had luck getting her to actually kiss my cheek, but I have no doubt she'll figure that out soon. I was lucky on Saturday to actually catch her doing it:

(Sorry about the overexposed face on those last 2 ... there wasn't a lot of space where we were sitting, and I had to hold the camera too close to her face.)

"I will not 'kiss' again, Nana! Deal with it."

This was taken on Sunday, over at her house. She'll be walking on her own, soon!

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And yeah, I really do miss my friends.