After shooting a couple of bedruns I walked up the top of the hill and discovered Anna playing on a tire swing. I found her parents and talked to them for a bit. Her dad had on sun glasses covered in speckles of white paint. I said, “Painter, right?” He said, “Yep”. I asked him how come he didn’t clean his glasses. His answer…” Advertising”.

What’s a town festival without a bedrace. It was a 4 way tie at 23 mph. Not bad, though the definition of bed may have been a little loose.

Saturday we rode over the mountain to Edinburg to take a look at a timber frame house some friends were building.Turns out it was Ole Time Festival weekend and Brittany and Whitney were manning the drink stand. That’s Britanny on the left, or maybe it’s Whitney. I thought after a certain age twins hated dressing alike. Apparently they haven’t reached that age.

This is AW, Arthur Warren. He makes white oak baskets in a little 9 x 12 homemade building on the side of a mountain. I’ve passed by his place several times without seeing anyone, but Friday he was there stripping oak, so I pulled as far off the road as I could and hoped whoever came around the curve was paying attention. We talked a while about his baskets. When he left the army after WWII, there was no work around, so he started making baskets for a living. I told him I’d buy a basket if I could photograph him. This is my$40.

I spent the last four days in a cabin on the Shenandoah river. Beautiful country and the people in the area take a lot of pride in their yards. Every yard looked like a manicured golf course. This one reminded me a little of the miniture golf courses I used to play as a kid…putt through the big rooster and win a free game.

I couldn’t decide what to call this. I thought about “Rachael Ray x 9″, but that was kind of trite. Then “Rachael Ray-Multiplicity” came to mind, but I finally settled on “Wall o’ Rachael”, just because that’s what it is. It could have just as easily been called “Wall o’ Obama” or “Wall o’ McCain”, since there was a political commercial on just before this, but I wasn’t quick enough on the trigger and missed it. Just as well, because then I would have had to get into politics and there are enough people writing about politics as it is.

Mary flew to Paris with a client Thursday. They flew out of Dulles that evening and I drove her to DC to meet up with her client. We were about an hour early, so we stopped off and had a drink to kill some time. Mary’s a “three olive, vodka martini, a little dirty” sort of gal. No white wine for her. I like that…I think I need better clients. UPDATE: So…I get this comment from Eric at “Dirty Sue” Dirty Martini Mix, (www.dirtysue.com) offering to send Mary a bottle of “Dirty Sue”. The blog is finally starting to pay off. Well, two bottles showed up yesterday and the review is in. “Perfectly Dirty”. Now they need to come up with a mix that’s a little dirtier and call it “Nasty Mary” Dirty Martini Mix.