Well, last weekend marked the official "end" of summer... and we celebrated it in style. A bunch of us went to New Hope on Saturday and went on the canal boat ride, which was great... very scenic and relaxing.

It was relaxing except for the one brief moment when we were on our way back to the starting point... there we were, slowly floating along the canal in a boat being towed by two mules, listening to canal folk songs being sung by our tour guide... it was sunny, it was breezy, the scenery was lovely, and all was right with the world. You could almost feel like you had gone back in time a few hundred years.

Until the shrill TWEEEEDLE-EEEEDLE-EEEEDLE of some guy standing on the bank's cell phone pierced through the peace and snapped us all back into the 21st Century. Geeze, mister, way to ruin the moment. How loud do you *need* the dang ringer to be, anyhow?

Aside from Mr. Cell Phone, everything was great. Did I mention it was a GORGEOUS day? Which made our rides on the steam-driven railroad train and the boat that toured the Delaware all the nicer.

Mark and I had to leave earlier than the rest of them, because we had tickets to Saturday's Phillies game. We took Betty home, also, as she had to get back and make dinner for her sick dad. The Phillies were nice enough to give us a 7-0 win to enjoy, PLUS my favorite Phillie, Pat Burrell, was back in the lineup after being on the DL for the past few weeks. Can you ask for more? :o)

Sunday was another busy day... this time, four of us (Betty, Joe M, Mark, and I) headed up to the PA Renaissance Faire. Another EXCELLENT day... the only drawback was that because it was a Sunday, in order to see as much of the Faire as possible, we had to go to Mass at the freakin' crack of dawn so we could get on the road early. We all thoroughly enjoyed it, though -- and I got a ton of pictures, including Betty's and my ride on the elephant, Betty's ride on the 'war horse" (actually it looked more like a War Shetland Pony, if you want my humble opinion), and the live chess match. We definitely have to make this an annual event... but preferably on a Saturday next time, so we can avoid the issue of having to find the earliest Mass possible in the morning.

The only real bummer of the weekend was that Donna H had to cancel her trip down. I was looking forward to seeing her. But I hope she'll get down here for some hockey weekends once the season starts. The way the talks are going between the NHL and the players' union, "hockey weekend" is probably going to consist of AHL games, but hey. PHANTOMS fans will still be watching hockey this season. Long live the minor leagues! ;o)

In other news, this might be minor in the scheme of things, but it's a Good Thing for ME. I've hit on a solution to avoid problems when I use the pill splitter.

My prescription involves taking 1.5 pills per day. Fine. Except for the days when I actually have to SPLIT the freaking pills. The pill splitter I use has no problem holding the unsplit pill steady. Unfortunately, AFTER the pill has been split, when I open it up to take the half-pills out, it frequently loses its hold on the split pills. It acts like a slingshot and sends them flying gosh-knows-where in the kitchen, resulting in my having to play a game of Find the Pill at ungodly hours of the morning.

Well, last weekend, I had an idea. I went and got a plastic sandwich bag and started splitting the pills with the splitter IN the bag. Now when the pill halves go flying out, as they still sometimes do, they go into the plastic bag. End of problem, and no more games of Find the Pill. Hooray for inspiration. :o)