Bella

A glorious, picture-perfect autumn day in New York. Not a cloud in the sky…with the temperature harkening back to those gorgeous September days when it stood at a perfect 70 degrees. No humidity…excellent hair…and no bugs. Who could ask for more?

Even a diehard indoor gal like me found herself inexplicably drawn outside to frolic in the abundant dead leaves and sunshine.

It’s like Mother Nature did an abrupt about-face….and instead of steadfastly barreling blindly towards winter, she stopped…perhaps to smell the proverbial roses? We may never know…and I don't think anyone really cares why...we're just so happy with the end result.

Taylor (17) spent the entire weekend helping my niece, Carolyn (17) edit a video for her English class:

Carolyn needed a finished product of 15 minutes of video…and as my IV (Clinton Kelly) has often stated, “You only get 1 minute of finished product for each hour of tape”.

Kathryn: “…so that’s like, 15 hours of filming.”

Clinton: “I told you. Did you think I was making it up? You never listen.”

K: “Oh, I’m sorry. Was I supposed to memorize this information? What would make me think this would actually be necessary in our ordinary, mundane, run-of-the-mill lives? I thought you were spewing celebrity-facts. You know, like 'Oh, no-one realizes how hard it is to be loved and adored by so many'...yada, yada. ”

C: “Sarcasm? Now is not the time for mockery…it’s more like the time for an apology. I told you...you didn't listen. Own it."

K: “Well, that’s not gonna happen. It took five times longer than anyone had anticipated….not to mention the fact that they were about 8 minutes short by the time they finished editing Carolyn’s tape. So, they had to adlib. The end result was even funnier than the actual original tape…I laughed so hard, I was crying.”

C: (Squinty blue-eyed stare) “Yes, I’m well aware. It was touch-and-go as to whether I’d need to dig out your inhaler.I do believe you were wheezing.”

K: “Oh, God…it was funny. See? Sometimes screwing up the tape can be a good thing. I’m trying to convince Taylor to post the trailer to YouTube…it was worth a few gasps.”

C: “Taylor’s a good kid. Gave up his whole weekend to be an editor. It’s a thankless job.”

K: “Like you would know….you’re the on-screen talent. Besides, I made him a really, really good dinner. And dessert.”

C: “Exactly how many apples did you have??”

K: “Ugh. Too many. You can’t see the applesauce….and the apple muffins. Can I interest you in a piece of apple spice cake?”

C: “Um. I’ve eaten apple-raison pancakes with apple butter for breakfast and apple-cheddar Panini for lunch and crunchy apple salsa with grilled chicken for dinner. I do believe I’m ‘appled-out’. Pass....”

K: “Oh, c’mon! You can never have enough apples! I even had enough left over to bring to our furry neighbors. They were very appreciative.”

C: (Crosses arms) “Of course they were. They’re animals.”

K: “Uh huh. You see the similarity to Taylor, right?”

(Do you know what kind of animal this is?)