There's Barbara, and Meryl right behind her, shortly before Meryl, Mark and I decided to call it a night. Saturday we spent many hours at the festival and we were not only tired but wanting to get back to the dogs. So the three of us headed home around midnight, on the long dark winding unpaved country roads. Lots of deer, lots of nervous driving. We arrived at the Solovay driveway, and right on our tail were a couple of impressive emergency vehicles, including a real fire truck. We got of the car, assuming we'd watch them drive on by, when to our surprise they pulled right in behind us. The rather large Captain approached in a hurry, "the smoke alarm is going off", and Mark and I threw open the front door and ran for the stairs, each grabbing a poodle and heading back out. Three guys ran through the house, while the three of us, two holding poodles, watched, stunned. The big guy came barreling down the stairs calling out to us, "the house has been ransacked, the closets have been emptied!" "Let me go look" was my response and I ran upstairs, into each bedroom, noticing that Leandra's room appeared to have every possible article of clothing in a pile on the floor. I took a quick look at the other rooms which looked pretty normal to me, ran back downstairs, and said to the Captain, "a teenage girl came home from camp today, I think that's what her room is supposed to look like." Meryl asked, "is this a Saturday Night Live sketch, and is that John Candy?" Meanwhile Mark was running around with two phones, the house phone with the alarm company, which only worked inside the house, and his cell phone with Paul on it, which only worked outside the house. 
That night we saw and heard some great music. The Strangelings were wonderful, and the Friday night song swap, with John Gorka, Eliza Gilkyson, Vance Gilbert & Patty Larkin, was the big late night favorite.
When we woke up Saturday morning Susan, Paul, & Leandra were home and soon Barbara & Alec's cousin Meryl arrived from Bklyn. Saturday was a long day of music at the festival. 
Dar Williams & Eddie from Ohio were wonderful as always.
A great festival, if a bit too hot, too cold, and too muddy at times, but greatest of all is being with old, good friends.
Thanks, Jen, and welcome back to the blog anytime!
Marley turned four yesterday. He's the only one of our animals whose birthday we know. We celebrate the birthday of everyone else on October 1st each year. The dogs enjoyed special cupcakes from a doggie bakery while the humans enjoyed a sandwich and beer assortment. Oh, and cannolis that weren't from Little Italy but weren't bad at all.
Lorie and Kaiser had fun in the pool. Daisy did too, she swam so much she can hardly move today. She also killed one of the pool toys Kaiser brought over. Kaiser recently had a birthday too, he is now five and he can really swim!
My own birthday was a couple of months ago and Abby gave me this cool Zen Garden. Kaiser and I had fun putting it all together. 
Jen and Leigh came to celebrate and relax too and brought Gretchen along. Gretchen approved of the cupcakes. She also enjoyed the drive in the back of Jen's brand new gorgeous gray Mini Cooper. And the humans thought it was a pretty fabulous little car too. We all want one.
