Settling Back In

     There are always issues surrounding getting back in the swing of things as we go from our summer home up north to Nan's working down here.  As indicated in my previous post, having a new place to live presented some stressful challenges which I won't discuss here.  The house is very large and allows us each to have our own work space.  In addition to the new dwelling, Nan is teaching a new course.  It's a service-learning course in which the students are required to provide a certain number of community service hours in addition to their regular scholarly efforts.  Since we both volunteer at the Durham Animal Shelter, Nan decided to pair her course with APS(Animal Protective Society) of Durham.  Duke also has a canine cognition center, and she has been able to get their cooperation as well.  It's been a lot of work, as getting the students to and from the shelter has been a problem.  I take a carload over and back twice a week and have met some pretty neat kids(oops excuse me, young adults) 
      Anyway,  one of the first APS events we were involved in was the annual dog wash fund raiser.  It was held at the Durham Car Wash.  Before you get a picture of dogs being put through an actual car wash, let me say just say it was all hands-on.

    We always try and do something out-of-doors for Nan's birthday at the end of August.  This year we went to Jordan Lake recreation area, which is just south of Durham.  We found a nice six mile hike through the woods and along the shore of the lake and Nan went swimming.

      As far as cultural events were concerned, we went down to Chapel Hill to the Forest Theater and saw a presentation entitled Invisible Earth performed by the Paperhand Puppet Intervention. Dylan Alexzander Turner is a member of the troupe.  Dylan played my son several years ago at Oldcastle and I've know him since he was born.  I did at least five show with his mom, who is a special lady.  Dylan sat with us during the performance(he had stepped on a nail and was recovering) and explained the mechanics of some of the huge puppets.

     If you're interested in seeing more of this group's great work, you can visit their website at paperhand.org.
     Our first month back wouldn't have been complete without a trip to see the Durham Bulls in action.  They made the International league playoffs and we went to see them with our friends Jeff and Jane.  They won this series and went on to win the AAA World Series.