HOW I SPENT MY 2014 SUMMER VACATION

I went back to England via Miss Marple, Midsomer Murders, Foyle's War and a couple other Detective Chief Inspectors' adventures. My computer never cooled off from the instant streaming of the delightfully benign mayhem that underscores these British whodunnits.

One episode even took me to a llama farm in Wales. That brought back memories of my visit to Ruth Ruck in Carneddi some time around 1989.

Ruth was one of the first Anglo Saxons to own a camelid and her book, Along Came a Llama, set off a llama rage in the United Kingdom. The visit to Ruth, and other owners, was in aid of a feature story I was writing about the comparatively new phenomenon of camelid ownership for fun and profit.

Foyle, on the other hand, took me through the entirety of WWII and, oddly, the last episodes left me sharing almost the same sensations of being at the same sixes and sevens as the participants felt - the bombed, the bombers, the soldiers and the civilians. It was reminiscent of the wrap parties we used to have when our theater group ended a run. 

Time, tide and distance, I think, permit this ridiculous parallel. 

At any rate....I am all set for things to go back to normal. All my favorite news people (essentially Stewart and Colbert) should be back at the old stand tomorrow. And, soon, the weather will change and so will the color of the landscape.

Autumn arrives......and I persist. Pretty jolly, what?

           -30-

Your Pain is My Pain

My AOL desktop  banner has an icon of little greenbacks which, when you click on it, will  tell you where the stockmarket is at any given moment. I've programmed into it the two oil companies whose stock I inherited when my husband died four years ago and I check it frequently.

Exxon at this minute is at $87.98 a share and Chevron is at $109.44. Historically, the stocks split when they stay up near $100 a share. The dividends from these two oil giants make up a good part of my income. I'd like them to split. I'd like them to raise their dividends.

And I loathe them.

Especially Exxon, which is leading the way to fracking this country to rack and ruin.

Since beginning this journal, I have identified myself as a flaming liberal and an outspoken critic of religion. Beyond that, I am a tree hugger and, if I had the energy, I would gladly travel the world throwing red paint on anyone wearing fur, killing whales and seals, or abusing animals.

With this record, you can see my dilemma. I should be a flower child, independent of reality. Instead, I need to be pragmatic and consider that dependent on me are 100 llamas, 20 goats, five cats, two horses and a very big dog.

I know Warren Buffett is deviled every day by little old ladies wanting financial advice, so I am not hopeful of hearing from him.

However, if there is anyone out there a little more accessible, and as successful as he is, I sure would like to know how I can dump these damnable companies and find a  similarly sound and secure investment that does not make me feel I should commit seppuku.

A Woman of the World

 About me: When I was a girl, this declaration would not have been looked on as a plus. However, I freely admit to being a woman of the world. That means, among other things, I have had husbands, lovers and children....not necessarily in that order. 

Beyond that, I have traveled extensively, although I have missed the whole far eastern half of the hemisphere. I've eaten well...too well in the last few years. I've dined in some of the world's finest restaurants and in some dives.

I've climbed a volcano; searched the Amazon for pink dolphin; water skied  in a moat at the Danbury State Fair; had a life-sized photo of me in a bathing suit erected at the New York Boat Show touting Tuffy Pumps (much to my mother's dismay), sailed all the windward and leeward Caribbean islands and been to nearly every state in the U.S.

I've lived in Manhattan, been to boarding school, went  to tea dances at The Pierre, cocktailed at Toots Shor's and 21, dined at the Stork Club, dated boys from Princeton, Lehigh, Lafayette and Annapolis, worked for Hy Gardner on the old Herald Tribune, did some P.R., wrote advertising copy,  wrote for newspapers and magazines and then lived a thoroughly modern small-town life of a young matron doing all the small town society thing.

I've had two husbands and three children....not to mention a veritable league of dogs, cats, fish and birds.

At the itchy age of 40 something, I exchanged my upscale suburban home, replete with amazing new kitchen and kidney-shaped swimming pool, and bought a Virginia farm a stone's throw from Monticello where I labored for a number of years mucking manure, pulling crias out of llama mamas, and arguing with hay dealers.

And now I am a widow and a very content lady of leisure, having passed all my responsibilities (except for my Pyr and my cats) onto my daughter's able shoulders.

To be happy, all I need is a never-ending supply of books and occasional lively conversation...which I sometimes find on Facebook!

If I am not a woman of the world, could anyone tell me what I have missed...and how I go about finding it?

-30-