I just about started this post with, "So . . ."
Thus I knew I was off to a rough start.
The muse escaped months ago.
That's not necessarily a bad thing.
It only means blogging has become more like a chore than an avocation.
I mean, heck, it started on a whim.
I was actually copy-catting some others . . . who, by the way, are not longer blogging.
The blog has turned out to be a fine way to keep family and friends updated.
I can write once and then send links.
It's almost like writing a letter [remember those?].
The best part is pictures, if they're available, can be added.
I'd say it's been fun sharing moments with everyone, but regulars here know there have been some trying moments.
Blogging has been a release at those times.
Also, it allows me to write one sentence paragraphs, write sentences without subjects, mess with commas and apostrophes, and play with infinitives.
So this is the last post for September 2017 . . . unless, of course, there's something truly dramatic to post about.
The may be a post tomorrow if MB and I return from The North State early enough [or I write one now and put it in the queue].
Sarge posted yesterday.
He was all over the place with his post, a veritable potpourri.
He finally got around to the important part at the end of the post.
Granddaughters.
I was going to mention that she is number five of five.
Then realized that isn't fair . . . or correct.
There are more grandchildren than I can want to count.
They're all first.
MB and I were at Portland, Oregon.
No, it wasn't another convention.
Three or four conventions each year are enough [actually one is plenty . . . trust me].
This event is more about learning, getting together with friends, and making new friends.
Oh and food, 1300 people sitting down for lunch and dinner.
just a few of the folks getting ready to sit down for dinner
There were also opportunities to go out for meals at dinner time.
Wednesday we met friends and had dinner at Stanford's in Lloyd Center, a few blocks from our hotel.
It was good enough to recommend and we did.
Friday night we had dinner at Huber's, "the oldest restaurant in Portland."
It was worth going just to watch them make Spanish coffee, but the food was good, too.
Huber's (source: MB)
To get everywhere, including from Portland's airport we traveled on MAX, the light rail system.
We'd been provided with passes for the period covering the Forum.
The line ran right past the Oregon Convention Center, which was only three blocks from our hotel.
Even when we had to pay, riding the train was inexpensive and, except in downtown, really got places relatively fast.
We did experience a full range of weather conditions, from rain [a downpour] on Wednesday afternoon, fog on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday mornings, to a bright, warm day on Sunday, which we'd reserved for sightseeing.
First we rolled west across the Willamette River, past Union Station.
Through the city center, through Goose Hollow, to Washington Park and the Oregon Zoo.
After walking through the zoo, we made our way to the Rose Garden.
Portland bills itself as the City of Roses.
MB took a few photos.
I was perfectly happy to observe Mt. Hood.
it's there . . . center right
There was an award presented to the California Lions for having the highest attendance at the forum.
Of course the Oregon Lions were ineligible because they were hosting.
All in all it was a good time and in many ways more entertaining than a convention.
At each of the provided meals there was a keynote speaker with some kind of inspirational message.
For the third year there was a walk to promote and raise funds for diabetes awareness with a lunch provided for participants.
Yep!
Flying to Portland this morning.
MB and I are attending
click image for more info
Its been an irregular item in the annual routine for about the last 15 years.
There will probably be a whole bunch of friends there and we will probably make some new friends.
There will be four banquets with four speakers, three days of seminars, a walk for Diabetes Awareness, and some huge service opportunities for the attendees.
There is also so free time to enjoy the offerings of the city.
The weather is rumored to include precipitation.
With any luck we'll have something to fill this space the rest of the week [Friday is handled].
I really don't need much imagination to come up with a title for the posts.
Where imagination comes in is in the part where I have to write something.
My blogger dashboard tells me this is blog post 3,612 3,611.
I calculated from other information on the dashboard that there is an average of slightly more than 35 views per post.
According to the widget on the sidebar there are around 50 followers of this blog.
What that means is even the followers don't check in every day [Suldog has an excuse].
What I am doing here is writing until I come up with an idea for a blog post.
It isn't working.
. . . while the rest of you were reading [sic] this blog . . . I was off to Costco to purchase some necessities.
I might purchase them elsewhere, but they aren't available in the quantities we'd like anywhere else I can be dragged kicking and screaming stomach for longer than about five minutes.
Before I moved south to Northern California . . . you know, when I lived in the North State . . . I thought the customers at Costco in Redding were ill-mannered, impolite, discourteous, and uncivil rude.
Now I realize most of them were probably just visiting from down here.
They behave like that because they were disappointed that the Redding store is only half the sized of the Elk Grove store and it doesn't sell gasoline.
I discovered long ago that the best times to shop at Costco are the first thing in the morning, just as it opens [when the lizards are all still under their rocks], or in the last hour before it closes.
Another good time is when schools are letting out and all the moms are jockeying for the best spot in the pick-up/drop-off, but you don't want to miss-time it or you'll end up in a store full of curtain climbers.
You definitely want to miss the first couple of days after the new shopper bulletin goes into effect.
Sometimes I get stupid and actually browse the store.
That's when I act like the customers who really irritate me because I'm in their way.
What's funny (ironic, not ha-ha) is that now I live a lot closer to Costco and shop there less often.
What I really want to find is a good bagel shop nearby.
This time of year it seems like there are lots of them.
Wednesday there were two. Duckie turned nine and MB and I commemorated a year of living dangerously deciding we wanted more than texting.
I already forgot what Thursday was.
There is a truckload of things from the beginning of last month that hold meaning, some are happy memories, some not.
Yesterday was MB's birthday [thanks for the cake and the song, Sandee].
She is older than nine.
We have a running argument.
Neither of us will give an inch.
nobody gets angry. So we both win.
As Skip mentioned yesterday, we celebrate an anniversary of sorts, mainly because we celebrate all kinds of occasions. Isn’t that what you do when you’re in love? Like the day last August (the 12th) when we met for breakfast at McDonald’s in Anderson, me with 6 grandchildren in tow on the way to Washington, and no idea about any of what was to occur. This year we went out to breakfast to celebrate.
Or the following weekend (August 20th) when we both came from our separate places to have dinner with friends from our Lions group and had absolutely no thought of any of what was to occur. That dinner happened at Red Robin in Vacaville with Bob and Suzie. This year we were in Oregon for the eclipse so we had dinner at Red Robin in Eugene, just without Bob and Suzie.
Then there’s the next day when we commemorate the first “Good Morning” text Skip sent me, with NO IDEA of what it would lead to. That was followed by a couple weeks of texting, just friends having conversations that led to a deepening friendship which led to an invitation to a reunion which led to . . . . We celebrated that on September 5, the day of the invitation. I remember, so vividly, so much of what happened on each of those days.
Yesterday, September 13, was the anniversary of our first “date” - breakfast, face to face. We had breakfast side by side, celebrating my granddaughter’s 9th birthday. Next week, the 18th, is a year since our second “date”, a dinner at my house with my family. We’ll fly to Oregon for a Lions conference that day – the same conference Skip was returning from when he came to my house for dinner. By the way, the 18th is also our 7th “monthiversary”.
Then there is the picnic we had on the 23rd, which included a walk around the lake, and a pretty special kiss. I can still picture almost every moment. Yes, there are stars in my eyes. . . .
The last year has been a whirlwind of activity, change, stress, emotion, fun, work, and, most of all, incredible blessing. From first text to first date to proposal to wedding seemed to us like forever but when I look back I see why some thought we were moving awfully fast. And it would have been too fast if we hadn’t already known each other for 10 years.
One year ago, pretty much the whole months of September and October, the world seemed to be turning upside down. But perspective is much different looking back than it is when you are in the middle of life-changing events. What I realize now is that the world was being made right again.
God has promised to bind up the broken hearted and make all things new and indeed he has. He has taken two broken people and given us a new life together that we celebrate every day.
How did this happen? We have NO IDEA! We just know that it did and that’s something to celebrate!
Yesterday
We find ourselves saying, "Who'd o' thunk?" a lot around here.
First off, let me wish Ducky a happy 9th birthday.
We, all nine of us, went to Black Bear Diner for breakfast this morning at 7am. Eeyore was the only grump.
So, there I was*, a year ago, leaving out great parts of a developing story.
If you go back an look at posts, here on the blog, you'll see that I was heading for Omaha.
What I didn't mention was just how much the world changed at that time.
I was bitching about flying while thinking about how soon I would be back. This post hints at it a little. This one a little more. The bottom line is today is one year since this got really serious.
Yeah, it's been awhile since we posted a "Monday update."
There really isn't anything to update, unless you consider there were three soccer games and a gymnastics meet this last weekend. Actually, there was a lot more than that, but that's what was in the immediate vicinity [we could stretch ourselves even further].
Those were only the most visible of our activities over the latter part of the last week.
I should mention now, rather than later, MB was the really busy one.
I remember, when I was a kid, on Saturdays I could always find a game at the park, at the playground, or at one of the schools.
Sometimes we even played in the street or someones yard or driveway, depending on what game we were playing.
We didn't worry about uniforms, paid referees or umpires, or if there were kids younger or older than us.
We only concerned ourselves with having enough players and a ball.
We didn't time the games either.
If one team was creaming another we just redistributed the players.
We never saw many adults around. They only showed up when they wanted their kid to do something else.
If there was an adult hanging around we'd find something else to do somewhere else.
Sometimes we would spend the entire day playing.
Nobody won, or lost, even though we kept score.
It was just fun.
Now it seems a kid can't have fun unless a group of adults has organized it and it costs money.
Sometimes the travel time to and from is longer than the game.
Don't get me started about those activities that have been organized all the way over to Sundays
Awhile back, on a whim, I spit in a bottle and sent it off to an outfit partnering with NationalPornographicGeographic Society.
It's called the Genographic Proect.
They notified me the other day they were done sequencing my DNA.
The first thing they tell me is that the origin of our species lies in Africa.
Then they proceeded to tell me that as my "modern human ancestors migrated through Eurasia, they met other hominin
species and interbred. These “cousin” species, like the Neanderthals . . ."
The average person, according to the study, is about 1.3% Neanderthal.
I'm about 1.5% Neanderthal, which explains a lot.
What interested me most was finding that my regional ancestry from 500 - 10,000 years ago is 97% from Northwestern Europe and 2% West Mediterranean.
More specifically, they tell me I am pretty much Scots-Irish.
source: screen capture
I'm guessing some of the West Mediterranean came about after the Spanish Armada was routed by Sir Francis Drake.
It's neat to find what I've been telling people ever since I can remember is an actuality.
I'm Irish.
I may visit this some more at a future date.
It was stupid hot over the weekend. I mean in the low teens.
The real capper was all of the smoke from the fires up north.
It was like a bad fog here, even worse further north.
I'm much happier posting items like this.
source: California Deer Association
It was reported to have been taken near Weaverville.
The original post was asking for a caption.
Go to the O'Reilly Auto Parts website.
Google it.
Type the name O'Reilly Auto Parts.
The exercise will do you good.
Then type "121G" in the search box.
The opening picture in this post is what attracted me to this post from two years ago.
. . .when the thirteenth of the month rolls around is reference an old comic strip by Walt Kelly and say something like:
"Friday the 13th is on a Thursday this month!"
Then there's a cartoon of a furry or feathered beast ducking or jumping into the water.
But, since this is a travelogue and I am only writing about 13 August, I will skip that for now.
Instead we'll try to remember we're in Ireland without our luggage [which, for those of you who are curious, has yet to appear].
(once again, click the pics to enlarge)
So, today we are headed north to the Boyne Valley, not the historical part but the prehistorical part.
River Boyne
We are visiting Newgrange, a World Heritage site.
We started early because the number of visitors allowed is limited and access is restricted to only so many folks at one time.
The first stop is the visitor center, where our guide had arranged for a coworker to get our tickets before we'd even entered the building.
Thus we were in the first tour group.
That worked to both his advantage and ours.
He would get back to Dublin in time to take out another small group and we'd have more time to walk around the city center
We crossed a footbridge over the river to a spot where we caught a bus to take us through the scenic countryside. . .
to. . .
. . .and amazing structure that is more than 5000 years old.
Yeah, folks, older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian Pyramids [prettier, too].
One of the interesting things to note is the locals didn't have any more tools than the Egyptians and, to anyone's knowledge, no slaves to help them move the rock, little of which was local.
The big stuff came from the Wicklow Mountains, some 70 miles south.
The smaller stuff is from a little closer.
It is supposed that it was placed on rafts or boats and floated to the site, taking some 40 plus years to construct.
The entry and the window
The upper opening was placed such that the Sunlight will enter on the winter solstice and reach the center of the construction.
Back at the visitor center there was some educated guesses as to how the folks lived and transported the rocks.
