on the road again

“Dad, do you know where you are camping this weekend?” It was Arline aka daughter one.

“Not entirely, I thought . . .”

“You are camping at my place. Three of your daughters will be here for sure and 9 or your 11 grandkids.”

So the decision was made for me!

Griffy and Matt had been to camp all week (Jessica had been to camp for two weeks). Josh and his mother Dea were driving up from SF to trade a Josh for a Griffy!

Then I discovered more. Josh was to come home with me, but only after he spent a few days (most of a week actually) with cousins. I was to be there during that time, working!

So, here I am in servitude again. Slaving away, breaking concrete, clearing out a greenhouse, sweating and having a great time along the way. Miriam keeps the kitchen “grandma clean.” Yesterday we got a LOT of work done and the week is just beginning!

At home my neighbor will be sure that my garden is watered and we will spend yet another week or more away from home.

This morning I joked to a my daughter Arline: “I should be a full time RV person, and just go from daughter to daughter being useful!"

She laughed a bit, but not too much!

griffy

My grandson the clown!
(He is a great camping partner, btw).

roles and head games

After we married, Miriam and I divided up the house tasks pretty much on traditional lines.

I worked for money, Miriam took primary care of the kids, made a little money on the side and did the cooking. We made decisions together, mostly.

That was before I retired and before AD.

The kids are grown now, none live closer than 3 hours away. I cook, but the kitchen belongs to Miriam and I have to make a lot of decisions that WE used to make.

I work now, but I don’t work all the time. Some days I don’t work too much at all. But that good old work ethic guilt kicks in -- regularly.

My studio is comfortable and is equipped well enough and I spend a good bit of time in it, but I am not a great artist and I don’t produce master pieces. Mostly I don’t mind. It is not necessary to be best at much of anything, I am told.

But as time goes on, more and more of what I used to think was very important, does not get done, and what makes it worse is that that is OK -- I think.

Maybe that is OK after all, but guilt still talkes to me sometimes.

i wanted to photograph Emily (and my other granddaughters) with both of her front teeth out, but they did not come out at the same time!
When she was this age she spent a great deal of time at our house. I miss those wonderful days.
Then she lived 25 miles away, now she is 400.

sweet sixteen

Today is Emily's 16th birthday.

Hard to imagine it has been that long, and hard to imagine it has gone so fast.

She is a beautiful granddaughter, her grandfather is especially proud of her and her mother. Mom did a good job raising Emily!

We have 4 granddaughters: Jessica, Emily, Brianna and Amy. There is bit over a year between the first three of them. Amy is the youngest, but she is 13 already!

We are lucky grandparents!

Garden hat and garden computer!

102

We have had one of the coldest, wettest springs on record this year.

Only a couple of days in the 80's so far.

But yesterday made up for at least part of it.

102. Not what we expected or wished for, but we got it.

I was in the garden at 7 and I got a lot of work done by breakfast at 10.

Then I hid inside the rest of the day!

Today will be cooler.

ron

I met Ron a long time ago.

We worked on the same construction crew. I was foreman, Ron was the guy with the good eye and the strong back. We became good friends.

Years passed and we kept in touch. His mother in law had inherited a valuable painting. She was going to sell the painting and do some noble job for mankind. She borrowed money based on the value of the painting and proceeded with a video production company.

I was asked to be the director.

But mom was very unstable. In time Ron and wife divorced. She needed some money for something and Ron's father loaned her several thousand dollars which was used to enhance her figure. Dad was not amused.

Ron, after numerable attempts at reconciliation with his ex wife had met a lady and wanted to marry. He asked me if I would stand up in the wedding. A good friend said he would take pictures as a favor to me (friend was a professional photographer). Ron's mother refused to come to the wedding and spent the day locked in her room. She had hoped Ron and his X could get back together and she would accept no other option.

When we moved to Washington State from Texas, Ron and his new wife were living in the same town. He invited us over for a meal. Sounded good, so we went. He met us at the door, saying his new wife (it had been several years), would not come out of her room, that she did not want to meet us and that she had destroyed all of the pictures my friend had taken at their wedding. “She hated those pictures your friend took.”

I never saw him again.

He did tell me that his mother-in-law had destroyed the painting that was so valuable. It was a nude by someone that was supposed to be famous. I never saw the painting, nor did they share any information, but the fact that it was a nude was bad to her.

She blamed the painting for all the problems in her life.

Interesting logic.

early detection

I read that there is a new way of detecting Alzheimer's earlier.

The story got front page on the NY Times this morning.

I guess there is some advantage of knowing early and knowing for sure, but if there is nothing that can be done to cure or even really treat the disease, what is the point?

So far we have a few very spendy drugs that may or may not make the patient sharper as they are going down the dark path. These drugs do not promise a cure, and they don't promise to make the disease progress slower. But they might.

There is a lot of controversy about the very efficacy of these drugs, but once the doc says to take them, we are terrified of taking our loved ones off of them. Truthfully, some seem to get great results and some do not.

My suspicion is that we are talking about a whole lot more variables here than we might wish.

Hooray for a small victory, though I am less than wonder struck.

Sorry.

It ain't what it used to be, but it still is!

neighbors

Don is my daughter's neighbor.

He is straight out of a movie, not one of those romantic movies, but one of the horror ones.

She planted a little garden on the side of yard, and about the time it came up, "don" sprayed it with RoundUp, because: "It was bringing bugs into his yard."

The garden was throughly on her side of the fence, but oh well.

His place thoroughly covered by surveillance cameras. The neighbors on the other side had girl who would pose and make faces for the cameras. Mom: "Don't tease stupid people."

Once his El Camino was parked on the street and a local contractor's pickup rolled into it. "Don" made sure he got a whole new paint job and a lot of other stuff out of the insurance company.

Now he parks his 70 something Chevy pickup in the same place, obviously waiting for the same thing to happen again. The pickup is legally licensed (though I don't think it actually runs). Ever so often "Don" comes out with a paint brush and house paint and gives it a fresh coat of white paint, so it does not look abandoned.

I walked down toward his fence with a tape measure in my hand and he was out in a flash to check on my intentions.

When I think of my neighbors, who are about as good as they get, i am blessed.

The "Don's" of the world add a bit of texture to the mix, but at a horrible price, I fear.

53 cookies

Sunday was Father's day.

It is not one of those big time deals, and I really did forget it about it.

We were camping in Eastern Oregon, up in "Paint Your Wagon" country. Verizon people had phone contact, but the one that claims the best nation wide coverage (ATT) had none.

So I missed the messages from my daughters. And, once I got back within range my new phone, it turned out, is not set up to answer voice mail yet, so I still do not know what the messages were (or were not!).

But, we met Arline (daughter 1) to pass Griffy up the line of family, and she had a gift for dad.

53 cans of my favorite libation: Dr. Pepper Diet, as well as 53 cookies, in frozen dough form, for my enjoyment. Arline made the cookies, and froze them, so these were not some factory jobs.

"Do you understand the significance of 53?" I have been a father for 53 years!

The first year I was a father to be, but Miriam was definitely pregnant, so that year was counted.

Thanks for the wonderful memories daughters dear.

Somehow it does not seem that long.