Category: family

rDay Two-Hundred-Forty-Six: Thanksgiving Report

Nik and Lawrence visit Grandma Janet at 103 and get a Google Hangouts session going for her with some of the Seattlites: Ivi, Melissa and Rohit. We look in as the latter three are the midst of feast preparations, later to be joined (but whom we missed) by Lisle, Chika and Jared.

On the homefront, we make it a day of board games (Kim buys half a dozen games, some actually never before used, from a local thrift store at the rate of $1), interspersed with frequent snacks and light fare whenever desired — like lobster sandwiches and cheesecake — eschewing a one-time, traditional gluttony session. (For those numerous world travelers, would-be inluded, in the family, we can make a qualified recommendation of the “Travel Buff” game.)

Finally, we watch a couple of espisodes of the new Amazon speculative, alternate dystopian history fiction series, based on the Philip K. Dick work, of “The Man In The High Castle”. (While it may have been a bit overhyped, at least Nik and Lawrence will continue watching.)

Some wireless remote testing …
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Another 1975 Multi-Day Bicycle Trip

These were probably taken somewhere between Santa Barbara and Santa Maria.  During the few months that my brother and niece shared my Santa Monica Canyon house, I perhaps attained my greatest level of physical fitness before or since with miles and miles of daily riding (though only a fraction of what Dennis undertook).   Dennis frequently stopped on these trips to repair his tires; he ran sew-ups while my bike was shod with lower-performing but more durable clinchers.

Summer 1975: Bicycles and Gabrielle

Memorable from that period were some of bicycle treks — shown here are two photos of an early morning departure for a run from Venice to Laguna Beach (60 miles each way) with Dennis and Mike (aka Rojo) and a couple of scenes from the sojourn from Venice to Solvang (about 125 miles each way), where I experienced the most excruciating relentless uphill stretches ever in the mountains out of Santa Barbara.  (Even bicycle racer/mechanic “iron man” Dennis suffered a blister or two.)  And the best memory highlighting that summer was a visit of a few weeks by niece Gabrielle, all the way from New York City.  (The white-haired gentleman, whose name I forget, was her maternal grandfather.)

rDay Two-Hundred-One

20151012-DSCN0672-Edit-EditAs her final act (performance?) before departing for Seattle (via Portland for a few days and perhaps Corvallis), Ivi proposes that we engage Charlie in an early morning walk. We make a variation on the customary jaunt to Gekeler and past Birnie Park, through the Forest Service/EOU boundary fields, across to Lower Hillcrest and on to main Hillcrest, then return through the EOU campus early enough before the impact of classes and student traffic.

After eating a sumptuous breakfast upon our return, we assemble Ivi’s luggage, (including her shark ukelele) and await the arrival of biologist and former classmate John for the drive to Portland. By mid-morning they are off, and the house takes on a quietude not experienced for some time.