Weekend Comings and Goings...

The weekend whizzed by again and I really didn’t want this one to do that because Wednesday Bobbie flies back to North Carolina so our "full days" together are gone! Waaahhh!

Saturday we stopped to see Aunt Tod (still in the hospital but looking better). We went there first, but she was in dialysis on another floor, so we left her a note, a vase of flowers and a little angel to let her know we had been there and that we would be back when she was in her room again.

From there, we drove down the hill into Tacoma where we spent just a little over an hour at the Museum of Glass. We watched some glass artists creating vases and other vessels for a while and then visited all the galleries where everything was made of glass – fascinating!

After that we grabbed a couple of Kentucky Fried Chicken meals and went to Owen Beach to eat them. The day was overcast but warm enough still for enjoyment. It was about 70 degrees F. We watched many forms of watercraft going to and fro in Puget Sound as we ate – al the while trying to get two yellow jackets to invest time eating our leftovers instead of what we were trying to put into our mouths, with limited success. They didn’t get mad at us – we just kept trying to "lead" them away from the best stuff with a chicken bone with a little left on it – but they were too smart for that ploy. (These are beach bees – they know where the good stuff is: at the entrance to the mouth!)

After that we drove across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge – the old one in one direction, the new one on the way back. In case you ever saw the old film footage of "Galloping Gertie" back in the 40’s, these are the bridges that replaced that bridge after it fell into the Sound almost a thousand feet below… These new bridges are built of sturdier stock. (I believe you can still access film footage of the 1940’s era bridge collapse on-line by doing a search on "Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse’ or "Galloping Gertie" and it’s worth the search.)

After that we came back to St Joe’s and found Aunt Tod back in bed, so we visited her for about 40 minutes (until her eyes started looking droopy and her voice began to fail), then we skedaddled out of there so we wouldn’t deplete what the nurses have been working so diligently to recover.

When we got home it was about 2 pm. We gabbed into the night and I went to sleep at about eight or nine.

Yesterday we went to church and after that at lunch at Bur’s Restaurant. I fell asleep promptly after lunch sitting in the recliner. I will blame that on Bobbie because she put on some of the most amazing Montovani music (classic operas without words) I have ever heard and they lulled me to sleep better’n a sledghammer on my skull could have!

At four I awoke and Bobbie and I drove to Jackie’s for dinner. Another friend of hers, a 67 year old female race car driver named Evelyn – came by for a visit and dinner, so Jackie’s grandkids took turns getting into the driver’s seat of her race car, which was parked out front, and donning her race helmet. I filmed all of that on a movie camera. Grins, grins everywhere.

Dinner was great as was the company. Phil, Wendy, Casey and Jamie were there, too and later, Lizzie and Isabella came too, so the whole gang was there eventually.
Bobbie and I got home about eight and we laughed ourselves silly for most of the rest of the night. Suddenly it was 11:30 pm and I had to get some sleep so I could work today with competency.

We have about 12 hours of "togther time" left before she flies away. That’s not enough. We’ll be fitting in stuff we forgot to say before now, I’m sure…

It has been an absolute blast. I caught some of it on videotape so Bobbie can take it home to share with anyone else who might be interested…

Alison has emailed a time or two, as have Billie and Helen. Scout’s honor: I will be responding to each of them better on the weekend, if not before… I’m usually a much better correspondent.

And some of the people I met at the convention emailed some cool photos, so I will be adding them to this blog sometime soon…