Update On My Doings...

Yesterday afternoon I attended a dual birthday cook-out for two friends that my sister and I have known, literally, since we were just out of diapers. Although Jackie is cruising in Alaska, I drove over to Enchanted Island (Spanaway, WA) and had a great time with Mary Jane Cooper (the mom of the two ladies who were celebrating their birthdays and my coach when I was a kid playing baseball on a team called The Ponytails) and another older lady who's related by marriage to the birthday girls Penny and Judi (nee Cooper).

Penny is a teacher and Judi is an x-ray or MRI technician. Judi told me she recently uncovered old photos of Jackie and me attending Judi's and Penny's birthday parties as kids. She had them digitized and is going to send them to me soon, so I'll post some of them here. I have very few photos of myself as a kid; I was usually the one taking the photos! (I'm the family historian, turns out, since I have always been the writer in the family and have taken lots of pictures!)

Mary Jane and I are going to go out in a couple of weeks and do some bird-watching while the prime bird-watching habitat is still so nearby (until a six lane highway goes through in the near future). She has been battling the powers that be for fifty years to try and get them to bypass a particularly wonderful bird and mammal habitat area near Spanaway, but the growing population and their elected officials have decided that access trumps wetlands, so the highway will be going through at some point, sadly...

After dinner, Mary Jane's youngest, Greg (side note: Greg's sisters and I taught him how to hit the center of the toilet bowl as a young boy by "sinking the boat" with pee! How hysterical is that?! Please Note: I didn't bring this up last night in front of his four children -- aren't you proud of me?) took me out on Spanaway Lake for a cruise around its perimeter. His young daughter drove -- she's probably 12 or 13 -- and did a great job.

There are many, many multi-million dollar homes dotting the Lake these days. I'll be visiting one of them soon when I attend a birthday party for a friend named Carol Beitz (pronounced "bites") who's turning 70 real soon. Nancy LeMay (LeMay is a huge transportation company here in Tacoma) has offered her lake house as the gathering place for the party, and Jackie and I are going. I'll try to remember to take my camera and take some pictures... I saw the place from the lake last night and just about swooned. It's fabulous.

Tonight I'm planning to attend a Town Hall meeting on health care in Lakewood. Rep. Adam Smith will be there and the Obama folks encouraged me to print out a sign and attend to show support for health care insurance reform because they're pretty sure the opposition will be there in force and they want our side to show up, too. I'll try to take a camera and will report the evening (if I actually go) to the Huffington Post. I've printed out a sign already. Dr. Mary Jo Robinson would have gone along, too, but she's in Yakima until 5 pm today and can't make it back in time...



Friday Mary Jo and I are going biking on the Orting Trail and then we're linking up with Pastor Pat Leksen to go have lunch somewhere. I'm really looking forward to Friday!

Today I dug around in the garden and harvested some cukes, squash and zucchini. I also rode my bike 5 miles (did that yesterday, too, but went 7 miles then) and am about to take off for another walk until some more work comes in here for me. I'm now working on TWO books with clients (rewriting/editing/copy enhancing) and both clients have several more books after these ones to get out, so it looks like I'll be busy for quite some time with just these two clients. WOO HOO! I'm LOVING IT!

Guess that's about it for this time...