Gainesville

Day was nearly derailed by a killer sinus headache mid-morning, the worst in years. It settled back to tolerable levels after a few hours.

Bill took me food shopping mid-afternoon. Pretty much basic Leanne this week. Tonight I made salmon cakes that turned out well, despite being kind of messy. 'Baga Fries too-- THANKS for the wonderful peeler, Sandy! What a difference it made in peeling them. I'm more convinced than ever that I need to do several weeks per year of being your apprentice.

Loved tonight's letter to Pa and Dan, Mom. The stuff about Chris' paper route was priceless. I think this must have been 1961, which would have made him 12. That little bit of him tossing up his "green snow" is, dare I say it, priceless. Thanks for recording it originally, and taking time to re-record it for the blog. And it's very nice to see how much effort you made to keep in touch with your parents back then. And we get to be part of it now.

Will try to get back to 1952 soon. Have lots to say about that time. And I'm working on a better, more modern blog for the first of the year, that will make it easier for us to comment on each other's posts as well as post our own.

Gainesville

Just to make it official... I'm back. Still struggling to reconcile the two simultaneous time-lines I've been maintaining the past six days-- trying to convince myself that the LATER one is reality, not the earlier one. Going out to eat tonight at what felt like 3:00 PM was not that hard-- but telling myself that it's now nearly 11:30 and time for bed is not that easy. Wonder how long this double vision will go on.

I had a remarkably uneventful flight back Was up late last night (not surprisingly), slept late this morning (ditto). Got completely unpacked, five loads of wash done, changed sheets and towels, etc. Not exactly caught up FL-wise, but on the way.

Unable to get the drivers license renewed today, so Bill will take me shopping tomorrow. Next week will be a little more complicated than usual until that is taken care of. We're putting off getting the tree til next weekend; with any luck, I'll have a place amid the clutter cleared for it by then.

Bill is busy snoring on the couch, the cat in his lap. It's sounding like a very good plan. More tomorrow.

Here we are at the airport, having had a most mediocre meal (steak). That's the real trouble with airport hotels; they don't go all out for food. A pity not to eat well eight miles from San Francisco.

We spent a couple of hours at Thea's today, after Suzy's time in the library and a little tour of the old places (1719, 5482, etc.). We got her talking about some of the old times, such as going dancing in San Francisco. That was fun.

We left there just before three and the traffic across the Bridge was not bad at all. I (Sandy) realized once we got to the airport that this trip may have been the first times I've driven the Bridge myself! I've always been the navigator, I think, or, earlier in my life, the passenger, waiting to give a quarter to the person at the toll booth. You remember when there were driver's side and passenger's side toll booths.

Mom, we'd love to hear more details about Pearl Harbor day. Please continue!!

----
Suzy here.

It's been a fun trip, but exhausting too. I'm definitely ready to go home. Many things I usually do there wasn't time for this trip. The plan is now to return in July. Bill and I will go to the San Diego Comic-Con again this year and make it a longer trip-- drive up to the Bay Area. Bill has an uncle he likes in Palo Alto, and has yet to meet Thea. I'm trying to convince Sandy to come again at the same time. It was great fun being here with her. We both remember so many of the same things, and feel the same way about certain places. Would like to do some more of that. We didn't get a chance to go down the Peninsula, or to the beach, to say nothing of walking around in San Fran.

Had a nice evening out with my friend E.J. and his wife last night-- we had sushi and heard a jazz concert at a place in downtown Oakland called Yoshi's. To my surprise, Thea knew about Yoshi's and remembered it when it was up on Claremont. She has a memory of stainless steel, quite remarkable.

More about the trip when I get back and resume at least semi-regular blogs. Look forward to resuming transcribing my diary, and reading more of your letters, or whatever you feel like transcribing, Mom.

And many thanks to Marty for pitching in while Sandy and I were mostly off-line.

Time for bed. Tomorrow we fly. I won't get home 'til after 10-- going East is much harder, always, especially coast to coast.

Hello, it's me, Marty! The blog seems a little lonely right now so I thought I'd make a small appearance. Today was supposed to be a very rare work-at-home day, which started out well, but was foiled. We make the maps for the Mall of America (one of the first projects I ever worked on at my job, 12 years ago!!!!) and some changes are required. I was at home working away on the changes today when I got an e-mail telling me the legal department couldn't make up their minds - so I had to stop in midstream. Too late at that point to go in to work - especially when it was so f---ing cold.

So I cooked instead. I had already started a crock-pot Hungarian Goulash (ran into Oma and Charlie at the grocery store this morning buying ingredients). I had been wanting to try making cheese straws for a long time and realized I had plenty of cheese in the house so I made up a batch. I used extra sharp cheddar, blue cheese crumbles and some sad old parmesan. Fabulous! These will show up at all future parties. I used the recipe for food processor cheese straws in the Joy of Cooking. Very easy and so good. I also whipped up a batch of hummus for a party my friend Elizabeth is having tomorrow night. This is an annual event she calls "Calm Before the Storm." The idea is to get women friends together for an evening right before the Christmas frenzy gets going - since women are usually the ones doing most of the work to get the holiday season together. Really it's an excuse to eat a lot and drink wine - no men allowed. The challenge is to keep from getting drunk when one has to go to work the next day.

Kid news - Julia's first season of high school hockey is going well. This is the first year we have had girls' HS hockey in River Falls and so far they have only lost two games - one to the defending state champs (their very first game), and one to a hot-shot high-level composite team form St. Paul. Julia, being a freshman, gets some ice time but not a ton. No goals for her yet. She is still doing great in school, too. She got a 3.85 GPA for her first quarter. Wow!

Ben continues to amaze. He memorizes songs and movie lines immediately and loves to act out scenes. Right now he is really into Star Wars Epsode III (Revenge of the Sith) and says Santa will bring him Jedi fighters. (Something tells me he is right). He is almost always happy, smiling and cooperative. He has the killer grin that brings even strangers to their knees. He talks to everyone everywhere we go. He will either be a performer, salesman or politician.
Go to View mode to see a collage I put together of some fairly recent pics.

Okay, it's time for me to give Ben a bath, since he is already naked and running amok.
I won't promise I will post again anytime soon, but I'll try.
Bye!