6 September …
Tonight is “Back to School” night and George and I will not be going with the family. Everyone is so busy the schedule didn’t jell.
Oh well …
Some day we’ll take a morning and visit. Then we’ll get to meet his teacher and see his classroom so the stories I hear when I ask “What happened at school today?” will be more visual.
The first search will be for his Gingerbread Man. He had to memorize the story last week (which he repeated for us with facial and body emphasis) and then all the children made ones of their own.
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The rejuvenated TinMan triathlon was last Sunday. Poor Net Control for this event has to juggle two radios … one the regular amateur radio for connection with the stations and the other a family band for connection with the event organizers, so this year we added a transcriber to keep notes (that was me).
George was out at his usual station on the bicycle route at the corner of Ream and Old Stage, Mark’ station was out on the road to Gumboot Lake at the first turnaround for the bicycles (South Fork of the Sacramento), and Kamille took my spot on the bicycle route at Ream and WABarr. Paul was with his father and won the heart of the Rotary volunteer assigned to that station.
The weather wasn’t as warm (hot) as it could have been due to the sky full of smoke. I don’t understand the physics, but smoke blocks sun (they tell me … as if I needed telling since we’ve been living in nearly perpetual dusk since the tenth of August) and that lowers the temperature. Without smoke, the temperature would have been in three digits, so I guess the smoke was good for something. Visibility was less than a mile. From the bathing beach (where everything started and ended), you couldn’t see across the lake. However, there was only one participant who had any trouble with the bad air and that wasn’t a danger.
The highlight of the event was a participant named Toby, a 60+ year old woman who was last all the way. She would go through each station smiling, waving, and shouting “I’m still last.” The first finisher did it in a bit over an hour. Toby took nearly three hours, but she did it. I’ll post a picture of her if I can find one.
The family, all seven of us, went out to dinner when we were done with the event. We went to a fairly new Mexican place called Don Tito’s … not bad but nothing exceptional either.
We were home by late afternoon, all tired but content.
Next event (the next to last) will be the Biketoberfest in McCloud saturday the 23rd.
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Tyler and Tiffany arrive tomorrow evening. They will be here for only five days and I plan to take up two of them. They will be helping me on Lollipop Day and they asked to go to Ashland with me one day. Tyler wants some fiber so he can begin spinning again and wants to go to WebSters. I’ll probably get some fiber as well (but you knew I’d do that, right?) to build a stash for Spinzilla which is only five weeks away.
I’ll need to share Tyler and Tiffany the rest of the time. Oh well …
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I am now the official picker-upper of Paul from the bus in the afternoon … at least until the snow flies. With all the pressures of moving and preparing for winter and making places in the community and jobs and Kamille’s evening class at COS … time is precious and I’m the one with the freest afternoons.
Yesterday on the way to the bus stop I picked choke cherries. This morning I will juice them and tomorrow will be jelly day.
Paul and I have plans to go on a Treasure Hunt one afternoon. He had a tourist map with Xs on it and one X was near Weed. He reads phonetically well enough to read “Weed” and so is convinced there’s a treasure there just waiting for him to find it. I agreed we’d go searching. Sort of like geo-caching. Now all I have to do is figure out where the treasure is so we can find it.
Oh well …
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New month … new Reading Woman ..
“CMS Reading by Gaslight”, 1884, William Stott (a 19th century Englishman know mainly for landscapes).
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The weather prediction is for maybe some showers in the next three days. That would be nice. It would cleanse the air and wash all the dust off the roadside vegetation. Going out to pavement is like driving through a sepia landscape.
Only two photographs this week, and those taken on one of the better days.
Not much to see.
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Hurricane Irma is bearing down on Florida. I have a cousin in Tampa. My candle is burning …
“It’s snowing still,” said Eeyore gloomily.
“So it is.”
“And freezing.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” said Eeyore. “However,” he said, brightening up a little, “we haven’t had an earthquake lately.”
― A.A. Milne
So … ‘til next week …