Donna and I are once again scheduling separate spring vacations. She’s going to California in April to visit aunts & uncles, attend the annual Giustina family reunion, and see some friends. Her destinations are all in northern California, from the Bay Area north to Chico. Meanwhile I’m planning a May motorcycle trip with our son Gregory. We were originally going to ride from Las Vegas to South Lake Tahoe and back. But I want to see friends in the Sacramento area, which is just downhill from Lake Tahoe, and Gregory thinks he can do some work with one of his casino accounts near Coulterville, so now we’re planning to hit NorCal too. Heading back to Las Vegas from Coulterville gives us an opportunity to cross the Sierras through Yosemite National Park, something we’ve both long wanted to do (weather permitting … late May can still surprise).
Donna and I have lots of friends in California, south and north, friends we’d like to visit as a couple, not separately. I’m thinking it’ll soon be time for another long car vacation together, later this year or maybe in the spring of 2018. Our kitchen counters are going fast and the house needs repainting and repair, so financing a road trip on top of home maintenance might get tricky. Will be tricky. Might be too hard to do. So no promises on when we’re coming, friends!
Back to the here & now: the issue of the day is dog diarrhea. Poor Schatzi has the runs. I’m looking up home remedies and will try those first. Tell you what, weekly poop patrol is an order of magnitude more unpleasant when you’re faced with raking up loosies.
So let’s move on. Both our kids were born in March, Gregory in 1966 and Polly in 1975. He turned 51 on the 10th and Polly turned 42 on the 16th. Damn, where does the time go? Polly came over on her birthday and we took a selfie under the palo verde tree out front.
She looks much younger, I think. I too look younger than I am, or so everyone says. Donna and Gregory as well. Sometimes I’m shocked to learn some of the really-old-looking people we meet are our own age, or even a few years younger. We need to learn to count our blessings.
The exterminator was here yesterday, poisoning ground squirrel burrows and pack rat nests. At this moment a healthy-looking ground squirrel is sitting on its haunches just outside our home office window. Maybe it’s a slow-acting poison? Normally I’d say live and let live, but ground squirrels chew the siding on our house and a few years ago pack rats gnawed through all the wiring under the hood of our old T-bird. Too bad we can’t all just get along, though.
I can hardly believe it myself, but I watched the first episode of Iron Fist on Netflix and liked it. I like Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, too, and I have a hard time saying why. I’m not a comic book or superhero fan, but the writers of these shows inject enough real life to make them interesting. Polly was asking me what else we watch on streaming TV; when I mentioned how much I’m enjoying Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I missed when it was first on TV, she said no wonder, Joss Whedon produced it … I hadn’t made that connection before, but she’s right. Not saying he has anything to do with the Marvel shows, but someone with similar sensibilities must be involved in those.
Well, I needed a Trump break and I hope you did too. Saturday chores beckon. More soon.