{"id":4769,"date":"2010-11-20T11:14:41","date_gmt":"2010-11-20T18:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=4769"},"modified":"2010-11-30T15:08:43","modified_gmt":"2010-11-30T22:08:43","slug":"a-breezy-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=4769","title":{"rendered":"A Breezy Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not very good at breezy updates (unlike my new favorite blogger Nancy Nall<\/a>), but I’ll try.<\/p>\n

I was up early this morning to catch the first wave of El Tour de Tucson<\/a> riders as they streamed past our subdivision in northeast Tucson.\u00a0 The riders in the photographs are competing in the full 109-mile tour; there are 79-, 66- and 40-mile courses as well.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
First wave (I won't call it a "peloton," I won't, I won't!)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Only 80 more miles to go!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Naturally I rode my own bicycle to the hill where I took these photos, parking it where Tour riders could see it and know that I am not a total slob.\u00a0 But after seeing these men and women charge by, I do feel slobbish.\u00a0 I’ve ridden in two Tours, but only the short course, and I’ve skipped the last two.\u00a0 Maybe next year (yeah, we all know what that<\/em> means).<\/p>\n

————————<\/p>\n

I read the writing on the wall a year ago and accepted the fact that we can’t afford to do all the things we want to do to our kitchen.\u00a0 It’s taken Donna a little longer to accept reality, but now she’s on board and we’ve started doing piecemeal mods, one thing at a time.\u00a0 We’re starting with a double oven, which will be installed Tuesday, just in time for Thanksgiving.\u00a0 Next: a new faucet.\u00a0 Down the road: a new sink to go with the faucet, new cabinets, new countertops.\u00a0 Probably never gonna happen: taking out the drop ceiling and the wall separating the kitchen from the dining room.<\/p>\n

But Donna hasn’t given up, not deep down.\u00a0 How do I know this?\u00a0 Yesterday she told a friend that we have a “1980s kitchen.”\u00a0 When she quits saying that, I’ll know the dream has died.<\/p>\n

————————<\/p>\n

Our daughter Polly had a second interview yesterday, this for a job she really wants.\u00a0 She came home discouraged because the head of the company told her there were a couple of strikes against her.\u00a0 She’s been closeted in her room ever since, only coming out to go to the bathroom.\u00a0 She’s depressed and discouraged, and I understand, having gone through the same thing four years ago.\u00a0 But I’m wondering why, if there were strikes against her, the owner would have called her back in for another interview at all.\u00a0 I think this is the beginning of a salary negotiation, and I’m optimistic.<\/p>\n

————————<\/p>\n

Polly, as noted above, is already here, and our son Gregory, daughter in law Beth, and grandchildren Taylor and Quentin are driving down from Las Vegas on Wednesday.\u00a0 That’ll bring us up to full nuclear family status, even if only for a few days.\u00a0 Our Thanksgiving meal will include the traditional turkey, and to give myself something to do I’m going to smoke two ducks over mesquite to serve on the side.\u00a0 The double oven will come in handy, and I may even bake bread to go with dinner, something I haven’t done in a long long time.<\/p>\n

We traditionally invite our single friends to share Thanksgiving dinner (and to help us trim the tree on Christmas Eve) — three or four friends have taken us up and will join us, our children, and our grandchildren in making up a full house.\u00a0 We started this tradition at the 32nd Tactical Fighter Squadron in The Netherlands in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and have been doing it ever since.\u00a0 You want to be with family on Thanksgiving and Christmas, or at least with friends.<\/p>\n

————————<\/p>\n

I’ve just started reading my fourth e-book on my Nook, an 800+ pager called The Passage, by Justin Cronin.\u00a0 I’m mastering the page-turning function, and I must say I really love reading this way.\u00a0 I’ll have to be careful, otherwise I’ll break the bank ordering ebooks from Barnes & Noble!\u00a0 Yesterday I borrowed an ebook from my local library, a collection of short stories by David Sedaris, but have not so far been able to crack the code on transferring it from my PC to the Nook.\u00a0 That, in fact, is my next project — I’m searching user forums, trying to find out how others have done it.<\/p>\n

————————<\/p>\n

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not very good at breezy updates (unlike my new favorite blogger Nancy Nall), but I’ll try. I was up early this morning to catch the first wave of El Tour de Tucson riders as they streamed past our subdivision in northeast Tucson.\u00a0 The riders in the photographs are competing in the full 109-mile tour; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4769"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4847,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769\/revisions\/4847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}