7:15 at the gate, down the morning desert headed for the dentist…over

Sand Pass and thanks to last year’s fires even more sand over the road west of Fish Springs

though none on 395.

South to the Junction, west to 89,

wet on 80 west until

Weimar, then dry for the remainder

reaching Benicia in time for lunch in the greening yard, the aforementioned dentistry

and dinner down the street as L. was beat.  But the beat must go on so, next afternoon, back on

the road again to Woodside for an historic gathering honoring the life of my aunt [cousin, really] Betty Tight at the ancestral-by-California-standards home built by my great uncle Dexter currently inhabited by his grandchildren and great-grandchildren who bravely brought together as many members of the extended family -close to eighty- as could come to celebrate their quite extraordinary mother, a profoundly emotional event which left me wishing for more and closer contact with this vast and varied group of people.

Home across the bay and Sunday took a ride in the ’45 as far as the Safeway, had another lunch out in the green of our alley [well the alley’s just beyond the fence], such and whatever.

Monday brought rain in splats.

Then it turned out an inordinate amount of time was spent trying to put together a page for the Stanford 55th reunion book…a task slightly beyond our expertise so the elements

*[text below] were sent in separately, some assembly required and hoping for the best while

continuing, or trying to return to, the daily

rounds.

 

*[text, in summation of the previous five years;
Hobbies [?] still include painting, drawing, casual photography, wandering around, reading, driving my ’45 Tchevy…but…none of the above are “hobbies”, more like avocations or permanent vacations…anyway, still most happily married to Linda Fleming [lindaflemingsculpture .com], in the last five years we’ve continued to commute between our studios in Benicia, Wall Spring and Libre, with variations…two trips to Great Brexit, one of which included a weeklong detour to Venezia for Tintoretto and other wonders plus several to Brooklyn where Linda’s son Luz [b. 1974] lives with wife Christine and our only grandchild. My son Bryan [b. 1973] remains in the Army, but by the time this appears will hopefully will be safely finishing up his third trip to Afghanistan**, each one different, each one with a radically different Commander-in-Chief…etc. Our most profound change in the recent interim has been Linda’s retirement after 31 years of teaching at California College of the Arts, leaving her busier than ever with her work. Having forgotten to get a job in the first place I wasn’t able to retire so continue much as before save for adding a weekly blog [Hits and Missives], mostly images, to my various routines. Though now down to just one dog we continue to be sporadic, nomadic and fortunate.

**[this won’t appear until late October, near the end of his current deployment]