No rafting this year

We decided that since Colin's trip was so brief, and rafting would be a full, long day, we'd not do the rafting trip after all.

Candice and Juliet are going to Phoenix for our friend Suzanne's 50th birthday. I'm staying home to hold down the fort and keep working. Maybe have a little fun on my own if I can.

Rafting

Planning a one-day trip with my brother-in-law, Colin, and my mother-in-law, KB, on the Tuolumne River in June. This should be fun. I've rafted in New Zealand and Alaska, but--oddly enough--never in Califronia! And our lake house is less than an hour from the put-in. This is a world-class river. Wow!

The Dead

Bought tickets for The Dead at Shoreline tonight. Fourteen years later, I never thought I'd be saying that! Of course, it's not the Grateful Dead, with Jerry Garcia at the helm, but I expect they'll be able to evoke him, if not invoke him.

Going with m'pards Jay, Kelly, and Bob. Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more!

Hopefully, the aforementioned doomsday fears won't materialize. Ish....

Pandemic fears

We escaped Mexico just before the flu hit....not sure yet whether this is going to be a pandemic like 1918 or just a mild outbreak. I just keep thinking about The Stand, which starts with a flu-like disease spreading around the world.

All we can do is wait, watch, and hope. And if things start to look bad, prepare...

Back From San Pancho

Returned yesterday evening from San Pancho, Nayarit, Mexico, where we had been vacationing. We had a nice long stay there, and we're all still adjusting to being back home again.

And tomorrow's Easter, which is a pretty big deal for Juliet.... Candice and I just got finished playing Easter Bunny :-)

Plate o' Shrimp

Next in the series of my favorite movies, which I happened to catch on TV the other night: Repo Man. Very 80s, and looking a bit dated these days, but still pretty funny in its odd way. I always got a kick out of Miller's rants, e.g.

A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, "plate," or "shrimp," or "plate o' shrimp" out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.

I'm not quite sure how that applies to my life currently, as it seems like the giant cosmic plate o' shrimp has been dumped all over our heads. But maybe we're just working our way through the lattice of coincidence and will soon come out into the daylight...

(Un)Luck and Equanimty

I thought I would be industrious and cut up the oak tree that fell on our property in the recent winter storms; instead I ended up having a two thousand-dollar accident. As Brian Eno might say: "...just another day on Earth."

With the back of the Audi station wagon mommy-mobile filled with recently-cut oak rounds, and the tailgate up, backing up, it just caught the eaves of our garage. WTF? Totaled the tailgate, bent like a fork. Don't know how much it will cost, but probably a lot.

Chagrined, abashed, sorry? Yes. Upset, stressed? No.... that is among the small stuff not to be stressed about, as Candice so rightly reminds me. We have a lot of other fish frying in the fire at this point in our lives, and they are all bigger than the tailgate of the car, as inconvenient as it may be.