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Way Out West
June 10, 2008
Mr. Karen and I flew to Washington state this past weekend to see one of our nephews graduate from high school. Friday was pretty much devoted to travel, though we did get to my sister-in-law Kathy’s house in time to see the gorgeous sunset, something we hadn’t expected since the forecast was for rain, rain, and more rain. Actually, the weather cooperated quite nicely with our plans the whole trip, raining only when it didn’t really affect our activities at all. I did get wet Saturday morning when I went running, but I’ve jogged through a lot worse, and I was so proud of myself for getting myself up and out even though I was on vacation that there was no way I was going to turn around and go back before I’d done the distance I’d planned. There are a lot of hills in the area where we stayed and they were a challenge, as was avoiding the brown things on the sidewalk that I first thought were wet leaves but which turned out to be slugs.
After the running, there was the pre-graduation brunch, the graduation, and the post-graduation cookout, featuring chocolate cake with too few flowers decorating it. A frosting smackdown was narrowly avoided when my mother-in-law Joan shared the icing roses with me. Perhaps she did not really expect me to take one of the two when she pushed the plate a few inches toward me to be polite, but I’ve been in the family for enough years now that it should have come as no surprise when I scooped one up with my fork and delighted in consuming its sugary goodness despite having already eaten close to my own weight in cheddar brats. Sunday featured the post-post-graduation breakfast, a visit to a cool independent bookstore (with a bonus peek out back to see a guy dressed as a pirate playing with a jazz band), and a post-post-post-graduation Thai dinner. I know it sounds like there was a lot of eating, and there was, but there was also talking and a bit of walking (and I did some knitting, too). Yesterday there was mostly just sitting—in the car, in the airport, in the tiny seat on the plane just behind recline-o-man and just in front of small loud boy. We lucked out and landed at Detroit Metro last night not long before it closed for a while due to a rainstorm (our suitcase even got unloaded before the ramp workers had to clear out away from the lightning). Today, I am tired, but I still got up before 6 (that’s 3 a.m. Seattle time) and ran before work. It was warmer here this morning than it ever got in Washington over the weekend. I’d rather have their weather, for sure; I believe I might melt during the 5K I’m doing on Sunday.