Friday morning Ian and I drove to Susanville for his granddaughter's graduation from high school, our first trip south since we moved here 18 months ago. We are totally inexperienced with driving in agricultural areas in summer. Our car and most importantly our windshield was slathered with bugs. At times we had to run the wipers at minute intervals just to maintain visibility. Other than that, it was an easy drive.
Margi asked us to be there by 4:30 for pictures and we were there in plenty of time. We have a very blended family so this is Margi, Elise, Yolanda and me, the stepmom. The celebration party was the next day so Ian and I called it a day shortly after the ceremony.
We returned from breakfast Saturday morning to find that our maid was midstream in cleaning our room so we went for a little walk. It turns out that our Best Western was right next to the Lassen County Fairgrounds and they were having a swap meet.
I don't know why it was so much fun but it was. I found this Edward Hopper print in a bin of pictures. The glass was missing and the print was dirty and badly damaged. The documentation on the back said that it was from the New York Graphic Society and at one point had hung in the Burlingame Public Library. It made me sad to see the neglect. I ended up buying two brass candlesticks at $.50 a piece.
Our friend Liz Blaustein and her friend John drove up from Lake Tahoe to have lunch with us. Margi invited them to the party but they just wanted to visit and then head back: a one-hour visit for a four-hour drive. Ian and I have never stopped in historic Susanville because we were always on our way somewhere. We ate lunch at the Lassen Aleworks in the old Pioneer Hotel building. The food was fantastic as was the visit, plus the restaurant was charming.
My daughter Chris and her husband Mike both work at the University of Nevada, Reno and because they had to work graduation ceremonies both Friday night and Saturday morning were unable to come up until afterwards. They were starving when they rolled into town so we met up with them at Frosty Mill where Elise works. Table for six please!
Ian took this picture of Elise with two of our shakes. She's planning to attend the local community college in the fall. She loves horses, loves to ride and plans to major in agriculture.
The caterer made an impression spread as well as this cake. Ohana means family in Hawaiian. And truly the party was a celebration of family in addition to celebrating Elise's milestone.
Goofball Alexia put on her mom's sunglasses and declared herself to be six eyes. She wants to come up for a month this summer so she and I can knit and weave. I got permission today from Master Chen to bring her to Tai Chi classes and she's really excited about that.
Yolanda is a high school counselor in SoCal so Mike took the opportunity to talk through an incident at Alexia's school with her. Some of the conversations were serious like that but mostly we talked and laughed. There just aren't that many opportunities for our families to get together and we made the most of it.
Yesterday was the first day of summer weather so today between Tai Chi classes I finally was able to sit out and read for a bit. The Smart program of reading to kinders is over for the year and I need to step back from taking art classes so I can spend more time at home and finish some of the projects that have been on hold. But for now we're looking forward to a visit from our friend Petey who is driving up from Davis, California tomorrow.
1 comment:
I found myself scrolling back and forth in this post to keep track of all the names and relationships. Very cool that your families mingle and socialize like that! Alexia has changed so much! Of course, you'd exclaim the same if you saw Brian now.... And yes, we've had some serious conversations about things at Brian's school; a peripheral suicide followed by disturbing comments by our own son, bullying, etc. These teen years are tough times to navigate for sure. I almost called you the other day; it's been forever since we've chatted.
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