Home from our travels

We are home, and it is so hot. We're right on the edge of the heat dome that's parked over the Southwest and Mountain West. I thought I would write a post about our trip the day after we got back, but it was too hot to sit and type for very long. So I've been working on it for several days and now today (when it's supposed to be 102 degrees) I'll finish it.

We left on Saturday, July 18th, a little later than planned because nobody but me wanted to get up. Teen A sleeps on the couch in the living room most nights, and he kept sleeping while everyone was getting ready around him. When he finally got up, he started complaining about the trip. "Why are we driving? It's such a long way!" I was quite flummoxed by this, because he'd known it was a driving trip from the beginning. He likes to drive! Also, I'd given him the option of staying home, and he said no, he wanted to go to California. And now this. Well, I had thought our spring break trip in March might be our last big family trip and was surprised to find that everyone wanted to do a summer trip too. Now one member had changed his mind. I had known this would be a challenging trip and it had suddenly gotten much more challenging.

We finally got on the road (with Teen A as the driver), but then we started arguing about what route to take. Rocket Boy tried to get Teen A to take Highway 287 and he wouldn't. That was something new. As we drove along I-25 instead, we passed Buc-ee's on the other side of the highway, and Teen A said, "How about we just stop at Buc-ee's" and you go on without me?" And at that point we knew, if we didn't already, what the problem was. He wanted to stay with his girlfriend, or at least not be away from her for 12 days. If we left him at Buc-ee's, she could come pick him up. Maybe it was even her idea.

Well, we didn't do that. I try not to express anger toward the kids (because it's pointless and damaging), but I got mad then. I told him, now is not the time to act like this. We gave you plenty of warning, we gave you the opportunity to back out. But now I have all those hotel rooms reserved and it's too late to cancel. If I had known you weren't coming, I could have just gotten one room for the three of us, but because you said you wanted to come, I got two rooms for each night. Everyone is expecting you, everyone is looking forward to seeing you. The cat sitters are coming. We are not dropping you off at Buc-ee's and that's final.

So, that was a rough beginning, and then I had to spend a lot of time -- really, the rest of the trip -- repairing the damage. But things got better. We stopped for lunch at a Perkins in Laramie, Wyoming, and I encouraged Teen A to order whatever he wanted, which included fried pickles. I had a large peach muffin, which amused the group. 

We got gas ($4.99/gallon) and Teen A kept driving, but after we stopped for gas in Evanston ($4.139/gallon), he let Rocket Boy do the last couple hours of the drive (heavy rain, winding roads), from western Wyoming into Utah, to our hotel, a Comfort Inn on the outskirts of Tooele, Utah (which is itself on the outskirts of Salt Lake City). We were quite near the old amusement park, Saltair, but when we tried to visit it, we were told they were holding a car show there that day and we would have to pay, so we skipped it.

Once we checked in to our two rooms, Teen A plugged into his devices and checked out. He didn't want to come to dinner (at Denny's in the travel center), but he agreed to let me bring him a brownie sundae. Cyclosporiasis was all over the news, and people were being advised not to eat lettuce or berries. Rocket Boy ordered a salmon salad (complete with lettuce) and I ordered a berry waffle (Teen B had wings). Oh well.

After dinner we all went in the hotel pool and hot tub, even Teen A. We got to the pool about 15 minutes before it closed at 10, but the hotel manager let us stay as long as we wanted. And then it was time for showers and bed. I shared a room with Teen A that night and I slept very very well.

Sunday, July 19th, was another long day. First we had to drive 100 miles to the Nevada border, and then another 100 miles or so to Elko, Nevada, where we had lunch. 

Rocket Boy really wanted us to eat at a Basque restaurant in Nevada, but most of the ones I looked up were either closed altogether on Sundays, or only open for dinner. I did find one in Elko that was sort of a Basque restaurant, Toki Ona, so we went there. It was mostly an American restaurant, kind of a hole in the wall, but there were some Basque dishes, so Rocket Boy ordered one: "Lomo and eggs." Basque food is basically meat, though, so this was pork. Rocket Boy does not normally eat pork, but he bravely worked his way through the "lomo." The restaurant's portions were large. I had a BLATT sandwich and couldn't even eat half -- it came with a large bowl of soup and I couldn't finish that either.

Full of Basque-ish food, and gas ($4.749/gallon) we drove on. We had another 300 miles or so to drive before we reached Reno, where we were having dinner with my old college roommate (from 1978!). She had googled our route and decided we wouldn't arrive until late in the evening, so she suggested we eat on the road and come to their place for dessert. I explained that Teen A drives very fast, and it probably wouldn't take that long. "At the moment," I texted, "he is going 87 mph." When we got to my old roommate's house, she greeted Teen A with "Hello, 87!"

Before we could go to Grace's house, though, Rocket Boy wanted to see the Sutro Tunnel, which is just south of her in Dayton, Nevada. I googled it and discovered it was closed on Sunday, but we figured we could at least peer through the gate, see the entrance, etc. Instead, this is all we could see: a sign. 

We hung around for a while, hoping for more, but all we could see besides this sign was a lizard on a rock (see photo above). So finally we gave up and drove on to Grace's. She and her husband live in a gated community in south Reno, and her daughter lives fairly close by, so she joined us for dinner, along with her little dog, an elderly bichon frise. Grace and Ron have a little dog too, a miniature white poodle, but the dogs were very polite and didn't beg. Dinner was frozen pizza (but very good, I should ask them what the brand was) and salad, with fruit and ice cream and decaf coffee for dessert.

We had a lovely dinner and conversation, enlivened by Grace's daughter, who had changed a lot in the 15 years or so since I last saw her. I also really like Grace's husband. I always remember when she got involved with him, back, hmm, 40 years ago? "His word is his bond," she told me. That was what impressed her about him, not his looks or his earning power or whatever. And he's still like that. You can tell he's an honorable person. The whole family has been through a lot and they are just great people.

When we left, Grace thanked me again and again for coming, and I told her over and over that it was Rocket Boy who got us there. He always wants to add things to trips: let's go see this thing, let's call up this person. I try to curb his enthusiasms, but he's always right, it's always better to add things. Especially in this case.

We were spending the night in Carson City, much to Teen A's dismay (he wanted to be dropped off at the Reno Airport so he could fly home). Our hotel was a Home2 Suites and I shared with Teen B. It was a nice hotel, very new and fancy, but the indoor pool was freezing. Teen B stuck one toe in it and went back to the room. Teen A didn't even come down from his room. Rocket Boy tried, but he said he was too tired to deal with the cold. So I swam alone, back and forth, reading the signs which all seemed to say, "Don't Swim Alone!" What if you're traveling alone, I wondered. Or what if no one else in your party wants to swim in ice water?

Monday, July 20th, we finally crossed the border. I didn't want to take horrible I-80 through California, so I had planned that we would take Highway 88 over Carson Pass (that's why we stayed in Carson City), which I don't remember ever doing before. We got gas before we left ($4.399/gallon) in anticipation of higher prices in California. It was very pretty driving along 395 on the eastern side of the Sierra and also going over the mountains. At one point we got stuck in a lot of road construction, but it wasn't too bad. We just rolled down our windows and tried to identify the butterflies flitting about.

There were some places I might have wanted to stop, plaques and signs and things along the road, but I didn't want to irritate the kids. If it had been just Rocket Boy and me, we would have stopped. Maybe in the future we will have some trips together (without the kids) where we can stop and look at everything we come across. 

Oh! One thing I haven't mentioned, speaking of irritating the kids, was our in-car entertainment on the trip. Now, the rule that I've always tried to follow is that the driver gets to choose the music. But Teen A likes rap, and he doesn't seem to like to listen to rap when his parents are in the car. So Rocket Boy took advantage of the silence to listen to an audiobook of Men to Match My Mountains by Irving Stone. We listened to it on the way across Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona, and Colorado. I think it's probably an interesting book, but I don't know, I find Western history depressing. On and on about bad things men have done to each other. Every day at some point Rocket Boy would say, "Well, let's listen to some more of the book," and the rest of us would say, "Oh, no!" and he would turn it on anyway. I tried to tune it out, but I inadvertently learned a lot of details of Western history that I did not want to know. I don't know what the kids took in.

We had lunch in Stockton, at an old diner on Pacific Avenue called Manny's California Fresh Cafe which had apparently been there since the 1950s. I had a salami sandwich that was so delicious, I ate every bite. I am not much of a meat eater, but I do love salami. Honestly, this may have been the best lunch of the trip. Rocket Boy had a fried oyster sandwich and enjoyed that too.

Stockton has a bad reputation for crime, etc., but driving through, it looked like kind of an attractive city. But after we got through it, we were on all the terrible freeways that lead to the Bay Area. I-5 to 205 to 580 to 680 to 880. We were actually not in the worst of the traffic (that was going the other direction), but there's something about that maze of freeways that just horrifies me. How can people live like this, is the question that keeps going through my head. I know, California weather is great, there are lots of good jobs in the Bay Area... but seriously, why would you put up with all that (if you hadn't grown up there, like my family)? I would never in a million years relocate to California now. Fortunately, I'd never be able to afford to, so it won't happen.

We got to my sister's house in Santa Clara around 3:30 or so, and Nancy and the bulldog came out to greet us. What a relief to be out of traffic! We just crashed for a while, and then went over to the Holiday Inn Express & Suites which is walking distance from Nancy's house. Nancy has enough space to accommodate our whole family, especially since her husband was out of town, but I had gotten a hotel room as well just to take the pressure off. I had thought the twins could trade off sleeping there, but in fact Rocket Boy and Teen B stayed there the whole time, while Teen A and I slept in the two sofabeds at Nancy's. That worked out pretty well, I think. Rocket Boy swam in the hotel pool several times and used the weight room and the hotel computer. He is not a huge dog fan, nor is Teen B, so they were happy to have a place to go to get away from the bulldog, and I was happy to spend more time with the bulldog, who is adorable. She's a handful, though. One evening I laid out my clothes for the next day on my sofabed and then someone left the dog gate open and the bulldog went in and got my shirt (Nancy got it away from her before she ate it).

Every morning at Nancy's house I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast with lots of fruit on top. The bulldog likes it if you put strawberries on your cereal because you're supposed to give her the tops. She waits patiently by the strawberry container, hoping, hoping for a strawberry top. 

I watched TV with my sister: baseball games, an episode of a mystery series, part of a movie on Netflix. I almost never watch TV at home except for the NewsHour, so this was a treat. 

We took one walk with the bulldog, but it was at a faster pace than my knee could tolerate (I couldn't go as fast as a bulldog -- that's pretty bad), so I didn't take another. We had a couple of days of hot weather, but then it cooled down and was very pleasant. For dinner that first night, Nancy and the guys went to Chili's, but I wasn't hungry (still full of salami), so I stayed behind and had a glass of milk and two homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Heaven.

Tuesday, July 21st, we went over to my sister Barbara's for lunch and sat around chatting for a few hours. Then, after a stop at the local Starbucks (I got a S'mores Frappuccino, not at all my usual drink, but we were on vacation and it was hot), we went back to Santa Clara and for dinner we got takeout from World Wrapps. I went with Nancy to pick up the food and was struck again by the crowds. Crowded city streets, a completely full parking lot. I mean, Boulder can be crowded too, and of course so can Denver and the surrounding suburbs, but this was worse. It's what Colorado has to look forward to as it continues to fill up.

I had brought one Mounjaro shot with me, in a ziploc bag inside a water bottle filled with (originally) cool water, and I took it on Tuesday night. I wasn't sure if it would still be functional, but it seemed to be, so I was a little sickish and low energy for the next few days, but that was OK. 

Wednesday, July 22nd, we got up early and drove north to Sonoma County to visit some of my cousins up there. My cousin Ian has a little vineyard on a plot of land that is, essentially, heaven (I know I already said the homemade cookies were heaven, but that was food, this is a place). It was a warm day, but not baking hot, as it can be up there. 

We took the old way there, going through San Francisco on 19th Avenue and crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. We parked at the Welcome Center and went into the gift shop where Rocket Boy bought some postcards for himself and some chocolate-covered pretzels for our crabby driver, and I bought a Golden Gate Bridge magnet for $7.95 -- which I now can't find. It'll probably turn up.

When we drove up -- which is always a little confusing, because my cousin's address is different from the road he lives on, and you have to drive over a little stream, etc., etc. -- two Australian Shepherds came running out to greet us. Their names were Willie Jack and Waylon, and they were extremely enthusiastic, jumping up on the car and scratching the paint, lol. More dogs for Rocket Boy to be less than excited about. I thought they were adorable.

The dogs were followed by my cousin, Ian, who made an attempt to call them off. I hadn't seen him since 2017, nine years, and so of course I was expecting him to look older. What I wasn't expecting was for him to have essentially turned into our grandmother Ethel. His face just looked so much like hers when she was old. When I told this to my sisters later, my older sister said she always thought Ian resembled his mother's side of the family, in other words not the side we have in common. I don't know, I said, I only know what I saw.

We had lunch indoors with my cousins: pizza, salad, and fruit and ice cream, the same menu we had with Grace in Reno, and equally delicious. The dogs stayed outside, watching us through the big windows. We talked and talked and talked, could have gone on talking for hours, I think. I brought them up to date on their other cousins, who they don't keep in touch with, and then I asked them about their cousins on the other side of the family (who we had met on the hiking trips we used to take), but they weren't really up to date on them either. It fascinates me the way many (most?) people don't seem to care greatly about staying in touch with relatives. To me, it's hugely important. I'm not sure why.

Last night I dreamed I was back at Ian's house, back in that conversation. In the dream, my cousin Terry asked what everyone thought about the value of individual human lives. I said, in the dream, that I felt their value should be a postulate in any such discussion. In the dream, Ian's wife Ellyn, who died four years ago, was alive and well, cleaning up the kitchen, and I realized that we were actually participating in a video of the past, probably from about 2005 (because the twins weren't born yet, Ian and Terry's parents were gone, but our Uncle Bob was alive and also visiting). Whatever that means.

After we ate, Ian took us on a tour of the vineyard, we saw the chickens, etc. (My other cousins stayed behind because one of them is waiting for a hip transplant and can't walk well.) Ian explained about how the vines were getting old and needing to be replaced. There was a grapevine nursery. We saw the chickens, who are also getting old and not producing many eggs, and Ian said he would be letting them go soon. I asked who would want old hens and he said lots of people. He would put an ad on Facebook Marketplace for free hens and they'd be gone just like that. I hope they don't become chicken dinners, but maybe it would be for the best.

My cousins are getting old too. Ian said he doesn't do much of the work in the vineyard anymore. I wondered who would take over for him after he's gone, but somehow couldn't quite ask that. 

Teen A got bored and went back to sit in the car. Rocket Boy was of course fascinated by everything, so he and Ian walked ahead, talking, talking. My other cousins came driving up -- they needed to get on the road. I felt bad because I hadn't talked to Diane about genealogy. She's my fellow genealogy buff and we would have had so much to say to each other, and here I was learning about vineyards instead. It's just impossible on these short visits to say all the things you want to say, have all the conversations you want to have. We had a short talk while she sat in the car and then they were gone. 

Teen B and I walked back up to the house and opened up the swimming pool (it has a cover that you open by pushing a button). There wasn't time to get changed and go swimming, but we swung our legs in the water. 

Absolutely idyllic.

Then we really needed to get back on the road, because of the traffic, so we left. Got gas in Kenwood ($5.399/gallon) and also stopped at a gas station ON 19TH AVENUE, which is practically illegal, so Teen A could use the restroom. In any case, the traffic wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared. We made it to my sister Barbara's house by a little before 6 pm, just in time for dinner with the family, including my niece and her daughter who had flown up from Los Angeles that afternoon. Dinner was Chinese food. I didn't have much of an appetite, due to the shot, but there were so many people around the table -- eleven! -- that it got eaten. My niece and her daughter were staying in the same hotel as Rocket Boy and Teen B, so carpooling was easy.

On Thursday, July 23rd, several of us went to downtown Palo Alto to explore. Every time I come back it has changed, but this might have been the biggest change yet. All the stores seemed to have become Asian restaurants! There were several boba shops. And most of the people walking around were also Asian (Asian American, of course, but I think a lot of Asian-born people too). Has Palo Alto become a refuge for crazy rich Asians? (and Mark Zuckerberg -- but of course his wife is Asian). The Prolific Oven, where we got our wedding cake in 2002, is now a Japanese-American restaurant called Ethel's Fancy, which we thought was funny (Ethel being the name of our grandmother and the bulldog).

My niece got a coconut smoothie from one store, and Teen B and I got boba from another, but I didn't think it was very good. The store recommended that you get light ice and 75% sugar, so it wasn't cold enough and it wasn't sweet enough. And all the boba got stuck together at the bottom. I eventually threw mine away.

Thursday night we had pizza and salad for dinner at Barbara's, with ice cream for dessert. Delicious again, even though it was our third such meal on the trip. I guess you can't really go wrong with that menu.

On Friday, July 24th, Rocket Boy went off on his own to two museums: the Computer History Museum in Mountain View and the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose. No one else wanted to go with him. I felt bad that we hadn't done anything fun with the twins, but neither of them really wanted to do any of the things we suggested (definitely not a computer history museum). They mostly just wanted to stare at their phones (more evidence that this is our last big family trip).

Rocket Boy and I share our locations with each other on our phones, so I was able to watch him as he toured both museums. A little creepy, but that's modern life. The rest of us just hung out at Barbara's in the afternoon, and my niece and her daughter made a New Yorker cover jigsaw puzzle (others helped a little). It was so nice to relax and talk and just be together.

Oh! Because RB took the car to go to the museums, we didn't have enough space in Nancy's car to transport all of us (me, Nancy, the twins, my niece, and her daughter) from Nancy's to Barbara's. So, my niece and Teen B took a Waymo to Barbara's! In this photo, my niece and Teen B are in the back seat and NOBODY is driving. But soon after, my niece told the Waymo to pull over so Teen B could sit in the front passenger seat and get a good view of the steering wheel turning by itself. Barbara and her family set up lawn chairs out in front of their house so they could watch the Waymo arriving.

The plan for Friday night was that we (minus Barbara's family) would go back to Nancy's (Barbara drove some of us there, no Waymos that time) and get takeout before my niece and her daughter had to catch their plane. But since their plane was delayed, they decided to take an earlier flight and skip dinner. Nancy took them to the airport and then picked up dinner for us from a Greek restaurant on the way home.

Saturday, July 25th, we packed up the car and headed for southern California. Teen A, whose complaints had become somewhat muted over the previous few days, started complaining again with a vengeance. "WHY is it going to take us four days to drive home? We could be home in TWO days, blah blah blah." We attempted to ignore him.

Our first destination was Solvang, to visit my cousins (actually my father's cousin, so my first cousin once removed, and her husband -- I'll just say "cousins") who had moved to a retirement community there. When we saw them two years ago, they were packing up their beautiful house in San Luis Obispo, preparing for this move, and I found the visit rather depressing. It made me so happy to see that they've landed in a wonderful place, a little "cottage" just the right size for the two of them. It reminded me of my mother's apartment at Palo Alto Commons, a distillation of her former home with all the best parts retained. They even have a little backyard, chock full of flowering plants (and there were beautiful flowers in front of the cottage too). I found myself thinking that I would like to live at Atterdag Village when I get older, although my cousin's husband whispered to me, "It's very expensive." My cousin is almost 88 and her husband is (I think) 93, so it's a good safe place for them to be. 

We had lunch at the restaurant at the golf course -- outside on the terrace, which was a little warm, but there was a breeze and we were under an umbrella, so it was nice. There was a lovely view. We talked and talked (and talked and talked more back at their cottage, where we had fruit and ice cream for dessert). A flock of blackbirds visited us, and my cousin said that sometimes there are grackles and even yellow-billed magpies! But no magpies that day. 

Instead, we got a phone call, and here I should back up and explain some things. We were planning that on Sunday we would visit Rocket Boy's Aunt Dolores (his late uncle's second wife) who lives in Chino, California. We had already had multiple conversations about the visit with both Dolores and her grand-niece, who lives in Texas but supervises her care. The grand-niece seemed a little horrified that we were coming, some mention was made of how messy Dolores' mobile home was, but she finally decided that Dolores's son, who lives with her, would take her to an Olive Garden restaurant in Chino around noon on Sunday and we would meet her there. Dolores is 95 and has many health problems and would likely only be able to stay for a little while, but we would see each other and exchange hugs, so that would be something.

The phone call that we received while at the Solvang golf course restaurant was from Dolores's son, to say that she was doing very badly and the visit would have to be canceled.

It's possible that this was true, of course. It's also possible that the son just didn't want to deal with us. Both Rocket Boy and I remembered a visit we made to his mother's best friend, who was dying of cancer, back in the early 2000s (before we were married). The friend, Virginia, was being cared for by a relative, and the relative did NOT want us to come by. She told Rocket Boy on the phone not to come, but he ignored her, and when we got to the house I guess politeness prevented her from forbidding us to come in, but oh boy, was she ever not happy. And yet, Virginia very much wanted to see Rocket Boy and they had a wonderful meeting and farewell. 

Rocket Boy toyed with the idea of going to Chino anyway, knocking on the door of the mobile home and demanding entrance, but I didn't think it would be good, especially with the twins along, especially if things got unpleasant. And maybe Dolores really was doing badly. Maybe.

Our hotel that night was a Sonesta ES hotel in Chatsworth, 114 long, congested miles from Solvang. Rocket Boy and Teen A had stayed there and liked it when they came for Cousin June's funeral in April, but on this trip we had some issues with it. First of all, they gave us a room on the third floor (and the hotel has no elevators). I walked up to the third floor, but my knee complained all the way. How was I going to be able to go up and down with luggage, etc.? So Rocket Boy went back to the front desk and somehow convinced them to give us a room on the first floor. (My husband is amazing.)

The "room" was actually a two-bedroom suite with an additional sofabed, the type of room I had mainly avoided on this trip, but RB wanted to stay at that hotel. And I looked at the king-size bed and I looked at the sofabed, and I asked Teen B if he would be willing to sleep on the sofabed, let Teen A (the driver) have the queen bed, and let Rocket Boy and me have the king bed. He agreed, but he wasn't happy. It was getting late, and Teen A and Rocket Boy were hungry, so they drove off to the Cheesecake Factory. Teen B was mad, so he didn't want to go, and I was still full from lunch, so I didn't go. I went swimming in the lovely pool, but Teen B was mad and wouldn't go with me. Let's just say this hotel wasn't a good choice (although the pool was great -- I'd go back if it was just me and Rocket Boy, no cranky twins). Oh, and we had to pay an extra $10/day for parking! So ridiculous.

The Sonesta is very close to where some of Cousin June's children live, so we texted them and made arrangements to meet for breakfast the next day (Sunday, July 26th), since we weren't going to see Dolores. There was a nice breakfast/diner type place practically across from the hotel. And we had a good time with them. I was a little embarrassed that we hadn't contacted them originally, but it's hard to cram everybody in on every trip and of course we thought we were going to see Dolores. "Next time you come," June's daughter Kristi said, "give us a little warning and we'll have a barbecue by the pool and invite everybody!"

Kristi's husband Rick told us where to buy the cheapest gas in the area, so we did that (it was $5.299/gallon), and we got on the road again. Skipping Chino, we headed for Amboy, on Route 66, 217 hot miles away. We stopped at a Starbucks in Barstow for a break (see photo above), because I had promised the kids we could have Starbucks every day, and up to that point we had only had it once. I ordered my usual Iced Horchata Shaken Espresso with Light Ice, but when I got it, it seemed to have a LOT of ice in it. Then I looked at the label on my reusable cup: it said "Add Ice." I figured in Barstow (where it was over 100 degrees), people normally want extra ice.

The first thing to see in Amboy was the Amboy Crater, which certainly looked large and interesting, and would have been nice to hike up to, if it hadn't been 113 degrees outside! We did walk up to a little viewing area (which had a roof over it), with a sign giving information about the crater and local wildlife, etc. (There was no wildlife to be seen except on the sign.) 

The sign said that hiking to the crater was recommended only between October and April. I was sure Rocket Boy was going to do it anyway, but reluctantly he got back in the car.

Then we drove on to Roy's Cafe in Amboy proper. In an old episode of "California's Gold," Huell Howser talks about how you can buy fresh lemonade at Roy's Cafe, but not any more. It's no longer a cafe, but more of a convenience store. Now you can buy fancy sodas from a refrigerator, so we did that. I had a vanilla root beer from some Michigan soda company. The boys also got ice cream bars. We did not, however, buy any Route 66 souvenirs, though the store was full of them. Nor did we buy a gallon of gas for $7.99, even though we were running low. 

After this we still had 80 miles to go to our hotel in Needles. Rocket Boy's car tells him how many more miles he can drive on the amount of gas he has left, and in this case it said we could go about 120 miles. A 40-mile cushion, in other words. But we were running the air conditioning at full blast, and as we drove, that cushion evaporated. Running out of gas in the desert when it's over 110 degrees, hmm... We finally pulled off the highway when we saw a gas station -- but they were out of gas, only had diesel. So we kept going. We arrived in Needles with about 10 miles left in the tank. The first gas station we went to was out of gas too, but there was another station next to it that did have gas. We filled up. It was $6.799/gallon and I paid for it happily.

Dinner that night was at a place called the Wagon Wheel and it was pretty good, although as usual I could only eat half of my sandwich, barely touched the sweet potato fries I had paid extra for. When we finished and stepped outside again, I felt almost assaulted by the heat. It was 116 degrees by then, just awful. We went back to our hotel, a Best Western, and went in their wonderful pool and hot tub for a couple of hours. In some ways it was the best pool of the trip. People were friendly -- there were tourists from Switzerland, Australia, and Michigan -- and it just felt so good. From the pool we could see a sign that gave the current temperature. When it finally dipped down to 109, after 9 pm, Teen B and I went back to the hotel room.

Monday, July 27th, we had breakfast at the hotel and then got on the road again. The goal was to be somewhere where it wasn't 116 degrees, and Arizona obliged. It was much cooler in Flagstaff, where we stopped for lunch at a place called the Wildflower. None of us really liked our sandwiches, though. I had a tuna sandwich, which had almonds and apple pieces in it, very tasty, but also mustard and pickles, which kind of ruined it. It's probably a good restaurant if you know what to order.

Before getting on the road again, we made three more stops. First, Target, because Teen A had forgotten the charger for his earbuds. Normally I might have objected to this purchase, but still trying to keep him happy, I paid for it ($18.58) with no comments. Then we stopped at a Starbucks. This time, my usual Iced Horchata Shaken Espresso somehow became an Iced Hazelnut Shaken Espresso. Does Hazelnut sound like Horchata? Anyway, I didn't notice until we were on the road, so I drank it. Wouldn't order it again, though. Oh, and our third stop, of course, was gas: $4.459/gallon.

We spent the afternoon driving through Navajoland, which was somewhat interesting, although maybe not as interesting as I had hoped. We were close to Monument Valley and Valley of the Gods, but not close enough to see them. It's possible that I'm jaded, living so close to so much beauty. If we'd gone home via I-15 and I-70, I think we would have seen more dramatic scenery, but we've done that before. I wanted to see something different. At one point we got into a colossal rainstorm, with violent hail hitting the car, but the windows didn't break and we survived. Anyway, it was plenty nice, and every time we stopped for gas or snacks I would say, "We're supporting the Navajo people." (I said this while in the car, not in front of the Navajo people who were serving us.) 

I continued saying this when we got to the Four Corners Monument and discovered it would cost $10 per person to go in. "We're supporting the Navajo people," I said, after paying. And after we took the obligatory photos in the center where you can put one foot and one hand in each of four states at the same time, I bought a little pair of wildly overpriced lizard earrings at one of the booths. The woman assured me that all her obviously imported from China stuff was "handmade by the Navajo people." It wasn't, but the earrings were very cute. I'm wearing them now.

From the Four Corners it was only about 40 miles to our hotel in Cortez, Colorado, a Days Inn, but it seemed to take forever. We were all really tired of the trip by that point, but we had to keep going. At least we were in Colorado. 

I had planned to do laundry at the hotel, but I would have needed 15 quarters and I just didn't have it in me to ask the front desk if they had any. Also, the laundry was on the first floor and our rooms were on the second floor and my knee was bothering me again. I decided we could all wear dirty clothes the next day and no one objected.

We had dinner that night at a restaurant called the Loungin' Lizard, which would have been really good except that there wasn't anything on the menu that appealed to me. Mainly a lot of meat. I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and could barely eat half. Teen B ordered French onion soup, and then for some reason my sandwich came with a bowl of White Chicken Chili, so he ate that too. What I should have done was order the peach cobbler to be my dinner. Next time. At every restaurant on the trip, Teen A asked, "Do you do Shirley Temples?" (For some reason, that's his favorite soft drink.) Sometimes they did, sometimes they could do a reasonable approximation, sometimes they just said no. At the Loungin' Lizard they were overjoyed to make him a Shirley Temple, even brought him a second one without asking.

The Days Inn had a nice pool and hot tub, but it also had an enormous extended Mormon family from Hurricane, Utah monopolizing it. A set of grandparents, four young adults and their spouses, and 13 screaming little kids. They were just awful. Hotel pools and hot tubs have sort of unwritten rules of etiquette, one being that you don't monopolize the hot tub. You get in, spend maybe ten minutes or so, and then get out and go back in the pool, to give other people a turn. In the pool, you kind of divide up the space so that some people can swim laps and other (young) people can splash around and be silly. This was how it worked at the pool at the Best Western in Needles, for instance. But maybe this Mormon family had never heard of those rules, or maybe there were just too many of them to care. All the adults except the grandmother were in the hot tub -- so, nine people -- and many of the little kids jumped in and out of it too. The rest of the little kids were in the pool with the grandmother, screaming and hitting each other with pool noodles. The grandmother was having a great time, laughing and telling them not to do various things. They laughed and ignored her. 

Teen B and I toughed it out, swimming back and forth across the pool (risking being hit by pool noodles), and at one point we did squeeze into the hot tub, but the Mormon family gave us dirty looks, so eventually we went back to the pool. Rocket Boy came out too, and talked to the grandmother a little. Finally I gave up and went back to the hotel room (where Teen A was plugged into his devices). I realized once I was there that I was actually angry at that family. I tried to jolly myself out of my anger, but I couldn't. Maybe it was just because the trip was almost over and I was tired.

Anyway, I slept well, my last night having a bed all to myself, with the air conditioning turned up high.

Tuesday, July 28th, we had breakfast with the enormous Mormon family, who all showed up to the breakfast room a few minutes after we did. Fortunately we managed to snag a good table before they grabbed them all, and then I was able to observe them more closely. One of the young women had a baby and another was pregnant. I couldn't figure out which of the 13 kids belonged to which mom and dad. They all looked the same, like clones. I felt sorry for them, having to live in Hurricane, Utah, and go on vacation all in one big crowd, with all those screaming children. There was also a Muslim family in the breakfast room, the women all covered up in 100+ degree weather and even the little girls wearing head scarves. Religion is a strange thing.

We got gas ($3.999/gallon, hello Colorado!), got on the road and headed for home (before we left, we saw that the Mormon family was back in the pool and hot tub, the little kids hitting each other with pool noodles again). We still had 387 miles to drive. First we took Highway 160, passing by Chimney Rock National Monument, but we didn't stop, just waved to it in the distance (see photo). 

We did stop in Del Norte, where we had a good lunch at a little restaurant called Boogies. Then we took 112 to 285 and followed that most of the rest of the way home. Got gas in Poncha Springs ($4.789/gallon, hmm, felt like we were back in California) and our last junky snacks of the trip. We drove past Fairplay but didn't stop to check out the cabin. Everyone just wanted to get HOME. Which we did, around 5:30 pm. The cats were puzzled to see us, but seemed pleased, like maybe they remembered us. I texted the cat sitters to let them know we'd made it, and got busy unpacking and doing laundry. Sillers had peed on our bed, so we had to wash our bedding. It was fine. No quarters were required. It felt so good to be home.

And that, I assume, is our last big family road trip. It could have been a little better, but it also could have been much worse. We survived, even Teen A (the reunion between him and his girlfriend was very sweet). I just loved seeing all the family members and friends, spending time with them, talking talking talking. Rocket Boy took photos of many of the various gatherings, and in every picture I have a big grin on my face and very fat arms (in whatever sleeveless top I'm wearing). Looking at the pictures, I wonder why I have to have such fat arms. But you know, when you're the fattest person in the room, you make the other people feel better about themselves, which is always a good thing. I'm 40 pounds lighter than I was when we visited two years ago, and I am NOT going to stop wearing sleeveless tops. Think about the big smiles, not about the big arms. It's all OK.

On Friday I sat down and paid off the credit cards, so we're good there. And now we have a few weeks left of this hot, hot summer, and then the kids will start college. So hard to believe.

Reading post: July

It's the last day of July, so I'll do a reading post, even though I'm still working on my trip recap post (I'll save that for Sunday). In July the plan was to return to fiction, gathering up all the books that were previously on my January, February, and May lists that didn't get read then. The list thus had about 50 books on it, which was impossible, but I just worked along on it. However, since we took a 12-day road trip in the latter half of the month, I only managed to read a few of the books on the list.

Books I said I'd like to read

Lucky in the Corner by Carol Anshaw (2002). I really like Carol Anshaw, and this was the only one of her five novels I hadn't read. And I hated it. So disappointing! It's the story of a mother and her college-age daughter and their complicated relationship. The daughter, Fern, is a great character, liked her a lot. The mother, Nora, is a disaster waiting to happen, as we can tell from the first chapter, and then we get to watch the disaster unfold over the course of the book. Plus, the dog dies. I could barely finish it. I kept telling myself, it's only 245 pages, you like Carol Anshaw, just read it. And then I would read another chapter and feel sick to my stomach and be sure I couldn't bear to read another. Really not recommended (but I do recommend all her other books).

Long Bright River by Liz Moore (2020). I read Liz Moore's third novel The Unseen World a few years back with my book group and liked it, and always meant to read more of her. She had a big hit two years ago with The God of the Woods, and I still plan to read that, but in the meantime I found this on the shelf at the George Reynolds branch library, so I read it. It's about the opioid epidemic in Philadelphia, and two sisters at opposite ends of it, one a cop and one an addict who has gone missing. It was quite disturbing, but interesting too. At one point everything seemed to be going wrong and I was afraid it would end badly, but (spoiler!) it all comes out more or less right in the end. Very well done.

Jane (A Murder) by Maggie Nelson (2005). I wanted to read this book in June, but Prospector didn't deliver. Then suddenly in mid July, up it pops. Maggie Nelson's Aunt Jane (her mother's sister) was murdered outside Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1969 at the age of 23 (a few years before Nelson was born). At first she was thought to be one of the notorious Michigan Murders, but something didn't quite fit. In 2004, DNA from Jane's clothing was matched to an entirely different person, and he was put on trial, which Nelson wrote about in her next book, The Red Parts, and which I read a few years ago. But before all that happened, Nelson wrote this book, a collection of her poetry mixed with Jane's diary entries. It's very unusual and very moving. And of course, after finishing it, I had to go back and reread The Red Parts (which I own). Together they tell a fascinating but harrowing story.

The Search by Geoff Dyer (1993). Dyer's second novel, about a man searching for a woman's lost husband (at her request). I thought this was going to be a thriller, but it really wasn't. In the Afterword he says his Italian publisher referred to it as a "metaphysical thriller," so maybe it's that. Dyer explains that it's really an homage to Italo Calvino, especially his Invisible Cities, which I haven't read (yes, it's on my to-read list now). Anyway, I liked it at first, and then it got weirder and weirder, and I liked it less. I don't think I was supposed to have that reaction. I found it annoying that I couldn't tell what country he was in -- maybe the U.S., but none of the city names made sense, maybe somewhere in Europe, but the land he was traveling through was too big. I also kept thinking that it was going to turn out to be a dream. Maybe it was. I don't know. An interesting choice right before a road trip.

Books from the New Yorker's "Briefly Noted" reviews

Questions 27 & 28 by Karen Tei Yamashita (2026). OK, this isn't actually from "Briefly Noted," but I first read about it in the New Yorker, so I'm counting it here. I was on hold at the library for this book for a long time, and I finally got it at the end of June. It's billed as a novel, but it's a very unusual novel. I'd call it more of a fictionalized survey of notable Japanese Americans, beginning with Yone Noguchi's time in America (1893-1904) and continuing to the present day. There's a lot about the internment camps (the questions referred to in the title were part of the "Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese Ancestry" form that internees had to fill out, about their loyalty to the U.S.). I was familiar with many of the writers she discusses, such as Noguchi, Toshio Mori, Mine Okubo, and Lois-Ann Yamanaka, whose Blu's Hanging I just read back in May. But I learned a lot from the book too. Some of it is kind of clunky, often I wished she would be more clear, but I think it's an important book.

Other reading

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (2021). The book group book, suggested by Sally.  I kept putting off reading this, just not feeling it, not in the mood for science fiction, but when I finally started, OMG. So fun. It's very long, 476 pages, and the beginning was a little slow and some other parts dragged, but the part where he meets an alien -- oh, so fun, so fascinating, I couldn't put it down. I wonder what the book group will think of it? (we don't meet for another 10 days). After I finished it, Rocket Boy started reading it. Now I really want to see the movie, but of course it's no longer in theaters, so I'll have to wait until the library gets the DVD. Maybe by next summer?

Fierce Attachments: A Memoir by Vivian Gornick (1987). My older sister gave me a used paperback of this book for my birthday and I stuck it in my backpack to bring along on our road trip, just in case I got tired of all the fiction I'd brought. I ended up reading only this, none of the fiction. Go figure. Anyway, it's an interesting book about Gornick's fraught relationship with her mother. It's also about Gornick's relationships with men and other women, but all of that is wound around her relationship with her mother. I think the reason I didn't love it as much as a lot of people love it is that she didn't get along with her mother very well. I did not get along with my mother when I was younger, but after I moved away, went to grad school, my father died, all that, we got along extremely well. She was my best friend. So when I was reading this I kept thinking, oh grow up, do better, why are you still fighting with her? That's probably not fair. Mother-daughter relationships are very complicated and it's impressive that Gornick wrote such an honest book.

Heat wave

So our heat wave has begun. I'm just glad it didn't start a week ago, for my birthday. I was able to bake my (meh) cake without feeling bad about turning on the oven. Definitely wouldn't want to do that today! And there's no end in sight for the heat. I read somewhere that it was supposed to last 10 days, so that would be until a week from tomorrow, roughly. We'll be on vacation by then, so we won't know for sure.

It's a little scary with no air conditioning. Right now our house is comfortable, but not wonderful. It's 4:30 pm and the temperature in the hallway is 79 degrees. Outside on the front porch it's 97. We're all kind of taking it easy, not moving around too much. I scolded Rocket Boy for using the oven to reheat a slice of pizza. I'm trying to figure out how to make dinner this week without turning on said oven.

Looking back to last Sunday, the rest of my birthday was nice. We went to the Shakespeare Festival that night, despite both of us not really feeling it. On July 3rd (which Rocket Boy had off work) he discovered that mice had colonized our garden shed and were eating all the grass seed he had stored there. So he embarked on a weekend project to take everything out of the garden shed and clean it thoroughly. He worked on this on July 3rd, 4th, and 5th, pausing to make the 4th of July barbecue happen and go out to lunch on my birthday, but otherwise working straight through. So when we left for CU at about 7 pm on Sunday night, he was a wreck. But he's a sweetie, so he didn't complain.

CU has redone the outdoor Mary Rippon theater and it was very nice. I remembered, too late, that in the past people in the know always brought their own seat cushions. But it was OK that I'd forgotten, because now they're provided for everyone, free of charge. Makes those red rock benches a LOT easier to sit on for three hours. 

It wasn't 97 degrees on July 5th, but it was still hot, even at 7:30 pm. As we settled into our seats and waited for the performance of "Shakespeare in Love" to begin, I thought, why am I here on my birthday? Is this really something I want to do? But it turned out OK. The performance was very good, great performers especially the guy who played Will. I was glad I'd gone.

The next day, Monday, it was back to real life. Our cat Sillers had an appointment with the cat neurologist at 9:30, so I had to get up when Rocket Boy did (at 7 am) and get my act together. I was pretty tired at the vet's, though, and gave some dumb answers to their questions. Based on those dumb answers, the neurologist decided that Sillers needed to have an MRI of her brain and neck -- for $3000 (including anesthesia, because obviously you can't ask a cat to hold still for an MRI). I gulped. But, you know, I knew it would be expensive, and what was the point of coming here if we didn't do the testing? So I said yes. I left her there and picked her up about four hours later.

And the results of the MRI were interesting. Sillers' brain is fine, but she has some sort of "lesion" or "growth" or "obstruction" or whatever -- not in her brain, but in her brain stem. The vet thought this could explain all of her weird behavior. It is probably not cancer, but it is not curable -- you can't go into the brain stem and remove things. However, you can try to treat it. We're going to try first with prednisolone (the same thing Baby Kitty takes for his asthma) and if that doesn't help, with gabapentin. The vet said we would do prednisolone for a couple of months and then repeat the MRI. I smiled. Of course we're not going to do that. I'm not going to spend another $3000 to see if a drug is working. But we'll have that discussion later. 

The problem is that the prednisolone apparently can't be mixed with her food (even though I mix Baby Kitty's prednisolone with his food). It's in liquid form, and I'm supposed to shoot it down her throat after each meal. This will not be fun, and I do not want to ask the cat sitters to do it. Therefore we're going to postpone starting treatment until after our trip. So poor Sillers will go untreated for another few weeks. Two days ago she peed on my pillow again -- and looked startled and started sniffing around to figure out what had just happened. I grabbed the pillow and the cat blanket and the bedspread off the bed and threw them straight into the washing machine. Most days she throws up at least one meal. I'm afraid she's going to die of starvation before we can start treating her.

But it's always like this before a trip! Something awful happens and you feel like you shouldn't go. Sillers will (probably) be OK while we're gone. She'll try to be good for the cat sitters. We'll put plastic on the bed (under the top coverings) so that if she has accidents while we're gone, they won't penetrate further. The cat sitters can clean up whatever accidents they find on the floor, and otherwise we'll clean up the rest when we get back. It will be OK.

Before I took Sillers to the cat neurologist, I told Teen B that on the forms they have you sign, where they ask if they should resuscitate your pet if it goes into cardiac arrest or whatever, I was going to check "no." Then, if Sillers went into cardiac arrest, all our problems would be solved. But I couldn't do it. She got sick on the car ride to the vet, threw up in the cat carrier, had bile dripping from her mouth, looked So Incredibly Pathetic. I couldn't do it. She's my baby, for better or for worse. I told them to resuscitate her if necessary (it wasn't necessary).

However, I'm not going to keep spending $3000 on repeat MRIs. There are limits. 

Not much else happened during the week. Teen A, who got a flat tire the week before (necessitating the purchase of two new tires, so they would match, only one of which was covered by the warranty), hit a raccoon on 36 north of town, and broke a piece of plastic that was attached to something near a wheel. So on Friday he and I went to Boulder Hybrids for them to take off the broken thing and put on a new thing. Cost: $175 (less than the tire). I paid it. I know, I know, at some point I should probably start charging him for things that happen to the car. But it's still my car and I figure as long as I can pay for it (easily), I'll pay for it. 

It was a very bad cooking week, and I'm sure this week will be just as bad. The combination of heat plus my drug makes me just pathetically useless. I did manage to make a pasta dish and a curry with rice. That might have been it. What in the world will I cook this week, with the terrible heat? 

This coming week I finally get my new fake tooth, that's tomorrow. I'm excited (a little). I've had a hole in my mouth for over a year now. Then on Tuesday my car goes to the shop for an oil change and a checkup. Hopefully nothing terrible will be wrong. And the rest of the week we will just try to survive the heat and get ready for our trip! 

***

Yes, the trip! so now we're planning our trip across the country. We're going to drive to California and back, be gone 11 days. We leave next Saturday, so I probably won't write any blog posts for a while (can't do it on my phone). We don't have the whole trip planned yet, but I'm getting there.

Next Saturday we're going to drive across Wyoming and Utah, past Salt Lake City to a hotel near Tooele, practically on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Sunday we'll do the rest of Utah and most of Nevada, stopping for dinner at the home of my old college roommate, Grace, who lives in Reno. Then we'll stay the night at a hotel in Carson City. Monday we'll drive to the Bay Area via highway 88, a road I've never (to my knowledge) taken before. It will be slower than I-80, but it will avoid Sacramento and other population centers, maybe be slightly more pleasant than I-80. I don't know.

Monday afternoon we'll show up at my sister's in Santa Clara, and we'll stay with her for five days. I also got a hotel room nearby, so that we can take a little pressure off her house and the family -- people will have a place to go to get away, things like that. I think I'm thinking of myself, mostly. Not that I would get away to the hotel, but if my husband is driving me crazy, I can send him off to the hotel to swim or rest. Not that my husband drives me crazy, but he likes to be active, always wants to have a plan and a goal. I might like to spend some time just lying around watching television, petting dogs, chatting with my relatives. That's when it would be nice to have a place to send him to.

Wednesday of that week we'll drive up to my cousin's house near Kenwood, to visit and see his vineyard, etc. We haven't been up there in seven years, and he and his brother are getting so old, 86 and 83. His wife died a few years ago, so we won't be seeing her, and his brother's wife is younger, but not that much younger. How many more chances will we have to see them? Not many.

The following Saturday (the 25th) we'll pack up and drive to Solvang to visit my father's cousin and her husband. They are very old too -- my cousin is almost 88 and her husband is 93 (or thereabouts). So again, how many more times do we get to see them?

Then on Sunday we're going to Chino to visit Rocket Boy's aunt (his late uncle's second wife), who we haven't seen in ages, maybe, hmm, not since his uncle's funeral? December 2002. Is that possible? More than 23 years. She's 95 and still sounded totally on top of things when RB called her yesterday. We'll probably have lunch with her and her son, who lives with her.

And then we'll get on the road again. I made a hotel reservation in Needles for that night, but beyond that how we're going to go home is still up in the air. Probably we should just go the fastest way. It's 868 miles to Boulder if we just take 95 to I-15 to I-70, and that's probably what we'll do. Just haven't quite committed to that plan yet. I'd like to take 40 to 89 to 160 to 285, go through Navajoland and southern Colorado. It's about the same mileage, 864 miles, but would take about an hour more. Does an hour matter? Will have to give this some thought.

Rocket Boy likes to see unusual things on road trips, and I mostly focus on getting us to the places we're going. But I try to leave room for his enthusiasms. For instance, on the way to Reno we're going to try to see the Sutro Tunnel. I'm not sure why this is so interesting, but I put it on the itinerary. Then, after we leave Chino on the 26th, we're going to visit Amboy, California, which I guess was featured on a Huell Howser program once upon a time. It sounds as though maybe the whole town is closed down now, but it's on Route 66, so that'll be fun, and hey, why not?

See you when we get back... 

Happy birthday to me

It's July 5th, so you know what that means! Happy birthday -- in this case happy 66th birthday -- to me! And just look at that beautiful cake. It's a chocolate cake, actually more of a mocha because it has a cup of coffee in it (we made a special trip to Starbucks for the coffee), frosted and layered with a mixture of whipping cream, mascarpone, powdered sugar, and lemon curd, and with lemon curd drizzled on top and on the individual layers. The middle layer split in half when I transferred it over, but I don't think that matters. I patched it together with cream.

We haven't eaten it yet. I don't know if it's actually going to be that good. It just looks amazing. I can't believe I made myself a three-layer cake. I never make cakes. And it's so hot today, 95 degrees currently. What a day to be making (or eating) a cake. There was a lot of cream left over, and I just put it all down the drain. It would have upset my husband if he'd seen me, but come on, what are you going to do with three extra cups of whipped cream frosting? 

I am having a nice day, a nice weekend. We hung one of our huge American flags yesterday, hoping the Pride flag next to it will make people understand that we're not Republicans. It's still up -- probably should take it down soon. OK, I took it down and Rocket Boy is now folding it up, putting it back in its container for another year.

Though maybe we should pull it out for Election Day. I'll see.

Our primaries were this week (we had all voted already, of course, so I guess you could say they ended this week) and the results were interesting. The candidate Rocket Boy and I wanted for governor (Phil Weiser) won, so that was good, although his challenger (Senator Michael Bennet) would have been OK too. I like Bennet, but I thought it would be disruptive to pull him out of the Senate. Weiser is a little more liberal, not a lot, but anyway, he trounced Bennet. I was surprised to see that John Hickenlooper almost lost his Senate seat to a socialist challenger, and Diana DeGette, who's represented Denver in the House for eons, did lose her seat to a socialist challenger. I don't think of Colorado as a particularly socialist state -- we're not New York. Brooks and Capehart on the NewsHour were surprised too. 

The other race that surprised me was Secretary of State. Both candidates seemed fine, so I voted for the one who wasn't blond and had a Hispanic last name. That is seriously how I made my decision. Turned out she won in a landslide. Apparently she is more progressive than the blond candidate -- I didn't even realize. I need to pay more attention!

We are still watching the Republican race for governor, but it seems pretty clear that the craziest candidate is going to win. The Repubs had three people running: a relatively normal person, a MAGA nut, and a certifiably crazy weirdo. And the weirdo is winning. I don't think Phil Weiser is going to have to campaign very hard.

So, anyway, the 4th. We had a barbecue, although Rocket Boy first had to remove a wasp nest from the barbecue itself (eek!). I bought a thing of potato salad, and we barbecued swordfish (very good), broccoli (a little different, but OK), and chicken, which was already cooked. I had bought a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store a few days before because I wanted to make a Chinese chicken salad. I decimated the breast for the salad and then put the rest of the chicken in the fridge, planning to throw it in the compost when Rocket Boy wasn't looking. (I don't like chicken!) But he put the legs and wings on the grill instead. I guess that was fine. I didn't eat any. He had some -- and then had a terrible attack of reflux and couldn't eat anything for the rest of the night. 

For dessert, I had bought graham crackers and chocolate for s'mores, assuming that we had plenty of marshmallows. What we had, it turned out, was plenty of MINI marshmallows! Honestly, my brain. I toasted some mini marshmallows, but it was pretty pathetic. Teen B was very disappointed in me.

After dinner, and after it got dark, we walked down to the park and the school, looking for fireworks. We saw some, but couldn't figure out where they were coming from -- maybe just the middle of a street somewhere. Instead, in the park, we found this sign, which amused me. Like, if I were a teenager looking to set off fireworks, would I really be deterred by this sign?

We went home and watched an episode of "The Prisoner" which is on the Criterion Channel right now, and then went to bed.

This morning everybody got up terribly late, even me, at 11. I sat in the living room (with Teen A asleep on the sofa) and did Wordle and Connections and opened a card or two. Around noon or so I opened Teen B's door and whispered "Starbucks... Starbucks..." and finally he got up and we went. I couldn't miss my beloved Iced Horchata Shaken Espresso on my birthday. Last week, Teen B and I went to Starbucks in the middle of the week (Wednesday?) just so we could try all the new S'mores drinks and our verdict was: meh. So I went back to my favorite and so did he (the Iced Lavender Chai). 

Then we came home and I opened the rest of my cards and gifts and talked to my little sister. I had gotten myself some books on genealogy, which I was happy to receive from myself, and a dress (a smaller version of my favorite which it occurred to me was probably available on eBay and sure enough it was, so now I can give my old larger dress to Goodwill), and the Rosa Parks Barbie doll, who I'd been coveting for a long time now. Should have bought her when she was cheaper, but it's fine. My older sister gave me several little things: a book, a sheet of paper dolls, some little doll toys, and a set of 12 handkerchiefs with birds embroidered on them. I said to her, I am the only person in the world who would want this, and it is so smart of you to have figured that out. If I had a pocket in my dress, I would put a bird handkerchief in it now. As it is, tomorrow I will wear pants and can put a bird handkerchief in the pants pocket.

Oh, and also I donated to https://www.forcemultiplierus.org/, $100 to the House races they think are most competitive and $100 to the Senate races they think are most competitive, and I plan to continue giving them money over the next four months. This was suggested by my old college roommate Grace, and since getting rid of MAGA would be the best birthday present ever, I was very happy to do it.

OK, we have now tried the cake, and the verdict is: meh. I'm so sad! Mocha and lemon, it turns out, is a weird combination. I think it would have been OK if it had been plain chocolate and lemon... but maybe not. Maybe I should stick with angel food cake, which I know goes great with lemon. Oh well. It's still an incredibly beautiful cake.

I need to finish this up because we are going to the Shakespeare Festival tonight -- we're going to see their version of "Shakespeare in Love" so not actually Shakespeare, but it will still be fine. It's outdoors in the Mary Rippon Theatre, and it's still 95 degrees right now, but we'll see. Probably it will cool down as the sun goes down. This is going to be a very hot week, the one coming up. The week that just ended was hot too, but not so bad. I went to the Boulder Concert Band concert on Monday again. This time it was at Harlow Platts Park, in south Boulder, and they combined with the band from the local National Guard, so that was interesting. Very good players. They encouraged people to join the National Guard and be in their band. Hmm? OK, whatever. 

There's no concert tomorrow, because they played for a 4th of July thing yesterday. I will be able to go to one more concert, on July 13th, and then I'll miss their last two, because we'll be in California (or headed home) on July 20th and 27th. But it's OK. I'm glad I've gotten to see as many as I have.

Tomorrow I take Sillers to the specialist vet, so we'll see if they can figure out anything about our very weird kitty. Other things scheduled this week: Teen B has a haircut on Thursday and that's about it. We can spend the time planning our trip and trying to check things off my master summer list. All of a sudden, with the trip looming, I feel like we don't have much summer left.