What a face paced mixed with relaxing weekend. The funeral service was very pleasant. A beautiful day, the service made me cry when they were folding the flag, and the gun salute scared to bajeebuzz out of me. There wer tons of people there. The smallest group was family. On Don's parents came, sisters all absent. Patty's family all there even neighbors Grettle and Jay. Lots of friends from the water bureau and drinking and golfing buddies. The eulogy mentions his love of Mustangs (cars) and golf. The fact that two days before Amy's wedding, he got hit in the eye by a golfball, and how he was cantankerous and saw life as a party. Lots of family headed over to Patty's afterwards and had pizza and a screwdriver in honor of Don. At 4:25 I left Frank and Lexie at Patty's and headed out to Sandy. I didn't get there until 5:40pm. Traffice was horrible. I was ten minutes late for my shift, but there were a lot of late arrivals. My first job was traffic control, for about 15 minutes to give another person a break. Then I moved on to being a 'yeller', which I did for the rest of the night. Fun job, easy during light hours. The teams all hoover about on one side of the intersection at the exchange point, waiting for their runner to arrive to be relieved. My job entailed standing on the side of the road about 200 feet from the exchange point, and calling out runner's numbers as they approached me. Then the next 'yeller' down the line would yell the number down to the yeller at the exchange who called it out on a megaphone. Besides proving that runners don't travel the speed of sound, this announcement was meant to prepare the next runner for the exchange. This was all too easy and sometimes not even necessary from 6:00pm until 7:30, because it was still light enough for the teams to see and recognize their runners coming down the road. When it started getting dusky it became more imortant, and a lot harder! Many runner's team number were not at all visible, and they were mucho focused on running or listening to their headsets, and unable/unwilling to answer my call, "Number please?". I was very concerned about shining my light to far up their torso and blinding them. In fact, moments before I was supposed to leave, a runner took a dive into the ditch ten feet from me. My stomach did flips. He cursed and struggled, then ran along. I also saw one runner show up and no team... Also saw a team van being towed away, sure hope that team had backup transportation.. All in all, it was a great experience, and if I don't actually participate in the Portland to Coast walk next year, I will definitely try to volunteer again. It only took about a half hour to get back to Betty's to pick up Frank and Lexie. HOme by 11:00pm, bed by midnight. -- Saturday we drove up to the Thicket. We spotted a piiated woodpecker along with the normal nuthatches, chickadees, stellars, chipmunks, red squirrel, and one angry, loud grey. Too much gunfire from a neighbor target practive. The sound just riochettes all over the hillsides. We watched 'Hitch', a cute film. I burnt some garlic bread in the oven, and we had frankfurter hotdogs. We tried to watch 'Aviator', but I could never get into it and went to bed. The next day we got ready to leave early, but a call from Mom telling us they were only two hours from home prompted us to stay. We showered, vacuumed, wandered the trails, had tea, and sat up on the steps in my mostest favorite spot and waited for them to arrive. It was great to see them, we went home, took a nap, and well, now here I am.
Word(s) of the day: ATYPICAL ABNORMALITY
Lexie log: She had a blast at aunt Patty's with Marisa and Gavin, then had a good time with Daddy and Gramma Betty, who gave her a bath. -- Saturday night she started having the sniffles and sneezes. By Sunday it was really clear she had a cold. She was super excited to see Grammy and Grampa Dad again. She almost didn't want to leave. As soon as we pulled away, her cold hit her full force. She started to nod off, then woke up crying, not to sleep again until home, and then fitfully. Every time she fell asleep, she woke up shortly after crying. She got croupy, feverish and upset tummy too. The one thing that seemed to relieve her was a tepid bath. She didn't eat dinner and won't swallow any medicine we give her that might make her feel better. I hated leaving this morning and loathe calling to check on her because all it does is make want to go home and comfort her. I must admit that, for me at least, this is easier than the first two since I know a little better what to expect and how to handle things. Not something I wish I could become proficient in. My sweet little angel is such a trooper, it almost make me crumble to see her so uncomfortable. I can feel my tear ducts getting heavy even as I type it.
Today I'm grateful for Frank and Lexie, Mom and Dad, healthy moments, weekends, activities, coffee, cats, potatoes, and happiness.
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