We got up early for us, for a Sunday (9am-ish) and went to the gym, lay around reading, bought some rolls, prosciutto and cheese for lunch, made some horrendous picks for fantasy baseball draft, went for a walk, watched The Age of Innocence, and started preparing dinner.

Not a bad Sunday at all.

Aaaag. My bubble just burst. No Va Tech in the Big Dance. Love the Georgia story, though. Are we doing Mecha Tourney Pickem this year?

We got up, and I played some video games while he got some work done. Then we worked out.

Now, we just got back from buying a grill - yay! and are going to assemble it so that we can make dinner. We gave our grill away when we moved to the people we grilled out with the most, so we've been grill-less ever since. I'm so excited!

i wanna grill! One of the things I miss about the US. I want to sit in my yard and grill.

I did Morning Prayer at the church for Palm Sunday. (By "did", I mean I was the officiant. We have no priest at the moment; we have lay-led services twice a month and a supply priest the other two services.) I didn't do too bad. We had a soloist who sang beautiful baritone on two songs.

Then I napped, then went to the college to accept a sorority's teaching award for "Most Inspirational Teacher". That was sweet. I told them my favorite student evaluation said, "Dr. lleachie is weird -- but that's a GOOD thing."

My grandbun was here this weekend. At church he didn't want to go into the nursery,and he was too cheerfully noisy to stay in the service, so he and I walked around and visited with folks in the lobby. It was glorious. (and I can always hear the sermon online, so no biggie.)

He and my daughter had lunch with us, we played a little while, then they went to his other grandma's house (she is "nana") and from there they head back to Norfolk.

The Grandbun is quite the little fellow now. He waves goodbye, he tells his mama "no" (not that that gets him anywhere) and he looks adorable in his baby sunglasses.

cleaning everything. Lift your feet I need to get under there with the vacuum.

I had my first driving lesson. He let me operate the clutch and - if I'm very careful, the accelerator.

(one day I hope to learn steering)

My in-laws visited for the day. They're sweet and easy to be with. But as my own sister pointed out to me, after meeting them: "They'll never outwit you".

My sister in law had the quote of the day:

"We watch 'Millionaire' and those people are so dumb! They get the easiest questions wrong! They don't know NOTHING!" She said this with a straight face. No idea.

They're all gone now and we're fixing dinner .. chicken, green beans and oven roasted red potatoes. Toddler Jack is running around as though the wind is blowing him and he can't stop. It's pretty funny.

The perfect chocolate covered espresso beans have made my day. Just the perfect balance of crunch and smooth, rich, sweet and bitter.
The Bees just had her harness removed from our earlier jaunt, first time outside in her stroller.
we lasted several seconds, it was only 33 degrees, but she loves it. it's her fravorite new thong and sleeps in it, but the circus still waits another year.

Sunday was yesterday here. My son played his first game of soccer with the Bayhawk Joeys under-5s team.≡ Click to see image ≡

I spent the morning with my parents. This afternoon I refereed my kids and the neighborhood kids, cleaned, and listened to music. I made chicken fajitas and Spanish rice for dinner. I just took a long shower and made a cup of Earl Grey. In a sec I'm going to take an aspirin and watch No Country for Old Men. I getting sleepy, it might have to be a two-parter.

Wow, look at that sun on that soccer field.

I've had a lovely, lovely Sunday. It began with sleeping in, and then because it's maple sugaring time we took a ride out to a sugarhouse about an hour away. It was wonderful. You tromp in out of the snow and stand by a hot hot fire inhaling clouds of woodsmokey, mapley steam. Like a sweet sauna. We stocked up on maple goods and then drove back toward home and got a meal at a tavern we had been meaning to try.

The day wrapped up kind of magically with a beautiful special Lent event at a local Church. Some people from a place called the Taize monastery in France put on a candlelight service that consisted of all chanting. Taize (apparently, I'm just learning about it) is an ecumenical Christian monastery where people from all over the world can go to work, study, and worship. It began in World War II as a refuge from the Nazis for people of all faiths. The chanting was absolutely gorgeous - a lot of it medieval sounding. Here's a YouTube from Taize so you can hear what it sounds like - we sang this one, Laudete Dominum, tonight. They would sing each piece through once, and then everybody chimed in. Haunting spooky minor key melodies - very old-Churchy. Hundreds of votives glowed on the altar, and it was very peaceful and rejuvenating.

I've now been spending a quiet evening by myself, chatting on the phone with my parents and brother and SIL. Now I'm going to eat some leftover quiche and read the Sunday paper. All is quiet.

I finally picked up the living room, got the laundry done washed but not put away completely, the kids clean, and some semblance of order in my head.

Trying to calm my nerves a little - the kids' playhouse almost blew into the street with a sudden gust through the yard. I hate wind.

Now to lay down with "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me".

Miko, your pics smell oddly delicious.
i'm having a syrup appreciation problem. i appreciate it far too much.
*wonders if there's anything here to syrup*

Brunch with my mother and sister, a visit with my niece, then Mom asked me to come home with her to tackle a computer problem she's had for a week or so. It was gratifyingly easy to suss out the problem and solve it. Yay, me!

Then home. Made a nice dinner for the two of us, suddenly found myself completely exhausted and unable to choke it down. Instead, I flung myself down on the couch for an hour to rest.

Then I had chocolate chip cookies and milk for dinner, took a hot bath, and now I'm tucked into bed, feeling much better.

As little as possible. Yesterday I went with my mom over the to Sunshine Coast-- we caught the 9:20 ferry over and the 6:30 back-- to attend the memorial service for her oldest friend from school. They met when she was 11, and she is now almost 75. The church was full; they had to keep bringing in more chairs. Full service, and I took communion, for the first time in years. I found that none of the language, none of the readings, nothing that I usually find comforting, could reach me. I sat with tears leaking the entire time, though my mother didn't cry. After the reception we went back to her house, now only her husband's house, and walked around the beautiful garden. It was a long, long day.

Today, I have slept, faffed about on the internet, ate, had a bath, and I'm now faffing about on the internet again. I will, however, manage to get a load of laundry done this evening, empty and fill the dishwasher, take out the recycling, and finish a review.

Death sucks.

Did a bunch of chores, worked on vacation photos and a post for here about part of my trip, caught up on phone calls, washed my work clothes so they're nice and clean for tomorrow (still covered in paint and crap, but it's *clean* paint and crap). Gave up on uploading on dial-up. The job site has wireless, so I'll do some on my lunch instead. About to sit down to some pierogies and a new (to me) sci fi book. Or maybe some junk tv. We'll see.

Oooohhh, DDL!


Tried to go to recommended southern place in Roanoke for brunch but the line was too long. Considered going to Booker T Washington birthplace site, but checked guidebook and realized Western Virginia art museum is closed Monday, so went there and the OW Link (he photographed the last working steam trains) museum instead. Will go to BTW site tomorrow.Was able to get into southern place for early dinner. Had ham with apples, dressing and cabbage (ordered congealed salad, but it turned out to be cherry jello with pears; neither of which I like). Watched first two segments of John Adams miniseries.

Yesterday was the three-year anniversary of my mom's death. I've spent most of the preceding week trying to forgive myself for freaking out; today, I had just a general sense of relief for not having spent the weekend banging my head against a wall. Even though I wanted to.

I woke up and made coffee and read email and Metachat, then I went and had a miraculous deep-tissue massage, then I wandered through Golden Gate Park and the Botanical Gardens for a while, then I walked down Haight Street and spent too much time in the Goodwill debating whether to buy a salmon-colored corduroy blazer (I ended up turning it down), then I bought stuff for dinner and went back home. I had a good phone conversation with my father, then made myself a nice dinner, now I'm here and thinking about going to bed. Oh! And I'm reading a very lovely new book.

As for Taize -- I heard about it and was intrigued, then saw that a church in SF had Taize services once a week. So I went, and I was trapped in the most ridiculous James Taylor 70s-era earnest-folk things ever. There was a dude with a guitar, a woman with a flute, and a LOT of please-get-me-out-of-here flute-and-guitar-and-vocal arrangements.

The guy had a lovely voice, and I love earnest spirituality, and I rarely think "OMG too San Francisco, must leave now" but.... OMG too San Francisco. I had to leave halfway through.

Typical Sunday AM: first breakfast (cereal w/skim milk and raisins, tea), newspaper, second breakfast (toast, bacon, tea), lazing about and chatting, finally getting dressed and walking the dog.

In the afternoon, we went over to Science Mom's house for lunch (small-scale smorgasbord) and did some yardwork for her (moving stuff, planting snapdragons and various other things, the names of which I did not catch), anf then grocery shopping. Yummy enchilada pie for dinner.

Science Girl and Lucy have both gone upstairs to bed, so now I'm here having a nitecap and listening to Booker Ervin.

jokeefe, as someone who works with the elderly and the dying, I can only agree: death sucks. Especially for those left behind. I'm sorry for your mother's loss, and yours as well.

We had to get up early for my follow-up CT scan. We went out for breakfast afterwards (yummm). I wanted to get my hair cut but the shop was closed.

Headed home, cruised the internet a bit while the mister did some fence repairing*. I couldn't keep my eyes open and took a nap; the mister joined me when he was done with the fence.

The mister made toasted egg salad sammiches for lunner/dinch. And then we played WoW for a bit. He went to bed a while ago and I'm headed there in a few minutes.

*Kaylee pushed out a chunk of fence and escaped into the backyard behind us.

I was trapped in the most ridiculous James Taylor 70s-era earnest-folk things ever'

Yikes! This was definitely not that cheesy or we would have been out of there too. It was really nice. Oh well - maybe they sent the B Team that day.

Oh well - maybe they sent the B Team that day.

I think it was just overly Americanized, or overly California-ized. It's a French-American church, and I went to the English-language service beforehand and I really wished they had just done it in French -- it had that weird slightly soulless feeling of translation, somehow, even though it obviously had been intended to be done in English.

Though maybe it was just a weird French thing. Now that I'm thinking about it, I do remember seeing single guitar players at some of the services in smaller churches in Paris.

Thanks bmarkey.

It's a good thing that my mother just flat out isn't allowed to die. :)