My Own Wayback Machine

Tanya at 50— still the sexiest girl in town

Scott's nephews and their wives planned a surprise party for his sister Tanya's 50th birthday, and her co-workers dressed her up and gave her gag gifts.

***

It's 2:44 pm and I'm re-starting my day. Woke with a migraine threatening, and when being up and around didn't make it go away, took a pill and laid back down. Till two in the afternoon. Now I'm fine, though groggy, and feeling like the day's been wasted. Am trying not to feel that way, telling myself "I must've needed that sleep" and such. Still, I hate sleeping so much of the day away. I still have to work for four hours and go for that brisk walk. With luck, this black coffee I'm sipping on will put me in the mood for both things.

Today is Emil's 23rd birthday. He is celebrating with his roommates, going out for supper at a local restaurant of his choice and then back home for cake from a local bakery. He wasn't home on the weekend but told me his birthday plans over the phone, and I said "Well then next weekend we'll do something together; get another cake or something." His reply was a firm, "Nope. One cake is enough." I still can't quite believe I heard him right; to be sure, though, I did ask him to repeat it.

He would like to go out for a meal with me on Saturday, though, and he knows exactly where, so it's on my calendar. Will Scott or Everett be invited? Not necessarily. Mom is the only one who is really essential, apparently. What a kid.

The thought of having a 23-year-old son sent me into my stack of old journals, looking for one that included the date of my own 23rd birthday. It's a very large stack, and I didn't find that particular one, but did come across one written when I was well into the year following my 23rd birthday. My friend Shelly and I had been travelling around with our 10-speeds after a lazy summer camping at the beach near here. We'd gone to the east coast and picked apples in Nova Scotia, then headed south to the warmer weather:

Oct13, 1982: Gulf of Mexico, warm waves, smooth sand, Galveston, wind, wet, oilless bicycles, a terrible sleep on a balcony overlooking the full moon shining on the water, jellyfish.

Bumper sticker:
Be Prepared! Jesus is coming at any moment. Driver will disappear.

Quote: Experience the experience rather than contemplating the outcome.

Oct.22:
A man in a small craft rows out to where a school of whales is loafing around. He wants to observe. He goes among the babies. Then you see a large whale moving toward him in the water. You think, oh oh! Better try to get to him before it does him in. Instead the whale gives the boat a gentle nudge. This continues until the man and his boat are at a safe distance from the young. — Story from a fella who drove us from Maine to Massachusetts. He's an offshore scallop fisherman. I was touched, to think that whale so wise and gentle; and men actually kill them in droves.

Wednesday morn, Oct28, San Carlos Indian Reservation, Soda Canyon Campground, Arizona: and a lovely, peaceful morning it is! I woke up all soft, toasty warm and cosy snuggled into sleeping bags on a stone picnic table, under a grass-roofed ramada. Bliss! Desert mountains all around, cactus trees, and coffee water heating in the motorhome we travelled the last thousand miles with. There's a clear lake down at the bottom not far away, Fred Murphy's already fishing for bass; there's a little trailer town not 1/4 mile from us, and a pair of fellow campers a few sites over. And here comes a heavy old cow! Been 2 bomber jets flew in and out through our little mountain valley, neat-looking space-age arrows.

Oct29:
Outside of Weatherford the other morning, we sat down at the side of the road to thumb down a ride. It was cold. No one was stopping. Shelly pulled out her crocheting, which Aunt Reta has just taught her when we stayed with them in Shreveport, and I started reading my Discovery magazine. After about an hour this beat-up orange mustang comes barrelling down the shoulder as if to hit us, pulls to a stop and there are three boozing local yokels wanting us to go party and get high with them. We can leave our bikes parked behind a store just down the road. No one is home so we just lean them up and take off. Next morning Tom drives us to pick them up, and they're gone. The storekeeper says he had no idea whose they were but the cops thought we may have been bonked on the head or something, so they took them to the cop shop and went through them.
   The cop goes, "And who's going to claim the marijuana in one of the packs?"
   Shelly and I look at each other. Oh No.
   "What colour are the bikes?"
   Well, that depends now on how much marijuana you found.
   "90 days," he says.
   Well, those look like our bikes, but ...well ... maybe ....
   "I'm gonna forget about those seeds," the officer says.
    Green and silver, they're our bikes, blue and red packs.
Lord we did get a scare. Texas.