Going Home!

Today I am flying back to Texas. I'll go from Seattle to San Antonio. Chuck will meet me at the San Antonio Airport and drive me home to Corpus Christi on Sunday night.

It is always nice to go home.

Seattle!

The last leg of our trip will be spent in Seattle. We'll stay with Terry and Dennis, who live on Magnolia Hill. Chuck is going back to Texas on Thursday, and I am flying there on Sunday. There are high school friends to visit, daughters to see, and familiar places to enjoy.

When Chuck and I were first married we lived in Seattle. He painted houses and I had a long-term substitute teaching job, as requested by my supervising teacher from my student teaching.

Bellingham, WA!

We will fly from Portland to Bellingham today, while generous friends Terry and Dennis will drive back to Seattle in their car. Even though I didn't move to Bellingham until high school, I consider that both Chuck and I grew up there.

Chuck's parents are living in a senior living complex in Bellingham, and we are staying in a little room there for our three day/night visit.

Portland, Oregon!

Today we will arrive in Portland, Oregon. Our good friends from Seattle, Terry and Dennis, will meet us at the airport. They will travel with us for the next four nights and days in Oregon.

Our Vacation So Far

Since I am at a desktop Apple computer, I can easily blog. So I will quickly write about our vacation so far:

Las Vegas:

• Chuck and I flew to Las Vegas from San Antonio on Wednesday. We left Corpus Christi at 7 am to get to the airport in time, though we were early enough to buy sandwiches at Whole Foods to eat on the plane.
• Two nights in Las Vegas. We are "foodies" and so loved the restaurants we went to there. The first night we paid more for taxis than for our meal at a faraway spot I found on TripAdvisor called Off the Strip. Fantastic and reasonably priced meals had us wishing we could eat there frequently. 
• The main reason we came to Las Vegas was to see the Cirque de Soleil show of the Beatles Love.  We enjoyed it so much that we would even go to Las Vegas again to see it, and we didn't like the smoke-filled casinos. The show was beyond our expectations--we are Baby Boomers, after all!
• Since Chuck and I don't smoke, gamble or drink (much), Las Vegas is not really "our" town. To get to the elevators to our room, we always had to walk through all the slot machines and smoke. 
• One good thing is I got up early both mornings and walked for an hour along the Strip. It was fun to see all the buildings with few people around.
• I was disappointed by the lack of recycling depositories on the streets, because bottles of water were sold on every street overpass. People were drinking all the time in the heat, and all those plastic bottles were thrown in the trash or on the sidewalks. (On my early morning walks, I observed people cleaning all the streets and sidewalks.)

Salt Lake City:

• We flew here on Friday, with MJ picking us up at the airport. There was the quickest delivery of luggage at the terminal, which impressed us with Salt Lake City.
• MJ was kind about ferrying us around today to the Farmers' Market, the Salt Lake City Library, and to the card stores I love to frequent. 
• We bought fresh nectarines and raspberries that are so flavorful that we are sad to think of the more tasteless fruit we've become accustomed to in the stores in south TX. The raspberries remind me of the ones we picked in my parents' backyard in Bellingham, WA.
• Next to the Salt Lake City Library is The Leonardo Museum, so went and saw their current exhibit from Australia about the 101 most important inventions of the world.  One of the major inventions was the creations of Legos! I noticed that the refrigerator was invented in 1922, which was the year my dad was born; when he was a teenager in Arkansas, he delivered cubes of ice for ice boxes.
• We had a light meal tonight so that we could have dessert! Chuck had molten chocolate cake; MJ and I had salted caramel gelato between toffee chunk cookies with chocolate dunking sauce. That was a dessert worth the calories!!

Friday Five: Keep Calm and. . . . .

Revkjarla brings yesterday's Friday Five to RevGalBlogPals:

1.  First, how are you doing? What's going on with you?

This is the fourth day on our vacation. We are in Salt Lake City visiting our youngest daughter MJ and are staying at the wonderful University Guest House, which has easy and speedy internet connections, plus a MAC to write on in the lobby. That is such a nice contrast to the hotel we stayed at in Las Vegas for two days, which said they had wifi, but it never worked for us anywhere in the hotel.

2.  Is there anything you need to Keep Calm and Cowgirl Up for?

I want to keep calm about some recent family disruptions, but can easily get riled up again.

3.  If you were going to make a "Keep Calm and __________" logo for a t-shirt, what would it be?

"Keep Calm and Pray" or "Keep Calm and Breathe"

4.  What are you looking forward to in the next week or so?

Chuck and I will be in Salt Lake City until Monday morning. This is such a clean city that it is a joy to be here after all the smoking, drinking and gambling we saw in most places in Las Vegas. Plus, it's nice to be with MJ and eat out at the great restaurants she is taking us to.

Next week we are spending four days in Oregon with dear friends Terry and Dennis. They are God parents to daughter AE and have been friends for decades. It will be fun to travel with them and see parts of Oregon we once frequented when Chuck went to grad school at Oregon State University way back in the 1970's.

5.  Use the following words in a sentence:     cape, river, dancing, paws, glory

As their capes flapped in the breeze, the dogs waved their paws while dancing in the glory of the sun rising over the river.

Salt Lake City!

Today we'll fly to Salt Lake City where we will be able to visit youngest daughter MJ, who is going to grad school at the University of Utah. We'll stay Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights there.We are really looking forward to being with MJ!

Las Vegas~!

Cirque de Soleil at The Mirage

Today is the first day of our vacation. We will drive to San Antonio to catch a plane to go to Las Vegas. Las Vegas is not a prime locale for us as we don't gamble and don't drink very often, but we are Beatles fans and want to see the Cirque de Soleil show at The Mirage. We'll go to that tomorrow night.

Only 1 1/2 days in Las Vegas, but two nights there. It will be interesting to be there, especially after reading the last chapter in The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg where he chronicles the gambling addiction of one woman until she lost everything.

This chapter talks about "near misses": "To pathological gamblers, near misses looked like wins. Their brains reacted almost the same way. But to a nonpathological gambler, a near miss was a loss. People without a gambling problem were better at recognizing that a near miss means you still lose, " as written by cognitive neuroscientist Reza Habib. (264)

My dad played slot machines at the officers' club when we lived in Japan in the 1960's, but the slots have obviously changed since then:

"In the late 1990's, one of the largest slot machine manufacturers hired a former video game executive to help them design new slots. That executive's insight was to program machines to deliver more near wins. Now, almost every slot contains numerous twists--such as free spons and sounds that erupt when icons almost align--as well as small payouts that make players feel like they are winning when, in truth, they are putting in more money than they are getting back. 'No other form of gambling manipulates the human mind as beautifully as these machines,' an addictive-disorder researcher at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine told a New York Times reporter in 2004." (265)

With two days wandering around Las Vegas, I'll observe all the bells and whistles with the slot machines and anything else that seems out of the ordinary. (Everything?)

Going on a Vacation!

We are getting ready to go on a trip. Today we talked to the college students who are going to stay in our house and take care of our three dogs and one cat.

I have a long list of "to do" before we leave early on Wednesday morning. One of the major ones is the post blogs, scheduling them for each day of my absence. Maybe that's what I need to do on a regular basis, since I have not been consistent about blogging lately.

I plan to post about our destinations on our trip; quotes and thoughts from Quiet by Susan Cain: inspirational quotes and prayers. I need three weeks worth of pre-posted material--I already have four done!

Daffodils!

I love daffodils and took pictures of them during our recent trip to Washington State. And then tonight, I was totally surprised by my daughters from Seattle--they sent me a box of daffodils! Daffodils in Texas seem odd, but I am happy that they are here for a few days.

Here is a picture I took of my friend Terry by some daffodils in Seattle. I never thought to ask her to take a picture of me with them; now I wish I had.

Friday Five: Technology

Although you won't know this, I am pre-posting this ten days ahead of schedule, because my husband and I are going to be in Washington State during his spring break (from teaching at a local community college). His parents have very recently moved into a senior living facility. We will be staying at their home, which will not have some of the furniture and supplies like we are used to. What I am dreading is no computer, tv or telephone, which also means no wifi connection. This is showing my dependence upon these technologies.

For this Friday Five, let us explore our use of and desire for such items.

1. What types of technologies, like cell phones, computers, tvs, etc., do you routinely use? How frequently?
I have an old-fashioned sliding cell phone that seems archaic nowadays. I like using the desk top computer at home, which has been unavailable while we traveled to WA State. I most frequently use it and the Kindle Fire various times during the day, since I am retired.

I don't text. My phone makes it difficult, and we don't pay for texting. I am thinking I need to add this to my phone, as my grown children text more frequently than call, especially our third son who rarely ever calls. Maybe this is a way to say better connected.

Use of the Kindle Fire was radically reduced while we were in Bellingham, with no wifi available. It is nice to be back at a desk top computer (See how old I am??) at our friends Terry and Dennis' home. 

2. What social media and/or games do you like to play? How often? On which device do you occupy yourself? Which method of social media do you prefer?
I am addicted to playing Words With Friends, though I am usually the low scorer in each game. I love that "ding" when someone has played, and I need to go and take my turn! This is on my Kindle Fire.

I like Facebook and to a lesser extent Pinterest.

3. Do you separate online activities between home and work? Or is it all the same everywhere?
Since I don't work, I am separated only by access to wifi.

4. Do you have a smart (or I-) phone?
No.

5. What do you wish you had--or do not have--in relation to these devices?
I halfway desire a smart phone and/or an Ipad, but I have the Kindle Fire. The only thing I don't like about it is lack of internet availability in areas where I cannot access wifi. I guess that's where my desire comes in--I'd like to have internet connection everywhere! But since I don't work, that seems silly.

Bonus: What is the difference between your attitude towards these means of technology and a generation older or younger than you?
An obvious difference between my grown children and eventually grandchildren is the use (or non-use) of texting. My children are between the ages of 33 and 23 and are proficient users of technology. I can already see that my 2 year old granddaughter Avery is adept at finding pictures on her dad's Ipad. They'll have to instruct me for future uses, which I may not "get." 

Chuck and I are able to use a desk top computer well, but that seems to be heading to non-existence. Hope my learning ability continues along with the patience of my children in instructing me!

Thursday in Seattle

I am writing this with my Kindle using one finger to type, so this will probably be short.

• One week in Washington State today.
•  First four days in Seattle: with daughters AE and KA and with  friends Terry and Dennis. Good company and yummy food!

• In Bellingham, Chuck and I stayed at his parents' house, which they left for a retirement community days before. We cleaned some, hopefully helping a little bit, as Chuck's sisters and brother must prepare the house to be sold. 

• We were there for 3 1/2 days and came back to Seattle this afternoon (in the rain).
• One more day here before we fly away on Saturday morning. Chuck goes back to Corpus Christi, and I go to Salt Lake City to visit MJ for two days. 

•  If all goes well, I will return on Monday night and be ready to start the newest Richard Rohr book "THE IMMORTAL DIAMOND" at the Wisdom Class on Tuesday morning. It is such a good book!

Leaving on a Jet Plane!

This morning I am leaving on a jet plane, hoping that the second jet plane (from DFW) will get to Seattle on time this afternoon!

Then I will have the adventure of finding the light rail station which is a long walk from the airport. I will take that new contraption to meet my daughters in downtown Seattle! Yay!

Then tomorrow Chuck will fly here. He and I will spend Friday, which is AE's birthday, with her and then we'll spend the weekend in Seattle with our friends Terry and Dennis. We've known Terry since high school, which was over 40 years ago.

Then next week we'll be in our hometown of Bellingham, WA while two young men take care of our pets. We will be seeing Chuck's family, especially his parents who moved into an assisted living facility only a few days ago.

Chuck and I will be staying in the newly-departed family home, with its depleted furniture and other items. We're not sure what we'll find there, though we know there will be beds! Sadly, there will be no tv or internet available.

Problems!!

We have been thrown into a tizzy with an email this morning from the friend who always house-dog-sits for us when we travel. She cannot be here for us during the upcoming trip to WA State, even though we asked her months ago. In three days we need someone taking care of our pets, because Chuck will depart. (I am leaving the day before, which I have already pre-posted for Thursday.)

Chuck reserved spaces at our vet's kennel, which is expensive and not our first choice for our dogs. We'd prefer someone staying at our house. Calling people and friends today brought frustration and worry. What to do?? Finally, we found the sons of church members who are willing to help us out.

They just left after getting to know our dogs, including leaping Maisie (our Lab/hound mix). One is in college and the other is in high school, and they will take care of the dogs in partnership. They may even sleep here. That makes it nicer for our dogs and for our cat, who will not indicate her pleasure.

Chuck and I feel great relief. Whew!