Progress?

Vincent and I talked and looked over the official record of his English class and talked about his two remaining projects – a somewhat vague critical essay and a multi-step research paper. We batted around some possible topics and Googled some possible sources, and then today I went to the public main library, University of Louisville Library, and Wild and Wooly video store to obtain books, articles, and DVDs connected with two possible topics: critical essay topic film adaptations of Beowulf, the “Knight’s Tale” from Canterbury Tales, and Romeo and Juliet. I dropped those by the house, picked up Vincent and the dog, and then Vincent dropped off job applications that he’d completed before and after he went to Ohio to four nearby businesses. Apparently, he’d been sleeping, watching the 1996 version of Romeo and Juliet that I blogged about two weeks ago, working on his math class (he says he’s finished three of five sections), and eating leftover dessert from last night’s Crescent Hill church officer Oldham County meeting/gathering/potluck dinner (from one of the businesses, the bakery, where we stopped for him to drop off an application). He also picked up something to eat as we left the last business.

Stephanie called to say she might end up staying put in the Grand Ole Opry resort for the whole two days, where there was more social activity (meals, receptions, etc.) and keynote speeches associated with the conference, partly because the whole conference is put on by a company promoting its software. Stephanie said some of the sessions are more geared towards educators with experience using the software. Since she hasn’t used it in her classroom yet, these go a little over her head. She’s staying with another English as a second language teacher – middle school, I believe – but it doesn’t sound like she’s gone out that much with the other teachers.

I’m trying to get a little work done but head for more health care reform phone calling/canvassing – which is all the more daunting knowing what we already should have known from calling during the last few weeks and from those communications with friends – Many people are skeptical about health care reform, and the president’s poll numbers are really sagging, with his very unfavorable ratings skyrocketing – all the more so after Professor Gates-gate – especially among whites, especially among working-class whites (a good share of the people we’re contacting). 12 percent more likely voters have very unfavorable views of the president than have very favorable views, and 4 percent of likely voters now say, in general, they would vote for a Republican candidate for Congress, instead of a Democratic candidate. Democratic strategists believe as unemployment eases, these numbers will change, but there’s already a precedent where this did not happen (1994).

Frisco still seems to be lagging, as I continue to carry him occasionally during our walks, even when it’s not that hot (some of these is worse since he was sick and at the vet’s).

Mom remembered this week that it was 30 years ago Tuesday (by the date) that (with very little help from Penny and me, who were mainly off at a Latin conference in Michigan, but with lots of help from the folks at the United Church in Tallahassee, which she left a couple of years later) Mom bought and then moved from a house we’d lived in for three years in the Betton Hills neighborhood of Tallahassee, to the cheaper house on Greenwood Drive, where she’s lived ever since (and where all five of us have lived at one time or another). This was connected with my parents’ divorce, which was happening around the same time.

-- Perry

Mid-week

Stephanie got to the New Albany rendezvous late, but arrived in Nashville - having stopped at Cracker Barrel on the way for lunch with her four colleagues (another is already there) - at 2 p.m. Central time, to find that her conference is at the Grand Old Opry resort, site of a weekend Food Network event starting Friday (Stephanie's last day there).

Vincent met with his counselor for the first time in three weeks Wednesday, and she said she congratulated him on the break-up with Samantha and urged Stephanie and me to give him until Sunday to finish his on-line classes (well, really, she means the Senior English class - there's no way in the world he could finish that - including the research paper of the same sort that tripped him up when he was taking this class in the classroom - AND his math class) and said that - while we spoke by phone - he was on his way home to work more. He has completed four additional job applications - Skyline Chili, a local bakery, a Speedway gas station, and Taco Bell - but has turned down offers from us to drive him to deliver them. He received an e-mail this week that the soon to be reopened local Target store - with hundreds of jobs - would not be hiring him. My idea is that we offer a chance to put him under computer room arrest - he stays in the room to work on his classes without going out except with us to look for jobs or go to the gym or to go to counseilng or the doctor's - until he finishes the two classes (unless he gets a job and starts making utility contributions?) - Otherwise, we suggest he take and mail in the GED pre-test and give him the number of a YMCA program that helps find places to live for 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds to live or $60 to take the Greyhound Bus to Columbus, presumably to right back with his father.

Wednesday I also read that in the morning the Southern IN Congressperson whose campaign I've volunteered for - and whose office several dozen people and I demonstrated at Tuesday (see below) to push him to back the president's health care reform proposals - is one of four (out of a total of seven) Blue Dog Democrats on the House Commerce Committee - who has OKed a compromise that would get the proposal out of the committee this week - but not onto the House floor until September - and would also complicate the public option, lower the penalties and raise the size threshhold of requirements that businesses insure employees, and limit the power of the federal government to lower health care reimbursement rates. The time change gives opponents more time to organize against whatever proposal comes out, and the other changes probably limits both the universal access and cost-cutting impacts of the proposal. Whether Baron Hill ends up voting for a bill and, if so, if he can still gets re-elected, remains to be seen.




Also Wedneday I got a scary, chain e-mail from exactly the kind of person who health care reform should attract - a sales professional who lost her job and has been without health insurance for more than a year, partly because - with her house not foreclosed yet and without a child and a good 15 years short of 65 - she doesn't qualify for Medicaid or Medicare, and so slips through the cracks. Yet she was disseminating conservative criticism of reform proposals - much of it misleading at best - apparently without any recognition of her vested interest in reform. If she had said - even though these reforms would help me, I oppose this in principle because . . . then at least I would have taken it as well-informed principle, but . . . On the whole, not a great sign for prospects for reform.

-- Perry

Back at home

After waiting briefly while they picked up food elsewhere, Stephanie and I rendezvoused with Vincent at Wendy’s in Grove City. This is the first time I’d seen Vincent since before he’d gotten his pink hair cut off (12 days earlier) Vincent had been helping his father with a move and had probably slept unevenly for the previous two weeks. We got home just after 11 p.m. and Stephanie and I stayed up unpacking. Stephanie picked up Frisco Monday morning (he’d been at the veterinarian’s for 11 days), but he was slated to return for dental work Tuesday and additional evaluation. It’s possible we may shift to feeding him prescription canned dog food. Vincent went to the orthodontist’s office, where he reported that he hasn’t been wearing his retainer (I may give up and quit sending him over there). Then the three of us met at the psychiatrist’s office. We told the psychiatrist quickly and vaguely about Vincent and Samantha breaking up and him sending those e-mails and about our understanding with Vincent that he can only live with us past Friday night if he’s finished both of the on-line classes he’s currently enrolled in. Vincent indicated he was unlikely to finish both of them. After a private discussion with the psychiatrist, the psychiatrist boosted the dosage of Vincent’s antidepressant medication. After buying a Target gift certificate for our dogsitter (Vincent’s former prom date) and Vincent a new phone charger, the three of us met up and saw the Harry Potter 6 movie. Then Vincent went over to visit with his new friend the neighbor while I mowed and Stephanie vacuumed.

Earlier Monday Stephanie also dropped off at her school receipts for reimbursement for the Las Vegas trip and made arrangements for her next conference: She’s slated to leave in a school district van Wednesday morning with half a dozen colleagues for a conference in Nashville. They’ll return Friday – which means she’ll be gone for much of the time remaining during which Vincent is to finish his two classes. Vincent is also slated to go to see his counselor for the first time in three weeks this Wednesday.

As I get back to work, I’m slated to go to one or two Organizing for America events this week, my first Toastmasters officers’ meeting NOT as vice president for education, and a special church officers gathering/potluck supper out in Oldham County (Wednesday). At today’s Organizing event, we’ll talk with the staff of Congressperson Baron Hill, the Southern Indiana moderate Democrat for whose campaign I’ve volunteered and who, it turns out, is one of the Blue Dog Democrats on the House Commerce Committee blocking passage of the a health care reform bill in the House. What to say?

While in Marysville Stephanie had suffered from acute Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) symptoms, worse than usual, which is why we asked one of our doctors to call in a prescription to Ohio for her. She was also, you might recall, worried that, with a four-hour red-eye flight between Las Vegas and Atlanta, and then – tired and sick – sleeping another four hours during the four-hour Atlanta layover – not unlike her trip back from Guatemalan in November – she hadn’t gotten some more blood clots – this time in her other leg (the leg with the MN calf injury, not the November blood clots). After a day back in Kentuckiana, the potential blood clots had receded – and she did not go to the doctor’s about this – but the PCOS symptoms still recurred. She’s belatedly scheduled her annual visit to the PCOS specialist for her first day back at school (teachers back – not kids – I believe, August 10).

-- Perry

Sunday AM update

Today (on Sunday) we're slated to say good-bye to Grandpa, check in with our replacement, visit with Stephanie's friend Melissa and one of her kids at the Columbus zoo (pictured above), pick Vincent up from his father's (wherever that happens to be), and return home to Louisville. Monday I'll go back to work and Stephanie will pick up the dog from the veterinarian's. We'll also need to wash all of the no doubt smoke-filled clothes (now from his own smoke too) Vincent has brought back from his father's, check in to see how our turtle-sitter (Vincent's former prom date) did, mow the lawn (after 10 days away), and pick up our accumulated mail. It's always possible that Vincent won't come with us - In a sense, we're still his guardians as the court charged us de facto with supervising until he - hopefully - gets the charges wiped off his juvenile record in a year - and he's got more medication at home, as well as counseling, psychiatrist, dental, and orthodontist appointments. But - when we've been in a bad mood about his lack of work - we've said perhaps he might as well just stay with his father (wherever that might be - Ohio? Florida? no permanent home right now) since Stephanie has threatened to exit him from our house if he doesn't finish the two on-line classes he's currently enrolled in by August 1 (and that's this coming Saturday). I doubt he's gotten much done on those in the past 12 days.) He could just decide to cut his losses and stay. (And - except perhaps for the legal problems - at 18 this would be entirely up to him.) Last night both Stephanie and I had odd dreams - her about work and mine about student loan repayment. Armed with Jack McCoy (Sam Watterson's character in "Law and Order") in a meeting in my dreams, I learned on the Web - after waking up - about a brand-new (as of July 1) program (that I assume the Democratic Congress helped create) that may allow me to cap my monthly student loan repayments at $450-600 and ultimately to forgive some loan principal (along with Stephanie trying to get Indiana and perhaps the federal government to forgive some of her loan principal (which we've already strated to pay back) for teaching in a Title I (working-class) school). I'll have to make some phone calls about this this week, as otherwise much larger payments loom in September. We've done a decent job of starting to catch up on sleep in Ohio after an exhausting Las Vegas trip and days, weeks, and months before that. However, Monday Stephanie may also go to the doctor's office because she fears she has blood clots again - in her MN ruptured-calf leg, not her blood clot leg from her November Guatemala trip - with the 4-hour red-eye flight, feeling sick and tired and so sleeping for 4 hours in the Atlanta airport - instead of walking around. It may be that Stephanie can't take these long flights or we have to figure how to send her on these only if we can make sure she is well (and definitely not red-eye flights). In Ohio family news: the condition of Stephanie's stepbrother Bobby continues to deteriorate, contractors start to tear up and then rebuilding Stephanie's mother and stepfather's house's first floor this week, and one of Stephanie's aunt and uncle threaten to split up after being married for 32 years.

-- Perry

Mason, WVa

Friday evening, after leaving late from Louisville (surprise), we finally arrived in Mason. Aunt Velma lives at the top of a ridge as you come into the town opposite the river. Her house oversees a trailer court (her family owns) and the bridge spanning the Ohio river. Because the house is on a ridge there is a rather steep incline to the driveway. I used to ride bikes down this driveway when I visited in the summer and I can attest you can get going pretty fast without even trying.

As we drove to the top of the driveway that Aunt Velma and Sarah share we saw a gray and white cat lazing in the middle of the driveway (pictured above). This isn't terribly different than usual (they have had dogs and cats that roam in their pretty expansive yards). This cat however was different. As we approached it didn't move out of the way. Perry had to get out and coax the cat off the driveway. We were later to learn that this cat has dementia and is probably deaf. Aunt Velma felt it should be put down but the vet said the cat was no different than an elderly person and refused.

Perry is always amazed by the cattle (I have to admit I was when I was younger also). Aunt Velma has a lot of land (500 acres if I remember right) and has always had some cattle on the land. She said at one point it was down to just a few head of cattle but she never wanted to completely get rid of the cattle because the city had passed an ordinance that cattle can no longer be kept in the city except for those grandfathered in. She now has over 40 head of cattle that Aunt Velma's grandchildren (and one of her sons) help take care of.

One side effect of having cattle and a pretty impressive garden is the freshness of food. We had called when we reached Point Pleasant to say where we were. Aunt Velma, Johnny, Woody, and Paula kept dinner warm for us. We were able to eat with them as soon as we arrived. Fresh corn on the cob, green beans, carrots, tomatoes, and cucumbers all came from the garden. The beef brisket, well...it came from the backyard also.

Johnny led us in prayer and then eating and catching up began. Aunt Velma sat at the head of the table. Paula had obviously been a big help to Aunt Velma and organized the meal.

I sat by Woody, Paula's second husband who was also her high school boyfriend in the south end of Columbus. We got to hear stories of their courtship both then and now. Woody is also a writer. In the past Vincent and Woody have had rather animated conversations about writing and books. Since Vincent wasn't with us this time the literary element of our conversation was not as predominant.

Johnny is Aunt Velma's youngest son. He now lives in Huntington but comes home every Friday to stay with his mom and to help take care of her. Aunt Velma said that she always has someone there to sleep over since Uncle Bill died in the 1980s. I can remember Grandma coming down from Columbus partly for this reason. Grandma would sleep in Aunt Velma's room and my cousin Rebbecca and I would sleep in the "blue room," one of the spare bedrooms with two full size beds, a fireplace, and a couch in it. For all of us it was a little like a slumber party. Perry and I stayed in the same room this time but without the second bed which has been removed for Uncle Bill's massive desk from his office.

Billy dropped by after dinner and told us about his recent trip to Chilicothe. He had seen the outdoor drama Tecumseh. He gave a pretty good review of the performance. Billy and Paula were both close to Dad when he was young. Billy's daughter Rebbecca was the cousin I was always closest to. It is nice to see how families interact. Unfortunately on this trip I didn't get to see Rebbecca and her two daughters, but I did get to hear about them.

On all the trips I made from Columbus to Mason we had to cross the Ohio River. There is a bridge that spans across the Ohio from Pomeroy, Ohio (a mile wide and as far back as you can see) to Mason, West Virginia. On some of my trips when the bridge was being repaired we would take a ferry. I always enjoyed the ferry but found it a little intimidating. The past few visits a new bridge was being constructed along side the old bridge. This time the bridge was finished and after dinner Johnny and Aunt Velma took us across the bridge. It had only been open about a month. The old bridge had been dynamited in sections and torn down. The bridge was pretty with black lights. It also aligns perfectly with the Wal-Mart entrance. I'm sure Wal-Mart paid a pretty penny for that to happen.

Here you can see the red light at the end of the bridge that you must stop at as you enter Mason. Notice the Wal-Mart straight ahead. To actually get to anything in Mason you turn left.

Perry got up early Saturday morning to take a picture of the hills behind Aunt Velma's house (Cardboard, Humpback, and Frankenstein). When I was younger Rebbecca, Kevin Don, Sterling, Emma, and I used to climb the hills and go back to the Indian Cave (a cave where we could find arrow heads). When I was a teenager Uncle Bill had the log cabin that my Grandfather and Aunt Velma was born in torn down log by log, numbered, brought to his land, and reconstructed. The cabin is now on the top of Humpback, the hill to the far right in the picture below. It is surrounded by trees so is not seen from Aunt Velma's house but you can see everything from the cabin including Wal-Mart that is a little farther right of the hill.

The hill on the left is Cardboard. It is covered in broom sage. In the fall when the broom sage is tall enough you can sit on a piece of cardboard and slide down the hill. It is like sledding but without the cold. I never was there to do it but I've seen pictures and heard tales. Of course with any walking in the pasture/hillside you have to watch for cow patties.

Here is a picture of some of Aunt Velma's animals, including the crazy dementia cat. You can also see Perry's shadow. He was up early and the animals might of thought he had breakfast for them.

Aunt Velma made breakfast for us Saturday morning. It was not a very Weight Watcher friendly breakfast but that didn't stop it from being good. I explained that our normal breakfasts weren't this heavy but she insisted. We had eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, fresh biscuits, coffee, and orange juice. It was an old fashioned breakfast as if we had been working outside with the animals before eating (instead of meandering and taking pictures).

Perry seems to love to take pictures of me with my mouth full! But I have to admit I enjoyed breakfast. Perry really liked the fried potatoes (he had several helpings).

At breakfast we got to talk with Aunt Velma a little more. She is now 89 (my Grandpa's baby sister) and suffers from osteoporosis. She admitted that the garden is now taken care of by Sarah (her daughter) and Sarah's children. She has been banned from the garden after a fall that scared everyone. She still has her car but she said that it hasn't been driven in years and that she relies on Sarah and Johnny and the multiple grandkids to get her around.

Here is Aunt Velma and the crazy cat. Aunt Velma took out food for it. When she took the lid off the cat couldn't seem to be able to find the food without help. Perry was able to catch the last few seconds of this ridiculous routine before the cat was successful and found breakfast.

Johnny sitting on the back porch overlooking the pastures. This is the porch I remember spending the most time sitting on when I was younger. It enters into the smallest room in the house (the sitting room/TV room) but this is where everyone congregates.

Perry has an affinity for cows.

-- Stephanie

Challenges to reform

While I worked a little for health care reform, I got another look at the challenges supporters of the president's health care reform principles face. Those principles include keeping a choice of doctors and plans (including a public plan), lower costs, and health care access for all - plus, more recently, deficit-neutral (all paid for). Stephanie's principal's daughter, Abby, had recruited me to a Southern Indiana United for Change gathering at which she originally hoped we would somehow each vow to get 50 new supporters each for the principles. SUIC I thought was a front group for Organizing for America, the extension of the Obama campaign. The reality was more complex. There were maybe a couple of dozen people there, and Abby and Bethany, the woman who had helped direct canvassing in Jeffersonville (IN) the Saturday before. But lots of folks there had questions about the president's principles - including too vague, they thought - and many others there were passionate supporters of the single-payer (national health insurance) proposals like the one Senator Edwards had advanced. it's possible to interpret what these folks were doing was heckling the meeting. You might recall I talked to one of these folks two weeks earlier (but she was more philosophical). Apparently, these folks had also talked the moderate Southern IN congressperson for whom I have volunteered into having a single payer expert talk with the "Blue Dog" moderate/conservative Democrat group that subsequently blocked the president's health care reform proposal in the House. There was a lot of discussion about this too. An aide to this House member, Baron Hill (Andy?), was also there. So - after general questions and questions from the single-payer folks - he fielded a bunch of questions - again, arguably, diverting the meeting. He wanted to defend Hill's position/record - and took up a fair amount of time doing so - although Bethany's official line on this was not that Hill and the Blue Dogs were trying to block health care reform, but that they were trying to make the proposal better. I later asked Andy about this directly - could they be trying to slow things down so they'd never have to take a tough vote on it (most moderate Dems are from swing districts, like the many moderates who got decimated in the 1994 election after the controversy over the Clinton health plan and the subsequent GOP takeover of the House). Throughout much of this meeting, I thought that Abby - who I knew was under a lot of pressure to DOUBLE the number of supporters signing up out of Southern Indiana (from 500 to 1,000) in the five subsequent days - was going to cry. Below Abby and Bethany try to enlist us to make phone calls or go out to the Clark County fair.

Folks on the right hand side of the room (below) painted themselves as less informed. For some reason I didn't get a photo of the single-payer people, who were mainly on the left-hand-side of the room.

Below Andy fielded a number of questions. Another problem with this is that the quasi-petition drive is partly aimed at Senator Bayh (D-IN), who will propably oppose the plan, and Hill, part of the Blue Dogs. The 1,000 signatures were partly to try to demonstrate support for Southern IN to them. To the extent that Andy could pick up - as no doubt he did - that even the Obama campaign front group in Southern IN was quite divided over the president's reform principles - even if we came up with most of the 1,000 signatures, it might damage that somewhat. To an extent Andy was a "spy."

Ultimately, only 3-4 of us made calls - with only 45 minutes left. I got two supporters - one of them someone all the way up on the near Cincinnati end of the district where a new casino is doubling in size. (While I called outside where I had better cell phone reception, I overheard some of a fascinating conversation about religion among three folks there for the meeting - but nothing about health care reform from them - as they milled around outside in the parking lot instead of making phone calls.) But that wasn't going to put a big dent in the 500 additional signatures Abby was trying to get - or get me close to the 50 Abby was hoping we'd each get. I believe Abby went on to the Clark county fair by herself. (I told her I felt guilty about going to the Floyd 4-H fair the previous week with no paraphernalia.) I also confessed I would be out of town for the weekend and might might volunteer at the Nevada state Democratic Party HQ in Las Vegas at a phone calling event Monday (which I ended up not doing). Since all of this, the health care debate has sharpened, the Blue Dogs have thrown down the gauntlet, and the police incident in Cambridge and resulting controversy has also diverted attention from it. Also - I see in Ohio - that Organizing for America and allies have finally started running pro-health care reform TV ads - which I'm hoping if Southern IN is really important that they'll start running in the Louisville TV market also.

-- Perry

Take me home, Country . . .

Stephanie and I ended up going on our 10 days of traveling without both Vincent and Frisco. Vincent's father, you may recall, picked him up last Tuesday. We'll pick him up at some point this weekend in Ohio. Frisco became ill during the middle of last week and we ended up leaving him at our veterinarian's, instead of taking him to West Virginia and Ohio - and boarding him while we were in Las Vegas. On our way out of town - two hours late - we stopped by to say hello, give the vet staff his medication, and walk him. They took him off an IV so we could walk him. They had him on an Elizabethan collar - the cone thing - like he was on several years ago - so he wouldn't attack the IV. I walked him in the Meier's parking lot across from the vet's while Stephanie bought luggage at the vet's, since one of the pieces of luggage we'd bought to go to Guatemala two years ago had died on the way out to the car.



We drove on Interstate 64 through Lexington and into West Virginia near Huntington-Ashland.

Huntington is a NW WV city that we've blogged about driving through before. Penny interned at the paper one summer in the early 1980s. Our cousin from WV lives there now. Another cousin went to college there - at Marshall - and we've seen the movie "We Are Marshall," about a plane crash and the football team (which ex-Vike and one-time 'Nole Randy Moss played for). We opted to drive though one of the one-way streets thourgh the middle of the old part of town. Below is the county courthouse in Huntington.

And the public library . . .

Below is the entrance to Marshall.

And a college bookstore.

The bookstore is across from the football stadium, on the eastern end of the campus. Marshall just switched from the Mid America conference to Conference USA, which the University of Louisville used to belong to.

After leaving Huntington, we drove through Point Pleasant and along the Ohio River towards Mason.

We passed some coal generating plants and (below) a plastics factory.

As we pulled into Mason, we saw not only the two-year-old Super WalMart (built in small part on family members' land) ) (below) but also the brand-new bridge, four lanes, between Pomeroy, OH, and Mason - and also something called a "Coffee House" which turned out be a low-key front for a very small-scale casino.

In the video below, Frisco greeted Stephanie and me as we stopped by the vet's at the beginning of our trip.

-- Perry

Romeo and Juliet

Every year we usually see one KY Shakespeare Festival Shakespeare in Central Park (free Will) play with our friend Sarah. This year we had to go on our own to see "Macbeth," when we all miscalculated about the weather. This past Sunday Sarah - just back from a mission trip to Taiwan - joined the two of us and her friend Dean and his daughter to see "Romeo and Juliet," which we'd seen as a family in Schiller Park and whose 1990s movie version Vincent and I love. Pictured above is Sarah with Dean to her right, trying to give his daughter directions for hwo to get there. Stephanie and Sarah (below) enjoyed the time before the play started.



The new artistic director (below) has the task of - among other things- generating some donations. He follows in the footsteps of a charismatic man who started a Shakespeare in prisons program.

The play began (below) with the famous fight scene. At times this play was very serious - esp. in the second half - or romantic (esp. in the later part of the first half) but at times it was pretty funny too. No goth outfits or pole-dancing poles this time, though there was some overlap in acting personnel with "Hamlet." (The modern-day version of this opening scene from the 1990s movie is what scared Vincent out of the movie the first time.)

Romeo (below left) first spied Juliet (below right) - from a rival, feuding family - at a mascarade bill. I have to confess - I missed Leonardo DiCaprio and Clare Danes as the two of them (in the 1990s movie - see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFVHliyGqBs&feature=related - as well as Natalie Wood in the early 1960s "West Side Story" )

The two spoke for the first time on the dance floor (below). The actress who played Juliet had played Lady MacDuff in "Hamlet," whose brutal murder the festival had depicted in that show.

Also from "Macbeth" was the actress who played Lady Macbeth and here Juliet's nurse (below) and who sometimes stole the show with her saucy mannerisms.

All four of them (below) watched intently.

Since it's mid-July - on the last night of the show and the professional season at the festival - it was darker earlier and quite dark - except for the lights - by the end of the show (which does not have a happy ending).

We stayed and all talked for a while - although Vincent was out with Evan until we got home late to phone call him home. Dean's daughter - between Vincent and Sarah's ages - was surprisingly interesting. Not sure what Sarah made of all of it. But we sure enjoyed seeing another one of these and with her/them!

-- Perry

Summertime evening

Wednesday night Stephanie and I enjoyed a full evening together - sans meetings, movies, other outings, or Vincent - and enjoyed some moderate summertime weather. Stephanie has been working hard on the yard for the past couple of weeks and that may be evident in these pictures (although the yard behind me is our neighbor's yard - in the background of the picture above is that now controversial carport).



Stephanie has been training this vine/flower to winds its way up.



Stephanie made taco salad (even though Vincent wasn't there - one of his favorite dishes).

And some amazing (if not that Weight Watcher-y) homemade lemon gelato. Yum!!

-- Perry