morrowlife

Here’s the cruise ship I took on my March 2014 trip to Mexico. Note the threatening weather. It was pretty rugged that day, but it didn’t last long. By the first night, we were out of the cloud cover and the rain had stopped for the duration. Weather in Mexico was sunny, warm, and beuatiful. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at the cruise ship terminal while I boarded the ship, and part of my famous Cruise, Machinery, and Vacation series.

No post on Friday. Can’t remember why not. But I’m posting tonight!

Had a great weekend! We went to Laguna Beach, California to celebrate my 57th birthday. That age seems younger every year, doesn’t it? We ate at a lot of very nice restaurants, took a harbor cruise in Newport Beach to look at the homes of rich people (where I got a sunburn on the tops of my knees), did a little scavenger hunt thing around town, got a Thai massage, and went on a food tasting tour of the little beach town there. I had a great time!

The Thai massage was a very interesting thing. The masseuse was a small (fortunately) Thai lady. They had me lie down on a comfortable but firm mat on the floor and the masseuse spent a pretty good part of the time kneeling on me, except when she was leaning on me with her elbows. At one point she was both kneeling on the backs of my thighs and bearing down on my back with her elbows. I came out of there extremely relaxed but with my muscles quite thoroughly stretched. Final verdict: it was a bit more rugged than a Swedish massage, but I would definitely do it again.

The place we stayed was right on the beach and was beautiful. Highly recommended. Laguna Beach is quite crowded on weekends, making getting around a bit of a challenge, but we managed. It was much less crowded today.

The drive there and the return home were uneventful and relaxing. I love road trips.

And that’s about it for today. I’m healthy, happy, and doing well. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: fugitive Chinese chicken! (Warning: autoplaying video. Yuck!)

See you tomorrow.

Here’s Mark just before he headed for San Jose, California early this afternoon. He got there safely at about 8:30 this evening. I miss him already. It’s strange that even though I don’t see him much because he spends most of his time in his room, the house still feels empty without him. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken in front of our house this afternoon, and part of my famous Las Vegas, Machinery, and Vacation series.

Pretty good day. I finally figured out my problem with hash generation in my Common Core Classroom app. The good news is that I know how to fix it. The bad news is that there is no way to make hash generation compatible with the old version. So I’m going to have to put in a one-time-only routine that will check for an existing password, delete it, and ask the user to enter a new one. That’s not too bad of a solution, but I wish I could have figured out a way to use the old one. It just wasn’t to be. We’ll see how much progress I can make on the fix tomorrow.

Joanne took me out to dinner at a nice restaurant called Mundo (a Latin chic restaurant) and then to the Smith Center to see Once. Dinner was outstanding (and very chic, of course). I had excellent mahi mahi and Joanne had pork medallions that were even better. The play was just a sweet story and was beautifully performed. Very touching. Joanne looked lovely in a beautiful black dress and we had an excellent time. The tickets were given to her by her boss and we were seated next to Dave, one of Joanne’s coworkers, and his wife. Because of the nature of the play, we didn’t get to speak to them other than to say hello. They arrived just before the show began and left immediately upon its completion, so pleasantries were necessarily at a minimum. Still, they seemed like nice people.

Not a lot else is new today, so I’m going to end here and go downstairs for a Snickers ice cream bar before bed. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: lamppost-dwelling attack porcupine!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s Shannon getting ready for the first of her two air ambulance flights from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. She reported that the plane was incredibly crowded, even though the entire passenger list consisted of her. There were also two pilots and a nurse or two, so she didn’t get lonely. She didn’t have much to say about her second flight, which took place in January, 2014. She was quite a bit sicker by then and we had other worries. But she enjoyed this one. Great Art courtesy of Shannon’s iPhone 4S, taken by one of the air ambulance nurses, and part of my famous Shannon, Las Vegas, Medical, and Machinery series.

Pretty good day today. Got a reasonable amount of work done. We have a meeting room reserved for our October PhotoDoc seminar! And I wrote  a rough draft of the seminar announcement. Also started looking for new WordPress themes for the PhotoDoc website. Much more work in that direction due tomorrow.

And . . . I can’t really think of anything else I did today. Spent a bit of time on the phone. Transferred Flat Earth to Chris’s Apple developer account. Had leftovers from Monday for dinner, with the addition of some corn and tossed salad (with grated cheese!). Watched a few episodes of Top Gear. Did a bit of reading. And that’s about it.

The house got cleaned today, which is always nice. It looks beautiful

Oh, I also made reservations for a few meetups during the coming couple of weeks. Tomorrow I go to a ramen restaurant with the “Sushi and more” group. I’ve never been out with them, so I’m hoping to meet some more nice people. Can’t remember exactly what and when the other ones are. I’ll figure it out in due time.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: chainsaw-wielding man attacks Mr. Whippy van!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon and me getting ready to board the ship that took us to Mexico back in February 2010. She had her great old flower bag, which accompanied us on every one of our vacations for many years. I had my computer bag, which accompanied me pretty much everywhere always. Great Art courtesy of our friends Doug and Connie – I have no idea which one of them took it – using their nice Canon camera, and part of my famous Shannon, Cruise, Machinery, and Vacation series.

I look at this picture and think: if I had only known we had less than four years left. There are a lot of things I would change. I would overlook everything and anything that I let come between us. I would tell her I love her a hundred times a day. I would do everything in my power to make her happy and make her life absolutely carefree and make her feel constantly surrounded by love. I would treat her like the queen she was to me. But there are some things I wouldn’t change. I think this vacation is one of them. We had a wonderful time together and everything was just perfect. I’ll never forget it, along with the other cruises we took. I was so happy and felt so close to Shannon on those ships. It’s no wonder I love cruising.

Not a busy day. My sinuses are acting up pretty badly. I’m sure it’s an allergic reaction to something, although I have no idea what. If I knew, I’d get away from it. I’m feeling pretty miserable. No fever, no other symptoms other than clogged sinuses on the right side of my head and a headache. But that’s enough.

So I didn’t do much, yet again. I did find the time to go through a bunch of emails and to plan out the next few days of work. Now I just have to do the work. I also spent a little time finding accommodations for Mark and me (and Andy and Heather, although they’re making their own reservations) for the family reunion in Park City. We’ll be staying at the same hotel where we stayed for the last reunion. It’s not the best place in town, but it was nice and worked for us then, so I suspect it’ll work for us now.

I’ve been reconsidering my contemplated driving tour of the country. As I’ve probably mentioned before, my original plan was Las Vegas – San Francisco – Park City (or Salt Lake, depending on when) – Denver – Detroit – Stafford – Orlando – Tucson – Las Vegas. When Mark and I looked at the calendar for that trip, it would take more than 30 days. I’m thinking that’s a bit more than I really want to do. So now I’m thinking Las Vegas – San Francisco (only if Katy and company have time to see me then, otherwise I’ll visit them another time) – Park City – Denver – Detroit – Las Vegas. It’s two days’ travel from Denver to Detroit and three back to Las Vegas, so I would have to find some hotel rooms for five nights. I would plan to stay in Detroit for the week that includes the Fourth of July, which would make it something like ten days there. I wonder if the Michigan family would get tired of having me there for so long. I guess I could split my trip up between family members so none of them had time to get fed up. I’m planning a trip to Orlando next February for a conference, so I’ll see Tony then, and I can run over to Tucson and see Chris pretty much any time. I’d miss Paul and Melissa this time, so I’d have to find a way to get with them soon. Besides, they’re hoping to move to Las Vegas soon, so I’ll see a lot of them then.

Anyway. I need to make a decision and start checking with family members to see what works for whom when.

And that’s pretty much it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: macaroni and cheese-related parental assault!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Sandy, Shannon, Andy, Mark and me getting ready to go on the duck boat tour in downtown Philadelphia. It was absolutely the worst tour I’ve ever been on. The cool thing about the duck boats is that they’re amphibious. Unfortunately, the boat ramp near the tour was under construction at the time, so they had to take us to another boat ramp. That was a bit far away, so we took the freeway. Note to the reader: never ride in an open duck boat on the freeway. It was loud, windy, uncomfortable, and horrible. Great Art courtesy of Scott’s old Kodak camera, taken by Scott during their May 2005 trip to our house in Doylestown just before we moved to Northern California, and part of my famous Shannon and Machinery series.

Had a pretty good day today, although it started out fairly strangely. I was scheduled to go to one of the local Cabo resorts, where I would have access to their private beach area and swimming pool. The excursion also included a Mexican lunch buffet and one drink. We were supposed to meet in the theater, where we would be escorted to the dock and into the loving care of the tour operators. Five people showed up in the theater, only to discover nobody waiting there for us. We finally got in touch with the lady at the Excursion desk and she discovered that the date printed on all our tickets was yesterday. We all responded vociferously that we were absolutely positive we had booked the excursion for today. The woman pretty snottily told us that was impossible and we were all mistaken. However, they agreed to honor our tickets and we went ashore. The tour operators were great and took excellent care of us, so the day turned out well. Plus, I made four new friends who were very nice, so that made the day that much better. One of the ladies is a former Carnival employee who worked for years with several of the people aboard our ship, including the captain. She has promised to raise a little bit of hell over this issue.

Oh, by the way, after the excursion, I checked my receipt, and I was right – the excursion was booked for today. It’ll be interesting to see if my new friend really has any pull with the cruise line. I wouldn’t mind if they refunded my money. I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t, though. In spite of the very unpleasant start, the excursion was everything I had hoped for.

Tomorrow’s horseback riding excursion has been canceled, sadly. Apparently, there wasn’t enough interest. I was really looking forward to that one. A couple of my dinner table companions are going to another beach resort in Puerto Vallarta and they convinced me to go with them. This one is apparently a bit of a boat ride away from the dock, on a little island somewhere with an excellent buffet, kayaking, snorkeling, lying on the beach, and various other things. Details tomorrow.

Nothing else new. I’m enjoying this cruise and getting to know a few people. That’s just what I had hoped for. As is usual on cruises, I haven’t felt hungry since the day I got here. I’m not bothering to do anything about that until I get home, after which time I will start eating a bit better.

I walked the promenade deck after dinner again tonight for half an hour or so. I really need that time to reflect on my circumstances, think of Shannon, mourn some more, remember what it’s like to feel in love, feel the pain of separation again, and renew my resolve to live happily. It’s hard, but necessary right now. Soon, I’ll be able to be alone with my thoughts without it hurting so badly, but I never want to forget and I never want to fall out of love with Shannon. That means the pain will never go away, but I have confidence it will become manageable. Sandy wrote a comment on yesterday’s post telling me she wishes she could take away the pain. Thank you, Sandy. I’m truly grateful. I wish it were possible too, but it’s not. In fact, as the time since Shannon’s death passes and the last time I saw her and spoke with her grows farther into the past, the longing has gotten stronger and the pain has gotten deeper. I’m sure this is normal. At the same time, though, I feel like my ability to endure this pain has also grown.

Before Shannon got sick, I spent many, many years comfortably allowing her to care for practically my every need. After her illness began, though, I had to start taking over a few responsibilities around the house and in her medical care, even though she continued to serve me wherever and whenever the opportunity arose. These new responsibilities helped me learn some skills that were sorely lacking and gave me a small opportunity to pay back a tiny portion of the loving care she had given me for so long. I counted it as a privilege and it was also a great learning experience. I think I became a stronger, better, and more loving person as a result. I’m trying to look at the pain of separation as another learning experience and I’m sure the effect on me will be similar. I think I will be stronger, more self-reliant, and more capable of giving and expressing love than I was before. I wish there were another way to learn these lessons, but I’ll have to take what I’ve been given. In a very real way, Shannon is still serving me.

Enough for tonight. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: Jello theft!

See you tomorrow.