Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My friend had a pacemaker put in two days ago and I just dropped by a bouquet of flowers for her. She's doing great. What amazing things the medical world can do these days. She is loved by so many, including her large family and mass of friends. She lost her wife a couple of years ago, and her recovery from that grief is inspiring to me. She has a new partner now, who seems wonderful. I have another friend who has to go into assisted living for thirty days, but she's 92, so there is a question if she will ever live in her house again. Her daughter lives next door, but works full time, has two teenage sons and a new husband, so that leaves my friend alone a lot and the situation seems unwise. Her daughter will do the right thing, I'm assured of that. So we are getting fragile, and health issues are going to arise frequently. We fight the good fight, and support each other, but as my best friend says, "it is what it is".

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We had a little earthquake last night, and my daughter texted about it. It's comforting to know we live close to each other and can help each other. My four year old grandson felt it and talked about it this morning. He said he was shaking in his chair. We were on an early morning playground outing, so early the fog was all around us and it was chilly. The big excitement for both boys was a large crane and tree people taking down three enormous trees by the playing field. Free entertainment. The trees hadn't been drought affected, they were leaning and the park service was afraid they would fall on the parking lot. They are beautiful trees, but the park service has to be vigilant about safety, so I understand. We've just lost so many trees in the west these last few years - a billion - that each loss is sad. Our cabin has probably had twenty five trees removed due to safety, in the thirty plus years we've owned it, and this spring a huge tree branch came down and tore our powerlines right out of the box, so we had to have it repaired to have electricity. Last year a sugar pine cone fell on the nextdoor cabin deck where my friends were staying and hit my friend, whom I was sitting next to, on the head, face and arm. The force broke her glasses and there was blood at each place, but luckily nothing that needed medical attention. We have five umbrellas on our deck to deflect any cones or branches from hitting us. Like water, trees are heavier and more lethal than you would think. Yet they are the main reason we bought the cabin and love being up there. The cedars, firs, pines and oaks make the atmosphere calm and peaceful, and without them it wouldn't be worth coming up. I like the trees in Lord of the Rings, and their sadness when fellow trees fall. They are a community, and one that enriches our lives.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I've been talking to my family and two close friends suffering in the north with 100 plus temperatures. This is supposed to be the last day of super high temperatures, but it has been stressful for them. They don't have air conditioning and are concerned about their pets if they have any. Strange days. The weather here is perfect right now, but we are bracing for fires and jumpy. No climate change?! I beg to differ. I am afraid it will excelerate and turn out like an end of the world movie. We need to wake up, but changing are habits and consumption and greed seems impossible. We need to feel RESPONSIBLE. And there is so much distraction and now the pandemic, that we're closing off from others and not seeing our interconnectedness and interdependence. I pray it changes before nature shows us what real change can be.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I am so grateful that the baby shower went well. Everyone was friendly and joyful, and the honoree seemed so happy. She got a ton of presents, and everyone stayed the three hours plus, which made the event celebratory. I was proud of my daughter and myself, and exhausted after. We let the little grandsons play with the balloons, and the adults flopped on the patio, then my older son and his wife and son and my younger daughter and her husband and two boys, all ate pizza delivered to the doorstep and drank leftover prosecco from the party. Putting your heart out has such rewards, and this event was so special because it was the first party any of us had attended in over a year. I got to see my friend's sister from New York, and my daughter's friends from all over, and they are an amazing group of women. My daughter has been so lucky to have them as friends. And my friend, whose daughter we honored, and her friends are dear to me. I love seeing them, though it's infrequently. It takes a village to care for a new baby, and we are gearing up to aid the honoree in any way we can. Being part of a village, for me, is life sustaining.

Wandering ALong the Path: Right Speech

My daughter and I are making a good team preparing for the baby shower we are hosting Sunday. Before, it's been my younger son and I, for our joint holiday party, but this time it's us. We are on the same page about everything, and work around her two little boys quite well. It helps she lives close, and we can store drinks and decorations at either place. Her husband will help her pick up platters and deserts Sunday morning, while I watch the kids, and tomorrow afternoon she is coming over when the younger one naps, to set up the tables. This party is outside, so we have to hope there is no strong wind or sudden fog. We have no fear of rain, as that would be a miracle. When I work with her, I see how we are alike. It makes me slightly disconcerted, but is touching as well. Neither of us can confront anyone, so the friend of hers who is helping but not really gets a pass. Both of us don't have the confidence we would like, and tend to hold things in and be self critical. When I see it in her it drives me crazy until I realize where she got it from. Then I have to laugh at myself. But she's also generous, thoughtful and kind, as am I, so I can take proud credit as well. What I hope is that we manage to have FUN during the shower, and that the dear friend of hers whose shower it is does as well.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

This morning I went to a friend's house for coffee. I had not seen her since before the pandemic, though she lives two streets away. It felt great to catch up, and also hear again her experience when her wife (we were at their wedding) died suddenly, as she was about to come home from rehab after surgery for her knee. She was able to have a candlelight service and also a big memorial service, which I could not attend because I was helping my daughter in another state. It was painful not to attend, just as it has been painful not to have a service yet for my daughter. Happily, my friend has a new partner, who is delightful, and her large family is amazingly supportive. My friend just draws people to her with her love, compassion and generousity. She showed me her one year old dog's tricks, which include everything from playing dead and rolling over to jumping through a hula hoop. Though she is a retired pediatrician, she is a skilled dog trainer as well. We talked about the covid year, and it felt great to see each other, maskless, and in the kitchen with a cup of coffee.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I babysat my youngest grandson today while his mother got a break. He's a perpetual motion machine, but very amiable. I basically follow him around as he circles the downstairs. We walked with him this morning, and after his nap and lunch we pushed him in the stroller. He ate a big lunch of half a banana, lots of blueberries, some blackberries, peanut butter on rice crackers, shredded mozerella cheese, chicken and a sweet potato squeezie. He pronouces everything yummy. He has a favorite truck, big and blue and gold, and a noisy school bus he pushes around, as well as a harmonica, which he can play quite well and a tamborine. He loves my collection of laquered boxes from Kasmir. So did my granddaughter when she was little. He takes every top off but cannot put any back together. He says "caw, caw" when he sees any birds and likes to stand in the sunroom to watch them at the birdfeeder. Hopefully, he wore himself out enough to take a solid nap when his mother took him back home. I myself am exhausted.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I was too exhausted yesterday to write, as I'd pulled my back the day before stretching up high and lugging things around, then been unable to sleep. Finally I took tylenol at dawn, but it left me wiped. Nevertheless, she, that is I, persisted, and my husband and I hiked with our daughter, her husband and two boys on a wonderful trail with handmade "trolls" along the path. The four year old loved it, as did we. Then we went to their house and barbequed, but my husband fell asleep watching a video with the four year old, so I woke him and we headed home to watch and old Columbo and snack instead of dinner. We heard from all our kids, and I thought of my dad, the biggest influence in my life, and my closest attachment for many years. He was complex, with drive and ambition, yet a soft side, judgemental but tender, scary to argue with but showing later he had listened. I took care of him as he died, and it was like watching a mighty sequoia in the forest keel over and crumble. I didn't have any space after he died to mourn, as we had just moved from Colorado, knew no one, and I had to sell his house, our house in Colorado, get the kids settled in their schools, and fight mononucleosis. My mother died only ten months before my dad, but I had hoped for many years living close to dad, in fact, it was why we moved back. But two months after we moved he was gone. He was a fire cracker, like our older daughter, and difficult but worth the effort. He died at 65, and only my two older kids remembered much. Yet his love was enormous and without limits, and his support was felt and I still feel it today. He had a great heart, open to whatever came. He never, ever closed down. I aspire to that heart, not afraid of being hurt, not deterred by pain, but open armed and loving.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I set out this morning to do a bunch of errands. It felt good to have a buddy. When he went to a pharmacy, I stayed in the car, when I went to the grocery store, he did. We didn't go in together anywhere, but we had moral support. Now I have cash and two books I ordered, he has bandaids and light bulbs, and we have steaks for tomorrow's barbeque. I came home and ironed baby blankets, searched for baby toys to give to my friend as she's becoming a grandparent in August, and organized the stuff I've accumulated for the baby shower next weekend. Now my back hurts, but I've accomplished a lot of nagging little chores on my checklist. Our weather has cooled, and right now I am delighting in our roses coming out, the burst of geraniums on the patio and the birds in our feeder. EXCEPT: They have to compete with the squirrels, an army of them in our yard, and the occasional rat underneath where the seeds drop. Oh, and there is Toby, our neighbor's cat, scullking around as if he thinks he's invisible. As he's huge, 20 pounds at least, and soft dove gray and white, I seriously doubt he's going to surprise any bird, big or little. It's a jungle of critters, and I kind of regret adding a bird feeder to the mix. It was a gift from our daughter, and my husband adores sitting in the sunroom watching. I'm the one left to worry about cats eating birds, squirrels breaking the feeder, rats sneaking around and mayhem occurring. Oh, well, back to the roses.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Juneteenth has always been celebrated where I live, with a parade and festival and barbeque. I'm glad it's going to be a holiday, but in a way it's strange, because it represents not the date slavery was abolished, but the day many years later that Texas acknowledged slavery had been abolished long before. So it's ugly, what Texas did, and shameful. But that's our history. We state that something is legal, but the illegal goes on unabated, because we put no teeth into the law. Black people didn't have freedom after emancipation, not really, and they were not allowed to act on that freedom, because no one protected and supported them in their rights. The truth was written out of the history books, and people of color were not in them. I felt something similar when, after going through college and graduate school, you'd think there were no women of note, no great women writers, and women did not make history. I promised myself I would read only women authors, and about women's biographies, and I'm still catching up. Then I committed myself to reading the history and writing of Black people, Indiginous people, Asian people, Hispanic people and immigrants in this country. Not much of that had ever been taught to me. Marie Curie and Harriet Tubman are not enough. When I read James Baldwin, in my twenties, my world turned on its axis. And living in another country for a couple of years helped me experience what racism and sexism were really like, then return to my own country and see clearly what I'd been missing. THe big picture, hidden in plain sight. I've been trying to play catch up ever since. A holiday is not nearly enough. We need transparency and truth. I believe we are beginning to find it, lead by the people we've "othered". They are sick of trying to make us listen, and rightly so. Now they are taking action themselves, not waiting for us to do the right thing.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

This morning I went to my eye appointment, and as always, no matter how many times I prayed with my mala, or slowed my breathing, I was just as nervous as every other time. Eyesight is a biggie, and I really, really don't want an eye bleed and all the treatments it entails. I have a good eye, and I need that sucker to keep doing the work. So I was a wreck. I guess it's good I notice my nervousness, but overcoming it would be even better. I try to remind myself I've been doing this for many years, and the last couple of years the news is always good. That does not help, I'm here to say. Today I also had a DMV form for the doctor to fill out, so I can continue to drive. He was exasperated as usual with the DMV. He told me he always recommends the test only every five years, but they make me do the driving test every year or two, so I've had so many more driving tests most people will never have in the whole of their lives. Now if I couldn't drive, my doctor would immediately inform DMV, but I guess they don't trust eye doctors. So next week I will wait in a long line to turn in the form and get an appointment for the test. Oh joy!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We spent most of the day with our youngest grandson, so his mother could get a break. His two favorite words right now are "yummy" and "bubble". He never stops moving, unless he is napping. Or actually, we took him for an hour stroll in our bee stroller, and he was only wiggly near the end when he kept touching the tires. He smiles easily, and when he does raspberries giggles insanely at his own wit. For a while we sat on the patio and he got in and out of a child's chair countless times. Each time his right foot got stuck when he tried to put his feet down, and he struggled to get it out. He spent a lot of time hitting geraniums which caused the blossoms to fall like snow. He ate countless blueberries, an oat bar, graham cracker sticks and other snackables. He did pretty good on his lunch as well, ending up with spagetti sauce on his shorts and his shirt needing to be soaked in soap and cold water as it had turned purple from blueberries. His mother picked him up for his second nap, and he grinned as he waved goodbye, proud of his successs in entertaining us for a day. A job well done!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today I searched and found a birthday present for my foster granddaughter who is turning 16. She's an amazing young woman, and I haven't seen her in a year, but we have texted and also I've kept in touch with her mother. How grateful I am that I decided to offer myself as a "grandmother" after her dad died when she was a baby. And how brave of her mother to accept and slowly embrace my role: picking her up from preschool, taking her on a flight to to visit my daughter, keeping her overnight, attending soccer games, piano recitals and talent shows at her school. I was driving with her when her stepdad called that her mother was in labor and to come back home. She was a flower girl for my younger daughter's wedding. After my daughter's daughter was born, I nourished their relationship, though they were three years apart. My foster and I went to movies, shopped, trolled pet stores for gear for her bunny, and talked and laughed. After her new stepdad brought grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins into the mix, I offered to scale back, but he told me I was part of the family forever. After my own grandchildren came along, and foster hit junior high, I scaled back, and then when my older daughter was fighting cancer, I saw foster less, but she understood. I also feel close to her little sister, now nine, and include her in holidays and birthday gift giving. The funny thing is, my foster is a red head, so are her mother and sister, and her dad who died was also. My dear brother was a redhead, and somehow the relationship seemed fated and right. She has added so much to my life, and she has my love forever, and also her family. Who knows what a moment of offering something out of compassion can bring such reward and enrichment into into your own life. I gave myself a big gift that day.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We are supposed to have a hot spell this week. But it has started off strangely. Neither my husband or I could sleep well last night, saying it was too hot. When I went to the bathroom, it sounded like our shower faucet was dripping, but I felt too sleepy to turn on the light and fix it. Then I got up at what I thought was 7:30 but turned out to be 6:30. When I looked on the patio it was wet. So the shower drip was actually outside, light rain, and the high humidity was making us restless, because we sleep with our window open. Earlier it was cloudy, but now the sun is out. We feel disoriented. The good part is I went to Trader Joe's and back before my teeth cleaning at 10:30. I had oodles of time. And just now two crows came down in our yard and drank from our birdbath, as if shoring up water for the heat the rest of the week. I have a thing about crows and ravens. I've read a dozen books about them, and have artworks and ceramics with crow/raven figures. They are tricksters, and maybe my fondest is from childhood, when I loved the cartoon characters Heckle and Jeckle. There are two crows who seem to live on our property or the parkway across the street, and up at the cabin the ravens are ubiqutous. They are always the bad guys in movies, associated with witches and evil. They deserve our admiration for their intelligence, but as covids and scavengers, they get a bad rap. I am a big fan.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I am fascinated with the story of the elephants in China who are on the move, but no one knows where or why. Setting aside the metaphor of the Republicans in this country, I love the mystery of their journey. I imagine they are seeking a better world, in which they wouldn't be hunted and abused, their habitat destroyed, their fleeing a sign of hope. We could coexist with earth's creatures, and some of us wish to, but many more cannot see the rights of animals as necessary to our own moral compass. I hope somehow, magically, they find a place that will leave them alone to raise their families and live with dignity. But there is no such place anymore, and desperate people will not be able to think about the feelings of other beings. Hunters wish to dominate and hurt to make themselves puff up with false pride. They cannot recognize we share the planet and if we don't we too will become extinct. Keep moving dear elephants, follow your instincts and search, search, search for that better world out there somewhere, somewhere kind and gentle.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I watched another couple of lessons on quilting by Ricky Tims and my friend and I enjoyed them. We had lots of ideas of what might be useful to us and also how our taste differs from Tims. I didn't necessarily like many of his quilts, but I was dazzled by their virtuousity. I like the sloppy more playful quilts, but I was amazing at his technical ability. I want a story quilt more, I think, and one less dependent on computers and devices on the sewing machine. But now I see how those kind of quilts are done. My favorites of his quilts were ones with a story. So that directs me to be figuring out what story I want to tell. I will never be able to design as well, but I can trace shapes I want and find fabrics that speak to me. It's all so terribly personal, in the end. My friend's baby quilts for her grandchildren are all about family history and story, and I love them. I don't have her skills, but so what? I can express myself in my own way, without worry about judgement and skill level. Just do it! as the ads say.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

After babysitting our grandson, I hiked up my street and met with my friend of 33 years who had paid for an online class about quilting with Ricky Tims. She'd offered to have me sit in several weeks ago, and, since I love quilts, I took her up on it. Tims is delightful, and the lessons are excellent. I may never make a quilt again, but I love learning how various techniques are accomplished and just seeing all the quilts is delightful. He is an amazing quilter, as well as musician and all around Renaissance man. He has a studio in Colorado and seems to have made hundreds of quilts, and his father quilted as well. Because my father knew how to sew as well as my mother, and that is saying something, as he worked in the garment industry his entire life, I love the idea of men quilting. Tims is a great teacher, and well organized. He is encouraging, because he throws out all the rules of quilting, and frees the quilter to truly create and design. I came home raring to quilt, and I just happen to have some cotton print squares that suit the purpose. But I am now craving to buy fabric, as between sending a bunch to my granddaughter and giving away fabric for friends to sew masks, I have very little to choose from. I can see a trip to a fabric store is in my future, and very soon indeed.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I watched "Bullitt" last night and I was amazed at how it held up. Beautiful cinematography, crisp scenes, timeless delima and the major bad guy getting away with his arrogance. Steve McQueen is gorgeous, as is Jaqueline Bassett, and the dialogue is spare and so modern. The car chase scene is still phenomenal and so realistic. San Francisco looks empty, but then decades ago it was not the traffic pileup it is today. McQueen's character is relentless and refuses to compromise until he has the answers, so this film is the companion piece to LA Confidential, because both McQueen's character and Russell Crowe's character won't give up. But they are different men in eras that define them, so Crowe is sloppy and violent, and McQueen is cool and tacturn. McQueen was not in very many good films, but his charisma is stunning. Crowe recently has been in forgettable films, but at least he has some great films in his resume. McQueen died so young and tragically that who knows what he might have accomplished. I wish better things for Crowe.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I babysat the youngest grandson today, and he was easy peasy. We were anxious he wouldn't sleep in the portacrib upstairs, but he did well. My daughter is doing a sewing project in her four year old's preschool, and I offered to watch the one year old. He hasn't been with us much in his short life, and when I watch him, it's out his house, so this was a trial that went very well. After I walked to the post office to mail pillowcases and a pillow to my two year old grandson, who approved the fabric and colors. I also impulsively took three mysteries from a Little Library box, so I'm going to indulge, then return them after I'm done. What a delightful idea the Little Library is. It's fun to peek as you are walking along and occasionally find treasures. Not quite as wonderful as browsing a bookstore, but much more economical!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I woke up early as I do these days, so I went to the post office to mail a couple of packages, then met up with my friend to take a walk and have a cappuchino. That caused me to need to pee, so we went to Trade Joe's for the bathroom and came out with two bunches of peonies each. We figured we'll get them while they are available. A bunch of five is the price of one stem at a florist. What's not to like?! I then returned home to continue reading an incredible book about a man whose two year old daughter died when a brick fell from eight stories above on her and her grandmother. Talk about chance and randomness. It sounds gruesome, but he describes so well all the grief and suffering that I have felt that it's like hearing the truth from someone who KNOWS. He and his wife struggle to come back to an approximation of their lives, and I know they are going to succeed, so the book is hopeful and encouraging as well. In the chapter I just finished, they've gone to a weekend retreat/workshop for people who have lost a wife, brother, child. They are skeptical, but comforted by being with other strangers who have had a similar loss. I find myself also soothed by friends who have had losses. My walking friend lost her husband in their forties, and raised her two kids alone, as did another friend. I feel like they "get me" and we don't need to say anything. Words don't help. But friends really, really do.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I did enjoy sewing yesterday and will continue today. At the end of the week I'm watching a quilting show with a friend at her house. She's signed up and I will buddy up with her. I am fascinated with quilting, but the Rosie Lee Thompkins kind: free spirited and unmeasured. The show is supposedly in that vein. I love Gee's Bend quilts, and many years ago my younger daughter and I saw the show at a local art museum, sketched some ideas while there, then came home and made our own crazy quilts. Mine is still at the foot of a guest room bed. I also love the Kantha quilts from India, with all the minute stitches and myriad of colors. I've never made one, but I like the idea of trying. Baby quilt size is about all I can handle, and the fabrics I picked this time are soft, flannely and sweet: moon and stars on a gray background, lamas on a mint green background, and forest animals on soft gray. I also have rainbow stripes with contrasting lilac stars for small burp cloths or shoulder pads. I used to do more elaborate quilts, but now my eyesight and aging joints make it too challenging. I've adapted, rather than quit altogether, which I believe to be the wise choice.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today our daughter will have been gone one year. There is a whole in the universe but not entirely, as long as we who love her keep her memory alive and her writings remain available. She sent out her voice and it was heard. Our granddaughter is energizing our memorial to her mother, set for the fall. She is a tiger, like her mom. And, stunningly, as she has become a teenager, she looks more and more like her mother. Yesterday I spent time searching for old photos of my daughter on IPhoto. She was so beautiful, with a smile that glowed. Then I looked at photos of myself at my granddaughter's age, sent years ago by my childhood friend. I was thinking of my granddaughter, daughter and myself at 13. It's a complex, difficult age, and my daughter's father died when she was that age, and I had to move across country to begin a high school where I knew no one, and now my granddaughter enters her second year without her mother. I'm thinking about how those events shaped us, and how, for me, it took many years to fully face the loss, my mother's cancer, and how much my subsequent actions were a response. We handle what we can handle when we can.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I had a rough time sleeping last night. All day I was brooding over the rush during the pandemic to buy guns and the almost daily mass shootings in this country. You can be in church, getting groceries, walking in a park, buying shoes for your kids, and someone armed like a battleground soldier swoops in with intent to kill. It doesn't matter the reasons, none of them make much sense anyway. I've supported gun control for many years, and so have a majority of Americans, but we are less protected than ever. It's like a relentless will to selfdestruct. There is no country more dangerous to visit than our own. When I told my husband how depressed I was he reminded me that tomorrow is the first anniversary of our daughter's death. I'm taking it hard. I don't accept it, I can't really believe it, and the loss just feels too great to bear. She had so much more to do: raise her daughter, write more books, paint, travel, scuba dive, sing, dance, play the drums, laugh and eat with friends, fuss over her nephews. It's as if a brilliant star became a shooting star and left the sky darker and us in shadow. It's unacceptable.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

This morning I went with a friend to Coatco to get earthquake supplies. Every few years we do this. I joked that since I keep them in the garage, probably it will immediately collapse when the big one comes, and I will have nothing. Nevertheless, we are both responsible people so we do it. Maybe it comforts us. We talked about wills and investments as well, with me relating how my father's preparations eased my way when he died suddenly, after my mother dying ten months before. I explained how from the shock of my parents' deaths was soothed by clear instructions, paperwork, and my parents' lawyer, accountant and investment advisor. Those people knew how to intrepret the will, manage selling their house and how to deal with the IRS and other entities. I was grateful to my father for being so organized. My friend has three kids and four grandchildren, and I have four kids and five grandchildren. He surprised me by not having a will. His kids are all successful as are mine, but as I told him: the blow of your death will make everything hard to deal with, so write your will for their sakes. I'm sure he was listening. After all, we have ourselves all prepared for earthquake and fire! I know, there IS no real protection. But we try.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We did a spontaneous thing this weekend. Our daughter called and invited us to spend overnight with them at their Air B&B and we did. I had promised to take a friend to BART to catch her flight to Berlin, but when I got back Sunday morning we loaded the car and drove south. Their rental was roomy and they gave us their king sized bed, and they took the sleeper sofa. The beach was pristine and huge, and we had fun with the boys digging for sand crabs and making castles and roads. That afternoon we took a long hike at Moss Landing wildlife refuge, and though we didn't see seals or otters, we saw pelicans, herons, sandpipers and ducks. The boys were intrepid, with the one year old trudging mile after mile while his older brother rode in his stroller. We picked up seafood dinners and came back exhausted. Yesterday morning we went to the beach again and played, then packed up and drove looking for tidepools, but the whole world was on the beach, and we couldn't get a parking space so we split up and they took the boys to a playground and then headed back to have a barbeque at a cousin's house, and we took highway 1 and enjoyed the views and masses of wildflowers. We didn't even encounter traffic, except at Half Moon Bay, where they design it so you give up and stop somewhere. But we didn't. I made waffles for dinner and we were exhausted but happy. A nice surprise for us, and we love those close encounters with the third kind: grandchildren.