Beltane and the Herme Moon
Sunday gratefuls: Mary. Ruth. Gabe. A bright Sun shiny Day. 72 today. Three dry days in a row. Sarah and BJ coming in later today. The World. Cultures other than our own. Day off yesterday from Ancientrails. BJ and Sarah. On their way to Driggs, Idaho. In the U-Haul. With loads of books. Great workout. Great chocolate. Father’s day present from BJ and Sarah. 83 yesterday! After a month and a half of Rain and cooler Weather. Overcast this morning. Cooler again. Robin and Spacewranglers. Rebecca. Herme work today. Chores.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family
One brief shining: Oh, took Mary to the light rail in Lakewood in the morning on Sunday and the long way back through crowded Morrison and then the Bear Creek Canyon road which looks like a perfect setting for old fashioned Westerns, trying to find a place to eat breakfast but Sunday city tourists all over so passed through a crowded Kittredge and Evergeen back up the hill to Shadow Mountain Home and cracked open the frig because by that time hunger occupied my attention cooked ate napped and then began to wonder where BJ and Sarah were.
Charlie’s no-tel motel has shutdown for two days. Opening again on Thursday for a longer stay. Tom.
Here’s what happened. Mary misread her plane ticket as arriving at 11:59 am. Nope. pm. So she booked a hotel. Which told her when she arrived that they were overbooked. This very late at night. Obvy. They found another room for her, paid for a taxi and breakfast the next morning.
Ruth and Gabe had already planned to come up. Lucky. Because Mary’s hotel was not far from Galena Avenue where Ruth and Gabe live. On the second day of having her driver’s license Ruth picked up Mary and drove her up here. We all went out for breakfast at Primo’s and talked a lot. Ruth had to leave to make it back to work at Starbucks. She’s a barista now. Lots of positives with both Ruth and Gabe.
Mary and I spent the day talking. Catching up on her travels. Japan. Guru and Kuala Lumpur. Eau Claire. Her wonderful furnished apartment in an old factory.
Her trip to Indiana. All the cousin news. Age beginning to ravage the still close gaggle of Keaton cousins. Ikie Jones died a while back. The first cousin. Annette died this year, his youngest sister. Melinda, their remaining sibling now in a nursing home and refusing to eat. Lisa, the youngest Steffey of five, died also a few years back. A stroke. Her four siblings Kathy, Tanya, Carla, and Kenya all alive. Though Kathy couldn’t make the meetup in Muncie, Indiana due to arthritis. She’s the oldest of the five. Diane, the oldest of the Keaton sibs, was there on her used to be annual trip to Morristown for her school’s reunion and renewal of family/friend ties. Richard’s on the farm and Kristin is in Michigan. Both doing ok. Mary, Mark, and I round out the Keaton cousins. We’ve stayed in touch since childhood, sharing news and stories.
I don’t get back as often as Mary who has made heroic efforts to stay in touch with family, traveling thousands of miles and crossing oceans each year to do so. Props to her. Due to the travel mix up her visit here was only Saturday.
BJ and Sarah had planned to make Denver around 1 pm on Sunday. Missed it by a couple of hours, then spent time loading Merton’s photographs into the U-Haul they’re taking turns driving from NYC to Driggs. In it is 90% of BJ and Schecky’s worldly belongings, mostly books. Huh. I know that routine.
We had a couple of snafu’s before we finally connected around 7 pm in the King Sooper’s parking lot. They left their truck there, Sarah bought some food, and we drove back to Shadow Mountain.
Sarah put together a salad, steamed asparagus, and set that out with some sushi rolls. A fine meal. We caught up on Johnson news. BJ and Sarah both saw me through the two weeks of Kate’s final hospitalization and death. She was their big sister.
The three of us went to the Conifer Cafe in the middle of the next morning for breakfast before they saddled up the U-Haul for the penultimate leg of their journey to Idaho. This is a big, big move for BJ and Schecky. They have lived in the same rent controlled rooms in the Beacon Hotel on Broadway since they were both students at Julliard. Well over 50 years. They’re letting go of the apartment and moving lock stock violin and cello to rural Idaho.
I drove back home to Shadow Mountain and took a nap.
