Sorry for the delay.
There’s plenty of stuff out there on the Intarwebz about phenomena like “facebook fatigue” and one-tweet “twitter quitters.” But what those of us who have been blogging for a long time–years actually, and that’s a lot to think about–who go close to a whole financial quarter without a post? Do we start with an obligatory apologia? A paragraph on excuses? We’ve done that, so now let’s say no. Let’s say here, that you get what you pay for, and here, I pay for my bandwidth, and here, there aren’t enough of you readers for me to offset those minimal costs by selling googleads. So: you get what I give you.
In the middle of July, my grandfather died. Lawson, namesake of Sam Lawson, expired after a long decline. TBW and the boys and I went back to Atlanta for the reception. The folks parking the cars said they parked five hundred cars over the course of a four-hour event — so conservative estimates (and conservative estimates would be appropriate for Lawson) mean that there were probably ONE THOUSAND PEOPLE at his reception.
That bears some contemplation.
I mean, I don’t think you could get a thousand people to a reception celebrating me if you paid plane fare and offered an open bar. So, as my uncle John put it, “he got his money’s worth.”
So we went back to Atlanta, and hung out with my aunt and uncles and first cousins — The Gus and Sam are the first of their generation, just as Josiah and I are the first of ours — and we had a great time. The Gus learned that when it’s 90 degrees outside and 90% relative humidity, spending an afternoon cavorting in a sprinkler with a puppy is an afternoon entirely full. Sam learned that the textures of just about everything in Georgia are similar to the textures of just about everything in Oregon, when sampled orally. For my part, I spent much of the time with my ankle awkwardly taped, the result of a no-incident injury in the Portland airport, as my aging body betrayed me.
There are pictures of that trip on the Flickr page, link to the right, as there have been for months.
Then we came back to Oregon, I worked for a week, and then we went to Black Butte for a week, as planned for months. Nothing special about that trip, as we spent most days in the pool or the sandbox, and the biggest worry was whether the boys were adequately sunscreened. Again, pictures on the Flickr page, and again, link to the right. While we were there, Sam put on a show: he learned to crawl, got a tooth, and then learned to pull himself up to standing. We had luckily been through this with one child already, so the dazzling milestone-passing display left us merely impressed, rather than panicked.
Then, August. What happened in August? I worked a lot. I did a lot of high-quality lawyering, filed several good briefs which caused wailing and gnashing of teeth in the various opposing counsel who received them, and Sam worked on his sprint past infancy milestones. There were a couple of beach weekends out of town for Trina and the boys, each of whom will gladly eat his weight in sand daily given the opportunity. No pictures, no excuses.
So that takes us to September. Gwarsh, that’s fast. And there’s just not much to report. We’ve really mastered our recipe for grilled fish tacos this summer. We’ve spent quality time with brother Blair, his wife Jackie, and their kids, cousins Kai and Ian. HJ finished nursing school (of course), passed her nursing boards first try (of course), and got a job at her preferred hospital the same afternoon that she interviewed in the morning (our star). We’ve taken virtually no pictures — though once again, please hit the flickr link in the right-hand bar for proof of the negative. We are all sharing a summer cold that preceded the change in seasons. We are generally feeling like no news is good news: we are doing fine, getting better, day by day.