Provided these blogs still have structural integrity, you will find a pattern around this time of year: a journey North to visit friends and relatives. This year, I drove alone, having I-5 adventures, with occasional forays into the hinterlands. Of course driving has changed now that smartphones plugged into the dash talk, giving directions, and play music.
Tara joined the eight of us by Google Hangout from Greater Chicago, for a video chat. Lee brought his parents, Howard and Wilma, along with Howard's brother Bill, to Mary's. Alice (Mary's sister) and Steven joined us from further north.
We found assembling the jigsaw puzzles congenial as they gave us something to focus on while having after dinner conversation. They were not run of the mill puzzles in that the pieces were unusually intricate, sometimes detailed shapes in their own right.
I drove north on Wednesday and south on Friday, stopping by Bill's place for the first time near the University of Washington, the day of the annual football game, Huskies (University of Washington) versus Washington State.
Many of our conversations were quite lighthearted, others serious in terms of topic, such as end of life planning. Mary is a doctor and wanted to be sure we were all aware of the agony some go through if the paperwork does not allow them to die and they can't represent themselves.
My love to friends and relatives out there, both near to me and far. We are one interwoven web of life, empirically as well as spiritually. There's not much to argue about there. The devil is in the details I suppose.
