My documentation of Father's Day began in the morning, as I returned home from my walk by coming in through the back, through the remnant of now-dried up marsh and woods. I found Jacob, Kalib and Muzzy in the back yard, Jacob pulling old stumps and such.
Kalib was wearing a red t-shirt that hung nearly to his ankles and gave him kind of a mischievous, sleepy-angel look and he wanted his dad to walk off into the trees with him.
His dad did not want to stop what he was doing and so told him grandpa would walk with him.
Hence, Kalib walked into the trees and I followed, taking pics as I did.
I think I captured something unique and special on that short little walk, but readers will not find it in here, at least not today. A read of yesterday's post will reveal the kind of problems that I am currently experiencing with this computer.
Once it takes a few minutes to figure out where it is and what program it is, the computer can handle word processing and basic internet tasks just fine, but when it comes to photo editing and photo processing tasks, it turns into an absolute nightmare.
As simple click that, when the computer is working as it should will result in almost instantaneous completion of the task can now result in ten minutes of doing nothing but watching the Mac colorwheel spin. It is not a bug, it is not a virus, but something has gone fundamentally wrong with this computer - maybe in the RAM.
So, it would probably take me an entire day - certainly half the day - to sort through the photos of that walk in Lightroom and then open them up in Photoshop just to complete the series that I believe is in the photos from that walk.
And I took many other pictures - Lavina barbecuing meat and veggies to all of us - and there were many of us - gathered around the backyard picnic table where we began to eat, but then it started to rain and I didn't care but everybody else did so we moved inside.
There, I took more pictures. I knew I faced an impossible editing task, so, when I took this one, I said to myself, "I will run that one and that can be it for the whole blog."
It is furry Jim sitting on the lap of Furless Jim while Muzzy sits out on the porch, wanting to get it, wanting to get at the beef and pork that Lavina had barbecued.
"Furless Jim," longtime readers will recall, is Jim Earnshaw, Charlie's dad. He and Cyndy came out and joined us. So all the kids were here (although Caleb slept through it all in preparation for his nightshift), grandkids and Charlie, who I also consider to be one of the kids these days.
Furless Jim is a genuine cat person - and dog person, too. Furry Jim knows this and took full advantage of it.
Shortly after I took the one picture that I marked for today's blog, Jobe came by to communicate with furry Jim as he rested on the lap of Furless Jim and I thought, "what the heck, these two pictures are right close together and so I will add it in, too.
So here they are, Jobe, furry Jim, and Furless Jim.
Although at this point I do not know where the money is going to come from, I have made up my mind that I am going to return to India in November for Soundarya's one-year memorial - and if the timing works out, for Sujtha's wedding as well. That will take me away at a bad time, because Sandy's death came on Lisa's birthday and it will also be Thanksgiving weekend, so I was talking to Lisa about that and she decided to come with me.
She can't afford to do that, but not being able to afford something is not always a good reason not to do it. So it looks like she will be coming with me. I hope so.
Jim and Cyndy brought some excellent potato salad and some celestial rhubard/blackberry cat; Charlie baked cookies and prepared black coffee, which we took late with the pastries.
Superb.
People began to depart a bit after 9:00 PM, with Melanie and Charlie the last to leave, shortly before 10:00 PM. Since they were the last, I figured it would not be that huge of an editing problem to go to the very end of my take and include this picture of them driving away, waving goodbye, on today's blog.
I then faced a minor writing task that I figured would probably take me until 3:00 or 4:00 AM to complete, but I needed a little exercise and some air first, so I got on my bike and pedaled off into the rain.
As I was nearing home, a little before 11:00 PM, some neighbors who are among the many who migrated to Wasilla from the former Soviet Block as it came apart and who live down the street, around the corner, down that street and around another corner, pulled up alongside me.
They matched their car pace to mine, rolled down the window and asked how I was doing.
We had not seen each other for many months, maybe over a year.
I told them I was doing good, and asked how they were doing.
They were doing good, too.
As I pedaled and we conversed, I shot a few frames, not looking through the viewfinder but just pointing my camera in their general direction.
That made this the last picture of the day, right next to Melanie and Charlie departing. So I decided to add it into the blog mix.
I arrived home about 11:05 PM and found Margie on the couch, alternately watching Law & Order and dozing off for a few minutes. She was exhausted. So I sat down with her until the show was over.
Now I figured it would take me until 4:00 or 5:00 AM to finish off that minor writing task and I was tired.
I said to hell with it, I've put in too many all-nighters in my life and that probably has a lot to do with why I live in an almost perpetual state of brain-fried exhaustion.
I decided just to go to bed and do the writing task today. That means I cannot take my computer into the shop until tomorrow.
Oh, well.
Everything will get done and we will survive - perhaps not in grand fashion; maybe we will have to sell the house and move into a small RV and live on the road, but we will survive.
And I got to sleep a little bit.
I still feel tired, though. Brain-fried and exhausted.