I think I'll be an early post-er this year, instead of just about the last one like last year.
Plunging in here: My mother died three days ago, in her sleep; she was discovered by the assisted living staff when they checked on her around 3:30 AM, as they do. She'd been in hospice for the last six months, coincident with moving from her independent apt. to assisted living. She'd have been 97 in six weeks. She was one of only three women in the entire Alfred Univ. School of Engineering, graduating with a BS in Glass Technology in 1938. Mostly she raised four children and had a gigantic organic garden, but in between kids, she was a project manager for George Gallup, did research and development on integrated circuits for Western Electric, substitute-taught chemistry, physics, and math in high school, played a wicked game of bridge and duplicate bridge, started the local Farmer's Market, volunteered for Meals on Wheels, and, after my father retired, volunteered in a clinic and school in Cairo while my father worked as an engineer in the ESC program. My three siblings and I are proud of her, we'll miss her, this was a tiny bit sooner than we expected, but we've been prepared for some time.
Working backwards, one of my three cats was eaten by a coyote mid-August. I found her head and one leg. Another cat down the street was taken 10 days later. My remaining two cats are grounded, and I hope to build a cat-friendly, coyote-proof outdoor area before winter rains come.
In June and July, I had a fabulous vacation to OR and WA. I backpacked for a week (41 miles) on the Olympic Peninsula, biked all around Victoria BC, hiked, biked, camped, picked fruit, had yummy IPA (beer) along the Columbia River Gorge, found a fabulous hot spring resort (Breitenbush), hung out with the Kinetic Race folks in Corvallis, as well as visited friends in OR and WA, discovering new places to bike and hike and walk on the way up and down I-5, and forging a lovely & loving new family connection with a niece who'd almost been lost to us via awful divorce when she and her sister were very young.
I was certified as an Emergency Medical Responder at the end of the spring semester (EMT-lite, basically), and am an emergency services worker volunteer in my local community.
I run hot and cold here: I'll read and post in bursts (like now!), mostly in TV: basic and premium cable. I'd love for us to have a network tv thread. I see a lot of B'stas on FB and check here at least every several weeks.
It's been a good year, and a bad year, but one thing is constant: I am so happy to have been able to early-retire two years ago, to spend more time with my mother, have less stress (I was replaced by two full time attorneys and one full time clerk), and enjoy the beautiful town and county that I pretty much only slept in the thirty years I was working across the Bay.
Wishing everyone well, Java cat
eta fix typos