A Double Header

I feel like we've been to a double-header today! The morning was quiet enough, ending with taking Polly for her weekly torture--3 hours at Petco. I had arranged for Ashley to bring her back home again, since we would be at a family reunion.

The reunion was held at the home of my cousin's daughter (is that my second cousin or first cousin once removed? I can never remember). Anyway, Denise lives in a beautiful small home in Petaluma that has a fabulous garden that my mother has been raving about for years.

Unfortunately, I didn't see too much of the garden. It's terraced up the back of a hill and I could see everything in bloom farther up, but I'm such a klutz and nearly fell off my Birkinstocks just getting to the first level, that I didn't go up farther.

This wasn't one of the blow-out reunions where people fly from halfway across the country to attend. With very few exceptions, everyone who was there was directly related to my cousin Shirley (well, we all are, but I meant her daughters and their spouses, brother and grandchildren). That was a pretty big group right there. But there were a few of us "not quite so closely related" people too, like Peach and Bob and their daughter Karen.

But we were there to do a little visiting, barbeque some bratwurst and have a quick dinner. There are already plans for next year's reunion, at a place several miles north, in the redwood country. The plan is for it to be 3 days and the facility has cabins and kitchen facilities and all that sort of good stuff.

We couldn't stay long because of the concert tonight by the Preoccupied Piers, which was being held from 6-9 at a pizza parlor in Davis. We knew we would be late and would miss the first set by Adrian West. Not only were we getting to town at 6:30, we had to stop off at the house first and feed the dogs.

We got to the pizza parlor just as Adrian was finishing his set.

It was like old home week. I swear I knew 1/3 of all the people in the place. My friend Ruth, with whom I have lunch at a downtown restaurant every two weeks, was there; my Lexulous buddy Jess was there. The kids' old math teacher was there. Walt's sister was there. Lots of old Lawsuit groupies were there. Paul's old boss was there. Some other people I knew in town were there.

I even saw one of the midwives I used to work with, who had been taking her grandson to get some ice cream, heard the music and came in to see what was going on. Aiden, the grandson, had never seen live music being played before and was mesmerized.\

Unforunately, the midwife, who was always one of my favorite people and whom I have not seen in a long time, managed to leave before I saw her. I would like to have spoken with her a little bit, but I'm glad that she at least stopped in to see what all the commotion inside the pizza parlor was!

Walt's sister had a great time, dancing with Ned and with Jeri at various times.

Marta sang a love song that she dedicated to Mr. Tashima, their high school math teacher, because she said that she and Ned had fallen in love in his class. (I can't remember if Ned got good grades or not in that class!)

It was just a really fun night. It's always fun when the kids get together to perform again. One of my favorite things this time was looking down on the floor and seeing the band members' children sitting there watching.

We came home to happy dogs. Today Buttercup began eating like a real dog. She takes so much of Bella's food that I finally gave her her own bowl today (I think Bella got most of that too, but Buttercup is on her way to being a toddler, not just a baby).