My Class Reunion - Forty Years ago I was in high school.

This has been such as hectic week, I have not had the time I would like to reflect on this weekend's travels.

We took off work on Friday and drove home to W. Va. for the class reunion weekend. Friday was a little more hectic that I would have liked, and we couldn't get out of Bethesda early, so we were running a bit late to begin with. We did manage to stop at Hagerstown Outlets for a little quick shopping at one store.

We've been so busy since Friday, that my purchases are still in the trunk of my car, and this is the following Wednesday.

The 40th Class Reunion was at the Village Square in Clarksburg, formerly Jewel City Bowling Alley. It was sweltering hot in there...the air conditioning was definitely not working. The dinner was really very nice, I had stuffed chicken and rigatoni, green beans and salad. It was nice. It was great fun to talk to the people I mostly had not really seen in 40 years and probably will seldom see again.

But, I was happy to learn that they were doing well and seemed like good people. It was a lot of fun to touch base with so many of my peers.

Out of a class of perhaps 125, there were about 45 classmates there. Pretty decent turnout after 40 years.

It does not feel like 40 years to me, seems like just a blink. How funny to be the one saying this. I guess, I am really getting old!

It is somehow nicer now than it was all those years ago.

Work is really hectic this week, considering we had no electric and no water when we got back to Maryland on Sunday. We spent Monday night in a hotel, but went to work Tuesday. By Tuesday night we had power again, but no time to catch up on the stuff we didn't get done, like laundry or throwing out all our food from the refrigerator. Hopefully, tonight!

We leave for Europe on Sunday to see Joey! Yay!

Holed up at the Hilton

I guess we should count ourselves really lucky. I took this photo as we were trying to get back to Bethesda yesterday. We must have missed the tornado that hit our area yesterday. I guess it was just through there minutes before we got to Germantown or Gaithersburg area. I-270 was packed, so we took an alternate route and this is what we faced. We saw several downed powerlines, many downed trees, lots of people trying to get somewhere.

Really, it was awful. Our condo has no power, like 250,000 other people around us. Without power, there is only limited elevator service on emergency generators and no water (also - READ THIS - NO working TOILETS). ugh. We were very careful, we went looking for an open place with a toilet this AM...and found one, luckily. The power outage is spotty, you cannot tell who might have power and who does not.

Driving in our area is complicated by the traffic lights being out - only SOME of them are out. So, you might drive one block and have a working stop light, then the next block no working lights....then the next block, lights seem to be working, but cops are directing traffic, disregarding any working lights. You know, if you approach a dark intersection, you MUST stop = treat all broken traffic signals as though it were a 4 way stop.

Right. Only about every 3rd car is doing this. It is basically every man for himself and it is scary.

So, with no showers, we waited today for some word. This might be a MULTIDAY recovery. So, we are in the Hilton Garden Inn at Arlington, VA. We are clean, showered, cool, and waiting. At $170 per night, we are anxious for this little "not-vacation" to be over.

I'll keep you posted. Ed has tried to work from here, with limited success. I'll try to get into my office tomorrow. We are close a metro stop here.

Zeus 2002-2010

The loss of our furry family member was a devastating blow to us. Our Zeus was a really neat guy and we miss him greatly. On the big move of our whole household from Citrus Heights to Bethesda, he was our constant companion, traveling across the USA in our station wagon and staying at the Holiday Inns with us.

He was always there to greet us when we opened the door, he was my bed warmer when Ed spent the year in California.

Zeus was my calm confident as I struggled to deal with Mom and Dad's aging process. Things that were too painful to verbalize could be soothed a little without words, playing with this cat.

Playful and quirky, he was the cat that would play fetch with us. Most mornings, he woke me, right on time, with his nose burrowing into the palm of my hand, eager for his morning petting. If I was too slow to wake, he impatiently would pat me with his big furry paw. He weighed 26 lbs. and was a splendid example of his breed, Maine Coon. He had a thick, long, heavy fur coat, with fur tufts sticking out of his ears and even tufts of fur sticking out between each toe on his huge paws. He had a big head and enormous pretty eyes. He was pretty much too large to be a comfortable lap cat. When he slept on the bed, he could weight down the blankets so much that you would wake up unable to move your legs, thinking you were somehow paralyzed during the night.

He was a fanatic about crinkly paper and always wanted to chase it or play with it. He liked those pony-tail covered rubber bands and would bring them to us to toss for him to chase. He was really afraid of nearly everyone but Ed and me. Zeus never let the cat sitter we have had for 5+ years even touch him, always stationed himself squarely out of reach under the center of the dining room table.

He had crazy long, out of control fur, so long that we were constantly fighting the cat hair battles. We sometimes could not get a comb through his hair. He was the first cat we ever had to have professionally groomed.

Zeus enjoyed laying on his back, much like a dog. Ed would rub his tummy with his foot.

In the temporary apartment in Bethesda where we first lived for 3 months, Zeus makes himself right at home.

In the Holiday Inn Express in Barstow, CA, circa January 2005. Two weeks in the car with two cats! Really not as difficult as I thought it might be. They were both good traveling companions, quiet and easy going.



Apparently exhausted from the move, Zeus makes himself at home in the new condo. 2005.

Ed and I both were with him at the end. It was very sad. The vet believes Zeus was poisoned by a blood thinner, i.e. rat poison, but we cannot figure out any way that could have happened. Hera is still fine and she is entirely in the same environment. They never leave our condo except for vet visits, and they share(d) the same food and litter. No one other than us had entered our condo during the couple of weeks that preceded his death. I tend to think it had to be an unintentional poisoning. There was no opportunity for anything else. We have sifted the cat litter, examined every nook and cranny all over the condo that we can imagine, but no trace of anything unusual could be found. We've examined bottles of cleaner, looks for leaks of any kind...nothing. However, his bun numbers and creatinine numbers were off the charts, basically unsurvivable.
We are thankful that his suffering was relatively short and he did not seem to be in too much acute pain. He did not wail or cry, he just wanted to crawl away I think. He still purred when we petted him. Our vet is a very compassionate person and was great to deal with. I think it was hard for him also. Zeus was a beautiful cat.

We are happy and fortunate that we got to share so many fun years with Zeus. He was really a wonderful cat. There must be a special place in heaven for these family companions. They do play quite a role in our lives.

Ocean City, MD circa June 1988

Please pardon my "Way Back" machine, but I loved rediscovering these photos. There were more, but I'll spare you!

I think this hotel is the same one we stayed in last month!

Are we in Arizona yet?

Its Hot out there!