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07-01-2001 @ 11:52 p.m.
3D Gathering

I'm back! We had such a lovely weekend in Ashland with fellow online friends Marywa, the-queen, and a few other online friends from a forum we all frequent. We made it a family affair, so there were spouses and children at this gathering, too. Mary came from Seattle, Bill and my family drove down from Portland, Pat 2 drove down from Salem, the-queen and her family drove up from San Jose and Pat 1 drove up from Burbank.

The weather couldn't have been more perfect--warm but not screaming hot--and the company was great. The children were delightfully well-behaved and presented no discipline problems. And the highlight of the weekend for me was leaving the kids at the hotel with the babysitter I'd brought along and having a spectacular (if expensive) dinner before watching Merchant of Venice at the Shakespeare Festival that Ashland is known for.

On Saturday, we met for breakfast (and it was a very good breakfast, too, with crispy hasbrowns and thick-sliced bacon, perfectly cooked eggs and Dr Pepper--hey, a girl needs her caffeine and DP is my caffeine delivery system of choice) before driving over to Jacksonville, a historic gold mining town. They were having a historic festival there with people walking around in 'old-timey' clothes and riding horses and there were vintage cars and cowboy crooners and a lot of people walking around. I managed to sunburn my scalp, forehead, nose, cheeks and chest while we walked around. It was pretty warm that day but we cooled off in the pool before getting ready for the evening's activities.

Lauren is a masterful babysitter. She actually got 6 kids to go to sleep in 2 queen-sized hotel beds. I'm in awe of her abilities. The queen's kids were begging her to move to San Jose so she could babysit them there. It was so nice having her along with us--Joey was delighted with having a playmate and seatmate and I was delighted with having an extra set of hands. She is very well-mannered and very helpful. I said that I thought we should always travel with Lauren. She liked that idea. I think it was fun for her to hang with a 'little sister' type, being the oldest of 4 and being the only girl.

My wonderful, sparkly, green strappy sandals made their official debut at the aforementioned adults-only dinner and play. I felt very tall and very stylish wearing them.

Today we walked through the artisan market along the creek in Ashland and I got a henna tattoo for Lauren. She'd never had one before and was just delighted with it. I felt kind of like a big sister to her. I'm about 20 or so years older than her--I have a few friends with siblings who are 18-25 years older so it's not beyond the realm of possibility. She thought Ed and I were pretty fun, which I was delighted to hear. We're cool--you hear that? Officially branded cool by a bona fide teenager. Don't freaking mess with us.

We also stopped at the big Harry and David store in Medford. I was disappointed that they didn't have any of their gourmet produce there but I did buy some apricot-jalepeno jelly (delicious over cream cheese and spread on crackers), some Rainier cherries and some kind of melon called a galia (anyone ever heard of that?) and a few other delicacies and then drove on home. We rolled into town just a bit after 7pm which I thought was perfect. For part of the journey home, I drove and Ed asked me crossword puzzle questions and we did 2 crosswords until my asthma medicine kicked in and made me very sleepy so I had to go to sleep.

We decided to make an Ashland gathering an annual event. Lauren is already on board for next year so we just need to choose the weekend and get the play tickets.

Ed's sabbatical is now an actuality. He finished work by just after 4pm on Friday and now he's free! Free, I tell you. FREE! He's on sabbatical and it's going to be sunny on the 4th of July. Things just can't get any better than that.

It's good to be me.

--L

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