Day 3, where I drink a glass of wine for each day.

I’ve found a very convenient place to charge my computer and phone, but it has one drawback. The computer sits on the stack of phonebooks, and the top one is called “My Little Phonebook”. It means that every time I put the computer away or pick it up, I have to sing the song. Dave has just fixed the problem by turning the phone book over. He’s so smart!

I decided to skip yoga for one more day – I am way, way better, but still a little snorkly. I had a peaceful morning of words with friends until Dave got up, and then we got heavily into travel planning. We’re driving Tim down to Santa Cruz in a rental car and then flying back in September, and then of course October 12^th is Josh and Jen’s big day. I made hotel reservations for Josh’s side of the family, and we got flights down for Tim. It worked out that he’ll fly out with Ben and Joan, and then John Friend will join them in Phoenix for the last leg of the trip. John and Tim will also fly back to Phoenix together on the first leg of the return trip. That took about 2 or 3 hours and involved a couple phone calls with Josh, who also has a cold. We’re also coordinating with Dave’s mom, who may end up on the same flights as John Friend, which would be cool. We’re waiting to make our reservations until we find out what Mama is doing. Bubby and Robert and Ira and Shel and the kids are making their own plans. I think it will be fun for Sam and Sami to meet each other – Sami Is 30 days older than Sam, and they both adore Josh and Jen.

Tim went for a run, and then we headed into town for pizza. Once again it seemed crowded between midtown and downtown, but there were plenty of spaces in the secret back lot, and plenty of seats at Pizza a’fetta. Where we need to remember to get bell peppers on the sausage pizza. We wandered around town for a bit after, and Tim got his first Osborn’s. We should also have stopped at Bruce’s as Tim has eaten almost all the taffy. He’s also eaten quite a few oreos, but once again they were BOGO at Safeway (maybe they always are the weekend before labor day?) so we have two boxes. We also noticed that Fishes was open, so we went to find out their hours for lunch – Tuesday-Sunday 12-2. We will probably make a stop there for lunch at some point, although it was very empty and seemed understaffed at the same time.

It had partly cleared up while we were in town, so Dave and I decided to go for a hike. Tim felt the need for naptime. The Oregon Coast Trail is everywhere here, and there are tons of trails in Oswald West State Park, but after looking at the map for a bit we decided we’d do the Two Bridges trail going north. So we dropped off Dave’s car near Debbie’s, and parked mine at the south end. It turned out to be way shorter than we remembered, so we decided to do another one. We first drove to scope out the Neahkahnie mountain trail, which looks like fun for another day. Then we figured we’d just park at the lot for Short Sands and walk out to the beach, but after we started out we saw signs for the old growth trail. We paused a moment to download a pdf of the trails, and ended up taking series of trails (Old Growth Forest to Cedar Crossing to Necarney Creek to Elk Flats to South Beach Access) to get to the south end of short sands beach, and then walked back on the trail to the falcon cove parking area. There was supposed to be a trail from there to the parking area, but it ended abruptly about halfway there, and also there’s Necarney creek in the way. So we crossed over the creek on the road bridge, and then crossed the road into the parking lot. We were out for a couple of hours and it was a fun walk, although it was very, very humid. The creek was a big highlight for both of us. It’s carving its way through a bed of basalt, and has made many very interesting holes and eddies. It’s a picture of the power of persistence and flexibility. Also both of us love the sound of running water, so it was really nice to walk alongside of it. And yes, we did stop in the middle of the forest to download a pdf – I had 4G signal with full bars.

We got home around 5 and Tim was napping. There was a big group of pelicans, including baby ones, flying and floating around. I always like to see pelicans and I think this may be the first time I’ve seen baby ones. I decided that since we’d done plenty of leg work I would just do an abs workout like they do on the ship. In case you can’t tell, I miss being on the ship. If there were Nia on the ship you’d never be able to get me off. Anyway, I managed to find about 25 minutes of ab exercises to do, including the one for your obliques where you have your knees over to the side and do crunches, keeping your shoulders parallel to the floor. I mention that one because I think it’s the exercise that is making my hip feel better.

I finished up just in time to shower and head off to Newman’s, where Dave had the idea of having them do wine pairings with each course the way they do with the prix fixe menu. The thing is they would be full glass pours, rather than the half or less glasses you usually get. I considered leaving out the pairing with the salad, but then decided not to. Bad idea. I had the crabcakes, tomato salad, and duck. The crabcakes were kind of weird. Tim, who has a real genius for summing up food, said that they were very one note – a very good note, but still just one, which is why I couldn’t decide if I liked them. Tim and Dave both followed the rule that if the tomato soup is on the menu you should order it, and were well rewarded. The food wasn’t quite up to Newman’s usual standard, but it was still very good. Dave and I shared a chocolate silk pie and Tim had the chocolate pot for dessert, but by then I could barely keep my eyes from crossing and was having to focus a lot on pronouncing words and filtering thoughts.

Tim drove home, and it was pretty much bedtime for me at that point. I think I had a cup of tea and several glasses of water first. I did not sleep very well. I will not drink 3 glasses of wine with dinner again.