Dear Family, Friends, and Diary,
Friday brought us another family gathering. Gabby, Ava, and Sam came down for one of his golf tournaments and to get an early start on Marianne's 80th birthday celebrations. They brought decorations, a crown, and lots of laughing. It's still a week before the real birthday, but there's nothing wrong with beginning early on celebrations and it was wonderful to have more activity in our old house. It's been awhile.
On Saturday morning, Gabby drove Sam down to Ridge Creek Golf Club in Dinuba. I came along as staff photographer. Our 14-year-old golfer has a couple tournaments every month and normally does well, considering his competition is generally older and bigger. When we reached the course, he settled into a well-worn routine: practice tee, practice putting, sign-in with officials, and start the round. The Dinuba course is longish, flat, and almost treeless. Maybe that's why hole #6 was named after a region in Afghanistan.
While Gabby and I were watching our golfer, Marianne had taken Ava to the "No Kings" demonstration in Fresno. Over 8 million Americans joined them in expressing displeasure with the current administration. Hopefully, the civics lesson was not missed by our teenage granddaughter. We need the participation of young people to stop the tyrant.
That evening, we enjoyed a celebration at Max's Bistro & Bar. In the dinner hour, it is a bit noisy, but that's what celebrations should be and we managed to have family conversation despite it all.
Sunday started early, with a hazy drive down to Dinuba for Round 2 of the golf tournament. An advantage of the early start was that I could practice ordinary-things photography. The "golden hour" thing is real.
Sam started with his routine at the practice tee where he sought to improve on yesterday's swing. What do you think?
After the practice tee, it was over to the Junior Tour of Northern California sign-in and first hole. Gabby and I left Sam after he reached this first green. Unfortunately, by the end of two rounds of play, Sam was pretty discouraged by his play. (It is no consolation to him that on his worst day, his golf is better than my game ever was in my young days when I tried the sport.) Room for growth.
Back home, we had our breakfasts, Gabby and Ava did homework, Marianne rested to recover from some sort of bug she had gotten, and I did my normal not-very-much. Too soon, we were bidding the little family bon voyage as they headed back to Monte Sereno, via Dinuba. We'll see them again in about a month when we have a pair of visits planned: one for a medical procedure and one for Thanksgiving.
We try to keep "medical procedures" out of the way (and successfully completed one yesterday). That way we can visit family, friends, new, and old places. Stay tuned.
John and Marianne.