We Are Back and Recovering

We are back in Northern California and glad to be home, after visitng the OC twice, Pennsylvania and then Texas. The grand kids were great and we enjoyed them. It was great to see Janice and Kenny, Brian and Valerie, the Meeks in their new home and Andy and Angela and the kids. Pictures to come tomorrow or this weekend. We are busy catching up. We did have some distressing news. Our friend Sosamma called Rhonda and told us her husband Zach was dead. Technically, he was. His father died recently and when he applied for the death certificate they mixed up the deceased with the person requesting it, so it listed Zach as dead. How to fix that? And then we went to lunch with one of our favorite people, Ms. S, a former student of Rhonda's. She has a grandmother who recently had a stroke. To help her recover, Ms. S was working on checking her memory. She showed her a picture of Abe Lincoln and asked Grandma who it was. Grandma replied that it was Abe Lincoln and he was a President. Fine. Then she showed Grandma a picture of Barack Obama and asked her who he was. Grandma had no clue. Ms. S said, "Grandma, that is Barack Obama, he is the President." Grandma, in a hushed voice said, "But he's black." Ms S said, "Yes, he is and you voted for him." Grandma said, "Well, I'll be damned." This is the same person, Ms. S, who lost her other grandmother recently. This grandmother was a typical fiery Italian, famous for her recipes. Only after she died and they were going through her papers they find out she was Mexican, and had never even been to Italy. The family is shocked. No one knew. It does have a happy ending. Ms. S has a brother, now in college, busily applying for Latino scholarships. Life is strange.