I was a pound down (this on Friday), 8 pounds to go. Oh, well. About 7 miles, counting the weekend walking) and 5 magazines.

The conference was very rewarding. Three counsellors and the social worker and I, getting to know one another and seeking the best for Sam. It was a shock to come home and have Rich tell me the bad news, that Fitch had died on the operating table. Of course, right away I knew it was my fault for not authorizing the $45 pre-op bloodwork. (Actually, it wasn't. He died from the anesthesia. I just never seriously considered such an outcome: these ops are routine, and it's easier for a male anyway.)

I see now I'll never get that Fitch-Sailor picture. The day has been pretty darn sad. It didn't help that R.J.'s folks kept talking about their cat.

There are many pictures I won't get to use. Fitch was the photogenic one. And I'm going to miss the dynamics of the two of them, sleeping together in the tub, mock-fighting, chasing each other all over the Kit Mahal. Rich said quietly that he wished it had been Crombie. Not I, I just wish it hadn't been either of them.

I saw a deer in a field near Novato as we came.

We arrived about 4:30 and Bernadette and I took advantage of the pool for about half an hour. I keep enjoying this place, so different from Awful Abdul's. (We had the Courtyard double-double this time.)

Then Rich helped me get dressed for Roni's mother-in-law's parent dinner. He got baffled by my hair again, but the second try was right.

We'd been overruled on the plans for getting Vince. The bridal couple thought it was better to inconvenience four of us rather than two of them (we needed to have some stress for the wedding) so we had to drive to San Rafael and Rich was steaming. (I'd done my own steaming the night before.) Traffic was as I thought, light the other way and crowded ours and Rich was all worried about Bernadette on the roads, but once we (I) was a bit bitter at Roni, it was OK. Dinner was great: cheese and crackers and smoked salmon appetizers, lamb rack, potatoes, green beans and a vinaigrette salad, followed by a strawberry shortcake. Yummmmm! They live in a beautiful place with a superb view of the City.
The conversation was good. They're proud of Roni and her new job. There was a rather funny reaction about not caring that they were getting married in the Episcopalian Church aslongasthekidsareraisedCatholic. Kathy was commenting that I couldn't get a word in edgewise. (heh.)

I took the rose petals I'd dried (Sacramento: put them in a brown paper bag and shake it every so often. Last year most of those I had dried on a tray got moths. I'm sure this would have happened again, given time.) Kathy's had gotten moldy, so it felt good to actually have done something right.

After the meal, we went back to Roni's, and Vince was back, wearing his glasses and looking very geeky, properly academic.

My hair thingie had developed a kink. Boy, could Rich ever have fun getting my ahir all tangled in THAT! So I flattened it under this laptop to attempt to fix it. [It did flatten, but I didn't need to use it to roll my hair up for The Wedding after all.]

And so to bed.

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Rich had intended to take a sleeping bag for Vince, in case, but he forgot. (I forgot the spare keys... in fact, we were so addled over Fitch that it's lucky we made it in one piece.) As it turned out, Vince ended up on the floor anyway. I had planned to type some on this laptop but I can't use it in the dark after all, and so as I took it to the bathroom, I was afraid I would drop it on his head.

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Saturday The vet had asked Rich if we want another of the kittens, and we might do that, if Anakin is still not adopted. I'll want to see him and determine if he's still any good (he was my choice before Fitch) and see if they'll waive the adoption fee, since they "broke the other one." Then, if we decide yes, leave him for the (shudder) operation, which I will never again regard as routine. We'd pick him up on Tuesday, then.
I'm also thinking he'd have to be renamed Fitch. Abercrombie and Fitch just go together. If it was the 13 or more years into the future that I was thinking, that would be different. I toyed with Hilf for Tommy Hilfinger, but it just doesn't have the same ring.
And what if I don't like the Anakin sibling? The other three were never in the running. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the two-cat family, and Crombie will never hold her own against Sailor satisfactorily. [Anakin was gone, and the only one left was the huge long-hair kitten. I didn't want him, but Monica and I had plans anyway, and I'm getting one of her foster-kitties next week. NuFinch will be an orange tabby.]

R.J. isn't leaving the apartment at all. Such a difference from our own wedding, when we postponed the First Time as a gift to God, and waited till the second day. This is a really good indication of how times have changed. I just wonder what they're going to find different about being married. Sometimes it doesn't seem that times have changed for the better.

I'm covered with scratches from Fitch jumping up on me, and from the time he dashed over me, right to left, never even noticing I was in the way. Gone, but not forgotten.

We went down to offer to help my sister and nieces with moving JJ. She's off to Wichita to be a TA, get her second Master's, and play in the Wichita Symphony. We couldn't find her at first, so Vince used his magic cellphone to call Roni and ascertain the address, and we went beachcombing. It was chilly, nice. We probably walked about 2 miles.
Then we found JJ. She had her Ryder truck and was trying to get the towing trailer into her driveway, and we could help with that. I don't know how she'd have managed on her own with it, even if she could have muscled it up the grade, as she needed to block the wheels with bricks at the same time. Then we didn't have to actually do anything, as she wasn't packed (we had visualized loading the truck. Just imagine how thrilled Vince was with THAT idea!) So we get credit for helping without actually having to do any ~shudder~ work. Best of all possible worlds.

We went off to lunch and then I went to find a postcard for Sam. It took awhile but I finally found one of the Golden Gate Bridge. Then I managed to drop it out of the bag. I felt really stupid about that.

Nobody was there when we went back to JJ's, so I left a map to the picnic and we went back to the hotel. En route, we really got a shot of adrenaline. Rich moved to the middle lane on the bridge and this guy decided he'd been cut off. He pulled around us, then pulled in front and slowed down, wouldn't let us get in any other lane, and at one point STOPPED so we couldn't move. Good thing he wasn't armed. We pulled way back and once he was past the Vista Point, pulled into it, waited till he was gone, then went back. (And I note Rich has been a little better about signalling lane changes of late!)

We had some time in the spa....ummm... and then it was time for rehearsal. We walked down to the hotel, too. The Poaching Pastor is quite enthusiastic about his church and about the wedding. I think R.J. was realizing that he should have had more ushers. [He had two, Roni had four brides' attendants. On the other hand, where would they have gone? It's a TINY church. And the only person who did any ushing was Vince, anyway, and he wasn't one.] Rich gets to ring the bell. (One groomsman rang it before the wedding, but I didn't hear it.) Monica gets the porn reading. (Song of Songs. Actually, it wasn't one of the juicy parts. But there was "the voice of the turtle" and the reading actually did say "turtledove")

From there we went to the barbeque. Someone else had the reserved table, and they weren't around. However, another table had been vacant for two hours, so we took that. Vince and Rich went to set up the volleyball net and Bernadette and I were laying bets that the two engineers couldn't do it. In the long run, they did manage it and Vince said it would have been easier with ONE engineer!
My sister turned up, and hadn't found the motel, so I hopped into the car with her and took her down.

It was a nice barbeque. R.J.'s parents are not barbeque people so missed a great opportunity to meet people. Hence, his mom turned up the next day and assumed Roni's friend was Bernadette. Monica and I talked about kittens. IF Anakin doesn't work out, then she has one for me.
The tomatoes "we" brought (OK, OK, Rich brought them!) were really popular. Everyone was very nice. Someone asked R.J. how he and Roni had met, and he remembers at the Alta Mira, talking pinnipedes with her. Now, Roni had said to me that his first words to her were about Sailor, "cute pup" so there's a discrepancy there. [She explained this later. She actually met him on the Sailor day, January of 1993, but he'd been in the baseball team she'd seen while she was carrying a sealion skull, months earlier. They started dating in April of 1993 once Roni had taken care of the little inconvenience of a fiance.]

Bernadette got her bridesmaid present, toiletries and the earrings for the wedding.

Roni showed off her glittery ring, a present from the bachelorette party. It's plastic and huge and flashes (when you shake it).

Rich forgot the sixpence, and was heartbroken. We've been saving those since England. Roni consoled him with a British coin from the year of R.J.'s birth (1955).
I'd earlier been unable to find the old hanky, the one which had been her Baptism bonnet, and never got any sensible replies from her about anything else old, so I dunno what she did about that.
I forgot my sweater. My sister loaned me one when the breeze picked up.

I was trying to write directions to the church for my sister and asking R.J. for distances and such. He kept saying "well, you were just there" till I growled at him. Mother-in-lawish, and I felt badly about it later.

Back at the motel, my sis decided not to stop and look at pictures after dropping the niece in San Francisco, so to bed.

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One year ago Der Slickster made his four-minute non-apology. ("I lied but it was all the fault of nasty people who expect me to tell the truth.") If he hadn't then Wagged the Dog, we would have President Gore. Too bad for the Sudanese.
And the same people who denied that was a Wag-the-Dog (or any of the others since, either) say that giving clemency to Puerto Rican terrorists couldn't be a bid for votes for Hillary, no, certainly not. Even though of 3,049 requests for clemency, he's granted 3 to date. Even though at the same time he's pushing gun control. (Try enforcing the laws you already have, eh?)
523 days left.