Junior High Reunion

I'm not sure why I am going and I am not sure I really want to go, but I have just made plans to attend a junior high school reunion at the end of March. I have never been to any kind of school reunion, but I have thought about going to my (gulp) 50th high school reunion which will be in 2015. Maybe I'm thinking that starting with a junior high reunion will be a good way to work my way up to a full blown high school reunion in a few years. Oh, and I saw an airline ticket sale online so I booked a ticket and now I am going.

Why a junior high reunion? I think it started as a football team reunion (they won some big championship) and grew from that. Also, ours was the first class to go through all three years at a newly built junior high school. I went to Orville Wright Junior High in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The school was built in 1959 (I think) with a unique architectural style....it was round, and yes, all the classrooms were a little bit pie-shaped. I think it is now an elementary school.

Orville Wright School, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Whatever the reason for the reunion, and why ever I am going, I will be there. I'm not sure that I will know anyone or that anyone will know me. I went through elementary, junior high and high school with a lot of the same kids, so there should be someone there I at least used to know. I will see who went bald, who got fat, who came out. One thing for sure, we've all gotten old so that should make it interesting.

I'll let you know how it went in a few weeks. In the meantime, do any of you reunion goers have any advice on how to best navigate this quagmire of a social situation?

My Valentines

When my kids were growing up every day was Valentine's Day for them. No, not because they were showered with candy and flowers every day but because they grew up with the last name Valentine. I'm sure they were teased a little around this time of year, but in 1977 they got their 15 minutes of fame when this picture appeared on the front page of the local paper with a feature about "Real Valentines." It replicated a picture of their dad and his sister that had appeared in the same paper in 1951.

Jill and Rob 

The above picture was taken a few months before my 3rd little Valentine was born, and yes, the dress seems to have survived to celebrate another Valentine's Day.

Joanna

I've shown you my Valentines, now show me yours. I know a lot of people don't like the commercialism and pressure of Valentine's Day, but any day that comes with a big, fat Starbucks gift card like I got this morning is a good one for me.

Old Men and E-Mail

Doc has a couple of friends that send him e-mails pretty much every day.....you know the kind, jokes, funny pictures and so forth like we all get from time to time. Every so often I hear him chuckling and a few minutes later he'll say "I forwarded a funny e-mail to you." What I have figured out from this is that I don't usually have the same sense of humor that e-mailing old men have. Most of the e-mails they share seem to be jokes about women or jokes about politics or politicians that they oppose, with a little sex or nudity thrown in from time to time. Since I have had a sort of ho-hum week, in other words not much to write about, I am sharing some pics from an e-mail titled You Had One Job, that Doc forwarded that actually made me chuckle.

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We are getting some light snow this afternoon, with a couple of inches expected overnight. It is certainly nothing like the east coast is going through. As I have watched the overblown news coverage of the east coast storm I don't know who to feel sorrier for......the cable news people who are reporting from the middle of a real blizzard or those who have to come up with  some kind of storm story when the place they got assigned to only got a couple of inches of snow.

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BTW, it is probably best if it doesn't get back to Doc that I referred to him and his e-mailing friends as old men.                                                                 

I Fell and I Couldn't Get Up

I had my first ever "I've fallen and I can't get up" experience over the weekend. Fortunately it was on the ski slopes at Winter Park and not in the bath tub......not tragic, but still a little embarrassing. A little tangle-up on a tow rope that we thought we needed to take to get to the lift we wanted sent me and my granddaughter, Hope, tumbling down in the snow. When I got up my right leg didn't hurt but it wasn't working quite right, like it wasn't quite getting enough info from my brain. We were on a pretty easy slope and kept going until we got on a not so easy slope and I fell again and couldn't get my leg to work to help me get up. Fortunately, my daughter, Joanna, came to my rescue and after a few tears, mine of laughter and embarrassment, Hope's thinking I was really hurt, and Joanna's, trying not to laugh too much, she was able to pull me up with my ski pole. Once we got down to the base and ate a late lunch I, wisely and probably to Joanna's relief, called it a day.

Even with my little mishap it was a wonderful few days in the mountains with my daughter's family and her in-law's and their family. I didn't get any actual skiing pictures, but I got a few before and after.

We stayed in a beautiful mountain house that Joanna
had bought the use of at a charity auction.

Ready to hit the slopes with Joanna and Hope 

(before I knew I would literally "hit the slopes".)

These wagons for carting your equipment around were new to me

 and a great idea.

Hope taking a little break with the Coca Cola polar bear.

The day was a little snowy and cold,

 but the new snow made for great skiing.

The best part of a ski day......a little apres ski time in the hot tub.

My leg seems to be mostly okay now and my ego is (nearly) healed, in spite of my 5 year old granddaughter, EJ, telling me "Grandmom, you should probably never ski again."