Hey There!
We had a nice visit with our old friends from Wisconsin days. S can talk the balls off a brass monkey, and he was no different this visit around. His wife M is less talkative, but among all of us we spent from 11AM to 11PM yesterday just chatting away in the screen room. It was really quite nice, but getting S to stop talking so I could go to bed was the final challenge. He's a cancer survivor, and did it via homeopathic methods, changing his diet and making his whole system slightly more alkaline. Gotta give him credit for that. While he does look healthy, he is moving more slowly and seemed physically more frail. I had to help lift most of the luggage and coolers they travel with to support his diet. He's now 82. His wife is younger, but I can't remember by how much. They left this morning just before we did to head back home, while we took off to attend a memorial service for one of DW's friend's husband.
I wasn't looking forward to the service, as DW's friend AC has always struck me as a bit of a ditz. Her husband passed about 5 years ago from a heart attack. He was one of those men who wouldn't go see a doctor and do what he needed to do to stay healthy, and he just let his heart get weaker until he collapsed making dinner one night. Nice guy, but not exceptionally bright. He was an ex-Marine, so AC decided that, since she was moving to a new house, it was time to inter his ashes at the local National Cemetery.
She arrived 20 minutes late. By the time we got to the commitment pavilion, she only had about 20 minutes left to conduct her service. She played some country-western sentimental song as her "anchor" song, said some kind of prayer, and that was all she had time for.
We went to lunch at a restaurant located by a small water cascade popular with bikers. I don't know any other way to put it, but the collection of people at the table were all rather dull, lower-middle-class people, and I wasn't able to engage much in conversation. I mostly stayed quiet, nodded my head when required, ate my burger, and then we left. It was an event I would not have chosen to go to, but I had to support DW and drive her there, so that's that.
The level of ignorance I see in this country is reflected in this collection of people. S and M are more intelligent people, but this memorial service crowd has little brains and less awareness. They run their lives in the most haphazard way possible. I won't get into the details, but it produces drama the likes of which I find dumbfounding.
Anyway, with this service completed, I have come to the end of my obligations for the summer. My calendar has no more events on it other than things I'll be doing for S2's side hustle business. I'll have to come up with some things to do, otherwise I could run into a situation where things are chosen for me, and that's never good.
'Til We Meet Again!