Greetings, All, and Happy Holidays,
I’ll start out with 2013 disasters: (1) Golf club swing gone
wrong late in March, in the midst of a golf lesson. Sammy took a big swing and accidentally socked
Bob on the arm – ulnar fracture: Surgery > rehab. (2) Rav4’s steering went wonky on my 80th
birthday trip to New England. Car upside
down in ditch. Side airbags and seat
belts > no injuries. (3) Hand surgery
for me for ring finger tendonitis >
rehab (4) Diagnosis of lactose intolerance for me. (5) Back problems for Bob
> exercises.
Otherwise it was an excellent year. We went to Santa Cruz
and San Francisco in January, and saw Clifford, Dixie, Adrienne, Judah and Zoe,
and did a little birding. We bird-sat with Bert & Les’s famous over-wintering
Rufous Hummingbird. We watched many of Sammy & Ethan’s basketball, and
later, baseball games. As part of my 80th birthday celebration we
attended a Red Sox game, visited Linda and Blase at their farm, and visited
Bill in Vermont. In late September Jim and Sharesa came to see us and we all
toured Philadelphia, driving by all our previous residences.
We saw Sam Cush perform in a couple of excellent Severna
Park High School musicals. Sam will graduate HS this year; Biz will graduate
from Towson with a MS. Andy & Tom both live in New York now, Andy in
BedStuy, and Tom in Williamsburg. Tom has a job with Fox TV, and Andy works for
Animal New York.
We went to Belize in late February to meet Don and Carol
Scott there. It was a birthday surprise trip for her. Oscillated Turkeys, Emerald
Toucanets, Mayan ruins at Lamanai, and a ferocious chigger attack.
We had Common
Redpolls at our backyard feeder, an unexpected treat. I did a program on “Birding the 5”
(California Interstate) for Wyncote Audubon Society, and lined up speakers for
WAS 2013-14.
In March, because of Bob’s broken arm, we hired a landscape
company to clean up the yard. They did the lawn all summer too. I spent a lot
of time gardening from March to September. Mostly flowers out front. After more power outages we bought a
generator and had an electrician install the hook-up. We have not needed it yet.
With the Rav4 totaled, we settled on a Nissan Rogue. We like it a lot so far.
In May we went to Magee Marsh in western Ohio again, and had
an honest-to-goodness fallout of warblers and other birds. We even had a
halfway decent look at a Kirtland’s Warbler. We ran into a lot of friends
there, as usual. All things being equal, we’ll go again in 2014.
In early June we went to Alaska with Road Scholar. We flew
into Anchorage, rented a car, and drove to Denali to meet the rest of the
group. We spent 5 days at Denali, and drove south to Moose Pass. We made a few driving trips to Seward, and
did a day trip out on the Kenai Fjord. The
major highlight was a trip in a Cessna to see glaciers from above. Alaska is
amazing. We want to go back.
In August we went to Santa Cruz for the Dickens Universe. The Mystery of Edwin Drood this time. We
stayed most of the time at Cliff & Dixie’s, and also visited with Adrienne
& family in SF. We helped Zoe balance on a borrowed bike, and read her lots
of bedtime stories.
I still attend HDTV Met operas and Philadelphia Orchestra
concerts. Bob comes along sometimes. We’ve both enjoyed Cheltenham Township
Adult School trips to different parts of New York.
