I’ve been in California the last week. My grandpa (Dad’s dad) started slowing down over the last few months, initially diagnosed as having Dementia. He digressed from walking daily with his dog to having his drivers license taken away to him to sleeping 16 hours a day or more within one month. Eventually he ended up in the hospital after taking a couple of falls, and they discovered a tumor on his brain.

With that diagnosis and declared “days to weeks to live”, I flew out to northern California to see him for the last time. He died today at 11:20 a.m. in his house.

I had the privilege of making some of the most significant memories of my childhood with spending entire summers at his house, wreaking havoc with cousins in and around the surrounding space filled with trees no shorter than 100 feet and the sweet smell of rain and pine.

If there was one thing I can take with me now is his example of developing an enormous appreciation of the simple things, and to be drawn towards those who never have an ill word to say about anybody.

My camera went missing for about 10 minutes, then I found this picture on the camera when I got it back:

Mum made pork loin for dinner. I often get curious about what new company may experience at our dinner table. There’s never really a stable conversation exchanged about usual life-things; mostly a lot of gags based on previous jokes. I don’t even know if our interaction is funny or even understandable to outsiders.

After dinner, Mum and I had a conversation about her encounter with a spiritual medium when she was a teenager, and how most of the medium’s predictions about her life came true. I asked her if she thought it was an overall positive or negative experience. She said that at first she thought it was silly, then later was a little freaked out about it, and came to think it was evil. Intrigued, I told her about past semi-psychic experiences I’ve had where some of my dreams contained events which later came true, which seemed to be positive for me.

These are the conversations I like to have with my mum.

Somebody Loves Me

Before I walked into the backyard, the dog hadn’t bothered anybody. But the moment I walked outside, he mounted me, and everyone was entertained for a good 10 minutes. Here’s a video for you.

Eventually, we went to downtown San Francisco. I impulsively made a cell phone video while we were at the park. We spent most of our time in Amoeba, a California record shop chain. Lykke Li seems to be a good part of our jams of choice on this tour.

Courthouse-loiter

Last night, Josh and Callie let us stay over. Callie’s cat knows how to use doorknobs so he tried to get into the bathroom when I was inside. He meowed and I observed his paws swing at me from under the door.  When I got out, I petted the kitty vigorously for his cute effort to humiliate me.

We drove north for 2 hours and walked through the downtown Prescott, Arizona and stumbled upon Dogtoberfest, an event where people adopt dogs in a park.

Dustin proclaimed, “There’s not a single cute dog in this park.”

We sat down on a bench next to some drum-circle hippies who utilized a corner of the park for a well executed hula hoop gathering.  A waitress yelled at Will and Dustin for ordering pizza at the wrong counter.