Travels with Mom and Gus

The last few days were too busy to write anything down. I got to Mom's and spent Thursday running errands for her and packing up the car. I got kind of sad when I was picking up some of Dad's and Grandpa's tools. We left early Friday morning and stayed at a Best Western north of Sacramento--we drove about 600 miles in 12 hours. Mom and Gus slept most of the way. I put in an audiobook called Void Moon that I had given Dad a few years back, which was written by a writer he liked. It was about 12-15 hours long, and Mom was awake enough to follow the story. We drove the rest of the way Saturday and had dinner with L & W at a very nice place right along the Rogue river.

Yesterday I got up early and was on Interstate 5 by 6 a.m. and was hoping to get home by 2 p.m., but I was beset by a blown out rear tire and traffic. When I made it onto the island, I had Wendy bring Cinder out to the park so we could introduce her to Gus on neutral ground. The good news is that we can get them warmed up to each other enough so that no trouble happens, but Cinder has to be reintroduced to her after every parting. Gus is being great--she's just trying her best to stay clear of Cinder. She seems like she really misses Mom and home. Things will be better when Mom comes up.

This morning, while waiting to board the ferry, I tried out an experiment. I picked a passenger who was walking around the line (basically in through the exit lane) and gave him a big, booming "Good Morning!" when he was in range. He froze, said good morning, and asked what was going on. I told him that I was just saying good morning (I chickened out--I was going to give him a line about how he must be really important, seeing how he was bypassing all of us waiting in line, and that I wanted to greet him), and then he said that it was a good morning and mumbled something about being tired. I mumbled back and he walked on. It surprised me the way he stopped, though, and I was also surprised by the way other line-jumpers like him just kept walking, completely unbothered by the scene we were making. I think I'll write a newspaper column about it.