Wow, it's been a long time since I've blogged. A lot has happened, and a lot has not happened. The most recent event of any real significance, I guess, was last weekend in Oregon where I got to spend three days with Tiana.
Tuuli was tied up with the annual Spring Reign tournament in Burlington with Savanna and it was a parent's weekend at Santiam, so I made the long drive down to Albany Friday afternoon, April 17. Though I left directly from the office at about 2pm, I didn't arrive at the Albany motel until nearly 7, another brutal 5-hour drive that took its toll on my aching shoulders the next day. After checking in, I jumped in the spa for a few minutes, took a shower and went out for a quick bite to eat. This city of 25,000 at the confluence of the Calapooia River and the Willamette is becoming all too familiar to me. Home to the country's largest zirconium processing plant, Albany has failed to impress me after 6 or 7 visits. The crazy diagonal highways, the freeway that splits the older part of town from the strip malls and the hotels on the east side and the mass of one-way streets designed to confuse visitors like me, just has left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm happiest when I'm leaving Albany, either to pick up Tiana at Santiam or to come back home.
Up early the next morning, a quick breakfast and I was off on the 45 minute trip to campus. The first few miles are on a major east-west highway, then a smaller highway until you get to the village of Scio, then head south on yet a smaller highway, turn right onto a country road, over a covered bridge and then past various farms, pastures and rolling hills. The last few miles always bring back memories of earlier visits in the snow, ice and rain--every kind of weather--and many emotions. Rolling onto the campus driveway and i relive every event of the last 7 months, the good times and the bad times and the many strong feelings associated with each.
i met Tiana outside Anne's office at 830 and she was her usual cheerful self, full of hugs and very talkative. After a quick meeting with her therapist, it was off to the parent's workshop for me until about 1130, at which time the girls brought down the usual lunch. After eating together and signing out, Tiana jumped in the driver's seat and we were off to Newport, by way of Albany and Corvallis. I was not to drive the car for more than 15 minutes for the rest of the weekend!
Tiana was in a good mood and we made a lot of small conversation as I pointed out the finer points of driving, which she seemed very interested in absorbing. She did some freeway driving for the first time and excelled at it. We drove onto the U of O campus in Corvalis, which I had wanted to see for a long time, and walked up through the flower filled quad. Back in the car, we headed west toward the sun and the beach town of Newport 40 miles away, pulling into our ocean front hotel at about 5. We had dinner at a retro-50s burger joint, did some sight seeing and went back to our room at about 830, where we watched TV until I fell asleep at about 11.
The next day and a half was filled with more sight-seeing, shopping, watching TV and just general screwing around. We got along very well and never had a bad moment. Tiana seemed very relaxed and focused on enjoying herself. We had a great time walking on the beach, visiting various lighthouses and checking out the local ice cream shops, one of which had the most bizaare flavor I had ever seen--bacon!
On Sunday we somehow got the wild idea that we should try to find a cat that I could take back to Seattle, Unfortunately, we drove to various shelters but nobody was open. Tiana was excited the next morning when I told her about a place I had found in south Albany that was open and had a nice selection of adoptable cats. We checked out at about noon on Monday, drove to the shelter and were let into the "cat room" where we played with a number of cats for about half an hour. Finally we opened the crate of a 5 year old cat named "Fatima" who immediately came to us and jumped on our laps. That was good enough for us and ten minutes later we were out the door with our new cat. We stopped in downtown Albany for lunch and got some pet supplies. An hour later we were back at Tiana's school, where Fatima was a big hit with the other students. After the typical difficult, emotional goodbye, I was on that familiar road again, flooded with past feelings and hopes for the future.
[More photos are at http://s604.photobucket.com/albums/tt129/seattlefrank/]
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