Slots, in Vegas ??

For sure she was there.
Looking for her? Check out the aisle seat of a row of the penny slots.


Jennifer checks in to ask what time Mass is (was).

Official participant in the Mass.


Only their hairdressers know for sure...


Relaxing in the Marilyn F. Young art gallery, with the artist.
Not long and they'll both be in the T. P. (Townsley Position)

Irish lasses looking fabulous !!!!

I'd Like to Make a Toast

Ashley got the champagne flowing. And then the toasts to Father JJ came, with an outpouring of love and memories. Oh, and a history lesson of the Holy Famliy parish. Thanks Monsignor.
But really, thank you Ash.

Uncle Herman

The Professor


Pria, the adoring niece

Joe, the childhood buddy

Ashley highly recommends the Napa bubbles
over the French stuff. We concurred.

Gina makes the rounds

Somehow Gina ended up in a lot of photos. Next time you'll know to sit next to her, for sure inclusion in the blog.
And you know she j u s t L U V S the attention. right.


The New Yawkers - Dyan, Herman and Gina



Gina and Dorothy looking sharp for Monday Mass.


Slots, Aunt Louise, and Gina are ready to hit the machines.


Cousin Mike and Gina. and some headless guy.


Wendy and Gina...
Wendy, you should have drunk all that OJ, ... and saved the slacks.

Family from Afar

Now that I've got the hang of multiple photos per posting I can do some more reunion stuff. Warning.... I have a full pot of coffee to work with. Here are some of the gang who travelled quite a distance to celebrate with JJ.


Ljoiussee, Patty and Dorothy enjoy
post dinner drinks, thanks to Slots who finally won some spending $.

Aunt Mary, Margaret, and Marilyn (Slots)
enjoy the post breakfast OJ.


The Scwhalls are plotting
how to get some more of that delish - ious egg dish.


Joe and Carrie appear to be
paying attention, but really they are checking out the photos
on their digital camera.


Settling in for
the big Monday Mass.

Lee was there

Did I mention that?

More photos

fotos are fighting me.
this only took 4 tries. Blogging is not coming easily tonight.

JJ's pal from seminary, Val, was ordained this week. I liked him immediately as he walked off the plane wearing a Packers shirt. He gave the sermon for JJ, and JJ will/did return the favor for him.

Gina rehearsed for her solo in the choir and performed admirably. With such a great back up band, how couldn't she?

We also held a white elephant xmas party (since Aunt Louise left up the tree it seemed the thing to do) Great gifts ! pencils ! wow! microwave egg cookers got Wendy all excited. Stuffed fish for the new fisher of men. (or whatever that saying is) Aussie gear... oy oy oy. a wig. Ichiro crap. Sam's Town candy and stuff. clocks that don't work. binoculars, in case you have a back row seat at Mass (and you know who you are) And a really cool PALOOZER SNOW GLOBE.

And now i see i can only add so many fotos per posting so let's finish up here and i'll add the rest from the party.

Vegas, Baby !!!!!!!!!!!

We are home from Vegas where we properly celebrated the ordination of cousin JJ. The 1st Mass, 1st Mass pizza, White Elephant Christmas in May, the 2nd Mass, 2nd Mass breakfast, Ordination dinner party, buffets, Fresh Harvest meals..... swimming pool activities, a couple cocktails, non-stop laser shows, a bit of gambling (Winners: Slots, of course, Aunt Louise, and Ljoiusee) and numerous eventful trips to the airport.


A reunion of the Schwall / Croghan families took place during the ordination festivities. What a fun time ! and a fun group. Folks from Canada, Australia, Washington, California, Florida, Michigan (the home base is Ypsi) New York, Utah, Wyoming, Nevada.

In Memory of ...

Verle, thanks for the breakfasts, the jokes, the insights, the sound of the trumpet in the Maui air, the puns, the "hi sweetie's".

The guy was funny, funny as a rubber crutch..

Training

Today was an indoor spin, doing some intervals, meaning sweat-city. Then later we swam 1800 yds. Mostly drills, which I'm gonna have to tell Coach Lesley to save for those that might actually benefit. Although it is nice to swim with fins. So much easier. I see why fish like it. Too bad it's not allowed in the races. oh well.

Tomorrow we get to go to the M's game. Thankfully it is an afternoon game so we won't freeze as badly as if it were a night game.

that's it.

Hall of Famer !

Jeez, the "hanging out with the superstars" scene is just non-stop for us. We are too cool.

Last night we had dinner with our buddies from California (really from here) , Traci, Denise and Annalise (the drummer extraordinaire) Anyway, on Saturday night Denise was inducted into the Washington State Soccer Hall of Fame. For lifetime achievements. I thought those awards went to old people but... you know, she did out-head Michelle Akers. I think that's soccer trash talk meaning Akers just has a lot of big hair and Denise has brains. Denise was the captain of the 1st USA women's World Cup team. Before Mia and the gang. The team that went to Italy for games but no one ever heard anything about it because, well, because it's soccer. And it happened before the internet was invented (by Al Gore).

The other photo is A.B.B. and me, swapping iPod earbuds. Yes, my 14 yr. old Godchild is now taller than me. Who cares? she's nice enough to not care (or say anything) that I don't know Coldplay from Black Eyed Peas, or hip hop from rap.

I won't bore you with details of the bike ride on Saturday, as most of you got it in an email. But yesterday I ran 4 miles and today 3. WOW ! back to back days of running !!

Congratulations, Denise Bender !

G L O R I A !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's MS. Steinem, to you. We had "dinner & a conversation" with Gloria Steinem last night. She was appearing at Central Washington Univ., and as a fund raiser for one of the departments, she mingled and then sat down to dinner with 30 of us, before the speech. She is 72, and smart and funny and nice and caring, and gives even the lone blowhard a tactful answer. She zinged him a bit later. :)

Unlike our crashing of the Al Franken party, we actually paid for this gig. I imagine Gina will be getting even more solicitations from her alma mater. If so it will be worth it. Gina said the evening was one of the highlights of her life.

In fact, let's hear from our guest Blogger Gina now:

Gloria talked about a lot of stuff. One item was the fact that the term feminism is sometimes used as a derogatory term. She said the definition of feminism is the pursuit of equality. Therefore if you deny feminism then in effect you are ok with inequality.

Thank you, Gina. Well said. And so succinct.

I'm sorry I forgot to ask Gloria what's the furthest she's ridden a bike. There was much discussion of her famous line "a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle". Yes, I did have the T-shirt in college. Gloria did fess up at dinner that actually she heard that line from some Australian woman. Then later a 20-something year-old woman got up and said her mother told her that a fish might Want a bicycle, but the fish certainly did not Need a bicycle. That got a good laugh from the crowd.

Jeez, then some gal got up to ask "what is NOW?". That got a groan from the crowd. I felt I should speak to the admissions director about who's getting into Central these days. We did meet the Vice Prez. of the college. The prez had a board mtg, as this gig had been re-scheduled from the previous week. (Gloria had back spasms) Of course, we dropped the tidbit of dad being a college president.


And we rode 30 miles today.
And we'll ride 30 more tomorrow.

Bike Butt

We have a new all time high, for mileage on the bike.... 50. Actually, we rode our age, 51. Sunday we tooled around the city for 20 then rode the trail over to Redmond. And just for fun jogged for 20 minutes. For a while on the trail we were behind a couple, who were doing a nice easy 16 mph. But Gina wanted a bit more, so took the lead. I waited a while, biding my time. Then I passed the 2 and took the lead. And immediately saw the error of my ways. Too much work to be the leader. Now 16mph wasn't so easy. I guess that old drafting theory is true. But we maintained and the others dropped off after a while.

The biggest obstacle on the trail is the little guys who kind of zig zag along. And you can't really expect a 6 yr. old to understand "On your right".

Didn't have our camera or we could have taken photos of Val, who was at the velodrome in Redmond learning how to ride the track cycles. Looked cool. I wouldn't do it, of course, but looked cool.

Those 51 miles took just under 4 hours. ugggh. We had parked our car in Redmond the day before so we put the bikes on the rack and headed home. Realizing that we had put all water bottles in the trunk. Unaccessable after the rack is on. Talk about a dehydrated drive home.

Today was more swimming. I'm just waiting to see if the old sudafed will work today or not. We'll know when the breding tru da node stops.

All Righty - O

Saw the doc today and he says "Start running". Yahoo, Mt. Dew !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With that glorious news we went off to look at yet some more (or is it the same?) tile, and, oh yes, lighting fixtures. How special it was. And as it goes, each time we leave a tile store we said "All Righty- O, we've got that part of the remodel figured out" .

Mariners finally won a game. Took extra innings but hey a win's a win.

The bad news of the day is JC Penney is no longer carrying our sports bra. OMIGOD. What are we going to do? And by 'we' I mean 'me', as I am the underwear shopper in the family. But I don't think we've ever worn a different brand. These were good, cheap and comfortable. I know there will not be a similar one on the market. Oh, but hey, maybe eBay.

And on that note............

Why is it ???

That which ever direction you are riding a bike in, the wind is ALWAYS AGAINST YOU ???

We have a new mileage high -- 40 -- on Saturday we rode on the Burke-Gilman Trail, 20 miles out and 20 back. With that darn wind in our face both ways. sheesh.

Next weekend we are going with our Always Running group on a 50 mile bike ride (Always Riding, is their sub-motto). Somewhere on the penninsula I'm guessing, as it involves a ferry ride.

All this mileage has me looking into a new seat. Just "numb" luck that the seat that came with the bike is just not the right one. If you get my drift.

The foot is feeling fine !!!!!!! I think the drugs have worked. see photo of my drugs of choice.

I ran (and I don't mean our new nukular nemisis) on Friday.

1.5 miles and was I happy. I believe my seratonin levels have been quite low for the last few weeks. I just don't get that 'runner's high' while biking. Could it be the seat? Blogging doesn't seem to do it, either, as you'll note the lack of postings this past month

Anyway, I see the rundoctor.com again on Tues. and anticipate him saying "go for it". Too bad if he doesn't cuz it is time to run.

We finally have some great weather. Warm and sunny. Unlike Friday night at the Mariner game. FREEZING !!! I did some yard work today (mowed the lawn w/ the weed eater cuz the mower had no gas, hmm) I've attached a photo from the "garden".

Marathon ?

What stinkin marathon??? Well, we did watch a marathon of Law & Order:SVU this weekend.

And we did hop on the indoor bikes to watch the Boston Marathon. Had a nice 1:45:00 workout, with intervals, while we watched the elite runners (in perfect running weather) During commercials we tuned the radio in to the M's game, who happened to lose via a walkoff homer to those Red Sox. not the best ending to the bike ride. oh well.

The Clear (and the ibuprofen, and all the icing) seem to be doing the trick. Can't find that painful spot. Although by poking and prodding looking for it, my foot gets sore. I see the rundoctor.com again next week, but I just might throw in a little jog before that. Today I was officially bored with all this "cross training" . Couldn't even do it.

Enuf talkin about runnin.............. time to start walking the talk.

Good luck to my Drum Line buddy, heading off to Nationals in Dayton, this week. Even more good luck to mom, Traci, who goes as an official chaperone. Those mini bars could not be stocked suffiently to get me to do that.

Is a Puzzlement

Any opportunity to drop a line from a favorite song and movie....

So, just to post more photos, here I am with the famous drummer,Annalise. I've wearing my new bday Drumline t-shirt and iPod . And given the title of this post, other than the Cold Play songs Annalise loaded for me, you can imagine my play list.

After dragging the cool and rainy weather to southern California, we then took it to Wapato. Where we visited the world famous puzzle solver, Slots. We couldn't get the Mariners to win a game but we got most of the puzzle put together before leaving. I'm certain we left only the easy pieces for Marilyn. You notice the height of the table. Now imagine my aching back.

We had a great time, but had to come back to Seattle for some nice weather.

Which it was today, so we took off for a bike ride. From Green Lake to Mercer Island, around the island and back. 37 miles ! a new mileage high. the worst is carrying the bikes back up the stairs when exhausted.

Had an appt. with the RunningDoctor.com yesterday. He thinks my problem, my FOOT problem, is tendonitis of the blah blah blah tendon at the insertion point of the blah blah blah bone. Has prescribed ICE ICE ICE and more ICE. and some big time Ibuprofen. And a topical anti-inflammatory that will be sent to me from some hush hush pharmacy. I'm sure it's "The Clear", made famous by Balco Lab clients Marion Jones and Barry Bonds. Hey, if I can run a 9 sec. 100 meters and hit homers, I'm all for it. If it helps me jog around the lake, I'm all for it.

Now, off to ice da foot.

Schmoozing with the stars

Gina and I took an impromptu trip to Santa Barbara over the Final Four weekend. aka, my birthday weekend. We had booked a bike tour for Fri. and Mon. with an outfit out of Santa Ynez. The wine area, made famous by the movie "Sideways". We just wanted a good 25 mile ride, a hard workout, no stopping at wineries. We'd have wine for dinner. And it was a great ride ! 35 miles ! our personal tour guide, Robert, led the way. Unless Gina was leading on a breakaway, or me, up a hill. Our Monday ride got rained out. And we were not wimps, it was POURING !!!

We saw Bo Derek riding horses. Well, she lives in the area, and I'm sure it was her. At 500 yds. everyone is a celebrity. Robert told us Bernie Taupin lives in the area, and Doc Severinson. OK, so maybe it's the "B" list of stars, but... hey top this.... Dr. Laura Schlesinger has a condo next door to the hotel.

We stayed at the Fess Parker Doubletree in SB. Kept our eyes peeled for Fess, but never saw him. darn. Loved his show.

However, that night at the hotel, Al Franken, one of my mom's favorites (just kidding), was giving a show for a local charity. For $250 you could go to the "meet & greet", or $50 for the show. When we got back from dinner, we moseyed down to the ballroom, bought a glass of wine, and well, you've heard of the Wedding Crashers, we became the "meet & greet crashers". I'm sure we fit right in, esp. me carrying my plastic drug store bag with water bottles and tampons. While Gina raided the cheese table, I channeled the spirit of Dick Rinehart and started talking to strangers. When G turned around I was chatting with the mayor of SB. We had a nice long talk. Her husband (yes, the mayor is a woman) was most interested in any "Bill" stories Gina had. and she has one that he loved. Then we mingled a bit. Got our photos taken with Al Franken. My, he's a short guy. Not on my camera, darn it, and I'm not sure I want to track down the photographer, might get charged $250 each. Then we split, our work being done.