Waking from nightmares and broken sleep, Thursday luckily had no plans. I rose, made coffee for Deborah, and tried to stay out of her way as she got ready for one more day of labs and sessions. I also offered bagels, though the cream cheese was frozen solid, but I learned that Deborah, while she buys them for her sons, does not eat them. I had one microwaving the bagel and the cream cheese to get at least close to expectations. We still had plenty of her cereal and shelf-stable 1% milk in the fridge (and not frozen solid), and that worked with coffee.
Deborah returned to her sessions, happy to have newly washed clothes (I did the laundry yesterday), and was soon on her way. I wrote the blog and had a second coffee. I wrote a postcard to Mom Wild. I published the blog, dressed, and headed downstairs to let the room be cleaned without me and to change my surroundings. I don’t like to work too long in hotel rooms. There are plenty of bars and coffee shops in this world for my work.
(Deborah is going with the Conference theme of safari)
Deborah met me there between sessions and asked me to carry some items up for her. The usual heavy educational trinkets and books; Deborah coordinates English as a Second Language in a Michigan school district and teaches some of the classes. I got the postcard on its way, and the bellhop (do we still use that term?) remembered me from my previous stay and welcomed me back.
I was back in the room, reading some Facebook posts, and posted the complete text of the Iran-USA Menu of Understanding that I saw Trump sign on TV to Facebook. I like facts; it is a lousy deal for the US, in my opinion. It is on the Internet, Dear Reader, if you want to read it and decide how to react. It does not seem worth the lives of our troops, billions of dollars in arms, and paying $300 Billion to rebuild Iran. That it gives the UN control of the deal was unexpected by me, a strange document, indeed.
Deborah had no time to eat, but things changed, and we ended up having brunch at the hotel. Deborah’s meal is covered by her employer. It was good, even when we had to send her meal back, a good time, and the staff was pleasant and helpful.
I took a nap. Deborah would later point out that, as she went to bed early, I had taken multiple naps today while she worked. I agreed with her. I write the blog while she sleeps.
Joe’s Italian Ice was on the to-do list. With the conference done, Deborah and I walked the four blocks to the place. We watched a mob of cops with even a helicopter hit pile into a parking lot across the main drag, guns drawn or hands on guns at least. At least seven cars. We checked the Internet, but nothing so far. It was gone, with no sign it had happened (police tape, closed businesses, and so on).
We ordered Italian Ice and ice cream together. It had a lot of sugar, but it was still great. We could have shared one. We sat with a gentleman and his daughter and talked. He suggested visiting Balboa Island, parking on the island (for free), and taking the ferry to the peninsula. We walked back to the hotel.
Next, we tried Book Town USA, a used book store. The store had a 40% off sale on their already reduced prices. It was the usual disheveled store with some books in boxes that could not fit on the full shelves. The shelves were marked, sometimes with authors’ names, but those tags were now out of date and served more as approximate locations. I found a good Michael Grant history, a cheap but newish chart of history that I have not bought before, as it was always expensive ($9.99 with 40% off now). I added a Cold War spy novel and a murder mystery/crime story in Alaska. Deborah found a book from the 1990s on a political topic.
The owner asked that I tell my friends about his sale. Cheap, good books, used, plus 40% off.
We then, with not much planned for the rest of the day, drove around the area to see what it was like. This was not the high end with nicely maintained trailer parks and smaller homes on tiny lots. There were many apartment blocks too. Endless strip malls filled the spaces in between, with the number of parks reduced by the area’s apparent wealth. All the housing is near roads, and many have high fences.
We returned to the hotel, dropped off a few things in the room, and then headed to Red Robin for something less expensive. We got a booth seat at the bar for two and could watch the second half of Mexico vs. Korea. It was 0-0 until Mexico managed an impossible goal of recovering the ball from the Korean goalkeeper and sending it past him after he had stopped a usual shot and was on the ground. Wow! Mexico will be in the 32 teams in the next round.
While it is hard to admit, we were both tired and went to bed early. I started, but did not complete the blog. I slept well through the night. All my dreams, pleasant and maybe driving through dream Anaheim, are forgotten.
Thanks for reading
Alohawild (Michael Wild's) Website 