Retired

This is the first visit to the parent's house when they've both been retired and it's kind of weird to be the first one up and about. When I was a kid I was the last one out of bed every time. Pop was always up around 5 and out of the house before 6. Now the coffee doesn't even come on until 7 and they're still not awake.

Should I go jump on the bed and pull the covers off like they used to do to me?

I guess they've worked hard enough at the early rise. Retirement means sleep.

Yesterday's trip to the Huntington was long and hot and left me collapsed on the bed when we got back. The car temperature came in at 108 when we were leaving and mom has red legs now because we forgot to spray on the sun screen. But the gardens were lovely and it's always a pleasure to see a Hopper up close (The Last Leg purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr). And they didn't throw us out of the tea room, even though mom had her elbows on the table and I spilled caviar down my sleeve after having already dropped a water cress sandwich on top of the hummus.

But the art ... mein Gott ... they had this lovely item in the Steele Gallery:


This is not my picture of it, since I have to wait until I'm home to download off the Nikon -- it's actually taken off of a Wikipedia page on Augustus Saint-Gaudens. (Wikipedia ... I'm so ashamed.) -- but it's relatively the same as the one we saw. Honestly, Stevenson in bed smoking and writing? How can you not hero-worship the man? The card next to it said he was in bed due to the tuberculosis. What a sugar coat. He had weak lungs, sure, and maybe lighting one cigarette off the other isn't such a good idea when you have weak lungs, but he didn't have TB. He just liked working in bed.

The kids are up and the coffee's done. Time to move on. Today we're going gambling so no lap top and no update until I'm super rich on Friday. WHOO HOO.