from my back deck at 7:30 pm
Ballard, Seattle, Washington
The foliage is lush – lots of purple and white and maroon and pink – and of course green
Pink Bogoria April 29, 2018
All the Kenya lakes have their own unique characteristics and attractions. To pick one as “the best” is impossible, at least for me. However, lake Bogoria was one of our all time favourites when it came to a short break. You did not go there to find the Big Five but in search of tranquility and to enjoy the views and bird fauna. It was here that I spotted my first and only three-banded courser (Rhinoptilus cinctus).
![Credit John Gerrard Keulemans [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Three-banded coursor](https://willisweaver1.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/credit-john-gerrard-keulemans-public-domain-via-wikimedia-commons-three-banded-coursor.jpg?w=1408&h=836)
Three-banded courser. Credit John Gerrard Keulemans [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. It was also a special place for another reason. It was my first camping experience in Kenya. It happened over a weekend with Muguga House colleagues Richard and Phillip. Of the outing I recall that we departed on a Saturday to return the following day. We left rather late as Richard had lots of work to do to keep the tsetse…
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Collision
The fall of the VW kombi [1] was not the only car mishap I was involved in during my Kenya driving life. There was another more serious one that was not amusing.
It happened one morning that I was driving my brand new Peugeot 504 going to work. I needed to turn right from Fifth Ngong avenue into Jomo Kenyatta avenue, a normally risky move as it meant crossing the traffic to get to the left traffic lane heading towards the city centre.
As usual I waited for a gap and went for it. The moment I entered the large avenue I saw (too late) a small motorbike coming rather fast towards me. I had no time to change anything and in horror I watched the bike and its occupant hit me on my side of the car! Very luckily for him (in retrospect), the rider flew over the bonnet…
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Lovely sunny morning and the lilacs are in bloomBecoming A U.S. Citizen April 23, 2018
Last Tuesday, on April 7th, my daughter-in-law Susan became a U.S. citizen. It was a very impressive ceremony. Susan was one of 94 applicants from 36 countries. There was a large audience to witness this event at the Dept. of Homeland Security in Tukwila. A joyful proud day for all.
Here is a picture of Susan taken on Easter Sunday, April 1st. She is wearing a green Aran sweater, a very Irish symbol. All the others in the photo – her husband, 4 children, and me – are American citizens by birth. We welcomed Susan to our midst. It’s only taken her 18 years to decide she would like to join this privileged group. Welcome Susan!
Searching For Ancestors
Ancestry.com has introduced a new feature whereby they find all your ancestors. All I have to do is click a few highlighted boxes and presto, each generation unfolds. So instead of tediously jotting down names and dates and fathers and mothers etc., I can now hit keys on my keyboard in the right sequence and a new ancestor appears. This is a beta version of a new program. I’m not sure I like it or that it’s good for me. It certainly saves paper and notebooks but it is so impersonal and mechanical. By handwriting names and dates etc. I felt I was getting to know each ancestor a little bit, and I had to do a bit of thinking and digging to connect the dots.
My ancestor count has soared as a result of this new program. I was close to 8000 ancestors on my tree – now in just a few days of using the new program the count has soared to close to 9000. And I have to follow up on new names that have appeared in my sublist of immigrant ancestors. And the additional coats of arms – well I’m overwhelmed.
On the plus side, this feature – beta search for a glowing green symbol and tap the key – should in theory give me more time to search for the information I’m really interested in. The names and dates of birth and death are just the start. I want to know where when and how they lived, etc.
9 Years Old – A Birthday Party To Remember
lining up to form teams – I think this was Team Indecisive -i.e. they couldn’t decide on a name
lined up ready for the first question in the X-Box Quiz, or was it Minecraft? I wouldn’t have been an asset to any of the teams!
looks like someone has broken ranks and is headed for the food – that’s the host kneeling on the table – hmm a bit of chaos developing
Fizz the Cat knew all the answers
hmm, are they paying attention to the quizmaster?
And so it went on but I left. Too chaotic for Grandma. But I checked this morning and there were no injuries etc and a good time was had by all. Happy Times.
The Appeal of John Singer Sargent April 21, 2018
I am so happy with the amazing response I’ve gotten to my post about The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. So many people have commented here, on Facebook, and in my regular life. Since you guys seem to enjoy John Singer Sargent as much as I do, let’s talk about him a little more.
John Singer Sargent, Nonchalior (Repose), 1911. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Photo via the-athenaeum.org (Public Domain)
While reading Erica Hirshler’s book about the Boit painting, I was surprised to learn that not everyone loves Sargent’s work. I know that no artist is universally loved, but Sargent seems to invite particularly contradictory opinions. In his own day, people sometimes criticized him for being too experimental. They felt that his works were too sketchy or unfinished, and his compositional choices could be too far outside the norm. Some critics felt that Sargent could be too inventive for his own good. Sargent spent his career trying to balance being bold and inventive enough to garner attention with being…
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Publication Day In 2nd Grade
Parents and students reading the reports
That’s my grandson Sean on the left with the skeleton(?) T-shirt
Readers were encouraged to write comments (The teacher is a Seahawks fan wearing his Number 12 jersey)
Sean’s mum (Susan) reading one of the reports
I love these parent/grandparent participation events. Such a privilege. And they spark wonderful memories of the years when our sons were that age – and when I was that age!
750 piece jigsaw – completed
Janet's thread 