8 hours of sleep! Dreamed I was in an airport with a list of places I could fly for like $8. Ray was with me and he was not enthusiastic. Below 50 here this morning

We watched a great movie last night. I cried buckets; haven't done that in ages. Very well done, the story kind of unfolds subtly. It's mainly about the relationship between two sisters.

Yesterday, among other things, three students came to interview me about homelessness and the shelter. We get lots of inquiries, mainly from UGA. But we get lots of help from there too. We have 6 social work interns this year and they take care of lots of the details for us. As the semester goes on, they are getting more responsibilities. I enjoyed talking to this group and telling them how our society is to blame...OK not totally. I also had an email from a student who, among other questions, wanted to know I felt like I was enabling homeless people. I wanted to say, I hope so. But I asked her who paid for her health care and transportation and if she would like to try living at the shelter for a while.

I left before 4 and went to pick Ray up. We were starting for the Ramsey Center, but it was such a nice day, we went home and walked down to look at the river instead. It was roaring over the dam. Sunny and cool. Then we made supper together and watched the movie until 10.

All day I have been thinking of Genny's funeral in Oklahoma. Barbara and Debbie are there. I think maybe that relates to my dream about Jessie. Genny was French and also someone I had not been in touch with in a while.

We saw Barbara Eirenreich on the John Stewart show. I loved her for writing Nickel and Dimed and she was great on the show, very direct. Her new book is about how being positive is bad for our culture. I don't entirely agree. I like to think I am sending positive thoughts to Genny's family. Her point would be, I should pick up the phone and call them. Ray did send a card...I was thinking of looking through my old pictures for ones of her.

To be honest, I'm a little teary this morning, probably just a reaction to finally coming down to earth from my trip to Spain. I was dreaming about Jessie Coiraton before I woke up. I certainly don't know why. I lived with Jess, an American in France, and her family, for a year at age 17. In the dream, she was guiding me around a school or other public building, crowded and under construction, but really she was teaching me about being a writer. I wonder if she left any unpublished manuscripts when she died 10 years ago. I was not sad in the dream, but I woke regretting that I did not stay in touch with her after my year there. I'm sure there are many other relationships that I could have gained a lot from, but have let down.

I was bored at work yesterday. There are probably big things I can tackle, but the daily details are pretty much caught up for the moment. I wore my black suit because i was expecting to go to a kickoff breakfast for a fund-raising campaign. Courtney called me, though, and said I didn't need to come. So that was a let down. And then I was planning to leave about 3 or 3:30 and go shopping with Janna, but she got caught up in something and couldn't go.

Ray and I came home and made dinner and watched TV. I was out like a light by 9:30 and slept until almost 6. It is cool this morning, but not as much as yesterday.

Captain called from Seattle. They are fine and had a relatively easy trip, except that they made him check the rolling suitcase that I successfully carried on to and from Spain. They only saw the ground once on their flight across country; it was cloudy everywhere yesterday, so there may be more rain coming our way.

It's nice and cool this morning--below 50. Still raining a little. I drove across the Greenway yesterday and it is severely flooded, trees standing in the brown swirling water. The last time I saw floods like that along the river, there were houses there. This is a lot better.

It was great for sleeping. I woke up at about 6 from a dream that Amelia and I were visiting Barack Obama and his two daughters, ages about 1 and 5. No idea where Michelle was. This was more like a summer cottage than the White House and he had given us a large wooden key, which I tried in the door and it worked.

People are rallying to help the homeless--with bags of candy, because what child doesn't need candy? (sarcasm alert) The generous young man who has been volunteering and will be our new VISTA volunteer starting in November (I guess the paperwork takes awhile?) made a display board for us. I didn't really have time to look it over. It looks like mostly text, but I did get him to add one black and white photo from the web.

I drove Ray home to make his famous potluck dish and then we rushed back, picked up the flyers that had been copied for us and went to the Shelter Board of Directors meeting, which was held at the new Athens First bank building. The security guard was very reluctant to let us in--there was supposed to be a bank employee with us if we were meeting there. The Directors helped me fold the brochures and Courtney took the display board and pens. The meeting started late and I left after about 15 minutes to go to the Fellowship.

Potluck, nominating committee, choir. I was actually falling asleep in choir, which hasn't happened to me in years. Nice to have Ray drive me home, dozing, and then straight to bed.

Vanessa called on the cell phone about 5:30. They were in Atlanta at the Doubletree Hotel, where they had arrived early for a 7:00 Tufts event. They fly to Seattle in a few hours.

Raining again since about 3 this morning. Lots of stories of people's basements flooding and other issues. We are fine, although I should see if the basement is getting dampish. George did some fancy technology on the outside walls to keep water from getting in. It has worked well so far.

Worked more than I wanted yesterday. Brandy's time sheet wasn't ready until after 4. I did have lunch with Janna and Becky, though. That was fun--it was too quick! When I got home, Vanessa had started dinner (yay!) and it smelled so good--onions and peppers and garlic in olive oil. All I had to do was chop the tomatoes, cook the rice and add the spices. Then I had a UUFA board meeting, which got me riled up on several issues. I just want someone else to worry about things and go along with my life. But that's not right. We can expand our parking lot by about 40 places (that many people are parking on the road every Sunday) for maybe $125,000. I suggested some alternatives, but they were not well received. I need to try to get people to carpool. They mostly agree philosophically, but it will take work to make it happen. But people are not coming because of the parking and it particularly turns off visitors. Then we have people who are trying to come up with a safety policy because of the shootings in Tennessee. Two different board members said they new members who had guns in their cars in our parking lot! This is not going to be easy.

3rd Rock from the Sun marathon on TV kept me up until 11. TG we can record them!

Sigh. I am tired and achy, but still smiling. It rained hard all day yesterday, and it was a school holiday (thanks, Columbus). I had a backlog of checks to write and a deposit to make, but of course the bank was closed. No crises at the Shelter while I was gone and everything seems to be going fine. I left at two. Ray and I picked up a few things at Kroger and came home. The Captain was making his famous chicken soup, perfect for a rainy day. I was famished; my stomach seems to be on a Spanish schedule. There was leftover pot roast with carrots and a little potato, so I polished that off with some bread and butter and part of a peach. We played cards and I won handily--maybe my highest score ever in Oh Hell. I tried to watch my favorite TV show (Big Bang Theory), but crashed on the couch halfway through.

Well, I am home. It has been raining steadily for 40 minutes or so, which is a cozy sound. I got up and closed the windows and it ws almost 5;30. Not bad, I am back on schedule for my home time. Since I was awake for almost 22 hours, that is not surprising. I feel okay, a little stiff and a lot sad. I miss my Amelia and our adventures.

The Captain says we have now had more rain than normal for the year (that was before this morning). They are getting ready to go to Seattle on Thursday. Our shared suitcase is traveling a lot!










Here are a few pictures from Saturday, nothing to take pictures of yesterday. On Saturday morning, we walked a couple blocks to the second beach in Espasante, a little smaller and less protected than the harbor side, but gorgeous and deserted on a misty off-season morning. I think is one of the most naturally beautiful resort towns I've seen, where you can stay in the hotel and walk to beaches and restaurants. There's a big building (could be a hotel) for sale. The internet says there are 14 hotels there, but I only saw about 2, and some closed-for-the-winter summer homes. We could see farms from the beach.

We drove (in the rain) to Pontedeume, retracing our route some of the way, but not taking the smaller roads up to the windmill farm and the incredible views. We found a place to park on the street and made our way to the market (mercado), which is in the guidebook for Saturday mornings. (The one we used was Lonely Planet and it was very helpful. We used the internet to find places to stay). We walked around in the rain, looking at bread and meat and underwear for sale. One man was cooking and selling octopus to eat, a big treat in Galicia, which i did not try. Many bars have signs that say Hay Pulpo (We have octopus). We bought some bread and cheese, including a chocolate croissant (Amelia's favorite as well as mine) and a local speciality, a sort of soft eggy bread with sugar on top. Some of the sweets we ate when we got to the car. I got some really dense good raisin bread too.

We drove on the highway to Pontevedra, one of the bigger cities in Galicia. I believe it was a port, but the estuary has silted up too much now. IT has beautiful old churches, etc., in a nice walkable old section. We were looking specifically for a real vegetarian restaurant reviewed in the guide book: risotto, humus...But it was gone. We found the address and Amelia could see the shadow of the letters on the window. We picked a place on the next square and Amelia had eggs and French fries again. I had some grilled pork, which was very good. They are not much on serving vegetables with their dishes. You order a salad for your greens and then you order meat, which sometimes comes with potatoes. It was good and there was more than I could eat. I think it was less than 5 euros. It was a smallish bar with wine bottles everywhere. The kitchen looked to be about as big as a small closet and there was one woman serving everyone, making espresso, pouring wine. We wandered around the town some more. One of the things we often had to look for was bathrooms, although we usually found them. In this case, we had to wait until 4:30 when the museum opened. It was free, but we had to show a passport, of which they wrote down the number. Then we had to ask for the rest rooms. After that, I had pretty much seen enough museums. This one had silver and gold, as well as paintings and archaelogical relics. I was a little anxious to get to our next hotel and make sure it wouldn't be too difficult to get to the airport.

We didn't have too much trouble. It was in Cangas, one of many resort towns in southern Galicia. It looked very much like others I have seen in Europe, lots of multi-story hotels, a few streets of restaurants and shops and cafes. And a somewhat grungy beach, with lots of trash and a scary-looking stray dog.

Room service in Madrid