Front yard flower bed. About an hour after these sunny pictures were taken, rainclouds blew in and dropped some badly needed rain on us for about fifteen minutes. Still waiting to hear thunder though.

I was just settling into my window seat, Sour Patch Kids ready, book open, legs stretched as far forward as possible, weight shifted for optimum comfort, elbow established on arm rest, when a gigantic shadow suddenly loomed in my periphery. An involuntary grimace of horror crept across my face as I looked up to find the back end of a 300 lb man pivoting into the open aisle seat. The man seemed familiar with the grimace and gave what might have been an apologetic half-smile. He pointed at the arm rest and asked “Do you mind of I flip that up a minute?” I moved my elbow quickly, with visions of Aron Ralston flashing through my head.

(Later the investigators would scratch their heads in wonder. “It’s as if his cries were muffled by some sort of insulating barrier that made this aisle completely sound proof. See here. This is where he tried to saw his own arm off with his car keys.”)

The seat groaned as the man shifted his hips back and forth settling into his seat and into part of mine. He reached back to flip down the arm rest, giving it a good push so that it disappeared under his side fat and came to rest perched on his hip fat at an angle most certainly not horizontal. “Boy these planes keep getting smaller and smaller, don’t they?” I shook the grimace off my face and searched for something unoffensive to reply.

“Uh, your hip fat is touching me.”

Wait, that’s not what I said.

“Yeah, no kidding.”

That’s what it was. With my own elbow now crushed against my rib cage and my foot space reduced by 50 percent I curled toward the window dodging any further small talk. The smell of a day’s worth of airplane-bound-fat-man-sweat wafted into my corner as we idled on the runway. Inexplicably, the overhead jet of air turned off.

But, other than that, the rest of my trip to California over the past week was superb. I spent six days catching up with family and hiking and scrambling anywhere we could find sun (mostly in the desert, but also Suicide Rock near Idyllwild). Lots of pictures can be found here (probably have to wait for all the mini photos to load before the slide show will start working). And here’s a taste of a couple of shots I liked (among many):

It’s too bad Big Brown has such a stupid name. And now the horse named after UPS is actually being sponsored by UPS. It was way more fun to cheer for Smarty Jones, Funny Cide, and War Emblem.

So we hit the low 90s yesterday. No weather records, but hot enough to keep the dogs and me plenty lethargic all afternoon. When I came out to Yakima last May it was 70s and sunny for about a month and a half straight. I’d like more of that, please.

There’s a block sale going on in our neighborhood right now. And it’s kind of a mad house. I guess people around Yakima go a bit ape about garage sales and when you can hit 50 garages in one stop, that tends to draw a crowd. A bunch of houses have little food and drink stands set up and are selling things like homemade empenadas and tamales or prepackaged Costco products at a markup. It reminds me a little of Festival in Grand Rapids, except that everywhere you walk it smells like a Goodwill store and not like fried elephant ears. I’d post a picture, but Mary is in Sun Valley, ID for the weekend for work and I think she has our camera.

I didn’t really have anything to sell today, but I did put out a “free” sign on the driveway and dumped the kitchen mirror doors and some other stuff that the previous owner had left in the garage. They probably would’ve gone for a few bucks, but I didn’t feel like sitting out in the sun chit-chatting. So I walked the dogs and came back to an empty driveway. Later I bought a hat for 50 cents (Zirkle Fruit Company) and a weed whacker for 10 bucks.

My legs are in shambles right now. Knots in both calves and a right quad so tender from hip to knee that it hurts when I barely touch it. So much fun though playing Frisbee this weekend. I played for about nine hours in total yesterday both with U Seattle’s team (team got thumped pretty thoroughly) and also picking up with Central Washington when they needed an extra player for the last two hours of the day. Weather was overcast and drizzly, but it actually was very pleasant Frisbee weather. And then again this morning. Today was sunny and 70s and everyone was roasting. I’m sure the west-siders appreciated the sun though. A few pics that Mary took from day one:

And one video. Quality is super blocky of course coming from the old beater digital camera, but you can at least get a taste of the Ultimate Frisbee atmosphere. We’re the team in blue getting scored on by the University of Washington. Click here.