Congraduations

This past weekend was a flurry of parties, celebrations and activities that were all designed to honor people besides me. It was quite fun, but also somewhat tiring to be around so many people. On Friday night, there was a party in honor of Shane Ross at the home of his fiancée, Jessica. Earlier that day, Shane had officially received his PhD from Caltech in Control and Dynamic Systems. Honestly, I have no idea what that means. I even once attended a lecture in which he presented his work. While I cam away with a rudimentary understanding of what that all means, I'm not entirely sure that I could do it justice. As near as I can figure, he wants to build giant tunnels in outer space to enable us to drive to other planets or something.

The graduation party was quite a success. We were served some form of beef that Shane had spent most of the previous day preparing, and the turn out was pretty impressive.

As if one party in honor of Shane wasn't enough, the next day was his and Jessica's engagement party at the home of Jessica's brother in Whittier. There were many of the same people at that party, but there were also several of Jessica's college friends, and family. Most of Shane's friends spent the day huddled over in one area of the yard. In a somewhat out-of-character move, however, I did quite a bit of mingling with Jessica's side of the yard. Normally, I don't talk to people I don't know, and do my best to avoid situations in which I have to make small talk. Fortunately, the conversation flowed somewhat naturally and I was not subjected to the kinds of questions that so often go along with small talk: "So, what do you do?" "Where do you live?"...you know- the kind of questions people ask when they don't really care.

The engagement party was even more fun than the graduation party from the night before, as we were provided with a somewhat violent piñata that spun around quite a bit and actually fought back. It took us a while to get it open but, once we did, I ran around the yard grabbing as many tootsie rolls as I possibly could without pushing any of the children down.

After I left the party, I drove down to Vista and stopped by Shane and Erika Bonham's house, hoping that Shane would have forgotten that he was mad at me. When I arrived, I discovered that they were not home. On a whim, I drove over to Erika's parent's house, where I found Shane and Erika just leaving to go home.

We went back to their house, where Shane and I had to beg and plead with Erika to play Simpson's Clue with us. She finally agreed, and we played a rousing game in which Shane discovered that the crime had been committed by Waylon Smithers in Barney's Bowl-o-Rama with the Saxophone. Which is exactly what I was going to guess on my next turn. Once again, my losing record at every game I play remains strong.

On Sunday, I drove over to Fallbrook to celebrate the birthday party of my niece, Emilia Lucille Stahl, who turned one on June 10. The party was somewhat small, mostly family. All of the kids, including my other niece, Alyson, and my nephew, Sawyer, went swimming while I spent the time talking with my brother.

I left Fallbrook at about 6:00 and drove up to San Clemente, where I met Rick and Jessica Baldwin for dinner at a local pizza restaurant. They live in Las Vegas, but are currently on vacation here in California. During the course of dinner, I was continually entertained by the antics of their daughter, Violet, who is four years old.

I left San Clemente at about 10:00 and, after witnessing a one-car accident from which the driver fled on foot, arrived home at around 11:30, where I promptly went to sleep so that I be ready to substitute at the middle school the next morning.

All in all, that was a pretty good weekend, filled with family and friends. Tomorrow, I will be boarding a plane and heading back to Kosovo for the third time. As usual, I have left everything that must be done until the last possible minute. I need to do some laundry, but the water in my apartment building is inexplicably turned off. I'm pretty annoyed about it, as there was no warning at all, and I've got a trip to pack for. After all, I can't go visit a war-torn Third World nation with dirty clothes.