Happy Birthday, Peter

We celebrated last night at our Sunday supper. Jim made pizza, Dana made the most beautiful salad with all kinds of beautiful ingredients in it and Peter's girlfriend, Phoebe, brought the birthday cake.* It was all delicious and we had a very pleasant evening. His birthday is today, but it was a work day (last week of school before summer break, though).

I had arranged a gift certificate at REI, which sells recreational equipment of all kinds. We all searched for the Email which was supposed to be delivered on the first, but after much scrolling and searching, it was Phoebe who finally found it and Peter was quite pleased because he wanted to buy a new rope. He gets up every morning to go to the climbing gym before he has to be at school and decided he needed a rope to do the real thing after a trip to Joshua Tree National Park where the main picture was taken. (Not by me, I must add, but it was too perfect for the challenge 'interesting angle' not to use.)

Good ropes are expensive and nobody wants a bad rope....I remember from our own glacier crossing days in the Canadian Rockies we had to go with a guide because there were open crevasses. He was very protective of his rope and made sure nobody stepped on it!

I am listening to The Women by Kristen Hannah.Times were pretty difficult back in the days of the Vietnam War, where it takes place, but difficult in such a different way than they are difficult now. Most of our children don't remember that war or weren't even born yet, and the numbers of those of us who protested and marched and boycotted classes and burned draft cards are dwindling. But those protests finally had an effect and I have to believe that they will now if we can keep it up. I've noticed that a lot of those showing up at current protests have grey hair and long memories.