This will be a quick recap, since it’s after midnight, and we’ve got another long day tomorrow.
Today’s states were Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. I think it was about 800 miles!
Here are the highlight pics:
A better recap tomorrow, I promise! Looks like about 575 more miles to Sin City.
Thanks for reading!
For the second time in 4 months, I’m driving with a daughter, all of her belongings packed in her car, going west to start her post-college-graduation life.
That’s the fun of twinsies!
Off we go! This time it’s Glenda, and she’s headed to Vegas to see what she can get into with her hoop performing. If you’ve seen her, you get it. She’ll hit up the clubs and theaters and send out her resume and watch the magic happen. She’ll also find a quick cocktail waitress job – follow her Calliope Facebook page for news of dates and places of her performances.
So we started out today at the crack of 1pm. It took a little longer to finish packing than we planned, but we finally closed the doors of Captain Janeway and off we went for the Delta Quadrant.
Today we made it as far as Russellville, Arkansas (don’t ask anything about it – we’ve seen the inside and outside of the La Quinta). The total trip mileage is 1820-ish and we’re just gonna drive west til we get there…Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada.
To get us going, Glenda’s mix for the day was the sound track to Ocean’s 11 and 12, and a little Elvis, and some Frank Sinatra, RatPack era. We had our usual road-trip mother-daughter car-conversation about life, love, family, and the zombie apocalypse. We had one additional passenger, Glenda’s beloved Mrs. Whiskers:
It is also important to note the mileage of our trusty minivan:
Shooting for the New Mexico state line for tomorrow night, but that may be a little too far. Amarillo Texas may be more realistic. Come visit tomorrow and see how far we’ve gotten!
Thanks for reading!
“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” ~Theodosius Dobzhanksy
This is one of those conferences that are so information-heavy you’re almost glad to see it end. Almost. My brain is overloaded, overworked, and overwhelmed.
Today’s sessions included:
Disordered eating in the Modern World – I didn’t attend this because it was in conflict with another session I wanted to hear, but I wanted to include it because I think it’s so relevant. Dr. Emily Deans used peer-reviewed literature and histories of eating disorders to examine if maybe the Western Diet may be contributing to this phenomenon.
Diet, Inflammation, and Depression – This is the one I missed that one ^ for. This session was so interesting, as it linked habits that are far removed from our ancestral health, including nutrition and movement, as a potential cause for the high incidence of chronic depression we are seeing in modern society. I can’t remember where I first read this statement, but think about how seldom our ancestors would have seen a reflection of their faces, compared to how often we do. This session was one of those where almost every seat in the room was taken. The presenter, Amber Dukes, was cautious not to draw conclusions, as the studies are new and incomplete.
The Perfectly Healthy Meal: How Ancestral and Gourmet Culinary Practices Guide Us to Satisfying and Nourishing Food – I knew when I got the expanded schedule I wanted to attend this one. I consider myself a rabid foodie, and I grew up and raised my kids eating delicious southern home-cooked food. Throw in Eliott’s Jewish heritage with its love of all things deli, his Philly connection to Italian cuisine, and we are a train wreck as far as “ancestralizing” our diet. When we did our 30-day food experiment recently, we found that we loved the whole process of selecting, preparing, and cooking with primal guidelines in mind. What surprised us was the time involved in all steps of that process, and joining that with the fact that we eat out several times a week (which we didn’t do much on our 30-days), we had to learn to embrace the time issue. This session was wonderful for reinforcing the idea that it SHOULD be taking us time to prepare our food, and it does take effort and forethought (isn’t that one of the things that is troubling about our Western diet – the instant and constant availability of crappy food?) Dr. Jaminet is doing a book signing later today (an astrophysicist and his molecular-biologist wife writing a nutrition book? Why, yes please!)
I managed to get a picture of my plate today before I dove right into it. Tendergrass Farms was one of the vendors, and they donated over 1000 of pasture-raised chicken for the meal. We have a local grass-fed meat supplier in Murfreesboro; this farm is located in Virginia, and they do ship, so until you find your local source, give them a shot.
Heat and Health; Paleo Myths and the Other Metabolic Hormones, Leptin and mTOR – the title of this one almost kept me out, but the thumbnail mentioned hormones and aging, which caught my attention. Dr. Rosedale (of the Rosedale Diet) started out with saying that nature does not support a long post-reproductive-age life. We can alter that, but approaching it with this premise helps us understand what we are working toward. Thanks, nature. And modern medicine can counter some of the aging process, but nutrition and exercise is much more effective at that.
Circadian Rhythms: Their Significance in Human Health, and the Major Factors Affecting Them – This was Dr. Jaminet again, about the mysterious circadian rhythms. Full disclosure — I fell asleep during this talk. Dr J’s voice was soothing, and it was just after lunch, and Eliott’s shoulder was soooo inviting, so I do not have a report about your circadian rhythm. When I asked Eliott about it afterwards, he admitted he fell asleep too. So we’re old. We needed a nap. But isn’t it fabulous that this is the talk where we fell asleep? Something to do with our circadian rhythm???
The Ancestral Health Society will add all the links after the conference, and when they do, I will go back and post the video links, so if you are interested, come back and listen. I won’t post all the links to the 2011 and 2012 AHS, but they are available through the AHS or youtube.
Here are my takeways from the conference:
–The Ancestral Health Movement is about far more than eating an abundance of meat, far more than just nutrition at all. It’s about using evolution as the model for framing every conversation we have about health in contemporary humanity.
–It’s discouraging to see the status of the food supply and nutritional health in our country. It’s even more discouraging to see that 67% of the population of America does not understand or accept evolution, which is the starting point for understanding how and what we should eat for optimal health.
–Because this is heavily science-based approach, as always we start with a hypothesis. We then look at the research and see if that supports the hypothesis. Through observation, empirical evidence, experimentation, testing, results analysis, and other methods we see if the hypothesis is confirmed. Then, in this movement, it is encouraged for folks to use a N=1 analysis since our ancestry differs in some cases dramatically (if our ancestors were from Fiji, their diet would have been different than if our ancestors were from Siberia due to food availability, and the digestive enzymes, etc, that we would have developed).
–To expand on the last topic: I think that not only do we have differences in our toleration for some foods based on geography, but we ourselves may find that at some points in our life we are more tolerant of some foods than at other points in our lives due to our age, our hormones, the cycle of seasons, and other factors.
–Because of the above points, we are forced, beneficially I think, to stay deeply in tune with our bodies and our health. For those of us who are data junkies, this can include written graphs, charts, records, all that (color-coded – squee!). I’ll say that for most of us in the movement, that includes a pretty closely-monitored blood sugar record.
–As a skeptic, I will continue to learn and research as the science develops around nutrition and movement. But I will also share that the personal application piece has been hugely successful for me. It has allowed me to eliminate even minor health issues (heartburn, irregular sleep patterns, energy crashes), AND I have been able to train at a pretty high level (Ironman) eating in this manner.
Heading home tomorrow – don’t forget to drop by and say farewell to Glenda if you are in the Middle Tennessee area tomorrow night!
Thanks for reading!
Another information-packed, nutrient-rich day at the Ancestral Health Symposium.
The first session of the day was titled: Parasites are Paleo: The Hidden Cost of Modern Hygiene. This one was a test of our skepticism and critical thinking I’m always talking about. The universe of micro-organisms that populate our bodies inside and out are a delicate balance, and when we cropdust internally or externally we kill indiscriminately, and that’s not good. Some of these guys aid our health through digestion or skin health. Our children are growing up in the Purell environment and we don’t yet know what the results of that are going to be. Statistics are showing that when our children are exposed to dirt and mud they have a lesser incident of allergies and asthma. (Please know that this is way oversimplified, and I’m linking to the lecturer’s website/book because much of this is new enough to me I can’t speak authoritatively.)
I attended another session called Survival Panel, mostly out of interest for son Sam, and his interest in survival skills. This was a panel looking at the hunting/gathering activities that our ancestors would have engaged in compared to the movement/stressors/nutrition we have modernly. Guess what? We are pretty far removed from those skills. One of the questions after the session asked the inevitable question about eating insects, which of course is a big topic in this group. As broadminded as I pride myself in being, I’ve got a huge ick-factor about this I’m struggling with.
Next was a really interesting lecture about the Rise of Monotheistic Religions as a Cultural Adaptation to Infectious Disease. Many religious edicts relate to cleanliness with regard to burial, ritual for food preparation, sexual rules, etc that may have helped religions keep a stronghold through this hygiene code through religious authority. The lecturer for this, John Durant has appeared on the Colbert Report talking about the health of hunter/gatherers.
Lunch break at a Paleo conference was: water buffalo meatloaf, potatoes, squash and zucchini in olive oil, salad, and kombucha to drink (yeah, the potatoes were a surprise to me too – more on that later). The meatloaf was wonderful, and provided by one of the vendors. I’m still amazed at how beautiful everyone here is, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching people interact during the meal. I have no idea why I have no picture of this – too hungry, I guess.
Then we had that poster session I mentioned. Folks were invited to present their research (on a poster, duh) informally in a mix-and-mingle area where they could chat and explain their research. There were several N=1 posters – folks who have applied paleolithic nutritional science to themselves for a period of time (mostly about one year), and did extensive data gathering. Weight loss, lowered blood pressure, more energy – all of the typical health markers improved for these experimenters.
After lunch we went into a panel discussion about the Ketogenic Diet and Athletic Competition. The rock stars on this panel were Robb Wolf and Mark Sisson. Mark came in 4th in the Hawaii Ironman on a ketogenic diet (a fat-burning rather than glucose (sugar)-burning diet). We hung on every word of this one. It appears that one may lose the top, highest performance (top speed) but endurance increases dramatically. This makes sense in light of the evidence that our muscles can only retain so much glucose (enough for about 30-45 minutes), but our fat stores, even on a lean person, are massive. Son Sam and I are doing an Ironman together next year (looking at Chattanooga in September 2014), and it’s my intention to train on a cyclical ketogenic plan.
Dr. Georgia Ede presented a session about Nutrition and Mental Health that blew me away. Because carbohydrates create inflammation in the body, her research is centered on studying whether or not this inflammation, that eventually may lead to diabetes or some kind of autoimmune disorder, may also have an effect on mental health. She was very cautious about even inferring connections, but her research is so promising in connecting diet to some of these diseases (ADHD in particular), and fits with the statistics of what our children are eating.
Then we attended a very sobering session about Malnutrition and Starvation in the World, and about how we, the global human community, can help to feed the world. The conventional wisdom is to produce more grains. Dr Alyssa Rhoden spoke about how to reclaim some parts of the world from the desertification that comes from growing corn and return it to grazeland, and to grow more diverse organic vegetation. This topic is political and ethical as well as economic, and I’m including this link and this link if you are interested in more information.
The last session of the day for us was an introduction to Pasture and Grassland Ecology. I am particularly interested in this, since my little slice of paradise in Tennessee includes 8 acres and all the animals whose pictures I’m always posting on Facebook. I already have my little garden, and the chickens provide beautiful eggs, but even if I never eat another animal off the land there, I would like to restore the topsoil and care for the groundwater as much as I can. Our lecturer for this has a blog: grassbasedhealth. His topic included the question: Is An Ancestral Diet Sustainable?
So that has been day 2. Just a side note: we’re not just attenders of this conference, we are also working here as the Investigators for Code of Conduct Violations. While all of that is super top secret, I can say that we have not been very busy. Correlation does not imply causation, as we know, and it has been nice being able to attend the lectures.
Today is Eliott’s birthday, so our dinner tonight will not be Paleo. Don’t be hatin.
Thanks for reading!
So here’s where I am this weekend:
The Ancestral Health Symposium
This is the third year of the symposium, but it’s my first time to go.
The premise is that when we can use an evolutionary prospective, we can develop solutions to our contemporary health challenges. The title Paleo as it applies to nutrition is too vague and is really kind of an inaccurate word, but it’s still a word that gets thrown around and is accepted shorthand within the movement.
So first: the demographic of attendees. There are about 600 people here. At any time in a store, or on a street, or at a conference, or on a campus, the folks you see reflect the statistics of America’s population: 35% obese, 69% overweight (including obesity). Not in this room. These are fit people. Fit does not mean slender – these people look strong and healthy. It is a younger group – Eliott and I are in the older 20%, easily – but even the older folks look this way. It’s a refreshing view; I didn’t realize how “normal” it is to see those statistics every day in real life until I was in this conference room.
Most of the speakers are MD’s and PhDs. Check out this detailed schedule. I don’t have a science background, and a few of the presenters today were a smidge over my head. The topics today were:
The Paleolithic Prescription
This was presented by the two MD’s who are considered the “grandfathers” of the modern Paleo movement, who have been researching the hunter-gatherer diet for their entire professional careers. This one was a little sciency, but I hung on the best I could, and took notes on their suggestions for more papers and books to read.
The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature
I loved this one. Dr. Gad Saad examined our modern consumer instinct that has gone awry, and what it reveals about our primal nature. It gives context at least to how we’ve gotten where we are, even if it’s unsettling.
Sexual Fitness and Women’s Fertility Cycles
Another great session. This examined sexual selection from an evolutionary standpoint, and how we’re massively altering this with our reliance on synthetic hormones, both for men and women. I’m particularly interested in this because of my 4 young-adult children and their long-term health.
High Fructose Corn Syrup Litigation Status
Fascinating session by the plaintiff’s attorney in the lawsuit filed in New York against the HFCS manufacturers on behalf of a teenage girl w/type 2 diabetes, claiming that HFCS is the cause of her developing the disease. I had an instant flashback to my first year of law school and Torts and Strict Liability/Failure To Warn.
Find Your Why
Highlight of the day. This young man, Kyle Maynard, was born with a congenital amputation who has become a motivational speaker, and is a proponent of the Paleo lifestyle. He recently became the first person to “bear crawl” up Mt. Kilimanjaro. It took 13 days and his presentation today was about that challenge. Please click through to his page and read about this spectacular young person.
The hall of vendors has been wonderful – sources of grass-fed beef, home-gardening aids, and the newest buzz-product Kombucha (kind of a fermented tea that adds beneficial gut flora). Tomorrow also includes a posters’ session, which are like mini-breakout sessions, I think. In between speakers, we have these little 3-minute movement sessions by Adonis- and Venus-like trainers.
About 3 months ago, Eliott and I did this Whole30 experiment. It’s 30 days of absolute clean eating: local and organic grass-fed and pasture-raised meats, local and organic vegetables and some fruits, and healthy fats. No sugar, no grains, no alcohol. It also include other paleo-lifestlyle pieces regarding sleep, timing of meals, and movement. It was both a lot of fun and a real challenge. It was pricey, of course, to buy all that fresh, local food (and lots of time to prepare and cook it), and it was a new skill, but we LOVED it. We felt fabulous, had huge energy, no physical symptoms of our ages (!). It’s extremely difficult to do while traveling, but we’ve continued to do a modified version at home (like I’m not going to have cocktails at sunset). The authors of the Whole 30 book are here for a presentation and panel tomorrow.
So anyway, that’s what I’m doing til Sunday. My brain’s on overload but I’m lovin it. To my Murfreesboro crowd – I’ll be home in time for Glenda’s moving-to-Vegas-and-selling-her-art party on Sunday afternoon.
Thanks for reading!
I know, I know, I know. I know I just posted a whole series of posts about hanging out with my kids. But sometimes you have a day like today, and you just have to get it down on paper. Or gigabytes. Or whatever.
I talked to all 4 children today. That’s not completely unusual, since I chat with each of them several days a week, and sometimes it all falls on the same day. What I want to post about is the content of those 4 little chats.
#1.
Ben is in Loveland, Colorado, where he lives with his girlfriend, Kirsten, and their 2 lovely dogs River and Suzie.
Ben is a senior at CU Boulder, a political science major. He’s a 4.0 student (which eats away at his 3.5 gpa mother), and is beginning his search for law school. He is an adventure junkie: skiing, kayaking, mountain biking, bouldering, ice-climbing.
Here’s his Facebook status for today:
Switching to an entirely local and organic diet this month as a project for school. I’m so excited to be not eating corporately produced food. The current food system we have in this country is not safe or secure. It is contributing to anthropogenic climate change and the unnecessary suffering of millions of animals. We support this terrible system with every dollar that we spend for every single meal, three times a day. I challenge everyone to have at least ONE MEAL in which everything you eat is local, sustainable, and raised without pesticides, antibiotics, or petroleum based fertilizers. If you are serious about being thankful for your food, you should really think about the global implications of what it is you are eating. Cheers to a healthy diet and a healthier planet!
So our phone conversation today was all about this 30-day experiment. It’s for his environmental law class, and the students have to lessen their carbon impact. Ben and Kirsten have a little garden, they recycle, ride their bikes around town and school, and are very conscious of their activity. The professor wanted them to develop a new action, not one they are currently engaged in, so this is what Ben came up with. He first suggested a blog to publicize and explain what he does on a daily basis, but then came up with this idea, and I just love it.
#2.
Sam is in Salida, Colorado, where he is a River Ranger on the Arkansas River.
When we chatted today, it was about his schedule and the possibility of his getting the time off to go to Ragbrai, the family bike trip to Iowa. When I asked how he was liking his job, he uses the answer he’s used every time I’ve asked him that this summer: “Livin the dream, mom. Livin the dream.” He works on the river most every day, and on his day off…he goes to the river.
Sam told me about the river clean-up he worked on, the quirkiness of his little town, the upcoming river festival on the Arkansas, and how much fun we all had when the fam gathered in Salida last week.
#3.
Glenda is in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she is finishing the last studio hours to graduate with her BFA from the University of Tennessee. She’s loved the work she’s done there, but she’s definitely ready to move on.
She has plans to move to Vegas in August and hit the nightclub circuit with her hula-hooping performances. Visit her Youtube channel for a video performance – she performs under the stage name Calliope. We’re making our annual trip to TAM in Las Vegas in July to go apartment hunting. She’s scared and excited and nervous and happy. (Her words).
#4.
Amy, tonight, is at Mt. Rainier National Park, on her trip cross-country to Orcas Island, Washington for her summer job as a sea kayak instructor.
Amy graduated from ETSU with a degree in Outdoor Recreation in December, and starts her new job this week. I got to travel with her from Murfreesboro to Salt Lake City last week. We had a great time, and did a lot of sightseeing, but she was content and excited to do the second half of her trip alone. She enjoys her solitude and is comfortable in her own skin. She’s not sure of what lies ahead, and that’s ok with her.
Today’s chat was about everything she had seen in the Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. She was remembering trips with the grandparents as a child, and enjoying every view and campground and buffalo and elk baby she had seen. She is car-camping, and hosteling, and just wanted to tell me what a good time she was having.
That’s my family. I am so proud of those children, I can’t find the words to express it. And the fact that they are so happy and so healthy, and are living the lives they love in the manner they choose…a mother cannot ask for more.
As for me, I live in my little cottage on my little farm, with my dogs, and my cows, and my chickens, and my donkeys. I have wonderful friends, I love my law school, and I have a very special person in my life, who lights me up. More about him in the posts to come.
In a little bit of a morbid twist, I’ve been working on my will, and my letters to my loved ones in the event of my death. This blog in general, and this post in particular, will be part of the package that I’ll leave for my kids, to remind them all of this day, this time, and what their happiness means to me.
Thanks for reading.
My own bed. My own yard. My dogs, my cows, my chickens. I love being back home.
But what a trip. What a delicious pile of memories and pictures to go over and over to remember those precious few days.
I got home around 8:30 this morning, after the redeye last night from Salt Lake City. Glenda’s back in Knoxville, Ben’s back in Loveland, Sam’s still in Salida, and Amy’s still relocating to Orcas Island.
After our adventure in Black Canyon, Amy and I stayed in Grand Junction, Colorado. We had dinner and delightful conversation at a little Italian restaurant right across from our hotel, and a lazy morning the next day.
We headed out toward Dinosaur National Monument, which is located in both Colorado and Utah. I couldn’t find statistics on annual visitors to this park, but I rather expect it’s one of the least-visited, simply because it’s in the middle of Nowhere, Utah, and it takes a big effort to get to it. However, it is by a huge exponent worth the trip.
I can’t resist posting both of these shots – there was an entire wall of drawings of dinosaurs made by visitors to the park of the child variety. So cute.
In the park, the main display is the Quarry itself – a mass concentration of dinosaur fossils formed when the animals’ remains were washed into the area and covered with sediment, which then shifted in mountain-building movements in the Uintas chain about 150 million years ago. The fossils were discovered by a paleontologist, Earl Douglass, in 1909. His thought to have the main dig preserved, covered, and offered for citizens to visit and discover was brilliant.
Here are a couple of pics in the Quarry:
Here’s the big Allosaurus skeleton on the bottom level of the Quarry:
The Quarry building was built in 1957. I visited the park as a teenager with my family in 1977-ish, and I remember being astonished with how many fossils were in one condensed area. The building itself suffered structural problems and was closed in 2006. In 2009, as part of the Obama administration’s stimulus plan, the building was shored up and repaired and opened again in 2011.
We ventured off on a hike loop where we found fossils on our own.
Amy and I had a delightful time in this park. She and I travel well together, and we enjoy one another’s company. But the plan was always to go as far as Salt Lake City with her, then head back home to study, while she kept going til she reached the ocean, then go one island farther.
We left the park, headed west, got to visit with Amy’s boyfriend’s sister Laura in Midway, Utah for dinner, then back in the car for the SLC airport. I don’t have to describe the feeling of watching that child drive away for her solo adventure, but it’s a familiar feeling for the mother of 4 Supertramps, and I would not have it any other way. (Thursday night — she just texted me that she’s outside of Teton National Park, sleeping in her car, excited for sunrise so she can see the mountains at first light.)
What a wonderful 6 days with the children. I am so grateful when I get to hang out with them, hearing them laugh, listening to them rant, watching their eyes sparkle as they interact with each other. I am simply never happier than when I’m with them.
Thanks for reading!
I’m going to try to sort this out. I swear I blogged the day before yesterday, but so much happens, I’m not completely sure.
When we last left our lovely posse, we had arrived in Salida and reunioned with our boys. On day 2 in Salida, we started with, what else: breakfast, including copious amounts of coffee and talk.
This day included time on the river with River:
a picnic in the park
watching the boys in the playhole (gotta love that river rat term)
and viewing from the Boathouse.
Tuesday morning brought sad goodbyes as we all headed off in different directions:
Ben and Kirsten headed back with their canines to Loveland for school and work. El and Glenda headed to Denver to go back to Murfreesboro and Knoxville. Sam went back to work as an Arkansas River Ranger. Amy and I headed west and north to get Amy ultimately to Orcas Island off the coast of Washington State.
So we now pick up mine and Amy’s adventure through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
Rolled into Grand Junction, Colorado, to a charming little hotel and Italian restaurant. I will go as far as Salt Lake City with Amy tomorrow (via Dinosaur National Monument), and send her off the rest of the way on her own.
Hooooooge shoutout to my house and dogsitters Katie and Elliot. And cow/donkey/chicken sitters. You two rock!
One more day of adventure, then back to Employment Discrimination and Legal Research.
Thanks for reading!
Crappy internet and late night hanging with the children = no blog yesterday. I’ll try to cram 2 days into one with this quick post.
Yesterday morning found us waking up in Ft. Reno, Oklahoma, still heading west. This day we covered the rest of Oklahoma, the tippy part of the hat of Texas, a corner of New Mexico, and then our lovely Colorado.
After a quick stop to see Sam’s new place, we all walked over to the Boathouse Restaurant where we waited for Sam to finish work for the day.
After dinner and lots of Colorado microbrews, we hung out at Sam’s house a while longer, and then finally all crashed after a long day of traveling (us), working (Sam), and playing (Ben and Kirsten).
Morning found us all at breakfast overlooking the Arkansas River. Sam had to work again, so we got to see his workplace in the River Management Office (although his actual workspace is the 150 miles of the river, since he patrols the river every day). Then we took a stroll through town, checking out gear stores and art galleries and a coffee shop or two.
Next, because it’s Memorial Day weekend, there was Bluegrass in the Park for most of the day. We laid out a couple of quilts, and talked, and drank, and read (I really and truly studied Evidence), and listened to music. We had Ben and Kirsten’s two honeys with us, two black labs, River and Suzie. Lying there in the sun, listening to my children’s voices, at the base of the mountain, in the quaint little town of Salida, Colorado, I just don’t remember being so happy.
After Sam got off work, he and Ben played in the river with their kayaks while we enjoyed a libation in the restaurant overlooking the play hole (their words, not mine). Then it was off to a fabulous pizza place, where we all agreed to the phone game, so I have no pics of that meal. (8 phones, ringers on, stacked face down on the table; first one who responds to a text or call pays the check. No one lost.)
Tomorrow is another day in paradise. No agenda yet, but does that even matter??
Thanks for reading!
Happy. Healthy. Heathen. 