Is all this upbeat hup! hup! to show you're in a good mood or that you've shorted out some critical circuits and your head is spinning?

Both, I suppose. Could be I haven't gone out first thing, as I have in all my previous visits here to my sister's, to pick up a Times and a large cup of black coffee at the local Starbucks. Sudden changes of habit can lead to atypical behavior.

Atypical for whom? Certainly not you’m.

Later. A drive up Highway 5 to the Tacoma Narrows bridge turnoff and then on to Bainbridge Island and cousin Steve's place up high on the shore overlooking the sound where we've had many a good family party, arriving with my sister driving just in time to sit down for dinner. It's good to arrive just in time to sit down for dinner.

And a good afternoon was had. My sister and I took pictures, as we both now take pictures, and I spent my time catching up on recent happenings. I hadn't realized it's been well over a year since I've attended our twice annual parties. Time waits for no one.

Catching up on family happenings generally involves the telling and retelling of old stories and adventures when we were young with nary a mention of the aches and ills of the now idle and elderly, one or two comments about the grandkids’ uncomfortable habit of getting on in their years. I'm sure no one else has ever discussed such (little Jimmy is how God damned old!!??). Certainly not we. Not I. Not they. Not me.

Anyway, much food consumed, not too much drinking (two bottles of Corona, as it happens, for yours truly), off then to the ferry terminal to catch the next boat to Seattle. Pretty cool, actually. Easy for me, my sister still doing all the driving.

We stayed with Bruce and Mary at their condo overlooking Alaskan Way and the waterfront, to bed at midnight after watching the Olympics unravel on television. All the cousins and the sister are into the Olympics I discover, something that really hasn't been on my radar. (Yes, I knew they were happening, where they were happening and when they were happening. Remember all those newspapers I read in the mornings? I'm hopeless, sometimes clueless but far from ill informed.)

So the long day done, the attitude quite good (I've been wondering how this week on the road will compare with my recent weeks in Oakland.) and a new week coming. Bring it on.