Day 18 - "Heavens to Murgatroid!"

Today's title is not particularly apropos of anything, other than the fact that it was uttered by a television commentator on the U.S. Women's Open golf tournament this afternoon, after which I vowed to incorporate it into my personal lexicon. (I did have to look up how to spell it and, sadly, the Interweb seems to lack consensus on the matter. I like this spelling best.)

My eyes are much better today, thankfully. I have *mostly* succeeded in not rubbing them when they itched intermittently throughout the day.

Sunday has been a bit of a smorgasbord, filled with bits of this and that. I did make it to church at Spartansburg UMC, which was a treat as always. After a lunch of leftover sausage and peppers (mmmmmmmmm) I took a little walk just up the road to Woodlawn Cemetery.

At this point in my life, I haven't yet known many people who've shuffled off this mortal coil--but of the ones I've known and loved, the great majority of them are memorialized at Woodlawn. I guess it is considered by some to be kind of our "family cemetery," although this is not strictly true. However, it would be accurate to say that I do share DNA with a fair number of Woodlawn residents.

My grandmother, who was born and grew up in the house I am currently in, was the youngest of six siblings who survived infancy. I realized today that all but one, my great-uncle Eugene, are buried at Woodlawn. Uncle Gene and his wife, Aunt Martha, are in Redmond, Oregon--where they lived much of their lives. We passed through Redmond going from Portland to Sunriver and back again earlier this trip--yet at no time did it even occur to me that I could have stopped off to visit them. After seeing the other five all together this afternoon, I felt sort of negligent about that. Oh, well--perhaps on my next visit.

Other lessons learned today:

1) The wool yarn from Aunt Nanci shrinks to about 75% of the original size when a single strand is knit up and felted.

2) Bacardi 151 will light on fire, but regular Bacardi (80 proof) will not. Which makes for a far less satisfactory Spanish Coffee experience.

3) Buttons can be made out of many materials in a wide variety of colors, sizes and shapes. They are nifty.

4) Garfield the cat (not the one from the funny papers) is very skinny and very sweet, and surprisingly gentle for an outdoor cat.

That's it for this tired Eastern Daylight Time blogger. Happy July!