The highs: spending time on Easter Sunday with our son’s girlfriend and her dad, visiting from Russia, tasting wine and sharing a picnic lunch at V. Sattui, our 20th anniversary of doing so, then tasting wine again at Benziger Winery. We love her, he loves our son; we’ll see how that goes. And he’s so Russian! He takes pictures of walls of wine bottles, delis full of cheese and meat, and shares them with his friends in Moscow. Moscow could do worse than to emulate California.

So Easter weekend was so much fun, with those two, and then we had great rain, including thunder, hail and toad-strangling squalls. I spent an inordinate amount of time watching the rain, hail, and dramatic cloudporn blowing through.

Wednesday we cleaned house big time for our hosting of Kameo & Steve’s visit. We had 9 of our collective besties show up for chicken envueltos, asparagus quesadillas, spinach, strawberry & goat cheese salad; chips and salsa & homemade guacamole. Jen is vegan so Chris made vegan versions of both main dishes. He made Spanish rice in the pressure cooker that was a big fail; I should have bought white rice & let him run with it. It wasn’t bad but wasn’t what he’d planned.

Despite the rice all else went off without a hitch and we had a terrifically fun evening reconnecting with distant friends and close-by friends as well. I cannot tell you how fulfilled and satisfied and overwhelmed I was when K said that when she comes back to Vacaville, she thinks of us first. I haven’t had a best friend so loyal in many years. Donna in Grand Junction comes to mind…and I so love these women and am grateful to the richness they bring to my life.

May 28th K’s son will graduate high school. We’ve known him since he was a toddler. We were the rock he needed when his dad walked out 2 wks. before Christmas. We enveloped them here and at their former home for years, as K’s ex worked through his challenges. We’re so happy he’s graduating; for a while  that was iffy. He found himself, and we’re so freaking proud of him. I look forward to watching him walk in his cap & gown, and weeping as I did when watching my own kids graduate high school and college.

The lows: I started coming down with “something” Monday. It’s kind of a headcold today. Meh. Feh. Bleah

Chris’s friend since college passed today. Chris was single and Bud had a wife and 2 kids, then 3 kids, and then we got married. Ginnie & Bud and Annie, Becky and Stevie were big parts of our lives before and after our marriage. When I struggled with being a new mother, Ginnie was there for me, and helped me handle all the new stuff a new mom has to deal with. I learned much about mothering & coping from her, and owe her many props for how much she helped us.

We moved to CA in 1986, when baby Gallagher #2 was 6 weeks old, and the Phillips family did as well; they were in Sacramento. We drove up to spend Thanksgiving (4 days, IIRC) with them. It was cold, and rainy, and we saw a kids’-specific movie, and enjoyed all the fun _–Annie (Clhoë) holding the wee Colin; Becky & Steve playing with 4 y.o. Meave; Ginnie telling us how using real butter in a recipe would “grease the bowels.”

So here’s the point of this post: The patriarch of that family, Bud, died today. We knew he was on hospice, and his lung cancer was too advanced for chemo, and Annie & Becky kept us informed, and we sent messages of love, encouragement, and memories of great times through them. It’s a sad, sad day for the Phillips family. I miss Bud and all of them. I’m grateful for Chloe’s and Rebecca’s FB follows. Your dad was amazing. RIP, Ned Phillips.