Monday Reflections

On this day in 2011, Annie and I were visiting Northern Ireland on my first trip to Ireland. 

Since it rained too much yesterday to take any photos and since it's now less than one week until St. Patrick's Day, I decided to post a few photos from that day where we spent time in Derry, Belfast and the Giant's Causeway. 

At the time Dolly Parton was due to be in Belfast in the fall.  We both said we needed to come back again and bring Debbie with us to see Dolly. 

That didn't happen, but Debbie has now been to Ireland twice; Annie, countless times and I've visited eight times. 

The place and its people tend to capture one's heart and never let go. 

 

On this day, four years ago, March 11, 2020, the world entered a phase unlike anything we had ever experienced. 

From this morning's New York Times newsletter:

Shortly after noon Eastern on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared Covid — or “the coronavirus,” then the more popular term---to be a global pandemic. Stocks plummeted in the afternoon.

 In the span of a single hour that night, President Donald Trump delivered an Oval Office address about Covid, Tom Hanks posted on Instagram that he had the virus and the N.B.A. announced it had canceled the rest of its season.

The Love family (Bill, Marianne, Willie, Debbie and Annie) was all set to take another trip to Ireland, leaving March 26. 

We held a family meeting and eventually agreed to cancel our plans.  

That gathering was the last time we could see Annie until Bill and I drove hiking trail near Wenatchee a few weeks later where we met her and visited while keeping our distance while hiking. 

It was a strange, sad and disturbing world for all of us.  

Thankfully, life has returned to a somewhat normal. The family evenually met in Ireland in 2022 and we no longer have to keep our distance. 

  Bill and I will be getting our Covid boosters tomorrow in hopes that it stays that way for us. 

We all love to travel, and we hope to continue our adventures, thanks to being careful and keeping boosted.  

My blog is late and not quite complete because we had an incident in our yard this morning.

 A white truck went off the road, drove into our field south of the yard and then continued on through our beautiful yard and tore out of our driveway.

So, we've called law enforcement and have actually talked to a witness who saw it all, as both Bill and I did from different vantage points. 

Not a great or happy way to start a Monday morning, but we'll do whatever is necessary to resolve this situation. 

In the meantime, I have included a video from yesterday's CBS "Sunday Morning."  

It's about using closed captioning as opposed to listening to television shows. 

And, it features the family of my former student and Bill's former Boy Scout Jason McMunn. 

As Jason said yesterday on Facebook, he can cross "appearing on national television" off from his list. 

Thought you would enjoy, and it's always neat to see former students, especially on national television. 

You DON'T have to turn on closed captioning; you can actually listen to what they have to say. 

Happy Monday.  

 GAME DAY for ZAGS

West Coast Conference Tournament

Women (29-2) play Pacific at noon PDT. 

ESPN+  

Men ((24-6) play San Francisco at 8:30 p.m. 

ESPN2

Let's GO, ZAGS

Take those tournament trophies!