Summer is Here!

 Celebrating summer with this week's Saturday Morning Doodle!

Now that it's after Memorial Day, the summer is upon us. Vacations, having fun at the beach, riding a bike through a canyon, sipping some iced tea by the pool.

Enjoy!

Views of Century Plaza Hotel...

From my August stay...

SCBWI Black and White Ball last Saturday night in Los Angeles

The Wake

(This first part is from last Sunday, so excuse the references to "Today")
About 4pm on Sunday November 9th 2008, I got it in my head to buy some flowers and take them to where Holly and I were often seen in public.
So I bought a dozen roses and drove down the hill from my house to Coulon Park. Holly and I used to walk there every day that she would stay with me and afterward, in the summer or if the weather was nice, we'd sit on a hill and watch out onto the lake. We'd have long talks there and snack on grapes or sandwiches we'd bought. I went to a pier and one by one, threw out 10 of the twelve roses onto the water. One of them landed on a big rock below. The others scattered in the water. The one on the rock might have been Holly symbolically. The rest of the roses on the water drifted over to the spot where we used to always sit. That's when I started crying. After a half hour, it started to get dark. I was dark enough with all the clouds we had today.
I got in my car and drove over to where Holly and I first met. Enatai Beach. It was the half way point from where I used to live and Holly's condo. I always road my bike through there and that one day I stopped and met Holly. I walked over to the spot where we met, third fence poll from the end of the cement dock where she was sitting in her chaise lounge. I placed the remaining two roses on that spot and thought back to when we had met. Tears were streaming out of my eyes by then. I looked around and it was so beautiful in the oncoming darkness of the evening. It was 5:30 and I heard a noise behind me. There were two long kayaks being pulled out of the water onto the beach by 6 people. I stayed for a while longer thinking of Holly and left to get some tissue to blow my nose with. I cried all the way home.
My eyes were still wet while writing this.
Hope you are well. I am embracing Holly's memory today.

The day after that was the official date of Holly's death. After work I met up with my friend Anne, who knew Holly well and we went to see a movie. (A terrible thing call "Rachel getting married") and had some dinner. That helped with the day but I still felt bad inside.
Wednesday night I went to the SCBWI meeting and that was fun. Thursday our bosses at Microsoft decided to give us a free evening of pool at a swanky new Billiard palour in Bellevue. Free food and drinks. That was also much fun. I thank them for being so kind to me on this week.

Arizona

I'm not sure why I called this piece Arizona,.. something in the sketch reminded me of some time I spent there about 10 years ago. Anyway, I thought it looked a bit like sumer, since we are not having much of a summer up here in the PNW, I thought a nice reminder of summer would be nice. Peace out.

Memorial birthday pix for Holly McClure

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Some favorite photos of my late girlfriend Holly McClure for her birthday today. I'll be playing pool for her at The Garage in Seattle on Capital Hill. She loved to play pool as well as Scrabble. I can't play Scrabble alone but I can play pool alone. This is for you sweetie. I miss you and love you.