I have this story posted to BlogSpot too but Donny likes LJ best so I shall be redundant.

The year is 1966. I am just into my last semester as a fine arts student at what was then RPI, now VCU, located in Richmond, Virginia. A division of William & Mary, RPI was a campus cobbled together in the fan district, the part of town where streets fanned out from the centrally located departments stores and town churches to meet the suburbs. School was composed of maybe four actual classroom buildings to include a three story gym with the art department being housed on the third floor. All other classes were held where ever a spot could be found. Mostly carriage houses or old homes.

Campus population was roughly half day students and half boarding, save a separate count of night school students who were mostly professionals adding onto their degrees. Those of us that lived on campus, found ourselves housed in former richly appointed homes. My dorm was the Bocock House on Franklin Street. I was one of its first inhabitants. Mrs Bocock had just opened the second floor of the front half of the house to the college. There were thirteen of us. By the time I graduated our numbers had increased to about twice that size since third floor rooms were added to the mix.

My first room was a corner room (they were huge) and overlooked the formal garden. My second room had hand painted French wall paper that used to drive us insane after a night of drinking. Red, white & blue plumes that danced freely for you. This room was in the middle of the second floor rooms (all the rest were corner rooms) and was actually a sitting room and thus very small compared to the others. Each room had its own bathroom complete with European water closet and claw footed bathtub. We had walk in, and walk through to the adjoining room, closets. Our room had its own small balcony, very Juliet like.

All of this narrative is to set the scene for RPI stories to follow in various posts. It was the sixties, women had curfews and were not allowed to wear pants on campus. I had to wear a raincoat over my bibs to and from art classes to avoid a call to the dean of women's office. I later got one but that is another story and for another reason.

The day of the Dylan concert I was hanging out at Andy's on Grace Street, the favored watering hole of business students. I was told recently by a fellow student that art students just did not go to Andy's. I really was not aware of this pecking order at the time. He explained that art students were not cool enough, or maybe too cool, but they gathered elsewhere. Since my roomie was a retailing major and I dated among her crowd I had a free pass to be among the elite. It was there that my drinking buddy (his gal pal was at home in Georgia birthing their college romance son, no pregnant gals allowed on campus in the sixties) said he had free tickets compliments of a friend that worked in the box office of the Mosque to a nifty concert and would I like to go. He promised it would rock my world. The Mosque was close to campus and appears as it sounds, very big, very ornate and very impressive. All campus dances were held in the lower level ballroom. Another story.

I accept his proposal and we part to prep for our date. When he picked me up, he tells me we can get better tickets than the balcony ones he has. We stop at the box office and trade our second balcony tickets in for front row, first balcony. He explains who I am about to see. I know a little about Dylan. A dorm mate had some of his albums, I thought them rough. The house is not packed and at that it is mostly older folks, I did not see anyone from campus. What kind of concert is this going to be?

Then this skinny guy walks out on the stage of this massive place with its elegant side box seats, ornately domed ceiling and layers of velvet curtains. He sits down in a straight back chair set center stage. He warms up for a minute, probably even smoking a cigarette. And then it begins. I fall in love, He is mesmerizing. A moment in time to treasure. I am a lucky gal.

I am obsessing over Sarah Palin. Whoever thinks anyone is bashing the daughter is playing the game exactly as Karl Rove wants it played, because now Sarah is going to get the underdog being beaten up on sympathy vote. In truth no one cares about Bristol's choices. What the flap is all about is the missing pregnancy pieces.

We see a photo of the Bristol bump in the spring. We see a photo of the svelte but secretly pregnant Sarah in the spring. But we read little to nothing to support or refute the circling rumors about these Palin gals.

We do have the Sarah in Texas story, labor starting, maybe, (fluid leaking IS a good sign). And she gets extreme tunnel vision that new child must be born in Alaska. No problem, I'm good at tunnel vision/obsessing so I personally get her crazy choice to soldier on and head home. I am qualified here, five births (one with leaking fluid) and six plus marathons (same page as birthing). I know the determined focus drill. But, to give a speech BEFORE heading home. (Must have been some speech. I really want to read/see it). Something is not right here. My guy, as supportive as he is with my choices, would have been giving me a speech of his own.

Some say Bristol might sadly have a miscarriage still leaving just one baby. One baby, two babies, it certainly is easy enough with connections to buy/get a baby so any scenario can be played out here. But really folks no one cares if the existing baby is a grandchild or child of Saint Sarah, or if she ends up having one of each. What we care about is cover-ups or lack of judgment, one or the other, and, as of this post, our Saturday Night Live actress look alike has not even been officially nominated yet.

I saw the first dismal match of the Olympics and like everyone thought our gals needed to really rethink their game and get it in gear pretty fast. Then with camp going on I missed all the middle games until the final show down for medal position. And what a different team I saw. They did get it together! They did look sharp and barely missing Abby. Sure Brazil had a few almosts but so did we and we got our one sweet awesome point!

I could not stop taking pictures of the victory celebration. So hope you enjoy the photo recap of that moment.

Congrats USA Womens' Soccer 2008 Olympic Gold Medalists.

The house is still topsy turvy but there a small pockets of sanity and flowers always provide a soothing effect to my way of thinking.

Lewis, Jess, Donny & I had fresh grass fed steaks grilled to perfection. Garden ready organic tomatoes compliments of a neighbor, steamed asparagus and baked potatoes rounded out with a fine merlot made our meal a delightful oasis amid the clutter.

Guess it's a good thing for our journeys that we went to the San Diego Marathon last year and, on the advice of a fellow runner, stopped in at the wonderful Kansas City Barbecue. Sigh, history gone forever, even if they rebuild. But I've got my pre-fire sale T-shirt!

Fire guts San Diego eatery featured in 'Top Gun'
Friday, June 27, 2008 6:49:06 AM

The restaurant where Tom Cruise crooned to Kelly McGillis in the movie "Top Gun" has been gutted by a fire in San Diego.

A cook at Kansas City Barbecue says the blaze started Thursday in an open cooking pit and spread quickly to the rest of the restaurant's interior.

San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokesman Maurice Luque says the landmark restaurant is "destroyed."

But no one was hurt and the fire was extinguished in about 20 minutes.

A sign in the restaurant notes that the 1986 movie's "sleazy bar scene" was filmed there.

Luque estimates the damage at $400,000, not including the cost of photographs and props.

It was a swift trip to Equador for Sherry & Ionel in late May to be with Brandon at his splendid wedding. Things moved rather quickly from a Wednesday announcement by Sherry to the Friday wedding at Andrea's aunt's villa which Sherry said was a stunning mansion full of flowers at every turn.

We would have gone had we been asked we teased Brandon's sister, Stephanie when she and Jon had dinner with us during their vacation here last week. We too stated Stephanie except for the 2K per ticket!

And so we send our best wishes instead.

Seems like my sidebar is not showing up on all browsers. Sorry about that. Here is the link to The Other Me.

I'm going to wander over to The Other Me for a while so if you want to catch up on my wandering and wondering drop in there.

What a fun pre-Easter we had. We dyed eggs. We hide eggs. M&L hunted for eggs. And the nectarine trees were in bloom, almost as good as cherry blossoms. The weather was nippy but it did not daunt our outdoor fun, just sped it along some.

Lydia was pretty funny about finding Martin's eggs. (We had pre-marked the loot so they would have equal bounty and surprises). L would pick the egg up and see an M and just drop it like a hot potato.

Martin was more to the point in a totally different way. He just dropped the egg in Lydia's bucket. Or directed her to it.

Just wait until we have two more to pump up the activites even more!

D is slowly but very surely getting his second generation guys basketball team. AJ just added to the count with their announcement that they too are having a BOY!!

Donny told Andrew that the two couples might want to move even closer to each other so that the boys can be on the same sports teams and go to the same schools.

It is almost like having same sex twins. These guys will have two moms and two dads close at hand.

What fun!