Weekend
My brother and his wife visited this weekend. They drove up on Saturday, and we visited our Yapese friend, Theo, who is in the area because his granddaughter just had a liver transplant at Children's Hospital. We got the low-down on the transplant, which sounded very scary but apparently went very well. We also got a lot of stories about what's going on out on Yap right now, including Theo's take on the Chinese proposal to build resorts on the island. Theo is against it, but his brother, Tony, who is currently the governor, is for it. As my brother said later, the previous governor was for it, too, and no doubt they look at it from the perspective of, "How do we create a cash economy on this isolated island?" I'm dubious that it would actually be beneficial to the Yapese, but I have no idea what else they can do. As we also discussed, it seems like the answer the Yapese themselves are finding is to move to the US, often serving in the military so they can become citizens. Theo said that at this point in his life (he's three years older than me), his only goal is to help his children and grandchildren have a better life. He has no ambitions for himself any more. He was also more voluble about his Christian faith than he has been in the past, although he wasn't evangelical about it. The stories and wry laughs still flowed, and it was so heart-warming to see him again. He again told us we had to come back to Yap so that he could discuss some things with us family-to-family. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but in the past he has offered Lonnie a chance to build a house out there. I doubt that will happen, but the offer represents a sense of strong connection. Nonetheless, he more or less shooed us away after a couple of hours of chat. He had been receiving texts the whole time from family and friends asking about his granddaughter, so he needed to get back to that.
The three of us spent the rest of the day chewing the fat. I took them up to the 5 Spot for dinner, and then to the Hilltop Ale House for a beer. The next morning, after breakfast at the Blue Star (we'd had breakfast at Roxy's on Saturday), they headed home. There's talk of a family trip to Maui in June. Their oldest son is working at a dive shop out there. I hope I can join them, but I still need to work out the details with my boss, who has been out with pneumonia for over two weeks now.
I also went to the fannish pubmeet on Sunday, where there was much talk of Puppies, Prologue, and the Sasquan fanzine lounge. What's Prologue, you ask? It's a relaxicon that Ulrika O'Brien is chairing and which will be held in the Seattle area the weekend before Sasquan. You should come, whether or not you're going to Sasquan. It should be a damn fine time.
The three of us spent the rest of the day chewing the fat. I took them up to the 5 Spot for dinner, and then to the Hilltop Ale House for a beer. The next morning, after breakfast at the Blue Star (we'd had breakfast at Roxy's on Saturday), they headed home. There's talk of a family trip to Maui in June. Their oldest son is working at a dive shop out there. I hope I can join them, but I still need to work out the details with my boss, who has been out with pneumonia for over two weeks now.
I also went to the fannish pubmeet on Sunday, where there was much talk of Puppies, Prologue, and the Sasquan fanzine lounge. What's Prologue, you ask? It's a relaxicon that Ulrika O'Brien is chairing and which will be held in the Seattle area the weekend before Sasquan. You should come, whether or not you're going to Sasquan. It should be a damn fine time.