FRIDAY FENCE POST #57

Just two pictures each of two fences today, and I'm late! I'll cheat and tell the computer I posted them yesterday, but here it is, after eight in the morning on Saturday, and I'm just putting the photos up. I tried last night, but was soooo tired.

But with good reason! This weekend is the 18th Annual Parker Ladies' Night Out, and yesterday I drove to Seaside, on the Oregon coast, to be with the thirty-four of my cousins, mom, Aunt Charlotte, and second and third cousins, and first cousins twice removed, etc. who could make it.

There are no children, and no men allowed at the reunions. It's just as many women from my Mom's side of the family as can come. Every year, it seems, there's someone we've never met, or a cousin who wasn't old enough to come before. Last night, we sat in the living room and introduced ourselves, telling our names, where we live, and which of the Parker siblings we sprang from--"I'm Anitra, Lee Parker was my Grandpa, and I live in Portland". "I'm Cordie. Conor Parker was my dad, and I'm named for his Mama, Cordie Bell."

It is so much fun to get together. A little strange, too, to watch us all age. I realized on the way to the coast yesterday that I was no longer one of the young people. How weird is that?! I still feel very young! And then someone said of my mama, "I think Pawnee is the matriarch this year." My mom, the oldest one left standing. Her Aunt Katie is bedridden now, and living sometime in her youth, in her mind. Cousin Melody says sometimes Great-aunt Katie will do something like give a little pleased gasp, say, "O! There he is!" and then wiggle her fingers in a hello wave and almost giggle, "Hellooo!" Melody says it's really cute.

But the fences. I took the bird fence picture on a brief walk after I arrived here. The other fence I spotted last year, loved, but didn't get back to before the hydrangeas had gone.



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Time for breakfast, and then a couple of crafts, and then a shopping contest: Take no more than five dollars, buy a gift, bring it back to the house and wrap and number it. We'll have a gift exchange, and then vote on who's the best bargain hunter. Now doesn't that sound like all kinds of fun? I think so!