Lots to say, but nothing that makes a coherent post!

• I've found and bought a camera like mine on eBay.  Photos will resume as soon as it arrives.
• As luck would have it, the old camera has decided to work just fine today.  I knew this would happen, but have my doubts about how long it will continue.  Proof?

• Weather this summer has been just plain strange.  There've been more hot days than usual (4 weeks worth so far, and we're heading into our warmest months: September and October), and the rest of the time it's been cooler than usual.  The fog comes in at night and doesn't leave until about noon which is normal for San Francisco, but not so normal for Fremont.
• I've been in a decluttering, cleaning, getting-rid-of-excess-stuff mood all summer.  I don't seem to be making a dent, but the garbage and recycle bins are full every week and I've made several trips to St. Vincent de Paul, and we left out 8 garbage bags of clothes for one of the charities that picks things up. 
  
• The garden is growing like crazy.  Next year I want to plant more different vegetables.  Ken will eat veggies we grow even if he normally professes to dislike them.  I can deal with that.
• My projects-other-than-knitting list is almost as long as my knitting-projects-in-progress list.  I need to focus on a couple of each and get them finished.
• I've lost the pattern for my turquoise sweater AGAIN.  It seems like I lose this pattern every time I touch it, which might seem life a hint!  I'm loving the sweater and the knitting, so this constant misplacing is making me crazy.

My camera is still on the fritz, so for photos, go to Joan's blog.

We went to see the old and beautiful cars at Hot August Niles after Ken and Darrell finished on the roof.  Joan and I looked at antiques and yarn while the guys looked at cars.   We had lunch at The Nile.  I picked tomatoes.  

Sunday was more of the same.  Ken volunteered for Golden Spike again.  I got a pedicure, worked in the garden, visited with Joan and Will, and watched the Olympics.

(Because I have all the doo-dads for my current camera and haven't had the time or the urge to actually upgrade my camera, I'm watching several of that model on eBay.  Buying time for proper research into a new camera, while using one that's familiar and meets most of my needs is the best approach for me.  With luck I'll have a replacement by late this week.) 

Nine years ago today I received a series of telephone calls and messages that changed my life.  While on the last motorcycle runs around the racetrack at Laguna Seca before lunch, Ken had met with an accident and was in the hospital (CHOMP - really - Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula) unconscious, and could I come at once?

I did, or tried to.  Traffic was awful and it took 5 hours to go 100 miles.  When I got there, he'd been moved to the ICU and was now officially in a coma and not expected to survive.  His doctors were not optimistic; if he lived through the night he'd probably remain in a coma until he died; if he came out of the coma he'd most likely need to be institutionalized.

Ken is very stubborn, and he's certainly proved that doctors don't know everything!

It's a long story, and one that we look back on rather fondly because it's probably what pushed us to get married - we'd long before decided that living in sin was more to our liking.  The road back to anything resembling a normal life was long and challenging, and I am very proud of Ken and what he's achieved.

I was reminded this weekend of how much our lives have changed.  Ken and Darrell, a work-car-radio-motorcycle friend, installed a ham radio antenna on the roof of Ken's shop.  Yes, the man who was supposed to spend the rest of his life in a nursing home was climbing around on the roof of his shop, standing on a ladder tightening nuts on bolts and generally scaring me to death.  (I was knitting on the patio.  Actually, I was pacing the patio and the yard with knitting in hand for the 2 hours they spent on the roof.)

All this work was in support of something I don't think I've ever mentioned here.  Apparently Ken wanted to have a ham radio license in high school, but Morse Code was required and he was never proficient enough.  It's not required now, so Ken and Darrell took and passed their technician-level tests about 6 weeks ago.  

Although Ken had relearned many things since the stroke that caused his accident (swallowing, walking, talking, reading, writing, driving, the technical computer engineering he does for work) the ham radio license was the first new skill he'd studied for and achieved.  This makes it very special.  

I'm very proud of him, and love the stubbornness that keeps him going.  Sometimes that stubbornness can be a bit wearing, but I remind myself that, without it, our lives would be very different. 

A local classical music radio station has played "Classic Olympics " all week: head to head "competition" between two pieces of classical music with a theme, and listeners vote for the winner.  Categories included Husband vs. Wife, Bento Boxing, Swan vs. Swan and 47 others.

The last competition was Canon vs. Cannon, and it's predictable: Pachelbel's Canon vs. The 1812 Overture.  I love both pieces and enjoyed hearing them today.  I was transported back to high school band in west Texas and our performances of the 1812 Overture.  This flashback revolved around the explosions at the end of the piece.

We had a cannon in the courtyard of my high school, Civil War vintage (presented by former student Laura Welch's family - you know her now as the First Lady, Laura Bush), but of course, we couldn't fire that. 

Instead, members of the percussion section brought in their own shotguns, with minimal loads for safety, and those were fired into buckets of sand.  

Can you imagine kids bringing their shotguns to music classes and performances now?

Can you believe that we thought this was the way anyone performing this piece would handle the explosions? 

To us, this was normal. 

I did grow up in Texas, and got my first gun when I was 12.  Like everyone I knew, there was a pistol under the front seat of my car when I learned to drive.  My parents cannot believe I don't have a gun in my car now, but CA requires a concealed weapon permit which is not easy to get.  In TX you take and pass a class for a concealed weapon permit and both my parents have one.

My purpose in writing about this is not to create controversy or pro- or anti-gun comment.  It is meant solely as a reminder that many of us did grow up in more innocent times, and that in some ways it's too bad that life has gotten so much more complicated. 

(My camera continues to frustrate me, so no photos.  Sometimes it claims to save a photo, but there's nothing to download, other times it won't turn on.  DRAT!)  Fortunately other bloggers are posting new memes!  First, as seen at Erica's :

White Knight
Take Your Secret Self 1 Step Beyond today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

Your Deadly Sins

Greed: 40% Gluttony: 20% Lust: 20% Wrath: 20% Envy: 0% Pride: 0% Sloth: 0% Chance You'll Go to Hell: 14% You will die love and feared by many. And you'll be buried in a tomb.

On this date in 2000, in our backyard with 200 friends and family in attendance, Ken and I were married.

My sister sang, we cried, a letter from Mama Goode (my high school biology teacher) was read, we laughed, we kissed, we cried some more, John toasted (and almost cried), a glass was broken, children played, friends talked, motorcycles were admired - it was a wonderful day!

It seems like just an instant, and it seems like forever.  So much has happened, not just in the eight years we've been married, but in the 16 (or 18, depending on when you start counting) years we've known each other.

Ken and I initially "met" electronically in 1990.  He was a customer of NetFRAME (a defunct company that created superservers, was sold to Micron, and ceased to exist in Silicon Valley), I was the technical support specialist for OS/2 and LanManager.  We'd talk while he waited for a Novell specialist.  Two years later, NetFRAME hired him and he moved from New York to Silicon Valley.  

We were part of the older folks at work, the not-fresh-out-of-college-and-first-job group, that went to lunch occasionally.  I was married; Mr. Ken was dating a former friend of mine.  In 1994 I left NetFRAME (because I was making a lot of changes in my life - not all of them smart), my ex-husband and I divorced, I moved to our rental house and mostly lost touch with Ken.   Our friend John used my back storage shed for his Lotus, and occasionally I'd be home when he and Ken came over to work on it, but usually not.

Fast forward to 1997, and the impending sale of NetFRAME to Micron.  John had moved to Houston, and he called to remind me of a party to commemorate the closing of a division of NetFRAME.  I'd decided to pass, but John insisted that I had to take a message to Ken for him so I reluctantly agreed to go for a while.  

Ken was late to the party.  Really late.  Late enough that I'd spent almost 3 hours there, had seen and talked to everyone I cared about and a few people I didn't.  I heard a murmur of "hi Ken" and turned to see him smiling.  I went over and he hugged me.  I gave him John's message (it wasn't earthshaking, Ken asked why John didn't just email him, and neither of us remembers the message) and he hugged me again.  We hugged until people started teasing us.  We parted, made polite conversation, and I went on my way.

A week later, Ken emailed me: "You wouldn't want to go out with me sometime, would you?"  I did indeed, we did on the next Friday (dinner and a book store visit), and we've been together ever since. 

It's wonderful that we get to celebrate over and over!  Happy anniversary, my dear.  Happy anniversary to us!