There are no pics this week.
We’re going to China in a week and a half. If everything works, it will be easy to find us. Part of our trip is in some pretty remote areas, so there may be times we are unavailable. To contact us, call or Email as you usually would. We each have an hour of prepaid calls. Calls are basically free, even though we are in China. (Is technology cool, or what?) If that doesn’t work, Jul and Mark will have alternate ways to get hold of us. Contact them; they will forward the message.
Dennis: 410-417-8854, deichenlaub@gmail.com
Danita: 410-709-8854, smart.lady@verizon.net
Julia: 704-506-5500, julia.e.reed@gmail.com
Mark: 410-446-6988, mark.d.eichenlaub@gmail.com
We had a miserable, rainy week. It was cloudy or raining continuously every day. It didn’t make as much difference to me, because I spent the week hacking away with my cold anyway. I was feeling better, but still coughing.
We usually go out to dinner on Thursdays. This week, we decided to try a place we hadn’t been to yet in historic Ellicott City. It was doubly attractive because the county had just removed the parking meters from the area. (That’s something that doesn’t happen very often! I’ll probably vote for our new county executive until he stops running for office.) But the trip was fraught with misadventures. Nothing major — no wrinkled cars or hurt people. Just multiple misadventures. There’s no way I could explain everything that happened. The short story is that we ended up eating leftovers at home. Historic Ellicott City is a area 6 blocks long and 2 blocks wide. The area was built over 100 years ago. They mostly have original buildings. It’s right next to the Patapsco River, with steep hills on either side. It usually floods once a year or so. The area has a lot of charm and is quite popular. I like biking there. But we’ve never had a great experience eating or shopping there. I think we’ll be focusing our energies on other parts of the county in the future.
We spent the last of the rain this week at a SOCA party Friday evening. Afterwards, Rob showed the most recent “Hunger Games” movie. I had seen this with somebody (Kathryn, I think). It was still a nice movie the second time around.
The sun came back Saturday morning. We spent the better part of the day at a funeral for Danita’s Aunt Ann. Ann was the last Hartka of her generation. (But a few spouses are still around.) She lived the last years of her life out West, near her son. This was the “East Coast” funeral, because so much of the Hartka family is still in the Baltimore area. The priest gave one of the better funeral homilies I’ve heard. I complimented him on the way out. He said it’s the homily he gave at his Dad’s funeral. Pretty remarkable priest, if you ask me. His was also a large family, still centered in Baltimore.
Since we went to Mass Saturday, we decided to play hooky from Church today. But we didn’t skip eating Sunday breakfast out. The weather today is fabulous. Earlier this week, I spent a rainy afternoon replacing tires, chain, and brake pads on my bike. I was happy to have great weather and enough time for a nice shake-down ride. We’re hosting Circle this evening. Danita made some kind of cake that is smelling pretty good. Our subject tonight will be “Bucket Lists”.
I hope this finds everybody doing well.