Last week our grandchildren and children were here for a visit. As the colder season and the holidays are in full swing my wife looked through local offerings for kids’ activities especially including indoors. She found a music class at our local library. We are members and visit the library at some regular cadence. It has an extensive range of audio books, borrowing these does not require an in-person visit, but can be done via their app. We still enjoy reading “real books”, and we frequently order titles that get staged for us in the Sunriver branch. This branch has just recently reopened – a new bright building with large windows, an open floorplan, reading nooks and a very friendly staff. The music class was our first opportunity to show the library to our grandkids. We discovered the children area – with shelfs after shelfs of children books, a library

Looking back, I have probably emptied the dishwasher over 100 times or more in my life. Still this time I noticed something for the first time. In our cupboard we have sets of cups associated with table ware sets that we have purchased over time – some still complete and some slightly diminished through breakage. Located at the back of the cupboard are all the one-off, two-off cups that are less frequently used. These could be gifts; these could be giveaways from exhibits and shows or craft projects that we or our kids participated in over many years. As I was lining them up in the cupboard it occurred to me that collectively these cups can tell a pretty good life story of our family. There is the JEOL cup – issued by an e-beam mask writing company I collaborated with for many years in my line of work, there

Having friends with whom one can discuss a wide range of topics like family, life, politics – is a blessing. One can learn, test ideas or just have fun recounting stories old and new – some awkward, some embarrassing or just funny. There are lighter topics; and some are heavier, for example caring for one’s elderly parents. A nearly unlimited field of course are topics of daily politics. The fact that the personal convictions in our group of friends point in all kinds of different directions creates ample opportunities for discussion or even arguments. In such conversations inadvertently one finds oneself attempting to convince the other participants of one’s own opinion. In a recent get-together we got into a heated discussion that ended not in a good spot – we finally paused, individually exasperated, exhausted and even somewhat angry. It felt like nobody wanted to arrive at such a point