Stefanie Pettit

This is about losing Joan. As I’ve gotten older I go back home to Florida quite regularly so I can visit with friends and family. We’re all in our 60s or older now, so postponing these trips doesn’t make a lot of sense. Even so, I wouldn’t go as often as I do were it not for my dear, dear friend Joan.

People have been talking about me and writing about me my whole life. Let me explain. I’m a baby boomer, but more than that, I’m pretty much “the” baby boomer. There’s been a lot of discussion already about the first of the baby boom generation, those born in January 1946, turning 65 this month, and what that means for the nation.

It was time to find a new home for Chicken. This free-range barnyard bird who appeared in my yard nearly a year ago came through last year’s mild winter nicely – and with neither a covered/heated shelter nor a fenced-in area for protection. She roosted under our deck, under a spruce tree, 15 feet up in another tree and who knows where else – and wandered wherever she darn well pleased. Sleeping around like that probably helped her evade the raccoons, skunks and coyotes who travel the urban wildlife corridor that goes through my backyard.

Downtown Spokane is filled with wonderful old buildings having histories and stories dating to the city’s early days. Some of these structures are not in such great shape, but others have been refurbished and stand as functioning, useful buildings that give a nod to the past and promise for the future. One such dusted-off and polished building is the especially attractive Hale Block at 231 W. Riverside Ave.

What I did on my summer vacation – actually, I’m still doing it – I went back home to see family and friends. If hurricanes remained offshore, I am now in Florida visiting a lot of the people I care most about in the world and, with any luck, am enjoying sea bass, hush puppies, black-eyed peas with pot likker and real Key lime pie. The tastes of home! It couldn’t be hotter, more humid or more vulnerable to hurricanes than it is right now in Florida. Dumb time to go, I know, but it works out right for me, though it’s not exactly a restful vacation. I’ll be driving all over the state to spend a day or two with everyone. Mostly we’ll just sit (or float in a pool) and talk, share some meals, look at the past year’s photos of children’s marriages, new grandchildren and those landmarks that are important in our lives.

This is about e-mail and about texting, both of which are still really irritating me. A lot. True, I irritate more easily than I used to, but c’mon, some of this stuff is just too much.

Alexsis Schell was always a good student. Until she wasn’t. She routinely got good grades when she’d go to school, but then she stopped going. She didn’t get along with teachers, got into fights with other students, skipped classes to hang out with friends. In time she ran away from home, got into legal trouble and spent time in juvenile detention.

At this weekend’s annual celebration of gay pride in Vancouver, B.C., the highlight will be a big and joyous parade, an event which should, based on last year’s numbers, draw more than 600,000 people – my son Sam being among them. Sam will drive up from Seattle during what is a way-too-busy season for him because, as he says, “I like who I am and, frankly, I like to go to a good party.”