I’m so vain

Yesterday I took the grandsons agate hunting on Park Point at 10AM. The Tall ships had already arrived and were moored around the Harbor. It was an excuse to swim, dig in the sand, skip stones get sunburned. Claudia was finishing a 5000 word paper for her Seminary class so giving her some time to concentrate was the goal. We spent four hours with me stopping to take pictures to add later to Facebook. I don’t put them in the blog often because I get censured and criticized and stuff and I don’t want grandsons to have to deal with the burdens of my infamy. My kids got enough of that. Its also why I only have linked Facebook to a couple dozen “friends” who are either family or very close. As it is they inundate Facebook with so much stuff it boggles my mind. If I had a hundred or a thousand “friends” I would have so much stuff sent my way my family member’s posts would be lost in the flood.

After getting good burns we walked back to the Ariel Lift Bridge where one last tall ship was readying itself to enter the Harbor. We stayed put to watch it enter under the bridge before heading off to Cloud 9’s hibachi. It was the only restaurant both boys could settle on and that was grudging. Still, who wouldn’t want to have an hibachi chef fling morsels from his spatula to your mouth. I caught mine after two attempts. One Grandson caught them twice. We were out till close to five and I had to get them back to taekwondo as they snacked on goodies from Hepzibah’s Candies. An ill timed bridge raising made the candy stop convenient and dry as the clouds were spitting on us.

Today I had a short ten O’clock meeting of the Transfer Appeal Committee to consider a request to have a child admitted to a school outside the boundaries of his/her residence. Then I had to head over to the Damiano Center to serve lunch with my church group.

This summer has been wonderfully mundane like this. I’ve only blogged sporadically, even though I am often keen to do it however these wonderfully bland things happen and horn in. Monday we went fishing on a pontoon boat when Claudia’s brother came into town. Claudia caught a fish and her picture with it makes it look as though it bit her and is dangling from her nose. Its on Facebook. This Sunday we are stealing the boys away before school starts and taking them on a mostly Wisconsin adventure to the House on the Rock and the Dells with a Sunday trip to see South Pacific at the Guthrie.

Its a damn shame that all the kids in the Duluth Schools don’t have grandparents or even parents who can do this. As a member of the Duluth School Board I would love to even things out for such kids. This years I’m beginning to feel like something other than a heretic on the Board. Golly, I was successful in seeing to it that the Minnesota Ballet found a place to fix up its tattered costumes. Yippee!

Most of this is Facebook bait but I do keep the “Harry’s Diary” section to give readers the sense that I manage to be human once in a while. That’s part of the reason I sculpt snow. I once got an angry email from a critic who ended her missive “And I hate your snow sculptures!” I knew exactly what she meant. She didn’t like the fact that they made me a sympathetic fellow since I was doing such horrible things as a school board member. Its one of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten. And as for this post? I offer it up in the same vain….or is that vein….or vane?

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