August started with our Vancouver trip and lots of activity. It ended with some happily puttery outings.

Thursday, August 26th
On Thursday, we headed down to North Canton to visit with Aunt Mary. We ordered take-out Chinese food, and my portion was huge but very good. We watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, and had a good visit. Mer’s father called Aunt Mary just after Jeopardy, so Aunt Mary chatted for about 15 minutes with the TV on mute. Mer and I were rather fascinated to watch some bizarre show where contestants tried to race to a finish line while various active obstacles tried to knock the people into water or mud or the like. It was especially strange to watch it with the sound off. Not anything we’re going to make a habit of watching, but it was amusing once.

Friday, August 27th
Friday was the start of the high school football season, and we had a home game. It is tradition for CVCA to throw a potluck dinner for the staff and faculty the evening of the first football game, and so Mer and I had a very good time visiting with fellow colleagues and eating too much. I went out early for my personal tradition of cheering on the band as they walked by the school, and then I followed them into the stadium for the game. Mer joined me toward the end of the first quarter. It was an entertaining game, and I had a very good time hanging out down near the band. Mer and I left during the third quarter since I was getting up early the next day, but the game was pretty well in hand since we were leading 21-0. I later heard that we won 28-7.

Saturday, August 28th
Saturday I went running with Jason, and this time Jim and Nate were able to join us. Jim and Nate are not in active training for a full marathon, so they turned around at about mile 7 (for a 14-mile run), and Jason and I pushed on to a little over 10 miles (for a 20+-mile run). It was a cool morning, and the run felt very good. It was great to have Jim and Nate along.

Around noon, Mer and I headed up to University Circle in Cleveland. Three years ago, Mer had told a former student, Elizabeth, that after our house sold, we would come up to Case Western University and take her out to lunch. Well, the house finally sold, so we took Elizabeth out to lunch. She picked a small restaurant called Tommy’s that has a huge menu and is known for its milkshakes. I had the cookies and cream shake, and Elizabeth had the malt shake. We got a closed-on-three sides booth, so we had lots of privacy and the conversation flowed nicely. We caught up on Elizabeth’s life, and ate some very good food.  After we finished eating, we drove back to Case Western, and Elizabeth took us on a 30-minute tour of the campus, which is very pretty.

To finish Saturday up, Mer wanted to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, which we had been given on VHS as a white elephant gift last Christmas. I had not seen the film in years, and it is still excellent. It has held up very well, and the effects are still pretty good. The only thing that looked dated to me was the film quality – the 30-year-old film looked really grainy to me now.

Tuesday, August 31st (last Tuesday! I’m caught up on blogging!)
This year, Mer wants to make a concerted effort to get to more extracurricular activities at CVCA, so she can support her students. On last Tuesday, we drove the 3 miles or so to Silver Lake Country Club to watch our men’s golf team in action. I was not expecting much because I know almost nothing about golf, but I had a good time. We are pretty good friends with  the golf team’s coach, “Booch” (a nickname based on a shortened version of Jon’s last name, Bucciarelli), and it was a beautiful day to be outside, and we got to drive around the place in a golf cart, which is a surprisingly fun thing to do. We stayed and watched the last three holes, which took about an hour, and it was a pleasant way to spend an hour. Our guys won, which was a bonus, and Mer got to support one of her students and I got to encourage one of the guys in my Connections Group.

It was almost 7:00 once we got away from the links, so I decided to take Mer to eat at Aladdin’s in Hudson. Sadly, our favorite server, and Mer’s former student, Cara, was not working that night. We take Cara’s good service for granted, but she stood out. We did not have terrible service, but everything took a long time – between a long delay in ordering and in getting the check, we were at our table for an hour to eat a single wrap (me) and a bowl of soup (Mer). We need to not take Cara’s good service for granted anymore!

August was an interesting month between the Vancouver trip, an early start to school, really hot days for much of the month with some perfect days toward the end, and a settling back into a routine. The Vancouver trip already seems like a long time ago, and it is really strange to think we already have three full weeks of school done.