Photoessay #66 - Our sentry, Fluffy

This sentry is not a real gull, it's plaster or cement, anyway not sentient, it's a pretend gull. We inherited "Fluffy' (named by the artist) from my father-in-law who purchased him somewhere in Santa Cruz. For the last decades, my father-in-law always had a gull like this guarding his deck. It amused him.

I miss Jim, he's been gone over a year and a half. He was having a lot of problems with self-care and life management issues but he died suddenly. He could be stubborn but mainly he was gentle and happy to spend time with us. My husband puts the gull up every spring on our upper deck. I know he thinks of his dad every time he looks at it.

One day last week, I was taking pictures with the camera pointing up. I was thinking more of looking through the foliage towards the sky. I might post another picture of tree canopies. This picture is looking up at our higher deck from the lower deck. Through the gull and up to the sky.

You can see my pots of geraniums and petunias on the deck. They are doing quite well. I went with shocking pink geraniums, deep blue lobelia and yellow petunias this year. Love getting the gift certificate to Sky Nursery for my birthday. See, now my husband always know what to get me. Part of my birthday present is also planting all the pots.

Haven't heard of the final results for the Gold Regional yet. It poured all night and I was sure they would cancel the end. Some indication earlier in the day that an announcement on these games would be soon. Be ready to play at 10am. But, not being in the direct loop, I didn't hear what happened next. Around 3:30 pm, I called one of the dad....?

"So, what happened?"
"We just started playing"
"Just started playing now???"
"Yup"
"Where did you end up playing"
"Yakima"
"YAKIMA????!!!!!"

Yakima is on the other side of the Cascade Mountains, at least a 3 hour drive from here. It's FAR AWAY! They moved the 9 teams left in the tournament to Yakima on extremely short notice. I cannot believe it but I guess you had to go.

Later he left a message that they had lost the final winners bracket game to the NW Bullets. Who knows what happened after that. They would have waited a while (two hours) until the losers bracket games sorted out, playing the winner of the losers bracket team for the final berth. I don't want to call anybody at this point because I'm sure they are just exhausted with this unintended unplanner trip across the mountains.