Relative celebrations not yet completed!

Sunday, September 19, 2001 (& a little Monday)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY ETHEL & JAY

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MARLA & BOB

Well, I have been dissed again!  Here we are in a little motel in Pacific Beach, CA and there is no internet.  Not Murray’s fault but hey, who should we blame?

You all know this trip started out about 3 ½ weeks ago for the general  purpose of welcoming Eric back home.  We thought that would happen on Monday but now we are not sure.  We know the military likes to keep secrets so we are still waiting, anxiously for Eric’s landing back in the good ol USA.  We will update you ASAP.

We got to kubitz with my Aunt Dede  and Cousin  Tom who have lived in Vegas for over 35 years.  They are well yet hope sometime in the future to move back east.  We’d love to see them in a less harsh climate. 

We had a delightful dinner last night with Ethel and Jay and then we walked around Vegas for a bit before going to our separate hotels. It was great seeing them and enjoying some conversation and great food.  I think I won the prize on delicious dinners but Jay’s lamb chops looked superb!

Since Murray always makes these grand sociological observations, please let me make one observation about Las Vegas.   Helen this is for you!!! I take this comment from our discussion 2 weeks ago.   As you walk down the streets there are literally hundreds of seemingly Mexican young people ‘snapping’ cards for the baser desires (I assume prostitution of some sort).  Years ago those offerings were in newspaper boxes on the streets (and still are) and years before that there were clandestine people ‘offering’ special things around the town but now you are accosted on every block.  We needed to ‘run the gauntlet’ at some places to get by.  The only way to avoid this was to cut through casinos, hmmmmm do you think the casiono does this on purpose?   I didn’t see one person take a card but the cards littered the street.  Las Vegas is a place of ‘in your face’ everything and I suppose what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas.  I however wondcr if these young people have a place to stay, food to eat, and clothes other than the ‘girls to you in 20 minutes!’ T-shirt. 

BTW:  Congratulations to Jamie who starts his new job at a bigger store tomorrow.  Boy, things change fast!  We wish you tremendous success.

Love,

Mrs. Murray Rider

Monday Post Script:  We drove to San Diego yesterday and found that Eric has once again been delayed.  When we had brunch with Blair this morning.  Eric was still in Kandahar, Afghanistan.  She and we are very disappointed.   She will know, hopefully within a few hours if he is on his was out of the country.  Our plan now is to welcome him home on Friday – we are flexible as to what the USMC wants so …. stay tuned.  The adventure continues.

Murray will be adding to this post with his meanderings and some pictures.  Keep a look out tomorrow for some new grand sites.