Guy Turns 60-My Trip to VA

Written on 10-23-25.

       I am sitting the Albuquerque airport, and I am waiting to board my flight to Dulles.  Bev and I are flying out to celebrate Guy's 60th birthday, and we are going to see two of ShyShay's volleyball matches while we are there.  I am so looking forward to this.  

I finally got some shifts for my new job scheduled.  We have our staff meeting on the 29th, and I will have my first shift on Halloween!  Spooky, huh?  Then I have three more dates on November 4th, 5th, and 6th.

Written on 10-31-25.

I am on my second shift at my client’s apartment in Ignacio.  I did my first shift yesterday.  I had forgotten that I had signed up for the day before Halloween for my first shift, too.  Thankfully, we had a staff meeting the day before, so I was reminded.  Imagine me missing my first shift!  That would have been terrible.  

My first shift went well.  I didn’t know what to expect, and it wasn’t bad.  I will write about it in my field notes that I will start today.  

I got really busy, so I will come back to this at another date.

Written on 11-7-25.

I had to do some cleaning, and once I started, it was hard for me to stop.  All in all, I am enjoying...

my new job.  I have a new client this week on Thursday.  We will see how it goes.

Guy and I watched Thursday Night Football together last night (we used FaceTime).  The Broncos played the Raiders, and it was so fun to just hang with my brother…virtually.  Oh, and the Broncos won in a close, sloppy game.  It looked better when I watched the highlights after it was over, but the amount of penalties was incredibly high.  One of the announcers at halftime said there were more penalties than first downs.  Ouch.  The Broncos are 8-2, though, and leading the AFC West.  They are also one of the best teams in the NFL this year.  It’s about time!

On to golf…

I am 0-2 in golf, however.  The last two times I played were horrible, just horrible.  When I played at the Gold Course in Williamsburg with Guy, Annmarie, ShyShay, and Bev, I shot a 109.  Yes, a 109!  I barely scraped together six bogeys and managed only one par for those 18 holes.  Yuck!  Double and triple bogeys flowed out of me easily and stacked up, and I struggled getting off the tee box often.

The course was so beautiful that it was a travesty to ruin it with my awful play.  It was  a “public Augusta National,” the cart guy said.  I understood what he meant as we rolled along.  Everybody struggled, though.  Bev was my caddie for the front nine.  It was fun to include her, but I spent a lot of time explaining things.  Not a problem, though; I am a teacher.  We had an hour to warm up, but we chose to skip it in order to be done by 5:30.  We wanted to get on the road to get back to Reston which was about two and a half hours away.

For the back nine, Bev wanted to switch to ride with Guy and caddie for him.  Who could blame her?  Unfortunately for her, ShyShay chose to ride with Guy for the back nine, so she was stuck with me again.  We both agreed that I was on my own for the rest of the round.  I only improved by three strokes.  It was my short game, too.  Some were decent.  Some were horrendous.   

On one of the par three’s, my approach landed short in the water.  Typical for this round.  I took my drop and stabbed at the ball.  Water.  I took another swipe.  Water again.  Finally, I chose to drop a ball on the green.  Bev wrote a generous six on the scorecard.  

Heck, Bev even drew two frowny faces under my nine hole scores.  She knew enough to know they were bad, and she was right.

Annmarie told me about how she and some of her girlfriends played golf recently, and they had shirts that said “Three-putt Slut.”  Well, I was a slut often during this round, too.  On one hole, ShyShay and Annmarie were farther away than I was, and they managed two putts each.  I ran mine aggressively past the hole and missed the comeback putt.  “Three-putt slut,” I said.  They laughed.  Geez!

Yes, I did have some good drives, pitches, chips, and putts, but they were few and far between.  And, who cares?  I enjoyed this special time with my family.  I realized on this trip that it’s just my sibs and me now.  We are the OG.  The time together with them was precious.  I wrote in Guy’s 60th birthday card that the weekend would be epic, and it was.