California Casey on My Mind

Is there anything so grand as planning your next adventure, aside from doing it? And when I say planning, I mean buying the tickets or making the commitment to do it, I don't mean "planning" it.

Free-spirited adventurers appreciate spontaneity and forgotten details. "If I don't do the research, I won't know what I'm missing."And that's how I go about it. With so many grand adventures on my horizon, it's hard to contain my excitement, so I won't even try.

In less than a week I will be in California; it's been nearly 10 years since I've been back, since I've seen my younger sister, a visit shamefully overdue. Through the years our lives have been eerily similar, going through identical challenges and accomplishing the same feats-marriage, divorce, foreclose, recovery. But a few years ago she broke away from our parallel paths and walked down a path all her own. I admire her courage and fortitude; she's been through the ringer and remains one of the funniest, happiest, and most compassionate people on the planet. A few years ago she married and last year-the day I watched Jordan Zimmermann pitch a No-hitter at Nationals Stadium-she gave birth to her first child-a boy named Casey. Just this morning I was told about a baseball poem, Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in 1888 by Ernest Thayer, which was later made into a silent film in 1927. There are just too many coincidences here to dismiss...I imagine Casey a great baseball player someday, even if only in pictures.

Casey

My adventures with Casey and family will no doubt be fun, but the escapades don't stop there. On Sunday afternoon I will be attending the wedding of a wonderful friend, who is one of the most gifted women I know. And I will be accompanied by my long lost and since found friend, Jason. 23 years ago Jason and I lived together in a group house in Cupertino. Roommates and friends, we fell out of touch in 1992 when our lives took separate paths. Then, about two years ago, I received an out-of-the-blue phone call from him. Going through changes of his own, he had discovered an old phone number belonging to "Dani's mom." He called. She, having had the same land-line number for over 35 years, answered. She passed him my number and it's like we never missed a beat. It's amazing how the universe brings things full circle in their own time.

Life really is a gift that I have no intention of missing out on or wasting. There are more adventures on the horizon...but this one is going to be epic!!!