JUDY

“Judy, Judy, Judy”

- A famous quote attributed to Cary Grant who, interestingly, never said it.


My sister, Judy, wanted a quiet weekend away from her northern California home. Real quiet. Real away. So, she came to the house on Hybiscus.

After arriving Thursday evening to a grilled hamburger feast, Judy and I rose fairly early Friday morning, took a couple of bicycles to Bear Creek Park, and spent the next couple of hours enjoying a leisurely, ten-mile bike ride along the beautiful Bear Creek Greenway. Without a photographer or a tripod, the hood of my truck supported the camera while I jumped into the photo beside Judy within the 10 seconds my camera allowed me to hurry up, run, get in the picture, and keep grinning at the camera until that little orange light quit blinking.

A reflection off the hood of the pickup added to the creative artistry of this fine portraiture. (Did you know you can sometimes enlarge these photos just by clicking them? I’m not sure how it works because, when I do it, it works some of the time but not all of the time.)



Then, after enjoying lunch together at a local Mexican restaurant, we hung out in a very warm backyard with lots of cool water. Actually, the water was warmish-cool, at 84 degrees Fahrenheit.


A friendly “Hybiscus Howdy” from a couple of hand-waving siblings.

Judy and Debra competing in an intense swimming contest.

Like two passing ships on the open sea, Judy and Debra pass each other on floaty things in a small, 12-ft x 24-ft pool.

A yellow foam noodle poses with Judy. A green foam noodle, shown in previous photos, did not want to pose for this one.

Judy asked, “Bruce, could you get a picture of me airborne, doing a cannonball into the pool?” I answered, “Yes.”

Fortunately, for the fair-skinned and suntan-challenged, the patio along the south side of the pool is always in the shade.

As the afternoon was fading away into history and as evening was coming at us like, well, like evening always does, the four of us; Debra, Ashley, Judy and I, all headed to Ashland together for a pleasant outdoor dinner at Dragonfly Café and Gardens, followed by a live and outstanding performance of "The Trip to Bountiful", at Oregon Stage Works.

Then came Saturday.

The plan for Saturday was to do nothing. Just rest and relax. And that’s what we did. We sat around the poolside and read magazines and did Sudoku puzzles and listened to music and visited and drank blended coffee drinks and swam. Then we grilled some ribs and ate dinner outside. And after dinner, we continued to hang out into the darkness of evening with tiki torches lighting the sky. We shared stories, we laughed, then Judy went home. It could not have been a better weekend.

The weekend crowd was small and quiet.

Girl time in the hot tub.

Tiki torches lit up the night.

As the evening was winding down, the air temperature dropped into the ‘70’s while the foot-warming water temperature was near 85.