Quite a long, eventful past two days.

Yesterday was quite nice. It rained during the morning, but cleared up enough for the three of us to go down to the National Mall and see the Smithsonian 38th Annual Kite Festival. There were literally thousands of people who turned out on the Mall and near the Tidal Basin for a great afternoon of relatively warm "outside time." We walked around quite a bit to see the different kites dotting the sky and adding to the Capitol horizon. We even made a cute little kite for Av at one of the exhibit booths!

We parked on a grassy area just south of the competition fields, where we could hear the announcer dude talk non-stop about kite-flying for forever and a day. We even wanted Av to walk around a little bit, which he did, but he was mostly clinging to us for most of the afternoon. That is, of course, when he wasn't flirting with every woman who made eye contact with him, telling us how adorable he is. In fact, we had invited my friend Evan down, letting him know that we didn't mind if he used Av as a "wing-baby" to get the women to flock to him. :-)

We happened to see a few kite competitions. I came into this thinking that it would be quite boring, and I was right. You can tell that people put a lot of effort into the stunt kite flying they do, and I wouldn't be able to come close to it, but it just left me not caring as much.

Until we got to the last competition, which was Rokkaku Kite Fighting. About 12-14 competitors have similarly shaped kites in the sky, and share a playing field. The object is to ground the other kites -- by using your kite to block the wind from another, by using your line to cut through someone else's, etc. Each person who successfully grounds a kite gets a point, and the last kite in the sky gets a point. It sounds incredibly boring, but it was exciting to see all three matches. It was also interesting to see lines get sliced, and trying to determine where the kite would land. Keep in mind these were pretty big kites, and some of them landed on top of people walking by! Others sailed on for a few blocks before they could be recovered. The best thing about this competition is that everyone has a great view of the action. Just look up, and there it is.

Last night I fell asleep very early. Oh - I finally learned how to rip a DVD and convert the video file successfully -- pretty much just to know that I could. I know. Me big geek. (I ended up accidentally erasing the file today. Still kicking myself for that...)

Today was also a beautiful day. We spent a bit of time walking around with Av, taking him to the playground, etc. We also got him a new kippah, or traditional Jewish head-covering. K's going to decorate it with the characters from "Stanley" on it. She also bought step stools from the unfinished furniture place which she's going to paint and decorate as well. My wife, the artist.

Which gets me to the other thing that happened today. K's father called this morning to inform her that her grandmother had died during the night. Which means that she no longer has any living grandparents.

It's sad. But it wasn't a shock. Sally's health had been on a decline for quite a while now, and was admitted to the hospital last week. It was only a matter of time, but it happened much sooner than anyone expected.

We were fortunate that we all got to see her a month ago when we went down to Florida to visit. (Hence the cute picture on the left of Av and his great-grandma Sally.) K wasn't so incredibly close to her, and we (our family and K's parents) decided that we won't be flying down for the funeral, which will be held tomorrow.

We were also informed that Sally's חי (Chai) necklace, which used to belong to her husband, Al -- and which she had worn since Al had died about 9 years ago -- is going to be Avi's. He was named after Al. And although I've been pretty non-emotional about this all day, I just felt myself getting choked up typing this.

Death and aging is a weird thing. I called my Grandpa Lou today to say hi (which I don't do often enough), and to let him know that we'll be coming up to Connecticut this weekend to visit him. I know my grandfather as this strong, life-loving teenager trapped in the body of a 94 year-old. He's been living on his own in his house for the past seven years since my grandmother died. A retired physician, he's been ahead of his time when it comes to leading a healthy lifestyle. He checks his email every so often. Hell, the guy has even been talking about getting married again to his girlfriend! But this conversation, which, granted, I really should have had a while back, was different.

He mentioned what I already knew, which was that he had quite a bit of his colon removed due to cancer. He also mentioned that part of his lung had to be removed as well, and that he's been going through a third round of chemo. "And it knocks the hell out of me," he said. Then he told me why he had mentioned this -- he didn't want us to think that he would be up to a great amount of entertaining when we came up to visit. He didn't want to let us down.

What a fucking great guy, huh?

But it's scary thinking of him as someone who is dying. My grandmother is in an advanced stage of Parkinsons Disease, and has very little that she can do on her own now. Yet I remember her taking walks with me as a kid before she had deteriorated. My deceased grandmother (who was married to Grandpa Lou) survived two heart attacks and a mastectomy due to breast cancer before succumbing to the inoperable brain tumor that took her life. It's not the death factor that gets to me; it's the transformation of someone who has been living an active life to someone who simply can't.

Everyone has to go sometime. And chances are Grandpa Lou isn't far off from it. I'm thankful that we'll be seeing him again this weekend. He once mentioned that "every year past 70 is a bonus from God." And he's been living life like that. I just hope that he can enjoy his remaining time as a bonus.

Sorry this was so long; just a lot to get off my chest. If this turns into the '40, I hereby give you permission to skip it :-)