Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #4091 - Letter to Dad #33 - Taking a Photo of My Birthday 1971 and PISTONS WON!!
Hi Big Guy (Dad),
Continuing with this same series of photos. I wish you had bequeathed me your slide and negative scanner, though I may buy one. I just learned that these scanners will digitize negatives.
My sister and I analyzed this photo quite a bit. In the final analysis, we decided it is a picture of MY ninth birthday in 1971. It's the first negative in the batch and the next two are of me with birthday presents two days later (1/21/71). However, there are two unnamed negatives on your list: the first one (this picture) and one other that looks to be from the Cub Scout meeting when I got my Bear Badge.
I am glad you wrote out the list, though. Most envelopes do not have lists.
The pink on the table cloth and the fact that I am not in the picture gave me pause. However, in close inspection, it seems that the table cloth is Peanuts characters, which fits with the Snoopy in the lower left.
I guess I wanted to take a photo of my family. Lori did not understand posing, but it's great to have another photo of you, Dad.
I was also wondering if this was Lori's birthday because the candle on the left has not burned down too far and that is an annual birthday candle marked with our ages. You burn down through one age at birthday time. But who knows when Mom bought the candle? She may have just bought two of them, one for each of us, and so she needed to burn far down (or just cut it, which I think she did). The Clown candle on the right has been burned down a ways, and I think that was just mine. I don't think there was one for Lori, too.
Lori felt that the Snoopy was the biggest clue that it's a picture of my ninth birthday, and she's right. But what is Snoopy sitting on? Lori thinks it's a TV and the fan blades are a reflection in the glass. But why would a TV be sitting on the floor like that? How would you watch it? Plus I remember our TVs pretty clearly, and this is not one of them. I think it's a space heater. After all, it is January in Michigan in 1971. It was COLD. And that house did not have the most powerful heater. It was good, but Mom may be cold quite often.
Mom always made tea for these celebrations, which can be seen on the table. Plus, "nut cups," which had as much candy as nuts.
There's something else on the table that I cannot make out clearly.
It's weird that there's no sign of a cake or a picture of a decorated cake, which is a Tower tradition. But the shape next to the tea pot could be a cake or a decoration or something.
Dad, you made that table, I had that table until I moved out west here.
I am curious what is on the counter behind Lori's head. Looks like a container with liquid. Juice?
It's neat to see art from my school taped to cabinets.
The main lamp over the table, I remember, but not the constellation above it. I had also forgotten about that hanging plant.
Not much to report this week Dad.
I survived my week of heavy homework last week. I don't have all my grades for that work yet, but I am still holding at an A in both classes.
Ellory threw up last night and is having some stomach issues, but I hope it's just a temporary thing. She threw up right after getting ice, a favorite treat of hers. My theory is that she ate the ice too fast and the sudden cold upset her tummy and she puked up ALL OF HER DINNER. She does that. I gave eggs and rice this morning for breakfast, but she didn't want the rice. We skipped her morning pills, but I mixed the antibiotic in some broth and she ate that with the eggs.
Ellory also has an ear infection starting, but I may have stopped it with some ear cleaning and medication in the ears! That means no vet visit. Yay!
I have final exams this week. I did one yesterday and earned a 16.25/20. Since it's my last grade in that class, it preserves my A grade. However, I can retake the exam two more times, so I may do so just to figure out the right answers and not because I need the points.
I already posted about the unexpected death of my friend Gregg Morris last week. It's so very sad. Now that his obituary came out, I know that he was only two years older than me, though he pretended to be much older.
AND THE DETROIT PISTONS WON LAST NIGHT!!!
It was an elimination game, and they are still down 2-3 in the best of seven series, but they won, and so they play again tomorrow.
I know we would discuss this game in great depth if you were still here.
Posting the game report for posterity.
Talk to you more next week, Dad.
Love, Christopher
Cade Cunningham scores 45, Pistons beat Magic 116-109 in Game 5 to stave off elimination
DETROIT -- — Cade Cunningham scored a franchise playoff-record 45 points, including a step-back jumper with 32 seconds left, and the top-seeded Detroit Pistons beat the eighth-seeded Orlando Magic 116-109 on Wednesday night in Game 5 of their first-round series to stave off elimination.
Orlando leads the series 3-2 and will get a second chance to advance at home on Friday night.
The Magic fell to 0-10 in franchise history on the road in a Game 5.
Detroit never trailed and went ahead by 15 early in the final quarter. The Magic made one more run, pulling within three points on Paolo Banchero's sixth 3-pointer with 1:09 left. Banchero matched Cunningham with 45 points, also a playoff career high — but he missed 7 of 12 free throws.
The Pistons are hoping to bounce back from the brink of elimination as they did against the Magic two-plus decades ago.
Detroit’s comeback in 2003 as a No. 1 seed against eighth-seeded Orlando was the first of seven times NBA teams have come back from a 3-1 deficit this century. The Denver Nuggets were the last team to pull off the feat in 2020, when they became the first franchise in the league to do it twice in one postseason.
Magic forward Franz Wagner was sidelined with a strained right calf. He had 19 points in two-plus quarters before he departed late in the third quarter on Monday night and averaged nearly 17 points and 5.5 rebounds over the first four games of the series.
Cunningham was 13 of 23 from the field, making a playoff career-high five 3-pointers, and was 14 of 14 at the line in what proved to be the difference in a duel with Banchero, also a former No. 1 overall pick.
Tobias Harris scored 23 points for the Pistons, All-Star center Jalen Duren snapped out of a slump with 12 points and nine rebounds, and Duncan Robinson also scored 12.
The Pistons played with a sense of urgency at the start after being rusty or flat early in previous games.
Detroit led by 17 in the second quarter, but the Magic cut the deficit to six points by halftime. Orlando pulled within two points early in the third and Cunningham’s fifth 3-pointer late in the quarter helped the Pistons take an 89-79 lead into the fourth.
This box score is not going to format well and will be obscured by the right banner of the blog, but that's okay. Click the link if you want to look at it clearly and closely.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2604.30 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3955 days ago & DAD = 609 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
