Lavender Festival

The Women's Health Symposium at the Marriott started at 7:30 and I got there a few minutes after. Of course, there were the usual handouts and giveaways which I skipped, as I have enough pens, pins, notepads, and other crapola to open a store. Had coffee and a few thin slices of melon--that took care of breakfast. I ran into Carole F. and sat near her.
The morning speakers, all M.D.s, included a "hospitalist" (youngish woman with messy hair wearing what looked like cowboy boots), who acted as emcee; a breast cancer specialist (very well-groomed and articulate female doc); a cardiologist (the only male, and pretty good); and a urologist (Asian woman whose delivery was okay). Since I don't have any of the maladies spotlighted and since I already know most of what I want to about them, I found it pretty dull. After the speakers formed a panel and answered questions from the audience, there was a break at 10:30. Decided not to stay for the afternoon session, but broke for home. There, I found a message from Linda T., who lives in this complex and is in T.O.P.S. with me. She asked if I'd like to go to the Lavender Festival in Ojai, and that struck me as a good idea. We decided to leave at 1:00, then I changed clothes and drove to Kinball to get my walk in.
Met Linda and we went to Ojai. Now I've been to 16,000 "festivals" in my day and as ever, this was all vendors under tents with twenty-five dollar tee shirts and lots of overpriced items (think soap and lotion) made of lavender. We were looking at some things when I heard, "Hey, Mom!" behind me.
It was Ellen and I was so pleased to see her. She had bought some lavender and said she was going to meet Greg at a little luncheonette down the street. We joined them and had lemonade, good on such a hot day. The four of us sat and chatted for a while, then parted.
Linda and I drove home, which took at least twice as long as usual, as she chose the scenic--or something--route, but that was okay. I intended to drive to town for my usual second walk, but it was almost 5:00 and I decided against it; just went to WinCo for Swai.