I take another delay to allow Cooper, the son of Janis Joplin, to blow out his candles

I was certain that I would have my second-to-last gray whale rescue segment posted and my last ready to post well before it was time to go to Cooper's birthday party. Before I started to write it, I took a three-mile walk along the Rim Road through the tall Ponderosa Pine and went through each segment in my head, cutting them all down to a sentence or few so that when I sat down, I could just zip through it and bring the series to a close.

But I didn't just zip through it. Some of those singles sentences expanded into multiple paragraphs. I wrote and wrote and wrote. And then, just as I was nearing the end, Margie and her sister, LeeAnn, returned from shopping and told me it was time to go to Cooper's party at El Rancho Mexican Restaurant in Pinetop.

So here I am at Cooper's birthday party, photographing his beautiful younger sister, Katelyn Joplin, as she gives her big brother a toast.

And here is someone from El Rancho placing the birthday sombrero on Cooper's head.

And here is a waitress, bring his cake to Cooper.

And here is Cooper himself, blowing out the two candles that say he is 21 - Cooper Joplin, son of Janis Joplin and her husband, Glenn Joplin. That makes him my nephew, because Janis is Margie's first cousin - which in Apache ways, makes them like sisters. Janis is better known as "Buffy." The first time I met Buffy, she was a little girl sitting in the back of a pickup truck with puppies crawling all over her.

I believe I mentioned this in my original blog when Buffy appeared there, but I might as well mention it here, too.

When I first met Cooper, he was a boy, playing basketball in the living room of his parents home. He was all over the place.

The elder lady to the left is Margie's Aunt Dolly Guy, the only surviving sibling of Margie's late father, Randy Roosevelt.

And on the floor, just awakening from a nap, was little Elliot, the youngest member of the Joplin family.

Among the guests was a baby and dad. I got their names, but I forgot.

Most of those who came to the party, including me, on the opposite side of the camera.

In theory, I don't have much left to write to finish up the gray whale series, but I wrote enough today that I am certain I made at least 500 typos, misspellings and such (it would sure help if the program I use to do this blog would upgrade with a spell-checker). I need to spend some time to see I can winnow it down to just 50 or 60 typos so that I do not drive Albert Lewis of MA, who, sooner or later just about every day, reads this blog and then sends me a list of the typos and such that he finds.

It will all be up fairly early tomorrow - I just about promise.