June 2, 2026 – Email Friends

I noticed that my incoming emails were declining lately and I found a solution to make new friends. I submitted a questionnaire about car insurance and selected he magic button that allows strangers to contact me about how they can improve my life with their insurance.

Turns out the audience I engaged is tenacious, and won’t stop sending newly revised insurance offers for me. I haven’t answered any of them, yet, because I’m sure doing so will result in a more concerted effort to get my attention.

Although the emails I get are on the annoying side of my tolerance, it’s nice to know that there is a large group of people who want to be my best friend.

So, if you’re lonely, fill out one of those questionnaires and you’ll have a plethora of new friends to keep you company.

In case you’re interested, this 2007 Holiday Rambler is for sale: $45000.

May 31, 2026 – May is gone

It happened so fast. Just yesterday, it seems, it was May 1st. Somewhere along the way, someone managed to add a 3 in there.

I just returned from a 1.2 mile walk with Max down by the river. It would have been a little longer, but I took a tumble and felt it would be a good idea to head on home. Max was OK with that, especially since he was attacked by a big fluffy dog for no reason. It was mostly noise from both of them, but it sounded like really bad things were going to happen. Leaving was a good choice.

Since you’re wondering about my tumble, let me enlighten you.

As we walked along the path we eventually made it to the point where Max usually found his way down to the river. I never go down with him because it’s a little bit steep and the path is covered with loose rocks. It just didn’t seem like a good idea. So, I took a step back to get out of his way and discovered that I probably should have lifted my right foot a little bit higher. This became evident when my foot contacted the path before I expected it to, and my balance was compromised right away. Since I was expecting to lean back a little to compensate for my momentum going backwards, pausing my right foot caused my entire body to continue it’s backward motion without a foot reaching back to stop me. Consequently, my left foot became a pivot point for disaster as my head gathered speed to the rear.

I did my best to move my pivot point to my waist, but it wasn’t fast enough. Knowing that I was going to crash I extended my frail arms behind my back to absorb the contact before my posterior did. It worked, and I was able to pivot on my hands backwards into a tidy rocking motion on my back. I allowed my feet to extend upward, high into the air above me, to ensure the fishermen in the boats near the shore had a good sense of what was going on as they sat idly by. They may not have even known that I did this acrobatic move just for them. I surmised this was true since I didn’t detect any applause, or cheering.

I let my legs fall softly to the ground, rolled to my left side, then went through my well practiced motions to once again attain a vertical stance. As I did this I analyzed each motion to determine which parts of my body will be aching later. As I suspected, before hitting the ground, my wrists complained the most, then my shoulders, and neck.

As I sit here typing away, my pain level is minimal but experience has taught me that it’s a trick the body plays on someone who does what I did. It’s like having a rubber band stretched around hour body and someone pulls it away from contact and you breath a sigh of relief that is rudely terminated when it’s let go and slams back into you. Being prepared for this makes the pain more tolerable. It’s not a secret. It’s going to happen. I’ll just sit her and ignore it until it comes, then I’ll suffer in silence to ensure no one is aware. I can do this because I didn’t hit my head, and I wasn’t bleeding. That’s the main concern of my caretakers – bleeding and head bumps.

After thinking about this for a bit, I think it’s in my best interest to tell Lydia what happened just in case one of those guys in the boats recognized me and thinks it would be a good idea to call Jennifer and rat me out.

Ya, that would be a good idea. Now all I have to do is remember to tell Lydia when she comes back to the living room. I suppose I could text her, and save some time, but I’d rather look her in the eye so I can judge her level of concern and modify my narrative as necessary to leave her with a calm picture of the event.

Right now, sitting in my chair, a nap seems to be a really good idea. So I will. I think that’s because the adrenalin rush is going away. See you later.

May 28, 2026 – Thinking Ahead

Thinking ahead. That title was added spontaneously, not one I’ve given much thought. Normally I consider the course of each post only when my fingers touch the keyboard. I do not ponder about what may transpire. I think everyone is aware of this and are probably as surprised about the title as am I.

So, let’s put this thought aside for a moment and get busy discussing the here and now aspect of my life. I’m sure you are all sitting on the edge of your seats waiting to see what comes next. It’s okay to yawn.

I gave Max his annual bath a few days ago and he’s really happy about that. He kind of forced the issue by digging a giant hole in the side of the pile of dirt sitting in our back yard.

I’ve been told that the pile of dirt will eventually migrate back to the hole from which it came and things will get back to normal. Sadly, having the pile of dirt in the back yard is becoming a new normal for me. When I look out the kitchen window it’s almost as if the pile really isn’t there because my focus is on the creek that is visible on either side.

The dirt isn’t really a problem and it was created with my permission. The big kids had fun with an excavator to make it and the little kids, and Max, have made it known that the pile of dirt must remain until they are done with it.

The purpose of digging all that dirt up was to rid the area from which it was extracted of all the vegetation that covered it. I know, I’ve told you this many times, but I’m invoking my right as an octogenarian to repeat myself any time I want.

During the dirt extraction process they encountered a plastic drain pipe that (we think) is for the water runoff from the roof of the house. All the downspouts around the house go directly into the ground and we always knew it had to go somewhere. Since the yard never floods, it wasn’t a problem so no one pursued the question about where did the rain go. Now we know.

The extraction process resulted in the removal of about 40 feet of the drain pipe which will have to be replaced before the dirt is pushed back in the hole.

This is Max wondering if he’s going outside any time soon.

He can sit like that for a very long time. Eventually he will escalate the situation by adding a very quiet growl. It’s not an aggressive so I let it go. Then he will start patting me on the knee with his left front foot. When he gets to that point I usually put things away and take him for a walk, or I’ll take him out back and hook him to his 50 feet of nylon rope. He had an inferior rope prior to the nylon which he broke twice but getting a long full speed run at it. When he hit the end he barely slowed down as the old rope broke and he kept flying off into the neighbor’s yard.

He came back, dragging about 30 feet of rope behind him. I was surprised he didn’t get wound up in the bushes.

Maybe he figured out how to not get trapped .

May 23, 2026 – Thank You

I appreciate all the Birthday wishes I received. You are all too kind tor this old man. For those of you who are curious about my age, I’m now officially 82. I made a bold prediction that I’m going to live to 122 so I have 40 more to go.

To assist myself regarding that goal, today I started cutting back on my Atorvastatin. Diane could never figure out why I was taking that because my LDL has always been very low and my HDL was high. Taking the medicine didn’t seem to change anything. Supposedly, taking it lowered my risk of heart attack as a result of my Type 2 Diabetes..

There will be some people who read this that will disagree with my choices but that’s been a true statement my whole life. I’m prone to take chances just for the fun of it.

I’ll not talk about this as we move on. You’ll know whether or not I’m successful or not simply by reading this things. If I’m still kicking that can down the road, I’ll keep writing about stupid stuff. If my posts suddenly stop, I’m either on vacation, or I’ve gone up yonder.

I’ll look for your birthday cheer next year.

Thanks, again.

This is a little off topic, but thought you might like this. The St, Helens police department benefitted from the voters passed a levy that will allow them to replace their police vehicles with state of the art cars from Cuba.

Jeff got a couple of tattoos.

May 19, 2026 – A walk along the Columbia River

I got up at the eye-numbing hour of 0700 because it was apparently time for me to be awake. I have mornings like that, but not very often, thank goodness. Maybe my early rising was caused by my decision to make this the first day of the rest of my life. That’s true for all of us, but mine was different because the day for me was the one where my eating habits were going to be dealt with harshly.

In the past I reported that I lost about 35 pounds when my pharmacist switched my metformin to Jardiance. It went away quickly, many months (years?) ago and it’s stayed off. Until recently. That’s because over time my eating habits decided to take over my life and get all that weight back as quickly as possible.

So far I’m winning the battle even though eating was one of my favorite things thigs to do. I discovered that no matter what I was eating, and eating often, I could eat an enormous amount of it. The result has been a slight weight increase over the last few months. So, I’m cutting back on food in general. Nothing specific, just cutting back on everything.

Back to the River …

We got there shortly after 0700 and there was no one around. Max was free to wander around off leash. Even so, he made sure he was close to me for the entire trip. The only time he ventured off the path was when he took a trip down to the water for a drink. Most other days he would have gone swimming, too.

If you look really hard, you can see him standing by the water. The ripples in front of him are from him getting a drink.

Once around the walkway then we headed home.

Once here, I had a short talk with Max to let him know I was going to Portland and he couldn’t go with me. I had tong into have one of the Geek Squad people check my iPad keyboard to we if App;e Care would replace it. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn’t.

I checked in with Best Buy, made an appointment with one of the Geeks, then toddled off to Gina something to eat. I found a noodle place close by and ordered something. I forgot the name of the dish, but it was pretty good.

Please notice the scissors on my plate. This is a new utensil I’ve never received at an oriental restaurant, ever. I have to report that they are really handy cutting the noodles up so you don’t have to bite them off and let the fall into your plate, hoping nothing will splash on your shirt. That was a new thing for me to worry about but I’m happy to report I made it through lunch without getting a drop on myself. Diane would be proud.

Once lunch was done I went back to Best Buy. I had to waste about 2 hour after my first visit, waiting for my 1240 appointment. The appointment was, as I suspected, just a chance for the Geeks to confirm what I thought I knew, that there was no coverage for the keyboard. So I spent the next 15 minutes purchasing a new keyboard case, then drove home.

The ride home was epic because I was able to drive all the way through Scappoose without having to stop at any of the traffic lights. That’s rare.

Once home, I replace the keyboard case then typed all of this. So, you can vouch for me when I say it works just fine. I’m happy. Keep in mind, the keyboard has nothing to do with spelling errors. Those are all mine.

I’ll end this with a photo of one of the bushes that surround the house. It’s some sort of rhododendron that looks pretty pitiful. The flowers are pretty, but sparse.

Now I’m going to stop and take a nap.

May 8, 2026 – Doug and his computer

This is not a dig on Doug but the efforts expended were directly related to his laptop.

Doug is the Financial Officer for American Legion Post 42. As far as I know, he’s the only one that’s held that position since the post was started 135 years ago. Considering the span of years, I could be wrong. If that turns out to be true, I believe I’ll at least be close to correct.

He keeps all his files on his laptop and generally shares his information with hard copies for the troops to review. Post meetings are held in the Moose Lodge and they have three large TVs mounted in the room they use. Someone asked Doug if he could display his files on those TV’s. He told this person, “Yes I can.” Then he called me.

We spent an hour or so at the lodge seeing how things work there and we came up with a solution. The first choice, for me, was to use Bluetooth for connectivity, but that didn’t seem to be a choice. Another option was to connect directly to the TV via HDMI. During our discovery, we were able to do that, but making it work would require purchasing a very long HDMI cable. Since the TVs looked fairly new I figured there must be a better way.

So, we got busy pushing buttons to see what happens. That’s my solution for any computer problems and generally it’s productive. It this case it was so it’s all good. I haven’t been to an AL meeting in quite a while but I agreed to show up at the next one to support Doug and his first effort in front of the crowd. I will, I’m sure, be a target for many reasons but I’m not worried. Doug has my back.

The lodge was not officially opened this morning when we did our work but a lady was working in the office. When we were leaving she asked for help getting into the office because she inadvertently locked herself out. The only way in was via the service window in the hall. Doug has trouble walking and the lady in distress wasn’t up to the task so I drug a chair over to the window and inserted myself into the office. Doing this required me to bend myself in half, literally, and slide in feet and head first. It worked. During the process the lady questioned my age saying, “You aren’t really 81, are you?” I said, “No. I’ll be 82 in 12 days.” She was amazed. So was Doug. I bet he was sure he’d have to find a way to , I extract me from the window and the ledge that I was sliding on. But, I fooled all three of us. I was adlibbing everything I did about getting through the window. I amazed myself. Tomorrow will tell the tale about which muscles I tweaked the wrong direction. So far, I feel just fine.

My only fear about the entire process was that bending myself in half might could easily have caused me to expel some extra gas that I seem to have, all the time. The down side of that is that sometimes, expelling gas sometimes results in accompanying debris and the need to purchase new underwear. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

That’s my story for today.

April 24, 2026

Today for lunch I made a peanut butter and orange marmalade sandwich. Normally I use strawberry jam, or grape jelly but I couldn’t find it but the orange marmalade was right there in front of me. I like orange so I thought it would be OK, but it really wasn’t. It wasn’t a good pairing. So, I’m tossing that stuff out and will stick to the regular stuff from now on. I ate the entire sandwich, in case you’re wondering. I did that thinking, with every bite, it’s going to get better. It didn’t. Actually, it was really bad, it just wasn’t normal. I like normal.

It’s a nice sunny day out there so Max is taking advantage of it, laying in the yard, daring that eagle to show up. Oddly, I haven’t seen him since I reported him last time I saw him. I think he’s waiting for me to forget, then he’ll make a run at Max. If he does, I have no doubt he’ll have his claws full of fury and will let him go. Then Max will strut to the back door, look at me and cock his head a little to the right, which means “Did you see that? I was flying!”

I started cleaning up the computer room, finally. It’s a mess. I started in my corner, stacking papers in separate piles for filing, shredding, or just a ?? pile. much of it goes in the ?? pile. Much of the mess was created when I started digging around in the filing cabinet looking for things I needed to file taxes. During that process I got diverted just about every time I blinked. This resulted in many stacks of paper for many reasons. Finally, I just started stacking them in piles by color. Not the paper color, but the color of what every the business logo was.

After a couple days of this it began evident that doing this was not productive so I switched to piles that were set specifically to Diane, specifically to me, and specifically to Diane and me. That was much easier. Then I worked on each pile to separate them into bills that I needed to pay, bills that were already paid, advertisements begging for monetary donations, and ads.

Now there are stacks of paper all over the floor, a lot like there was when I started this job, so now I’m thinking that if I just shred it all I’m pretty sure if there’s a bill in there someone will let me know. I’m not all the way there, yet, but it’s definitely on the table for consideration.

Then there’s Diane’s computer. She complained about that computer all the time but she wouldn’t let me replace it with something she’d like better. It’s not a bad computer, it’s just slow for many reasons. One reason is because she didn’t like deleting her old email. She kept every one of them. Forever. Because of that I have a hard time thinking about doing that myself and passing the computer on to someone else. One of these days maybe I’ll start drinking wine early in the afternoon so I can work up the courage to clean it up.

Maybe tomorrow.

April 27, 2026 – Resting

Max thought he was going to rest but the look on his little face is obviously letting me know that he didn’t sign up to be a book rest. He told me later that he tried to tell Lydia, but she ignored him. I think he wasn’t really talking to her, just tried to connect mentally.

April 21, 2026 – Bunco Babes

Yes, those are real people. There are 12 members and a couple of alternates that are called on to fill spots when someone can’t make a scheduled play date. Those happen once a month. If you attended school, and paid attention, you might have performed a little math in your head and realized why there are 12 members. If not, then you’ll just have to travel down this path with me in the dark, wondering about that.

One of the members is blessed with the responsibility of keeping their membership information up to date. To do that it’s imperitive that the annointed one must be closely attached to someone to whom that responsibiity is passed. If that doesn’t happen, chaos steps in ensuring the result is that no one will know who’s turn it is to make Pu Pu Platters.

Yes, Pu Pu’s are a real thing and whether or not you’ve heard that name, you’ve certainly had them once in a while during your time on earth.

During Diane’s time with us she was the Keeper of the Names. Consequently, I was the one to whom she delegated the responsibility for keeping the names current because I have a better computer than she did and I can type stuff. Also, I’d do anything she asked me to do. I’m a handy guy to have around. It’s true, I am.

The Bunco Babes gather en masse at the location of the member designated as the hostess for that month. Generally, this schedule is determined well ahead of time, like in November, for the following year. That’s a rule. Though most of them don’t remember, they voted on it in 2004.

Since Diane was one of the 12, everyone showed up at our house on the designated Monday to roll the dice, drink wine if they wanted, and partake of whatever Pu Pu’s are served. Since Diane left us early, Lydia has assumed her role for this household. At this point, I’m not sure if anyone has designated the delegated responsibility of keeping the schedule. If that vacancy is still open, I suspect that someone will be chosen once at least one of the Babes reads this and goes, “Huh! He’s right. Who does that now?”

In the designated house, the hostess sets up 3 tables at which the 12 will sit to start the game. If you’ve done your math, you’ll have figured out that 4 members sit at each table. This simple formula ensures that no one remains standing.

On the main table there is a bell which is used to alert all players of various events that happen throughout the game. The really important one is if someone has to go to the bathroom, a member at the main table rings the bell, yells “Break!” and all activity is stopped until that member returns to her seat. Then, play resumes with the bell and, “Play!”

The play consists of each member at the table puts the 3 dice into a cup (provided) and dumps them, looking for the current number that ranges, oddly enough, from 1 to 6. The roller does this as quickly as possible, counting how many of the dice show the proper number. If all three dice turn up the proper number, everyone at the table yells, “BUNCO!” There’s a scoring process for each roll that escapes me for now, but I may remember later. Or not.

Multiple buncos can be rolled throughout the game and the one who has the most is a winner. She gets the big prize. There’s also a Boobie prize for the worst game. If there is a tie for any prize, there is a roll

off between the potential winners. For #1, the best roll wins. For last place, at this time, the same rule applies. However, I think it should be just the opposite for last place. The worst roll should be declared the winner. Just a suggestion. Lydia thinks it’s already that way, but she isn’t sure since she’s never had to roll off for the Boobie prize.

That’s about it for this session. I’m tired and need to rest my weary bones.

Good night.