That’s true. The 21st was the longest day of the year. The sun was still in business when I took Max outside at 2145. In no time it will be getting dark at 1600 and Max will have to wear a flashlight on his harness to keep him safe out there. Keep me safe, too.

Last Saturday I was honored to march in the annual Kiwanis parade here in town. I was one of the flag bearers that led the parade down the streets of St. Helens.

That’s me in the striped shirt. I was carrying the Navy flag. Ashley, next to me, ex Army was carrying the Marine Corps flag. That’s Teo next to me with one of the Air Force flags. I think he was Army, also. I thank Chrissy for the photo.

That’s Jasper. He was with Chrissy so now you can see how she got the photo. It’s always nice to know stuff like that, don’t you think?

That’s Frank sitting in the truck that followed right being the flag bearers. He was the Grand Marshal for the parade and he is quite spry and mentally on top of things for being 102. Yes, he’s 102 and he’s a retired Chief Petty Officer from WWII. He’s still got stories to tell.

Earlier in the week Bob and Steffani paid us a visit while they were visiting Marissa in Salem to welcome their newest Granddaughter into the world. Her name is Zoe. I love that name. She’s adorable, of course.

This is their first family photo.

This is us eating smashed burgers at The Farm on the Roof. It’s a nice view looking east across the Columbia River into Washington State.

This is the view looking North toward the old court house. That’s my most favorite Daughter in the world. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have a daughter. She’s the best.

In case I’ve never mentioned it, we have some pretty awesome sunsets here in the NW corner of the USA. Here’s proof.

This is Louis, Lydia’s companion, who seems to like laying in my lap when no other is available. He’s very friendly and I honk he outweighs Max by a few pounds. Thighs is his version of a heart you see people sharing all over the internet. I think he did a pretty good job.

One more photo then I’m wrapping this up. This is Max showing everyone how much he loves Jeff. I’d say the feeling is usual, but Jeff doesn’t like back. At least I’m pretty sure he doesn’t.

Another look from the crowd at the parade.

Our friends Les and Sophie have made the half a century point in the marriage. To honor them, we joined in celebration in Forest Grove. There were many people we didn’t know in attendance but that was expected because we couldn’t imagine that Les and Sophie only had Old Winnebago Friends (OWF). The OWF folks in attendance were Terry & Carolann, Cliff & Susie, Me, and, of course, Les & Sophie. Only Diane was missing.

Sophie made it clear that they didn’t want gifts but I couldn’t let this significant event go without at least one little present. So, I went shopping around the house for something with meaning.

IN the linen closet I found the perfect gift for Les. since he retired he’s become involved with his American Legion in a role that requires him to dress up at times. What I found, on a shelf littered with interesting things, was a Tie Steamer. Since I don’t wear ties any more it seemed appropriate that Les should have this rare item. Diane found it in one of the many thrift stores she visited over the years and it only cost $8. My first choice for les was one of my old screwdrivers but the tie steamer made perfect sense to me.

For Sophie, I shopped Diane’s Willow Tree collection that resides next to the TV.

I selected one of the angels with wings. The bottom of each figurine has a name. The one I chose was “Remembrance”. It was the first one I picked up so that alone added meaning to the gift. Sophie has an extensive Willow Tree collection, too, so the only danger I had was that I’d given her something she already had. Thankfully, she was shy this one angel.

For the finale, Some of the girls gathered on the stirs to display their garters, even the small ones.

Then the party was sealed with a kiss.

Hi My Love. Please do not think that since I’ve not typed directly at you it means that I haven’t been thinking about you. That’s hardly the case because you are on my mind constantly.

I figure you know exactly what I’ve been doing, but I’m going to tell you about it anyway. At least the parts I remember. Yes, I still have that issue but it still doesn’t bother me. I don’t forget as much as I used to because I don’t have you to remind me. I really miss that. You were always able to fill in the gaps.

Yesterday the PT Cruiser group had lunch at the Olive Garden in Hillsboro, the one in the Fred Meyer parking lot. We’ve been there a few times before so it was a little bit nostalgic for me. There was a good turnout. Lydia was my date, but I sat next to Nelda. Rick, of course, did the footwork to make the reservation and ensured everyone was well informed. I was pleased that Steve and LaDeane showed up.

Let’s see. There was Rick & Jody, Steve & LaDeane, Me, Lydia, Nelda, Robbie & CC, and some other folks I’ve known for years and have seen a hundred times but can’t remember their names.

Here’s a sunset photo over the Sunset Blvd Church. Nice. Max was with me but he wasn’t impressed. His focus was closer to the ground.

The garage door quit working and that’s very inconvenient. Now I have to go in the front door which involves a key. So far it works okay but there’s always the danger of me forgetting how to use the key.

The problem appears to be with the safety feature that won’t let the door move if something is blocking the sensor. Visually there doesn’t appear to be a problem so it;s confusing. Jeff bought a new set of sensors that relived yesterday and I hooked them up today. They don’t light up at all. Now I’m in another quandary. I’m going to let it rest for a couple of days and see what it looks like then. Right now I’ve totally lost interest in the garage door.

Yesterday I visited with Carolyn for a while to show her how to manipulate her computer without having to log in to her apps over and over Barnes & Noble specifically was the issue. She likes her books. We got it figured out then she wanted to take me to dinner, so i agreed. I picked her up at 5:30 pm and we went to Plymouth Pub. She had. Pulled pork sandwich and I had a bunch of dead shrimp. It was good and we had a lot of time to visit.

Today the temp is supposed to be in the low 90’s. Tomorrow it soars to 97. Makes me want to run around naked but I’m pretty sure no one in the neighborhood wands that to happen. So, I’ll stay inside and take naps. Max will still get his walks but they will be short and early in the morning and late at night.

Today Cedric is 29. You knew that, of course. He’s got a girlfriend at work. I think her name is Wing. One of these days I might get to meet her. He told me that he’s working on her to attend our next family lunch on the 21st. I hope that works out. It should be fun for her to meet everyone all at once. Then again, that might be a bit much for some people. We’ll see.

The temperature was almost 90 today and the A/C decided to take a hike on me. It was 79 in the house almost all day and it wore me out. The thermostat is set to 65 degrees but it doesn’t seem to matter. So, I’ve decided that the thermostat is messed up of the A/C portion of the system doesn’t work. I’ve also considered that I just don’t know how the thermostat works After putting that down on paper, I think back on all the times I’ve run that thermostat up and down and it worked just fine. So I’m taking that one off the table. It’s not operator error. I’ll call the Columbia NW Heating on Monday about it.

On that note, I’m calling it a day. Good night My Love.

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.

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.

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.

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.