Monthly Archives: December 2017

December 29th Addendum

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I pretty much covered ‘stuff’ right up until Diane got home from her latest shopping trip to Fred Meyer’s. That was just a few minutes ago. Now she’s gone again to get tacos for dinner.

Now, during the short time she was home, here’s what I learned and what happened shortly afterward.

While she was at Fred’s, she was bending over looking for a shirt and some older lady (her words) ran into her with a cart, hitting her right on the tail bone. She said it wasn’t a minor tap and isn’t sure what she’s going to be like tomorrow. I asked if she got information from the lady – she hadn’t. I’m proud of Diane for not getting up and cleaning that lady’s clock.

Then Diane went down our dark hall and tripped over the big black dog on the way back. I was in the basement and heard the impact. When I arrived she was in lots of pain so I just kept my distance until she calmed down a little. When she was able to talk coherently, she rolled to her best knee, then leveraged herself to a vertical position using the chair I got her. She didn’t want me to help her upright, so I didn’t.

Then she walked down the hall and declared that she was OK and would like tacos for supper, and away she went without me for protection and assistance. Tough Guy, she is right now, but she’s going to be a mess tomorrow.

Here’s the damage from the fall.

She fell into a short book-case. On top were two glass votive candle holders, one of which was mashed to smithereens. She’s lucky.

I may have created a bad situation for myself by pointing out the light switches to the hall lights on our way to the kitchen. I’ll do that again tomorrow when I’m waiting on her because she can’t walk. I hope that’s not the case, but it doesn’t look good right now.

A Birthday and a White Christmas

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Today is December 29th. Two days to 2018 and our temperature is 51 degrees. We had a white Christmas for the first time in about 30-40 years but the warm weather and ensuing rain made short work of that. Still, it was pretty nice.

The dogs weren’t huge fans, especially Ozzie, the little guy. After the snow, we had freezing rain which allowed him to walk on top of the precipitation had he chosen to do so. We’re talking about a little dog that has a hard time walking around the house unless there is a throw rug for him to use. Figure the odds that he’ll walk on a sheet of ice voluntarily. Consequently, there is no photo.

Before Christmas I attended an art class with our daughter, Jennifer, who is the crafty one in the family. This was the first time I’ve done something like this so it was an experience to remember. First off, I was the only male participant and I had to ask permission to participate. I didn’t really, but thought it would be prudent to do so. Thankfully, I knew a few of the ladies so it wasn’t difficult. One of the knowns to me was Kristen, Daniel’s sister. Daniel, for those who don’t know, is my son’s brother-in-law.

Kristen’s Mom and Grandma were also there, I believe, but didn’t get their photo.

As you can see, we all did an acrylic painting of a bear of some kind that wears clothing. Mine wasn’t too bad if you didn’t get too close to it. The farther away the better.

Jennifer did a much better job.

Pretty much all of the class.

The class was conducted in the Running Dog Brewery which is located next to the old Fat Boy’s Pizza in downtown St. Helens, and about 3-4 doors up from Jillian’s, the 2nd hand clothing store that was used as the Seattle store where Bella went shopping for a prom dress in the vampire movie Twilight. Considering that the beer flowed continuously throughout the painting experience, you’d think it would have been pretty noisy and the paintings might have been a bit interesting. It was true for both of those presumptions but I wasn’t allowed to capture any proof. I was going to do it anyway, but they outnumbered me about 20-1 so didn’t see the benefit of risking precious body parts to a potentially vicious mob of enraged women.

Actually, I really don’t think anyone would have minded but I just figured not doing so was a better choice. Everyone was having a great time, even me.

Our church choir practiced many times to prepare for our traditional Christmas Eve 11:00 pm service, and the last one was on December 20th, Diane’s birthday. Jennifer arranged for a fancy cake and we had a party at the church.

Since Diane and I are advanced in age, we had Christmas dinner a day early at our house so we wouldn’t have a need to be in traffic with all those other folks. Jeff and the Littles, Gilligan, Baylee, and Jerrie, were in attendance, as well as the entire Walters clan, except for Cedric. There was a short period of time where it appeared that Daniel and Jeran might go get Cedric but the weather had already turned bad and the roads were terrible. So, they returned to base.

Cedric will be home on leave today (the 29th) and we’ll be celebrating Christmas again with him, tomorrow, at the Walters’ home.

Almost lastly, here’s my new favorite coffee cup that Lydia got me …

She knows me so well.

Finally, if anyone is in the market for a nice vehicle, this one is for sale. We’ve had our fun, but can’t tow it behind the RV except on a trailer. It’s replacement will probably be a 2015 Chevy Malibu.

Happy New Year to everyone. Make it a safe one.

Cedric Comes Home

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It’s really, really wet at our house, and it’s cold. Seems like all this rain should be snow. It won’t be long before that becomes reality, I’m sure.

I know I’ve already addressed my concern regarding all the sexual misconduct going on in the but since I get daily reminders about those who have offended someone, in some way, I’m compelled to just offer up my apologies for all the times I may have inappropriately bumped in to someone during the course of my life.

Now, about all those congressmen and senators who have been using a publicly funded cash account, hush money I’ve heard, to pay off those who may have been assaulted.

Before I take that any further, I’ve just gotta say that I honestly believe that the majority of our elected officials in Washington DC are good guys and it’s the minority we’re hearing about now. This Hush Money Account, however, has me concerned because it’s apparently something they all know about. If that’s indeed true, then I deem them all guilty for allowing that to happen even if they didn’t use it to pay someone off. It’s truly a sad state of affairs and, frankly, I’m getting pretty tired of hearing about it every day. Seems like the media could find something uplifting to report once in a while.

I demand that our 535 lawmakers split the pot and pay us back for the $17M they unlawfully borrowed from out taxes. Divided equally, that works out to about $31,775.700934579439252 each. I’m willing to round that up to $32,000 each just because. Turns out that more than half of those 535 people are millionaires so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Once the legal system gets a handle on who used the fund and how much they used to pay off those with whom they practiced  sexual misconduct, those folks should pay back what gave away in addition to the previously mentioned $32K fee. It’s only fair.

Additionally, those who used the fund should be levied taxes on the money they gave away because they did so as if the money was theirs. That would be unearned income, like a bonus, which is taxed at around 48%.

Then there are those who received the pay offs. What about them? Personally, I think that taking the money makes them complicit and should also pay taxes on the portion of that $17M that was given away. Yes, I understand that they are the alleged victims but I suspect that’s not true for all of them. I bet some of them knew about that fund, also, and knew how to use it. That, of course, is just a guess and strictly my opinion. I haven’t heard anything about that on the news so it must be true that the victims are all just that. Victims. Still, taking a pay off for something stupid done to them by an ignorant, arrogant, elected official is, in a way, condoning the acts committed. That’s just another opinion.

Maybe someone from the IRS will jump in here somewhere and give me a hand. Until that happens, I’m moving on to something more interesting, and closer to home.

Our Grandson Cedric returned to his home port yesterday after completing his first deployment. He’s stationed aboard the USS Nimitz (CVN-68), the oldest nuclear powered super carrier still afloat. The Nimitz was one of the three carriers that took a cruise up the coast of North Korea toward the end of their deployment. What fun that must have been, right?

They are home safely now and Cedric’s Mom, Jennifer, and I drove up to watch the ship enter port and parallel park at their assigned pier in Kitsap Naval Base Bremerton, WA. Jennifer and I left St. Helens at 0800 and arrived about 1100. Parking turned out to not be much of a problem for some reason and we were able to get a spot only about a block away from all the festivities. Easy peasy. Then we walked to the pier and claimed a spot in the middle of the quay wall between the piers where the Nimitz would moor. We got there at noon after a leisurely lunch at the conveniently located Wendy’s on the base.

We joined about a zillion other folks where came to welcome the ship home. This was new for me because I was always the guy on the ship coming in to port. It was an extremely slow and interesting evolution. Parking an aircraft carrier isn’t a minor task. It’s all done in slow motion.

Jennifer was über excited to see Cedric again after the six-month deployment and we were there to take him home for a few days. He brought one of his shipmates home, too, and he’s currently palling around with her and his St. Helens friends. Yes, I said ‘her’. He brought a girl home. Shocking. It’s OK, though, because it was pre-approved by Jennifer. She’s a great young lady. When we met I told her my name was Jerrie but she could call me Senior Chief. She took it well but neither Cedric nor Jennifer saw the humor and severely chastised me while Elisabeth laughed.

It took a while to get off the base because of all the traffic so we parked in Wendy’s lot, had something to eat to tide us over for the trip home, and waited for Elisabeth to show up. We finally exited the gate around 1600 and arrived home at about 1930. In all, it was almost a 12 hour day for Jennifer and me. I used to be able to deal with stuff like that a lot better. Considering that I didn’t drive either direction you’d think I had it pretty easy, right? Well, being the Navigator is important business and doesn’t allow one to sleep on the job.

I’ll close with a bunch of photos I took of the day. Enjoy.