May 23, 2026 – Thank You

Posted on May 28, 2026 by Jerrie Cate

I appreciate all the Birthday wishes I received. You are all too kind tor this old many. 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.

With that thought in mind I suspect now is a good time for me to start eating properly. Wish me luck.

May 19, 2026 – A walk along the Columbia River

Posted on May 18, 2026 by Jerrie Cate

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

Posted on May 8, 2026 by Jerrie Cate

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.