First, Diane’s much better … the dreaded shingles (totally misnamed as previously noted) is fading, and the pain is decreasing in intensity. Either that, or Diane is just getting used to it.

Now, about a new obsession …

We’re trapped on our couch and cannot get up except to use the facilities and have a spot of tea once in a while. The reason? We discovered ‘Downton Abbey’. It’s on Xfinity on demand. Every episode since season one.There’re 21 episodes available and we’ve plowed our way through 14 of them since Wednesday. I know, that’s a lot of TV in a short time, but we’re trapped. It’s really nice that Matthew and Mary have finally figured out what  everyone already knew, that they should marry to save the abbey, and all of Mary’s Mother’s money. But the sad part is weighing heavy on us, wondering how poor Mr. Bates is going to find release from prison after throttling his wretched first wife. She deserved what she got. Now, however, the love of Anna’s life is locked up for life.

Then there’s Sybol, who ran off with the chauffeur. To Ireland, of all places.

This show appears to be a more than adequate replacement for the now defunct ‘All My Children’. Kinda makes me want to be ‘in service’ for the Earl of Whats-it’s-chester.

Today was a date ‘night’ for Diane and me. We went to a Portland Symphony production called ‘Ballroom With a Twist’. It was at the Schnitz. Diane wanted to go because it featured Anna Trebunskaya and Tristan MacManus, pro dancers from the ever popular ‘Dancing With the Stars’ show. We were more than surprised when it turned out that Anna & Tristan were the hosts and the show consisted of two ‘American Idol’ singers, as well as dancers from ‘So You Think You Can Dance’, and the entire group of youngsters from ‘Dancing With The Stars’. What fun it was. Two hours of non-stop music and dancing. Quite remarkable and memorable. It was a very nice date. Also, it was a matinee, not at night, so we got home before dark.

Now it’s time to eat supper and watch a few more episodes of ‘Downton Abbey’ before we go to bed. Won’t be long before we’re all caught up and we can go back to our normal 3-4 hours of TV a day instead of 7-8 hours. Wears me out.

Shingles. What a terrible thing for anyone to have. They do, however, dwindle in severity over time and I can tell you that Diane is getting better. She been getting cocky a little earlier each day for the past week or so, and today she let me know that she’s almost back. She hit me with a broom for absolutely no reason at all. You can tell that she’s still not up to par, however, because her aim was off a bit and she hit me right on the bone of my left forearm instead of my rear end. It hurt a great deal but she didn’t care. Apparently she thought I deserved it and I don’t think she’s well enough to participate in a sustained argument.

So, after holding my arm until the pain went away, I continued making the bed and sweeping the floor … oh, now I remember … I swiffered the entire bedroom then she started wiping around in corners with a straw floor broom. I went over that area again with the swiffer. That’s when she hit me. And yelled. It’s apparent that a straw broom trumps a swiffer.

I’m glad she’s getting better.

Last year Panzie misplaced her squirrel with the squeeky tail. We’ve looked everywhere for it, but cannot find it. She has shunned all attempts to replace it with one of Ozzie’s toys, of which he has many, but none of them squeek. So, she’s been playing less and eating more, gaining unsightly dog weight. Both she and Ozzie are on half rations, as I reported in a previous entry, and Oz is actually getting a noticeable waist line again. Panzie, however, hasn’t made it that far.

Today things changed. Panzie’s life has been improved. She’s a happy dog again with the addition of a new (to her) squeeky sock monkey. She was overcome with joy when I gave it to her, as you can see.

What’s significant about this toy is that it used to belong to Thomas, Cedric, Lydia, and Jeran’s dog. Due to his declining health he was released from this mortal plane last year. He and Panzie got along great when Panzie stayed at his house when Diane and I found it necessary to go on vaction. During those visits Panzie would not play with the sock monkey, because it wasn’t hers. Now that it is, we suspect she will lose weight and get back to fighting form.

On a side note, Panzie spent last Sunday night outside. She apparently stepped outside when I opened the front door to see what all the commotion was across the street. George was having a Super Bowl Party. That was about 9:30 pm. He terminated the noise before 10 which was very neighborly of him. When I got up Monday morning I searched the house for Panzie so I could let her out with Oz, but she was no where to be found. I finally found her sitting on the front porch where I believe she spent the night. She’s a big dog and is between 12-15 years old, so spending the night in freezing cold took it’s toll on her. She was all stiff and sore.

Today, after getting her sock monkey, she went back to normal.

So … today Diane took Ozzie for his poodle-do. He gets those about once a month because he’s a poodle. Not a real one, mind you, but one of the pretend toy ones. But he’s our pretend poodle. Here he is …

It’s odd that he had his poodle-do today because neither Diane, nor her Mom, Jean, were scheduled for haircuts. They almost always get them on Ozzie’s poodle-do day.

Anyway, when Don finally delivered me back home the front door was locked and Diane was gone so I had to find an alternative way into the house.

Wait! You didn’t know I was gone, did you. Well, I was. I was gone for a lot of hours. So, lets go back in time, a little …

On the day I was born it was a bright sunny day. It was raining outside and the snow was about a foot deep. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked … OK, OK! Too far back …

This morning I got up with the intention of getting nothing done before 11:30 am because I knew Don was going to pick me up to go look at his new computer and help him learn how to do ‘things’ on it. This was arranged yesterday. His lovely wife, Judy, bought him the new computer – a 15″ MacBook Pro. Nice. I figure he wanted to just show off because his is bigger than my piddly little 13″-er. But, that wasn’t actually the case. He really had valid questions.

First, however, we went to a beer joint for lunch. I had a bacon cheeseburger with fries. It was really good. I don’t know who paid for it.

From the beer joint we went to Don’s house to check his computer. The issue was he couldn’t print to his wireless printer unless he connected a USB cable. That kind of defeats the wireless aspect. The solution, of course, was to retrain his new computer to do without the USB leash and reach out to the printer with it’s little wireless fingers. Now it works nicely. Don’t know what good it’s going to do him because he and Judy are flying out to Hawaii tomorrow. Lucky duck. They will be gone for a month. Super-duper lucky duck.

When Don and I left our house Diane was in the hot tub downstairs and I didn’t want to have to run out of the garage trying to beat the door as its motor lowered it. So, I went out the front door thinking I’d just lock it on the way out, but the keyring I grabbed didn’t have a key so I just left it unlocked thinking I’d just go back in that direction.

When Don dropped me off at home I waved my goodbyes then went to the front door and found it locked. Mysterious. Then I looked in the garage and found Diane’s vehicle missing. Mysterious-er. I didn’t know she was going anywhere so I was concerned that someone had appeared at the door and hijacked her.

Putting that grim thought aside, I snuck my way around to the kitchen door and found it unlocked. Perplexing. The hijack theory was beginning to sound more plausible. Diane never leaves that door unlocked. Well, almost never. Maybe once in a while.

Once inside, I discovered Ozzie’s kennel upended and empty and I knew Panzie didn’t do it. Neither did the cat. My hijack theory segued into a dog napping. I got a snack thinking I would sit down and ponder all other possibilities for these mysteries. Before I could finish the snack the garage door went up and Panzie started barking, like normal, because Diane was returning.

I restrained Panzie from going into the garage until Diane got parked, then turned her loose to run in the front yard. Opening the driver’s door, like I normally do, Diane told me please get Oz, who was cowering on the passenger seat in his new bandana and hairdo which explained everything.

Then I was given the bad news. Diane said Kay-Kay, Ozzie’s stylist, told her that Ozzie’s fat and needs to lose weight. Diane and I had mentioned that to each other over the past few months, but didn’t do anything about it. Now that we have outside influence we must do something about it.

Therefore, beginning tomorrow morning, much to Ozzie’s dismay, he’s going on half rations. Instead of a full pouch of food each morning, and unlimited crunchies, he’s only getting half a pouch, and unlimited crunchies. If that doesn’t work, the unlimited crunchies will be revisited at a later date.

The only thing that bothers me about all of this is that I had no idea that dog stylists had the authority to dictate how her clients owners should, or should not feed them. But, apparently they do, so we will comply.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

By the way, that’s Ozzie on the left.

Yesterday I went to the car show at the Portland Convention Center. I took Tom and his stepson Kyle. To do that required that I had to drive about a hundred miles out of my way to pick them up. Tom’s wheelchair went in the back. He’s still gets a bit tired when walking any significant distance, so the chair was required. Tom, as you may recall, is our friend who had a stroke not long ago, and he’s also the friend who wrapped his bloody leg with a kotex but didn’t unwrap it first. Nifty. I have pictures.

Our friend, Mike, was kind enough to slide tickets our direction so entrance was free. Mike and I worked together at PGE for years and have maintained contact even though he’s moving to Mission Viejo, from Oregon City. He’s been working at the car show for years, and years so he knows people. We really appreciated the tickets as well as getting a chance to talk with him for a little while. He’s a busy guy.

We parked right next to the entrance door which is amazing, and we were right on schedule to connect with Japanese Jerry, as he calls himself for clarification, by the $126,000 Corvette in the Chevy section. That was scheduled for 1100. On the way across the floor we went through the Cadillac display and I sat in the new XTS, Diane’s new car in a few years. Nice.

After Jerry found us we wandered around a bit, then went up to the custom car section to see Jerry’s car, again. He’s a member of the Pharaohs car club. They have some pretty classy vehicles. Here are Jerry, me, and Tom standing in front of Jerry’s Camaro… 

Jerry, who lives in Vancouver, WA professes to be an Oregon Duck fan so it’s very perplexing why he had his car painted Oregon Beaver colors. He won’t talk about it so we may never really know. But, it’s a really nice car. Here’s another view of it …

I think I mentioned that Kyle’s a big guy … here’s proof …

While walking around the vehicles, we came across Jerome Kersey, one of our old favorite Trailblazers. Another big guy. Very nice, too. I think I came up to about his shoulder. No picture. Just name dropping.

I’ll end this with one snap of me in Diane’s new car …

I also have a ‘small world’ bit to share … as we were loading things into the Buick, I turned to go around to the driver’s door, and about ran smack into Spud & Leona. I was in highschool with Spud. We played drums together in the school band. Now he owns two ACE Hardware stores and I sit around doing stuff like this. It was good to see them, as always. Just fun to run across them in the midst of all those people.