Author Archives: Jerrie Cate

Day 1 – Medford, Oregon

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We left St. Helens at 2:00 pm and walked into our room at the Rodeway Inn about 7:45 pm. Normally it’s a 5 hour drive with no stops and we stopped 3 times so we made really good time. Average speed was over 60 mph. It would have been much faster but Diane allowed me to drive 150 miles of the trip. She goes 69, I don’t. On the downside, for me, is that she got better gas mileage than I did because she only drove downhill. Almost all my driving was uphill, all the time. Really. All the time.

As we raced down I-5, which we’ve done many, many times over the years, we shared nostalgic memories as we passed, or stopped at the various rest areas along the way. We’ve been to all of them, from Portland to San Diego. We’re only in Medford so we’ve hit almost all of the rest areas on this interstate because there aren’t many of them in California. Their version of a rest area is a strip mall along side the freeway … not just a place to get out, stretch your legs, and take a leak … oops. Sorry. I didn’t mean to let that blurt out. But it did.

Our room at the Rodeway Inn cost a whopping $59 and we agree that it’s better than some $100 rooms in the past. The furniture is a little worn, but the rooms are clean and tidy. Perfect for an over night stop. And, we get a continental breakfast in the morning. Excellent!

For dinner we motored about 1/2 a mile away to the Burger King we passed and got Whoppers, with lemonade instead of soda. Good, huh? For dessert we each ate two rice krispy treats.

Oh yes! More good news on the medical front … brother Jack is doing excellent after his surgery. He didn’t say that, exactly, but I can tell by the tone of his texts that things are looking up for him. We’re both very happy about that. You all should be, too, but, since it’s a personal choice, it isn’t mandatory.

Now I’m tired so that’s it for now.

Good News & Other Stuff

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Greetings to you all. Thanks to those who asked about Diane’s mom. Turns out she’s really ok and was just faking it. That’s lie. Her blood pressure was acting up, a lot, causing her to be dizzy. Worrying about tht just escalated the problem because of the stress. Knowing it wasn’t her heart giving out was a huge relief for her because she watched Mel, Diane’s Dad, wither away due to heart problems. It’s a relief for all of us to the point that we were able to make our break for San Diego. She has people who are going to check on her daily and she was OK with us leaving. Well, not totally OK, but OK enough. Plus, we’re cutting the trip short for reasons beyond her health issues.

So, we’re currently south of Salem, Oregon. Our destination tonight is Medford, Oregon, not far from the California border. Even though my chauffeur was up with the sun, and spent an agonizing morning in an overly hot hospital room, she’s perky and driving along quite nicely, like she always does.

I found a new GPS navigation application that’s keyed to commuters. It’s called “WAZE”. It’s free, and really detailed. It’s got all kinds of information posted by other Wazers regarding current traffic conditions, stalled vehicles, and police presence. it also compiles Wazers’ progress down the road and lets others know their progress. It also lets wazers text each other which I think is a stellar idea, especially for those who drive alone. There’s an accident waiting to happen. Still, it’s fun for me.

It’s 4:08pm local and we’re in Albany, Oregon. Well, not really in it, just close to it. I don’t think Albany allows freeways in their town.

So, how about those Beavers and Ducks? Beavers upset UCLA, which is always fun, and the Ducks stomped on Arizona a little bit, 49-0. That secured them a #2 national ranking in the NCAA. Not bad for a little, obscure school from out west. Do any of you remember 2006 when the Oregon State Beavers won the NCAA Baseball World Series? They were the first team in history to lose twice in Omaha and go on to with the series. They were the Cinderella team. Just to emphasize that win, they did it again in 2007.

Time to quit. We’re 84 miles north of Roseburg, and there’s a rest area dead ahead. More later, if I’m allowed.

Emergency Rooms, Coyotes, and Roofers

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Where have I been? Does anyone know? Since my reality isn’t the same as everyone else’s I could use some help to ferret out the “pretend” areas of my life and reconnect with a common reality that’s apparently shared by everyone else. Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy flying around in my reality, most of the time, but sometimes it gets lonely because the only others I see there are captured in their own “moments” and do not communicate well.

Yesterday I was ejected into the ‘real’ world when Diane’s Mom was transported to Good Sam from urgent care in St. Helens for cardiac “issues” related to a “possible” heart attack. We followed the ambulance, and Jennie, Dan, and kids arrived shortly after we did. After monitoring her in the emergency room, for the requisite 3-4 hours, she was admitted for the night and scheduled for a stress test this morning at 0800. After Jean was settled in her room, we all headed back to the ranch, knowing she was in good hands.

Once we got home, being the optimists we normally are, we packed our bags for our trip south which was to begin today. First stop Medford, Oregon. Diane and Jennie are on their way to the hospital as I type so they can be there during the stress test and get first hand knowledge on what’s going on. Me? I had to stay home so I can go to church this morning and answer the questions everyone will have about Jean. Lydia is going with me to play body guard. And visit with her friend, Briana.

Now, about last night …

We packed and puttered around here until almost midnight like we normally do the night before leaving on a trip. The dogs went out and returned quickly for their nighty treat. Couldn’t find the cat, which isn’t unusual, so closed up the house and went to bed.

Shortly thereafter, 3-4 coyotes started yipping in our back yard. Diane let Panzee out on the upper porch so they could ‘talk’ for a bit. Apparently Panzee convinced them to depart, because they did after a very noisy conversation. At times like this, Breezie is a concern because she’d make a pretty nice coyote snack. I know, that’s probably not an appropriate thing to ‘say’, but it’s true. This morning when Diane got up, Breezie was meowing at the basement door, so all is good. The coyotes probably spied her behind the basement patio door which caused all the ruckus. She doesn’t flinch much so that no doubt added to their frustration. I can just see her down there, sitting by the patio door, one hind leg sticking straight up in the air, licking away with an occasional pause to look a coyote in the eye then back to licking.

Since the coyotes are prowling, Breezie will have to spend her nights indoors. The problem with that is, if things turn out OK for Jean, we may not be here to ensure that happens and she may not always magically show up when one of the kids checks the house. In those cases she’s on her own, but she’s a tricky cat that survived outside for a year on her own.

Throughout all of this added turmoil, add the noise created by 15-20 guys ripping off your roof and replacing it … in three days. They started last Thursday and finished Saturday afternoon. Pretty amazing to watch and very very loud the entire time. They did a great job and we’re confident that our house will not leak for the next 30-40 years. That will be a comfort when we’re sitting on the porch, watching the sunrise behind Mt. Hood, when we’re around 100 or so.

Now I must go shave and get ready for church. I have an hour before I pick up Lydia. Since Diane isn’t here, most of that time will be spent looking for the things I need to accomplish my task.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day. If we manage to hit the road today, I’ll be in touch. Actually, I’ll be in touch whether or not we hit the road today. I have gizmos that help me with that.

Gilligan … almost 5

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Today Diane and I took Gilligan, our granddaughter, shopping to celebrate her 5th birthday. She won’t be 5 until October 5th, but since we’re not going to be home it seemed like a good thing to do. The original plan was to take the entire family, but that was ruled out because taking Gilligan and Baylee out in public together is apparently risky. So, we settled on Gilligan alone. By herself.

Grandma brough a festive crown for her to wear, we got her buckled in, and were off.

 

On the way to the store we stopped for lunch at Ichabod’s where Gilligan ordered a turkey sandwich on wholewheat, “yellow butter only.” When she got it she promptly dismantled it and feasted on the turkey, ignoring the bread. It was OK because this trip was about her, not about proper eating habits.

After eating we trekked on over to Fred Meyer to get Batman’s Jail, her choice from the moment she got into the car. Holding my fingers, she led us up and down a few aisles and finally found it. Not something normal little girls would like, I thought, but she was so excited about it, how could we deny her.

Having that treasure secured, we went to the other end of the store, to the dresses, to satisfy Grandma’s desire to get her something pretty.

Along the way she tried out a lot of the furniture, blessing us with one of her signature poses.

 

Once there, Gilligan pulled the first dress she saw off the rack and deemed it the one she had to have. It was the prettiest, most expensive, and most inappropriate one in the entire store. She has a knack for this, we decided, and went about the task of altering her decision to include something more appropriate, but still pretty. We found several, explaining that the first choice was one that could only be worn once in a while, but the many others we offered up could be worn for pretty much any occasion. We even tossed in a matching hat.

She delighted in disappearing into the clothes racks, behind us, when we were distracted by the dresses and other pretty things suitable for little girls, bringing to rigid clarity the reason why one at a time was plenty for us old people. Had Baylee been along, we would’ve never kept up. They are busy little people with devious minds. But, she was always close by, and blessed us with her physical presence when asked … sometimes twice.

 

Finally, she relented, deeming her 2nd choice the better of the two, and we were off to the cashier.

Since she had so much energy, I encouraged her to hop on one foot as we went, which she did for most of the way. Once we got to the produce section she decided to do pushups. I told her to “give me 10,” which she promptly did.

On the way home she decided she’d like to see some cows so Diane drove to the places where cows normally hang out, but there were none to be found. With a sigh, Gilligan determined that cow trappers must have taken all of them and that The Pie Man was in charge. Not sure what the Pie Man reference was it took only a little coaxing the figure out that the Pie Man made cow pies out of the cows provided by the Cow Trappers.

Once home she proudly marched into the house with her treasures, showing her Mom Batman’s Jail before anything else. Heather knowingly said, “Uh huh,” and related that Jeff had recently told Gilligan that she couldn’t have it. This points, once again, to the devious side of things because I’m sure she’s going to look at her Dad with her little head cocked, a gleam in her eye, letting him know that, “yes, she could have it.”

 

Changing Plans, a New Roof, and My Ditch

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Now I must be serious, at least for a short time. Most of you know that’s hard for me to do and will tolerate this diversion from the norm, so I only ask those of you who wound up here by mistake to please have patience while I make an attempt to shift some gears.

For some reason, at this point, speaking about gears, I’m compelled to insert a “vrooooooom” right here. Silly, I know, and it’s not going toward the serious side of things as I had intended.

The serious “stuff” is that Diane and I made a decision to remain on this side of the Rocky Mountains the remainder of this year. The original plan, as of this morning, was to drive to Charleston, SC to attend the annual USS Cleveland reunion, but some things got in the way of those plans, taking a trip east out of the plans. Therefore, we will miss seeing Charleston, as well as points north, as was our desire. To those of you in Connecticut, whom we love to pieces, we send our regrets. There will be another time, we promise.

Our roof is going to be replaced beginning next Thursday. From start to stop it’s going to be a 3-day event. Pretty amazing to me because it’s a total ripoff and replacement of 3 layers of shingles. Tons and tons of shingles. One of the biggest cost factors is disposal of the old material.

We’re extremely happy that Mark’s Custom Exteriors could rearrange their schedule to accommodate us before we have to head south on Sunday. Even though it’s cutting it close, we’ll be here to ensure every nail is hammered in properly. I’m going to do that be wandering around on the roof, putting a little “x” on each one of them with my handy magic marker. No nail gets covered up until I “x” it. Normally that would add 2-3 days to the job, but I’ve been practicing this and have devised a way to do it without all that bending over, or crawling around on my hands and knees. I’m simply going to pre-“x” them before they’re loaded into the nail gun. I know, it seems kind of pointless doesn’t it? But, just for fun I’m leaving some of the nails blank just to see if someone comes to get me to “x” it. I seriously doubt they will, and I will not complain because that would just be silly. Who would do something like that?

In a precious entry I reported that I was being allowed to rent a small excavator to enlarge the ditch I dug, manually, that’s intended to drain water away from our driveway, and keep it out of the garage. I know the ditch works but it needs to be deeper and I’m just flat out of the energy required to hammer my way through all those rocks and roots. As it is, I’ve succeeded in killing the tree whose roots I severed to reach the back yard, so it’s something I’ll have to address before the floods loosen it all up and it topples into the neighbor’s yard. It’s OK that I killed it, because I was going to cut it down anyway … it has a terrible knot-forming kind of disease that just doesn’t look good. The birds love it so Diane was kinda wanting to keep it, but I sood my manly ground and killed it anyway. Actually, I didn’t mean to kill it. It just kinda worked out that way. Apparently it’s OK because I’m still sleeping inside.

Weather … we haven’t had any measureable rain for the past 2 months. That’s unheard of in Oregon. We always have rain, right? Most people believe it rains in Oregon all the time. We get our share, for sure, but it’s a bit sparse this year. I think most of it was recently dumped on Louisiana and the surrounding area. The folks who moved here from California, and there are more than a few, think it’s just fine that we’re not having any rain because that’s what they’re used to. Real Oregonians, however, do not thrive well in dry weather. We get all wrinkly and it’s not pretty. We need moisture. Thankfully, Diane is an Avon representative so I have unlimited access to all kinds of moisturizers when I need them. Lots of them make me feel pretty, so I use them on rainy days, too.

I think it’s time to terminate, now, since I totally lost track of where I’m going with this. Truth is, I never had any certain direction in the first place. Just like normal.

Out On My Own !!

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Today I drove farther, and longer than I have in months, and months. Usually I’m only allowed to drive down to ACE and back on any given day, multiple times if necessary, which is usually the case. But it’s not very far … under a mile … doesn’t really count as a “trip”, if you know what I mean.

Normally when I leave the house I’m with Diane and she drives everywhere, all the time. She told me that when we’re together she’s a better driver than a passenger. Consequently, I’ve become the consummate passenger any time we go anywhere together. And that’s OK. I’m good with that because it gives me lots of time to fiddle with my gizmos. For some of you that may have a totally different meaning than the one intended. Since I can’t totally control which way your mind bends, you’ll have to work that out yourselves.

Today I drove all the way over to Clackamas Town Center to assist with a personal issue for someone about which I’ve been forbidden to speak, so I won’t. Suffice it to say that I drove, both ways, without mishap, although I was seriously tempted to run over a Kia Soul whose driver chose to cut into traffic at bad times, then almost stop in the traffic lane in front of me to cut over again. Very irritating. But, I swallowed my urges and let her continue on her wave after a beep and a friendly wave thinking that perhaps she had a more dire need to reach her destination than I was to reach mine.

Or, she was totally frustrated by the traffic that she has to deal with every day, with her 2 hour commute, that she’s not concerned about anyone else on the freeway. This probably all stems from the fact that, due to the economy, she was downsized from the business close to her home, where she worked for the past 15 years, and had to find another job to support the home she purchased because the area was nice, and the job was good. The new job is 40 miles away, accessible only by congested roads and freeways because her boss doesn’t believe in flex hours that would allow her to beat the traffic both ways. Or, perhaps, she had to work overtime today to make up for being late yesterday.

More than likely, this being Friday and all, she was in a hurry to get home so shave her legs because she has a blind date tonight and didn’t want to give a bad first impression, just in case.

Thinking about that makes me wonder why a woman would shave her legs when going out on a date with anyone for the first time. Is there a need for a woman to ensure that her date is aware that she recently shaved her legs, or is it simply a matter of hygiene? Do their legs feel “dirty” if they don’t shave them, or do they itch? I’ve never shaved my legs so don’t know the answers to these questions. I can, however, tell you about shaving for a vasectomy, but I won’t. Diane would get cranky at me, I’m sure. Besides, it wasn’t for me, it was for a friend of mine. Really. It was.

Now that I’m home safe, Diane and I are sitting on our porch waiting for it to rain. It probably won’t, but we’ll wait anyway because it’s cooler out here than in the house even though all the doors and windows are open. Every once in a while a hummingbird will fly up and buzz around a few feet away to check us out. They feel safe when we’re out here and they probably know the cat is in the yard, far away from them.

Ozzie is on a diet because he started looking like a little porker. Jennie said I was feeding him too much so I cut his pouch food rations in half. He doesn’t seem to mind, so far, but I have suspicions that while we’re sleeping at night he sticks his but in our faces. Since I sleep with a CPAP machine, I’m not too concerned, but Diane doesn’t. If I was her, I’d be worried, because I know Oz heard her agree with Jennie. The fact that I’m the culprit who carried out the cut back is immaterial at this point so he takes revenge where he can. I’m sure.

The battery on my laptop is about to run dry so I better quit while I can still save this. It’s vital to everyone  that I get this out in the ozone where they can snag it out of the air and waste their precious time reading it. I’d equate it to a computer virus that causes people to spend time doing something they really don’t want to do in order to resurrect their computers in order to read drivel like this. Now, aren’t you happy you made it this far?

Cheers

Golfing, Rocks, and the USN

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Today I rediscovered why I generally do not golf more than 9 holes on any given day. It’s because I get a little giddy after the ninth hole, like you do when you’ve been awake for a couple of days, and everything is funny, even when it really isn’t. Still, it was a fun time that I really enjoyed, and I’ll probably do it again. We used a cart and I’m still stiff and sore.

I was treated to this experience by by friend and classmate, Jimbo. He’s married to Sue, in case you didn’t know, and owns a business that supplies pretty much every kind of appliance known to mankind to pretty much every hotel/motel chain in the free world. Oh, he supplies DVDs, too. Consequently, he’s doing quite well in the business world. You check his stuff out on his Hospitality Supplies web site. If you see something you like, let me know and I’ll see if I can get you a discount. No guarantees, but who knows?

To start the day out a dump truck arrived bright and early to deliver a pile of rocks we ordered yesterday. Diane insisted. They’re for the ditch by the garage that I need to expand a bit, and ensure it’s actually slopped correctly so the water runs away from the driveway. To do this I’ve been given permission to rent a mini excavator from Don’s Rental! That’s going to be so much fun that I might just dig up way more dirt than necessary to “get it right.” I suppose I could dig it out with my poleasky and a shovel but that’s, like, work. The excavator will be way more fun.

I think the final plans have been made for our reunion for the USS Dennis J. Buckley (DD-808) at the end of this month. It’s going to be in San Diego. Diane and I were responsible for arranging everything and it’s turning out to be the biggest reunion this ship has ever had. It’s really amazing. There will be 131 people there. In 2010, in Buffalo, NY, there were 40 or so. The last bit to be finalized was the tour buses to get everyone from point to point without losing any of them. This ship was commissioned in 1944 and decommissioned in 1973, so even those who were aboard in 1973 are old now. One individual, who is coming, was aboard from 1948 to 1954. Pretty amazing.

Diane put the dogs on alert that it’s OK to rouse me a bit early tomorrow, since I have to get up early anyway, to get the equipment I need in the morning. So, it’s time to quit.

Nine Eleven – Where Were You?

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It’s very interesting what those two words evoke in people. Two simple words, used every day in one context or another, that stir memories of an event on a specific date in time. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear them spoken?

For me, it’s an early morning getting ready for work. The TV was on, and the “breaking news” was video of the North Tower burning, people jumping from windows as fire consumed the upper floors. Standing there in awe, and sadness, disbelieving, we watched the South Tower explode, compounding the chaos, then it cascaded to the ground. It was like watching a planned demolition, the way it simply dropped to the ground in it’s own footprint. This time, however, there were thousands of people inside.

In a daze, I made my way to work where I joined a room full of co-workers in a conference room to watch the ongoing news about the attack … then the North tower collapsed, joining the remnants of the South tower, creating a huge void in the New York skyline.

Then, when it seemed things were calming down, came news of a plane hitting the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and another plane crashing into the ground in Pennsylvania.

In all, 2,976 people died that day at the hands of 19 terrorists. Indeed, they scared us because of the cowardly manner in which they chose to express themselves. They also awakened the withering patriotism of the United States. Instead of striking fear of them into our hearts these acts united us more strongly, giving 9/11 new meaning.

If anyone you know doesn’t understand the meaning of nine eleven, please explain it to them. They need to know. We can’t forget this.