I think the cat, Breezie, has assimilated herself into the family quite nicely. Ziva won’t let just anyone hug her tail like that. I can of course, because she loves me most.

Now, about Hood River … that’s been delayed until tomorrow because too many things happened today that kept us from getting on the road before noon, as planned. But, that’s OK. It’s been raining all day and it would have been a miserable drive. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice so, hopefully, it won’t drench us on the way. I hate being drenched, unless it’s in an infinity pool.

I spent most of today all alone. Diane desserted me early this morning to go help the other church ladies with their quilts, so I had to think of things to do all by myself. That’s not always a good thing. Often I wind up injuring myself in some weird way and have to drive myself to the emergency room for stitches. When Diane’s home, she just slaps a bandaid on my wounds and tells me to get over it and get back to work. I’ve learned that I heal about as good with a bandaid as I do with stitches, and the bandaid is far more tolerable.

Jeff took the big dogs home with him this afternoon. They love going there to visit with our beautiful grand daughters, Tiana, Gilligan, Baylee, and Jerrie Anne. On the plus side, for the little ones, Ziva views them as her responsibility and will not let anyone mess with them. Heather said she could just leave their front door open all night long and wouldn’t be afraid of anyone trying to get into the house. We know what she means. Ziva’s very devoted. Since Panzee follows Ziva’s lead, she’s devoted, too.

I’m at a total loss about what else to write about so guess my brain has been sufficiently drained enough to allow me to sleep peacefully tonight. We’ll see how that goes.

Greetings to the three or four of you that read this … bless you.

The last couple of days have been a frantic series of events to get the old Winnebago ready for tomorrow’s trip to Hood River. It’s only about 100 miles, and a good test to see just how far this thing will go before it breaks. Next month the trip will be waaay longer. Like 3 times farther. So, this will be an opportunity to get the wrinkles out of it.

Part of the frantic series of events was a golf date with my friend Doug. Diane told me I had to go. That was the first time out this year for either one of us. Actually, that’s probably the first time I’ve been out in over a year. Seems like it, anyway. To save a couple of bucks on future rounds, and to ensure we go again, we both joined the men’s club at the St. Helens course. It’s close, and easy. I say that because I’m so consistently bad at it. But, it’s always fun to go golfing with Doug and I look forward to the next round.

After golfing I came home and got Diane’s TV installed in the RV. All that’s left is for me to suck up all the sawdust I got on her bed, then make more sawdust to cut a hole for the power and cable. Guess I’ll cut the hole first. Doubt if there will be much need for TV during this trip because we’ll mostly visit. There’s no cable connection where we’ll be. I’d bring our DirecTV DVR, but then things wouldn’t record while we’re gone. That means, of course, we’ll have to get another DVR. Or, fork over some big bucks for a satellite antenna for the RV.

Diane was gone to serve at Community Meals when I returned from my grueling nine holes. It would have been worse had we walked, but we always get a cart. Since I hadn’t eaten much for breakfast, I was pretty hungry. Having to fend for myself I made it easy by eating all the left over ham (about a pound), two eggs, and two pieces of toast. With rasberry jam. Shortly after that I was reminded why I normally don’t eat large quantities of ham … it gives me horrible headaches. Ya gotta wonder how I could forget something like that, don’t you? Well, sometimes I just bite the bullet and deal with it because it tastes good. Besides, I have drugs to deal with the headaches. I had it all afternoon, and woke up with it this morning at which time I implemented the fix, which is a subdermal shot in my hip with a handy vial of Imitrex. Then I took a short nap and the headache miraculously went away.

Today I woke refreshed, and pain free. All that was the matter was I couldn’t close my hands into fists because I was all swollen up from the salty ham and eggs. It went away fairly quickly, however, which was good. I think it was my 3rd cup of coffee that did it. Maybe the 4th.

Then Diane and I installed the new awning material we received from a nice UPS guy a few days ago. It wasn’t to tough to do, and we learned a new skill that may come in handy one day. I also learned how to add tension to the nifty springs in the roller, but had to make a tool to do it to keep from losing a couple of fingers, or an eye. After we got it on it started raining like crazy so it got a good rinse. Then the sun came out and dried it off and I rolled it up. I used the old pull down strap, because neither of us could find the new one, and it disappeared about 3 turns from the end. So, it’s kind of useless. But, I know how to get it open.

After that, Diane went back to the Girl Room to continue on the curtains she’s been making for the last few days. For the RV. And I went to work to install the shiny gas cover that I retained from the 1968 RV we salvaged. I think that’s the only thing we kept. It’s got a key and everything. I had to get creative with some more sheet metal to install it and I got to use my pop rivet gun again. That’s a handy tool to have. I love to pop rivet stuff.

In the middle of that I was ordered to replace the living room curtain brackets in the RV to accomodate the new curtains Diane made, then we installed them. They look great! She lined the original privacy curtains that cover the windshield and side windows in the cockpit, so all that’s left now is the three windows in the bedroom area. Interesting stuff, huh?

My ears are ringing so it must be time for bed. That, and it’s 10:31 pm. And, I’m tired.

The floor drain, which is now under the washing machine, started spewing water again today. So, I rushed down to ACE and bought a large jug of Plumber’s Helper Gel hoping that would cure the problem. I had to let the maching finish draining so I could tip it sideways, about 45 degrees, to access the drain, and successfully (hey! That’s a cool word … it has 3 doubles in it … Hey! Bookkeeping does, too! … I wonder why I haven’t noticed that before? … I probably did and just forgot) dumped in the larger portion of the container. After letting it set for the requisite 15 minutes, I cranked up the washer, which I filled with towels, the only thing I’m allowed to wash without supervision, and watched it through the first drain cycle. Have any of you ever watched a washing machine do that? That’s bout the most boring thing I’ve ever done in my life.

Anyway, the first dose seemed to have done the job so I let the towels finish while I went to my shop to look for stuff. I’m always looking for stuff in my shop. Most of the time I know what I’m looking for but rarely find it and other times I just look around to see what’s there. I do that with the intent of putting things away, but random items cach my attention that takes me down a whole different road. Like the clutch alignment tool I bought for the 1992 Honda we had and that I haven’t used in 15 years. It triggers all kinds of memories about when I did use it, however. That was back when I could lift a Honda transmission all by myself. Maybe I still can.

Turns out the first fix on the floor drain didn’t work so the subsequent 3 rinse cycles sloshed all over the floor. The drain eventually accepted the water, but it wasn’t fast enough to keep up with the washer’s pump. There’s a toilet nexgt to the dryer which I flushed to get a sense of where the plug night be. Diane wanted me to install the toilet so she could use it and still continue to fold clothes. Pretty handy. Flushing the toilet just made it worse so I knew the plug was a little further down the line. It was clean water, by the way.

I started moving things out of the laundry room then and discovered a bottle of super duty drain cleaner, that had lots of sulfuric acid in it, behind the rollaround hamper. Nice. I didin’t have to go back to ACE, though I wouldn’t have minded.

I tipped the washer on it’s side so I could get to the drain, and poured about half a gallon in there and waited the required 15 minutes. It was actually more like an hour because Diane made me eat lunch. I went back down and ran the washer and it overflowed again, but it took longer. This time, however, it was accompanied by the acid smell with I’m sure eats the inside of your lungs if you breath it for very long. So, that prompted me to fix the laundry room vent fan which has been broken for about 2 years. Maybe longer. I’m not sure.

That turned out to be a pretty complex problem because it required me to remove the entire unit. Before I could do that, however, I had to dismantle the exhaust pipe that the previous owner had made out of six inch PVC. Lots of 90 degree angles, but they weren’t glued. Still, it was tricky. And it was packed with lint.

Just after I got the necessary screws loosened, and just before I took hold of it, it dismantled itself the rest of the way and fell on the washing machine taking a really nice chunk of porcelain with it. I ran and told Diane right away so she wouldn’t see it before I told her. It’s been a number of hours, now, and I’m still not clear on what the punishment will be. Guess it’s going to be a surprise.

I took everything back to my shop and determined that the fan motor was fried, literally. No doubt that was because it couldn’t vent because the dryer is also connect to the maze of PVC pipes and blows a little harder than the vent fan.

It was determined, by mutual agreement, that I must return to ACE to seek a replacement vent fan with a light. ACE had them but they were, like, $80! Instead, I bought a replacement motor not knowing if it would, or would not, fit the old fan husk I had. This task allowed me to learn a new skill that I didn’t know I could do. Tin bending, or sheet metal work. Before doing all that, however, I dumped the remainder of the sulfuric acid down the washing machine drain, and waited 15 minutes, and guess what! It bubbled up, again, and smelled even worse than the last time. So, in frustration, I flushed the toilet because it just couldn’t get much worse. Oddly, when I did that, and the toilet filled to almost overflowing, there was a very satisfying swooshing sound, and everything got sucked down the drain. And the toilet drained. I flushed it a couple more times just for fun, and it worked just great.

Back to the vent fan I went and got it all put back together with the new motor in the old shell. It worked great. Didn’t blow as hard as I wished, but it worked which was way better than when it didn’t.

Reconstructing it didn’t take as long as I thought it would and I finished just in time to go get Lydia from softball practice. It was 8:00 pm, and we needed to pick her up by 8:30. So, I just wandered down to the field and waited for her to finish. While there I learned that they may play a scrimmage game on Thursday. And, Jennie, Lydia needs to be at Boise Field by 6:00 pm Wednesday to get her Jersey and for sliding practice. So, no shorts Wednesday. Also, whoever doesn’t slide, doesn’t play. No jewelry, either.

So, today was pretty exciting for me because I actually got three things done. No, four! I also cut a piece of wood to size to fill the hole in the RV where the old TV used to be. I’ve got a swivel mount for Diane’s flat screen that I’m going to mount on the piece of wood. Tomorrow, after I go golfing with Doug. He called at one point while I was recovering from an overdose of sulfuric acid fumes.

All in all, it was a successful day. I got a lot done, and didn’t cut myself even once even though I was working with really sharp metal. I’m sure, however, that I’m going to contract some horrible affliction, probably terminal, due to the amount of acid I inhaled.

The time of year is finally upon us where we must chose between one of those two. Me? I choose liver. “Why liver?” you may ask to which I reply, “Why not?” Actually, I meant to type “life” but my fingers got all tangled up and started arguing. Once that happens I just have to take a step back and let them finish. Sometimes the results are harsh. I just never know what’s going to happen.

Taxes – I was going down the path where I didn’t think my pitiful little contribution to our nations coffers was worth their time. So, I was just going to quit paying it and see how long it took for them to ferret me out. Then, I gave it another thought, and another, and finally came to the conclusion that not paying my taxes, which is my God given right to do, would not be beneficial to my hair, which I have precious little of now days. So I pondered a while about that, wondering what my hair had to do with taxes and decided that my spell checker worked, but didn’t benefit me at all. What I meant to say was it wouldn’t be beneficial to my heirs. The I.R.S. would just seize everything so they would have nothing. They would even lose their memories of me. Just because I decided to not pay taxes. So, you know what? I’m going to fool them this year and pay up like the good citizen I am, and have always been. I do this because I’m compelled to contribute my fair share to help support the lavish lifestyles of our elected officials. The alternative just isn’t worth the hassle.

Nexy year will be different because all of our income will be fixed. No more consulting for me. No sir. Doing that is just a trick for Uncle Sam to shove you into another tax bracket. I suppose I could have altered my donation to the government, and avoided the need to pay up for my 2011 defciency but that goes against my grain, too. I’m one of those guys that supports the “flat tax” concept where everyone just pays 10% of whatever they earn, except for retirement income, of course. There are no deductions in my plan. It would be like a national sales tax that we pay at the end of every year. Doing that, of course, would put millions of people out of work beause the IRS would only need about half the people they have now. Maybe less.

OK – enough of that. Sorry I went down that road. It’s late and I’m tired. We’ve been gone from the house most of the day and the dogs are demanding our attention. I guess they missed us a little. They were really good, too, because all the pillows are still on the couch. It’s not unusual to find one or two of them in the back yard, which isn’t easy for them to do. I have this vision of Ziva holding the pillow and swinging her head back and forth, letting go on the count of three to see how far out she can throw it. The pillows are never damaged. They’re just in the back yard. To avoid that we could leave the patio door shut, but then they’d have to find something else creative to do inside. I’d rather fetch the pillows from the yard than consider the alternatives.

We had a late lunch, or early dinner, with Mike & Kathie this afternoon. We went to McGrath’s Fish House, which is a favorite. We used to have dinner back and forth at each other’s homes about once a month, then they moved all the way over to Oregon City. It’s a hike. Kind of like driving from Mesa to Surprise, AZ. So, we lost touch for a while. Now that we’re cavorting again, they tell us they’re moving to California. We’re happy for them, because they’re happy, but we think it’s going to be very confusing for some of us to deal with two sets of Mike & Kathie’s in California. Makes my head hurt a ittle.

Just got an email that the IRS has accepted the electronical forms I sent and they’re prepared to raid our credit union for whatever excess cash they can find next Tuesday.

Now I can sleep peacefully knowing our government will be properly funded.