Here’s what I wanted to do with the first post about Lydia turning 18 but thought about it too long and decided I should be a little more respectable. It’s a significant junction in the road for her, after all.
I was going to say …
Here was Lydia yesterday …
… then today, when we cleaned off the spaghetti, we found this …
I think she’s part butterfly …
This is the big one – she’s 18!
From here …
… to here …
… in the blink of an eye.
Our Sweet Lydia has grown up.
Today on the “Today Show” our very own Julia Vieira Reis was highlighted as one of the nation’s top Girl Scout Cookie sellers. She’s been doing that for years, selling lots and lots of cookies, and it’s fun to see that she’s getting recognition for her efforts. Seems like only yesterday she was bugging me, in a very nice way, to let her fiddle around with my iPad. It really wasn’t yesterday – it was 7 years ago. Just seems like yesterday.
If you missed the show, you can see it here. Julia is interviewed along with her Mom, Susan. Susan is my brother’s Granddaughter. To me, she’s my Niece-Niece because she’s my Niece’s daughter. So, I guess that makes Julia my Niece-Niece-Niece, or just Niece³. Having made that decision, and discovering that I could actually add the “²”, that would make Susan my Niece². Then, of course, Cheryl, Susan’s Mom, is Niece¹. What fun. All these people live in Connecticut.
All those superscript numbers work well as long as we’re dealing with the same-sex … like Carol Niece¹ (Alicia Niece²); Susan’s Sisters, Heather Niece² and Laura Niece² (Jeffrey Nephew³, Ariana Niece³)). Then we get to Cheryl’s son, Larry (Nephew¹), who has a daughter, Sarah (Niece²). This dilemma validates my newfound use of superscript numbers because I could never, with a clear conscience, call Sarah my Nephew-Niece. Well, I could, but it would be right. Maybe I should, however, since she only lives a short ways away from me and never calls. Ever. I’ve left some of the family out, so please forgive me for that. There are many new names, for some small people that I haven’t actually seen in person.
Anyway, I encourage you all to click the link and watch the presentation. Julia is a pretty special girl for many reasons, not just because she named her bass violin “Jerry”, even though she misspelled it. Actually, the whole fam damily is pretty special. Even the Grandma, Ruth.
Done
The games have already begun and according to the bracket I made here I’m already a loser. Well, some may say I was already a loser for various other things I’ve said and done, but I’m thinking I don’t really care about that. But the brackets … Only two games played so far and I missed on both. Now I can only hope that none of my picks win so I’ll still have a nice clean bracket of choices, all with little ‘x’s’ in a circle to indicate the loss. My one consolation with regard to this is that ‘Bing’ lost both of them, too.
I’m guessing that many of you couldn’t care less about NCAA basketball. That’s kind of me, too, until this time of year when things get exciting. It’s way more fun than watching the pros play. My opinion, of course.
It’s still raining here, but we did have one glorious day of sunshine when we drove to Eugene to watch the lovely Maryssa Santi play some fast pitch softball for Eastern Oregon University. It’s like God looked down on us and decided to give us a nice day to sit in the sun and watch the games. They played four games over two days (Sunday & Monday) and won all four. We only got to watch 1 and 3/4 of those games, but it was fun.
Lydia brought her new family member, Kylo, along for the 2.5 hour ride because he’s only 5 weeks old and is hard to put down. He’s kinda cute. This is Matt holding him, trying to keep him calm. Yeah, like that’s a problem because he sleeps about 90% of the time.
On the way, Lydia gnawed on the breakfast burrito she bought at Muchas Gracias before we picked up her and her Mom, Jennifer for the ride. I probably could have eaten one of those, too, but no one asked. I’ve had them before and they are really good.
EOU won the first game 7-4 and they were ahead 7-1 when we had to leave during the late innings of the 2nd game. They won that one, too, 9-5. On Monday EOU won 10-1 and 1-0 (I think). It was a good trip for the girls to win all four games on the road like that.
Now, back to the puppy …
Here’s Maryssa #10, 2nd base … she’s a junior at EOU.
Here’s Steffani, Maryssa’s Mom, Bob’s Wife, My Brother’s Daughter …
Here’s Maryssa and Lydia, Diane (in the hat), and Jennifer …
And that pretty much covers the trip. The puppy slept through the 5 hour trip, interrupted by a couple of softball games during which he was adored, and held, by all the pretty girls who walked by. Guys seem to be more immune to puppy cuteness than girls.
Lucky dog.
Kylo joins Solo (a big dog) and Boba the cat. Perhaps you can sense the ‘Star Wars’ theme for the Walter’s Family Pets.
It was a beautiful day in the neighbor hood today. So good, in fact, that my friend JP deemed it worthy of losing a few balls on the golf course. That venture began right around 10 am. Here we are ready to tee off on #1. That’s JP on the left.
The first hole wasn’t too bad once we got past the first ditch. That’s where balls land and the ground is so saturated that the balls just bury themselves, never to be found again. Hole #2, below, is fairly flat and doesn’t drain well at all so this is what we had to contend with. Fortunately, the tee box is to the left of the little lakes and neither of us landed in the water.
Then, on #3, things got nasty. From here on to the end it was difficult to find firm ground for the cart and we wound up pushing it more than riding in it, I think.
So, we had the best of both worlds: golfing and 4-wheeling in the mud. I took home proof for Diane.
The end result was that we had a lot of fun because we didn’t seriously keep score. It’s hard to be serious when you actually make a good drive that lands in the fairway, but when you get to the spot, the ball just isn’t there. The only thing you get from searching for it is muddy shoes. Thank goodness they’re waterproof.
After leaving the golf course, I stopped to talk with Cousin Don for a while. I knew he was home because he had the shop door rolled up. He was sitting in the middle, eating his lunch, feet propped up on one of the many large tools he has in his shop. The tools are mostly related to the construction, upkeep, and resurrection of race cars. I pulled up a chair to rest my weary bones next to the absolutely prettiest engine I’ve ever seen. It’s brand new and doesn’t have a speck of dirt on it. Yet. Seems a shame to put it in a race car that’s more than likely to get smacked around. But, that’s what he’s done most of his life. I count my blessings whenever I get in a mechanical fix because Don has all the answers and replacement parts.
When I got home I found Diane hard at work cleaning the house. That’s what she does when I go out and play, probably because I’m not in the way. She stopped long enough for lunch (crab louies), then gat back at it while I went outside and started the old truck. I haven’t done that in a couple of months so was pleased when it started right up after cranking it and pumping the gas pedal for about thirty seconds. It’s a brute to start when the engine is cold, and runs like a top once it’s warmed up.
Satisfied that the engine still ran, I shut it down and got busy picking up debris from the front yard. Most of it was residue from one of the rhododendrons that Ziva had fun with when we had snow worth playing in. She loves to chase sticks and she especially likes rhododendrons because their branches snap in half really easy. Consequently, she shattered bits and pieces of it all over the place. It was work, made me sweaty, but I got it picked up and hauled to the burn pile.
Now it’s time for me to scrape the rest of the dirt from my torso so I can sit in a nice chair and get ready to watch Oregon tussle with Calf in one of the Pac-12 semi-final games. Should be a good game.
See you tomorrow.
Yesterday I believe I was in the middle of a narrative about going to the Moon. Well, not really the moon, because I really don’t know where we went and there was never a moon view from the only window to which I had access. Nope, I was sequestered in what I believe was a small portion of a very large facility that’s located on the dark side of the Moon so all visual reference was forever aimed at deep space. That’s a guess, of course. Then again, they could have taken me to another galaxy, far, far away because they were able to fool the laws of physics, as we understand them, and take advantage of folds in space about which much is speculated on Earth. But, if I was on the moon I would weigh less, right? I didn’t feel lighter so I probably really wasn’t on the moon.
Right after discovering my speculation about my location I suffered a period of unconsciousness of unknown duration. It could have been seconds, days, or weeks. Probably weeks because I felt nicely rested when I woke up. Perhaps I just had a nap. One of those dreamless ones. That happens sometimes but is only a problem when I’m driving. I knew I was in a different location because the furnishings had changed from lite modern to country sheik.
This afternoon Ringo came to my room and told me that I was still on Earth at their facility that’s located in a hidden storeroom in the back of the new Bi Mart in Scappoose. Lot’s of folks wondered how Scappoose wound up with a Bi Mart so close to Fred Meyers. Now we know. Aliens built it. Through the small window mounted high on the wall all I could see was sky so I had to take Ringo’s word for it. He went on to explain that the reason we were at Bi Mart was because they have the parts needed to repair the damage George did to the landing craft, but it was on back order and wouldn’t be available for 3 weeks. That’s how long it takes for them to get resupplied from their Moon base. So, I was stuck in Bi-Mart for the next three weeks. To make up for the delay, Ringo gave me a stack of coupons I could use in the store when they finally released me. I thought that was pretty nice of him at the time but later learned that everyone in town received those same coupons in the mail on a regular basis.
I think I left off yesterday where I was just becoming aware of ‘things’ when Brucette stepped out of the shower. Considering the nature of Brucette’s skill and training, I suspect more than one of you were intrigued at the mental vision this may have created. Well, it’s not what you think. You see, these folks don’t really shower. When they get dirty they just shed their skin, like a snake, and keep on keeping on. Using the shower is a handy way to get rid of the evidence because all the discarded skin is water-soluble and easily washed down the drain. Because of this, you’d think water is very dangerous for them and make them melt. Not the case at all. The water merely removes the first layer of skin, of which they have about 128 layers that keep replenishing themselves. So, though Brucette was indeed naked her fake beauty was overshadowed by the bis of still dissolving skin clinging to her torso. If she’d stayed in the shower a bit longer I suspect they would have all gone away but apparently she was in a hurry. It wasn’t one of those ‘sights for sore eyes’, believe me.
The next time I woke up, not knowing that I had fallen asleep, I was laying on an exam table, just like the one they use on the Mother Ship. As I pondered my situation I became aware of a lightness making me think I was no longer on Earth. This was verified with Elton appeared with that big shiny reflector strapped around his head like doctors used before good flashlights were created. You know, it has a hole in the middle of it through which the doc looked while directing the reflected light on what he was looking at.
One of these …
Elton didn’t really need it because they actually have state of the art lighting on the Mother Ship. He wears it as a fashion statement and, I think, as an attempt to put me at ease because he’s acting like a doctor. I know better because I’ve been here before. Many times over the past 52 years. I didn’t understand why they kept taking me over and over, doing the same tests, looking at all the same parts, over and over. Turns out that everyone on Earth is assigned a number and they select abductees based on a random draw and my number just keeps coming up.
“Once someone is selected to be abducted, why not leave their number out of the pool for the next drawings?” I asked during one abduction.
“Well,” said Elton, “you see, we are from Uranus and our rues are very strict about how abductees are selected. The numbers aren’t really drawn from a hat like we told you before. We use a computer to make the selection. Since you are just a number on a monitor we can’t very well remove the number. It’s always there. You could, conceivably, be selected numerous times in a row but the chances of that happening are astronomical.”
That’s actually the most words I ever heard come out of Elton’s mouth. Yes, they have mouths. They actually look just like us but learning that they originate from Uranus might make you wonder. I was stunned because I had no idea that Elton could verbalize a coherent thought. During all previous visits all he did was issue commands to me like, ‘turn your head and cough’, ‘stick out your tongue’, ‘squeeze my fingers as hard as you can’, ‘turn to the right’, ‘stand on one leg and hop’, routine stuff like that. I just figured he was giving me a physical like they do in schools to make sure you can play sports without dying.
“Why do you do the same tests on me? Don’t you have the results from the last time?” I asked.
“We have protocols,” is all he said. Protocols. Right. Time tested protocols. Just like that guy you call for help troubleshooting your new computer because it won’t do something it’s supposed to and he (always a He) starts reading to you the protocol he’s supposed to use to determine the cause of the problem. He must go through every step on his guide even though you’ve already told him that the video card is smoked. No, he’s got to test everything before he can authorize shipment of the replacement part. After two hours he determines that the video card is bad and arranges to ship a new one. That’s a hypothetical example, or course.
So, I once again endured the protocols after which I was given an injection. They’d never done that before so I had to ask, “what’s that for?”
“Oh, there’s a bug going around up here,” said Elton, “and we don’t want to contaminate the humans.” Then he asked if I was allergic to eggs or egg products.
Just for fun I said, “Yes. Yes I am.”
“That’s OK because there’s nothing in the shot related to eggs of any type.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Protocol,” he said.
“You’ll be transported back to Earth shortly. Do you have to use the bathroom?”
“No,” I replied, “but I’d like to look around a little if it’s OK.”
“Sure,” he said. “Just don’t open any of the doors that have large red ‘X’s’ on them.”
So, I got up and wandered around the room and found three doors, two of which had the red ‘X’s’ on them. The third one had a happy face on it and looked promising. So I approached it and looked all over for some sort of knob that may open it. Behind me I heard Elton say, “Push on the door to open it.” I did that and, hey!, it popped right open just like one of those cupboard doors that have magnetic spring locks.
Behind the door was rod from which hung all of Elton’s clothes. Apparently it was a closet. Behind me I heard laughing as he enjoyed his little joke. That made me a bit angry so I turned and rushed to one of the ‘X’ marked doors with the intention of pushing on it but stopped short when I heard Elton yell out, “Noooooooo!”
Then I woke up fully clothed in my bed. At home. Mom was standing over me, wide-eyed, asking me if I was OK. It was really nice that Mom was there but a little odd, too, because Mom died in 2001.
“Crap.” I thought. “Elton sent me to the wrong reality, again.” He’s done that before. Probably on purpose. I’m sure it wasn’t protocol. Now I had to find out where Ringo lived in this reality so he could help send me back the proper reality. For the moment, though, I just said, “Hi, Mom,” and gave her a big hug. I haven’t had one of those in a long time.
Maybe I was just dreaming.
Diane’s fixing to take her Mom, Jean, shopping. That means I’ll be left unsupervised for a few hours so I’m going to the basement to play with some of my power tools. I do that when she leaves because her parting words when leaving me alone are, “don’t use any tools that plug into the wall!” It’s a warning and I know, but I prefer to take it as a challenge. It doesn’t always work out well for me but today I need to be really careful because I won’t have transportation to get me to the emergency room. I’ve driven myself there a few times and I always get into trouble for it. It’s just my renegade nature, I suspect.
Ciao.
Yesterday evening we had a little fun at the house when Jennifer, our daughter, called asking if she could come up and print something. She does that once in a while and knows she doesn’t have to ask but she always does. What a gal. When I heard the car arrive I went to the door in an effort to keep the dogs from making a huge amount of noise but it was a waste of time. Any time they see someone heading for the front door they think it’s a signal to cut loose. So, they do. And it’s annoying. But I seriously suspect that anyone attempting to enter the house without permission would be a little intimidated.
With barking in progress I let them out to greet Jennifer but turns out she wasn’t alone. At first all I noticed was more than one person exiting the limping Envoy but it wasn’t until they made it to the door that I realized that with Jennifer, Lydia, Ahmed, and Solo (their dog), was Cedric. Apparently he planned this surprise with his Dad, Daniel, a week ago after his ship returned to Bremerton. He has a friend who has family in Portland and makes the trip on a regular basis when the ship is in port and she offered Cedric a ride to St. Helens which is on the way. How nice. He freaked his Mom out when he just showed up and walked into the house around 5 pm yesterday.
Then they came to us to share the surprise.
What a fun way to end the day.
Note: For those who don’t know, Cedric is a Navy cook stationed aboard the USS Nimitz (CVN-68), the Navy’s oldest nuclear aircraft carrier.
Lydia has a 2005 GMC Envoy that has a couple hundred thousand miles on it and it all the sudden started running a little rough and the engine would die while she was waiting in the Dutch Bros drive-thru. She said it also dies in the Burgerville drive-thru but that’s not as critical as a failure at Dutch Bros. This has been going on for some time and I’ve encouraged her to bring it to our house so I could help her change the spark plugs, as a start, in an effort to resolve it’s issues. Today she found some time in her busy schedule to drive it up the hill with her dad, Daniel, so we could get busy.
The first order of business was to remove Diane’s truck from the garage so Lydia could insert the nose of the GMC to get it out of the rain. It was one of ‘those’ days here. Spotty rain with an occasional flake of snow, and some sunshine. Pretty typical prelude to spring in our neck of the woods.
Once the hood was up we spent some time looking at the engine trying to figure out where the spark plugs lived on the engine. They weren’t very evident no matter how hard, or long we stared at it. Finally we gave up and came into the house and looked for help on the internet. It turns out that the engine is an in-line 6 cylinder, not the V-6 I presumed, which accounted for the reason I couldn’t find the spark plugs on the side of the engine. Funny thing. All the spark plugs reside on the top of the engine which would make one think they would be easy to see and remove. But, this is no ordinary engine. You see, each spark plug has it’s very own Ignition Coil that sits on top of the spark plug so there are no wires running from a distributor like a normal engine. Very interesting.
After watching a YouTube thing about how to remove the coil to access the plug, we went back to the garage. At this point in time Lydia had figured out that she was going to be doing all the work so I gave her a pair of coveralls that Jack gave me that I can no longer wear. They shrunk, it seems. But, the fit Lydia pretty good.
I got my tool kit out and we (Lydia) went to work taking things off the engine to gain access to the coil.
Although Lydia is a girly girl, she’s definitely not afraid to get dirty and she loves to learn new things. She also figures things out very quickly. She dove right in and dismantled all the necessary ‘things’ and swapped out the plugs like she’s done it a hundred times. She only needed to be reminded that removing bolts you turn counter-clockwise.
The number 6 cylinder was up under the dash-board and needed a stretch to get to the necessary bolts and things. She tried standing on a stool but that didn’t work well so she just stretched as far as she could and it turned out to be just the right amount to gain access to #6.
Here’s the door I made for under the Walter’s house the other day. I told you about it, but didn’t have the photo. Just found it.
Finally, all the plugs, which cost about $30 at O’Reilly’s, were installed and Lydia fired up the engine. It ran, but it was still rough which means that at least one of the ignition coils is bad. We’re hoping it’s only one because those things cost around $40 each. Lydia is going to get that info from her friend, Justin, who just happens to have recently extracted failure codes from the Envoy. Lydia thinks Justin may have mentioned that #1 and/or #6 were bad, but she couldn’t remember.
Without that info, and the fact that it was getting dark, we called it a day and got cleaned up. I offered her rubber gloves but she declined.
Then she and Daniel headed home. Armed with the proper knowledge I know she’ll get it fixed without any more professional supervision from me and the internet.
Here’s a plate of nachos I ate the other day that I forgot to share. They were quite tasty but I should have held off on a few of the onions.
That pretty much ended the day for us except for the old iMac that I was going to donate to our church. It’s back on the Man Room floor running like a top, but it wouldn’t even power up when plugged in at church. I found that a mystery that must be solved tomorrow. In the mean time, I loaded some software back on it so it will be useful for the Church Ladies. Specifically, Jeannie, our Treasurer. She needs something reliable. What she currently uses is an old Windows XP computer loaded with QuickBooks Pro. Sadly, it’s Windows only software so I can’t transfer it. But, I found some interesting free Accounting software, and some Excel spreadsheet templates that may serve the purpose. We’ll see about that.
Jeannie grew up in Modesto, California and went to High School with George Lucas. As far as I know, George is not related to our friend Larry although they have the same last name.
While working in the garage Ziva started sorting the contents of my garbage can and was a bit upset when I told her it was only Sunday night and the garbage doesn’t go to the street until Monday night.
Since she couldn’t do the garbage, she took a nap.
Actually, that photo is from yesterday when we were watching TV. Ziva watches TV like my brother Jim.
And this one is just for fun …
I forgot to mention that Diane drove me and Jean, her Mom, to Longview after church today where I ate a Senior plate of shrimp & fries as well as nine pieces of chicken, a salad, and an ice cream cone. I didn’t eat as much as I normally do because I’m on a diet.
Cheers
Before I get carried away here, I need to add something about my trip back to Best Buy to retrieve my old computer. You know, the one that broke? Well, when the Geek Guy tried to refund the $80 because they couldn’t find any data to transfer he ran into a problem that required help. I won’t bore you with the details, like normal, but will cut right to the chase. The problem he was having was that when he brought up the purchase Best Buy’s computers had reworked the totals because the computer I bought the day before was on sale that day. So, in addition to the $80 refund I got an extra $200 due to the reduced price. What a deal, don’t you think? It almost made me want to go out and buy something else that I could return. But, I didn’t. I counted my blessings and left happy.
Here’s another update on the computer problems. I may have mentioned that I had perfectly good back ups on a 4TB drive I used for that purpose, and that the failed computer, as it gasped for life, felt the need to inform that backup drive that it was leaving and that no more backups were in the works. As a matter of fact, it told the backup drive that the backups it had could be summarily dismissed. So, bowing to the superior knowledge of my Apple iMac computer, my 4TB Western Digital My Cloud drive somehow made all those back files just disappear. Stupid My Cloud. Why would it believe a dying computer?
But – the new computer, the replacement, could access the drive, but I wasn’t going to trust it for future backups. Nope. Not a chance. Instead I set up the new Seagate 1TB drive that I purchased for the Geek Guys to use for transferring data. It works great and it’s dedicated with a direct connect with a USB 3.0 connection. Also, since the new computer so easily found the My Cloud drive, it also was able to drill down to the ‘Jerrie’ folder where there just happened to be a “Documents” folder that still had all the documents I thought I’d lost. Literally hundreds of them including one folder that holds a bunch of short stories I’ve written over the years. Those files were there because I apparently had the foresight to manually copy them from the old computer before it started losing it’s memory.
Life is so much better now that I have my Documents back. Sadly, the other thing that would have come in really handy is the Key Chain file which held all the passwords for pretty much everything I access. I’m guessing I’ll survive without it, but I really like all those passwords. Some of them I’ve had for years.
Last Wednesday I attended my first Church Council meeting in a year. Prior to that year off I served on Council for six consecutive years. For some reason I agreed to return for another round of abuse and was at Wednesday’s meeting to see what was in store for me.
The main order of business was electing new officers. Before any nominations could be made I spoke up and volunteered to be the new Secretary. One of those going off council was the Secretary and I can take notes. And I can type. I did this to also eliminate any possibility that I might be nominated for a position that had responsibilities. The ploy worked and I avoided getting a real job. Lucky me.
On Thursday I skipped coffee with the guys at the Kozy because I needed to study for a mess of tests I was going to have at the Vestibular Lab at Good Sam. I’ve mentioned this previously, I think. It’s all about the body’s system that helps keep us vertical, and makes us spatially aware. It’s pretty important, I hear. The testing took 2.5 hours and I appeared to pass them all. In the end I left with the knowledge that mechanically I’m kind of OK, so whatever it is that’s making Jerrie almost fall down is probably something going haywire with my tiny little brain. The Doc didn’t actually say that, but there’s really not another option.
During the vestibular testing I learned some amazing things about what they test and how they interpret the results. Bottom line, these folks can perform their non-invasive tests on newborns and discern if the child has any kind of hearing impairment. Really. A newborn. That just blew my mind. They do it with puffs of air, clicking noises, water, and stick on monitor terminals. One of the tests that checks the ability of the Cochlear to convert sound waves into electrical impulses that can be interpreted by the brain. My doc said they used to do this by sticking a needle through the ear drum then used that needle to induce the needed sound waves. Thankfully, there’s a new toy in town that does the same work simply by sticking a ‘thing’ in the ear canal.
OK. Enough of that. I’ll learn more at some point in the future after Dr. Brown reviews the tests.
Yesterday was a long one. I mentioned that Ahmed, our Pakistani Grand Son, a foreign exchange student staying with our daughter, Jennifer, gave a stellar presentation at our last local Lion’s meeting. Because he did such a great job, he was invited to attend the Oregon Convention in McMinnville. It was an all day affair that required we leave home at 0630 in order to be there by 0800. One of the first things that happened during registration was we all received stick on mustaches. I’m sad that Diane didn’t wear hers for the photo. Nifty, huh?
Many people spoke, some of them were very good, we had lunch, and we (Diane and I) voted for new officers for District 36-O. Another thing that happened was all the First Time convention attendees were forced to go to the front and stand in a row so folks could look at us. Hank captured us.
As the day wore into afternoon, and our time away from the house entered the danger zone for leaving the dogs alone for so long, we bid our adieus and headed out the door. We missed the entertainment, I hear, but we also got home before dark.
My Lion sponsor, and past District 36-O Governor, Hank, received an award. I got to document that. On the left is the Lion International Director, then Hank, and the current 36-O governor (the reason for the stick on mustaches).
On the way to our vehicle Ahmed had to stop and get a photo with his new best friend who was sitting on a bench outside the facility.
Now, for som totally unrelated information that may or may not interest you. First is a photo of our youngest Grand Daughter, Jerrie Anne Diane, (my and Diane’s namesake) during a class event on Valentines Day. Jerrie is sitting on the floor in front of everyone. That’s my girl.
Next, and last, is a photo of popcorn we had the other day. Diane has become addicted to popcorn for her evening snack. Although it’s theater microwave popcorn, we put butter on it anyway – half a cube for a bag. Then it’s really good. Sadly. our microwave is losing it’s mind, probably because it was hanging out with my old computer during the night. Anyway, it cycles through all of it’s options, just for fun, while we sit in the living room. That wouldn’t be so bad except it beeps every time it changes something. Sometimes it gets really busy. We’ve been waiting for it to quit totally, but it still perks along. Even so, it seems to get confused with the ‘Popcorn’ button once in a while, popping the corn for only a portion of the allotted time at something other than full power. The result is a bag that only half popped. That happened the other night so Diane added some more time and just let it run until the popping stopped. Doing this pretty much fries all the corn that’s already popped. So, I popped her another bag which worked just great, and I ate the burned one. It wasn’t too bad.
That’s all I’ve got.
Lots of Things and Stuff have happened and transpired over the last 10 days. Thankfully, Diane keeps good track of what’s going on by making sure everything is on our shared calendar. Even little things like “Jerrie take pills”. That’s an important one because, alas, I sometimes forget. I’m sure that’s a surprise to most of you, but I really do. Even when my overflowing pill case is sitting right in front of my keyboard all the time.
Using the calendar, I’m going to try something different and go in order. Doing that won’t, however, deter me from wandering off the beaten path once in a while to fill in where things need to be filled in.
First, Donna, Mother of Steffani, Wife of Jim, Husband of Bob, and Grandmother of Daniel, Tyler, and Maryssa, had a birthday on January 26th. I may have mentioned this before, but don’t feel like looking back in my posts. Jim thinks she only 58 but he’s like one of those records that keep skipping back, repeating the same verses over and over, and you have to bump it to make it continue. Since I’m not there to do that, he’s stuck on 58. I’m sure she’s at least 62 because I’m pretty sure she’s drawing Social Security now. This will be a shock to him, I’m sure, but he can take. Learning about that extra income will perk him up.
Reaching back into my ancient bag of IT tricks I was able to resurrect the Windows XP computer that belongs to my friend, Jeri. Now, getting an XP computer to function isn’t really as difficult as you might think because it is, after all, just a silly computer. The difference is that it hasn’t received any updates from Microsoft for a few years, and internet security has been absent for nearly as long. That would make one who does online finances a little jittery which is why I was summoned. It’s tax time, you know. Well, it’s almost tax time. That will be on April 17th this year since Jim’s birthday in on Saturday. He was born on the normal tax day. That’s April 15th, in case you were wondering. Jim will be 80 on that day. OK, now I’m feeling old …
Getting that old computer to respond was awesome and I left feeling pretty good about myself. Not bad for an IT guy who was dubbed “Mr. 286” at the peak of his career.
Next we have the Bethany Lutheran Church Annual Meeting. That happens once a year. That’s why I added “Annual” in there. This is the meeting where our Church Council, and Cemetery Board reveal all the secret stuff about their respective areas of church activity that they’ve kept secret all year. It’s all the time when new council members are elected. I may have mentioned in previous posts that I’ve served on the council for many years – about 15 I think – and have only been absent for one year. Sadly, that made me eligible to be nominated for another turn at the oars. Like normal, I accepted, as did Nancy, Shawn, and Randy. Nancy has been absent from council for a number of years, but Shawn and Randy have never served. So, we have new blood to spill. Our first meeting is February 15th. Until then I really have nothing worthy to say about this recurring aspect of my life.
I made a trip to the ENT Clinic at Good Sam Hospital in Portland and was quickly referred to the Vestibular Clinic to see what makes Jerrie almost fall down sometimes. Hopefully it’s not a vestibular schwannoma. That would be terrible. I think. I’m curious to find out. I was told the first visit will last 2.5 hours. Part of that time, I suspect, will be helping me off the floor while doing some of those fast turn exercises that led me to this point in the first place. That, and running into an occasional wall. Nothing major, just little mishaps that do not cause severe injury. Just a few nicks and dings that are quickly forgotten.
Then I went to OHSU (Oregon Health & Science University) which is located on Pill Hill next to the VA Medical Center and Doernbecher Children’s’ Hospital. Actually, Doernbecher is a OHSU facility. It’s complicated. Here’s what the entire mess looks like from a helicopter.
If you don’t have a helicopter, you can take the tram that launches from the banks of the Willamette River. The tram looks like fun to me, but Diane won’t ride it.
Our trip to OHSU was to, once again, participate in an intake process for a Diabetes Study for folks who are taking Metformin and whose A1C is above 6.8. I qualified because I take metformin and my last A1C was 7.4. So, I was looking at getting $10 a visit for the next 4 years. At the appointment I went through all the paperwork with Trish then she took some blood away from me while Brianna watched. Then I was released with the promise of a phone call the next day. Brianna called, as promised, and told me I didn’t qualify for the program because my A1C has mysteriously dropped to 6.2. This happened the last time I was interviewed for this program. So, I was out before I even got started and I had plans for that $10.
With that out of the way, I assisted Diane with some chores at our church to prepare it for their 37th Annual Quilt Show. That’s when all of the pews in the church are draped with elaborate quilts from all over the area as well as some antique quilts that have been in use for many, many years. It’s quit impressive and very beautiful. My job for this effort was to clean up the spots in the carpet where people always drop drips of wine with we have communion via intinction. We tell them to put their hand under the dipped wafer to avoid those drips, but not many listen. Thankfully I had a machine to help me and I’m happy to report that the carpet looks wonderful and will remain that way until we have communion again. The quilt show, in case you’re wondering, will be this coming Friday and Saturday, February 10-11, from 10am to 3pm both days. Downstairs there will be other displays, a bake sale, and sandwiches – egg salad and chicken salad. And pie. Lots of pies. Come and eat. It’s all good and it’s free unless you feel like donating to the jar located on each table. Donating is encouraged.
Another part I did was take photos of the Bethany Quilt Ladies who meet each Thursday morning and generally sit around drinking coffee and visiting, unless someone shows up, then they look busy. I don’t know how they do it, but they still manage to complete about 100 quilts for Lutheran World Relief every year. That’s amazing. This is, Right to Left, Vi, Pat, June, and some lady I’ve never met. Probably should have asked her name, huh? Diane said she is June’s niece.
One of those days I got another haircut. That’s two I’ve had in the last few weeks. It wasn’t so much that I needed one, but the barber, some of our Grandchildren’s Aunt, came to the house and I just couldn’t resist. Diane got a haircut, too. She looks great with her new do, like always.
Jeran went on a bona fide date last weekend to attend the Winter Ball. It’s mainly for Juniors at school so Lydia, a senior, help organize it. While we were at Diane’s Mom’s, Jean’s, house the group came by for a photo-op. Included was the Prince – not a Princess – which was a first for St. Helens High. A great group of kids on the way to having fun.
Jeran, Danielle, Lydia, Julianna, and Fiona.
That brings us to yesterday when I escorted my adopted Grandson, Ahmed, to our Lions meeting where he gave an incredible presentation about Pakistan, his home country. He’s really good at it. I call him my Grandson because he calls me Grandpa. It works. He’s living with Dan, Jennie, Lydia, and Jeran while attending St. Helens High School this year as an AFS student. His adopted parents, and sister, also attended the presentation. Jeran stayed home and ate spaghetti.
Another highlite from last week is that Lydia was one of the three students selected as Student of the week at the High School. The other two were boys. She was the best looking one in the crowd.
Sadly, I failed to get photos of Ahmed’s presentation so the day ended in failure but this is what he looked like from the back … on the left …
… and from the front … on the right …
The other people in there you already know.
Diane was summoned to the Court House again this morning. She wasn’t there very long before they released her into my custody so now I must regroup and work on being responsible.
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