Vacation

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It’s overcast, the lawn needs to be mowed again, the heater on my side of the car is on all the time, gas is too expensive, we probably need oil, and we’re heading for Gold Beach, 311 miles away.

All things considered, it’s a really good day.

Just as I typed that my iPad keyboard did the strangest thing. It split in half and made the virtual keys small so someone with more dexterity than me could use their thumbs. Interesting. It took me 3.4 miles to figure out how to make it normal.now I can switch it back and forth at will. You just put two fingers in the middle of the keyboard and swipe them to the sides. Do the opposite to make it normal. Nifty.

We just passed Banks, on our way to Tillamook where the best cheddar cheese in the world is made. Dairy farmers in Tillamook have a special breed of cheddar cheese cows whose milk is yellow and takes very little churning to firm it up. It’s true. Look it up.

It’s a little later, now. We stopped at a trailhead that had access to the Wilson River bank, and toilets, so we stopped to admire the view, and use the facilities. Here’s what we saw …

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Here’s what we looked like why we were looking …

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I quit right after that so I could watch the beautiful Oregon Coast unfurl past us. There’s nothing like it. While I was away, we made it to Depoe Bay where we ate lunch at the Sea Hag. We eat there every time we’re in the area because it’s probably the best food on the coast. Crab Louie’s rule, and that’s what we shared. I also had a cup of awesome clam chowder. Diane ate about 4 bites of the louie and called it good. She also had two cups of hot tea. It’s a little chilly here, so that was a good thing.

Lunch, Friends, and a Mortgage

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Today was a really good, busy day. To start it out, the dogs got me up about 0650, which was OK because I guess I was ready to get up. At least they thought so. They ran down the outside stairs, then right back up to the back door to wait for their soft food. When they try this routine, I go out and make them go back to the yard for a little while to ensure they at least make the effort to relieve themselves. They both hang their heads, knowing they’ve been legally busted, and trot back to the yard, looking back a couple of times to make sure I’m still watching.

Then I dish up their food and stand back.

After eating my banana and taking my first two pills of the day, I sit myself down on the couch, read a couple of paragraphs of my book, and fall asleep until Diane gets up around 1000. Maybe 0930. Somewhere in that zone.

We had to get up early because we were meeting the ‘Three Jerry’ group in Portland. We spent a couple of hours eating Chinese food, talking, telling stories, lying, laughing, then parted ways to do “other stuff”.

Jerry T is carrying a particularly heavy load this week. You may recall him from an older blog as the husband whose wife, Lynn, was killed at Portland Meadows when a horse got loose from its tether and kicked her. Very sad. Lynn’s Mom lived with them and Jerry was her official care taker. She’s developed severe dementia over the past year and quit eating last week. She’s still home, but Hospice is involved, and now it’s just a waiting game. He’s quite a fellow, is Jerry T. Not many people, let alone men, would assume responsibility for their Mothers-in-law like he did. Gotta love that guy.

On the upside of the lunch, Cindy A, an original PT Club member, found time to leave her business to have lunch with us. We haven’t seen Cindy in about 5-6 years, at least. It was good to see her. It was also wonderful to see our friend Vie. She always brightens the day for us.

We were also blessed with the presence of Brian C, son of Jerry and Nelda C. Never met him before today. He’s a nice young man who is currently attending PSU (Portland State University) where he was robbed today. Nice. Whoever did it just took the cash from his wallet while he was working out. That would be another reason why I’m not compelled to exercise. People rob you. Anyway, it was nice to meet him.

After the farewells, Diane and I headed for the airport to meet Deena S, from Provo, Utah. She’s a loan officer for a bank which is doing a no cost VA refinance for our home to lower the rate from 5.99 to 3.25%. Deena’s been working really hard to do this because we started talking about it last June. We pretended that she flew to PDX from Provo just to do this. That’s not true, of course. Things just worked out which was good for me because I just wasn’t comfortable giving so much personal knowledge, over the internet, to someone I’ve never met. Now, all’s good. Bottom line is, if the appraisal works, we’ll save a ton of money. Really! A ton of money. They weighed it.

After saving all that money, we stopped by IKEA to see what they had in the way of bed headboards. Nothing appealed so we went to COSTCO, stopping at various furniture shops along the way. Turns out we went to the only COSTCO in the world that doesn’t have furniture. It was a sign that we were not supposed to get headboards today, so we didn’t.

Now I only have three days to finish patching the holes in the church stairway, re-glaze the bedroom windows without breaking any more of them, mow the lawn, get the gas tanks out of the D22 Winnebago, get my truck started, put the two spare bedrooms back together for the house sitter who is coming, and two other things I can’t remember. Not all will get done, of course, and I’m bound to pick the wrong three to work on.

Wish me luck.

There’s a New Teenager in Town

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… well, he isn’t really a teenager, yet. Not for another four days, but I guess it’s close enough to count. Especially since he’s already had his birthday party. Diane and I are still discussing the legalities of having a birthday party 4 days before the historically correct date.  There are, of course, valid reasons …

First – the precedent was set long ago as we rarely celebrate on the correct day. As many of you know, the older you get, the less important the day actually is. By that I mean, all you have to do is get close, and it counts.

Second – on the proper day, Diane and I will be somewhere on I-5, heading south. Again. Seems like we’re always heading south on I-5. That’s all Diane will tell me. She’s such a tease.

Oh! The new teenager, almost, is Jeran …

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This is him with his double fudge chocolate ice cream cake that Diane made which almost resulted in a divorce because I didn’t choose my words carefully when commenting on its size before she was done.

Yes, I made another one of those rare mistakes by not engaging my brain before energizing my mouth. Hard to believe, isn’t it?

The party was at Dan & Jen’s place so we had to travel all the way across town to celebrate. I think they are about a mile away. Still, it’s across town. Jennie cooked Swedish Meatballs and mashed potatoes at Jeran’s request. A very good meal. We had a great time sitting around the table talking after everyone was finished. We gave opinions about which family member’s genes had the most influence on grown up appearance and demeanor, then we shared previously untold secrets about favorite childhood memories. That started out nicely but quickly degraded into situations where we shared stories of survival … as in, it’s a wonder we survived what our siblings did to us.

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One of my favorites was by Cedric who related an event where he was pushing Lydia in a swing. She fell asleep, fell out, and did a faceplant in the dirt. She didn’t get hurt, so it’s ok to share that one.

The reason I’m getting this entry out so early today is that the dogs tricked me into thinking it was time to get up … at 0630! I wasn’t ready. So, now that I’ve had my breakfast, I’m going to go sit on the couch and take my morning nap to ensure I don’t make noise and wake Diane.

Ah Spring … Ah Choo …

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They’re here. All the pretty blossomy things that make most people sneeze, their nose drip, and their eyes leak. Just to get things going, just imagine being here …

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Kinda gets you grasping for a kleenex box, doesn’t it? Or, how would you like to have this guy as your neighbor, and you live downwind?

I may have mentioned earlier that I have this neighbor. His yard doesn’t look like this, yet, but is will unless I keep mowing it. Right now it’s just full of pretty little yellow flowers that, given a chance, will blossom into these puff balls. You have to wonder what God was thinking when he added these to the mix. Mosquitoes, too.

Did I mention that Jeran, Jennifer and Daniel’s youngest, is taking piano lessons? He started a few weeks ago and is already ready for his first recital. Nothing complicated. It’s a duet with his teacher.

The lessons were Diane’s and my gift to him for his 13th birthday. In order to take advantage of the lessons the family needed a piano so he could practice. We have on in the basement, but it’s a big honker and would be horrible to move, so we started looking around. An electronic keyboard made sense, to save space, but an 88 key version isn’t cheap, which is what we are. Cheap.

As luck would have it, we decided to go garage saling a few weeks ago and guess what! They had a piano! We accepted the first price, $50, and got him to throw in the bench. Then I went home and tried to start my truck. It hasn’t been started since some time last summer and it rejected all my efforts to fire it up. So, I checked with George, our neighbor, to see if he would rent me his truck. He wouldn’t do that, but he let me borrow it, so I was good to go.

It was kind of scary because his truck, which is far newer than mine, has 360,000 miles on it. So, I was very careful when I drove it to get the piano.

While I was getting the transportation, Diane went in search of man power to help load it because there was no way I could do it. I can’t even help because every time I lift my right arm I re-injure whatever’s wrong with it between my shoulder and elbow. I’ll have to get that looked at one of these days. I don’t think about it when I go to the doctor. Besides, they’ll just want me to go to physical therapy.

When I arrived, the crew was waiting. The seller and his sons also pitched in to get the piano into the truck. They even let us keep most of the spiders that call the piano home. We draped a rope across it with the hopes a pacing policeman would think it was tied in, and away I went. Very slowly. Thankfully, it was a short trip – about 1/2 mile. All back streets. At the destination we had Daniel, Cedric, Lydia, Jeran, and two of Cedric’s friends to help unload it. I stood back and watched most of it, pitching in at the end just to say I helped.

Getting it into the house was fairly simple with all that manpower. Once done, Jeran sat right down and started picking out little tunes. It was a good thing for him because he’s not a sports type person – never was. This is something unique for him and we’re pretty sure he’s going to be pretty good at it.

I actually took piano lessons between the ages of 7 and 12 and still know how to read music. Once they hammer that stuff into your head, it never goes away. My piano teach used to pick me up at school and take me to her house on the hill above ours. She had an old Model A with a rumble seat. Like this one …

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That would be me in the back, except I’d be smaller, and I’d have a shirt on. I don’t have any memory of ever riding inside, but lots of them riding in that rumble seat. Make the car maroon, too.

After my lesson Mom would be there to walk me home. It was only about half a mile from our house so it wasn’t a big deal for me because it was all downhill. Mom walked a long ways for me.

One of these days I’ll play a duet with Jeran. I’m going to like that.

This morning I had to get up early so I could have coffee with the guys at the Kozy Korner. We do that every Thursday morning. Well, everyone who remembers, or can get there, has coffee with each other. Today it was Larry, Larry, and Larry’s niece, Lisa. As we do every week, we solved all the problems in the world then went our merry ways.

On the way home I went by the church to patch up some of the holes in the plaster caused by the leak that I fixed a couple of months ago. The fix is lasting, and the holes are dry, so it was time to plug them. That, and I had fair warning that it had better “get done pretty damn soon or there would be hell to pay!” No one really told me that. I just put the parenthesis around that for fun. I did, however, receive less veiled suggestions designed to motivate me.

When I got home I worked on the windows for our bedroom. They got two coats of white paint on the outside a few days ago, so today I did some sanding and put clear polyurethane on the inside surfaces. I’ll do that again tomorrow, then Saturday I’ll see if I can get the glass in without breaking them.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

The Tax Man’s Coming …

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I finally did our taxes. Since federal wanted all our money, and state was giving everything back, I had a dilemma. Logic said send state in early and use it to pay federal, right? The trouble with that is I like to file online and to do that means both federal and state have to be submitted at the same time. If I did that, federal would bounce because there wouldn’t be enough money in the account to cover their desires, and there’s no delay to wait for state to show up. They don’t talk with each other.

So, I filed a federal extension. That can be done online, but doing so means state needs to be mailed because federal has to be paid in full in order to submit state online. So, logic wins in that I should have mailed state in January.

I could have done that if Diane would have given me the information I needed before today. But she didn’t.

So, it’s all her fault.

It’s done, now, so everything is good and we can go on a guilt-free vacation next week.

I don’t know where we’re going, yet, because Diane won’t tell me. I just know we’ll be gone for a couple of weeks. The dogs are going to be really hungry when we get home and all the porch plants will probably die … and the grass is going to be a couple of feet tall, but that’s OK. All of that can be corrected. And it’s all a lie.

Except for the grass. There’s no way to make it go dormant for two weeks. I’ve tried talking to it, crawling around on my hands and knees, but all that does is make the neighbors nervous … and my knees green.

Vacation. I wonder where we’re going …

Power Tool Envy

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Today Jerry and Nelda went to the beach.

On the way, they stopped at our house so Jerry could make fun all the hard work I’ve been doing with my baseboards. As luck would have it, he didn’t make fun of it so there was no violence.

We had a two-hour notice that they were going to stop by which was more than enough time for us to clean the entire house, paint two rooms, and get my new saw out in the dining room where Nelda could ogle it. Sadly, the only thing that happened was the saw was moved to the dining room. Oddly enough, we were unaware that Nelda would be so enthralled with the saw. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever consider that a woman would get excited about one of my power tools. She’s envious, I’m sure.

How awesome is that?

I think that’s about as good as it gets today.

Happy April 1st

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Today was brutal. It started when I woke up at 4:30 with my bladder screaming at me … it wasn’t really screaming, but it was making its presence known. I’m not normally allowed to get out of bed before it’s light outside, so my immediate challenge was to make it out of the bedroom in the dark.

That didn’t happen.

I put my arms out in front of me, waving them back and forth, just like the book says, to avoid having them straddle an open door which results in one running directly into the edge, with one’s nose, so I’m told, but I was disoriented and walked directly into Diane’s dresser which had been moved in the middle of the night. On it is meticulously stacked all manner of glass “things”. It made a lot of noise which distressed me for two reasons. One, of course, was that it would wake Diane, and the second was that something would break and I’d get double punishment.

Luckily, nothing broke, and Diane was already awake. Odd on both counts. Still, it made a lot of noise which scared me and almost prematurely ended any need for me to go all the way to the bathroom. While I was gone, Diane put the dresser back where it belonged and checked everything with a magnifying glass and determined that I was indeed lucky.

So, I went back to bed and fell right back to sleep and didn’t get up until 0830. I had to get up because Diane insisted that today I had to go golfing with the Peal brothers. I’ve talked about that before. We go once a week and I get some terrific hits and putts, but the overall result is normally terrible. I have the highest handicap in the mens club at the course. I’m very proud of that and work hard every week to keep it up there. Sometimes it’s hard to do when I hit the ball straight two or three times in a row. Yes, it’s a rare event, but it happens.

We all joined the mens club because it results in lower green fees. We don’t walk, either. Instead we take two carts split three ways. It’s only fair.

It was a beautiful day for golf. Overcast, and a little cool. Most of the mud holes were dried up but the grass is taller where they used to be because it was too soft the last time the fairways were mowed so they were skipped. Consequently, as you may have guessed, that’s where my ball always lands. Smack in the middle of the tallest grass.

Today was a record day, I believe, because I only lost three balls in the fairway. It’s easy to do because there are little white flowers all over the place, making it difficult to pick out the little white balls. It’s a visual challenge, but not one that we dwell on because we have absolutely no fear of just plucking another ball out of our pocket and hitting it from wherever we think the original ball might have landed. It’s a group decision. We also subscribe to the OMPH rule which is universally accepted by the PGA for all golfers not having any desire of participating in the big money games. That’s “One Mulligan Per Hole”. If necessary, we can use all nine on one hole, but that’s rarely necessary.

After golf I took my car, the little beat up 1996 Subaru, to the gas station. it uses so little gas I keep forgetting to do that. After getting gas I stopped to talk with Mike, who was working on his 1981 Winnebago, and made a new friend. Another candidate for the club.

When I got home I was in trouble because I’d been gone for so long. I think it was about 3 hours total. True, it was longer than normal for a round of golf, and it was OK when I explained what I’d done. But, that’s 3 hours during which no chores were done. I still have the bedroom windows to finish, but that won’t take long. I’ve been saying that for a couple of weeks, now. I pleaded my case for working on the Winnebagos a bit to make sure everything is working OK. The ’79 fired up after a little coaxing and ran like a champ. The generator cranked up, too. I let it idle for a while to get its juices flowing. Then I moved to the ’73 from which I’m still trying to extract the gas tanks to ensure they aren’t going to fall apart. The problem I’m having is getting nuts and bolts loose that haven’t seen a wrench in forty years. This is done while lying prone under the unit so the rust dust can adequately coat my face, and get into my ears when I attempt to dodge a particularly dense dusting. The up side of all this is that the rust doesn’t really taste all that bad.

I did some weightlifting today, too. I removed the batteries from the ’73, and the old ’68 pickup, and brought them to the garage so I could charge them up. They aren’t light by any stretch of the imagination, but they are easier to carry when you have one in each hand. If you don’t it yanks your body sideways resulting in a sore back the next day. So, I’ looking forward to that.

I put all my tools away about 1730 and took a shower to get ready for our Lions Club meeting this evening which is held twice a month at The Village Inn in St. Helens. They have terrible food so we tend to eat before going, but not tonight. I decided to give their BLTs another shot. The last one was pretty good. Tonight the waitress returned to report there was no white bread, my favorite, but they had sourdough and brown bread. I cancelled my order because BLTs on either of those types of bread isn’t legal in Oregon. But, Diane insisted I get the brown bread and “just eat it.” She didn’t actually say that, but it was evident that that’s exactly what she meant. I only eat white bread because my cardiologist told me it’s his favorite, too, and brown bread if overrated. I told the waitress this truth, then Diane said it wasn’t my cardiologist, it was my proctologist. I don’t even have one of those so I don’t know where that came from. I’m sure it was my cardiologist who told me that. I’m not sure I’d take advice about bread choices from a proctologist. Then, again, I might if the mood was right.

Now we’re home. Diane’s watching Dancing With The Stars, one of her favorite shows. She loves Tom Bergeron – I think that’s how it’s spelled. I must admit, he’s a funny guy. Short, and funny.

Now I’m going to quit and publish this. Look back often because there are bound to be corrections after Diane reads it.

Cheers

Happy Easter

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This afternoon, at 1400, Diane, her Mom, and I went to the Warren Community Fellowship church to witness their 2013 Easter cantata in which brother Jack starred, once again, as a Sanhedrin Man (priest 6) who campaigned for Jesus’ crucifixion. Why would he do that? Two years in a row? You would think he would opt for a part on the good side for a change. Regardless, the production was wonderful. It was a non-stop 1.5 hours of song and dialogue about the arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection. Unlike last year, however, this year it was about “The Choice” that Marcus, a Roman Centurion, had to make. You should have been there. Really, you should have. Everyone was invited. You have two more chances to see it – tomorrow, Easter Sunday, at 0800 and 1030.

The picture is of the priests in the temple with the money changers, just before Jesus showed up and tossed everything on the floor. Jack is the 2nd priest from the left. It bothers me that only five of the six priests are in the picture, and that they aren’t standing in numerical order.

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Actually, the sixth priest is there, but he’s standing behind the guy in #4 position. Dang.

As amazing as the production was, Wynette, Jack’s first wife, had to work much harder than he did because she made all of the costumes all by herself, with the help of 3 other seamstresses. Considering there were 80 volunteers, 60 or so in the cast, costumes were central to the success of the play. Seeing Jack in makeup was pretty cool, too. Sadly, I didn’t get a closeup.

Wow! 80 volunteers! We don’t even have 80 members in our church. A good Sunday will reveal 20-30 who call Bethany ‘home’. Of those, maybe 12 are the ones who get all the work done. Sound familiar?

Tomorrow will mark the 4th day in a row that I’ve been forced to attend a church service. First it was Maundy Thursday, yesterday it was Good Friday, today it was The Cantata, tomorrow it’s Easter. Will it never end? That might sound a little odd coming from a church council president. Actually, many of you may find it odd that I’m actually the president. Still others may find it either amusing, or amazing, that I’m even allowed in a church. My pastor has been wondering about that since the time I told him I was rewriting the Bible. I covered pretty much everything in about six chapters.

I guess that’s about it for today.

Oh, wait. It was 75 degrees today. Nice.

Joyful Noises

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Quiet has returned to the house. It actually returned yesterday, but I didn’t tell anyone. It was a happy noise, though, so wasn’t unwelcome. But it’s also nice when the quiet descends in it’s place. At least for a little while.

All the happy noise was related to Lydia’s birthday. It was her choice to spend her 1st night as a full fledged 14-year-old in our basement with two friends, Bree & Marissa, and her 5-year-old cousin, Gilligan. Bailee could have stayed, too, but she wouldn’t eat her turkey sandwich and that turned into a very big deal. That, and she’s not potty trained, yet. She knows she can’t stay the night until that happens so I think she’s intentionally putting it off for fear that she’ll have to spend the night.

Gilligan, of course, was delighted to spend time with “her cousin”. The entire time she was here she never once called Lydia by name … it was “Birthday Girl,” every time. Funny child, wise beyond her years.

Yesterday morning she checked all the cereal boxes to see how much sugar they had and picked the one with the least. Interesting.

After the birthday party on Tuesday, Jennie took all the girls shopping at Target. This was a prearranged trip so Lydia could spend her money on clothes, and Bree could get some parts for her skate board. Upon their return Lydia gave us a fashion show and Bree wanted to borrow some wrenches so she could replace the bearings on her board.

By the time all the clothes were displayed it was well past Diane’s and my bedtime so we excused ourselves and headed over to the East Wing, away from the noise. Since the East Wing, where the bedrooms are, is just around the corner from the living room, we didn’t miss out on any of the continuing conversation and the skitter of little feet as they padded down the hall to the bathroom for the tenth time, in an effort to stay awake and make every second count. Yes, it was Gilligan all the way … she was the only one we could hear talking and there was no doubt whose little feet those were. They were all in the living room, by the way, because Diane was afraid the girls would get cold in the basement. They were all happy with that decision.

Yesterday was a beautiful day, almost 70. While the sun shine was going on Diane and I had a very nice lunch of biscuits and gravy, then took a 2 hour nap. When we woke up we decided to drive to Longview to get the shoe moulding we need to finish the bedroom baseboards. I spent the rest of the sunny time in the basement putting a coat of polyurethane on all the baseboard pieces then went outside to see how much of the back yard I could get mowed before the rain came.

Upon approaching the lawn mower it became evident that my first stop would be the burn pile to empty the bags. I didn’t empty them on Monday because I was in a hurry to get to my Lion meeting. So, they sat there decomposing for two days. When I dumped them the grass was smoking, literally, and was close to combustion from the heat. And it smelled really bad.

About the time I got the bags emptied the rain started. It was light at first, so I kept going. I was able to fill all three bags two more times before I decided it was time to call it a day. Had I skipped that nap earlier in the day I could have finished the entire yard. Maybe today will be nice again. If not, there’s always tomorrow. Or the next day.

It’s almost 9:30 and Diane’s about the head out to get her Mom and go to quilting at church. That means I have to make a decision about taking another nap, or going to the basement to put another coat of polyurethane on the baseboards. Decisions, decisions.

I better go to the basement.