Veterans

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Do you believe in Fate, or Destiny? I do, and have many reasons I could share to substantiate why. For this day, I’ll limit it to one.

Yesterday I had lunch with a WWII veteran at the St. Helens Senior Center. This is the second time I sat across the table from him in the last two months. I only go on days that Diane volunteers to serve with our church ladies. He goes there every day.

Both Diane and I are card carrying members of the senior center, but rarely go. Sadly, the reason, as my new friend astutely surmised, “some times the lunch isn’t so good.” But, it’s only $4 for a nutritious meal and it serves our community well. The Center does more than meals, but that’s all I’ve investigated, so far. They have many activities to keep folks moving and thinking.

I learned a great deal about this gentleman while visiting over lunch. Mainly, I discovered that he was in the Navy during World War II and spent his entire enlistment in the South Pacific, 1943 thru 1945. While we talked he revealed that he’s having difficulty with the VA regaining control of his finances. He’s 100% disabled, you see, and at one point it was determined that he needed someone to take care of his money. His efforts to get a valid ruling on this issue was met with silence. His main connection to the VA was the local VA Service Officer who is no longer in that position. So, the VA ships in folks from Portland and Salem a couple of times a week.

Taking my first step down a different road, I offered to see what I could do to help my shipmate. Knowing how understaffed the VA is, I had no illusions about a speedy resolution. So, you can imagine my surprise when I called the local VA office and obtained an appointment at 11:00 am this morning for him. I was flabbergasted, to say the least. It’s as if, gee, let’s see … like it was meant to be, that I was in the right place at the right time. It took me weeks to get an appointment for myself with the last VASO, so getting one for the next day was kind of like a miracle.

When I picked him up, he had a letter from the VA that he had received yesterday afternoon. It addressed the issue for which I obtained the appointment. “Hmmm,” goes I. “What a coincidence,” I think.

The VA Service Officer we met with is a retired Marine. He’s one of the VASO managers from Salem, and one who trains VASO’s how to do their jobs. It goes without saying that he knew his “stuff”. After a couple of phone calls he had a course of action and felt there would be action on this issue very soon. Perhaps, in only a couple of weeks.

Both of us left that meeting with different feelings. My friend no longer felt alone and abandoned by a system that’s in place to help him. Me? I left with a sense of wonder at how all of this came together so quickly. It was very humbling. My belief is that by extending a helping hand without expectations, or any kind of a plan, something clicked in the universe to make it all work. It wasn’t me, it was the act. I was a tool.

It’s odd for me to be writing about something serious. It’s just not something I do. I usually poke fun at my lovely bride, and she takes it in stride, knowing I don’t mean a word of it. This is different, however.

Our WWII Vets are disappearing at an alarming rate and we need to honor them. The VASO said it best that, had it not been for my new friend, and all those with whom he served, we would be speaking different language in America today. Literally.

So, thank a vet whenever you see one.

Thanks, Lyle, Jim, and Jack, Gary, Jerry1, Jerry3, Bob, Larry, and all the rest of you who served our nation in any way.

It Was a Sunday …

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I just laid around and did nothing all day long.

Had  been allowed to do that yesterday, at least for a little while longer, I probably wouldn’t have been injured so severely.

Jeran laid around with me and also did nothing all day long. We talked a lot and watched a lot of “How it’s Made” on the Science Channel. Now I know how frozen waffles are made.

A Busy Saturday

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Greetings!

I was sitting calmly in my recliner when Diane asked me if I was going to just sit around all day. It being Saturday, and all, I figured that would be OK. Apparently not. So, I searched the house for some work clothes, put them on, and went out to dismantle the old Winnebago with my reciprocating saw. I started in the front, drivers side, and worked my way to the back. It didn’t take a lot of effort to knock down entire wall on that side. Now it’s just a half a bago.

Things went just fine until I got to the back and started taking out the crossmember for the bathroom cabinet. I was sawing away like crazy, feeling good about my progress, when, all the sudden, a piece of wall fell over and whacked me in the side of the head. I knew immediately that I had once again been fatally wounded because the part that hit me was the remainder of a soap dish I had partially removed from the wall. It was in the perfect location to make a really nice gouge, through my hat, without tearing it at all, and giving me whiplash, from which I may never recover.

Gnarly, huh? Diane made me quit working when she saw the blood, and wanted me to go to the emergency room for stitches, but I know how they operate. They’ve given me lots of stitches in the past and I didn’t want to spend another afternoon chatting with all those terminally ill people. So, I allowed Diane to operate on me to fix it.

She shaved around the wound, after I suffered through a shower, during which I discovered that it wasn’t really a good idea to let the water run full force directly on the wound. It really made my eyes water. Then I sat on the couch so Diane could shave off enough hair so some butterfly bandaids would stick to my head. Before doing that, however, she dabbed it with iodine. During that process I learned it wasn’t a proper time to be issuing instructions. I had no idea a Q-tip could cause that much pain. You can bet that bit of info has been filed away in long term memory.

Right now my head is fine, thanks to my lovely wife. It’s not painful at all. My neck, however, is another matter. Tomorrow I just know I’m not going to be able to get out of bed because it’s really, really going to be hurting. A lot. The reason for that is the sideways whiplash caused by the attack.

I hope everyone had a better day than I did. This is a new one for me because, though I do have a reputation for hurting myself frequently, it’s never on my head. I’ll update this tomorrow, if I’m able.

Dog Food Wars

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I’ve mentioned this before, about how Ziva and Panzee have this daily argument about food. Just thought you might like to see the results of the confrontation. Not pretty. The upside is that they always clean up after themselves so we just leave them alone. About the only time it’s an issue is when they start yelling at each other in the living room while Diane’s trying to watch something on HGTV, or Grey’s Anatomy. Diane wants me to explain to them that they’re being rude and really annoying, but I’ve tried that. They either just don’t understand, or don’t care. I’m not sure which. So, I just don’t bother trying any more.

We were all excited to watch the Blazers play the Suns this evening but the referees, and poor shooting ruined it all. Apparently the pre game meeting, that all referees have, resulted in a decision to let the Suns win. So, they did. We quit watching with about 5 minutes to go in the 4th quarter with the Suns up 22. Bummer. Losing to the Suns isn’t as bad as losing to the Lakers and the Blazers beat them last night in PDX. So, they were tired for tonight’s game and should have been given a 10 point advantage for having to travel. That’s only fair.

This morning the dogs got me up at 6:45. They went outside for about 15 minutes. When they got back in, and I had filled their food bowls, in preparation for the afternoon food fight, I kicked back on the couch and slept until 10:22. I know it was that time, exactly, because that’s when Diane got up. She said she got up at 10:15, so I don’t know where that other 7 minutes went. I think she either fibbed, or just took 7 minutes to walk down the hall. It was a nice nap.

Since it was so late, we decided to have breakfast and call it lunch. We had bacon, hash browns, and a 6-egg cheese omelet, which we split right down the middle. I know it was right down the middle because I cut it. I also cooked it. Diane did the bacon and potatoes. We ate on our handy-dandy lap trays and watched a couple of recorded shows.

When Diane was done she had me hold her tray while she stood up so I took that opportunity to do a functional analysis of all her sphincter muscles. I call it a Sphincter Check. When she got up I held the tray up for her and her little bowl of strawberry jam just slid right off the tray, followed closely by the pepper shaker. All of her sphincters kicked in at once, sealing off various sections of her body like she was setting water tight integrity on a Navy ship (setting Zebra, it’s called). In a Navy ship it’s done to segment the ship into many water tight compartments to prevent the ship from sinking too quickly. In a human body, sphincters are set to keep anything from leaking out of the body. I guess we could call this test “setting sphincter”.

Doing this allowed her to react quickly enough to snag the jam bowl right out of the air, without spilling a drop. But, the pepper shaker wound up wrong side down in the jam and required a washing. She yelled at me, of course, not understanding the benefit of doing this critical body function check at least once a year. It’s important, as we get older, to ensure all of our remaining sphincters are fully operational and under our command.

It’s 10:30 pm and I’ve been up for 12 hours. Must be time for bed.

Working on the Winnebago

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Jack showed up this morning to help me work on the one ’68 Winnebago that was left in our yard a few years ago. We needed to move it a little ways  and it almost got away from  us. Fortunately, the emergency brake works nicely. Unfortunately, the front end wasn’t connected to the rest of the rig as well as it should have been. When the bottom stopped, the top didn’t. The results are as you see it. The upside of this little mishap is that it was simple to work on the engine, which was the main reason for Jack’s visit today.

Sadly, apparently no one read an earlier blog entry suggesting that folks come, participate, and bring food. Since Diane left shortly after Jack arrived, lunch was a meager affair. Since the only appliance I’m allowed to use, when Diane isn’t home, is the toaster, that’s what we had. Toast. With jelly. It was really good. We had coffee, too.

We made excellent progress getting to the engine thanks to the emergency brake. We found all these wires running all over the place and tried to reconnect everything, but decided it probably was a waste of time since there’s no battery in the rig. What’s the point of connecting all the wires if you can’t turn something on? But, it’s kinda pretty.

Tomorrow we’ll free the engine, and transmission, and implant them into the trailer he brought today. Oh! I almost forgot! Jack called me this morning to go help him load the engine lifter thingie into his trailer because it was heavy and he couldn’t quite make it. So I said, “sure”, of course. He told me he was on Little Street. Yes, there really is a Little Street in St. Helens. And, it’s really a little street. Short, actually. Even though it’s a little street, it took me a while to find him because he was really on Lee Street. He succeeded in confusing me which, I firmly believe, was his ultimate goal. He should be ashamed for picking on his little brother like that, but he isn’t. He’s always picking on me. But, we had fun working together today so there’s still hope for this relationship to blossom. It could happen.

Now I’m going to stop and watch the Orange Bowl.

Oregon Ducks Win Rose Bowl !!

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In an unprecedented move, in addition to winning the Rose Bowl game, the Oregon Ducks came up the lucky winner of the Rose Bowl. Many in attendance were unaware that the stadium was up for grabs, but the city of Pasadena made a brief, unreported statement prior to the game that they were tired of all “these strange people” over running their fair city all the time. So, their city council voted 4-3 to get rid of the stadium. It seemed to be the major item causing everyone to show up.

So, now that they’ve won it they’ll have to engage the Beaver engineers at Oregon State to devise a way to dismantle the stadium and transport it back to Eugene, Oregon where it will replace the fairly new Autzen Stadium. No one’s sure how that will work out since the Beavers and Ducks are mortal enemies. It could be ugly indeed. To make this work, all the Duck football games for 2012 will be played in Reser Stadium in Corvalis, Oregon, home of the daunted Beavers. Many Duck fans think this is OK, however, because they feel it would do the Reser stadium proud to have a winner in that stadium.

After the drawing, as mentioned above, the Ducks beat the Badgers in a game that could have gone either way until the Ducks went on top 42-38. The Badgers made a valiant effort with 16 seconds remaining but made a crucial judgement error after a first down by attempting to spike the ball with only 2 seconds left. Perhaps it was an experiment to see if it could be done in that amount of time. Now they know. It can’t. Game over, Ducks win. Their first Rose Bowl win since 1917. Some of the members of that team, from 95 years ago, were still on the team after receiving special waivers from the NCAA to extend their eligibility to play. No one at the game noticed them, however, because they weren’t moving very fast. It didn’t help that all of them had shrunk to the size of Kevin Duckworth’s left shoe. Still, they were a proud bunch who can now put it to rest having won their second Rose Bowl game.

A lot of the previous information is inaccurate. Just so you know.

Today my eyes are turning and my ears are screaming. I don’t think one has anything to do with the other, but they are both extremely annoying. That isn’t a complaint, just a fact. I don’t complain because the ringing in my ears gives me an excuse to drink heavily. I don’t do that, but it gives me an excuse if I ever decide I want to.

I’m in trouble again. Diane found the stocking holder that a broke. It’s a stocking holder for Christmas stockings, in case you didn’t relate. I broke it in a good way, actually, because it tipped off the mantel because it was too heavy with all the stuff I put in Diane’s stocking. It was a cute little snowman in a red hat with a fluffy white ball, and he was holding a red bird in his left hand. Now it’s just a cute little snowman with no fluffy white ball on his had, and no bird in his hand. When I broke it I just put the pieces next to it. I went for 9 days without being in trouble until she found it. I knew she would. So, now I have a new project.

Christmas is officially over at our house, now because I took the lights off the roof and the upper porch. I even put them all away. And, I straightened up all the Christmas stuff in the basement, too. That amazed Diane because I did it all while she was gone for an hour. She couldn’t believe that I actually got that much done in such a short time. Heck, I was even sweating when she got home so I don’t understand that. I don’t sweat very often. Except when I climb stairs. Or walk really fast.

I hope everyone is enjoying a great start to their last year on Earth. Remember, 12.21.12 is looming large on everyone’s horizon.

Happy 2012!

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Greetings Fellow Earthlings.
As most of you probably already know, this is the year the world ends. It has to because the Mayan calendar stops functioning on December 21st. To my knowledge, no one has any idea what happens when a calendar stops functioning. Maybe nothing, and that’s a double edged sword if ever there was one. Nothing, as in nothing works any more, or Nothing, as in … well, nothing happens. It’s going to be interesting to see what’s at the end of that calendar.

This morning we awoke to a bright, sunny day here in Seaside. It was absolutely beautiful all day long. We walked from one end of the boardwalk to the other, and back. Almost 4 miles in all. it was a nice, easy walk. No hills and no stairs. We were pleasantly worn out by the trek.

After resting for a while we went back to the boardwalk to watch the sunset, the first one of this year. It was gorgeous. Not as pretty as Hawaii, but still very nice. I took a picture to prove it, but it’s still in the camera so I can’t show it to you.

After the sunset we stopped by Norma’s for a terrific dinner. We thought about going to a movies, but it took us too long to eat so we just went back to the room to savor the day.

I told you about Ruth yesterday. Today I met Don, her husband. He was a career Marine so we had a terrific conversation. A lot of it was about how handy it was for Marines to have the navy around to give them rides to various places in the world. He’s been retired for 13 years so I’m older and wiser than he is. Plus, I was in the Navy. I didn’t, of course, point that out to him. Nice guy.

Now, about the end of the world … anyone have any thoughts about what we’ll be looking at on 12/22/12? I think that’s the day all the planets align and their combined gravitational pull will suck all the water to one side of the earth causing a lot of distress for pretty much everyone. But, that’s just me.

New Year’s Eve in Seaside

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Today Diane tricked me into the car then drove me to Seaside where she had book a room at the Hillcrest Inn. I can only guess that she figured that i would confuse the name of the hotel with our home address. I must admit that I was temporarily confused when she took off my blindfold, which I was encouraged to wear for the entire trip. It wasn’t bad, actually. I had a little nap then we were there. Like magic. I should have known something was up when she made me pack a suitcase.

I really didn’t have to wear a blindfold. And, I knew where we were going, but I know you probably already figured that out. I’m so transparent.

On the way here we stopped at Astoria Safeway Gas Station for gas, then went to COSTCO and got the surprise of our short lives. It was closed. Actually, it’s not only closed, it’s turned into a strip mall and none of them are COSTCO. So, I did a little investigation and discovered that it was moved a few miles down the road toward Seaside. It’s in a brand new shopping mall that wasn’t there last week. Well, it wasn’t there the last time we were out this way and neither of us can remember when that was. Maybe one or two years. I guess they can build an entire mall in that amount of time. If anyone’s interested, there’s still lots of open space if you want to come over and build a store. COSTCO and Home Depot are already there, so think up something different.

The reason we stopped at COSTCO was to get lunch. We love their ginormous Polish dogs. For $3 we can both eat and walk away satisfied. The downside of the $3 meal is that it cost an additional $150 for all the other things we didn’t need.

We drove the rest of the way to the Hillcrest Inn without further expense. Ruth, the owneress, met us at the front desk. We knew it was Ruth because that’s who Diane made the reservations with and Ruth called Diane by name. She’s a very nice lady.

We got all checked in and visited our room before getting the luggage, and other “stuff”. It’s a suite. Cute. And we can see the ocean. For the price, it’s exceptional.

After getting settled, we bundled up and headed for the boardwalk. The Seaside Aquarium is just a block away. They have a really cool whale skeleton hanging in their front window. Nice. At the boardwalk, we turned left and headed for the Seaside Turnaround which is an international landmark known throughout the world as the place where Lewis & Clark ended their epic journey. That’s probably not epically correct, but it has a nice statue commemorating that event so it’s good PR for the city. There were people walking all over the beach, and many standing on the boardwalk pretending to watch the sunset. I say pretending because the sky was overcast and it was just getting dark and no one could see the sun. It just got darker, and darker. The was a guy taking a video of the waterfront building’s lights. I walked in front of him and waved at him. He waved back.

By this time we decided we were getting hungry and headed down Broadway (I think) toward Duggars for some good seafood. On the way we stopped and at many of the eclectic shops lining the street. Nifty stuff. When we got to 1st street we met Virginia, from our church, heading toward us. We chatted a little bit then parted mentioning that we were headed for Duggars. Virginia shrugged and said, “they’re good, but I always go to Norma’s Ocean Diner when I’m in Seaside”. We, of course, had never heard of it so decided to give it a visit instead of Duggars. Turns out it was an excellent choice. Norma’s is rated as one of the best restaurants on the Oregon coast. It’s been there for 35 years. Go figure. So, we figure that’s the reason we met Virginia on the street. She led us there.

Diane had halibut fish and chips, and I had a classic dungeness crab louie. Diane’s came with a cup of chowder, which she doesn’t like, so I ate it. It was absolutely wonderful. So was my louie, and Diane’s fish. Easily the best either of us has ever had. So, it was a terrific coincidence that we encountered Virginia on this, the last day of 2011, in a town 120 miles from home. Pretty cool coincidence

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From Norma’s we headed back to our room which was only 1.5 blocks north. We stopped at the office to pick up an extra blankie for Diane because she like to have heavy covers and the ones on the bed appeared to be pretty light. Plus, it was chilly in the room when we left. But, when we returned it was toasty warm, probably because we cranked the thermostats up in both rooms before we left. They worked nicely.

Now we’re all cozy in our room watching an NCIS marathon. It’s 8:41pm (2041 if you have a military nature), and it’s almost time for bed. Perhaps we’ll watch the ball drop in NYC at 9pm then go to bed. Staying up until midnight just isn’t in our best interests. We’re old.

G’nite.

Our Dogs

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We have three dogs. Two bigs ones and one little one. The little one is the loudest and most annoying, and he’s a racist. He’s a little black one and he always sides with the big black one. The other big dog is light brown. It doesn’t matter to either of the black dogs that the light brown one is the alfa. I’m the one with the laptop in the picture.

All day long they all get long just great. In the evening the dog wars begin, and it always starts with food. Maybe it has something to do with their names. The big light brown one is Panzee. The big black one is Ziva. The little black one is Ozzie. Perhaps Ziva and Ozzie consider Panzee to be a sissy name and find it OK to pick on her.

Back to the food thing. Ozzie’s food bowl is inside his little bitty kennel where neither Panzee nor Ziva can get to it. They really like Ozzie’s food. It’s really tiny compared to what they get that I suspect they found it amusing to pick it up a tiny piece at a time, with their big dog feet with their big dog pinky-finger-like nail sticky out to the side like they’re high society or something. They can’t do that any more because I put a heavy chair on top of Ozzie’s kennel so they can’t move it.

Panzee and Ziva have food bowls on either side of their water bowl. I fill them every morning, but they don’t eat until night. Things start out OK but deteriorate quickly when Panzee bends over to take a bite and finds Ziva standing over her as if she’s daring her to do something about it. It’s all about intimidation, and yelling at each other. Panzee just ignores Ziva, picks up her food bowl and carries it into another room, or down the hall, dumping food all along the way. Once in a while she picks it up and doesn’t spill a drop. This distresses Ziva because she normally follows along, eating all the spilled food. When Panzee succeeds in not spilling anything it’s as if Ziva doesn’t get anything to eat even though her bowl is still full.

So, normally, Ziva eats all the spilled food, and Panzee only gets what she manage to keep in the bowl. When she empties her bowl, she goes back to the water bowl and gets into another argument with Ziva over Ziva’s full bowl of food. As Panzee pushes her way to Ziva’s food they yell and posture at each other and it increases in volume to the point where you’d swear they are going to tear each other apart. They don’t, however. What happens is Panzee picks up Ziva’s bowl and carts it off to another room to finish her meal. Ziva follows along eating the spilled food.

This happens every day. Like clock work. You’d think they’d get tired of arguing like this all the time. I’ve tried to talk sense to them, but it’s useless. They just won’t listen. Logic isn’t part of their belief system. Ultimately, they both wind up eating about the same amount of food, so it isn’t all bad. I guess I should just ignore them because they always seem to work things out.

They’re a lot like BFF’s in that regard. Friends one moment, arguing the next, but they always wind up friends when it’s all said and done.

I’ve thought about yelling and posturing over Diane’s food that way but I really believe that things would work out a whole lot differently for me than it does for the dogs. They always come out of their little tiffs unharmed.

Who’s Ready For 2012 ??

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Better think fast because you only have fifty-two hours and fifty minutes to go … no, make that fifty-two hours and forty-nine minutes to go … no, wait! It’s only fifty-two hours and forty-eight minutes to go. Man !! I need to learn how to type a little faster so I can keep up with the clock.

Clocks are such innocent, mechanical “things”, but I swear, when you’re not watching them they just whirl around like crazy … unless you’re at work. They always go slow at work whether you’re watching them or not. They also go faster and faster the older we get.  Why do you suppose that is.

I heard about some research that revealed adrenaline actually slows down time for the adrenalee. That’s probably not a word, adrenalee, but I suspect you know what I mean. Anyway, this research involved adrenaline junkies who jump off cliffs and supposedly discovered that when adrenaline was running high people perceived things as if they were in slower motion. You know, like in “The Matrix”. But, scientists decided that the real reason people think time is speeding up is really related to how rich the memories are. So, when you’re young time goes slower because everything is more memorable. When you’re old time goes faster because they aren’t so memorable. They didn’t use those exact words, but that’s pretty much what it means. I like the “Matrix” concept better.

Here’s a head’s up for anyone who’s ever had a hankering to rip up an old Winnebago. Sometime next Wednesday and/or Thursday Jack is going to bring his torch to our house and we’re going to cut the engine and transmission out of the old 1968 Winnebago that someone left in front of our house a few years ago. Once that’s done we’re going to call one of the local junk haulers wants it for the metal. If you wish to participate in, or just watch this once in a lifetime event, just show up. A-B bring a main dish,  D-Z bring dessert. The only thing that will keep this from happening is if it’s freezing, or snowing. Rain alone won’t stop it.

We just watched the Portland Trailblazers win their 3rd game to go 3-0. They had 25 turnovers in the game and still beat Utah. You just gotta wonder what the scores will look like when they quit giving the ball away.

Diane went to bed already so I need to head that direction so I can get settled before she goes to sleep. That won’t happen, of course, because she always goes out like a light just before her head hits the pillow. One of these days I’m going to film that. One of these days.

Stay safe.