Surgery

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Today’s the day. I’m alone in the surgery waiting room, waiting for my turn to go sit with Diane while she waits in another room down the hallway. Jennie is with her right now. What we’re all waiting for is 1500, when the surgery is supposed to happen. Right now it’s 1300, so we have two hours to go before the procedure begins.

We left the house at 1100. Jennie drove Mom’s car because Diane doesn’t really trust me much on the road any more. I suggested she might consider having my driver’s license revoked although I do come in handy for making short trips to a store for various reasons. Other than that, my usefulness regarding transportation is about zero since Diane does it all.

On our last trip she piloted the pickup everywhere we went. All I had to do was park it when we arrived, unhook the trailer when we stopped for multiple days, and hook it back up again when it was time to leave. Since we decided to sell the trailer, that means the truck can go, too. Then all she has to do is figure out how to drive the bus.

I’m really not alone in the waiting room. There are other folks scattered around the room, but we don’t talk. That’s OK. Talking to strangers isn’t what interests me at this time.

Since I’m under strict orders to mind my diet, I chose to go eat lunch around 1500. Jennie will join me after Diane takes Diane to the operating room. By the time she got to me, I was done eating, so I just kept her company while she ate her soup. It was pretty hot stuff and she burned various parts of her mouth by testing it to see if it was ready to eat. She finally got it down. Then we mosied beach to the original waiting room to await the end of surgery and recovery. I sent Jennie in to be with her in recovery but I was tricked when she asked for my presence. I was happy to go because I had seen for only a few minutes this day and I missed her.

She was way perkier that I thought she would be. Surgery isn’t one of her favorite activities. She reminded me that anesthesia is what scares her the most, not the actual surgery. That’s a story for another time.

She improved quickly and successfully peed for the nurse. That was the goal for getting out of the hospital. Once that was done I helped her get dressed for her exit, then we headed home. The nurse called the parking valet so he could get the car to the front door so we wouldn’t have to wait. The recovery room crew told me everyone leaves that area in a wheelchair, but she failed to include the part about “patients only.” They didn’t bring me one so I had to walk.

Jennie drove us safely home and Max was ecstatic to see her. Surprisingly, he was gentle with her.

She didn’t stay up long after getting home and Jennie need to gather up her children and get them home. Then it was just me and Diane. I was so very happy she got to come home, as was she.

After she went to bed, around 1900 or so, I stayed up a little longer hoping she would go right to sleep. I don’t know what time it was, but at was ready for bed when I finally called it.

Apparently she went right to sleep because she left a bunch of lights on. I should have checked sooner, right?

That was it for the day.

We Have Cancer!

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For the past 5 years or so Diane has been dealing with what she calls “polka dot lungs”. That’s what all of the CAT scan images she’s seen look like to her, so that name sticks. Her doctor kept putting off biopsy’s because it didin’t appear that the polka dots weren’t getting bigger and the danger of performing a biopsy wasn’t justified because of the biggest one’s position, just behind her heart.

The we took our trip round Oregon which essentially ended in Fossil, Oregon where she visited the Emergency Room for what appeared to be a bad kidney infection. She was treated for that with a dose or antibacterial meds that seemed to take care of it. Briefly.

When we got home on September 18th, she was able to see her doctor who ordered a CAT Scan with Contrast. Doing this opened a more specific world for the polka dots. Turns out they were spots of metastasized cancer from a tumor on her left ureter, we think. The PET Scan may reveal a different source. Regardless, it’s cancer, and she’s littered with it.

This morning, at 0945 we checked Diane in to the Nuclear Imaging department of Good Sam Hospital. This is something she’s been striving to get for a while now. She saw her urologist a few days ago and received conflicting info on what needs to be done.

She was originally scheduled to have a PET Scan today but after the doctor met with her he thought the next step was to give her a stent in her left ureter next to the kidney to stop the severe pain she’s been experiencing. But, the PET Scan was never cancelled so we acted on the knowledge we had. No followup info was provided regarding the stent surgery until she was taken to perform the PET Scan. It was the right choice as her doctor spoke to her on her way to the test then came back and talked with me. Turns out they had hopes to piggy back the stent surgery after the PET Scan today but instead they will do it tomorrow afternoon.

As I type, she is getting the PET Scan done and it’s supposed to take about an hour. Then, there’s another 30-minute part that has a name I cannot remember.

1050 – The first hour of the PET Scan is over and I’ve not heard anything from the nurses so I’m putting this away until I get some news.

Diane finally finished around noonish so we could go home. She was in a lot of pain and hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday,

I fixed us two can’s of soup; vegetable beef for me, and chicken noodle for her, I ate all of mine, she barely touched her’s. She did eat a yogurt which pleased me because she needed something for her stomach to churn on.

It’s now 2130 and she still hasn’t eaten anything but that yogurt. Neither of us can wait for tomorrow so she can get the stent installed and make the pain stop. I’m helpless with this and cannot tell you how brave she is to tolerate the pain knowing what’s causing it.

I’m stopping here. Pray for her surgery tomorrow to be a success,

The Dalles

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Up early due to inability to sleep due to the fact that Diane was unable to sleep due to her damaged back. That sounds complicated, I know, but it really isn’t. Her back isn’t damaged in the normal way because she didn’t fall down. It seems to be related to the medicine she received in Fossil, Oregon that was supposed to help with a bacterial infection she sprung up with. For a while she thought it was just back pain from doing something strenuous. The meds helped for a bit but we were both fooled by her uncanny ability to tolerate pain at a level only professional atheletes can endure and still function quite normally.

She seemed to be getting better as we get closer to home, but her “tough guy” attitude failed causing her to pick a wiser solution that ended with us terminating our last night in The Dalles. Instead, we packed up all our doodads, bit our farewells to Cliff, Susie. Terry, and Carolann and hit the freeway.

You may recognize that his is the first mention of Terry, and Carolann because our traveling partners to this point were Cliff and Susie. Terry, and Carolann joined us in The Dalles to join us in our triumphant re-entry into the Gresham area before venturing on home to St. Helens.

Before leaving last Wednesday morning, I took a long walk with Max, around the parking lot we were using for an RV Park. He was a little confused because he was expecting us to spend one more day on road. I don’t know why he was upset because all he does when we’re driving is sleep.

Diane did ALL of the driving on this trip. She insisted and I wasn’t inclined to argue about it. My job was to get the trailer parked at every RV Park we visited. She did all the rest, and she did it in an excellent manner.

It was good to get home, even though we enjoyed the trip. We made more memories, and none of them were the result of me falling on my face again. The last time that happened was on August 30th. Since then all the wounds healed, the scabs all fell off, and I didn’t even get a small bruise from the trama I suffered. I found that lack of bruising to be unfair. Most people who take a blow to the nose usually get black eyes. Not me. I attribute that to the fact that I have O+ blood. I’m pretty sure I shared this photo already but it’s worth another look.

Once home, Diane got to talk with Dr. Ly, her favorite, and he started her on a path that ultimately led us to the emergency room at Good Sam Hospital. They poked and prodded her, took anothe Cat Scan and ordered more internal pictures for them to study.

There’s one more trip to the hospital next week for the additional internal photos before they can identify what’s going on. They sent us home with a script for Oxy (which she won’t take), and something else for something I can’t pronounce.

My job, until next week, is to keep her from going crazy with laundry, emptying the trailer, and getting everything off all the counters and tables – all the stuff I brought in from the trailer. I got it pretty much emptied yesterday. It wasn’t her choice for me to scatter the stuff all over the house, but I was resolute to keep her from interfering with my methods of dispursing all the bags I filled. There’s a bunch of stuff I left on the patio, and even more that I added to the overflowing garage.

I’ll provide more news when I get it.

Things Change

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By the time you read this we will be halfway home. As I sit here, thinking, I have absolutely no idea where halfway might be. But, we’ll be heading that way some time this morning.

The mornings here in Baker City have turned frigid and Max doesn’t like that much because he’s so short and his stomach hairs get wet in tall grass. He hasn’t complained openly about that, but it’s evident in he way he looks over his glasses at us that reveals the truth. He also misses all his squirrel friends in his back yard at home.

Yesterday we visited a museum in town that looked promising, and it was. The biggest draw was a gold nugget that weighs about 15 bs, seriously. It’s huge. They have it, and lots of other nuggets on display behind 1 inch glass vaults. The big nugget is valued at around 11-hundred-seventy-five-million $$, a worthy sum for something you could put in your pocket. Surely it would hasten your pants to fall to the floor should you attempt to carry it that way.

There are many more photos of this venture, but I need to get this thing into a current status. Working from behind wears me out, and Diane’s ill so we needed to make plans for heading west to home instead of north to Hell’s Canyon. Yes, we’re calling it quits for this trip.

Diane had an infection that I may have mentioned, and took a bunch of pills to kill bacteria. It cleared up the urinary tract issue, but apparently killed bacteria required to help digest stuff. That resulted in severe abdominal pain. Since she’s the driver on this trip we pooled our thought with the Daron’s and chose to depart this morning with a new destination.

While packing up, Max lounged between the trailer wheels to ensure he wouldn’t be left behind.

This is the dog run area that Max will miss when we’re gone. It’s nine acres of off leash freedom.

The original plan was to turn right on Highway 82 in La Grande and head for Elgin for the night, then move on toward Hell’s Canyon tomorrow morning. Instead, we turned left on Highway 82 in La Grande with a pause in Summerville (population 135) to find Cliff’s Grandpa’s Grave then continued on H-82 to Elgin for the night. Susie found the grave no problem.

The jaunt to Elgin from Summerville took about 15 minutes and it was fairly easy to find the Ha-Wa-Nu RV Park. It’s located on the banks of the Grand Ronde River. That seems odd to me because the Grand Ronde tribe owns the Spirit Mountain Casino. We pass it on our way to the beach once in a while. It’s odd because we’ve been traveling around in Oregon for many days now and all the cars have Oregon plates and we recognize names of places we’ve been before. Normally, when we travel, it involves many states instead of just one.

The end of this trip was the Umatilla RV Park on the Columbia River. It’s very pleasant here and ALL of the grass is green. Max loves it, as do we. After dinner with the Daron’s, we rested well in preparation for our next leg to The Dalles. Dusty is looking forward to that.

Prairie City

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We left John Day at the stroke of noonish and made the “grueling” drive to Paradise City where we will spend just one night. The drive was 13 miles, but it was on our list, so we stopped. It’s a really nice facility but right off hand I cannot remember much about it. My mind doesn’t seem to retain anything for a useful amount of time. It’s there, then it’s gone.

So, I’m just going to share what’s in my head right now.

First, we mad it to Farewell Bend State Recreation camp ground located a few miles from where Cliff’s Grandpa used to live. It’s a small town of 450 residents and has no gas stations. While he and Susie toured the town, Diane drove us to Nampa for a visit with Jim, Donna, Steffani, and Bob. Diane was excited about the drive because once you cross the border into Idaho, the speed limit rises to 80 MPH. It gave her an opportunity to burn out the carbon she’s been accumulating in the engine.

It was a nice visit. Short, but nice, and we got lunch!

Before leaving Nampa for our return trip “home”, we stopped at Costco to fuel up. The last time we didn’t do that and ran over 125 miles on an empty tank in the motor home. True story. We drove all the way to La Grande. The next morning was our checkout day so I had the pleasure of emptying our holding tanks on that way out of the park. It took a while and I’m happy to report that I didn’t spill even one little drop, then we went up the side road to Huntington to visit a museum.

There was a lot of interesting things inside, most interesting the curator who grew up in Huntington and knew where Cliff’s Grandpa lived (2 blocks from the museum). I think she remembered the color of the house, too. She knows the history of Huntington.

The railroad was something that touched everyone’s lives in some way, as did river traffic on the Snake River. There’s information about the time a steamboat captain sails his way through Hell’s Canyon.

The rest of the items are typical for a small town, except for this guy.

It’s not often that you run across a gun-toting preacher.

The next stop was at the “A Frame RV Park” in Baker City. It was a fairly easy drive. Actually, it was very easy for me because Diane is doing all of the driving. The only thing I do is park the truck and trailer on arrival, and hook it all back up when it’s time to leave. Easy peasy, right?

We checked in for a 2-day stay so relaxed after getting things connected then the next morning we took a trip to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center that resides on a hill just outside of Baker City. Actually, it was just 4-5 miles from our current residence.

This was an excellent stop. The displays and stories are awesome. We stayed long enough to be the last wagon remaining in the parking lot. If you’re ever in Baker City, this is a must to visit.

On the way back to the ‘ranch’, we were assaulted with a rock hitting the windshield thrown by a little car going the other way, The glass chipped and cracked and will require replacement. We decided to celebrate this assault by eating dinner out at the Latitude Forty Five restaurant. Great people, excellent food.

Bsck at the A Frame Park, I took Max for a walk in the 9-acre dog park they have. He really liked the freedom and he met many congenial dogs.

I got the TV working by searching local channels. It’s almost as good as Dish TV but there are only 66 channels. We did, however, get to watch AGT for the first time on this trip.

This day, our last one here in BC, we spent looking around town for thrift stores and cheap places to shop.

Tomorrow we leave for Elgin hoping they can accommodate the two of us for a couple of days. From there we’ll be going to Hell’s Canyon.

Heading Easterly

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Our trip took a negative turn while stopped in Fossil when Diane decided it was time to address the pain in her back and the suspect color of her urine. As it turned out, she was able to see a doctor right here in Fossil. That was a minor miracle. She got first class treatment, a diagnosis of a serious kidney infection, and a medical subscription delivered to a pharmacy in Condon, just up the road a ways. While waiting for her we toured Fossil (it didn’t take very long) and Cliff drove the pickup. I would have drove, but my wallet is somewhere in a USPS truck on the way to Nampa. Jennie found it and sent it to Steffani so we could pick it up when we visit them in a few days. Until then, it’s against the law for me to drive anything.

Once the doctor released Diane, we picked her up and headed to Condon. It’s 19 miles of wobbly road from Fossil. Our destination was the Murrays’ Pharmacy. We found it with no problem but had to wait a bit because the doctor pushed the wrong button, apparently, and the script was sent to Boardman. I suppose we could have driven there to get it, but had we done that we may as well have gone home from there. So, we waited.

Once the meds were dispersed, it was time for lunch so we chose one of he two available facilities. Sadly, they wouldn’t let Max in so we headed to the other place. But, the young lady who ran the craft store next door offered to babysit Max while we ate. Her name is Jennifer.

She was the highlight of the trip as far as I’m concerned. Very nice person. The food wasn’t remarkable as advertised. I think my judgement was swayed by my choice of a breakfast burrito. I had to pick the innards from a list and I didn’t choose well. Everyone else was OK with what they got.

From there we wove our way back to Fossil and spent our last night at the fairgrounds then hit the road again, heading for Grant County Fairgrounds in John Day. It seemed like a long trip, mainly because it went well into the afternoon. We’re normally hooked up at the next site by noon.

Now it’s almost 1100 and Diane is plotting the next stages of our journey. According to the calendar, the next stop is Farewell Bend State Park in Huntington, Oregon. Cliff lived part of his life in Huntington so there’s a reason for that stop. While there Diane and I plan to visit Idaho to get my wallet from Steffani. Then I’ll be legal and can go visit beer joints.

Before leaving John Day, Cliff and Susie are going to visit the Kim Choi Chuck State Heritage center here in town. It’s a pharmacy place from the 1800’s that was quite popular. I may have spelled it wrong, so look it up. Cliff is already gone because the center has RV parking out front. As plus is that they have guided tours and the entire experience is free. Pretty cool.

Here’s what I had for lunch yesterday in Mitchell. A really good hamburger and some apostrophe French fries. Never had those kind of fries before.

Diane said I should mention a little more about Mitchell so I will. It’s just a little divot along Highway 26 unlike the places we’re used to seeing along #26 in the Portland area. It’s. It’s a little confusing to me at times because here we are in a totally known part of the world and everyone has Oregon plates and we traveling the same roads that we do at home. It just doesn’t seem right to me at times. Another road we share is Highway 30.

The place we ate at was called Tiger Town which is affiliated with a like named brewery.

We ate outside under that red awning because they wouldn’t let Max inside.

Vacation Prep

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What! Another vacation? You barely got over the last one. Gotta go, though, because it’s on the calendar.

First there’s an injury report I must share.

Prepping for this trip involved replacing static shelves in the pantry for ones that conveniently move. During this process I purchased a small job site table saw so I could make sawdust. It works just great and I can actually pick it up to move it around.

That leads me to the first injury. No, I didn’t saw my fingers off. Instead of moving the saw out of my way I attempted to carry a bunch of stuff around it and got all tangled up in power cords and a 5-gallon bucket. The end result was me falliing to the cement floor, scraping my right shin bone on the bucket, and slowing down the bulk of my descending body with my left arm (the bad one). The end result was a reinjury of my left shoulder and a sprain to my left wrist. Kinda minor, really, but it hurt. Not enough to keep me from finishing the job, but it hurt.

The next injury occurred yesterday when I was trying to un-wind Max from the mess he made with his tie-out cable. Unfortunately, I had him tethered at the front of the car port which gives him access to the side yard, accessible via a wonky set of stone stairs. There are only, like 3 steps, but missing just one of them can cause damage. Check it out.

When I landed, it was face first, or at least a very close second for my face plants this year. The injury report I initially received from my body was a broken nose because it was that kind of pain. Struggling to my hands and knees, before Diane could see me at my worst, there was a considerable amount of blood escaping from a few places that stopped my fall. So, I chose “broken nose” to report that as the cause of what happened when my body made contact. Diane heard me hit the ground and, as she’s prone to do upon hearing unfamiliar thuds, asked “what happened?” Not being fully in charge of my senses at this point resulted in me reporting, “I think I broke my nose.”

She found me quickly, but without panic, and asked if I needed a doctor. I waitied to see if I might start spurting blood from some other area of my body. I didn’t, so deemed that I was fine. “No doctor needed.”

I found it interesting that she thought it would be a good idea to take a couple of photos before I cleaned myself up. Her only request was for me to brush the yard debris off my front side. I was a mess. I had to lean back as far as I could, as I walked to the bathroom, so blood wouldn’t drip on the floor. In hindsight, I could just as easily pulled up my t-shirt to staunch the flow, but that was not one of the possibilities provided as I headed to the bathroom.

I was thankful for my glasses, which blocked yard stuff from plowing into my eyes, but they bit the dust and will no longer be useful to see properly. So they will be retired with honors, replaced by an older prescription that were handy.

After that last paragraph our journey had begun and we are now well into it. Last night we stayed at the county fair grounds in John Day, Oregon. Prior to that we’ve spent a couple of days at the Peyton Dam RV Park near Madras, then a couple at the Wheeler County Fair Grounds in Fossil, then last night in the Grant County Fair Grounds in John Day. We’d like to stay a couple more days here, but all the sights are reserved through the weekend. We were lucky to get a site last night.

More later as the journey progresses.

Until then, here’s a sunset from Fossil for you;

Waldport, Oregon 2025

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It’s been over a month since my last entry and things have happened that you may (not) be interested in, but I’m going to share with you, anyway. So, continue reading at your own risk with the understanding that you may quit any time you wish.

This was a trip to Fort Stevens State Park in July. Max had a good time and showed us the joy of having a white dog. He loves the water and the sand, in any order.

We would have spent more time on the beach, but it was pretty crowded.

Max having a staredown with a buck in our back yard. The buck backed down after a long contest of wills.

Here’s how Max helps us make the bed.

Our Winnebago friends showed up out of the blue and hooked up for a 3-day visit. These visits are limited to 3 rigs because that uses all the space in front of the house. Another limiting factor is power. With this many rigs plugged into the garage circuits there’s no doubt a breaker will eventually trip. But, it all works out with a great visit.

Then, our old PT Cruiser friends appeared for a visit. This is most of the visitors. I’m sure others took photos but I got caught up in visiting and totally forgot I had a camera. Sorry folks. We’ll start out with Max demonstrating how shy he is.

It’s really sad that I failed with photos because some of these people have been able to avoid us for 15-20 years. We all don’t mingle like we used to.

Then, all the sudden, they were gone.

Our standing family gathering in July included friends from Intel which provided us with a visit with Jered, a guy she found in the Intel cafeteria.

In addition to whatever happened over the past weeks, we’ve spent the last three days in Waldport, Oregon with the Walters Family. Since all the adult children work different shifts for Intel it wasn’t easy to get them in the same room together on a good day, carving out three days was difficult. But, my live-in trip planner managed to make it work. She got a 12 bedroom house on a cliff that worked nicely so everyone had their own room. Sounds good, but there was only one bathroom with 2 urinals and 2 stools, which was nice but, due to shy bladders, only one of us could use it at a time. Kinda weird.

We drove to Waldport after church on Sunday. Three cars made the trip from various locations and we all arrived within 5 minutes of each other after a 3+ hour drive. Quite remarkable. That made Jerrie very happy because having everyone there meant he didn’t have to unload everything alone. Once the three cars were unloaded we all thought that turning the Littles (Siah & Jasper) free to play, then Diane got busy preparing dinner. She made her best Sloppy Joe stuff on Saturday so all she had to do was warm it up.

The big kids kicked around the neighborhood and found a path to the beach pretty close to the house. The rope tied to the block goes all the way down. Wearing gloves is recommended but I wasn’t going back for them.

This is what it looks like at the bottom. (that’s Cedric leading the way).

We played an UNO game that was hilarious, aggravating, and lots of fun. It was a very un-normal version of the game. The objective is to get people kicked out of the current game by winding up with 25 cards in their hand. Easy to do when everyone gangs up on you and you wind up drawing 20 cards instead of 4.

Tuesday was a trip to the acquarium.

On the way in Jennifer took my hand. When she was little, holding hands didn’t appeal to her so I never got to do that. On her wedding day, when I walked her down the aisle I offered her my elbow but she took my hand instead. That was the first time she initiated hand contact. The next photo was the second time, as we walked in to the acquarium. That made my day.

Taking a break …

We took turns cooking. Sunday was sloppy joes that Diane cooked on Saturday, Monday Jennifer cooked taco/nacho meat very good with lots of choices to spice things up, and Tuesday Lydia cooked a classy pork and noodle dish that was very good.

After dinner on Tuesday Lydia and I took Max for a walk on the beach. In the dark. He loved it and thought it was great fun to run away from us into the dark. He finally tired of that game and allowed us to reconnect his leash and head back to the house. We were delayed a little longer because Lydia couldn’t find the log she assigned to watch over her flipflops. Thankfully she found them. Thankfully, we had flashlights because it was very dark for the trip back up the path.

We spent a lot of time at the beach after we found a more suitable access point for everyone. The closeby rope path wasn’t a good idea for the Littles.

It was a wee bit foggy every day we were awake. Still, it was fun. Even Jeran enjoyed it.

Loading up for the trip home didn’t take long, then our visit to Waldport was done.

Our first stop on the way home was Seal Rock where we had to stop at the Chubby Lil Mermaid Pastry and Gift Shop to get one of their whale shaped, caramel covered doughnuts. Sadly, I didn’t take a picture of the one I got Diane. I checked their website for a photo, but they don’t have one, either. Guess you’ll have to visit them for varification.

That’s it for the Waldport visit. Everyone made it home safely.

Random Things With Photos

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Hi. Happy International Blow Up Your Neighborhood Day (IBUYND). I know, I’m late but that’s pretty much what I am for anything I do, and you know what? It’s OK to be late. I’m sure that’s true. Especially for me because most people probably are amazed that I get things done. For them it’s a surprise that causes some folks to remark, “Hey! Jerrie’s still sucking air! Who knew?”

Like normal, I have no agenda for this post so I’m just going to pick some photos at random and see if I can remember what caused me to take them. It might be interesting for all of us.

As many of you know, I’m the cook in the house and Diane does the cleanup. I’m totally OK with that, in case you might be wondering. One of the main reasons for liking this arrangement is because while preparing a meal I can nibble on things. I mostly nibble vegetables. If I was the cleanup crew, I couldn’t do that because my hands would be dirty the entire time. That wouldn’t bother me, actually, but it would bother Diane. A lot.

So, I made some hotdogs and cooked up some corn I found in the fridge.

There’s potato salad on my plate, too. Diane and I collaborated on the salad. She doesn’t eat corn so I was forced to eat all of those. I didn’t take a photo of Diane’s hotdogs because she puts ketchup on hers and that makes my stomach crinkle up. I’m sure it’s illegal to put ketchup on hotdogs in a bun. It’s OK to do so when the hotddogs are cut up in a bowl of baked beans.

Here’s Diane’s sandwich from a different day. I think it’s a ham and swiss on rye sandwich. I had one, too, but it wasn’t worth a picture.

Here’s Max giving Mom a little help with her filing.

Here’s Mom trying to ignore Daniel & Jennifer’s new kitten, Anakin. He’s a very mellow kitten which is good for the boys.

This is Lydia trying to ignore everyone so she doesn’t lose count.

Here’s Max trying to get over his fear of the sprinkler.

I found this pair of socks in my dresser, so I wore them the other day.

After I tossed them in the hamper, I found another pair just like them in the drawer. Pretty awesome that I have two pair of them, right?

That’s it.

Various and Sundry ‘Stuff’

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It’s been a while since I’ve ventured forth with a new post. I have to admit that I’ve started new ones a few times but for some reason my heart just wasn’t in it. Today is apparently different because I feel like sharing something. What that may be has yet to emerge but I’m confident something will reveal itself during the course of this episode.

It’s almost noon and I’ve actually accomplished a few things, unlike what’s been normal for me lately. It was easy to just lay around, reading my books, or just taking an afternoon nap with Max keeping my legs warm. That may still happen but I’m seriously going to see how long I can hold off nap time.

Diane is gone to see her doctor at Good Sam, leaving me all alone with various sharp instruments that have previously been responsible for emergency room trips. The worst one isn’t here at the Cricket House. It’s still residing peacefully at the Hill House, out of my reach. That would be my table saw. I’d love to have it close to me, but so far it isn’t one of Diane’s favorite tools for me to have handy for two reasons: 1) There’s no room in the garage for it, and 2) She doesn’t trust me alone with it. So, I’ll just have to earn her trust doing other things.

Like today. I walked around the north side of the house and found a really tall rose bush (tree) with beautiful, fragrant blooms. Though I’m not a gardener by any stretch of the imagination, I felt confident in my ability to cut the flowers and plant them in a bud vase without harming myself. Considering that bud vases have very narrow openings, I took it outside to fill it with plant soil so I could keep the kitchen counter clean. There was bound to be spillage. Thankfully, I couldn’t find any appropriate soil so I just filled the vase with water and called it good.

Yesterday, I think, Jeff stopped by to help me remove a dangerous bird house from our patio. It wasn’t dangerous until a bunch of wasps decided it would make a great home.

Most of the critters were hiding inside, doing a serious makeover, while a few of those remaining worked on covering the exterior, one thin layer at a time. I thought it was unique and didn’t want to disturb their efforts, but it was hanging about 7 feet from our patio door, hanging from a hangar, under the patio cover. I’d been walking past it for a few days without harm before Diane told me about it. The worker bees were kind of friendly, actually, and didn’t bother me at all until I was made aware of their proximity to the door. That’s when I started exuding fear pheromones which the bees detected right away. That made it difficult to walk past the nest, so I revised me exit strategy from the house. It didn’t work. No matter which door I used to access the back yard they new I was there and immediately attacked. It didn’t take long for them to figure out that 1 or 2 bees could make me run leaving the remaining 6-700 bees to keep working.

Not being able to leave the house made walking Max difficult. The bees didn’t bother him so I just let Max out on his own, hoping he’d get safely back in a reasonable amount of time. He did really well until the deer showed up. It turns out he can almost outrun deer, especially the little ones. What he can’t do is jump fences like they can. But he can run around them via the creek.

By now I’m sure that you’ve figured out that I’m lying about most of that. Some of it’s true but I’m not sure which parts.

Last week we spent a few days in our trailer at Ocean Shores, WA with our Winnebago friends. Cliff brought his scooter which pleased Max because he’s been begging me to take mine out so he could have a ride. I guess he’s tired of walking around the block and would rather ride from one pee-spot to another. I didn’t think that was a good idea. When he saw Cliff in the parking lot, he took advantage of us both and just jumped on for a ride. Since he was so insistent, and Cliff was willing, I took his leash off and turned them loose.

Turns out he’s a pretty good little scooter rider. Who knew?

While I’m out here on the back yard patio, near the previous home of the bird house bees, a different Jeff (not our son) has been working hard to clean up the RV. His business is Cascade Auto Detailing (503) 476-2311, and he works out of his SUV. Being mobile is necessary since someone demolished his brick-and-mortar facility which is why we had to call him. The building was just gone.

He’s got pretty much everything he needs to do a great job. It’s great because I don’t have to do it. I’m sure our Jeff would have done it, but I value his safety above the other Jeff.

I just noticed that Diane’s on the move so her visit with the doctor is apparently done. Looks like she’s stopped at a McDonald’s near the Hillsboro COSTCO so I’ll have a little time to clean up the house before she gets back.

Hope all is well with all of you. Stay safe.