humor | Temporary Sanity ...

If I was still counting days, this would be 175. Yes, it’s been a week since my last post and I have to admit that I feel like I’m falling down on my job. But, the journey is over for a while so I can relax a little, right? The problem with that is that I need something to write about. To do that requires me to contribute a little brain power to these efforts. Let’s see what happens.

First, there’s Max, who doesn’t have a problem with moving around a lot. Any time he gets outside, he plants himself close to his next possible ride. Close enough that he’s hard to ignore. It works, and he gets in his trips around town in addition to his walks around the block, so he knows we see him.

As you can see, there’s a travel trailer parked under the car port and, as far as I know, it hasn’t leaked. I haven’t had the courage to unlock the door and stick my head inside to find out. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow.

While taking stuff out of the RV Max assumed one of his favorite positions. I think he was channeling Laurie and Pat, hoping they would show up. We explained to him that they aren’t here, but they think about him a lot. He sat on the back of that couch for an hour or so until we closed it up. Funny guy.

Monday I used my air compressor to blow off 6 months of dust that collected on the air cleaner filters on the furnace. It was pretty fuzzy so I did it when Diane was not here. Actually, it was part of the instructions that I do the cleaning after Diane exited the premises and wouldn’t be back for a while. Max doesn’t care about stuff like that so he was allowed to stay with me and watch the fun.

Also on Monday, Max had a bath. A shower, really. He’s not fond of getting clean, but he loves the part about buffing him off with a towel. He must have heard about the need for a bath because he escaped for a little while and came back partially covered in mud. My first impression was that he found some deer poop and had a good time smearing it all over himself. But, it ws just dirt and it came off easily with the shower wand. That made Jerrie happy.

On Tuesday, I think, Diane drove herself to town (Portland) for her CT Scan to see how things are looking with her lungs. I thought she had an appointment scheduled with her doctor but can’t find it on the calendar so will have to find out when that is. We both want to know if we’re going to be visiting Arizona again this year, or if we’re going to get a sauna instead. Might just do both. You will hear about it as soon as I know..

Diane got her hair cut a little bit on Wednesday. The last trim she got was in Coronado, I think, and I did a pretty good job. Made me proud. I offered to do it again, but she nixed that very quickly. That’s OK because Tracey is her friend and they get to talk which is good. Sometimes I go there and just sit in the waiting area and listen to them. They know I’m there because there’s no way to sneak into the shop. Most of the time they just let me stay as long as I want and sometimes I even get a haicut, too.

On Thursday Diane had a meeting with the church ladies, and Friday she had an eye appointment.

On Friday I also got to do something for Jennifer using the truck. I drove way the heck and gone into the woods above our house, but not far enough to encounter snow. We loaded up a free freezer and took it back to her house and got it installed in her garage. Jeran came along to do the heavy lifting while Diane stayed at Jen’s to watch cartoons with the Little’s. We all had a good time and I only got in trouble a couple of times for trying to help move that thing. To facilitate the transfer, we got a trailer from Don’s Rental. There was no way we were going to get an upright freezer high enough to get it safely into the truck. The trailer worked nicely. It turns out that when someone else does the heavy lifting, it’s pretty easy to get stuff like this done.

This morning Pastor Ingrid cooked pancakes at the church for whoever wanted to walk through the church door, so I went about 9-ish and had breakfast with a few people we haven’t seen in a while. It was a good visit, the pancakes were awesome. Thanks, Pastor.

When I got back Diane convinced me to take Max around the block once more, then I drove her and the truck to Scappoose so we could fill the truck’s gas tank, and she could get her Spring Rolls at Simms Restaurant. She’s been craving those things for many months and couldn’t wait for tomorrow. Sunday, after church is when we usually make that trip. It’s a ‘thing’ with us. I usually get Lomein with shrimp but having just eaten a late breakfast, I settled on tempura shrimp. They were really good.

Oh, and we also had egg flower soup. And tea.

That’s pretty much up-to-date as I can get so I’m going to quit.

See you next time.

This morning, we woke up to frozen water lines so couldn’t make coffee or flush the toilet until I remembered that we have a full tank of fresh water. All I had to do was turn on the water pump and we had running water. Thankfully, the water line (garden hose) didn’t burst so our next objective is to get some pool noodles to wrap the exposed hose. I don’t know what the temp was outside but inside the bus this morning it was 40 degrees. That’s a bit too chilly for me. I think I convinced Diane to leave the heater on during the night so we can avoid these low morning temps in the future.

We didn’t go anywhere today so the water hose didn’t get wrapped in pool noodles. By unanimous vote, we chose to take a day of rest. I did, however, give Max his long overdue bath. He asked nicely and it’s hard to turn him down. Bathing wears him out.

Twenty-nine Palms lives in a shallow valley and most of the buildings on the base are snuggled up against the eastern edge. This is what we see from space 72. First photo is looking north, second is looking south.

In the above photo, the main gate is the closest structure. The road from there to the next stop sign is a racetrack where motorcycles can easily attain 100+ mph. That’s done by those who are released into the public domain after their day shift is over. It doesn’t last long.

The structures in the middle are base housing. I have no idea what the other buildings are for. I do know that somewhere on the left side is a gas station, Carl’s Jr., and a bunch of other stuff.

The tire tracks up close on the left side of the photo is the path for getting into the RV park. It takes you across a fairly high curb to the paved street and causes a lot of rock and rolling to ensure that anything that’s loose will fall on the floor and cupboards that do not latch shut allow their contents to join the items already on the floor. It makes a tremendous racket. Amazingly, nothing broke. I’m pretty sure.

That’s our bus across from the kid’s playground and the dog area. Across the street from us you can see the individual carports at each site. I’ll get a better photo of our spot soon.

A neighbor moved in next to us, on the other side of the above photo. His name is Rich, and his wife is Susan. Their car and trailer are licensed in Oregon but they both grew up on Oahu. Their kids went to Mililani High School. This is interesting because that’s where our son, Jeff went to High School for a while. Rich is retired Army. That’s not pertinent, just another interesting aspect of our visit. We just had a short visit, but we hope to talk with them again.

Now I’ll stop.