Tag Archives: life

Day 60 – Thrift Storing

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It was chilly this morning. Like 48 degrees! That is legitimately chilly. Actually, it was cold. So, I got to wear long socks, long pants, and two hoodies when I took Max for his morning walk. That was at 0730. Couldn’t quite see my breath so I was bummed.

Ok, it was 48.7 degrees. Picky, picky.

Walking briskly warmed us up a little, but it was still cold.

I did my normal morning routine to get my breakfast which is mainly to be quiet like a mouse, but that never works out. Something always makes a racket which Diane can easily hear. Thankfully, she doesn’t complain about it. Honestly, I think she’s OK that I make a little noise because by doing so she is reassured that I’m alive and moving. Even then I think in the back of her mind she’s prepared to hear the heavy thud I’ll make when I land on the floor for any reason. So far, that hasn’t happened. I practice that move when Max and I are home alone. Yes, I practice falling in the RV as quietly as possible. That’s kind of lame, I know, but what the heck. Gives me something to do. What will most likely happen is I’ll fall off the stairs leaving the rig and I’ll land on the gravel. I doubt if she would hear that so now I need to train Max to start barking when I fall to get attention. I tried to teach him to run back in the RV to the bedroom to bark, but he wanted to stay with me. Teaching him to bark is a challenge because when he does it voluntarily, he gets scolded a little. So, the best bet is for me to just lay where I land and wait for someone to show up.

You know, I’ve fallen a few times walking Max and I’ve never been concerned about getting back up but after writing it out like that, it’s suddenly something that kind of bothers me. Like, how long would I have to lay there until someone shows up and rolls me over to get my face out of the rocks.

OK. Enough of that.

The 1st thrift store Diane found was really nice. Max got to in and look around too. He loves to shop, and he gets lots of attention.

While Diane was visiting the 2nd store Max, and I stayed in the car and did some research about lunch. The one I found, Frank’s, was right up our alley. Here’s his reader board out front:

Here’re the t-shirts worn by the waiters and cooks:

I totally understand the T-shirt because it’s a pretty small place so they don’t want folks hanging around too long after they’re done eating.

Here’s what we ate. Diane had taquitos and I had a chicken fried steak:

After lunch we travelled to the 3rd stop on Diane’s list, but it wasn’t there. We took that as a hint that we’d apparently hit our thrift store limit for the day. So, we went back home. On the way, we stopped for this photo op that we’d seen on the way to lunch.

Kind of difficult to fathom that one, isn’t it? Makes one wonder a little about the history of Jerrie Blvd, right?

As soon as we got home, I immediately took Max for a well-earned walk. On the way back we saw a new neighbor pull in.

That’s the biggest Class C rig I’ve ever seen. It’s a Newmar from Alaska. He was parking the trailer that he apparently carries his car on. I’ll be curious to see what it is.

Now I’m going to rest before watching game 5 of the World Series.

Day 58 – Monday – Max Gets a Bath

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In our shower is a large skylight and on the inside of the bathroom door there is a large mirror. Normally we keep the bathroom door open at night to ensure one of doesn’t wander into the living area in the middle of the night to urinate. That’s never happened, but there’s always that chance.

During the night, having the door open isn’t a problem but when the sun comes up it gets pretty bright in the bathroom. The light is magnified by the mirror on the bathroom door and shines right into my bride’s eyes.

The logical thing to do is shut it in the morning, right? Well, doing that doesn’t work because I’m always the first one up and doing what I have to do in the morning results in kitchen noises that are annoying.

So, it’s either leave the door shut and not make a sound or leave it open and let the mirror shine in Diane’s eyes. I’m toast either way, so I opt to leave it open because there’s absolutely no way I can get the coffee going or make my breakfast without making noise.

So, to remedy the problem I figured I can cover the skylight with a precision-cut piece of foam that can be removed when we want light to shine in. Looked good in my head, and Diane agreed, so we toddled Walmart so see about that foam.

But first, I broke out the vacuum cleaner hair device and used the roto zip attachment to grind down Max’s toenails. He didn’t mind at all which surprised us.

Before you knew what was happening, it was done.

Walmart didn’t have any foam.

So, we stopped at Arby’s because it was time for lunch, and we were hungry. Since we had Max with us, we chose to eat in the car, in a shady parking lot. I suppose we could have taken Max in but eating in the car seemed to be the more prudent choice. Max always gets treats from strangers when he tags along so we weren’t worried about him being hungry.

After lunch, we wandered over to Lowe’s and they had the foam I was looking for. We got it and headed back home.

Diane dropped me and Max at our front door then took another trip to the commissary to make sure we wouldn’t go hungry during the week. She always likes to stay a little ahead of the game when it comes to food because you never know when famine will strike.

Now all that’s left on the list is to give Max his bath. He’s about 1.5 weeks late on that event.

I have to report that my little arms and back are beat up and sore after the contortions I put them through installing that new faucet the other day. I have a couple of new hematomas and a variety of nicks and dings in addition to muscle fatigue. But, I can still kneel down and get back up. It hurts a bit, but I can do it.

The day ran out while watching the Dodgers win the 3rd game against the Yankees. One more to go. Because of that, Max didn’t get his bath tonight as planned. I did, however, get rid of his eye boogers. He seemed to be happy about that.

Now I must take my shower and retire for the evening.

Day 35 – Diane Shopped, I Didn’t

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Today was another lazy one. For me. Diane left the park to do more shopping, and I stayed back to watch football. She insisted, and I know why. I shop a lot faster than she does and when I’m done, I follow her around. She’s not a fan of hovering. So, we’re both just fine with her shopping, and me not shopping.

I watched the U of Oregon beat Michigan State yesterday then this morning I got to watch UCLA get beat by Penn State. I’m kinda following the Pac 12 deserters to see how they fare in the Big 10. So far they seem to be doing pretty good. Oregon 5-0 on the season so far and were ranked 6th in the nation. They should improve on the next reset.

I’m sure all of you are hanging on my every word about this, aren’t you? I can’t help myself once something gets in my head. So, sorry about that.

The past week here in the park has been extremely foggy every morning. Too foggy to see across the bay and sometimes too foggy to see the sailboats anchored just offshore. Really thick stuff. It was clearing off in the afternoons leaving us with very pleasant evenings, except for the last two days. To make it worse, the fog seems to help funnel noise all the way across the bay right into our RV. Somewhere over there is someone over there with a drum set and a very loud bass guitar. I don’t think one person plays both of them and there may even be other instruments involved, but we can’t hear them. All we hear is the drums and the bass. They play late into the night, too. A real bummer when trying to go to sleep. Eventually, they stop. I just pretend it’s like tinnitus and I can almost ignore it. Almost. Not quite totally.

At this moment, the time is 1820 on this Saturday evening so, if you’re a Oregon Beaver fan, you know I’m watching them play Colorado State. 4th quarter just started and Beavs are up 21-10. So far so good. I’ve been watching the game on what I thought was a failing Dish receiver because the channels were stuttering and stopping for long periods of time. Made it difficult to keep track of things. So, instead of calling Dish, I unplugged everything and reset the receiver 3 times, just like I would have if I’d made that call. On the last reboot, I took Max for a walk. When we got back it was working just fine. So now I’m not sure if the reboots took care of the problem, or if all I had to do was take Max for a walk. Or maybe it was a combination of both, and they had to be done in the right sequence. Life is so full of mysteries that I’m prone to go with the latter solution. Doing that makes me wonder just what force of nature keeps track of things like that. How are decisions made? Does this entity have favorites? Does prayer help? You know, the standard questions one must ask when dealing with the unknown.

Diane and I are ready to move on down the road. Our visit to Fiddler’s Cove is the longest we’ve ever spent in one spot in the RV. We both find it interesting how easy it is to acclimate to this kind of new reality. The projected noise helps with that desire. Two days and a nitenite left. We leave on Tuesday morning.

Now I’m going to see about getting photos in a spot where I can use them for you enjoy.

I took this one while crossing the Coronado Bay Bridge. That’s downtown San Diego.

For fun, here’s a photo from 2014 of our cat Breezie. She loves Tillamook yogurt.

This is me getting a root canal in 2014.

That should do it for now.

Happy Summer Solstice

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Once again it’s time to say farewell to the current spring weather and welcome, with open arms, the rush we get from the exceedingly hot summer we’re projected to have. It’s already hot, so it won’t be a surprise.

Max has been banned from running willy-nilly in the neighbor’s yard so I’ve tethered him to one of the patio posts so he can reach most of the yard. He doesn’t seem to mind and he finds fun stuff to do. Like this morning. I found a baby mouse, adorned with copious amounts of dog-slobber, laying on the patio. It was about 1.5 inches long and still kicking, but not in a running mood. It may not have been able to run. But, it did react to my touch. Tiny little thing. I’m such a sucker for tiny little things.

I gathered him up with the thought I’d put him out of harms way. I know, we set traps for their parents, but when they are so tiny they seem to be quite harmless.

Today is supposed to be pushing 90 degrees. Right now, it’s noon and the heat is definitely upon us.

So, I started writing this on June 25 which just happens to be one month ago. I have an excuse for that and I’ll be happy to share it with you as soon as I remember what it is. For now, I’ll just ramble on like normal.

Max got me in trouble yesterday so he can no longer roam freely about our back yard. He’s miffed, I’m sure, but we’ve had this talk more than once. He has this uncontrollable urge to run as fast as he can to our neighbor’s yard so make sure there aren’t any deer lingering around the feeding station erected just for them. Dogs aren’t allowed. I’ve been working with him to control that urge in favor of a tasty treat, but yesterday he just couldn’t help himself.

I went after him right away to get him back, but I wasn’t fast enough to keep him from running off 4 baby deer. I didn’t see them personally, but my neighbor made sure I knew what a vile thing Max had just done. In his defense, he’s a dog, a little dog, and likes to chase things. Deer are the most fun because he likes the way they just bounce up and down when fleeing full speed. Squirrels are a close second. They stymie Max because of their climbing prowess, and they know Max can’t climb trees. Yet. But he’s working on it.

A couple of days ago we ran across his little guy. His name is Rocket and he’s also a rescue. After a lengthy investigation they determined that they weren’t related. Even though there was a hint of recognition between them they decided that something just didn’t smell right, and we went on our own ways. They could pass as brothers. Kinda freaky.

 Yesterday I caught Diane digging around in a cupboard she normally leaves alone because it’s out of reach. It was a handy place for me to hide “stuff” until she found the 1950’s step stool.

I’m going to have to move that thing to the garage so she won’t fall down and break something. Now I must find a new hidey place for my secret stuff. I don’t know why I’m going on about hiding things. If there was ever anything on that top shelf that I put there, it’s a sure bet I can’t remember what it might be. On the upside of her investigation, she found my Cheerios. I’ve been looking all over the house for those.

Here’s a sunset from a couple days ago.

The weather has been pretty warm late into the night but has cooled off some. We had quite a few 100+ days and a lot of 90+ days. We’re down into the mid 80’s now but we hear it will be going back up again. Half the state is on fire, the mid-west and eastern states are suffering from horrible weather. We feel blessed to be living in the right part of Oregon where hot weather seems to be the only problem we’re experiencing and that’s not really a problem. If it gets too hot, I’ll just go lay in the creek with Max.

Here’s Diane’s new tow car for the RV.

It’s not really new, it’s a 2020. And, it’s not really a tow car yet because I haven’t added the parts it needs to make it one. I have them sitting in the garage, just waiting for me to get into the right mood to do it.

Today I finished turning the fluorescent lights into LEDs in the RV. It’s a simple process, really, but it took me 3 days to figure out how easy. Once I did that, it was a snap. In all, I replaced eleven dual bulb fixtures with sticky strip LEDs. All the work I did, of course, was above my head which isn’t something my arms are fond of. Plus, one of the last two times a stumbled and fell, my left shoulder took a beating and isn’t behaving well at all. So, most of the work was done with my right arm. Kind of tricky when it’s a two-handed job.

That’s all I’ve got for now.

Ciao.