Author: admin

… places where we could hang out after school

Where we could hang

A little history

January 25 is supposed to be the date for the first patent. Others were doing similar things, so who knows?
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Sunday, Jan 18

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 21 min with AHI = 0.00
No events. No major leaks, max was 5 L/min

We awoke to ice on everything but a sunny day and as you all know I took photos to add to the blog we finally got published today (so look below if you missed last week). We both have been working on projects, tax records, other things, and now getting ready for John’s haircut to keep him from looking like Einstein. We had a nice brunch.

We telephoned friends in CA for his birthday and found they were watching the Seahawk/Green Bay game. Meanwhile, I heard about the way to watch the end of the game on-line. I learned on Facebook about its availability from a former student now on the North Cheyenne Reservation. Our TV is not accessible, so this was a treat, especially in the final moments of the game and not having to watch the horrible beginning.
I finished cutting John’s hair and helping a friend with an on-going project.
I went through all the audience songbooks, looking for the one with the missing page but all were fine. Pages near end are low-weight (cheap from the dollar store) paper and probably stuck together. Now I added a flower stamp to the front cover of all. Several of the people there at Briarwood loved the little polar bear stamps.

Now I can get back to my own stuff (non-music) that has been waiting awhile.

Monday, Jan 19

CPAP report. Reported figures. 9 hrs 11 min with AHI = 0.00
No events. No major mask leaks (max=14 L/min)

David Hazlett, our farrier, came this morning for trims on two of our horses. It’s the MLK holiday, so we’re staying home today. David was expected at 10 but went elsewhere – his screw-up. At 11 John had just turned the horses out into the pasture – the old one stayed to get pelleted feed – when we got a call that David was 10 minutes away. Ebony got tied to a post while Myst had to be retrieved from 100 yards away. Oh well.

Finished my charting of CPAP and Oximetry and shared with my friend in ID.
Washed some dishes. After lunch, John cut brush along where there once was a fence. Some posts still show but the wire is on the ground. When the things with thorns (wild roses and Hawthorns) are gone he can clear the downed trees, remove the wire and posts, and start over.

Tuesday, Jan 20

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 29 min with AHI = 0.40, but the CPAP reported after SpO2 was AHI =.33, 8 hrs 59 min, 48 sec, so I guess the added time makes a difference in the calculation of AHI. No major leaks, max 15 L/min., 3 H, one awoke me, 12:30 a.m. with maybe another at 7:00 a.m. I am getting leaks by trying to loosen my headgear to prevent nose chafing.

A late cancellation at the dentist had them calling to see if John was available to come in at 10:00 a.m. for teeth cleaning. He was scheduled for next week and they’ll have more time to fill that slot. Us retired folk can be accommodating quite often. I spent time on tax records, bank statements (checks), and paying bills. I got both the Cedaridge Brittanys and regular checking accounts done and printed and now have to sort in the cancelled stubs for 2014. Then, it’s a major task tackling filing and tallying in my computer. Medical payments keep changing along with some other stuff and a quick estimation for tax prep seems impossible. I hope it pays off this year. Last year I spent all the time itemizing deductions only to find it better to take the standard deduction. A lot of wasted time.

I will be going to town to play music tonight, and then home to dinner that John’s fixing – baked chicken, baked battered apples, and acorn squash.

Wednesday, Jan 21

CPAP report. Reported figures. 6 hrs 7 min with AHI = 0.16. No major leaks, max 9 L/min. One H. Then, the figures after SpO2 was uploaded showed results: 9 hrs 9 min with AHI=0.11
WHY THE DIFFERENCE? I just noticed that yesterday for the first time.

We were awakened, very unhappily, at 5:45 a.m., with a call from India about a security risk on my computer. I was unhappy about the time (the middle of my night), and told him so, but he kept pushing about the urgency of the message and I hung up, royally ticked off. Do they not know about time zones? It took me awhile to get back to sleep, without my CPAP on, but continued with the oximeter.

Worked some on my data from the CPAP and the oximeter, but still have to finish it, as I did not this morning. Instead, I left about 11:00 for town because I had to stop on the north side of town to share a large heavy (handled straw) basket requested on the Buy Nothing site by a gal who wants to load it up for a gift basket for her kid’s school fundraiser. I do not even recall where I got it (we picked a few up one year for 25₵ each), probably at a garage sale, but it was easy to empty and get one more thing out of the house clutter. I need to do that every day. Then I went to the Food Bank, in time to visit and set up before people all arrived. The food delivery was running late, so we entertained the folks there before they were served. We had good participation today, singing off the cuff, I’ll Fly Away, Do Lord, I’ve Been Working on the Railroad, You Are my Sunshine, and then others once they started eating, but several still sang along and applauded. We even had one of the servers dancing in the aisles; always cool to watch. Our fan club grouped at the front table.

On my way in, I peeked in the bread room they encourage us to visit, and saw a couple of loaves of my favorite English Muffin Bread for toasting. I should have gotten it then, because by the time I returned, it was gone. I was able to get John some rosemary olive oil bread he likes, some French bread with sesame seeds on top, and some cheese rolls. For food today, they fed us lamb! The first piece I had was very tender and good, but the second piece could not be cut or chewed. With it they had nicely cooked (according to people at my table), kale, but that is totally off my diet with Coumadin medication. It is at the top of the no-no Vitamin K list for green veggies. They had a combo of fried mushrooms and zucchini, and I enjoyed the mushrooms, some green salad, of which I had only a little (mostly the carrots and tomatoes) and, for dessert, we had a piece of a decorated Seahawks (colors) sheet cake.

I left there for the hospital lab for my blood draw for the INR for Coumadin test that had been too low 2 weeks ago. Today it was fine (2.4), but they want me to go back again in two weeks before going back to once a month. I’m not happy about that, especially because it costs me $37.26. Yuk. Well, it is early in the year so I’ve maybe not reached the deduction part. I’m tempted just to wait another couple of weeks to make it a month between readings. Went on from there to the Senior Center for my exercise class, with 33 people in it! That is a huge bunch for all the walking around the room and making movements in close proximity. From there to Super One Pharmacy to pick up my Coumadin.

Came back headed north (toward home), dropped by to pay a bill at my computer place — used for our email connections and web page presence, and continued to another music date at Royal Vista from 3 to 4:00. Once a month, I join an accordion player and we sing and play songs with the residents. We had a few active and happily involved folks today. At the end, Karen (accordionist) had promised one of the residents she would play a polka for her. She ended up playing two songs, and while I was going around the room, picking up music booklets from people, I gathered energy from somewhere and was dancing polka steps around the room. We were singing beer-barrel polka as I danced and she played. People were singing and applauding and it was very neat. A sweet lady I saw down the hall when I came in and invited her to come in, said, “Thank you for coming; I enjoyed it very much.” She is 88 and confused. Every time I’m there (3 times/month), she asks where she is, and I tell her. Then she asks me if she lives there and how she got there. I tell her, yes, you live here, I don’t know for how long, but I see you every time I come, “Remember last night?” She said she did but she says she has trouble with her memory. I told her she didn’t look her age, and that her memory was fine with the words of the songs. She was happy and bubbling. I wished her well, and that I would see her in two weeks when I’ll come back there with a different group. Except for seeing people deteriorating, it is rewarding to interact with them and see them enjoying it. Music does wonders.

Thursday, Jan 22

CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 25 min with AHI = 0.00
No major leaks, max 15 L/min.

Managed a lot of stuff this morning about medical appointments and accomplished more bill paying. It is tough to write a check for $3,646, but we figure the cost is worth it for Long Term Care Insurance for the both of us. Another medical issue. With my Coumadin yesterday I had 6 pages of singled spaced small font warnings to read; so I did. I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know, but it was a new item, so I went through it. Also, took my 1/2 hour to record the CPAP and oximeter results from last night, with various screen captures for my files. And, I re-read my cardiologist’s last report, to give me heads-up before my next appointment. Monday, I must begin my daily recording of my blood pressure for his interests in my records.
I spent some time arranging for hats to wear today to play music at Hearthstone, at their request, for National Hat Week. All but two of our players wore one.
I spent some time arranging for hats to wear today to play music at Hearthstone, at their request, for National Hat Week. All but two of our players wore one.

I wore my mink hat (it was my mom’s she bought in Canada, at Simpsons) and took my cowboy hat, but changed to it very soon, because my head got too hot wearing the fur hat. We sang 21 songs and had a good audience who joined in. Lots of players there: Dale on the washtub bass, Laura his wife on Guitar, but she plans to switch to fiddle next week to help me, Ellen on Clarinet, Keith on Trumpet, Anne on Tambourine, me on fiddle, Evelyn on Banjo, Manord, Maury, Charlie, Gerald, & Minerva on guitar, and Bob singing. Bob joins Evelyn and me the day before at the food bank where he also plays his guitar and sings along. We have enough guitars in the other group, so we just enjoy his voice.

This link below is not a very good rendition of part of I’ll Fly Away, taken by a resident’s daughter on her phone: and posted on Facebook, but everyone at her table was happily enjoying themselves, so I’m including it. It’s a few seconds under a minute.

I’ll Fly Away

Here’s another movie on my camera, taken by a volunteer server there today: (I uploaded it to You Tube). This was her first ever using my camera and taking a video, so considering that, I think she did very well. She walked around and captured the entire song. This was early in our performance and another bunch of people came in later, including a couple I have known since arriving in town in 1988. I spent my first year at their house while they were away on a sabbatical. He is also a geographer. He’s a good singer too, singing in the Ellensburg Barbershop Quartet and the Barbershop Choir in town. {Click on image to enlarge.}

Part of our group is shown with our hats; in the foreground are three ladies (residents) with their special hats. The black hat in the middle has pins all over it from her travels and stops at Hard Rock Cafes around the United States. We had fun visiting about it afterwards. Some showing in this picture include Maury and Manord, guitarists from Cle Elum, Evelyn, banjoist from S. Cle Elum, Nancy, fiddler, Anne, tambourine player, and Keith, trumpeter, from Ellensburg. Out of sight to the left are Charlie, Gerald, & Minerva on guitar, Bob singing, and out of sight to the right, are Ellen on clarinet, Laura on guitar, and Dale on washtub bass. You can see us all in the video.

Here’s a link to the video “Karn” took of us, doing “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.”

KV Fiddlers & Friends, Jan 22, 2015 Hearthstone for Nat’l Hat Week

I’ve Been Working on the Railroad

Friday, Jan 23

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 51 min with AHI = 0.00
No major leaks, max 13 L/min, oximeter on for 8 hrs 32 min.

Off to CWU Dean Hall (my old stomping grounds) for a scholarship luncheon today. While there I visited with a former colleague, Jen, and left a package on the door for another colleague in Geography, an image reader for an older computer he still has, and I no longer can use. I threw in a large shirt for him that had a neck opening John does not prefer. He wants shirts to button down all the way.

While there, in addition to eating an Italian pasta salad (made by Monica) for lunch, with pound cake and a plum sauce (made by Ruth) from our plums, I gathered some rolls of toilet paper from two restrooms (see story below).

Then off to SAIL exercise class, where I delivered some more gifts, and picked up some left for me by a lady who volunteers knitting of hats, scarves, slippers, and finger-less gloves, for free (with only a request of a donation to the coffee fund for the center). I had arranged with Carol (the knitter) to make a special pair of gloves for a lady at Briarwood who has Lymphedema in her arm. I took her arm measurements last week when we were there, and passed along to the knitter. She already had made them and left them for me at the AAC. I called and did not reach her, and so I thought she might be at the clubhouse playing cards or bingo. I drove over and walked in, with the gloves and a knitted hat, and the group was playing bingo. I apologized for interrupting and said I was looking for the gal (by name). Normally, she would be there, but wasn’t, because she had to be taken for an emergency operation on her back to Harborview Hospital in Seattle. I haven’t called to talk with her yet to see how she’s doing. One of the ladies said her cancer had returned. I know that the condition can be caused by medicines such as tamoxifen (Nolvadex) or radiation therapy. So sad; I hope they can get a handle on it and bring her back to health. What a sweet wonderful lady she is, always cheerful and positive.

Left there and went by Super One for summary statements of our medical expenses for 2014 and to buy some goodies we needed.

On the way home, I went by Wilson Creek Rd to pick up a freely given iron (Buy Nothing site) so John can use iron-on patches to repair work clothes. Need to remember to offer them some garden produce next summer. (I did and found out they have their own garden with most stuff, except they would like garlic, if we had any.) We grow lots of onions, but no garlic, as neither one of us likes it. I did learn from her they like to go to the mountains for picking elderberries, currants, and chokecherries for making jam. We have those on our property, so they plan to come share in the bounty, next year.

The next story goes with the following image:

I wrote the following to the Buy Nothing Ellensburg list on Facebook.

ASK -ing for help in finding small toilet paper rolls, as are taken from the big roll dispensers around town. Today I was on campus and found 6 still very usable rolls. I know that’s the policy to take them out and replace. I never thought until I saw the (attached) piece in a magazine, the end of December. I contacted our FISH Food Bank to ask if they would take such an item to distribute to the needy. They were very happy and said, yes. So, next Wednesday I will take my offering. I hope anyone with an opportunity might do something like this. The unused paper rolls are left on the counters in restrooms in all buildings.

I was happy to back up my full computer this afternoon on a backup external drive. The automatic process that happens on John’s every Sunday night, failed on mine several months ago, so I have to initiate it myself, and usually do it when I’m away from home and it can sit and churn on its own.

We had a late dinner tonight, chili.

Saturday, Jan 24

CPAP report. Reported figures. 5 hrs 47 min with AHI = 0.00
No major leaks, max 11 L/min

I went by a gal’s porch on Rustic Road (just west of us but 5 miles round trip by road) to drop off clothes for her (two vests & a blouse) and to pick up two pairs of nice men’s trousers. One of them still has the price tag on it. I hope they fit John, as he occasionally needs something for dressing up – out of his scruffy denims.
We only had toast for breakfast and then fixed a brunch of well-cooked bacon and pancake with chopped pecans with strawberries on top. It sprinkled early morning, was gray, and overcast much of the day, but at 3:00, the sun came out, and so John cut barbed wire from the old fence, with more left to do. A few trees have grown around wire and other places trunks of trees are laying across the wires. Many moons have come and gone since these fences (more recent) were put up. A fence along the creek is almost completely buried – it has likely been there 100 years. Now, it’s all clouded over again. One of our feral cats, Johnny, was not around at feeding time. I hope nothing happened to him.

John read today that two cougars had been shot and killed (one ate a dog), on Thomas Road (1/2 mile south of us), and another on Charlton Road, 1/2 mile north of us. In our local paper, the front page story was all about the big cats. Their numbers have increased in the last 18 years, partly as a response to not being hunted. Up to about 1997 hunting with hounds was allowed. The wildlife officials now say the State’s habitat for cougars has been filled and young animals are having a difficult time finding a territory to call their own. Maybe it is time to move.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

The post before this one was put there by John while waiting for the one below. If you like a bit of history go read “Tin Can Drive Day.”

Sunday, Jan 11

CPAP report. Reported figures. 9 hrs 22 min with AHI = 0.11
One ‘clear airway’ at 5:45 a.m.

We have been trying since last night and into the morning to fix the 2014 greetings link in the blog. It is not working as it should. Weird. John finally got it done, although it is not the preferred method, which is used elsewhere in the same document. No clue why. We had two sets of eyes, but it did not help.

I finally finished the music for, “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” It was the last of the music for January & February dates for the Kittitas Valley Fiddlers and Friends group. Whoa – took a long time but I managed to squeeze into one page (my goal).
I have the lyrics ready to run for the books for the audience… but they need to be completed (disassembled, reassembled, enhanced, and stapled). We have until Thursday of this week to finish that chore. Thank you to John for all his hard work. Here it is a week later and someone found a missing page today Jan 17 at Briarwood, so I have to check them all to find the one to repair.

I still need to notify friends and relatives of our 2014 greetings message. Over the past 2 days and some today, I have been checking my files of email addresses that I can send all at once, a reminder to people to check when they have time. Many people have changed email addresses since I built the lists in 2012, so I must put in some time proofing. I have spent some time, but there are many more to check. Last week, we attempted to give blog readers the link, but could only come up with a copy/paste method, not a right click to the link in a new tab or new window.

Monday, Jan 12

CPAP report. Reported figures. 6 hrs 37 min with AHI = 0.00

We were busy today on yard and some house chores, email, and mostly working with music stuff. John removed staples from 27 file folders, with about 7 staples in each one, so that I can combine them and add more pages to a bigger one for this week. We will use them for the next two months, for twice a week performances, plus 2 weekend stints.

I called and cancelled our Copper Kettle group meeting for the Emeritus Geography faculty members, because of conflicts with sickness or being out of town, of all but one of the usual participants.

While we were working, and John had returned from his morning feeding session, one of our feral cats, Woody, decided to position herself on the newly placed pallet for her purview of the yard. She had been balancing on a small piece of wood until John provided this for her. She’s smaller than she looks, but has a lot of soft long hair. She uses this perch a lot. During summers it is planted with flowers.

Tuesday, Jan 13

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 01 min with AHI = 0.00

We went to Yakima today for my first appointment 10:30 arrival, and left an hour later for Costco. Price of gas was a lot cheaper than Ellensburg. We paid $1.96, but we also get almost 8 cents/gallon return cash by using our AMEX card. For 12+ gallons, we saved a bit of money, from buying it in Ellensburg, where the lowest price is $2.09.

After our trip through Costco, we went to Howard’s Medical supply for my 3-month CPAP equipment check up and replacement to be certain I have “complied” with the amount of time spent on the machine. Medicare pays for a new mask, new heated tubing, new fine white filters, and they read my SD card for compliance. I am right on for it. I’m also able to do that, keep track on my computer, plus add the information gathered simultaneously on my oximeter.
While there, I asked about the proper installation of the white filter. I need to remember the trick, to put the soft side of white fine filter to gray outside sponge filter, and therefore, the hard side goes toward the inside of the machine to block the dust being pulled in from outside air. Our house is particularly dusty with the dogs, with them bringing in mud on their feet and John bringing in mud on his boots.

I requested replacing my old ResMed mask, Swift LT (For Her), with a new one also made by ResMed, an AirFit™ P10 For Her Nasal Pillow CPAP Mask with Headgear. Studying it on line suggests it is supposedly 50% lighter and 50% quieter than the Swift FX, and considering I was using one even older, I’m sure the difference is even more pronounced. I had the earlier model Swift LT and it is very noisy, much of the time, and blew air out from around the nose piece. It had thick hard straps, such that I had to wrap the top one in a Velcro covering to keep it from poking into my scalp. The other bottom strap was more than twice as wide as the one on this one. The two head straps are much nicer, smaller, softer, and stretchy. It’s too bad I wasn’t started 3 months ago with this mask, and I would not have had all the time since Oct 4 with poor sleep, uncomfortable mask problems, noise, air leakage, etc., and I might even have gotten my much-needed rest.
The cost for all the stuff charged to Medicare was $342.72. Most folks on medicare, including me, pay $104.90 each month (for 2015). Medicare is our primary health care payer, with Group Health secondary. There are deductibles and co-pays, eye care has special rules, and dental is another layer. Best not to get old, and certainly, don’t get sick.
On the way home we made a quick stop for a dozen eggs, fresh, from Marilyn’s free-roam chickens. We didn’t get home until about 4:15 p.m., and John managed to exercise the dogs, feed the horses, and the outside cats before it got dark. When colors are no longer recognizable, it is too dark – so he says. I went back to town for music at Hearthstone (with The Connections). I am the one fiddler, with a guitarist, a piano player, and four singers of church anthem music. Most of the audience knows the old hymns and don’t even need to look at the large print lyrics provided. It went well, and on my way home, I picked up a dinner (Chicken Alfredo Fettuccine) from The Palace restaurant (since 1892 in our town). It was free, (for John’s birthday month), but considering it is a $19.00 item, I gave the waiter/waitresses a $5.00 tip. I know they prefer a person to come in, order another dinner, drinks, and dessert, rather than just taking out the main course. It has cubes of chicken, slivered zucchini, little sautéed mushrooms, a little garlic, and we added bigger fried mushrooms, acorn squash, and turkey leftovers. It also came with a piece of Garlic French Bread. The fettuccine was very good, and we still have another meal left (we’ll add cashews and something else) for the two of us for tomorrow night.

Wednesday, Jan 14

CPAP report. Reported figures. 9 hrs 1 min with AHI = 0.57

I went to the Food Bank, presented some music, and our singer Bob has started bringing his brother’s guitar. He plays along with us and it really helps. So now we are a trio there, guitar, banjo, and fiddle, and all three of us sing too. They fed us roasted veggies (including nicely-sized pieces made from two donated Butternut squash I took in last week that John grew), veggies were mixed with a tiny bit of meat (sausage), and we had sides of green salad, potato salad, and dessert. On to SAIL class where we had a good turnout. It’s becoming popular and we are tightly squeezed in. The Activity Center even added an additional class to try to spread folks out more, but the early time is not appealing to many of us (me included).

We also had a flash from the past with a photo from 2003 posted on the KVTR (Kittitas Valley Trail Riders) Facebook site. John volunteered time with others to construct mounting blocks on either end of bridges along the John Wayne Trail just west of EBRG.

That’s John with the red shirt, 4th from the left, with Drifter to his left – a very large horse. We acquired Drifter from birddog trainer, Dan Richmond. A trainer gets on and off dozens of times in a few hours. Dan was tall but Drifter was more than he wanted – height wise. John used Drifter for trails and only had to get on a few times each ride. Logs and stumps are often available during the ride.

Thursday, Jan 15

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 29 min with AHI = 0.40

Finished music for today. John stapled audience copies and I finished individual ones for the musicians. It was a much longer process than I had planned for over a month ago. At least for the next two months, I think I am set to go except for a few new players. Fortunately, I have made .pdf files of the music, so for those who have access to a computer and printer, I can send copies for them to print out and save me the effort, ink, and paper. (If anyone reading this wants the scores, I’m happy to share. The music has notes, lyrics, and a little history, where known, or found on the Internet). I have the song list done for March/April that we used last year (including Irish songs), so that will be a lot less trouble than starting from scratch.
Today we got a flyer from the Kittitas County Conservation District about its plant sale. John got on the web to place his order for 10 Ponderosa pines and 5 Blue Spruce trees and found his picture from a previous year of his donating time to sort and serve the plants to the community. Here he is:

I drove to town for music at Dry Creek, and it started snowing big flakes while we were in there. We had a very appreciative audience and quite a nice contingent of players: two singers (one with a tambourine), trumpet, fiddle, five guitars, mandolin, and banjo. The audience was served hot buttered popcorn. It smelled so good, but we could not perform and also enjoy popcorn.

While I was gone, John prepared a vegetable/meat soup. It had turkey, ham, asparagus, tomatoes, mushrooms, red peppers, and onions, spiced with Italian Seasoning. Very tasty and without all the salt of many canned soups. He managed to prune the red raspberries along the west side of the house. Snow started as he finished. A few hours later there was 4 inches.

Friday, Jan 16

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 36 min with AHI = 0.13

John had his chores added to, in order to remove the snow from walkways, patio, and the turnaround on the driveway. He used a wide push-broom. The removal of the snow allows the area to dry off without getting soft and muddy. The AWD Subarus don’t care. However, it was a sunny day (warming up to 48) and all the roof snow melted. The house doesn’t have gutters along the edge so that we have to dodge the drips if we go out. This is a design defect to be lived with, or a remodel project to be contemplated.

I left late afternoon to meet a gal in town at the Fred Meyer lobby to pick up two nice long-sleeve blouses – one of the ‘buy-nothing’ activities. Normally I’d get something like this without making a special trip but her free time and mine just would not jell. While there I ran into a couple of people we know and haven’t seen in awhile. Nice treat. I turned around and rushed back home, hoping to make it before dark and dropped off some food at a neighbors I had picked up from Costco.

Saturday, Jan 17

CPAP report. Reported figures. 4 hrs 27 min with AHI = 0.22
Occasionally, I sleep fewer hours on the CPAP and finish the rest of the night with only the Oximeter reviewing my pulse and blood oxygen saturation percentage (SpO2). I like to see the comparison for on and off the machine, and it gives me a break from the mask. However, I’m thrilled with the new mask. It is truly quieter and lighter and allows me to sleep well and relatively comfortably.

I spent time on a couple of different reports to help a friend in NJ and another in Idaho.

Before I left, a neighbor was kind enough to deliver us some beef (an exchange for John’s labor) for our freezer. While I was gone, John loaded the dishwasher and started that. He also had a few other things soaking. I was happy to find that task completed.
I went to Briarwood today with several others to perform music with the residents. It snowed some, but was mostly a wintry mix of icy rain. The roads were not a problem, but may well be tonight. There today was our trumpet player, I as fiddler, our singer with a tambourine, and 4 guitars. We had a great participatory audience, who also served us some great vittles. I didn’t need to eat supper, because I filled up on Corn Chowder (with ham), homemade oyster crackers seasoned and baked by a 94-year old lady, to whom I took a nice western light blue shirt with roses on it. I also took 2 pairs of pants that were too “short” for me that my neighbor gave me. The residents are always pleased to receive clothes or garden/orchard produce. In return, one of the residents to whom I give zucchini, made and brought me a frozen loaf of his zucchini bread made with pineapple. It is quite good; I’m normally not a fan of any zucchini.
Other stuff on the menu today was pot stickers, egg rolls, large rolls to go with the soup, and desserts including a pineapple/angel food Bundt cake, corn flake cookies, another frosted cake, and an apple/nut cobbler.

That covers our week, with fewer pictures than recently, which will make John very happy and make his job of posting this to Word Press a lot easier. Unfortunately, after typing that last night, this morning’s ice brought the need to add more photos of the sparking wintry stuff.

Saturday, Jan 18 (birth date of several geographer friends)

We knew we would awake to ice on trees, fences, and all exposed objects. Happy we do not have to drive today. The sun is shining and started melting the picturesque landscape early. I captured a few pictures without heading into the slick surfaces outside, from where I might have gotten even nicer photos. {These will enlarge.}

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

We are late getting things together for the blog this week. However, if you arrive before Nancy gets the week written up and I get it into WordPress – maybe you will find the following interesting.

The blog is being put together on January 17th. This is known as “tin can” day. This has to do with efforts, during World War II, to recycle so that households were not helping Hitler. Dayton, OH has some of this story.
Collecting tin cans in Dayton, Ohio
Rather than food can, beer can, soda can or whatever the contents, the general term now used is the beverage can. The phrase tin can is common — and the game ‘kick the can’ usually required a tin coated steel can. Maybe kids don’t play games like kick the can now — too busy talking on their cell phones?
When we were quite young, cans did not have pull-tops and this led to the need for something to pierce the top. The solution was known as a Church Key that may, or maybe not, have had something to do with church. When we were kids, beer came in cans with solid tops and church keys were in great demand.

So, relax, have a drink, stay warm — this may take another day.
Tonight our weather is what is called a wintry mix — unpleasant to say the least.

John

Sunday, Jan 4 John’s birthday, you already heard about in last week’s blog.

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 56 min with AHI = 0.00

We finished the blog finally tonight just before dinner. I had intended to put some other stuff in on New Year’s eve, but guess I will just add to the end of the year 2014 greetings thing, when it finally does get published. It’s a nice little story about the meaning of the song Auld Lang Syne presented by Roberta Clark, one of the members of our group; in the second link we play it, accompanying her. I forgot to add to our 2014 greetings, so will add the links here:

Roberta Clark explains Auld Lang Syne

If you do not like the song, do not go to the next link.

A Few Playing Auld Lang Syne 12-31-14

We had a couple of telephone and email contacts for John’s birthday. Thanks for the good wishes, and for the postal cards as well.

Today, we received a call mid-day from Jeri Conklin that Daisy took a 4th of 22 in the Open Derby, at the Sahuaro Brittany Club field trial in Sonoita, AZ. That’s nice. Tomorrow is the show for the futurity, and Jeri broke a bone in her wrist, so Robin Tomasi will be showing her instead.

Tonight John made a feast of all leftovers (except for the eggs). He made a thing in the oven, with cheese, potatoes, onions, pork, chicken, tomatoes, cheddar cheese, and I added Salsa to mine. Roasted cheese always seems special.

Monday, Jan 5

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 39 min with AHI = 0.39

I stayed home today to work on contacting people about bills, computer problems other concerns, such as music for Thursday’s group, making an appointment in Yakima with medical supply place about my CPAP 3-month changes and additions, and for adding John to the toenail trim visit in a couple of months; it’s here in town and covered by Medicare at a foot doctor’s office and he does it, not an assistant (so that’s nice, and good that Medicare covers it).

I wrote a letter of evaluation for a former student for entrance to law school. Time-consuming but happy I’m still around to be able to help.

I worked on finishing the music plans for KV Fiddlers & Friends, and sent a reminder message about playing at Rehab this week (which later was cancelled by them because of illness concerns with the upper respiratory germs in the valley).

I’m working to finish the music repertoire additions for January, February play dates at assisted living and retirement homes: The Quilting Party, Green, Green Grass of Home, Angel Band, Heart of my Heart and Smile Awhile. I must print a master of the lyrics so I can print out copies to get John’s help in adding to the end of a combination of two packets used last year. These booklets, we give to the residents for them to follow along singing.

We had a call from Jeri that Daisy did not place in the show ring at the Futurity. Sad, as she surely looks nice to me. Thank you, Robin Tomasi (from Idaho), for showing her when Jeri’s wrist was not well with a broken bone.

Tuesday, Jan 6

CPAP report. Reported figures. 5 hrs 39 min with AHI = 0.18

Still was working on the law school evaluation letter(s). Late today, I succeeded in getting the letter through the electronic system with my signature and fake letterhead for CWU on it, submitted, and acknowledged. Phew. That was a lot of work. Nice thing is that the main Law School Admission Council in PA will take this one letter for the one applicant and provide it to the four schools where he is applying, relieving me from putting four letters into the mail, and re-writing text and addresses for each one.

I reached my service provider (Jason LaLanne at Complete Computer Services of Ellensburg & Wenatchee), and he’s helping me fix the html coding problem I am having. He will change it on their server, and it should be on line tomorrow, so I can start telling people it is there.

I spent a couple hours redoing paths on images, tidying up the text, uploaded it, and wrote him to remove the code span after around 18351 line to the end to remove the repeating garbage. He will rename the file as 2014Greetings.html, consistent with our convention in the past (see below for link).

Our temps were a heat wave yesterday 55 I think or maybe a little higher. Not so much today, but nice enough John could work outside and feeding horses and letting the dogs run seemed like summer.

The final news is the best of the day, week, month, and year!

Daisy (officially, Cedaridge Kip’s Camelot Shay Tre’ JH), my little dog down in CA won a 2nd place in a field trial that is important to Brittany breeders– the Western Futurity. She probably would have had first if she’d had one more bird. Her brace mate won it but they were neck and neck and both handled, ran, and hunted great. It was a Gun Dog event – judged as if the judges would like to have the dog for their own or use it for breeding because of the evaluation criteria of conformation and hunting abilities. Daisy, at the front at breakaway, started with what looks like all 4 feet off the ground.

Those were the top placing dogs, who just happened to be braced together.

Judge Ron Yospur, Peggy & Paul Doiron, Jeri Conklin, Judge Gil Hopper

American Brittany Club Western Futurity 2015

2- Cedaridge Kip’s Camelot Shay Tre’ JH
AKC: SR77249701, DOB: 4/13/2013
Breeder(s): Jeri Conklin
Sire: Cedaridge Tri-Tip Kip
Dam: KWK Windswept Guinevere Of Camelot JH
Owner(s): Jeri Conklin and Nancy Hultquist

Wednesday, Jan 7

CPAP report. Reported figures. 6 hrs 48 min with AHI = 0.15

Food bank and INR (1.4), SAIL exercise, and pay yearly AAC fee, $35.
A couple hours of time I spent after finding out at 5:30 p.m., the nursing home for tomorrow’s performance is closed because of illness. I was on the phone and on email notifying people.

That’s a low number for my INR that’s supposed to be between 2.0 and 3.0. The nurse asked all the normal questions, but I have not done anything differently – my dosage of Coumadin (blood thinner) was not changed and has correctly been taken for the past month. I have not changed my diet. I have not been on an antibiotic. I don’t know why the number went down, but I do know that if I had known that, I would have had more wine last weekend at the Raclette! Alcohol raises the INR. Hummmmph. I was not a happy person to hear that, nor that I have to go back in 2 weeks to recheck it. It’s bad enough once a month for the rest of my life. I would have loved having more tastes of my favorite White Heron wines… and the new one that is so unique (Amigne) – and tasty with citric overtones. Such is life.

We heard from a long ago friend and neighbor of John’s family in Clarion, PA whom we haven’t seen in 45 years since the reception after our wedding in 1969. She was just 7 or 8 at the time but remembers the reception and that the same week TV reports were airing of the first men on the moon, from Apollo 11. They raise smart kids in Clarion.

Our 2014 greetings finally got stored correctly, and are out there for anyone wishing to catch up. Much was already in the blog but there are some new additions. I have not notified many people yet that it’s there.

Copy and paste this next line into your browser; it should work:

www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/2014Greetings.html

Thursday, Jan 8

CPAP report. Reported figures.6 hrs 25 min with AHI = 0.00

We just spent an enjoyable 55-minute visit on the phone with Peggy, John’s sister, in Ohio, where it went to minus 3 and is continuing cold.

I’m not going to town today. Our play date was cancelled as I mentioned last night. I’m sorry people are ill, but I’m relieved I don’t have to go today. Besides the valleys of WA are thoroughly fogged in – up to about 2,500 feet. We are at 2,240 feet. The imagery from satellite is very interesting, revealing the shape of the valleys at the top of the fog layer. Where there are traffic cameras at the passes, they show sunny weather. Snoqualmie Pass is about 3,000 feet.

I have many projects to complete. One actually happened during our phone call when a call from my Dr.’s office in Yakima came in on my cell phone.

Time needed today on scheduling other things:
set up emeritus meeting (CANCELED) because only two could come.
hope to hear from Howard’s Medical supply about a trip down; heard it will be Jan 13 after my other appointment in Yakima. GOOD! Only took me 2 weeks to reach them to make arrangements.

Needing and obtaining health care isn’t for sissies.

Worked more on music for next week. Realized the version I had published of I’ll Fly Away has the wrong cadence, so I’m recreating that. Darn. I thought I was simply entering it to change one chord, and found it was not in there as printed previously, and I need it in the same timing as the trumpet and flute players – or it will not work. Always something.

This is a cool contact, from Budapest, Hungary —

Gary Lukatch on the left is my friend from high school in Atlanta, GA. He’s been a teacher there for years, now retired. On the right is my friend, Sonja Willitts, I’ve known since 1977, when we were in Idaho and she was 18. They are toasting a Pálinka, one of the national drinks of Hungary, a fruit brandy. I put Sonja and hubby Kevin (remember the burned bear cub’s Vet?) in touch with Gary when they were planning their trip to meet their daughter Casey and a friend to visit several different countries in Europe. Gary was extremely helpful to them on their plans, and then entertained them when they got to Budapest.

Friday, Jan 9

CPAP report. Reported figures. 6 hrs 44 min with AHI = 0.00

Friday was an uneventful day – at home, normal projects. We were going to drive to town for some grocery shopping, but that trip got put off. Thus, I did get the dishes and some of the kitchen cleaned.

Some more photos came in today from Jeri Conklin– I’ll share.

This goes back to Jan 4, and the one on the left back to June 2013, of her at 8 weeks of age. I thought you’d enjoy seeing Tre’ (Daisy) as a young puppy with ears flying on the run, and still showing the same trait, coming in on her finish of the run at the Sahuaro trial where she got a 4th placement. The thing around her neck with an antenna is a tracking collar that is allowed in AKC field trials now. {Click on image for a larger view.}

Saturday, Jan 10

CPAP report. Reported figures. 4 hrs 28 min with AHI = 0.90

Our fog has thinned near ground level and the temp is above freezing, and so the roads are good to go. John went to town for a few things. An Edwards Key Lime pie was on sale so we are having baked ham and potatoes for supper with strawberries on the pie. We tried this Christmas day at the neighbors and everyone liked it.
John is keeping track of temperatures in places where friends and relatives live. Cold is not good. In addition, he watches the live view from a camera on Cleveland’s water intake (crib) – about 3 miles out and looking back to the city. That part of the lake just froze this week but can break up and move around. At night about all you can see is the lit up city. Have a look here:

Cleveland from Lake Erie

By this time next week that part of the country should be experiencing
The January Thaw

Our friends in Marquette, Michigan haven’t had temps much above zero in recent days. It was minus 9 for most of last night, got to +12 today, and is down to 3 (at 8:45 pm – their time). Way down at the south tip of Texas the low tonight is going to be near 38. Here we expect about 28. John wants to move a dozen bales of hay from the shed to an old horse trailer down in the pasture. The ground has been soft but in the morning it will be hard enough to stand up to the tires moving over it. He says he’ll do that and then, like the cat Rascal, sleep the rest of the day.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Dec 28

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 24 min with AHI = 0.41

Not much happened today. John took care of animals and fed us, plus he brushed and cut wood enough to claim having worked in the woods. The 2014 greetings newsletter and some music related action – that preparation for Wednesday – interrupted my day of not doing much.

Monday, Dec 29

CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 44 min with AHI = 0.46

I sent some emails to the music group about the events this week, and the cancellation of our play date at Royal Vista on New Year’s Day. They are on “lock-down” and quarantining residents in their rooms because of a bad respiratory ailment some have, hoping it doesn’t spread throughout the facility.
I worked more on my music for January & February to use with our traveling music group to assisted living homes and other venues. I added Blue Skirt Waltz, Bouquet of Roses, and The Quilting Party into my SongWriter software.
I have been working on a lot of projects today and John made 3 loaves of bread. Bless his heart. I’ve had 3 pieces. One while warm (and buttered), and two unbuttered, with beef/pork/chicken stew.
One unusual one is a round loaf baked in a Pyrex bowl. Pretty cool. Before we cut into it Saturday morning, I took this photo, using the large coffee mug for scale — otherwise it looks like a big hamburger roll {click image}:

I finished the draft of our 2014 newsletter season’s greetings, and John is currently proofing it. Well, we got it finished, but when I viewed it on line the end of the presentation for December is duplicated, and I haven’t been able to change the code to remove it. If I cannot rebuild it, I will just send with the ending glitch.
I have worked off and on – dishes, music, computer, and walked up the driveway for the mail. It was COLD, but above freezing. Didn’t go to single digits as predicted. We had a little dusting of snow this morning, and the sun shone all day.

Tuesday, Dec 30

CPAP report. Reported figures. 2 hrs 16 min with AHI = 0.00

Not a good night’s CPAP session for time. Got to bed very late, almost 1:00 a.m. and the mask was seriously leaking. I awoke at 3:17 and thought it was much later -– guess I read the clock wrong, should’ve looked at my watch, but instead I turned off my machine, removing the mask. Went back to sleep without it for 5.5 hrs.
Terrible day today with my web page creating software called SeaMonkey not obeying my wishes. John doesn’t think seamonkies exist and suggests I look for something else. I guess my friend uses Bluefish and those do exist, so perhaps I’ll consider it.
I need to finish some of the music for noon tomorrow at the food bank, which is a pre-cursor to the notebooks for January/February.
I did hear about a neat story of a bear cub in Cle Elum, WA, about 20 miles west of us. This little guy below, named Snowy, orphaned, appeared at the USFS headquarters. He’d been hanging around for several days. They tranquilized him and took him to a rehab facility in Idaho.

Wednesday, Dec 31 New Year’s Eve

CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 21 min with AHI = 0.24

I finished up music for our Jan / Feb repertoire and took it to the food bank to play today. We had nice end of year treats and a small but appreciative crowd. They served chicken-filled soup, rice with Mexican type topping, green salad, and lemon cake for dessert. As we were leaving the parking lot, we passed the bread “room” container and were encouraged to take away anything we wanted, because they would not be open until next Monday. The bread will not spoil because it will be as if it is in a freezer, but I accepted the offer anyway. I found a couple of loaves of Rosemary Olive bread and some Croissant rolls, and some large hamburger ones. Neat stop at Rite Aid with a coupon for packages of Pepsi and Diet Pepsi at a very reduced price (25¢/can) and got some other stuff marked down.

On my way home, I made several stops for meds, for a gift for someone else, for cat and dog food, and more stuff for tonight. Came home and finished putting together music for the party. John had cooked 2 meats for the dinner: pork roast with cherry sauce and chicken thighs baked with pineapple and Italian spices. We had 17 people there, and lots of good food. We usually take something substantial, usually roasted fresh pork or chicken, ’cause we never host these things. The folks where we go prefer to have the crowd and, thus, they don’t have to travel. We are just 5 miles away and so can take a roast out of our oven and have it on their counter in less time than cooks suggest letting it “rest” before carving.

Thursday, Jan 1 Happy New Year

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 45 min with AHI = 0.00

From Jeri and Kurt Conklin’s traveling adventures, we received this photo of Daisy at the Sahuaro Brittany Club field trial ahead of the Western Futurity in Sonoita, AZ.

Continued working on 2014 greetings problem.

Friday, Jan 2

CPAP report. Reported figures. 6 hrs 36 min with AHI = 0.00

My battery must have run out on the oximeter because it only recorded for 3 hrs.
I worked a lot on the web page greetings — pulling in more photos. I will stop until Monday when I hear back from our web space provider if there is a time out on the upload that I’m not reaching, and therefore am sending an incomplete file. We made a Cashew/Lemon cake-like thing for tomorrow; not with a soft filling like most lemon bars. When it was out of the oven and up and cooling, we went to bed.

Saturday, Jan 3

CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 10 min with AHI = 0.37

We ate sparingly this AM, took care of the horses, and turned the heating thing down a couple of degrees. About 10:30 we closed the front gate and drove the 1 hr-20 minutes over to White Heron & the Mariposa Vineyard. It’s 64.2 miles by road but only about 30 miles as the crow flies. The day was overcast and stayed around 27°. A few miles down the road and close to cell phone towers, I called John’s sister in Parma, OH. Peggy said it was raining hard and a neighbor was taking her garbage container from the curb to her garage, so she didn’t have to get wet. His short interruption and one dropped signal (basalt cliffs do that) were hardly noticed during the conversation for the whole trip. We stopped talking when we got within sight of the vineyard.
So, here is the story from there:
John, Nancy, and Cameron Fries, the owner of the vineyard and winery, are pictured below – John had food in his mouth and we were trying to make him laugh; I was not yet looking at the camera, but the one where I was, was not as good as this one.

We got to the vineyard and John and others unloaded the firewood he had packed. We came home smelling like smoke. The bonfire is the center of the day, because it is to produce coals, for melting the large piece of cheese. This year the cheese was square-shaped. For previous years it has been circular.

It was another wonderful Raclette with the pruners and their family (wives or sister). The food and fellowship was really fine and provided a lot of fun and laughter. One of the pruners (Tom) brought a birthday cake (carrot with pecans grown by this sister – he grows walnuts and they trade), and he also brought us two boxes of Honeycrisp apples from controlled-atmosphere (CA) storage at Double Diamond Packers in Quincy, WA. They are huge apples, but probably not as large as some we have had in the past. Each box has 12. The boxes sell for $10. These weigh almost a pound each (two checked at 14 ounces, so we likely have 10.5# in each box. The place is not open on Saturdays, and Tom was kind enough to offer to go by and get them for us. I took the following picture on Sunday morning.

We were down the road from Quincy at Trinidad, and you can hear part of the story for the naming of the “town” in the following You Tube capture I made at the Raclette.

Great Northern names TRINIDAD

The amount and variety of food is always amazing and enjoyable. I will try to recall all we had. We had some tiny purple potatoes I believe are Purple Majesty, smaller than a golf ball, with dark purple skin and vibrant royal purple insides. They are native to the Lake Titicaca region of high plains and mountain slopes of Peru and Bolivia. They have been cultivated for 8000 years. We also had some small yellow ones called Yellow Finns. That is a cultivar sourced to Europe. We had sausage (turkey/apple), steamed over new red wine. Short cuttings lined the bottom of a cast iron pot to keep the sausage up out of the liquid. That pot and others with potatoes were placed on rocks by the fire. Some people roasted theirs over the open fire after the steaming. I wish I had, but I was busy filming the filling of plates for a few folks. John just cut his open and scraped hot cheese on to it. We had deviled eggs with two different garnishes, Carpathian walnuts with sesame seeds and roasted in olive oil, a bowl of olives with orange rind and garlic, another dish of garlic stuff to spread on two types of Spelt flour homemade bread (by Tom) that was excellent. A dish of cranberry mixture also was on that table. Another table had little pickled onions, pickles, pickled asparagus, an awesome Waldorf salad, and a bean salad; later the desserts were added to that table, with hot coffee/tea brought out too. Desserts included two kinds of lemon bars and a carrot cake.
Tom made an extra carrot cake with a candle to present to John a day early. {click for larger image}

Watch the presentation: Happy Birthday, John 2015

We will officially celebrate John’s b.d. tomorrow with the cake, apples, and a couple of the lemon bars of ours we brought back that were not eaten or taken home with folks. I now wish I had brought home one of the other lemon bars, as I really liked them.

While we were racletting, I received 2 phone calls from Jeri Conklin who is in the Southwestern desert near Sonoita, AZ. She is there for the Western Futurity with all her dogs (including our co-owned female Brittany, Cedaridge Kip’s Camelot Shay Tre’ JH (Daisy). Today was the preceding Sahuaro Brittany Club field trial. In Jeri’s words on Facebook, “Daisy laid down one helluva run to include a pond swim! Two nice finds too!” That made me smile to realize her great great great grandma, DC/AFC/CC Sirius Sashay was written up in the ABC (American Brittany Club) magazine about running in the Nationals and swimming across a lake when called back on course from afar. (From Jeri’s phone message, she said she had a classy point on her first bird, and held). We hear results Sunday afternoon.

Sunday, Jan 4 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, John

Heard from the field in Arizona, John’s birthday present was Daisy getting a 4th placement in the Open Derby, with 22 dogs running. That was a nice thing to happen before the futurity show starts tomorrow and the field portion starts on Tuesday. This picture came in from Jeri on Facebook in time to make it to this blog today, on the day of the award.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan
(with an inch of snow today)

Sunday, Dec 21 (Solstice)

CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 13 min with AHI = 0.12
SpO2 all in the nineties.

First, pictures of the initial use of the converted-from-pallets truck racks.

Right, shows some pieces unloaded and the driver’s side panel removed. Left, the uprights by the tailgate are removed and 3 unloaders (see John’s arm) are tossing wood from the truck into a shed. Delivered 5 miles away. Megan, in the green jacket, is a geographer at CWU, and an expert on pre-history fires and environments by the study of ash and debris in lake sediments. Where will the ash from the burning of this wood be in a thousand years?
What a great dinner John put together. We had marinated Copper River Salmon, probably 6 ounces each, baked to perfection, with fried mushrooms, sliced butternut squash, and pineapple slices.

Monday, Dec 22

CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 5 min with AHI = 0.00
Good night’s sleep, no events whatsoever. SpO2 in nineties, pulse fine.

We had an interesting brunch today. Baked potato with cheese, mushrooms, and pepperoni. We’ve been using a few things that have been in the freezer since ol’ Shep was a pup.

I went to the SAIL exercise class and while there, I delivered a box of Bingo cards I received free from the Buy Nothing site and knew the activity center would use them. They were thrilled.

I’ve even played a few times at the center, and the photo below was my winning card for the first game. This was a fundraiser for Alzheimer’s research — with prizes for people dressed in purple, the color associated with it, as pink is for breast cancer:

From the class I came home with a half dozen eggs, a little summer sausage, a large potato, Science Diet carrier bag, with Science Diet doggie treats, provided by one of the members for everyone there. I went by the house of a friend to take some other things, and she returned a whole bag full of dessert items for Christmas. That was a huge surprise. Lovely sunny day – no White Christmas here, except in song.

Tuesday, Dec 23

CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 5 min with AHI = 0.00.

I found my tripod to clean and set up for photographing tomorrow at two music events. I’ve been working on a newsletter to get out before St. Patrick’s day as we did in 2013 for 2012. We skipped 2013 last year.

Wednesday, Dec 24 Christmas Eve

CPAP report. Reported figures. 5 hrs 17 min with AHI = 0.00.

At the Noon F.I.S.H. Food Bank lunch in the temporary facility, we had a good turnout; three of us played Christmas songs for the crowd, and then joined them for lunch afterwards. We had nice thinly cut roast beef, corn, potatoes (gone by the time I went through), salad, and a choice of two cakes. One was shaped as a Christmas tree. I wish I had taken a picture of it. I had my camera there too, on the tripod from where I filmed a few songs. John found a tiered cake on the web, but it’s not the same.

First, below, is a medley ending with Jingle Bells. The 17-minute video is on You Tube but you may wish to flip through to the last song, Jingle Bells that starts 14:15 minutes. Our group is missing our male singer who makes us sound fuller on the melody.

Christmas Medley

Winter Wonderland is taken at Food Bank 12-24-14. If you really want only one song, try this one:

Winter Wonderland

From there on to Hearthstone to set up my tripod and camera again; I should have changed the battery, because the battery ran down before we finished. The best song of the day was Jingle Bells with all the audience on bells, and one of our players on tambourine, but it did not get recorded.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

The five links below are there for your choice. Click on the name of the song to take you to You Tube for our group, Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas

White Christmas

Deck the Halls

Came home to a lot of stuff to do on the web, and still need to work on my 2014 seasons’ greetings letter. Tomorrow is Christmas and we are going two places to different old-timer families in the valley.

Thursday, Dec 25 Merry Christmas

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 9 min with AHI = 0.14.

Went to Swedbergs (200 yards east) for ham, biscuits, mashed potatoes, green beans, salad, and we took a Key Lime pie with our strawberries. Only a handful of people were there because of sickness. We left there directly for Orcutts (SE; 8 mi. by crow; 11.5 by road) and joined their large family for a dinner of turkey, dressing, gravy, many different casseroles, sweet potato soufflé, stuffed mushrooms, a lot more than I can list, and desserts. We ate some cookies and specialty items, and skipped the pie to come home at dark to feed the horses and kitties. John likes to get the patriarch to tell stories of early times, especially about working on the big dams – such as the Kerr Dam at Polson, Montana.

Above shows a major release of water following a big snow melt event.

John thought my music group might like to play, and the old timers listen to, a song that he knew a few words of from 60 years ago. When, how, or why he learned these lines is a complete mystery, but nevertheless he knew enough. John was searching on the web and found the real deal. Meanwhile, nephew Rod answered immediately with a performance by a dude with a guitar – and that family didn’t know about the song, but they did know it. Anyway, here you are: The Homecoming Waltz,

Rod supplied this one, title based on a grandfather:

Now I’ve contacted some old fiddlers to see if they have the music (notes & chords), and thus far the search has proved futile. Favorite Waltzes for Fiddle by Mel Bay supposedly has Homecoming Waltz, but it is the wrong one. This one below is the correct one played by the Wendinger Band:

My musical abilities are not good enough to listen and write out the score, so I shall keep searching my favorite people with large music collections.

John says if the weather gets really crappy or very cold (he has dropped a few trees and is cutting firewood lengths for stacking), he can go to the City or University library and have a look in old song books.

Friday, Dec 26

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 40 min with AHI = 0.26.

We went to LaBar’s home this afternoon, 4:00 p.m. for a visit with Rebekah, who was here the past two weeks from Wellington, NZ, where she is a meteorologist. Her sister Caitlin came over from Longview, WA, to spend time with the family. Rebekah invited Tony Abbott and his wife, Barbara Bredis. They were in town visiting her daughter and grandchildren. Tony taught in CWU Geography for a few years, before leaving for a job in Florida. He was also her professor as I was. We traded many stories and had a lovely visit.

Mom, Robin, made a great stew/soup from the beef father, John, raised, Barb brought a great dish of roasted veggies (carrots, parsnips, with walnuts), and a plate of Muenster cheese. There were two types of bread on the table. We took sweets: fruitcake, chocolate truffles, and some of Santa’s candy (made from cereal, cake mix, crushed peppermint pieces, and almond bark).

Saturday, Dec 27

CPAP report. Reported figures. 5 hrs 50 min with AHI = 0.51.

Up late until 12:40 a.m., awoke at 6:30 a.m. and went back to sleep without CPAP until 9:00 a.m., but kept oximetry recording, as I always do while sleeping.

John chased deer out of the way and then took the dogs around. The oldest one neither hears nor sees well but still wants to go. Dan, the male we brought up from our Oregon friends, is starting to have both his vision and hearing deteriorate, and if he fails to follow around a turn can swing through the “swamp” where there are dozens of smells – each requiring extensive investigation. During the afternoon (John outside), the sky had a tiny bit of rain and a tinier bit of snow. Between 8 and 9 tonight the ground got dusted and is 98% white. The Cascades are getting about a foot of snow tonight – not serious unless one intends to travel over them. We intend to stay home. The local weather folks are looking for single digit cold this coming week, and as far east as the Ohio River Valley some below zero. Stay warm.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

. . . World War One was underway and Christmas was coming. Newspapers and other media like this story. Here’s an example,
A World War I interlude.

Sunday, Dec 14

CPAP report. Reported figures: 5 hrs 47 min with AHI = 0.00
Up very early to finish my medical treatise to mail to my sleep doctor. I was told the P.O. was open today special hours from 10 to noon, and that my mail would get to Yakima tomorrow. NOT. The female clerk told me no mail was leaving Ellensburg until 3:30 p.m. Monday afternoon. That was not the way planned and told me on Friday by a male desk clerk in the EBRG office, so I am going to drive to Yakima with John tomorrow to deliver it in person, and we will go to Costco while there. Currently am revising it. I washed a load of dishes. I made corrections and additions to my paper. Sunny but cool day today.

Monday, Dec 15

CPAP report. Reported figures: 8 hrs 8 min with AHI = 0.00
Sunny and 28°, after coffee & 1/2 apple fritter, I called Joanie to tell her about music this week and that the Food Bank was no longer usable, and where to come to play Christmas music on Wednesday. When she and Ken left town it was still standing. Then we were off to Yakima to Drs. Kumar and Kim. John drove our blue Forester, and I made a few phone calls before we lost reception because of the deep road cuts through the Yakima Fold Belt. We delivered the summary medical report on my CPAP and Oximetry data observations and interpretation, including comments and questions.
On the way, I called Morris U. to wish him a happy birthday (yesterday), and then talked to another friend on the way out of town. Called two others whose birthdays were today. I made good use of my riding time, and enjoyed the views when I had no reception because of the distance from towers and the cliffs lining the road.
I have been pushing for donations to the Food Bank on the Ellensburg Buy Nothing site, by requesting ISO (In search of) for some items needed. It is a community Facebook page where people freely give items and request others they need. It is a great resource and shows a lot of generous support in giving/sharing within our community. Most recent was a request I posted for Coffee (bags of) and plastic ware for the Food Bank’s Soup Kitchen (where I play music on Wednesdays, see this week’s photo below). My request was answered for both and delivered by a woman today, much appreciated by the volunteer serving crew. Meals are served 4 times a week: lunches at noon on MWF and late afternoon dinner on Saturday. Another wonderful offer came from a woman whose first name is River. She actually lives in Cle Elum, but she posted on another site I saw, trying to get donations for a Food Processor for the Food Bank. I got into a conversation on email with her and found she was previously a caterer and had many large chafing dishes, utensils, tablecloths, and other things she was willing to give to the F.I.S.H. Food Bank. Contacts have already been made and things are happening. Makes me happy.

Tuesday, Dec 16

CPAP report. Reported figures: x hrs x min with AHI = x.xx (unavailable) because I did not have time to transfer from my SD card before leaving and they deleted it when they read off the last 70 days of information. Not sure why, when they had not done that the first 3 times. I will record tonight, and start from scratch with a missed day. I do have the oximetry data.
Visits to doctors today. We awoke to snow, left the house about 9:00 a.m., drove in it for the first 20 miles of our trip, then through some fog, and finally into rain. First appt (foot doctor) was at 10:15, but we were running early, and stopped off at Fred Meyer to use a coupon for $7 off the cost of a package of Almond Roca. While there we found some plastic “food & bread” bags John has been looking for (we use a lot of them), and they were 80 cents less per box than in EBRG, at our normal grocery store.
The 10:15 appointment was timed perfectly – in and out in a flash – and then on to Costco (5 minute trip) for gasoline, shopped for a few things we forgot yesterday, ate lunch, and went for a trip through the nearby Valley Mall (had not been in over 10 years), and found it rather interesting that we knew so few of the businesses. We cannot understand how people can make a living and profit in a business selling just pretzels, and several stores seem to be selling the same stuff. A nearby “Value Village” also had lots of stuff but we didn’t buy anything at either location. So, back west to the Sleep Center. Made it right at 1:00 p.m. for the other appt. with my sleep doctor, Madhukar Kumar, MD, who completed his residency at the University of Chicago and a fellowship at the Michael S. Aldrich Sleep Center at the University of Michigan.
John and I both went to the meeting with him, during which he reviewed my last 70 days of CPAP use from the SD card I brought with me to the appointment. The summary report has many of the same parameters reported as I have been capturing daily on the SleepyHead software. His first comment was that I was doing well on the machine. My AHI was only 0.2 (which I already knew from my observations of the data). He commented that I was a poster child for CPAP and doing well, it was helping me, and I needed to continue in the same way. I had a list of questions for him relating to my “summary report” I had taken him the day before. He had gone through it, and he answered all my questions and John’s as well. An interesting comment was that he wanted me not to freak out at the measured items by the CPAP that are revealed on the SD card. He says that machine cannot adequately measure all the things that are summarized even on his own version of Encore (the professional version). He did say I could contact Phillips Respironics to get access to an edition (I think he said available through the web), to approximate the information at his disposal. He also pointed out many of the summary parameters on his sheet (most of which are also on mine), and reiterated they are flawed (at least not precise), and are only ballpark figures.
The other advice he gave us was to interpret findings from my overnight sleep studies that are on his computer. Some of the figures had not previously been presented to us and certainly not explained as he did during this visit.
He acknowledged my main need for being on the machine is to raise my oxygen saturation percentage level in my blood, to make my organs operate better because my heart is not working efficiently pumping to all the body organ parts. It is obvious while I have a few low % events while on the machine, it displays much less activity than when I’m off the CPAP’s continuous air pressure. He recognizes I do not have the same sleep disorders and needs as many others on a CPAP machine.
I was happy I had taken the time to analyze my data to figure all my questions about the expectations and importance of the data gathered and reported in graphs, nightly, by minute. I am even happier that I bought the oximeter and have been able to include its results (pulse and SpO2%), in my report, synchronized with the CPAP data.
His parting comment was to keep up the good work and continue writing my blog, but not to take the readings too seriously.
Reminder: comments below about the AHI are from HERE.

AHI (Apnea Hypopnea Index) is the number of apneas and hypopneas per hour. Or, an index for sleep apnea [with a value of] 5-20 mild, 21-50 moderate, [and] above 50 severe.

APNEA (I do not have): The Greek word “apnea” means “without breath.” You stop breathing during sleep for ten seconds or longer.

HYPOPNEA (I occasionally have one to four hypopneas, but many nights none): During a hypopnea there is airflow through your throat but at a much reduced level, which leads to not getting enough oxygen. [THAT’S THE REASON I’M ON THE CPAP machine.] It’s abnormally shallow breathing lasting at least ten seconds.

Good AHI vs. Bad AHI (another source from same web site):
Less than 5 events (apnea or hypopnea) per hour is considered normal. 5 or more events per hour is considered Mild sleep apnea. 15+ considered Moderate. 30+ considered Severe. (From T. S. Johnson MD, Sleep Apnea – The Phantom of the Night, page 211). [Mine has only topped 1 on 4 occasions in 70 days, and my average for the 70 days since I started, is 0.2.]

We didn’t get home until almost dark. Long day, but worthwhile.

I had to be at Royal Vista, to start Christmas songs at 6:30 with The Connections. I got there a little early to visit with people I know there as residents, but the barbershop chorus was singing. I know at least 3 of them, and I knew all the songs, so I just stood behind them in the doorway and sang along. Most of the singers are men, except for the leader who is female.

Wednesday, Dec 17

CPAP report. Reported figures: 8 hrs 32 min w/ AHI = 0.35

Today started at Mercer Creek Church for the temporary Food Bank location. Food is provided M, W, and F at noon, and Saturdays at 5:00 p.m.

Bob Olsen (singer), Evelyn Heflen (banjo), Nancy Hultquist (fiddle) singing Christmas songs.
We set up at the end of the room and all the tables are in front of us, with the people spread out at 5 or 6 big circular tables, seating about 8 each. The servers did some “dancing” and hand movements as they sang along too. Everyone was seated and eating, so servers didn’t need to be serving. Today we had many folks joining in and having fun, especially on Jingle Bells, Silver Bells, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, White Christmas, and Blue Christmas, and even Silent Night. Those seemed to be the favorites
After we play music for 40 minutes, we eat. They thank us for playing by feeding us. The menu today was BBQ chicken and noodles with veggies, green salad, artichoke hearts, and a nice pear cake/strudel.

I left there for Mt. View Meadows for only 1/2 hour with Karen Eslinger (accordion), and me. We sang with a few residents who were happy to have us there. I go with her every Christmas, but today, I had to leave early to go to my exercise class. We got in 15 songs before I left. Happily, when I arrived I got to visit with Jay Gorman, who is a resident there and loves music.
I did not have any pictures from Christmas songs at The Meadows, but I do have something to share from our past–a You Tube taken the day before Halloween this year. It’s not the highest quality, but it is cool to see old folks (ages 71, 87, and 92) having fun with their music. I have a hard time playing the melody because I’m so used to playing the harmony, and singing the melody. Without another instrument playing melody or singing makes it sound weak, especially when I drop off the melody. I only picked up my flash drive Friday night on my way home from a party, and was able to put this and the others below on You Tube, on Saturday this week.

Honkytonk Piano Trio Mt View Meadows 10-30-14

SAIL exercise was fine, and from there I went to Super One for some Corn Syrup in case we decide to make Pecan Pie for any upcoming events. From there I drove to a parking lot to meet a friend to pick up some stuff she was carrying for me, and for me to exchange a bag of goodies for her for her grandchildren. The box she gave me was full of Bingo cards, which are going to the Adult Activity Center (freely given from the Ellensburg Buy Nothing (BN) site), and a pair of Khaki pants that fit John. John says they look like something to wear on a sailboat on a cold and windy day. From there I went to Royal Vista to meet Karen again, and we played and sang 25 songs there.

Thursday, Dec 18

CPAP report. Reported figures: 8 hrs 50 min with AHI = 0.14
I spent time last night and morning redoing Away in a Manger in a different key we all could sing. I took music in for our players, and was totally surprised to have the largest number we have had in quite awhile– maybe ever– thirteen!! Two were singers only, but we had a passel of guitars and a mandolin, bells, tambourine (with one of the guitarists), banjo, washtub bass, viola, violin, trumpet, and clarinet. We were at Dry Creek Assisted Living. Evelyn, our banjo player, brought bells for dispersal to all the residents, so they could join in many of the songs, where bells were appropriate. I wish I had one of those on video.
Partway through our performance, our mandolin player, Tim Henebry, got up to listen from the back of the room to see how we sounded. He decided to record two of our songs on his cell phone. Below are the Kittitas Valley Fiddlers and Friends video clips I put on You Tube:

Blue Christmas Dec-2014

Frosty the Snowman Dec 2014

Friday, Dec 19

CPAP report. Reported figures: 6 hrs 24 min with AHI = 0.16
I am going to try explaining last night’s analysis that is consistent with the Sleep Doctor Kumar’s discussion with us on Tuesday afternoon. Below is an image of the results with the oximetry synchronized to the CPAP events recorded. The oximeter measures my pulse and my blood’s oxygen saturation percentage. Last night my calculated AHI (Apnea Hypopnea Index) was low, with one hypopnea (shallow breathing) at 5:06 a.m. when my SpO2 was 91, and my pulse was 54, lasting only a few seconds. No apnea (paused breathing) events existed. I slept from about 6:45 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. without the CPAP on.

The very top section shows Event Flags. Note the H and the blue mark on its line. If you look to the left at the bars you’ll see where those colors originate and what they refer to.
The top right chart (green) is put in to see the time the CPAP was operating (from 11:36 p.m. to 6:45 a.m.). The middle chart (red) is my pulse that is mostly in the 50s, with some 60s. Check the bottom right chart (blue). SpO2 is the measured oxygen saturation level in my blood, providing oxygen to all my organs. It is supposed to be above 90%.

The breaks in the red and blue lines mark the time when I turned off the CPAP, got up, walked to the bathroom, went to the kitchen to feed Rascal, the cat, and went back to bed, putting the Oximeter back on my finger. The SpO2 is noticeably lower during the time off the machine, while sleeping.

Then, look at the table below (from the Oximeter’s recording):

Significance of that table is that my O2 is below 88% for 4 minutes. The minimum SpO2 is supposed to be 82, but on the magnified charts I have access to, I cannot find it being lower than 84; yet that was when the CPAP machine was not operating. While it was operating, it dropped to 89% but not below. However, look at the blue line above, and see the drop activity on the far right, after the machine was off.

Tonight is an open house party at Paul & Gloria Swanson, neat people, who are friends from my exercise class. There we met friends we have been introduced to at their place before, and another couple we have known through the Kittitas Valley Trail Riders club meetings and rides, which neither of us any longer attends. They had an “open house” from 4:00 -7:00 p.m., but it was more of a sit-down dinner around the dining room table for 8, and the rest of us (6 or 7) in the living room eating from our lap or from the coffee table. I sat on the piano bench. John and I arrived about 5:00. They served baked potatoes with chili and many different toppings (sour cream, cheddar cheese, salsa, green onions), crab cakes and cheese soufflés, cheese/meatballs, Oriental chicken coleslaw, my favorite–deviled eggs, blueberry pastry, and a table full of different cookies and chocolate candies.
After everyone ate, we sat around the living room and had several different conversations going on. Many people were there from their church in Kittitas, but we know a couple of them, and their daughter and hubby. We left about 7:40 and drove to another friend to pick up my flash drive with the 3 videos (you have seen above).
Next week, if I can locate it, I will take my tripod and camera to the gig on Christmas Eve at Hearthstone and attempt to take a video in a more stable environment than the ones Thursday. I am thrilled to have the “record” of us regardless of interruptions while the photographer moved around trying to get us all in the video. I know we will not have that many people next Wednesday, so it is great Tim was able to grab the memories.

Saturday, Dec 20

CPAP report. Reported figures: 6 hrs 41 min with AHI = 0.75
Tonight our trip for dinner and visiting with Tanya and her three children: Andrew, Jessica, and Michael was cancelled because Michael has a serious ear infection, walking pneumonia symptoms, and a nasty cough. Not good. He is 3 years old, so we decided to put it off until he’s well. The rest of our day was spent with normal outside and inside chores.
John cleaned the leftovers from the fridge and made a nice supper, including baked chicken thigh with slice of pineapple, little lima beans, deep fried onion rings John grew and made, and a few coconut battered shrimp (new for tonight).
It has been raining here with snow in the mountains. We may (or may not) have a white Christmas here on the Fan. Here is the current outlook:

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Dec 7

CPAP report. Reported figures: 7 hrs 4 min with AHI = 0.14

Worked on data gathering for too long and now I have to start writing my summary report to present to my sleep doctor of my collection of data synchronized between my CPAP machine and the newly acquired Oximeter.
I changed my CPAP filters.
I spent an hour figuring out Yakima Memorial Hospital’s new Physician Portal and what is a royal PITA is that the Yakima Heart Center is different from the Yakima Sleep Center and in the same building next door to the Yakima Memorial Hospital. After all that I wrote a note to my cardiologist’s nurse through normal email, and she said that was the way to communicate because the new system was not working.
I spent more time going through my medical records for my cardiologist after finding some discrepancies in his report transcribed Nov 14 when I was last in and many changes were made to my medications. His notes say my magnesium was low, and I should increase to 400 mg BID. I was taking 500 mg once a day. Therefore, I will ask his nurse for advice. He went over all the changes with her present and she sent in the meds, but Magnesium is OTC and he should have written on his little sheet of instructions to me. Now I have addressed all those and written emails with attachments. First, I will send to his nurse before I send directly to him. (Now I know I cannot do that)
Good dinner and going to bed.

Monday, Dec 8

CPAP report. Reported figures: 5 hrs 56 min with AHI = 0.34

Get up early and wash feet and leave by 9:25 for school, where I had a nice visit with the final presentations of Jen Lipton’s Air Photo Interpretation Class. I left for the foot doctor’s appt at 11:30, and was seen right away, so I was able to return for the last two presentations, missing only two. I will be missing SAIL today to work on my medical report.

Tuesday, Dec 9

CPAP report. Reported figures: 5 hrs 51 min with AHI = 0.00

Haircut at 2:00 at Celia’s went well. Next one in 8 weeks.
Tonight is Hearthstone (The Connections) for Christmas songs.
I worked more on the sleep doctor report. Happily, reached the technician for my sleep doctor and told her my plans to mail my summary document prior to my appointment. While sooner is better, she also said that being there the day before (Monday) would be sufficient. I’ll get it in the mail no later than Saturday, if all goes well, and as a last minute emergency need for more time, I can go to the EBRG office from 10-noon on Sunday. They are having those two special hours, first time ever.
Raining again. John fixed us a nice brunch: pancake with pecans and blueberries, bacon, & eggs. Excellent.
Sun came out a little after 3:00!
I drove to town in pea soup fog tonight from the end of my driveway almost all the way to town before it lifted. I could only see maybe 25′ in front of my car. Saw the center line and warning for stop signs approaching. It took me 10 minutes to drive a little under 3 miles.
Played music in town but stopped on the way for the reduced price on baked stuff at the grocery store. I grabbed a dozen donuts with about 5 apple fritters for the much lower price. We played and sang all Christmas music tonight.
I am still working on my report to the sleep doctor.

Wednesday, Dec 10

CPAP report. Reported figures: 7 hrs 35 min with AHI = 0.0

Did most of the preliminary, I think, but need to upload Oximetry and capture those after the SpO2-Review software is run on my night’s data. (SpO2 is the blood’s oxygen saturation percentage.)
Today is Mercer Creek Church for music at the relocated Food Bank Soup Kitchen. We played Christmas music and had people singing along on Jingle Bells, and several other songs.
Followed with SAIL class.
I fixed Frosty the Snowman music for about the 3rd time.
Need to correct Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
Nice surprise from Jeri Conklin in CA with a picture of our co-owned Brittany, Cedaridge Kip’s Camelot Shay Tre’ (Daisy), who will be going back to her field trial trainer to prepare for the Western Futurity. She is a pretty gal:

Jeri put this photo out on Facebook (hence the low resolution), and friends all over LIKED it, which sends a message to me directly to my email. (zoomed photos in this week’s blog both will pixelate; sorry)

Thursday, Dec 11

CPAP report. Reported figures: 0 hrs 34 min with AHI = 0.00

Slept without my CPAP last night to see how far my SPO2 went down through the night. Slept better than in many days. Awoke not tired and not yawning. Started my CPAP for 1/2 hour before turning off and only kept on oximeter recording for the night. I was able to merge that data into the SleepyHead software.
Today was our day playing at the Rehab assisted living center. We met two new people Laura and Dale, who came, participated, and joined our group. They sing and play. She plays the guitar, and he plays a washtub bass.
I took a shirt to my car for friend, Sara, to use in a quilt — delivered half way across town to the wrong house of another female graduate student I know. A senior moment?
Helped John make two pecan pies. We double-read and followed the directions because we left out white sugar last year (they were a bit thin but tasted fine).

Friday, Dec 12

CPAP report. Reported figures: 7 hrs 26 min with AHI = 0.00

I recorded a bunch more data from my two devices to have for my report to the sleep doctor. Now I need to summarize the entries into a table.
We took a break to go to the scholarship luncheon at CWU, and it turned out quite well. Based on a tortellini package soup mix with added ingredients, including sausage. [The term seems to mean ring-shaped but folks apparently find that a bit bland, so others call it ombelico (belly button).] Also served was much other food pot-luck style (my favorite was an appetizer made with mushrooms and shrimp) and our our pecan pies. A couple of people cannot eat such sweets and there was another dessert so we have pie left. I took one photo of Ruth Harrington by the food. She is the one who started this program of donations for CWU student scholarships, in 1973. Now the balance is over $900,000. Ruth left early (with a piece of pie; as usual) for another such gathering off campus. I asked her how many groups currently meet. This was a much higher number than I expected — 65, combined among lunches on campus, brunches, some lunches, and dinners out in the community. Not all groups meet monthly, but most do.

Tonight we went back to campus for another Christmas party, at the Dean’s Office of the College of the Sciences. Geography is a department in that college. It was a lot of fun, and I saw many people I have not seen in several years, and met some new ones. Lots of special food for dinner. Some had too much garlic, but I ate fruit, cheese, meatballs, some shrimp, and a little smoked salmon delicacy. Mostly we visited with people.

Saturday, Dec 13

CPAP report. Reported figures: 5 hrs 16 min with AHI = 0.38
I slept until 5:38 a.m. and turned off the machine, and slept another 3 hrs with the oximeter still in place. This morning was work on my summary medical report, good progress, but unfinished. Must get in the mail before noon tomorrow. John had to move a young buck and 8 does from our orchard before taking the dogs for their morning exercise, and feeding the horses. He has the brush cleared away from a few trees that he will now cut down, and cut up. A couple are nearly horizontal, others going up at 45 degree angles.
Today was our Christmas party at Briarwood Commons, retirement center. They went all out and had a lot of people there in our group, Kittitas Valley Fiddlers and Friends. We have two new additions as of last Thursday. We had Megan (Bass Fiddle), Benj (violin), Dale (Washtub bass), Nancy (fiddle), Roberta (guitar, bells, and tambourine, Tim (Mandolin), Charlie (12-string guitar), Gerald (guitar), and Laura (guitar, bells, & tambourine). We played 19 Christmas songs, and 3 others at the beginning, non-Christmas, but fun sing-alongs. Everyone (including us) enjoyed our afternoon.

A beautiful table of food, seen below with the main cook (Lee on the right, and another resident, Diedra, who helps with the potlucked food and preparation. Not showing on the table was a pot of beef/ vegetable soup made by the SOUPER cook, Lee, who honchos several dishes for all our play dates there. Lee is 82.
In the kitchen with the soup were fresh rolls to go with it and homemade seasoned oyster crackers donated by a 94 year old resident named Bernice.

Western Washington (also OR & CA) has experienced a significant wind and rain storm this week. As mentioned earlier we have had some rain and fog but not much wind. There is a place along WA’s coast that 150 years ago stuck out into the Pacific Ocean sufficiently far as to be called a cape, namely Cape Shoalwater. All sorts of things were built there during WA’s settlement period and after – WWII defense bunkers, for one. Sometime in the past something happened over that way and the coast began to move eastward. No one seems to know why but the “cape” is no more and the area is now called Washaway Beach. Over many years dozens of houses either were moved or fell into the Ocean. This week, as of Friday, 3 houses fell. Here is a photo taken from a Seattle TV station; thanks KOMO.
Below are a couple of links we found of interest. If the first gets updated you may have to work through some of the headings to find the previous week’s photos. From the index page, note on the right side ‘Recent Posts’ and then ‘Trust’. That is last week’s story – the one we found first. Also, there are ‘sequences’ of older photos worth looking at – follow the Gallery link – then to the bottom right side.

Washaway Beach – Stories and photos

Next link has a simple line-drawing animation showing how Cape Shoalwater became Washaway Beach.

Here is another house – zoom in on these coordinates
via Google Earth
46.740851, -124.087840

The north end has corrugated metal sheeting on the roof, the main roof part is sort of green and then there is a red rectangle overhang on the west side. The overhang is (was) over a doorway.
Here is a picture of that house a week ago Losing-the-Battle.
People question why folks would live in such a place. One person was quoted as saying he had married into it. Seems her folks had been there for a very long time. When it was settled first would be interesting. I doubt the places have much sale value and likely haven’t had for many years. This is mentioned by the woman that takes all the photos (1st link).

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

The repeal of Prohibition in the United States was accomplished with the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 5, 1933.

Sunday, Nov 30

CPAP report. Reported figures: 6 hrs 15 min with AHI = 0.80
Might have figured something better with importing the oximetry directly to SleepyHead (SH), but the option I thought I had a few days ago to take it from the SPO2-Review file is not working.

As yesterday, today I also spent most of my time working on a thesis to help a student from 7 or 8 years ago (in our REM program here at CWU). I am not on her committee, and I got involved to try to find her someone who could help edit her thesis; the other two people could only do so much because of their own challenges with time. I’m not doing well either on time. The deadline for submission is tomorrow. I think this last minute effort should have begun a month ago (at least).

We found out that we had a couple of photos of the firefighter EMT who is related to our friends we have known since 1974 from the Brittany world. Stayed home today, and tried to get something done, but the weather is rather cold outside. We updated the blog about our friend, Sarah.

Monday, Dec 1

CPAP report. Reported figures: 8 hrs 31 min with AHI = 0.00
I experienced an alarming beginning to the day with my computer not starting Windows properly. It had a white frozen arrow and black screen. I tried everything, but finally turned it off, and figured I could bring it back up the usual slow way. However, once I finally got something, it said my System 32\config\sys profile\Desktop was moved to another location unavailable. Great–I tried with the basic one, but could not access anything I needed. I turned off again, left it for a few minutes, thought positive thoughts, probably said a little prayer, please let it work, and it came up. I started backing up some of my recent stuff that I need for visiting with two doctors in the next two weeks. I am trying to study my medical data and present it graphically and legibly to show my own parameters I have been measuring nightly, since Oct 4, but especially, more recently, with the added oximetry, starting Nov 24.
I started the day in town, in the afternoon, after lunch, at the senior center, meeting my friend from Montana, who now has moved to EBRG. The exercise group, SAIL, starts at 1:30 so I planned to meet her early to introduce her and get her signed up as an AAC member. She met many people and went through the class, doing very well, her first time. She plans to return Wednesday. Besides this class, there are many more activities through the year, and she can meet more people her age. As well, she has found a church in town she likes.

I took my new oximeter to class today, and recorded my vitals (pulse and oxygen saturation level) for the entire time. You can view the record below:

The beginning is a little bumpy while I was attempting to set it to record, and at the end, in turning it off record. The procedure is more than one click– (many at the start and several at the ending too). The top green line is the blood Oxygen Saturation level (%), which was fine for several times around the room before I set it to record (while it’s recording I cannot view it until I get home and download to my computer). During the class, the O2 level was in the high nineties, where it is supposed to be. The pulse is the blue line and it is fine too, except for my bumps on the setup and ending, it was averaging around 75 bpm.

I was late getting home from town (almost dark) because I stopped by the KVC hospital lab (a blood draw for an INR check)–my doctor’s nurse called at 6:21 p.m. to report my results. The INR was 3.0 with no need to change the dosage. On my way from the hospital, I stopped at BiMart where I needed to get a new watch to replace my Timex I have had for a very long time. Its alarms have not worked since the battery was replaced in July. John saw they were having a 20% sale through this Saturday on all watches. Amazing how long it took me, but I found one I think will work. I had help from the head of the department who spent an hour with me. I left with a new Casio, waterproof, with chronometer, timer, and alarms, for the sale price of $19.95. She took time to show me 3 or 4 different models, after showing me the Timex and I didn’t like the huge size.
Then, she was patient with me while I looked for the one I wanted. I decided on a small one with a name that started with an O, because the side control buttons for setting things were smoother, but I asked her to help me set the watch, date, time. She worked at it and never really did figure it out. We both decided that was not the watch for either of us. I had been fooling all along with the Casio (with harder, more piercing knobs), and without following the instructions, I had made good progress. I left with it on my wrist (without the timer and chronometer access figured out yet). She moved the band from my old watch onto this one. I brought all the pieces home, including the instructions, but I have not yet made time today to figure the rest of the settings.

Tuesday, Dec 2

CPAP report. Reported figures: 6 hrs 31 min with AHI = 0.46

I was able to get my Christmas music moved to flash drive but not printed out, and I moved my folder with Sleep Apnea (from CPAP machine & oximeter), as well. I need to back up more from my hard drive.
Played more with Oximetry input today after forgetting how I did it last week. Think I am on target now, and back to not having to upload twice from the oximeter.
Lunch — a gourmet delicacy treat by John, thanks to our friend Anne Engels, the one from MT who just moved to town. She cooked a Hutterite prepared turkey (brought from Montana), for hers and her son Glenn’s Thanksgiving dinner. Yesterday she brought us a generous serving of turkey to the SAIL exercise class she will be joining. John created brown, blue & yellow sandwiches for our lunch. The yellow was grated cheddar cheese, also used on last night’s chili. Chopped turkey and the cheese was held together with blue cheese salad dressing. We had plain brown bread and grilled them in the non-stick pan. It was super good.
I have spent most of the day working on Christmas music and on bills, and graphics of the combo graphs of my CPAP machine results with my oximeter ones. I entered the wrong image in last week’s blog to show the comparison and addition of the oximetry I’m so proud to have accomplished. I found another item in the process that I thought I did last week, and then couldn’t repeat until today. Now, I’m on a roll. Below is my addition of my Oximetry data synced to the CPAP data. I’m quite excited to have this additional option and display capabilities. There is one glitch in the Sp02 (blue) about 1:35am I cannot explain. If you look at the red line Pulse Rate at about 5:35am, you’ll see the place where I turned off the CPAP machine and left the Oximeter running, so the pulse goes up as I walk to the bathroom, feed the cat, and then lie back down for a few more hours sleep, without the CPAP blowing compressed air into my nostrils.

I didn’t have to do any more proofing of the master’s thesis, because the deadline was yesterday at 5:00. I hope she made it. My weekend was consumed with that.
I’m still putting in a lot of time today on music that we can check out tomorrow when Evelyn and I meet to play for the Food Bank Soup Kitchen lunch. We use the time to practice beforehand and fix any chord problems so I can come home and enter them in the computer software to make copies (pdf) files to send to those not coming tomorrow, and print copies for those who are coming and don’t have computers. She had found some problems over the weekend.

You will remember the fire reported in last week’s blog of the loss of our local F.I.S.H. Food Bank building. For this week, the noon meals are being served at the First Lutheran Church. Next week it will change to another church, the Mercer Creek Church. The latter has also been housing all the donations and providing warehouse space for storage and distribution to needy families in the community.

I never got to John’s haircut as planned. He prefers to wait now until after the two events we go to Friday and Sunday. I know not why. My haircuts are not butcher jobs. He now has cowlicks and we wonder where that terminology originated. They don’t bother him as much as they bother me. Okay, I found the description on Wikipedia:

The term “cowlick” originates from the domestic bovine’s habit of licking its young, which results in a swirling pattern in the hair. The most common site of a human cowlick is in the crown, but they can show up anywhere. They also sometimes appear in the front and back of the head.[”
The term cowlick dates from the late 16th century, when Richard Haydocke used it in his translation of Lomazzo: “The lockes or plaine feakes of haire called cow-lickes, are made turning upwards.”

It was cold here but John manage to start the inserting of 36 wood screws into his truck rack, but he’s having to do it with a manual screwdriver (negating the intended purpose of Phillips slotted heads, because the cheap Phillips head piece that fits in the power drill is of insufficient quality metal to do the job properly. He also got more brushing done down in the woods, afterward, making a dessert with apples and blackberries. It smells grand and is coming out of the oven in 5 minutes.
We had a good dinner of sliced turkey, baked potato, and pears. The dessert was scrumptious, except I detest the blackberry seeds. I suppose that’s why I prefer blueberries. Perhaps I would like blackberry jelly or use the juice in my desserts, but that takes more time we don’t have. I enjoy helping (John does most of the work) pick the thorn-less blackberries because they are so pretty, and I don’t mind cleaning them and putting them up in little bags for the freezer. However, for all the berries we raise, I like the blackberries and raspberries least of all (seeds), and prefer strawberries and blueberries.
I finally completed my volunteer hours for November. All the WTA trail work is now on the lowland of Puget Sound, so John doesn’t go now. Short month! Sent in the Excel spreadsheet for their records.

Wednesday, Dec 3

CPAP report. Reported figures: 9 hrs 30 min with AHI =0.51

This morning I got an email at 8:00 a.m. from a former student about her and 3 student researchers coming from Pullman, WA to the Yakima Canyon this Saturday. They are going to survey bighorn sheep for a disease, and they need housing for Saturday night. I sent out an email request to several people at the university (or who had been). I worded it to contact her directly because I knew I would be gone for 4 hrs. She received 3 offers, and they are set to go to a geographer friend’s house. He was here when I arrived, served as department head and so on, but retired a number of years ago.
I went to the Lutheran church for Food Bank music. They were thrilled to have us show up (as if we ever thought about not going?). It’s our normal Wednesday venue (Evelyn on banjo & me on fiddle), and we both sing. We did all Christmas music while sitting next to a decorated Christmas tree. After playing for a little over 1/2 hour, we were treated to lunch too. The main dish was fried chicken. They gave me a big serving of breast-meat (that I shared with Evelyn who had been served a smaller thigh), and included I had a few potato wedges, also know as Jojos in some regions. The salad was nice, but it had too many dark greens (too high in Vitamin K for my allowance), so I skipped it, and I had a nice chocolate-frosted muffin for dessert. Right after that was over and I made my way back around the block to my car, I went to the courthouse to deliver some nice boxed stationery for a friend to use with her granddaughters to encourage them to be pen pals.
On to SAIL exercise class I went, where, from the free table, I picked up a small sized calendar to carry in my purse to keep up with my busy schedule (:-)), a pretty colorful unused gift bag to hold a larger calendar for the grandmother, a little address book (for her granddaughters). I also picked up a Dreamcatcher someone put on the table. After class, I drove a few blocks north to a gal’s house who gave me a bag of long sleeved tee shirts for John to use as work shirts. I gave her the Dreamcatcher as a thank you. Turns out she was thrilled and has two larger ones in her house.

For many views search using Dreamcatcher and then click on the images tab. In some Native American cultures, a dreamcatcher includes the notion of a spider’s web and has the meaning of a “dream snare.” They are a handmade object based on a willow hoop, on which is woven a loose net or web. The item is then decorated with feathers, beads, or other special items. As I scrolled down on my “images” search, I was surprised to see all the tattoos. So, I added tattoos to my search and – well, I guess we don’t get out and about much. Who woulda thunk?
I stayed up way to late (almost 1:00 a.m.) working on music. I had to completely redo Frosty the Snowman because it wasn’t correct. I had entered the other chord corrections to two songs.

Thursday, Dec 4

CPAP report. Reported figures: 7 hrs 19 min with AHI = 0.00

My morning was filled with finishing the new song, printing copies of all the changes, and then running printouts for a couple of folks without computers, and finally, printing off some of the Bb clarinet music for our new addition (trumpeter) to use to play with us (now that he has a mute). It still is a little louder than I wish, but that wish is mainly for one of our players with tinnitus.
My afternoon was spent at Royal Vista, playing music, with a relatively large bunch of musicians…mandolin, several guitars, trumpet, fiddle, banjo, and 2 singers without instruments. Afterwards, I visited with some of the residents, and got home nearly at dark.

Friday, Dec 5 “Repeal Day”

CPAP report. Reported figures: 8 hrs 16 min with AHI = 0.12
One hypopnea (shallow breathing) before 1:00 a.m., then awake around 1 to 2, unable to get comfortable and back to sleep (unusual).
We partied this evening at Dean Hall for the annual Anthropology/ Geography party. It has occurred since before I came on campus, and I have attended every year since 1988, except for 2009 when I was in the ICU in Yakima Regional, awaiting my heart valve operation. Actually, this week marks the week I was on life support for 8 days, the Saturday following Thanksgiving.
We carried two platters of dried fruit (peaches and apples). They were tasty, but there was so much food, we brought much of ours home.
It was a potluck, and a long buffet table had so many offerings of meats, veggies, salads, and specialty items that I won’t even try to list them. Another separate table had an incredible array of desserts. For drinks, we were served lime sherbet / fruit punch either leaded or not. After and while eating, we had many conversations. It was a nice beginning of the season.

Saturday, Dec 6

CPAP report. Reported figures: 6 hrs 25 min with AHI = 0.00

A tiny bit of snow early morning changed to rain, and then stopped later in the afternoon. The forecast was for a sunny afternoon, but we think not (and it wasn’t).
John started his day by starting bread. Then he took the dogs for their morning exercise and came back to work inside. He made us a nice brunch of blueberry pancakes with strawberries (frozen from CA in April), bacon, and eggs from outdoor around the yard chickens from our former secretary, Marilyn. You can see the results below; notice the beautiful rich gold color of the yokes.

I first checked email, and found a few that needed immediate attention. The most important was a flyer I had picked up last night at the party for a final poster presentation I’m invited to on Monday. The date on the flyer was set using a Nov calendar and not December, so I alerted the Prof. and started the process to pick up the wrongly dated flyers from mailboxes. I was happy to be in the right place at the right time last night, and once home, reading the flyer to put the date on my calendar (when I realized the error). I knew we were told it was Monday, when I have an appointment at 11:45 so I will only get to view the first 4 projects. It continues until noon.

Finally, while John was fixing lunch, I managed to take off my data from the CPAP machine and create my graphs. I must upload it first to SleepyHead (SH) before I upload the oximetry data. Then I go back to SH to import the oximetry and synchronize it with the CPAP data for the night before. I then capture a few more graphs. At some point before my sleep doctor’s appointment, Dec 16, I plan to write a summary of the investigation I have been doing since Nov 24. In order to give the doctor time to review it before I arrive for my appt (assuming he will), I need to mail it down, probably the 10th. It should get there the 11th, and the next day (Friday), they only work until noon. I will check next week to see what days he is in the office and plan accordingly. John is afraid if I do not get it to him in advance, it might not be effective to try to do it in the office visit on the 16th, without his previously viewing it. This morning, I just found another bit of information on the SleepyHead details, so I will have to check into what I can use from there.
The bread is almost ready to come from the oven. What an awesome aroma! John claims he knows how to make better looking loaves – more time and more work. He also claims it doesn’t taste any better. (The large one is 26 ounces.)

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

The double meaning is probably triple or quadruple. CPAP machines have “events” measured (apnea, hypopnea, 7 others. Oximetry has only 2 events (pulse and oxygen saturation percent). Add the other events that happened this week and the subject line makes sense (at least to me).

Saturday, Nov 22

CPAP report. Reported figures: 7 hrs 35 min with AHI = 0.00.
The oximeter arrived, and I have removed it from the packaging, stuck it on my finger, and recorded my O2 and pulse. Now I need to read the instruction pamphlet to learn how to download the data and maybe run it tonight as I sleep. (No chance for tonight).
I spent awhile unpacking it and trying to read the small printed instructions but looked on line for some too. These are written in a font that’s too small to concentrate on until tomorrow after a good night’s sleep and more energy.

Sunday, Nov 23

CPAP report. Reported figures: x hrs xx min with AHI = x.xx.
I forgot to transfer my SD card from my computer back to the CPAP machine — so I wore the mask all night and don’t have any record of it. Sadly, I did not have my oximeter hooked up yet to record my O2 (without the CPAP recording properly; at least I would have had something). I waited until today and was able locate a more legible set of instructions in an on-line User Manual, which I downloaded and printed this morning. The small folded user manual that came with the unit from China, is a challenge to read. This better manual also has some typos in it and strange wording, as if it was written by someone for whom English is a Second Language. Yet, it has some very good information (much exactly the same as the minuscule version), but it has a large font I can read (and the diagrams are realistically in color that match the unit). I also found another on line write-up for the unit by the President of the CPAP-Supply place in Spokane (that several of my friends use for supplies). The write-up has some humor in it, which never hurts, when describing technical things. I have to share one, which is very meaningful to me, but probably won’t be to the rest of you:

Recording and Uploading Data Using the CMS 50E Pulse Oximeter
To record data, press the button until the settings menu appears. Then click the button until Record is highlighted. Press the button with Record highlighted, then set the current time by clicking to the appropriate hours/minutes field and pressing the button to adjust that field. Then click the button to underline the Y and press the button to exit the time setting menu. It’s much easier to do it than to write how to do it, so just figure it out on your own if this all sounds like nonsense.

Now that I have figured it out (by trial and error), I might be able to write the instructions better than he did, yet I do like his last sentence (above). This whole experience has been an example of learn by doing because thorough user manuals do not exist for the CPAP software I use (SleepyHead), but I have a computer guru friend in Moscow, ID who also has the same machine as I and who introduced me to the software to display the daily graphic evaluations. He has been able to convey to me what he learned by doing, and now I’m conveying my experiences with getting the oximeter to talk to the CPAP software (because the CPAP does NOT measure and report the blood saturation oxygen percentage or the pulse). Much of my day was spent messing with this new oximeter.
Change of subject (another event). A sub-plot to one of WA’s wildfires; north of us about 70 miles. The July, 2014 fire was the largest wildfire in the history of our state.

This is a shaggy bear story – a young female that survived the Carlton Complex Fire. They called her Cinder. She had burned paws such that she was walking on her elbows but made it to the backyard of a house and crawled under a horse trailer. About Cinder. In this morning’s email, came this report came from my friend Sonja on Cinder’s re-homing. Sonja is married to Kevin Willitts the main veterinarian for Cinder’s care since arriving in S. Lake Tahoe this summer.

Hi All,
    Good news for Cinder the bear! She’s heading for southern ID today to a new rehab center. The new center has an outdoor area where she can roam to help re-acclimate her feet (toughen them up) to dirt, etc. She was on concrete and wood here in Tahoe. Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care center doesn’t have any outdoor bear-secure areas.
    Next spring the plan is to then release her back into the wild. I’m not privy to where or when or if it’s even known at this time. I’m told this rehab center is very good in its own right and since the critical portion of Cinder’s  healing is complete, they are qualified to continue, since, essentially, she won’t be under a doctor’s care anymore. What needs to be done now is up to Cinder.
So wish her well!
Sonja

Whoopee — the sun just came out and the rain stopped. That will give John more time to work on the racks for our newer (Ford) truck. He worked and then the clouds came in for quite a contrast with the blue sky. He made a fast descent from the bed of the pickup working on the racks and went down to the far end of the pasture to feed the horses. He took Annie along but they didn’t get back before the rain started. It rained quite hard for awhile

The first photo below is the earlier work on the rack building project. The idea is to have easily removable panels that will carry a cord of firewood. The panels are being made with reconfigured pallets we bought from the CWU Surplus Department.

This one is of “angry clouds” contrasting with blue skies.

Monday, Nov 24

CPAP report. Reported figures: 8 hrs 37 min with AHI = 0.00.

I finished music, Over the River and Through the Woods, and sent to the group, along with We Gather Together. I sent as .pdfs and then Wednesday at our “event” Evelyn found two chord problems to change. I have since fixed and will resend to the others before next Thursday.
I charged the Oximeter’s battery last night, read the instructions for settings several times (13 pages), but have not yet attempted that chore.
I finally figured out Oximeter settings and loaded the software, SP-02 General, onto my computer to display my oximeter through graphs, daily. Now to record tonight with the CPAP on.

I just went outside to document John’s work on the pallet-racks. He’s making progress.
This LINK is to a YouTube video of John disassembling the rack.

Tuesday, Nov 25

CPAP report. Reported figures: 8 hrs 1 min with AHI = 0.00.

Managed to sleep on the CPAP with the Oximeter also recording. Have been checking details to try to upload the data from the device. Once I get it into SP02 I should be able to import into my SleepyHead CPAP analysis software.
First try did not work the way it was supposed to. Technical discussion — skip if you wish. This is for my records. I loaded the drivers for SPO2 and am proceeding to create the stats in a file,
Nancy Brannen Hultquist_201411251328 on SPO2 Review. I thought that would be saved in the data folder, under the software, but it was not. The folder is there, but empty. I can only view it through the software and print out a report. Data are accessible through the program but not to be imported into another.
If I cannot import it to SleepyHead I will not be able to synchronize it with my CPAP machine data. Again, rename the acronym, CRAP.
Okay — next chapter. I decided to link the oximeter with the USB cord and to use SleepyHead software to import directly the data.

John planned to move some wood to a friend’s house 1.5 mi away, but it has been raining all morning and still is at 1:00 PM so he will likely skip today. Yesterday would have been the day to do the work, however, then John wouldn’t have been able to finish the racks. This morning, in the rain, I captured a picture of the racks where he put them to drill holes in the corners (for pins).

Wednesday, Nov 26

CPAP report. Reported figures: 7 hrs 56 min with AHI =0.13.
one Hypopnea about 12:30 a.m.
The fog was extremely bad and had been for many hours in the valley, and we had a lot less with sun! Visibility at the airport (5 miles S) was 0.25 miles.
John left to deliver firewood in the old hardly-fit-for-the-road 1980 Chevy truck. As I left for the Food Bank and Hearthstone, I found the battery dead in my Subaru. I transferred all my stuff from my car to John’s Subaru, and in the process missed the stuff in the front seat (my pocketbook and a package I intended to deliver to a friend at the courthouse).
On my way in, I realized John’s car’s dash was showing a bright orange warning light in the lower right I had not before seen.

I called Subaru because John has the user manual in the house. The gal in service we know there said it was a tire pressure warning. I didn’t see any obvious lowness and had no gauge, so once done at the Food Bank, I drove it to Les Schwab and was quickly on my way with fully inflated tires. Must have been a temperature and time thing – all 4 were low.
Food bank for music .. excellent food today: steamed/roasted chicken pulled off bone, great gravy, baked potato with fixings, salad strawberries/walnuts/greens, butternut squash cooked as I like it, lemon Bundt with sauce of fresh pineapple and cooked apples.
Then on to Hearthstone, a day early because of Thanksgiving being on our normal Thursday play date. We had community guests in attendance besides a large group of residents: Gloria & Paul Swanson; Anne and Glenn Engels (gave them a box of apples), George Macinko, Gerald brought macadamia cookies & cat food for me. It was a great music day. Our sometimes trumpeter returned to sing with us.

FIGURED OUT MY SLEEPY HEAD IMPORT OF OXIMETER !!!!

Thursday, Nov 27 HAPPY THANKSGIVING

CPAP report. Reported figures: 5 hrs 28 min with AHI =0.00.

I had problems entering my data from last night after thinking I had solved the problem. Will work on it later.
We received 3 phone calls from friends around the PNW. John got in on one from friends in Eureka, CA. Missed the others from WA.
I succeeded in viewing the Oximetry data from the SPO2 software. The first five hours was with the CPAP and my finger pulse oximeter came off (where the flat line is), around 5:00. I awoke at 5:28 and realized it was off, so I replaced it, went down the hall to potty, and went back to bed OFF the CPAP, for 2 hours.

I guess the beauty of this graph is that it shows the CPAP is keeping my O2 saturation level above 90% (green line), the whole purpose of using the machine. I had no sleep apnea events during this period. Also, I now realize the scale of time at the bottom. This starts at midnight and the numbers to the right of +1 reflect the hour. You can see where the 5:28 time occurred on changing from the CPAP machine, and the short moment’s lowering to 85% for the low of the oxygen saturation level for the night.

Here is some interesting genealogy prompted by an email from our friend, Gene Bobeck, in Moscow, ID. Gene found a reference in one of his retirement holdings to a well-off business man and wondered if we were related. Below is John’s response that I am sure many of our friends and relatives will appreciate.

About G. L. Hultquist
The Swedes and others of north-European heritage had the peculiar custom of changing the last name of children to reflect the first name of the fathers. Also, depending on the group the ending could be -son, -sen, -sson, -zen, -zon/zoon, and -ssen. Using modern country designations, in Norway a name might be Johnsen, while in Sweden it would be Johnson. The ‘John’ is not common but Johansson, Jonsson and Jönsson all are.
This apparently worked well in small communities and when lives were nasty, brutish, and short.
Still if a man had several male children and they lived long and had male children then the community would have lots of folks with the same last name.
The female children were ‘daughters’ in some places and ‘datters’ in others.
Beginning a couple hundred years ago this naming convention (patronymic practice) became stressed as national organizations took folks out of their local community and agglomerated them in places not their home and not where they were known. A large group (say an army barracks or navy ship) might have a dozen or so Anderssons and another dozen Johansson, and none closely related to any of the others. It became somewhat common to sign people up in such groups with a newly selected name, no two having the same last name.
In 1901 in Sweden, the Names Adoption Act was passed, which abolished the patronymic practice. From 1901, everyone had to have a family name that was passed down to the next generation.
My relatives came to America before that time. I was told that in order for members of one family to keep track of their kin was to agree on a new last name and keep it. One of the name-selecting strategies was to pick a prefix that would mean something to them and then tack on the ‘quist’ part. This last indicating something like a twig or branches of a tree. In the case of ‘Hultquist’ (Holt– and Holz– have the same meaning) the reference is to a small grove of trees or a woods (Anglo-Saxon ‘wold’). References are often more specific, such as with ‘lind’ – from the Linden tree, so there are Lindquists, Lindstroms [ström (Swedish), -strøm (Danish, Norwegian) “stream”], and more. Streams have tributaries in the same geometric fashion as trees.
Now to the point. There are many but limited choices folks could make in the naming of their kin. Many families still ended up with names that do not distinguish them from others. The last name Johnson (having pitched the Swedish spellings) is one such.
Hultquists are few. In my family’s case several males came to western NY & Penna and had the name. Some returned to Sweden without leaving a trace in the USA. Others had only female offspring. Only my grandfather had male children that also had male children and on it goes – like the branches of a tree. This shortness of our tree means that we know everyone that we are closely related to – in contrast to the idea that we are related to all Swedes.
I have only ever talked with one other Hultquist and made contact with another – oddly a geographer type in Calif. The other fellow lived on the Gulf Coast and was displaced by Hurricane Katrina (2005) to a relative’s house. She had a computer and an internet connection. He searched. Found my name. And called. We chatted for 20 minutes and determined that we were not closely related. End of Story.
About that same time ( + or – a year), my sister found a brochure for a foundation.
Hultquist Foundation of Jamestown continues support for MSFO

http://www.lutheran-jamestown.org/assisted-living

They also support animal shelters and so on. Not a real big foundation but several million dollars big.

Seems someone went to Minnesota and made some money (forestry, I recall) and some kids and one of those went to Jamestown, NY and became middling wealthy. That is the part of NY State where my grandfather and siblings first went. Grandfather went south into PA and had a small rocky hillside to (not) make a living on. Thus, those that know of the Warren County – PA Hultquists and also know of the Jamestown, NY Hultquists can be excused for thinking we might be closely related. We are not. Some years ago I noticed an article about an ice skater from FL with my name.
The G. L. Hultquist that is helping to support your lifestyle in retirement is no kin to me.

Cheers,
John

This was Gene’s inquiry:
G.L. Hultquist is a member of the board of trustees of Kinder-Morgan Energy Partners, a master limited partnership, in the oil and gas transportation business.  The company is in the midst of a merger.  I own a few shares of the company, was reviewing a Standard & Poor’s report of the firm and noticed a familiar name.  Since there are but a dozen or so Hulta-kuh-vists in the world, surely G.L. is a close relation.

Dijoo know you (John) had a rich relative?  Cultivate him.

Lemme know how it works out. Gene
PS:  Having wild turkey for T-Day, the bird kind, not the booze?

Friday, Nov 28

CPAP report. Reported figures: 6 hrs 32 min with AHI = 0.15.

Morning brought memories from Alabama of a discussion John and I had last week and left out of this blog on Jack Frost at work. Now, we shall add it. Below is a“frost flower” growing out of the frostweed plant (White Crownbeard) in Alabama photography early (1:00 a.m.) this morning, followed by our story, and a wonderful link to a time-lapse video made by Dr. Roy Spencer.

Here is his video of Frost Growing near Huntsville. Here is an image from the web of frost on a window.

John writes:
Earlier this week a person wrote a comment on a web site, thusly

“piffle! Ah bet ya’ll neva scratched yo name in da frost on the INSIDE of yo bedroom winda!!! An dats a fact Jack!”

I (John) responded: “Of course I have. If you put this string ‘jack_frost window’ into a search engine, say Bing, using the images tab – it will bring back memories.”
Here is an example (follow the link to others)
http://www.scottshephard.com/2013/12/30/12-30-13-jack-frost/
[The photographer mentions that modern house windows no longer provide such entertainment.]
When I was young, our house was already about 40 years old and had a chute from the outside into a small dugout basement for the storage of coal. A coal stove provided the heat. Later on that stove was replaced by a natural gas stove. It was at the center of the house in a corner of the living room. The stove had the footprint of a modern refrigerator but was only about 4 feet high. It had a 2-quart water can on the back to help add humidity and windows on the lower front so the flames could be seen. The windows of such heaters are made from mica – called isinglass.
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-isinglass.htm

On winter days, the bedrooms were cold and the windows became canvasses for Jack Frost. Scrapping ice was something to do. Or, putting a hand flat on the window would melt the ice and leave a print. With warmer temperature, the ice would all melt and water would collect on the lower frame and sill of the window. This process degraded the painted wood and so, occasionally, we would remove the old paint and add new.
Some folks, even then, missed out on Jack Frost visits, and few now ever experience it. Pity!

(Nancy, here). I was raised in a 5-room house built in the 1920s in Atlanta, GA. My bedroom was at the opposite diagonal from the living room where we had our only heat source. I recall carrying my clothes to the living room, putting them on top of the unit (that sat in front of our fireplace), and warming them as I put them on and took off my pjs. I remember all those things about ice on the windows and the moisture causing the wooden window stills to get messy. My room was on the corner of the house and had two sets of windows on each side of the room and I got to view many versions of Jack Frost’s handiwork.

Next is a MAJOR late week event.
Devastating news this morning about the 100% fire loss of the F.I.S.H. Food Bank to which I have been going weekly to make music. F.I.S.H. is for “Friends In Service to Humanity.” The first picture was taken around 8:00 a.m. when the fire personnel made it to the site.

The second photo was taken by a bystander at 9:00 a.m. People all over Ellensburg could hear the sirens and see the smoke.

Very sad because of all the good they provide the community–just yesterday providing a Thanksgiving dinner at 4:00. Throughout the year they provide perishable and non-perishable food stuffs (fresh, frozen, canned, boxed) and supplies (such things as Depends) and meals to anyone in need. I was just there Wednesday this week “serving” music. It’s hard to believe the destruction, yet John and I witnessed it from across the street after all the excitement was over. I do believe the community will help in the recovery efforts to be in another facility feeding meals and distributing food Monday. Plans are currently in the works from a 3:00 meeting of the FISH board on Friday.
John and I went to town for a 50% off coupon at Ace Hardware and bought a snow shovel of black heavy steel for $12.50 On over to Ranch & Home where we got 50% off horse meal for our oldest horse, Ebony. We looked at Carhartt jeans and other clothes but decided they were overpriced and we have enough clothes anyway. One could only use the discount on one item.
On the way home, we drove by and walked a block+ to see the activity of the burning building, take photos, and while there, it started raining.
Here are a few of our views, followed by one from the web of the warehouse on the bottom floor that was destroyed.

We have confirmed with grandmother-in-law Karen in Issaquah that Sarah, now one of EBRG’s fire department EMTs, is on ladder duty in this photo.

The fire crew had to cut into the side and roof to get to the fire on the second floor. Note the chainsaw near the front wheel of that firetruck.

Finally, the old photo from the web of the now gone warehouse on the first floor of the north side of the building, under where the ladder above is headed.

Now sun is shining. We are home, and I ended up eating breakfast for lunch. I skipped out without my morning toast. Was busy working on the oximeter stuff and the SH software to display the results between both machines.

I continued with the perplexing hidden file(s) in the SPO2 data folder (that’s where it is, but SPO2 will not let SleepyHead (SH) access it).–UPDATE another success.. I managed to make SH find it (so I only have to upload my Oximetry data once!).

Saturday, Nov 29

CPAP report. Reported figures: 5 hrs 3 min with AHI =0.40.

SNOW on the west side — link below to Seattle. North Bend had 3″, Sequim had 3″ (very unusual as it is in the rainshadow of the Olympics) — but the snow is coming from the north.
Puget Sound area gets snow.
The weather system that brought the snow to the Seattle area is going to bring cold to us tonight, possibly 9° F. Ouch!

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John