Author: admin

Saturday, Mar 3.  Late tonight we had a call from John’s sister Peggy that Kathy had been moved to a nursing home, and had a stomach feeding tube inserted.  Hearing stories of the move, and all associated problems, brought back bad memories to John and me of my move in January, 2010.  Thankfully, I survived and I hope so will Kathy.  I wrote her a nice note today and it will get in the mail tomorrow, reminding her to keep her faith and that she will get back on the road, gain use of her muscles, and get out of bed.  It’s hard to believe right now, but I saw several people who had had strokes who managed to get back on their feet (from being paralyzed), and walk on a walker.  One gentleman was 87, so that was a good thought to tell her.  He is still doing all right, and living at home with his wife, who was my roommate for half the time I was there.  She was my inspiration; she kept telling me she was exactly where I was a few weeks ago (unable to walk, get in and out of bed, and potty on her own).  She was right, and I still tell her she was my savior telling me I could get back to normal again.  The sad thing is that she has had to return to relying on a walker because her Parkinson’s flared up after I was with her.

Sunday, Mar 4.  We departed the last blog comment with one that Saturday was overcast and we found it hard to believe this day would be sunny.  Well, it was and a beautiful day.  Mid-afternoon we took a trip in the ’89 Ford truck over 1.5 miles and up a mile to check out some new development that John had seen on his last trip to run the truck.  We need to keep it going because when it sits it is not good for it.  It sits a lot in the winter because it is 2WD and normally used to pull our horse trailer, which we don’t do in the winter.  Last Sunday John went by himself because I was too sick to move.  Today, however, I was able to climb up on the running board and get into the truck.  After seeing that, we went over and back East, once up on the hill, I used my cell phone to call my friend Morris over in Othello.  He is doing better.  I kept talking to him and we got back to our road, but John decided to turn left and go north on Naneum.  We saw two people on horses at Allen Aronica’s place, and so we stopped and drove up to his back porch, where he was cooking chicken on a propane grill.  I handed the phone to him to say hello to Morris.  Morris has known him (he’s a Yakama Indian) for years and visited with his mom, Ida Nason, doing cultural history type interviews, 25 and more years ago.  They live(d) about a mile north of our house.  He is also the one who helped us bury two departed horses.

While cleaning up today I came across the little yellow tablet of notes I took while interred in the nursing home.  Some things I had forgotten, but my detailed notes (not always legible) brought back good and mostly bad memories and gave me a laugh or two.  All my comments about the food was hilarious.  I remembered it was awful, but I have exactly the details in my log.  Cannot believe how many sausage patties, tough and gristle filled, and how many times I returned them and refused to eat.  I requested they not bring them, but I don’t think they did until the last week I was there.  I’m surely glad I survived the ordeal.  The good part was the physical therapy that got me back on my feet.  Both my favorites have left there and gone on to better (I hope) jobs.  The head guy PT had worked there for 14 years.  Tells you something about the administration, perhaps.  Now they just hired a new director, Mar 1.  Might have been the cause of my nightmares–finding and reading those notes.

Monday, Mar 5.  This morning John’s up early to do the animal chores and then leaving at 7:30 a.m. to prune grape vines at White Heron winery at Trinidad, on the Columbia River.  They only put in 3 hours/day so as to allow everyone to do the other things they need to.  And then there is that repetitive hand motion of pruning – 3 hours is plenty.  He returned about 2:00 p.m.  Here’s how it is done now: (except John uses gloves)

http://www.featurepics.com/FI/Thumb300/20070105/Grapevine-Pruning-182128.jpg

And here is the future:

http://www.technovelgy.com/graphics/content09/pruning-robot.jpg

I did not go to town today.  Only had one event (exercise) and decided not to go.  Spent much of my day working on plans for going to my mom’s family’s family reunion in Guyton, GA the end of June.  What is totally cool is that my cousin Susan and her husband John will donate their air miles to me for the trip from Yakima to Savannah.  That will save much time and beau coups of money, would have been almost $900 to pay for it myself.  The cheapest way for me to go was via Atlanta, (still almost $500), but then I would have to find someone there to pick me up and deliver me back to the Airport, and worse, I would have to rent a car and drive the distance to Guyton, GA (30 miles north of Savannah) down and back.  My stamina is really not up to that much, I don’t believe.  Part of the problem with flights is the rural locations near smaller sized cities on both ends that require either hours of driving or extra links from tiny airports.

Tuesday, Mar 6.  What a full day; my first out of the house to town, in over two weeks (except for one day a week ago).  I really enjoyed it, but was totally worn out.  I’m writing this at 8:30 p.m. and ready to hit the hay.  The day began, wishing John well as he left at 7:30 for pruning.  Then morning chores were on the computer and in the den and kitchen.  Finally got cleaned up and off to town without much to eat, at 1:44.  Saw and stopped and talked to John at the end of the driveway as he was returning.  Went on to the hospital for a blood draw and from there on to the Sr. Center for foot care.  Not bad for a 1/2 hour of attention for $10.

From there, on to Hospice to do all the paperwork and sign out a 4-wheel walker with a study seat for my 86 yr old neighbor, who broke her hip in 5 places over a month ago.  She is doing really well on her physical therapy.  I picked out a light but sturdy one, put it in my trunk, and went on to her room in the nursing home.  She was so happy to see it and me, and she got up and used it to walk down a short hall, on the north side of the building and then the entire length on the west side of the building.  That was a long haul and I was tiring, but she never stopped for a rest.  We spoke to the physical therapist and he measured it and it is perfect for her height (5’3″).  I had looked through 8 different ones, and decided it was the best fit.  Turns out I was right.  I’m so happy.  Then when she sat down (in PT), she realized how far down it was, and so to get back up was difficult, but she managed.  I went back down the long and short hall with her, and then walked out to my car to retrieve my favorite pillow I used with my walker way back in 2010.  I took it back in, and she was thrilled.  I know this will be perfect for her.  Just having the extra height above the seat will allow her to get up easier.  It did for me, so I remembered well and was happy to assist.  I received more yesterday and today on the Master’s thesis I’m reviewing.  I found some time to put on the new section on statistics (she did in response to my comments).  She visited with another prof who is much more up-to-date than I am, and he was most helpful.

Wednesday, Mar 7.   Up very early, both of us.  John had taken care of the neighbors animals before 7:00 a.m. and came home to do ours.  I was sitting by the back patio door and looked out to see a ring neck rooster pheasant walking along the backyard fence.  He was a dark colored (but with the red head).  That is the first time I have seen him, but John has seen him in the ditches out by the road.  We have lots of quail, but seldom see a pheasant.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3537/3428347702_4094815106_z.jpg

For me, today starts at 11:30 on my way to the Soup Kitchen for playing music (and they feed us a nice lunch at the end).  Today was something called Goulash, but not my idea of that.  It was a nice mixture of meat, noodles, tomatoes, and beans.  With it we had garlic bread, and a nice green salad.  There was dessert, but I didn’t have any.   One was a blueberry yogurt type thing, but I decided to skip it with my milk protein “allergy.”   My voice has returned since I started leaving off chocolate milk, milk, cheese, and ice cream.  Interesting that my complaint to two medical doctors (family physician and my cardiologist) had no solution.  It took my acupuncturist / massage therapist to realize it.  I’m very grateful, and so is my music group.  Don’t know that my dogs appreciate my voice projection being back, however.  After that I went to my exercise class at the AAC, and it had been 2 weeks plus a day,  since I had participated.  They greeted me with hugs and happiness to have me back.  Very cool.  From there I went to the grocery store, and because I was pretty weak from doing so much so soon (I was careful and didn’t push it for exercise); but I still decided to get one of the little power carts at the grocery store.  Picked up a few things, particularly milk we needed to make the cherry/ blueberry/ walnut cobbler for dessert to take tomorrow to the music group potluck.  Then off to my massage therapist.  I had a nice one today, plus he gave me on his time at the end of my hour session another 15 minutes of “healing touch” which he had a class in this past weekend.  I was impressed and appreciated him working on me with it.  It’s rather fascinating and the hands never touch the body.  Apparently, it is slowly being accepted in some hospitals as an alternative to calm down and relax patients who are anxious for whatever reason.  It’s been 3 weeks since I was in there.  John and I made the cobbler and it is beautiful.

Thursday, Mar 8.   I continued working on computer correspondence and preparing my music for the order that we will play today, tonight, and Saturday night.  Had to take a couple of calls about issues for others and for me.  Finally I got ready and went the 2 miles around the block to my neighbor, who cut my hair.  It was getting really long and straggly.  Came back home and got a bite of tuna fish salad on multi-grain crackers.  Took off again for town to play music at the Rehab where I spent so much time in Jan/Feb 2010.  We had a smaller number of people than usual, but we were fine and practiced our music for playing in Yakima Saturday night.  There was one person there who won’t be there Saturday, but will be at our potluck tonight, along with two others who will be at the Yakima shindig.  To share with folks who have a slow connection and don’t like large emails, I took along CDs of some pictures John took at the Spirit of the West.  Another needed a printed map with directions on how to get to the place Saturday night in Yakima.  John made the map using internet sources with Google Earth “street view” captured images.  No one should get lost.  My Subaru made funny sounds on the way in to town tonight but nothing seemed wrong and it managed to get me home.  Tonight at the potluck was the following food:  Chicken Ratatouille, apples & cranberries, scalloped potatoes, apple muffins, green salad with blueberries!, chips and homemade salsa/bean dip, we took a jar of pears (canned by our neighbor), and the cherry, walnut (both ours) blueberry (from our valley) cobbler.  We bought some banana split ice cream to put on top, and we warmed the cobbler in their oven.  It was the only dessert and very well liked.  People couldn’t stop talking about it and eating it.  John left without dessert to get to our Kittitas Valley Trail Riders meeting.  There was a piece of cobbler left to bring home to him.  I stayed  and we had a jam session after a nice table discussion after dinner.

Friday, Mar  9.  I was awake enough to know John was leaving at 7:30 but I went back to sleep for a couple of hours ! I guess I wore myself out the past three days.  So, didn’t go in for my class today.  Frankly, I didn’t wish to drive the car when John was so far away, yet I will have to on Monday.  Still don’t know why it was acting up last night.  I transposed “This Land Is Your Land” for our clarinet player, and sorted and filed and 3-hole punched all the EOB (Explanation of Benefits) for all medical payments in 2010.  Now I have to sort the checks I paid for each one.  There are some discrepancies I need to check up on.  John’s home, had a nap, and we need to put together another cobbler for our neighbor’s birthday and welcome back from the nursing home party.  I will deliver it tomorrow morning when I go over to change dressings on her son’s foot.

Saturday will be a busy and late day, so tomorrow’s events will lead next week’s report. Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

still on the Naneum Fan

 

Sunday, Feb 26.   Neither John nor I slept well so rolling out in the morning was delayed until the sun was shining.  But then we had a strange-weather day.  Started out nice and sunny and then everything went gray.  A snow squall turned everything white and now, mid-afternoon, it is brightly sunning again and dripping.  We managed to keep the morning going with a late breakfast and to return to computer things.  He also took a trip with the ’89 truck to give it a run to keep all things lubed, tuned, and moving.  A trip around the long block and up a dead-end side road revealed a lot of new buildings, houses, and a bird hunting facility.  The last one is a relocation of a place we sold a Brittany to many years ago.  The son of the original owner now lives in the Clarkston area with his wife and they got one of Annie’s puppies of 2 years ago.

Monday, Feb 27  Still unable to continue with activities in town.  Also canceled tomorrow’s.  However, I’ve gone through all my remedies and currently am sipping hot tea, with three slices of lemon, and some honey added.  Perhaps chicken soup is next; nope not till dinner with meatloaf.  Instead, for lunch I had tuna with low salt potato chips and a piece of Valentine Day chocolate candy infused with crisped rice.  I did walk to the end of the driveway, pick up the mail, and walk back.  That’s the most I have done in over a week.  I hope I’m getting better; I think a little.

Also my friend from grammar school days at Garden Hills, Ross Palmes, wrote an email today from back east and sent me a link I had seen before but not in awhile.  It is called the Time Machine and has pictures taken at different times around Atlanta, of buildings, street intersections, and such things.  It is quite fascinating.  Here’s the link: http://www.atlantatimemachine.com/

At least my high school and grammar school buddies will enjoy following that.  There are many pictures of our neighborhood (near Buckhead), and the old Buckhead Movie theatre where we spent many matinees and also went with our parents in the evening or weekends.  I remember the fantastic news reels, just as if it were yesterday.  For young folks reading this, that’s the way news was distributed.  http://movietonews.com/the_fox_movietone_newsreel.html

John thinks he remembers evening movies costing 65¢ and the Saturday afternoon showing was 25¢.  You got news and a movie.  The site suggested above is supposed to have a sample titled “Featured Newsreel of the Week” that on this Saturday lists ‘Blackstone Saws a Woman in Half’ – This isn’t opening (on Google Chrome), so, sadly, we don’t know if she got split head-to-feet or across.

I managed to put in L’il Liza Jane for our music group and transposed it for Ellen’s B-flat clarinet.  That song was written in the 1910s, but it has been picked up by bluegrass, folk, and rock n’ roll stars since.

Tuesday, Feb 28.   I’m worn out from my trip today; not much of a trip, but I’m out of shape already, and still a little weak from the sickness.  We went to town for a blood draw and on to grab some food which we ate in the car on the way to Yakima to Costco.  It was an all-right trip.  We needed big sized items:  dog food, cat food, toilet paper (that comes in 36 roll packages).  One of Costco’s strategies is to find some strange and useful (or delicious) item that isn’t normally stocked, so, one has to walk around and look to see if such a thing is there.  We didn’t find anything this time, and usually only take the same route and buy the same things.  Boring.  Well, Nancy gets a little electric cart to putt around in, and this time got the one that stalls.  John thinks a wire or connection overheats and then it stops.  Turned off for a few seconds and then given a push start, it goes another 2 or 3 aisles.  After a few of those, we made it to the end of the check-out line where it died.  A couple of staff-types tried to explain how to turn it off and then restart it a few seconds later.  She let them try, telling them she’d done it 4 times around the store.  They then pushed it back to the front door.

Wednesday, Feb 29  Leap day didn’t leap, it sort of slumped.  Nothing done today except computer stuff.  I cancelled out my events for today again.  And, I paid some bills and actually got out and walked to the mailbox again.  John has come down with my cold, but thankfully it has stayed out of his chest.  I expect him to recover faster than I have.  Still, the day got worse.  Peggy, John’s sister, reported that her friend for 50 years, Kathy, had a stroke Monday afternoon.  She is paralyzed on her left side, but her mind, brain, and communication are intact.

Thursday, Mar 1   Nothing accomplished today.  Woke up feeling lousy still.  Canceled going to play music.  Eight people showed up and pulled it off fine, without me.

Friday, Mar 2  Today was another morning I awoke early with a coughing and congestion problem, but as the morning went on, I got better.  I still stayed away from town and the AAC potluck (where they had corned beef cabbage–I cannot eat because of the salt, but my friends took chicken salad, which I could have had).  Origin of the term “corned”:

http://www.kitchenproject.com/history/CornedBeef.htm

Not going in for that meant I also did not go for afternoon exercise.  Had a call from a sweet lady in the class who has been out with pancreas problems for several months.  She is better enough now to start back in the exercise class.  She is actually my neighbor a mile around the block.  I should be fine by Monday and ready to restart living my life.  Nothing planned this weekend.  After a light lunch, I tackled the table in the middle of the room and counter next to me, with a vacuum cleaner to clean off dust that ends up on everything because of the dogs running in and out of the house with muddy feet.  I worked for a couple hours plus, and would sit down every so often to file receipts for the first 3 months of 2012.  Also came across some other things to sort and find a place for or discard.  We have a tendency to come in with stuff, and pile it up, leaving it for another day.

The other thing I had to honcho was the schedule for our music group.  We were going to have a potluck at one member’s place on Friday, 3/9/12, but she realized she had a conflict, so wants to change it to Thurs.  Now I am trying to gather comments by email (so I won’t have to get on the phone to everyone), to see if we want to have it Thursday night, or if we will just cancel this one.  In the afternoon I walked with John and the dogs up to the mailbox and picked up the mail.  Then I called our neighbor’s cell phone because she has been gone all week and her mail was piling up.  I found her in New York City for a conference that goes through Sunday.  Wow.  She told me she forgot to stop her mail.  John claims that by going to NYC she has raised the average IQ of both places.  Ouch!  (Nancy here; that’s not nice!).

Later this afternoon I went along in the truck while John did all the chores for the neighbors’ horses and bulls.  This involved a trip up the road 1/4 mile to feed two horses out in a pasture.  John had to climb over a gate (precariously perched on two weak and falling fence posts) – backing the truck so its bumper touches the gate rails makes a sturdy combo) and carry hay out to the horses.  These are friendlier than the others, but one had a big cocklebur between her eyes.  I thought John was just petting her, until he got back to the truck and told me.  Then we drove down the road to the bigger farm across the street.  There are 2 stallions in a corral and a bull in a corral to feed.  John had already carried water to the bull this morning.  John fed them their nightly rations.   He got out to open another gate to drive to the pasture with the 6 horses.  Before that he had to close the gate behind us so the cows wouldn’t leave.  John got out to open another gate to drive into the pasture.  Until today the horses got out of the way and did not bolt through the gate, but today two escaped through the open gate.  He drove on up and threw out a few flakes of hay, and then had to go back on foot to shoo the two horses back in the pasture.  Luckily they came, wanting fed.  John  drove on up to the end of the pasture and spread hay (from the back of the truck) to the six horses, spaced out so they wouldn’t fight over it and have some of the lower ones on the pecking order, go hungry.  While he was driving the truck around and stopping (plus when he went back for the two), a couple of horses were coming over and eating out of the back of the pickup.  Finally he got them all taken care of, and we drove back through the gate, which he had to get out and close, and then across the creek and around the back of their hay barn, where he could load more hay in our pickup.  Because of the rain and snow, he backs it into our 3-sided shed, where I normally park my Subaru.  That way it stays nice and dry for the morning and evening hay runs.  So he had to dodge cows, and open the gate to the barn, back in, and load some bales of hay for the horses, and one (fine grass, no oats) for the bull.  After that, he had to close that heavy gate and open another so we could pull back onto the road for home.  That whole process took almost an hour.  Then home to feed our horses and the outside cats.

Supper was to be cold chicken and canned “pork & beans” – and this means: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration stated in 1996 that “It has for years been recognized by consumers generally that the designation ‘beans with pork,’ or ‘pork and beans’ is the common or usual name for an article of commerce that contains very little pork.” To spruce up the meal we added corn bread made with creamed corn (no milk).  And about that “Sprucin’ Up,” see here:

http://www.word-detective.com/2008/03/24/spruce-up/

. . . and note therein the reference to “shorts” (under the name “Our Gang”) and released to movie theaters between 1922 and 1944.

I finished Friday with a good phone conversation with our broken-hip neighbor still in the nursing home (for a few more days).  It began raining a little during the night and at daybreak Saturday it is wet and gray.  We are to get gusts up to 30 mph so all the wet and blah stuff is to give way to a sunny Sunday.  Right!

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

on the Naneum Fan

 

Saturday,  Feb 18.  This morning started out snowing heavily, at 7:30 a.m., but has decreased.  John walked over to do the chores for the neighbors, and came back and completed those around our place.  The emails and phones started early.   Because of the weather, our Bluegrass Jam session tomorrow in the upper valley has been cancelled.  Two older members of our Fiddlers and Friends group have cancelled out our performance this afternoon at the Spirit of the West.  I’ll end up being the only singer, so we may have more audience participation or more instrumentals than usual.  John is going along to drop me off and find a parking space, and also will take along his camera.  We went and got there early but found out soon that we didn’t have 15 minutes (that we planned for, but instead, only seven.   We did three short ones (Home on the Range, You Are My Sunshine, and Snow Deer).  Then in the other smaller subset of the group, we did only two songs, including a medley of 3 (Rakes of Mallow, Cotton-eyed Joe, & Skip To My Lou) plus Faded Love.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakes_of_Mallow

Even though we felt it wasn’t our best performance, many people I knew there and some I didn’t said we sounded fine and as if we enjoyed what we were doing.  Normally, we do.  We were just a bit on edge because of differences in our normal program, and also because of the setup on stage with unbalanced microphones.  We are not used to performing that way, at all.  We had 3 fiddlers standing out front and a row behind, sitting, (except for the bass player), two guitars, clarinet and another fiddler.  The bad part was unbalanced microphones.

Happily, John went and got a turkey wrap sandwich that we shared for lunch.  I ate it between the times we were on the stage.  They had lots of food at the grounds, but that was best, and most healthy, no doubt.  John took some pictures of our group performing, but it was difficult to capture all of us.  The front row blocked the 5 on the back row, and in addition the microphones got in the way.

Sunday, Feb 19.  Whoopie.. no trips away from home today.   There are plenty of things to keep us busy, without leaving the house.  I managed to do a lot of computer stuff and John did all the chores.  I cut his hair.  It was much needed. My cold started getting worse.

Monday, Feb 20.  Presidents’ Holiday, so no mail today and no SAIL class.  The  AAC is closed.  Started off with snow and my cold is worse.  Cancelled out things for tomorrow to get well.  John’s done all the chores, and I have been working on the computer and on upcoming event planning.  Always something.  I put some more music into SongWriter, and transposed it for our clarinet player.

Tuesday, Feb 21.  Sadly, I’m still ill.  I was in really bad shape all Sunday and Monday, most recently with coughing till my insides ache.  Last night I had a coughing session after going to bed that alarmed John.  I know he was ready to take me to the hospital and thought he’d have too.  I too was concerned, but finally it stopped.  I’m still sucking on cough suppressants and coughing up phlegm.  Talked to my doctor yesterday and he said I could not take any OTC cold remedies because of the meds I’m on.  I sorta figured that & had not.   I cancelled all events for today and for tomorrow too.  I’m surely glad I am not teaching.  There’s no way I could be in class in this condition.  Yes, we both had our flu shots.

Wednesday, Feb 22  Rained ALL night and then this morning it snowed, then the sun came out and then it snowed again, and now the sun is out and it rained some more.  Variable weather for sure.  Because I’m still sick, I did not do the 11:30 Mardi Gras party at AAC, chili / cornbread feed free or exercise class at 1:30.  John went to town today to get me some saline solution (a kit with a little applicator pot & 50 packets), Vick’s Vaporub, and Benadryl for my symptoms.  Last night I couldn’t breathe so I used an inhaler.  It helped a little.

Thanks to Tuesday Bosch (pharmacist and member of our music group) for making the suggestion of the saline spray and vaporub.  My family physician & nurse also recommended  that to me (the saline solution ), but only gave me the recipe and I didn’t try it because I didn’t know how and didn’t have a dispenser to put up my nostrils.  Just for the record, John found a deal:  He bought the Arm & Hammer Simply Saline plus Neti Pot Kit for $13.78, with a little green FREE announcement taped to the outside of the box.  So we get a complete refund if we go through all the hoops – we have to send in the original receipt and the BAR CODE from the package, and 3 petals each from 3 different colored roses. Just kidding about the roses.  Any flower will do. Okay, that’s not true either.  It has been a blessing to have that treatment added to deal with the bacteria in my system.

Thursday, Feb 23  There was 2:00 p.m. music at Hearthstone but I canceled.  7 people showed up to carry it off well.  I must get rid of this rattle when I exhale.  It’s driving me nuts.  Awoke this morning with gobs of green phlegm.  Emailed my Dr., and his nurse called to say he couldn’t put me on the Z-pack Antibiotic from Oct 2010, because it conflicts with Coumadin and especially Amiodarone. [long link – hope it works]:

http://www.webmd.com/drugs/drug-20602-Zithromax+Z-Pak+Oral.aspx?drugid=20602&drugname=Zithromax+Z-Pak+Oral&dmid=1365&dmtitle=QT%20PROLONGING%20AGENTS/AMIODARONE&intrtype=DRUG&pagenumber=9

I was not on that drug when it was last prescribed for the same condition.  He sent in a prescription instead for Amoxicillin.  Three/day for 10 days.  Nice and that saved John a trip to town today, because we have some of it on hand (from my having to use it before dental work).  John exercised the dogs and fed all sets of horses today 3 places across the road and ours here.  I have been working this afternoon on editing (second time through) a Master’s Thesis for our Resource Management graduate program.  The topic is identifying and prediction of gully erosion on the Yakima Training Center south of Ellensburg, and the major method used is LiDAR and GIS.  LiDAR is a very precise measurement of elevation from a technology that’s been around for awhile, but with new remote sensing technology and laser devices, it has gotten a little more affordable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakima_Training_Center

[enter these coordinates in Google Earth: 46.6672, -120.4606 , then back out far enough to see Ellensburg. Average precipitation is about 7 inches. The green areas are irrigated.  Roads and associated military maneuver disturbances concentrate the flow on this dry landscape.]

Friday, Feb  24. canceled 11:00 appt, a scholarship luncheon and exercise today.  I’m still exhaling and getting a gurgle which is annoying, but happily I’m still getting rid of phlegm.  Worked on kitchen cleanup but need to finish it.  John’s been outside most of the afternoon working on yard or animal chores.  I also spent a lot of time on the phone with my medical insurance provider trying to figure out why my bills are so different from last year’s.  They have an accounting process all their own and clerks working for them who cannot explain properly what is happening.  It is so frustrating.

Saturday, Feb 25.  Nothing for the day.  Been sitting at the computer much of the day. Occasionally checking the road cameras for the snow storm in the Cascades.  We are dry but windy with cold following.  There were 4 deaths from avalanches this week and might have been double that except for a few feet and/or seconds difference for those that escaped.  Also, I’m helping a friend who plans to come from the west side (Olympic peninsula) to visit 4 year universities.  She’s teaching in a 2 year community college.  Now I must get back to the thesis editing.  John left over an hour ago to move some large green corral panels to extend the size of the pens two stallions are in and a bull.  A fast melt, wet snow, and a little rain and the mud expanded exponentially.  He managed to get the two stallions in a larger pen, and the bull too, by inserting new panels.  That’s nice.  Now all three animals have a space to move up out of the muck.  That is the best news of the day.  John had planned to make a meatloaf tonight but that operation on rebuilding the pens took too much time, so we just had some frozen leftovers of noodles and spaghetti sauce.

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

still on the Naneum Fan

 

Sunday evening, Feb 12.   John did the normal chores today for us and for our neighbors, and then after we posted the blog, we took off for Yakima for Costco to get gasoline, cat & dog food, and a couple of other small items.  We drove the older Subaru because the newly repaired one has an overpowering paint-smell slightly reminiscent of Pepé le Pew.

http://idigitalcitizen.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/pepe-le-pew.jpg?w=500

I’m not one that likes perfume or any pungent order.  When I was a kid I was actually allergic to paint fumes.  Maybe it is a hangover from my childhood.  Interestingly enough I cannot stand for a massage therapist or acupuncture therapist to rub any smelly ointment on me.  They have acknowledged my objection and used odorless ointments or body creams.  Once back home this afternoon, I began trying to sort through some of the many emails.  Two are to people associated with the group we heard last night.  I didn’t find this link until today, but it will give you an introduction to the group.  I do hope to be able to hear them in the future.  This link will take you to the announcement of the event we went to last night.

http://www.columbiabasinherald.com/crescent_bar_chronicle/news/article_177aceb0-541c-11e1-83b3-001871e3ce6c.html

Check this out: for some audio from their CD (which we bought) playing with Marc O’Connor.  Beneath their picture (third on the page), link to 5 minutes of the CD.

http://handshakeproductions.net/Bluegrass.php

I don’t think I mentioned what they had at the intermission of the music last night.

It was put on by the George Georgettes, young and old women of the community who beautify the town with flowers, or put on events such as feeding us last night.  They had a coffee can for donations, but did not charge anything.  There were baked cinnamon rolls, but we did not have any.  They had a platter with vegetables and a nice dip, but there were no forks, so it was hard to eat.  They had a cereal-chex-nut-pretzel thing, but the pieces were not large enough to grab the dip.  Needed tortilla chips or something.  They had several types of cookies, peanut butter, butter cookies with white frosting and little candy TINY hearts, also banana bread, and a few other things .. oh, grapes which I did have several of (green and purple, seedless).  We really did not eat a lot of the stuff but it all looked nice.  T’was coffee which neither of us drank.  I had water instead.

The Community Hall has a basement with long tables and a kitchen and lots of chairs.  Nicest thing is they had a elevator, so I didn’t have to climb the steps to get back to the concert. They needed a faster serving line pattern as we got clogged-up on the stairs and the full length of the building.  If you do something like this have a couple of tables and send folks down both sides – 4 rows, rather than 1.  This was a minor irritation to an otherwise evening of great entertainment.

Back to today, Sunday’s doings.  By the time we got the blog posted it was lunch time.  We decided to eat at Costco’s.  Probably a little saltier food than I need, but it was good.  We shared a  Polish Sausage (with Pepsi) and a Chicken Bake cut in half by them.  Plastic knives do NOT work on those baked sandwiches, as we found out in the past.  The drive down and back home was fine, and the traffic was light.  Being a Sunday, though, there were a lot of people in the Costco store.  At check-out, lines were mostly 2 or 3 carts.  We have said before we wouldn’t plan to go on a Sunday, but it is just before the mid-month pay-day.  We won’t go on a weekend following a pay period though.  Lines then average about 6 or 7.

I got chilled this afternoon, and was complaining of cold feet and hands.  John just fixed me up in my recliner with a plastic 2 liter bottle of hot water between my lower legs and under a heavy jacket and small blanket.  I hope that works.  I’m sure it will.

It’s better already, but my feet need to catch up with my calves.

Monday, Feb 13.  Our day was uneventful, and I worked most of the day on my new computer.  John did the chores for us and our two neighbors’ animals.  Both my shoulders were hurting all day.  One accomplishment was setting up my new computer with my back-up external drive and locating important information to transfer.  There’s plenty more to be moved, but I only got two of the most needed and important files.  Late afternoon John decided to try to start the ’89 Ford PU but it still wouldn’t start, so after trying to assist from inside the cab while he hammered on the starter, we called AAA (where we have Plus road coverage).  They will pick up in the morning and take to our repair shop.

Tuesday, Feb 14.  HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY.

http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day

At 9:06 in drove the large truck to pull up our truck on the bed.  It’s on its way to be fixed.  The snow is falling and John’s out taking care of the animals, all 3 places.  Well, the truck made it to its destination and received a battery cable end transplant.

http://ww2.justanswer.com/uploads/hybridownertech/2011-02-19_014631_batt_cable_13.jpg

John told them to check the one to the negative terminal – it had a crack. That was the problem – a $4.25 part – and labor enough to pay for a daughter’s dancing shoes.  As to the composition of this soft gray metal, it is a mystery.  Mysteriously, also, is why my teeth are as cranky as the truck.  I was having a piece of cake with John at 3:00 p.m. and pulled off another gold crown, from long ago.  I was lucky to be worked in at 4:30 this afternoon.  They realized it was a clean break from the top of a tooth that already had had a root canal.  They simply cleaned it and re-cemented it back in place.  It will be fine with no chewing for 24 hours.   $103 later I’m doing fine.

Wednesday, Feb 15.  A busy day.  Trip to Food Bank to entertain the folks there, who really appreciate us.  It was a salty lunch, but I still had a little (ham, potato salad, beans, pineapple).  Off to exercise, but I was not in the best state of stamina & energy.  Home to many emails and concern for planning for music for our “group.”  That’s taking too much of my time.  None of the neighbors’ health situations have changed that we are aware of.  Hope to eat dessert and go to bed earlier than last night.  I was tired all day, having not had enough of a good night’s sleep.

Thursday, Feb 16.  I went to bed not feeling well just after 10:30 last night, slept pretty good till 4:00 and then another 4.5 hours.  I only woke up one time during the night about 2:00.  Guess I needed the rest.  Today is a blood draw for the INR and music at Dry Creek (retirement), and then an acupuncture afterward at 4:00 p.m.   So, I’m gonna be gone for several hours after I get out of here.

John just fixed me the nicest book to put my music in.  It has a big picture of 3 violins, front, side, and back, and music notes on a staff curling, and my N A N C Y in large purple letters on the spine.  It was an old 3- ring binder with things on it I didn’t want to advertise, so this was a nice gift for me.  Not only did he find it out in the garage, he cleaned it, and then labeled it.  What a guy!

John’s going to make me a fried potato pancake from our mashed potatoes last night with chicken, so we can eat a little lunch before I leave for this afternoon. He did and I left for a intensive afternoon.  First stopped for my INR test at the hospital. They must not have gotten the lab results (and I didn’t call to have them on the lookout), so won’t find out the number and if I need to change my dosage till tomorrow.  On to Dry Creek, where we played music for a little over an hour.  We used the first 15 minutes to play and time the songs the group is doing on Saturday at the Spirit of The West.

http://ellensburgcowboygathering.com/

Then 3 of us stayed after and decided we would go ahead and have a subset of the group and do 4 other songs 15 minutes later, on Saturday.    Those tunes are more fiddle tunes, but we will have guitar and bass backup.

Friday, Feb 17.  Heard from my doctor’s nurse my INR was low still, so the Dr. upped the dosage back to what it was for the months preceding the steroids taken for the tooth fixing, which apparently messed it up.  Visited with my neighbor back from Harborview Hospital this morning.  Then off to town for SAIL exercise class.  Afterwards drove by the Fairgrounds to see what the parking availability was for tomorrow’s performances and access close to the building for those who cannot walk great distances.  Now it is snowing big time.  Was just spitting a little snow earlier.  I decided I did not want to go back in for the night gospel performance.  I’m too tired and needed to look for my jeans, western vest, western shirt, and cowboy hat.  I won’t be particularly coordinated, but I’ll be western as I can get.  I have a squirrel tail on my black cowboy hat.  Ha ha.  That might be unique.

I’ll work on things here and get to bed early for tomorrow’s exciting performances.  We’ll post this late tonight.  Both Saturday and Sunday we are on the go.

Hope your week was a good one and that next week will be better.

Nancy and John

on the Naneum Fan

 

Sunday, Feb 5.   This was a quiet day as I remember because I was still recovering from a busy week, and having some fluid in my lower legs.  Finally, I gave myself a Bumex (diuretic) late this night.  It worked and I was doing better Monday morning. Monday, Feb 6.  Went to town today to pick up my old computer that died and the external drive with all the data files rescued from the hard drive.  They charged me $35 for the work, which I could not have accomplished myself.  This computer was a dual processor MacBook, and they had to go through the Mac side to get to the Windows side.  I had never used the Mac side at all.  I had intended to learn it for the graphics capability and the nicety of no viruses entering from the web through email or surfing, but sadly I never had time while teaching full time.  All the courses I taught in the past 20 years used only Windows.  Once I did teach a GIS course with Mac software, but that was LONG ago.

On to exercise class where I led the last 20 minutes because our teacher had to be at a doctor’s appointment; boy, do I understand that!  Then on to visit the hospital for a blood draw for checking my INR.  It was down lower than it should be (1.6) so my Coumadin dosage was adjusted.

Tuesday, Feb 7.  John went with me to town and shopped while I went for a massage.  He was able to get my meds and buy a lot of grocery stuff on sale.  Turns out we were both in town and could have easily picked up John’s Subaru, but the message was left on the home phone while we were in town.  We’ll get it tomorrow.  Tonight I had to go back in for music at Hearthstone.

Wednesday, Feb 8.  Food bank music and exercise and dropped off my new Toshiba at CWU for some software to be added that I need to be able to help students with their masters theses.  This new machine has enough memory not to bog down as the old one, but when one transfers files from a hard drive, the previously loaded software does not come along; nothing on the desk-top does.  That is a good reason not to keep folders or files on the desktop, plus your profile becomes very large that way, and it takes longer to start your machine.  I managed to work on music transcription off the computer while John used his tonight, because I was able to download a second copy of my Finale SongWriter software to the new laptop. I still have to move files using a jump drive to the home computer to print anything out, but what a pleasure.  This laptop is 2.1 pounds lighter than my last laptop; amazing!

Thursday, Feb 9.  Sadly, a morning message brought news that my 77 yr old third cousin once removed (on my dad’s side) in GA died of cancer.  I’m happy I got to visit her last May while in Atlanta for my high school reunion.  This morning I was up early to work on music to take to my group today.  I only succeeded in getting one song in, and the other was too simple and had a strange timing, for Sweet Betsy from Pike, which I got from a new campfire book I bought with 100 songs.  Another lady in the group brought me her copy of the music today, so I will check that out to replace what I gave out today.  I never had time, but will make it soon, I hope.  Also I tried to put in I’m An Old Cowhand, but I could not get the timing correct.  I need to work with it some more.

Today was otherwise fruitful.  Got to the Rehab (where I was in 2010 for 7 weeks), and we had a good bunch of musicians there–10 !  We enjoyed ourselves and the few people there to watch and sing along, did too.  After that, I went to the University to retrieve my new computer.  Then I stopped by our computer gurus place (who provide our link to WordPress for the blog) and who had copied my old stuff from the hard drive to the external drive, so they could help me pull in (import) my old email files from nancyh@ellensburg.com that go back to 2007 when I first transferred to that machine.  I use software for email handling on that account that is Thunderbird by Mozilla.  It took over an hour but Jason finally figured out how to change and transfer the old profiles for messages and address book to the new machine.  He did not charge me, so we need to pay them off with Choc/Nut Cookies made with our own walnuts.

Friday, Feb. 10.  I did not go to town today.  Figured it was not worth burning a gallon of gas for 45 minutes of SAIL exercise.  I helped lead the class both days this week (M & W) so I figured I would stay home and work on getting more software loaded on my new laptop.  It’s getting all fixed up nicely, but it all is so time-consuming and I need to get to tax preparation.  Talked to a bunch of people by phone about health problems of our two neighbors.

I finally finished I’m An Old Cowhand.  I just have to make some adjustments in the lyrics on the first line.  They are too close to the notes and obscure them.  Got that fixed, and then transposed for our clarinet player.  Oh, I don’t think I said, I also changed the key for the whole band to play in C because I could sing the melody better.  That’s easier to do with the software than the transposition from the band’s key to the one for a B-flat clarinet.  I still have to do that manually.

Saturday, Feb 11.  Normally we try to post this blog on Saturday, especially early when we are headed to an evening function.  We did not make it because we had two functions yesterday, and I’m just finishing this today on Sunday.  We went to town, and John went shopping, and then he came by for the last part of our music and the food.  They didn’t put on quite as much of a spread today as usual.  There were chips and French onion dip, salsa, guacamole, and deviled eggs, of which I had 3 halves.  The rest was desserts, muffins, cookies, and cake and breads.  I only had a peanut butter cookie and some other neat cookie also with peanuts–it’s good not to be allergic to nuts.  Three other spouses of band members came along and we had nice visits, plus with several of the newer members of the group in audience.  On the agenda in the evening was a trip to George, WA

http://www.ci.george.wa.us/

. . . to hear a 5-piece band called Custer’s Grass Band from 7 to 9:00 p.m.   We drove my Subaru because John’s car’s new paint job is too overpowering to my nose.  I knew I would be miserable for 45 minutes over and 45 minutes back.  I was in bad shape, even with the window open and the AC on, going 12 miles to town in the afternoon.

Okay, here is the neat recount of tonight’s show.  Nice cold and clear driving over to George, WA, out of the Kittitas Valley, over Ryegrass hill, and down across the Columbia River, and up to the Quincy Basin.

http://quincyvalleytourism.org/

We made it there fine (after missing the turn on the only boulevard in the small town),

Copy and past this :     “montmorency blvd, George, Wa”      . . . .

. . . . into Google Earth and zoom in (note names of streets and the tree lined Blvd.) and zoom out (note the surrounding irrigated agriculture).  We parked in front of the George Community Hall.  Paid our $3/each entry fee (to help with the utilities of the center).  We were entertained by a group that has been playing since the early 1970s, with members from the Spokane area, mostly.  A Dobro (or electric resonator) “guitar” player is from Montana.  All the players have day jobs.  We sat on the front row with the girlfriend of the mandolin player and she gave us some history.  She and he are from Cheney.   She said the band first started playing under the name of Custer’s Last Stand.  We bought their oldest CD, which was previously put out on a long-playing vinyl record, in 1972, and they are playing with a 17-yr old Marc O’Connor fiddle player.  They originally met him when he was 11.  Now of course, he is quite well known around the world.

http://markoconnor.com/

The group does not have a fiddler, but they are composed of a bass player, dobro, guitarist, mandolin, and banjo.  The banjo player also plays the mandolin, and the mandolin player plays the guitar, and the guitar player (lead singer) plays the banjo as well.  All members of the group join in singing along at certain places in the songs.

They did some Flatt & Scruggs songs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8wZ8U5wQi0

Dobro player at 43 seconds in the above;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_XAPku7SgE

They are really good and I hope to hear them again someday.  They do not do a lot of presentations now.   I plan to keep in touch with the gal I was visiting with, and I just found her connection through her job at Eastern WA Univ.  We made it back home by 10:00 p.m. leaving in fog, which cleared in just a few miles.  The total trip was 99 miles.  I will close now and send this to John to post.

Hope your week was great and this one will be even better.                                                                                   From Nancy & John

on the cool, sunny, with no snow,

Naneum Fan

. . . in California and my new computer could have been crushed.  But not!

Sunday, January 29.  This is John’s sister’s birthday.  We didn’t get to talk to her till Monday morning.  We spent Sunday recovering from yesterday’s activities after we posted the blog.  We went for a dinner at the Swauk Teanaway Grange, about 35 minutes from our house.  It was a scholarship dinner, and our friends were going to play the music, after dinner, at 7:00.  The dinner was excellent:  spaghetti, sauce, with meat and locally-made sausage, . . .

http://glondossausage.com/

. . . French bread, and a very nice salad served at our table before the buffet style dinner.  They served dessert cakes in a large muffin paper, with an awesome frosting complete with shaved almonds.  I had spent time cleaning off my old digital camera, charging the battery, and was prepared to film our friend’s music program.  They have never been filmed before.  I got over an hour of them entertaining and they will be able to share with their grandchildren in Washington, DC, who have never seen them perform.  The President of the Grange had her husband bring his tripod, so I didn’t have to hold the camera the entire time and that helped produce a more professional look.

Monday, Jan 30  It was sunny and 42 degrees.  I found out I missed a CWU surplus sale (walk thru bidding) that included a Dell Laptop and a MacBook.  Darn, just when I needed it.  Now I will have to wait 3 weeks till the next sale, and by then, we will likely have found a replacement.  A phone call to CWU earlier informed me that they did not have any laptops – so we have a combination of confusion and disappointment.

The folks at the computer shop on campus do not have any laptops to set me up with, but offered a regular tower-type one, but I think I will pass, and wait for John to investigate.  He maintains a general interest in “what’s out there” but hasn’t looked at detailed specifications and costs recently.  We were not in the market – until last week.  I really like the convenience of a laptop, and I don’ t like sharing.  [an attitude best not delved into – John says]  — okay, Nancy here.  John has been very willing to share the computer, it’s just that we both have a lot of time we spend on one, and having two allows us to work at the same time.

I need to get off here now and have him look up recommendations and reviews.  He was going to wait a few months till the new OS Windows 8. . .

http://www.windows8news.com/2012/02/03/start-menu-orb-hidden-latest-windows-8-builds/

. . . comes out but my computer fix-it man told me that was not a good idea, because it was WEIRD and didn’t have a START icon, as XP and Windows 7 does. [JFH – says maybe these two should get one of these:] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Abacus

I’m not into touch screens.  Also, I did work on a Mac in the past (way past), and even taught GIS on it in the early 1990s, but even though I have had a MacBook since 2008, it was a dual system and I only used the Windows side because of the software I was using and teaching in my classes was only written in Windows not in anything understandable to a Mac.

I visited my neighbor with the fractured hip (in 5 places) and managed to get to and through exercise class myself.  This afternoon I completed the last two chapters of the thesis I have been working on.  Now I will sit and wait to have the whole thing with corrections to read through again in its entirety.  Had a phone call from a former student who wants to be commissioned in the Army and be trained as a pilot in Flight School.  He needed a letter of recommendation.  I will be happy to write him a good one.  He was calling me from Arizona.  I didn’t recognize the number and didn’t hear the call arrive, so I redialed it and introduced myself and said I had a missed call from this number.  He said it was him and he didn’t leave a message because it was so involved and he wanted to speak to me in person.  I stayed up late working on the letter.  He got his Geography degree as well as one in Aviation Management.

Tuesday, Jan  31  Only thing today is noon acupuncture.  [JFH – says, see next link at the History – Antiquity heading.  Need I mention the irony of this and Windows 8?]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupuncture

[Nancy responding:  I know that JFH is a disbeliever, but that’s okay.  It is helping me and my insurance is covering it and an alternate week’s massage (which John can accept), and also, my acupturists do combine it with massage.  In fact, 2 weeks ago, there were only 5 points inserted, and the majority of the hour was filled with massage, around my scar from the heart surgery, and my shoulder and neck whose nerves have been related.]

Before I left, I finished the letter of recommendation.   Nice that I can electronically ship it to the Geography secretary, and she can print on CWU letterhead (that I no longer am allowed access to), sign my name and ship off.  Turned out she could FAX this instead of postal mailing it.  Acupuncture was interesting today.  Surround the scar from my heart surgery [JFH  —Yeah, I don’t know what that means either] {NBH: it means that points (needles) were put into the scar tissue on either side of the central cut scar}, deal with slight edema in my lower legs, work on balancing my left and right pulses, and check out gall bladder channel to neck pain.  It seemed to help me.  I’m definitely uncomfortable at the home computer where I don’t “fit” as well as with the laptop in my recliner, or in a bar stool at the counter between the den and the kitchen, where I spent most of my time before getting ill and requiring the recliner.

John thinks a pricey, thin, and light Toshiba laptop is in my future.  It is . . .

http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/pdet.to?poid=2000023745

Scroll to see the basics.  If you are a visual type, click on the little grey rectangle for “Images”, and then click on Available Accessories and then look at the second carrying case under Value Bundles.  The computer photos show a black case but the “specs” claim a Blue Metallic case.  There are no Customer Reviews for this model because it has just been added – mainly the new Intel i5-2450M processor. Reviews of previous models on non-company sites are very positive (mostly).

Wednesday, Feb 1  Food bank day for music and lunch, went by to see my hospitalized neighbor, and to SAIL class, but not much else.  The computer is on its way via UPS.

Thursday, Feb 2    Announcement came today that our computer package was delayed because a train derailed.  Either that, or it was in a truck that was delayed while they got a crane in to lift the train cars back up on the tracks (Bakersfield, CA).

Then went to play music at the place where my neighbor is now housed to get physical therapy to get back on her fractured hip.  I drove home and picked up John and we went back to town for a opening ceremony of a CWU – Smithsonian Traveling Collection, and entertainment by the Mariachi band (from Wenatchee) while we ate Latin American food.  I will let John tell you about a photograph in the collection that relates back to his mother’s family in PA.  John remembers hearing that it was his grandfather but the historical context suggests it was the prior generation – thus, perhaps, a great-grandfather.

The image is shown here:

http://www.atchisonhistory.org/JourneyStories/Captions.html

The #2 image is the one we got on a postcard at the CWU function.  On this link it is indicated to be a “tif” file (Tagged Image File Format; also tiff) and ought to be a simple thing, but when we click on it at this site it wants to open and run a QuickTime movie.  That produces a blank white screen.  Go figure!  So to solve that problem we put it here for you to see the image.

http://www.elixant.com/~nancyh/EmigrantsOnOhioRiver.html

The drawing shows about a dozen folks, 2 horses, and a cow on a flat bottomed boat.  The image is in the Kentucky Historical Society and the claim is that it is of emigrants traveling down the Ohio River.

My mother’s family lived in a rural area of western Pennsylvania near a small town called Scotch Hill (named after James J., not the whisky) surrounded by forests.  Men would cut trees and drag the logs to dams they had made on the local creek.  When spring melt and run-off was peaking they would let-loose the logs and float them into the Clarion River, thence (riding the logs) into the Allegheny River just north of Parker.  At Pittsburgh (where the Ohio River is formed by the Allegheny and the Monongahela River {the Mon}) the Scotch Hill men would sell the logs and walk home, about 70 miles.  The logs were cut into rough lumber at Pittsburgh, flat-bottomed boats were built, and the long float-trip down the Ohio could begin.  A little history here and note the dates:

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Brownsville,_Pennsylvania

Friday, Feb 3  This morning I was in downtown Ellensburg for the Board of Trustees meeting to watch (and film) my colleague Morris get an Emeritus Prof. award.  Then back home to take it off my camera and run the CD by his doctor’s office where he was going to be at noon.  Morris’ family is from the area and 5 generations have graduated from CWU and he spoke briefly about that.  Then on I went to a noon luncheon with the Women’s Auxiliary of the Grange we just joined.  The meal was gratis of the Swauk Teanaway Grange thanking us for all our contributions.  (I have been providing music (with our group) and going to events long before John and I joined this year).

Saturday, Feb 4  Our computer made it to Portland, OR Thursday night, but didn’t make it to Ellensburg until yesterday and apparently not in time to be delivered.  They don’t operate on Saturday.  Well, dang.  I just checked the UPS tracking and found this message:  Scheduled For Early Delivery On: Monday, 02/06/2012, By End of Day.  Not bad really, as it started in California south of L.A 1/31/12 Monday this week.  Nothing on tap today except household chores and receipt filing.  John will work on posting this blog.  He went over early to feed our neighbor’s horses.  He (not the horse) ended up in Harborview Medical Center in Seattle . . .

http://uwmedicine.washington.edu/Patient-Care/Locations/HMC/Campus/Documents/HMC_Map.pdf

. . . for 2 operations on his foot to clean out an infection.  It’s no fun to get old.  Thank God our health is all right.  I still have a little pain from my tooth work, but John says that’s to remind me to brush.   This month or early next, I have to arrange to see my Cardiologist.  It’s almost 6 months from my last good appointment.

Hope your week was happily eventful.

Nancy & John

on the Naneum Fan

We are having to reconstruct this text.  John started writing this morning and I kluged some comments from early in-the-week emails.   So now I will add in more and you will be able to tell the different styles of our writing.   He writes below with an obituary for my MacBook (dual system with Windows) that caused the necessary reconstruction of this week’s blog.  He also puts in some stuff about the horse-damaged car and about our Friday night potluck.  I have weaved his comments into this story for the past week.  So, going back to . . .

Sunday, 1/22/12

We ended up with almost 12 inches of snow the end of last week, but yesterday a lot melted.  We started with four inches of snow before we had to leave for Yakima to visit our friends and pick up my 6-string classical guitar, visit Costco to grab Turbo Tax 2011 at a $10 discount, gasoline, and a few other needed things.  We were on our way to have lunch with them.  The snow was falling hard and got worse as we drove west of Yakima, past Wiley City.  It is about 20 minutes in good weather — located west of the Yakima airport.  They live up on a hill in a “subdivision” and the roads were not plowed.  Lunch was a great “Yakima Salad” (Grilled chicken, lettuce, crumbled Roquefort cheese, Fuji apples cut up, bacon bits, sugared walnuts with sesame seeds, onions, with huckleberry or raspberry vinaigrette dressing, and French bread.  John and I took pears and a chocolate brownie-like cake with our own walnuts plus chocolate chips added and covered with chocolate frosting.  I didn’t need dinner tonight.

Our drive was a little touchy, but we made it all right.  I think we will have the all-weather radials checked because we were in my 2004 Subaru for the trip down, and after we returned home, we had to turn around and go back to Ellensburg, to take John’s Subaru to have its door and window replaced.  (At least 4 or 5 more inches had fallen since we left at 10:15 a.m.)   Happily, our neighbor came back with his little machine and cleared more out of our driveway and also out in the pasture on the way to the barn, where John feeds the horses.  He plowed a path so John does not have to make 3 trips to feed.  When the snow is like this, wheelbarrows do not wheel, although the “barrow” part still functions.  (find the part about Shapes of Thinks to Come at the end of this linked page:)

http://www.word-detective.com/061405.html

Still Sunday night:  I have to take my meds for the night, and we probably will have dessert and hit the hay.  I actually have snacked some on some Peanut Butter Filled Nuggets from H-K Anderson out of Lancaster, PA, that we bought today.  They are REALLY good.  I had bought a small bag (5 ounces) for a buck at the dollar store the other day, and John saw a 52 ounce big plastic container of them for $7.79 at Costco.  We bought them, and I checked the bag from the $1 store. At the price we got at Costco we were paying $ .74 for the dollar bag amount.

http://www.hk-anderson.com/enjoy/pdp/peanut_butter_filled_nugget/

Monday, 1/23/12

John has burned a few calories moving snow.  I have been working on in-house projects.  Here’s a slight run-down.

Missed my exercise SAIL class today.  No sense driving all that way in the snow on not all plowed roads, to spend 45 minutes and turn around and drive back home using a gallon of gasoline.  Started by sleeping in till after awaking at 7:30 a.m. and then going back to sleep.  Guess I was tired from yesterday’s activities and stress of driving in the snowstorm.  Have been reading a masters thesis, switching and doing some music transposing, eating lunch, and doing email.

A friend in the Southwest wrote to see if we were all right, because the Blog was not posted this weekend. They read it faithfully and were worried.  That was the first we knew.  John sent it out late Saturday night (thought so), but neither one of us checked it, and apparently he hit the wrong button.  It got out there about 2:30 p.m., Monday.  John went back out shoveling and did not cook the roast for dinner as planned so it’s frozen teriyaki chicken and rice bowls.  I’m stayed in the house doing various chores, interspersing with editing and still proofing that masters thesis.  Nope, I’m no longer paid, but I’m still serving on a couple of graduate committees with students I worked with in the past.

Tuesday, 1/24/12

I went to the hospital on the way to massage therapy and gave blood for my INR test.  Then to massage.  I was hurting some today; don’t know why.  Afterwards I was too, more so than usual.  Then my doctor called at 7:30 p.m. reporting in on my INR (he was really late working).  It was way high (4.3) and we don’t know why.  He told me not to take the Coumadin for a couple of nights and to retest it on Thursday.  It has been running at 2.0 since October when it went up to 3.2.  I have not had any alcohol nor Vitamin K veggies.  Oh, I mentioned to my family physician that I had had dental work last week and was on Predisone (4mg) for six days.  More the first two days and less till Sunday night before the blood draw.  I was given it for an anti-inflammatory.  He suggested my idea could be correct that the med could have caused it.  Spent the rest of the night feeling bad.

Wednesday,  1/25/12

Evelyn (banjo) and I played and sang at the food bank without music, and did really amazingly well.  I don’t need sheet music but she does on many of the songs.  There were 45 people there for a lunch of polish sausages, beans, chili, and a peach cobbler to-die-for.  I brought a piece home for John and I to share.  After lunch I wanted to take a nap rather than go to exercise class, but I went and we had 13 people there.  Driving in was a real mess on the roads, but the sun was shining.  In the 3 hours that passed, the road slush got cleaned off so the return trip was not nearly as bad (at least the north-south roads); E-W, less traveled ones were still in bad shape.  We thought we would pick up John’s Subaru tomorrow, but NOT.

Got a phone call at 4:00 that our car we hoped to have back tomorrow, and had taken in, Sunday night in all the snow, after our trip to Yakima, all in the snow, will not be ready because the “door” from Portland got lost on Greyhound, from last Thursday.  It showed today, and can be picked up at the bus station tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m.  Who knows when we will get the car back and fixed.  Likely not till early or the middle of next week.  Oh fun.

About my INR blood test.  I’m taking Coumadin and have to have my INR checked once a month.  [The next few sentences are from a web site:  A laboratory test called an INR (International Normalized Ratio) measures the time it takes for blood to clot and compares it to an average.  Monitoring the INR can be an important step in managing health.  An INR is useful in monitoring the impact of anticoagulant (“blood thinning”) medicines, such as Warfarin (Coumadin).  Patients with atrial fibrillation often take anticoagulant medications to protect against clots that can cause strokes.  While taking Warfarin, patients have regular blood tests to monitor their INR.   Just as patients know their blood pressure numbers, they also should know their Warfarin (Coumadin) dosage and their INR.  In healthy people, the INR is about 1.0.  For patients on anticoagulants, the INR typically should be between 2.0 and 3.0 for patients with atrial fibrillation, or between 3.0 and 4.0 for patients with mechanical heart valves.  However, the ideal INR must be individualized for each patient.]  My cardiologist wants it closer to under 3.0.  An INR can be too high; a number greater than 4.0 may indicate that blood is clotting too slowly, creating a risk of uncontrolled bleeding.  An INR less than 2.0 may not provide adequate protection from clotting.

Thursday,  1/26/12

Let’s see —  today was music in the afternoon at the Hearthstone care facility and a retake on the INR.  Turns out it was 2.6, so don’t know if it was really the Predisone effect or if it could have been a faulty test.  We’ll never know, but I have to be retested in 12 days.

Our other “story” today, related by John:  Less serious news this week involved taking the horse-damaged Subaru to the shop for a new side door and re-painting.  The time-line slipped a bit on that.  The new door was shipped from Portland, OR (about a five hour drive away in bad weather) on a Greyhound Bus.  It got lost.  Well, not the bus.  So the door finally showed up but not in time to get the car back on Thursday.  However, still in that car was the University’s gift to Nancy (upon retirement) of a campus parking pass.  This she needed on Friday to go to a noon luncheon.  So we had to stop by the fix-it-up shop.  We learned there of the damage to vehicles caused by the snow and ice covered roads.  All regular stalls were filled with damaged cars.  Another was still in the outside parking lot, and ours was forlornly waiting for the wayward door.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Today I awoke to my laptop computer not showing anything on the screen.  Took it in to my fix-it guys, but it is toast, and would cost more to repair it than to buy a new one, with much more power and space.  Repair would be $400 at least.  This one was from 2008, and was my gold watch and chain when leaving the university.  Now it is gone.  I have been in the middle of reviewing a thesis and this will cause problems not being able to access it.  I also only had one copy of the blog I had started last Sunday, and so am having to recreate this week’s now.  Usually I keep it up daily, so it’s not such a chore.  I took the laptop in today on my way to a scholarship luncheon and they gave the verdict, but agreed to back it up on my external drive so we took it back in on our way to a potluck/jam session.  Here is John’s Obituary for her.  The laptop croaked! [Sept. 2008 – January 2012]  She* developed a “seeing” problem.  To be precise, she quit providing anything to see.  Without a functioning screen, it is quite impossible to make efficient use of the lady within.  She would be the one on which the digital-daily update is recorded.  Usually, then, on Saturday, the daily file is transferred to the dual-monitor tower-residing computer in the back corner bedroom, also known as (aka) the computer cave.

*She  —  We refer to our computers with the feminine gender in remembrance of a time when women were women, and computers were women.  Here are three links to explain:

http://www.witi.com/center/witimuseum/halloffame/1997/eniac.php

http://www.earlyofficemuseum.com/calculating_machines.htm

http://www.zib.de/zuse/Inhalt/Programme/eniac/history.html

The middle link has a description and photo of machines called Comptometers and Comptographs.  John’s dad brought one of those home that was being thrown out in the mid-1950s at his company’s purchasing department.  After his mom’s death (1980) his dad cleaned out the house and moved to Florida.  Things such as this ancient machine were given away or sent to the dump (now known as a landfill site).  And, Nancy’s recollection and use of a comptometer goes back to working over Christmas vacation (from High School) at Sears (& Roebuck), in the Mail Order Department.  I had to check all incoming mail orders from the southeast region, which converged on the Atlanta, GA store for processing.  They had to be verified for amount of items, quantity purchased, the totals on each line, and the added tax, for the final cost.  It was amazing how many errors there were.  Sometimes, it would be every second one.  I used a comptometer for that work.   [End of Obituary]                                                                                                            Earlier in the morning before I left for the luncheon, John and I made a large Pineapple Upside Down Cake in our huge 12” skillet left over from his Cincinnati days when he lived in a big old house with a bunch of guys.  Everyone at the party thought it was pretty special.  We added our own walnuts to it (many more than the recipe called for), and we also took a quart of pears our neighbor had canned for us.  John’s version of the skillet cake came out as:   Friday evening was a music-group pot-luck meal and jam-session.  We took our famous “Nancy’s Big Skillet Downside Up Cake” made with pineapple rings, red Maraschino Cherries [preserved and packed with a wondrous assortment of dyes and other chemicals**], walnuts (ours), butter, eggs, brown sugar, and a bit of flour.  http://www.nationalcherries.com/maraschino.html                                                                                                  After reading John’s found link above, I’m wondering if we should have thawed some of own cherries and used them !

That neighbor who canned the pears ended up falling this morning and shattering her hip, so an ambulance came and took her to the ER.  Another neighbor called to tell us.  John called me in town, and I called both her sons to let them know.  Then I came on home rather than going to SAIL class, because I had several things to do in the afternoon on John’s computer.  I worked on music and transposing some, while he napped.

We received some guitar and music books in today’s mail, which is cool.  Had a nice dinner and didn’t get home till 10:15.  Here was the menu:  Turkey, ham, 3 bean salad with peppers and onions, pecan/sugar covered sweet potatoes, rice and sausage, green Caesar type salad, Jell-O salad, calico beans, cookies, and our special cake.

Saturday, January 28, 2012  Mostly today I have been catching up on household chores, except when John was out feeding and exercising the animals.  While I was sleeping in, he started rewriting the blog.  Now I’m merging them.  He had come back to work on some guitar chord handouts.  We need to tune the 12-string and the classical, because last night we took the 12 string in to compare to that of one of the guys in our group, (size of mine is slightly smaller), and he played it a little and thinks it is tuned a little differently than his – Who’s to know but one or both need to be fixed.

I must finish this so John can post it before we leave for the Upper County for a special Grange function, where two of our friends are providing after dinner music.  They were at our jam session last night.  They said it was very relaxing, and something they needed before the big event tonight.

Hope you all had a good week with less drama.

That’s it from Nancy and John,

Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, January 15 started as a nice blue sky sunny day, and we were surprised as we were expecting snow.  However, north of us now are clouds that suggest snow is coming this way.  Managed to take some photos of our Casio keyboard (gotten last Saturday) in its new spot, but they are still on the camera.  I also managed to type up some Peanut Butter Pie recipes from the family and a friend of the family in PA.  Now we need to get the ingredients and try them.

We made the trip to the Bluegrass Jam session at the Swauk Teanaway Grange just fine, with no snow, except a tiny flurry (very light) on the last 15 minutes to home.  It might snow some tonight, but the holiday tomorrow means we do not have to get out on the roads.  We took a canister of dried apples and banana chips, and I put them on the counter (with brownies and cookies others brought), and took a banana chip to check out.  I was just sucking on it, and dammit, I pulled off the gold crown again.  I knew it was not in the banana (my dad used to say he loved bananas because they had no bones).  So, I captured it and put in a plastic Zip-Lock bag I had brought along with me.

A huge crowd was there.  There were 22 instrumentalists and another 15 people (at least) in the audience (as John was).  We stayed till 4:20, so it was getting dark by the time we hit our driveway, and John went and fed the horses without coming into the house.  I brought myself and violin stuff in.  The dogs just got to go in the front fenced yard and not to help feed.  It was too dark.

Monday, Jan 16 is the MLK holiday, but not for our resident doe who was in the front yard again this morning, wanting to be fed.  We have never fed her there, except for her getting berries off the Mountain Ash tree.  I had a call from my dentist this morning and they will work me in tomorrow for replacing the temporary gold crown.  Good because we can combine with John’s trip there for his tooth.  Most of the day was spent on paperwork.

Tuesday, Jan 17 we awoke to snow and it continued to a little over an inch.  We took off for the dentist at 10:15 and didn’t return till 1:25.  That was because someone cancelled her appointment and they were able to put me in after John’s appointment to complete the work on my tooth, the installation of a stainless steel crown.  That beat a temporary glue-in job and having to wait for a Jan 31 appointment.  Only problem was after the anesthetic wore off I was in serious pain–my jaw, my tooth, my gums, my head, you name it.  I was hurting big time, so after I had taken 4 Tylenol over the afternoon and nothing was improving, I called my dentist and left a message at 4:20.  They were in a “class” and didn’t get back to me till after 5:00 p.m.  They decided to put me on Percoset and a Prednisone packet drug to help me over the hump for the next 6 days.  We had to drive back to town (24 miles r.t.) to pick up the pills, but I was very relieved to get them in my system with dinner.  The pain has not all subsided, but it is tons better.  I will take another Percoset with a piece of pound cake and go to bed.  It snowed another couple of inches, but then the wind blew most of it off the trees.  Yet we are not getting the amount of snow that others around us are.

Wednesday, Jan 18  Turned out I didn’t get relief on the pain until 4:00 a.m.  By the time 8:00 a.m. came I decided I would take one more Percoset just for the heck of it, because I didn’t have to go to town till after lunch.  I was much better after my meds for pain & the anti-inflammatory for irritation of the gum and jaw.  Apparently the decay cleaning was quite close to the nerves of the root and caused the severe pain.  Got a call from the dentist office this morning checking on me, and asking if John could come in today for finishing up his tooth #31 behind the one from yesterday, $250 for this today—higher cost than either of ours yesterday.  I dropped John off at the dentist and went on to SAIL class, but I didn’t have to lead it after all because my friend (our teacher) got excused from Grand Jury duty because she is over 70 and cannot drive in this weather.  After that, I went to the Post Office to load up on Forever Stamps before the price goes up this Monday.

Later tonight John took some time to web-search for the style of my Dulcimer, because both of us read parts of the new book I got by Ritchie (published in 1973) on the history, tuning and playing of the Dulcimer.  He took out mine and looked for anything written on it to see the maker, and the only name he could find anywhere was on the pegs holding the strings.  They are named Kluson pegs and are high quality.  Mine, however, is a different shape from most of the dulcimers.  We are going to take some pictures of it and put on the forum we have found to see if anyone knows anything about its origin.  I was never able to find out from the woman I bought it from.

I went on to my acupuncture treatment and it was a wonderful full hour.  He tried some different things to try to clear the shoulder pain by working with the edges of scar tissue (fascia) adjacent to the scar from the opening of my sternum for heart surgery.  All those nerves were disrupted and jumbled.

He used a Pointer Plus instrument along with massage (which I actually can do myself), but he added the Pointer Plus electronic gadget to assist in connecting the collagen and tissues across the scar.  I’m a little concerned and need to discuss it further with the acupuncturist, from reading on line about the Pointer Plus made in Texas.

http://www.texas-medical.com/modalities/pointerplusfeatures.htm

Some contraindications (not to be used with) include, among other things that don’t apply to me, some that do:  If fitted with pacemakers or internal defibrillators (which I have), or if there is any heart disease or condition (which I suppose I still have, with my replaced porcine heart valve, and I am on medication for atrial fibrillation and on Coumadin for thinning my blood).

We did discuss this when I heard it was electronic.  He put it on a very low power and also stayed away from the ICD.  There was never any interaction.

The overall procedure is called:  Myofascial Craniosacral massage, and can be read about below as it was applied to my scar tissue from the open heart surgery.  I really find this fascinating and believable.  I want so much for this to get me back to normal on my left shoulder and adhesive capsulitis in my rotator cuff on the left side.  I have highlighted below (bold) the things I think apply to my condition.

http://transitionalhealing.wordpress.com/2007/03/13/craniosacral-therapy-for-reducing-scar-tissue-pain/

Craniosacral Therapy for reducing Scar Tissue Pain.

Posted by Michael on March 13, 2007

The body has the ability to heal itself after surgery.  The body produces connective tissue, adhesions and collagen, to replace the damaged compromised tissue from the result of an incision to the skin.  This natural phenomenon causes the formation of scar tissue.  Scar tissue replaces damaged cells at the site of the incision or injury.  Skin scar tissue is different from deep fascial scar tissue.  Skin scar tissue lacks in pigmentation and hair follicles.  Deep scar tissue in the fascial layers of the body develops adhesions or spider-like web threads to help the body heal and recover.

There can be a potential problem in the development of scar tissue.  The problem lies when scar tissue and adhesions go unchecked over the years.  The scar tissue and adhesions start attaching themselves to bones, arteries, veins, nerves, and organs.  This phenomenon alone can cause dysfunction in the homeostasis of the body and possibly manifest into further complications in our body’s internal health as we age.

In addition I have witnessed in my practice patient’s scar tissue developing over periods of time causing spinal curvature (scoliosis), rotated hips manifesting in sciatic pain and lower extremity discomfort, shoulder displacement causing rotator cuff problems, and cervical or neck problems manifesting in a variety of neck and headache pain.  Scar tissue can and will cause loss of range of motion making simple job and home activities difficult to perform.  In addition there have been preliminary studies showing that manual therapies such as craniosacral therapy can relieve the discomforts and problematic symptoms in the Ureogential region after “C” section deliveries.  One of the most profound areas of relief from scar tissue is a patient who has had open-heart surgery.  I myself have recovered from open-heart surgery.  I [have] received scar and adhesion therapy once a month for the last 10 years.  My primary care doctor concurs that the manual therapy I receive keeps my body anatomically correct, allows my body full range of motion without pain and discomfort in the soft tissue.

Over many years in my practice I have found that craniosacral therapy has had a profound positive effect on relieving the discomfort of scar tissue formed in the body. In addition Craniosacral therapy has afforded my patients/clients increased range of motion, the reduction of adhesions and pain in the sub acute stage after a surgical procedure.  (End of quote).

Thursday, Jan 19   We awoke to snow and it is still coming down.  Over the last couple of days, we have had a little over 6″ according to averaging John’s 6 different measurements around the place this morning.  He had to clean off the walkways to the cat house and hay shed, where all the cats were hanging out this morning.

My music group canceled our trip to play music today in town.  All the snow plows have been in Upper County removing 2 feet of snow, and left us to deal with our own. Our friends over in Winlock (south of Chehalis) got 17 inches to deal with yesterday. Puget Sound area had ice and winds that brought down power lines.  Internal house temperatures are dropping into the mid-50s.  Glad we don’t live there or in Alaska!  For every inch in WA, they are getting a foot.

John’s working on his music theory today and just found more about the Circle of Fifths, and the first line of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  Then the friend in the music group who had the 17” snow told me that Five Foot Two is the classic song with a run through from C on the Circle of Fifths.

Friday, Jan 20.  Staying home today, neither our driveway nor the road in front of our house has been plowed.  John may shovel a path, but our cars are so low and our neighbor will likely come down and plow us out.

We have nice neighbors, and we have no reason to go to town, so we can wait.  Oh my, it is 12:20 and starting to snow big flakes again.  John went back to take the mail to the mailbox, and to shovel out the approach for the postal carrier.  Guess the timing might be right; hopefully, the plow has come back down our side of the road.  John saw it go north earlier.  It has, John came back to report.  He got our mail in for pickup, and the snow has also stopped.  John can always take off the middle part so it doesn’t hit under our car, and the tires will plow through the tracks on the side (that’s in case our neighbor doesn’t plow us out).

While John was out, I stayed inside and used his computer.  I managed to transpose 3 pages of music for our clarinet player, for Willie Nelson’s, “On the Road Again,” which our friend found while he was in the UK over Christmas.  I managed to learn how to put in “slurs” (symbols for holding a note, connecting to others), and first and second bracket endings.  I had previously been filling them in by hand, and that was rather messy.  This is very cool and can be done at the time the notes are entered.  I have never completely read the manual (John says I never do), but I did today to find out how, by reading the manual!  Meanwhile, I had taught myself how to enter tempos, keys, notes (full, half, quarter, eighth, …), without the manual.  I also had previously figured out how to put in “repeats” and also crescendos.  And more!

I am busy now playing with pictures from two different cameras, and trying to clean off my digital camera (ExiLim) which has a 4 Gig card and takes good movies.  My Casio fills up way too fast.  This one hasn’t been used since I was last teaching before my heart attack in fall of 2009.  I need to clean it off, with the hopes of recording the concert at the Grange next Saturday.

Currently, I’m copying large files from my camera to my computer and then to a CD so I can free a bunch of space on my camera (for movies) and my computer for storage. These were movies I took at the time of the last class REM 515 (GIS in Resource Management, a Graduate Seminar) I taught in the fall 2009.  There are some really good ones in there:  Kevin Vaughn, LiDar at Mt. Rainier, Dan Church, Bureau of Reclamation LiDar Work in Yakima, Michael Wandler, on WSDOT work he does and has done with GIS, and Steve Rush on the history of GIS at Hanford.  Then this afternoon I decided to put them on my FTP site at CWU so folks could download which ones they want and save me mailing CDs.  I have one talk that is larger than a CD (over 702 Mb), and I do not have a DVD burner on my laptop.  Theoretically, I can use John’s computer for that one.  I will keep the CDs and DVD for my “files” even though I am not likely to ever need them again now that I’m no longer teaching.  But somehow I cannot just delete them and I want to back them up somewhere and give the authors a copy as thanks for coming and presenting to my class, even if it is two years late coming!

John is continuing to work on his music theory learning.  He is really making good progress and making summaries from multiple web sites to teach himself the information.  Every once and awhile, he calls me to get an interpretation or to play something on the keyboard to clarify what the information/lessons are telling him.  He actually found an error on a web site today and wrote the author, but also told him what a fabulous job he had done to clarify the meaning of the terms.

A side note about this music thing is that there were almost no family and friends from John’s Clarion-era that had or played instruments.  One older woman (great aunt by marriage) had an upright piano that was played once in John’s presence.  One neighborhood family paid for #1 son to learn piano.  #s 2, 3, 4 got zip!  OH! One nephew got a guitar somewhere and played Waltzing Matilda endlessly.  Then he took up art – thankfully.  Music seems to be more a southern Appalachian thing and there were major migrations from those mountain regions to the Pacific Northwest.  You can’t throw a stick out here without hitting someone with a fiddle, banjo, guitar, harmonica (harp), accordion (squawk box), mandolin, dulcimer, and a few others.  Hundreds of folks from WA State go to Weiser, ID for the old time music festival first held in 1953 . . .

http://weiserfestival.com/

Saturday, Jan 21 was spent at home with John doing a lot of shoveling, even after our neighbor came in the dark last night and plowed us out some; there is much to be done.  We should be able to get out tomorrow to go to Yakima, and we hope for no snow.  Today it is sunny and nice here, but we are in a pocket of good weather, with clouds surrounding us on all sides.  Some of the snow is melting.  But, in cases where it has not been removed it is a foot deep and deeper where it was pushed by the “skid-steer loader” last night.  Many folks call these things “bobcats” (a well-known make) but the neighbors use theirs for cleaning up cow manure and John calls it their powered-pooper-scooper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skid-steer_loader

John took a break and came in to make some brownies.  I have been working most of the day between computers.  I’m ready for a brownie, but John said they had to cool first :- )

He’s back in now reading the news on the computer after putting a meatloaf together and, with potatoes, sticking them in the oven.  Now we wait.  I need to get this blog to him so he can post it.

The other thing I have been doing is working with music for our group.  As mentioned, I learned how to put in “slurs” and double repeat ending brackets, and then today, how to add chord designations to the music.  I can even add fret board notation, if desired.  I had to read the manual for those manipulations.  Also, have been organizing food & the menu for the potluck.  I send out lists of what people are bringing so we don’t end up with all desserts or all salads.

Tomorrow, we’re headed to the Yakima area to Costco, to lunch with friends, and pick up my classical guitar I had loaned out last year.  John may be able to use it to learn on in conjuction with the 12-string.

Hope you had a nice week.

Nancy & John

on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, January 8, my Aunt Marise’s 81st birthday, on the old Wilkins home place in Guyton, GA.  I had a nice visit by phone this evening – her time.  Pretty much this day was spent on the computer, either transposing music or working on the 2011 newsletter and the links to my trip to Atlanta in May of 2011.

Monday, Jan 9  It’s a slow day today and we must do some paperwork and dehydrate the bananas we got last week.  Banana chips are really good, and good for you.  Dehydration concentrates the radioactive potassium – read about the BED:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose

Most of the day was spent on computer chores and organizing music.  Mostly I worked on trying to complete the details of the 2011 newsletter (never finished).

I got a nice surprise email from Complete Computer Services, our computer gurus, who also provide our service for our account we have had since 1995,   nancyh@ellensburg.com   .  The surprise is our cost is going down to $2.99/month, and our service is being enhanced with unlimited storage for mailing files.  That has been a drawback and caused me to turn many friends away from using that account, because of the storage limitations.  I still don’t wish to encourage people to send large files, but at least now we are not in danger of filling our account while away for a few hours.  John played cook today, and fixed a great pork loin roast for dinner and for meals for the next few days.

I tried searching the web for a guitar like one a friend has for sale, but I cannot locate much information, and neither could John, but he went and unpacked my old 12-string (1 string is broken, so it’s an 11 string), Gibson:

http://www.guitar-museum.com/guitar-8455-1967-Gibson-B-25-12N-Guitar-Vintage-12-string

He managed to find information about that on line and one for sale in a bidding process.  The price has been bid up to $798, but the owner says it is worth a lot more, and that one like it fetched $1200.  I paid $300 for mine in Iowa City, IA sometime around 1970, lightly used.  John found a serial number on the back and from the Gibson site learned it was made in 1967.

This new found interest in guitars is a result of John’s deciding he wants to learn to make music on something.  I suggested he not begin on a 12-string.  We also have a 6 string classical that I loaned out to a friend in Yakima but he hasn’t had a chance to start lessons yet with the teacher he wanted.  So we are going to go down and visit a future weekend and “borrow” it back, so that John has one to learn on.  I want him to get his own, however, and that’s why I’m trying to work with the friend in Montana, to find out what the one she has is worth, so we can give her a fair price for it.  I haven’t found out much yet, but intend to do some more looking.  All we know is that the sticker inside the guitar says “The Classic Guitar”– made by Kay Musical Instrument Company” and a stamped number says: L 4384.  I finally found one tonight on eBay, and they have a start bid of $145 but no one has bid.  It must be the same as the one she has .. especially considering looking at the pictures and relating to the description she has given me.  (I’m adding to this Saturday night Jan 14, before this is posted.  The owner lowered the starting bid to $115, but no one ever bid on it.  It had nice pictures and was described as an Acoustic Kay of the 40s & 50s.  Our friend followed the links and agreed it was very close to the one she has, which we hope to get.  We just have to settle on a price.  The ad was removed today from eBay without selling it.

Tuesday, Jan 10   Up earlier than wished and did some emailing and then burned some CDs to share with friends I was to see today.  I went for a tour of the CWU Archives at the CWU  Brooks Library, and got a 15-minute tour of the new parts of the library by the “new” Dean (hired in 2010).  I was invited by Jim Brooks, for whom the library is named.  He is 85 now and in really good shape.  He was CWU President for 17 years, and taught before and after that term in Geography.  He was still teaching a couple of courses when I arrived in 1988.

I squeezed in a trip to the Dollar Tree to trade in the clip-on watch that wasn’t working and to grab some canned cat food.  I made it with little time to spare to a 3:00 massage.  Also, I ran our tree order (Grand Fir and Ponderosa Pine by the Kittitas County Conservation District, where John has donated time (prior years) sorting plants in the spring for the community sale.  After many years, the scale of this sale requires more work than volunteers could provide so they now get an AmeriCorps crew.  Our driveway is lined with Ponderosa Pine and our property has a dozen types of trees not here when we arrived.  John went with me tonight (for me to play music at 6:30 with The Connections group) because we wanted to show my guru-music-friend who plays in the group the 12-string guitar and a newly acquired viola (free).  He really liked the guitar and recommended the owner of the music store here in town for installation of  new strings — having experience and a special stretcher-tool.  Otherwise, here is a description we would need to follow:  [Who knew you can get hurt doing this?]

http://www.mediawebsource.com/guitar/12-string-guitar.htm

The temps are going to 15 tonight, so I don’t know if John will want to work outside in the day as he did today.  We were quite late eating dinner tonight (9:00) — biscuits and beans to go with our leftover pork loin.  We are both really tired and may hit the hay earlier tonight.

Wednesday, Jan 11 was another busy day.  Played at the food bank, and they gave me some almond drink (not milk) to try.  Nice meal today.  Chicken Enchiladas but not with all the tortilla stuff like I don’t like.  MUCH chicken and very tender.  I took the 12-string in and the owner of the shop knew the model.  Good sign!  He respectfully oohed-and-awed —

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiTejNnV6UE

over it and looked it up in his book — finding it is valued at $1,150.  I left it to have new Extra Light strings put on it.  Then off to exercise class and our teacher was not there so I guided the class, and we went for 50 minutes.  It was probably more of a workout than I normally get, having to call out instructions and keep all on task.

John fixed a good dinner of leftovers: Chicken & pork Fettuccini with fried   cauliflower.   He’s been working on the computer on his guitar music theory learning and creating charts and symbols for when he has a guitar with which to practice.  I spent a lot of time tonight setting up music for members of our group.

Thursday, Jan 12  John went with me to run errands while I played music at the Rehab center where I was incarcerated so long back in 2010, and it was so great to see people who remember me and are very happy to see me back on my feet, and walking down the hall on my own.  I remember when it was a real struggle to push myself in a wheel chair, even pulling along the rail along the wall.  Then when I moved up to a walker and how much trouble it was to go down one very long hallway to another longer (I think) one to get to Physical Therapy.  So, now when I walk down the hall and a nurse says, “Nancy, it’s so good to see you,” I always reply, “Thanks, it’s good to be seen.”  From there we did Burger King for a rushed hamburger & fries, because we were going back to town for a bluegrass jam session with Julie Henigan, the Celtic Music presenter tomorrow night at CWU Music building recital hall.  15 people came including John who went along just to enjoy the music.  There were a couple of mandolins, an autoharp, 6 violins, 2 dulcimers, 3 banjoes, and the rest guitars.  The Dulcimers were second instruments of guitarists.  And one of the mandolin players also had a violin.  The people there were from around the valley.

Friday, Jan 13  Started off the day by talking to a friend about an old CTK 510 Casio Keyboard passed down by his wife’s father, and no one else has used.  John is interested in having a music keyboard adjacent to his computer while he is learning music on the guitar.  This is an old model (CTK 510) but there are still a few being offered on the Web.

Tonight’s Celtic Music Performance was interesting but not totally clear completely to me and John.  The lecture part started at 6:30. She explained some of the history, geography, conflict and character of the Irish people and how the poets and songs developed.  See here, sections “Music for Singing” and “Caoineadh Songs.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_music_of_Ireland

John’s grandmother was from Ireland [http://www.ballinamore.ie/about/ ] and so he has some personal interest in the subject.

We got there early to have good seats which we got and we were hearing fine.  Sadly however, 120 people arrived at just before 7:00 for the concert and they moved us to the bigger auditorium, with those late arrival people getting first choice of seating.  That was a big bummer.

The microphones were not working well in the larger hall, and there was a buzz that was irritating through some of the performance.  John and I liked the lecture better. Then she sang and played for more than an hour.  She told stories about some of the songs, and they were audible.  However, some of her lyrics were not understandable by us, yet people closer to the stage would laugh occasionally, so one has to imagine they were hearing a bit of Irish humor that we missed.

She sang with and without instrumental accompaniment (called Sean-nós  (Irish for “old style”)–a highly ornamented style of unaccompanied traditional Irish singing.

http://juliehenigan.com/mp3/06-Adieu.mp3

She also sang while playing her guitar and used her violin between the verses of a couple of songs.  Mostly she just played instrumentals on the violin. That’s not the way I sing and play the violin, but I am clearly different from most.  I will sing and play the melody, or the harmony, and do one on the violin and sing the other.  My group gets a kick out of that and don’t know how I manage it.  I just tell them it’s because I was an only child and had cover both parts.

The lady who we took along with us, (who is hard of hearing), heard most of the concert, probably a little less than John and I did, but she heard enough to enjoy it, and that’s all that matters.  She has macular degeneration and can no longer drive, so she really appreciates being given an invitation and ride to events around town.  She’s a trooper, living alone.

Might snow here tomorrow and some or all days for a week, they say.  It is damned cold out there.  The temperature went to 11 last night.   When we came out of the music building just around 9:00 it was 28.  We were parked on the front row (staff parking), but it is still a few hundred feet walk up and down.  John said it felt as if it was minus 28.  It was chilly in the building, and I was glad I had on two jackets over a blouse, and still had an outer coat to put on outside plus a winter pull-down hat that covered my ears.

It was a not-so-all-right Friday the 13^th.  I lost my temporary gold crown again this morning (eating toast)–not even anything gooey, but got into the dentist and had it repaired (no cost).  Also got to my exercise class and, later, picked up the newly strung 12-string guitar.  They charged me $26.46, so must have either been expensive strings and no charge for putting them on, or $6.00 for the strings and $20 labor.  I only got the total charge, not an itemized bill.

Then off to Les Schwab (tire & battery place) to check the Ford Truck’s battery.  John charged it the past two days and put it in the truck but it wouldn’t start, so I took it to town and went by to have it checked.  Turns out it is fully charged and in good shape.  The switch on the steering column is flakey so we will have to try again and get it to town for a fix.  When it warms up some.

Saturday, Jan 14   Today was an interesting day, and it was too cold for John to check out the battery and truck ignition.  Most of our day was involved with music, and we are adding yet another instrument to our growing collection.  We spent morning on the computer and doing chores, and I put together a book order for Hamilton Books (which has a special NO shipping charges on orders through Feb 8).  They sell “remainder books” for about one-third the original price; sometimes better.  John found a kit that teaches the Harmonica, with a CD, DVD, instructional book, AND a basic Harmonica.  He also found a book, “How to Play the Guitar.”  I found 3 books with scores of music (notation w/ chords), for singing while you work, 100 sing–along favorites for around the Campfire, and some “Negro Spirituals” of the Jubilee Singers (originally published in 1892).  I dropped the order in the mail at the PO when we went to town on our way to Thorp to look at our friend’s Casio Keyboard.  We visited for a couple hours and came away with the instrument.  John has set it up back in our computer room.  As best we can figure it was made in the 1980s and except for a small “buzz” it does everything it is supposed to, and we even have the instruction manual.  While in town we bought 50# whole oats because our bird food has been depleted.  The little devils get hungry when it is this cold.  Arrived home and retrieved the mail, which had the book on the Dulcimer (written in 1974) and it arrived in perfect shape.  Not a mark on it, or bent page.

Hope you had a nice week.

Nancy & John

on the Naneum Fan