Sunday, June 3 John drove to town in the old ’80 Chevy farm truck for gas. Price today cheapest in town is $4.14 – our area is served by several refineries that scheduled maintenance and just as they went down a fire at another place took out all the backup. So, as the rest of the nation has seen a price drop, we have gone the other way. We are fixing carrot, walnuts, and toasted marshmallows casserole, and biscuits, for us, along with another couple of friends, to take to dinner tonight. On the menu is elk ribs, salad, and green bean casserole being served at a friend’s house.
Monday, June 4 Cheapest gas in town today is $4.11. We awoke to no cat in the trap. We have all three fixed ferals with us being fed and watered every day. We haven’t seen the extra orange cat in days, so if we don’t catch one in the morning, we will quit. We went to the brunch and awards presentations at Dean Hall/Geography. There were waffles and pancakes, sausage, bacon, much fruit, preserves, and so on.
Tuesday, June 5 We are done with capturing feral cats. We re-caught Cashew this morning. They don’t have bad memories of being caught. I’m sure they have forgotten the connection to going to the vet, and just relate to the 2 weeks in the cage in the house where they were treated like royalty. John is currently disassembling it. Wind is 40 mph and threatening rain (which we had more of last night). After taking down the cat-holding cage we have a large table again to work on for sorting, wrapping, or even eating. How nice. I spent most of the day completing a large email list announcing the retirement party for my colleague. I have a store of emails for students back to early 1990s. I have kept them current and the only problem is they are in several different places, so I have had to assemble into one list. It’s a lot of work, but will have double value the way I’m using it. I got it mailed tonight, and only had 21 returned for bad email addresses. Not too bad, I suppose.
Wednesday, June 6 The wind is still howling. All the cats were around tonight but this morning Cashew got most of the food. Tonight Cashew was up on the loft and talking with John when he brought food & water. Tonight he actually came to the back patio next to my recliner, sat outside, and talked to me. He has such a deep expressive voice. This morning before noon, I left to go to the Soup Kitchen food bank for music playing, singing, and then eating. They had a great tuna casserole today, a salad of beans (Green, Garbanzo, and Kidney Beans). Also garlic toast, and for dessert a full banana, with chocolate top covering (hard because they cooled the bananas). From there to SAIL exercise class, and on the way, I picked up some free pieces of scrap cabinet plywood from a cabinet shop in town. Maybe we can find a use for it (mostly long narrow pieces), but no rush. The table saw quit (motor or switch) a few years ago and it is now behind multiple stacks of other stuff. That will become an issue if we can clean out the two rooms over which we now have skylights in the roof but not the openings in the ceilings – the light shaft. Oh, back to this afternoon — I got home and tried to sort through emails. There were several coming as RSVPs for the retirement celebration June 16. John fixed baked chicken, fried mashed potatoes from last night and homemade applesauce from the freezer. Tonight will be our own red raspberries on ice cream, and morning, on cereal. I spent time on the phone this afternoon setting up with the RV place in town, talking to the Service Manager, about adding a/c to my “new” travel trailer. We’re taking it in on Friday for an evaluation & estimate.
Thursday, June 7 All’s well here; except we lost Dan our Brittany male this morning on his morning exercise with John. He has not showed up and is not dead on the road. NO idea what happened. He was right with him and disappeared into the brush. Don’t know what to do. He has a collar on with our identification and phone number. Ideas? Maybe he had a stroke, shot by a neighbor, caught by a cougar …
Weird and sad. I figured when I went to town for music, and to pick up medicine for Rascal’s tapeworms, that he would be here when I returned. But not so. I wish I knew what to do.
Spent over an hour on the phone again, with Toshiba about the mini mouse that malfunctioned, and I think I finally have a replacement on the way to me. I’m out the cost of mailing it back to CA with my invoice. I think they should have covered that.
Twelve hours later, Dan (wayward Brittany) showed up; 9:30 p.m. He was wet, tired, and hungry, but not hurt in any way. Wish he could talk.
Friday, June 8 John’s inside wasting time looking at odd stories from around the globe. Try this:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10811873
It raises the question: Does the NZ dialect not include the term roast?
He wants to be outside doing something but it is cold and windy. No fun. It got just cold enough early Friday morning (about 5 am) to freeze leaves on a yellow summer squash plant. Not even beans just a few feet away noticed the cold. Today an air mass was swirling by and about every 2 hours it would rain for 5 or 6 minutes. John worked on taking the garbage out of the truck that pulls the trailer, so we could take it in and leave it for an estimate today on adding a/c and installing it. In addition, we’ll need to get a generator. Turns out, they didn’t want to keep the truck, so moving the trash was unnecessary. John covered it with a tarp during one of the short spurts of rain. Rained on me too on my drive to massage and exercise. Oh, while in there, I filled John’s Subaru with gas (and the price had reduced to $4.059, today; guess I should just say $4.06).
Saturday, June 9 The only thing on tap is a visit with a former student from Sudan, who will be in town for CWU’s graduation ceremony. I’m happy I don’t have to be there this year, but we will meet with the fellow either before or after the afternoon ceremony. He visited me 3 times (driving from the west side of the Cascades), while I was in the rehab/ nursing home for 7 weeks. I last saw him in Seattle, last year, when I was there for a conference. He met me with other geographers at a Chinese restaurant and we had a very nice visit.
Guess I’ll finish this and send to John to tweak and post.
Hope your week was a good one.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan