Monday, Jan 20
Cancelled my bone density and mammogram appointments for tomorrow. Need to call back and talk with Donna when I’m better to reschedule and request Rose for my mammogram technician.
Need to update calendar, file 2019 receipts. I don’t know what else happened today, except I was probably alternating medicines every 4 hours to control mucus reliever for getting rid of fluid in my lungs as phlegm and cough suppression tablets. I learned how to set computer alarms to alert me when it was time to take them, and every 6 hrs. my Acetaminophen.
Tuesday, Jan 21
In the cloudy overcast weather, we left before lunch, having decided to go to Costco this afternoon for some specials. We only had to drive up over Manastash Ridge on I-82 to get out of the clouds and into bright sunshine and blue skies. It was a great trip the whole way there and back to the Kittitas Valley. First, to their gasoline station (best price in the region), where we get 4% additional off gasoline purchases (anywhere) using our CITI Bank Visa (Costco) card. We had decided to go to Costco to get their good price on TurboTax Premier, which was only good until 1/26 on this flyer, and to pick up a few other things on special sale there: instant coffee and Kleenex, both over $4 off the regular price. From there back through Ellensburg, where we had a bunch of stops.
First stop, Bi-Mart to check our numbers. Didn’t win anything. On to pick up my medications at Super 1 Pharmacy, and over to Fred Meyer pharmacy to pick up meds for Annie (our Brittany). She’s on a pain pill related to Ibuprofen. It’s fairly expensive but I get 120 at a time, and she takes a ½ pill twice daily. It seems to help her arthritis. I also get a 50 pt fuel-point reward for the $58 purchase. However, today I got an additional 100 points because my phone number (alternate ID was not entered), and I was apologized to for the mistake, by being given the extra award. Luckily, I checked it before leaving the store. Now I can fill out an evaluation form for my feedback to the Kroger company and gain another 50 points. That will give me (right now) 206, with 50 to come, to apply toward the price of gas at their station. For every 100 points you get 10 ₵/gal off their price, so right now I would get it for $2.69/gal. Today at Costco I was well below any station in Ellensburg, and paid $2.74. I can use this through the first week of February. Consider my car is the only one we are driving right now, I should have to fill it again before I lose these points.
From there we went to Mid-State Coop for Senior Equine grain for the 4 horses. We filled up with an extra free bag you get after purchasing 10 bags.
From there I called about a man who wears the 54” waist pants. His mom was at the local community health office waiting for her sister to pick her up and give her a ride home (no car). She said she could contact her son and have him meet me downstairs. I knew the Apt.#. The son wasn’t there to meet me, so I climbed up the very steep set of stairs, and I left them with his father, and told him I needed to know if they didn’t fit him. I have another large person waiting to see if they work for the first one. My Fit Bit recognize my effort today by giving me 1 staircase reading on the dial.
On the way home, we dropped by the bread room and got one loaf of Rosemary Olive bread. As musicians for the Wednesday Food bank lunch we are allowed 3 loaves or packages, Mon-Thurs. I mainly go for English Muffin Bread (EMB), yet they rarely get it.
From there on home, just in time for John to grain the horses before dark.
Costco had a box of 12 single-pizzas. We tried them for supper; wasn’t the best pizza we’ve had. The crust was tough, but we’ll cook differently as we go through the remaining ones. Probably not a repeat buy.
Now we are having a treat of Dark Chocolate morsels with mixed nuts, in a little bowl.
One day this week, John made some Crockpot Chocolate Candy.
Is it ever good !!
Getting ready to hit the hay.
Wednesday, Jan 22
Planning to go to the Food Bank lunch today. Make my nutrition drink and set up my red bag. Don’t forget to pack the drink and my pills. Take my diuretic at my last stop today.
I left at 10:50 a.m. and immediately got into light rain and saw a fog bank ahead. It continued raining on me all day, and never changed to snow as predicted. I did not have on my raincoat with a hood. I did have a winter coat in the car, but the top is not waterproof. The jacket coat is.
Got there by 11:20 and helped set up the chairs. The staff at the church where we eat in their annex and play our music for the audiences, moved the table we used for putting our instrument cases on, and bags for distributing music items for the group. We had a fine turnout of singers, Bob, Peggy, Reta, Richard, harmonica Dean, drummer Richard, banjo Evelyn, & violin Nancy. We played for 40 minutes, and then took everything down (music stands & chairs), and ate. I had my nutrition drink along, and also had some spaghetti. Visited afterwards until after 1:00 p.m.
I went by the AAC to pay our yearly dues and pick up box of music lyrics books most in 3-ring binders, someone donated to them and Katrina asked if we wanted. I need to transfer those to Evelyn, and keep one copy for me. I hope they are all the same. Some look smaller than others. I went into the computer room and checked email for messages, visited some more with a member outside my car, and got to say thanks to Katrina as she came back at 2:00 from a meeting. It was still raining. I dropped off some duct tape and black electrician tape for the Landons to use what they needed, and will go pick up the rest, one of these days when I’m by their house. From there I went a few blocks north to a gal for whom I collect Christmas cards, to give her about 14 I had picked up at the AAC at the Christmas party. She was grateful and walked out in her raincoat to the car to get them.
On by the bread room to give a message to a musical friend who volunteers in food distribution about the timing of a performance this Friday of a Ukulele group his friend may wish to attend. I did not have her name or email, and he was not working today (so when I got home, I emailed him the details and email contact for Evelyn Heflen who played her banjo today at the Food Bank. She also plays Ukulele with the Ukulele group. I sent it to him to send to her. He got back to me with the name and that he would give her the emails for contact.
We had meat loaf, mashed potatoes, gravy, and carrots for supper. We’ll have a piece of chocolate cake for dessert.
Did the dishes. Done after 10 tonight.
Good friends since we were babies, Dorothy Wright Smith, and I are mourning the death of her husband Bill today after a fall a week ago, where he hit his head and was injured beyond the ability for surgery to save his life. He was existing on a respirator, with family around. He could no longer communicate. John and I have sent our sympathies, and I will publish a link to his obituary when I locate it. The funeral is next week on 1/29.
Thursday, Jan 23
Culligan man came at 9:30 a.m. and stayed about an hour to change the under-the-sink filters (once a year I think) for our filtered water system.
Contacted Glenn, Katie, and Amy about my timing tomorrow.
Need to contact Karen Roth about dropping off 3 glass frames, tomorrow at her Briarwood apt. I succeeded.
I’ve an upcoming photo thing. Charge my batteries in video camera for tomorrow, and be sure I have enough room to record. Also, need to get my Panasonic camera set up, cleaned off, and charged, as well as my Nikon.
Renewed my MedicAlert account for 3 yrs, at $42.49/year until 1/20/2023. Need to update my medical records. Just recently updated my emergency contacts.
We ate supper of leftovers and will have dessert from the freezer.
Friday, Jan 24
Today was my first day, not to be needing my bronchitis medications. Four weeks exactly since I started with this chest congestion and cough. I made all my connections for stops, town, starting by leaving home for town at 10:25. I made it to my first stop early, and dropped the 3 glass frames by Karen Roth’s house along with some underpants she can wear that currently swallow me. Next stop was only 100’ away to behind Glenn Engels carport space at Briarwood, where he was going to meet me at 11:00 a.m. to give me a borrowed music stand I’d loaned his mom. It was still lost in her things and he found it in the house in two different locations (it’s a metal fold-up stand, with a bottom and a music rack that fits on top of the bottom). I sent pictures of the stand, and he found the two parts. So, now I have that back.
From there I drove around to the office area of their clubhouse, where we play music on the 3rd Saturdays of the month. Purpose is to visit Katie Patterson there during their crafters meeting to watch her repair (her offer), the crocheting black thread on the sleeve of my Christmas sweater I got (already damaged) from the clothing bank to dress up in Christmas clothing when playing music the month of December. When January got here, Katie told me to bring the sweater and she’d fix it. It was a tedious process, but she did it while I watched today, and I took it away. She also could not fix the holes in John’s Christmas sweater, because she is not a knitter. I will find a knitter friend I should see within the month to give it to her, to see if she can repair it. She has done things (such as wool winter hats) for me in the past.
I stayed and visited with everyone at the crafters until 11:45, when I left for the north end of campus to arrive by 11:50, at Michaelson Hall. I have an Emeritus parking sticker so I can park in the staff/faculty lots, across the street. That trip was to the 4th Friday group of Ruth Harrington’s Scholarship Fund lunch. Today was hot chicken tacos and with cheese, guacamole, and salsa. I cannot recall ever having a chicken taco before. Also there was a salad I did not eat (dark greens), and a dessert plate, from which I bought mine home to John. It looks like a piece of fudge. I had to leave early to be at my next stop by 12:30.
I drove back south again to Meadows Place to go to an Aloha Party, where my friends were playing a Ukulele concert to go along with the Hula Dancers (two, including Carol Cummings I know from the Senior Center). She’s amazing. She is 80 yrs old and teaches children the grass skirt dances, and she also has taught ballroom dancing to adults at the Senior Center. The two ladies, alternating with the Ukulele group entertained for over an hour. I was given a piece of pie by a lady at my table, because she didn’t want it. And, I had a glass of water there. Alternately watching the uke group play (and sing) while the two ladies were changing dresses and outfits for different performances. I didn’t have my camera along to video tape any of the dances, or the ukulele group playing. I did offer to take their photograph on Evelyn Heflen’s smart phone. I expected her to send me a copy of that. I hope some in their group also took a photo of the dancers all decked out (no one did). I truly wish I had a video of the dancers doing a dance with maracas, bamboo stick, gourds and holding two smooth dark granite-looking rocks, in each hand, clicking them together. I would like to know how they manage to get that sound. It was a fantastic performance. I sat at a table with residents whom I know from Ellensburg. We had a nice visit, sitting right in front of the Ukulele Group, photo below.
Joey, friend Evelyn, J’aime, Betty, & friend Candace 
Tonight we are leaving for Nick Zentner’s 4th Season Premier of his Nick on the Rocks series. I will videotape it again this year and also tape the discussions following each with questions from the audience and answers from Nick, and sometimes others on the team (Chris Smart & Linda Schactler).
John had to go to town to Les Schwab and bought a $200.33 battery for his Ford truck, because it was not keeping its charge and is 6 yrs old. From there to the dump (transfer station), and it cost him $47 because of the weight. Prices on products and services keep going up. We guess it’s because the hourly wages keep increasing. A lot of the weight was old manuscripts and heavy paper boxes filled with outdated books. Much of this is old university stuff, mine or of others. We are making an effort to clean out the garage first to have a contractor come in and repair the roof (ceiling), put in insulation in the attic above, remodel it into a usable room. Remove the garage doors that never have worked well. But it is full of junk which needs thrown away. In 30 years there has only been one car in it; a friend’s old antique car.
Slow going in and out to the Nick on the Rocks, with the frozen fog. I was driving blindly with low beam lights and defroster on. Took us 24 minutes each trip to drive in and back only 9 miles!
We got there early to get our good seats for filming and should have gone to the bathroom before going in or taken a break during one of the 5-minute episodes I was filming because I could have seen it later on my video. So we ended being there from 6:50 to 9:00.
We shall have dessert (chocolate cake) with ice cream.
Saturday, Jan 25
Get to working on my camera charge and removal videos and send to You Tube. YouTube’s currently processing my first, the longest, 1 hr. 14 min.
Nick introducing the evening’s premiere showing of 6 episodes of Nick on the Rocks, a PBS series on a Seattle station, KTCS-9.
NICK on the ROCKS –January 24, 2020
The next videos (questions and answers after each segment) were videoed on different cameras, to follow Nick around the room. Unfortunately, they did not turn up the lights on the audience, so my camera did not have much light to work with. My apologies for that.
Q&A Saddle Mountains Buried in Ash
Q&A Scraping Together Mt. Olympus
There will be no link to Q&A on the last episode, MT. ST. HELENS CRATER, because the evening ended at the end of the Helicopter views of the volcano.
I’m alternating chores with dish washing and sending videos to the web, via YouTube.
Sunday, Jan 26
About the rain, and the “rain shadow” title for this week. Our winds and rain usually come from the west, and so have to cross the Cascade Mountains. They are high enough (3 to 5 thousand feet just west of us) to force most of the moisture out, so we are drier, or in the rain shadow.
Washington also has the Olympic Mountains and there the elevation goes to almost 8,000 feet. The map below shows rainfall during this past Wed/Thur, with air moving from the southwest to the northeast.
Underlined by a red line, Seattle is low on the right edge. Up from Seattle there are a bunch of low rainfall totals (0.01 to 0.15). The lower left red underline is 9.45. That’s inches in 48 hours (ending 7 PM Thursday). That’s the total precipitation for Ellensburg for an average year. Nine to nothing sounds more like a score of a bad baseball game. Okay back to our mundane life.
Up at 3:30 a.m. with dog wanting out to potty. We are still keeping the “doggy-kitty door” closed most of the time. No more raccoons if we can control it.
Back to bed until 4:30 when cats wanted out.
Then set an alarm for taking my Acetaminophen at 5:30 a.m., and back to sleep again. Wake up for pills, and back to bed until 9:00 a.m. I was tired.
Finally, got all Friday night videos uploaded to YouTube at 12:40 pm. Now need to process those and finish the blog and fix myself brunch. 1:38 brunch.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan