Sunday, Aug 30
For Aug 29 CPAP. Reported figures. 2 hrs 23 min with AHI=1.26 Events: 2 H. No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min); no oximeter. No clue why I took off the mask, and no clue why the AHI was so high with only 2 H. One of life’s mysteries.
Heading off to town to visit my friend whose house I’m watching while she’s away, and to take some squash and tomatoes to people. Hopefully to trade for some fresh eggs. We received two dozen eggs, and gave away a fair number of squash and tomatoes. Squash are becoming less productive. Tomatoes are starting to come on better.
John is so much better today — all systems go, and this week, he has gained 10-12 pounds back from the 25 pounds lost over the past month. Most importantly, he is feeling better. I’m happy to have him back. (I seem to utter those words every day.)
Monday, Aug 31
For Aug 30 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 48 min with AHI=0.29 Events: 2 H, 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=8 L/min); no oximeter.
I spent most of the day working on music masters to take to Xerox after my first stint at the community clothing share. I also put a few more sacks of stuff from our place together to add to the clothing share. I have already submitted about 6 bags of things. I spent more time arranging for people from the community involved with charity clothing operations to come to the end of our share tomorrow, in order to carry away leftovers.
Tuesday, Sept 1 (MY 72nd BIRTHDAY). For the next 4 months I’m older than John.
For Aug 31 CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 20 min with AHI=0.19 Events: 1H. No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min); no oximeter.
My day started early, so I could be at the LDS church by 10:00, but on the way I had to stop for a vase of cut flowers donated to me for my birthday, and then I put the arrangement on the welcoming check-in table. At the end of the day, I gave them to the main organizer of the event. The next 1.5 hours was spent carrying in bags and boxes of clothing into the church gym, sorting and setting on different tables for Women’s (petite, S-M, L-XL, Plus), similarly for Men’s, for baby clothing, sized if possible, children’s and teen, maternity, and an accessories table. All shoes were placed along a wall. I’ll show several pictures below in a collage.
First though is this cheerful greeting near the entrance:
This grouping was along the edge of the welcoming table, where we had name tags for the worker volunteers. The birthday tiara and the cake were given to me by the main organizer of the event, Kathryn Carlson, at the start in the parking lot as we arrived. For the first 2 hours of work, I wore the tiara. The Buy Nothing Ellensburg group on Facebook sponsored this community-clothing share, and the use of the LDS facilities was donated. Many of the congregation also donated clothing. The Bishop of the second Ward is my eye doctor and he had told me 6 months ago we would be welcomed there.
My first trip away from the building was to go a short distance around a long block to my friends Joanie Taylor and Ken Matney for a birthday lunch. I carried some veggies to them too, and they reciprocated with a bag of pears from their tree. The menu was great, including a Southwest Salad with Avocado on the side, a generous helping of hot homemade Shepherd’s Pie, and for dessert, Tiramisu. Wow–what a treat! Also great company and a lovely card full of cool cultural-historical bookmarks.
I left their home, and went to copy sheet music to use over the next 2.5 months with our Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends group who entertain in assisted-living and retirement homes, weekly. On my way there, I needed to think about the number of copies with one page for each song and the number of copies of ones with back-to-back songs. I pulled over into a shady neighborhood street that was in front of the CWU President’s house. I rolled down my windows and was sitting there figuring counts, when I heard a loud cracking sound (of a tree limb breaking). I looked up and saw a large limb crack and fall until it was hanging straight down, but still connected. It was still shaking, when I took a picture of it, and I knew it would be dangerous if anyone pulled a vehicle up to the front door, got out and walked into the house. I took a photo, and then called the President’s Office to report they needed to get someone down there fast.
There is a second tree behind the hanging limb. That trunk is easy to see in the left photo (below) while the entire tree shows in the right photo – with the limb gone. {Click to Zoom.}
. . . . . . . . . Tree limb hanging . . . . . . Tree limb removed
The copying turned into a huge chore because the Xerox machine kept jamming or quitting on me, making me late for my next stop at the Adult Activity Center. I went to jazzercise class (and paid my $2.00 monthly fee), but only joined the activity for the last 15 minutes, and then I returned to the clothing share to help and also to meet a friend. It was proceeding smoothly, so I actually sat in front as a greeter, visiting with friends, which was nice, and allowed me some relaxation time on a comfortable sofa. I had done a lot of lifting (heavy bags and boxes of clothing) and carrying-in exercise with the input of stuff from the parking lot earlier in the day.
I arranged to go by the Palace Restaurant on my way home to get my free birthday dinner. I chose a chicken-fried Angus steak, with corn-on-the-cob, rice pilaf, and brown gravy. I called John and told him to pull out of the freezer, a small portion of chicken Alfredo we could eat on the side (to which he had added mushrooms and mixed vegetables). It was a great birthday dinner, with a nice dessert, and 3 different ones to choose from, to which we added vanilla ice cream, with strawberries and pecans. {A handful of nuts is good for health, someone says.}
I left the clothing share that was going until 7:30, but I had helped by contacting three of the local charity givers (church and other), to come at the end and carry away items for their uses. We did NOT want anything to go to a place such as Goodwill or even Habitat for Humanity that would charge for the clothing, but wanted it to go to places who would give the clothing freely to families in need. That also saved our group the effort of carrying away all the leftovers and distributing them. We had invested enough time on collecting them from all over town, packing them to the parking lot, and into the room for dispersal. Kathryn had devoted a room of her house to the organization and sorting of all the incoming bags of clothing, and with help from two nieces over a several week period, she did her magic. A collage below
shows the extent of the clothing, and was taken early in the day, so more was added throughout the day. When people arrived with a bag or box, we requested that they sort their offerings onto the appropriate table. They were happy to do that and we were grateful. Then, they could go through and take whatever their family needed. The whole day was a complete success, but I was worn out, along with all the other volunteer workers.
Wednesday, Sept 2
For Sept 1 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 34 min with AHI=0.93 Events: 7 H, 2 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=6 L/min); no oximeter.
Today was my day to go to join others at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen for music. We decided to go through as much as possible of the new music for the group that plays tomorrow–especially needed as about half the songs are totally new. Near the end of our 40 minutes of playing, we deferred to be the backup to our singer/guitar player as he played several songs on his harmonica. It was cool. The audience loved it.
From there I went to my SAIL exercise class at the Adult Activity Center, and assisted some with one of my classmates who is in her nineties and needs a little support on some of the out-of-chair exercises, and to be handed her walker for going around the circle.
Thursday, Sept 3
For Sept 2 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 42 min with AHI=1.56 Events: 12 H, 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=20 L/min); no oximeter.
This morning I put music into final form for this afternoon’s gig. Things are getting a bit chaotic in EBRG because this is the first day of the County Fair & Ellensburg Rodeo. The two events together make for a lively region and bring many visitors with all their money – the raison d’être. {John says, I think that means don’t eat raisins.} We sort of participated for a few years but now try to avoid as much as possible. My first office at CWU looked out on the street where the parade started and I was moving in that weekend, back in 1988, and had a front row seat.
One of our guitarists had to go to the Fair with his wife (confined to a wheelchair and living at that assisted living place), and their son. We had about the same number of musicians as members of the audience because the facility took 2 busloads of residents to the fair. We had 2 fiddles, mandolin, 5 guitars, and a bass fiddle, plus the grandson of one of the guitarists who played several Beethoven songs on the piano. He had to fix a pedal first (the soft one had lost its bolt). He is almost 13 and is from Deer Park, north of Spokane.
John’s digestive system is back to normal, and he has put in some yard work over the past several days.
Over the past year or so a wood-plank bridge has been deteriorating. The bridge is for getting across the irrigation ditch with wheelbarrow, cart, or just carrying something. The horses don’t need it but use it anyway. It has gotten to its use-by date (for horses). John built a new stronger bridge in the back of the old pickup, so he could transport it. This set of photos shows the in-progress building with old lumber. The existing bridge is just one layer – like the top layer of the new one. Only the bolts are new.
In the top photo, note small nails holding the rail in place. Drilling holes for the Carriage bolts was an effort because we have only a 3/8 inch power drill and it is 40 years old. A new ½ inch one would be nice. The yellow pencil in the bottom photo points toward one (of 3 per side) of the bolts with only the round shallow dome-head visible. {Zoom to see detail.}
The 2×4 rails (often called ‘bull rails’ from nautical usage) prevent slipping over the side, and would usually have spacers under them say on a dock (or quay). Note how the rope can go under the rail before being tied. See here: The link.
He moved the worn out one up to a walkway for people only, over the irrigation ditch, nearer our house. The ends have “face-plates” and, when completed, a ramp of gravel will slope up to the bridge deck.
This is the new one, and the horses are using it. For hiking trail bridges the corners often get treated with large rocks (one crew leader calls them gargoyles) – a visual indicator to direct foot-falls away from the edges. For now there is wood to be used and the approaches (rock & gravel) are to be added.
The old one John moved closer to a place with human access only, near the walking trail across our upper part of the irrigation ditch, to view our Mariposa lilies and other wildflowers on the way from the house to the mailbox.
Here is the old bridge repositioned in its new location. It is still under construction so I will show you both bridges after completion (in a future blog).
Face-plate needs to be placed and nailed, then the approach added.
Friday, Sept 4
For Sept 3 CPAP. Reported figures. 10 hrs 18 min with AHI=0.58 Events: 6 H, 7 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min); no oximeter.
Friday, we stayed home. We delivered veggies to a neighbor to pick up a 5-gal bucket and other containers we’d taken over previously.
Yesterday, John moved our old wood stove from the back patio, on to the pickup and then out front, and (temporarily) onto pallets stacked pick-up bed high.
Today, he cleaned out the ash from the fire-box and then the bricks lining the inside.
We knew we were hoping to recycle this in a Department of Ecology buy back bonus for turning in the polluting stoves. We have been planning for this for 6 months, and the original date for taking to Cle Elum, came and went in June. I was on several agencies’ notification list, but I never received a phone call or an email. John is very good about reading the local paper daily, and saw this announcement in the evening paper. We are very fortunate he saw this.
We did not know previously that the firebricks and the ash had to be removed. He succeeded in removing 28 firebricks weighing 3.5# each for 98 pounds of brick, and 10 pounds of ash.
Picture of stove, bricks, close up of brick. It is set up so he can back up the truck and load it into the bed to take the 35 miles to the transfer station between Cle Elum and Roslyn (of Northern Exposure fame). Now we just have to be sure we are there an hour early and get in the first 85 for our rebate and disposal needs. John chose to remove it himself and not let the installers of the new stove do the job and take it away, because they wanted to charge $99 for that service. We must dispose of it, because it cannot be sold or given away, because it cannot (legally) be used. It would be nice to receive a bounty instead of having to pay to dispose of it.
Saturday, Sept 5
For Sept 4 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 3 min with AHI=1.13 Events: 8 H. 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=18 L/min); no oximeter.
We finally made time to call John’s cousin, Helen Burgoon, in Bradford, PA, who celebrated her 90th birthday on the same day as mine, 9/1/15. We talked to her for 1/2 hour and had a very nice visit. No one was around, so we had her all to ourselves. Had we gotten through on her birthday (the line was busy), we would not have had but a few minutes with her, with all the kids, grandchildren, and great grandchildren there.
It has been very windy here since last night, as you can see on the report at the airport south of us 5 miles.
John worked some outside – in the wind – and we took pictures.
To end the day, we thought we would share a cool photograph of the Orcas (often called Killer Whales) near the San Juan Islands, WA. Back in 1991, I went on such a viewing trip out of Bellingham, WA, and with my friend from GA (since 6th grade), Nancy J (Maude) Buszek, now in Michigan. We saw many pods on our trip, including babies. This photo shows all the people looking away from the action behind them. There are fines and patrols to keep boats away from the Orcas. The animals didn’t get the message. Interesting.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan