EASTER — Celebrating; now where’s spring

We bought a rib roast and took it over to our neighbor so she could cook it in her new oven, thereby saving us the trouble of cooking, making gravy, and carrying a cumbersome and hot carton of things 300 yards down the road.  Nancy is supposed to take a stomach motivation pill about 30 minutes before she eats.  So we arrived a bit early and engaged in neighborhood news with the extended family members.  After a time Nancy rose out of her chair as though she had been poked with a sharp stick.  We were shocked – shocked, I tell you!  She had forgotten to take that pill and dinner time was fast approaching.  We were shocked that she would be so forgetful and threaten the timely serving of the food, for the rest of us would not have tasted a thing until her recalcitrant stomach was primed for the event.  Shame on her.

We haven’t written in a couple of days, but it’s because we have been busy, visiting doctors, physical therapy, and checking out some horses in the lower valley.  Nancy anticipates riding this summer and needs a calm and responsive horse.  We found a Tennessee Walking Horse mare 10 years old with experience around guns, dogs, people milling about, birds flying from under foot and so on. Namely, a birddog field trial horse.  She has a 6 yr. old half brother.   We will pick them up next weekend.

Nancy drove to town Friday – her first such activity since before Thanksgiving.  And also, except when we know she will want the attached seat, she leaves the 4-wheeled walker in the car.  All signs of progress.

John participated Saturday with our youngest horse in a workshop put on by our horseback trail riders club in the Kittitas Valley.  The weather outside was frightful.  Friday we had 3 to 4 inches of snow, and it snowed here a little Saturday.  I stayed home and was able to speak by phone with my maid of honor at my wedding… 40 years ago.  That was quite special.

Also, Saturday afternoon we went to a friend’s house and watched 4 kids color Easter eggs.  It’s much different from what I remember as a kid.   Then we ate a wonderful dinner and played around afterwards on the piano.

Monday starts another busy week.  One of the companies with Nancy’s retirement money gave us the wrong forms a few weeks ago so new ones have to be completed, signed and stamped by CWU’s benefits administrator, then resubmitted.  We have to turn in campus keys, go to physical therapy, go to the hospital lab for another blood draw for tests—never stops, and threatens to make me anemic again ! (ha ha )… not so funny.  Wednesday evening there is a presentation on the great ice age floods that swept across what is now eastern Washington State carrying blocks of ice, rocks, and all sorts of debris to the Pacific Ocean via the (now named) Columbia River Gorge.  This is a favorite topic of many retired earth science types we have known for years and, as such, we will see a lot of friends last seen months ago.

We know some readers are experiencing lovely spring-like weather.  And from the winter you had, you deserve a few nice days.  Not us.  We had a mild winter.  Here, this past week has been more winter-like than winter was.  With new horses coming, John has preparatory work to do.  Where’s spring?