Well, here we are, Saturday night, and John is at the keyboard posting past happenings. I am in the other end of the house starting a fresh report — home after playing music in town and eating. He went along too, to make a few stops, then came by and so did 3 other husbands to share in the food at Briarwood, where we entertained for an hour. John only had several desserts, but I had a roll, 1.5 bowls of 5-bean veggie chili, with Chili Fritos & crackers, and also several desserts: Strawberries and whipped cream on a Bundt spice-type cake, an especially good cookie with fruit and nuts, and a piece of orange cake. I haven’t pushed away from the table yet – I guess I’m compensating for all the eating issues I went through last year, including eating nothing but very plain chicken salad and yogurt for about 6 weeks. Now I don’t wish to touch either.
They treat us well at Briarwood. We played and sang our hearts out. They joined us on the singing and even a couple of people danced. A fellow who lives in a nearby retirement community brought his C Key- Harmonica and joined us for two songs, and then played Auld Lang Syne. We played along with him, quietly, so he could be heard. It was very neat. Made him happy too.
I came home and completed transposing 4 songs for our B flat Clarinet player for tomorrow night’s performance at the Episcopal church. I had to fight with kitty, Sunny, who wanted on the desk and printer to help. I know it’s good he is feeling more sociable, but he can be a pain. At least he is doing better about sleeping through the night. However, dogs and we still need to go potty about every three hours. The diuretic medication I’m on doesn’t help.
Sunday. Snowed at least 4 inches and I drove to town for the Taize’ service. We had a full time of music, silent meditation, some readings, a few prayers, and a nice lasagna meal afterward with peanut butter cookies. I took the remaining birthday cake of John’s and some brownies. Another person brought a bowl of really good veggies, most of which I could eat while on Coumadin. I shy from broccoli but cauliflower is all right. They were cut up small and had an oil of sorts spread throughout the mixture.
Monday was an interesting day. We worked on various projects before I left for town for exercise class. We made appointments for the cat and the dog to go to the vet. After my class I went by school to read job applications for my job replacement. That was interesting. I returned Tuesday morning to complete them. I wanted to participate but it is a time sink.
Turns out our vet also cannot tell the gender of our new kitty. We took him in today for shots and deworming, and made an appointment for a neuter, but the vet said it might be a she and require a spay. Well, we’ll just have to adjust come 3 weeks from now when hopefully we can tell. Till then, s/he remains “Sunny Kitty”, a genderless name. Years ago in Iowa we had a calico cat show up at our front door that everyone in the apartment complex was calling Sam. Turned out she was Samantha, and we called her Sammy the rest of her life. (She lived to be 20 years old.)
Wednesday found us with 4 to 5 inches of new snow, but not as much as predicted. The sun is shining and it is a pretty day. We both had eye exams planned and they were executed with good results. Neither of us needs a change in our prescription. While I have some glasses somewhere that give me better than 20/20 vision and correct for an astigmatism, I have 20/20 vision with both eyes working together and a little less with my right eye alone. The back of our retinas are okay too. John has the start of possible cataracts, but they haven’t changed recently. I also have a slight membrane that also hasn’t changed in two years, but when it does, I will have it adjusted by laser in the office, not the hospital. I will know it’s time when my distance vision gets fuzzy. That was good news.
John’s fixin’ a roast beef tonight and it smells so good. He also fixed a piece of a Butternut squash. I spent time in town again this afternoon for my exercise class. Only 10 of us showed, probably because of the snowy weather. We worked hard and tired ourselves out.
Thursday. Off to play music and then afterward to a talk in the geography department at CWU, to hear a former student talk on the Naneum Forest up the road from us. It was a well done talk. John had his KVTR meeting tonight, but I stayed home. I intended to make headway on organizing and filing tax receipts, but I never got there. I played with kitty and kept him awake so that we might have a good night’s sleep without interruptions from him. One of the dogs will probably get us up in the middle of the night, regardless.
Friday was a less involved day, with just the exercise class to attend. I went, and John ran errands while I was in class. On the way to town we saw beautiful cloud formations with rainbow colors. There were streamers and streaks and gossamer fabric-like patterns; either of fine droplets or ice crystals. We were heading south and the sky had fluffy clouds and the colored patterns seemed interwoven with the Sun to the upper right. We called some friends as, unfortunately, we did not have our camera. Those with a camera took some photos but we all agreed they did not shine the way the sky had – and it changed rapidly. We were the ones with the longest view time but all agreed it was fantastic.
Saturday, it was all day. We had a nice long phone call from John’s brother in California. The rest of the day was spent on chores around the house and yard, although rain started in time to wet John and the dogs when they were outside for the horse feeding. The mountains to the west are taking most of the water out of this system with only the highest peaks getting snow. If it stays warm our snow will melt and we will have an early “mud” season. The full snow cover reflects most of the Sun’s energy but the warm ocean-source air flowing our way is still slowly melting the 18 inches of snow we had on the ground. We won’t have to worry about flooding on this (the east) side of the Cascades as the melting is very slow currently. Folks west of the crest are not going to be so lucky. Problems are already being reported. The Puget Sound area is covered with loose glacial deposited material – designed for flooding, landslides, and trees tipping over in saturated soil. The sky there right now – not so nice.
It is time to send this to John.
Best wishes for a good week, this coming one. Nancy and John