It has been a week since the earthquake in the Pacific and the tsunami that devastated communities of coastal Japan. It is difficult to imagine the near complete destruction of so many small towns and villages. Main-stream-media seems focused on the nuclear plants with much exaggeration and irresponsible reporting. We have been fortunate to hear from a few former students that their families are safe on high ground.
Elsewhere, and here, we carry on.
Last week I ended my writing early Saturday morning. Then I was off to Briarwood to a full house of senior folks where we played and sang and joked with the crowd for over an hour and then joined them to visit and share fantastic food. That play date is the highlight of our month because of all the involvement by the audience in singing along and requesting songs, which we usually provide. Occasionally they will request a song we don’t know or cannot pick out on the fly.
I also forgot to say that we reached the end of last week with successful passage through young-Britt Annie’s heat cycle, and she is no longer attractive. It was a horrid last 3 weeks of worry and concern, because we did not want puppies again this year, even though last year’s litter was special and ended up in special homes where they are loved as family members. That’s the best thing a breeder can hope for.
Sunday. Weather has turned to rainy and probably will be like this for the rest of the week. Off to Taize’ tonight. Back home, with a full tummy. Only two of us musicians were there tonight. It was a nice service, and we had a great dinner of Chicken & Rice with veggies casserole (Costco’s finest), sliced huge tasty oranges, a dark bread, and two kinds of lemonade. Everyone had two helpings, and there was still some left for a couple to take leftovers home.
Tonight at 8:00 p.m. is the showing on the National Geographic channel of MegaQuake, expected for the Cascades in our life time. We have a friend recording it on a VCR tape for us because our antenna is not working. We haven’t been able to watch TV in several years. We are able to receive news on the Internet, and have a broadband connection. I can sit at one end of the house with my laptop and John can watch at the other end of the house on our family computer. We have a wireless system that allows me to communicate with my laptop with his computer and modem connected to allow us both on the Internet at the same time. And the landline phone continues to work too – modern technology is magical.
Monday. Today is “Dead” day at school the first day of Finals week, with no finals held. Funny, even though I’m retired, I still keep track of things. I’ll be alone today, at least till afternoon. After feeding the horses, John took off at 7:45 a.m. for White Heron Cellars, over on the bend in the Columbia River, to help prune grape vines.
If you use the coordinates in the next line in the Google Earth “Fly to” box
47.233909, -120.000374
. . . you can find where the vineyard and winery are.
Zoom out and you can see the Columbia River and the big gravel bar across to the south from the Winery: http://www.whiteheronwine.com/
Isn’t that cool? He will work about 3 hours and return home. It is supposed to be a nice day.
I have exercise class (maybe) at the Adult Activities Center (AAC). Our teacher had his last day last Wed., and we have to get a new one, or someone at the AAC has to take over. I could probably lead it, but I won’t volunteer. I’m making good headway with the tax receipt entering, so will probably just continue. John got home in good shape and is going back Wednesday morning to continue pruning (Syrah vines) and see if they can do more than 3 rows, now that he knows what is wanted. We both rested this afternoon after being awakened at 12:45 a.m. by a hang-up caller. Not nice.
Tuesday. No big things happening today till night when I have to play music in town, but John will take a trip earlier to fill his tank with expensive gas. While there he will pick up my meds and some groceries. I am spending all my time on tax entry again today. It’s an overcast day, and John is back from feeding the horses and exercising the dogs. They had to tiptoe around a herd of deer again today.
It rained on me tonight going and coming from town. We had a nice play time and singing, and the other fiddler and I twin-fiddled 3 Irish songs at the end after everyone else quit. Pretty cool.
Wednesday. John got up, feed the horses, and left for the vineyard. I slept in !!. Guess I needed it. I was awake at least twice with nightmares. I just cannot let school go and get on with my life (so John muses). The dream was about a large GIS class the first day of the quarter and I didn’t have enough room, plus students without the prerequisites were signed in, in record numbers. Then somehow dog kennels were being brought in by a former student to set up as carrels, but I didn’t have computers there. The other thing in the dream was that a student who was going to drop had brought Bundt type cakes (4 of them) and was carrying them around offering them to everyone. I had a piece of sweet sugar-covered raspberry cake. I was also frantically calling the registrar’s office and running around to two different buildings looking for available classroom space. I even remember thinking that I had to be careful getting so much exercise with my heart condition. Holy mackerel, I was glad to awaken. Still it was hard to get back to sleep. How do you stop thinking about such stuff after you wake?
Now I have eaten. John bought a couple of bananas and told me to eat one and then look up “banana equivalent dose” on the web. Maybe later; I’m getting ready to start on emails, and then worry about going to the hospital for a blood draw and on to exercise class. I hope to visit my friend in the hospital (surgery) while there, but the past two days she has not felt up to visitors. How WELL I understand that. Turns out I got there for my blood draw and walked around to Med-Surg to see if she could visit, and she had already been released. So, I went to exercise after putting a few gallons of expensive gas ($3.72/gal.) in my “mid-grade or premium gas only” car. Stayed after today for 2 games of pool. I won both.
Thursday. John plans to go again to prune. Nice thing is that he will get a bottle of wine for each work hour. If it stays wet and cold here at home we’ll reconstitute our wine cellar (he’d like to spend some time here with the horses). That will more than pay for the gasoline. He’s off and it is a beautiful day. I have only to do tax entry today and go play music this afternoon at Dry Creek. We both got home safely, and I think he will prune again tomorrow.
Friday. Woke up to SNOW and it is still coming down at 10:00 a.m., but slowing. John went to the vineyard. The location is 1,000 feet lower than here and there is very little threat of rain there this morning. I will go to a scholarship luncheon and to the Adult Activity Center. I enjoyed my lunch of baked potato with all sorts of stuffings to bury it in. Then I left there for my exercise class that was mostly a “late” St. Patrick’s Day party. We had Irish bread, mint cookies, and punch with lime sherbet. I didn’t have much of the food because I had just eaten, but I tasted the bread and the cookie because our leader had cooked them herself. Then we visited and played games. I played two games of Nintendo Wii bowling – new to me. Really pretty neat (and that comes from a previous bowler). You can actually turn the remote controller and put a “hook” on your virtual bowling ball. I walked toward the screen as if I was on a lane (an alley). Prizes were awarded to the high scorer, but I did not win. My partner did, however, and she shared her goodies. I brought home a microwavable bucket of popcorn and some chocolate covered raisins. John was home when I got here and had taken the dogs for a run. He then slept while I worked.
Nothing is planned for Saturday. John won’t go back to prune till Monday morning. Hopefully it won’t be raining all day tomorrow and he can get out to work with the horses. I need to walk to the barn to see about learning how to feed again. I have not helped since before I had the heart attack in Nov. 2009. Guess it is about time I learned the procedure now with the 6 horses. John said they were really wild tonight running up and down the pasture, jumping the ditch, and playing tag. He was happy he had not taken the dogs – when it has been raining they come back carrying dirt and worse from the pasture into the house.
Hope you all have another good week. We send our best regards to all our faithful readers.
P.S., did you Google, banana equivalent dose ? You should. It’s interesting and relevant to the nuclear news from Japan.