Saturday this week is empty for a change, giving me time to finally cut John’s long locks. When he started doing trail work he had thick hair but his hard hat kept coming off so I trimmed his graying hair very short. That is still the plan. I’m done now and he is set for awhile.
It’s Sunday and we are making a trip to Costco in Yakima and hope to combine it with an eggs and waffles lunch with friends from west of town. We were going to meet them for a Polish sausage and strawberry sundae at Costco, but they invited us instead to their house. We’re taking home grown raspberries and U-pick blueberries. We hoped for good weather so we could leave the dogs out for the several hours we are gone. That’s a long time to be cooped up in the house without being able to potty. At least the cat has a litter box she can use. The weather did not cooperate so we just returned from 5 hours away, leaving everyone in the house. They managed to make it through just fine. We had a nice visit (snowed the whole time) with the friends in West Yakima (70 miles from our home) and lots of good food. Yum. There were scrambled eggs with cheese and onions, cut oranges, bacon, waffles, and our fancy berries. We didn’t have any room left for fresh cinnamon rolls, so some snuck home with us.
On the way back, we went by Costco, and it was a mess. I have never seen so many people in one store in my life. I’ll never do that again. We don’t know if it was because it was raining, or perhaps it was the first Sunday since a paycheck. It was nuts. We were rained on there, and almost all the way home, till we got to Manastash Ridge, and were in the snow again.
North and a bit west of Yakima is a long high ridge called Cleman Mountain (5,076 feet; see on Google Earth at: 46.82, -120.848). It had snow all over. One of the small blue picture markers for the location just given is for Mt. Rainier about 42 miles west of Cleman and another 22 miles from Interstate 82, our route north. Mt. Rainier is so prominent from the Seattle region that folks just say things, such as, “the mountain is out today,” which means the fog and clouds are gone and Mt. Rainier, in all its majesty, can be seen. From the Yakima area we can also see Mt. Adams, and there are fewer intervening ridges and being a bit closer, it seems larger.
Mt. Rainier is a 14,411 ft. slumbering stratovolcano and from our back patio we can see about the top 1,000 feet. It is close to population centers of Puget Sound and an eruption might be very damaging. It is easily visited. Mt. Adams, in contrast, is very isolated and most folks will only see it from a distance of 50 miles or so. A good site to see Washington’s mountains is here:
http://www.photoseek.com/index.html
There is a link saying “Mt. Rainier” at the bottom left of the first screen, but he has lots more stuff on this site.
Taize’ has been canceled for the night because this begins spring break and the students all leave and go home. They are the ones who actually lead the service, so we need them to be there.
Monday. John expected to go prune wine grape vines again today, but it was cancelled because of the winemaker going to Seattle. The weather looks good for his trip. I went in for SAIL exercise and played two games of pool afterward. We each won one game. On to the grocery store and home. Put in some time on tax entry this morning and need to collaborate with John on the stock stuff. Looks as if we don’t have enough deductions to “itemize” but just to take the standard deduction instead. Now the rules have changed and we cannot even deduct the purchase of Turbo Tax, or if we had a person do our returns. I was making good progress getting stuff into Turbo Tax, only to hit a stalemate on Schedule D and not being able to enter information for capital “loss”. Still looking for how to solve that. There is no person to call, just searching on line for forums or support FAQs, which are not helping. So I’m frustrated. (Actually I figured it out, by going back to the beginning of the program, where it asks a lot of questions and I saw the box I should have checked.)
Tuesday. Need to apologize to the readers for the blather that seems to be more like a diary coming from us. It has turned out to be a good record for checking back to see what happened when, however. Hope you readers are not bored to tears from reading. We do appreciate your feedback and continued support. Today is a lighter day, but we will be celebrating our neighbor’s 88th birthday with him and his family tonight at dinner. It’s a gorgeous sunny day for a change. Maybe spring has finally sprung. Plans are for sweet and sour pork cooked by the son, mashed potatoes by mom, and steamed rice with red peppers and onions cooked by us, and a dessert Pizza Hut pizza, requested by the birthday “boy,” also from us.
Wednesday.
Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird . . .
Do you remember that great song?
Many will remember the Cat Stevens’ version but the song is older and worth a look:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_Has_Broken
Actually, in my summer Fiddle workshop a couple of years ago, we did the religious version, same tune, and a couple of us sang the words of Cat Stevens version.
As morning broke, John left for the vineyard. He’s now back and I didn’t go to exercise class today. Stayed to receive a package from FedEx. The package is from a friend from Canada via grad school in Cincy. His company now awards scholarships to masters students to help fund their research. It is competitive, and we are on the review team. We continue to work on things. I got my exercise today walking to the mailbox and back with 3 of the dogs. Then when John got home he took them again for a short stroll. They were very happy because they missed their run this morning when he was in a hurry to feed horses and leave.
We called his cousin this morning in PA. She is celebrating her 93rd birthday today. Good for her and her health and mind is grand. Pretty much the rest of the day was spent on filing and entering tax information. Oh, did some work on the Portland Urban Heat Island, for helping at a conference in August in Portland with a geographer friend from Cincy grad school days. He is also retired, but still active in the profession, and we have presented workshops together for many years, till I got sick.
Well, it’s Thursday, and John took off at 7:15 am for the Columbia for more vine pruning. I slept in, and have done some clean up chores on the computer, the paperwork, and the kitchen. Now I’m back resting and working with emails, before I leave for music. I will likely pass John on the road. Kitty has been sleeping most of the morning, with a few bats at the toy hanging in the den, in front of my recliner. Dogs have been in and out a few times, but are also resting up for when John gets back to take them for their exercise. The temp is above 50 now and no longer overcast. I hope that means John had some good weather for pruning too.
Friday came and went and planned things changed. I went for my free shoulder massage and while there learned that my exercise class was pushed up to 11:30. Good that we had canceled the music play date at the Soup Kitchen. After class I dropped by school to turn in two keys, and to carry more no-longer-needed educational stuff to the department members. Then on home to have lunch with John, who had returned. His route takes him between two of our three valley wind energy projects. There are several hundred towers locally and Friday noon not one was moving. Pictures here:
http://www.pse.com/multimedia/documents/wildhorsephotos.htm
Company project profile here:
http://www.pse.com/ENERGYENVIRONMENT/ENERGYSUPPLY/Pages/EnergySupply_ElectricityWind.aspx
Saturday we awoke very early to more snow. Before it stopped we had an inch but it changed to rain and took away the snow. The highways through the mountain passes are in good shape and everywhere else around us seems just fine, but we are a nasty little wintry weather spot, in spring. John’s sister’s weather in Parma, OH is not so nice either, as they are suffering from very cold temperatures in the teens this whole next week. Weird.
We hope you all have another good week and send our best regards to all our faithful readers.
Nancy and John