This starts with where I left off last week, Saturday night. I played the violin and sang at an Easter Vigil at the Episcopal Church. There were 4 different clergy people from several churches (Lutheran, Methodist, 2 Episcopal) and 4 musicians (Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran and Methodist). Quite an ecumenical crowd. They even had Communion/ Eucharist with either wine or grape juice. Pretty cool, neat service.
Easter Sunday found us at our neighbor’s house with other neighbors, family and friends. We had a great meal—ham, with scalloped potatoes covered in cheese, broccoli salad, a large bowl of Fruit (strawberries, 2 types of grapes, cantaloupe, blueberries, and bananas), creamed corn pudding, rolls, and for dessert, an apple-blueberry cobbler John made, and a Boston Crème Cake that one person brought. We had a little ice cream on the cobbler. We all were very full and had a nice visit.
We learned from one of the people there about a camcorder focused on an Eagle’s Nest in Decorah, IA, with 3 babies. How cool. I have watched it off and on for a couple of days. Check it out: http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles
Monday. Rainy morning all morning till I had to leave for SAIL exercise at 1:00. John was unable to work in the yard and had to feed the horses and run the dogs in the rain. It wasn’t till 2:30 it stopped and he could return outside. I made several stops in town, grocery store for dinner needs (yummy bread and spaghetti sauce fixings), a stop at one of the nursing homes we visit occasionally as they have not been answering their phone (turns out it is broken except in one room of the office and if no one is there, it doesn’t get answered). While setting up for next week’s non-normal performance she told me they were having a special party for our normal fifth Thursday (June 30th) play date there. It is a neighborhood party to welcome new residents, with refreshments, entertainment (our Fiddlers and Friends group), and door prizes. She handed me a flyer announcing the event. Then on to another friend’s house to drop off a sweater vest that doesn’t fit me, and on to another nursing home to visit a member of our group (the accordionist) who had hip replacement surgery. Finally I got home at 4:30. Supper is completed and all is well. The wind picked up to 24mph gusts, but seems to be slowing again.
Tuesday, light day, just household chores, email, and trying to fix up the medical bill charges with payments by Medicare and Group Health. Rather amazing how much they can wiggle out of paying and how much I’m charged differently for the same item. Getting that fixed is a royal PITA. I will spend an hour of my time and theirs over a $17.43 item. It’s the principle of the thing. Then how do you explain a Feb. statement where I supposedly owe 20.xx and then two months later it has increased to 159.60. Did get a phone call from a former student on her way to Florida, who stopped in Atlanta to call me and say she was in my home town. That was cool. She is on her way to see the last launch of the Endeavour. She won it in a contest on NASA’s Twitter site.
Wednesday. Kind of a slow day. Worried with medical bill adjustments. Then, went to exercise class and afterward by the nursing home to visit, but got there when they were doing physical therapy exercises. That surely brought back uncomfortable memories. I was glad to visit for a short while and give encouragement and walk out on my own two feet.
Thursday. My questioning medical charges has paid off. Got a call this morning from the accountant at my family physician’s office that we are being refunded $80 on the bill. Guess that was worth my time and effort. What makes us wonder is how many people just pay the bills without questioning, and how much money is involved. Today we are going to play music at Hearthstone and John will go shopping and get gas in his car while I’m there, and then we have an appointment at school at 4:00 to discuss the endowment for the Distinguished Service Award in our name for students. Turns out we don’t have enough for an endowment (need $10,000). We have a fund with $2700 in it, and that will have to be moved into a Geography endowment as seed money. We have decided to sponsor a scholarship each year as long as we have the money, and put 100 toward the principal. Nothing else today. Well, yes there was. I just got on line to an old Blackboard presence of an Economic Geography class I taught in 2005 and pulled off some good pictures of hog raising in the U.S. to share with a gal teaching Natural Resource Conservation in Geography this spring quarter.
Friday. I had a couple of things to do midday–play music at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen, and go to my exercise class. I did stop at a yard sale (advertised as an estate sale), and I should have realized the prices when done by a commercial team, are quite high. I think the yard sale crowd from Ellensburg will not buy much. Perhaps they will get someone from the west side to come over. John put the License plates on our old ’89 Ford truck, and moved the canopy off so we can retrieve some chain link panels we loaned to friends down west of Yakima. They invited us for a nice Salmon luncheon when we come down to pick them up. They are through using them because their puppy is now a 70 pound golden, and John wants to get them before refitting the canopy with new (easily removable) C-clamp style hardware. Also, one of the panels has a built in gate he wants to use as access to his new berry patch. Too windy to work outside today so John spent his time while I was away, cleaning up the kitchen. Nice guy. Nothing like the tornadoes in Alabama and Georgia, but we had 47 mph gusts and sustained winds averaging 37 mph all afternoon. John’s heading out with the 4 dogs to feed the horses and retrieve the mail, and paper, which I did not do on my way in. I hope he doesn’t get blown away, nor the hay blown away. It is very “light” and takes flight in the wind, but is all we have left from a neighborhood purchase last summer.
Saturday. The 1980 truck has a new battery but a myriad of problems. The 1989 truck has seals around the doors, an air conditioner, power enough to pull a 3-horse trail up a mountain, other nice things, and an old and failing battery. After a Thursday trickle-charge the truck started. Friday it would not. After an all-night charge, Saturday morning it was still dead. http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/Cloud9Above/mccoy.jpg
John went to town for a replacement and then we headed south – first to Costco for some sale items and $96 of gas, then for the chain link panels and lunch.
We had grilled salmon, grilled veggies (carrots, potatoes, onions), pea pods, and bread. We took a red velvet cake for dessert. Also had iced tea. Filled up amazingly and ate over a 2-hr period, I think. Visited and listened to music. Pretty cool. Home by 6 to a windy and cold evening on the Naneum Fan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alluvial_fan
Use Google Earth and look here: 47.075719, -120.471724
Zoom out to see the green wedge, then the canyon and mountains (5,000 to 6,000 feet) to the north of us. There is still much snow up there and cold air drains our way. It still seems like late February. So, John took hay to a sheltered area at the far end of the pasture. Horses are skittish in wind (John’s theory) because trees and such move about and their sight and hearing keeps warning them of a stalking cougar or whatever. Or see:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081217082129AAPXTDg
Our usual best regards to all.
Nancy and John