Sunday wound down with an evening meal in town with friends over elk steak. We sat in the backyard and watched quail, sparrows, and flickers flit around. It was overcast and yet quite nice, with a few drops of rain, very few. What a lovely way to end the weekend.
There were only 5 of us, and it was comfortable and casual. We took a bottle of rose’ wine, a plate of cut up Jarlsberg cheese, and multi-grain crackers with black sesame seeds – that look quite odd. VERY yummy. Also carried along some raisin cookies. There was a Pecan Pie store-bought that was all right, but doesn’t compare with John’s. I will be ready to go to bed soon, and won’t need any more dessert.
When we first found the crackers with black sesame seeds John investigated. Who knew sesame seeds were so interesting? Not us! It’s amazing what one learns when you come down out of the hills. There are other colors too. A basic link is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame
The following has good photos of the plants, flowers, seed pods and more:
http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Sesa_ind.html
. . . and you can learn the name in 84 languages. Follow the link at the end to “Perilla” and the “crispate foliage” – an issue also mentioned in the wikipedia link.
Monday is a Geography Dept. waffle/pancake feed and the recipe is made with a sour dough starter. John had a dental cleaning appointment and missed most of it and the award ceremony. I was there for all, enjoyed a nice waffle with fruit, company of the Emeriti Profs, and also became the photographer of the event. Several awards were given to Geography and Resource Management grad students along with our donated one for the Hultquist distinguished service award. The money was split and presented to two students, one an undergrad and the other a grad.
Tuesday we didn’t need to go to town, and just fought the wind all day. It was blowing hard since yesterday evening. The last reading was the highest today, 47 mph gusts and sustained 38 mph winds. Poor John has had to put up with it for two days. Today for lunch he fixed a great BBQ, made from a longtime-cooked piece of beef and mixed with spices we recently bought (non salt spice). He mixed in BBQ original sauce and cooked it down until it rivaled the open-pit southern variety of my recent Atlanta trip.
Wednesday. Finally the wind quieted some, but then it rained. John added the word quieted – he thinks it would make sense to report wind in decibels and, in fact, he often wears ear protectors (from the old Herter’s company). See this link; answers #4 and #5: http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=300215
We both went to town, for my exercise class; John stopped at the airport and the waste management station seeking information about the history of Ellensburg weather station sites. Afterwards he took me by the hospital for a ProTime blood draw (turned out neat because we saw my friend there at the hospital. She was my first roommate at the Rehab center over a year ago, and was my inspiration to get back on my feet). We also dropped off one of his newsletters for the vet who will be speaking on the Horse Equine virus at Thursday night’s meeting. While I was in class, John went to the grocery for cat food and litter, grabbed some chicken breasts and English muffin bread. When we came home, however, I was hungry and we had some Jarlsberg cheese and multi-grain crackers. Late afternoon call came from my family physician’s nurse that my INR is 2.3 and I can stay on my same Coumadin dosage. Now I’m tired, but do not plan to take a nap because bedtime will be here soon enough.
Thursday – I have music at the Rehab center at 2:00 and then in the evening I will join John and go to the KV trail riders meeting. It was neat because the friend we met yesterday came with her husband and daughter to hear us play music at the old nursing home where we spent so much time. On the way home we stopped at a yard sale and I found a western shirt like I have one of in a smaller size that I can now wear and give away the other. The veterinarian’s talk was very well done and interesting. She is an excellent speaker. It was good to see everyone now that I’m in better shape than the last time they saw me.
Friday is playing music and eating at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen. It’s a beautiful day today, and I’m going to exercise class. Stopped by my neighbors to pick up a book to deliver to someone in town, and she has lost weight (I have gained) and she gave me several really nice blouses. I took her two that I have outgrown. Stopped at a yard sale and bought a blanket for a buck. We have one dog (11 years old) who STILL chews holes in blankets. You’d think! But no, she keeps doing it. Today at the Food Bank, 3 of us played instruments and we had an extra singer. We had a nice time and were appreciated. Food was good too. It was a chicken/rice/barley/veggie soup, with whole wheat and multi-grain bread, a pasta salad (that I’m not big on), and a nice piece of cake with raspberry filling and cream cheese filling (I guess), along with blueberry/pomegranate juice.
Off from there to exercise class and there were only 6 of us there, with no leader, so I did the honors of leading for the hour. We enjoyed ourselves, and I got a good workout. Came home and found a present in the mail, from the local Classic Hits radio station we listen to.
We frequently enter the monthly contest and respond to the survey of listeners as to which songs we want to hear and how often. Several months ago we got an album of the Beatles, and then later one of the Doobie Bros. Today’s is an old re-recording of two live 1974 performances, in Iowa and in Kentucky, of the Grateful Dead; I’ve enjoyed listening to them as background music this afternoon. John’s outside working with the horses and on his fence around the garden. I walked out to get the paper and was able to assist him by holding one of his crosspieces.
We still haven’t seen anything in the paper about the fire .6 mile down the road from us a couple of nights ago (during the high winds). The fire department fought it from 11: 00 p.m. and all through the night to keep it from spreading into one nearby house and adjacent woods. Turns out it was a Meth Lab. That’s the word from a friend of a friend, but not even a fire report has been posted in the newspaper. It was a complete loss of the mobile home house and adjacent buildings, and an RV, and camper, plus who knows what else. No one was home at the time.
Saturday. In the morning, alone, while John worked on getting out two plum trees and all their roots, I went to yard sales. Nothing too exciting was purchased, but a couple of blankets for 50 cents, and some freebies: a footstool, wooden things, & a large cotton spread. Also got an almost new dish drain for a buck that we really have needed but didn’t want to pay $35 at Costco. Also, I got some nice sunglasses for me and some long-bladed clippers for John for a buck each.
Then I went back in another musical performance at Briarwood retirement community and today’s food was interesting. Little wiener dogs (cocktail type) barbequed and cooked in a Crock-pot. Nice salad and tomatoes and cukes (I don’t like), and some pasta salads I don’t like either. A table full of great desserts (no complaints there): Molasses cookies, chocolate cake with choc frosting, brownies, and pinwheels.
The nicest thing that happened occurred after the performance, when a man came up to me and said, “I was your student in a couple of classes back in the early 1990s, and you were a wonderful professor who influenced me incredibly.” Boy that was nice to hear. Never hurts to hear compliments, especially 20 years later!! He even reminisced about things he remembered from the classes he took from me. He took GIS and Economic Geography. He knew John too, and had a class from him (Physical Geog). Before he told me that, when he first came up, he asked how John was. I remembered him once he said his name, but he does look a lot different from when he was my student. He still has the same expressive eyes and pretty smile, however. He was there with his wife (both from Moses Lake), and they were there with his mom who lives down the street on our road, a few miles. She is going to move into the retirement home where we were today. We talked a little afterward when I asked him what he had been doing in his career. He said he had been a development planner in several cities in WA and OR, but just retired from the Moses Lake job. Pretty cool.
All our best regards
Nancy and John
in Washington State