[Well not exactly. Procrastination is said to refer to doing low-priority things so as to avoid doing things that need doing. This week we accomplished something that we first attempted 22 years ago. Being difficult and of low priority it did not get done. What’s the word for that?]
Sunday, October 16, 2011. Today I was still tired from yesterday’s many activities. John left again for trail work at Stirrup Lake, and I slept in. Finally got up and fed Rascal, and John had uncovered the tomatoes and fed the outside cats before taking off at 7:00 a.m. I managed to clean up some dishes and load them in the dishwasher. Finally, at 12:55, I left for my friends again to ride up with them to the Grange for the Bluegrass Jam Session. We had a few different new people join us, some several returns, and several who didn’t make it up from Yakima or over from Eatonville this time. We had a much larger audience this time and they joined in and sang along or clapped with the songs, and also gave us applause at the end of songs.
It was nice. They had cookies and brownies (of which I brought some home to John). I hope to make some Toll House cookies next month to add to the food fare. They also brew coffee.
Monday, October 17, 2011. Well, another week began and I had several afternoon meetings, plus several things to finish in the morning before leaving. Went to exercise class and then to the University. Visited several people there, and then went to a presentation in the Cultural Museum in Dean Hall. They had fancy food, little crisp wafer things with Feta cheese, blue cheese (I love), pita bread with humice (I don’t like and didn’t have), and chocolate covered LARGE strawberries. Water to drink.
Tuesday. We need to put up a lot of apples today, but haven’t started. And, I have a massage appointment at 2:30… then must go to town for 6:30 music date at a nursing home. Instead, John has been shucking walnuts and I have been doing emails. Maybe later in the afternoon or evening on the fruit. Nope. John took fire-wood to the neighbors and I went to town for music, and while I was gone, the entire time he cut apples for applesauce, which is now cooking. I’m sore (very) from my thorough massage today. Have been working on emails for the memory book of retiring colleague… off and on all day.
There is a story that happened this afternoon just before I left the first time. John came in the front door and saw an orange cat inside our house (by the doggie door). He thought it was Little Sue but now is not sure. It jumped up on the window and bounced back on the floor and then got up on the boxes and went through the doggie door. We don’t know where Rascal was at the time.
Wednesday, another crazy day. Had to be at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen for music and then to exercise class in the afternoon. I was still pretty sore from yesterday’s work-out. Ran by the Geog Dept on my way home to pick up some letters to add to Morris’s memory book.
Thursday. Slept in late and lost most of the morning. On to Curly’s in Kittitas for a Taco Thursday special with people from the KV Trail Riders club. Four horses with 3 riders made the trip from Ellensburg to Kittitas using the John Wayne Trail. This is a very flat section of the old Milwaukee Road.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago,_Milwaukee,_St._Paul_and_Pacific_Railroad
In this section of WA State, the trail is part of the Iron Horse State Park:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Horse_State_Park
The riders tied their horses at the hitching posts near the Old Milwaukee Train Station. It is less than 100 yards from the trail to the “Taco Thursday” eatery. I had a large Taco Salad, minus olives and onions, but with tomatoes instead and additional sour cream. John had two tacos, nice looking, and he ate a little remainder of mine I couldn’t finish. Then I rushed from there to play music at Dry Creek, and John went home to work on yard chores. He is moving a small shed (looks like an outhouse, with a 5 inch concrete base) from back by the creek. It was an old pump house from about 1983 to 1986; we moved here in 1989. He is going to get it over closer to the house and fix up with a light or heat tape for the outside cats to have shelter this winter. The bottom half will be used for tool storage, plastic buckets, and gold doubloons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubloon
Friday started early going to the hospital for a blood draw (a fasting one) so I was starved when walking out of KVCH. We went to Super One shopping and got a dozen apple fritters and shared one on the way home.
Now John’s out working again on the pump house moving. We will wait to do fruit drying for darkness. I don’t want to do it alone. I’m thinking of taking a nap too, but probably need to stay awake for my phone call from my doctor’s nurse with the results of the blood draw tests this morning. I should have napped. It is 5:07 now and still no phone call yet. Sometimes they call me after 5:30. Long days for a doctor’s office and nurse, especially on a Friday. Finally, she called at 5:40, with the news my INR is 2.4 which is fine, and so there is no Coumadin dosage change and I don’t have to be tested for another MONTH. Nice, because I get tired of being poked every two weeks. I did put in a bunch more time on the memory book for Morris.
Also had a funny thing happen with Rascal. He has been helping John eat his morning toast and he will eat some of my apple fritter too; when we are having dinner he usually begs with the dogs. Last night I put some toast, with cheese, and spaghetti sauce on top cut up on his plate and he had two servings. This cat doesn’t act like a cat, but more like a dog.
Saturday. Awoke to rain this morning. Been sending out checks for bills and managed to walk up the driveway to put them in the mail before pickup. Last year I wouldn’t have been up to the walk. I got really upset when John found the “Saturday substitute” postal carrier did not take my mail. That is the second time we have had that happen on a Saturday. John says there is no incentive for him to bother with it, and horror, the US post office will likely be stopping Saturday delivery and other strange things as it tries to remain relevant in a digital world. Nothing on the schedule today away from home (for a change). Actually, I was ready to shut this down, but John is making applesauce from our own apples, so I’m back working on this blog and other computer needs. We never got to the cutting and drying, but instead John moved the pump house into the backyard. Fascinating how he created a “travois” to ease the task of sliding the rough concrete bottom across the rocky place between the creek and the house.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travois
The November issue of Scientific American magazine mentions the possible use of travois for dogs within the cover story about recent discoveries of the “First Americans.”
[Scroll down to the Supplemental Material” and click on the tiny photo and have a look at the interactive section. Okay, so it is not a WOW! thing, but still it is nice.]
So John pulled with a 1980 4×4 pick-up rather than a mangy wolf-dog while I took a few pictures. A movie would have been better. It was getting dark toward the end, so I didn’t get the finished location by the side of the house. Perhaps in the morning, before he disconnects the truck from the “sled”, I can get a decent photo. It started to sprinkle (again). We are having a water-sourced supper – fish and shrimp.
Hope all is wonderful for you.
Nancy & John,
on the Naneum Fan.