Sunday, Jun 30
You already heard about this day’s activities in last week’s blog, but we finally did publish the blog for the last week of June at 11:19 p.m.
Monday, July 1
We left before 9:00 for our first stop with my laptop at the ComputAbility place in Ellensburg. Savannah was going to install the power bar to make the on-off switch work. It worked and she called us at 12:10 to come pick it up. We ate first. I checked it, and it worked perfectly! Thank goodness. Paid my bill in cash (saving 3%, and also got a senior discount of 10%). The total was $75.43. I had already paid last week for the ordered part, ~ $32, so it’s now repaired and I’m very happy.
From there we went in John’s Crosstrek to Les Schwab to have the tires rotated. That took only a few minutes and was free. I grabbed a bag of popcorn in the waiting room, and barely got my laptop running before they called us. Then we left for Super 1, for John to get a head of cauliflower, bacon, and sausage. I sat in the shade and called people to check if they would play at the Senior Center on July 5; count needed for the food preparers.
Also talked with a friend on the road, and she will be calling to estimate her arrival time in Ellensburg. We will meet her in town for supper and a visit. She called sooner than I expected, so we drove to town and met her at 5:00 p.m. Just got home at 7:00. Tired of all the driving to town today (three times)! But it was a worthwhile trip and a great visit.
We have at least two trips to town tomorrow as well. Wishing that gasoline prices were lower.
Tuesday, July 2
We have to be at the eye doctor at 9:15 this morning. I must take my list of medications along with me, because one of the heart medications I take can mess with the surface of the cornea. So far, no problem and I’ve been on it since 2010. We both had good reports with no problems with our eyes and no need for new glasses. We drove two cars so John could drive his Crosstrek to Yakima’s Stewart Subaru to have its 7,000 mile service (cabin air filters were quite dirty) and cost a lot to replace; also had them check out the problem with his telephone not connecting to his Bluetooth, after it has done it successfully for over a year.
John received help with his phone connection which worked there, and then stopped working for a few days, wouldn’t work Friday when he was on the road to WTA trip, but then started working on Sunday, when he was on the same WTA trail. He made a call to home using voice commands, and I am able to call him. Stored numbers in “outgoing calls” appear to have disappeared. Back to the manual.
On my way home I went by the Ellensburg Community Clothing Center (ECCC) with a huge bag of clothing and a box of shoes from another EBRG resident; while there, I traded a shirt from last Saturday’s gifting for one the right size. It was hung on a hanger over an M but was very small needing to be on the small rack. I returned the M sleeveless blouse because it was such a perfect match. I also traded for two pairs of socks for me, because the ones I brought home for John, he did not want. Drove by another house to deliver clothes and picked up some for donation to the Ellensburg Community Clothing Center (ECCC). One more place I picked up 3 bags of clothing, and have gone through one of the 3 to sort out what goes to other friends, to me, or to the ECCC as a donation. Still have two large garbage bags unopened in my car. There is a lot of excess stuff in people’s homes. The ECCC keeps some of it from going, early, to a landfill.
I came home and worked on various computer projects (sending jobs out to the jobs list I manage), and creating an emailing group list to send to folks who attended the End-Of-Year Geography awards ceremony, back on May 21. That’s been way too long in getting to them, and still has not been completed.
We are going back to town to The Palace to meet with our friend from Olympia for supper. She and I will both have Cobb Salads (my favorite meal there). I requested Iceberg lettuce for mine), and John will have a Country Fried Angus steak dinner. It came with a generous portion of butternut squash, gravy, baked potato, and hot rolls. The Cobb salad had a large amount of Blue Cheese crumbles, with bacon, avocado, turkey, tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, cucumbers I gave to Jen, and we both chose Blue Cheese dressing. I brought almost half home, and put the toppings left into fresh Iceberg lettuce, some new blue cheese dressing, and added cubed smoked turkey and cubes of apples. I had drained out all the liquid left and removed the soggy lettuce. It made a very nice salad start for my lunch at the food bank on Wednesday.
Friend Jennifer with Nancy by historic photos; John, Jen, & me near the old gasoline pump in the Palace Café in Ellensburg. Old implements (e.g., logging) and photos provide the visuals of “The Palace.”
Wednesday, July 3
We played our normal “Lunch Bunch” music for the FISH Food Bank, from 11:45 to 12:15, and then we eat so they can start clearing off the tables and washing dishes before 1:00. Most of the crowd is done eating and out by 12:30. I fixed my salad with John’s help to take to the food bank. Took two bags of clothing there for Evelyn and for Joanie to evaluate.
I managed to come home and wash clothes mostly for John. His black Carhartt pants needed cleaned so he could iron on a patch to cover a frayed area – front thigh.
I got out the email announcement for next week’s July 10th meeting of the retired geographers group. News out, and we have a special cake being baked (carrot) by another member of the group (Mary Ann) for our oldest geographer’s 95th birthday that day. Carrot cake is Dee’s favorite cake.
Finished work on music for Thursday and got Katrina’s help with Friday’s – needed 25 copies (I printed and numbered and sent PDFs for her to make copies). What a relief. It took me 2 hours to get that done, and would have been a ton of extra work to run 13 pages back to back, staple, and have for Friday with all the other stuff going on.
Stacy received my requests and nothing changed on needing 7 chairs for Thursday. I also notified folks and we were able to get elderly friends Bernice Orcutt and Arlane Nesmith there in the audience.
John fixed beef stew with meat from our neighbor (in our freezer for probably 5 years). Although old, it was very well wrapped and in good shape. He added all sorts of veggies, and with it, we had the 3 leftover rolls from The Palace last night. I cut them into toast size widths and toasted them in the toaster, & buttered with whipped butter the restaurant sent along.
Thursday, July 4 Happy Independence Day!
John, Czar, and Annie walked to the end of the driveway to hang our flag. Wind is blowing today, so that will be nice. I stayed behind and just finished loading all the dishes I started this morning, cleaning off the counter, and making ready for frying our bacon for brunch.
Our brunch was nice: John made a large pancake with pecans and we had syrup and strawberries on top, I had two eggs, and we both had bacon. John started it in an iron pan, and I crisped it between paper towels in the microwave.
I also tried on my patriotic pants for today and tomorrow with my vest, and they fit just fine. Joanie altered my vest last year to match my smaller size. She originally found the vest in a thrift store and bought it for me quite a few years ago. I wear it for all patriotic music events, including Veterans’ Day at the senior center. Today, I’ll be dressing in my sequined flag vest and garb to play music at the Rehab center where I “rehabbed” in 2010 for 7 weeks.
Today, we had 7 players there to play our July music which is full of patriotic songs.
I stopped by Briarwood to use their restroom, and show off my July 4th outfit to the folks there in the recreation center. Only two were there: Kelly and Connie. We had a nice visit and I read the flyer on their door about the party on Main St. in Kittitas, WA for the 4th celebration, where friend Amy Davison is doing face painting for the day. Normally, she would be playing music with us. Tomorrow, she and Haley will be with us at the AAC (senior center) celebration.
I went in the back way by the Kiva in the park and found a parking space a half block away from the closed part of Main St. I checked in, and was lucky to find the face-painting the second table into the bunch. I took some videos and pictures of her stand and work, and visited with some of the kids and parents I videotaped, to get their email to send them my captures. I was able to talk briefly with Haley and Dustin, and Amy (but she was pretty busy painting without time to visit). Dustin brought some tacos and I know she was happy to see food arriving. I left before she paused from her painting. She probably had to take bites between painting. Wow, she is so talented.
Video and photos:
Permission granted by parents for youngsters posted here.
Fire-breathing Dragon (Davonte is recipient) – Amy painter
Click on underlined title below for watching the video:
Fire-Breathing Dragon
Photos of Davonte’s appreciation.
Photos only of Deshawne’s Shark on his face below. I knew the woman there with the boys, so I asked permission to publish the video (of Davonte) and the photos for Deshawne. My friend, Jeanie, contacted their mom for permission; it was granted. 
This is Deshawne with his beginning shark and ending shark.
I am sorry I don’t have a video of his face painting by Amy.
More photos of Kittitas 7/4 celebration:
Preplanning Painting-Haley & Dad, Dustin-then at the event
Ending the Kittitas, WA Fourth of July celebration were fireworks in the city park. Where Evie Schuetz took this “windy” funny picture of fireworks.
Taken at Palmeiro Park in Kittitas on a very windy night in the valley.
From there I came on home to attend to things to do before tomorrow.
One thing was to get John to meet me at the end of the driveway to take my photo with our flag, with me in my patriotic garb. 
Flag not still much in the winds. Couldn’t decide my favorite. Left shows the whole flag, but the right’s nice with wraparound.
Reading up for tomorrow at the Senior Center 4th BBQ Day Late Celebration.
Charged batteries in old camera for video, intending to film the whole ½ hour performance. Charged battery and deleted much on the Nikon, for still pictures.
Wrote the group for tomorrow; wrote the Emeriti group, vacuumed the horse purse, hoping for no fireworks close by to upset Annie. We lucked out. John’s in bed to leave early in the morning.
Friday, July 5
John left at 6:40 a.m. for a WTA work party today at the Granite Mountain trail just west of Snoqualmie Pass. ( Link ) He will go back on Sunday. They are cleaning old drainage ditches and digging a few new ones. Rocks and roots that seem to be the worst tripping hazards are removed and the tread resurfaced.
I was concerned that it was going to be hot outside for our playing music at the late BBQ lunch celebrating the 4th, but we did not have it outside. Found out once we arrived, that it was changed. We ended up with 11 players, and went inside the building because it was too hot on the asphalt and in the sun for the audience. The canopy was also small, and I doubt we would all have fit under it. Inside the Adult Activity Center was nicely air-conditioned comfort. They had a grill outside for the hamburgers, and we went inside to put our instruments and music stands up, and then took a seat at the serving tables. Our music group was fed first. A good meal – cheeseburger (grilled by David Douglas), on bun with lettuce, large slice of tomato, condiments, chips, homemade baked beans mixture garbanzo, white, & other w/ham & bacon (made by Katrina Douglas), cut watermelon, and an ice cream sandwich.
We didn’t start the music until 12:15 p.m. and a large audience sang along with 13 songs. The 13th was “Take Me out to the Ball Game” and our little 6 yr. old mascot, Haley, joined the group on the front row to belt out the song, 3 times (once for every strike). The audience and players were delighted with her entry and performance. The last song is always the most moving part of the patriotic celebration – when everyone stands and salutes the flag, while singing the National Anthem—acapella.
From AAC camera 7-5-19 celebration of July 4
AAC July 5, 2019 on Nancy’s camera
I left there for a stop at Briarwood to ask about Betty (who sends home to John cookies she makes for our music at Briarwood on the 3rd Saturday every month). She actually finally got to meet him in person last month. She is in the hospital, but I have to contact a neighbor to find out. The woman in charge couldn’t give out the information, and hadn’t even heard that Betty was in the hospital. There are 4 Bettys living there. I think if she’d give me the last names, I would have been able to identify the right one, when I heard the names. I know one other of the women.
I had to put in all my medications for the week. While doing that I realized 3 needed refilled after this week’s container is emptied. Took care of 3 of my prescriptions this evening at Super 1: Spironolactone & Lasix; Safeway: Warfarin (5 mg halved) for 45 (3 month’s supply) and I also ordered from Safeway, John’s Tamsulosin hci 0.4 mg cap. This is the last refill via Dr. Wood, so we need to request a new one from Chelsea Newman.
Leftovers for supper: meatloaf, mashed potatoes, cauliflower with cheese, and pears.
Saturday, July 6
Message from Super 1 our meds are ready for pickup… will get Monday or Tuesday.
I slept in and have been working on a letter of reference to get out today. This for a student that left here many years ago. I literally spent most of the day on it, but it is done and all is well. Now to get to the other deadlines waiting.
John is home today, but leaves tomorrow for more WTA work at Granite Mountain, where he was yesterday. This is a day of rest for both of us, but he’s currently out doing morning chores, including some watering. He mowed the strip between the road and our fence. The grasses are turning brown and dry – now there is a bit of fire resistant “moat” next to the public road.
I tried working on the blog until late, and went to bed very late.
Sunday, July 7
John left ~ 6:35 a.m. for the WTA work crew at Granite Mountain (same as Friday’s trip). I had him try his cell phone to get back to me this morning on his way out of the valley. He actually got it to work in a strange manner through voice commands. I called him back and so we agreed I would call him after 3:30 p.m. to see where he was on the trip home. Now that he’s home, I realize I should have had him try to call me through his normal way of dialing. He leaves tomorrow morning for Yakima to have his ignition switch repaired, so I will remind him to try again without voice recognition but just the normal switch he uses to see my name Nancy-Home or Nancy-Cell.
After our morning conversation, it was still early, so I decided to lie back down and get some more rest after staying up until almost 12:30 a.m. I did, but woke up about 8:30 a.m. with a horrible nightmare, raging headache, including a way too high blood pressure figure. So, I took a heart medication, put a cold compress on my head, drank cool Gatorade, and laid back down to rest and hopefully feel better. I went back to sleep until 10:00 a.m. Thankfully, my headache was gone, and blood pressure down a little (still relatively high), so I slowly began my day. I didn’t feel like eating until almost 1:00 p.m. I got better as the day went on and my BP stabilized.
John’s trip home (I-90 east) was fine, but the folks heading west toward Puget Sound were in a stop-n-go situation, adding more than an hour of travel time. The choke-point begins just east of Cle Elum when the road from Wenatchee joins the interstate.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan