We are having to reconstruct this text. John started writing this morning and I kluged some comments from early in-the-week emails. So now I will add in more and you will be able to tell the different styles of our writing. He writes below with an obituary for my MacBook (dual system with Windows) that caused the necessary reconstruction of this week’s blog. He also puts in some stuff about the horse-damaged car and about our Friday night potluck. I have weaved his comments into this story for the past week. So, going back to . . .
Sunday, 1/22/12
We ended up with almost 12 inches of snow the end of last week, but yesterday a lot melted. We started with four inches of snow before we had to leave for Yakima to visit our friends and pick up my 6-string classical guitar, visit Costco to grab Turbo Tax 2011 at a $10 discount, gasoline, and a few other needed things. We were on our way to have lunch with them. The snow was falling hard and got worse as we drove west of Yakima, past Wiley City. It is about 20 minutes in good weather — located west of the Yakima airport. They live up on a hill in a “subdivision” and the roads were not plowed. Lunch was a great “Yakima Salad” (Grilled chicken, lettuce, crumbled Roquefort cheese, Fuji apples cut up, bacon bits, sugared walnuts with sesame seeds, onions, with huckleberry or raspberry vinaigrette dressing, and French bread. John and I took pears and a chocolate brownie-like cake with our own walnuts plus chocolate chips added and covered with chocolate frosting. I didn’t need dinner tonight.
Our drive was a little touchy, but we made it all right. I think we will have the all-weather radials checked because we were in my 2004 Subaru for the trip down, and after we returned home, we had to turn around and go back to Ellensburg, to take John’s Subaru to have its door and window replaced. (At least 4 or 5 more inches had fallen since we left at 10:15 a.m.) Happily, our neighbor came back with his little machine and cleared more out of our driveway and also out in the pasture on the way to the barn, where John feeds the horses. He plowed a path so John does not have to make 3 trips to feed. When the snow is like this, wheelbarrows do not wheel, although the “barrow” part still functions. (find the part about Shapes of Thinks to Come at the end of this linked page:)
http://www.word-detective.com/061405.html
Still Sunday night: I have to take my meds for the night, and we probably will have dessert and hit the hay. I actually have snacked some on some Peanut Butter Filled Nuggets from H-K Anderson out of Lancaster, PA, that we bought today. They are REALLY good. I had bought a small bag (5 ounces) for a buck at the dollar store the other day, and John saw a 52 ounce big plastic container of them for $7.79 at Costco. We bought them, and I checked the bag from the $1 store. At the price we got at Costco we were paying $ .74 for the dollar bag amount.
http://www.hk-anderson.com/enjoy/pdp/peanut_butter_filled_nugget/
Monday, 1/23/12
John has burned a few calories moving snow. I have been working on in-house projects. Here’s a slight run-down.
Missed my exercise SAIL class today. No sense driving all that way in the snow on not all plowed roads, to spend 45 minutes and turn around and drive back home using a gallon of gasoline. Started by sleeping in till after awaking at 7:30 a.m. and then going back to sleep. Guess I was tired from yesterday’s activities and stress of driving in the snowstorm. Have been reading a masters thesis, switching and doing some music transposing, eating lunch, and doing email.
A friend in the Southwest wrote to see if we were all right, because the Blog was not posted this weekend. They read it faithfully and were worried. That was the first we knew. John sent it out late Saturday night (thought so), but neither one of us checked it, and apparently he hit the wrong button. It got out there about 2:30 p.m., Monday. John went back out shoveling and did not cook the roast for dinner as planned so it’s frozen teriyaki chicken and rice bowls. I’m stayed in the house doing various chores, interspersing with editing and still proofing that masters thesis. Nope, I’m no longer paid, but I’m still serving on a couple of graduate committees with students I worked with in the past.
Tuesday, 1/24/12
I went to the hospital on the way to massage therapy and gave blood for my INR test. Then to massage. I was hurting some today; don’t know why. Afterwards I was too, more so than usual. Then my doctor called at 7:30 p.m. reporting in on my INR (he was really late working). It was way high (4.3) and we don’t know why. He told me not to take the Coumadin for a couple of nights and to retest it on Thursday. It has been running at 2.0 since October when it went up to 3.2. I have not had any alcohol nor Vitamin K veggies. Oh, I mentioned to my family physician that I had had dental work last week and was on Predisone (4mg) for six days. More the first two days and less till Sunday night before the blood draw. I was given it for an anti-inflammatory. He suggested my idea could be correct that the med could have caused it. Spent the rest of the night feeling bad.
Wednesday, 1/25/12
Evelyn (banjo) and I played and sang at the food bank without music, and did really amazingly well. I don’t need sheet music but she does on many of the songs. There were 45 people there for a lunch of polish sausages, beans, chili, and a peach cobbler to-die-for. I brought a piece home for John and I to share. After lunch I wanted to take a nap rather than go to exercise class, but I went and we had 13 people there. Driving in was a real mess on the roads, but the sun was shining. In the 3 hours that passed, the road slush got cleaned off so the return trip was not nearly as bad (at least the north-south roads); E-W, less traveled ones were still in bad shape. We thought we would pick up John’s Subaru tomorrow, but NOT.
Got a phone call at 4:00 that our car we hoped to have back tomorrow, and had taken in, Sunday night in all the snow, after our trip to Yakima, all in the snow, will not be ready because the “door” from Portland got lost on Greyhound, from last Thursday. It showed today, and can be picked up at the bus station tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. Who knows when we will get the car back and fixed. Likely not till early or the middle of next week. Oh fun.
About my INR blood test. I’m taking Coumadin and have to have my INR checked once a month. [The next few sentences are from a web site: A laboratory test called an INR (International Normalized Ratio) measures the time it takes for blood to clot and compares it to an average. Monitoring the INR can be an important step in managing health. An INR is useful in monitoring the impact of anticoagulant (“blood thinning”) medicines, such as Warfarin (Coumadin). Patients with atrial fibrillation often take anticoagulant medications to protect against clots that can cause strokes. While taking Warfarin, patients have regular blood tests to monitor their INR. Just as patients know their blood pressure numbers, they also should know their Warfarin (Coumadin) dosage and their INR. In healthy people, the INR is about 1.0. For patients on anticoagulants, the INR typically should be between 2.0 and 3.0 for patients with atrial fibrillation, or between 3.0 and 4.0 for patients with mechanical heart valves. However, the ideal INR must be individualized for each patient.] My cardiologist wants it closer to under 3.0. An INR can be too high; a number greater than 4.0 may indicate that blood is clotting too slowly, creating a risk of uncontrolled bleeding. An INR less than 2.0 may not provide adequate protection from clotting.
Thursday, 1/26/12
Let’s see — today was music in the afternoon at the Hearthstone care facility and a retake on the INR. Turns out it was 2.6, so don’t know if it was really the Predisone effect or if it could have been a faulty test. We’ll never know, but I have to be retested in 12 days.
Our other “story” today, related by John: Less serious news this week involved taking the horse-damaged Subaru to the shop for a new side door and re-painting. The time-line slipped a bit on that. The new door was shipped from Portland, OR (about a five hour drive away in bad weather) on a Greyhound Bus. It got lost. Well, not the bus. So the door finally showed up but not in time to get the car back on Thursday. However, still in that car was the University’s gift to Nancy (upon retirement) of a campus parking pass. This she needed on Friday to go to a noon luncheon. So we had to stop by the fix-it-up shop. We learned there of the damage to vehicles caused by the snow and ice covered roads. All regular stalls were filled with damaged cars. Another was still in the outside parking lot, and ours was forlornly waiting for the wayward door.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Today I awoke to my laptop computer not showing anything on the screen. Took it in to my fix-it guys, but it is toast, and would cost more to repair it than to buy a new one, with much more power and space. Repair would be $400 at least. This one was from 2008, and was my gold watch and chain when leaving the university. Now it is gone. I have been in the middle of reviewing a thesis and this will cause problems not being able to access it. I also only had one copy of the blog I had started last Sunday, and so am having to recreate this week’s now. Usually I keep it up daily, so it’s not such a chore. I took the laptop in today on my way to a scholarship luncheon and they gave the verdict, but agreed to back it up on my external drive so we took it back in on our way to a potluck/jam session. Here is John’s Obituary for her. The laptop croaked! [Sept. 2008 – January 2012] She* developed a “seeing” problem. To be precise, she quit providing anything to see. Without a functioning screen, it is quite impossible to make efficient use of the lady within. She would be the one on which the digital-daily update is recorded. Usually, then, on Saturday, the daily file is transferred to the dual-monitor tower-residing computer in the back corner bedroom, also known as (aka) the computer cave.
*She — We refer to our computers with the feminine gender in remembrance of a time when women were women, and computers were women. Here are three links to explain:
http://www.witi.com/center/witimuseum/halloffame/1997/eniac.php
http://www.earlyofficemuseum.com/calculating_machines.htm
http://www.zib.de/zuse/Inhalt/Programme/eniac/history.html
The middle link has a description and photo of machines called Comptometers and Comptographs. John’s dad brought one of those home that was being thrown out in the mid-1950s at his company’s purchasing department. After his mom’s death (1980) his dad cleaned out the house and moved to Florida. Things such as this ancient machine were given away or sent to the dump (now known as a landfill site). And, Nancy’s recollection and use of a comptometer goes back to working over Christmas vacation (from High School) at Sears (& Roebuck), in the Mail Order Department. I had to check all incoming mail orders from the southeast region, which converged on the Atlanta, GA store for processing. They had to be verified for amount of items, quantity purchased, the totals on each line, and the added tax, for the final cost. It was amazing how many errors there were. Sometimes, it would be every second one. I used a comptometer for that work. [End of Obituary] Earlier in the morning before I left for the luncheon, John and I made a large Pineapple Upside Down Cake in our huge 12” skillet left over from his Cincinnati days when he lived in a big old house with a bunch of guys. Everyone at the party thought it was pretty special. We added our own walnuts to it (many more than the recipe called for), and we also took a quart of pears our neighbor had canned for us. John’s version of the skillet cake came out as: Friday evening was a music-group pot-luck meal and jam-session. We took our famous “Nancy’s Big Skillet Downside Up Cake” made with pineapple rings, red Maraschino Cherries [preserved and packed with a wondrous assortment of dyes and other chemicals**], walnuts (ours), butter, eggs, brown sugar, and a bit of flour. http://www.nationalcherries.com/maraschino.html After reading John’s found link above, I’m wondering if we should have thawed some of own cherries and used them !
That neighbor who canned the pears ended up falling this morning and shattering her hip, so an ambulance came and took her to the ER. Another neighbor called to tell us. John called me in town, and I called both her sons to let them know. Then I came on home rather than going to SAIL class, because I had several things to do in the afternoon on John’s computer. I worked on music and transposing some, while he napped.
We received some guitar and music books in today’s mail, which is cool. Had a nice dinner and didn’t get home till 10:15. Here was the menu: Turkey, ham, 3 bean salad with peppers and onions, pecan/sugar covered sweet potatoes, rice and sausage, green Caesar type salad, Jell-O salad, calico beans, cookies, and our special cake.
Saturday, January 28, 2012 Mostly today I have been catching up on household chores, except when John was out feeding and exercising the animals. While I was sleeping in, he started rewriting the blog. Now I’m merging them. He had come back to work on some guitar chord handouts. We need to tune the 12-string and the classical, because last night we took the 12 string in to compare to that of one of the guys in our group, (size of mine is slightly smaller), and he played it a little and thinks it is tuned a little differently than his – Who’s to know but one or both need to be fixed.
I must finish this so John can post it before we leave for the Upper County for a special Grange function, where two of our friends are providing after dinner music. They were at our jam session last night. They said it was very relaxing, and something they needed before the big event tonight.
Hope you all had a good week with less drama.
That’s it from Nancy and John,
Still on the Naneum Fan