Tony sent me a photo of Two Medicine Lake, Glacier National Park. Google Earth will show you the Lake’s location if you search.
Monday, Oct 28
We stayed home today. Nancy, computer chores, calling PCP for missing paperwork with call for Wellness Check and Annual Physical, now called Chronic Conditions Visit.
The Wellness Check is paid for by Medicare and is a useless waste of our time and mileage, to demonstrate we can tell time on a clock with hands. It’s mostly with the physician’s nurse and we might get to speak with our doctor for a few minutes. Labs will be ordered (most likely) to be drawn during the following week. Ours bumps into the day after Thanksgiving, so we have to wait until the first week of December. That upsets me because we keep being pushed farther in the year for our next year’s physical, all because of their mistake in scheduling our appointment when it was supposed to be (blamed on a change in computer medical records software change).
John took me out to view his progress and plans for his loading dock. Hopes it will add value, and it gets rid of lots of rocks from our alluvial fan, concrete sidewalk pieces (scavenged), mangled iron fence posts**, purchased railroad ties, and 10″ iron spikes remaining from a previous fence project. [**remember the load of logs that rolled over our front fence?]
I took a few photos, see this link below and click on each of the 8 photos included to get a tour and small explanation; be sure you have click the Info button (an ‘ I ‘ with a circle around it). It will provide details on the right side of the photo you’re viewing.
John’s Loading Ramp Construction
Came back in and loaded more dishes.
Tonight is showering time because tomorrow morning I have a haircut appointment around the rural block, at 11:30, followed by a trip to town for several reasons, with the last stop, probably being at 2:30 at Bi-Mart to check numbers and to transfer 3 boxes of pine cones to Izzy. She plans to bring some slippers for John that her hubby doesn’t wear. I guess that’s to thank him for all his efforts in getting pine cones to give her for her crafting projects. They fit him, and she brought me a pair of Bearpaw boots with sheep fleece lining and trim that also fit me. Nice.
Tuesday, Oct 29
I had a quite full day, and John was mostly outside, but some inside (cleaning out the refrigerator and old food for one). It was very cold today. I never saw the temp go over 30°. I couldn’t take my shower last night because of the high winds and the threat of losing our electricity again with a tree over the wires, so waited until this morning. All went well and I dressed in many layers but should have worn pants that were not polyester, but a thicker weave. The wind blew right through them. My first stop was my neighbor’s a mile away for my haircut. I needed it. She and her hubby lost chunks of their roof (of their porch, not the house roof) in the high winds last night.
From there I drove to town in time to get a lunch at the Food Bank and visit with two friends, Karen & Don. We had an interesting conversation and a great meal: Sloppy Joes, green beans, Hubbard squash, apple juice, and a piece of cheese cake with a pumpkin swirl.
I was running later than planned, and so went directly to the hospital for my blood draw. I checked in under my cardiologist’s name, and then requested at the lab, that everything be shared with my PCP. That worked well. I trust all the paperwork got to him, but I need to check the portal and print it so I can take it with me Tuesday, Nov 5, just in case.
Now, I went back to Safeway to pick up my Warfarin – 5mg tablets that I expected to be halved, thus 90 from 45. They had not halved them, so I waited for Charles to do the job. He suggested it, and we had talked when I ordered it about putting the instructions on to have it done, but when I asked him to check, he exclaimed that they had not read the instructions and it was not done. So, he did it. He said the other pharmacists would hear about his feelings on it.
Meanwhile, I took my month’s supply happily for $12.44 and left by way of the counter with marked down meat, which John usually checks when he’s in the store. Nothing worth bringing home today, however.
Next stop was Super 1 to pick up a few bulk carrots. I succeeded, and left for Bi-Mart for my meeting with Izzy, for the pine cones and slippers exchange.
Wednesday, Oct 30
Early this morning I found out my PFT (Pulmonary Function Test) is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. with the director, Jim, administering it at Cardiopulmonary Services at our local Kittitas Valley hospital. I have to have that annually because of one of the medications I’m on for my heart (Amiodarone), that potentially can scar the lungs. Happily, I have successfully been on it since 2010, and I want that to continue. It controls atrial fibrillation perfectly for me (NEVER had any since going on it 9 years ago). I don’t like the alternative medication, which requires 3 nights in the hospital to adjust the dosage.
Here’s what to expect for the upcoming PFT (which I have had for 8 previous years):
• Approximately one hour for testing.
• Albuterol, a bronchodilator, is used as part of this treatment to relax muscles in the airways and increase air flow to the lungs.
• The PFT measures how air flow, using a variety of breathing maneuvers.
• All PFTs completed at the hospital are over-read by a board-certified pulmonary physician.
Those expectations above are from their website. I also know that my cardiologist and I can obtain the analysis results on a CD sent after the test, and it comes with a comparison report to the previous year’s. My cardiologist wants to review all the records each year as well, and he has previous years in my file for a comparison. I have them too.
I spent the next part of my morning cleaning up and loading the rest of the dishes and washing them, and dealing with emails afterwards, before leaving the house for my stops in town today.
John left at 9:30 with the larger (Ford 350) truck loaded with stuff for the transfer station (aka, the dump). Then he will get bags of horse feed and Sunflower seeds. Next groceries, looking for sales. The F-350 uses lots of gas, so multi-purpose drive to town is appreciated. I used the Forester, as our timing didn’t let us go in one vehicle.
Photo back in the day by my friend EvieMae Schuetz, who grew up in Ellensburg and went to movies there as a child. She posted this photo from her past, this week on Facebook (You Know You’re from Ellensburg), and she received an incredible number of memories from others with their own memories of the old theater. It made for interesting reading. I’m sorry it was no longer in operation when I arrived in town.
John and I did go to the Roslyn, WA theater. I wonder if it still operates; looked it up, and it does! The general admission is $9 but being over 65 we can get in for $7.00. I also remember their being a drive-in theater in town, but it was no longer operational either. It was leveled eventually and replaced with more modern buildings.
This photo grabbed my attention because now it is where I go every Wednesday to the annex of the Liberty Theater for the Food Bank lunch. It is now the place where the downtown Calvary Baptist Church meets. The annex is their recreation/dining room.
My first stop was there today to set up for music. I took along a protein drink in case there was too much on the buffet I couldn’t eat, but it was fine. We played music for 40 minutes to an appreciative audience. There were a lot of people there today eating, and we had 4 singers and 4 instrumentalists. The building is in the center of town, so is very accessible.
After that, we had our food, once we’d packed up the music stands and chairs. Food today for me was spaghetti, a piece of sausage from a ravioli dish, mixed green salad/ranch dressing, fresh sliced apples and oranges, and a cake I took a bite of and brought the rest home to John. He got home about the same time as I did, helped me unload, and then he had leftover beef stew for his late lunch.
His day was worse than mine. (Item #4 of His Not so Nasty News, just prior comments on this.) He spent 2 hours in the dental chair for two fillings, and paid half of the bill ($500), plus scheduled another appointment for a crown for later in November.
I see the writing on the wall for medical (including dental) expenses for this year’s taxes. Three days later (Saturday) the temporary (plastic) crown came off. He cannot keep temporaries in his mouth for some reason. He’ll have to go in Monday to have another go at it. He is set for the real crown on the 21st!
I also went to Bi-Mart for some Fisherman’s Friends cough drops, Artificial Tears, and dry cat food. I got all but the Artificial Tears (none in stock), and also picked up a large bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide because I used the rest of what we had with doctoring the dog bite I received several weeks ago.
I went to the Senior Center to discuss plans for our Veterans’ Day celebration there on Nov 8. Our music group will be providing the music after lunch, of patriotic songs, and U.S. songs. Some program changes happened from last year we needed to plan for, so I was checking on that. I think we have it figured out now.
Boy is this a lovely colorful painting in the sky for the Halloween Eve’s sunset in the Kittitas Valley.
Halloween Eve Sunset by Lise McGowan, described later by Lise as, God did provide a masterpiece that night.
Thursday, Oct 31
John started the morning before I did and did all the outside chores. I have my work cut out for me, but had to take care of emails I was not expecting.
He’s back in at 11:40 a.m. to take care of brunch, for which I’m most grateful.
Worked on the Genworth Long Term Care Transfer Funds need. I eventually finished it and got into email. They received it but have not responded yet that it is completed. I await.
Called about Umpqua Bank problem. It took more than a day to resolve, and still is not apparently fixed. Calling Monday morning.
Started at 3:15 with Umpqua bank to remove cookies and straighten account problems so I can do a BILL PAY on line. This is really a PITA. I had a 9-minute wait for Tech Support after going through the first person Alysa in Roseburg, OR.
Another agent, named Chase, changed one thing, re-activated it and I’m set to go in 15 minutes from now (it’s 3:44). I talked to his supervisor to thank Chase for his service. However, I waited all weekend and the bill pay I submitted did not go through, so have to wait until Monday morning to call Umpqua to notify them.
What a helluva afternoon.
Received this morning from Cameron Fries (White Heron Cellars & Mariposa Vineyard), this note, “In case you didn’t see it” he sent a link to the Spokane NWS blog “Coldest October”, and he went on to say that this was their latest harvest ever. John will get the scoop on the ripeness, sugar levels, and so on – next time he goes over.
John does check this blog, but they don’t publish regularly, so he had not seen this specific one.
Coldest October in the Inland NW in a long time
We have certainly noticed the cold weather in October, but we also had not seen this blog report.
Day continued to get worse. Fixing the problem with the Umpqua bank online and deleting cookies DID affect more than just my bank transactions. It affected all my Gmail account passwords, and Facebook access, and Jacquie Lawson access, and probably more I haven’t yet found. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I ever do that again. I also have updated my list for John in case I’m not around when he has to access something. He doesn’t use Google Chrome as his browser. I could not switch to Edge because the bank does not support that browser. So, I had no choice. Now that I know the final reason it could not be accessed, I realize I did not have to delete all my cookies. Too late.
I THINK after a lot of wasted time, I have retrieved all my logins.
We still haven’t had supper.
Friday, Nov 1
Normal morning chores for each of us.
Get ready for going to Seattle. John has the directions there and it’s about a 2-hr drive. The event will start at 2:00 at the Mountaineers’ place. He has printed our instructions. We will wear our WTA labeled shirts to be dressed appropriately for the Volunteer Recognition Event. We navigate around the University of Washington, they have a football game with Utah.
Checked Motor Trend; and PayPal deductions we didn’t intend to make on a credit card account.
John dealt with Vanguard and we have spent incredible time on line with these two issues all morning. Vanguard is changing from mutual funds only to a more full service brokerage system. Their term is “transition”, and it just makes work for us.
One is allowed only to dispute CITI BANK VISA charges within 90 days, so read and check everything immediately when a statement arrives, especially on John’s account. But obviously on mine as well.
Motor Trend “on demand digital site” refunded 6 months’ worth of the last year’s incorrect charges ($29.94), because of niceness of an agent. It was part of the free 14-day subscription notice on line, so let’s not do that again for any magazine. Go through College Subscription Services, as we do with all other magazines. It was included in the online thing John did for the paper copy (at a good price, $18 for two years), but we will not renew that in the future. It cost us ~ $45 for this mistake.
Now John is out removing a tree off the fence that fell from Brashler’s property east of us. He mentioned it in his Friday column (‘Strays’, Not So Nasty News, so please refer there, and for other interesting comments, if you haven’t read them.
Saturday, Nov 2
Long day, for which we left later than we should have for Seattle. Most of the distance was in I-90, but it ends south of the City, junctioning with I-5, the Mexico to Canada, west coast major highway. The traffic was awful on I-5. Stop and crawl for miles. We finally made it to the Mountaineers’ place on Sand Point Way.
The Sand Point neighborhood of Seattle is northeast of the City’s center. The peninsula is the location of former Naval Station Puget Sound.
Sand Point is the peninsula, Lake Washington to the east, with Pontiac and Wolf bays, north and south, respectively.
We wanted to miss the UW area, so stayed on I-5 to about the level of Pontiac Bay. Then we cut across through an interesting old neighborhood using NE 95th Street. A quick search suggests that 95th Street is a boundary between a couple of “known” neighborhoods. Something to look into.
John drove I-90 to North Bend, WA and I drove the rest of the way with him navigating. Back the same, and I drove to Issaquah for a Costco gas fill-up, and he drove the rest of the way home. We didn’t make it until 7:30 p.m.
WTA Volunteer Recognition Event, 11-2-2019
Sunday, Nov 3
John reset all the clocks, did morning chores outside, and visited with a neighbor at the road. I worked in the house: taking pictures off from yesterday. Worked on editing them some. Sent emails needing attention.
We fixed brunch and finished it. I cooked us 3 eggs over easy (1 for John), he cooked sausage patties, and fixed our toast, and opened a can of peaches. I had my neighbor’s Apricot homemade preserves on mine. Now alternating between the blog and other chores.
Okay, John just closed his computer and went outside. Now I can do things on line using the Internet and it won’t mess up his searching.
We decided yesterday not to take the Geology Field trip field trip by Nick Zentner to Drumheller Channels. We had gone on a trip over 10 years ago behind closed / locked gates with a summer intern I had there. He took John and me to some sites (say of the start of the irrigation system for the Columbia Basin), which few in the public are privy too. It was an interesting experience.
We do love Nick’s field trips and lectures, but this one was not timed well for us with other activities this weekend and coming week with two doctors, dentist, and events for Veterans’ Day (in advance).
A final photo by Lise McGowen. The little bump on the horizon is Mt. Rainier. Thanks, Lise.
Lise’s comment about her photograph: I walked out to our back pasture to capture yet another amazing sunset! Of course, I was surrounded by our beautiful horses! They were very curious as to what all the excitement was about! Lots of nudges, photo bombs, sniffing my camera, etc …and then they went back to grazing! It was fun to hang with them this evening!!! Tonight was an “Evening of Solitude!” Blessings to you all!!
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan