Saturday night and Sunday morning brought more rain, and there is flooding on WA\u2019s west side, as predicted by John with help from the National Weather Service folks in Seattle.\u00a0 The day was overcast and foggy till about an hour ago, when the sun broke through the clouds and displayed nice blue sky.\u00a0 No trips to town today, so we have just been doing chores, mostly on the computer.\u00a0 I have taken a break to transpose one last piece of music and also to send some pictures to a couple of people.\u00a0 I will soon shift back to organizing tax receipts.\u00a0 John is taking a nap.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think he slept well last night, but I did, for a change.<\/p>\n
We really need to get an early start in the morning on MLK day to get to Yakima for a 9:40 a.m. appointment for me to have my 3-month read-out from my defibrillator device.\u00a0 While down in Yakima, we will eat and go to Costco.\u00a0 Because of the holiday, I won\u2019t have to be back for 1:30 p.m. SAIL class at the SR Center.<\/p>\n
I suppose I do need to get back to the office to read the rest of the files for my \u201creplacement\u201d position, but it won\u2019t be on the holiday.<\/p>\n
Today, MLK Day, is a holiday for many places, but I had to get to the doctor\u2019s office for my device check.\u00a0 We made it down fine, but had to dodge water on the road intersections down south of us, and I heard there was water over other roads downhill.\u00a0 Most of the reason is that culverts beneath the road for creeks and ditches are not big enough for melting runoff of rain on snow.\u00a0 Last night the wind blew (and is again this afternoon, gusting to 45 mph or higher I suspect, and the temperature was up to 44 when I looked at 2:00 a.m.<\/p>\n
Yikes\u2014they just recorded 52 mph gusts at the airport (5 miles south of us).\u00a0 I think I agree, and we might have had some higher ones; we are also protected somewhat to our NW by trees, so out on the \u201cplains\u201d in the valley it is likely worse.<\/p>\n
No more rain last night and today, but it is overcast.\u00a0 Tuesday will find me going to school late afternoon and staying in town for a 6:30 music performance.\u00a0 I am quite tired after awaking and not being able to get back to sleep last night for 1.5 hours.\u00a0 Then I didn’t sleep in well this morning either (when I could).\u00a0 Tonight I went to play music at a nursing home\/rehab center up on the hill (nice that it was out of the flooding in town).\u00a0 There are no such retirement or rehab facilities in West Ellensburg, where the flooding has been bad for homeowners.\u00a0 The city carried in 90 tons of sand and neighbors are filling sandbags to help each other protect their structures.<\/p>\n
We are fine where we are significantly uphill from EBRG.\u00a0 We are at 2240′ and the south end of campus is at 1500′.\u00a0 West Ellensburg is a bit lower, closer to the Yakima River.\u00a0 The KOA campground along the Yakima River was flooded yesterday and today, and Irene Rinehart Park, along the river, as well.\u00a0 No surprises there.<\/p>\n
Decided today not to go to town for exercise, but to stay home and work on taxes and relax.\u00a0 I have been run ragged for the past two days, and needed to spend time on that work.\u00a0 Also, I\u2019ve been working on getting materials together for colleagues at the university.\u00a0 Although retired, I\u2019m still involved.\u00a0 Bless John\u2019s heart, he just spent a bunch of time in the kitchen fixing lunch and cleaning up the mess we have piled up over the past few days.<\/p>\n
Thursday came and went and is almost over.\u00a0 I spent a ton of time on the tax receipts, some on email, some on checking the web for travel plans, some on cleaning the kitchen, and now we have 2 minutes till the spaghetti is done for dinner.\u00a0 I have also been proofing labs and lectures for another colleague.\u00a0 John went with me to town to the store while I was playing music at Dry Creek.\u00a0 It was fun as usual.<\/p>\n
Thursday, late afternoon, our kitty came up missing.\u00a0 It\u2019s now Friday night, and he is still missing.\u00a0 John and I both thought we heard him meow tonight, but we have searched and searched all cubby holes and we can find nothing.\u00a0 This is so frustrating.\u00a0 I cannot believe we both heard a ghost at the same time.\u00a0 His meow is a faint one when he is right in front of you.<\/p>\n
Saturday, we heard sounds again.\u00a0 Looked.\u00a0 Found nothing.\u00a0 We both heard sounds so we could not call the other one on a \u201csenior moment\u201d or any more inflammatory name.\u00a0 John knew there were birds outside \u2013 mostly\u00a0 black-capped Chickadees and a vocalizing Steller\u2019s Jay. The Jay was at the seed feeder and doing an imitation of a Red-tailed Hawk. Explanation and photos here:<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.seattleaudubon.org\/birdweb\/bird_details.aspx?id=310<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Steller’s_Jay#Vocalizations<\/a><\/p>\n Sounds, search, nothing.\u00a0 Turn off the heater, so no fans making noise.\u00a0 Walk around.\u00a0 Listen.\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0 Walk around, listen. Meow. Where?\u00a0 Move. Listen.\u00a0 Going nuts!<\/p>\n Finally, we found Sunny kitty in the garage. The door to the garage is via the wash room and into the kitchen.\u00a0 John goes out via there and the garage when getting the dogs out of the house for their exercise or when searching in the chest freezer for something to cook.\u00a0 John\u2019s been watching for the cat at those times \u2013 tricky kitty made it out anyhow.<\/p>\n Now back after about 40 hours, Kitty-Sunny is talking more and louder than he ever has in his life with us.\u00a0 He\u2019s running all over the house and counters.\u00a0 I think he’s trying to tell us about his last 2 days alone with no food or water.<\/p>\n He was always in hiding when John was in the garage — numerous times — looking for him… till today when I found him.\u00a0 John had to lure him out with a string where he could grab him.\u00a0 Funny kitty.\u00a0 Not so funny all the concern he has caused us over the past couple of days.\u00a0 We have moved many boxes in several rooms of the already cluttered house, looked under beds, behind furniture, crawled up over the oven for a view, looked behind the frig, and on and on.<\/p>\n John has gone to take a power nap, and Sunny is still roaming around meowing.\u00a0 I’m also glad he never left the garage as John was moving dogs out to go for the morning and evening runs.\u00a0 John opens the door from the back yard to the front and one dog runs out through the garage, right by the place where we eventually found Sunny.<\/p>\n He has to do it strategically in a certain way and order or the chaos at the front door elevates beyond an acceptable level.<\/p>\n Okay, John\u2019s back up and around and I will finish this now to send to him to put out on the web for this week\u2019s report.\u00a0 I never got my afternoon nap, so I will just go to bed early tonight.<\/p>\n Some folks we know are in places that will be very cold this weekend.\u00a0 We checked with one family in northern Vermont.\u00a0 They expect -25 degrees Sunday night.\u00a0 Ouch!\u00a0 They have lots of good firewood up there (Maple) and assure us they are prepared.\u00a0 In International Falls, MN it was -46 yesterday. Double ouch!<\/p>\n We wish you a warm and healthy week.<\/p>\n Nancy & John and all the critters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saturday night and Sunday morning brought more rain, and there is flooding on WA\u2019s west side, as predicted by John with help from the National Weather Service folks in Seattle.\u00a0 The day was overcast and foggy till about an hour ago, when the sun broke through the clouds and displayed nice blue sky.\u00a0 No trips … Continue reading “SATURDAY — Lost & found”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p72iNf-bE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":724,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions\/724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}