Here it is Sunday again.\u00a0 Snowed last night and much of the morning, and we got about 2 inches.\u00a0 John moved some of it off the drive, walkways, car, and back patio.\u00a0 I spent time on house chores, music transposition, emails, and summarizing answers to questions in job interviews last week.\u00a0 Tonight I participated in the Taize\u2019 service playing my violin.\u00a0 We had a nice meal afterward made by the Episcopal Priest.\u00a0 It was a good bean dish with meat, homemade cornbread, salad and a super good cake, with a layer of filling such as found in good \u00c9clairs, and topped with Chocolate.\u00a0\u00a0 Now I\u2019m ready for a good night\u2019s rest.\u00a0 Neither one of us got enough sleep last night, and we took no naps today.\u00a0\u00a0 I have not been napping in many weeks.\u00a0 There was a time where I had to, so I must be improving.<\/p>\n
Monday \u2013 need to take care of following up on bills that insurance should have paid, and I will be going to town for my SAIL class.\u00a0 We need to make some more progress on cleaning up the kitchen for a Sears repairman to come work on the stove\/oven and the dishwasher.\u00a0\u00a0 We cancelled tomorrow\u2019s horse shoe trimming because it is supposed to be 15 degrees early morning.\u00a0 We will wait a week and hope for the polar air to go back north and quit descending into our valley.\u00a0 Brrrrrr!<\/p>\n
Sunny Kitty is growing and climbing more and more.\u00a0 He still has his favorite toy and will play for many minutes during the day with it (simply a long shoe lace tied up and closed into the bottle cap of a medicine plastic container).\u00a0 It moves a lot and he loves it.\u00a0 He also is a \u201ccompanion\u201d kitty.\u00a0 He follows John like a shadow.\u00a0 When John goes outside to feed the horses, or clean snow off the car, or driveway, Sunny watches from a bedroom window, either the guest bedroom, or the computer bedroom.\u00a0 We wonder as he grows bigger, if he will fit on the rather narrow window sill.\u00a0 Time will tell.\u00a0 He also either lies next to you on the table\/desk or on the floor beneath the computer, or lies behind you in the computer chair as we use the computer.\u00a0 He also follows me and John to the bathroom.\u00a0 He has a very weak meow sound, but he uses it a lot and carries on long conversations.\u00a0 He loves balls especially ones made from crushed paper that come apart as he bats them about, and his other favorite toy is the cardboard from the inside of a toilet paper roll.\u00a0 He\u2019s eating well, canned and dry food and drinking his water.\u00a0 He has gotten use to running around the house, sleeping various places (usually on the bed during the night), and pottying in his litter box in the back \u201ccomputer\u201d bedroom.\u00a0 We have to close the door using a thin box as a spacer and then hook it so he can get in and out and the dogs can\u2019t. \u00a0Otherwise they search and scrounge for the \u201calmond roca\u201d treats kitty leaves behind, but covers nicely.\u00a0 John keeps it cleaned regularly through the day, but during the night we have to \u201clock\u201d them out.<\/p>\n
Monday it is, and I slept in late, after not having a good night\u2019s sleep.\u00a0 Too many interruptions.\u00a0 Have been making some progress on the computer.\u00a0 Ready to eat lunch and spring for town.\u00a0 It is getting much colder here today, and will be for the next several days.\u00a0 Now the rest of the night, after dinner, we need to make a path to the kitchen and clean up around the oven\/range so a Sears repairman can come in the morning to fix the door on our oven, which needs helped by a bungee cord to stay shut.<\/p>\n
Well, we didn\u2019t get any clean-up completed tonight because we were both feeling out of sorts.\u00a0 We decided to wait till 7:00 in the morning.\u00a0 Guess I had best go to sleep now.<\/p>\n
Tuesday.\u00a0 John started cleaning this a.m. at 7:15 and the guy from Sears called about 8:30.\u00a0 We thought he was 20 minutes away, but really was over a 1\/2 hour.\u00a0 We cleaned up some more, but certainly it would not pass inspection in the real world.<\/p>\n
First he fixed the dishwasher and found a mouse nest underneath in the insulation.\u00a0 \u00a0Then he found a constriction in the outflow pipe \u2013 that water has to pass through the under-sink disposal. \u00a0Now cleaned out we haven\u2019t noticed any of the left-behind water in the bottom of the dishwasher.\u00a0 Then he worked on the dryer (clothes) cleaning the lint and dust out.\u00a0 It was the one that quit heating last week by throwing a breaker switch.\u00a0 He looked at door hinges on the oven\/range.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t have the hinges and pieces and Sears began researching it.\u00a0 It will probably require a whole new frame to sit the door in with the hinges.\u00a0 If they don’t have the parts, then they will replace the whole unit.\u00a0 Wouldn’t that be nice !\u00a0 It is a standard 40\u201d range (but with double ovens and self-cleaning of the larger one).\u00a0 If replaced, we get to have the same features.\u00a0 The only one I can find on line is a gas model and we don\u2019t have gas, only electricity.\u00a0\u00a0 The larger of the ovens is convective, and supposedly that feature gives less inside room in the oven.<\/p>\n
The repairman didn\u2019t leave till 10:25, and neither of us had eaten breakfast.\u00a0 So, we ate just a little and then had a late lunch, and there was no reason to go to town today.\u00a0 How very nice.<\/p>\n
I then filled out a survey evaluation form on line for the serviceman and the service provided.\u00a0 It was no cost because we have a service contract we pay which allows maintenance and repair for kitchen appliances.\u00a0 This is a questionable purchase but we are over an hour (one way) from their service so for anything not still under warrantee there is a monster cost of a service call. The total charge for today for the 3 appliances would have been billed at $442.44 (that includes a service fee of $350 applied to the oven (not fixed) which was the provocation).\u00a0 And we have a return visit for 2 weeks (depending on whether they have the parts, or whether we get a new oven\/range).\u00a0 \u00a0If they replace the oven\/range, the only comparable one costs $1,937, and we will not have to pay for installation or taxes.<\/p>\n
Other things I had to worry with today in my \u201cretirement\u201d time, was checking with Group Health on two bills they supposedly did not pay.\u00a0 Jeez, this is a full time job.<\/p>\n
I forgot another thing that happened today.\u00a0 We had a call from Critter Care (that’s what our vet calls her business).\u00a0 Love it.\u00a0 They were calling to schedule Sunny in for his neuter or her spay, whichever the case may be.\u00a0 And, to get the next set of shots, probably to include rabies.\u00a0 We take him in on Thursday morning, and if it is a neuter, we pick him up in the afternoon.\u00a0 If it is a spay, we pick her up after an overnight stay.<\/p>\n
My nightmares last night were connected with the house cleaning for the repairman to enter. \u00a0And, we still only had a path through the boxes, piles of papers, and clothes. My dreams were that two guys were sleeping over in our house in a messy room, and that I hadn\u2019t even given them clean towels.\u00a0 Also, a woman came to the door early in the morning to get a ride with me to the airport.\u00a0 I had not packed and didn\u2019t have an airline ticket, so I was happy when dog Annie awoke me to tell me she needed to go outside to potty.\u00a0 I jumped up and ended the nightmare.<\/p>\n
The other news tonight was very sad.\u00a0 It was about the death of a dear friend from lung cancer.\u00a0 The call came from his friend of 25 years.\u00a0\u00a0 I guess it is getting to be that time of life, but he was younger than me, was a Viet Nam vet, and a superb geographer.\u00a0 I will miss his friendship.\u00a0\u00a0 He knew he was not long for this world and called in December to visit and wish us well.<\/p>\n
Wednesday.\u00a0 Today was supposed to be a light day but it turned into a crazy one.\u00a0 I made the mistake of sleeping in and we were supposed to meet someone at the Kittitas Exit on I-90, after 10:00 a.m. to get from him a Farrier\u2019s Kit he wanted to sell.\u00a0 He was to call us from Vantage that would give us 30 minutes to get there.\u00a0 Well, I was not dressed yet and the phone rang at 9:20 a.m.\u00a0 He was coming across the bridge over the Columbia River calling me.\u00a0 Phew.\u00a0 We got ready and rushed out there, and yes, we got there in time.\u00a0 He apologized for being early.\u00a0 We visited awhile in the cold, and then came home.\u00a0 There was another trip to town for me at 1:00 for SAIL exercise class, and afterward I dropped by the hospital for a blood draw to evaluate my INR (for adjusting my Coumadin dosage).\u00a0 My physician\u2019s nurse later reported that it was 2.9 (a little higher than usual), but okay, and not to change my dosage, but to have it checked again in a month.\u00a0 Then we both worked on projects on our respective computers till it was time for dinner and another trip to town for a lecture on ice cores and their ability to measure climate change by the atmospheric chemicals deposited on high mountain glaciers.\u00a0 We were late getting home to a crazy cat demanding his litter box be cleaned out and 4 dogs ready to go out to potty.\u00a0 Then we had a great dessert.\u00a0 John made a carrot\/walnut cake with white cream frosting last night, and we had a piece with butter pecan ice cream on it.\u00a0 Very good.\u00a0 Now we are finishing emails and stuff and will be going to bed shortly.<\/p>\n
Thursday was much quieter \u2013 but a music play day.\u00a0 We swung by a flood-prone intersection to photograph the raising of a house that sits at an intersection where the culverts are not sufficient for the extra flow during heavy rain or for rain-on-snow. This place (once owned by friends) was flooded a few years ago and again in January. The current owners just stayed with friends last time while they cleaned and dried it out, but this time they are going to disconnect it from the ground, raise it up, and grace it with a new and higher foundation.\u00a0 John\u2019s family\u2019s house was raised and moved (so a nearby soft drink bottler could expand) when he was young so he is familiar with the operation. \u00a0I talked to the contractor and asked if I could take some pictures of the process over the next several days.\u00a0 He expects to have it finished in a week.<\/p>\n
John took the dogs for their morning run to feed the horses, and they tip-toed through a herd of deer.\u00a0 The oldest, Shay, returned carrying essence of Fifi La Fume <\/em>or Pep\u00e9 Le Pew<\/em>. \u00a0We could have gone a long time without that.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a full-fledged smell requiring a bath, but it is definitely noticeable.\u00a0 John thinks she might have brushed against a place \/ bush or something that had been sprayed.<\/p>\n Nothing much new for the rest of the day. Then off to play music at Royal Vista Nursing facility, and John went to the landfill to recycle glass (free), and then to shop at the grocery.\u00a0 John says (being always politically correct) that he went to a \u201ctransfer station\u201d and not a \u201cland fill.\u201d\u00a0 When we got home, I\u2019d received a letter from the Hospital saying they received my application for the Board of Commissioners vacant position, and they would be interviewing finalists on Feb 15 and 17.<\/p>\n Friday morning began with the kitty waking us to clean his litter box. Then I made a trip to the kitchen to load soaked dirty dishes into the dishwasher and filled with more.\u00a0 At 9:00 a.m. had a call from the CEO\u2019s secretary at the hospital to tell me I would be interviewed Tuesday Feb 15 at 4:45 for the Board of Commissioner\u2019s position.\u00a0 It will be about 25 minutes and they will send me a list of the questions in advance.\u00a0 That\u2019s really nicer than walking in cold, not knowing what they want to know.\u00a0 I\u2019m used to interviews in academia where the person isn\u2019t given that courtesy.<\/p>\n Another nice surprise came in a phone call this afternoon.\u00a0 I was off eating and playing music at the Adult Activity Center.\u00a0 At the end, I went to the grocery and called John from the parking lot.\u00a0 I told him I forgot to take the cooler and did he want me to get the ice cream and frozen Lasagna anyway to bring home, as I had only two stops \u2013 the post office and our utility district to pay our monthly electric bill.\u00a0 He said I might rather wish to drive by the Sears store to pick out our new oven.\u00a0 They were unable to find the parts to repair the 1982 model.\u00a0 They will install the new one and remove the old one too.\u00a0 It took me only a few minutes to give them my authorization code John had given me and we were approved for up to $1200 for a replacement.\u00a0 There was only one electric model with the double oven feature, so I had only to choose the color. \u00a0I picked white, to match the refrigerator.\u00a0 Come Feb 22nd<\/sup> we will have a new kitchen stove.\u00a0 Cool.\u00a0 Except for the in and out part.\u00a0 There are two options, and both have problems.\u00a0 Coming in from the front door means moving a lot of furniture and boxes to get through the front door entrance, into and around a corner into the den, or coming in the back sliding glass doors to the den and into the kitchen.\u00a0 The problem with that route is that the access through the pasture and back yard might be muddy.\u00a0 Guess we will have to figure out as time proceeds but meanwhile we will start working on the \u201cden\u201d \u00a0— the biggest obstacle at the moment.\u00a0 It needs doing anyway.<\/p>\n Saturday is a light no-activity day except for John\u2019s getting out the trail rider club\u2019s newsletter before our mail pickup at the road.\u00a0 Last night it rained and blew, up to 48 mph gusts and 39 mph sustained winds (at the airport 5 miles south of us). \u00a0It has slowed today to \u201conly\u201d 30 mph gusts and 22 mph sustained winds.<\/p>\n We wish you a good and healthy week, and we\u2019ll be back late Sunday next week to report to you on the latest in our currently not very eventful lives.\u00a0 I\u2019m driving to Leavenworth for a birthday party (evening dinner), and will likely spend the Saturday night so I can drive back the 1.5 hours in the daylight.\u00a0 It\u2019s too far and too much time away from all the animals for us both to go.<\/p>\n Nancy & John and all the critters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here it is Sunday again.\u00a0 Snowed last night and much of the morning, and we got about 2 inches.\u00a0 John moved some of it off the drive, walkways, car, and back patio.\u00a0 I spent time on house chores, music transposition, emails, and summarizing answers to questions in job interviews last week.\u00a0 Tonight I participated in … Continue reading “SATURDAY — Fifi La Fume or Pep\u00e9 Le Pew 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