In which I (don’t) lose my fob

Most of the drama of the week came about from a lost fob for our car as well as my other keys and electronic tags for the grocery store and gas station, library, and hardware store. For anyone who’s not aware, the fob is what electronically starts and unlocks our car. On Wednesday, I drove to art class. I hadn’t been there for two weeks because of our holiday events, so it was nice to be there again. Later that day, I took Luke out for a walk. During the walk, I went to give Luke a treat and thought I heard a noise like something falling out of my pocket. I looked around but didn’t see anything.

On Thursday, my knee hadn’t been bothering me for a few days (I could barely walk over the weekend), but when Maja said she wasn’t going to exercise class, I decided to stay home. I didn’t want to push my luck with the knee, and Luke was returning to Doggy Day Care, so it was an unusual opportunity to have one of my old, relaxed Thursdays that I used to have before I started going to exercise class. I just did the laundry and the dishes and read.

However, when it was my turn to go pick up Luke, early because I had errands to run, things began to go wrong. I couldn’t find my fob and keys. They had been in my jacket pocket for weeks. I am not one to put them strange places. Either they are in my jacket pocket, on the kitchen counter or on the table. They were none of those places.

Wayne loaned me his fob, and as I drove off, I thought about where I had been and remembered that little noise when I was walking the day before. I went off to run my errands and first, I went to the clinic to get some routine test work done. They didn’t have the orders. I waited while the guy called my doctor’s office, and he told me that they said they were putting them in but didn’t know when they would appear because she had a lot to put in. (He offered the information that they were open until 8:00 PM. It was 3:30.) You would think that since I was sitting right there, they would do mine first, but no. So, I told him I had to pick up my dog and would be back another day.

After picking up Luke, I stopped by the library to pick up a book I had on hold. It was one of those days, so my library card had expired. I had to wait to have it renewed, and all the time, I was dying to get home so I could look for my keys on the road. I spent about 20 minutes in the dusk with a flashlight but found nothing.

When I got home, I told Wayne I thought I had dropped my keys in the road, so he decided to do an experiment. He took his fob out in the car and wrapped it in aluminum, then tried to start the car. He thought he had established an area where my keys were from that experiment, and he even had some of the kids next door trying to help him find them. The area corresponded with where I remembered being when I heard the noise, but I had my doubts about the experiment, because when I went out there to help him, he handed me his keys, and I was standing about four inches outside the car with the window opened, and the car couldn’t start. I thought that if it couldn’t sense the keys that nearby, it wasn’t likely to be sensing them from the ground somewhere. When I tried to express my doubts, we had a big argument about that (twice) in which he insisted that it was “scientific.” We were out in the dark for about an hour before giving up.

The next morning, we went out again and didn’t find anything. Wayne repeated his experiment, this time sensing nothing, so he was convinced that a kid had come along and taken my keys and that we were going to be broken into any minute. Interestingly enough, when he did something about that the next day, instead of trying to change the locks on the house (I tried to contact a locksmith, but he wouldn’t let me), he changed the padlocks on the garden shed. We had another argument about his priorities. Here was my worst mistake: I went to the dealership and ordered another fob. They cost about $500 with the key inside, $600 after programming for our car. (I got my tests done on the way home.)

Aside from beginning to take down the Christmas tree, these were our only activities for a few days. On Saturday night, I removed the Christmas presents from under the tree and put them away. My niece had given me a big box of oil paints. She told me she knew someone who worked for the paint company, and that if they didn’t fill the paint tubes exactly right, they had to throw the paint away, so she got me a half dozen tubes of paint for free. Actually seven, which is very nice, because it was good paint, and the tubes are expensive. I found I received three colors I didn’t already have, three that I did, and one that I did but was almost out. The biggest surprise came when I got my art box out to put the tubes away. It sits under my desk with my desk easel and apron on top of it, and Wayne puts it away for me after I get back from my Wednesday class every week, because it is crammed packed with art supplies and very heavy. And when I pulled my apron off the box, my keys and fob fell out. I had them all the time.

Then I remembered that on Wednesday driving home, I stopped for coffee. When I started up again, the pocket of my jacket with my keys in it got stuck up against the emergency brake. I was starting to drive, and I flung that part of my jacket out of that space so that I could move. My keys must have come out of my pocket and flown across to the apron on the passenger seat, and then Wayne brought them in with my art stuff.

Even with this proof that Wayne hadn’t conducted a “scientific” experiment, because the keys were never on the road, we had another argument about the methodology. Sigh.

Monday morning first thing I called about getting my money back. I was told that the money for the key was nonrefundable, because they cut the key to our BIN number, but the rest was. We already got all of it back except the $160 for the key, and we’ll just have an extra key. That’s a lot for a key, but I’m glad not to have spent the other $400+.

I finished taking down all of the Christmas ornaments, and on Monday, Wayne cut the Christmas tree into thirds and threw it into the front lawn. If this is anything like last year, when I get sick of it being there, I’ll drag it around to the side yard and sometime he’ll burn it (although, come to think of, half of last year’s tree is still next to my veggie garden). I used to fling them over a ledge onto the neighbor’s forest land to be used by the birds and animals, but he made me stop because he thought it was a fire hazard (unlike leaving it next to the garden). (My neighbor didn’t mind.) Maybe I’ll just do that again. So now, I just have the outside lights to take down, but it has been raining cats and dogs for days, and I haven’t felt like going out to do that (although Luke and I have gotten wet going for walks).

Speaking of which, this week is supposed to be the coldest of the winter. So far, it’s only in the 40’s and high 30’s, but snow is supposed to come. The original forecast had it coming Thursday and Friday, but as of today (I’m writing this on Tuesday for post Wednesday), it’s supposed to start snowing tonight and snow all night long. We’ll see what happens. Then it’s supposed to snow every day for about four days. So, we might get snowed in. I hope I can drive on Wednesday, though, because I’ve missed too much art class.

Tuesday I finally went to exercise class, but it’s cancelled for Thursday. Maja didn’t go.

Some of our biggest news is that my brother and sister-in-law have found a townhouse in Battle Ground, near my sister’s house. They are moving by the end of the month. Yay!

No photo this week unless it snows tonight and I have a pretty snow picture. And here one is!

That’s our little blue spruce still covered with Christmas lights (and snow).

Update: It’s nearly 10 PM on Tuesday and we have a couple inches of very wet snow! It started snowing after 8:30, which is the last time I looked.

Now it’s Wednesday morning, and we have about three inches on the driveway. I am trying to figure out whether I can get down the driveway and out the road to go to art class. I saw someone driving on the road a while ago and they didn’t come back, so maybe it’s passable. I will at least give it a try.

In which we (finally) get new furniture

Since we bought our new furniture, way back in November, and the saleslady told us that they only deliver in our area on Tuesdays, one of my fears was that they would tell us it was coming on December 26th, and we would have to ask my niece’s husband to move our old sectional out on Christmas Day. Well, it was almost that bad. They called during Christmas week and told us it was coming on January 2. My niece’s husband, who is an appraiser, is taking work whenever he can get it now because of a downturn, and it just so happened that he had work on New Year’s Day, when usually he takes the whole week off. So, he and my brother came to get the sectional on New Year’s Eve instead, and by the time we went over to my niece’s house for New Year’s, it was nicely established in their playroom and almost looked like a reputable piece of furniture. Now that the kids are older, their playroom is set up as jam room, with a drum set in the corner, and my great niece and her friends go in there and play music. It offers seating for five or six, so it’s perfect.

We had a nice New Year’s with the family. My niece decided on a seafood night, so earlier in the day, my sister and some of the family went to an oriental fish market in Vancouver and bought crabs and mussels. I participated by giving money this year, because I was all worn out from the tea. After we all gorged on seafood, we went out to shoot off fireworks, and they had some really good ones this year. We always do this early, around 7, so as not to disturb the neighbors, but that didn’t prevent them from waking us up at midnight with their fireworks. Yes, we geezers were already in bed at midnight, as usual. Wayne and I stayed until about 7:30 and then went home to feed the dog and have a quiet evening.

We were without furniture for me to sit on in the living room for two days, because our new furniture arrived around 3 PM on Tuesday. We had already rolled up the rug and got everything out of the way, so it was a breeze to get it into the house. Then we put the room back together. It looks really good. The color is steel gray, but in dim light the furniture looks greenish, and in bright light it looks bluish. Both are fine with me. Wayne has been sitting on an Amish-built rocking chair for years, and this year, the mechanism (it’s the glider type) has started to break. So, he’s going to take it downstairs and try to fix it.

Here are our new couch and chair.

As for the tea, it went really well. My brother and his wife came over the day before to help clean, but there was really almost nothing for them to do. I realized after they left that the intention on my brother’s side was to make sure that there was as little dog hair in the area as possible, because his wife is allergic, so even though we had already swept the carpet, he did it again. Then she came early the next day to put her soup in the Instant Pot and help me make the sandwiches. I was so worried about the sandwiches that I had her come over at 10 (she got there about 10:30), which I realized was way too early. We made the sandwiches, got everything set up for the tea, and had nothing to do for more than an hour before everyone else arrived. As I expected, we talked about making it a family tradition but were divided about when it should be. I suggested it be a midsummer event, and my niece liked that idea, but my brother liked that it continued the holiday feeling of the week. That made it more stressful to me.

At one point, we thought we would have up to 17 guests, but almost all of our nonfamily guests fell out for one reason or another and our Seattle family did not show up as usual, so we were 10, just the family and Maja. We had a good time.

Here is the counter all ready for tea.

On Friday night, I went over to my niece’s house to watch a Christmas movie with my brother and his wife. Instead of the usual choices, we looked at a New York Times list of the best Christmas movies and chose a French movie called A Christmas Tale. Boy, was it a loser! We all agreed that we hated it, Catherine Deneuve or not. I had brought an alternative, and older movie called A Pocketful of Miracles with Glenn Ford and Bette Davis, but we decided to watch it the next night. On Saturday night, we met my sister for dinner, and afterwards, although we started late, we watched that movie and all agreed it was much more suited to the season.

We had some days during the week with sun, but mostly Christmas week was rainy. However, next week we have the potential for snow. In fact, right now, it says wintry mix a week from today and snow on Thursday and Friday. We’ll see. So far, our coldest days were a few in November.

In which the usual festivities commence

We are one day from the Christmas high tea, and our guests are falling out one by one, so that it will mostly be a family occasion. My brother and his wife are coming over today to help with any remaining cleaning (there should not be much) before they go back to prepare their contributions to the feast. Then they are coming over early tomorrow to make sandwiches.

On Wednesday, as I noted in the last post, I unexpectedly ended up taking Christine to Portland so her dog could have surgery. We ended up going in twice because the dog was there so long. We had to get her there by 8 AM, and we picked her up at 6:30. The traffic was a lot worse, so I got home about 8:30 from that trip after picking up fast food for dinner on the way home. Duchess is doing a lot better this week. The trick, the vet said, was to get her to walk on her leg. Christine says she puts it down accidentally, but then raises it back up when she notices it is down. Still, she has had it down a few times. However, Christine will not be able to come to the high tea.

At the end of last week, I was house cleaning to get ready for the holidays but mostly for the high tea. We had our big family Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, so that day all I had to do to prepare besides get the presents wrapped was make a large quantity of carrots sautéed in butter and brown sugar and put on my ugly Christmas sweater.

When we arrived at the house in the afternoon, everyone was playing a silly card game where one person reads out a sentence with a blank in it, and the other players have cards with possible fill-ins for the blank. The aim is to pick out the funniest fill-in, and some of them are quite rude. The family doesn’t keep score, so Wayne and I joined in, and Wayne showed a real talent for ending up with the funniest sentence. My niece’s husband said the adult version was quite raunchy, and he might allow his kids to play it when they were 30.

This year, everyone got carried away and ended up with so many gifts that we decided to do Secret Santa next year. We discussed the merits of it versus White Elephant but decided we preferred to know exactly who we were buying for. We’ll have to draw names, maybe on New Year’s Eve.

Happy feet. From top right, me in the stripy socks, then my niece’s husband, my brother, my sister-in-law, my niece, and my sister

One of the things I did was give each adult a pair of alpaca socks (except Wayne, who I thought had stopped wearing his alpaca socks. Then I saw he had some on that night). The women got two pair, a Christmas pair and a regular pair. We decided to take a photo of all of us wearing our socks.

We had a nice feast for dinner, and a good time was had by all. Wayne and I went home around 8:30 PM, and we watched some silly ghost stories for Christmas that were on BritBox.

I had asked for a specific gift for Christmas and when we got up, there was a box in the living room that was the right size. However, it was labeled Keurig coffee maker, and that’s what it was, our coffee machine having crapped out over the fall. Usually it works to ask him very specifically for something, but when I asked why I didn’t get it, he said, “I forgot.” I also got a book on the brain, a subject I have no interest in but he does. But he did try. I got a Poirot jigsaw puzzle.

I got him new shoes, since his old ones had the toes taped on with duck tape, and a new pair of jeans the right size, since he has lost some weight but insists on wearing his old jeans with the belt cinched way in. I also gave him an IOU for a DVD of the next season of Midsomer Murders when it comes out in February. I guess I’ll have to buy myself the record player I carefully researched.

We had a nice Christmas dinner that wasn’t too hard to make, because it featured a Honey-Baked Ham, and I just had to make the scalloped potatoes with cheese and cook some asparagus. Then in the evening, Wayne astonished me by selecting It’s a Wonderful Life to watch.

Yesterday, I did the shopping for the tea sandwiches. I had to drive in to the new New Seasons market in downtown Vancouver because that was where my niece found the thin bread. It’s Japanese bread, but I have to say that Pepperidge Farm thin white bread was about 3/4 the thickness of this supposedly thin bread. (As far as I can tell, they don’t make it anymore, or if they do, none of the stores around here sell it.) No wonder the tea shops bread was a little thick. I guess you can’t get bread of the correct thickness and texture anymore.

After I got home, my intent was to do a little more cleaning, but my brother invited me over to watch the movie Maestro, which was really excellent. Then my niece and her husband horrified my brother and me by telling us how little they knew about Leonard Bernstein.

When I arrived at my niece’s for the movie, I saw that my brother was all delighted. To make the rolls for Christmas dinner (he has become our family baker), he had used my niece’s KitchenAid stand mixer and was amazed that he could just let it do the kneading that he usually does by hand. So, they did some looking at prices, and his wife bought him a mixer for Christmas. They had just gone out that day to buy it. It was a nice light blue. I am envious, because when I wanted one years and years ago, I asked for aqua and got white. (I suspect Wayne got me a reconditioned one, as that’s what he does.) So, he had his mixer all out next to hers on the counter, ready for action for making rolls for New Years.

And that was basically it for this week. I am up early hoping to have the dishes done by the time I get my help today for the Christmas tea tomorrow. I suspect that poor Luke has been feeling neglected lately.

In which I get up early and drive to Portland

I am posting my blog later than usual today, because I just got back from Portland. I got up at 6 AM today to take my friend Christine and her dog Duchess to a vet in Portland for surgery. Last week, Christine took her dog in for a teeth cleaning. They didn’t do the cleaning because of her blood count, but when Christine got Duchess back, her leg was up in the air. This isn’t unusual for Duchess, who is a lot like a circus dog, but what was unusual was it didn’t come back down. It turns out that her hip came out of its socket and when they popped it in, it wouldn’t stay in. She has had periodic pains in her back, and a problem with her hip might be the cause, the vet said. This surgery in Portland was the first one that could get her in, and she has been in a lot of pain, although today she didn’t seem to be suffering. So, I said I would drive Christine in, as she needed to hold Duchess (who, by the way, barks continuously when she is in the car).

We went prepared to hang around for hours in town, but they told us it would be 3 PM at the earliest, so we decided to get some breakfast and then head home, so we could get something done in the meantime. So, I am unexpectedly home, which is good as I have been stressing about getting the house ready for the holidays. I took Luke out for a walk when we got home, and after I post this, I will start packing up a bunch of clothes and shoes and miscellaneous items that have been hanging around my bedroom for months, waiting for me to take them to Goodwill.

All this stuff with Duchess got in the way of our plans for Friday, which was to make a grooming appointment together when Christine took Duchess in and then to go out for breakfast. Christine had to cancel Duchess’s grooming appointment, and Duchess was in too much pain to be left alone.

In fact, this week has seemed to be all about the dogs, because when Luke went in for his teeth cleaning last week, they found a wound in his chest that they think is from his prong collar. That is really weird to me, because first, the prong collar isn’t supposed to hurt them, and second, he only wears his prong collar in the car or at places out, for example when he is at Doggy Day Care, and that’s only because he had it on in the car. The reason we need it is because his hair is so thick that he doesn’t really react to just a leash, although he is much better about it now. But without the prong collar, if he doesn’t want to go somewhere, like the vet, for example, he’d be dragging me down the street, many sessions of dog training notwithstanding.

So, now, he can’t wear any kind of collar at all, which means I can’t put him on a leash, at least not until the harness I ordered arrives. It was interesting getting him out of the vets, but I think we impressed them, because when we took off their strap that they put around their necks, she asked if I needed help getting him into the car, and I said, “No, he’s a good boy.” (Luckily there were no other animals in the lobby at the time.) He went to the door with me, sat when I told him to, and more or less stuck with me on the way to the car, only having to be called back a time or two. He was only too happy to go home, so he was looking for the car ahead of me.

Not having a collar has made walks interesting, too, because he’s a lazy dog who doesn’t like rain. Before, if he stopped and sat down in the road, which is his cue that he’s gone far enough, I would just put his leash on, and he would walk along nicely. However, now, I pretty much have to coax him and if that doesn’t work, turn around and go home. Today on our walk we ran into a babysitter (or a very young mom) and three small children, and they wanted to pet him. He was a little nervous about it, but he let them pet him. (This goes against my trainer’s orders that you never let strangers pet your dog.)

I haven’t started cleaning for the holidays yet, not wanting to leave enough time for Wayne to mess it all back up again, but today if I get done with the Goodwill stuff on time (depends upon if we decide to itemize it), I’ll start cleaning the floors.

On Monday I decided to bake my scones and freeze them for the tea, since right beforehand, I’ll have plenty to do. My scones are lemon ginger, and when I looked for candied ginger locally, I couldn’t find it. I ended up buying it online and got the kind made for eating rather than cooking, so I had to start out by cutting all those big pieces much smaller, which took a long time, then zesting the lemon and grating the fresh ginger.

I was already tired when I got to the mixing part (I just don’t have the energy since Covid), so I made a mistake measuring. I have a measuring cup in my flour container that I thought I knew was one cup. Only my scones seemed drier than usual. I checked for the second batch, and it was more like 1 1/4 cups, so my scones had way too much flour in them. I corrected this for the second batch, but I forgot to sugar them on top before baking. After the batches were done, I tasted both of them, and they are both good, just different. Oddly, the batch with the correct amount of flour doesn’t look as nice as the other batch. However, the scones are softer. I was adapting a recipe for wedge scones to a cookie cutter because it seemed more fitting for our tea, but although I have made them many times in wedge form, they didn’t look as good in circular form.

So, I got one thing done for the tea (Wayne suggested I make the scones over again, which made me feel like killing him), and on Tuesday I wrapped all the presents I had. I was still waiting for two, and of course, one showed up right after I finished wrapping and put everything away. Wrapping took me about four hours, by which time I was ready for a cup of tea.

When I got home today, I noticed that Wayne had made great strides in clearing off the table. If only it will stay that way until next Thursday. Next is the counter between the kitchen and the living room, which needs to be empty so we can put the tea things there. I also want to clear off the counter next to the stove where I usually cook. I have a bad habit of not putting away my spices after I use them, so half its space is used up by olive oil and spice bottles (plus for some reason a bottle of rum), so I have to clear all that off, because that’s where the soup is going to go.

I went a little overboard with the tea when I ordered a mixed set of old silver teaspoons after realizing I don’t have enough spoons and half of mine have plastic handles with the world “Spoon” on them, not exactly high tea standards. Those arrived almost immediately, but I also ordered a mixed set of old fine china bowls because I realized I didn’t have enough soup bowls by any stretch of the imagination. I just looked at the shipping information, and although they got the order on December 4, it appears that it didn’t reach the post office until the 18th and isn’t supposed to arrive, possibly, until after the tea. I hope that information is wrong. Sometimes, things get here a lot faster than estimated.

Well, I had better get a move on. No photo this time, unfortunately.

In which I engage in family activities

Finally last week I returned to my usual class schedule except for tai chi. I have been planning to restart tai chi when the session starts up in January. However, recently a friend sent me a link to online classes through the AARP. So, I might take a look at those instead. I like the people in my tai chi class, but I am not so interested in the Taoist aspects of it, and it seems as if the more you get into the classes, the more they push the Taoism.

Anyway, Maja and I went back to exercise class last week and this week, and on Thursday the class had its usual first Thursday meet at a nearby café after class. Maja and I attended that, too.

On Friday, I planned to finish decorating the Christmas tree, but for some reason, I didn’t get much done. So, I decided to finish it on Saturday. Wayne kept telling me the tree looked good as it was, with less than half of the ornaments I own. It’s true that last year we didn’t put everything on, either.

Friday night, I had a date to go see my great niece’s play. I was going alone but meeting my brother and his wife at the theater. However, shortly before, my niece’s husband called and asked if I would take his son (our star’s ten-year-old brother) to the play, since the boy wanted to go but his father didn’t feel up to taking him. I said sure and left a little early to pick him up (they just live down the road). He is an interesting boy, very intelligent, but he immediately informed me that we were staying after the play so he could “hang out” with some of the actors that had been nice to him.

My great niece as the fortune teller in Aladdin

At the play, we immediately found my brother and sister-in-law just about the time my sister appeared from another direction. She has been helping the play by working backstage. The play was okay. It was Aladdin, the Disney version, and my brother remarked that he hadn’t realized how thin the plot was. I noticed that the play definitely did not reflect Middle Eastern values of the time, let alone now. Our great niece didn’t have a large part, but she had one of the best costumes.

Since my brother is staying with my great niece and her family, I let him and his wife take my great nephew home. They had all eaten dinner already, so I stopped on the way home and picked up take-out.

I had been looking forward to three days in a row of sleeping in (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday), but on Saturday morning I was awakened at 8 AM by Wayne, who told me my French friend was on the phone. By the time I got to the phone, she wasn’t, because Wayne had answered the phone in the basement and had to come all the way upstairs and wake me up. He is very slow on the stairs these days.

She called back soon, though, and we spent almost an hour on the phone catching up. Almost as soon as I hung up, I got a text from my brother asking if I’d like to come with him and his wife while they looked at apartments. When we saw them last, they told us that they had decided to move nearer to the family. They had spent the last two days looking and were getting discouraged about finding the right place for the right price. The nicest apartment they had looked at was brand new in Battle Ground but it was right next to Highway 503, which is very busy, and they said there was too much noise from the highway. Also, there was about two or three years of neighborhood construction set up to do behind the complex.

In any case, we went to see two places in Salmon Creek, and both of them were possibilities. They were both more encouraged by what we found that day. Then we went to eat at my favorite Thai restaurant, Planet Thai, which was crammed with a large party of Oriental customers. We got in, though, and they both thought the restaurant was very good.

So, no tree decorating that day, as I got home around 6 PM. They came in and visited with us for a while.

I finally finished the tree on Sunday. I went with the more minimalist look and just added the star garlands and the candy canes.

On Monday Luke had a grooming appointment, I thought. At least that was what was on my calendar. It turns out, I wrote it on the wrong day, and he was supposed to go in on Tuesday. But she nicely took him anyway. He just spent more time there than he usually does. Since I was dogless, I stopped at the credit union to open up a new account for travel savings. Then I bought a gift for a friend and finally stopped for gas. It had been raining for days, and I got wet doing my errands, but by afternoon, it dried up, and the last few days have been cold and sunny.

Yesterday, I didn’t get much done besides my exercise class. When I came home, Wayne was watching TV, which he usually doesn’t do during the day, but I’ve noticed has started doing more, and I got sucked in. I ended up falling asleep on the couch.

Last night, I got a call from my brother in Seattle and his wife. They are in the throes of doing Santa photos and had some funny stories about their customers that were trying to get pictures of their pets. I invited them to the Christmas high tea after they mentioned possibly coming down over the holidays. We hadn’t invited them so far, because they haven’t come down at the holidays for years, ever since their kids got old enough to rather be spending it with their friends. I pointed out that their kids are now old enough to stay home by themselves so that they could come down, but I don’t think they’re going to do that. She said she might bring the girls down.

I mailed myself a photo of our star performer to place in this post, but it still hasn’t come across in the mail. I am running out of time, so I guess I’ll post this now, and if the photo comes across later, I’ll add it to the post. It finally showed more than twelve hours after I sent it!

In which we have some surprising weather

On Thursday last week Maja and I skipped exercise class again but we decided to take a walk together. Luke and I walked down to pick up Maja, and then we all walked the road a couple times. Luke kept getting confused and trying to go home each time we passed our driveway, but he is much more prone to go along when I’m walking with other people. I don’t have to put him on a leash.

My little blue spruce with the first snowfall on it

I have been very slowly getting ready for Christmas. The tree went up the Saturday before, but I was just letting it sit there and wait while I put up the outside lights and took care of the Christmas mail. So, on Thursday afternoon, I was sitting cozily before the fire making out Christmas cards, when I looked up and it was actually snowing. This isn’t totally surprising for November, but it wasn’t at all forecast. In fact, the temperatures were forecast to go up. We had had a string of cold but sunny days, and Thursday was the first day of more than a week of rainy days with the temperatures now up in the 50s again.

It actually snowed long enough to stick for the night, but the rain the next morning made it all melt.

On Friday, I put the lights on the Christmas tree.

On Saturday morning, we were awakened just after 6 AM by a loud noise, large hail suddenly hitting our bedroom window. When we got up, we had piles of hail on our back deck and front porch that sat there all day. In the early afternoon, my niece and her son came over to discuss our Christmas high tea and to work on my tree. While they were there, we got another pelting of hail that was just as bad as the first one.

Because we were doing a lot of talking, not much tree decorating went on, but we managed to empty three small boxes of ornaments with some of the best stuff in them. That leaves one large box of boxed ornaments and one large box of the least interesting ornaments to go, plus a box of items like my nativity set that I place around the living room. And although I have put some work in since then, I haven’t gotten much farther because it’s been that sort of a week. Every time I think I have my schedule figured out for the day, something comes up.

On Sunday, for example, I planned to finish up my cards so they could go into the mail, package up some gifts to mail, and finish the tree. I only finished the cards and did a little work on the tree. Why? I’m not even sure now. Maybe just slowness.

On Saturday night, we went out to dinner for a change. I would have liked to go to Szechuan Brothers for some of my spicy wontons, but Wayne didn’t want to drive that far. So, we went to one of the mediocre Chinese restaurants in Battle Ground. For some reason nowadays Wayne always wants to bring the food home and eat it here, even though there’s no reason that I can think of not to stay there and eat it hotter. We did stay there, but I had to argue for it yet again.

On Monday, one errand turned into three, which is how my days are going lately. I originally had nothing on my schedule, but on Friday I called the vet because Luke’s allergy shot wasn’t due for two weeks and he has got lots of bumps all over his body. So, they gave me an appointment for Monday at 11. They usually give drop-off appointments, which is worrisome these days with that dog illness going around, but this time he got a 15-minute appointment, where they just took him in and gave him his injection, and he was actually out in about five minutes. However, I needed to pick up his prescription dog food and his shampoo, but they didn’t have large bags of the dog food. So, I had to wait while they made me a prescription card and then drive another four miles to the nearest branch of the vet, which turned out to be in a PetSmart, where I bought the food.

But before that, I drove across the street to the shoe store. Wayne’s shoes are getting pathetic, but he won’t go to the store. He actually has the front part of his shoes taped onto the shoe with duct tape. So, I went into When the Shoe Fits because they keep all our records, and I asked them to look up what kind of shoe he bought last time and see if they still had it. They did, and this is one of his Christmas presents.

Then it was off to the PetSmart. I looked it up online when I got home, and I think we’re going to put in a repeating order for his food from now on, online.

Monday afternoon I finally wrapped the presents for the mail and packed them up. Then I had Wayne sign his cards and I took everything to the post office. With the time change, it is now dark at 4 PM, so I’m usually home having tea. However, there was no line at the post office, and now my Christmas mailing is done. I treated myself to a peppermint mocha from the coffee booth next door, and then I stopped in to a new shop in Yacolt.

Now, Yacolt is a town with only one store, and that one is a convenience store. But this new store has been doing a very clever and fun thing since Thanksgiving. It took me a while to understand the posts on Facebook, but apparently the people from the store have been hiding one Christmas ornament a day in the city park, and people have been taking their kids out to look for it. So, what I saw were posts of the kids holding the ornaments and the name of the store or a note saying something like “Thanks, Stella Luxe!” which is the name of the store. I’m not sure if a store like this has a chance in a place like Yacolt. It is a gift shop with some jewelry and kitchen things but mostly candles with different scents. In the back is a small “antiques” market with about eight or nine shops, and that’s where the ornaments have come from. I saw some things I might have bought if I hadn’t finished my shopping already, and some other things I would quite like for me, like a nice handmade journal, some pretty ornaments, and so on. So, good luck, Stella Luxe.

Yesterday, Maja and I finally made it to exercise class. Everyone was very nice and told me how happy they were to see me. She has been there a few times, but I haven’t been there since late August before I went on my trip and then got Covid and then hurt my knee (and then just procrastinated). I was able to handle most of the exercises with no problem, but my knee hurt when I did the squats from our chairs.

After that, my day wasn’t done. I still had a routine doctor’s appointment in Vancouver. On the way home I stopped for gas and bought some groceries. Our latest atmospheric river was coming through, and it seemed like every time I got out of the car, the rain was wetter.

And it’s raining still. But I don’t complain about rain, because we never had enough of it in Texas.

In which we get through one holiday and start working on the next one

We had Thanksgiving this year by ourselves, and it kind of reverted to the Thanksgiving I’ve always had with Wayne. That is, it became grumpy on both sides. Wayne had jumped the gun on clearing the way for the new furniture, which of course we haven’t received yet, and one of the things he did was clear everything off the coffee table. Where did he put it? On the dining table, which of course is needed for the Thanksgiving meal. While I was cooking away, I asked him to clear it off, which started out the grumpiness. I suggested that we only needed to clear off enough to eat on, which is exactly what he did. Then, still cooking, I asked him to set the table. He took down our worn-out everyday plates, and I asked him to please use either of the good sets, so he grumbled again.

When I got to the part where the turkey has been out of the oven for a while, and you have side dishes and spoons to put on the table, but you need to make the gravy and mash the potatoes at exactly the same time, and you don’t want to let either of them sit a second longer than they have to, he went and sat down in his chair. So, I asked him to please cut some slices off the turkey. By this time, I was so grumpy at his attitude that I was ready to throw the turkey at him. I told him maybe we shouldn’t have Thanksgiving at all ever again, and maybe I should just quit cooking for him altogether. He finally adjusted his attitude.

The next day, we went out to buy our Christmas tree, and we tried a new place, the Battle Ground High School Band Boosters lot, which one of the women in my art class had been talking about. We looked at a nice tree, but then I asked the man to take out the one next to it, and it was the most beautiful tree I have ever seen. Not cheap, and not getting smaller again, like I said I was going to do last year. It was an eight-footer. We bought it. The people at the lot said we were their very first customers, although they had sold one tree a few days ago before they were officially open.

Our tree, as yet undecorated

We brought the tree home, and as it was a cold day, we just propped it against the house. It was extremely heavy, much heavier than any tree we have had, so I doubt if we would have had an easy time getting it in, but our secret weapon was that our niece was coming over with her husband and kids that day. They were bringing a little painted chest that belonged to my grandmother and was left at their house by my sister when she moved out. My niece knew I wanted it and she didn’t, so they brought it over. They were also taking away my husband’s inversion table, which flips you upside down to help your back. He hasn’t used it for years, so I told them they could have it. I tried it once, but I didn’t like being upside down.

My nephew went out with Wayne to bring in the tree, and soon we heard the saw going. My niece and her daughter came in and started working on the jigsaw puzzle that I’ve basically been stalled on all summer. I started it at the end of last winter, was able to do the frame and about 1/8th of the puzzle, and since then haven’t been able to put a piece in. My niece put in several pieces, and my great-niece put in about 20. She’s a real whizz at puzzles. We had a short meeting about our proposed Christmas tea while the kids drank limeade and I made tea for my niece but forgot to give it to her.

After we switched the chest and the guys went downstairs around by the outside to fetch out the inversion table, I happened to mention to my niece that I was getting a new couch. She asked if she could have the old sectional for her playroom, as the couch in there was about to collapse. This made me feel much better about my sectional, because I hated the idea that it, which could actually have quite a bit of life left in it but is just too low to the ground for us old ones, would be used instead of trashed somewhere. So, I told her she could have it as long as it was possible for us to back out of having it hauled off. Which it was. She went home and measured the space and said it would just fit.

While they were here, my great-nephew told me he was ready to help decorate the tree anytime I wanted him, so once I get the lights on, I’ll arrange that if it’s convenient for my niece. At that age, they aren’t usually that much help, although my niece, who came over with him last year, definitely was. We got the tree decorated in just a few hours. But if he wants to help, I don’t want to disappoint him. My great-niece was a great help the last two times she came—we got the tree decorated in no time—but now she is a full-fledged teenager with her own things to do.

We had a slew of beautiful, cold days in a row, so on Saturday and Sunday I put out my outside Christmas lights. Our house is the only one in the neighborhood that puts out lights that can be seen from the road. The Apostolics don’t light their houses, and most of our other neighbors don’t, either. My niece does, but her house isn’t visible from the road. So, I feel like it is up to me to bring a little festivity to our neighborhood. I got the lights that I string along my long deck up on Saturday, and on Sunday I went out to put the net lights on my little blue spruce that is in one of my raised beds. In one year, it had grown so much that I had a hard time getting the net lights on it, because I couldn’t reach. Then, it turned out that neither set of net lights, which I have only used one time last year, worked. Wayne tried replacing the fuses, but they still didn’t work. So, we left the lights on the tree, but I’ll probably take them off later after I buy another spool of the cylinder-shaped LED lights, and then I’ll just spool on the LED lights, which is easy no matter how tall your tree is. The last thing I had to do was put my big plastic color-changing lights on the back gate, and I was done.

Since then, I have gotten my Christmas cards out and looked at them. Christine and I made a trip out to World Market on Monday and bought Christmas goodies and then went to Barnes and Noble, which is the only place around here except World Market that seems to have a selection of boxed Christmas cards. They had a great selection a few years ago, but the last two times, it has been pathetic, and I had already checked out the ones at World Market, which were basically boring. I bought a couple more boxes of cards at Barnes and Noble, and yesterday afternoon, made my list of people to receive them and matched the people with the cards.

It’s supposed to start raining later this week—I’m not sure if it’s today or tomorrow—so I should get a lot of work done on my cards once it’s not nice out. I will start writing them this afternoon.

Lukey hasn’t been to Doggy Day Care for two weeks and isn’t supposed to go this week either, because they cancelled. They usually do around holidays, but this time they made it longer because of a mysterious doggy illness that has been going around. They want people to keep their dogs home for two weeks if they have gone to a dog park or the vet or been exposed to other people’s dogs. Luke has an appointment in mid-December to have his teeth cleaned, so he’ll have to miss the next two weeks of Doggy Day Care, but we’ve been thinking about keeping him home all month because of the illness.

I was ready to go back to fitness class this week, but when Maja said she was staying home, I made that an excuse to stay home and get more holiday stuff done. I decided I would go back next week to start off December better. A new session of tai chi starts in January, so that’s when I’ll go back to that.

In which Christmas is slightly delayed

The days up to Christmas were characterized by bad weather. Wednesday and Thursday weren’t bad, but the weather people were warning people not to travel on Thursday and Friday. They should actually have warned about Friday and Saturday, because nothing much happened on Thursday until the evening. When I took Luke out for his late-night visit at around 10 PM, there was a coat of sleet on everything. Then Friday morning we awakened to find a sheet of wet ice on our driveway, our own personal skating rink!

Our skating rink driveway

My brother and sister-in-law were supposed to drive in for the holidays on Friday, but they stayed home until Sunday. On Saturday, it started raining, but we still had ice until the afternoon. In the meantime, we had discovered we were out of coffee creamer, so Wayne ventured out Saturday afternoon to the grocery store and said the roads were all clear but it was foggy and colder down in the valley.

Our original Christmas plans with the family were to have Christmas Eve dinner. Then with the bad weather, my niece proposed a New Years Eve dinner instead. But finally, she decided on a smaller Christmas Day dinner, since my sister had come down with Covid. So, Wayne and I had our prime rib dinner on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day, and on Christmas it was my niece’s family, my brother and sister-in-law, and us.

The family just before opening presents

On Christmas morning Wayne and I opened our own presents. Later I got to work making scalloped potatoes, and we went over to my niece’s around 5:15. We had a lovely dinner and then we opened presents. Mine from everyone were all stacked in a tower and tied together with a big red ribbon. As a reminder of a Christmas many years ago, my brother gave me a large box that contained one orange. (This was the return of a prank I played on him when we were little, back when he always looked for the biggest box and hoped his name was on it.) After that, we all piled into cars and drove to my sister’s house, put the presents for her and her grandson on the front porch, and stood at the end of the driveway singing Christmas carols at her. Then we came back and had a dessert of a delicious and unusual fruitcake ice cream that my niece invented. It was topped with a big ball of ice cream coated in chocolate, and they were frozen so hard that we could barely get our spoons into them. She kept saying they might be better if we let them sit a few minutes, all the while we were gobbling them down.

Since my niece’s Christmas was running late, on Monday I got an invitation to return and help decorate Christmas cookies. That is fun when it involves the whole family, so I went. Later I went back and we all watched an episode The Great British Baking Show and then Love, Actually.

Yesterday was a lazy day for me and Wayne. It was pouring rain all day and the winds were really high. All morning, we kept having power glitches, and finally around 11 or so, the power went off. This didn’t inconvenience us very much because our generator turned on, which gives us power everywhere except the furnace and some appliances in the kitchen. (For example, I have to use a match to light the stove instead of it lighting from the electric lighter, and I can’t use the oven.) The power was off for the rest of the day and evening and must have come back on sometime during the night. I heard from my brother that everyone over there slept almost all day.

That’s about it for this week. I went to art class on Wednesday and just worked on grass all day. I could have graduated to some of the major figures in my painting, but I didn’t want to do that while my regular instructor was away from class. So, maybe today.

After having no ducks on the pond for a couple of weeks, I spotted a pair last week. But they seem to have only stopped by for one day.

The county reports 795 new cases of Covid, for a total of 109,748. Three more people have died, for a total of 980. The rate of new cases per 100K population is down 22.2 (yay), sitting at 66.5.

In which I finish preparing for Christmas (almost)

As far as Christmas is concerned, this week was fairly productive. I finished my Christmas cards by Tuesday and mailed them, except for a few that Wayne had to work on. On Thursday I began putting up outside lights, but it was so cold out that I only did one string. I finished the lights on Saturday afternoon, when it was still very cold but earlier, so it wasn’t starting to turn dark. I began wrapping presents on Sunday. This is late for me because I usually have some to mail, so I do all of them at once, but this year I didn’t need to because I shipped things directly. Now that I live near most of my relatives, I only have a few things to mail anymore anyway. I finished wrapping presents on Tuesday afternoon. So, now I am ready for Christmas except for some house cleaning, one more present for one of my great nephews that still hasn’t arrived, and the scalloped potatoes (back by popular demand) I promised to make for our family Christmas Eve dinner.

As far as the outside lights are concerned, I always find them cheering, so I think next year I will put them up first, on Thanksgiving weekend like my father used to do. I have one little tree that I hang lights on up above the house that Wayne still hasn’t run the extension cord out for, so the lights are on it but it’s not lit yet.

Because I felt that the walk Maja and I took last Tuesday helped my leg a bit, I tried going to exercise class on Thursday. It was the first one either of us had attended since before Thanksgiving. However, our instructor has us do a lot of side-stepping exercises, including one where you put a foot in front going one way and behind going the other. In general, when we do this one, I am always afraid I’m going to trip myself up, but this time, I twisted my leg just a little bit and a pain ran up it. Instead of my leg feeling better the next day, it felt worse, so on Saturday I skipped tai chi. I meant to go, because it was unexpectedly our last for the year. They had planned to have it both Christmas and New Years Eves, but the building wasn’t going to be open, so they sent us an email this week to say it wouldn’t be happening. We had planned a little party, but that will now be in January. In the meantime, I have been very careful about my leg and the positions I take, and last night I realized it felt normal for the first time in weeks.

In art class, I was still drawing grass, and I decided to keep doing it this week, because my instructor won’t be there, and I don’t want to start any of the important images with a substitute.

Wearing my ugly Christmas sweater and looking apprehensive at having my picture taken

On Monday, I made a quiche and took it over to Christine’s for a little Christmas brunch, as I probably won’t see her before the holiday. I wore my ugly Christmas sweater, and Christine had a Christmas cracker to pull. Duchess tried to get Luke to come outside and play, but he sat by my knee most of the time (after running around in her house like a maniac). At one point, Duchess was standing outside the sliding glass door barking at him to come out, but with no success.

I know this is crazy, but every few months, I drive to downtown Vancouver to buy five pounds of a coffee we like at a local coffee roasters. I am supposed to call them first to find out if they have it ready, but this weekend I called them twice and no one answered the phone or called me back after I left a message. I finally got ahold of them on Monday at Christine’s house, and since I was almost halfway there, I picked it up before going home.

Then Tuesday morning, Wayne and I did something we haven’t done for several years but used to do every once in a while. Both of us were awake at 6 AM, so we got dressed and went out to breakfast at Valerie’s. Wayne hadn’t been there yet. There, someone told us the place was closing, so I asked the wait person about it, and she said that it was being sold to the owners of a couple other breakfast restaurants in town. That was disappointing, because Valerie’s is better, and despite her assuring us the restaurant would still be Valerie’s, we could already tell the difference. The art for sale that used to cover the walls was all gone, and the place looked comparatively drab. The existing restaurants in that chain are also very drab, like the owner never heard of interior decorating.

Just this week I stopped seeing the duck in our pond, so perhaps he has finally flown south.

Our weather was very cold until just a few days ago, and we had a dusting of snow over the weekend. Right now it is in the 40’s and rainy, very rainy, but the temperature is supposed to go way down Thursday and Friday, like to the 20’s or even teens. Snow is forecast for Thursday.

I have been keeping an eye on the Covid data for the county wondering if I should start wearing my mask everywhere again. So far, the statistics aren’t that bad. They are still lower than where they were when I stopped wearing it everywhere, but they are getting up there. We had 405 new cases this week for a total of 108,953. There have been three new deaths for a total of 977. The rate of new cases per 100K population is only up 1.2 to 88.7. I’ll probably start wearing my mask more when it gets over 100.

In which I attend a cultural event

Wednesday this week started out with Christmas. After I went to art class (during which I painted grass), my niece and her son came over to help decorate my tree. This event, which usually involves my great niece, not my great nephew, always calls for treats, so I whipped up a pan of brownies and put it in the oven before they arrived. As I had expected, my great nephew was only of moderate assistance, but then his sister was that way when she came over to help at his age. He hung some ornaments, but as soon as the brownie odor emerged from the oven, he spent a lot of time going into the kitchen to smell it. My niece was particular about what went on the tree, and my tree was smaller than usual, so we didn’t put up some of the larger ornaments, and an entire box of what I consider my lesser ornaments went back into the closet. That was okay with me. My tree looks much more restrained than it usually does. We finished when my great nephew proudly installed the treetop star, and then we all took a brownie and ice cream break. His dad arrived to pick them up just in time for brownie.

Holding the Christmas star before putting it on the tree; as you can see, our snow is gone for now.

On Thursday our senior exercise class was cancelled again, so I meant to put out the rest of the Christmas decorations but actually ended up doing nothing but the laundry and dishes.

I finished with the inside Christmas decorations on Friday but still have not started putting up the outside lights. I instead worked on my Christmas cards. I finished them by Monday and mailed them on Tuesday.

Saturday was an unusual day. I attended tai chi class, where I’m still trying to decide whether to take Introductory again or Continued when the new session starts in January. They announced a party for December 31 for which you had to sign up. It was hard to know what to do, because my brother and sister-in-law will be in town and no one plans much of anything ahead of time. I finally signed up, figuring that they wouldn’t be likely to get going on anything before noon or so.

Then Friday evening, my brother and sister-in-law picked me up to go to my great niece’s school play, a shortened version of Annie. It was surprisingly entertaining, especially compared to the things she was in with a different drama school last year. My great niece played one of the orphans. It was her first real play, and she was very excited.

My great niece in her orphan costume after the play with some members of the family

After the play, I went out for dinner with my brother and sister-in-law at the pub.

Sunday and Monday I was working on Christmas cards, and Tuesday our class was cancelled yet again. So, Maja and I decided to take a walk in Moulton Falls park with Luke. I have been having trouble with my right leg recently. After sitting or lying down, it is stiff and hurts when I move it until it loosens up. I thought the walk would do it good, but it’s hard to say. It actually hurt more when I got back to the car. In fact, I had trouble raising it up enough to get into the car. However, so far this morning it feels better.

When I got home, I was hungry for Chinese food, but Wayne wouldn’t consent to going further away than Battle Ground. So, we had lunch in one of Battle Ground’s very mediocre Chinese restaurants.

We have had a rainy and dismal week, but starting today, we’re supposed to have a week of sunny, dry weather, although colder at night. Actually, it’s quite cold this morning. I hope it dries up enough to make me want to go out and clean up my flower and vegetable beds, because I haven’t done that yet this year.

Every day for about a week, I’ve seen a little black duck fishing in our pond. I don’t know if it’s the same duck or not. However, he seems to like it here if he is. I hope he isn’t losing his chance to migrate. Although our pond seldom freezes completely over, it still does freeze.

And that’s about it.

Yikes! The number of Covid cases in the county went up 461 for a total of 108,548. There were 9 new deaths, for a total of 974. The rate of new cases per 100K population went up 13 to 87.5. We’re getting back up to the higher rates we had months ago.