In which we shop for furniture

I may have mentioned the difficulty with our sectional. When we moved here, we got rid of almost all our living room furniture, because it was so dilapidated. I think I’d had the same sofa for 20 years. So, one of my first priorities was to buy something to sit on in the living room besides the Amish gliding rocker and our kitchen chairs. My niece took me shopping at an upscale Scandinavian furniture store in Portland. I loved the look but realized even then that the low seat height of most of their sectionals was going to prove a challenge. However, I selected one of their sectionals with the highest seat height, an L-shaped almost black leather. (I would have picked a more interesting color, but we needed the color that would arrive the quickest from the factory. There were a few colors that were easier to get.)

At the time, we still had Hilary. Even though I usually am able to train my kittens not to scratch the furniture, when Hilary was a kitten, she had three brothers, and it was impossible to catch every kitten every time they scratched the furniture, so that went out the window. She did a really good job of scratching the sides and tops of the arm of this sectional and also the flat space behind the back cushions. So, the sectional was damaged almost immediately, but then so would a fabric sectional have been. Then when we got Luke, as a puppy, he scratched the front of the sectional, although I was able to get him to stop doing that fairly soon.

I always sat in the corner of the sectional, putting my knee in first. Well, one of the times I was getting into the corner carelessly, I heard a sproing, and the spring broke. So after that, there was a hole in the seat, and eventually I stopped sitting there.

But the worst problem was that Wayne couldn’t get off the sectional without sliding up onto its arm, and as the years have gone by and I’ve gotten older, I’ve had a harder and harder job getting up from it. And no wonder. I finally measured the seat height and it is only 13 or 14 inches. I looked into buying those risers that make the furniture higher, but the feet of our sectional are so big that they don’t come big enough.

To add insult to injury, there are two places on the leather that are just torn, for no apparent reason. One is in the position where I sit my arm and the edge of my book on the back of the sofa to read, and I can’t see any reason why that would cause the leather to tear. The other is on the front of the L, which makes even less sense. So, all in all, this sectional is pretty sad, and I can’t imagine anyone wanting it, even for free. It’s the most expensive piece of furniture I’ve ever bought and has lasted the least long.

So, I have been hinting around to Wayne that we need to furniture shop, and it occurred to me that leading up to Black Friday was a good time, because many stores are already having their sales. So, on Wednesday night, I told Wayne that we should go furniture shopping on Friday, and he said okay. I have been doing research online to look for furniture stores, and it looked like there wasn’t much in Vancouver. On Wednesday, I stopped by a place I pass on the way home, but its furniture looked too formal for me. Almost all the sofas were white, which may be the trend but I think is crazy, and most of them were priced from $4000-8000.

Looking at inventory online, I found a sofa I liked at a warehouse-style furniture store (which I usually avoid) in Portland and it was near another furniture store, so I was planning to go there. However, I started to read about this warehouse-style store, and it did not have good reviews for customer service or for delivery. The Better Business Bureau said it only had a 25% resolution rate on customer service complaints sent to them, and that’s pretty bad. However, I found the same sofa at a different warehouse store in Vancouver with a better reputation.

Of course, starting on Thursday night, Wayne tried to back out of going shopping, saying the prices would be better after Christmas. He just didn’t want to go, but I wasn’t going to buy a couch without having him test it first. On Friday morning, he went back to bed almost as soon as he got up, so I was prepared to get angry, but after a half hour he got up and got ready to go.

I usually avoid warehouse stores, but when we went into this one, I could see that they had good furniture. I explained to the sales person about the seat heights, and she looked confused and said they were all about the same, but I told her that no, they were actually separated into heights that were suitable for short, middle-sized, and tall people, that ours was about 13 inches and that they came as high as 20-22 inches. She first steered us toward a brand that offers a stiffer seat cushion, and Wayne was able to get out of those fairly easily, so I had my eye on the one I liked best, but I wasn’t that interested in it as far as style went, and it unfortunately was covered in a dark brown fabric, and I don’t do brown. Of course, if we picked it, I would have chosen another fabric.

I finally decided I liked a leather sofa that was white, but I knew it would come in at least one other color. Wayne tried it and could get out of it easily, so we went back and forth a few times between that sofa and the one with the stiffer seat cushion, and it turned out he could get out of the leather sofa more easily. We ended up buying a matching chair for him and a three-seat sofa, in steel, a bluish gray (the only other choice). It also came in an sectional, but Wayne said he didn’t want another sectional. Our discussion got the sales person into measure the seat heights, and the specs for the sofa we chose showed a seat height of 21 inches.

I misunderstood what the sales person said about delivery, so on Tuesday we were waiting all day for it to come. She said they only deliver in our area on Tuesdays, and she said that if it was in the warehouse, as it showed it being, and no one else ordered it first, we could get it as early as Tuesday. But I think she meant they would get it at their store by then. I finally called and was told she would call to schedule the delivery with me, which wasn’t at all clear from what she said when we bought it. In fact, I thought she said we were scheduling it then. So that’s why I was confused. We wasted a day when we thought that at least one of us had to be in the house at all times to receive the delivery phone call.

I have been cleaning the house to get ready for Thanksgiving. It’s just me and Wayne this year, because one brother and my sister are going to Seattle to spend it with another brother, and my niece and her family are spending it with friends. So, we’ll have just the basic Thanksgiving dinner by ourselves.

On another note, I looked out the window this weekend and saw some commotion in the pond. Usually from up here I spot animals by seeing movement in the water first, so I saw a trail of water that was clearly some animal moving across the pond, and it was the beaver! I haven’t seen the beaver in years. There was still commotion in the water where I originally saw it, and that turned out to be three ducks, which stayed at least for the weekend.

We have been having alternate days of rain and sun, but it’s been cold. I’ve been trying to get myself to go outside and do some yard work, but I so far haven’t succeeded in doing anything but walking the dog.

Maja and I still haven’t made it back to exercise class, although I would have gone yesterday if I hadn’t been waiting for the phantom couch!

Poor Lukey has been kept away from Doggy Day Care lately because of the local outbreak of a mysterious disease that’s been affecting dogs. The dog place has closed down for day care and is only accepting boarders. They have also asked that people not bring their dogs for day care unless they haven’t been around other dogs for at least two weeks. So, no dog parks, no vet appointments, and I assume no groomers. If they open back up after Thanksgiving, he’ll only be able to go twice before his next vet appointment, and then he’ll have to stay home for two weeks.

In which we prepare for Thanksgiving

I usually shop quite early for Thanksgiving, but this year, I procrastinated. We bought our turkey at Costco last Monday, but I didn’t do the rest of the shopping until Sunday. There were a few things that were cleared out, but the shocking thing was that I couldn’t find a pie pumpkin, or even the consciousness of pie pumpkins, anywhere in town. That is, when I asked produce department people about them, I got a look that said What’s a pie pumpkin? and then was told they hadn’t had pumpkins since Halloween. Guess what, guys? Those aren’t pie pumpkins. This is odd, because last year they were easy to find; however, it’s what happens when the same company owns every grocery store in town, which is almost the case, with Albertson’s trying to buy Kroger, which bought Fred Meyer a few years ago.

I finally finished my shopping, but I went home first and then got Wayne to drive me to Chuck’s in Vancouver, which not only knew what pie pumpkins were but had them. My knees have been bothering me lately, and one thing they don’t seem to like at all is driving.

Other than that, and spending more time cleaning the house, the week was fairly normal, although I skipped my Thursday exercise class and yesterday’s as well to spend more time cleaning. However, I did attend tai chi and art class.

Last night, my brother and sister-in-law called us from the road and invited us to meet them for dinner at the Fargher Lakehouse before they went to my niece’s house, where they are staying. This was a big test for us. We used to eat at this restaurant fairly regularly, but during the pandemic, we ordered take-out from it several times and the food was not good. In particular, although I asked for a medium-rare burger, I got a well-done one. We weren’t sure if the change of quality was permanent or if the food just wasn’t as good after being transported home. I was going to order something entirely different, but my sister-in-law ordered a burger and they asked her how she wanted it done, so I decided to try it again. After ordering a medium-rare burger, I got a well-done one. I pointed this out to the waitress, but it took us so long to get our food, despite being only the third table that was occupied when we arrived at the restaurant, that I opted to just struggle through half the burger and left the rest uneaten. This restaurant has failed its test. Wayne ordered fish and chips, and his fish was so overcooked that you could tell that just by looking at it, without taking a bite. We won’t be going back. It’s a shame, because it was the only decent restaurant nearby.

Our weather was sunny and cold until yesterday, when it started raining. It was so cold, in fact, that even though the daytime temperatures were above freezing, the ice that Wayne knocked out of the birdbath (because a bird was trying to get a drink and couldn’t), a slab about an inch thick, lay on the lawn for several days unmelted. However, since it started raining, it’s been warmer and the ice melted.

The county reports 216 new Covid cases, for a total of 107,286. We have had 3 more deaths, for a total of 961. The rate of new cases per 100K population is up 1 to 47.9. Now I have to get ready for art class. After that, I’ll be making pumpkin pies.

Christmas with a difference

First, the usual statistics. Our county’s total number of cases is up to 12,746, about 800 more than last week. Things seem to be slacking up momentarily, though, because there are only 677 active cases, which is almost 200 fewer than last week, and the number of deaths is 137, up only two from last week. Our rate is down considerably to 386.08. However, all this may change in a week or two if too many people had large Christmas gatherings.

On Christmas Eve, while I was taking Luke for a walk, I spotted in my pasture the two black-tailed deer again. They just stood there and stared at us, but they started to move slowly away when Luke growled at them. He couldn’t get at them, of course, because the pasture is fenced, although there are lots of places that need repair. I moved on, hoping they would stay there, but they were headed toward our pond when last I saw them. This incident might explain why, when Luke gets to one place off the neighbor’s road, which borders our pasture, he always stops and sniffs. That place might be where they cross the road from our neighbor’s property to ours.

Here is part of my family during our outdoor Christmas Eve. My sister, my niece’s children, and my niece. They are all in one household. The patio is large, and seats for the guests were placed widely spaced around it. I took my picture from my seat, which gives you an idea.

Christmas Eve is also when we have our traditional family get-together, because I think Katrina likes to keep Christmas Day for her own family. This year’s took place on her patio, and although for a change it wasn’t raining, it was quite cold. We had expected John and Lucie, but as I explained last week, they could not come (still expected on New Year’s Eve). In attendance were my niece’s family and my sister (who all live together), my nephew and his son, and briefly, my oldest brother Mark and his wife Nancy. Nancy was not feeling well, having had oral surgery recently. In any case, it was too cold to stay more than an hour, and because they are not sharing food, there were no refreshments. I finally left because I was freezing. The event was really to give the kids their presents from us and from my nephew, but my niece also gave me a tin of Christmas cookies, a cookbook of desserts for two (what a good idea!), and some homemade Russian dumplings, which we’ll probably eat on New Year’s Day. They were meant for Christmas Day, but since we were having prime rib, Wayne opted for potatoes instead.

When we gave my little great nephew Mason (four years old) his present, I told him that Uncle Wayne had picked it out, and I could tell that he didn’t remember who Uncle Wayne was. This made Katrina begin joking that Wayne was my imaginary friend, since Wayne is so antisocial that he has stopped coming over for family gatherings. That means that no one except my sister, who stopped by for literally two minutes, has seen him since March (and John and Lucie, who stopped by this summer for an hour or so).

When I got home on Christmas Eve, Wayne surprised me by actually watching a Christmas movie with me. Usually as soon as I turn one on, he either goes to bed or to the basement, making for a lonely Christmas Eve, but this time we watched a movie he likes, an old one I hadn’t seen before called The Cheaters. So, that was nice.

Christmas itself was okay, basically just like the ones we used to have in Austin, where we would open presents and have a special dinner (prime rib, yum!) by ourselves. I think one time we had company, but in Austin most of our friends had their own families to spend the day with (unlike Houston, where I had lots of single friends, and we would plan Christmas breakfasts or movies). Santa made a mistake this year, however, for although he filled Wayne’s stocking, he forgot to fill mine. He made up for this by getting me a new computer. However, here it is almost a week later and it hasn’t been hooked up yet. (I got a token keyboard and do not know where the rest of it is, so I am waiting on Wayne, who has to figure out how to get all my stuff from one computer to another without, we hope, buying more software. I hope I don’t have to wait several years.)

Wayne decided I needed a new computer after he used mine and asked me “How do you stand how slow it is?” I’ve been telling him it’s incredibly slow for years, because we made the mistake of taking a “deal” from Costco, which does not tell you things about memory and disk drive space, etc., on its web page. This experience of his added to his finding another deal (this one said how much memory, etc.) resulted in my new computer. Since I worked in computers, until the last 10 or 15 years since we bought this thing, I’ve always had something pretty speedy.

Anyway, Christmas was nice and peaceful. However, it was on Christmas morning that I realized Wayne had never received the fruitcake I ordered for him. My friend Claire always sends him one and I do, too, so he has plenty of fruitcake. I remembered I had gotten shipping notification ages ago, so I looked up the tracking information and saw that it had arrived in Troutdale, OR, which is about an hour and a half from our house, way back on the 18th of December. After that, it appeared to have been put on a truck several times and then checked right back in at Troutdale, on and off until the 21st, and then nothing. I wrote an email to the fruitcake company in Corsicana, Texas, but heard back nothing. Finally, on Tuesday I saw that it had been loaded on a truck again, and it actually arrived. That means it was in the area for 10 days.

This seems to be the week for things to stop working. On Sunday, my dishwasher, which is only a couple years old, stopped working, and it is so high tech that it doesn’t have error codes or any hints about what to do in the manual. Trying to hook it up via wifi to my phone didn’t work, so I had to opt for something called Smart Diagnosis. Then Wayne found out information about cleaning the dishwasher, so we did that. Apparently, that program is supposed to be run about every two months, but since I’ve owned dishwashers that worked steadily for years and years with no such intervention, it didn’t occur to me that I needed to look at the manual for things like that. So, we ran the cleaning program, which seemed to work okay, and yesterday morning I loaded it up again, only to have it quit in the middle of the cycle again. We tried to use Smart Diagnosis three times with no result and apparently the next thing you do is send a message to customer support. What a great system. I think whoever designed it should be killed. So far, no answer. I think I was using the wifi hookup incorrectly, but it seems that once you have selected Smart Diagnosis, you’re stuck with that, so the only thing I can think of to do is give it more time to diagnose itself, since it said it hadn’t finished.

I checked it again about an hour later, no message and Smart Diagnosis didn’t work, either. It keeps telling me it hasn’t finished yet. What a great product! I may have to unload the dishwasher and wash all the dishes by hand, which is a bigger pain than just washing them by hand as we accumulate them. Or I might just put them away like I did last time, as the dishwasher had been going for over an hour when it stopped. I assume it was in the drying mode. The only other thing I could think of to do is delete the program from my phone and start over trying to link it up to wifi.

I did that. At first, I was frustrated because the instructions said that my wifi password for the interface would be the last four digits of the model number typed twice. I did this, twice, but it kept telling me I had the wrong password. I finally realized that I was typing one wrong number because it’s so hard to type correctly on a cell phone. So, I finally got wifi connected to the dishwasher (after three hours), and then the app for the product said “Standby.” After that, what happened several times is that before we got any diagnostic information, the dishwasher turned back off by itself and I had to start over. After three attempts, I gave up.

I also had a similar experience with my grocery ordering. I ordered groceries online on Monday, which I’ve been doing for a while, but what I have not done is use the app on my cell phone. I learned that I have to use my cell phone number on my order instead of my home phone, because they changed their system to a computer voice when you arrive to pick it up, and without my cell phone on the order, I had to navigate this system. For me, that is not a good option since I have yet to encounter any of these voice navigation systems that understands me (including things like Siri or any phone systems). Once I put in my cell phone number, however, it knew who I was when I phoned in, and all I had to get it to understand was what parking place I was in.

This time, however, I opted in for the text message option, and so Tuesday morning I got a message asking me to look at my list of substitutions. However, the link would not work on my phone through my browser. I had to download the Kroger app. I did this, and I was surprised, because I already have an account (albeit through Fred Meyer, but it’s all the same), to be asked for my store when I logged in. In fact, the app informed me that my order was ready to be picked up, at the Tempe, Arizona, store. Since Tempe is actually over 1300 miles away, that is not an option. When I tried to change stores by typing in my zip code, it still told me my store was Tempe. When I looked up the Battle Ground zip code and tried that (since the store is in Battle Ground), it still told me my store was in Tempe. I finally noticed that despite my store being in Tempe, my order was actually in Battle Ground, so I went to pick it up anyway. I am worried that, should I have to place my order from my phone instead of my computer, it might end up in Tempe. The benefits of having loaded the app, however, turned out to be that I can tell it I’m on my way and I’m there, and they came out immediately with my order. That explains why cars that have driven up after me have ended up being served before me.

One thing did go right this week. I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was informed by the social security agency that because of that stupid insurance policy problem last year, which made it look like we made about $300,000 more than we actually did, they were charging me several hundred dollars for my contribution for Part B. The day after I got that notice, I went online and filed a protest, asking them to look at our tax return for 2020 to assess how much I should pay. At the time of this event, Wayne mentioned that he had already received a similar notice and talked to a guy on the phone about it and that guy had said that our status would change back after next year. Sigh. However, late last week, Wayne got a notice saying that his Part B for the coming year would be returned to its former amount (which I think is 0). I got that notice yesterday. Hooray. Who knew the government could act so fast? On the other hand, we have yet to receive any stimulus money.

On Luke’s walks this week, I tried one time to walk him as I usually do, but he did the same thing of refusing to go down the branches of the T at the end of our road. So, the next time, I put on the e-collar and took along the cheese, and he behaved like a little angel. I think I’ll continue to do that for some time and perhaps when I stop, he’ll just walk with me like he was doing before. He would sometimes hesitate to go down the one road toward Katrina’s, but he would always follow eventually. It’s funny that I don’t actually have to employ the e-collar, just pick up the controller, and he comes running. (Note that on my last walk, this did not work. He resisted my efforts to get him to follow me and refused to come to me until a truck approached.)

We had several rainy days and a couple of cloudy days and one clear day on Monday this week. On Tuesday it was much colder than it has been. The car thermometer on the way to the store said 37, and the house thermometer said 34 two hours later. I’m not sure if that’s a difference in thermometers or the temperature was really going down. We were supposed to have a chance of snow Tuesday night into this morning down to 1000 feet. That’s us. However, when I got up this morning, it was raining. In fact, as I opened the door to take Luke out, I saw a gust of misty rain (I assume) go by, which is very odd, because the rain was just dripping down while I waited for Luke. Sometimes smoke gusts down in front of the door like that, but the fire in the wood stove was out.

Wayne has been behaving like he used to all the time but hasn’t done for several months, napping several times a day and then going around whispering “I’m so tired.” It seemed like he’d been getting at least five hours of sleep at night lately, which is better than before. It occurred to me yesterday morning that maybe our outdoor Christmas lights are keeping him awake. They bother me a bit, I have to admit. So, last night I turned them off at bedtime. He said take them down, but if it were up to him, we’d take the Christmas tree down the day after Christmas. I said no, it’s not time to take them down yet. I slept better last night, but he said he slept about the same.

A bit more going on

This week is the scariest for the virus yet, with county totals of positive cases going up a whopping 1300 to 7770. The most we have had during one week before that was two weeks ago when it was 800 more cases. The number of active cases is down somewhat to 440, but 91 people have died, an increase of 11 in one week, which is the worst. Our rate per 100,000 population is 359.26, up almost double from last week.

On the brighter side, Trump has finally given permission for Biden to receive briefings and otherwise prepare for his presidency. I actually thought he would never do that, but maybe he finally got pressure from his party. Which poses the question, what the heck is wrong with the Republicans lately? Are there none left with any sense of rightness or ethical behavior? I have waited for four years to have some of our elder statesmen speak up about all the shenanigans, but hardly a peep.

This week the weather has been mostly rainy with a couple days here and there of sun. Every year, I forget how it can be sunny up here and then I drive down into the valley and it’s overcast and colder, if not foggy. This happened to me on Friday, when I met Christine at World Market for a pre-Christmas shop. I put on a lightweight jacket because it was sunny and relatively warm here, and it was overcast and much colder, or at least felt that way, down in Vancouver. We didn’t realize that World Market now opens at 11, so we got there too early, but we walked over to Kohls to see if they had a saucepan that Christine wanted to buy her daughter for Christmas. All their pans came in sets, however, so we walked over to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, where she was able to find what she wanted. Then we shopped at World Market where I pillaged their supply of Violet Crumble, my favorite, and purchased Christmas goodies and stocking stuffers for Wayne.

Later, I decided to drop by Barnes and Noble to look at Christmas cards. The last few years, I have had a hard time finding good ones, an easy task in Austin where I always bought them at Book People. Last year, I finally tried Barnes and Noble and was pleasantly surprised at the selection. This year was not the same story, however. They only had about 1/3 the number of cards, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that they just put out the ones that didn’t sell last year. Many of them were the same. The store had been rearranged to place the shelves farther apart because of the virus, but that meant that their book selection went down from not that great to pitiful. Once the virus is gone or at least contained, I will make a trip to Powell’s. I really miss Book People.

Our usual Wednesday hike didn’t happen this week because Maja didn’t want to go in the rain. On Friday, I missed a message from my sister inviting me for a hike because I was in Vancouver with Christine. However, it was a beautiful day Saturday. I spent the morning planting the rest of my bulbs in the orchard except for some I gave to Maja. I came in for a break and found a message from Maja asking me if I wanted to hike later. We selected the logging road up next to Yale Lake. I had always wanted to go there in the fall to see the colors. Of course, this time it was too late in the season; however, the day was gorgeous, the air was fresh, and we were hiking high above the lake with a cliff on the other side. It was a lovely day for a hike of about 4.5 miles.

The other thing that I did this week was go see a dermatologist about all the things I have on my skin. I hadn’t actually thought about this before, because I have the same skin as my mother and I never heard of her doing anything about hers (although she is a poor model, because she hardly ever went to the doctor, but of course she never had skin cancer, either). Then last spring when I was visiting my brother, he happened to remark that he had to have things removed periodically as did Mom. So, I finally went to the doctor. None of the things that I was worried about were a problem. I have heard them called barnacles. However, a bump on my nose that I have just had a few weeks was the one she was worried about, and so she took a section to be biopsied. I just got the results on Tuesday, and there was basal carcinoma, so I guess a treat is in store for me. It was bad enough having that needle stuck into my nose several times to take the biopsy. Oh boy.

We have been having a lot of internet failures lately. Although we’ve had some high winds, I’m not sure why, today for example, the internet just went down. Last night it was either raining or blowing so hard that there was a terrific noise outside. I tried to look at it through the window because sometimes I worry about trees landing on the house, but it was so dark, I couldn’t see anything.

And that’s about it for this week. No pictures, I’m afraid. As today is the day before Thanksgiving, I’ll be making pumpkin pies.

Not much on the calendar

The coronavirus statistics for the county continue to be scary. This week there are a total of 6470 cases, which is up by almost 700 since last week, a bit fewer than last week, but last week was about twice as many as any week before that. There are 482 active cases, which is a rise of almost 150. Deaths have gone up 3 more to 80, and our rate is 171.55. (The experts would like it to be 100 or less for moving freely about.)

We didn’t have very much on our calendar this week, which was probably good, because it rained almost every day. Maja and I went out for a hike on Wednesday afternoon, but only to Lewisville Park, because it was quite wet out, and we didn’t know if it would start raining again. Luckily, we had a lull, but I don’t really like hiking at Lewisville these days because it is a relatively crowded park and hardly anyone but us wears masks. Since I can’t see with my mask on because of my glasses steaming up, I take it off when we’re not around anyone and put it back on when anyone comes, which is too often and I find irritating. The trail is more interesting than the one at Moulton Falls, but generally speaking Moulton sees a lot less traffic, so I prefer it when we aren’t going any distance to hike.

That was about the only day that Luke got really good exercise. Although I took him out on our road on other days, we got caught in the rain several times. Luke doesn’t like being out in the rain.

I am beginning to have a favorite day since all this virus stuff started, and that is Thursday. That is because a few weeks ago, Wayne nicely volunteered to take Luke to his weekly Doggy Day Care. That means I get to sleep in without having Luke wake me up at 7 AM (which he did this morning; now that the time has changed, he thinks it’s time to get up as soon as it is light). Even though I don’t usually get up much later than they leave (around 8), I can lounge around in my nightie (which I can’t the other days, because for some reason if I don’t get up exactly at the same time as Luke and I only have my nightgown on, he jumps up on me. If I get up at the same time, no problem, but if I get up even one minute later, he jumps all over me, so I have to put my clothes on, or at least my jeans, before I open the door) for a while, and I can go downstairs to put away books without him freaking out. (He’s not allowed downstairs, and he doesn’t like me out of his sight.) I can laze away the day if I want, not worrying about taking him for a walk or taking him out, and just having to do the basic household chores (the dishes). Then around 4 PM, I go pick him up, and around 5:45, I leave for art class. Before Wayne started driving Luke in, Thursday was the day I had to get up at 7 to take Luke in, but now it’s my lazy day.

And that’s about all we did this week. During a lull on Sunday, my sister and my great nephew stopped by, but all they wanted to do was say hello. No standing around talking. They just appeared in front of the house, waited until we came out for a second, and then left. A little disappointing, since when I go over there, I usually hang around for a little while and talk.

Our contractor was supposed to drop by on Friday to talk about some things Wayne wants done, but he emailed us earlier in the week to say he thought it would be better to come after the holidays. That was fine with us.

We also did our Thanksgiving shopping on Monday, and that was interesting. We always go out early, because we like to avoid the grocery store running up to the holiday. When I was working, we always went the weekend before the weekend before Thanksgiving, but since we’re not working, we decided to go on Monday. That was probably a poor choice because of stocking. Last year, I was surprised not to find turkey roasting bags anywhere in Fred Meyer. This year, I didn’t have any problem finding those, but we ended up leaving without a pumpkin, a roasting pan, or a turkey. They had turkeys, of course, but the choice was not good. However, no pumpkins or roasting pans were to be seen. We stopped by Albertsons, and we could see the pie pumpkins right outside. The roasting pans were inside, but they only had two turkeys. In any case, Wayne got us a turkey yesterday.

Here’s my latest haul of review books from Dean Street Press.

So, that was our exciting week. Oh, one thing more, though. After sending out a bunch of emails to various presses two weeks ago, I got another shipment of review novels. These two were from Dean Street Press, their Furrowed Middlebrow series. I just read my first Margery Sharp novel a few weeks ago and loved it, so I was delighted to see they were putting out several Sharps and books by Stella Gibbons. That’s what I asked for, and that’s what I got! I also got a note saying I was now properly on their list, so I think that might mean I don’t have to request books from them anymore.

Opening up a bit

This week our county shows 647 total cases of the virus, up almost another 50 from last week. It occurs to me that this might be because of more testing, now about 1000 more tests a week, but it also might be because people around here are just basically ignoring it. We have gone to level 2, which I only know because our dog groomer called us, but although I think it’s silly that the dog groomer couldn’t open up earlier, because I never see other humans in there and it would be really easy to do the social distancing, I think it’s not good timing to open back up generally. Anyway, back to my statistics, we now have had 28 deaths, which is the same as last week so that’s good, and 13,788 people have been tested.

We have basically continued to do our usual things, ordering groceries online and picking them up, staying home most of the time, only visiting Christine and Duchess and Katrina’s family but with social distancing, and wearing masks and gloves when we have to shop anywhere. I had been wearing some paper masks that Wayne had for doing shop work, but now I have some cloth ones. They are fancier, but for some reason they keep popping off my ears, a problem I didn’t have with the paper ones. I think the maker thought she was doing a good thing by using sturdier elastic, but it doesn’t stretch as well. If a person had ears any further apart than mine, they wouldn’t be able to wear these masks at all.

I know that opening up is being done as one size fits all, but in some cases it is ridiculous. For example, my groomer has to cut her work load in half, but as I said before, I never encountered anyone else in her shop anyway, and it would be easy to regulate that. You see someone inside, you stay out. She also has to work at half staff, which makes a little more sense because their grooming area is small.

Similarly, my friend Claire said that she has been called back to work at the museum. Now, she works in a museum warehouse where the exhibits that aren’t on display are stored and analyzed. It is humongous. About ten years back, we went to visit them and they toured us through it, and it was absolutely fascinating. Exhibits were everywhere, on the floors of the hallways even, bones, native artifacts, rocks, just everything you might think of being in a state museum. About five years ago, the governor of Illinois tried to close all the museums and succeeded to the extent of getting most of the employees dismissed. Claire says they have to go back to work at 50%, and she reckons that they will each have about 17,000 square feet of space, so the 50% thing just is silly for them. Even with all the employees back, they would have 6500 square feet of space for each person because since the layoffs only 12 people work there. Also, because her husband is retired, he cannot go in to use their lab facilities anymore because no visitors are allowed, and he still does lots of faunal analysis for different organizations, including them.

On Saturday we had a memorial service for Wayne’s brother Carl by Zoom. It had been planned by his brother Ken and wife Sandra and the technical details were handled by their daughter Sierra. It had a few technical glitches, in particular, when one person spoke some kind of feedback made it hard to understand her (that was probably caused by the environment around her, though), but it was really nice and touching. They had made a program of people who wanted to talk about Carl, and Wayne had prepared something, but he apparently hadn’t told Ken and Sandra he wanted to speak. As it was, he hardly opened his mouth. I always thought Carl was awfully nice, but the service made me wish I had known him when he was younger, because he was quite the character and sounded like he was lots of fun when he was young. Wayne wasn’t a part of most of the stories because apparently when lots of the hijinks were going on back in Michigan, Wayne was in the air force. It was things Carl was doing with his friends and his youngest brother Ken, like blowing things up and running a hot air balloon business (small ones with lights in them that they sent up into the air and apparently sparked reports of UFOs). Carl was certainly scarily intelligent and had all kinds of things to say about just about everything, an interesting talker. I only was around him a handful of times, unfortunately, because we lived so far away, and certainly since we moved out here, Wayne has shown no disposition to travel at all. (He doesn’t even like to go to the beach, two hours away.) I know that Wayne is going to miss his long phone calls with him. I think they got closer while he has been sick this spring, because Wayne called him almost every day.

Another much more minor death around here was of a baby bunny. It made me so sad to find a drowned baby bunny in what is supposed to be our fountain. We haven’t run our fountain since we moved here because it needs to be drained and refilled with clean water, or the engine will be ruined when we turn it on. It was just on once, showing us that it at least works. There is a pit at the bottom about a foot deep and maybe two feet square that feeds a waterfall in a circular, closed system, and it’s that pit that has to be emptied. Wayne has been procrastinating emptying it, including buying one new pump, losing that one, buying another one, and then deciding it wasn’t powerful enough to do the job. It’s been four years now that we’ve planned to empty it during the summer. Anyway, it looks like the bunny must have been playing on the ridge above it and fell in, and either it hit its head on the way in or just wasn’t able to get back out and drowned. I wish we had seen it fall, because we probably could have saved it, but the first we knew of it was when I was outside playing with Luke and he went over to the fountain and just stood there, and it was already dead. Luckily, the bunny was on the far side so Luke couldn’t get it out, because of course it took Wayne a couple of days to remove it. Poor little thing. As far as I know, this is the first death caused by the open pit, but I’m wondering if we should put a grate over it or a screen. We usually have frogs in it, though, and that would keep them out. We see rabbits running around our property chasing each other all the time, but this is the first time I’ve seen such a small one except once on the road when we were afraid one was too silly to get out of the way. It didn’t move until we were right next to it.

Speaking of wildlife, just yesterday I glanced out the kitchen window and saw a deer right below the house, grazing in the grass we haven’t yet cut on the slope. He was a young buck, with little one-inch nubs on top of his head. He seemed to be alone, but we wouldn’t have been able to see another deer that was closer to the house. The young does tend to go around in pairs, but I don’t know whether he was old enough to be normally out on his own or not. Maybe he has lost his sibling (or maybe his sibling was right there, and we just couldn’t see her). While he was back there, we also noticed three rabbits chasing each other around the wolf pen, which at this point has grass about three or four feet high.

Because I haven’t been able to take Luke out much this last two weeks, we decided to put him into doggy day care one day a week so that he could have some fun running around. His first day was last Thursday, and he certainly was pooped on Thursday night. It was also really nice to have a whole day in which I didn’t have to think about taking him out and feeding him and most of all, paying attention to him. I got a lot of work done on my novel and the laundry. I’ve been working on the same two stories, one set during World War I and the very last one, which is the earliest in time. I know where they’re going, but I’m finding them harder to write than some of the others. Those will be the last two, then I’ll do some polishing and try to find an agent or a publisher. I have a local publisher in mind that doesn’t work through agents but also appears not to do much publicity, so I might try an agent first, because I am horrible at self-promotion.

On Sunday, I took Luke for his first walk in two weeks down the road. We popped up Katrina and co’s driveway to see if anyone was outside, but only Søren was. I wanted to consult someone about our anonymous note about our fence line, so I walked around the house to my sister Sue’s side, and she was outside sweeping her patio. I started to tell her about the message and was surprised by how she acted. First, it was almost like she knew all about it, even though I don’t think she did, and then she seemed to get impatient with me and almost angry about it. It turns out that the sharp angle on the main road by our pond has been a bone of contention because it gets overgrown and causes a visibility problem on our one-lane road. But we don’t drive down that way very often, and especially not since the virus, as I’m not driving down to pick up Maja for hiking or Mischa for taekwondo, or anything like that. Yes, I do walk down that way, but when you’re walking, you’re not thinking about the visibility from cars, and you see differently. I had no idea about this issue, because no one ever told us. When I said something about that, Sue almost yelled at me, “But you just walked right past it!” It also turns out that both Sue and Ares had been trimming it occasionally and had been talking about doing it again as soon as it stopped raining and dried out a bit (it had rained almost nonstop for a week by then).

Maybe we’re just stupid, but I don’t know how we’re supposed to know this stuff if no one tells us, so it doesn’t seem fair for her to get irritated with us about it. She also got upset when I expressed our reaction to the anonymous note and she said it was what she would have done. We didn’t exactly have an argument, but maybe I hurt her feelings when I said it was passive aggressive and the rudest way to inform a neighbor that there was a problem (that was before she said it was what she would have done). Then Katrina, Ares, and Mischa came out of the house, and I said something to them about it. They were much nicer about the whole thing, and Katrina said if it had been her, she would have explained exactly what the problem was and signed it. I said, “Exactly,” because how can we ask them questions if we get an anonymous note?

So, now we knew the problem patch, and Wayne went right down that afternoon, because it was miraculously a little nice out, and whacked it down. I took out my new weed whacker that Wayne bought me (such a touching present) and whacked down the weeds along the front of the house. Everything has just shot up because of an unprecedented combination of lots of rain alternating with several days of sunshine and then back to rain. Starting Tuesday afternoon, we are finally back into the sunshine phase, so more mowing and weed whacking is on the agenda, because we still haven’t finished the back slope and now the wolf pen is deep in grass.

My vegetable garden also went crazy. There is little sign of pea pods, but my salad greens have gotten so huge, that I think they are probably in the bitter stage and there’s nothing to do but to pull them out. I planted way too many this year. The first year, I put my seeds in seed by seed, using up about a quarter of a packet, and I got about enough for one salad, only at different times so that I just added them to regular lettuce salads. Then the next year I tried head lettuce, but it never made heads. So, this year I planted two whole packets of salad greens, which turns out to be way more salad greens than two people can keep up with. Next year, I will do one, and that will be about right. I guess I am gardening by trial and error.

Here’s my bright pink dahlia, which for some reason likes to face toward the blue spruce.

For my pictures today, I bring you the progress in my raised beds. First is a picture of a dahlia. I bought it as a plant, but it had not bloomed before. It bloomed this week into a lovely bright pink. I know you’re supposed to take dahlias out in the winter and replant them in the spring, which is why I’ve always avoided them, but I only have two, so maybe that won’t be so hard to remember to do. My other dahlia bloomed yellow already, and that bloom has died. Now it is working on another one.

Here are my peonies coming up.

My other pictures are of sprouts coming up. The first one is of my peony sprouts, which are coming up from their rhizomes. I have three different plantings of them, one in each of the beds. They are pretty tall, but I don’t know how long before they’ll bloom. I know I planted everything a little late this spring.

These are mixed flowers. I should have kept the packet or at least read it more carefully, because I have no idea what they are.

Finally, the plant people sent me a free packet of mixed flower seeds, and although I didn’t pay a lot of attention to where I planted them (I’ll do better next spring!), I am pretty sure these are them, because the only other seeds I planted were different types of poppies, and those ones are coming up very very slowly.

 

 

 

 

 

A new normal week

This week the county reports we have had 368 positive cases of the virus, 22 deaths, and almost 5000 people tested. Things seem to be slowing down here, except for the pitiful number of people tested, which tells me we don’t know. Also, our county map showing where the cases are has always shown no known cases in our zip code, but just this week it shows 1 to 30 cases. That’s not many, but it means the virus is just making it into our part of the county. All this opening up that’s going on in the rest of the country is making me very nervous. I can’t help but think that we’re headed for a resurgence.

Here on the home front we have made three trips out this week. On Friday, Wayne suggested we go get an ice cream cone, so we drove up to Amboy to a mom and pop coffee/ice cream stand and got a cone at the drive through. Not very Weight Watchery, but supporting our local business.

On Monday, I did my usual pickup at the grocery store and by the way made sure to buy a cup of coffee at my favorite drive-up stand. I used to stop there frequently before all this started, but now I’m not out as much, so when I am, I try always to stop there. The owner is almost always there these days, and she has had to cut her hours.

On Tuesday, we went to Costco for the first time since all this started. They have things organized pretty nicely there, but I was shocked by how many people paid absolutely no attention to how close they were to other people. At one point, I was walked down an aisle, and their aisles are plenty wide enough. Another cart was passing me on the other side, and we were far enough apart, but then a woman shot right between us, right past me, about a foot away from my arm. At another point, I was picking up a package of toilet paper, and a woman came up right next to me to get hers instead of waiting until there was space. Even though the store was relatively uncrowded, there was more of this kind of behavior the later it got. We went in for what we understood were the senior hours, but I think they’d been going for a while when we got there, because we thought we were early, but people were already leaving. I looked at Costco’s site beforehand, but their hours information was confusing.  On the way back, we went to the farm store to buy dog food and bird seed, and I picked up some asparagus roots. Five of the eight I planted last year are coming up, but five asparagus spears does not make a meal, and my sister says you can’t pick them all. Next year, I am going to devote an entire square of my little garden to asparagus.

Here’s my tomato unit in all its glory.

That was it this week for going out. However, my garden wagon arrived, so after Wayne put it together, I got my rolling tomato unit up and going. I haven’t actually moved them back to the front of the house since then. They’ve been on the back deck. But there, they are already getting a couple more hours of sunshine than they usually get in the garden. I think they might do a lot better this year. We’ll see.

Also on the garden front, my bed of mixed greens has progressed so well that last night I made salads from it. A nice change from the old iceberg lettuce, which Wayne has been buying like crazy lately.

The weather has been warm then cold then warm. Today it is supposed to be cool and rainy, and tomorrow it is supposed to get up in the 70’s. We had several very nice days toward the end of the week, so I mowed the orchard for the first time this year. It’s quite a job, about an acre and on about a 30-degree slant. I wish Wayne would mow it with his riding mower, but he won’t. All he mows with that blasted thing is the wolf pen, which is flat, and our pitifully small front yard, which I can do with the regular mower in about 15 minutes. He says he always feels like he is going to fall off the mower in the orchard, which leaves me to walk up and down it with the regular mower, an effort that usually takes me two days. The one time he did it with the riding mower, it took about 20 minutes. About once a summer, Ares comes over on his riding mower and does it for us. I suppose I should learn to use the riding mower, but I can hardly get up into it, although he had me do that a few days ago when he charged the battery, and I got up into it easier than I had before.

And speaking of Ares, he put in an order for some wood for projects for himself and also for my landscaping boxes. I am finally going to have boxes to plant ornamental trees, flowers, and bushes. He said he would do them for me our first winter here, but he obviously forgot. When I asked him if he might have time for them now, his work finally having slowed down a bit, he said he was just about to order wood and would put in an order for us, too. I saw him (from a distance) on Monday when I went by to drop off the check, and he said he was letting the wood sit until it was supposedly virus free and would be over to our house this weekend to build them. I’m so excited!

My exercise this week has been solely devoted to walks with Luke. On Tuesday, I took some cheese along so that I could bribe him to go in the direction of Katrina’s house, since he usually refuses to go that way. We popped up there to see if anyone was in the orchard. My sister was, and she gave me a tour of the garden. Then Katrina and Mischa came out of the house, and we all had a talk in the driveway. Mischa said it was really exciting to see someone else for a change. Søren was also out, but he was obsessed by not being touched by Luke for fear of getting the virus. We kept telling him that it would only be a problem if he petted Luke, but he mostly stayed away from us. I tried to get him to give Luke a command so that he would feel more in control, but he wouldn’t do it. However, Mischa told Luke to go down, and Luke did, and he stayed down until I let him up. Everyone was impressed, but Katrina joked that it only took us two years to get him to do that. (Actually, he could do that a year and a half ago.)

I worked a bit with a story that I wasn’t happy with, and then I got an idea for another story, or at least one friend suggested something to help with a problem with the story I was working with. So, I started that one, and I’m not happy with it either, but I figured out yesterday how to fix it.

On Friday my Literary Wives blogging group had a Jitsi meeting. I didn’t think Jitsi worked as well as Zoom, but maybe everything is just more overloaded now than last time we used Zoom. One person’s audio kept falling out, and I was unable to see myself in the video, just a static picture, so I wasn’t sure how well the others could see me. The last time Literary Wives did this was so long ago that only two of us were there at the time. It was nice to see and visit with everyone, and we are going to schedule another one after we do our posts. Our next posts are June 1, and we’re discussing The Dutch House by Ann Patchett.

And that’s about it for this week.

Continuing with the new (ab)normal

Today, our county has 343 known cases of Covid-19 and 21 deaths. They have tested nearly 4,000 people, which still seems ridiculously low. There has been more talk of loosening restrictions, but it seems early. We don’t exactly need another breakout. I am getting sick of Trump’s wildly inconsistent messages on this subject. But then, when has he ever been consistent? I find it interesting that in our county at least, there have been nearly twice as many cases in women as men, but three times as many men have died.

The spring continues to spring. My cherry trees are both blooming, and I have noticed some trees on my property with small red flowers that I didn’t realize were ornamental before. My azaleas are just starting to come out. By next week, I should be able to take a pretty picture. And my rhodies have huge buds on them. It looks like my magnolia tree, which I planted last year, might get two flowers on it this year. It’s still only about 5 feet high. No sign of blooming for my lilacs, though. Christine has told me sometimes it takes many years for them to bloom.

I’ve been going around my property taking pictures of a few flowering trees to see if I can find out what they are. Here’s the most interesting one of them. It’s the red-flowered tree I mentioned above, totally nondescript and  kind of wispy-looking most of the year, and it’s being overshadowed by a grove of alders, and I just noticed last spring that it had these small red flowers. They have opened up a lot since two days ago, when I first noticed them, and now instead of being bright red, they’re a more purply pinky shade.

I have no idea what this tree is. It’s about 12 or 14 feet high with a long thin trunk and branches. I see my picture is a bit out of focus.

I haven’t seen the female duck in ages, but there are still the two males hanging out together. So odd. I kept seeing a male, and I wasn’t sure if I was seeing just one or two separately, but the other day, they were both together. I also spotted the beaver twice this week. Last spring, I saw a lot of him, but this year, I have only glimpsed him the two times. I was beginning to wonder if he had moved on to my neighbor’s two ponds.

Since last Wednesday, I have only had two outings. On Friday, Wayne, Luke, and I drove to a small country butcher shop where I buy my marrow bones for Luke. To see him go absolutely bonkers, you just have to say, “Would you like something better than a treat?” He bounds all over the place and then runs to the freezer, and I give him another bone. I usually try to save these treats for dismal, rainy days, when neither one of us wants to go out much.

This Monday, I made my trip to the grocery store. When I was talking to my Texas friends, they said that their app for the store pickup system allows them to state for each item whether it can be substituted. I wish the Fred Meyer app did that, because there are some things I don’t want substituted. For example, we keep trying to get orange vanilla fizzy water, and they always substitute tangerine lemonade, which I don’t like. This week, they tried to give me another carton, but I sent it back. Kroger, which owns Fred Meyer, has awful-tasting tomato juice, but a couple of weeks ago, that’s what I got instead of Campbell’s. At least I got eggs this time. Now I have a plethora of them. As you may recall, a couple of weeks ago, I couldn’t get any and had been out of them for a week already. Now, I have several dozen in my fridge. I’m beginning to understand how people start hoarding.

It sounds like the system HEB uses that my friends told me about has more downsides than ours, though. Not the first week, but ever since, I have been able to make as many changes as I want to my order. So, I put my order in with just a few things on the day I’m picking my last one up so that I can reserve a spot, and then I add things to it through the week. Apparently, the number of times you can do this on the HEB system is limited, so I guess the substitutions thing is something I can live with.

After my grocery outing, I dropped in to see Christine, keeping careful about touching things and getting close. This time I took her some slices of buttermilk lemon Bundt cake that I made the day before. It’s not very Weight Watchery, but I’ve found myself doing a lot more baking. Well, I had hardly done any baking at all since I went on Weight Watchers, just made a few pies during peach and berry season.

Christine and I talked last week about her bringing Duchess here, so that we could walk the dogs on the opposite sides of my road (it’s more difficult to walk on the city streets in her neighborhood and keep a distance), let the dogs play in the wolf pen, and sit on opposite ends of my eight-foot-long outdoor table. However, the weather did not cooperate. The weather has been a little better since then. Most days have been rainy, but Sunday and yesterday were very nice, warm and sunny. I think it got up to 70 on Tuesday.

Last week, Wayne finally burned the burn pile, which was mostly the blackberry bramble we had cut down a few months ago and the blackberry vines we had been pulling up for months. I saw he had it going really good, in fact it was almost out, when I asked him if he’d brought down all the bags of yard waste. He said no, so I went back up to the house and got the wheelbarrow and hauled them all out of the garage. It’s a good thing I did, because there were eight of those big paper yard waste bags. There were a bunch more, actually, but they seemed to be full of wood chips. I had a fun time getting all eight bags down the steep driveway, across the orchard, and into the wolf pen, where we were burning the pile. The orchard is sloped fairly steeply, so as soon as I started across that, two of the bags kept falling out of the wheelbarrow. I finally left them there, delivered the other bags, and went back and got them.

The only thing bad about using the wolf pen was that now there is a dark charred spot in the area where we were going to bring the dogs to play if Christine can come over again. Wayne has covered it with dirt and put grass seed on it, which tells me that he’s going to be cross if the dogs run through it, and they’re going to get dirty. But Christine’s dog is used to a fenced yard, so she can’t run free at our place. I remember one time when we were first walking dogs, Duchess’s leash unsnapped, and she ran around and around us in circles. We were at the side of the high school right near the street, and Christine was really frightened that Duchess would run out into the street. She wasn’t responding to commands at all, she was so happy to be loose. Finally, she ran up near me, and I was able to grab her fur. She yelped, but at least she didn’t get squashed by a car.

Luke and I have taken several walks down our road, although when we get to where it comes to a T, he is happy to go down to Maja’s, but I have to bribe him to get him to go the other way. I’m not sure what’s up with that, because he and I used to walk that way with his leash most of the time. We have also gone the other direction up the road several times so he can cavort for a while with Rosie. He doesn’t like to stay there long, though. I think after he gets flipped over a couple of times, he’s ready to leave. She is a lot bigger than him and plays rough. Reportedly, he is a rather reserved player who, when he is at Puppy Play (which obviously he hasn’t been in six weeks) watches the other dogs for a while and then picks out a dog to play with.

And speaking of exercise, not that I’ve had much recently, my Fitbit broke on Monday. I just started flickering like crazy, starting Sunday night, and then it stopped working. I tried charging it and resetting it, but no luck, and it is no longer reporting to its app, because I did way more than 1000 steps on Monday! That’s frustrating, because I think I’ve had this fancy dan model of Fitbit only a year, whereas the cheapy ones I had before that lasted several years each. I got this one because I realized the others weren’t waterproof, and I’d been washing dishes with them on, taking showers, and swimming. And yet they lasted longer than the fancy waterproof one. I ordered another one, but unfortunately, it’s the same model as the one I had.

I have finished an eighth story for my novel, but I don’t think I’m happy with it. I figured it would be better to pound it out and then go back and try to fix it. I made a change to the narration that I thought would be more effective, but then it made it much harder to convey some things, so I might rethink that. Then, today, I returned to a story that I started last year, which is going to be the last story, no matter how many others I might add. I have a clear idea of the arc of the story, but I’m having trouble getting there.

Other than those things and some more blackberry vine pulling and bush trimming and gardening, I managed to finish another jigsaw puzzle. It appears to be the only other picture I have for you this week. This is Eilean Donan Castle in Scotland. Everyone keep well!

A little variety to my week

Today in my county there are 250 positive cases of Covid-19 and 15 deaths. The number of people tested so far is 1616, which, if you remember last week, is the exact same number. In other words, not one more test has returned since last week. Since the county is updating these numbers daily during the week, that’s pretty pathetic. You know they have tested more people in a week, the tests just haven’t come back.

My week was highlighted by some nice, but careful, outings. Last Wednesday on a beautiful sunny day, Luke and I followed my sister’s car containing her and my niece’s family out to a location farther north that I’m not going to identify (you’ll see why) and met SIL Nancy for a hike. Nancy managed to find a spot to hike that was on private property belonging to a corporation, so technically, we probably were trespassing, but it was clear that people came there to hike.

Here is part of my family next to the lake. Not a soul was on the lake, since boating and fishing are not allowed right now.

There were four or five parking places outside a locked gate. We went over the gate and walked down a logging road to a nice meadow where Katrina, Ares, and the kids had lunch. Since there was nowhere to sit that I felt I could get up from, I just stood around at a distance. Nancy went off exploring one way, and Sue and Mischa went another. They said there was a waterfall nearby, but it sounded difficult to get to, and since I had Luke on a leash, I didn’t want him pulling me down. Sue and Nancy found a smaller path that led down to a nearby lake, and they all went down there and threw stones in the water for a while. I walked down to look at the lake but didn’t go down the last steep slope to get to it. All our family groups kept a distance, with Nancy way up ahead and me behind everyone.

It was a beautiful day and a nice walk of about three miles. When I left, they were going to go back to the meadow to look at the waterfall. It was nice to see everyone and get some sunshine. I promised everyone I wouldn’t blog about the hike on my hiking blog, because it is so difficult to find somewhere to go these days that is still open and isn’t crowded with people.

The next day, I happened to take Luke down to the orchard when Sue came walking by on her way to the mailboxes. I decided to walk with her even though I didn’t have Luke’s leash with me. This was my great experiment, because I’ve been wanting to be able to just go on a walk and take Luke without all the paraphernalia. Luke was very good. He stuck fairly close to us, although he went on ahead about 20 feet. Even when we came to Rosie’s house, and Rosie was out, he wouldn’t go up to play with her when I told him he could. Instead, he stuck with us up to the mailboxes, where we waited for Sue to get her family’s mail. Then we went back down the road, stopped to play with Rosie for a few minutes, and then walked Sue home.

Luke and I repeated the experiment two more times during the week, and it worked well, except for yesterday, when Luke refused to go down the road to Katrina’s house because a dog was playing with two girls in the yard at the corner. I tried to coax him down the road, especially because the dog wasn’t paying any attention to him, but he wouldn’t go, so we walked down the other road toward Maja’s house instead. He is very good. He comes when he is called and is used to coming and sitting next to me when a car comes by. He got so excited yesterday when he knew we were going for a walk that he bounced off me a couple of times, a practice I’ve been trying to discourage with little success. So, he’s obviously having more fun on our walks now, too.

Also on Thursday, I began working on a project that is new in a way. Over the past few years I have been thinking of an idea for a novel made up of short stories. I had started one story thinking it would be the first one, and then decided it would actually be the last, but I hadn’t finished it. Then I had written about a paragraph of a story I thought would be first. But on Thursday, I had an idea for a whole different dimension for the first story, and I sat down and wrote the whole thing in a couple of hours.

The next day, I had an idea for what I thought would be the second story, so I sat down and wrote it up. I was very happy with both stories and sent them off to a few people to read them. All of them said they were good.

On Saturday, I had an idea for another story that would turn out to be the actual second story, so I sat down and wrote that one. It more closely relates to what is now the third story and perhaps makes the third story more poignant.

On Sunday, I wrote the fourth story. I’m not as happy with that one, but when I looked at it again on Monday, I thought it was better than I remembered. I worked on it more on Monday.

Yesterday I wrote the fifth story. It’s not quite done yet. I need to write a bunch more stories, because what I have written so far would make a very short book. I only have two more in mind, but that will be my next task, to think of other situations for the other stories. It’s quite likely that my fifth story will appear later in the book, because I am going backwards in time.

With all this writing, I forgot about working on John’s book. He gave me a little nudge yesterday, so I finished another chapter of his book. This is what always happens to me when I get into writing. When I was still single and writing, I would come home from work every evening that I wasn’t teaching and work on my book. I would work on it during the weekends if I wasn’t doing something with my friends or correcting papers.

Back in those days, I still managed to keep my apartment, which was much smaller, clean. The house cleaning is pretty much going out the window this week, except for keeping the kitchen clean and doing the laundry. I meant to work on my floors this week, but haven’t had the time or the inclination.

Yesterday, I went out to pick up my grocery order. My theory that I would be more likely to get everything I ordered early in the week was borne out. Only two things got substituted instead of half the things in my last order, a week ago Saturday. However, they had no eggs at all, and I had been out of eggs for more than a week.

I stopped by Christine’s after the grocery store. We had planned it out beforehand. Usually she gives me coffee when I go there, but this time I brought my own, put on a rubber glove to let myself in through her back gate, and sat across the garden from her. It was really nice to see her. I made sure to only touch things, including Duchess, with my gloved hand. She is doing well, but she must be lonely, since she and Duchess live alone. Her older daughter has done drive-by waves, but her youngest daughter is too afraid of infecting her to even do that. I was very careful, because I’d hate to give her anything.

I have noticed that lots of people in the area have bushes of these flowers with the black centers in their yards. I hadn’t seen them before, but I think they are anemones. Here they are in my grandma’s jug on my cookbook bookshelf in the kitchen.

My last stop yesterday was at the produce market, which had eggs! Yay! Lots of eggs, so I bought two dozen. I bought some veggies and some pork chops and a bunch of spring flowers. I think they are anemones. The produce market doesn’t always have flowers, but when they do, they look like they are from someone’s garden rather than from a flower stand. I include a picture of them in my grandmother’s silver water jug for your enjoyment.

Battle Ground at this time of the year is gorgeous, with lots of flowering trees and flowers coming up everywhere. We are behind, so my daffodils are out, and in one day my crocuses all died, but our fruit trees haven’t flowered yet. Neither have my lilac bushes. In fact, they have never flowered. I fertilized them this year in the hopes that we would get some blossoms. Maybe they’re not old enough yet. I have no idea why they haven’t blossomed.

And speaking of plants, I’m beginning to worry that I won’t be able to buy my vegetable starts. I decided to try to buy them online this year, but everything I want is already gone on all the sites I can find. I understand that suddenly everyone has decided they need their own garden, but this is ridiculous. I will probably have to buy my starts at the farm store as I usually do, but I’m not sure when they will be there. I have checked online a couple of times. It seems it should be soon. I’m hoping I’ll be able to order them online and just go pick them up. They claim we can do that, but I’m not sure they’ll put the starts online.

I’ve had bad luck with tomatoes every year, so I was hoping to try a Siberian variety this year, but no such luck finding any. My niece has only managed tomatoes by having a greenhouse. I didn’t think I could afford one, but maybe we can put something together with plastic or something. Where to put it would be the question, since the logical place is by the garden, but the garden doesn’t get enough sun as it is.

Our weather has been gorgeous up to today, when it is raining a bit. A few days ago, I was sitting out under the green umbrella on the deck and decided I wouldn’t be as careful as I usually am about putting the umbrella down when I went back in. That was a mistake. On Monday, I wasn’t aware of strong breezes, but I happened to glance out the window and our table, which is a long wooden one with space for eight people, was tipped over onto some of the chairs and had clearly been dragged a few feet along the deck by the umbrella. I had to get Wayne to help me pull the umbrella out of the hole in the table, and the umbrella pole was a little bent. However, it still works, it’s just at a bit of an angle when you put it up, instead of straight. No big harm done, but from now on I’ll put the umbrella back down!

I have spotted the ducks in the pond several times this week.

 

Another very inactive week

As of today, our county has 116 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 6 deaths. Only 879 people have been tested so far, which doesn’t seem like a lot. The largest number of cases here are in adults 40-49 years old. The deaths have all been people over 70.

I had a fairly inactive week because it rained almost every day. I tried taking Luke out for a walk down the road one of these days, and he was insistent that we go back. He doesn’t like being out in the rain. So, we only got out for a walk a couple of times, during breaks in the weather. We did play a lot of ball in front of the house, though.

On Wednesday, I tried out the Fred Meyer Click and Pick by picking up the groceries that I ordered on Sunday. It worked like a charm. You pull up in a designated parking place, call the number on the sign in front of you, and they ask your name and what parking place you’re in. The woman brought out my order within two minutes and told me I was the only person to get everything I ordered that day. By Saturday, they had improved their ordering system so that you could schedule pickup up to a week ahead (before it only went three days out, so that I had to get up early in the morning to schedule), and that’s what I had to do, although there were still most of the slots available for the seventh day. So, I am picking up more groceries on Saturday. They also improved the change order process. When I picked up my groceries the first time, they told me that if I had things to add to my order, I could just call them. Apparently, they had too many calls, because by yesterday, I could do a change to my order online, which I did. This system doesn’t allow you to buy anything at the last moment, but it works fine if you think ahead.

I wasn’t able to go hike with Katrina, Sue, and the others on Thursday, because Wayne had scheduled a CAT scan for that day. He had blood in his urine one time last weekend, so he went to see the doctor on Monday, and they called him to schedule it on Wednesday. They didn’t find anything wrong with him, and he hadn’t had any more blood in his urine. I would think these days he would think twice about even going in to get the scan. That’s my Wayne. At least, although he’s been telling everyone he has something, he isn’t acting anymore like it’s the virus, and frankly, I don’t think he has anything at all. When I think back, I realize that for someone who always thinks he’s sick, he has actually been sick only a handful of times over the years. I have had flu, colds, etc., many more times than he has. When he gets the flu shot, he doesn’t get the flu. For years, I would get the flu shot and still get the flu more than once a year. He is accident prone, however, and has had several operations since we’ve been married, whereas, I have never had one.

Most of what we’ve done this week has been to hear from friends. Two friends called me over the weekend, K. C. from Austin and Mary Elaine from Houston. Both of them sounded bored, but at least none of the friends I’ve heard from know anyone who is sick. I haven’t been bored, but I guess that’s because I’ve always been pretty good at entertaining myself. I had to laugh when my friend Ray, who is pretty good at being a couch potato, said that he felt like he’d been training for this his whole life!

I was sorry to hear that my friend Cynthia, who moved to Mexico with her husband just a few months ago on a big adventure to live there for a year, came back this week because of the virus. They wanted to be nearer in case their family needed them. They are now in quarantine in Dallas. It must be a little disappointing after they finally got out there and seemed to be having such a good time.

So, my only outings this week have been walking the dog and measuring the fabric covering our slope so that we could order grass seed fabric to roll down it. We went to visit Rosie, the dog next door, several times, since that’s the way Luke always wants to walk, but she was only out once.

On Monday, the entire family used Zoom to schedule a video meeting, and that was nice. We could see everyone except Nancy, who called in by audio only (it wasn’t clear if Mark was even online, since he didn’t talk). Everyone was fine and in good spirits. Sue was out of self-quarantine.

Wayne’s brother’s biopsy finally happened and they said he has a slow-growing form of lung cancer that can be treated by chemo and radiation therapy. At least it’s treatable. And K. C., unfortunately, told me her sister-in-law was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, but it is treatable, and she is undergoing chemotherapy now. It’s certainly a bad time to have your immune system suppressed, though.

I guess that’s about all. The only picture I took this week was of my hand after I fell flat on my face the other night, coming back into the house with Luke in my big muck boots. I tripped on the threshold and fell down. I have a bruise on my hand (the picture wasn’t very good, so I won’t show it) and for a while I had a huge swelling on my shin and a bruise, but now the swelling has gone down and there’s just a big bruise, about six inches across. The only slightly worrisome thing about it is my elbow, which has a very small area of sharpish pain when I put weight on it but otherwise, I can’t make it feel painful when I press on it, so it’s hard to figure out what’s wrong.

I didn’t see Christine this week, but we are planning a dog walk maybe tomorrow, which is supposed to be drier.