Doris – Page 321 – Just regular folks.

Our 42nd Wedding Anniversary

Today, August 22nd, is our 42nd wedding anniversary. Rena prepared us a healthy and big breakfast (see attached picture). This afternoon, we went shopping and got Mom a Bulova lady watch which is self-winding. Mom always wants a good working watch with big characters on it. On it, it has two hearts and a purse with see-through part to some of its internal mechanical gears. Looks pretty good.

Looking back, 42 years of togetherness is really a long time. But, in certain sense, it is pretty short too. Oh, btw, Mom would like to have an addition master bedroom at the first floor just behind the half bath (beyond the half bath window on her left side at the back). Tomorrow, an estimator will show up and go over some details as well as pricing. See what will happen next.

Sitting on a sun porch.

I was lucky enough to spend the afternoon napping on and off in a screened-in-porch with Edda. It was an incredibly beautiful day and I snacked on chips and cheese while keeping Edda company.

Frankly, I was a little paranoid to move Edda as her mood has been a little hair-trigger lately. We still haven’t resolved her various episodes of complaints and with my pessimistic nature, I think she will be pissed off for the rest of her life. So I was thankful for an afternoon of relative quiet happiness with Maxi by her side and some snacking and summer breezes for me. There is nothing more relaxing than letting one’s to-do list purposely lay idle for an afternoon.

A Short Trip North

Last Wednesday (8/15), Rena and I took a short trip north to Bellingham, WA. A classmate of ours has a summer home there. Bellingham is a nice small town. The only problem, we see, is that is at north of Seattle. To get to the SeaTac Airport at Takoma, south of Seattle, is really a nightmare. Due to its geographic situations, the traffic of Seattle is really bad, especially on the north-south run. To get to the Vancouver, Canada airport is much closer. But, due the border crossing, it isn’t easy either.

Anyway, Rena and I had a wonderful time there with our classmate. On the way back, we visited another classmate in Seattle. He and his wife are crazy about Peking Opera. It was fun of visiting them and sat on the basement sofa to listen and watch their Peking Opera session. They do it almost every week we were told.

After listening for several hours, we headed back home at Washougal, WA. We arrived about 10:00 PM. It was fun.

Mirror Lake, Klamath Falls, Crater Lake & Silver Falls

Last Wednesday, Rena and I took a short trip to Oregon to see Mirror Lake (around Mount Hood), Klamath Falls Lake (at California Border), Crater Lake and Silver Falls State Park which consists of 10 falls. We spent an hour to walk to Mirror Lake, Stayed overnight at Klamath Falls, drove around Crater Lake and walked all 10 falls. To walk around 10 falls, we started at 10:00 AM and completed around 4:00 PM, about 6 hours.

The first picture is Mirror Lake, the second is Klamath Falls Lake, the third and fourth are Crater Lake and the last two are Silver Falls.

After that, we are very busy at our yard work. Hopefully, it will get done soon.

Media promos

Jeremy is making his mark all over the place. Here he is quoted in our local paper: Here! And here he his quoted in Swedish: Here!

Parties –

Our house is so quiet tonight. SeHyun, our sitter, is on vacation until tomorrow. We had been hosting an Israeli counselor for Edda and Vince’s camp for the past month, which was really nice, and she left for home today. And Vince left to visit Jeremy’s parents today – so it is just the three of us tonight (Jeremy, me and Edda) and, of course, the two dogs. Even though the house is relatively unoccupied, we are still busy today.

After dropping Vince off at BWI airport, we went to a party in Baltimore. It’s not always easy bringing Edda to a party – I really only tangentially know the host (he’s Jeremy’s former co-worker) so I didn’t know anyone there and no one knew us – but we settled Edda in the middle of the backyard with her little TV and a plate of chicken and we had a grand time – met lots of people, including many people who were astronomers – which was interesting to me. We were the first to leave when Edda decided that she had had enough. I have come to adjust my expectations when going to these social events with Edda, I thought we’d be lucky to last an hour or two, but we made it from about 3:30 to 7 pm, which is not bad.

It was the lawn Olympics – we (grown ups) had a balloon toss, an egg run, bocce ball. Mini-golf. All good fun.

Bye bye Shamrock –

We are saying goodbye to Shamrock (I always think that Edda rides Shamrock, although I think this photo is not actually Shamrock) – at least for now. We’ve been doing hippo therapy for at least 3 years now – but I’m hoping to switch over to other activities, adaptive soccer in the fall and maybe swimming (or maybe not). We’ll see, we’ll see.

Block party –

Our annual block party this evening.

Statistics class.

My statistics class is almost over. I can’t wait until it is over, as it is a summer course it meets every day for a couple of hours and although I liked it in the beginning, I’m now a little bit lost (OK, really a lot lost) and it is frustrating. I have some work to do to before the final next week. It may be because my philosophy is to only spend the time that I’m in class working on statistics which isn’t really working out that well because I’m not really understanding it the first go-round, maybe because I’m distracted (see grocery list on notes page).

So I’m playing around with Instagram which I really don’t like, but I’m trying it now (to keep me occupied during class).

Computers dying – iPhone photos only.

So our IT infrastructure in the house is falling apart. All the computers are dying a slow death – viruses invade, children and guests download odd apps onto hard drives – someone drops a gob of jelly onto the keyboard rendering the “K” key permanently stuck. So I haven’t been able to download my regular camera photos. So iPhone photos will have to do. (I know, tragic).

Jeremy has been reading “Little Women” to Vince. Vince does not really like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson stories. He and Jeremy both enjoy kind-of old fashioned stories that don’t have much to do with magic or demons. They both loved The Penderwicks, Swiss Family Robinson and The Wind in the Willows. I was the one who suggested “Little Women” – Jeremy hadn’t read it either. I couldn’t believe it, Jo, Beth, Meg and Amy, where have you been all of Jeremy’s life!

I did have a hard copy, buy Jeremy found it free for the iPad, so he downloaded it and is reading it nightly (except for this week, the Olympics are on, so reading time is short). I was a little worried they wouldn’t finish it as the 2nd chapter in – Vince asked, “So when does something happen?”, but I think something did happen and they are enjoying the book together.