Yesterday was Nice

How lovely to have a beautiful cloudy day. My MIL said it was like a Colorado sky, with lots of nice little floaty puffy pillowy clouds. HH grew up in Colorado, until middle school, anyway, which was called junior high back in THOSE DAYS. I wonder that high school is still called high school, and grade school is still called grade school, but jr high is no longer called jr high. Grumble grouse gvetch. Ha! I just spelled that word wrong because I wanted it to start with a "g".

We had a lovely time playing for a 10 years celebration company picnic thing. Super guy Alan owns business and plays Congas with us now and then. Love all people in the band, too. Hope none of them leave.

HH returned in good health, but v tired. Had a lovely time Saturday, but in Castle Rock, WA, it rained rained rained buckets Sunday, and he waited waited waited for it to stop, but it never did, so he just had to ride in it, and get wet. It dried up when he got as far as McMinnville, OR. So glad he didn't bring rain with him, as we were having lovely time in beautiful weather playing for picnic thing.

Got to quit goofing off here. DD has to be at violin teacher's house, with new violas to win approval for which instrument to buy. DD has switched from violin to viola, and I have to learn to quit saying violin.

Sunday Morning Blues

Ha ha. That's because I have a blues station on the radio. KRBM? That's what it sounds to me like they are saying. Maybe it's KRVM. Imagine pretty blue flowers spilling out of pots and flopping around on the ground. Have you got that image in your mind? Me, too. I went to the Saturday market yesterday, but didn't buy anything, except a pretty orange cauliflower. DD wondered why didn't I get a purple one? Missing HH this morning, thus the RADIO. If he were here he'd probably be off WALKING, anyway.

Went over to see MIL yesterday and take her shopping. She pointed out nice article in Saturday Gazette Times about friend running for US President. Big picture and everything. He said on a radio interview that the answer to keeping USA business viable and competitive in a world market is a 20% sales tax and ZERO income tax. However unpleasant a 20% sales tax sounds, ZERO income tax sounds better, and if it meant keeping more businesses healthy and local, and maybe bringing some back from China then wouldn't it be worth it? Well, that's it. Maybe that's too much. Oops.

Which reminds me of how worried I am about China not using their bicycles anymore and getting all polluted. I wish my knee weren't so bad and I could ride a bicycle. I was jealous of all the bicycles at the market yesterday. Lots of pretty flowers there, and lovely vegetables. Was a girl playing harp trying to sell CD's at $15 each, and a boy looked like he was drawing her picture, and down the block was a lady playing fiddle. Gotta watch out for those Toyota Priuses. They don't make any noise when they back up.

Can't Close Curtains

I popped into the living room with the big east-facing windows to pull the curains shut to keep the hot sun out to keep the temperature in the house comfortable, but when I got there, both the cats were sacked out in sunny spots and they looked so content, pretty, happy, comfortable... I just couldn't take their sun away. Maybe later. It cooled off last night, and I even had on a light jacket. Great. Had a wonderful sleep. HH is off on motorcycle to summer party of motorcycle gathering business. There is a winter gathering, also. This summer gathering is new this year, since one of the boys remarried and his new wife likes parties. Their wedding was a pretty good party, and after it was all over, I finally found out how that thing with the microphone and background music works. Karioke? I'm going to a party Sunday. But not as a guest. Oh-well. The Band is going to be the riparian entertainment. Hee hee. If you haven't seen the Keeping Up Appearances episode with the water-side picnic with riparian entertainment, then you don't understand why I'm being so silly.

Rise and Shine!

Hello! Good morning. It's time to be up and about. It is my intention every day to get up and 5 and be showered and dressed by 5:30, so I can go outside and play in the garden before it gets too hot, but every morning at 5 I'm sound asleep and usually quite surprised when my alarm goes off at 5:30. One step I'll have to take before actually getting up at 5 will be to reset my alarm clock. Before I do that I need to reset my internal clock so I can go to bed earlier. I was still up at 12:30 last night, and I'm a woman who functions better on 8 hours of sleep, but I was up at 5:35. It's just that this weather isn't conducive to sleep, is it? Well, I guess I've got half an hour. It's 8 o'clock and I'm just out of the shower. Well, I had to wake up, didn't I? And pack a lunch, and read my e-mail, and clean out the cat box, and feed the cats, and drink a cup of coffee, but I can go outside and play in the garden now. Bye-BYE!

Bit Hot Here

Went up to Portland yesterday. Car worked whole way up and whole way back, and got lousy mileage because HH 1) drove fast, and 2) had air conditioning on whole time. Clever boy HH, while DD and I were in checking out stringed instruments, changed a motormount. Didn't seem to take him more than 10 minutes. Isn't that awfully clever? We were in a hurry. MIL called while we were there, even though we'd told her where we were going, she wondered why weren't we back yet, and don't forget to stop by her house. About 3 hours later, we were back and stopped by her house. Brought all stringed instruments in MIL's house as car was about 140 degrees inside without air. Watched Ladies in Lavender, sad little story, but nice and pretty, and ate pizza. MIL's neighbor was also over, as MIL has central air, and her house was nice and cool. Also, neighbor likes looking after MIL, with her new knee and all. Neighbor's cat was also visiting, but headed for the under-bed when HH came in. Too many people to suit. Got gas on way home and only got 25mpg. Poo. Well, I suspect DD, while waiting in car for me while I run in for supplies at grocers, of turning it on and running air conditioner. Don't get good mileage doing that! Am looking forward to hearing stringed instrument playing.

Hanging Out

Ducati by Moonlight

Today as I was hanging out the clothes, I remembered when Old Cat was still young, and she still spent a lot of time outside. She's strictly inside now. Back then she would bring me presents and leave them for me under the clothesline. Do you know what a cat's idea of a present is? The answer is dead, often headless, small animals. I learned to survey the ground before actually coming out with a basket of clothes, because the basket hides the ground under foot.

Another thing I was thinking about were the little spiders and their prey that like to hang out in clothespins if you fail to bring them in from last week when you hung out the clothes. Today I surprised a spider munching on a half-eaten earwig. Why do earwigs climb clear up into the clotheslines? What are they looking for? Or are they just trying to get away from the other earwigs?

Fall in Street

My MIL is very independent, and wants to help others, and doesn't want her neighbors' cats to get lonesome when they go away, so even with her new knee, and her anemia, she still went over last night to babysit the neighbor's cat. Then the cat wanted out, but didn't want back in, so MIL had to leave her outside Saturday night. Sunday morning at 5:30 a.m. she was up and saw Cat waiting to be let in, so she used her cane and hobbled over across the street, but when she got there she couldn't work the locks to open the doors. She was feeling weak and dizzy. So she unsteadily headed back home, but only got about three feet into the street before she collapsed, and it was an hour she lay there calling weakly for help and assistance. Finally a neighbor spotted her out the window and called to her. She requested the paramedics, so there were ambulances and sirens and police, and three big burly guys picked her up and saw her home. Well, that scared the cat. MIL called us and we came right over and eventually Cat came out of hiding and even more eventually, cat went inside her house, where she has food and water and a cat box and toys. The food and water are in special dispensers that are supposed to hold up for a week, which is longer than neighbor will be gone. So there's our excitement for the day. MIL needed a few groceries, a few salves, and dinner, and a few chores done around the house. HH did the chores, I did the shopping, and we all did the dinner at some near by eating joint. That's three days in a row we've eaten out with MIL. She's feeling lonesome now her Sweetie has died.

Radio Movie

Last night HH (isn't he cute?) took me to see the Prarie Home Companion movie at The Darkside. Going there is always a treat, and the movie was a treat, too. I was enchanted by Meryl Streep's performance. Hee hee. Everyone was adorable. Since it was Saturday night at Davinci Days, I figured everyone would be there, but the theater was still full, after all these weeks. I'm so glad, because HH and DD had already seen it weeks ago when I was in Bend, and I didn't think I was going to get to see it. Seeing movies is a wonderful treat for me, and it's something my parents enjoyed over 60 years ago. They used to throw in a walk in Lithia Park and an ice cream from the soda fountain at Ashland Drug(?) along with the movie.

It seemed like the library was a popular place for parents meeting kids to give them a ride home after DaVinci Days. The concerts ended at 11, and DD had a wonderful time. She reported that she saw M Hippy's Thing 1 there. At first town seemed deserted, but the kids were there, and soon a line-up of cars was behind me to get their teenagers-without-cars. I had just arrived during a lull. They were like quail--easier to see once they started moving. There were the DD and friends, and a line-up of parents in cars to pick them up and bring them home.

Another Beautiful Day

I've never had an open roadster, but they are so fun to see. One of these just drove by my house. I heard a lovely engine noise purring along, and had to look, and this was what I saw. Isn't it cute? I used to want one of these, but having had a few interesting old British cars, I'm now more interested in having interesting old motorcycles, mostly British, but I like lots of kinds.

Do you wonder what interesting cars I've had? Well, let's start with me being a kid and living at home with Mom and Dad and The Brothers. My Dad did Not buy an MG/TD. After that, he Did buy, 3 (I think it was 3) Morris Minors. The first car I ever drove was a Morris Minor. Aren't they adorable? Dad bought several fascinating cars. Most impressive to me was the 1960 MKII Jaguar sedan. Oh! That was so pretty, even the engine was beautiful! He bought a 1950-something Porsche, I can never remember if it's 1957 or 1958. I got to drive it when the Jaguar was in the shop. And when I wasn't driving either of those, I got to drive a 1964 Lincoln Continental with the suicide doors. I could see exactly where the 4 corners of the car were. I now see how horribly wasteful it was, when all 5 of us could fit in a Morris Minor (tight quarters with 3 teenagers in the back seat) to travel around in the Lincoln. I think he'd gotten rid of all the Morrises by then. (He didn't ask me for permission). I guess he was tired of paying insurance on so many cars. But that Lincoln only seemed to get about 4 miles to the gallon. Might as well have been driving a bus! One of his funnest cars, and one I never got to drive, was a DKW. That was a super-cutie.

I would have liked a 2CV, but never got one. HH and I ended up buying Dad's Jaguar, which we sold when money was tight. Later, things picked up, and HH bought the cutest little Metropolitan, a 1957. It went well with his 1957 Chevy pickup, which he still has. No, it's not a Comanche. He also got an early 60's though I've forgotten the year now, Studebaker Avanti. Was it from 1964? Might have been. Is that three? No, I'm leaving out the 1949/50 (Oh, Dear! Was it a Mk IV or a Mk V? It was a Jaguar sedan and had suicide doors, too. It was so cute! But what good were all those cute old cars when they were just a lot of work and broke all the time, except the Metropolitan, which HH decided was unsafe for DD. What a fun car that was! But mostly, it's fun to see old cars in the possession of Other People.

Yesterday I got a card in the mail with my name on it that says I'm a member in an antique motorcycle club. Isn't that fun? I'm sort of in two of them, because I get tag-along benefits of HH's memberships. It's more fun to own old motorcycles than it is to own old cars, and they're more fun to fix when they break, and they don't take up so much room, and they're more fun to use. And they aren't all old. And we meet very interesting people. I know, some people like boats, and some people like airplanes, and some people like cars, but we like motorcycles.

Midterm....I Passed

I was so worried. I couldn't remember anything and was struggling with the practice review questions, but figured I'd better go take the test, since I was out of time, and I'd really really really be behind if I put off taking the test any longer, and was so relieved when I got the written part, all the questions were the easiest ones from the review test, and I got two wrong on the review, and two wrong on the test. That's because I'd run out of time to check the review answers, so didn't know I'd gotten them wrong. Whew! I got A's, too. There were two tests. I got 92% on one and 96% on the other. Yippee! It was fortunate that there was no time deadline on how long you spent taking the test, since I made mistakes I had to fix, and fixing mistakes always takes up lots of time. Now I'm all caught up and current and right on schedule, at least until Monday.

Today I have to do a couple things to help out my MIL, and then I can catch up around here. Yikes! I don't even want to talk about it.

Boy, do I ever want some coffee?

Concert in Park

Good morning. Last night the Hilltop Band played in Central Park, and even though there had been rain earlier in the day, and the grass was damp, and it was a little cool, there was still an audience. What fun to live in Corvallis, which has Central Park and a Gazebo, and band concerts. Last night's concert was Latin music, with a very fun rhythm section and a fast paced Tico Tico, which the saxaphones performed admirably. M Hippy told me someone was referring to the band as The Doctor Band, because not only are there some doctors in the band, but they perform at doctor fundraisers. I don't know how wide-spread that moniker is, but I like it. The community band also has a lot of doctors, so it could also be known as the doctor band? Then when people say, "Oh, is that the doctor band?" other people could say, "Which one?" Ha ha. Well, it's time to go. Nice chatting with you. Bye.

School is Hard

It's a good thing I signed up for a beginner type class, because I am struggling so hard in there. What do the questions mean? There are usually many ways to interpret a question, and I don't want to ask the teacher everytime, because she would soon become annoyed with me, I am sure, so I try to figure things out on my own. That works OK, except I'm so so so so so slllllooooowwwwwwwww. I'll be lucky if I can finish the class before it's over. I am trying very hard. I'm just not used to thinking in the ways I'm supposed to for the class, and I'm quite sure that's all good for my brain to have to think in new ways.

Salem

Last night we heard from the memory care center where my MIL's SO was being looked after. They said if we wanted to see him alive we'd better hurry up there, so we did, and he responded when he heard Mom's voice, opened his eyes, then he shut them and went to sleep and died. It was very peaceful. Hospice was there.

Collections of.....of What?

We all know what the Incredibly Cute HH has a collection of, but I am wondering, now that I've gotten rid of my map collection, what I have collections of, besides letters from my father? I know I have a rather large collection of those, because after throwing away most of the letters I had from other people and regretting it, I kept almost all of the letters from my dad, and he wrote to me nearly every day for six years and a month, except Saturday and Sunday. He used to write on Saturday, too. So, I've got a letter collection. And now I have some of the letters that I wrote to him, too.

I don't think I have any collections that would fill a barn, or even a U-Haul truck, but I may have unsuspectingly collected something besides letters. I like tea cups and have a few, but doesn't everyone? Is a few a collection? If I had a pretty cupboard to put them in, I'd have more, but my house is too small for a pretty cupboard. I wanted to collect spoons, but didn't really get very far with that, and then I lost half of the few I had, so I don't think you can call 3 a collection. I've got a feeling, though, that there's something lurking darkly in the closets and cupboards around the house here. I'm still working on the files, so I won't be discovering anything just this week, or I don't think so, anyway. Meanwhile, I'm going to tell myself I must be quite virtuous because I haven't found a collection that would fill either a barn or a truck. I have some books I could get rid of, now I think about it. My mom always told me that libraries are for holding book collections, and one isn't required at home, but I'll keep some, of course.

Only a Few

Yesterday we went to a picnic and antique motorcycle ride thing. HH went on the ride, and I stayed behind watching the picnic tables being towed by a pickup truck, a tie-down strap, and a team of two Very Handy Guys. One drove the pickup truck, and the other lassoed tables with a motorcycle tie-down strap and hitched them to the bumper, and towed them to our selected site until they had enough tables to seat everyone when they got back from the ride. One of the guys then barbecued the hot dogs and Polish sausages. A couple friendly policemen had stopped by earlier and actually TOLD us it was OK for us to move the tables, because until then we thought we couldn't.

The point is, that while some people were riding, other people chatted, and during the chatting I discovered that there was a motorcycle dynasty there that bought motorcycles and never ever sold them, or at least never sold them until they gave up on that particular kind of motorcycle. The young wife of one of the dynasty thought there were maybe 150 motorcycles, but the patriarch told me later there were probably twice that many. So comparatively, my dear HH just barely has any motorcycles.

Getting Organized

Hello hello hello. It's another beautiful day. I can't wait to get started, so I guess I'll cut this short. The idea is for me to get organized and for DD to get organized, and then we'll really start getting things done around here! Yaaaaaaaa! (But we won't rush.) HH is planning to eventually sell the red bike since he bought the black bike, which is the one that left him stranded yesterday.

Expected Unexpected

This morning, after a night of not being able to sleep, I slept in. The phone awakened me at 6:45 a.m. It was the Handsome Husband, wanting to be picked up in front of Gold's Gym. Luckily he broke down near some phones and not out in the boonies. He takes the scenic route to work. Breakdowns are what is to be expected when a person rides a 1942 bike to work that hasn't been thoughouly gone through yet. He told me that he thought the magneto quit working. Anyway, I picked him up and we went home to get the trailer-in-a-bag, then came back and got the bike loaded up. I was trusted to fit the ramp to the back of the trailer. We brought back the 1942, and he took the 1983? trusty bare naked Gold Wing to work. I think it's a 1983. It came after the 1979 Harley Davidson and the 1981? Suzuki GS 1100. Oh! I did like that Suzuki!! Fun. But HH said it needed a radiator (it was air-cooled), so he bought the Gold Wing, and that has been the Most Wonderful Bike. It has many many many many miles on it, and that's with barely being ridden now days, with all the other stable of bikes around. Did I count 7 or 8? I can only think of 7. The one he rode to work today was the oldest. He's such an exciting guy! What's he going to do next?

Here's Another Day

I've got to hurry and get ready. It was back to work for HH, so I got up at 5:30 so I could see him before he left at 6:30. He rode the new 1942 motorcycle to work. It's the first time I looked at it much. This is only the 2nd bike we've gone into debt for, and the first bike, we had a loan for a new roof and used some of the money to buy a motorcycle. All his other bikes he saved up for before buying. He said he's wanted a 45 flathead ever since 1979 when he bought a shovelhead and he rode it out to see his Dad and his Dad asked him why he bought that piece of junk and told him how reliable his old 45 was back in the 1930's.

On to the next thing now, which is driving his mom to the doctor's. I really think she's getting better every day, and yesterday she did take a stab at doing her exercises. She's supposed to do them 3-4 times a day, and a MINIMUM of 2 times. Her flag is up still from yesterday. I am hoping she'll leave it up today, too. Maybe HH can go over tonight to bring it in for her.

Speaking of HH, he wrote a list of errands he didn't get around to doing. Besides those, I get to go back to school today. Maybe my paper will be graded and I can look at it and see how I did. I hope she doesn't say I should do it over. I did my best, and I might do it better each time, but I would be pretty insulted if my best wasn't up to snuff. I'm actually hoping I did well.

Not Very Holidayesque

All my relatives, outside HH and DD and cousin Rita will be at Lithia Park in Ashland for July 4, but I'm not going to be there. I don't feel like being there, and I don't feel like being here, and I don't feel like playing in the community band--two concerts. First one is in Central Park and 2nd is at Waterfront Park at 9:30 p.m., which is past my bedtime. DD, who has boundless energy and likes to stay up until 2, wants me to give her a ride home after the fireworks. I'm wearing my navy high water pants, and would wear my navy shirt if I could find it. Right now I'm wearing pink. Not very 4th-like, and guaranteed to clash with everyone else's red. If I play in the band I can wear my white CCBand shirt.

HH has a sinus infection that is bugging him. I don't know just what he'll feel up to doing. Yesterday he and I put his mom's awnings up. We were really late this year, but she has air conditioning, and likes heat anyway, so I think she was pretty content to wait until we got a chance to do it. She has that new knee, and doesn't feel like doing the exercises to limber it up and make it work, because it hurts. While we were there the Physical Therapist came and checked on her and lectured her about doing the exercises. When we left, HH told her to do her exercises, and she said she'd start tomorrow. Hmmmm.

Mrs. Staggs sent me the most beautiful package from Merryville, with forget-me-nots and a birds nest on the beautiful label, and more forget-me-nots, lovely soap and wonderful hand-stamped cards in a gorgeous hand-stamped box inside. If I get a picture I'll put it here. Everyone is so good at the pictures thing.