Exciting Day


OK, 2 blogs in a row. Well, for a change I had quite an exciting day. Not all good either.--

On top of the excitement I have to share in the bulk of this blog Rick broke a tooth at lunch and had to have an emergency visit to the dentist. They put a temporary crown on it. So for the next 2 weeks or so he'll be a little tender, unless he can get them to fix the temporary crown to fit better.--

Now, back to my excitement. I woke up with plans to work outside. When I got up at about 9 it was all of 35º outside. It would have to wait. So I played around on my computer and by 11:30 it was up to about 47º so I headed out. It wasn't bad.--

I started weeding and trimming, readying my front yard for the winter. Leaves had already been raked into piles and the yard waste was all loaded onto a tarp and dragged out into the woods.--

After a couple hours I heard a woman scream. Then, about 5 minutes later I heard a man yell. He yelled again. And again. He could have been saying "Help!", I couldn't make it out. Then I decided to see if I could find out where it was coming from but it quit. I ran into a couple other neighbors who were also concerned. But it had stopped. Then all of a sudden, there it was again! This time I could tell where it was coming from and that it didn't involve words. Sharon (our local Gladys Kravitz) invited me into her back yard and we discovered it was the kid next door to her. We scolded him and told him he nearly got the cops at his front door!

So, mystery solved, I went back to work on my yard. I was nearly 75% done I'd say and maybe 15 minutes after I got back to work I heard a siren come screaming into the neighborhood. That was very unusual, they normally turn off their sirens once they turn off of the main drag, Auburn-Black Diamond Road.--

They were on the other side of the block, then turned onto the street headed toward me and stopped before they got to the corner. It wasn't the cops answering a 911 call about the yelling people down the street.
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I have 2 friends living on that street and there are only about 5 houses so there's always a good chance if an emergency vehicle stops on that street that it's going to one of my friends' house. So I always snoop. Sure 'nuff, it was stopped in front of the Haydens' house. And it was a fire truck.--

My first thoughts were that it was Kevin, the husband, and that he'd had another heart attack. I'm always scared that I'll see that again some day. The other neighbor I know on that street, Steve, also recently had a heart attack. But this time it was no heart attack. It was a fire.--

I got there and Mary and the neighbor, Steve, were outside Mary's house by her car. Turns out Mary had turned on a burner on her stove, maybe to boil water, and left the kitchen to go lay down, go to the bathroom, whatever. After a few minutes she heard something and, returning to the kitchen, she found it in flames. She heard the flames.--

She had turned on the wrong burner, she turned on the one with the pan full of grease sitting on it.--

Somehow she got Steve over there and he tried unsuccessfully to douse the fire. He decided they should get out when the smoke was so thick he couldn't see his own hand 2 feet in front of him.
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So the firemen got there, put the fire out, aired out the house, sprayed more water and left. The smoke was so thick and black. It came out from all the vents under the eaves, the whole length of the house. My guess is that everything in that house was ruined, either from smoke or water. It'll probably have to be gutted.--

I told Mary that all will be OK. She told me that she loved me.

Blog Time



OK, I guess this is gonna be the new way to blog - wait a while and recap. Better than nothing. Occasionally there will be special events that merit their own special blogs but otherwise - this is what you get!--



As Rick mentioned in one of his latest blogs I am just over a cold, most likely the swine flu. While I was sick he did some investigation and found that most people sick at that time had the swine flu. It was definitely a flu and that's what's out there now. But since we don't all run to the doc the minute we are ill they have no way to tell exactly what the statistics are, only what they can collect from those who are going to the doc. It was a typical flu, chills, aches, etc, etc. Only one week long, then a week of just yucks to follow and now a residual cough and asthma.--

Cookie was ill at the same time and I know that cats are often susceptible to the same illnesses we get so - who knows? I did end up taking her to the vet due to bumps all over her head. The vet determined she had an allergy to her food. The thought had crossed my mind because I had just started her on a new bag. So I got an antibiotic that I never got to give her but she's back to her old self now. She's still not exactly adjusted to her new non-allergenic food though. They also ran a test for a cat ailment, Bartonella, which can cause "cat scratch disease" in people. It is very prevalent in cats and causes problems all their life but is easily treatable with a 21 day dose of an inexpensive antibiotic. So she's on the mend for that as well, her test came back a strong positive.--

Our woodstove project is moving forward. This week we moved the stove into its new place and got the stovepipe through the ceiling. We hope to get the chimney pipe up and through the roof this week and be enjoying a warm house this weekend!--


Attempting to do this project as a team has caused lots of problems that we needed to iron out. I think last night we finally got to the root of the problem and how to solve it - communicate! Strange, but that almost always seems to be the solution!--

Monday we'll have another family member back in our midst - Rach's ex, Tony, from Cincinnati. After moving out there, trying to reconnect with his Ohio family and friends he realized that he was happier here. So, after finally getting his jeep to him and finalizing their divorce in June, he's on his way back. Maybe not to be remarried to Rach, but he'll always be family. She's flying to Kansas City to meet him and help him drive out. They plan to stop in Utah and visit my brother, Mark, on the same day that Rick and I visited last year - November 1!--

I've been looking for work and went on an interview this week. I'm looking for something that will be part time, close by and hopefully fun, or at least not awful. I interviewed to be a floral merchandiser at the nearby Covington Costco. Close, fun, but definitely NOT part time. It's actually 7 days a week! I think I would have gotten the job too, the guy really seemed to like me and kept making comments about things he saw in me during our conversation that were good for the job. He'll keep my name in mind, he said, to suggest to whomever he hires to maybe consider as a backup, to work a couple days a week so they can have some time off. That would be ok.--

Rick's cousin's husband, Danny, is actually an Alaska resident and works there often. This year was no different, he was there for months building bridges. He also did some fishing - very successful fishing! He sent pictures of a salmon trip they did where they caught 94 great, big salmon! He also brought home to Chehalis halibut, clams and scallops. They have a party every year and this year they shared their seafood bounty with friends. We looked forward to the event for months. We got to the house and the table was set with about 30 bottles of wine. There was finger food and Danny was in his element, grilling tons of food. Though I'm not typically a seafood lover I did try everything and it was all delicious. I even asked for seconds of the scallops and was too late, they were gone! No wonder, they were yummy. But about 20 miles into our 75 mile drive out there I discovered I forgot my inhaler and by about 8:30 I was done, all I could do was sit on the couch. We regrettably headed home. It was a great party, I schmoosed with just about everyone there, even the quiet older guy with the Einstein hair. We got home and were in bed about an hour later, I guess my request to come home was actually a timely one.--

I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out what is holding Keith back, why he stays up all night and sleeps all day. Why he doesn't go job-hunting and why, in view of all the above, he's so unhappy. In a conversation with Rick the other day we came up with a possible explanation that I wasn't seeing. He may follow in the family tendency of being depressed! Hey! I can do something about that! When I asked him if he thought that may be a possiblility he agreed. So I'm going to start him on a treatment of St. John's Wort. It would be nice for the old happy, talkative Keith to be back! He stopped talking back in middle school.--

So, unless something big happens, it looks like you can expect to see my next blog on your front porch in about 2 weeks!

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!


My son Denny and his family live about 5 doors down the street. Last week Denny called me to go down and make sure everything was OK. A disaster nearly happened but was averted - thankfully.--

Last winter Denny was getting to know his newly purchased house and one thing that was giving them problems were the heaters. Most didn't work so they had to use space heaters.
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Hunter is becoming a big boy and has graduated to a toddler bed instead of a crib and so, at nap time, when he's not real tired will get up and play. Sometimes they find him sleeping in the closet. This day he was exploring. He climbed on his toy box and turned the thermostat for his heater, played a while more and went to sleep.
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In spite of their opinion that the heater in Hunter's room didn't work, it came on. Because they were under the impression that it didn't work they arranged the room with his bed directly in front of the heater. When the heater decided to work it began to scorch the finish on the crib. The room began to fill with smoke with Hunter sleeping in it.
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Fortunately, Rach's ex, Tony, was fixing some of the electrical problems in the house and installed smoke detectors according to code - one in each bedroom and one just outside each bedroom door. Heather was in the other end of the house and heard the smoke alarm in Hunter's room going off. So she was able to get him out and he was safe. This is when Denny called and asked me to go down and double check that things were OK.
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I checked to see if the breaker was off for that heater, thought it was and proceeded to set up fans to remove the smoke. Turns out it wasn't the correct breaker but now that everyone was aware that the heater did indeed work, they made the necessary changes so the baby couldn't turn it on again.--

Thanks so much, Tony, for putting all those smoke alarms up. The tragedy that could have happened would have been great and it would have been a complete accident.
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So be sure you have those smoke alarms working, like it or not.--

Birds


So - just how smart are birds?--

I have a bird feeder in my back yard as I've mentioned in many previous blogs. I get all the little birds as well as a few larger ones including blue jays and recently - pigeons.--

The pigeons are not very welcome as they're large birds, hence they eat a lot and usually come in large numbers, a double whammy you might say. The group I get can number about 12 at most. That's much too much. When they started coming around more frequently I started shooing them away. All it usually takes is for me to open the door and they quickly flutter off into the nearby trees.--


One morning after not having had the pigeons around for a while Rick noticed blue jay squawking coming from someplace other than out by the feeder. As he went to the back door to see where it was he noticed a pigeon at the feeder - and the blue jays were sitting on our outdoor furniture right next to the back door!--


I'll ask again: "How smart are birds?"--


Normally the blue jays are also easily frightened off by a simple opening of the door. So what prompted these guys to come right to the door to squawk and bring our attention to the fact that there were the uninvited pigeons at the feeder once again? --

Maybe they were tattling. I think they're a lot smarter than we realize.

About Me

My photo
After 2 unsuccessful marriages I spent 12 years as a divorcee, only to fall prey to another man's wiles. We had a fun 5 years together and then he decided he wanted more freedom so once again I'm single.

So I'm freshly divorced at 57 and have 5 great kids and now 7 grandkids. My kids are still a major part of my life but I'm busy helping my aging parents on Kauai.

I've lived in California, Hawaii and Oklahoma before finally settling here in Washington. I love Washington and come back to visit family, friends and take care of my garden often but will be temporarily a resident of Kauai.

I've moved 30 times in my life (no, my parents weren't in the service, at least not since I was about 2) and finally planted roots when I got my little house that I've owned since '91.

My family are Jehovah's Witnesses, I've been one since '72.