He is Risen

The Easter weekend has come to an end and it is worth commenting on here. It was quite active and we got nothing done.

The weather was fabulous all weekend. It's our first taste of Spring that gave an inkling of Summer to come. I spent most of my day working in the yard. I have a lot of branch clean up to do, left over from last Fall.

This is one of the areas I need to devote some time to. Thankfully, this lattice shields the ugliness behind.

This is the ugliness behind. I cannot even tell you how this got so bad. It just did!

While I was back in this little cubby hole surveying the damage, I noticed something much worse in the potential department.

We might have a skunk again. I did see one the other night...in fact, the night before I discovered this digging. I'm going to be setting a trap soon. If I catch it, I'm going to cover the hole and then release it. I don't have time to transport it out to my favorite skunk transfer spot.

Susan has been working on Easter Projects all week. She was in charge of snack food after the Easter Service at church and she always goes overboard. 

She spent most every night this past week creating these eggs. She blew out the innards and dyed them and them meticulously decorated them. She easily spent a total of an hour per egg.

The other big overboard item she came up with is her traditional Bunny Cake. It seems to me she makes one every year. The picture below is one she made for Easter in 2002. That might actually be the first one she made.

Anyway, I dispense that information only to say that I did not get a picture of this years Bunny Cake. But you get the idea.

I could have gotten a picture of this years Bunny Cake...before I dropped it on its way to the car. 

I was carrying it carefully down the steps when I missed a step and went to the pavement. I scraped a hole in my slacks and smeared chocolate all over the sleeve of my camel hair sport coat. The bow tie took the brunt of the damage. 

One can imagine Susan's reaction to the news that her cake was now on the sidewalk. "What!" she exclaimed in a very loud, very high pitched banshee wail.

I was clearly very apologetic and very upset at pulling such a lame and stupid move, so her anger subsided quickly and she went to work fixing the damage. I don't think anyone ate any gravel that day...but I can't be 100 percent sure.

We spent the next couple of hours helping out with Meals on Wheels. Our church and another partnered to cook and deliver an Easter Meal, which they don't normally do. We put out and delivered over 300 meals.

We finished up the day with a group from church at Das Stein Haus. We watched the Louisville Basketball Game where Kevin Ware totally broke his tibia in two. We were all busy chatting so had no idea it had happened. I still haven't seen the replay and don't really care to. I'm sure it will go down in the annals of television sports history as one of the worst documented injuries on film. 

But we had some beers and some food.

Super Pops Saturday

There is nothing productive going on around the house concerning the remodeling of the house. We are in the thick of March Madness and that seems to be a convenient excuse to use as to why we are doing other little things. 

Also, we had a major malfunction on our main TV which means we have no flat screen upon which to watch the games.

We have arranged for TV George to come over tomorrow (we hope) to see if the TV is worth saving. It's a good TV with a great picture but it has a few miles on it. Therefore, it may be cheaper to buy something new. We shall see.

In the meantime, we are going out tonight to see the Spokane Symphony. Our friends, Randy and Karen have provided the tickets and so we are providing the dinner. Hopefully, the place we are going will have televisions showing the Gonzaga game, who barely escaped with their lives from their first round game against Number 15 seeded Southern University.

11:38PM: We have just returned from our evening out. Gonzaga has no more lives. They lost! They are done! Finished!

What surprises me is how upset I am over this. I'm not a huge fan of the sports games. I like sports and I like to support the local teams but I do not seek out sports. The Sports page is not my first or even second stop with the morning paper.

Nonetheless, I am bummed out! I think it has to do with the inherent inferiority complex Spokane has. We don't expect national attention and when we get it, we don't know what to do with it. 

On a brighter note, we went to an amazing concert tonight. It was the Super Pops version of the Spokane Symphony. It's a smaller orchestra and more oriented to popular music. The music wa excellent and performing with them was a troupe called Cirque Musica. They were very similar to Cirque de Soile. Hand stands, walking on ropes, hanging from sheets, trick ropes and whips and balancing on a bongo board atop three rolling canisters atop an eight foot platform. Really amazing stuff and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Saturday and Begorah

'Tis a luvely day on th' Pairk. I'm trying to create text with a lilting Irish baroque. Not working? Let's move on!

We slept in today and when we got up, we took our coffees and got in the hot tub. Susan's knee is still bugging her a bit and that was therapeutic. After getting out, it took me forever to stop sweating. That's probably T.M.I.

We have lots of little jobs to do around the house today so we are dedicating ourselves to those and leaving the messy work of sanding the ceiling in the living room for tomorrow.

Let's see how we do!

5:08 PM: Cleaned the yard...wait, that's not right! Raked some leaves, learned how to fix a pane of leaded glass in our book case, chopped some wood, had a piano lesson, racked some beer, did some laundry, and slightly sanitized Norman World. He's still with us and still swimming upside down...on occasion.

7:51 PM: Susan is working her catering job tonight and I am mincing about doing this and that. More this than that, actually.

I think I'll go do some that now!

Return to Reality

Nothing is open on Mondays in Wallace so we drove to Kellogg for some breakfast. I had an Waffles and Susan had an French Toasts. 

Susan's knee was quite a bit stiffer and more painful this morning so we decided to just head for home. We got to the house before noon. 

Susan called her Doctor and got an appointment to be seen. It turns out, she sprained it or pulled it or did something to it. Take Ibuprofen and go easy. Pretty much what she thought they would say.

So now we are winding down our three day weekend and preparing to return to the world.

But first, we are leaving shortly for the No-Li Brewery to watch the WCC Championship game between the Gonzaga Bulldogs and the St. Mary's Fighting Nunnery. I'll post the results when we return.

Gonzaga Won! Number One Ranked Team in the Nation!

Fabulous Birthday Ski Weekend for 50% of Us

I am writing from the comfort of the Hercules Inn, our little oasis of comfort and pleasure in Wallace, Idaho. As I write this, it is almost five o'clock on the first day of Daylight Savings Time Sunday.

We are on Day Two of three day weekend of skiing at Lookout Pass.

We left home Saturday about 10:30 and took a leisurely drive to Wallace. It takes about an hour and 20 minutes to get here. We stopped and checked in to the Hercules. We off loaded the stuff we didn't need and then took off for the mountain, arriving to find a great parking spot. We ate some sandwiches that Susan made from the comfort of our great parking spot and got on the lift just before one. We managed nine runs before they kicked us off the lifts. 

It was a great day for me and Susan enjoyed most of it until she caught an edge and fell and kind of screwed up her knee.

Then it was the 15 minute drive back to our apartment and HOT TUBBIN'!

We got ourselves together and went out to the 1313 Club where we enjoyed dinner while watching the Gonzaga Bulldogs (Ranked Number One in the Nation of the these United States of America where Gonzaga is Number One) defeat the Fancy Boys of LMU by a comfortable amount.

We returned to our little hideaway and vegged.

We slept in until about 8:30ish and meandered our way to the Red Light Garage for breakfast. The couple that owns the Hercules Inn also owns and operates the Red Light Garage. 

We had a great breakfast and had fun looking at all the nicknacks around the restaurant. The Pianola shown above is one of the nacks. The space ship out front is a nick.

The sun was shining and the sky was clear blue when we arrived. We headed for the top and skied the front of the mountain for a few runs. Unfortunately, Susan caught another edge and screwed up her other knee. She skied a total of five runs before taking a break...which ended up being the end of her day. She's kind of limping right now. 

She graciously insisted that I keep skiing and so I did. I skied another four runs before taking a bar break. After a quick beer, I returned to the slopes while Susan went to the car for a nap. I skied six runs in just over an hour. I was really going for it. 

It's the first time I have skiied by myself in a long time. I really enjoyed it and took advantage of the ability to try whatever run I want to whenever the moment (or Run) struck me.I was trying to make as many turns per run as I could. That really got my thighs burning. Then I found a great spot where I could just let loose and go. 

The advent of GPS technology has allowed me the fun of tracking how fast I go. I started doing this several years ago. It's fun when you're with a bunch of guys to see who can go the fastest.

My first attempt today got me up to 35 mph. When I got to the spot at the bottom of a run called Cloud 9 where I could let go and fly, I got up to 55. On Lucky Run Number 13, I hit 60.2 mph. 

At 56, I'm not sure how smart it is to be going faster on skis than my age.  But I've never been accused of being a member of Mensa!

I ended up skiing 18 runs which is a very number for me. I consider it a good day of skiing. Other than Susan's knee issue, it was a GREAT weekend of skiing. It was pretty inexpensive too. Our passes for skiing were free and we brought a lot of our own food.

The above picture shows a little party going on down in the parking lot. It also shows my great parking spot on Day Two. I'm five cars down from the end. We just walked right on to the lift.

6:57PM: We have just returned from dinner. We found a new place to go, which is always very exciting. The place is called the City Limits Pub and Grill. It's a very rustic place located in an old produce warehouse just outside of the downtown area of Wallace.

They are a Micro Brew Pub and they have a pretty good menu. We liked it a lot.

"Sixty Minutes" is on now and that begins our Sunday Night 
Veg n'View routine. 

Good day!

Lazy Multi-Tasking Saturday

We are fresh out of the hot tub after a semi productive day working in and around the house. 

Our semi productive day began with sleeping in until 9:45. That was sweet! Then we had to dodge our local representative of Jehovah who stopped by to witness to us, as he does every few weeks. That occurred in the middle of a stunning scrambled egg breakfast.

Most of the morning was spent preparing for the Living Room work. We bought a new big sheet of plastic to put up between the Dining Room and Living Room. A mostly futile attempt to contain the dust from the drywall sanding.

While Susan was at the store getting the plastic and other stuff, I did a little yard clean up...not much. Just enough to fill the garbage can with leaves.

I had to leave at 1:00 to go to my piano lesson. Yup, you read right. I've started taking piano lessons. I wanted to play the piano more and this seemed to be the only way to make it happen. Problem is, I've got a ton of bad habits to unlearn.

I never really learned to sight read. I just practiced a bar until I got it memorized and then went on. Now I'm trying to play without looking at the keys. That means I can't play any of the songs I've known by memory for years. I have to look at the keys in order to play them. This is going to be tough.

I got back about 3 and got changed and got to work being helpful. Susan had already gotten a lot of the sanding done. It created quite a mess. I kept sanding while she began re-mudding. She's much better at it than I am.

While working, we listened to the last regular season game for the Gonzaga Bulldogs. They handily won against Portland and ended their season with a record of 27-2. It is very possible that they will be ranked Number One nationally on Monday. All the cards have fallen into place for this potential ranking.

So we spent a few hours on the Living Room and are not at all happy with the results. It's going to take a lot of meticulous work to get us satisfied with a nice smooth ceiling.

So we quit working around five and got in the hot tub. Ahhhh! That feels nice.

Susan had fired up the Crock Pot at the beginning of the day and her efforts yielded a tasty chili. We both had two bowls.

The Washington State B High School Basketball Championship was scheduled to start at 9. Defending Champion Colfax was going up against the St. George's Dragons. I am a graduate of that fine institution and felt compelled to see the game. we considered going down to the Arena to watch but opted for better seats at the Hub.

St George's won their first State Championship! Pretty cool!

We walked home from the Hub as the clock approached 11:00. We tried to watch SNL but I faded quickly.

I should add that I received my Business License from the State.  I think I filed back in November. Jeez, what a night mare to become legit. That's right! We're going to start selling pot!

No, I got a business license in order to properly operate my business of Susan and I painting windows for businesses.

Norman continues to swim with the fishes, he just does it upside down most of the time.

Val Day

It's Valentine's Day. We had a wonderful Valentine's Dinner.

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday so Lent has started. That means Susan and I are following the South Beach diet. No alcohol for two weeks, lots of protein, no carbs.

Dinner was two barbequed steaks, some lemon green beans and cauliflower processed to the consistency of mashed potatoes. Yum!

Plus jello for dessert. Yum!

By the way, Norman is floating right side up again...at least for today!

Norman Update Part One

We are on a death watch for about the nintieth time. Norman the giant deformed goldfish has been looking like this for a couple of days.

He has looked like this before and lived on...so we're not too terribly concerned this time. However, Norman's passing will be relief and a blessed event. 

It's not that we won't miss him. I don't want to come off as insensitive. But he is a fish. He's not cuddly or affectionate on anything. He swims and he shits. 

So we will miss him, but not a lot.

Once again, he's pulled this before.

Norman started out life as a tiny little feeder fish. Susan got him for me when we first started going out. That means Norman is around 13. I wasn't sure how many years a goldfish lives. Suffice it to say, at least thirteen.

We had to keep moving him to larger and larger tanks as he grew and then outgrew his environment. He now resides in a thirty gallon tank that we borrowed from a friend about five years ago. We certainly didn't think we would need to borrow the aquarium this long.

I'll update as needed!

Super Bowl Flu Day

I started coming down with it on Wednesday night. I knew Thursday was going to be unpleasant at work and I was right. I made it until 10. Then I went home sick.

I slept most of the day. I wasn't feeling horrible. In fact, I really had a hard time trying to pin down what my ailments were. I was stuffy and had a runny noses but no headache. I was kind of sore but not achy. I didn't feel bad enough to stay in bed but not good enough to be at work. 

Friday was a scheduled vacation day that I spent in bed. I was feeling better towards the end of the day but not good enough to go to the Hub for a beer...as Susan wanted. She did mention she felt she might be coming down with whatever I had. 

It overtook her during the night. She woke up about 12:30AM with the flu. I can pretty distinctly remember that I felt pretty good at 7:30AM on Saturday.

Even now, late on Sunday night, I'm not 100% back. Of course, I didn't start the decline at 100%. Let's say I started at 85%. Right now, I'm at 75%.
Anyway, we stayed home today and watched XLVII. It turned out to be a good game, despite the power loss.

As for any work being done on the house, it was a wasted weekend.

Sanding Round One

We finally got back to work in the Living Room. We started the dreaded sanding portion of the project. This is Round 1 as we have more plastering to do. 

We tried a new method that was recommended by one of my construction gurus at church. Wet sanding! I took a block of wood and stapled a piece of terry cloth to it. Then you just wrap it around the block and get it pretty wet. Not so it's drippy but almost. It works really well on the mud over the screw holes. not quite as well on the tape. The mud saturates the cloth quickly so you have to rinse it out a lot. The nice thing about this is there is very little dust.

The main problem we had was that we are old. We both got a little nauseous up on the ladder, looking straight up while sanding. Susan is napping right now to try and work off the nausea. I'm not feeling great yet but I'm feeling well enough to consider opening a beer.

I will say this. To the boys on Itineras who were smart enough to get out of their life time remodeling project and onto the water, get bent!

Saturday in Suburbia - Does Living in Spokane Count as "Suburbia"?

It is early evening as I sit down at the computer and begin this post. The plan is that what you are about to read is compelling, humorous and indicative of what can occur when words are put together in no particular order with no particular agenda.

It's a sloppy January day in Spokaloo and Susan and I enjoyed it to the best of our poor time management ablities. I started the morning by watching a bunch of PBS Home Improvement shows without performing any actual home improvement. Then I went out to the Carriage House to sand some living room trim as well as perform some secret security work. (I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to talk about the secret security work as it involves some security matters and the secrets surrounding it/them.)

I managed to completely sand the trim pieces and get a coat of stain on them.

My victory for the day was finding my cell phone that I lost about three weeks ago. I had just charged it up and put it in a pocket on my backpack. All of the sudden, it was gone.

I found it on the edge of the driveway by the Arbor Vitae, kind of up against a little chunk of snow. It was off when I lost it so I was hopeful it would be okay. I am pleased to report that it appears to be okay. Yea!

I'm brutal on phones and cameras.

Mud Day!

Mudding and taping continued today and we got through it. We had some issues with our Venetian Plaster walls and Susan did some touch up work which we hope will suffice. There is still a lot of sanding in our future. Then more mudding. Then more sanding. 

And so it goes.

Weekend of Mud

It's Saturday and there is a lot to accomplish. So what better way to start the day than to sleep until 9:30. Then a big hearty breakfast of Biscuits and Gravy. Now you have the stamina and strength to work through the day.

Susan got to work taping and mudding the ceiling in the living room while I did everything I could to avoid taping and mudding. I'm not very good at it and Susan is like a Mudding Savant.

I accomplished some secret security work and then defrosted the freezer. 

Susan got about half the ceiling done before she called it a day.

Then we met Mark at Jack and Dan's Tavern for some Gonzaga Basketball. The Bulldogs of Gonzaga played the Bulldogs of Butler in the Butler ZepplinDome. It turned out to be one of the closest and best games I've ever seen...although the Zags came up short by one point in the last six seconds.

Afterwards, we returned home and vegged with a DVD Movie, "Flight". It was okay...not great. The plane crash portion of the movie was pretty intense. Then the relationship portion took over and stalled.

Dry Wall Friday

It is another Friday off for me and today I must try and get something accomplished. Last week, I went skiing on Friday. While I think I accomplished something, Susan may not necessarily feel the same.

So my goal today is to get the living room ceiling dry walled. For too long it has looked like this.

I'll bet it has been three years since we put up those support  strips, which we in the business call "Furring". So, I was hoping that by the end of the day, the ceiling would look like this.

And surprisingly, it does!

The next step is to drink a beer, which I am doing now. Then, after that, you have to let that drywall hang and cure...to be sure it stays in place. I'm thinking about three more years. Susan is not thinking that...unfortunately.

Snow Day

We awoke to a load of snow on the ground. I estimate five inches fell at our house. I got up and got to work.

My neighbor Lou was moments ahead of me when I fired up the snow blower at about 6:30AM. He was half way down the sidewalk on his side of Wall Street with his snow blower when I lumbered onto my driveway and began conducting a symphony of snow throwing with notes of the heavy snow flying this way and that.

I have a lot of ground to cover and I was out there for about an hour. I didn't get to everything that I wanted to but I knew I would be back that evening to clean up and touch up.

I ended up being about a half hour late to work. The drive was pretty smooth considering the amount of snow that fell and the number of idiots that are out there in my way. I traveled out to Liberty Lake at about 50 miles per hour on the freeway. When the speed limit allowed me to increase to 70, my speed fell to 40.

Idiots!

Saturday, January 5th, 2013

9:29AM: Got out of bed. It is fabulous to sleep in. The sun got so bright in our room that we were finally forced out of bed.

9:45AM: Made a couple of Peppermint Patty's and sat in the hot tub.

10:15AM: Got out of the hot tub. I took a shower and got dressed.

10:43AM: Came in here and started writing this Blog Post. I shall continue to update throughout the day.

10:55AM: Added chemistry to the hot tub. I changed out the water the day after Christmas and had not added any chemistry yet, so it was well overdue. I also added some Coconut Mango Oil to augment the smell of the water, which smelled like two week old hot tub water.

11:05AM: I found it is much easier to remove the lights than to put them up. I had a string up on the balcony that I forgot about. Fortunately, Susan reminded me this morning. So now that's done!

12:30PM: I cleaned out the cat box and have done some assorted stuff. I am now heading out to purchase a few needed items, like a new filter for the aquarium and a new blade for my hack saw.

1:57PM: Returned home to learn that Mom had called and her new computer was ready for pick up at the Apple Store. So we drove over and picked up Mom and went downtown to Apple-Topia.

4:12PM: We have returned after getting Mom her new computing machine and then we went to P.F. Chang's for a late lunch. Her new computer is pretty cool and we have just played with Facetime, the video conferencing dealie on the computer.

7:something PM: We walked over to the Hub to watch Gonzaga play against Santa Clara. Mark joined us over there and we watched the game through half time. Then we came home and watched the end of the game. 

It is starting to snow now. Looks like we're in for some winter.

Well, that's the day. What an exciting life we live!

Twenty-Thirteen

We welcomed the new year with a downtown adventure.

We rode the Spokane Party Trolley. This peddle powered cart seats about 15 people plus a driver, plus a bartender, if needed. 

We got to ride around downtown for free because the owner is the cousin of my friend Jerry and she wanted to get out and get some publicity.

She has had a hell of a time getting approved by the various city and state entities she encounters. She has paid a shitload in permits and she still is getting the run around. 

Anyway, Jerry and Janet invited us to join them and we had a great venture around downtown as First Night Festivities were going on. We peddles the trolley to four downtown bars. Fast Eddie's, O'Dorherty's, Soulful Soups, and Luigi's.

We slept past 9:30 this morning. What a great way to receive the new year. Even with our late morning, we managed to get Christmas put away. I have one item on the balcony to take down and then it is done.

In honor of our accomplishment, here is a last look at the tree. Please make note of the ceiling with all those tacky strips of wood up there. That will soon be covered by a smooth wonderful layer of drywall as we commence on our next project. We thought the living room would be a relatively easy makeover, but then Susan started seeing stuff and adding stuff and making my life...well...my life.

I didn't pay any attention to how many posts I made last year so I didn't make a big run up at the end of the year to make more posts. As such, I made under a hundred posts last year. I don't consider it good or bad. Just what happened.

Living Remodel Pre-Work

I have devised a home made piano caster for the cost of buying one professionally made piano caster. I will have three, commenserate with the number of piano legs I have, so that worked out well.

I just went on line to Steinway and Sons dot com and learned that a parlor grand Model A piano weighs 695 pounds. That is good news for me as the furniture mover I purchased has a 1000 pound capacity. That means my little casters will be well within the regulations for successful piano movamentations.

As you can see from the photos provided, I placed a brace across the furniture mover and then another brace on top of that. I used my router to create a square hole for the wheel to fit in snuggly. I spent about $60.00 for the movers and the wood to augment the movers. As I said, that is almost as much as one caster.

It still remains to be seen how easily the piano will move around with this system.

Survived the Holidays

It's two days past Christmas and we have survived it. The tough portion of the holiday is behind us and now I hope we can enjoy ourselves a little bit.

I guess we have to start thinking about New Years Resolutions. I have one every year to learn to type properly. My hunting and pecking method does not serve me very well considering the amount of time I spend on a computer.

I also want to play the piano more. It's waaaaaay out of tune but I think that can be fixed.

We also have a project to start preparing for. It is time to drywall the ceiling in the living room. Then it gets a nice treatment of crown moulding and I think some wall papering. I'm not in charge of that.

To prepare for the project, I first have to come up with a method to easily move the piano around. I have a plan in mind and I need to start on that without haste.

Deep in the Bosom of the Season

With the occurrence of the annual Corbin Park Carriage Ride, we are now firmly ensconced in the Christmas Season.

The Carriage Ride was perfect. We haven't yet had any snow to speak of this season. So when it started snowing about 11AM today, Susan and I celebrated. It did not snow a lot, just enough to create a dusting on the ground and make everything an occasion for Caucasian. It was just white enough.

We invited a few friends over and enjoyed some pizza and libations, including ice shot glasses with Fireball. Ooooh! Ahhhhh!

There was of course, the cleaning frenzy prior to the party but that went pretty smoothly this time around. Susan did not seem stressed and that's cuz I was incredibly helpful.

I painted a window on Saturday and took enough pictures to create a seminar on how I paint windows. You are particularly lucky because this is gonna be it.

It's best to start with a window. Pretty much any window will do but try to get one that you have permission to paint on.

Generally, I use tempera. Tempera is the powdered paint you used in kindergarten that mixes with water. It is not a good choice if the window is exposed to rain. It will run. In that event, you have to use acrylic.

Okay, you have a window. Now you have to decide what you are going to put on the window. In this case, it's going to be a Cigar Store.

So I made a stencil of the the copy that needed to go up and taped it into place, making sure it was square and level on the window.

Then I pulled out my big window painting dauber, and went to town on the stencil.

When you have that up, you start filling in the letters with your base color. In this case, it's very simple. White letters with a black outline. I use an inch and a half foam roller to fill in the letters. You don't have to worry about sloppy edges because you'll cover that with the outline.

When it's all filled in, you pull out the Chinese character brush and start outlining.

Now, if I was at all professional or cared, I would use an artist brace bar to support my hand as I paint. But because neither of those traits apply to me and it's a temporary window anyway, I just slap up the outline and move on.

Thus endeth the seminar!

I made some bitchin' ice candles for prior to the Carriage Ride. They froze a little too efficiently so so they kind of fell apart on me when I tried to chip a hole in them. Nonetheless, they worked groovily.

This one is completely enclosed and comes apart in half. I put LED lights in it and it looked pretty cool.

The other one came apart in three pieces but I was able to freeze it back together and make it look decent. This one had a real candle in it and was quite luminous.

Okay! That's our Holiday weekend in pictures. Now it's time to go back to work and reality!

One Wedding, a Funeral...and Lots of Sky Walks

It's been a busy week here in Lake Wobegone!

We have been out painting sky walks every night this past week. 
It cuts into our busy television viewing schedule but the money is nice.

Today we had a Memorial Service for our friend, John Roehm. (Pronounced "Raym") He has been Mom's boyfriend for the past five years. He died November 10th after being diagnosed with lung cancer back in May. He was the nicest guy I've ever met...very kind and the quintessential gentleman. We will all miss him a lot and leaves a real hole in Mom's life.

We will be leaving shortly to attend a wedding. This looks to be a very big affair. A big service at St. John's Cathedral followed by a reception at the Davenport Hotel with open bars and and a served dinner for 300. Some money is being spent!

We have one more sky walk and then we are finished. However, I did get a call from a guy who wants a temporary sign painted on a storefront window that will be opening in a couple of months. Something like "Coming Soon!" He doesn't need it right away but we'll get it done this week.

ThanksMasOween

The busy season of Thanksgiving means that it is the even busier season of Sky Walk Painting and we are up to our paramecium in it. We started last week, prior to Thanksgiving because there is a thing called "Christmas Tree Elegance" that raises funds for the Symphony and they wanted their sky walks decorated in order to get the most advertising they could.

We have ten sky walks to paint this year and we are almost half way there. After tonight, we will be half way there.

In the meantime, we have had all the associated Thanksgiving stuff going on. We had our Wednesday night out and enjoyed an evening at Bluz at the Bend.

Then we got up at 3:30 and stood in line at SpandexTown (Walmart) to get a George Foreman Grill for 75 cents. We were 768th in line and lost out to a old lady with tattoos oozing from her skinny shorts. Editor's Note: If you really believe that we gave up precious sleep to stand in line with the Truely Retarded, then my sarcasm in the previous paragraph needs to be tweeked up a tittle.

Next we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, sponsored by Toyota, until the Rockettes, sponsored by L'Eggs, kicked their long lovely gams into our hearts. Then we had to wait for Santa, sponsored by Mattel, to wave at us, thereby guaranteeing a wonderful Christmas season.

Thanksgiving was with the family and friends at the home of my sister's friend, Nancy. Mass quantities of food were consumed and then we went home and slept.

On Friday, we painted.

On Saturday, we painted.

Susan had to work Saturday night so I putzed around the house and did some stuff. Among my stuff to do was laundry. During the laundry stuff doing, I discovered that it was once again time to call a plumber and have our drain roto-rooted. It was backing up into the basement.

So we spent the rest of the weekend being very careful about how much effluent we put down the drain. The drain is long enough that we can drain things until it backs up. Then we need to give it a couple of hours to empty out.

This made it especially fun last night when we had our own
Thanksgiving meal. We like all the left overs and stuff so we always have our own meal if we don't have the opportunity to host Thanksgiving, which we never do.

We had to be very careful with what went down the drain and we had a shit load of dishes to do throughout the course of the meal prep and meal post prep.

It all worked out and we made it to Monday. Which means now we have to go back to work. Ugh!

In the meantime, here are some pictures.

Snow Day Eleven-Niner

Let it be known for the record and officially unto intoward paternity that November Niner is the first official snowfall of the season.

I'm not sure weather (Get it, weather/whether) November Eighth should really be the date because that's when the snow started.

But to be an official snowfall in my world, the snow has to stick and that didn't happen until later.

In any event, I am content with saying Eleven-Niner for the first snow of Twenty-Twelve.

I don't imagine it will be around long. It never stays on the ground this early in the season. But it may well be a sign of things to come.

Another great sign to point to is the number of car crashes during the morning commute. By that yard stick, Eleven-Niner again qualifies.

Also, for you Numerologists out there, Eleven-Niner is the opposite of Nine-Eleven. Coincidence? Probably!

Old and Out of Touch

As I write this, the President is speaking, giving his victory speech to the majority of people with whom I am clearly out of touch.

Basically, if I voted for you today, you lost! There are couple of exceptions, but only a couple.

But the great thing about the U.S. of America is our ability for a seamless transition of power without too much consternation and you move on to fight another day.

But it is now official as proven by the election of 2012. I am old and out of touch with America.

So now we have Gay Marriage and Legalized Marijuna in the state of Washington, which reminds me of a Bible quote that makes more sense now. "If a man lays down with another man, he should be stoned" Leviticus 20:13.

A Crime that's not a Crime

We spent our extra hour in the comfort of the bed. It was fabulous. Usually I try to save my extra hour for later in the week. I might use it to take a long lunch or read a good book. But I was tired and really rally really enjoyed using it to sleep more. I have a feeling that will be a major theme in my life going forward.

Susan worked to clean inside and I worked on the outside. I pulled the post holders from the flying ghost out of the ground and raked and blew the leaves around until they formed nice neat piles. 

Yesterday, I loaded the leaves from the curb into my garbage can. They filled the can and left me with very little room for garbage. Upon reflection, I realized that these leaves technically belong to the city since they were in the street. I decided to return them to the city by dumping the leaves I collected into a pile of leaves in the park directly across the street from the house. One might say this is illegal. Another one might say you're full of shit! I say, what leaves are you talking about?

So what we are dealing with here is a precarious legal high wire. I guess it would be best if we never spoke of this again.

All Hallow's Clean A Ween

We spent our Saturday cleaning up and stowing Halloween Stuff. Good Lord, we have a lot! It was raining for a good portion of the day which made it all the more fun when I did get out into the yard to gather up the decor. I have a quartet of hay bales that I have no idea what to do with. Perhaps I'll put them on Craig's List and see if they get hauled away.

I guess I have nothing more exciting than that to say for today.

Revised T or T Totals

We have discovered that our neighbor upon whom we rely for Trick or Treat totals ran out of candy and temporarily suspended distribution while making a run to the store. 

Another neighbor a few houses away also keeps a running total with a clicker and told us they counted over 1,400. I'm not going to get nitpicky with the numbers. Let's just say we had a "Shitload" of kids (and a few adults) stop by the house on Wednesday Night.

Eleven Se7enty-Three

The first kid showed up at 4:40PM. Actually, that's not true. One kid who had been running around the park with his track team from North Central High School knocked on the door at about three and said, "Trick or Treat?" He asked it like it was a question. I told him I'm not ready yet. I hadn't even brought up the candy from the basement yet.

The rain stayed away. It turned out to be a great night. Here are the pictures!

That last picture above is pretty indicative of the crowds we had. At one point, it was like that for a good hour. Just kids coming up one side of the stairs and going down the other.

I am still amazed (for the eighth year now) at the number of people in our neighborhood considering the low number of houses that are lit up and giving out candy. There are approximately 75 houses around the park and I bet there were less than half open for Halloween.

We threw our last candy (lollipops) at some kids at about 8:30. Then our party started. This is the party where we clean up all the crap out in the yard and deposit it in the living room. Then we have some Sloppy Joes and beer. We were all so tired, we just sat around the table and enjoyed the quiet.

So another Halloween is in the books. Eleven hundred kids have our candy and we have some clean up to do.