Another year gone by

The week started out wet, grey and cool. It ended up fairly nice, despite predictions by the weathermen to the contrary. Friday was P’s birthday and I scheduled it as a vacation day to take her out for lunch on the Portland Spirit, and a cruise up and down the river. It wouldn’t have been any fun if it were raining and the like. After listening to the forecasts during the week we were resigned to going on Saturday, and then putting it off until the end of May, during the first shutdown week. Friday, when we got up they’d changed their tune to no rain until late Friday evening so we decided to risk it. It turning out to be a nice day – partly sunny, mostly clouds with sun breaks now and then, and not too cool, not too warm. We were seated right by the second window from the bow on the lower deck. We had a nice view the whole way. P grew up in a neighborhood not far from the river. It was a little trip down memory lane but from a different perspective.

Yesterday was very nice too. I got a chance to mow the lawns and work in the yard a bit after we did our running around. R brought Gabby over and DJ came up from the coast in the afternoon for drinks and dinner. The Shakespeare and Gabby played and rough-housed all afternoon, used up some of their seemingly endless energy. I didn’t bbq but we spent some time out on the deck. The maple tree is working hard on growing it’s leaves! It will be very nice later in the summer when it really gets warm.

DJ spent the night and this morning she and P left for Reno to visit DJ’s mom who retired there. It’s Scott, I and the dogs, just us boys, on our own while they’re on the road. It’s going to be quiet around her this week. I’m sure we’ll manage. We still don’t trust Shakespeare with the run of the house while we’re gone, he gets shut up in the den, with the sliding glass door that looks out on the cul de sac. He gets to watch all the activity, the cats and squirrels walking around with impunity. I’m sure he gives them a piece of his mind when he sees them. I’ll be coming home for lunch every day to let him out, give both he and Bailey some company for a while before I go back to work.

The nest in the eave, just out side the computer room is full. Every morning I hear the babies chirping their tiny lungs out when mom and dad come back with something to eat. Spring is in full force around here.

This is Spring?

What a crazy spring we’re having. A high pressure area swept down from Alaska late Friday and yesterday the temperature didn’t get over the mid-forties. It was/is very cold for late April. It rained some last night and the car is covered with ice this morning. The fruit farmers in the area are scrambling to keep their orchards from freezing the blossoms. Yesterday morning I was just sitting down at the computer, P was starting on her breakfast when the power went out! I called the electric company - thank goodness for cell phones (VOIP – voice over internet phone – technology doesn’t work very well when the electricity to your internet router is cut off) They were aware of the problem, but didn’t know what caused the outage to some 5000+ customers. P and I sat around looking at each other for a while before the dogs talked me into taking them for a walk. I got dressed, bundled up with gloves and scarf, grabbed my ipod and off we went. When we got out of the cul-de-sac I could see that the traffic light a block up was out. We meandered through the neighborhood for about an hour. The traffic light was back up and running when we got back home. P reported that the power came back on about 10 minutes after we left. She got a call from DJ, who lives at the coast who reported that she woke up to snow and it started mixing hail in with the snow as she was talking to P! Early yesterday afternoon, as we were heading home after our Saturday running around, it started to hail and then changed to rain and that changed to snow by the time we actually go home. It wasn’t sticking to the ground but we were in a real snow flurry for about 10 minutes. It looked pretty neat, all that snow swirling around. Shakespeare loved it, running and jumping around, trying to catch the snow. It eased up, changed to light rain and moved on. About an hour and a half later we heard from R, P’s brother, who lives on the east side of town. He was experiencing the same hail – snow – rain mix sequence. Like I said, crazy weather. This cold air mass is suppose to move on to the east, out of our area, some time late to day and we will warm back up to the 50’s or so. Still below normal for this time of year, but at least warmer than this weekend! I read in the newspaper that a track meet at the state university got hailed on before it was over. It reminded me of running cross country when I was in high school back in Wisconsin. One year it snowed during the conference championship races. We were running the course around a golf course in our little 2 oz nylon track shorts and top. We were running around naked for all intents and purposes in that weather. I didn’t really care how I did, I just wanted to finish and get my sweats back on!

We packed and shipped a tool last week at work. Just in time, this is the last week of the quarter coming up. We have a few other items to take care of to wrap up, and then it’s on to the next one. The bar always gets move up each time: more, new, greater accomplishments are expected. It’s the corporate way, isn’t it - insatiable.

Sunshine!!

We are finally experiencing some Spring-like temperatures this weekend. Glorious sunshine Friday, Saturday and today has resulted in a lot of aches, pains and sore muscles. It got into the mid 70’s yesterday for the first time this year. We have had a cooler than normal spring up til now, 10 to 15 degrees below normal! The weatherman says that it’s returning this evening again, with cool, rain and snow levels down to 2000 feet. More snow in the hills again. At least the lawns got mowed and some bushes got trimmed. It’s a start. The big maple tree in the back yard should break out it’s leaves any day now. I thought it would be last week so it’s got to be this week for sure. The tree out side my window at work has finally unfurled it’s leaves. I saw that a robin has built a nest two trees down from “my” tree and is sitting on some eggs. We can see it now because the leaves are so small; it may be different once those eggs hatch. It makes for a pleasant diversion from the work day routine. We need it these days. We are affected by the downturn in the economy, just like nearly everyone else. Tuesday we got an email from the company president announcing two weeklong shut downs for two divisions of the company, including the one we report to. We will be off the week after Memorial Day and again the week before the Fourth of July. Luckily I have enough vacation saved that I can use to cover the days off. So, we know when vacation is this year, now we have to figure out what we will be doing. A lot more house cleaning is penciled in for now. We have started on a campaign to go through everything we’ve accumulated and held on to over the past 20 plus years we’ve been in this house. It’s amazing, all the stuff we couldn’t manage to part with over the years. We look at it now and ask ourselves “What was so special about THIS?” It’s causing a lot of memories, laughter and head shaking. I guess its one of the draw backs of having a large house: you just have more space to put things.

And for those of you who are really into this sort of thing, here is a link to the Molecule of the Day web site, thanks to Growabrain.typepad.com

This was the week that R got the tube removed from his ureter. He went in on Thursday for the procedure. He said they started out with a sheet with a hole in it. As you can imagine his business end went through the hole. They shot some gel up his urethra to numb it. Next they used a syringe to fill up his bladder. They wanted it expanded so they would have room to work. They had a camera and light to see what was going on and a grabber to do the deed. When they got to the bladder and looked around they didn’t see the end of the tube sticking out of the ureter. I’m a little fuzzy on how they found it. R said that it was about then that he started looking at the monitor and associating the words the doctor and assistant were saying to the movements on the screen and the occasional twinge he felt. They did find it and were able to get a good grip on it. Out it came. It took a couple of minutes all told but seemed much longer, R said. I can imagine. The tube was plastic, over a foot long with curly ends. He said something about being preoccupied when I asked if he got a picture of it. Rats! Now that’s something you don’t see everyday. You’ll have to just use your imagination. R said that he had some “air in the line” afterwards; it took a while for the system to become fully primed. R has a final follow up appointment in a couple of weeks to double check the kidney function, make sure it’s as expected.

We had some very nice days this week, but it’s grey, cool and raining off and on this weekend. I caught a break this morning: it didn’t rain while I was out walking with the dogs. It was a nice walk. The blossoms on the trees create clouds of fragrant air to walk through. Of course, the dogs were more interested in other smells.