Maytag Moments
COOL AGAIN!
08.11-08.19
If you enjoy crane working, these people know how to work them. Click on the site below. https://photos.app.goo.gl/RkWxYvxgHbsBLvjv8
An exciting morning with the 17-year-old A/C being removed and a new one lowered in its place. If the new one lasts as long as our old one, I’ll be 102 years old. I probably won’t care by then.
1145: Joe arrived with a new office chair for us. I forgot to give him his wine and propane lamp. He was here for 15-minutes. PJ was sleeping. Says he’ll be back on Saturday. After he left, our HomeChef food box was delivered. Their tracking note said the box would be delivered between 1200 Noon and 6:00 pm. We have signs posted for FedEx, Trac, UPS to PLEASE ring doorbell. Whichever company delivered the box today, did NOT ring the doorbell. Since we are HOH unless we watch out the window – You get the picture. We found it in front at 5:00 pm. It has freezer packs inside so the food was still cold.
1800: I accidentally discovered ABC Channel 9 on my Antenna site; (Thanks, Bev.) I’m still not familiar with the remote. Is there a way to record?
08.12.2020: 0445: Up for shower and discovered that we didn’t have hot water. 0600: called A/C people who arrived at 0855. They said they’d be here before 0900. – It could have been an air pocket. In five minutes, my water heater was functioning. 0930: PJ leaves for Body Central PT. She is back in time for her Cancer Doctor visit at 1145. (twenty miles round trip.) Her Doc said she checks out fine and to come back in six months. 1315: We’re home! Lunch maybe? We were tired. PJ slept for two hours. I should have but spent the time trying to figure out some technical problems with my computer. Went to bed by 2000.
We didn’t overcook the beans or the salmon. It still took the two of us to coordinate everything. We aren’t advanced, yet.
08.13.2020: 0445: 81º And the Sun isn’t up, yet. We didn’t go anywhere today. Fixed Roasted Salmon with Ginger-Scallion Sauce & charred green beans. It must have been good because there are no leftovers!
Using the antenna (still) we watched ABC News and Call the Midwife. Still haven’t figured out a way to record.
We broke the heat record today: 111º
08.14.2020: 0500: 87º and humid. Julie, who lives four miles east, received heavy rain. We didn’t get a drop.
1100: Put 2400 steps walking the Mall. Got a new battery for my dash watch for the Matrix. The battery is guaranteed for FIVE years. That’ll be the day! Bought PJ an ice cream cone – small cone. I had one also.
Spent thee hours on the phone hassling with Dish about their remote and my antenna.
Answered email. Messed with PJ’s power cords for her cell and tablet. All of a sudden none of them seem to be working. 1700: Taking a break from typing.
DISH is to arrive tomorrow between 0800 and 1000, to sync my antenna with my TV remote.
We conked out by 2100.
08.15.2020: 0500: Showered with hot water this morning. What a luxury! I’m wearing 1# wrist weights on each arm. Trying to gain strength so I can hold the bow. They are not uncomfortable. As I get used to them, I may move the right weights to the left arm thereby doubling the resistance on my left arm.
My favorite twins celebrate their Birthday! They do sparkle from their insides out! That’s Virginia on the left and Barbara on the….no. wait That’s Barbara on the left and Virginia on the…no…wait…Oh heck!
Bill, the Dish Technician-Specialist, arrived to put an attachment on the TV so that I could get OTA (over the air) antenna service for Channel 9 ABC. I had antenna service but I could not easily switch from my antenna remote to my television Dish remote. He put a loop behind my control box and now everything I get on my antenna shows up on my guide to my Dish remote. Easy-peasy.
It’s good to see Pat Parris, and Valerie Cavazos, Shawndrea Thomas, Taja Davis, Jason Barr, Bryan Brennan, Cuyler Diggs, April Madison- (Mostly the evening crew) on our TV again. AND for National: David Muir · Tom Llamas · Cecilia Vega. Nothing wrong with CBS, NBC, or PBS. But PJ is secretly in
love like with David. On Fridays, I get to watch PBS and Judy Woodruff on the News Hour. Having the antenna has expanded our access to sub-sites of PBS and ABC while still having access to Netflix and YouTube. This evening we were able to see Barbra Streisand in Netflix special. Boy! Can she sing! Still!
Dinner: Shrimp, snow peas, walnuts, rice with sweet peppers and honey and teriyaki sauce. This was one of the easiest dinners we have made. We even had leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch.
08.16.2020: 0445: Clearing emails. Researching some musical history on Streisand. One site says she is worth a paltry 400 million. ‘Nuff said.
0600: 84º The Sun is up. The solar panels are warm. I’ll start the laundry. I’ll fix eggs for breakfast this morning. That’ll be a nice surprise for Swombo. Gotta’ get the comics out before she finishes her exercise. No pictures, but we were successful in having scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, and toast. After breakfast, we watched the St. Francis in the Foothills UMC service on our computers. PJ rested after that while I attended the Zoom talk-back at the church. There were positive comments from many of the participants.
1245: It is now 105º and I have my office A/C on as I check my mail.
Sara sent this. Wow! https://youtu.be/InULYfJHKI0
We had last evening’s leftovers for lunch. I spent the rest of the afternoon working on my CIP.
1800: Clicked on ABC News with my one remote and picked it up on the antenna, Then we watched CBS Sunday morning and learned the history of the popsicle. What fun. One episode of Whose Line is it Anyway? and one episode of Call the Midwife. For some reason, PJ is fascinated with the pictures of birthings. It must be a “mother” thing. (I like the show, also.) To bed by 2100.
08.17.2020: 80º 0530: Often, the first fifteen minutes before the Sun hits the inside of the patio, I lift the grapevines over the wires. Any day that Ethan or Rachael visit I have them do the long ones because they can reach the wires without a step stool.
We have a busy day, today. PJ gets her new hearing aids this morning at Costco Hearing, and we’ll do some shopping while we’re there.
I have to stop by Batteries Plus and replace a battery for our cordless phone. After lunch, we drive to Tresha’s Studio for a PT evaluation. This will be the first time since January (?) I’m not using Dragon. I’m wearing 1# wrist weights all morning. I can feel the difference. My typing is slower. The fingers seem heavier.
Things change – sometimes instantly. The Buick’s battery is dead! The overhead light didn’t go off and it ran everything down. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t shutting off when I got out of the car. We were going to miss our appointment unless we took the Matrix. Fortunately, it was drivable. We made our appointment for hearing and PJ has new hearing aids. She doesn’t have to wear a Dorky anymore. Her new hearing aids synchronize with her Apple watch and her iPhone. She can get voice-to-print on the phone which is just like having captioning. I had to stop by batteries plus because I want to call AAA and find out about the Buick. I called our AAA garage.
They told me to request a tow truck which I did. The truck driver’s name was Logan. Bless his heart. He wanted to see what was wrong. He put his auxiliary battery under the hood, started the car, and checked my overhead light. I had inadvertently twisted the knob all the way around clockwise. That of course, turned the overhead light on all the time. It was daytime; it was hot; I didn’t notice that it was on. So Logan fixed it in less than two minutes.
He said, “Run it for about 15 minutes and it’ll put a charge on your battery. You should be okay.” Luckily, I had a full tank of gas.
All this back and forth took up about an hour and 30 minutes extra time. We had an appointment with Tresh @ 130 or so. Thinking that my Buick would have to be towed I had Phyllis cancel our appointment. I didn’t know at that time the Buick would be ready in five minutes. We could have made it to her studio in time. Instead, we fixed lunch and I went to this keyboard. I’m still trying to get printing on a particular form for the front cover of the book.
Julie, Zach, and Sabrina came over for a few minutes. She helped PJ synchronize the phone. She helped me get started on a new program for cover design. We didn’t quite get to the end of that discovery when she had to leave. I was so confused and mixed up from one schedule change to another that I was afraid I would wreck everything if I continued. I’m having difficulty dealing with changes in schedules. Going from one room to another is a change. I have to stand and think: why did I come here?
We fixed dinner. Two out of three times – when green beans have been included in the package, a few beans have been rotten. PJ is really careful to check out the vegetables. The first couple of times over several weeks we can deal with just a few beans being tossed out. However, this package had visible mold. I took it out to the compost bin. Fortunately, PJ had some frozen corn that we could use as a substitute. We divided enough meatballs that we could have leftovers tomorrow.
08.18.2020: 0500:86º One of the problems with my hearing aids is that they are Omnidirectional. All morning, I’ve been hearing a chirp coming from one of my electronic warning devices. 0800: At first, I thought it was the carbon monoxide alarm. But neither of the two units was the problem. It seems to be coming from Phyllis’ office. I’ve taken every unit off the wall and checked the batteries – no chirps. Giving up, I figured when PJ gets up she’ll stand in one place; I’ll stand in another and we’ll figure it out. 0930: I still hear the chirp. I think I’ll wake-up PJ. Oops! She’s awake and doing her exercising routine.
1300: Aloha Zoom meeting. About 15 members were attending. I asked Stan about finding directions with hearing aids. Several folks had suggestions. One lady has tinnitus and announced a meeting on Saturdays just for people with that problem. Another person is a caregiver and will attend with PJ in a sub-group. We’ll have to work that out.
1400: Parkinson’s Support meeting. Twelve or thirteen members attending. Several new members. One fellow has similar symptoms as do I. Dan said his therapist noticed that his left arm wasn’t moving when he walked. (My! My! Same as me.) He’s exercising and facing his problem head-on. We’ll connect through email this week. Sam-the-younger was present. Good to see him again.
NOTE FROM RAVEN’S JOURNAL: This afternoon, I rode with Zach and Mom to Sam and P.J.’s house for a short visit. I immediately smelled a dog treat in Sam’s belt pouch. These are leftover treats since my stay over last month. They still tasted okay. Since Zach didn’t bring my crate or my extra bed I knew it was going to be a short visit. Sam let me out in the backyard for a quick pee. Then, I went into PJ’s office and watched Zach as he climbed into the loft and replaced the battery in the fire alarm that had been chirping. Sam is supposed to stay off ladders – doctor’s orders. That’s why Zach, The Climber, was called. We visited in the living room for a few minutes and my tail managed to knock over a glass of water that was on the coffee table. It’s my fault. When I’m happy I just can’t seem to control my tail. I smile at both ends! It was no big problem. Sam and P.J. cleaned it up with a towel. Zach got my leash and he and Mom drove me home.
1900: Leftovers for dinner. I worked on this newsletter. We went to bed by 2100.
It is light that matters,
The light of understanding.
Who has ever reached it
Who has not met the furies again and again?
Who has reached it without
Those sudden acts of grace?
– May Sarton
(One of Sam’s favorite Journalists.)