Ten-Finger Exercises

only a line

I can make it before 9!

P.S. I made it! Now why in the world that should matter, to get a single blue number in the week, I'm not sure. I guess it's like getting my foot in the door, if nothing else.

I am so far behind reading blogs, as some of you may have noticed when you get comments to things you wrote weeks ago. But y'all have been so funny I can't help saying hi.

Bill and I managed to have a lovely anniversary weekend at Wallowa Lake Lodge. That area, between Joseph and the far end of the lake is one of the most beautiful places anywhere. The lake sits deep in a basin with snow capped mountains on the end and one side, and a steep treeless bank on the opposite side. It was formed by a glacier which must have oozed its way out the south end to valley below. Directly behind the steep bank is more flat valley.

Last year I can't remember where we were on our anniversary, but it wasn't any place special just for us. Bill said he regretted it especially since it was our tenth. We should have made a bigger deal of it, he thinks, because other people our age are having their 35th and we probably won't be around long enough for that. Last year he gave me a brochure and a card saying it was a gift certificate to a weekend at the fancy hotel on Lake Coeur d'Alene. It seemed at the time a way of making up for not getting a gift, but I didn't mind. What I did mind was going to that hotel. It's very ordinary, except for the prices. We had a church convention there once, and I wasn't impressed even with a discount.

Thursday he called several times trying to get me or leave messages but I was out of cell phone range on my trip north. When I got close enough to home that my phone beeped at me, I heard that he wanted me to call quickly so he could make a reservation. Okay, I did it. But where did he want to go? Coeur d'Alene again. I told him I didn't like that hotel, but there was only one room left and he wanted to do it. So I gave in. Maybe it wasn't just the last minute improvisation I suspected. Maybe he really did want to go there.

He called me back to confirm, and mentioned that the room was $415! I should be happy to be so loved that he'd spend that much? Was that the message? Spending that much for a place I don't like wouldn't make me happy. Minutes later we talked again, and I asked him to cancel. I had a lot of other places in mind that we'd enjoy for ever so much less. In the meantime he'd found out, while trying to arrange a rental car to meet us at the airport, that the reason the hotel was sold out, as were the cars, was because there was a huge tri-athlon meet there and the streets would all be blocked off. So that deal was off. Whew!

We decided to go to Wallowa because we hadn't been there for years, and I've always wanted to stay in the lodge and watch the deer graze on the lawn. And I looked forward to a beautiful flight down through the mountains. Dozens of phone calls later, we discovered we still couldn't get a car
so we drove instead of flying. That was just as well because a big storm came up the next day, and we wouldn't have wanted the plane outside of a hangar during that wind. The power was out for several hours, fortunately at dinner time so we weren't trying to climb stairs or unpack in the dark. I'd like to go back there in the winter and sit around the fire and play Scrabble.

I'll try to get some pictures up in the next few days, but it may take several. We have a meeting tomorrow night and the one after that.