Ten-Finger Exercises

one month later...

Guess that's been a pretty long break I've been taking. Can't say it's because I've been so very busy either, just not in the mood-- tired, distracted, buffaloed by the surge of bad weather to drive in, trying to feel engaged in the Christmas season but without much enthusiasm.

So what's happened during the month? My birthday came and went. We ate at the Mark, had a wonderful meal and good wine. I had an appointment the next day with the social security office to sign up for Medicare Part A, and to try to figure out the intricacies of getting older. Whoopee. Have been to the dentist, and the eye doctor, and the internist for my annual physical that I skipped last year. I am, as they say, in good shape for the shape I'm in.

With that all behind me, I got ready for our family outing for the weekend before Christmas. I had rented a house outside Leavenworth, WA, for us to meet to enjoy each other's company, soak in the hot tub, sled and go on a snowmobile guided tour. It was such a perfect place, and then the weather set in.

Spokane had already had so much snow-- 24" in 12 hours-- that the town had pretty much shut down. Good-- my daughter and her family could leave early on Friday rather than wait till school was out. Yea, but, they had to wait for a Fedex delivery of her chemo meds, and the truck couldn't get up her hill. So that slowed them down at least six hours' worth, and they finally had to contact Fedex and meet them somewhere to get the package. They arrived late, on a snowy, slippery road, but safe.

We had arrived just before dark and found that: a) we couldn't get into the lock box, and b) we had no cell phone service on our main cell phones and not much battery power on my work phone which I'd happened to bring along.
We did make contact with the owner of the house, who lives in Seattle, and she was able to call us back with the right information. She had given us the wrong address, off by one number. The house we were trying to get in did have a for sale sign, but we didn't think too much about that. The next door house was well lit for Christmas, and that was my next plan, to go knock on their door and ask to use their phone. But no one was at home. It was the house we'd rented, and, once we knew that, we got in easily.

There was a bottle of wine and a welcome card inside. The Christmas tree was beautifully decorated, and the whole place was a show place. (No wonder, when we saw that the identical house next door was priced at $650,000!)

Our kids from Newberg were not going to be able to come, we knew that already. They work for the power company, and 75,000 people were out of power due to the storms around Portland.

The weather that had been predicted to begin on Sunday moved in ahead of time, and was due in on Saturday with a foot of snow and gusts to 80 mph. So, not wanting to spend the month trapped in between mountain passes, we enjoyed our night there, hot-tubbed in the falling snow, and headed home on Saturday after lunch in Leavenworth.

We really did have a nice time; it just wasn't as long or complete as we'd hoped and expected.

Bill and I got one of the last available trees, which was still tightly wrapped, for half price. It surprised us by coming out nicely and not dropping all its needles immediately. It's really one of the prettiest trees we've ever had. We hadn't put up a real tree for a couple of years, and I've enjoyed it.

This would be the weekend we'd have taken it down, but my son and his family called Friday to say they were on their way here. So I'll be traditional and wait till the 12th day of Christmas, right? We had a great time having them here. Lola is very lonely now though, with no little girls to "love her up."

Gotta go help Bill pay bills, so I'll end this before reality sets in. Hope you all had a blessed Christmas.