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July 8, 2004

IT'S FRIDAY!! MY FAVORITE DAY!! (I may be cheating again. Since we have to tear the computer down and move it from West Linn to the coast on Thursday, there's a good chance this will be posted then.)

What a week this has been.

It started with the kids helping us get all the "heavy" stuff loaded up and moved down to the coast last weekend and what a job that turned out to be. Lara, Greg and Leslie were such great help. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Jason had to work, but that's the life of a cop and we understand. Why is there always a homicide to be investigated during the holidays? I guess it must be the full moon or something that makes people kill one another. Anyway, the kids were a big help. Not only did they move the rest of our stuff down there, but they also helped move some of the stuff that is going to Dave's sister next door. I often wonder how the pioneers made it to the Oregon Territory with just a wagon load of stuff!

The challenge to this whole move is that I am not moving into an empty house. I have Dave's Mom's stuff to go through and believe me, she was a pack rat. After I sort through her stuff, I have to pack it up to Dave's sister's place next door and then I get to move my stuff into the house. It is very time consuming. For instance, I spent most of one morning going through all the spices she had up in the cupboard and putting them in alphabetical order so I could figure out what I had and not duplicate it. After sorting out most of the spices, I then had to divide it up with his sister. Now my portion of the spices is up on the shelf in alphabetical order. I also rearranged some of the things in the kitchen, putting cooking supplies near the stove, dishes by the sink, etc. I can't help it if I like organization!

We did take time out on July 4th to ride in the steamboat in the Manzanita parade. It's still on the trailer, and we towed it with the Suburban. We had spent all last week polishing the brass lanterns and scrubbing the deck, cleaning the smoke stack and making sure we could get steam up. We had it all dolled up with bunting and flags. The grandchildren really had fun riding in the boat, throwing candy along the parade route and waving to everybody. They had their waves down pretty good by the end of the parade. Dave also enjoyed blowing the whistle, Toot! Toot! Everyone wanted to hear the whistle. Every time we blew it, people would cheer all up and down the street. After the parade we collected ourselves and went down to the neighbors for a barbeque. When it finally got dark we enjoyed the fireworks of Manzanita from the deck of our house. The beach at Manzanita is about 4 miles away across the bay, but we could see the show pretty well. I hope everyone had a nice holiday.

The fish are in the Nehalem River! About a week ago we spotted a seal bobbing in the water and that is a sure sign that the fish are starting to come in there too. The first few boats are here and in a couple of weeks, there will be a hundred! We watched a fisherman land a small Silver Salmon yesterday in front of our house. It won't be long before the river will be one mass of boats!

We came back to Portland on Wednesday as Dave had a race to announce. We spent the night, ran a few errands and then headed back to the coast.

GIVE ME A BREAK!!

I guess what I am irritated with this week is the traffic. Since living at the coast where there is hardly any traffic jams, one gets use to it. We come into Portland one day and we are ready to pull our hair out!! I feel like a hick from the sticks! Naturally, on the way to the coast on July 3rd, it was just one big line. It seems like the whole world heads for the coast on holidays. When we were working and needed to get away on weekends, it was different. But now that we're retired, I want to shout, "Get off my highway!" Even when there's no traffic, the tourists are out to get us. We had the highway to ourselves the other day and we could see a car waiting to pull out onto the road up ahead of us. They waited until we were almost there and then pulled out in front of us! And then they settle in to a nice slow 45 mph. Not only that, they brake at every curve in the road!! And this is on a two-lane road with precious few passing lanes. I know we're not supposed to worry about time when we're retired, but...COME ON, PEOPLE!