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January 19, 2007
IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!
Last Friday, we headed back into town for a Blazer game. We had arranged for tickets for Leslie's family and so we were looking forward to seeing them at the game. The girls had so much fun, and it turned out to be a great night because the Blazers won too. The girls had their picture taken in the mall area during halftime and then they visited with Dave at his radio position. The two granddaughters were really impressed when radio analyst Antonio Harvey - a former NBA player who is 6'11" - stood up for them. It really helped that they were both standing right beside his chair. Of course, when he stood, it seemed to them like he just kept going up and up. They stood there like a couple of hicks looking at their first New York skyscraper! Their eyes got as big as saucers and the expression on their faces was priceless. Leslie said although the tickets didn't cost them anything, by the time they paid for parking, something to eat, snacks and t-shirts and other souvenirs for the girls, it turned out to be an expensive evening.
Dave had taken his truck in to Hillsboro to be repaired a couple of weeks ago, and they called last week to say it was ready. So I dropped him at the repair shop on Saturday morning on our way home. I lingered in town and bought some groceries while he drove home ahead of me. There was still quite a bit of ice and snow pack on the roads and he called me when he reached Wheeler to warn me about how treacherous Highway 53 was. That's that crooked shortcut we take to get home from Portland. It's not bad in the summer (just twisty), but in the winter, it's not at the head of the list for the snowplow and can get a bit dicey. I decided to take the long way home by way of Highway 101 through Cannon Beach. There was a Wheeler town meeting that we wanted to attend that started at 1:00 PM and I was able to walk in and sit down just as it got started. That was cutting it a bit closer than I really wanted!
We have had snow on the ground all week that was the product of the record fall of 10" a week ago. I have been putting out birdseed on a tray for all the birds. It was fun watching them with their "pecking" order. First the large aggressive birds, the Blue Jays, Varied Thrushes and Blackbirds got their fill and then the much smaller ones, the Sparrows, Juncos and Chickadees got what was left. What was really funny was to watch the Flicker pile drive his way into the suet. He would work at that with his long pointy beak and everybody just stood back. The smart ones gathered underneath the woodpecker on the ground and caught all the crumbs. They would all be waiting in the morning for me to fill up the tray and then the Blue Jays would let the others know that it was time to eat. Since I have been "snow bound" all week, I had to find something to keep myself entertained.
At least I was able to stay home and take care of the birds. After coming home on Saturday to attend the town hall meeting, Dave had a game back in Portland on Sunday, so he was back on the road again. It was packed snow all the way up and over the coast range, but he didn't have any problems. Then, after the game, he drove back home again. Luckily, there was absolutely no other traffic (no one else is crazy enough to drive in the snow in the middle of the night) and he didn't see any wildlife, so he was home a little after midnight. Still, it was a long couple of days for him, and didn't do his recovery from that sinus infection any good.
We were able to stay home a couple of days after he got home and got some projects taken care of around the house. There was too much snow and it was too cold to work outside, so we concentrated on the indoor stuff. Then we headed back into town on Wednesday for another game (Blazers beat Cleveland!). When we awoke the next morning, Jadyn and Jaysa had to show us their snowman that they had built. They had gotten about 4" of snow the day before and were having a ball playing in it. Oh, to be a child again. We then drove down to Salem to meet with our financial advisor. We have been trying to figure out a way to "retire" completely from working the Blazer games, but don't feel we can afford to do that just yet. After "crunching" the numbers, our advisor told us what we already suspected; unless we win the lottery, we will be working for quite a while. I can see us now, coming in to the Rose Garden 20 years from now, hunched over our walkers to engineer the games!! The bottom line is that we either have to seriously downsize our standard of living or keep working. Right now, neither one sounds particularly attractive, so I guess we'll just keep working. Even though we had a pretty good idea what the financial report was going to be, we left the meeting a bit disappointed that the "money fairy" hadn't come and left us a gift in the middle of the night! Leslie works just a few blocks from the investment company, so after our meeting we called her and met for lunch. After listening to our financial woes, she picked up the check! We had a nice visit and the hour went by entirely too quickly!
The weather has warmed up a little (45 degrees) and by the time we got back home on Thursday, most of the snow had melted. Good thing, I was about going stir crazy being confined to the inside of this house. Also, we have to go back to the city for the weekend and we really didn't want to drive through any more snow!
