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August 28, 2009

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Where has the summer gone? I can't believe it is the end of August already.

As I mentioned last week, we went with a group from Nehalem to Astoria for dinner and a show. The dinner was nice, a barbecue place on the waterfront. The play was "Shanghaied in Astoria", a vaudvillesque performance featuring heroes and villians, fishermen and dancehall girls. It would have been cute, but they encourage people to throw popcorn at the villain. Several kids (and a few adults) took that WAY too seriously and walked up to the stage and threw entire boxes of popcorn at the bad guys. It was very distracting and made an already long play even longer. Still, it was an interesting night out and now we can say we have seen it.

Sunday, we were invited to socialize at the antique mall with others who sell stuff there. I hardly qualify, since I sell so little up there, but I guess anything at all is enough to get us on the annual invitation list. After an hour of socializing at the store, we went to Nehalem and had free pizza. All we could eat! So, we ate too much and suffered for it all night long, but it was a fun evening!

Like I said, I can't believe summer is going so fast, but at least the weather has been cooperating and I have been able to get a couple of things out of the way. We started on our delayed list of projects that included having Dave build a wall between my space for my garden tools and his workshop in the boat barn. It was like a maze trying to maneuver the lawnmower in and out and trying to find a garden tool I needed. It seemed the one tool I needed was always at the bottom of a big pile of stuff. Now I have this wall with a pegboard on it where all my tools are up and out of the way. Not only can I find my tools, I actually have floor space!

Well, we didn't stop there on the project list. We started emptying and organizing stuff that had been in boxes out in the boat barn for quite a while. Stuff that had been stacked between the boat and the motorhome and more stuff that had been crammed into our work space. Dave even found a new saw that he bought some time ago and couldn't remember where he had placed it. Anyway, we now have piles of stuff going to recycling and to the dump. Hopefully, we will get that hauled away in the next few days.

On our trip back from Blaine, Washington with the boat a couple of weeks ago, we had broken a valve in the whistle line. The canopy came loose and was shifting back and forth in the wind. The stress was too much for that pipe and it broke off inside a valve. Dave had ordered the part (a very expensive part) and we picked it up in Portland on Monday. He was able to replace it and we launched the steamboat back into the river on Wednesday. While we were heading down river to dock the boat at Kahrs', we saw a couple of salmon jumping in the water just ahead of us and of course a seal was nearby, checking them out. There were a few fishermen out fishing because the season was opened the first of August.

Monday I had a dental appointment to get my teeth cleaned. While we were in town we ran around checking off things from our list. We always make a list of things that we need to get while we are in town. Dave got his hair cut, we stopped at Office Depot to pick up some printer paper and binders, we bought some hooks at Home Depot for the wall in the boat barn to hang rain gear on, picked up the valve for the boat and still made it back home before dinner.

I thought I skated by on my dental cleaning, but the dentist office called back and told me that they found a cavity from the x-rays, so it looks like I will have to go back in to get that fixed. I made the appointment for the next time I will be in town, which will be in October. I don't want to make a special trip just for that.

We are going to be gone all of next week. Sunday we will be driving to Silverton to attend our oldest granddaughter's 10th birthday. It is hard to believe that Ashtin is ten years old already. Since we had already planned on leaving on Monday for Ashland for the Shakespeare Festival, we will spend the night in Silverton. We have all day to make it as far as Roseburg, which is about two hours away from Silverton, so we plan on taking the two oldest granddaughters to the State Fair in Salem on Monday. Then it is off to Roseburg that evening. Our first play in Ashland will be Tuesday afternoon, so we'll have plenty of time. Once again, we'll see six plays in three days. We decided that after this season, we would drop our membership after 25 years. We think it is time to try something new, maybe a little local theater for a change.
After our stay in Ashland, we are going to head up to Bend, to spend the night with our friends, George and Margie. We'll hurry home after that, because the kids are planning on staying at our place for Labor Day weekend.