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June 23, 2017
IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!
It has been a busy week (as usual). I expected warmer weather but most mornings this week it has been foggy and cloudy later on. The promised sun finally arrived on Wednesday and I understand it is going to get hotter this weekend.
That said, I had a chance to work out in the yard. Slowly but surely with about 2 hours each day, I am making it around the place. By the time I get all done weeding, it will be time to start all over again! Such is life.
Dave had a nice Father's Day. Our daughters are so very thoughtful and are always thinking about us. With phone calls saying that "the card" is in the mail (the cards came on Monday) and Lara driving all the way down to visit with her dad, it was a great day.
I had to make a run to Lincoln City on Monday. I have a pair of diamond earrings that Dave got me years ago and in order to keep the warranty up, I have to get them inspected every six months. I used to have to go clear to Clackamas Town Square on the other side of Portland, because that was the only store. Then they informed me that they had a store at the Lincoln City Outlet Mall south of here on the coast. So I drove down there to have them checked and found out that the store had closed. So I didn't get them checked and will do it at Clackamas Town Center as usual. On my way back I stopped at this nursery that everyone has been talking about called "Monkey Business" in Lincoln City. I was a little disappointed because I didn't see many plants and the only greeting I received was from two dogs, so I struck out there too. The only thing I came away with at that place was mosquito bites!
The other evening while I was in the house and Dave was out tinkering on the steamboat, I heard this KABOOM and huge compression in the air. I immediately went outside to see what had happened. The doors on the boat barn were still intact but I knew something had happened. Dave was sitting in the boat with this sheepish grin on his face as I looked up to see what was left of a fluorescent light over the boat dangling from a wire and fluorescent tubes broken with shards of glass EVERYWHERE.
When he explained what he did, I was so thankful that he was okay. It seems he was trying to light the propane to fire up the steam engine and instead of a fire; he got a puff noise instead. The burner wouldn't work. So he replaced a valve and lit it again, only this time there was a leftover gas build-up. Wapow! All the energy went straight up the stack!! That light had been hanging directly over the stack and didn't stand a chance! After that episode, he moved the boat outside. He fired it up again but this time there was a bunch of steam leaking from under the deck. So now he needs to replace an expensive check valve before he can go any further. I don't think passengers want a steam bath! After all that, he's the one who got to clean the glass out of the boat and I got to try to scrub 50 years of grime off the old valve so we could read the writing on it and replace it.
We made a trip into Portland on Thursday. Lots of errands to run and I need to get to my monthly high school class luncheon. They have one at Elmer's Restaurant in Hillsboro on the last Thursday of each month and I had missed the last few times. I'm glad I went this time because - while we usually have 10 or 12 classmates show up - this time we had at least 20, including some that I hadn't seen for a while. We are having a collective "75" birthday party in August to celebrate and I hope I can go to that. Our class is pretty close as we have had reunions every five years until our 50th.
We also visited Dave's sister Leanna at her new place at the Jennings-McCall residence home in Forest Grove. It's very nice and she has a beautiful view of the garden. We were so busy catching up we forgot to get a picture of her though, so I posted this photo of her view that was taken when she moved in. We also went to a steam equipment supply place in Portland so Dave could get that check valve. I guess it is so old that it's almost non-existent, but they dug through the archives and came up with something that will work. Then we drove out to Clackamas Town Center so I could get those earrings checked. No problem there - I was in and out in no time. We finished up by going by a nearby place that sells 4th of July decorations so we can upgrade the old things we've been hanging on the boat for the parade each year. We are making an effort to more than the usual "participant" ribbon we get for entering the parade. We left home at 8:30 that morning and got home again a little after 7. Long day!
