August 22, 2005

Spent yesterday (Sunday) at Camp Verdugo Oaks, where I worked on Retreat papers and the rest worked on walls. "The rest" being John and Lora, with Clark and Sherry Acton. Cate came too but was not feeling well most of the day. After she fixed us lunch, she retired for a long nap. The walls were going to be texturized but Ranger Terry's compressor has seen better days - possibly several decades ago. So walls were washed and painted. John and Clark cemented in an odd-shaped hole in the floor where something once stood. Neither of them knows much about cement-work, but at least they were willing to try. After work we went for a swim, but the pool was chilly so we didn't stay in long.

Ranger Terry found a nice-sized rattlesnake on the road into camp and brought to the Nature Museum. Snake buzzed furiously at us while we looked him over - Good specimen. It will be kept until the Retreat so we can show people, especially the children, what to look for. The rattler will be fed a couple of times while he's at Camp Verdugo Oaks, then Ranger Terry will take him some miles into the wilderness and let him go.

Stopped for dinner on the way home and had a run-in with a Denny's waitress who copped a real 'tude on us and we walked out. When the manager tried to apologize, Cate gave him a real talking-to about how to act when patrons are unhappy - doing something instead of giving excuses would have helped. In Real Life, Cate is herself a waitress at the local Peach Cafe. We braved coming-home-from-the-weekend traffic to Magic Mountain area where a nice El Torrito restaurant handily served up dinner, including an excellent spinach enchilada for John.

We are all still very tired today, which is dangerous because if we don't get some rest over the next couple of days we'll be very tired at the Retreat. I hope to be rested up and ready to enjoy the weekend, whatever it brings. To that end, I saw my chiropractor today to get that crick in my neck fixed up and it seems to have helped a lot. I'll know more tomorrow. We'll try to get more sleep this coming week. Which means stopping now and getting to bed. G'nite.

Long Friday

Oh, Jenn - I finally found my way into my own blog. I quasi-quote Blackadder to Baldrick: Computer technology is something that happens to other people. The upcoming Dye & Fiber Retreat happening Aug 26-28 is up to 55 people which is going to be a nice party. But many of the final details fall on the Trimbles because we have more time than our younger partners. The Actons are maintaining full-time jobs (one of which involves a lot of necessary overtime), caring for a very bright and active small child and a crippled friend, and rebuilding one of the more seriously as-is houses I've ever seen. So today was very busy as John and I ran errands and shopped, mainly for the Retreat. We found a place to silk-screen our totes, so I'm happy. But I'm pooped tonight and just popped in to say so.

New Monitor!

Today I went to Villa Esperanza, where Kathryn is in Group Living, for a discussion about her progress (or lack thereof) with several involved parties. There is the usual food issue - Kat seems to think there is a plot to starve her to death if she doesn't stockpile food in her room, in her back-pack, and anywhere else she can think of. There is also the usual problem with hygiene. We never came up with a lasting solution, and it seems the Villa people haven't done so, either. Sigh... So I headed home feeling somewhat depressed.

When I picked John up from work, we went over to an antique shop that takes consignments to pick up an old rocking chair we'd left there a coupla years ago. They couldn't find it, but it wasn't on their books as sold. It was, however, on their computer as sold, and someone else was paid for it. Interesting! John didn't raise a fuss; he just stood there giving them That Look. They paid us for the chair but they weren't happy about it.

So we took the money to Office Depot and bought me a flat-screen KDS monitor. I've never heard of this brand, but it's the cheapest and what we could afford. We left with a box only slightly larger than a briefcase. Wow! Back home, John dragged my old boat-anchor of a monitor out of the office and Lora installed the new one. Whoohoo! Suddenly I have lots of desk space and room to put my keyboard so it doesn't fall into my lap occasionally.

Now I can stop suffering and start writing that Great American Novel...!!!

My background photo

This is a photo I took somewhere on the highway from Wyoming to Montana. I just liked the mountains in the background with a road that goes on forever. When I find out more about how to do things around here, I'll show off more of my photos. Kathryn, our mentally challenged adult daughter, was gifted with a Sony Mavika digital camera (thanks, Antje!). Kat delightedly took over 200 photos on this same trip. Hooray for digital cameras, because developing film would have been prohibitive.

Oh, and another thing...

Jenn is walking me through all this, so things will be sort of scatty until I learn a bit more about what I'm doing. At the moment, it's sorta like those games at Hallowe'en when you are blind-folded and handed a bowl full of "guts" that are really spaghetti. I don't know what's going on!

My very first blog!

Today is my birthday, so it's a good time for something new. My daughter, Jenn, who does lots of blogging has been on my case for some time to get off my fat apathy and get started on this new kind of communication. Seems a bit strange to put words out to a mess of strangers (however adorable you may be) but... times change and so will I. Since Jenn came out from Boston with her husband, Chris, to celebrate several August birthdays, it was the perfect time to have her set me up for blogging. Of course she'll get on a plane and leave me with a brand-new (to me) technology that I don't even pretend to understand.

I don't promise to blog every day because Real Life has a tendency to sneak up on me, but I'll certainly do it whenever I can. Once my little personal website was put up a coupla years ago, I promptly forgot to keep adding to it. So I do promise not to wait so long to update things. I'll try to drop in some comments, opinions, ideas and perhaps share a few things that I like (or don't like) with you. I like input but don't enjoy flames or arguing with people I don't even know. So be aware that my favorite button on the keyboard is the "delete" button.