Raincharm’s Weblog

There is no other reason for us to have listened to nothing but on this vacation.
I think it started out as a necessity due to lack of a working CD player. But for whatever reason, this was the Country vacation. I am not tech savy enough to link to songs so you could listen for yourself, and probably many of you would not want to take the time anyway. So we have tried to gather our favorite lyrics to share with you. They are not cited because, well, because I don’t who wrote them in most cases or the name of the song.

“God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.”

“Rockin’ the beer gut.”

“She thinks my tractor’s sexy.”

“Granny beaded neck” [The definition I have found is when little kids get hot a sweaty and they get dirt under their neck and it goes all the way around like a necklace.]

“I come from a long line of losers.”

“I was born with a shotglassgun in my hand.” (same song as the previous quote)

“Had my first beer, found Jesus, wrecked my car all in the same spot.“[This is definitely not the lyric, but it is the statement being made. I think it takes several lines to accomplish the actual telling.]

“I gave up women, smokin and beer last night. It was the worst 15 minutes of my life.”

I have always heard that to adopt a new habit you have to keep it up for 21 days. After that it will feel natural. Well Carl & Ashlan left Seattle on August 8th, and it is now August 31st. 23 days. I wonder if they will be able to give it up.

We are in Tennessee. Got in last night during the 3rd inning. Closed the bar. I haven’t done that in forever. Of course it was because Rey had to close the bar, and the bar was in the ballpark.

Fast forward about 16 hours. We are back at the ballpark, pre-game.
I have been hydrating.

Anyway, the protocol question …
What is the correct protocol when you are in the public toilet and they start singing the Star Spangled Banner?

Sit or stand?
Hold or go?
Flush or wait?
Wash or wait? (skipping is not an option)

And the song takes like over 2 minutes to complete.
This singer did not carry a tune all that well, but I think she got all of the words.
[Later singing America the Beautiful she had to consult the words and still mixed up a few.]

I think I was the only person in the rest facility, so maybe others have considered the dilemma posed and avoided the room at the crucial moment(s).

Back at home, Rey’s home. A few minutes together, so I am signing off.

We live in Seattle and are used to rain. Usually the slow drip, drip, drizzle of a grey winter. But there are occasional very hard rains. I have learned while playing soccer that is never good to ask whether it could rain any harder.

Yesterday we had several hours of steady rain, punctuated by a few periods of dryness (during which we were in a power outage) and then some torrential downpours. I was admiring the hardest of these downpours, until I realized that two members of my family had just left in a car and were driving in the downpour. It turns out they were stuck in a bit of a traffic jam at the time, watching a river form in the road – but safer than 70 mph on the freeway.

They were on their way to a Tigers game – which went off amidst light rain or nothing. The Tigers were winning 6-1 or 6-2 in the top of the 9th inning with 2 outs. And then – there was a home run, a bloop single, a wild pitch, a pitching change and a HUGE downpour. (I am not sure of the order, just that my two were soaked when they got back to the house and many things were laid out to dry.)

Today looks much drier, and we are headed out to the Volunteer state.

Thanks to all that put up with us put us up in Michigan, it was great to see all of you.

I guess that is where I have been.
There was Internet access here and there.
But it wasn’t usually here with me and I didn’t always want to go there.
And when I did go there it might be cold or windy or wet or I spent my time looking at other things.

Anyway – back to the LP (lower peninsula) where we thought Internet access was going to be more predictable. However, we were wrong. The power was here, then not here, but there – where we were not. And now it is finally here again.

Rained like a son-of-a-gun, both earlier and then later. Maybe it had something to do with the power outage. Carl & I emerged from the dark house to try and score a loaf of bread from Paneras. After going past the work trucks and the “Caution – High Voltage” tape, we chatted briefly with the Whole Food workers and made it to Panera. However, they were closed. Guess why? No power. Same reason there were Whole Foods workers outside to chat with. We did manage to find a Walgreens still plugging away with cash only sales and hand addition. Scored some chips and orange slices.

Carl & Ashlan braved the torrential rains to go to Dee-troit to see the Tigers, assuming the rain takes a break. I am going to head over, with the help of Cousin Kayak, to Knights. Get to see what it is all about. Although I have been warned of at least two things.

Tomorrow we are on the road once again, for a bit more of the vacation. It is drawing to a close. I can tell because I have to pay attention to the number of days left and packing issues. But not so close that I actually know what the day of the week is.

But I do know that if all goes as planned, tomorrow I get to see my boy again. Even if it is only with him tending bar, or a concession stand, or running around doing who knows what, or all of the above. Word is that on work days time with Rey is limited.

[I may pray for rain – so maybe he can have more time with us.]

The walk is over. And it was HOT. More later (I hope) This must be a short post for a few reasons, not the least of which is I am kind of tired. But I met two women at 4:30 AM on Friday, and we were still together (with 1800 other men and women) at 4:30 PM on Sunday. They were wonderful. I was on the Kindred Spirits team, although I did not know any of them at the start. One that I met and walk many miles with knew my sister Pooh in High School.  The others I got to know through heat and pit stops and pit toilets (well porta-potties) and truck showers and pink tents and sore feet and road rash and just everything. Getting up readily at hours of the morning I only see when I have to get to work early for something.

Two short notes. 1. This is the fastest time zone change I have ever accomplished. It is done by getting up really early (4 AM) on the west coast, flying all day, getting up reasonably early the next day in the Eastern time zone (7:30 AM), and then getting up at 4 AM again, but Eastern time zone, the next day and then completely exhausting yourself walking 20 miles in 89 degree weather.

2. The 3rd day of the walk went right in front of the house I grew up in! It was exciting. I was hoping to see some familiar sights from my childhood, but I never thought I would get so close to the most familiar. We also went through my Junior High, next to my High School, a block from my grade school and past friends houses … It was a great third day.

Oh – and the Ooo! Cherries is from Carl and Ashlan. They went to many cheering stations (places where they tell folks the walkers will be passing, so they can come out and cheer them on). On the 2nd day afternoon and 3rd day morning they showed up with an old scotch plaid cooler (also from my childhood or maybe earlier) full of fresh cherries, watermelon and pineapple. At dinner of the second day, one of the women on my team was talking about the great fruit at one of the stations, and described Carl & Ashlan’s offerings to a tee. Carl said that he finally figured out what type of cherries they had, because people kept saying, “Ooo! Cherries.”

I was going to post a few pictures, but let’s just say we are having technical difficulties.

I am sort of getting ready to go to bed. Tomorrow will be an early rise.
For any that are close enough and have the umph to get out and cheer us on, this is a link to the Spectator information – it lists all of the “Cheering Stations” and other information.

For those that like to stay close to A2 – here is the information for Sunday (if you are so inclined) to join us for some celebrating. [Carl & Ashlan will be just a phone call away. Ashlan’s cell number is good, and you might get lucky with the phone at 1660 Glenwood.]

Sunday, August 16:
9:00 am – 1:00 pm
Main Street between William Street and Ann Street
4:30 pm
Washtenaw Community College
4800 E. Huron River Drive

I am excited, worried, nervous … This is the third walk I have done, but it will be hotter, more humid, I don’t know anyone I am walking with, and it has been well over a week since I did any serious training… I guess that’s enough. But it is a good cause and a really different experience. Later.

I am home. Funny how you can always say that about your parent’s house. Even if you never really lived there. There are so many familiar items around, that it is home.

One Many of the familiar items here are plants. The perk of staying at your parent’s house is not paying a bill, and being allowed to roam through many rooms at your leisure. The payback is having the chore dutyprivilege of caring for said plants. [I would post a picture, but I don’t see a means of connecting my camera to this particular computer, and I don’t have wi-fi (that I have found yet) to use with my computer.] Anyway, there are lots and lots of plants.

I am sure my Mother’s goal is for the plants to grow and florish. That is a good long term goal. My short term goal is to not kill anything. I read the instructions. Maybe this is where I get my verbosity from. Of course the instructions assume that you know the names of plants, and plant types. I know some of them. I do not know what a MONEY plant is, although I have an educated guess going at this point. And I don’t know what schedule everything is on, so I did water the twice a week, but not the once a week, and of course I did water the everyday. And mist. And I set up two plants (outside) that had gone head over teakettle. [Judging from the rather large branches on the walkway cleared earlier, I think there was a good wind through here a day or two ago.]

I even went beyond the instructions and swept the deck. My back actually got tired by the end of this exercise, although it was probably more from a plane ride followed by an unfamiliar mattress. 

After I was done clearing a deck and back inside, a chipmunk studiously was checking the deck from stem to stern. Maybe he had been storing his acorns out in the open, and now I have displaced them. They are still around, around the sides of the deck in the ground cover, so he can treat it like an Easter egg hunt.

Off to visit the city. Maybe I’ll report more tonight.

Well, it’s not tonight – but here is more. Small walk (6-7 miles) to get the feel for walking again. Took Jane’s advice and went to a hot dog stand to get the best lobster bisque I have ever had. (That said, there have not been many contenders, but it was really good.) And I took it half a block to a park where there was a concert going on. I do not recall the name of the group/singer, but it was a really enjoyable way to enjoy the soup. 

On the walk home I decided I really should find a grocery store and get a few things, like food for dinner and more importantly COFFEE. [You can take the girl out of Seattle, but you can’t take the coffee away.] So I am not having coffee today (risking the withdrawal headache) but am set up to brew a quick cup in the morning (4 in the morning, coffee will be necessary). I diverged from my known roads in the spaghetti bowl of streets around my parents to try and end up at a grocery store I recalled. I was actually doing pretty well, but I didn’t know that and asked a nice gentleman out in his yard for directions. It turns out the store is now a Trader Joes! I don’t think it was last time I was there, but that was fun.

The last bit of the walk was full of birds. Finches, nuthatches (I think), a female cardinal and some sparrows.

I have decided that leaving the west coast in the wee hours of the morning is a good way to change time zones quickly. No problem going to bed at the correct eastern time. And I know I was tired yesterday evening because I decided I had risen at 1 AM eastern, when it was really 7 AM eastern. And I could not remember how old I was – undecided between two years, and that happens to me all of the time, so maybe not a good measure of tiredness.

Going to do the final pack for the event now. Fit a sleeping bag and pad into the suitcase and check the earlier packing one more time.

Good neighbors are hard to find, and when you have them, cherish them.
My family shared a driveway with our next door neighbor when I was growing up. Basically, there was room for one car (width-wise) between the two houses, and then it split to two separate drives, about 1 car length deep, and into the respective garages. You had to get along well or at least be respectful of your neighbor for that set-up to work well. I don’t remember it ever being an issue, or considered that it could be an issue. Blissful youth. We even had a party line (telephone) with them for a while. (For the too young to remember, if they were on the telephone you could listen to their conversation, but you couldn’t call out – a shared line, with different telephone numbers accessing the line.) I do seem to recall that when my parents said they were going to move the neighbors decided to move too. I guess they didn’t want to break in another neighbor (this was after 10-12 years of living next to each other).

My neighbor went the extra mile for me this morning, and got up at O dark thirty. I really owe her now, two rides in recent memory. We do share our garbage, recycle and yard-waste space when it is available, but still … not quite the same.

And 80 degrees with humidity is a bit different than 80 degrees with some humidity.  Just saying.

Mine tend to be over-optimistic.
I set a goal to not stay too late at work tonight.
Some laughed at me. I thought it was a laudable goal.
Work technically ends at 4:30. I can rarely get out before 5 PM.
Today I managed to get out before 7:30, and considered it basically a victory.

They like to laugh at me a lot lately it seems. But really does appear to be in good fun.
At our board meeting last night, the Board members were trying to find a paragraph in my write-up, flipping pages. (It was on page 6 of 17 or 18.) One of my peers said it was on Page 87, and I thought our attorney was going to start crying he was laughing so hard. I guess they think I am verbose. Really I am just detailed. If they don’t want the information, don’t ask me a question. [This was a study session, I just wanted to give them something to study.][And that write-up was put together in about 24 hours (1 day that is, not work hours)]

So here is a joke I heard in April, maybe May.

100 years ago, if you had asked certain people if an African American would ever be elected President of the United States, they might have answered, “When pigs fly!”

100 days after Obama became President, swine flu.

(H1N1, get it?)

Well, I thought it was funny.
I almost got to be part of the vaccine test group too. But I don’t have the time at the right time to be checked out, so I will just have to wait my turn with all of the other older, non-compromised individuals.

What else is going on. Sunny Seattle has turned into Rainy Seattle, at least for this evening. It really has been a long stretch without real clouds. In fact, this may be the hardest rain since the switch to DTV. I am wondering if there is any connection between the somewhat spotty reception tonight and the weather. If so, it could be a really long winter.