Raincharm’s Weblog

The weather cooperated, but my body did not.
If I had gotten up earlier,
If I had done physical labor first,
If I had left financial figurings until later,
I might have played with dirt before the soccer game.

The soccer game was fun,
We won 3-2 or 4-2,
I played reasonably well,
But near the end I kind of strained my foot/ankle.
It was on a high goal kick, coming my way. The best way for me to deal with tall, 20 year younger men is to get to the ball before they have a chance to make a fancy move that reveals my 50+ year old tendency to change directions slowly. So I did. Only I didn’t hold my ankle stiff enough, and caught the ball enough in the toe direction that it sort of straightened my ankle into a perfect ballet point. Only I don’t do ballet, have never done ballet (except for a brief introduction in Kindergarten), and don’t straighten/bend that far. At first it felt like a sprained ankle. Now it feels more like a foot issue. Advil & Ice, and wait until next week.

But – I don’t feel able to go out and walk amoung the wet, loose mounds of dirt that is our backyard, begging to be raked around into a more level pose. Yesterday when it was pouring rain I would periodically check where the biggest puddles were forming and to see if we had any rivers finding new courses. It had all soaked in by this morning, and the sun even shone this afternoon – but too late for me to make use of these last tanning sessions.

****WARNING – SPORTS BLOG*****

The Seattle Sounders beat the Kansas City Wizards tonight 3-2.
That is enough to put them into the MLS playoffs, in their first year in the league.

I did not think they controlled the game as much as I would have liked, but when they got behind in the score, they wasted no time in coming back to tie, and then take the lead.

More fun – and the reason for the post, is that we are watching, and at the end of the game they pan to the Sounder’s fans behind the goal. And there is Rey, amoung the other die-hards. He was easily recognized thanks to Pooh’s creation (his hat). Saw him several times.

Spoke to him afterwards and he said his feet were freezing. He was going to enjoy a bagel while he tried to warm his feet in the car before heading back to St. Louis.

Woo-Hoo. Carl & I have tickets to the MLS final championship game in late November. [It is in Seattle regardless of what teams are in the final.] It would be great if Seattle could make it all the way.

Baseball note: Angels & Yankees are currently tied 2-2 in the bottom of the 9th in new Yankee stadium. I know my dad is pulling for the Yankees, but I find myself routing for the Angels in this one. [Carl is routing for 7 games.]

Thought of the moment. It was raining – hard. Hard enough to stop and watch. For several minutes. And go look at our 10 yards of mud dirt waiting to be spread about – another day. And now, just a minute later, the sun is shining. Must be a heck of a rainbow somewhere.

But earlier this day we held, or helped put on, a 50th birthday party for a good friend. This was held at a batting cage, with other more than 40’s in attendance to remember that age is only a number. A little pizza, a little cake, and voila – a party.

Earlier than that we were puttering around, dishes, starting split pea soup to put the ham bone to good use. That was until two things conspired to stop the soup. 1) Realizing I could not fit the suggested cooking time in before said 50th party. 2) Power outage. We never lose power at our house. Well, almost never. There was the time the crow committed suicide on our transformer. But the rain was only lightly falling, and the wind was almost negligible. Still 1-2 hours without power.

Bad news from the north. Ashlan has the flu. Send your good vibes her way.

I have worked late a few days this week.
Last night, my carpooler came down to my office between 6 and 6:30. He scared the bejeebbers out of me. I thought I was the only one left. [We had not carpooled in that morning.] So I took that opportunity to go home greener and finish my task at home.

But that means that I have not had the opportunity to work on the backyard without use of a headlamp. I decided that the work at hand really needs a broader view, so have stayed warm, dry and clean inside. Since it has been raining, and is projected to rain through the weekend, I guess the dirty work will need to be done. The goal of getting the dirt to the yard before the rain was met, but we just couldn’t quite get the leveling out of the way.

So I am wondering if I really had to stay late, or if I am going slower at work to make me have to work longer hours, thus avoiding any question of stepping in to the backyardmud.

Speedy trip to Canada and back.
Birds – Of the birds commented on during the drive, the most frequently seen was Great Blue Heron. Ashlan will only remember the one that I pointed out to her by yelling, “Bird, bird, bird, bird, bird.” The other two were seen on the trip back, the first sitting on a guard rail, and the other in the grass just behind a guard rail.
The other bird of note is of unknown type. There are a lot of unknowns. We both saw it only for a second, as it passed by Ashlan’s window moving vertically. What was special is that is was moving vertically down. We did not see it “land.” It could have been diving to catch a morsel. That was my guess. But Ashlan thought it was moving too fast too close to the ground, and it didn’t swoop up anywhere that we could see. So – if it was not “flying” any longer, but falling, what made it fall. Carl asked if birds had heart attacks. I wonder if it was a victim of another bird attack.

We started the drive listening to a new CD that I had. We listened to it through twice. [It was the only CD in the car.] After that Ashlan spent time going through the dial trying to find acceptable stations, listen to a song or two and then move on. After the highway goes into Canada and almost into Vancouver proper it goes into a tunnel under a slough. When we submerged Ashlan was in the midst of looking for the next station and we discovered a new game, Radio Roulette. This is where you push the Scan button when you enter a tunnel or other non-radio-friendly location, and see where it lands when you exit the other side.

I think that was about the time we landed on a country station. This after listening to country music through the month of August. The lyric that stands out from todays journey is a pickup line. (The singer and his pickup are having trouble picking up girls as they get older.) These are probably not the exact lyrics. “Are you from Tennessee? Because you’re the only ten I see.”

The border crossings were quite different. Going up we had to wait for 1 car. But the guard was almost grumpy. Maybe he was missing his Thanksgiving dinner. On the way back the time for both crossings (Peace Arch and Truck Crossing) was 40 minutes, so I opted to stay with I-5 (Peace Arch). My luck, I got to be the first car at the red light that separates those that are waiting with engines turned off, and those that are inching their way up the line. I really was lucky. You get to sit and watch the scenery and not waste your gasoline. When they are ready to turn the light green again they have a 2 minute count down. Then you get to drive up to the back of the lines – about 8-9 vehicles long. This crossing guard was in a good mood, but questioned why my daughter wanted to go to school in Canada when Seattle had a perfectly good school. As I drove away from the booth I noticed 4-5 guards crawling over a car, with at least two of them under the car to their belts.

I drove to work after the trip, and got to sit through a 3 hour meeting.
Tomorrow it is supposed to start raining.
From the description above you can tell no work on the 10 yards spreading adventure, it may have to wait for the weekend unless we want to spread mud.

Our house is full of people who are just tired.
Well at least 3 of the 4 here.
Over the last two days we have cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for 13, washed the dishes associated with cooking and 13 eating dinner and dessert (no dishwasher here), moved 10 yards of topsoil from the front yard to the back (97 wheelbarrow trips), raked around the edges of said backyard dirt pile (the middle majority is still in wheelbarrow hummocks), gone on more than a few shopping trips, and listened to a few baseball and a few football games.

Dinner is due in 10 minutes, so I need to move. Three of us are going to a play tonight, the fourth is playing a soccer game. I think there will be some good sleeping going on tonight.

Since I have only spent one Thanksgiving in Canada, and had turkey sandwiches, I am not really sure what all of their traditions include.

Our T-day looked very much like a traditional US celebration.
We ended up with 13 for dinner.
The table set-up looked like a J or an L. We sat 11 at the tables, and the 2 smallest shared a little table on the side.
Food included roast Turkey, stuffing (on the side), Soup in a Pumpkin (like french onion soup in a pumpkin), garbanzo bean salad, cranberry-orange relish, mashed potatoes and rolls. Pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream for dessert.

Entertainment started with a very harmonious version of Oh, Canada. (Really, we sang the whole thing through – and most of us knew most of the words.) This inspired the three youngest, who then proceeded to put together a parade. The first parade included several adults as well, but the many others were just the three youngest with various musical implements.

Other than that it was just chit-chat and talking.

My day centered around shopping and kitchen work. The bookends to the pre-dinner portion were ordering 10 yards of topsoil, and it finally arriving. 10 yards doesn’t always land nicely on the planting strip, so Carl & Dennis (who arrived late yesterday from Amsterdam) moved probably 2 yards of topsoil from the street into the back yard. The remainder will have to wait for tomorrow.

My tomorrow will focus on dishes in the morning. We pretty much cleaned out the silverware, plates and used enough of bowls and glasses to ask if cleaning the cupboards would be worth considering as well.

Good company, and a good day.

Plans are made to be changed.
We expected 15 for dinner, now down to 13. OK – some people have jobs.
We thought we would pick up two people between 9 and 10 PM.
Now only 1 is scheduled for that hour, the other’s arrival has been delayed to the next hour slot.
Still have a few things to do.
Make a bed, make a shopping list, decide whether to order 5 yards of topsoil to be delivered in the middle of cooking Thanksgiving dinner.

Tomorrow could be really fun.
My excuse? Sorry, I can’t haul dirt, I’m cooking.
We’ll see how weary the travellers are when they arrive.

We didn’t watch any baseball on TV yesterday, because it was not on channels that we have. But the channel(s) used were not on “free” TV. Fox will have some games on their non-pay TV. But, when digital TV came in we lost our FOX station (Channel 13).

Now some may think that losing FOX is not such a bad thing, and until football started and the baseball playoffs threatened, I don’t recall saying, “Darn, I can’t watch that show because it is on FOX.”

Tuesday evening was spent trying to create a better antenna than those sold at Radio Shack (at least the one’s we purchased) so we could bring in the always weak signal of FOX. My try at the creation was thanks to my cousin’s husband’s nephew’s blog site. It was an interesting bit of work, but I got something put together and connected it to one of the TVs. It kept a signal from the stations we had right away (acutally it got a signal as soon as I connected the coaxial cable to the box). After it was all connected I tried to update the channel scan.  Hum-de-dum, hum-de-dum. Check the channels. No 13, but here is a 22.2 – and it says FOX 13. Hmmmmm. That late at night it is hard to tell if this is a major channel based on the shows.

But we had 22 before… Check one of the other TVs. 22, but no 22.2. Hmmmm. Update scan with the existing antenna – and there it is – 22.2. Run upstairs and get not only 22.2 and 51. 51 is spanish language but very pixelated, so not sure it will actually every be used.

What did I learn? Just updating the scan after the big switch was not enough. It needed to be repeated. Building the new antenna was not required (but a fun exercise). Now I have to decide if the new antenna is better than the store-bought.

Eventually there will be a game on FOX, and we will be watching. Unless we are doing something else.

Last night was a late night at work. Meeting that went until about 9 PM. Got to sleep in a bit this morning because I have a Dr appointment (well check stuff). Time to scoot out of this chair.

Today has been generally OK. A bitlot of work. In fact I am still at work but getting ready to leave. Some customers take soooo long. They want to keep pressing their point, over and over and over and over and over and over. After having spent many hours with staff, this particular customer spent 1-1/2 hours of a Board meeting. Nothing new, just the same request. The Board backed the staff recommendation, which includes signing a standard form District agreement. After the customer spent a few minutes reading the agreement he went to one staff (still in the Board meeting on item 2) and said the customer wants to discuss the agreement. She deferred – still being in the meeting and all, but geeeze. This is a form agreement, no changes allowed. And the customer wants his water meter installed in 1 week! (Mind you this conversation has been going on for over a year, and now it is a crisis.) I guess some think that if they push hard enough and make it seem impossible, others will bend to their wish. [We did do some bending, earlier at the staff level.] It is clear that not everyone looks at utility service every day, so explaining stuff is a large part of what we do. I think we generally do it fairly well. Many people say they understand – they don’t like what we are telling them – but they understand. Since we never got to that point in this case, we are wondering if maybe it is a cultural thing to argue every point and continue to try and barter. We have many different cultures, and judging by accents many are first generation in the states. If bartering is a cultural norm for many, maybe we need to take lessons on how to indicate the bartering is over.

OK – one thing about leaving late is that traffic is fairly clear. Time to jet on home.