Raincharm’s Weblog

The basement effort today started by continuing on the workbench piles. Some progress was made, in fact the entire lower shelf has been cleared off, and select items from the top have been removed, specifically safety glasses/goggles and an assortment of locks.

Where unexpected progress was made was in the toy section. Carl was working out in the basement and started taking one thing and then another off of the big storage shelves. And sorting, saving some but identifying pieces for recycling or giveaway. This was not anticipated and I thought getting his input might be difficult, so I just rolled with it. Tools can wait for another day.

Most of the giveaway went to the garage, but an opportune call from our son identified a few items that we can send their way.

Some of the things in the giveaway garage are new or barely used, while others are well-loved but still have lots of life left.

Basement work continues. Focus on the remaining corner of the basement that hasn’t been swept. There are two “furniture” pieces in this area, an older shelving unit and a workbench. The workbench is really just a place to pile tools and associated stuff, especially after the flood, because it was high and dry.

Today’s work included the shelving unit and as an added bonus, the shelf over the basement sink.

I took everything off of those shelves, cleaned the dust and cobwebs away, and found a temporary holding spot for the moved items.

A few things got designated to the giveaway garage. Including a trophy for, “Top Camper Award” for a week-long baseball camp. Rey, the recipient, would have been 12.

And no, Rey doesn’t want us to send this to him.

Another set of artifacts that have been scattered around the basement are yardsticks. I found 4 different ones.

The Stancato School of Accordian intrigued me, cue a rabbit hole. Googling ensued.

“The Stancato School of Music, founded by Joe Stancato and rooted in Seattle before expanding.”

One bit of related information I was able to find from HistoryLink.org is about Lorraine McConnell,  who was “discovered” in 1931 in Seattle by Zona Lillian McDonnell, as an 8-year-old busker.

From the HistoryLink.org article:

Lorraine McConnell would go on to graduate from Queen Anne High School and the Carolyn Leonetti modeling school, and also studied drama at the University of Washington, where she appeared in plays at the campus Showboat Theater. As a skilled accordionist, she was hired by Joe Stancato to serve as the National Supervisor of Training for his Stancato School of Accordion at 7405 Greenwood Avenue, and then traveled as its West Coast representative. In time she would meet and marry Dave Ballard, a grandson of Seattle pioneer Captain William Rankin Ballard (1847–1929). Dave Ballard was the classical music director at Los Angeles’ KGFS radio, while Lorraine worked as a jazz dancer and scat singer. Both were actors at the Pasadena Playhouse, and got bit parts in Hollywood movies. 

There is a bookstore now at 7405 Greenwood Avenue, in theGreenwood neighborhood. The building may be the same, it’s only 2 stories tall, so not recently built – it would be taller.

Note that the Greenwood neighborhood is north of Ballard, named for the Seattle pioneer, mentioned in the article above.

All for today. Tomorrow’s goal is to clear the workbench. A bigger task than the shelves, if I get into the tools themselves.

I opened up the newspaper this morning, after plowing through the articles about the Seahawks heading to the Super Bowl, I noticed the headline about blood levels being really low. I give regularly, but had failed to make the cut the last two tries due to low iron. I decided I should give it a try again.

Started drinking, water and coffee that is. Drove over to the donation center to check in and get my vitals taken. They took the blood for the dreaded iron level check, and it was low, but only a smidge. I assumed we would take a second sample and hopefully make the grade.

But the phlebotomist said my pulse had shown as only 49 when they took my blood pressure, which was 1 beat below the minimum allowed of 50. She checked it again, and it was only 44.

Dismissed, or rather deferred, due to a low pulse rate. New one on me.

So we took a walk in the afternoon. Even though it may have been warmer than yesterday, it felt colder.

No basement work today, I just didn’t have the inspiration.

Seahawks 31 over Rams 27 🎉

The picture is from the Seattle Times, I did not take any of the TV during the game.

So this means Seattle is going to the Super Bowl. And more importantly, we get to have another get-together to watch the game with friends.

We had a gathering today for the NFC Championship. Kevin and Sue brought chili, Mark and Dotty brought salad, and we provided cheese (a goat cheese spread, jarlsberg, and smoked gouda) and crackers and garlic naan. It was good food, good friends, and a tight game. In the end the Rams literally ran out of time.

Before the game the day was spent like many other recent days, in the basement. I moved a lot of stuff hither and yon to clear the last large area of floor to be swept and vacuumed. This meant cleaning 10 years of dust off of many things. On the reducing clutter end, about 15 hats were consigned to the threads or reusable hats.

There’s only one small area of floor left for cleaning. But the shelves in that area (old unit) also need to be cleaned. And while I was scoping out those shelves I noticed the  cobwebs. It’s a basement, so cobwebs are to be expected, but ick, or more correctly sticky.  But that’s for tomorrow.

Most of our extended family lives east of us, so storm Fern is of interest. This is what we have for reports as of Saturday morning.

• St. Louis: Snowing and cold enough to bring in electronics. In this case an automatic bird feeder camera.
• Ann Arbor: Really cold, single digits. Possible snow later. Issues with getting cars to start.
• Richmond, VA: Really cold, with predictions of snow tonight, followed by ice. Cold temps for the next week, and potentialforpoweroutages. We discussed checking exterior hose bibs to make sure no hoses are attached and wrapping with towels.
  • Rey has been trying to prepare by locating the water master valve, with no luck. He even consulted the inspection report from the house purchase, and he inspector never found one either. I think a present for their house may be addition of a master valve, says the water District parent. But kudos for thinking to check ahead of the storm.
  • Zai Shin’s teacher prepped the class that they may have a snow day coming up. So he was sure there was going to be snow this morning, and was a bit disappointed.
• New York City: Cold enough to look for indoor places to play. Maybe snow later, but doesn’t look paralyzing.
  • One of Elijah’s friend’s building has quite the setup. Pop-a-shot, skee-ball, driving and Pinball games.

Continuing on the grandchild theme, E’s 3K class had a fashion show, and he wore his Mariners clothes. (In NYC!)

And the video of his runway walk, with his introduction.

Living our relatives Fern experience vicariously has been a nice break from the almost tedious basement work.

As much of the rest of the country preps for the huge storm, we are basking in the sunshine. It is winter, so it’s cold, only low 40s, but sunny.

So we walked, again.

I also noticed a sign in a front yard I hadn’t seen before, although it has probably been there for 20 years. In my defense this area is on a steep hill and we’re usually going uphill on this stretch. But today was downhill and I spent more time looking around instead of at my feet.

Our first crocuses.

The basement work for today included building the last of the shelving units we bought. Moving some things onto said shelves. The things today were mostly emergency supplies. Food, fire starters, stove, etc. And finally cleaning a mat that is going to the giveaway pile. It wasn’t too dirty, just surface dirt.

All for today, until tomorrow’s sun shines again.

Living in a big city there are several post office branches that we can use. Which one is visited depends on the task at hand, and how much time can be used for the trip.

Many times there is an associated walk. It can be a mile or two or more. So that’s a factor. And almost always the post office trip is because we are taking something there to mail, or perhaps buying stamps. Carl sends a lot of mail. He is single handedly trying to keep the post office in business, so there are frequent trips.

Today’s trip was for a pickup.

An order had been placed a while ago. And the order was delivered to our house, but one of the items didn’t work out and so the company sent a replacement.

Instead of the normal tracking number and estimated delivery date we got an  email telling us the package is at a USPS Parcel Shop for pickup, with an address. This was unexpected as we assumed a home delivery.

We walked to the address provided, but it was nothing to do with a post office. It was a business that makes light switches. They were very nice but no packages.

I clicked on a different Track Your Package link and it brought up a map showing a Post Office a few blocks away.

This is the Post Office we would not choose for an efficient trip, but not our choice. There were about 6 people in line in front of us. Not a great sign with only one counter person, but there we were.

We got to the front of the line and told them our story. She requested a tracking number.  I hadn’t seen one yet, so I started clicking on anything that looked like a link. Finally the post office tracking number appeared and I wrote it out for the one counter person. She disappeared into the back, and was gone. And continued to be gone while the line grew, and grew, and grew. It felt like an hour but was probably less than 10 minutes before she showed up with our package. Provided ID and we were on our way, apologizing to the 10 or so now in line as we left.

Questions for this interlude: 1) Why didn’t they deliver it to our house as they did before; and 2) Where did they come up with the address the email directed us to initially?

One bonus for this adventure, other than just taking a walk, was finding a pocket park we hadn’t seen before.

$25, $2 for train fare, and a cup of coffee.

My payments for 2 hours of my time, not including travel, for jury duty in the City of Seattle Municipal Court.

During orientation they indicated there were 6 or 7 cases that were ready for trial this week, and so they could be paneling 2 juries. They said some of the 6 could request a delay, or indicate they had settled. In the end there were zero cases moving forward. Jurors dismissed!

Positive note: The jury room is on the 12th floor of the Seattle Courthouse.

Funny note: There were two parts to the orientation. 1) In person information about the areas the jurors hang out in, and some basic expectations. 2) A video about the jury selection and trial process. The video wouldn’t load, the computer was restarted a few times, turned off and on, your basic efforts to make it work. We could see most of this on the screen where the video would play. So IT was called. As soon as the IT guy walks up to the computer, it works. TYPICAL!

Because it was a sunny day, and now free, we took a walk with a few groceries picked up along the way.

My word for the day is slower.

I just didn’t get as much done, but picked at things here and there.

Got my old typewriter into it’s case. I found a strap to secure it. I cleaned the dust off of 2 pairs of cross-country skis that haven’t been used in two decades. If we still have boots for them I haven’t found them. Also 3 sets of ski poles and a ski bag. All of these have been moved into the garage for the eventual garage giveaway.

And there were calls to both Medicare and UW Medicine to clear up a few bills Medicare denied because they thought we still had other coverage. One was just 3 days post retirement, so records had not been updated.

And I ended my day with a call from one of my former co-workers looking for recollections of another co-worker who is being put up for some recognition. I am one of the few who remember work details from when I started 38 years ago. The worker in question has been there 40 years, but started so young that I don’t think he’s even at retirement age yet.

Another day, another walk. 

It has been sunny for several days. That lack of clouds means it’s been cold in the mornings, around freezing. Frosty! I’ve managed to have enough things to do in the house to delay the walks until the sun warmed the air a bit.

Today’s walk had a grocery store stop and breakfast for lunch. We went east on the way out and west on the way home. If you know Seattle that means going up and down over significant ridges. There were two peaks to summit each way. I don’t know the elevation gain/loss, but several roads were steep enough that there are ridges in the sidewalks.

From the web, “These are called corrugated concrete sidewalks and were likely installed between about 1910 and 1944. Like others have said you can find them all over the city.”

There was also work in the basement, mostly moving things around. The Christmas decorations were put away. But the grand idea to put the tree stand on the floor level under the decorations did not work. The stands legs are too wide for the area.

One item I have decided to part with is my manual typewriter, an Adler J5. It was my high school graduation present and heavily used through college. I did continue to use it occasionally even after we got a computer. But now it has been several years and it can go. The only wrinkle is the case is broken, the hinge at the bottom is essentially gone, two separate halves. I’m trying to fashion a duct tape hinge. Attempt 1 was not successful. Attempt 2 is scheduled for tomorrow.

On the positive cleaning side, a bench I made many years ago has been free-cycled from the front yard. Actually our neighbor’s front yard.

Steps for the day, 13,000 plus.