BUSHWHACKIN'......

We hired a local guy to come trim the foliage, he is a genuine arborist, took him 90 minutes, removal and all, very neat job.

BEFORE:



Husband actually prefers the jungle look, and I don't particularly object but with the rainy season coming up the bushes had grown tall enough to obstruct our satellite dish on the front porch roof, making the picture all pixilated and stuff.

AFTER:



These bushes blocked a lot of sun light into the dining room, now the cactus plants sitting on the library table have a chance of minimal growth.

BEFORE:



AFTER:



Now the mossy green bits show on the siding, need to power wash that or maybe the monsoon season will take care of that.

If you will notice the lovely blue skies? It was very warm 82 degrees in Coquille today, prompting the shedding of rain coats etc.

My Dream Interpretation Web site has.....

...disappeared. I clicked on my favorites link and got sent to some upstart search engine that wishes to tell me that Dream web site does not exist, did I want dreem moods? Um, I thought Google had gotten better at doing my thinking for me? What happened. I tried different names A to Z, nothing. So having done this enough to perhaps write my own interpretations here goes.

Last night I dreamt that I and a larger group of people were in survival mode somewhere. Things had settled down in a communal sort of way so I decided to make soup. I started with some dark greens like turnip greens or something like that. I found a large potato and chopped that and then I noticed some carrots and a peeler.

So chop chop peel peel in go the carrots. Lastly I found some sort of egg noodle and dumped them in. Hmm, I feel that dream wise that food was the symbol and preparing food is a nurturing act, I was nurturing life in general. Boring!!

In the real world I prepared a casserole consisting of sliced and oven baked new potatoes (one hour, 350 oven, oil, salt) topped with left over frozen meat balls, contents of a left over frozen bag of three cheeses, two cans of mushroom soup, sprinkle chopped Parmesan, cook 30 minutes, 350. Not bad. Husband thinks potatoes and meatballs are sensational. Net gain? More room in freezer.

Doors

Odd dream that was about getting lost in an amusement park and doors.

I was taking someone to a local amusement part and had to get out of the car and park as the path became too narrow for driving. So we went through several doors to get to the main place and that turned out to not be correct. We were directed through more doors at last arriving at three half size doors and then I woke up.

So dream interpretation site says boring stuff like:

Door
To dream that you are entering through a door, signifies new opportunities that are presented before you. You are entering into a new stage in your life and moving from one level of consciousness to another. In particular, a door that opens to the outside, signifies your need to be more accessible to others, whereas a door that opens into the inside, denotes your desire for inner exploration and self-discovery.

Oh, dear, my interior door clearly states that I am at best hesitant about inner exploration and self-discovery. Everyone roll your eyes.

Silly colorful dream

Last night I dreamt that I was setting up a shop somewhere in a tourist type town. I was sharing the building with another shop owner who was setting up as well.

I was unloading a cardboard box that was just full of aprons and I was wondering how I would use the aprons in my book shop., uniforms? There lots of them and one had pockets and in the pocket was....




An envelope containing several nice crisp twenty dollar bills. I checked the return address on the box and it was from a bakery shop next door. I took the envelop and asked for the owner. I returned the money to that person who actually looked a little abashed.




I decided this was worth a look at the dream interpretation website:

To see an apron in your dreams, suggests that you or someone is making a commitment to work on some familial task. (Get rid of card board boxes in basement?) You are trying to nurture some project. Alternatively, an apron symbolizes protection and secrecy.

To see money in your dream indicates that success and prosperity is within your reach. (OOhhhhh!) Money represents confidence, self-worth, success or values. You have much belief in yourself. Alternatively, dreaming about money refers to your attitude about love and matters of the heart. It is a common symbol for sexuality and power. In particular, finding money indicates your quest for love or power. (ummm, I find it mildly disturbing that I gave the money back to the owner).

Another short walk down memory lane.

When Gale started writing about Parkview and said the top floor was condemned when she went there, that made me think of Wardwell School. It also had a condemned third floor when I went there. My, how history separates and comes out the same sometimes.

That being said, I googled Wardwell School and the above picture was found at the site for Emmett. I am pretty sure that Wardwell never looked that good. True, Wardwell was a three story brick building with a basement, however, I don't think the town fathers spent the coin for extras such as granite trim details,etc.

Wardwell sat on an entire city block where there is now the City Library, a savings and loan and a bank and a nice parking lot.

I was in the fifth grade by the time our much traveled family settled in Emmett.
Then Parkview contained 5 through 8 grade and lunch was served in the basement of Wardwell school. If you volunteered to work in the cafeteria (Which I did) you got free meals and let out of class a little early to walk three blocks or so to go work and eat.

The best thing about Wardwell were the emergency evacuation slides on each side of the building. Unfortunately there were locked doors on the slides so innumerable children could not play on them.

I also remember one time in the late 1960's after Wardwell was closed and prior to demolition,that the grounds were used for the carnival to set up for Cherry Festival.

I remember particularly that one of the rides swung the riders perilously close to the building what a thrill!

Now do any of my contemporaries let alone my family have any Wardwell memories?

Ah lovely Friday.....

Lovely rainy day, decided to make sour dough pan cakes this morning, that worked well. About 2 pm I dug out the left over stuffed mushroom filling, sliced some garlic bread, smeared filling on bread, topped with shredded parm and popped in oven at 350 for 20 minutes. Perfect.

What did you eat out of your fridge?

The roofing project is done.

Take note that there is a nice large band of metal flashing now affixed to the chimney. No more leaking from THAT source! I asked the guy up on the roof if he thought the chimney was up to code height wise, because to me standing on the ground it seems to barely clear the roof line. He shrugged and commented that this WAS Coos County after all. I did Google out of curiosity and I think I saw something about a 3 foot height requirement. Oy!



This is a slightly better picture of the Red Lady. The roofer guy took the car in trade for doing the front porch as shown below. We were going to skip it but he just couldn't stand to see something that needed to be done, so traded straight across. Looks nice.



Now we need a good power washing to blast off dirt and spiders and a tree guy to come kill some bushes.

Oh and the paint job on the Hardie board and the gutters put back up.

I have been watching the American Handyman contest on HGTV and wondering where they found some of these people. I guess all the good ones were working on jobs?

DAY TWO ROOFERS

Big truck in front of house, they loaded all the rolls of paper and the bundles of roofing shingles.



They spent the morning on the back side of the house tearing off old shingles and tossing into the back yard.



They finished with that about 2 pm (The silence was deafening)
and proceeded to load torn off roof bits into the big truck once it was parked in back.

If you will notice, there is a top of the 81 Mazda RX7 by the truck, nearly obscured by blackberry vines. That will go home with our roofer guy. We are vastly pleased.

Nine years since.....

This image has haunted me as being the most iconic. I thought at the time I first saw it on television that it would make a suitable memorial, perhaps not life size or the exact shape but three shards rendered in marble inscribed with the names of those killed that day.

LATER THE SAME DAY....

They got all the shingles off, 30 pound paper put on and the scaffolding to hold the shingles.




If you will click to enlarge,the hole at the top of the roof is where the capped off chimney was, they very kindly knocked it off to below roof level and will sheath, paper and shingle the hole closed. They are coming back tomorrow for more shingle removal on the backside, they will load up bales of shingles, take Sunday off and come back Monday and start hammering on shingles. Waiting for the chimney guy to prepare the flashing.

Day One Roofers

It dawned misty foggy this morning and burned off rather quickly. The guys showed up about 7:30 am and had this much done by 11:30 when I went to go have lunch with my coding buddy, Sue. We had Chinese. Boy it sure is noisy. We have to be careful to dodge falling objects when leaving the house. The roofer guy told us if the crew wasn't having any problems they might get done in three days, if problems, five days. Sounds pretty quick either way. Unfortunately my tinnitus does not block out sharp pounding noises.

Hi Charlie!!! and family !!!

Number one son called to converse and wish birthday greetings,we both agreed that we have a serious number remembering problem; we both remember that his is in October and mine is in September. He finally found my blog and admired the new siding. Woohoo. Hope to be able to post pictures of new roof soon,too much rain so far.

Excitin' day at work!

It's sort of raining today so the roofer will not show up today.

Also, about 10 am everything got all hush hush at work and the HR guy came around and asked us to lower and close the blinds and be on the look out for this guy.

Okay.

Then we had a fire alarm go off and EVERY body jumped about a foot high, except the patients. Too much drama.

Very colorful dream but boring....

Colorful dream: I was in Barrow, I think, quite remote. I was working in the hospital, however, my job seemed to consist of watching patients and touching them when they were in pain. Maybe I was magical or something.

At any rate I was chosen to go on a cultural tour to a local village. The village was located in a valley and near the cultural center were two shamans who were dancing. One shaman wore a cowboy hat, painted face and gloves that had red and white fringes on the fingers. He was waving his hands in the face of the other shaman and also at the group of military people standing around watching. The armed services were represented by the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.

Then I went into the gift shop to look around but someone drafted me to help prepare a local delicacy. I don’t know what it was called but I was looking at a white bowl of what looked like sea slugs or sponges. They were long green and cucumber like. Some were shorter and brown looking. I was told to cut them in half. I selected a shortish brown looking one and attempted to cut it in half lengthwise. Suddenly the middle mouth part opened wide and it had teeth and tried to bite me. It also had lots of little feet, it jumped onto the floor and hopped scuttled away. I attempted to pick it up but it was wiggling so vigorously it got away.




After that I was still touring and I and another person were walking down a path in the valley. On the right I spotted a water fall and walked over closer to the low stonework wall to take a better look. It was a gorgeous waterfall, a couple hundred feet tall, so I took pictures.
We kept walking down this delightful little valley and there was more stone walls and on the other side I glimpsed something bovine stumping around inside a cave. All I could see were legs.

Um, then I woke up.

Dream interpretation site says this about dancing and seafood.

To see ritualistic dancing in your dream, denotes your need to get in touch with the spirit within.

To see or eat seafood in your dream, indicates recognition and a mergence of your spirituality with your conscious being. You are acknowledging and fulfilling the needs of your unconscious. Er … except the seafood escaped so my spirituality has taken flight then?

Job well done! I think…..

Memorial Day weekend in Pendleton, Oregon

I was along for the ride actually, spouse was attending a convention for his organization. I found a nifty book store, downtown and purchased three books of authors that I enjoy and whose stories I had not read yet or had forgotten, good buy, lousy parking.

While there, I signed up for the Pendleton Underground Tour. Purchased a Pendleton hat for spouse, he did not have one surprisingly enough.



The picture below is of a Pendleton blanket woven in the Hudson Bay pattern. Does anyone know what the four black strips are for? First bar code! The blanket cost four pelts of what ever fur bearing critter was up for grabs, usually beaver.



Below is a picture from below of a side walk grate filled with glass. In the day,the underground part utilized as much solar technology as possible, the entire side walk around the block was glass, there were deep window wells that let in light as well. I was surprised that the hallways were as generous as they were.

Essentially how the underground in Pendleton came to be was that due to the rail head in town, lots of thievery, no law enforcement at all, the merchants hire Chinese to come in and dig the underground tunnels about four miles worth as well as excavate under an entire city block to create storage for the goods shipped in on the rail road. The underground over a period of 70 years or so served as a laundry and bath house run by Hop Sing (Honest!) Ice storage for the ice cream parlor, underground butcher, a speak easy, pool hall, gambling den, opium den, bowling alley and jail. Once back up on the street we toured the Cozy, a former bordello. Outstanding building that closed in 1953. The Madam moved around the corner and quietly continued serving customers until 1967.



After that spouse and I went out to the casino to the plateau room and he had well done very tender rib eye and I had a three tasting dishes and a dessert. My dishes consisted of a salad with candied hazelnuts (soggy) and pickled onions, the second dish was asparagus with a poached egg, third dish was pinwheel of Angus beef with balsamic.

If the chef had watched he would have choked me. I sliced the asparagus and added that to my salad as well as the pinwheel of beef and gently tossed it all together and then down my throat. Delish! Dessert was Fry bread with chocolate drizzle and berries. The fry bread was okay, I have tasted better but the beef was outstanding.