Two Unusual Days

Yesterday I spent 4 hours hooked up to an IV receiving 2 units of packed red blood cells. I was at the Infusion Clinic at Munson Medical Center. I was the only one there getting a blood transfusion - the others were either getting Remicade or Chemo of various types. But I won the longevity award. I was there from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

The best thing about the morning was that while I was away, the Merry Maids came!
Today when I got up, I felt better - I walked for 12 minutes straight on the treadmill, instead of my usual 5 minutes and then rest, then another 5 minutes, etc. I was able to do a lot of things around the house without feeling sick. But I hit the stamina wall around 1:30 after shopping at Glen's. Tomorrow I'm expecting to last until maybe 4 p.m., and I expect to improve every day.
Dick spent the day pruning and cutting brush all around the property. He worked really hard all morning and up until around 3:30 p.m. He even fell off a ladder while cutting a large branch off of one of the larger trees. Luckily he didn't hurt himself.
Today we were expecting Jana's co-worker John and his family to canoe to our dock so we could drive them back to their car. They called while putting in, and said we should expect them around 4 p.m.

We waited and waited. Dick went upstream with the camera so we could send pictures to Jana. After a while I went inside to check the message machine and sure enough, they had called. The gist of the message was - We have had quite an adventure - we have lost our canoe. We're walking toward your place on River Road - we're not quite sure where your place is... I jumped in the car to go pick them up, and sure enough, here they came - John and James - walking toward me still wearing their fluorescent orange life preservers.

We drove back, and hailed Dick, who was quite surprised to see them - "How did they get past me???" James stayed on the dock to keep an eye on the river just in case their canoe should come floating past. Dick and John loaded one of our canoes to go down to the railroad bridge to go in search of the lost craft. It was right there, kind of leaning on the railroad bridge. So John drove Marco back here, and Dick paddled the formerly lost canoe back to our place. Quite an adventure indeed. We had made previous plans to go out to dinner tonight with Dennis Cervino, and Dennis came just as Dick got here with John's canoe. We all had a pleasant conversation on the deck. John and James left, and we went to Giovanni's for dinner, and back here for coffee and more conversation.

Doctor Day

This morning I had an appointment with the world's best Doctor, Brian Burke. We talked a lot and did some blood tests, and I'm scheduled for the infusion clinic tomorrow a.m. for 2 units of packed red blood cells. I'm sure I'll feel terrific afterwards.
Dick worked at the Agency in the morning, and this afternoon he went for his eye exam, so now HIS eyes are dilated!
Life is just a of .
In between Doctor appointments, I went to the library and got new books for Mother. She was eating lunch when I dropped them off, and seems to be in fine fettle.

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Flower Bower

A litle disappointed today - Laurie still doesn't know when she can come to stay. We were hoping for next weekend for the Blue Angels and everything, but it looks like they'll miss that. Tom will definitely be here on Saturday, July 3rd.
We drove up to PlantMasters and bought flowers for the yard. They have a stunning variety of beautiful things. Today is another perfect day, weatherwise.

Shopping Bopping

Today I went to Traverse City's brand new Bed, Bath, and Beyond to get new linens for when the family visits in July. I used remarkable restraint in not buying the absolutely perfect $200 comforter (!) and managed to get all of my purchases for $150 - quite remarkable indeed, which is why I'm remarking on it.

While I was out having a great time spending money, Dick was at home weeding the flower beds along the driveway. He spent hours out there today, and it looks terrific.

This afternoon we put our furniture back in the living room, and now we're back to normal. Well, as normal as it gets.
We went for a lovely drive (it's another gorgeous day) over to the Interlochen area to do recycling.

The Carpets are Clean

This morning the Stanley Steemer carpet cleaners came and did their thing. We have all of the living room accessories in the guest room until noon tomorrow

Dick went geocaching in the Mesick area, and climbed some awesome hills. He also got lost in the woods, which makes me jealous that I wasn't with him.

We went shopping for a new tractor - looked at a Kubota (14,600) and a John Deere (12,700).
We keep remembering that in 1962 we bought a new house for 11,990. Cheesh.
A very nice Friday, sunny and temperate (70). I walked as far as the old volleyball court.

Thursday Stuff

Today Dick gave another presentation about the new Medicare Discount Cards. This time he spoke at the Elmwood Township Senior Lunch Meeting. He definitely didn't go there for the food.

Mother and I went to Dr. Whiting's office for some dental work for her. She said she wasn't feeling very sharp today. It was a short appointment, thank goodness. When she got back to her house, there was a letter for her from Austen at camp - very cute.

After leaving Mother, I went grocery shopping at the new Oleson's for a change. It's nice to have some variety sometimes.

After supper, we got the living room ready for Stanley Steemer. Their carpet cleaners are coming tomorrow.
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Training Day

Eating our anniversary dinner at Windows was a unique experience. I highly recommend it to anyone who feels like dressing up, and who has a fat wallet.
No sooner had we been seated, when my cousin Rick Block came over, and pointed out where he and Mary and Uncle Fritz and Aunt Ruth were sitting! It seems it was Fritz and Ruth's 64th anniversary! I had no idea we shared our anniversary date. What a coincidence!
Windows is a starched white tablecloth kind of a place. The servers were all in starched white pleated tux shirts and black pants. They were all very attentive. I had veal picatta, and Dick had Surf and Turf, followed by chocolate Jack Daniels ice cream and raspberry torte. We were seated there for 2 hours, but it seemed much shorter. Unbelievably nice - we loved it.

Today we were seated for 5 hours in the conference room of the Area Agency on Aging for Medicare/Medicaid training. I think it was a pay back for last night. We really paid our dues today! What did we learn that was new? We learned that people can steal your identity from the boxes of checks that you order through the mail; that you should not give out your social security number to people who initiate the contact; that Sladek's got the lunch order wrong; and that an assertive attitude can often get you what you want for your client when dealing with the FIA or a hospital.

Tonight we are having pancakes and bacon for supper to make up for all the rich food last night.
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47th Anniversary

To celebrate our anniversary, Dick mowed the whole property including the paths, and I cleaned out my bedroom. It took us an equal amount of time, believe it or not. The transmission on the tractor broke down right when he was almost finished. So now we're back to the manual mower.

We loaded the tractor up on the trailer and hauled it off to the John Deere man. Now it's almost time to get ready for our big night out.

Happy Monday

Dick worked at the Agency, and I had my yearly eye exam. We had a lunch date, and went to Scott's Harbor Grill. The dilation of my pupils actually didn't wear off until almost 5 o'clock. I couldn't believe it. I was expecting just a couple of hours.

At Glen's (formerly Prevo's) Market, there was a two for one sale on Johnsonville brats!
So our freezer is full of brats for Genfest, and we are very proud of ourselves!

Tomorrow is our 47th wedding anniversary. Last summer my high school girlfriends gave us a gift certificate to Windows as a thank you for hosting the SLG picnic. It expires on July 1, so this is definitely the time to use it. So tomorrow night, Windows, here we come.
I was thinking maybe in 3 years when we have our 50th anniversary, we should combine Genfest and the anniversary party. 1. All our kids would be here, and 2. it would guarantee that nobody would think that hiring a hall and having a special party would be a good idea. I think we would both just rather have a picnic. When Dutch and Marian celebrated their fiftieth, my Dad gave all of his descendants $50 each. Don't hold your breath ;)

Father's Day

What a great day! In honor of Father's Day, we wanted to go out to brunch. Traverse City has numerous very nice brunch providers who advertise heavily and require reservations. On Mother's Day, for instance, we had a wonderful brunch on Old Mission Peninsula at the Bowery. But this time, we wanted to spend the day geo-caching in the Arcadia/Bear Lake area, so we headed for one of our favorite restaurants, The Dinghy, in Frankfort. On the way, we stopped off at a small cemetery where we had previously failed to find a cache. This time we were successful! We got to Dinghy's at 9:30 a.m. and discovered that they didn't open til 10. But luckily, there's a nice park across the street which had a cache in it. (Dick had loaded all of the area caches into his Palm and his GPS in preparation for our adventure.) So we found our second cache before breakfast. Brunch at Dinghy's is some kind of wonderful experience! Everything you could possibly think of for breakfast is provided, and just when you think your plate is loaded, and you have everything you want, a lady comes around with a tray and says, "Would you like a hot apple fritter?" Well, heck yes! At this point, that sounds like health food!
What followed was a day of geo-caching - we found a total of 7, and only got lost twice. Even with maps and a GPS, it is possible to get lost in a maze of two-tracks. The day was perfect - 70 degrees, blue sky and sunshine, and we were doing our favorite thing - getting lost in the woods.
Around 4:30 we headed for Mother's house, stopping at Moomer's first so we could take Mom a milkshake. We had a lovely visit with Mother, who seems to think that she's beginning to look old. We brought her some lollies to have on hand when Dylan visits in a couple of weeks, and some microwave dinners to try.
Back at home, Dick logged all of our finds (not an easy task) and we re-lived our adventures. Happy Father's Day indeed.

Tuesday, June 15

Today I had a chance to talk to Dylan. He liked his tennis lessons so much that Laurie took him to sign up for more lessons next week. For Dylan's age group they use a smaller court, a lower net, and a larger, softer ball. One of the best things about tennis lessons is that when you're finished, Daddy takes you for a treat.
He wants Grandpa to build a bridge across the river so that the path can be extended. We discussed about 14 reasons why we can't do that.
Laurie has laryngitis, and it doesn't sound good.
This morning I cleaned up the computer room and finished the GenFest invitations. Dick has been outside all morning locating 20 places around the property to hide the geocaches for GenFest. He's copying down the coordinates, etc. so the competition will be good to go when the time comes.
This afternoon we mailed the invitations, and went caching. We found the Al Quacka Aviation Administration cache, near the Vasa Trail. This one required superior math skills, so we had Tom figure it out!
Then we found the Yuba Creek Natural Area in Acme Township. There's a cache there too, but we're saving it for later. We drove through Traverse City, enjoyed the blue bay, and stopped at the $ store to buy some goodies for the caches at GenFest.
A gorgeous day - low 70s and lots of sunshine.

What's happening at the river

June 14, 2004

Dick and I are already thinking about how much fun it will be to have Laurie, Chip and Dylan here for the month of July.
The GenFest will be on July 17th, and we're sort of pre-planning for that already too.
When Dylan gets here, he and I will work together to tell what we do every day - hopefully with pictures!
This morning Dick is working at the Agency and I'm going to sweep off the porch.
Today is Flag Day.
This afternoon I did some scrapbooking, Dick mowed the grass, and now he is geocaching in Honor and Inland Township.