Blue Skies

This morning we cleaned house to get ready for Marshal. Dick cleaned out the refrigerator very, very thoroughly - it's great!
Then we both had a very small nap, and went into town for errands.
Stopped by the Agency to pick up some papers and went to the Library.
When we're in town we often like to go to McDonald's for coffee and iced tea - so we did that.
On a beautiful day like this we enjoy driving along Grandview Parkway looking at the boats on the bay, the beaches, beach volleyball, into the marina to see what's up, and then driving all the way down Front St. to see the tourists and all the activity.
Life is Good.

Then we were off to get sweet corn and tomatoes at the Pine Brook Farm, and then to Glen's to get groceries so I can pack them a lunch for tomorrow in the canoe.

After we got home, I helped Dick load the canoe on top of the car for his trip tomorrow.
A most pleasant day.

Infusion Day

Went to the infusion clinic this morning at 8:30 for an infusion of Iron Dextran. The good news is that I was finished by 11:30.

For two hours of the infusion, I shared a room with a man who talked non-stop. Literally. He was there getting antibiotic therapy. I know everything about him, his wife, his property, boats, surgeries, injuries, and just everything. I saw a picture of his house, and I know where he lives. He literally talked non-stop. I've never seen (heard?) anything like it.

Dick had a Dr. appointment at 9:30 and then went to work at the Agency, where he got very busy. And still this evening, he's sitting at the computer trying to figure out this client's Medicare Drug Card dilemma.


Marsh Wied is coming to stay with us Wed. and Thurs., so tomorrow I'll be getting ready for the visit. I think he and Dick are going to go canoeing on the Manistee River if the weather cooperates.

Sunday, Sweet Sunday

The title of this entry comes from The Flower Drum Song, a 1950s Broadway musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein. It was popular when we were kids, and I think we know the words to all of the songs. This is an excerpt:

Sunday, sweet Sunday,
With nothing to do,
Lazy and lovely,
My one day with you.
Hazy and happy,
We'll drift through the day,
Dreaming the hours away.

So today, we lived it out, and pretty much just drifted through the day. We did watch some Olympic track and field events, and the finish of the Marathon.



Dick did go talk to the Barkers about having the driveway sealed, and we did go visit Mother and did her trash and recycling...but other than that...

The wonderful lyrics to the fantastic Flower Drum Song can be found at:

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/flowerdrumsong/sunday.htm

Motivation and Goals

Right - motivation and goals - on a very, very, very small scale!
I spent the first part of the morning on the computer - and it really felt like one of those days in which I could spend the whole day sitting at the computer. I even played a little Everquest because I had promised Dylan.


Dick said he was going to town to look at dollar stores for a "bug" to use for his goldbug cache. I really didn't have any desire to go to a dollar store, let alone several. So I tried to get psyched up for it and couldn't until I remembered that one of my goals for today was to return the bottles and cans to Glen's. Dick was already in the car when I went out and said "Wait 5 minutes - I want to go with you."

So off we went, to every dollar store in Grand Traverse County. It was fun looking at all of the "junk"! I actually bought a hair brush, some dish towels, and ziplock bags. Dick found several insect type thingies, and it was fun.

We went through the intersection where two teen-agers were killed last week, and there were still marks on the pavement - it's a sobering experience.

We ate lunch at the mall (China Wok) and had fun people-watching.

Then off to Glen's to return the cans and bottles. You should have seen the line! I guess Friday night is party night, and everybody was cleaning up after the parties. Dick bought stuff to fix in the wok, but I think it will be tomorrow, because after our late lunch, I don't think we'll need dinner tonight.

So I was really glad I went. And I'm sure walking around malls and dollar stores is much better for me than sitting in front of the computer all day. Plus, we had a very good time.

No Power

The day began at 5 a.m. when something woke me up - I assume it was the storm - I glanced at my clock radio and the clock was not lit up. It wasn't even flashing. So I rounded up some candles and matches and went back to bed. In our house we have 5 or 6 little tiny lights that stay lit all the time - on the compactor, the dishwasher, the TiVo, etc. None of them were even lit up.
Dick got up around 7, and emptied water into bowls and buckets so we could wash up and also flush, a very important function. He located 2 great camping lanterns, so we were as well equipped as we could have been. He left to go work at the Visitor Center, and I stayed home by the phone, reading my book.


Spoke to Dylan and Laurie this morning. Laurie has signed him up for Cub Scouts, and I think that's a really good idea. 5 of the 8 little boys in his den are in his class at school, so I'm thinking they'll become buddies. I promised Dylan that when the power came back on, I would play Everquest and try to make one of his characters stronger.

I called TC L&P to make sure that they knew we had no power. They knew. They said that there were some outages within the city limits, so I called Mother. She had power (whew). Her cleaning lady comes this morning, and at 1 p.m. she's having a pedicure.

When we got home from Houghton Lake yesterday, I had two messages from Dr. Burke who wanted to talk to me about my latest test results. I finally got hold of him, and he said that based on the latest numbers something needed to be done - iron or blood. We decided on Iron Dextran, and I go on Monday morning to the Infusion Clinic for an infusion. Last blood transfusion was on June 29th. Dick also has a Dr. appointment on Monday. Are we in the sickly sixties?

We went out to lunch at the Firefly Cafe, behind 310. It was really nice - a very upscale place with a great menu. We really enjoyed sitting outside in the shade and watching the river. Very pleasant.

The power came on around 1:45 p.m., and Dick fixed the TiVo/TV so it would work again, and then he had to fix the garage door opener so it would work again, and then the phones died. So that was another production to get everything up and running again. Now we're back to normal - as normal as it gets.
I imagine it will be an eternity before the Hurricane Charley victims will get back to normal, so we're counting our blessings.

Canoe Chapel

Kind of slept in this morning - missed a call from Dylan on our cell phone. His message included "I love you quadrupla" and "Turn on the phone already!"
We lounged around reading the paper, drinking coffee, and gabbing most of the morning. Bill made us all bacon and eggs.
Then we were off to the woods again, searching for the Mason Canoe Chapel. This time we followed the cache owner's directions, and we did find it - but I must say, the back roads in that area are multiple, confusing, and long. The chapel was really really far from the pavement. It's a beautiful spot, and we enjoyed it immensely. We met a young man there who is planning a surprise wedding in October. Can you imagine? He might be the one who gets a surprise. Dick found the cache, and the young man was very interested in what we were doing - we may have a new convert to geo-caching.
We visited the Michigan Firefighters Memorial - a most beautiful spot - it was a virtual cache. At the next cache site (Circle of Sidewalks) Bill was the one who found the cache.


Then we went back to Houghton Lake, packed up, and said good-bye. On the way home we stopped at Coyle's (still Houghton Lake) for lunch, and wound up having dinner. They have a traditional American salad bar, lunch buffet, dessert bar and it was spectacular. Then home again after a couple of enjoyable days.

Off to Houghton Lake

Drove to Houghton Lake this morning to spend the night with Jan and Bill. The weather was very iffy, so we didn't even try going out on the boat.

We shared family pictures - baby Jet is just amazing - he's in the 95th percentile of both height and weight. They did give Jet a middle name after all - Ketana - which means big sword in Japanese. They liked the sound of Jet Ketana. Jan is flying back out to California this weekend to babysit.
Eric and Tammy are expecting their first child in February. They say it will be either Emily or Ethan. The "cottage" has had some nibbles but so far no takers.
We did go geo-caching, and they were good sports and went along with us. Jan even found the first cache! So she at least had some success. We did lots of back woodsing, found a ghost town, an old stone lodge, and an abandoned CCC camp. We spent a lot of time lost in the woods (the most fun of all) trying to find the Mason Canoe Chapel in the George W. Mason Tract. Dick kept saying - "I have a feeling it's on the other side of the river - and he was right! We were tired though, so we left it for tomorrow.
Had a great time catching up on all the gossip and family news.
Jan fixed dinner and the two of us drank a whole bottle of Cherry Festival Wine. Yummy. I went to bed early. Felt like a real wino.

Please Swish

We both had dental prophylaxis this morning, which is another way to say we had our teeth cleaned. Such fun.
In an astonishing variation of normal, I don't have to go back for anything, but Dick does. Hehehe
In the p.m. we went to look for a good place to hide Dick's new cache "The Goldbug". He found a good place, and nearby there was a cache to find, so we had double the fun.
Tomorrow we're going to Houghton Lake to visit the Sniders.

Thanks Alexander Graham Bell

Spent a lot of time on the phone today - twice with Dylan, twice with Jana, twice with Mother, Dick talked to Bill. One Dylan call and one Jana call were over an hour each - we're real gabbers!


Dick worked at the Agency this morning and was really busy. All I did was talk on the phone, go grocery shopping, do some laundry, and go out for sweet corn. That is it. Where does the time go?

The Phantom Trail

Our day has mostly been filled up with hiding our new cache, The Phantom Trail. After I walked on the treadmill Dick and I picked out the items to be put into our cache (an old ammo box). Then we had to go for a ride back over to Blair Townhall road to firm up some more coordinates and to hide the actual cache. I think it will be quite hard to find this one. It's located between two cedar swamps, with the trail on a relatively narrow ridge. Besides which, the coordinates on the cache page are coded and have to be de-crypted before anyone can find it. We know one intrepid cacher (ABXGuy) who will probably find it the day after it's approved, but that's only one. After it has been approved, I'll post the URL here so you can look at it.
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=2fb0f422-7dfe-432e-b2d1-a5db55299187
Once the cache was hidden, then we had to come back home and try to format the cache page so that the code came out in the right order in html. I was kind of at a loss, but gradually, after trying everything else, I figured out a rather clunky way to get the job done - I think it took me about 4 hours - no kidding.


It's a good thing we're retired. Anyway, it was a big relief to finally have it work out the way we wanted it, and now we wait for the Official Approval.

We visited Mother, and she was OK for a while, but then she got so she really couldn't keep her eyes open - it's weird to watch that happen. We cut our visit short so she could rest. Talked to Jeff the Neighbor. He has Kerry signs in his front yard. He has distributed more than a hundred Kerry signs on Beaver Island, where his in-laws live.

We drove home by way of Moomer's for ice cream. When you have ice cream at 4:30, you really don't have to fix any supper. I'm always thinking. We made our selections and went to pay and found out that it had been paid for by a church group, who was buying ice cream treats for everyone in the building. A very nice surprise. They were mostly pre-teen girls (The Missionettes) from the Living Hope Church trying to show us the love of Jesus in a tangible way. So we said Thank you Jesus.

We drove home around Long Lake. It was a beautiful day for a drive, but very windy - gusts up to 37 mph. We noticed trees already beginning to turn color. Plus, Dick mowed the lawn today, and right after he was finished, it had leaves all over it. I guess fall is really on the way. We really had no summer this year - a lot of temps in the sixties.

Ideal Idyll

By 9:30 a.m. we were on the road across the river from our house (Blair Townhall Road) looking for a good spot to hide our next cache. This time Dick brought the chainsaw so he could clear the fallen tree from the trail. Then we went on down the trail until it came to an end, got out and started looking for a good cache spot. Dick found the most absolutely perfect hiding place that there ever was. He captured the coordinates, so now we're ready to set up our next hide.

Then we headed over to Leelanau County. First stop was the Miles Kimmerly Memorial Park - a most excellent facility. It's used for soccer, baseball, hiking, beach volleyball, and disc golf. We went there to find a cache, which Dick found in record time.

While he was in the woods, I was watching a group of approx. 15 young men throwing frisbees around the outfield. When they came back to the parking lot I could hear them talking - one of them was getting married at 4 p.m. and this was how his friends and relatives were unwinding before they had to get dressed up.

Next stop was the Aylsworth-Johnson scenic overlook. A cacher had reported that the velcro on the cache had come off and it was just lying on the ground. We replaced the log book, which was really in bad shape. Dick figured out that we would need a hammer and nails to replace the cache the way it had been. So we were off to Glen Arbor to get a hammer and some nails.

When you're in Glen Arbor at lunch time, you really should stop in at Boone Docks for lunch. So we did. Then on to the hardware store and back to the overlook.

Next we headed for Frankfort, and we were amazed to see that Frankfort was having a combo Arts and Crafts Fair, and a Classic Car Show. That little town was a beehive of activity. Dick was looking for the Cross Country Cache on the Elberta Beach, but after a trial run, he found that the trail he was on was blown out, and he decided to try it another day.

Lake Michigan was gorgeous - the bluest of blues. We saw a hang glider near the Elberta Bluff. Sometimes there's just so much beauty in the world that you can't take it all in.

Haircut is the Big News

You know it's a slow day when you plan your life around your haircut appointment. That's what we did today. First we went out to lunch downtown at Pete's Irish Pub (don't go there) - the food was horrible. Then Dick walked around downtown while I went to Bo Tangles to get my haircut.


Then I went back and picked him up and we went geo-caching in a really beautiful spot off Bunker Hill Road in Acme. It was fun for me to get back out in the woods again. But I couldn't believe the amount of traffic that there is out there at that M-72 and US 31 intersection - it boggles my mind.

Instead of going straight home, we took Blair Townhall Road (across the river from our house) and went looking for a good place to hide our next cache. We followed two-tracks until they faded away and all you could see was some bent grass - a kind of phantom trail. We came to a spot where a tree had fallen across the trail, so we decided to come back tomorrow with a chainsaw.

When we got home from our ride, it took from then - 5:15 - til after 8 p.m. to fix, cook, eat, and clean up the kitchen after dinner. And I'm somebody whose cooking can be described as whatever is fast and easy. What was I thinking?

Doctor Day

Nothing to write home about. Dick had his annual procedure today, and I needed another blood test, so naturally we went out to breakfast first. (Omelet Shop East) No reason why the entire day should be a bust.
In the afternoon Dick rested, I got groceries, and that's about it.
We really did enjoy watching the women's gymnastics.

Olympic Trance

It was fascinating watching the Olympics this morning. I TiVoed the overnight broadcasts, and it's definitely the best way to watch - you can skip all the commercials and most of the commentary. This morning we watched the women's shot put qualifiers. It proves once again that different body types are required for different events. The female gymnasts have to be short and compact, volleyball players tall and skinny, and shot putters big and bulky. I was entranced watching them.

We skipped past the men (we can watch it later) and went to the canoeing - otherwise known as single sculls. The women were up first, and no Americans qualified. We were amazed at the condition these rowers have to be in - total body condition - legs, arms, mid-section- they must be the fittest of anyone. In the men's double scull the men are all extremely muscular and fit looking. In one heat of the men's qualifiers, the American team beat the Norwegian team by one one hundredth of a second to come in third. That's .001 !! Unbelievable.

Then it was into town for a day of errands - UPS, P.O., bank, dry cleaner, Sam's Club, Mother. At Sam's Club we saw the new Ludlum book "The Bourne Legacy". I assume there will be another movie - hooray! Have to get that one to read. I haven't read "The Bourne Ultimatum" either.

Mother seems fine and dandy today - we really enjoyed our visit - she seemed perky and more relaxed than usual. It was a Good Thing.

Kind of Blah

Today was a kind of blah day for me. Laundry, laundry, and then some laundry. Some financial planning with my favorite financial advisor (RBS). That's about it.
Dick did some geocaching, found a micro that we couldn't find before - he's on a roll.
Then he went to get a haircut, and came home with dinner - steak and salad. Gotta love it.
Talked to Dylan - he's a little bit nutty.

Monday, Monday

Dick worked at the agency this morning. When he got back, we headed into town with Kris and Austen. Took a mini-tour of downtown and mailed the invitations.
Jim had spent the morning pruning the bushes in Mother's yard. He really put in a lot of time on it. We got there in time to load up the brush to take home with us.


We all had a nice visit with Mother, and then Dick and I headed for home, dumped the brush, and worked on the problem of our non-working TV which developed this morning. Dick actually moved it to the dining room table in order to take it in for repairs, but then he put the TV back in the living room and called the cable company to come and check out the connections. It took the cable guy about 3 minutes to say, "Well, it's working for me." Great - no TV repairs, and no service charges. It's a mystery still.


In the late afternoon, Dick went out geo-caching - and completed one very complicated cache and one that he couldn't find the last time he tried. He's getting better at figuring out these complicated mathematical puzzles. And he's very good at walking distances. Which is why I stayed home.

I watched some of the Olympics - I'm fascinated by the synchronized diving - because as anyone can plainly see, it's impossible ! I also enjoyed watching volleyball and field hockey today.

Kanitz Picnic

Jim, Kris, Austen, and Mother came out for burgers and sweet corn. Austen is 10 years old now, and very tall. She's going into 5th grade this fall. We planned for the Kanitz reunion Sept. 19th in Saline. Jim and Kris approved my table decorations and the invitation. We're going with a red, white and blue theme because of the political conventions, the Olympics, and the November election.


It was fun to hear all the news from Saginaw and Madison. Austen went to four different camps this summer - they all sounded very exciting and interesting. After dinner, Austen read the book "One Dog Canoe" to everybody. Cute book - cute Austen. Jim and Mother stayed until 7:30 or 8, and then they went back into town. Kris, Austen and I watched the Olympics.


While she was watching, Kris addressed, stuffed, stamped, licked all the invitations for the reunion. Hooray for Kris!