A Three Event Day

Event Number One: ABX Guy's GO Get Outside Event at the Interlochen State Park. Small turnout, but good conversation. It was really chilly down by the lake.

Event Number Two: Sandrich's Something Twisted This Way Comes Event at the Onekama City Park. This Event became our 1,000th geocaching find - a real milestone. DinoDuo were so thoughtful - they must have been keeping track, because they produced a bottle of champagne wearing an M shirt (yes it was), and a beautiful big cake (see above). We had pizza for lunch, and then went crew caching to find the Twisted Cistern together.

Event Number Three: We met Kim and Mike, Bill and Jan outside the farewell party in Manistee that their friends were giving them to say good-bye before their move to California. We didn't attend the party because of caching muddiness. We were able to hug everybody, meet Mike's mother, and have a short talk with Kim and Mike and a long talk with Bill and Jan. I'm glad we were able to get together.
More info about Kim is available on a need-to-know basis by email.

Kim

Talked to Kim today to ask how things went at the Mayo Clinic. She said,
"It's not good." She has a diagnosis of POEMS syndrome - which is a very
rare blood condition. You can google it - and you won't find it very
encouraging. There is no cure, and most patients become bedridden
eventually. There are 100 known cases in the US.

I did find a kind of positive little video and the link is above.

But even in the positive video, the person is in a wheelchair (after a
bone marrow transplant). Bill and Jan are in Manistee with them right
now, and we're going over to give her a hug tomorrow. They are kind of
in upheaval getting ready to move - they've been packing all week. Kim
may stay with her folks for treatment in Ann Arbor depending on test
results. Michael has to leave next week to start his new job in CA.


http://www.medicaledge.org/2006may-4.html

Peeled, Patched, Primed and Prepared

The kitchen is ready to have the wallpaper put up. Melissa changed her plans so that she can come back in the morning and finish the job! I'm excited to have it completed. She patched everything so it looks really ready. Hooray for Melissa.

I'm still having fun cleaning out drawers, throwing things away, and rearranging the stuff in the kitchen cupboards. After we get the new countertops and sink we're going to feel liked we've moved! I hope I don't regret any of my throw-aways - but it has to be done sooner or later.

The perennial garden is very lush this year. The plants loved our cool, cool spring, and all the rain and the sprinklers. It seems to be growing so much faster. The rue anemone is blooming, and the field daisies. Yesterday I noticed one spiderwort (tradescantia) blossom. The spiderwort is really beautiful when it's all in bloom. We have big buds on our peonies and globeflowers, and everything looks great. On the driveway side, the rhododendron is looking good too.

Today is 6/6/06, or 666. Some people actually think that this will be the start of the apocalypse. Other people think that November 2000 was the start of the apocalypse! In Hell, Michigan today you can get an ice cream cone for 66 cents, and a steak dinner for $6.66. They've created a wedding chapel where people can get married in Hell at 6 p.m. Sounds like it might be a fun day in Hell.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY...THE MURDER OF RFK

A Brief but Influential Life...What Could Have Been?

Robert F. Kennedy

born Nov. 20, 1925
died June 6, 1968

Murdered at age 43, leaving a pregnant wife and 10 other young children

THIS DAY IN HISTORY...D DAY, JUNE 6, 1944

The Normandy invasion began with overnight parachute and glider landings, massive air attacks and naval bombardments, and an early morning amphibious assault on June 6, "D-Day". The battle for Normandy continued for more than two months, with campaigns to establish, expand, and eventually break out of the Allied beachheads. It concluded with the liberation of Paris and the fall of the Falaise Pocket.

Wall-a-thon

Here's the kitchen after a five hour scrape-a-thon. The first two pictures are the After, and the last two are the Before.

Melissa discovered that the paper had to be scraped off the wall, so it took longer than we had anticipated. Also, she decided that the backsplash portion needed to be removed before she papered. So a lot of time was spent trying to pry the backsplash off the wall, resulting in some dents in the wallboard, which she says will be easy to patch.

She reached her husband Steve by phone and he came and cut off the backsplash board with some kind of a narrow bladed saw. This involved turning off the gas supply to the range top and lifting the rangetop so that the black glass base wouldn't be in harm's way during the prying and the sawing. Steve removed the knife drawer when he disconnected the gas line, so when he sawed, a lot of the dust went down into the pots and pans drawer. They will all have to be washed and the drawer wiped out. That's what dishwashers are for!

Melissa was here for 5 hours of peeling and scraping, and we had thought she would only be here for 2 hours or so. She's very calm and confident, and doesn't get rattled - I get the feeling that she's "seen it all". She's coming back tomorrow to patch the wall and apply sizing/primer. Then on Thursday she'll put up the wallpaper.

Dick and I went on an expedition to find storage units. First to Menard's where we got a plastic box to hold some toys we're saving for Dylan - mostly MacLand toys, but not entirely. We also got a three drawer unit for storing the bird feeding supplies. Then to Lowe's where we got some drawer organizers for our deep utensil drawer in the hope that we can sort it out and make things more accessible.

And then a nice surprise! We went out to dinner at Scot's Harbor Grill. It was such a beautiful day, and they have such a great view! It was a real treat, and we had fun watching the boaters. The restaurant was not at all crowded, so it was very relaxing and yummy.

A Day in a Nutshell

I stayed in Traverse, Dick went geocaching in Benzie.

I went to the drug store for Mom, and spent about an hour and a half visiting her and doing little "chores" for her.

Dick found three caches, two hard, one easy.

I had a sandwich at Wares Bros., and went shopping at the new 3 Mile Road Oleson's - love that store!

I did 3 loads of laundry, folded one so far. (Where's my rose?)

I'm trying to clear off the kitchen counters this evening so that all will be ready for Melissa the Wallpaper Lady tomorrow morning.

Harrison

This Harrison event was hosted by TreePlanter. There were almost 80 people there, and it took a lot of work for TP and his family. Marty the First Mate took over entertaining the children - they had a great time with the whistling balloons - what a great activity for kids - I'll have to keep that in mind! Dick had a chance to do some mental geocaching with both Cyclops and Frank, among others. We posed a picture of all the S2S finishers who were present - what a great looking group!

Wallpaper!

Melissa the Wallpapering Lady came this morning and measured our tiny kitchen to see how much paper we'll need. It turns out that we need two double rolls. She said that she's hoping to be able to come out Monday morning to remove the old paper and size the walls. Then on Tuesday morning she can come and put up the new stuff. I have my fingers crossed that she can keep that schedule. She's also on deck to paint the new Children's Museum when their drywall is completed, and if they're ready on Monday that could be quite a delay.

She mentioned that she had seen a sale at Sherwin Williams, so off I went and what a good tip that turned out to be. I got $50 worth of wallpaper for $8.44. Such a deal!

Visited Mother - showed her the Silestone sample and the wallpaper, and she approves.
She seems to be doing well these days.

Spring Cleaning

Hey, it's been a busy week here at Basswood Bend. Glorioski, we have many irons in our fire (figuratively only, thank goodness.)

Dick has power-washed all of the decks and boardwalks, including the front porch - so we're very clean and shiny. There are many projects left to do, however. My honey-dew list is longer than your cockatoo. We still need to clean the porch, and set up the umbrella table and hose off the picnic tables. I love to do that on a hot day. I need to do more weeding in the perennial garden.

Our countertop area has all been measured by friendly Bruce. He recommended that we do the wallpaper before the countertops are installed, so, tomorrow Melissa K. is coming to measure and assess how much wallpaper we'll need. I'll buy the wallpaper on Sunday (because we'll be gone to an Event in Harrison on Saturday), and I'm hoping that she can wallpaper the kitchen sometime next week or the following week.

We're planning to visit Mother tomorrow, and on Sunday after I look at wallpaper, I can visit her again. Dick really doesn't want to shop for wallpaper, can you believe it?

Also next week we're going to Brown Lumber to line up somebody to come and do all of our odd jobs - siding, screen doors, ceiling fan, shutters, and downspout. I think that's it. Stay tuned.

Inside I have finished cleaning out the pantry - what a job. We've made two trips to Goodwill, and we have an impressive pile for the dump. It took 2 and a half days, and I'm very glad that it's done. I have to laugh because in all of the drawers, shelves and pantries that I've been cleaning out, most everything that I'm tossing is dated 2003 and 2004. Last year I kept up with the current stuff, and now I'm cleaning out what's left from the two years that I was sick. It sure feels good to feel good. I have my own honey-dew list also - mostly cleaning out cupboards and putting down new shelf paper.

We have been disappointed in Britten Banners, because so far they have not indicated that they're even working on the S2S T shirts. We have orders from 20 people so far, and no way to know when the T shirts will be ready. We're planning to go talk to Chris next week and if he can't produce, we'll take our mock-up somewhere else. It's quite disappointing to have Dick work so hard on the planning, the series, and the shirt design, and then have everything come to a screeching halt when it's out of our control. People are really looking forward to getting their shirts, and we feel awful that they have to wait.

During our Subaru Cruise today, it looked like the new Pangea's Pizza might be open. I sure hope they do well - they have worked really hard on getting their space remodeled and ready.

Bessie's Debut

In honor of the holiday, Dick put Bessie the mannequin on the swing on the riverside deck. We did observe her being noticed, but we didn't see anybody tip over. Most canoers and kayakers are concentrating so hard on making it around the bend that they don't really notice our house or our deck. It was fun though, and Dick said that he plans to put her out on weekends. When she's not on the swing, she lives in Dylan's playroom.

Dick power-washed half of the deck. I made potato salad. We did the Subaru Cruise downtown and watched the billions (millions?) of people who were enjoying the day.

It was amazing to see how many boats were rafting by the beach volleyball courts. We have never seen that many - our estimate was 50-60 boats. The beach was literally teeming with people. The shocking part was that in the new open space created by the removal of the power plant, there were hundreds (dozens?) of cars parked. I'm sure that the PTB never intended that space to be a parking lot.

We visited Mother and took her some potato salad. She's just not really interested in food anymore. Or much of anything.

We went to Memorial Gardens to see the family plots. The flowers this year are red, white and blue - very nice.

We had a picnic - burgers on the grill, potato salad and chips. But we ate indoors because of the heat! (93 degrees)

The Power of a Holiday Weekend

Since we left for the Soo on Friday morning, Traverse City has been transformed!

The traffic is back with a vengeance.

Touristy families are strolling up and down Front Street - cute babies in ball caps and sturdy little ones striding to keep up. There's dining on the sidewalk, and people ambling with cups of ice cream. Folks are walking around in shorts, tank tops and sandals - most of them looking very winter-white!

The weather was perfect this afternoon - warm and breezy - at times a little too breezy!

The marina is practically full for the summer season. Boats were lined up to launch, and there were only a couple of parking places left for trucks with boat trailers.

The bay is a beautiful blue, and the power boats are definitely out there - rooster tails galore - and even one or two jet skis. The State of Michigan has returned to its mooring at the Maritime Academy after its training cruise.

People are sitting on the beach, and the beach volleyball courts are all in use. Summer won't officially arrive for another three weeks, but it's here no matter what.

Summer is here.

Saturday Outline

Up early and over the International Bridge to the Canadian Soo by 8:30 a.m. Here's the beginning of the bridge, and the U.S./Canada border in the middle. The other pictures are from the Event - they're kind of mixed in together - I apologize.

We found seven caches in the Canadian Soo this a.m. (By the way, that city has too many one way streets.)

First cache we found was not much fun - signs everywhere saying private property, no trespassing, etc. etc. etc. That gives you a most uncomfortable feeling. The actual cache site was OK, it was just the surrounding area that made one wary.

We found six caches this morning in Canada. Our favorites were located along the river front. Beautiful, well developed, well used, well maintained.

Have you ever heard of dragon boating?

Back across the bridge to eat lunch (Studebakers), go shopping for goodies, and go to the Historical Tour of Sault Ste. Marie event.

Not one of my best days.

Enjoyed meeting Rattrak, Kay, and the caching couple from Manitoulin Island.

Enjoyed talking to Victory Mike, Trashcan, Captain Bud and First Mate.

Most fun was the Historic Tour. UsTwo teamed up with us, and we had a great time. They know their way around the Soo.

Food, other events, other attendees, weather (windy, chilly) - as Thumper said, If you can't say something nice...

Could just be that I was having a bad day.

Onward and Upper Peninsula

The Mighty Mackinac - Our bridge crossing - the beginning, the middle, and the end: the view from the U.P. Toldja it was hazy.
Here's just an outline of our day - just so I don't forget some details. I can upload pictures and flesh it out a bit later. (Maybe)

Breakfast - Omelette Shoppe

Raining and foggy. Rain stops just in time for caching.

Kalkaska - 3 caches

Grayling - 3 caches - at one of them (Goose Creek) we met up with Team Coychev. Victory Mike and his sister- Two presidents of MiGO! Dick said he didn't know whether to log it as a multi or an event!

Lunch at Spike's

It's now a beautiful, sunny, warm, blue sky kind of a day. We lucked out.

Frederick - 1 cache

Gaylord - l cache

South side of Mac Bridge - 1 cache - a really dumb one - the man eating clam

Over the Bridge we go. I took 14,000 pictures, and it isn't even a good picture taking day - too hazy!

North side of Bridge - 1 cache

Drive to the Soo

Check into Quality Inn, where we're staying free for two nights using our frequent customer points.

Drive through the Soo looking for dinner.

Decide on Abner's, near the motel.

Sadly, remind me to tell about my sparerib dinner.

Return to motel - eat my boxed grilled cheese sammy.

Dick logs all ten finds - it's not easy when you're so tired.

I'm reading a good book, Distinguished Guest by Sue Miller.

Decide to take shower and wash hair tonight because of bug repellent I used so liberally today!

Dick's finished logging, his turn to read - my turn with the laptop. We love WiFi.
Having fun reading logs of the teams who have finished the S2S series. It is most enjoyable!

OK, that's my outline of today. More later (maybe).

The Soo & Memorial Day

The flowers came from Pine Hill, and the large pot came from our front porch. - The smaller pot, which has been there for seven years, doesn't hold enough in my opinion. So now we're all set for Memorial Day. We're planning to visit the other cemetery on Monday.
Mother was really good today - she seemed more peppy than usual, although peppy is not really the right word.

We're leaving in the morning for Sault Ste. Marie. There's a geocaching picnic on Saturday, and it sounds like the weather will be perfect.

We Measure Up

Today Bruce came and measured our counter tops for the Silestone. In case you're thinking tape measure, let me tell you, he measured it with something very high tech involving tripods and such. When he left after two hours, he took our new sink, and the installation instructions for our cooktop with him and told us he would also need the new faucet when it comes in. I'm just hoping we get everything back!

Got a perm - Trina's getting married a week from Saturday - she's highly excited (naturally).

T.C. to Oscoda to T.C.

Here is my best friend, the Geo-Addict - all decked out for a day in the woods - complete with gaiters. I love the picture because it shows the woods so well, and you can even see the trail winding off intriguingly into the distance. This was at the South Branch Trail Camp.

We intended to spend the entire day finding the S2S caches, beginning in Oscoda. But due to a glitch in the final cache combo lock, we had to start out back at Hopkins Creek. Thanks to Photobug2 (our Beta-tester) who did the entire 16 cache series (300 miles) on the first day that it was published, we knew that the combo lock wasn't programmed correctly. As Dick said, Kudos to Photobug2 !

We found nine caches today, beginning in Oscoda around noon, and ending at 7 p.m. near Luzerne. We had a Subway dinner in a park in Grayling, and got home around 9:30. Dick actually stayed up and logged all of the finds - I went to bed before he did - a rare occurrence.

Mother reported that Jenny's mother is training to become a caretaker as well. It seems that Ann is going to have surgery and will be gone for several weeks. I'm glad they're adding some new helpers.

Spring Cleaning

Dick worked at the Agency. I'm "spring cleaning" some drawers and cupboards, aiming at eventually cleaning out the pantry so we can put kitchen items in there while the kitchen is being re-done.
Jim came with the sink today, so we're ready to have the counter-tops measured. Traverse Tops took our down-payment (50%) over the phone, and the measuring man will come Wednesday morning to do his thing. Then they say that it will be another 3 to 4 weeks before installation. I'm hoping it will be sooner rather than later.

Dylan Patrick

We visited Mother - she's fine. We discussed events at the residence - who's in the hospital or out of the hospital, and the caretakers both familiar and unfamiliar. She was interested to hear about Chip making the sno-cones for Jessica's birthday party, the progress of our kitchen project, and how does our garden grow. She's less interested in hearing about downtown, the bay, and how T.C. is booming. She's always interested in hearing about things at her former house. We met Jenny, a young mother of 4 who is a new caretaker.

href='http://app.tabblo.com/studio/stories/view/2463/'>

This is an experiment!  Tabblo is a new photo site that lets you upload pictures and arrange them in a "Tabblo".  Naturally, I'm experimenting with pictures of Dylan (and Kyle).  Supposedly I can upload this whole page to blogspot - I really want to see if that will work!

Left is Dylan at the Ocala National Forest where they went camping during Spring Break.

Below are the same pictures I've already put on the blog, but I know I'll be happy to see them there again (if this works).

Crossing my fingers, here goes....

 

 

... See my Tabblo>

Cattle Track

First order was a trip to the dump the dump the dump in Marco. Drove around town, did the Marco Explore, and went out to Elmwood Beach to look at a new cache put out by Fossil Finder. It was a cute hide - we really enjoyed it - and we were the first to find!

Back at home we traded cars and took the Subaru to Cattle Track. At Hopkins Creek we set out the final stage of the S2S series, so now that's finished. Off to Lake City to find one that we couldn't get previously because men were working on the top of the water tower, and we would have been in plain sight. Have to watch out for those muggles!

Flush with success we headed to Cadillac and found four more before heading home. We had to post a DidNotFind at the band shell in the lakeside park because people were preparing for a wedding there. I feel really sorry for the bride because the wind off the lake was strong and chilly. I'm sure that's not what she had in mind for a May 20th wedding. Later on, at 7 in the evening, we had a torrential downpour here at home, and we were both thinking of that poor bride - hope she had a backup plan.

It's Nice to be Remembered !

Just about a year ago, on May 22, 2005, we went to an NMG meet and greet here in Traverse City and met some really nice people. This is my blog from that day:

This morning the Northern Michigan Geocachers had a Meet and Greet at the Flap Jack Shack. It was a smaller group, but we had a great time - met some new people, and had good conversation. It was especially fun meeting Petoskey Stones from San Jose(Scott), and Omena Couple(Stuart). We got some good ideas, and lots of new stories to tell.

Yesterday Dick got an email from Scott (The Petoskey Stones, or TPS) saying that he was back in town visiting his parents (Omena couple) and that he had brought us a geocoin and left it in a light pole at Tom's West Bay and gave us the coordinates.
Scott is a software engineer/manager from San Jose, California.
This is Dick's morning to work at the Visitor Center, so I took the GPS and went to get the coin. There was a muggle lurking about, so I ran some other errands first and then returned and picked up the package. It turned out to be two coins - the large one is The Geocachers of the Bay Area coin. It's different because it appears to be cracked and skew-jawed. On the back it says "Earthquakes make 'em all 5 stars." I assume that means level of difficulty. The smaller coin is a trackable California Poppy micro coin - very cute, but impossible for my limited photographic ability! It was so great of Scott to remember us and to bring these coins for us from California. Here's Dick's letter of thanks:

Hey Scott,
Of course we remember you, if for no other reason that because you have successfully integrated Geocaching with a Mac. If you had a couple of hours, I could relate the comedy of errors involved in integrating GSAK, Palm, a Garman and a Magellan with XP Media Edition. It works now but only after two house calls and three trips to the shop.
Many thanks for the coins. Nancy picked them up while I was doing my Visitor Center thing. She had to go back a couple of times because some guy was hanging out right next to the post waiting for someone. We owe you. We have an extra 2006 TC Winter Convergence coin if that would interest you. It is the oldest continuous social activity in Michigan. Picture a picnic in a snow storm with a 20° windchill.

Again, many thanks,
Dick and Nancy of
Basswood Bend

I visited Mother, and showed her the pictures of Dylan. We had a nice conversation, and a good visit. I tried to explain the Shore to Shore GeoChallenge to her, but she just shakes her head. I told her about the riding/hiking trail, and she said I should get a horse. We had a good time.
We took the T shirt art to Chris at Britten Banners, and I think this project is going to work out well. He'll email us the designs he comes up with.

In Which Dylan Gets an Award

Laurie sent pictures of Dylan receiving his National Physical Fitness Award - two of the pictures were taken at the presentation - it was inside, and the quality is poor but I don't care! The other two show Dylan and his friend Kyle humoring the grown-ups. Cute kids. Dylan is in the gray shirt - he's the cutest one! He can't help himself.

Steady drizzle all day today. The temperature hovered around 42 degrees so it was a cold, cold rain. We've had enough rain now - no more fire danger for us! The river is full, but not really threatening to flood.

Lilies of the Valley and Cold Pears

Ambition,
Feeling good,
Time to cultivate.
Literally.
Laundry also.
RBS brings me a shiny new cultivator,
and lilies of the valley.
He mows the grass,
I scratch the garden.
He uses the trimmer
which needs a new wheel.
I load the dryer.
Break for lunch,
Cold pears
Hit the spot.
The plumber calls,
I scratch the garden some more.
The tractor mower breaks,
So he fertilizes in the rain.
I fold the whites,
Put darks in the dryer,
Watch the show,
Come upstairs to compute.
Computing when it's raining
Is no-fault.

Shore to Shore Meeting

On the left: Susie, Tim, James, Nancy On the right: Paul, Denise, Sheryl, Dick

Here are the eight creators of the Shore to Shore Geo-Caching Series. We met at the Holiday Inn in Grayling to solidify our plans, compare ideas, and synchronize our watches (not really). James and Sheryl, Basswood Bend, dpbotkin and DinoDuo are the creators, schemers, plotters and planners. It was a productive meeting and I think we're about ready to get the whole thing approved. Dick has been putting in a lot of time on this project, and he has a right to be very proud of how it's turning out.



Tim, Paul, Dick and Sheryl

We found 5 caches on the way home. The weather cooperated. After dodging a few raindrops, it turned out to be a gorgeous day.
Here's how Dick described our day:

Cache Logs
May 16 by basswoodbend (950 found)
After a luncheon plotting with our partners in crime finalizing the latest and greatest Geocaching Challenge the state has ever seen, shore to shore, 14 caches, 300 miles, First finders commemorative T shirts to the first 10 to complete it, we chased down a few caches on the way home.

Thank you Barb and Sharon !

Jim Beam (no kidding) the plumber came to test our water first thing this morning, and said he would have the results for us on Monday along with advice for choosing our new filtration system.

Then we gathered up our gps's, loaded caches, and log book and set off to place them. For the Shore to Shore series we placed three containers for two caches - one in Empire, and two at Garey Lake (it's a multi). Then we went over to Benzie to put out our "just for fun" cache at Turtle Lake. I'm especially proud of this one - it's a nice location, and it should be an easy find. It's very "turtley". I'm expecting it should be approved sometime tomorrow.

Sharon is in town for the weekend to spend Mother's Day with Barb while Jim is in Texas. We met them for dinner at the Freshwater Lodge, and we had a great time catching up on all of the news. It's so much fun hearing about all of the kids and grandkids, and various friends and relations. They surprised us by treating us to dinner, when we had actually planned to be the treaters! It was a wonderful way to end the day, and I really appreciated the Mother's Day card and treat - Thank You Barb and Sharon!

Sharon and Barb 

Our New Sink

Our New Sink 

This is the sink we ordered today. It's by Elkay. The one we ordered is oriented just like this one. Ours has a deeper bowl on the left, and it will have the disposer installed on the right bowl. We bought strainers too, and a great faucet with a pull-out sprayer, and a new In-Sink-Erator.

Visited Mother - she seems fine - she needs some diversion, but she rejects every suggestion. Betsy thinks we should try to get her out more - at least out of her room and down the hall - but she always resists. My philosophy has been to just let her do what she wants, but maybe I should be more pushy about it. I don't know what to do - I can't really see forcing her to do things at this stage in her life. I just do what I can by visiting and bringing her flowers and managing her affairs. She always says she doesn't want anything and doesn't need anything and seems annoyed knowing that I have gifts for her for Mother's Day. But she always likes what she gets. It's a dilemma for me - after she's gone I'm going to wonder if I did everything that I could have done - but I do realize how lucky we are to have her in a nice place with constant care. And we're also lucky that she's not at all demanding, as some old people are. I just want to do right by her.

Jim Beam

That's the name of our plumber! No kidding! We're just so glad to have a plumber, and he seems like a very nice person - we enjoyed talking to him. He's with Bob's Furnace, Heating, and Plumbing.

We have an appointment with Michelle at Ferguson's tomorrow to order the sink, faucet, strainer, recirc. pump, filtration, system and who knows what all. This is all new to us - where you have to have an appointment to buy a sink. Cheesh.

That Sinking Feeling

Do you think putting in a new countertop and kitchen sink is easy? Think again. Picking out the countertop and the installer was the easy part. The hard part is getting the sink - On line maybe? From Home Depot maybe? It seems that the first thing we need to get is a plumber. At every showroom the question was "Who's your plumber?" The days are gone where you buy a sink at Lowe's and have the local plumber put it in. There are showrooms requiring an appointment, wholesale showrooms, retail showrooms, suppliers who only work with contractors, suppliers who only work with plumbers, lists of plumbers, and no guide for beginners.

Did you know that to buy a sink you have to figure out what dimensions you want, what shape you want, how deep you want it, what gauge you want, what finish you want (stainless or Corian for example), how wide you want it, drop in or undermount, and blah blah blah. Then, you think you're on top of things because you have selected one sink out of dozens. But wait - did you think that a sink came with a faucet? Or a drainer/strainer? Wrong. Evidently a faucet is an accessory which can cost just about the same as the sink! And the drainer/strainer recommended for our sink is around &50. Give me a break!

OK, so say that you've selected a faucet and a strainer....(which hasn't happened yet). Then you have to decide which disposal you want, whether you want a recirculating pump in your water system for hot water, or a booster tank under the sink. All set, right? Wrong. How about filtration for our well water. System filtration, or localized...blah, blah, blah.

OK, so say that everything is selected - it all has to be ordered, and you have to wait for it to arrive. Not until then can the countertop people come and make a template for cutting the new Silestone countertop. Then you have to wait for that job to be completed.

Wait! We still haven't interviewed any plumbers, although we have a list of 25 or so to choose from. We have recommendations for four of them. Then there will most likely be a wait for the plumber to become available to get under the new sink and hook everything up.

Don't get me wrong - I'm thrilled to be updating our kitchen. But I just never expected such hassles and hoops. I like Nike's motto - Just Do It. Right now our motto is Just Deal With It.

UPDATE: 9 P.M.
I'm calling this Hit the Deck, or Why We Went Out To Dinner Tonight. Dick wrote:

I haven't fired up the wok since last fall. I have a special propane hot plate out on the porch that I use with the wok. It is much hotter than the inside burner and, since it's outside, it doesn't smoke up the house. Nancy purchased some beef, asparagus, broccoli and other suitable veggies and at about 6 I went down to chop stuff up. The beef I cut up in to bite sized pieces and marinated in a mix of oil, vermouth, soy, and stir fry sauce and put it in the fridge. After I had the veggies chopped, I assembled everything on a tray and took it all out to the porch. I heated the wok and added the oil.
I did the beef first, there wasn't that much, just enough for the two of us so I did it all in one batch. It cooked up nicely and I wanted to return it to a dish while I cooked the vegetables so it wouldn't become overdone. Keep in mind that this is the first time I've used the wok since November and there are some operations that I've forgotten. This wok was new last year and has two handles, one is the traditional wooden hand grip and the other is like a fry pan handle. I picked it up by the fry pan handle and was maneuvering it to empty the meat into a dish when the handle spun and dumped the meat on the cement!
Since we are not vegetarians, we went out to dinner.

I was just glad it was him and not me!

Windfall Day

This day started out like any other day - dishes, laundry, vacuuming, computer games - and then Dick suggested going out to lunch! From then on, it was an ideal day, a lucky day, a real windfall of a day!
Here we are eating lunch al fresco at Amical. I felt a little under-dressed and under-coifed, but it was very pleasant. Dick had a good time watching people parking on the street, or attempting to park! The Asian Chicken salad was very nice - spicy and delicious. The dressing was very gingery.
Traverse City's own "bistro"!
Then we were off to Walton Junction for some cache maintenance. People have been reporting that they think the cache is missing, so we had to check it out. This cemetery sign is a bit optimistic - it would lead you to believe that the cemetery has been updated and refurbished when in reality there's nothing there - no headstones, mounds, plots, fences or anything. The area is outlined with stones, and that's the extent of the updating! Anyway, it's an interesting place to put out a cache.

It's a little alarming to be in the woods when everything is so dry. Our area is under a red flag warning from the National Weather Service because fire danger is extreme until we get some rain. The leaves are really crunchy, and the trails are very dusty - it's obvious that rain is badly needed.
Basswood Bend himself, engineering a replacement Walton Junction cache container.
This windblown tree is quite near the cache site, so Dick thinks that the cache just blew away in a big windstorm. It definitely was missing.
This large branch is more evidence of recent windfall.

From Walton, we went to find the Greenwood cache. Dick couldn't remember the hint at first, but with some nagging from me, he came up with enough of the hint so that we were able to find the cache.
We attempted to find the "Splatacular Cache". We had to log a DNF (Did Not Find), but the scenery was worth it.

Geocaching is a great motivation to drive these obscure, intriguing North Woods roads, cache or no cache!