Thursday Turn Toward Trip

Sleep is still hard to come by, and when my alarm went off at 7, I turned it off and rolled over. When I rose, it was about 8. I found the kitchen; it had not moved, but putting on my slippers and locating the kitchen was non-trivial this time. “Yes, it is down here somewhere!” I do not have stairs. Hmmm.

Once I found the kitchen, I poured the locally roasted coffee beans into the grinder, with a few that had to be rallied when they fell to the stove and not the grinder. That and hot water in my French press made coffee. I am over grinding to dust, but it feels good after reading the headlines, a liberal doom scroll, and grinding something to dust: “DOGE this!”

I returned to my Apple laptop, a maxed-out 15″ M2 Airbook 2023 ($2,500 in 2023, now about $1,800 for about the same with more cores), and started writing the blog. I was surprised when Jeff appeared at 9 to finish the work, and I was still in my PJs. He painted the door, redid the broken tile grout, fixed the toilet, and blocked the bird access into the attics (the garage and house). We’ll do the deck sealing and cut down some scrub trees that are now large enough to lean against the fence in the summer. We settled the bill, and Jeff was off until the summer.

While this was ongoing, I realized late that I had lunch with Scott, quickly showered and dressed, skipping a shave, and headed to Cedar Hills McMenamins after boarding Air VW with the Gray fully charged. Scott later pointed out that I had left the charging flap open, which I have done a few times. I will try to be more conscious of closing it! I was fifteen minutes late.

Scott and I had a nice lunch, and I went for a burger. We talked about money, dealing with parents, and their issues. We talked about some of our friends at Nike with whom Scott had lunch. It was all good. We both agreed that Wall Street was crazy, and we could not do anything but surf the chaos. Scott and I are in more conservative positions and will follow a less risky direction.

I returned home, completed the blog, said goodbye to Jeff, and put out the trash containers to be emptied on Friday morning. I was happy that I remembered it was Thursday; this week has been rushing by. I sent a note to the mail carrier to hold the mail for two weeks starting Monday; I just write a memo instead of using the yellow card as this seems to work better. I reassembled the vacuum, and now it is clean and dry. But instead of cleaning and grocery buying, I spent the afternoon with Deborah on travel planning.

We both are comfortable planning trips, which became a contest between Iceland Air and Delta for the cheapest flight. Deborah found it was more affordable, by a lot, to fly me to Detroit on a direct flight than to fly from Portland to Iceland. How strange. We also ran Iceland Air and Delta vacation offerings and found that Delta was $500+ cheaper and is, sadly, better rated than Iceland Air (I had hoped it was something worth doing, nope). Deborah had to listen to me mispronouncing Reykjavík. We plan on a visit to Reykjavík and day trips there. We will pass on driving our own car. Dear reader, expect us in Iceland in July around 8-17. I will likely be in Michigan on the 9th and return to Oregon on the 20th.

Deborah rang off, and I headed back to Cedar Mills McMenamins. I was early for our room for ten and the Theology Pub monthly meeting at 7. We had fifteen, including one remote person in Utah. I had a pizza I shared, shared some of Dondrea’s humus plate, and a Sazerac to drink, remembering New Orleans (NOLA) and ignoring Lent. I was thinking of those NOLA vampires now on the other side of the tourist season until summer.

Lent was the topic, and we talked about how even folks are returning to the practice of denial and self-reflection as a means to find peace. This is not a Christian practice but a universal human practice. There is something good about stopping, looking at the sky, nature, or even a light, and losing oneself for a while. We agreed that one needs self-reflection and denial to become more centered, but the quiet time was inherently good. Others called out, as a Christian practice, to remember God and Jesus and their place in your life as you reflect. We also said God’s grace was found in Lent, denial, and self-reflection.

Most of us are liberal, and we felt we needed a break from the current noise. We pray that the world will be granted some of God’s grace.

After this, the three wise guys (including myself) helped Z with her algebra, doing an ugly problem that resembled 25¹°¯²ª = 5³¯ª; find a. Ugh! It took us a while to remember the rules of this math (order operation and process for exponent algebra), and then we did the problem twice, got a better result on the second try, and got it right. It was an extra forty minutes after Pub, but we got it. Z was happy and understood what we did to solve it (hint: 25 is 5²). I was sorry, but I got it mixed up the first time, and Michael R got that fixed on the second try. Dondrea said Z was happy with the results. Watching us struggle to remember made her day; it is not just her.

With the math problem solved (correctly) and Z understanding the magic used (same base for exponents) to solve it, we said goodbye with some hugs, as I am away for a few weeks. I was reading when Dondrea texted me that the lunar eclipse had started. The clouds had parted, and we could see it begin.

I went outside with a coat and binoculars for star events and whale watching. With these, I could see the rings of Saturn and the planets around Jupiter. My neighbors came out, and we shared the binoculars. Just as the moon reached totality, it disappeared in the clouds. Later, I returned and saw the blood moon.

Sleep was hard to come by, and nightmares, now forgotten, woke me, and morning came too soon, again.

Thanks for reading!