Author: alohawild

Describing a surprise:

On Monday, I heard a strange banging sound. It was sunny with a dark cloud over the house. I went outside and discovered it was raining in my backyard, hitting my deck roof, but not in my neighbors’ yards, and the raindrops were huge and slow (likely melted hail). Yes, it is the Pacific Northwest. Beware of dark clouds, even a single one, and carry a hat, coat, or umbrella if there is a cloud anywhere! At Nike, I have had folks, new to the area, who have to go home to change after getting soaked at lunch or walking between buildings. I would smile and remind them we are in the Pacific Northwest. It rains here, always (even when it is sunny). 

Starting the story of Monday, I spent the morning, rising late but waking with the sunrise, writing the blog, making coffee (Fair Trade), and getting my day together. Later, I would strip the bed and start the usual Monday laundry. Monday is my Saturday, and I miss the Saturday morning cartoons (oddly, He-Man is getting a movie, Masters of the Universe, in June!), but I write, do my usual tasks, and do not go to work (my favorite bit).

I deal with church things that invaded my usual peace on Monday, and it leaves me unsettled for the rest of the day. When I am stressed, I eat (without working and caregiving, I have lost weight), but today I have trouble. I make Trader Joe’s Beef and Broccoli and eat most of it, and then have crackers with cheese. Not good. I sliced potatoes with my mandoline slicer and managed not to cut myself, added some cheese, milk, and ham, and baked that for dinner. I did not get it right, and the potatoes are not quite done. Cook first, then sauce them, I think. I will look up a recipe; this should not be this hard.

I hear from my bank, and I have arranged for the first payment from my IRA to cover my usual expenses (always thinking of the Addams Family, with Gomez pouring gold coins into a briefcase for his lawyer, “For the Monthly Expenses,” and then breaking into another sword fight). Yes, the Addams Family movie is my model for paying bills (I once used Nixon stamps for bills).

Deborah recommended Star Trek DS9, and I have started from episode 1 and find, as she said, this is a very interesting show. I enjoyed the first three episodes that I watched on and off all day. Instead of cleaning, writing, or doing other housework, I just sat, ate, and tried to relax. I suspect my 230 pounds (yesterday’s weight) may have slipped higher. I will try to get some walking done. Ugh!

Corwin contacted me, and I drove to his apartment. He needed to pick up a work vehicle, and I drove him from his place across 26, back 26-217 into Tigard (south of Beaverton), and then I headed back alone. I took the path over Cooper’s Mountain, and things have changed. I think it has been six months since I drove that way. It felt very comfortable, and I kept saying ‘wow’ at some of the new houses and other constructions. I was also relieved that many are still farms. A vineyard hazelnut farm I have driven by for years is for sale for $4 million with 52 acres (I looked up the price today). Six million would get you just short of 300 acres (one of the signs I saw and wondered about), but it is already sold.

Aside: I am not tempted to become a vineyard owner or proveyour of filberts. I am hoping that someone will buy it as a farm, and that the trees will not be pulled down. I look at my apple tree, which was left as part of the old farm that once stood here (the builders left some). It now grows sideways after it fell, but it seems happy. It reminds me, I can almost hear it whisper into me, “You are truly only a steward of this small patch and not an owner, but have an apple in the fall and remember all who came before you.” The apples are hard and sour, but when sliced and eaten that way, they are wonderful. Hmmm.

And I hate to be so short on a blog, but yesterday was just a sit-and-relax day. I don’t do them very often, dear reading, and hope you (and the universe) will forgive the lost day and the extra calories!

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

At church, I had a dispute with another member about folks making noise after I had gotten them to be quiet. I handled my interaction with the church folks poorly, and the anger I faced was harsh. I later publicly apologized to the church. I was left shaking and upset, and it ruined my day. Even as I write this, I can feel all the emotions returning.

I talked to Deborah for quite a while as she helped me deal with the mess. It was good to talk. Dondrea and I talked later; she was there and thought I had handled a bad moment well. Even as I write this, I still feel upset. I am not sure I can be an usher, nor at this moment do I want to return and teach this coming Sunday. This crap I thought I left when I retired.

My Sunday evening was spent watching Star Trek Academy’s end-of-season show (it was excellent) and eating a salad with ham and cheese, along with chopped carrots and celery. I next watched multiple YouTube videos, including Battleship New Jersey’s channel update on the US Navy’s plans to build a battleship. The Discriminating Gamer channel had a list of the best board game expansions, and two that I was considering, and he says they are great. I see a purchase in the future. As my emotions were still in a swirl, I skipped any political items.

I started on, despite my reservations about this coming Sunday, the notes for my Sunday School, and focused on the end of The Book of Revelation (no ‘s’). Taking an obvious cue from the text, my first class focuses on the beginning, and my next on the end. This avoids the imagery and play-like nature of the majority of the text. I will cover that in another class, as well as the connection to popular versions found in books, shows, and movies.

I picked three texts and then tried to find a copy of my translation of part of the book (no luck so far). I formatted and assembled the initial document. I have much more to add.

I had planned to spend the afternoon on writing and other tasks, but most got put off. I went to bed and slept until beyond sunrise. I did rise once, around 3, to prove hydration.

Starting at the beginning, I rose on Sunday morning with the sunrise, reheated the coffee, and did the usual things, like writing the blog. All a blur now, lost in the distress. I remember arriving too early, chatting with Deborah, and reading the news on my iPhone. I wore my straw hat as it was a sunny, summer-like morning. The attendance was low, not more than 32, and the church started before I was ready (the clock I learned later was 1o minutes wrong). Ken gave a sermon about what it would be like to discover that you are not the generation to see the promised land, but to wander in the desert. How do you keep your faith and joy? Jeremiah was the text, and it questions why the people had turned away from God. And Ken takes it further, implying we find new “gods” when things go poorly.

Jack sang a wonderful solo. I put some of it on Facebook.

And then things went poorly about then…and I have no intention of recording that here.

I am not sure I can return on Sunday. I will see how I feel.

Thanks for reading.

I have been sad of late. That is the usual reaction to ending a trip, and since the trip before that was only a few weeks before, it seems to hit harder. But I am finding my groove at the house again. My roses (mostly) are growing fast, my mountain ash tree exploded, and I had to cut it back from the house. The apple tree is full of blooms promising a banquet for the locals (birds, squirrels, and raccoons) in the fall and winter (when the apples ferment, and the birds and squirrels stagger after bellying up to the tree).

The new floors Jeff installed are wonderful. My lawn service keeps everything tidy. Emma (Barb C’s daughter, Susie’s niece) plans to fly in next weekend, May 1, and look at Pacific University, housing, and public transit. I made a bagel with cream cheese to go with my liberal coffee. I made a full pot (and drank it reheated Sunday morning). Reading the news while tasting the bitterness of my coffee always reminds me that, while Hope is always out there, it will be some time before the world remembers Justice with Compassion. That God asked not about the greatness of our victories or the beauty of our cities, but what is the fate of the widow and the orphan in our lands. God reminds us that we, too, were once strangers to the land and calls us to treat the stranger well. The coffee tastes as bitter as these words. There is so much work to do.

I have sold and begun transferring my L3Haris stock earnings. It will cover another month’s expenses. I am paying over $1,000 for health insurance a month (and that’s for a Bronze level plan for one) via ACA (“Obamacare”) through the Oregon site. I am 62 and have three more years of this. It is part of the plan, but yikes, it is a lot of $$$.

I wrote the blog and then reviewed my notes/plans for my first Sunday School class on The Book of Revelation, and decided they were not enough to fill a full class. More is required! I headed back to the local Insomnia Coffee, put in my new AirPods after grabbing a table, and tried to add information on Roman Emperors associated with the book and times. I skipped Nero, as his persecutions were short and only in Rome, and he was gone before the time period, we believe, covered by the Apocalypse of John (though there are some who, using strange math, can show that Nero’s name counts as 666 or 616).

Wikipedia, countless online sermons, and history videos (the best and newest, I think, are by the author Mary Beard) on Rome and Revelation, and I do not want to just copy some of this into the class. I will cover just the basics and how two different time periods are associated with the book and its writing and understanding.

I have a scone with coffee, but still head to Happy Panda for Chinese-style food for lunch. There, with a few more edits, I sent my notes to Pastor Ken, Joan (head of Christian Education), and Dondrea. I like them to know what I am doing in my class, both as a sign of respect and to let them answer any questions that may come up.

With lunch inside me, fortune read, I head home. I read and rest a bit. Deborah and I chat here and there through the day. She is working on some work stuff. I get some tea and read more. I reheat pizza and ate that while I watched more Star Trek Academy. It is an excellent show (even some of the young people’s relationship stuff).

I get to Richard’s early, and we set up Nevada City, an Old West-themed resource-and-worker-placement game with some limited engine-building. The game has a marriage system that got it in trouble with the gaming community, and I agree they should have thought that through better. I enjoyed the game and was just ahead of James and thirty points behind Richard. I missed the engine-like combinations that gave Richard his points, but instead focused on learning the game. I would play it again, and the advanced game includes poker games and gunfights. Hmmm. It is out of print and not very highly rated. I did like it and thought it was unique and interesting.

We played one game and ended it sooner than we expected (we realized we could have played differently and gotten a higher score, and played longer). Corwin called while the game was finishing, and I called him back in the car. We talked while I drove home.

I read some more and then went to bed. I still get tired at night.

Thanks for reading.

 

Some of the sadness of ending a trip, and I started finding my way back into living at home.

I sold my shares in L3Harris to pay bills. This is some of the cash I parked in the market. I was not expecting a 60% return, nor did I expect Trump to start a war, or that I would hold stock in the main supplier of rocket engines for missiles at the same time. I am an accidental war profiteer! This will cover some bills as I wait for Social Security payments, which will start in June. The SS payments do not cover all my expenses, but they will help.

I connected with my health care providers, who have now worked out something, and I can now use the usual place for my CT Scan (not driving into Washington State!), checking that the colon cancer is still gone. I called, and I am off to Legacy Good Samaritan next Thursday morning. Excellent. I also looked at the risks of the non-cancerous tumor in my neck and decided to put that off until it becomes a problem. The risk profile versus the gain seemed out of proportion. I will instead monitor it. I am down to getting some blood work done and a colonoscopy to schedule.

The skin rash is slowly returning, suggesting that Shyrizi is working. I have not returned to the creams yet. It is an interesting process. I do feel like a “test bunny.”

I reheated the remaining coffee and cut some ham and cheese (from the fromage counter at The Market of Choice). I sliced up some bread I bought (but it was too soft for my taste), and with a banana, that was my breakfast. It reminds me of European and Icelandic breakfasts. I ate that while I wrote the blog.

I also updated my transactions in Quicken, read (mostly deleted) email, and doom scrolled the NYT. My IRA investments could not decide whether there was a crisis with Iran and stayed static. I also read that the fired US Navy Secretary lost his job by not meeting the deadlines for the President’s Battleship design. It reminds me of the story of the Kaiser sending in his design for a new cruiser for the German Imperial Navy: “Very pretty, but it won’t float,” was the navy’s reaction. Hmmm. Interesting to watch for us amateur battleship historians.

The blog was finished mid-morning. I was writing slowly, and I had no plans. I got a postcard out to Mom Wild as promised, St. Louis Arc postcards so far.

I reheated the pizza (not that good) for lunch. It seemed better reheated. I watched more Star Trek Academy while I ate. I then collected my Greek Bible and my NRSV Bible from college (and carried it to the site of ancient Megiddo once, and read the passage about the death of Josiah at the gate of Megiddo, standing in the remains of the gate). I headed to Insomnia Coffee nearby and started on my homework for my Sunday School Class.

I spent two hours working on class notes on teaching the beginning of The Book of Revelation. I started to recall my Greek and Biblical Criticism (this is about the Greek words and their variations found in the early witnesses to the original text, not about being critical of the New Testament from a religious point of view). I assembled a lesson with notes and text to read. I usually go with the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) rather than the NIV (New International Version) for the New Testament, as I find that the sentences in the NRSV often flow closer to the underlying Greek. NIV rewrites the text for clarity, but I believe they have then mixed in the translator’s political and religious views into the translation. But I understand that the NIV works well for those with weaker reading or language skills. It is more a matter of taste, and I suspect (with my pencil/pen corrections in the NRSV written in my copy), I will never be happy with either version.

It is slow going as I relearn some Greek, but the Internet is very helpful, and soon I can find details I would otherwise have to search for in books. I also learned that my 3rd Edition Greek New Testament has been replaced by the 5th Edition. After some thinking, I ordered a 5th Edition (the 6th is coming out in September). I also have a book that explains choices made in the official Greek version when there are conflicts in sources, and that too is being updated, but I think mine will be good enough (there are only two new sources and about 100 changes in the texts in the 6th Edition from mine, and often it is just wording on why it is still the same).

After hours of that, including a gluten-free coffee cake (lovely—I don’t usually go gluten-free, but it looked so good) and coffee, and using my new AirPods until they ran out of power, I headed back to the house. I defrosted a pork chop, found Trader Joe’s Four Cheese Scalloped Potatoes (not recommended), and chopped and microwaved fresh carrots with butter and some salt (I use unsalted butter). I fried the pork chop with some Tuscan-style spices. Dinner was good. I ate it while I continued watching Star Trek Academy and enjoyed another episode (no spoilers).

At 7ish, Corwin called. He got paid for his new limo driving job and wanted to celebrate. I would go for a drink and dessert. We headed around 8ish to the Golden Valley Brewery (GVB) and Corwin, using his gift card for Christmas, got a steak and an excellent dinner. I had an Old Fashioned and shared a cheesecake with Corwin. It was a nice dinner and chat.

We returned to the house in Air VW the Gray, he headed out, and soon I was headed to bed after reading for a while. I soon nodded off, trying to read a new book (I had forgotten about, found on the bookcase, unread). I turned off the light, woke once to prove hydration, and woke again with sunrise around 6.

Thanks for reading!

Some of these blog posts are just about me living my life and doing the usual mundane things you need to do to live in a house in 2026. This is one of those.

I woke early, jetlagged, and could not get back to sleep. I started at 6ish and watched the sunrise. Well, it was more the gray getting brighter, since yesterday was a typical spring day in the Pacific Northwest. It did not rain, but the sun made no appearance except as a halo in the clouds here and there.

I was tired and made a whole pot of coffee, knowing I would need a few cups and then could use it in the late afternoon to avoid a nap. Not good to nap with jetlag!  I also reheated it for Friday morning (while I am writing this). Breakfast was a protein bar and yogurt. I started the laundry and the blog post.

I tried to go slow with the blog as yesterday’s (Tuesday’s) was full of typos, as Grammarly and the back button seemed to make a hash of my thinking. I recalled the travel day and some of the interesting people and events. I was disappointed that the scale read 230 pounds, thinking all the walking might have helped my weight. But all that BBQ, booze, and good food seemed to have balanced the equation, maybe a bit too much. It was fun!

I also read my email and read the news while sipping my dark coffee, liberal coffee, and once again, the bitter flavor, the news, my email, and comments on Facebook from the right reminded me how far we liberals have to go to establish Justice wtih Compassion for all. And while God promises in the Book of Revelation to wipe away every tear (I am teaching the book in Sunday School in May), there will be an ocean of tears until then. I tire of the lies, killings, and acting and hear, again in the same book, the cries of the saints, “How long!” Sorry if that is too religious for you, dear reader, but the book is on my mind.

I finished the blog, got some of the laundry done, and more started. I dressed and all of that. I decided I want to find the Cosmic Monkey Comic Store in Portland, get the second comic that I enjoyed, and finish the story. I also wanted to get out.

I took Air VW the Gray to Portland with about 50% charge and took US 5 into Portland, a longer but prettier trip. I made a few mistakes, but soon found parking and walked to the store. I found the comic, but no other comic appealed to me; there are lots of superhero ones. It is a very nice store, clean and well-organized. I am used to used bookstores with piles of books and graying magazines everywhere.

Next, I parked on the street in Hollywood in Portland and walked over to the Wet Spot, the local aquarium store. I had not been there in years, and they have dropped saltwater from their offering. They have specialized in freshwater fish, many from Africa, and I believe most are now raised in tanks rather than captured from the wild. Instead of heating most of the tanks, the room was heated to the high 70s. My glasses steamed up. I discovered that my interest in aquariums is mostly to look at them rather than have one, but some goldfish tempted me.

I tried Rio’s Ribs for lunch, and after $32, I had a lot of good-but-not-great pulled pork, collard greens, and some fried okra (over salted to my taste, but I suspect good to most). I sat at a bench and ate it off paper and plastic. Not a great dining experience for the Bucks! The Laughing Planet was next door, and I should have picked that. I like their food. I also checked, and brisket is only available on weekends, and they don’t have beef ribs. Hmmm. Hard to recommend, but it was not bad, but not as good as St. Louis tourist places or Slow’s in Detroit (the best so far), by far.

I read my comic, and the second story was not as interesting as the first. The ending was disappointing. I was striking out today. Next, I stopped at the elk in Portland. During the protest during the Trump One, it was taken down as a safety issue (the elk statue is not safe to climb and is naturally unbalanced with the rack on its head). It is back, some sandstone upgraded to granite, and the park (and courthouse) all look great. The road no longer goes both ways around it. All traffic now passes the rear (no chance of hitting the head or bronze rack). I drove by it and was excited to see it again.

Note: It has a fountain, and when the drain gets blocked, it overflows. This got the less-than-flattering name of the “Pissing Elk” statue for years. The proportions are also a bit strange, and until it was missing, nobody really loved it. Now it is the “Elk” statue and was missed (six years to put it back).

I returned home and pushed through the laundry. I put on Star Trek Academy and enjoyed the next two episodes. I had stopped at the 185th Veggie stand and loaded up. I also stopped at The Market of Choice and got some toilet paper (I was down to my last few rolls), meat, a reduced-price ham (past Easter), and some expensive cheese (I would make a ham-and-cheese plate for my breakfast on Friday).

(You can punch out their logo and wear it.)

I continued doing laundry and heated a frozen pizza that disappointed me (Not sure what went wrong), which I had with a salad. Mom Wild called. She is lonely (I saw her last week, but she has forgotten that), and I tried to calm her. I had stopped writing postcards when she was recovering from a fall and moved to another facility for a while, but I promised to return to that now that she was back (I wrote one on Friday).

I read a new murder mystery on my Kindle, and soon it was late. A mundane day, and I did feel sad that my trip was over, and I am not yet ready to start my six weeks of things here at the house in Oregon. This includes medical stuff that has been bouncing around in weird insurance things. Next trip is 6 June 2026 to California  — driving again.

Thanks for reading.