Oregon Living 2024 – Blog #11 – Gloomy to Nice, A Dancing Treat & Saying Goodbye

 

                             

Sunday, March 10^th., 2024…… We wanted to sleep since we lost an hour, so we got up at the new 9:00am. We went down to the restaurant for another breakfast before saying goodbye to Mike and Cheryl. They said they would go to the casino for a while, then head over to the campground and visit with Frank and Marianne before they broke camp for home. The weather was on our side for the trip back home and we made it with no problems. We got unpacked, took the sheets that Kennedy had washed out of the dryer and threw our dirty clothes in and relaxed for a few hours. Later, we drove over to the new dancer class in Sweet Home. Once that was done and we were home and had time to rest and snack, I headed off to the Plus class. Lynn wasn’t feeling well and didn’t come tonight. Turns out I wasn’t needed in the two squares but helped out by walking around and turning a couple of guys in the right direction every now and then. No afterparty and I got home and we relaxed before calling it a night. We were so tired we skipped the spa and went straight to bed.

Monday, March 11^th., 2024…… The weather is still pretty awful. Rain and wind for the next few days. They all say it will turn in the middle of the week and be sunny and warmer. We’ll see! I think Cat is having a harder time than I am with the time change. She slept in and I headed off with the dogs then to the gym. I brought us breakfast and coffee back and we enjoyed that. Nothing else on the calendar today except a few things for my list. I needed to go online to get a couple of my prescriptions reordered. I also needed to sit down and work on last week’s blog and get that posted. That ended up taking most of the morning. Then it was time to relax and get caught up on my taped races. I thought I taped the Mecum auctions from Glendale AZ but turns out I missed all three days! No reruns until April. Bummer!

Later, I checked on the status of some eBay orders. I have a lot of 10 Nascar diecast cars coming. I ordered them in Feb. and they haven’t arrived yet. I had previously contacted the seller (from Jonesboro AR) who said he was down with the flu but would get them out last week. He updated me when he shipped them. But the status of the shipment went unchanged so I contacted him again. That was right before I received word from eBay that the order had shipped! I don’t expect them for a week so we’ll see. I had also ordered a total lot of 6 cars from another vendor and that was shipped and is in transit.  On top of that, I have also ordered a pair of vintage coveralls for our upcoming Farmer’s Dance. Cathye found a pair when we were in the goodwill store in Lincoln City last weekend. Later, we settled in for our taped tv shows. Spa and bed.   

Tuesday, March 12^th., 2024…… Forecast for today is rain most of the day but letting up and then clear skies for the next week. They expect temps will go up as well. Nothing on our agenda for today except our 1:00pm square dance workshop. So, we decided to make a Costco run. We did that and got back and got everything put away and rested for a few minutes before heading to our workshop. Judy was busy with another matter but Lynn came. But she wasn’t feeling well so she went home early.  We workshopped the Grand Colonel Spin! Our square dance friends will know this call. It’s off the lists these days so it’s rarely called but one of our local callers workshopped it at a recent dance and a member asked for it again. Cathye was sitting out that particular tip so she missed out. It’s my favorite call!    

Wednesday, March 13^th., 2024…… A beautiful morning!  Blue skies and sunshine! We walked the girls and enjoyed the morning. I took these pics of the new red white and blue flowers just blooming nicely!

 

Today is the memorial service for Alice Baldwin. I’ve known Paul and Alice for many years. They were members of my old square dance club down in SoCal. They had moved up here to Dallas OR in 2020 to be close to Paul’s son. They were members of the Independence Wagon Wheelers in Salem and danced when Alice was up to it. Services were at 11:00am. Dallas is about 47 miles from us so we decided to leave our house a little early and stop by Tator’s, our favorite place up there for breakfast. The meal was great and very filling. We loaded up leftovers for tomorrow. We drove the short distance to the church and gave our condolences to Paul and Judy and Rob.  The service was very nice. They have made many friends in the IWWs since coming up here, and many were in attendance. Afterwards, we headed back home and changed out of our nice clothes. Cathye went over to visit with Lona and then, later Judy. They called me over with my afib tester because they thought Lynn was in afib. They saw the right symptoms and knew to call me to come see if we could verify it with the test. I ran it and - no afib - she’s in normal sinus rhythm. But she will be staying home for the next few days to see how she does and we will be closely watching. Later, when we were back home, the postal truck dropped off two boxes and the rest of our mail inside our garage! Both of my car orders came today! I unboxed everything and checked them out. No issues.  I think I will wait until tomorrow to have Cathye help and hand them up to me for display on my shelves.      

Thursday, March 14^th., 2024…… Again, magnificent weather! Temps today are supposed to get to the 70s!  This morning we both had morning appointments, so we had to skip the gym and also breakfast out today. I walked and fed the dogs and Cathye drove down to Brownsville with enough time to make her 8:00am follow-up appointment with her doctor. As for me, I had to be at the hospital here in town to check in by 9:45am for my DEXA bone scan. She got through her visit quickly and called me on her way back. We decided that we would have just enough time to meet at Kristi’s to eat and then I could just go to the test from there. I headed over with time to spare. I think I was in and out of there in less than 10 minutes! Cathye went to Walmart on her way home and also stopped by and gave Jamie some of his mail, so I got back home before she did!  Today was spent with both of us catching up on our own taped shows. We spent some time talking about our cruise. David and Dawn, the organizers, are contemplating adding on an optional 6-day land tour around Australia after the cruise. They will be having a zoom meeting later in the month to answer questions and get feedback of those interested. Well, we are interested and plan to join in! We figure we are only going to be there once in our lives…!       

Friday, March 15^th., 2024…… The great weather continues… I figure we need 10 straight days with no rain before I could even consider mowing. It looks good so far so we may get it and that would be terrific!  We also made plans for our night out tonight. We are going down to Eugene to the Hult Center to see the Dancing With the Stars production tour.  We’ve had these tickets for months now and tonight’s the night. Lydia and I went with friends back in SoCal years ago and we enjoyed it. Cathye is enjoying the tv show so now it will be her chance to see some of the pros live. We had talked with Lynn and she says she is feeling good enough to go. Judy’s brother and his wife are in town for the show so we will meet up with the four of them for dinner on the way down. We left the house well before the DWTS show so we would have time to eat a leisurely meal and not be rushed to get there and get parked. We chose Junkyard Dog, which is a Guy Fieri featured place on his Diners Drive ins and Dives tv show. It was crowded but we got in and got seating. We enjoyed a nice meal and then took a few pics

before heading the rest of the way into Eugene and got to the theater with time to spare. We had booked our seats way before Judy did so we wouldn’t be sitting with them. I got lucky when I ordered and got tickets in the front row on the mini mezzanine, which turned out were great seats! I had received a call earlier in the afternoon telling me the DWTS staff had set up their sound and lighting board in the house mix station. She said the board might be a distraction and would we like to be in new seats? I said I booked those on purpose for the legroom and we would take our chances.  When we got seated,

this is what we saw...

When the show started, we hardly noticed it unless I was watching the guy operating the lights and such. It was really a good choice.

Theri, Lynn, Judy and Kristi had seats just up and over from us...

 Of course the show was terrific. They had Harry Jowsey,

who competed on this last season’s show. He still can’t dance but was entertaining anyway. The eight pros were Emma,

Gleb, Daniella, Riley, Pascha, Brandon, Alan, and Brit. We all enjoyed the individual performances and group dancing was amazing. 

Such talent! When it was over, we made our way out quickly and made it home by 11:00pm.    

Saturday, March 16^th., 2024…… Temps in the 70s again today! We slept in this morning but when we walked the girls, it was already starting to warm up. Still too soggy to mow though. We spent a few minutes working on loading up the cars on my shelves. 

Pretty tightly arranged but I still have room for more! Shortly after that, Cathye went with Lona to take Lona’s dog over to the groomer in Sweet Home. While they were there, they went to lunch and then to a couple of yard sales before going back to get the dog and coming back. While she was gone, I went out to the shop to work. I wanted to take down two of the vertical shelving units out there and cut them down to make 4. Then I will have wall space for another tv! But first I needed to unload them. The shop hadn’t warmed up yet, so I started a fire in the stove out there and pretty soon had the room nice and toasty as I worked. Cat got home while I was still taking things down and sorting through them. But I soon finished up and came in to see her new treasures and to make myself some quesadillas and rest for the day. Later, we got cleaned up and changed, and then drove over to visit with Mike and Cheryl and got a tour of their home. We then all drove over to Frank and Marianne’s to pick them up. I was carpool driver for a dance tonight in McMinnville. The plan was to stop in Newberg for a dinner at one of Frank and Marianne’s favorite places, and then drive on to the dance. This was a memorial dance for a local caller (Leonard Snodgrass), who recently passed away. They expected a large crowd and had to have a Club member out in the parking lot to get everyone shoehorned in. The dance was really fun. I think they had 7 callers and 6 cuers there. After the dance, we all went downstairs to the dining room where they had a ton of food. to enjoy. We all snacked a little. They passed around a microphone and some shared stories and remembrances of their friend. I heard later that the final count was 120.  That's huge for this area!  Afterward, we headed home and dropped folks off before getting back by midnight. Long couple of days!