Oregon Living 2024 – Blog #36 – An Exciting Week!

 

 

Sunday, September 1^st., 2024……  Cathye woke up feeling pretty good. She had some time to wake up then took her covid test. It was negative! Yaay!  I showered and walked the dogs while Cat took her shower. We made plans for the day. Our Club is out on their Labor Day Campout and today is the board meeting, silo dance, and potluck. So, we decided to go out around noon for the afternoon. I just got some new camp chairs and loaded them in the Buick. We were going to take the dogs because they said they had plenty of room to run and play, but decided to leave them because it was hot. There were a lot of campers there, spread out in Frank’s grassy lawn area. We enjoyed the visiting and the lunch. Then we had the board meeting, and then the silo dance. Shaun climbed to the top of the largest silo with his wireless mike and called for the crowd down on the grass. I guess this has been a Club tradition for many years, but it Shaun’s first time! It was fun to dance and see him up there!

 

Later, Cathye got very tired so we packed up and headed home. We would miss the pizza dinner so I went out later and got us KFC. We relaxed for the rest of the evening. 

Monday, September 2^nd., 2024…… HAPPY LABOR DAY! We decided to brave the crowds this morning and went to The Point for breakfast. It was slammed but we got lucky and got seats on the patio and even had Becky as our server. I decided to try the PMS omelet!  That would be prime rib, mushrooms, and Swiss. Cat had her favorite French toast, with cinnamon crunch coating. Fun morning!

We came back and kicked back for the day. Temps would only get to the high 70s so it was nice all day. I caught up on my races, while Cat headed off to Pioneer Park in Brownsville for the girl’s picnic. She made her Lemon Lasagna (layered lemon dessert) and managed to bring back a bit for me, along with a plate of dinner.  I made cheese quesadillas earlier so I didn’t want any of that today. Maybe for lunch tomorrow!  Tv until bedtime.    

Tuesday, September 3^rd., 2024……  Cat is feeling ok from the bout of covid, but still feels wonky in the mornings. Her pulse goes up and she feels weak, so she sits down and rests until it’s back to normal. She says she sure can’t wait until the 23^rd to get it fixed! I walked the dogs and fixed breakfast then worked on my bills for a bit. Then I went out to the shop. A couple of folks in the Club have expressed interest in the badge hangers I have made. So, I turned out a couple more to give them today at our workshop. Here’s one I made for Lynn a few months ago…

Since she was feeling better, after class, Cathye met up at home with a young mother she found on FB who makes catered meals for delivery. Cathye thinks it would be easier for us these days to not have to cook. So, she wants to get a week’s supply. And I think she also doesn’t want me cooking for her!  Plus, this person is a young girl entrepreneur, who is doing this in a startup mode. So, we are helping her get established. We’ll see how the food is. Later Cathye called Marianne and asked if we could come out to their place later today to pick some blackberries since we missed out last week at the party weekend. She said sure, let’s go to dinner since we’ll be in town, then we can go out together. So, we met up with them and Cheryl and Mike at 1847, for a nice meal. After that, we all caravaned to the farm and all six of us half-filled a large bucket with nice ripe blackberries. Yes, we have some on our property, but they aren’t very accessible plus Frank and Marianne have tons of them and most will go to waste. Tv and spa and then off to bed.

Wednesday, September 4^th., 2024…… HAPPY BIRTHDAY  JAMA!  She still looks pretty good for 11!  

Cat is back to normal (?) today and back to just dealing with her fatigue and pulse rates. Later in the day, after we had dinner, Breann brought the first batch of food over. Everything was nicely packaged and labeled. Here's one example...

 

We will start on that tomorrow.  

Thursday, September 5^th., 2024……  An exciting morning!... We leave the bedroom slider open these nights because it gives Rylee some cool air right on her bed there. I say that because this morning I heard a loud noise around 7:30 as I was waking up. I immediately thought it was a piece of machinery being off-loaded from its trailer at the end of our street. But, about 5-6 minutes later I heard sirens, so I was figuring an accident. About that time I got a text from Rich and Linda, our neighbors to the west.  He said a pickup truck went off the road and through our property and then went into his fence. He send me pics….

  The field on the west side of our property. Bottom right to left is where the truck went through.

                                                          Looking west from the house

I immediately got dressed and headed out in my truckster. Wow, was it a mess!  The lady driving must have been distracted (according to what we heard the police say later) and drove right over the embankment into our field. No skid marks at all from down the street. It looked like it flipped a few times and landed on Rich and Linda’s fence. Linda said that one person was taken off to the hospital and another person was seen walking around the accident area. They loaded up the truck and the officer said they will give Rich a police report later in the week. No damage to our property. I feel bad for Rich and Linda. This is the second time someone has knocked down their fence. The fence was custom built before they moved in. When we had a fence guy give us an estimate for fencing for us, he said it was a special job and probably cost $40k back in 2004!  So, they have to now file a claim and see if they can get the insurance to pay for it to be repaired. I went back and got Cathye so she could ride out to see too. We will need to come out later and pick up around the area. There is broken glass, truck parts, and misc. items strewn all around our field.

Later, we headed off to breakfast at Kristi’s and then stopped at Walmart to get some things so Cathye can make her blackberry jelly. After we got home and rested a bit, she got working on it. Penny had seen Cat’s Facebook post and came by to check things out. Later in the day, we saw a post on The Buzz here from a lady thanking the first responders for helping her daughter after her accident. She was asked if that was on So. Main, so we assume that was the same person. Not sure now who all was in the truck but she said the seatbelt saved her daughter and she is ok now. That’s good to hear. Cat had already removed the FB post after a few hours because she wasn’t sure it was appropriate given we didn’t know about the condition of those involved. Just glad everyone is ok.  Later, we brought out one of Breann’s packaged meals and heated it up. Tonight we chose the stuffed pasta shells. Wow, was it good!  We polished off everything and now we are looking forward to the next one tomorrow!  Tv, spa and bed.         

Friday, September 6^th., 2024…… This morning we both headed off to our scheduled appointments. Cat’s doctor has asked her to do a sleep study and she needed to go get the kit and instructions. For me, it was a pulmonary test that my doctor has ordered. When Cat got her call, they noticed I had an appointment in the same section for respiratory therapy so they said she could go in with me at the same time for both appointments. We checked in and they put us in the same room. I got put into a capsule-like device and they had me do  series of breathing tests. Of course, Cathye snapped a pic...

                      This one was before I had to tuck in my legs and they closed the door!

While I was doing a 7-min. albuterol inhalation, Kim gave the sleep kit to Cat and briefed her on its operation and use. Pretty simple – it’s like the one I did with a watch strapped on your wrist and a pulse ox finger thingy and you just turn it on at bedtime. Once I was finished (test results later showed normal for all), we went to the hospital cafeteria for breakfast. The Lebanon Community Hospital has always had a great reputation for the food in the cafeteria. They even have a steady following of town folk who eat here on a regular basic. The food is reasonably priced and the breakfast was very good.  Today we spent most of the day today on the phone. I had several calls to make so I started while we were at breakfast. I had to return a call from a referral from my doctor for an appointment with an ENT specialist. She wanted them to take a look at me to see if they help with my lack of smell these days. I have an appointment in a few weeks. When we got home, I called Osprey Point and changed our rv reservation there. When I booked it, I didn’t know the new Club goes in to the park on Mondays and leaves on Fridays. I had us leaving on Saturday so they changed it for me. Next up was the Spinreel Dune Buggy rental place. They said when I called last month that I would need to wait until Sept. to make a reservation for Oct. I took care of that and got us set up with a day and time. Next up was trying to resolve a ticket issue for Wicked tickets that Cathye got for us and Josh in Portland in December. I needed to contact Ticketmaster and BoxOfficeTickets.com to get our tickets resent. Cat didn’t recognize the third party that sent the link to the online tickets and deleted it by mistake. It took me 3 phone calls and a lot of time online with their site(s) to get something done. Hopefully, we will see something happening in the next day or so if/when they reroute the order to us. What a mess!  While I was doing all these calls, Cathye spent some time working on a new recipe for a blackberry cobbler she had found. She had blackberries leftover from our pick this week and needed to use them before they went bad. It turned out looking good!

We had another Breann item for dinner tonight – homemade bean soup and hot French bread!  For me, it was delicious!  Cathye does not like beans that much so I got most of hers. She had invited both Frank and Marianne and Cheryl and Mike over for dessert and cards tonight.  We ate 90% of the blackberry casserole and cool whip dish in one sitting!  It was very good!  We played 2500 for a few hours before calling it a night. While we were playing, we did get treated to a rare thunder and lightning storm that briefly passed through. Rylee and Jama did not like that!

Later, after everyone left, we headed off to bed. Cat hooked up her sleep watch and we went to sleep.    

Saturday, September 7^th., 2024…… We slept in this morning. Cathye said she slept well but was late in getting out of bed. I helped her with the paperwork for the device and will return it later this morning. But first up, today is Derby Day. Oops, make that Debris Day! Once we got up and going, we loaded up the truckster and headed out to the crash area and started raking up and picking up debris from the accident. As mentioned, there was a lot of broken glass. Luckily, it was safety glass and ended up in a small area so it could be raked up easily.

But we did pick up an antenna, headlight and taillight plastic, gum wrappers, and more. It only took a few minutes, but Cat was worn out. We came back in and she rested and I threw everything away and cleaned up and parked the truckster. We settled in for the rest of the morning and afternoon. I did take a break and took back the sleep kit back to the hospital and turned it in. She will get results in a few days after they get the info into their system. Tonight

I brought Beef Stroganoff out to defrost for the meal later. Mostly tv for both of us after that. I stopped by the hardware store today and bought sponge brushes and a tack cloth for the bartop, but just didn’t have the desire to go work on it today!  Later, we ate the excellent meal and settled in together to watch tv. Still trying to get stuff watched before we call Directv to get the equipment exchanged/upgraded. Maybe in a few weeks after we get our surgeries done.  Tonight we chose the Barbie movie. I really wasn’t too excited but Cathye heard it was pretty good. We were into it about 20 minutes and Cathye said she wasn’t feeling well today and things were scaring her. She had tightness in her chest that has not gone away. So, we headed off to the ER. We chose Lebanon hospital and got right in. They ran some tests and they said it showed some stress. They took her back to the beds and the doctor came in later and explained his diagnosis. Since she presented with heart conditions and was already scheduled for an angiogram on the 23^rd, he said he thinks she shouldn’t wait two weeks for that. So, he arranged to have her transferred to Corvallis to get it done sooner – maybe immediately. Problem was they didn’t have transportation available for non-life threatening issues and she is stable. They would take her at 7:00am tomorrow morning. So, she had to spends the night in the ER. Bummer, because the bed is really a large gurney. I went home and met Misty and Lona, who were picking up Jama for the night and tomorrow. Cherrelyn will be coming tomorrow after I leave for the day, to take care of Butthead. More on this tomorrow.