More Catch-Up, June 14-20, 2010

JUNE 14 I spent the entire day on the phone with Hewlett Packard about my dead laptop that is still under warranty! My God! Can't they get techs that speak English! Fortunately, I got some that were fairly easy to understand, but the paces they put me thru: start this, try that, click this, shut it down, boot it up, put the disk in, take the disc out! They even had me taking the hard drive and memory cards in and out! FINALLY they said I would have to return it to them for repair. Their comment, "It seems it is not working properly." Properly - it isn't working at all -- all I get is the blue screen of death -- well, sometimes a gray screen of death! And it only took them from 9AM-4:30PM to figure that out!

Sorry - I just do not have the patience to do that crap. If I wanted to be a computer tech, I'd have gone to school for it! And asking me, blind in one eye with hand tremors to remove those damn little screws! When I finally got off the phone, I thought I should make a huge chocolate cake and eat the whole thing. Then I remembered I had a German chocolate bar with hazelnuts in it – so I ate that instead!

JUNE 15 More rain. Neighbor came by the previous evening to tell me a little wren was starting to build a nest under the vent hood for my stove. OOPS! Not good! While I was out running errands and doing laundry, picked up another shepherd hook and a cute little cedar wren house and put it up. Also got some screening for the vent hood! By the time I got home we were down to a drizzle!


The sun finally came out and a quick check of weather radar all the way out to Omaha Nebraska was showing NOTHING!! No Red, no Yellow, no Orange!! Other than the humidity – It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

Li'lBit and I ended up making two trips to town, first time around I picked up prescriptions, some treats for Tinga and we came home. The second time was for oranges for the orioles and to get a humming bird feeder. My old one was cracked. So, after two trips to town and lunch, Li’lBit and I spent the afternoon outside acting like old retired folks! A nice breeze blew the 'skeeters away and the steak went on the grill! WHEW! Just doesn't get much better than that!

June 16 the sun was shining, the birds singing, the grass was green, 64 degrees, no rain predicted and my coffee is hot and strong -- is this heaven? No it's Iowa!

Wish I could have bottled it up 'cuz weatherman said storms were on the way right thru the weekend! But, I'm grateful for today! Finished repotting some herbs; have the bird feeders up and the bird bath out -- my sister came by this evening; we went to Dairy Queen, then took a drive to see how high the rivers were, isn't THAT 'country quaint'! Life is good and I am blessed!

The storms that were to come thru diverted south. Poor folks down there don't need more rain, but they got it. Breeze has become a little windy, but still a good day to be outside reading. I'm reading a terrific book a true story of British espionage - Operation Mincemeat by Ben MacIntyre. Brits used a dead body to get fake battle plans to the Germans about the invasion of Sicily. I know, sounds strange, but it's good! Ian Fleming, of James Bond fame, was a British Naval Officer attached to the Intelligence Office involved in the plan. Guess I know where he got his start.

I knew the 'heavenly' weather was too good to last, weather radio just went off while I was in the shower. The rockin’ n rollin’ started about 10:30. What a Ride! 70+mph straight line winds, hail and flooding rains just a few counties west of me! The storm band with the hail was moving right along and didn't last long -- hail was only pea size so I didn’t have any damage .

June 18 My sister came by and we headed off to Grinnell to the FedEx drop off point in between the AM tornado watch and the PM tornado warnings. My dead laptop is going back to HP. They sent me a shipping box. That was the easiest part of this repair mess. I sat it on the desk, the clerk said, "prepaid, thank you, thanks for choosing FedEX, have a nice day" and I was out the door!

While in Grinnell, we stopped for lunch at the Depot Crossing Restaurant, a converted train depot. http://depotcrossingrestaurant.com/main.html Naturally, I had to have the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich! I love the sound of the train, too bad one didn’t pass by while we were having lunch.

I'm so glad the train track runs along the other side of the creek here at the park. There is a crossing that requires the train to blow its whistle. When under tornado watch/warning, they always talk about the tornado sounding like a train! Well, every nite train after train goes down the track behind me – as long as it blows it’s whistle, I know it isn’t a tornado! Gotta love that whistle!

Oh, I love the train. The nite whistle makes me dream of far away places. I'm up the hill from the creek and this is a heavily wooded oak grove so the sound of the train and the whistle is actually kind of 'haunting.' I find it really relaxing, peaceful!

The rains and winds washed out the stock car races at the track down the road Friday night. Fortunately, there was a break in the weather for the big Indy car race in Knoxville, just down the road on Sunday.

Happy Juneteenth Day! "Juneteenth" comes from the words "June" and "19th", which according to Texas history, is when the slaves of Texas first learned of their freedom. Though freed in 1863, the slaves did not learn of their freedom until the arrival of the Union soldiers on June 19th, 1865.

I've really gotten LAZY! The predicted storms went south so Li'lBit and I went outside for our Saturday lunch. I spent the afternoon out there reading. When it got hot, humid and the air got really still, we I came inside, turned on the A/C and I plunked right down on my butt and continued to read! Oh, Heavens! Life is good in Retirementville! Lazy -- but good!