Helping Elaine Move

 
Twenty years is a long time to be in one very small apartment. And getting out in a hurry is serious business, even if you are able-bodied. And Elaine is not. She's has much more stamina than she did even a couple of years ago, but she needed help with this project. Marie, blessings on her, agreed to come help even though Elaine is more my friend than hers. I'm sorry to have to tell you that Elaine and I are packrat twins, so the project was daunting. (Pray I never have to move.)

Here's the house where Elaine's had the attic apartment for such a long time. The outside stairs aren't bad, but the second flight inside is steep and narrow.



Here's what we started with in the kitchen. Elaine had already done quite a bit of sorting, but that mostly made it look worse.



Where she is going to is a six-unit actual apartment house. Only up 1 1/2 flights of stairs, wider and less steep. And although the kitchen is smaller, it's a nice space with a pantry, and she has a living room, bedroom and den/office. We were so busy I kept forgetting to take pictures at good times. Some of them I had to take with the phone because the camera was in the other space. Here's the new apartment house at night, only about 6 miles away from the previous place. So, she's moving to the top left apartment.



The least favorable thing about the new location is that the only service within walking distance is a small convenience store. But it is on the county bus route, so if she figures that out, she'll be able to get to town with a little planning. The DSS takes care of getting her to medical appointments and things like that.

The next two pictures mostly demonstrate that a) we did make it to the new place b) we are all tired c) we survived d) we moved boxes. What can I say? The picture-taking was not the priority.





We took seven car-loads of boxes over, and got a lot of the new kitchen organized too. I cleaned the cupboards in the old kitchen, so at least that part of the cleaning is done. There is still a little bit of loose stuff to corral, but I think Elaine can get that done on her own. When I left this morning, the helper-guy from DSS was already there taking away the unused cardboard boxes (a lot of them), and he was going to take more of the small furniture items in the van. Then she has tomorrow yet to do the final boxes of things like empty the refrigerator, the toiletries and immediate use things, and on Friday the movers come for the big stuff.

One of her sisters is going to help her tomorrow. That may go well. If you are given to prayer, that could use a little heavenly massage.

Anyway, we accomplished a TON of work. Even the banana box was shocked.

	See Heading Home
if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Heading Home

 
Sorry for the lack of posts. I haven't been able to get on line when I wanted. No time to deal with a pic this morning either. I'll show more when I get home. Which is where I'm headed in just a few minutes. Should be home tonight!

We accomplished our goals and got almost all the small items moved from Elaine's old apartment to her new one. Some of the larger things are going today, and the furniture on Friday.

if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Canadian Rainbow

 
I bet you didn't know that Canadian rainbows are different, but they are.

For one thing, they last for miles and miles! And you can see they are complete, right across the road.



But here's the really special thing. Almost every time a car went by me in the opposite direction the rainbow completed the arc on the left side of me, in front of the trees, in front of the fields. It came right down across the road and ended at my left front tire.



So, I guess that means that I live in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow all the time. And isn't that the whole purpose of this blog? Just took a Canadian rainbow to remind me.

Busy work day today helping Elaine. Maybe pictures tomorrow. It's a bit of a fragmented project.

if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Too Tired

 
Well, friends. I have done assignments and reports 4 days this week and worked one night and one day at the paper. This clears my decks so I can make a fast trip to NY to help my friend Elaine move. I leave tomorrow morning. Have some things to do, but they will have to happen after I get some sleep.

It's all good, but I'm pooped. Talk to you from New York.

	See Old Friends
if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Speaking to the Stacker

 
I'm just too tired to function any more tonight, but I learned a new skill at work today.

Remember the stacker?



Today I learned how to speak its language.



Have to go to bed. I seem to be tired a lot lately.

if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Inside a Video Game?

 
Did you ever play Riven? It was an awesome computer puzzle game in a world filled with islands, villages, strange abandoned mines and tunnels and a transportation system. I loved playing it, but I never got to finish because that computer died, and it won't play on new versions. Makes me very sad. I wish they would update it to play on new systems.

Anyway, there is a private, ritzy, gated community here that you have to be very rich or the guest of someone very rich, to enter. OR... be a service person. And people who live in there buy insurance. I'm getting to know my way around quite well. The thing is, it's like an incredible maze. There are few roads, that go wherever they go, not in some nice grid. The whole thing is built on sand dunes. OK... I know what you are thinking, but it's been there for over 100 years. There are huge mansions and tiny cottages tucked into every conceivable space. There are limited places to park, but you can walk anywhere on a non-sensical series of walkways... wood, stone, dirt, concrete. There's even a little two seater elevator/funicular.



I'd love to just wander around and take pictures of the "secrets." But the security at the gate gives you a limited time to do what you need to do and leave. Today, I did get pictures of the high walkway.



It's like being inside a game similar to Riven. Makes me want to design one!

if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Shuttlewagon

 
Out working all day. Look at this adorable and practical railyard switcher! It's called a Shuttlewagon Commander. Never saw one like it before with the dual wheels. Right-of-way maintenance trucks, but never a switcher. Have to love it!



Long, long day. I'm going to bed.

if you like this blog, click the +1   or

An Evening Bike Ride

 
Om told me to save this evening to do something. Works for me! I chose a bike ride. That is all the quality I need for one day!

	See Wheels, Worship and ...
if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Tirzah Grows Up

 
Meet Tirzah. She's the one in the purple shirt directing big brother Micah and little sister Jael in a game of some sort. We went to the same church as their family and were even in the same home group. But time marches on. They left because her dad became pastor of a small church near where they live. We changed churches too.



It's not like either family moved away; we still ran into each other occasionally, but weren't as close as we had been. Tirzah turns 15 this week, and she just returned from a two-week mission trip to Zambia. There was a lunch and then a time when she (and another girl who went on the same trip) shared about their experiences.



They sure grow up fast! Here is 2003, and 2013.

if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Goat Willow

 
It was a mystery tree. I found this in the backyard of a home in town. What that means is that it could be pretty much anything, since people plant trees for all kinds of reasons.

My best guess was Goat Willow, Salix caprea, which is not native to the US, but it will grow here if planted. Blog buddy Carol has confirmed this is correct

At first, I thought those long twigs were compound leaves, but I guess they are not.



The stipules (little leaves where the leaves join the stems) pretty much suggest it's a willow. But if it's a willow, those broad leaves really narrow the choices; willows usually have narrow leaves. And these leaves are quite large- about 3 inches long.



And look how different the growth appears when you look up at the ends of the branches!



The goat willow is not native to the US, but it is supposed to be common in the UK, and my buddy Carol had books that actually contain this tree. However... some pictures on line show this tree with leaves with smooth margins, not these wavy ones. The leaves are supposed to be grayish green with silky hairs on the underside. Did I think to look at the leaves that closely. No.

And then there is this fact. Willows are quite promiscuous. They hybridize like crazy.

I thought it might be a perpetual mystery tree, but now the only mystery is why it was planted in a backyard half a century or more ago.

if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Cedar Waxwing Preens

 
For simple elegance, it's hard to beat the cedar waxwing. This one was very busy keeping himself clean and neat.









Success!

I'm out the door for another night of work!

	See These Birds are in the Wrong Tree
if you like this blog, click the +1   or

Anybody for Murder?

 
Loretta and I went to see a play tonight at the Howmet Theater in Whitehall. I'd never been there before. We decided to take in a light play, a comedy called Anybody for Murder?, by Brian Clemens and Dennis Spooner. I wasn't familiar with it, but we decided to take a chance. The play is hilarious.

It begins with Max and his girlfriend Suzy plotting to kill Max's wife Janet. First they drug her, and when she passes out in her cereal they begin plotting how to finish the job.




But then George and Mary show up with the news that Mary is Janet's cousin. Suzy has to pretend to be Janet. A relative has just died and they are about to inherit a huge amount of money, but Janet is a slightly closer relation than Mary.



Suddenly, Max wants Janet alive, and George and Mary want Janet dead, but they think Suzy is Janet.



Hilarity ensues. "You can't be Janet. You're not the same woman I killed yesterday."



But the body has a strange habit of returning to the scene of the attempted crime.



Although the play was given in the Howmet Theater, the troupe is summer stock from Central Michigan University. I always have a little trouble with characterizations when all the actors are college age. I even had trouble with it when I was a drama major in college. This group overcame that with some success. Mary and George were particularly believable as a domineering woman and a jumpy henpecked husband.

The idea of the set was perfect for the play- and there was only one set. I would have tweaked the design a little bit for better sightlines for some of the staging on the upper level.

The lighting was really well done as you can tell by the clear pictures. Plenty of light on the stage!

The cast did seem to have a little trouble getting warmed up, or maybe it was the audience that needed warming up. Anyway, we soon got into the crazy complications of the story line. There were too many instances of no one being on stage as Max or the couple are running around trying to keep the other parties from finding out what they are up to. I'm not sure how to overcome that issue, as it seems to be written into the play. But, when the blocking becomes noticeable, there is something wrong with it.

This play was written in 1990, and is fairly family friendly. Part of the humor is mixed up with quite a bit of drinking at the end, but the jokes are not based on risque puns, but in the twists of the plot.

All in all, if you have a chance to see this play and are in the mood for comedy, I recommend it.

if you like this blog, click the +1   or