WTF

The Proposal

Time for one of my patented long-winded intros leading to a small bit of actual content. Sally, of Santa Fe fame, and I have known each other 42 years. So, when she asked me if I wanted to come down, visit Santa Fe a bit, and then road trip together to go to her mother’s 98th birthday festivities, I jumped at the chance.

She was Donna’s friend from an early age, and the two families belonged to the same church. When I got out of the Navy in 1983, we moved back to Donna’s hometown of New Orleans. The 2 girls connected again; Sally had married, so the four of us naturally became a group. Sally and her husband bought the house 2 doors away. Donna and I babysat the daughter, Claire, and then a couple years later, the son, Stuart.

For various reasons we moved up to New Jersey for work in 1987. The Lewis clan also moved north to Lexington, Virginia, shortly after. We visited several times a year, first from Jersey and later from Aiken. In the early two thousands Sally’s husband proclaimed he was in love with someone else and wanted out. Claire was already in college, and Stuart was a junior or senior in high school. After his graduation Sally joined the State Department. Whenever she was back in the states for language training or something, Donna and I would get to DC to hang for a couple days. Anyway, we go way back.

Now, with just Sally and me, we get along sort of like an old married couple without the sex. Our senses of humor are similar; we would be in a store somewhere, and we would cut up with each other in the checkout line. We “argued” about whose turn it was to fill up the car with gas. “We’ll always have Paris.” A plan was concocted. There was a get-together on Saturday the 18th with the whole family at a place downtown in Hammond called Tommy’s on Thomas. A local pizza joint/nighttime entertainment place—that is where Stuart met his wife and where they go every year on their anniversary. This would be the most perfect place for this; I was going to pretend to ask her to marry me. I wrote a script. I practiced kneeling.

We thought for sure that Adele and Stuart’s wife, Cristina, would be flummoxed; Stuart’s two small kids wouldn’t know what was going on. We thought Sally’s kids, Stuart and Claire, would not know what to say, or their sense of humor might kick in immediately and call bullshit on Sally and me. At the last minute, because of a miscommunication, Adel and Claire couldn’t make it, so we decided not to do it, because those were 2 of the 3 we thought would get the biggest kick out of the stunt.

Scene: Restaurant Interior

Brian
(stands)
"As we knew the end was getting nearer, I asked Donna if she would be okay with this, and she smiled and said of course."
(slight pause)
"So, Sally, these last 2 weeks have been the happiest that I’ve been since last September.
(he kneels)
It would be great if we could grow old, older, together. Will you marry me?

Possible Responses:
Sally
1. Yes, I thought you’d never ask.
2. Stunned silence.
3. What?
4. I hope you didn’t buy a ring already?

Brian
1. You’ve made me a very happy man.
2. Stunned silence.
3. I feel so embarrassed.
4. I may be an old fool, but I’m not stupid.

Boom!

Okay, as promised back at the end of December…

When we moved to Klamath Falls, it had three bedrooms like in Aiken, so in both places two of the bedrooms were made up as bedrooms, and the third became the “Computer Room.” The computer room was merely where the desktop PC was, and it also held the futon so it could be used as a third bedroom just in case.

In Aiken there was a bedroom with an en-suite bathroom, and even though it was a small bath, we liked to use it, but there was a large skylight over the bed. Even with a set of blinds on it, it would still get very warm in the summer, so it became our winter bedroom, and the one on the other side of the house, without a skylight, became our summer bedroom. Every 6 months or so we would schlep our clothing from one closet to the other. And because we had one newer mattress that we liked better than the other, we would also drag it back and forth. After a bunch of years, we finally bought a second nice mattress, so they only had to exchange just closet items.

The K-Falls house was two stories with 2 bedrooms up and one down. The upstairs was really the main floor, as it had the kitchen and dining rooms, so most of our time was spent up there. Again, one of the bedrooms upstairs had an en suite, so it naturally became our primary bedroom. The second bedroom upstairs was kind of small, so it was turned into the Computer Room with a futon. The downstairs had the two-car garage and a large family room, along with a full-size bedroom and a bathroom/laundry room. Even though the upstairs bedroom we used didn’t get hot in the summer, we decided that we should continue the seasonal rotation of sleeping quarters; otherwise, we would never use the downstairs area except for laundry and getting in the cars.

That first summer we lived in Klamath Falls, we moved downstairs, but we didn’t swap closets full of clothes because the closet downstairs was too small to hold both our wardrobes. We still showered upstairs because the one downstairs was just a small stand-up one, so what we did was shower and go downstairs to the family room to watch a little TV before going to bed. Actually, the TV downstairs was larger than the one upstairs in the living room because above the fireplace the mantle was fairly high up on the wall.

The 2nd or 3rd night we were in the downstairs bedroom, we were startled awake about 2:00 AM by an extremely loud BOOM. I’d have sworn someone fired a shotgun in the room. I jumped out of bed and turned on the light; the bedroom looked normal, and the window was intact. So I started flicking on lights and checking the rooms downstairs. The family room was fine; nothing was out of place. I checked the water heater that sits next to the washer and dryer; no leaks or cracks, so it didn’t explode. Next was the garage, and both cars were sitting cool and quiet. Up the stairs I went. No broken windows with meteorites smoking on the floor anywhere. I looked in every room, and nothing had fallen off the walls, and looking out the windows, there were no cars smashed into telephone poles. Lastly, I walked outside on the front porch and back decks, and there were no neighboring homes on fire or police activity.

I was very puzzled that the sound was extremely loud, like it was in the same room as us, but nothing was amiss there, nor any other place in the house. The mystery was solved a few days later when I vacuumed the bedroom. The downstairs was built into a hillside, so it actually served as the foundation. Because the floor was concrete under the luxury vinyl plank, when one of the three slats supporting the box spring shifted and popped down, it made a loud boom. 1

Unintentionally Humorous Warning

I bought a piece of wall art from good ol’ Amazon for over the bed in the freshly painted guest bedroom. Inside the package they kindly included some wall hanging hardware in a plastic bag with a big warning on it.

Really?

Made a run to Goodwill today to donate a few things that have been stacked on the futon for a couple months. There were a couple pair of half worn down sneakers, a pair of old towels, two bathmats and several other random things.

When I tried to put the gray cloth bathmat in the women’s bin she shook her head no, so I tossed it back in the car. The very next item I tried to put in the bin was the other bathmat. I figured I get waved off again because this one was a dingy looking rubber one that goes in the tub. But, nope, she let me donate it.

I thought for sure the fabric, because it could be thrown in a washing machine, would have been okay and rubber with suction cups on the bottom would have been rejected.

Subaru vs. Volvo

Both Subaru and Volvo tout the safety features of their vehicles. Lots of folks have purchased something from these two manufacturers because of their claims.

My first-hand experiences with drivers of the two makes in traffic is that they believe the safety claims in two totally differently lights. The Subaru drivers drive more cautiously as if they are not sure the safety features will work, while the Volvo drivers drive in manner that they believe they are safe no matter how bone-headed they drive.

Boom!

We were sitting in the dining room working on a jigsaw puzzle yesterday morning when we heard a boom so loud that we felt it. Our lights faded and then blinked off and then back on. It sounded close. Our first thought was that a car hit a power pole or something. I walked out onto the front porch and looked around but couldn’t see anything so we went back to the puzzle.

About 5 minutes later we heard sirens. Lots of them, one after another. And they kept on coming… Donna said, “Text Kathy (our across the street neighbor who seems to know everything that is happening) and ask what’s going on. I did and a couple minutes later she called and said her reply was too big for a text.

A small plane crashed into some homes in a subdivision just a quarter mile further down Sandy Blvd from us. She was with some folks and one climbed on his roof and could see a big column of smoke that way. It was a twin-engine private plane attempting to land at the Troutdale Airport a couple miles further east of us.

Yikes!

Pot Calling The Kettle Black

Way back in the early aught’s when Donna’s mom was living with us,both Donna and I were still working so she was our chief cook and bottle washer. If Donna had a hankering for a certain dish and the ingredients weren’t in the house Mom would head over during the day to the grocery store to pick up what was needed. Or if Mom saw something in a magazine or on TV that she thought sounded good for dinner, it would be off to Kroger for whatever was needed.

Back then as a courtesy (and to ease Donna’s mind), I would balance Mom’s checkbook every month. Invariably there were quite a few checks to Kroger each month. Sometimes it was 4 or 5 times a week and I would kid Mom about the frequency of Kroger trips. Well right now the shoe is on the other foot.

We have been living in Fairview for a month now and there is a Fred Meyer (a Kroger company) just under 2 miles from home. In these past 31 days we have shopped there 20 of them. There were actually 25 visits all told. One was just for gas and one was a pharmacy pickup trip.

Some of the first few were basically house setup, like groceries that we couldn’t pack in the move and stuff that was nearly used up so intentionally left behind. And I will have to admit that a quite few of the trips were to buy organizing supplies and home decor that might have been better bought elsewhere, but hey fuel points are a strong draw.

For reference, last year during the same time frame (10/10 to 11/9) we visited the Fred Meyer in Klamath Falls, a trip of just over 2 miles, just 10 times. I’m sure that pretty soon we will have settled down into that smaller visit rate.