Beneath the Wraps

             I think it was Friday night when our bishop posted that the COVID cases are high in the ward and advised members who had/have symptoms to stay home.   I thought that church was cancelled but learned that I had misread.   Still, I wondered why it hadn’t been cancelled all together.   Our numbers were few.           I counted 36 people in the chapel and perhaps 20 more in the overflow – I don’t know why the accordion doors hadn’t been closed so that those who chose to sit that far back wouldn’t have the option.   It isn’t as though there were any screaming youth to take out.   In fact, there were only six youth in total.   Only two of them were primary age.           Roland had been called to teach Sunday School for the youth ages 12-14 but ended up with both classes making his class total a grand total of all four yout...

  The fog continues to envelope our county.   Each morning seems to be more dense than the morning prior.   Usually Emily (better known as Alexa Echo) gives an warning from Amazon about the weather conditions and air quality.   Funny, she never mentions the air quality during fire season when it is much harder to breathe than anything the Oregon air currently offers.   Usually I will look across the street and see my neighbors’ houses and some of the trees behind them.   But now it appears I am looking at the houses through a dirty screen.   And everything is white.   And the back hill is a frosty overgrowth which hasn’t been mowed since last year.

 Roland has always played mind games with telemarketers, scammers and what have you.  He keeps them on the line pretending to be interested by asking a bunch of irrelevant questions to show his interest although the caller isn't prepared to answer said questions and begins to feel inadequate about product, service or whatever it is.  Eventually they hang up.  Sometimes Roland is the one who hangs up. I am in awe about his approach the last few times.  What a work of beauty.  Most often the caller number will show along with location of said number.  Roland will pick up and say,: "Salt Lake City (or whatever area happens to be calling) you're on the air.  Go ahead."  The caller hangs up immediately!  I LOVE it!!!!

           Last year when I walked Bonnie, I took my cell phone or camera but have not done that for the past four months or so.   I can’t seem to find all the camera chargers and corresponding batteries and the cell phone I have weighs too much and is too big to keep in pocket and Bonnie is so strong that I’m afraid of dropping it.   Thus I have missed out on some spectacular views   I suppose I could just recharge one of my older flip phones.   Picture may not be the best quality, but I’m not using it for anything other than to look up numbers that are not on my current phone.          As I watched the clouds surrounding the hills rise to the top I thought about how nature changes within seconds.   Snow melts.   Rivers dry out.   Moisture evaporates.   Clouds move across the sky.   Always different than it was before.   ALWAYS.

                This morning I took Bonnie for a longer walk than usual – or rather she walked me.  I don’t know why she thinks she has to move at freeway speed.  I know it isn’t comfortable for her to have her collar choking her as I am leaning against the leash trying to slow her down.  She never learns.  For the most part she has pulled either me or Jenna along.              I don’t know what triggered my memory of Houdini or entering him in the pet contest at Cinco de Mayo celebration that Kearns does every year – or at least each year we had lived there.   We had this hairy dog who loved his boys and would often “escape” to look for them – sometimes ending up at the elementary school or pound.             There were several categories in which we could have entered Houdini.   He would have blown all other dogs out of the water ...

               I HATE  scams.  I hate that criminals are preying on the weakness of others.  I keep an email account open just for junk – it’s not an account I have used often but some businesses require an email and so I give them one.  It would take me forever to wade through it if I thought there was anything serious about any of them that I would take the time to look more closely rather than scan, but since the holidays I’ve just been deleting without looking – which is kind of sad but definitely faster.               It used to be that I could click on all in one sweep just by checking the junk box and all would be checked.  But they won’t all delete if there are red flags.  Those I have to do separately.  I get scams from hackers claiming to be Lowes, Paypal, Bank of America, Home Depot .  . .  mostly Lowes.  I have to scroll through to mark off each red fl...

                The last three times I was with Roland when he had driven to the VA it seemed like a big ordeal.  Instead of going the usual way which leads directly to the hospital, the back roads were required in order to keep all traffic moving in one direction  - only one way in and one way out.    Along the way we would see masked workers who would come up to the car, ask questions, take temperatures – I think they may have even offered testing but I’m not sure.     https://kcby.com/news/local/roseburg-va-health-care-system-holds-veteran-influenza-clinics You had to be healthy to get a pink slip (see here ) which was the ticket into the hospital.   If you were not healthy, no pink slip for you!   I’m at a hospital . . . that’s where sick people come to be treated.   Isn’t it?           Yesterday we learned we could have gone in the normal route as ...

                Often when we have been out walking Bonnie we will generally walk the same four streets.  Occasionally, we will allow her to lead.  She likes to go up where the new houses are being built.  Some are stick houses and some are manufactured – like this one.                It was in the street for a while as the equipment that was supposed to move it went out of commission – I don’t remember how long it had been in the street before it was moved – unfortunately with the front facing the backside (maybe a yard though that part doesn’t appear to be promising right now) and the backside facing the street.              It is understandable why they did it that way.   Not totally, but the mistake may have been in the awning.   After all there is an arch over the backdoor and two lamps at what should be the front.   ...

                 It seems that Roland has had a cold each year – usually as a way to start off the New Year.  Each cold seems to linger longer than the last.  This year could be different with all the COVID related illnesses going on.  We haven’t been checked.  According to the news the last batch of testing kits may not be providing correct results anyway.  I think it’s just a cold.            Every time he gets a cold he senses drafts that really aren’t there.   He is always wearing thermals and wrapped in blankets.   I, of course, am hotter than normal.   We are generally in two different rooms so that each of us can experience a temperature that is unlike that of the other.              I fortunately do not have his hacking cough – though I have had a dustball type cough on occasion – nothing as proficient as his.   I have started...

                The first time that Roland and I went for a vaccination shot we had to make an appointment as I recall.  We parked in a parking lot and went through a tented area and were led to separate rooms to fill out paper work and receive a shot – which I never felt at the time it was given.  My arm felt a bit bruised the next day, but really not a big deal.           When we had gone to get our second shot I don’t think there was a designated time.   We drove through the parking lot and the health guides came out to us and gave us our second shot.              Jenna was not old enough to qualify for the moderna which Roland and I had received.   When Pfizer came out with a vaccination for those 12-18 we took Jenna to the fairgrounds to get her first vaccination and returned less than a month later to get her second shot.   ...

             I remember taking down the tree on New Year’s Day each year.   It became tradition I would suppose for many families.   And gosh, darn, I will definitely miss the lights and decorations that had popped up in so many yards even before Thanksgiving.   The Myrtle Creek – Tri City area is always so dark.   It is nice to have the Christmas lights to remove some of the darkness.           On New Year’s Day this year I read a couple of thoughts which helped ease the pain of this tradition that I have come to hate.   David Butler has a facebook page in which he shares uplifting thoughts.   On New Year’s Day he compared taking down the tree to the first Christmas – perhaps a week after the fact – when Joseph and Mary had to leave the manger and move on.   They could not stay where they were nor could they take the manger with them.   And why would they want to? ...

            Roland had agreed to pick up a friend of Jenna’s in Winston and take them both to the stake dance.   We allowed ourselves to agree to stay to chaperone.   It was fun watching the kids dance – or jump rather.   To every song!   I may have had the energy to do that when I was a youth but not now.   I can’t even go four minutes of jumping – let alone four and a half hours.   I hope that all of the youth may continue with that energy and never lose it.          The last two weeks of December felt bleak.   It snowed after Christmas.   We had purchased sensor system last year so that we could be alerted to any packages or company that might drop by.   It is solar powered – needless to say we haven’t had many days of warning during those last two weeks of December.          Currently the sun is shining.   The snow is mos...