Cold Weather Blues - Zags Lose

Oh no ... the Zags lose!

First a close one with Conneticut here on the West side in Seattle which they had ever chance to win, but then they turn around a few days later at home with Portland State and blow really it. All of this in the midst of some real winter in Seattle and especially in Spokane with what appears to be a record breaker for total December snowfall. It's as if the whole world has come to a stand still in disbelief ... the Zags lose.

There is good that intermingles with this bad Zag news and that is Cara and Matt arrived safely on Friday December 19 (actually slightly after midnight so Saturday December 20) and Carla and Denny Gish made up here for the Battle in Seattle on Saturday which gave us all a chance to meet when they stopped here to pick up Matt and Cara for the Battle in Seattle. Then on Sunday it was redux when all Denny, Carla, Matt and Cara all came back through Federal Way for another cup of coffee and to pick up some more Matt and Cara bags before heading to Battle Ground and the Gish and Sarvella homes. See some shots of Uncle Matt at Megs blog.

It is now Friday December 26, Christmas day is behind, but remember Christmas day is only the first day of 40 days of Christmas. May the light born on Christmas shine those 40 days and then everyday for all of us.

And now Saturday, December 27. Matt is off to James and Ada's with some of James' friends and then back home to FW for a few days. Cara is back to Battle Ground to spend time with her family.

There were lots of pics of the winter weather and Christmas, but for some reason that continues to frustrate me my camera cannot be read directly be my computer. So I sit here with the camera attached. The computer knows the camera is there, I can find it in the hardware, but none of the software can find the camera - Picassa, Photoworks even Canon. I have uninstalled and installed ad infinitum and still nothing. So to get pictures I have to download on another machine and then load then transfer them with a thumb drive or some such to my machine. Some times computers just irritate the heck out of me. And no it has not always done this, I am convinced that one of the camera reading softwares I used somewhere disabled them all and I can't figure it out.

That's it.

Cribbage, Thanksgiving, Grappa and Not Medically Necessary

On Thanksgiving day Mary and I drove to Ellensburg to have Thanksgiving dinner with James and Ada. They couldn't be here on the west side because of James work schedule so we went over there for the big meal. Mary drove because my leg was (is) still aching. We spent a few hours with them and then left to let James get off to sleep so he would be ready for the early shift on Friday morning.

On Saturday James and Ada drove to Federal Way, a chance to get away from E-burg and do some shopping. First thing we did was our annual trip to Bees and Trees for our Christmas tree. We got that home and in the stand and through the afternoon Ada with a little help from James got the decorating started. James and Ada found some time to go shoping and then we all watched Oregon State tank their once in 44 year opportunity to go to the rose bowl by losing to the Ducks. Vey humiliating and humbling.

After the game Fran and Jim Pearson came over and we proceeded to celebrate with beverages and dinner. Jim had to return to Italy early Sunday morning and he had some grappa he was sharing with friends. Thank goodness there was only a "small" amount of the grappa left when he came over. Jim also brought along some Italian field wine (2008 vintage - very rugged). As you can see from the pic, Mary is something of a grappa fan ...

It became an evening of too many different beverages for me. Although the grappa was very good ... or so Jim said, and most seemed to enjoy including me, but in combination with everthing else it was too much for me and I paid for it through the night. Needless to say Sunday was pretty quiet, we didn't even make it to church and I am not a grappa fan, even though I am confident that this was very good grappa.

On Sunday morning we got moving slowly, had some breakfast, easy does it for me and eased into the day. We watched a little football and later in the day decided to play some cribbage before James and Ada left. We couldn't find our cribbage board so we dredged up our crib golf board and our book of Hoyle Cribbage rules and plowed forward. James and Ada proved to be the masters of the afternoon winning handily before heading up and over the hill back home to Ellensburg. During the crib game I found out that James played regularly when he was in Junior High and it was clear he had not lost his touch. And after playing it dawned on me that everybody seems to have crib boards on their Christmas lists this year ... hmmm!

Here it is a week later and Mary and I wanted to play some cribbage. We still couldn't find the crib board so I conjured up a crib template, left and we played a quick round. I think we will be ready for a rematch with James and Ada and ready to take on Matt and Cara when they visit at Christmas.

Just a little bit more ... an update on my hip leg. I have continued to live with want is sometimes rather acute pain in my left hip and leg. What I describe as chronic pain. Where it has eased of from early on it is still pretty persistent. I did see the doctor on 11/21 and he took xrays which convinced him I needed an MRI, this had to be submitted for approval. This past Friday I heard back from my doctor that the insurance review board had determined that an MRI is not medically necessary. I will follow-up this week on next steps, in the meantime I have been doing massage (including some agressive work on my piriformis in my left butt cheek) stretching and hot/cold treatments. It is getting better, but I sure would like to get some additional data which for now is Not Medically Necessary.

Hope all is well with all of you.

DaddyHoag