Best-Laid Plans . . . Some Good, Some NOT!

A little free advertising.  I talked to the "Slight Detour" management, and they gave me permission to post this photo of my former student Erik with a copy of my third book.

Yesterday's plan to beat the heat went well for about half the day.  Got a little lawn mowed, picked some more blueberries and then got all gussied up to go to town.

I even washed my hair and put on the pretty Portuguese turquoise necklace Annie gave me. Before leaving, I autographed a book for Erik.  We were meeting at Trinity for our first get-together since June, 1992.

Erik is from The Netherlands, and he spent a semester in my journalism class, writing sports articles for the Cedar Post.  He was very good, always took great care with details and provided adequate facts to tell a good sports story.

After leaving Sandpoint, Erik pursued journalism and worked for 16 years at Holland's CNN. He then decided to pursue other interests and now manages a tennis school where he teaches and supervises 19 other instructors.

Erik has been back to Sandpoint twice, having come two years ago for his class reunion.  Unfortunately, we missed seeing each other at the time.

So, to say yesterday's visit was a treat---it's definitely an understatement.  

On this trip, Erik has been maintaining his tennis skills and conditioning, playing every morning at the City Beach.  I'm told he ranks very high in Netherlands among other tennis players in his age group.

Erik has been staying with another retired educator Alice, and she joined us for lunch, along with Willie.

I can't say enough about what a wonderful person Erik has become.  One time while he was in my class, he accompanied us on a journalism trip to Denver.  Every morning when I would open the door to our motel room, there was Erik, sitting and waiting.

He loved calling my husband "Billy Boy," and we Love's enjoyed him most of the time.  Unfortunately, Billy Boy could not join us for lunch, but I'm sure he'd agree that Erik is an impressive man.

Going to lunch with Erik fit right into my plans to stay cool as much as possible on a 100-degree day.  When I arrived home, I stopped by the bathroom before going out to greet Lori who had just finished cutting our hay.

The toilet did NOT flush.  

No water.  

Afternoon plans for staying somewhat cool at the hottest time of these scorchers  by watering veggies and flowers had suddenly gone awry.

We had no water until 8 p.m. last night.  Seems the water line got cut again during the current installation of a new water line for Oden Water customers.

I felt sorry for Carla, who was probably answering the association phone all afternoon.

"Do you have company coming?" she asked.

"No, they're all gone, but I did put off watering my gardens until afternoon," I said.

Carla had watered her gardens in the morning but was quick to say she had no idea the water line would go down for the second time this summer.

She told me to plan on later rather than sooner, so I changed gears mentally and went out to visit with Lori.  By the way, I believe her swather is air-conditioned, so she was looking pretty cool.  Maybe I should have offered to accompany her on her next fields with my camera, just to stay cool.

Once Lori left, it was time for a new plan.  Most of the bottled water which takes up space in the garage was gone, thanks to some camping trips and barbecues of late.

So, I went to town and stocked up.  Once home, I brought the horses in from their pastures as their automatic waterers dry out pretty fast in such situations.

Later, Bill took the new old motorhome to town to fill up its water tank, so we could take showers if needed.

He was home about half an hour when I again pushed the handle on the toilet.  It flushed.  We were back to "modern living" just like that.

During our outage, I did use the miniature fan Barbara bought me, sprayed myself a few times and climbed on the lawnmower to take advantage of what little breeze there was.

So, it was a "find new ways to beat the heat" day, but we survived, and, as always, I think about last week's storm damage and how people are still picking up the pieces, and I figure we didn't have it so bad. 

And, so on this morning when our Oden water is back up and running, I'm running as fast as possible to get sweaty projects done before we hit the century mark again.  And, I'm still going to take a chance on watering most of my stuff during the afternoon heat.

In the process of scurrying and hurrying, though, I'm still taking time to admire the roses and the zinnias which are popping out all over,  thanks to the heat.  

Let's see:  two days down and only about ten more to go, according to last night's forecast.  I figure by Day Three we should start acclimating just a tad, or the plan might call for biting the bullet and jumping in the lake. 

Happy Wednesday!