Saturday Slight

Breeeeaathe Deeeply. Crystal clear skies this morning!  

I don't know how long they'll last, but we'll happily enjoy them after the past few days of smoke. The latest unhealthy veil of gloom and doom seems to have drifted on.

Somebody posted on Facebook the other day that Idaho smoke had reached Colorado.  I don't know if that's really the way it works or if eventually it all dissipates into the atmosphere. 

Whatever the case, today's absence of smoke is most welcome. 

It's Saturday at the end of week where Bill and Willie went off to Red Ives Ranger Station for their annual fishing marathon on the St. Joe River.

They arrived back home late Thursday night.  We saw cell phone photos of beautiful catch-and-release trout while driving to dinner last night. 

A month ago, they spent a couple of nights in Avery Cabin on the Coeur d'Alene River. During one evening a bat decided to visit the cabin.  They attempted to dismiss it to the outdoors but were never really sure that it had left. 

Willie described sleeping in his bunk with just his nose exposed from his blankets and sleeping bag.  I don't think they ever knew for sure if the bat left the premises.

Well, this week Bill and Willie spent their three nights without bats, but back at the Colburn compound, Debbie came home from work late one night to have her own bat experience.  

From what I'm told, a lot of desperate texting took place between her house and my sisters' living room.  Apparently, Debbie was more than mildly interested in how to rid the bat out of the house, as it kept dive bombing her. 

Soon, Barbara and Laurie went up to help her, but again, they were never sure if the bat actually left the house. 

An hour or so later,  Barbara received a text that the bat had been hiding behind the living room curtains and that Debbie was able to open the sliding door and shoo the creature out into the night.  

She slept that night,  probably without just her nose sticking out from the covers. 

Here at the Lovestead, it was a week of more deer pilfering INSIDE the garden fence. The big step ladder in front of the gate did nothing to deter the intruder.  

Apparently, this is a helicopter deer which can vertically launch and land. 

This time two thirds of a cabbage plant got munched as did some potatoes. 

Just when I think I have something safe from those chompers, that something comes up chomped the next day.  That's how it was with the geraniums out in the north lawn a few days ago.  I thought deer didn't like geraniums.

Of course, I'm sure this summer has brought on a change in tastes for the many creatures that spend their nights looking for goodies in people's yards and gardens. 

This has also been sore-knee week for me, the left one has been suffering  along with the sore left wrist.  

I think a combination of things--hikes, bikes, etc.---led to my weary OLD knee finally screaming out for relief.  Well, I've been finding ways to provide that relief, like different methods of climbing and descending stairs and getting in and out of cars and basically walking like an old lady. 

Thank God for Aleve.  Today the knee seems a little better, but I think I've learned my lesson-----old people shouldn't do things too fast or too hard.  Damn!

On another family front, Annie tells me she'll send me an itinerary for her upcoming adventure to Japan.  She leaves Tuesday and will spend two weeks there with plans to climb Mt. Fuji.

With all her travels, I do believe this is her first trip to Asia, and it's a vacation.  So, stay tuned.  I'm sure I'll do the usual and inundate blog readers with photos of her travels. 

Tonight Bill and I are attending a class reunion.  I've just scanned through about 40 photos of last night's 40th-year reunion for Sandpoint High School at Pour Authority.  

Ten years ago they didn't have a selfie stick to take pictures of themselves. 

Thanks to photographer extraordinaire Chris Pietsch, this year they do.  

Mental Note for 50th-year reunion planning:   Find a selfie stick for us codgers.  Yeah, it would be neat to take selfies, and with the stick, maybe we could get the cell phone far enough away to minimize those wrinkles sagging from those eyes that are gonna stare back at everyone on Facebook.  

Do selfie sticks have extensions? 

Anyway, ten years ago the class invited Terry Iverson and Marianne Love speak, as they did twenty years ago and thirty years ago.  Terry told me last week that he missed one of those gatherings, but that didn't keep him off the SHS speakers' bureau for Class of 1975. 

Since this bunch is all eyeing retirement, I might just talk about aches and pains and memory loss and all those things that come along with the final quarter of life where we're trying to see it all, hear it all and experience it all as fast as possible cuz we never know when the final buzzer is gonna sound.  

I don't know what Terry will tell them, but I'm sure it will be astute as will my thoughts---- thanks to spirits among the listeners and maybe even the speakers.  

In the meantime, Bill and Edna will visit, as they always do when their spouses drag them to these gatherings.

Well, it's time to do a little more deep breathing while the sky is still blue and the smoke is gone. 

Happy Saturday.