Day Forty Seven - A lovely day, but a few stresses

Riley took today off.  It started out alright.  We had a pleasant time up on the third floor - our little hide-away.  But I knew that Riley wanted to "get stuff done", so I worked at leaving him alone.  But he did promise that in the afternoon he'd take me on a walk to Pete's.  So I did quiet things as I waited for him to be done.

It doesn't look quite like this, but wouldn't this be nice?

He did his usual really nice taking care of me things, like making oatmeal for me for breakfast, getting me some iced tea, and making a little lunch for me.  I was not not not in the mood for eating, so it was good that he was there to make me eat.  I ate my lunch like a good girl and I was very patient waiting for Riley to finish all the tasks he wanted to accomplish.


Riley was working in the back yard trying to get the clematis (Montana Reuben) and the rose (Ice Berg climber) and the wisteria apart.  The terrible wind storm had blown them all together, and they had then proceeded to grow together. Unfortunately when he was done the garden looked denuded. He has a talent for doing that.  He was also futzing with the pool, which he can't get to turn clear.  He was generally in one of his serious moods, which tend to occur on sunny days off.  It's one of his more unusual quirks. 

Well it wasn't this bad.

Eventually Sarah or Zac called to see if they could stop by for a game of cards and maybe eating.  I said "certainly", as I was quite ready for some social interaction.  But they said that they were going to play a game of Frisbee golf first.  Well I relaid this information to Riley, who assumed that they would be taking hours to play Frisbee golf.  So finally .... he got cleaned up, and I thought we'd wait for Sarah and Zac to show up, as I expected them at any time.  But Riley was suddenly determined to go to the pool store.  Well there it was  4 o'clock!  Why didn't he do that earlier.  He'd talked about it.  So anyway I had "a moment".  But then I settled down and told him I'd go to the pool store with him and I'd call Sarah to make sure they knew we'd eventually be back.  Well they decided to stop at Trader Joe's, so that was helpful.

Zac and Caleb playing.

The pool store is quite a ways away by my way of looking at things, being about 8 miles from our house.  Riley was in the pool store for quite I while.  I never actually go into the pool store because of all the chemicals.  He finally came out with a great many things - chemicals and stuff.  He said that they finally called the manager in on the problem and it was decided that the problem was the Riley was not totally killing the algae, but only maybe 80%.  And they also decided that we needed another "Bob", because the pool is so big.

This is "Bob" in the pool, he now has a new friend.

When we got back home Sarah and Zac and Caleb were there.  Riley went outside to fool with the pool some more, while I chatted with the Enochs.  Then, when Riley came in, I mentioned that I had been thinking that maybe Oasis pizza might taste okay.  Well everyone was all over that, so off we went.  When we got there I took a careful look at all the options (they make single slices of pizza to order) and I decided that feta and pineapple sounded good.  This is quite unusual for me, as I never choose pineapple.  In fact it wasn't bad, and we all had a fun time, including Caleb.  They had really interesting old photographs  on the wall by our table.

Old photo of Portland.

I only ate about 1/3 of my slice of pizza, but everyone gave me lots of time to eat it.  Then we all headed home.  Sarah and Zac decided that Caleb needed to go to bed, so they gathered up their things and went home.  There was no baseball game, so we just dinked around until it seemed like it was bed time.  

Here I am, little jumping Joan, 

When nobody's with me, I'm always alone.

It wasn't the best of days, but not so bad.  I think that one thing that really gives me a sense of feeling good is social interaction.  I remember once when I was maybe about 11 years old I had strep throat, but my parents were scheduled to go some where out of town, so we were all left with our grandmother Mimi.  That was my WORST being sick time I've ever had.  My mother always made custard for me and gave me seven-up and let me hang out on the couch.  It wasn't about watching TV, because that wasn't the room with the TV.  It was about being out where people were.  But Mimi decided that I was not only to spend the day in my bedroom, but the light was to be kept off and there was no custard and no seven-up.  I was miserable!