Chapter 212

I hear from Chris and Carissa that Bear is not a morning dog and at his house he barely greets anyone in the morning and prefers to stay on his warm comfy Bear bed. After six years, I have learned this is NOT the case when morning rolls around at our house. He prefers to get up before anyone else and start the morning with whisper barking and running around. If ignored, the whisper bark will turn to a real bark and large toys appear in my bed. So, last weekend when Chris and Carissa stayed with us for Chris' Air Force Reserve weekend, I woke to this:

The Spunky Monkey restaurant here in Auburn is the kind of place with poor food, poor service, karaoke, and they make you wait while they amble across the street to Safeway while having a smoke when they run out of ingredients. It only took my friend and I once to realize this wasn't going to happen again. 

Last week I saw a post on facebook from a friend in South Dakota about the Spunky Monkey restaurant being remodeled by the FoodNetwork's Restaurant Impossible. Anyway, I checked it out and found that, indeed, the sad little Spunky Monkey was going to be reborn. I drove by after work only to find the area as busy as the proverbial bee hive. There were cars, trucks, workers, film crews, and lookie loos, swarming the area.  I drove through the Safeway parking lot, hopped out, snapped a pic and kept on driving. From what I could see from the promo picture, it look much different inside. 

As you might have read a couple of weeks ago, I attended a quilting retreat where my machine was clearly the most "experienced" machine there. Everyone politely refrained from ridiculing my machine but it started the wheels turning that maybe, just maybe, after 37 years it was time to move up.

Since I had a good machine, I had never really shopped new ones. How things have really changed! The new machines have automatic thread cutters, auto raise and lower of presser foot, touch screen, automatic bobbin wind, and much, much more.

Enter the Brother 6800, Project Runway Edition. I could have done without that association, but it was a good deal with the features I wanted for a reasonable price. It even came with a nice rolling carry case although I never used the case on my old machine. Stay tuned to see what it can do.

Check out this picture in the front cover of the 1966 Auburn High School yearbook. I was more amazed by the fresh look of the high school and the fact that the library is upstairs where the science rooms are now. It was the Jaguar in the picture that had caught Bob's eye. I'm not sure what the Jaguar looks like today, but the school certainly does not look that nice anymore. 

For Halloween I decided to fix Subway for dinner so I stopped at the local Subway on my way home. The "sandwich technician" commented on how beautiful my car was. I told her it was really a Prius that was wearing a 1956 Ford Fairlane costume for Halloween.  The "tech" was really impressed and said "I didn't know they made costumes for cars." "It so good. It looks just like a real car!". Sheesh!

Does this look like a car costume or the real thing?

 

We went to the cabin to make sure it was still standing since we haven't been there for a very long time. Erik and Darla joined us for a close-up look at the wind and rain the coastal weather was serving up. That old cabin sure creaks in the wind gusts. But it hasn't blown over since it was built in 1925 so I hoped it will hang in there for another night. We had a relaxing evening and a nice trip to Astoria and a great lunch at the Wet Dog Cafe' and Brewery overlooking the commercial container ships as they moor in the mouth of the Columbia awaiting their turn to make the trek upriver to Portland. Once there, they can offload all their Dollar Tree and Walmart stuff just in time for Christmas shopping. Anyway, I stray. We had a great time, and as usual, I forget to take pictures of the important occasions.

Do you know how you can tell if you are in a fishing town?  You find crab traps at Costco. 

If the crab traps at Costco don't give you a clear idea that you are in a fishing town, then maybe the crab traps strapped to the back of a Prius in downtown Astoria  will. 

So after our fun weekend out, it was time to suck leaves. The winds we had over the weekend had dried and blown the leaves into nice piles that were "easy" to pick up with our Platinum Leaf Rake 2000 with the optional vacuum system 6" hose accessory.

 While Bob did all the work, I sat astride the ol' John Deer and kept all the equipment positioned for maximum suckability and listened to my book. To punctuate this excitement, I punched the clumps of leaves into the hose as Bob turned the clogged tip my direction. 

After he sucks the leaves up from the yard, he re-sucks the leaves out of the vacuum bag with that very same hose and onto the compost pile. 

Hey, if anyone wants any composted soil next spring, bring your truck and shovel!

One of the benefits of riding around on the tractor watching Bob work while I get covered with leave crumbs, is the beautiful sky over the house. Don't let this sky fool you, however, moments later rain ended all the fun and drove us indoors. 

Have a good week, everyone!