The Next Chapter in the Book . . .: Chapter 297

This week started out with a bang. Thankfully, it was not a literal bang. As you moms out there know, kids seem to think you can't hear while you are driving. You find out all kinds of things while driving kids around. Over the years I've discovered that sitting at a computer works about the same way.

While I was making up the last attendance sheet of the year, I overheard a conversation about a student having a hand grenade in his truck "Just in case someone pisses me off." Although I was pretty sure this situation was not a problem, today's modern climate and the reliable students involved in the conversation compelled me to see that I was not the only one with this knowledge rattling around in their heads. I found Fred asked Fred, then asked him to move over a couple of feet so the bus I was about to drive over him could hit him cleanly. He, in turn, called the Auburn Police who located the student safe in his bed and rudely woke him up. As it turned out, the grenade was a trainer without any explosive capability. Whew! Unfortunately, Joe Cool, grenade owner, thought it was funny that the police could not pin anything on him. No lessons were learned. (See what you will be missing, Chelsea???)

Initially we started feeding birds to provide entertainment for Nitro while he sunned in his catio. As anything starts, we began with one feeder and they multiplied from there. Bob did not care for my hodge-podge of little hooks nailed all over the patio fence so he bought some metal fence posts and welded the bird poles to them.

Now the feeders are all centralized (and so are the bird poop and seed scraps). That frees up some fence space for me to start nailing Dollar Tree yard art to it.

At work we have to pack up the auto shop lock, stock, and barrel this year to make for for upgrades. When asked what the upgrades were so we knew if we really needed to pack everything, we were told "systems were being upgraded". When we asked what systems were being upgraded, they told us they didn't know. How do you not know what's going to be done to an 8,000 sq ft facility you've just asked be totally cleared out? It's been a three-year long process to build the new school and we are the last phase. Someone must know what's going to happen during this upgrade!

Anyway, I digress. In the course of packing up, I'm tossing a lot of stuff out. Fred has been ~~hoarding~~ saving things for the 40 years he's been there. There is a lot of stuff we just don't use anymore. On top of that, the new teacher, Kurt Edwards, is the Chelsea Falk of the auto shop world and runs a clean, lean shop. One item I threw out, among protests from Fred, was an old opaque Delineascope, used to project textbooks onto the projector screen.

How about this old folding unit? I love to use this thing to fold brochures but I don't fold enough stuff to warrant keeping this dinosaur around. Stay tuned for more pictures of fossils as I unearth them.

We got new Adirondack chairs for the patio and this little chair for Reagan accidentally jumped into the cart along with our chairs. I don't know where Reagan's parents are going to sit, but Reagan and us will be sitting comfortably in our new chairs.

Bob has balls! I guess Reagan is having a pool full of balls for her party entertainment and to keep from having the balls shipped to Carissa's then pack them back over to our house, she had them shipped here. Stay tuned for pics of their final use.

This weekend we went to the beach. One of the projects was to replace all the baseboards in the cabin. The baseboards we had purchased at some "off shore" cut-rate boards we bought from a liquidator whose factory went out of business when a tsunami took the factory out and were starting to grow funky stuff on them that we couldn't eradicate. We were afraid whatever crud was it would take over the entire cabin and we certainly couldn't afford to allow that to happen. A quick trip to Astoria provided us with regular-priced boards that hopefully did not have any problems. A day of measuring and cutting and the new baseboards were installed and hopefully the problem is done for.

A day of measuring and cutting and the new baseboards were installed and hopefully the problem is done for.

As well as replacing the baseboards, we also have to replace our salt shaker. Apparently the salt attracted enough moisture to explode the cheap pottery of my salt shaker. I guess I need to call the lighthouse preservation society to get my lighthouse rebuilt.

It appears someone thought prying the doors open on our shed would net them a quick boost to their drug buying balance. Fail. Little did they know that Bob built a solid stud wall and covered it with plywood just to thwart this kind of activity. To top it off, he nailed on fake handles with no groove for grubby little thief fingers to grasp.

My friend MaryLou and her husband,Doug, came to the cabin for the weekend and we walked the beach route to town.

We always enjoyed going to Marsh's Museum and looking at all of the cool stuff they have stashed there. Although they say this is a museum, there is lots of cool stuff to buy.

Anyone need a mounted cobra or armadillo?

The way my hair looked today, I need to be wearing this mask around today.

After Marsh's we walked on the beach again. Although thousands of the velella velella things that were on the news a few weeks ago are dried up along the beach,...

...there are still a few fresh ones on the beach for me to examine. With the bulk of the velella season over the color wasn't as brilliant as it was.

I love the beautiful blue color.

Doug and MaryLou had never been to Astoria so we headed across the border to Oregon to look at the Goonies House and have lunch at the Wet Dog, our favorite place to eat with a beautiful view of the mouth of the Columbia. After lunch we walked most of the 5 mile Waterfront Trail (and back) along the river. Some of the old cannery buildings and pilings are still hanging in there, albeit by much.

Like most other marinas, the Astoria marina is being overtaken by sea lions. They line two rows of slips with their noisy, stinky lifestyle. That's a lot of marine real estate they are taking up. I'm sure it's cutting into the marina's revenue prompting them to try yet another method to manage these pests. The marina is going to rent a fiberglass singing, moving orca whale to try to chase the sea lions out of the marina. Watch out local marinas, there will be sea lions coming your way.

As well as being stinky, these guys are certainly noisy!

My blog is late this week since we have to internet at the cabin. I came home all juiced up to poach pictures from JoAnn's Monday post since she always poaches from my Sunday post. I guess she had a busy weekend as well!