September 28
Dear Jerm,
Got your letter on Saturday. I was beginning to worry that you hadn't gotten my last one, like it had been held back because I put news articles in it. I heard that G&G'ma got one and Nollie and Mikey each got one, and that's good they all heard from you, so I knew you were OK. What I was worried about was your mom missed your call one weekend and then no call the next weekend, so she was pretty upset about that. I don't know if you spoke yesterday, but I hope so. I know that once you get assigned she may not hear your voice as often as once a week, but for now it's hard for her not to hear from you everyday. We will all have to get used to it. Change is hard for everybody. I'm OK. Just getting by like everybody else. Trying not to create drama in my own life, be helpful and positive for others. Not always appreciated, some people actually get nastier, if you can believe that. We have had some fair weather, but a cold front is brewing. I'm watching dark clouds coming in with help from a lot of wind right at the moment. Last weekend, I can't remember that we did anything unusual. That Friday evening, I went and helped out at my local yarn store. The lady that owns it is in Hawaii for four weeks, a couple of the girls in our local knitters group went down to re-organize the place. I had hoped to go visit the Portland Saturday Market, as I had not been there yet this year and they have moved, but that didn't work out. Not a big disappointment, just hung out at home. This weekend, there was a thing over at the fairgrounds, Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival or OFFF, for everything from the animals, like sheep, llamas, goats, rabbits, that you get fiber from, through the carding and spinning, to yarns. I went on Saturday after I closed my office with my lawn chair, sat in the shade and knitted all afternoon. Talk to lots of people, played with a baby next to me. The OFFF is one of my tenants. Last year I went without knowing what it was all about, so, I was looking forward to it. This year was bigger and overwhelming because the fairgrounds had booked a dog show, Irish Wolfhounds I think, and there was no place to park. Lots of people. I was glad I just sat in my chair. Michael wants to send off a package later this week for his grandson. We found a great book, Ripley's Believe It or Not stuff, at Costco a few weeks ago. I am working on a hat to go with it. It's a nice wool, not very thick, with bones hidden in the ribbing around the band I'm doing it in an off white bone color, then white skeletons in the charcoal grey body of the hat. The pattern is called Round Dance, I think it was designed by a german fellow. I started it Friday, I'm hoping to have it knitted tonight or tomorrow, then blocked and dried to mail in a couple of days. I'm also thinking about sending my game cartridge of Disney Pixar Cars Tow-Mater Race Game, which has pretty cool graphics, but I'm spending too much time playing Theme Park. He's in 3rd grade, so that makes him 9 or so. I think he will appreciate the game more than I am. Michael also found a car model of a '57 Chevy, he wanted to put together with him because his Uncle Jeremy, Michael's son that died at 17 about 12 years ago, Jeremy loved '57 Chevys. Michael is flying to Minneapolis to visit them in less than a month. I think he's starting to get excited. Yeah, whatever Maggie had, she seemed to have gotten over it within a day or so. The girls are doing pretty well, not much news there. No really great things to say about Dori. I have found that attaching her to my belt rather than her leash in my hand is more calming to her. Something I learned from 'Dog Whisperer'. When she gets nervous, I get stressed and she can feel that through the leash, which makes her more nervous ~ the whole viscious cycle. Also, at the park, I have been using the stick to keep her beside me and calm. Her ears are up more and tail a bit. The stick doesn't work on the daily morning walk on the path, either because it's asphalt and not the wood chip path or because it gets noisy in the one direction through industrial area, the other direction over the Hwy 99, or because there's an active train on the spur. I know that it requires spending a great deal of time out there till she is calm with the noise, but we don't seem to have as much time as she needs. The other thing that is kinda negative is that she has peed a few more times in the house. I have been taking her out at night to pee before bed, but she acts like she's afraid of the dark. It is rare that I can get her to pee the last time out before bed. Last night I did, because I took Maggie out with us and then kept Dori close by while Maggie did what we were there for, then it seemed like, Oh, this is why we are out here, and she did what we came to also. Anyway, it seems like one step forward and two back some days with her. We wanted to take them to a dog park this weekend, and actually left to go do that, but I messed it up, because I was focused on a park different from where Michael drove to. We feel it would be nice to take them to a fenced dog park with a dedicated small/timid dog area so Maggie can meet more dogs till she stops getting excited/agressive about it and for Dori to see what dogs who don't have to fend for food, water, shelter are like and become less afraid of everything. But it didn't happen yesterday, because I got it wrong and now it won't happen for another week, till we get some more time off. The days are a little shorter already, and the weather is changing. Yesterday still felt like a mild summer day and today feels like Fall is here. I had the heater on in the office to take the chill off a bit after I opened. The office was kind of crazy chaotic all week anyway. The week before, my supervisor said I could have some things done about the place, so we had carpet guys scheduled for Monday and a lot sweep for Tuesday. Well, without alerting anybody, they started tearing up the lane right in front of us on Monday, had to direct the carpet people through the back gate. Then, Tuesday, the lot sweeper drove through the repaving and coated all the equipment under his truck with oil. I didn't get anymail those days they were out there, I don't think the postlady thought we were open or that she couldn't get through the mess. The whole thing made me upset and jealous anyway. The facility is in desparate need of pavement seal. Last year, the tire folks next door had theirs done, now the one lane of the four right out fron has finished, the parking lot at the shopping center next door had theirs done last week also. The pavement here is so bad, I could grow a row of corn down the center of my aisles. G'ma and G'pa Jimmy were here one day last week. Grandma found some yarn at Goodwill and brought it to me. I was nice to see them. Sounds like they are doing OK. Other than that I haven't heard from anybody. Wait, I did talk to your Mom I think Friday, she called to ask if I'd gotten a letter from you lately. I haven't heard anything from Nollie the last few days. I heard Mikey is supposed to start training with SWIFT, because he hadn't heard back from the post office people yet and can't keep waiting, no matter how perfect it would have been. I know he wants to keep the boys, and I hope that works for him. I hope he doesn't loose them, he loves them so, I'm afraid for him to have his heart broken. I know it's hard on young people, but if he wants to be responsible for them, he needs to focus on them and not on his pants. He also needs to quit smoking for their health. Even if he's outside, it comes in on his clothes and that's just as bad as smoking in their presence. I know I sound like harpy old aunties, but it's a fact. Your mom is an example of what I'm saying. Really, truly, not much else going on. I got my score on Tetris over 300,000 and now I can't beat it myself. I can't seem to get anywhere close, when I try. Lots of new episodes of my favorite programs on tv last week, finally. Watched new 'Heros' and 'CSI:Miami' on Monday, 'NCIS' and the new spinoff 'NCIS:LA' on Tuesday, I tuned over to ABC to watch a series premier of a show with Christian Slater called 'The Forgotten' which is about a civilian group that works to identifiy dead people after the police and every other government department have given up (I liked it, but it's competing against new Jay Leno show, we'll see), Wednesday was new 'Criminal Minds' and 'CSI:NYC', Thursday was 'CSI:' and 'The Mentalist', Friday I was at knitting social, but got home in time to see 'Rescue Ink' which is a new show on Natl Geo Channel about tattoed biker dudes rescuing animals in New York. Michael was hoping they were going to pound the crap out of some animal abusers, no such luck, but it was pretty good anyway. The only real confrontation they had was with this guy that was shooting stray cats in his back yard with a BBgun. The first time they met him he was OK, but when they went back with equipment to help him keep the cats out of his back yard he called the cops on them. They also helped a man in the projects who had three pit bulls, he had been beat up and hospitalized, worried about his dogs, so they went and got them and took them someplace where they would be cared for until he was home again. All those shows again this week, will be hard to not watch a documentary series on PBS about the National Parks that started last night and goes through Friday. Very well put together and lots of history of how the different presidents reserved the parcels of land for the use and enjoyment of everybody, photography is excellent as well, and seems everybody in Hollywood got to narate some part of it. Over the weekend, I borrowed some movies from the library. I got 'Hero' and 'House of Flying Daggers' both Chinese films with great photography, martial arts with some fantasy effects, but I like them because they are great to watch, very visual. I'm supposed to be getting the 'Mummy' with the Dragon Emporer, Jet Li, I can't remember the title. Maybe it will be there when I go to the library to knit this afternoon, we can watch it next weekend when nothing better on tv. Michael liked 'Hero', stayed awake until the last half hour of it. He didn't see but the first ten minutes of 'Dagger' we were in bed and he had been dozing in his chair before we went up. Michael has come in from working outside. He's eating some lunch and watching 'Nitro Circus'. He'll probably take a nap (doze in his chair) after a bit, so I guess I need to close this and get something to eat myself. I hope you are having a lot of fun, avoid the drama queens, learning much. I heard about the pinning ceremony, how cool!!! I hear your mom got a few letters from you last week, so I know you're busy. I'm proud of you, as is everybody else, I think you have reason to be proud of yourself. I hope you can keep your cool, at times it sounds like a precious commodity. (Somebody came in and rented a unit, I hope this paragraph doesn't sound too disjointed.) I love you and look forward to hearing from you again soon.
Love from your old cranky auntie, ~ tammy
