Sorting Cookie Cutters

Ryn teases us that we live in a house with extraordinarily low entropy. She means our house is clean and orderly, in the extreme. It seems that it’s often true for us retired folks. For one thing, there’s no kids to move things around, so things tend to stay where they were put. For another, retired folks have some extra time on their hands. Here’s a picture of Danita bringing our entropy to new lows, sorting cookie cutters.

We are having unusually cool and rainy weather. Last Saturday, after 18 days in a row of cool, rainy weather, the afternoon turned warm and sunny. I got a nice ride in. I found lots of people mowing their lawn. There was so much stuff kicked up into the air that in spots, my eyes hurt and I had trouble breathing. It was almost as if neighborhoods were preparing for synchronized mowing events. But it was a good ride.

This is Preakness week, which means it’s time for balloon ascensions. We have been attending Preakness balloon ascensions for years. We went when they were held in Druid Hill Park. We went to some more when they were held at Oregon Ridge. And we went to still more when they moved to Turf Valley Country Club (which, fortunately, is conveniently close to where we live now.) Every time we went, the balloons inflated but didn’t go up because the wind was blowing too hard, or it was in the wrong direction, or whatever.

The ascensions are early in the morning. In spite of the early hour, they are always popular. And their fun, even when the balloons stay firmly tethered to the earth. The weather got warm and sunny today. We decided to give it another go. We were rewarded with actually getting to see the balloons ascend. Don’t worry. We won’t get spoiled by two days of great weather. Tomorrow, for the actual running of the Preakness race, the forecast is — temperatures in the 50s with rain all day.

We have lots of activities scheduled for the next week. Tonight is neighborhood Casino night. I usually eat the food and give my chips to Danita. Saturday we have Burgers and Beer at the church. Sunday we’re meeting Mark for breakfast and eating a neighborhood pot-luck dinner in the evening. Monday is picking up our Russian Visas (with a stop at the patisserie!). Yoga is Tuesday. That puts us up to Wednesday, when we have absolutely nothing scheduled. That’s too bad, because the cookie cutters are already in great order. Danita’s book club meets Thursday. I’m supposed to count people on a spot of Columbia trails Saturday. And that brings us up to Ed and Lynne’s Parkton Open a week from Sunday.

I get tired just thinking about all this activity. I hope this finds everybody doing well. Here’s a few more balloon pics. Click on them if you want to see them bigger.

Indications are that the evening Balloon Glow is much more popular than the early morning Balloon Ascension

There are no pics this week.

Our focus this week has been on getting a Russian Visa. We have to have a Russian visa before we can visit Russia. One can get a visa from a company that specializes in getting visas for people. All those companies charge a lot of money and all visa applications go through  “ILS-Visa”, a company Russia set up specifically to manage all Russian visas. ILS-Visa has an office in DC. We decided we could save a bunch of our hard earned green by doing the visa ourselves. It sounds so easy. Fill out an on-line form, take it to ILS-Visa, and wait a week. Voila. It turned out to be a little harder than that.

We needed an invitation before applying for a visa. Our flights and boat cruise were through Gate1. They said they would send an invitation, so we waited for that. When it arrived, it did not include our entire time in Russia — only the cruise. I contacted our hotel in St. Petersburg and in Moscow and got invitations from them also.

The online form turned out to be quite involved. They required our previous two employers, with start / end dates, job titles, name of supervisor, and more. They require two numbers from the invitations, helpfully listing the Russian word to look for. One invitation didn’t have one of the words. I suppose they used a synonym? They required the the schools where we got degrees, with major and start/end dates. The details were astounding. We went through 3 iterations, with me entering information and Danita proofing. Having all the paperwork, one can request an appointment with ILS-Visa. Requesting an appointment can be done on-line. Except that no appointment times are available in 2016 or 2017. Why have a website to request appointments if they obviously don’t intend to offer appointment times?

So we bundled up our forms, invitations, photos (the photo that’s in our passport isn’t good enough, I guess) and took a trip to DC. When we arrived at ILS-Visa, we learned that our application had 3 errors. For example, one error was the name of the St. Petersburg hotel. The name I copied and pasted from the website wasn’t acceptable because it wasn’t the Russian name. We could correct the forms and come back another time, or they could correct the forms for us. It “only” cost an extra $30. Each. The invitation we had from the St. Petersburg hotel was not acceptable. It turns out the hotel sent us two documents (both in Russian). I picked out the wrong one.

The good thing was the person at ILS-Visa who we worked with. She was polite and professional. She called me at home, helped me find the correct invitation form, and allowed me to Email it to her. If all goes well, we will be able to pick up our Visas Monday, May 23 at 2:00. When we left ILS-Visa, I spotted a patisserie across the street. Our plan is to arrive a little early and visit the patisserie when we go to pick up the visas.

My other recent frustration is over. I’ve been “spring cleaning” the office computers. I finished my last update this morning. There are a few issues I’m not sure how to address. I documented them and sent them off to the IT committee.

Besides that, we had a neighborhood concert Tuesday. It was a “big band” playing swing. The band wasn’t the best, but it was good fun. I met with our new IT support company and reviewed our office computers with him. We had a neighborhood party yesterday. And we have a BSO concert tomorrow. The concert is unusual for us, because this performance is at Strathmore, which is close to DC.

That’s quite enough complaining for one week. ;-) I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Impossible pies – spinach & bacon

Our story of B ryon’s first communion begins Wednesday. It was quite a busy day for both of us. One of the residents discuvered the update of our websie had a major flaw. I didn’t figure out the cause until early Thursday morning. I spent most of the rest of the morning fixing the website. I had enough time to pack and grab a quick shower. Just as I was starting my shower, Bud showed up at our house looking to go through some stuff we were holding for him and a lunch. He and Danita had gotten their signals crossed. Danita was able to give him his stuff, but unfortunately we didn’t have any food in the house and he left withut lunch.

Cupcakes

We headed off to Staunton, checked into our hotel, and immediately went to the Mill House Restaurant.We had eaten there before, and knew the food would be somewhat expensive, have very large portions, and be deliciously prepared. What we didn’t know is that by arriving before 6, we were eligible for the early bird special, which was amazing. Portion sizes were just right for us. The food was just as good, and the price was an umbelievable bargin. I had a Cajuin steak dinner with ‘taters, fruit, and a small desert for about the same price as Outback. My only comment was the steak was CAJUN. But it was still quite good. We just had time for a gellato at our favorite Staunton ice cream place, The Split Bannana. I had spicy chocolayte, which was marvously good and certainly much better than it sounded. Then we were off to Henry V. This is not my favorite Shakespeare, but it was done quite well, and it was Shakespeare after all.

Danita’s famous potato salad

Thursday we drove to Jul’s and did grocery shopping. Jul and Pat were both running late. All we had time for was dinner and preparing for bedtime. Friday Danita cooked As you can tell from these pics, Danita had a fantastic day and the food came out looking GREAT. I did a loop around the area, staying on back roads. I was surprised at how rural this area is. I spent mostly of my time riding past farms.

Jul, Bryon, Baner

Saturday was the first communion. The parish had 72 children this year. They split them into three services. Bryon’s group was at 10:00 Saturday. They did a beautiful job. Children came up, one at a time, with their entire family. The child had their first communion. Then each member of the family had either communion or a blessing. You can see Bryon and Julia before the service started, along with Bryon’s first communion banner. Below you can see a picture of all 24 of the children after the service. After the service, we came back to the house for a family party. Danita prepared much more food than was needed, plus one contingent cancelled at the last minute. So there was plenty of leftover food.

Zip Line

We decided that  going to church once in the weekend is enough. But it had been a big weekend for everybody. So we visited a local park with a very nice playground, including a zip line. We also went to see “Jungle Book”. It is a good story, well told. And the computer animation is mind-blowingly good.

Party pictures are below. Jay and Melody are Pat’s parents. Barbara is his Godmother. The rest of to folks are all assorted family members. You can also see some of Pat’s amazing garden in the background.

We’re driving home tomorrow. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

First Communion

Carson, Celeste, Pat, Tara, Slipknot

Jay, Marc

Jill, Barbara, Danita

Melody, Barbara

Pat, Forrest, Marc

Pat, Melody, Jay