It was another quiet week. I’m on a team that counts donations for our church. We count once every four weeks. This week our count and cross-count checked matched perfectly. It was our first perfect count. Every other count we have done, we had to find and resolve one or two errors. It took a while for us to realize what we had done. It was a great feeling.
We had a food truck dinner with the Jonses plus two new neighbors. I took bike rides. Danita worked at the county food bank. It’s a very good thing we had a couple of quiet weeks, because August is going to be very, very busy. I don’t want to offer any spoilers, but I’m trying to read Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. I had forgotten how hard it is to read Shakespeare. Or maybe I’m just getting a little older. I found the best synopsis I ever here (play the video).
The big news this week is that Rick (Danita’s brother) is moving from Texas. He’ll be a few miles away from Ed. Rick was up for closing on his new house. Ed organized a dinner for all four of the siblings and their spouses. The food at the dinner was excellent — especially the ice cream. Here’s a pic.
In much less important news, I got new tires for my bike. I’ve been having problems with the fenders scraping the side of the tires. It looks like that is resolved.
We’re looking forward to a neighborhood lunch / concert Sunday afternoon.
Last week I offered raspberries to the weather service, which couldn’t tell me whether there would be a heavy rain within the next few hours. This week I am re-aiming my target to OPM. That stands for Office of Personnel Management. It’s the agency that manages retirement payments for federal employees like Bud. Danita has everything squared away to settle Bud’s estate except for the final payment from OPM. She’s called OPM several times. Calling them is a major investment because it always requires waiting on hold for hours. Finally, OPM told Danita the payment would be processed in a few days. Danita was as excited as I have seen her for quite a while. No payment was forthcoming. Concerned that there was an error in the bank account number, she called OPM again. This time the agent said that Bud’s payment has indeed been assigned to a processing person, but they have up to 60 days to do the processing. Our lawyer suggested Danita call back, which she did. this time the agent said that processing can take up to 16 months. The lawyer decided we can close everything except the OPM payment.
Dear OPM …
We went out to dinner to get gyros at Tino’s Wednesday. Thursday, I decided we should eat out again. We wanted something good and cheap, so we went to Jason’s Deli. They include free soft-serve ice cream. That allowed us to skip the gelato food truck, which charges $5 for a “just OK” gelato. (The only place I have had great gelato is Italy.) I proclaimed we saved $10 and had our dinner for just $11. Yesterday we had a neighborhood cookout with hot dogs, hamburgers, and drinks. Residents brought a side or desert to share. Hopefully this will hold us for eating out until tomorrow morning, when we have Sunday breakfast at IHOP.
That’s all for the week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.
The first order of business Saturday was to get Liz on the plane to Charlotte. We went through check in, security, and got to the gate at the very end of the C concourse. Then we waited. The flight attendants were arriving on another flight, which was delayed. When it arrived, it came in to the A concourse. The crew had to walk the length of the airport. By the time the plane was loaded, they had missed their takeoff slot. They pulled away from the gate, but sat on in the gate area until the rush of morning flights was over and they could get off the ground. The rest of Liz’s flight was unremarkable, so it was time for the next adventure.
We drove up to JaMM’s for an overnight stay. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate. Everything we planned was cancelled. Mark and Jiajia were remarkably flexible and we ended up having a good time. Coming back, the forecast was for more heavy T-storms in the afternoon. So we left earlier than planned and encountered … no T-Storms until after dinner. Raspberries to the weather service that can’t forecast rain 6 hours in advance. It wasn’t the weekend we planned, but we got to visit and we got home safely.
Feeding the ducks
I made the final payment for our Turkey trip. I read that some international travelers would get Covid and not be able to get Paxlovid. So I got two prescriptions to take with us on our travels. People on statins (such as me) should suspend their statins while taking Paxlovid. Our doctor explained the restrictions quite clearly. When Danita picked up the Paxlovid, the pharmacist went over the restrictions again. CVS hasn’t been my favorite business to deal with lately, but I was favorably impressed with their performance this time.
We got good news this week. Our clubhouse is open. We can go back to having parties and gatherings in air conditioned comfort. Swimmers who don’t attend gatherings are also happy. If there is a gathering that includes alcohol on the pool level, we have to close the pool. Now swimmers can be assured the pool will be open all day. Provided there are no T-storms, of course.
The right front wheel of my bike started scraping against something the other day. After playing around with it, I found that I had a broken spoke. I decided to let the bike shop fix it. They did a good job, but then my right front brake started making a terrible noise. I didn’t want to take it back to the shop, so I spent a couple of hours this morning playing around with bake adjustments. I learned a lot. The next time, adjusting the brakes should take only a few minutes. It was a good time to get the brakes squared away. We’re expecting several days without T-storms. I’ll be spending some time on the road.
