Travels with The Rayman

We hadn’t been gone from house for 20 minutes when I stepped on the break of The Dog House (RV), and a large crash ensued.  ”What the hell was that?”, the Rayman bellowed.  In my shy and meek voice I answered, “I don’t know.”  As this was being discussed, we both looked toward the noise.  It was our pantry.  The door flew open, all my spices on the sliding shelf hit the deck.  Recognizing the chaos, Rayman leaped from his seat and sprinted toward the back of the coach.  For the uninitiated, the word coach is a euphemism for RV.  Coach is a good word.  It evokes “home away from home”.  RV on the other hand sounds cold and unappealing.

But I digress.

As the Rayman is huffing and puffing as he pulls up items off the floor, I turn right because I asked him if he wanted me to stop and he didn’t answer me and since there was nowhere to park, I turned right.   Right into a neighborhood that had more twists and turns in the street than a murder mystery.  “Why did you turn?  What are you doing?  We’re towing the car?  How are we going to get out of here?”.  OMG.  It was in a word, a disaster.  So as I’m driving what seemed like the entirety of the Amalfi coast to get back to the main road, the Rayman discovered that the flying spices damaged the floor.  OMG.  This part of the diary is expletive deleted.  In the meantime, I weaving back on to the main road heading toward the freeway.  At this point I managed to say something like, “Well, we forgot to secure the door to the pantry.  I was going to do it and forgot.”  He said, “expletive deleted”.  That’s when I suggested a check list like airline pilots have before they take off.  “Oh, great.  Another list”, he snarled.

Oh, well.  Sometimes the beginning of the trip is the worst of it.  When you drive a coach, contents move about like in an overhead compartment of an airplane.  Quite possibly the only thing more crowded than a passenger in Economy, is said passenger’s carry-on that is crammed in that overhead.  Really, people.  Flying is disgusting and to think we have to give the airlines our hard earned cash for the privilege of eating our own knees.  This is what it has come to, isn’t it?

Let me continue.  I got a bit sidetracked.

So.  By the time we arrived in Los Alamos at the Well Bread bakery to buy our chocolat des cruissants, the calamity had cleared.  Temporary explosions are forgotten as there are new and exciting things ahead.  And the food was fabulous as we sat in the coach and ate our breakfasts.

The plan was that we would ride as far as Oxnard, disengage the toad (car we tow), and I would proceed onto the Camarillo where I was going to a baby shower for my cousin’s daughter.  And this is what happened.  Rayman took TDH (the dog house) which is the name of our coach which is our RV… to a campground near Santa Paula.  I went to the baby shower and this is where I was reminded how difficult it is to shop.  The pregnant mom has a boy in her womb.  And that little boy is going to have about 70 pair of socks, 30 swaddling blankets, 40 receiving blankets, and a herd of stuff elephants.  The clothes he received  referenced the navy, sports, animals, and farming.  No miniature kitchens.  No dolls.  No frilly dresses that are so much fun to buy .  It was a fabulous party.  I also learned that things have changed in the baby department.  No more strollers.  Transportations systems now.  Trees for hanging bottles on top of fake green grass.  Not sure about that but the crowd seemed to approve.  Clearly I don’t get out enough.  This may be the first shower I’ve been to since 1974.   Who’s shower?  Who knows?  I forget.  Not even sure the year is right.

Anyway.

I left the shower by following my cousin’s wife to their house so I could say hello to my cousin.  My cousin Chris is a hoot.  Great sense of humor.  He and I are polar opposites in some ways and absolutely on the same wave length.  So after a wonderful visit, armed with my iPhone, I left the hills of Camarillo and headed down the backside of their hill toward Santa Paula.  Only I got a bit lost and my phone informed me that it was low on juice so I called the Rayman, told him the cross streets and implored him to help me get to where he was.  “Call me back.”  Click.  So, I just kept driving and heading north east.  Well.  He calls back.  “What city are you in?”  I said, “If I knew that I’d know where I am.  Now I’m at Rose and Los Angeles.  Call me back.”  By the time he called me back I was almost where I was suppose to be thanks to blind luck. Finding the Dog House and my little family was fabulous.  I was tired.  I had been lost and yet found again.  And Rayman had set the whole coach up by himself.  What a guy.  Then he told me this story about seeing a gas station and thinking he should fill up and as he was pulling in people started yelling “STOP!”.  He was about to tear the roof off The Dog House.  The ceiling of the gas station pumping stations was about 11 feet tall.  The coach is over 12 feet tall.   Disaster avoided.  Wine was consumed.  Everything mellowed out.

It could have been so much worse.  So after a day of craziness, we have a couple of scratches in the floor which is fake wood anyway.  Think we can find a paint or stain pen to cover up the owwie.  At least me have our roof.  The baby is set.  And Rayman is relaxed and resting comfortably.

Key learnings.  1.  devise a list of procedures to check before putting the coach in drive.  2.  Start every trip with a charged phone battery.  3.  Relax and enjoy.

More later.  After all.  This was the first day of a month on the lam.  More to come!!

When you reach a certain age, birthdays take on new meaning.  I think I speak for all of us when I say that as you get older, the birthdays come more frequently, so to speak.  “Seems like I just turned ( you fill in the number), yesterday”, she exclaimed.  The passage of time speeds up the clock.  There is no denying it.  It is a truism.  So, using this logic, we will be dead before you know it.  Therefore, get out and have some fun if you’re able.  Because just as birthdays become “more frequent”, so it is that aches and pains will increase.  As my dear Uncle Ralph proclaimed last night over dinner, “Let me tell you.  It doesn’t get prettier”.  And he is 87. I have launched into this this subject with the memory of yesterday lingering on In my mind.  It was Rayman’s birthday.   The other thing about birthdays is that we all or most of us feel this obligation to give a gift and since winding back the clock is not possible there is nothing at this point that is really needed.  There may be things that aren’t even wanted.  “I’ll just go out and buy whatever I want/need.”   This type of person is one of my favorites.  Actually, I trend that way for my own self.  But how do you, dear reader, handle that?  Are you the type of person that buys your birthday person a funny gift (Preparation H), or the type that buys a gift that you too can benefit from (two nights at Post Ranch).  Or do you go for the practical?  Say, a new shirt?   On any given year, it may be different, I’d guess. But I’m starting to digress. The birthday gift question for this year was answered thus.  I cooked.  First, I began by asking the Rayman what he wanted to eat for his birthday dinner.  He was pretty clear that he favored lamb so that I would cook his favorite potatoes.  Roasted red potatoes.  This is one of his all time favorites.  Red potatoes cut to a uniform size, tossed with salt and pepper (freshly ground), fresh rosemary from the bush in the front yard, garlic cloves unpeeled but flattened and added mid way thru the cooking so that they weren’t reduced to hard, charred pieces of bitter garlic), and all tossed with olive oil (not EVOO) and some butter (not margarine or other horrible substitute), and thrown in the oven (400 degrees).   Who wouldn’t love that?  It is the best, most simple potato recipe I possess.

Below is a pic of Ryan!!

  And what else you might be wondering?  Well, asparagus.  Asparagus and lamb go together like  sheets and pillowcases.  The only other veggie under consideration was eggplant but I had just purchased a lifetime supply of asparagus from Costco when I bought the two racks of lamb there so, of course, it would be asparagus.  And a salad.  Rayman and I have disagreements about what greenery should be used as the base for a salad.   I love arugula.  He likes everything but arugula.  So, I settled on spinach.  Into it I threw some toasted walnuts, shallot, a sliced pear, feta cheese and dressed it with a dressing of avocado oil, fig and vanilla vinegar, a pear sauce.  Yummy. But the crowning glory was the dessert.  If that is even possible after such a great dinner.  Oh, who am I kidding?  Of course, it was possible.  It was Rayman’s birthday.  And Ryan, number one son, was here for the occasion.  He flew down from Portland so that we could celebrate his birthday too.  He was born 2/5/80.  It must be duly noted that his days aren’t moving as fast.  To him.  To us, that’s a discussion for another day. Oh, my, I started to digress again.  Sort of. The dessert was not for the average cook.  It was almost like I looked and looked and looked for the most difficult dessert for the occasion.  Having found it, I decided it would be perfect.  It involved what I mistakenly thought was puff pastry.  A new requirement may be needed.  Read the recipe five times before beginning.  This I did not do and therefore when I did the marketing, I bought puff pastry.  And this mistake went unrealized until I took it out of the freezer and the box announced, “two sheets enclosed”.  WHAT?  2 sheets?  Referring back to the recipe, I was horrified to learn that it required 11 to 13 sheets of phyllo.  Phyllo is not puff pastry.  2 is not 11.  OMG.  Good grief.  When I recognized the error of my ways, it was 2:30 p.m.  And dinner was scheduled for 6:30.  But wait, there’s more!! Here is a picture of the apples.  I can’t find the prune pictures.  The prunes could be a subject unto themselves.  On the way to pick up Ryan at the Santa Barbara airport (don’t ask), we stopped at Costco to buy a year’s worth of prunes because the recipe called for 25 of them.  Oh, I know what you’re thinking and just stop it.  Although, it is a funny thought at our age!!  Maybe any age.  Anyway, the prunes required a tea bath for 2 hours and an overnight soak in the most expensive french brandy known to BevMo.  And it was 20% off to boot.  So, the prunes had been prepared.  The apples had been peeled, cored, thinly sliced and cooked on the stovetop for 25 minutes (with the addition of a vanilla bean and some orange peel).  And they had been cooled as per the directions.  It was now time to heat the oven and commence with the phyllo activity. The oven was “punched” on (these digital contraptions).  That’s when smoke started enveloping the kitchen.  OMG.  There was something on the bottom of the oven.  Well, off went the oven.  I then asked birthday boy if he would set up my portable oven outside in the garage (another long story for another time).  He obliged.  As he was doing that I discovered my shopping error and was thus thrown into a wild panic.  I grabbed my purse and headed out the door.  Phyllo must be found.  I drove to the Cookie Crock (a local grocery concern) and there it was in the freezer case.  This was beyond a miracle as the Cookie Crock is known for carrying less expensive food by not paying good wages.  But, they had it.  Yippee. So, the good news was, I found the phyllo.  The bad news was it required 2 hours to defrost.  It was about 3 p.m.  I set the timer for 1 1/2 hours and postponed my activities concerning the dessert.

Who is this older woman in my kitchen? Good grief.

When the beeper went off, I opened the package and went to work.  Ryan was the official photographer.  Long story short, I used too much phyllo (18 sheets) because I didn’t read the directions correctly.  I piled on the prunes and apples, doused it with more brandy and butter, closed it up and sprinkled more sugar on it and popped it into the oven.  Again, I misread the recipe and did not place the pan on a preheated pan (presumably so the bottom would cook thru) but it was too late.  In it went.  And out it came looking a bit like an ugly duckling compared to the picture in the L.A. Times food section that accompanied the recipe.     So…here’s the dinner plate.  And the dessert…before and after.     As we were devouring the dessert, I exclaimed, “I forgot the set the prunes on fire!!”.  I thought I remembered that requirement somewhere in the recipe.  Whether or not the recipe called for a flame throwing exercise mattered not.  It was fabulous.  Flakey.  Fabulous.  Boozey.  Fabulous.  Although, I am sure it was a good omission since my house still stands.  Intact. As a final thought.  It is funny, isn’t it.  I managed with my kitchen know-how to create a good dinner that the Rayman and Ryan loved (Uncle Ralph liked it too!!), provide some cheap entertain along the way, defy the odds in the phyllo department in more ways than one.  So, it was practical, funny, and at the same time needed (we do have to eat to live).  So, it may have been the perfect gift. Oh, and did I mention that when I turned off the oven, Rayman cleaned it with Easy-Off (didn’t have time to run the self-cleaning cycle) and I used my indoor oven to cook the dessert and the rack of lamb?   Yes, indeed!! So, happy birthday Rayman and Ryan.  It was my pleasure.

Well, I’ve done it again.  Another mistake.  Will they not stop coming…the mistakes?  Or should I term it “an error in judgment”?  Or “a screw up”?  Probably it fits into the category of “what the hell was I thinking”?  At any rate, it all started innocently enough.

You see, I deviated from our norm of not buying each other xmas presents when I ordered ear buds for the Rayman so that he could listen to his music at the gym.  This set up a situation where he thought it appropriate to get me something…only he had no idea what.  So, he told me he wanted to get me a new wind chime.  Our old one had fallen in disrepair from the elements.  “Fabulous”, I concurred.  But he needed my help because he didn’t want to get the wrong one.  No sirree.  He let me choose it.

So…at 3:30 a.m. this morning we were awakened by our lovely new wind chime.  It was loud.  And it loud constantly.  We pretended for a bit that it was fine.  Only it wasn’t.  It was really loud.  The wind was blowing pretty forcefully.  And the chime was placed where the old one had been, at the corner of the roof by our bedroom.  Never a problem before.  We continued to pretend some more as we lay there awake… as in totally awake.  OMG.  The neighbors.  Us.  The entirety of Morro Bay perhaps.  This wind chime is a really effective wind chime.

It was decided that action was required.   Rayman decided to close the bedroom slider, did so, and slipped back into bed.  The noise was only slightly less annoying.  It was at this juncture that I started laughing.  What a hoot.  4 a.m. and we were wide awake because of that darn wind chime.  Rayman even laughed.

And that is why you would have seen us outside had you decided to come for a visit at 4 a.m. this morning.  Rayman on the ladder that he fetched from the garage.  Me holding onto the clanger of the chime trying to quiet the damn thing.  I was in my robe.  Rayman had slipped into sweats.  I was barefooted.  He was smart enough to put some Vans on.   The bedroom porch light was shining.  He took the darn thing down.

The wind chime is now laying on top of the hot tub.  I am feeling stupid for wanting this noisy menace to society.  We agree that thing is too big.  It needs to hang from an oak tree out in the middle of a field about 100 yards from any house where sleeping may occur.  But here it sits in silence.  Lovely silence.

So, maybe I’ll list it on Craigslist.  For sale.  Wind chime, new since xmas, almost perfect condition.  Perfect for a farm, ranchette, or Hearst Castle.  $50.

I well may be at the beginning of the end of my wits. And it is being brought on by my holiday cookie making affair.

After just congratulating myself on whipping up the doughs and fillings yesterday so that all I would have to do is bake…all hell broke lose.

My recipes are the same recipes I’ve done in years gone by, except for these raisin/ginger affairs. My repertoire includes:

Fig and date anise cookies

Spoon cookies

Mexican tea cakes

And I can’t remember the others. Really. I’m so upset that if it wasn’t 12:30 p.m. I would be drinking. Heavily.

So, the fig/date cookies have a dough that must be refrigerated. And so do the newbies, raisin/ginger filled wonders. And so do the Mexican tea cakes. And I had the presence of mind to fold the printed out recipes and place them on each dough…except for one or two.

So, I first made the filling for the raisin cookies because I got tired and didn’t do it yesterday and all it requires is a bit of cooking and cooling. No problem. And then I started working on the fig/date cookies. Rolled them out. Laid the fig and date mixture on top of each sheet and rolled them up and drowned them in glazing sugar and put them back in the refrigerator a another 6 hour rest.

Then I started on the raisin stuffed cookies. OMG. The dough was acting weird. Did I use the wrong dough? Who knows? I sure as heck don’t know but I had nothing but misery trying to roll the dough, dress it with an egg wash, place the raisin mixture on it and then roll the other and place it on top of the first. The dough stuck to the wax paper. It got gooey. It misbehaved. It stuck to the biscuit cutter I was using. The cookies look like… Well, you fill in the blank. But what is a cook to do? I was committed. Right dough or wrong dough, these cookies were going to end up being whatever they were…which at this point, I have no idea what they are.

I pushed them into the awaiting 400 degree oven. Then a minute later, I remembered that I forget to give the outsides an egg bath and throw some glazing sugar on them. So, out them came. I finished with that and back in they went. And that is when I crumbled. Just like a cookie.

If you think you would like to recreate my trauma, listed below are the recipes for my favorite cookies. I omitted the one stuffed with raisins. I won’t be returning to that cookie again. The other’s I can highly recommend. Although, it will be interesting to see if the fig/date cookies come out right since that was the dough that might inadvertently gotten mixed up. OMG.

Mexican Tea Cakes

I am here to report that we did not slither in yesterday afternoon when we returned home from our summer sojourn.  No siree.  No sneaking up on the neighbors here.

Let me back up.  Our last day of summer travel was done in blistering heat.  The drive consisted of leaving at 9 a.m. from Loomis, CA and driving south on 80 to highway 5.  We stopped at Kettleman City, barged into In ’n Out Burgers but did not stay because the line was way too long and we (read me) were too anxious to escape the heat and get home.  So, Rayman peeled bananas and we washed those down with macrons.  Such was our lunch.  It was thus my turn to drive.

Observation.  CA is parched.  I know this is not new news but highway 5 terrain is sad and brown and cracked.  And traffic was heavy.  Where are these people going?  Doesn’t anyone stay home anymore?  We badly need a high speed rail system.  Getting these people out of their cars and onto a speeding train would help so much.  I’m a huge fan of the project and I hope it gets done while I’m still alive!!!

Second observation.  The interior is hot.  The interior valley, the interior of the coach.  My interior.  On this trip I decided to take myself off my hormone patch.  Think I should have waited until winter.  OMG.  Hot on hot.

But I digress.  As the driver, I announced that I was willing to drive 41 between Atascadero and our house because it was the shortest route.  Rayman was wary.  He didn’t want to drive it.  So, I drove it after we disengaged the Fit.  OMG.  Our favorite avocado orchard was cut down during our long summer trip.  Lack of water.  Folks, this is getting serious.   And my skill as a driver of The Dog House knows no bounds.  I am a female Ralph Cramden.

Anyway, we arrived home and I scraped the bottom of the RV on the road as I made my turn onto Sierra Court.  Sunday is the day to put out the garbage cans and the annual “we’ll pick up all your extra junk” drive was scheduled for today (Monday) so black bags of junk littered the street and I managed to run over June’s junk as I made a u-turn on the street.  Then I managed to scrap the dog house on the tree by our mailbox as I parked it.  Between the heat and the long day and my carelessness, Rayman lost his wits and came darting out into the street saying something to the effect like, “What the hell are you doing?  Why didn’t you back up when you hit the tree?  Now the coach is scratched.  Jesus, Dianna.”  Or something along those lines.  So, by this time, everyone in the neighborhood knew we were home.  And then I confessed that I drove over some of June’s bags and that sent him to orbit.  “What the heck are you doing?”  etc. etc. etc.  The reason why he was so beside himself is that he knew he would be the one to clean it up.  He could only find one big bag and I had decimated three.  OMG.  So, I suggested we put her other two torn up bags in our garbage can which was largely empty.  That worked.  Thankfully, I might add.  While he was dealing with the garbage, I tried to get into the house.  It was locked.  I forgot the code on the garage door.  It took time to find my keys.  By the time I made it into the house, the junk was in the garbage can and things were “cooling off” if you get my meaning.

I, of course, was defenseless.  I had no idea what the answers were to his piercing questions.  I was just as baffled as he.  Only quieter.  You could describe it as sheepishly quiet.  Until I suggested that “well, I didn’t do it on purpose.”.  That was my defense.  And I rested my case.

So, we unpacked the refrigerator, brought in the meds and called it enough for the day.  Then we drove to Taco Temple and had the best meal…fresh king salmon tacos.  And chardonnay.  Then we came back home, took showers, and spent about an hour trying to reinstate our Premier DirecTV service and then trying to remember how to work the TV so that we could watch Breaking Bad, the first episode of season 4 aptly entitled Box Cutter.  Oh, how I have missed Walter White and Jessie.  Did I mention, it was particularly gruesome.  But I loved it.

Observation three.  Life is fine without TV.  We spent the entire summer without it.  The Dog House has two TVs but they are puny and most parks don’t have good channels and so we just forsook (is that a word?) TV and played Scrabble and read in the evenings.  Enchanting.  Unless scrabble involved a squabble, say, around “Is ha really a word?”  On the reading front, I dove into The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.  OMG.  With Kindle, you have no idea many pages a book is so I can’t tell you but I can tell you I started it Oregon and I’m still reading it.  I am now at the part where Japan has attacked Pearl Harbor.  And Hitler has just lost over a million men in Russia, primarily.  He is now regrouping.  And shoring up some help from Mussolini who is completely ineffectual as a leader, really.  And there is a plot afoot to get rid of Hitler by some of the generals but we all know how that ends.  In fact, we all know how it all ends but it is a fabulous book.  I have learned so much.  Hitler just rolled over many countries without firing a bullet.  And he declared war on the U.S. on Dec. 9, 1941.  Big mistake.  As was invading Russia…while he had a pact with them.

But, I digress.

So, here we are in the fog and it is lovely.  The dog has started his scratching again (what is he allergic to here?).  The house looks fabulous and BIG.   I am thrilled to be home and cool.

OH, I forgot to mention that…oh, forgetaboutit.

A trying day.  A day trying to get things done.  A very trying day.  But was it, really?

So, we need to leave our campsite in Camp Champoeg, OR.  A lovely spot.  With full grown trees throwing shade our way.  It didn’t have sewer, but, hey, you can’t have everything.  So, we unhooked and drove out at 7 a.m., undoubtedly disturbing those who slept in adjacent campsites.  And then we drove north to Vancouver, WA to deliver TDH to Power Windows.  These are the people that are replacing our windows-gone-on-bad.  And there we left TDH and drove further north to Mt. St. Helens.

What could go wrong?

A panorama of Mt. St. Helens with my family.

Well.  Rayman input Mt. St. Helens in the phone and it tells him to proceed on a two lane road.  So, that is what he did.  And wandered and wandered and wandered and then came upon a building labeled Mt. St. Helens.  We bounded into the building and I said, “We’re here!”  And a woman who was on her knees said, “Welcome.”.  And that is when we found out that since we had followed our GPS, we had arrived at the wrong entrance for viewing the Mountain.  OMG.  Really.  Now.  Get this.  When we left Vancouver, WA they guy told Rayman it was a 2 hour trip one way.  And so the lady we ended up meeting informed us that Mt. St. Helens was 2 hours away.  We had already been on the road 1 hour.  

No one was happy.

Now, if this wasn’t problem enough, I tried to use Rayman’s iPad.  It didn’t work and we had been having problems with it so I told him that since we were stuck in the car, I would call Verizon and work on the problem.   So, after being on hold the call was dropped.  We were in the mountains.  At this point I waited until we got on the Interstate and called back.  The problem was so complicated that Rush, the Verizon dude I was working with who had me powering off and powering on the iPad, changing settings etc, told me that it was the most unusual problem he had ever worked on.  That pretty much says it all.

Flip to a parking lot off the freeway situated in front of a Mexican restaurant.  There we were.  I was still on the phone with Verizon.  (For an hour. with Rush).  And Rayman decided that his tooth site where his wisdom tooth resided a couple of months ago…yes, that site was really bugging him.  He was agitated by it.  After discussion which ensued as I spent on time on hold with Verizon…it was determined that he should, right at that time, call his dentist.  In SLO.  So, he is standing in the parking lot talking to the dentist’s office and I’m slumped over in the front seat of car on my phone with Verizon.   What a couple.  Really.  Are you kidding me?

But I digress.

We decide to buy peanut M&Ms, hit the head, and fill up the Fit.  Then I take over all the wheel.  We reached another building touting Mt. St. Helens and we ducked in.  This place had a movie about the volcano and it was really good.  And an exhibit.  I went one direction and Rayman the other while viewing the exhibit and then I lost him.  When I found him, there he was on his phone.  Bad news was flowing over the air ways.  Seems there was a problem with the window installation.  The glass was ordered with the wrong tint on 2 of the 4 windows.  So…we would either being sleeping in the parking lot tonight or not.  It was complicated.  Well, hysteria ensued.  By me.  I thought this and I thought that and I huffed and puffed.  Then Rayman got worked up and as he popped a peanut M&M into his mouth he took in a breath and the two didn’t mix.  I pulled over as he gasped and carried on.  I saw him pointing to the water thermos and gave it to him and he took a sip.  Completely fixed the problem.  By this time, I was shaking.  He scared the you know what out of me.  I thought he was going to expire right then and there.

Then we proceed up the road.  

Stopped.  Took pictures.  Enjoyed the view.  Decided we better hurry back as the window place closed at 4.  I was still beside myself about the windows.  But finally, I came to my senses.  And released on the whole thing.  I poohed it.  

Interspersed with all this, the dental problem loomed.  At long last Rayman got a call.  He has an appt. tomorrow.  In Portland.  He was much relieved.  

So, here is what happened to the windows.  The guy at Power Windows in WA ordered the wrong the tint.  So, they cut new windows and took the windows to the tint place in OR and the tint place furnace was down.  So, they waited for it to repaired.  After the furnace was repaired,  the WA windows were put thru the furnace.  That cracked the windows.  The OR people then made new windows.  And they sent those through the furnace.  They cracked(the windows).  So, the place they had taken our windows to tint them,  apparently has the ability to cut their own windows and they are located in Oregon.  So, the guy in WA negotiated that the tint place in OR to cut the glass for the WA people in the right tint.  (So, why didn’t we just go to the people in OR?)  And they proceeded to do that but the thing is…our tint is a light gray.  The guys in OR used the dark gray.  OMG.  Really.  So, the WA place asks the OR tint place to redo it.  The OR tint place is out of light gray.  Really, folks, I am not making this up.  So, the OR tint people order the light gray tint, but it is delivered too late in the day to apply and then get it back to WA .  It must be cured, this tint.  And it has to cured before it is installed, so they need us to bring TDH back tomorrow.  So, the question then becomes, and just why did it take 10 days for the manufacturing of our windows?  Questions abound.

However.  I now sit in the comfort of TDH, a gin and tonic under my belt along with red wine that I washed down my leftover barbecued skirt stead sandwich tonight.  Two of our 4 windows look great.  But I need to cut this short because we have to get up at the crack of dawn to drive TDH back to Vancouver, WA from our current location, Troutdale.  And then Beau has a scheduled grooming at 11.  And so do I.  Different salons, of course.  And Rayman has to face the dental chair at noon.  

And then at 5 we meet our WA bicycle friends for dinner in downtown Portland.   (an aside:  That is when I will confess to them that while riding my bike yesterday, I hit the break and the bike stopped but I didn’t.  I think I was simultaneously trying stop myself with my foot.  Well, this caused my pubic bone to continue it’s forward trajectory at the same time the bike came to a sudden halt and it hit the front of the bike at a speed that caused more than a slight amount of discomfort.  End of aside)  

Oh, but that is after we pick up TDH in WA and return it to Troutdale, hook it up the water, electricity, sewer only to spend the night and then head out on Friday toward home.  Thus ends our summer trip in the northwest.  We will weave out way back home via Redmond, Medford, Lassen, Clio, Loomis and then Morro Bay on Sept 7 or 8.  

Mt. St, Helens was wonderful despite all the travails.  And the Verizon problem is fixed(I was on the phone with them for more than an hour.  Had to turn the car on to the charge the phone so that I didn’t drop the call when rounding a bend).  Two of the windows look great.  And the Rayman isn’t worried about his hole in his head anymore.  That’s because I have taken over the worrying about the hole in his head,,,but in a different way!!  Also, he didn’t choke to death on the side of the road.  That was good.   I think the only guy that had a worse day than Rayman was the guy at Power Windows.  And tomorrow may not be any better for him.  I have some questions…for future reference.