October 2023

OCTOBER NEOS 2023 We started the month with dinner here with the Roses. I worked with Kathleen back in the 70’s and Dave was in Rog’s karate group. It was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed eating on the porch. Rog had a weekend aikido seminar which took precedence over his usual karatefest participation. He is focused on testing for his brown belt in aikido at the end of the month and he got a lot of info from the 3 aikido black belts that presented. We planned to take a day trip to Tahoe to chill out but the van had other ideas. We lost power at Colfax. After a short stop, we tried again but only got a mile before we lost our turbo (“limp mode”) again. We turned around and headed home. I made an appointment with Mercedes Benz and we took Tess in for a diagnostic. Their recommendation was to replace a faulty turbo. Their bid was $7500. We took it to our usual mechanic who did the job for half that. Meanwhile, our coolant overflow reservoir sprang a leak so we had to replace that as well. But it does not come as a separate piece so we had to replace the entire radiator. Egads.

Max got back from his trip to Atlantic College in Maine so I had the famil;y over to our place for dinner so that he could tell us all about the trip. He was definitely impressed with the college and will be weighing it against Univ of Montana. Both places obviously want him. Nice to have choices. The following week we took him to Don Quixote’s for dinner followed by ice cream at Handel’s. He is dreaming of a couple of hiking adventures. We’ll see which ones he actually picks!

We went to lunch with Jay and his sister who was visiting from Virginia. We went to Cracker Barrel and enjoyed a long visit. The following weekend, we had the card group here for dinner. It was nice enough to play one game out on the porch before dinner but it cooled off quickly and we were inside for dinner and the final 2 games.

Lots of projects this month. First on the list was the kitchen counter. Rog sanded it down, restained it, then for 3 days he lightly sanded it and then applied one layer of varnish. Looks pretty nice!

With the weather turning cold, there are a number of chores that need to be done before winter. We scrubbed down the screens out back, washed all of the cushions and then packed it all away for the winter. The cushions for the table chairs were pretty soiled so I ripped out one hem on each cushion, removed the filling, washed the covers and the filling, then put them back together. It was worth the effort. They look much better.

Then Rog tackled the French door. He fixed some broken wood at the bottom, added an astrical and then I stained and painted it. It has new weatherstripping as well.

The final project was our oak tree out front. We hired a tree service to remove the dead wood and trim it back a bit. They did a great job and cleaned up pretty well. It took me 2 days to get the last of the small twigs from the front.

Even with the list of “honey-do’s”, Rog found time to make some more bokkens. He made one out of black walnut and another of black oak. At the end of the month, Rog tested for aikido brown belt. We practiced his forms at home about 3 times a day for 2-3 weeks prior to testing and he and his friend Jim practiced with him before aikido class twice a week, so he was feeling pretty good. He made it through the test with flying colors but the test totally exhausted him. He came down with a fierce cold the next day and spent 5 days recuperating.