12-28-08 Sunday (Pillow Talk)

It's Sunday and our new jack hasn't arrived. Jim has called several times and is put off a day at a time by FedEx. Our latest delivery date is now tomorrow. It would seem that we'll be here until Tuesday or Wednesday then. It's not that I don't like it here, it's just that there's other places I'd like to be.

Warmer weather is going to mean a lot of work. The RV needs waxing (being faded it may help a little), the Jeep is filthy, and the house needs a spring cleaning of sorts. Warm weather will also mean less laundry. Less layers to wash. I have done 1-2 loads of wash everyday to keep up with it.

Jim had suggested a ride to Mt. St. Helens. It's 3 hours each way and so I've vetoed that trip. I just don't want to drive around for 6 hours to see a mountain that once erupted. With any luck, I'm not missing anything. Looking at the government website, it appears that it might be interesting but not 6 hours worth interesting. We've been too many volcanic monuments and sites so I'd rather not reread all about how volcanoes form and such. As a child, be it from my parents or someone else, I received a capsule (a little larger than a 35mm film case) with Mt. St. Helens ash in it. It was interesting and of course I had to open it up, feel it, and at some point mixed it with water. I may have been playing chemist or something. Thinking back to that, I wonder how many people paid X dollars for a piece of ash? Yeah, I meant it like it came out. Anyway, it seems silly to me. As a kid, I thought it was cool, as an adult, dumb.

At some point I had 24 blog subscribers. Last night I noticed it dropped to 23. It bums me out I guess. I can't help but think, is it something I said? Maybe with the traveling slowed down, it's been kinda dull? Perhaps the over reporting of the snow? I suppose there are a lot of explanations for it. Blogger doesn't tell me who it was so I'm not sure. I've said it many a time; I started the blog to serve as a journal for me and Jim and to keep friends and family abreast of adventures. It's grown a little beyond that. I've made friends with this blog. It feels like I've lost a friend somewhere.

On a fellow blogger's blog, Casa Hice, she just posted an entry all about the types of and guts of different blogs. It was interesting and she summed it up so well. Feel free to click on it and visit her site. Most blogs I read are just about someone's day to day life while others have an agenda. The agenda sites I read are funny, the day to day one's are a mix of fun and sad at times. If you do visit Casa Hice, DO look for a story about her raising a duck named Lulu. It's funny and sad all in one.

On our blog, the left column shows "View my complete profile" which will take you to a list of blogs I subscribe to. Some are racey, some are clean, some are mixed so read at your own risk. I know I probably over-mention the actual act of blogging, but perhaps it's now part of my personality, part of my daily routine. Yeah, yeah, what else do I have to do? I've gotten some of the "well, some of us work" comment but there's always room to meet interesting people and laugh a little.

Geez, I don't know how I got so involved in all of that blogging story. My fingers move with my thoughts sometimes. I'm not usually one to go back and reread the blog several times and edit it accordingly. Typically, if it comes to mind and I'm sitting here, I blog about it. I suppose a lot of the time, this blog is about our lives more than just our traveling. I'll toy with deleting all of that out. If you read this then obviously I left it. If it's been deleted then you won't even be reading this. So profound!

Over the past few months, I've received 3 invitations from friends to join Facebook. I already have myspace, why do I need another. I decided to give it a try. I like it better than myspace. It's faster and easier to see how friends are doing without visiting their noisy and visually distracting personal page like myspace can tend to be. Jim decided to look at it and search for some friends which led him to wanting his own account. I set him up and now he seems to enjoy it. With myspace I created "Jim and Garret". The blog is "Jim and Garret". Now he has something of his own. Oh sure, I take ownership of the blog more than he and often slip up and say "my blog", but maintaining friendships, making plans, and general writing has usually been my job. Many times, I do ask Jim for input or help wording something.

Jim laid down for another nap. He couldn't sleep. He says it's time for a new pillow, so off to the store we go. And no, neither he nor I could be happy with just any pillow. It's got to be one of those nice cushy latex pillows that cost a small fortune. I think I'm ready for one too though.

We came back from shopping. We went on a hunt to find Linen N Things. Yeah, I know they're closed but Jim checked their website and it seems like they're knocking them off their listing as they close. So off to the one that might still be open. We never even found the damn place so we had to settle for Bed, Bath and Beyond.

On the way home we stopped off at a Safeway to return Diet Coke bottles for the deposit refund. The return center was in a garage-type, open door enclosure attached to Safeway but with no pass through to the store, which was probably to keep out us bottle-return-slugs. The place is a mess. Bottles and cans that were rejected litter the place. The middle of the floor has a pool of left over bottle liquids. Ewwww. I warned Jim as we walked up, "It's gonna smell". No, not as bad as The Baily Dread type smell, but nonetheless it wasn't Febreeze fresh. The return center was like Vegas in a parallel universe. Redemption machines lined the walls like One Armed Bandits. Instead of gambling clientele, it was full of people you'd hope not to make eye contact with. With our 80 cent voucher in hand, we picked up a few things. The necessities like biscuits and brownie mix.

On the way into the store, I asked Jim what he had thought about this life enriching experience. He replied, "I feel dirty" and with that we both grabbed a cart wipe to sanitize our hands.