Not a dull day

26.III.07 - MoM

I had an interesting start to the day. When I went into the bathroom, there, in the middle of the room, was a good sized mouse writhing around frantically trying to get loose from the sticky black square that I had tucked in a corner. I didn't think it would be any good for mice, although that was what the package said it was for. Instead, I had been using it for the hateful, large crickets that liked to attack me in there. The other day, I had a brief thought that I should toss them and start new now that winter is over. I have come a long way when seeing mice so I didn't run screaming from the room, shutting the door until someone could take care of it. However, the best I could do was get a metal bowl over it with a heavy book on it to await further action by someone else. I called Sandy and Charlie to report the excitement and was going to wait for Charlie when he was coming into town tomorrow. However, he had to go to Hudson for some lumber and said he would loop by.

Meanwhile, I was surprised to see "Tom the Fishman" arrive for his bi-monthly tank visit. In the chit-chat I mentioned the mouse and he offered to take care of it, so I thought I would call Charlie on his cell to save him a trip down. Tom had barely finished putting the sticky stuff with mouse in a sack, putting it out of its misery and leaving the it for Charlie to dispose of later. I was all for just throwing it into the woods, but he worried about some other critter getting stuck to it. He was barely back to adding water to the tank when Charlie arrived armed with a gun -- a be sure it was only beebe "pistol -- to take care of it. He assured me he had expected to shoot it point blank as we remember one day when he tried to hit something only some feet away. The gun is now here in the dish cabinet in the dining room. Before he left he found some steel wool in the garage to stuff into the hole in the wall in the kitchen. We normally have it covered with little pieces of tin. I had last looked at it in passing a couple of weeks ago and all was in tact. When I looked this morning the tin had been pushed aside as the mice do from time to time. We expect this to work better.

Later, Charlie was on his way back from Hudson, was hungry and remembered some little chili tubs in the freezer that I am giving to them as they are impossible for me to open and I am off of them. He added some other snacks I wanted to get out of the freezer.

This afternoon, I took one 15-minute nap, quickly followed by a couple of more quick ones. I haven't been doing all that well at night, so it was again, a catch up time. It was also kind of a catch up day and I only played one game of Freecell -- I spent a lot of the rest of the time on x-word puzzles.

Had to start the pre-surgery dry spell tonight. Going to have Buffalo Wings and a frozen baked potato of some brand from the freezer for dinner. Further trying to get rid of stuff.

Enough for today.

* * * * *

Finally the last of the 4 page letter to Sandy and Bob, in late December of 1984 from Saalfelden.

Left the next morning for Vienna. My "halb-neun" (8:30 a.m.) worked out okay for the taxi lady who doesn't speak English when I called her. I got my two gross jars of dill pickles, and the other 6 place settings of our "silver" and a few of the spice-type things on my Lebensmittle list. On the way back to the hotel on the morning we were leaving, DoD suggested we drop into an organ store we spotted. They got a clerk who could speak good English and could play fantastically to demonstrate a new Yamaha. It only had 8 pedals, like our first Conn, but I had come to accept the fact that if I want an organ while I can still use arms I would have to settle for a smaller one as I think the selling of the California house is in the far distant future. We could not believe how much lower the price was than what we would expect to pay for such a beauty in the states. We did not have time to do anything about buying it as we had to get back to the hotel, pack, and catch our train. Did try to call the man to order one, but he had gone to lunch. They had given us the brochures for several series of the new organs. On the train on the way home, we decided that instead of paying the extra for the FE-50 "space age" white model, we would put the extra into going one model better (FE-60) and have the regular brown wood. I continued to work over all of the German reading of what all of them would do and when I told DoD that the next better (FE-70 - the top of that series) had a synthesizer and a couple of further trickies, he decided he would put up the difference and we could get that one. Several of my friends [in CA] now have FX-70's with 3 keyboards and full set of pedals. They paid $19,000 for them. I could buy it here, delivered, for $6,000 less (if I had that kind of money). So the one we are buying cost $3,922, but when asked about the discount for cash, as one is always supposed to do, it comes to $3,686. It would cost us a lot more in the U.S. The man said they used to sell many Thomases and Hammonds as well as other U.S. makes, but with the dollar where it is, they cannot afford to import them so the European and Japanese brands are all that sell here. We had paid $3,500 for our first simple little Conn in the early 70s. This organ will practically play itself, but I still want to do a lot of the work for myself, while DoD can enjoy the trickies. We could have had it next week, but by train. We were not sure how to get it delivered after it got here, and did not particularly want it shoved around, so they will set up a delivery date when they call us next week. Tried this morning with my best German, to see if there were any FE-70's closer, but could not find any. Innsbruck had a FE-60 on hand, but when asked when they would have a 70, the man said that deliveries on them were very slow and he did not expect any for a while. Well, this will take the pressure off of who is going to use the computer when, as the other one can always play with the new toy.

Hear that Suzy is too broke to make the European trip, and Lynette can't take off as much time as Chris can. He said maybe she could come for 2 weeks and he could stay for 3. Have to write him at once as he does not have his birth certificate for his passport! It happens to be in our safety deposit box in Charles Town. We did not think about getting it to him. Going to tell him to call Aunt Dottie, and have her ask Don to have the county send a copy to him. I had to write Iowa for a copy when I got mine.

DoD wants the Apple to bring some of his file and report stuff up to date so I will wind up this too long letter and get it going. Write when you can. We love to get your good letters. And thanks as always for the trouble of sending the Peoples. I will get those tapes mailed soon.