Biz...Fab...Cheer...

I did all my laundry yesterday. I felt like Zoidberg, for some reason, a desparate man-lobster standing there alone folding socks and underwear. I know I will never learn to fold a fitted sheet; never. A quarter gets you approximately 8.5 minutes of drying time. I put all my clothes in one dryer load and put in 8 or 9 quarters.

I do things to kill time while the clothes wash and dry. I went to Fred Meyer’s (Oregon’s equivalent of Try ‘n’ Save) where I bought a dryer vent hose for the Finchs and some candy corn. I read some of “Sex, Lies and Cocoa Puffs”, which I bought in Cheyenne, Wyoming a long, long time ago. I finished a crossword puzzle in the newspaper someone left in the laundromat. I have started reading Shakespeare’s plays on line. Because I just finished King Lear I knew the answer to 7 down (clue: Regan’s father) was “LEAR”. How cool is that? (I am a solitary man).

I had a Quiznos sub for lunch: small mesquite chicken with bacon, with a bag o bbq chips and a bottle o water. This was my first Quiznos in at least four years. The small sub is a lot smaller than when I was a franchisee. The bread is narrower, and I believe the sub is shorter. That’s how Quiznos has been able to justify lower prices to compete with Subway. Still, the meal cost me about seven bucks. There’s no sales tax in Oregon. The sandwich was as good as I remembered, and the smaller size was just right.

Today Jim and I removed all the carpet from the stairs in the Big House. There were thousands of staples in it. We also installed the washer and dryer in the addition, now that the laundry room is ready for it.

FYI, there are three dogs here: Sampson, Tibetan Mountain Dog; Charlee, Rhodesian Ridgeback mix; and Naya, Australian Shepherd mix. Sampson and Naya are allowed to go out together, but not Sampson and Charlee. Since Charlee is descended from hunting dogs she tends to tear through the woods looking for adventure, and Sampson can’t resist. They have gotten into trouble before, actually making their way through the back of the property onto the road. Dangerous.

Sampson, Charlee and Naya

Jim went to the garage to get some tools and inadvertently let Sampson and Charlee out together. They found either a pile of compost or something dead and rotting in the woods, and they both rolled in it. They reaked like sour garbage when they returned; horrible stink. When we finished pulling up the carpets Jim and I took Charlee and Sampson to the dog wash.

“You Dirty Dog”, the dog wash in Sandy, was closing when we got there, so we traveled on to the next town, Gresham, and bathed the dogs at “Pup Wash”. I gave Charlee her bath. She seemed to like it a lot, at least the drying part. They gave us leather aprons to wear while we bathed the dogs.

Charlee’s coat is short, so I finished first, then she and I watched Jim drying Sampson. His coat is longer (Sampson’s not Jim’s) and he’s a lot bigger so takes longer to dry. As Jim went over and over the dog with the blow dryer, Sampson’s fur began to fly. Pretty soon it looked like it was snowing in the place, balls of fur floating everywhere.

The weather’s been good here lately. Mount Hood stands out clear against the bright blue October sky. The sun pours down like honey, lighting up the yellow and red autumn trees.

I am 60. If 60 is the new 50, and 50 is the new 40, I figure I have a lot of time ahead of me to fully acclimate to the West Coast. I feel it beginning; this is just the beginning.