I’m not sure if this is a bush or a tree. But I adore the bright pink buds that contrast with the moss.
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Yesterday we spent some time in Port Townsend. It was a gorgeous day that reminded us of why we left the city.
Everyone on our street has cute, wooden boxes for their newspapers. It’s very rustic. The wooden boxes have plastic liners to keep the papers dry. That’s very functional. When we stared our subscription to the Peninsula Daily News we asked about getting a plastic liner for our newspaper box. No problem we were told. The newspaper gal would bring one for us when she brought our first newspaper. Actually, there was a problem. The liner, or “tube” as they call it, was about eight inches longer than the newspaper box. It was not cute. Our rental property is in a gated community. There are rules here. Rules designed to maintain the cute, forest-like nature of the development. Would we get a knock on our door? “Ma’am are you aware you’ve got a code violation going on at the street?” Before that happened I called the newspaper again. They said the newspaper delivery person would take a look at the situation. She did. The next day we discovered the tube was gone. However there was a note. The note explained that there were no shorter tubes to be had. However our paper would be fine in the cute, wooden newspaper box. It was not fine. Note the term “wooden”. Wooden as in porous. While we were no longer in danger of violating any community ordinances, we had a subscription to a very damp newspaper. We had to drape it over the dining room chairs to dry it out before we could read it. It was obvious that we had to take matters into our own hands. We went to the hardware store, ate some of their free popcorn and bought a length of four-inch plastic pipe. When we got home the Man of the House combined that with some wood and some nails. Then we had the finished product.
The wooden box still looks cute from the outside. (Note the decorative moss on the top.) And our newspapers are dry. Life is good. One of the things I’ve been doing over the last several weeks is researching cell phones. The old phone wasn’t cutting it any longer and I needed an upgrade. The Man of the House and my brother helped me with the research. I also got advice from my Facebook buddies. (It really does take a village to get these technical things figured out.) You can read more about the end result over at Washington Winemaker. Years ago I bought an Epson Stylus CX6400 printer. It prints. It scans. It copies. It’s a little workhorse. That is, it was until today. Today we powered it up and were greeted with an error message. The message was vague and just said there was a problem and that we should take the printer in for service. Nothing more. The Man of the House did some investigation and found out that the non-working printer was Epson doing us a favor. As they explain:
Property damage? Ink contacting electrical components? Is this really a danger or is this just a ruse so that they can sell me a new printer? I’ll contemplate buying a new printer later, for now The Man of the House found this page that tells how to reset the printer so it will work again. It worked like a charm and I’m back in business. On the first business day of every year the Wall Street Journal publishes a special issue. It’s a wonderful retrospective of the prior year. This special issue is a must-have item for The Man of the House. In Bellevue it was easy to get a copy of the Wall Street Journal. We got in the car and drove a quarter of a mile to the shopping mall. There were multiple sources for the newspaper at the mall. We could go to the newsstand or the grocery store. If both places were sold out, there were countless alternatives. We’re not in Bellevue any more. Before the big day we scoured Port Townsend for places that sold the Wall Street Journal. We went to the grocery stores, the airport (don’t ask), restaurants and book stores. The town is utterly without the Wall Street Journal. We decided that our best course of action was to go to Sequim on the big day. Surely a Wall Street Journal could be obtained in a town that sports a Costco and a Walmart. January 4th found us making the hour-long drive to Sequim. Our plan was to get the Wall Street Journal and then do our monthly Costco shopping. It would be easy we thought. Heck, we’d be home by noon. We went to one grocery store. No Wall Street Journal. We went to a second grocery store. Nope. Luckily, I’d brought my laptop and my cell phone. I looked up the number of the two book stores in town and gave them a call. Guess what? They didn’t have the WSJ either. Since we’ve really got to make these trips into town count, we’d brought along a bank deposit. Don’t bankers and the Wall Street Journal go together like coffee and biscotti? I thought so. So I asked the bank teller. Surprisingly, she had no idea where we could buy a Wall Street Journal. However someone in line behind us overheard our discussion. She suggested we go to the next town, Port Angeles (17 miles away), and buy one there. We went back to the laptop and the cell phone. I called book stores in Port Angeles. They didn’t carry the WSJ. In fact, one of the people that I spoke with said that the Wall Street Journal wasn’t sold anywhere on the Olympic Peninsula. Evidently the area has one distributor. That distributor doesn’t carry the WSJ and so we were out of luck. I’m always one to rise to a challenge. So in a Hail Mary maneuver, I made one last phone call. There is a single mall in this part of the country. It’s in Silverdale, a town about two hours away from Sequim. That mall has a Barnes and Noble. If anyone would have a Wall Street Journal, it would be them. I discovered that while the Silverdale Barns and Noble carries the WSJ they only get two copies every day. (Evidently that’s all this part of the world is allotted.) By the time we called they had sold their two issues of the Wall Street Journal. There was nothing to do but buy our groceries at Costco and go home. Happily, The Man of the House discovered that most of the content from the year-end issue was available online at the WSJ website. He spent the evening printing it out. Later we talked with my brother in Puyallup about this situation. He says we’re not to be silly. Next year we should just give him a call. He’ll just buy us a copy and mail it. Everything worked out fine and we’ve got a plan for next year. But it really pointed out that we are so not in Bellevue any more.
The parents of the Man of the House sent us a special treat for the holidays. We received a box of hagelslag. They’re dark chocolate sprinkles that the Dutch put these on buttered toast. To be honest, it was the first time I’d tried hagelslag. We’d had it in the house before, but it’s a favorite of the Man of the House. Those chocolate sprinkles disappeared as if by magic. After trying it I can see why that happened. It was a great way to start out 2010!
Last year I asked readers if anyone could identify this plant:
Recently, Richard of XID, a weed identification system, supplied the answer. This is a lovely photo of a lamium purpureum. Other, more common names, for this plant include red deadnettle, purple deadnettle, or purple archangel. Thanks so much for solving the mystery, Richard! |
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