1. Home Repairs: This morning, Sunday morning, is a bit of a cacophony of sound and wetness as I enjoyed my morning coffee and cereal, and Ann her tea and peanut butter toast in my music studio on the second floor while a home repair guy does his thing doing our long-awaited counter top re-installation after the water mitigation company tore out things rather recklessly during our refrigerator’s ice-maker breakdown ruined our floor and more 5 months ago. Yeah, 5 MONTHS AGO! Man, between that damn not-to-be-named water mitigation company and our $%#&*!’ not-to-be-named insurance company (maybe I’ll name one or both later… I will if you ask me in either case!) it’s taken FOREVER to get things repaired and paid for… -ish! We never did get everything paid for that was supposed to be covered. Man, it’s been tough for us, and ESPECIALLY for Ann, who’s had to deal with all the communications and stuff. Massively frustrating the way the corporate powers want to battle over everything while using the clients (US!) so heartlessly and ruthlessly to try to get one over on each other. Oh well, whaddya gonna do huh? The good news is that after tomorrow we anticipate finally, FINALLY being done with all of it. What a relief that will be. Anyway… ENOUGH about all that!
2. The rain: What we’ve been getting is apparently the leading edge of the Atmospheric River that is being projected to dump as much as 8-10 inches in parts of California and plenty elsewhere along the Pacific Northwest as well. This is supposed to create a huge drop in pressure, which could have a significant impact on sinus headaches and such. The prediction is that this will be the most significant storm of it’s kind on record for the Pacific Northwest. Too bad all this rain isn’t more spread out over time, and focused more on creating high altitude snow pack that could deliver melt water more slowly and usefully. Well, hopefully there will not be any loss-of-life from flooding and catastrophic damage as could occur in the worst case scenarios we’re being warned about, particularly in Northern California where it’s supposed to be most severe.
3. Life goes on with it’s usual ups and downs, and we seem to be able to ride along on the flow of things pretty well. We’re preparing for the Clark County Open Studio tour the first weekend of November, for which Ann is the cover girl. It was really great and exciting to hear that her painting was to be used for the posters/flyers for the tour and that she was to be interviewed as a Featured Artist for the whole deal. SO COOL to have that happen after only living in the area since March. The image is striking and very effective to create interest in the tour so it’s no surprise they chose it.
4. Our Animal Family members are doing as well as we could ask for. Solo the cat continues to mature and evolve into a more trusting and loving companion with a penchant for playing and spending as much time as he can in our secure back yard. The collar with tiny little bell has been effective to scare off any creatures he tries to “play” with, so he is now unable to accidentally hurt or kill any creatures. Poor little Squeekie, or miniature Dachshund is very old and unfortunately has doggy dementia, but most of the time seems comfortable enough sleeping and wandering around endlessly. She requires pretty significant care, but after many years of being such a wonderful companion for Ann, it’s just the balance of things that we accept wholeheartedly to try to make the end of her days as comfortable as we can for her.

Ok, that’s all for today. I hope you and yours are well, and I wish heartily for the best outcomes in life for all creatures and all things in our shared existence.

Hopefully yours my friends!