12 Oakdale

Turns out the 40+-year-old VHS player does work, and I found a store-bought tape to try. Picture quality not great, but we plunged ahead. Unfortunately, the 2nd cassette would not eject. I am pretty sure we pushed buttons faster than that analog machine could handle. After watching  many YouTubes, we figured how to take the cover off and remove the stuck cassette. Unfortunately, it meant cutting the tape, but there were more to try. Which we did without putting the cover back on so we could watch what was happening. Play, rewind, fast forward all worked, but it was obvious my treasured tapes of Stephanie as a baby, my learning to wind sail, kids’ birthday parties, etc were all too damaged to keep.  I had hoped to play them on the big tv and take some short shots with our phones. No one wants the hours and hours we recorded when having a video camera was a novelty. Sigh, I accepted the reality. To the trash.  Years ago, I had transferred some of the tapes to a thumb drive....

Wednesday morning, Hurricane Idalia (e-DAH-li-ə) came ashore and devastated Cedar Key, but only provided slight winds and 1 1/2” of rain at our house. The impact for me was that my yard lady CC could not come for our morning session of yard work. I had planned for her to move a wooden edging and mist system in the front yard to create a bed along the front of the house.  Ah well, the rains would give us an excuse to work in the garage. First, we moved the bikes from the north wall to the center of the garage. Then we hung a shelf for the rechargeable drill, their batteries and the drill bits. The rechargeable circular saw hangs on one side of it. Last, we put a screw on the wall where we can hang the chainsaw. Now we can get to the drawer and cabinets without having to lean in over all those tools on the floor. I’m quite pleased with our efforts. Sometimes it takes an ill wind to motivate us.  After that, Grant took to his bed with a nasty cold. He had rallied by Saturday, so ...

I have been wild and exhausted with anxiety. Grant’s passport was stuck in limbo at the US passport agency, and there didn’t seem to be any way to break it loose. We had applied for renewal of our passports back in October, using a new online process: create an account at MyTravel.gov, fill in the form, upload a headshot from our iPhone, and pay $130 by credit card. Easy peasy. I finished mine October 15th, and got an email notification the next day my application had been received. Grant could not create an account at MyTravel.gov. I’m still not clear why, but after several days of his being very frustrated by numerous attempts to use his normal email address, he just couldn’t seem to make it work. I suggested a different email address. I ended up creating it for him using my address at Yahoo. Not really a big deal, except I don’t use that one much, and I can’t remember the password. Fortunately, I have it open on my cellphone, so I could check for any emails that came in.  On Oct...