October 25, 2006
Dear Everyone:
A couple of weeks ago, “Jeannie” and I decided to go to lunch on Saturday. I suggested a restaurant that we both liked. But when we got there, we realized that it was closed. That’s when “Jeannie” remembered that it would be closed for remodeling (the sign on the door was also a clue.)
So we decided to go to another place, only it was
completely gone. Then we
agreed to go to a micro brewery in
We finally wound up at a restaurant in
Back at “Jeannie’s” place, we got to work on the real project that lunch had merely postponed. “Jeannie” needed to measure her kitchen. Front to back, top to bottom.
“Jeannie” is starting to get serious about her plans to completely remodel her kitchen. The first step was to get accurate measurements for the walls, where the window is, where the electrical outlets are located, etc. The people she is dealing with even gave her a website (of course there’s a website!) where she could download graph paper.
In preparation for all of this, “Jeannie” had cleared all the countertops of everything. We measured all the dimensions and wrote them all down on the graph paper. Then “Jeannie” decided to take a look in one cupboard that she rarely uses because its location makes it difficult to reach.
One of the first things she pulled out was some kind of spice with an expiration date of several years ago. She started pulling more things out. Things with even longer expiration dates. I believe the winner was some time in 1994. Or it could be 1992.
Last weekend, we traveled up to
Further investigation revealed a lot of juice cans from 2003. (Actually, we’re speculating that there was a case of juice purchased around 2002-2003 and placed in the “pantry” for when they would be wanted. Then they got forgotten and rediscovered recently and placed in the refrigerator.)
We drained all the ancient juice cans and sent them to the recycling center. “Jeannie” also went through the “pantry” (the cupboard in the bookcase in the living room) and pulled out year-old popcorn, and other things with old dates on them. However, nothing approached “Jeannie’s” record of 14+ years.
Mother, by the way, was in excellent spirits. We took her to dinner a couple of times, ate snack food and generally just “hung out” at her place. We also forgot to go to mass on Sunday. By the time we remembered, it was nearly over.
We came home on Monday and I spent Tuesday running many large loads of laundry from the week before. This coming weekend will be a short one. A group of us from work will be driving down to “Grapevine”. We’ll have two Electronic Clean Up Day (ECUD) meetings on Monday, then return to the Bay Area on Tuesday.
Wednesday will be another ECUD in “Pleasanton”. Then Thursday and Friday will be devoted to the long awaited Certified Records Manager (CRM) Exam. After that, I may find time to look through some of my own cupboards.
Love, as always,
Pete
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