Vacation, Day 12, 11/1/2009, Part 3

"It's me! It's me! It's Ernest T" said Ernest T. Bass. Remember that line from "The Andy Griffith Show"? I love it myownself. I'm standing in my favorite spot at Talladega Superspeedway, right at Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s pit box! Lucky, lucky me. And don't I look way too cute in my hat with the propeller, one rain jacket tied around my waist, wearing a light-weight sweater and my new Dale Jr. T, my second rain jacket stuffed into my Goodwill-purchased Kate Spade handbag!


I wrote him a note!


Joey Logano's used lug nuts, for sale for charity. I bought a couple.

If you've got time, head on over to Portland Oregon Daily Photo to see today's post. You can get there by clicking the link at the bottom of this post in My Other Blogs. Thanks!

Vacation, Day 10, 10/30/2009, Part 2

Yep, he's in there. Dale Earnhardt Jr. himself. When I look at this photo at its very largest size, I can see his helmet and his right arm, even in the shadows. Now I realize, thoroughly realize, that not everyone is a Junior fan. But I am. And, just like with my beloved Portland Trail Blazers, I am not a fair weather fan. I am a Dale Earnhardt Jr. fan--have been and shall remain so.

I took these photos during Spring Cup practice on Friday afternoon. The cars are leaving pit road and heading back out onto the Talladega Superspeedway. I don't know for sure how fast they're going, but they're not sitting still--that I know for sure. They're accelerating, probably between 30-50 mph.


Mark Martin, another one of my favorites. That man turned 51 years old last January!


Here's Greg Biffle. H was born in Vancouver, Washington, right there on the other side of the Columbia River from Portland!


Four-time NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon.

Vacation, Day 8, 10/28/2009, Part 4

Blue skies over Talladega and the campground mean it should be OK for Milton to move the trailer to their regular camping spot, which essentially makes the bottom of a U, with usually two of their friend's rigs making the two arms of the U which is open to the road.


He skillfully backed the hitch in the truck's bed into the trailer's connector.


You have to head in the right direction so that the doors on the trailer would open into the U.


Milton directs Ian as he backs onto the planks placed there to keep the wheels from directly resting on the ground, in case it rains again.


The tarps are moved and covered with blue indoor/outdoor carpet.


Actually the tarps and the carpet are secured at the corners and every now and then with metal spikes to keep everything in its place, plus they're duct taped together along their overlapping edges. Speaking of everything, look at all of the stuff unloaded the day before and toted across the road. Some people came to help, the ones from the previous vacation post, the ones with the short, swiveling flag poles holding the American flag and a Dale Earnhardt Jr. #88 flag.


Kay and Tinkerbell sit and rest for a bit.


Now Milton and Ian begin to work at putting up the E-Z Up canopies. First off comes the storage bag.


Then you spread it out.


And more.


All the while making the E-Z Up larger and larger.


Now Ian and Milton each stand at a leg, raising it to the desired height.


Tinkerbell plays with her favorite toy, an empty plastic water bottle, on a section of the indoor/outdoor carpet yet to be covered by an E-Z Up canopy. Look how she's holding on with her front paws!


Kay's hanging her purple Halloween bat lights in the E-Z Up.


The skeleton will join the bat lights later on. He's waiting on top of the folded out white plastic table, covered with Kay's plastic table cloth.

You say Aga, I say Frigidaire, and we're not calling anything off!

In honor of Mr. and Mrs. Nesbitt’s Aga I feature our Frigidaire. Please forgive my pitiful paraphrase of Fred Astaire's "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off."

Not that I'm a jump-up-and-down fan of an electric stove, but it came with the apartment. And we put it to the best use we can.

Here's our dinner from last Thursday night. Corn on the cob, steamed broccoli, sauteed Walla Walla sweet onions and yellow squash and zucchini, and browned already-fully-cooked boneless smoked pork chops.

Look closely and you can see the steam coming from the Dutch oven and the boiler which I had removed from the eye of the stove--I didn't want the broccoli to get mushy.


I should have paid similar attention to the sauteed veggies--I over-salted them. I have to take responsibility for that, but I did have a new box of sea salt which for a novice sea-salt-user like me takes some practice. Since I ruined it, it seems fitting that I didn't get it in focus in this photo.

See Mama's cute little had in the upper left of the photo? She's digging in, ready to enjoy it all--then she tasted the veggies. I've learned my lesson.

Finally, I want to encourage the curious and the creative--that would be all of y'all--to click on the link to Mrs. Nesbitt's blog so that you can read about the Aga. Then, for all of you pet lovers out there, look on the right side of the blog for the photo of the German shepherd on the beach--it's the link to Wilma's blog. Wilma is the German shepherd, Mrs. Nesbitt is her mummy.

Now, I'm off to NASCAR where the Hanna-delayed race is about to begin in Richmond, Virginia. Go Junior!

Here's part of why I'm so late posting today ...

Portland's Rose Festival started last night, with the opening of the Waterfront Village, a sort of state fair/carnival. I got off the bus after work, intending to take a few photos and catch another bus home. When I saw Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s #88 and found out that admission was free, I decided to roam around, taking photos and waiting to get my photo taken beside the car.

Here I stand with a young member of the National Guard, right beside the car, still able to smell the exhaust fumes. Yes, friends, another man from Hendrix Racing started that baby and gunned the motor several times. Mighty fine loud sound! I loved it!

After about five hours, I got home, too tired to blog. I hope that some of the photos I took will be neat enough to share.

Mama and Duncan, out for a morning walk

According to iPhoto, I took these pictures on Sunday, July 1. I found them a little while ago and thought they were just too cute not to share with y'all. Mama's wearing my Dale Earnhardt Jr. red hat--she felt her perm was too far gone to foist her hair on the public.

They're carefully and firmly stepping out, across NW 22nd, in the first photo, turning south up the sidewalk beside our building in the second one, and kindly pausing for the camera in the third one.

You can see Mama's got Duncan's "doggie bag" firmly clasped in her right hand, his leash in her left. When I go with them on their weekend walks, she won't let me help her with the pick-up duties very often. Probably because I've got my camera around my neck, you think? Or maybe she just wants to keep to her daily routine, walking him just like she does when I'm at work.

Below you can see the hydrangeas I had stopped to photograph moments before Mama and Duncan reached the corner. The variety of hydrangea colors in Portland amazes me.

Two weeks ago last Sunday, Mama and I played Scrabble!

We turned off the TV, put Dean Martin's greatest hits in the CD player and spent a great couple of hours together. I'm resigned to the fact that more often than not, Mama beats the stew outta me--or most any other opponent--but it's still fun. She won the first game by a couple of points, and we played a second one.

What you see in the picture above is the board at the end of the second game, a momentous game--you'll find out why in a few more sentences.

In the background, see those sugary orange slices--what are they made out of, desiccated Jello? We store them in a zipped bag to keep out the ants. Let me tell you, those are some determined ants, climbing to the 4th floor to get to whatever excites their olfactory nerves. I don't even want to try to figure out the energy expended by the little suckers. Anyway, Mama gets addicted to orange slices every so often--I'll eat one or two, but I'm more of a chocolate lover.

Next to the candy, the purple shape with the gold stripe is a Crown Royal flannel bag. We keep the letters in it and draw them from it, too. I imagine that bag is from my brother's youth, once he came of age, of course. But even though this is a 1948 edition of Scrabble, as you can see in the photo below, it's not from my youth.

I don't mind telling that I was born in 1947, but Mama's pretty sure she didn't buy the game until the early 1960s. We both are certain that Daddy never, ever played Scrabble with her or anybody, which is further proof that she didn't buy the game until we'd settled in Jackson in the late 1950s. She and Daddy played canasta with their trailer park and/or work friends during the days we traveled the country for Daddy's job. However, we both remember her playing with the neighbor ladies (and me) on Beatrice Drive there in South Jackson, between Cooper Road and Woody Drive--those were our good ol' days. Now we're in our good new days!

Here's the score pad, right beside my empty wooden-letter-stand-holder. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to get up and go dig out the game from the cabinet to get the exact word, even if it might be in the instructions on the inside of the box lid--can you even believe that I won't do it? Y'all know how detail-oriented I am. But.

My get-up-and-go is all gone. I'm downhearted and depressed because Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn't make the chase for the Nextel NASCAR championship. Like all these commentators on ESPN on ABC and on Speed keep saying, "Junior drove his guts out." He was running 2nd and 3rd at Richmond in the last 100 laps, but with seven laps to go, his engine failed. I dreamed last night that I was in the infield at a race track, and Junior pulled to a stop across the track, in a white car. He got out and walked over to me to tell me something. The race must have been over because no cars roared by as he walked towards me, his red hair shining in the lights. I woke up before we got to talk. Drat. I guess he was gonna tell me it just wasn't meant to be. He did drive a white car tonight, a tribute car for Elvis. Eerie.

Thanks for letting me share that. I feel better already.

It's the score pad that explains why I labeled the second game momentous.

Take a look at the close-up. That's my score in the next-to-the-last column at the bottom-right corner of the tablet. I beat the stew outta Mama, for a change.