Day 9 - 06/10/2008

The couch was comfortable enough, but I didn’t sleep well. Even the clock chiming on the hour and half hour rarely woke—much less even bothered—me. I’m not sure what it was, but my eyes were also giving me a lot of trouble this morning. I should have gone out for a run, but oh well.

I had a bowl of Dan’s organic cardboard for breakfast. It actually did taste rather good, but Grandma enjoyed my comments about the stereotype of it. Dan and I talked for awhile longer before he had to leave for work. Then Grandma and I laid out our plan for the morning. She had canceled her noon Bridge game that she hosts on Tuesdays so that we didn’t have to work around that.

We started by returning to Prospector’s. She loved the Cranberry juice she had picked up yesterday and wanted more. And I loved her Rhubarb sauce so much that she wanted to grab the last jar of applesauce from there. She had taken three and left one behind yesterday, and now she wanted it.

From there we stopped at AAA for me to get information on the Bushart Gardens. My coworker Lynn and several others had told me how incredible these were, so I had been looking through my Washington information to find out where they were. That’s when Grandma told me they were actually in Canada. So I went in to get some info about them and the transportation possibilities of getting there. A guy named Jeff (who was originally from Anaheim, CA) helped me, and even looked up an overnight tour package for me to depart early Wednesday and return midday Thursday. I told him I’d come back for the price because I had to check with Amy to see when she was expecting me.

From there, we tried to get to Costco. It took awhile but we found it. We went inside, and Grandma just had a blast going there to get all sorts of nuts and produce in bulk. We found almost everything she was looking for, and then headed home. I dropped Grandma off at the curb, and then started bringing stuff in. Thankfully she’s a very que sera sera person, because about 1/3 of the clamshell of blueberries spilled out into the curb when I opened the door.

After she put the groceries away, we had lunch and played another game of cribbage. Then I went over to the library to upload blogs and journals. The Everett Public Library is huge and peaceful. I spent about three hours there. I shouldn’t have, but I checked my work e-mail. The tax partner had e-mailed me with the news that they only had found work for me for 2-4 weeks, not the entire two months I was originally scheduled in the tax department. The significance of this is that the audit department can have me back and may send me out of town. I normally like the out-of-town work, but I have been trying to organize a Bible Study for the summer since I was all but promised two whole months of being in town. So I just need to have faith that God is going to accomplish what He wants in this.

I returned home just in time for Judge Judy. That’s a real can’t miss. Grandma and I definitely don’t see eye-to-eye on her, but I watched it with her anyway. Dan arrived home early, and Grandma baked some potatoes for dinner, also heating up the chicken from yesterday. We played a game of Cribbage, and then paused. Wheel of Fortune & Jeopardy had been delayed until the 9 p.m. hour for a Basketball game (Grandma and I were equally annoyed).

During Wheel of Fortune, I pulled out my knitting for the first time on this trip. I did a few rows on Joy’s scarf, and then Dan asked if I wanted to play another game of Cribbage—just us—so Grandma could keep watching.

Dan’s a tea aficionado like me, so he prepared us each a cup and then we quickly knocked out a whole game (I won) by the time Jeopardy was over.

I called Craig, a college friend who was also on a road trip up here to see his brother. We made plans to meet up and hang out tomorrow. I would drive up to join them in Burlington, and then we would drive out to Olympic National Park.

Grandma, Dan and I played another game before heading to bed.