Wednesday, my CEO was in town. We had a large all-hands meeting at the office. Afterwards about twenty randomly chosen people, including me, went out for dinner with him. It was an interesting experience. 

My first takeaway is that I would hate to be a CEO. It would be exhausting. Half the crowd was angling to talk to him-- share their ideas, ask him difficult questions, complain. The other half went out of the way to keep their distance. Thought out it all, the CEO kept a smile on his face and had pleasant conversation with everyone. He drew the quiet out. He listened to the same trivial complaint half a dozen times and took it calmly and seriously.

Thursday, the Husband and I had a date night. Dinner at "The Fog Room." It has nice views of the Puget Sound. The weather is warm and we sat outside. Air quality is still low. Smoke is pervasive. Everywhere smells like a campfire. None-the-less, we enjoyed our dinner on the patio.

Towards the end of dinner, the Husband suggested we meet up with his brother for dessert. The brother-in-law lives nearby. So we switched restaurants and spent an hour chatting with him. It was good to catch up. He seems to be doing well. 

Saturday we attended Salmon Day's with Allen & Even. Salmon Day's are is the local, annual street fair. We celebrate the return of the salmon to the city. We eat street fair food-- corn dogs, deep fried spiral cut potatoes, mini-donuts. We check out the artists.

This was the first Salmon Day's since the pandemic.

The fried food stands had huge lines. The husband and I joked that if we ever wanted to quit our jobs and become street fair vendors, then mini-donuts and elephant ears are the way to go.

Sunday we walked up the stairs of the Space Needle. This was a charity fundraiser. The Space Needle has 832 steps. 

We did it in 17 minutes and 58 seconds.

The fastest stair climbers did it in five minutes. In an interview the fastest man said he does stair climbing all the time. Friday he did the Columbia Center for practice. Today he is flying off to Tampa for another climb.

Late September to early October is my favorite time of the year in Seattle. The weather cools a little but the rains have not returned. I can take my laptop and work in the back yard.

The mother-in-law's radiation treatment has gone well. It will be a while before her next scan and if her cancer was killed.

Mother-in-law has started her radiation treatment this week. The whole process is short but intense. Every day, for four days, she will receive targeted radiation. That's it. '

Monday's shot went well, though she said she was tired afterward.

Things are quiet this week. The husband is away for leadership training (at Westpoint!) our roommate is dog sitting. No-one at home but me and my dog.

I try to play fetch with the dog. It's good exercise for her. She has her own rules to fetch. She has trained us as much as we have trained her.

1. The dog decides where the ball is thrown and returned. If I throw the ball from an unacceptable spot, she will return the ball to the correct spot. It's then my obligation to walk to that spot and start throwing from there.

2. The dog decides the direction and the distance for the ball to be thrown. As I start to throw the ball, she'll start running. If I don't throw the ball a bit ahead of her, she'll give up on chasing the ball, then turn around and glare.

3. The dog decides how often the ball is to be thrown. At some point, she'll stop returning the ball. She'll just lay down and chew on the ball. She will show no interest if I walk over and take the ball away from her.

I understand what happened with the cousin's plan. In England, they purchased a U.S. package for their cell phone. Once in America, they discovered that their phone won't actually work on a U.S. network. The cell company can't fix this.

To get full access to their bank account, they need to receive a code from the bank by text message... and that phone can't work here.

The cousins traveled to the US with a very limited credit card and a very flakey cell phone. They do have tablets that can connect to wifi. 

Their bank has a branch near us. They are traveling to it this afternoon to see what they can do about accessing more of their money.

Yesterday they took the mother-in-law on a nice roadtrip to Leavenworth, WA. A little tourist destination that's about two hours away from us.

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The mother-in-law has started her radiation treatment. She should be done with it within a month. 

The cousins are still here. The husband and I have been discussing their rather open ended travel plans. They will probably stay till Monday. They think they will come back at the end of October for a week, or maybe two.

Now, the cousins are clean and quiet people. It's easy to have interesting conversation with them. They are still strangers in our house. They bring small impositions. Who buys the food? Do we cook for them each night?  Who gets to choose what we watch on TV? When we have company over, do we invite the cousins as well? Do we shoo them away? Small impositions, none the less, they are impositions. 

Of course, we want to spend time at their place when we travel to England. And of course, they are good people, so we still want to have a strong relationship with them. 

The husband is going to talk to them about their travel plans. Maybe if they bought food and cooked it would be better. We shall see.

It's been a busy labour day weekend for us. 

The husband's cousins are here. They are a wonderful retired couple who do a lot of traveling. This is their first trip to the U.S. since before the pandemic. 

They arrived a few days ago and are staying for the next week. After that they will head off on a roadtrip and visit their friends and see the sights up and down the coast.

Friday I helped move C2 to his new apartment. He moved down one floor and to the other side of the building. The new apartment should be a bit more quiet. The move was straightforward. He moved all the small stuff the previous day. All we had to do was to move a sofa, mattress and table.

Saturday, we drove the cousins to visit the mother-in-law. The cousins and the brother-in-law went to a Husky's football game.

Sunday we had a BBQ for the husband's family.

Monday, the brother-in-law hosted a small party for a friends at his rowing club.

We had a great time in Whistler BC. We spent the time with our friends G&J, and their kids. We hiked. We did the touristy things-- zip lining, bob sledding, ATVing, after dark light shows. 

And we ate too much ice cream

We are off to Vancouver and Whistler for a few days. 

Part of this is to recelebrate our 5th year anniversary. Officially our 5th anniversary was back in July, however we were quarantining from each other at that time so it didn't happen.

We also bought new wedding rings for each other. A bit about that-- we always buy cheap wedding rings and then change them up every couple of years. 

The first rings were tungsten rings that got for about $15 each on Amazon. After a couple of years, I accidentally dropped mine and it shattered. 

So we bought a couple of stainless steel wedding bands for maybe $10 each.

A few weeks ago the husband suggested that we upgrade our wedding bands. Titanium bands are nice. We just spent $14 each for our titanium bands, and maybe ten times that for a celebratory dinner.

> I had to look that up. Thought that I hadn't heard of something. Then I realized there was a typo. Hopefully, all your symptoms disappear, and you are not straddled with long covid.

Sigh. Typos. Spelling has never been by strong suit.

I don't think this is long COVID. I have my taste. I have my regular energy. No brain fog. I'm just congested. And thinking positive.

Today we home tested. The husband tested negative. I have a very faint band indicating I am still positive.

...and I just learned that the mother-in-law has fast growing cancer. We will get more details in the next few days.

Quiet weekend for us recovering from COVIDs lingering effects. We were originally going to go to a Mens Addiction Recovery Retreat, however we are still both congested. My energy has returned and my throat is no longer sore. The husband is still low energy and having coughing fits.

> It is hard to take covid seriously when it has never affected me. I cannot believe I have not been exposed to it by now.

Covid seems to be a very random disease, which makes it hard for the lucky or fortunate to take it seriously.

With the flu-- you know what you are in for. You may have a lite flu, or a tough flu, but the symptoms are never too different. So everyone understands the flu. You don't gamble with the flu. 

Covid is all over the map. Some are nigh immune to it. Some have a scratchy throat for forty eight hours. Others are flat on their backs for a week. *And* it changes. The first time you have covid, you may have it easy. The second time hard. It's much more of a gamblers disease and that means the gamblers amongst us will treat it way different than the risk adverse. 

Right now the husband is very sick with his COVID. He needs morning and afternoon naps. He has coughing fits.

My recovery is a few days ahead of his. I am a bit tired and I still have a scratchy throat. I'm not having coughing fits and don't need naps.

>That sucks getting Covid on the cruise. I hope it passes quickly for you.

On the plus side, this was my first cruise where I have lost weight.
I'm attending work today, but what is work for me but sitting in a comfy chair all day, and chatting with people on a zoom screen.

By and large, we enjoyed our time in Alaska. 

I hesitate to say how my covid is. The symptoms seem to change every hour. This hour I don't have a fever. I'm a little tired and sometimes have coughing fits.

The husband also has covid and is the thick of it. He has a fever, coughing and is achy.

As if on queue, I develop a headache.

And I have COVID. No one to blame for that but myself.

I seem to be going through it quickly. Yesterday I had chills, was tired and slept a lot. Today my energy has returned though I am a little congested. I am spending most of my time in the cabin. 

We are on an Alaskan cruise with a few of the husbands old friends. I'm enjoying myself. So far the weather has been great. 

I'm trying to use the opportunity to reset my internet habits. The internet is slow here. Txt works. Email works. Pictures and videos, not so much. I'm using the time to read, to write and to just stair at the ocean and contemplate the passing of time. 

We are having our house painted. The instructions to the painter were to paint it with exactly the same colours as it was. Of course the paint isn't turning out that way. It's a little darker. A little less saturated. Or maybe not. When its not in bright sun it looks a bit warmer. The painter can point to the pain cans and show us its the same spec as what we gave him.

This is stressing the husband out a bit. I want to support the husband, but I'm not that emotionally in tune with subtle shades of colour. As long as its not garish, then I'll be fine. 

I don't want to put all of this on the husband though. He does have better taste than me.