40 kids for Halloween trick or treats.

I was doing very well not eating any of our candy. Then a neighbor showed up and gave me a thank-you bag of cookies and chocolates for helping on the weekend. I scarfed that down. They were *my* sweets. 

Mom is out of the hospital now

>That must be scary for her.

Actually. No. She also has short term memory problems. She doesn't remember that she was in the hospital. The short term memory issues are a blessing and a curse. Dad must always be near her in case something goes wrong. After the wrong is dealt with, mom doesn't remember what happened and goes back to being her cheerful self.

Saturday our neighborhood association held a Halloween event for the local kids. We didn't keep an official count. Judging from the photos about about 40 people attended plus 8 organizers.

I helped build our "Haunted Trail" and did the crosswalk duty-- the event was at a park that crosses a street. The husband took registrations and watched over the Haunted Trail.

Sunday we held a brunch for the mother-in-law. Monday is her 85th birthday. It was a costume brunch. Everyone showed up dressed in their Halloween best.

I invited C2. He backed out when he discovered that we were wearing costumes.

Quote from him from our chat... "Is this a big event where your husband bought special napkins and a little dog will be running all over the place and group pics will be taken and I have to pretend that I like people?"

Of course good news can't go unchallenged. Mom is in the hospital. She will be OK.

For sometime now, years, Mom has been prone to seizures and groggy episodes. When she has a groggy episode, she becomes quiet. She can't safely stand. It's like she's half asleep. When an episode comes on, dad will put her to bed or lay her on the sofa. Five or ten minutes later she will snap out of it, return to normal and not remember anything wrong.

This morning she had an extended groggy episode. My parents had breakfast. Everything was fine. Then she started to fade out. Dad put her to bed. That was two hour ago. She wasn't snapping out of it so dad brought her to the hospital.

Good news from my mother. The results from her latest scan look good. There is no sign of cancer in her right now.

Our fall schedule is full. The husband and I are visiting my parents for two weeks in November. Add some work travel and a few holiday parties to that, and all of a sudden it's Christmas before we have a free weekend. 

The husband and I have been discussing our perennially full schedule. We'd like to have a few smaller fun events where it's just he and I. Maybe we'll take a cooking class, or glass blowing. Maybe Spanish lessons together. 

I had a two day work trip to San Francisco. This time the days were packed. With the prior trip, I had one very busy day, followed by an empty day. Perhaps the company is becoming a little more open to working in person.

While I was away, Seattle had terrible air quality. For two days in a row, Seattle had the worst air quality of any place on earth. Even Pakistan had better air quality.

The husband's cousins are back at our place. For the past few weeks they have been touring the west coast. They had a good time. They were camping often. The camp grounds are shutting down, so they returned early.

Banking story... the cousins are from England. They discovered they can't pay their credit card bill while they are traveling because their bank needs to send them a text to check they haven't been hacked. Of course, they can't receive the text because they are in the U.S.

Their bank has a branch nearby. The tellers at the bank couldn't fix the problem.

However, they discovered that if they are on the bank's wifi, then they can use their banking app without the extra check. All good, sort of. The cousins now go to the bank once a week. Hang out in the lobby to do their banking. Explain to security what they are doing, and then get on with their lives.

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.

-

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.