Left behind for a new blog

This looks very much like an abandoned blog, doesn't it? Here's why: It is. I haven't posted anything here in over a year. If you want to know why this has happened and where I am writing now, read on.

I staked out new territory in the Blogspot universe. Everything that is here has been copied to the new one. The new and shiny version is at http://drdogshouse.blogspot.com. Stop by if you like.

The reasons? Not too hard to understand. I couldn't get some of those widgets on the left column to work. Twitterings? No dice. Followers? First, I doubt that I have any. But that's not working, either. Recent comments? Same thing.

Each of them says "We're sorry ... We were unable to handle your request. Please try again or return a bit later." It's been saying that for a year or two now, and I don't think it will ever change.

I started this particular blog in 2002 and posted exactly once. Then I wrote at several other places. Later I came back. Maybe some of the settings from that time can be manipulated to make the content show up as it should. And maybe I'll try that once I get a little spare time. But when do I ever get "a little spare time"?

If I ever can get it to work, I can magically transfer everything back over here. Right now, I have close to 500 posts, which includes Blogger, Blurty, Modblog, Efx2, Efx2Blogs, Efx3, Vox and Wordpress. That's a bunch.

The new one at Blogspot is the master one, though. It has every post except a few that were at Vox and that I haven't copied over yet. (Yes, I know Vox has died. I copied everything from Vox to Wordpress before those archives vanished.)

Maybe a few posts originally on Modblog are missing, too. But I made a backup before that vanished, so I'll look those over, too.

Today, I'm posting at Blogspot, Efx3 and Wordpress now. You are welcome to visit any/all of them, read my pretty words and look at my pretty pictures.

(That last line was written with tongue firmly in cheek, right where it usually is.)

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A new letter to learn

I'll tell you why I haven't been writing that much lately. It's fall, and I've been busy at work and covering fall sports at night.

Then, my mom's injury stole a lot of free time from me, what with driving back and forth multiple times per week--it's a one-hour drive each way, you know, plus all the time in between. Besides sucking up a lot of my spare time, many of you know that dealing with this saps your mental and spiritual energy.

(An update on my mom appears later. She's back at the nursing home and getting better very slowly.)

Plus, I've been writing B regularly, and I've been writing S regularly ... and I have a new letter of the alphabet to tell you about, too.

This name starts with an N. I've been writing her, too. I have even visited her a few times lately.

Unlike B, N doesn't live thousands of miles away. In fact, she's only about a hundred miles away, which isn't so far in these wide-open reaches of the Upper Midwest. She lives in a very rural area. That's good because the love of her life are her dogs--she takes in rescue dogs, and some of them like to bark. She has about 10 dogs right now, though that number goes up and down as she adopts new dogs and others go over the Rainbow Bridge. Her oldest dog is about 18. That's even older than our elderly kitty, Maggie.

What else can I tell you? She is three years older than me and a widow for the last three years. Works part time. Has a DirecTV dish. Doesn't have a DVD player, which really limits the movies I can bring along when I visit. Methinks she will be getting a DVD player as a gift sometime soon. She doesn't have a lot of money but is wise enough to know money never can buy happiness. And she enjoys my visits.

I have visited her several times, once while my wife was gone on her trip and twice since. Both of the latter visits coincided with football games I covered in her area. The first time, I drove over for a visit, late supper and sleepover after the game. The other time, I visited her before the game--she cooked a steak for us over a grill. That time, I didn't return after the game--I made the two-hour drive home.

There are no more games in that area this fall, so our next visit has to wait until some time in the future. Best guess: maybe mid October.

We write each other about once a week. B and I still write each other about every day. B knows about N, and N knows about my wife, and my wife knows about N, and B knows about my wife, etc. In case you were wondering ... no secrets.

****
Let's move on to the news. My mom has been back in the nursing home for the last two weeks. She was in the hospital for a week after breaking her elbow. When we visited her last week, she was awake only for a few minutes during our one-hour visit. Maybe, suggested B when I told her about it, it's because of the meds they are giving her.

We went again this Wednesday. She was more awake but complaining that she wasn't feeling well. Her forehead and hands did feel warm--but later, before we left, they felt more normal. She's still sleeping a lot.

My wife went with me to a football game in Houghton a week ago--a really nice day for a fall drive, with temperatures in the low 70s and the leaves really showing color. Last Saturday, I took her to a quilt show at a little town about 70 miles away. The colors on the maples were really vivid under the September sun, but it later clouded up and started a light rain.

We had a spectacular September, with temperatures into the 70s most of the time. No rain, sunny days, warm weather. A much nicer month than July was. But as the final week of September started, a front went through, with rain, cold and a chilly wind out of the northwest. For the last two nights, we woke up to temperatures in the mid 20s and heavy frost. Won't be so cold for my football game Friday night--instead, heavy rain is moving this way.

OK, it's getting late again, and I'm still typing. Time for bed. But I wanted to say hi and let you know I'm still alive. At least I think I am. I must be. Dead people don't yawn.

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One more fall

I’ve been busy lately, too busy to write a report to wrap up my wife’s trip. I started one last week but didn’t have time to finish. And now fate has written a new chapter in my life.

On Labor Day, two days after my wife returned from her week-long trip (more on that later), we drove down to visit my mom. The highlight of the visit came when I brought out my cell phone and called my mom’s brother, who had turned 90 years old the day before. He and my mom (who is 87) talked for a while. She was very happy to talk with him again–it had been over a year since he last drove up from central Wisconsin.

All was well for a few days. And then …

Early last Friday morning, my wife woke me up at about 2:30 a.m. The phone had been ringing, and it was the nursing home. My mom had fallen and hurt herself. (It was five days short of the fourth anniversary of her first fall.)

She has had a number of falls in recent weeks and months, mainly because she is getting forgetful about locking the wheels of her wheelchair when she tries to get on and off. Usually, she is all right. Not this time.

There was no point in driving down there in the middle of the night–she would be in the emergency room for a while. We went back to bed, and I called the nurses station at the hospital when I got up about 7 a.m. She had suffered a broken elbow and a fracture of a cervical spinal process in her neck. They also discovered a urinary tract infection, but the elbow was the main thing. It’s her right arm, and she’s right-handed.

We drove down to see her late Friday morning. She was uncomfortable in the rigid collar they had put on her. She recognized me, but it was very hard to understand what she was trying to say–not unusual. I did hear her say that she didn’t know what happened.

We went home, and I went ahead with my plans for Friday night, which involved covering a football game out of town and spending the night with a friend. I drove back Saturday morning, did some work, and then we drove down to see her again. That day, Saturday, she was totally out of it. Maybe it was the pain meds. She didn’t seem to recognize me at all, and she kept calling out her brother’s name … and also “Mama.”

I knew what that’s about. Several times in recent months, she had forgotten that her mother died many years ago. She has been asking about her mom during many of our recent visits, and I have to explain to her again that she died long ago. In 1963. Almost 50 years ago. If her mom were still alive, she would be over 120 years old.

And now she was calling for her mother again. My wife speculated “Maybe her mother is very close to her now.” And I wondered, too. Later, I told her this isn’t the first time I have driven home, wondering whether I would ever see her alive again.

She was in deep sleep when we returned Sunday afternoon, but after an hour or so, she woke up–and this time she did recognize me. By now, they had put a soft collar on her. We were able to talk for a little while (as well as she could–she still is hard to understand).

I wasn’t able to visit on Monday (too busy at work and then a meeting at night), but I drove down again on Tuesday afternoon. This time, even the soft collar was down. She was sleeping when I arrived, but she woke up, I gave her some water, and we talked for a while. Then she started getting tired and said I can go now.

I’m hoping she will feel good enough to return to the nursing home in another couple days. They are still doing medical tests. Nurses told me she sat up for a while today and is eating a little more.

It’s rough, though, for me. I haven’t been sleeping well–getting tired easily since this happened. That Saturday visit, especially, was mentally and emotionally draining.

****

As for my wife, she returned to town recently, on a Saturday night. While she was happy to be back home, she was also glad she made the trip.

We had talked nearly every night (until she let her cell phone’s batteries get too weak). When I asked her if she was enjoying herself, she replied, “Oh, you bet!” The people on the tour were kept pretty busy each day, and she got achy at times. Aspirin took care of that.

She was happy to get home but enjoyed the experience. She showed me some of the brochures she got about the shows, some pictures she took, two pieces of jewelry she bought, and she told me about some of her experiences.

One highlight was that she won a “Bugsplat” game on the way home, earning about $15 in quarters. They make a grid on the bus windshield, and the first big bug that splats on the grid pays off (in death) for the bus passenger who selected that square. They also did lots of bingo to pass the time on the bus.

The tour company has gone to Branson, Mo., for several consecutive years. Word is that they will may go to Nashville instead next year. I’m sure she would like that. She said she had a good time with everyone, and she, her roommate and the two other women from our town usually did things together–meals, etc. Bottom line: The trip was worth it.

The cats, of course, were very interested in her return, and she and Maggie had a long bonding session almost immediately. She was moderately impressed that the kitchen was not in any worse shape than when she had left it, and that there was not a big stack of dishes remaining to be washed. (We have an automatic dishwasher, but my vast knowledge does not include how to operate that.) To make up for it, there was a big pile of unwashed clothes upstairs.

She returned on the Saturday night of Labor Day weekend. We took it very easy on Sunday, but on Labor Day itself we went off to visit my mom. She had her first quilting group meeting of the season that Tuesday. It seems that life is getting back to normal.

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Me-ouch!

Charlie, my cat, loves me and would never hurt me. Intentionally. But things can happen, and they did earlier this week.

It was late at night, and I was on my desktop computer upstairs, looking at some websites or working on letters. I heard “Meow-wow!” as Charlie hopped up on the chair next to me and then stepped over into my lap, where she curled up.

This is standard operating procedure for Charlie when I’m on the computer late at night. She will sit for a while, then hop off and go elsewhere. Or she may stick around for a while. Or she may go into orbit around my monitor–climbing up onto the desk, then strolling around the back of the flat-screen monitor (picking her way through some of the junk back there), cycling back to the front and stepping back down into my lap. Or she may go for another orbit. Or another.

It’s rather distracting when you’re trying to concentrate on your writing. But she can get away with it. She’s got me wrapped around her paw, let’s admit it.

Anyway, I was just wearing shorts–it was late, as I said–when Charlie climbed up, as usual, then went around the back of the monitor, as usual, and climbed back down into my lap, as usual. But I may have moved my leg, and that startled her. She started losing her balance. Charlie doesn’t have front claws, if you don’t know, but the ones on her rear paws still work. As she battled to keep her balance, she dug in … and left two long lines at the top of my right thigh …



Me-ouch!!!

I didn’t swear or yell. Charlie fell to the floor and ran off, letting me alone to clean up the blood.

A few minutes later, I went to bed. Soon Charlie hopped up on the bed, next to me. Purr, purr, purr.

****
Outside of that misadventure, I have been doing pretty well while my wife has been gone on her trip. Since I am a novice in the kitchen, you may want to know about that.

On Monday, I baked some frozen twice-baked potatoes. (Does that make them thrice-baked potatoes?) Tuesday, I bought a foot-long chicken sandwich from Subway–had half of it for lunch and the other half for supper, before heading off to a volleyball match. Wednesday, I had got a pizza pasty for lunch from the pasty place next door.

That afternoon, I drove out of town to visit a friend–we had pizza for supper, and I stayed overnight, driving back Thursday morning. I had yogurt and some grapes for lunch–supper was taken en route to another volleyball match, another stop at Subway.

The kitties didn’t get their canned food while I was gone last night. Aside from tha,t they have been fed regularly and their dry food and water is kept in good supply.

As for my wife, she is having a great time, seeing the shows down in Branson. “Are you enjoying yourself?” I asked during our phone call Thursday morning. “Oh, you bet!” she answered.

We have talked every night except last night (no cell reception at my friend’s place). She has been updating me on her adventures, while I tell her about my day. Each day down there has been very busy. This is her last day at Branson–they start the long bus trip home Friday morning.

I will not have to drive to Ironwood to pick her up Saturday night–one of the women from our town who is also taking the tour will drive her home. That’s fine–we’ve got an early deadline because of the Labor Day holiday, and Saturday will be pretty busy for me.

Yeah, I miss her, all right. It’s too quiet at home, though I have managed to keep myself busy. The kitties miss her, too, especially Maggie. But she will be back home within 48 hours.

And she is having a good time, which matters most of all.

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She's leaving home, bye-bye!

There’s no getting around it. It’s going to happen. It really is.

My wife is going to leave me.

Really.

She will leave me for one week–more like 6 1/2 days–when she heads off on her tour down to southern Missouri this weekend.

It’s … going to be different for both of us. For one thing, I don’t cook very well. Hopefully, I can get by. Also, she normally takes care of our three cats–both feeding them and “loving them up” from time to time. Like several times a day. Each.

That’s not going to be in my portfolio. I’ll do well to feed them and make sure they have enough water. So we are going over those instructions.

Beyond that, it’s going to get lonely. No getting around that. Keep in mind that we have been married for “well over five years,” and in all that time we have never been apart for more than four days at a time–ever. This time, we’ll be apart for nearly a week. Plus, she will be farther from home than either of us have ever been. In fact, she will be the first of us to ever leave the Upper Midwest.

(Yes, we have not led very exciting lives.)

We have been preparing for this as well as we can. She got a Tracfone, so she can call me from far away. I got an AC charger for her Ipod and filled it (the Ipod, not the charger) with her favorite kinds of music. She will also have a charger for the rechargeable batteries in her camera.

“Maybe you should take” this and that. Extra clothes. Extra money. A swim suit. A microfiber cloth for cleaning glasses. BreathRight strips. Various over-the-counter meds, plus her prescriptions. This and that. I have been recruited to record “Monk” while she is gone. We went for a shopping trip yesterday, where she got things like undies, bras and luggage tags.

On Saturday afternoon, I drive her about 90 miles west, to the travel agency–the bus leaves at 8 a.m. Sunday. After it heads south, I am on my own for a while. Monday, I’ll be busy at the office, laying out the paper. Maybe that night I’ll go to a bar to watch a football game. Or else a movie at home. Tuesday, I’ve got volleyball. Nothing on Wednesday–maybe I can visit a friend. Thursday, more volleyball. Friday, football. Saturday, writing at the office and then driving back to the bus station to get my weary traveler at the end of her trip.

You can come along, she told me. Yeah, sure. It’s like this. First, this happens to be the start of my very busy period at work. Her tolerance for country music is much greater than mine. She’s got the money, and she’s got the time. I have neither. So I’ll stay here.

Besides, I have had a few adventures in life, and I want her to have some, too. She has never been anywhere as an adult except where I have taken her. And her interests are different than mine. I don’t mind taking her to quilt shows here or there in Wisconsin, but this kind of distance is out of my league.

Before she goes, I will tell her to go have fun and live it up. If she gets the notion to do anything–absolutely anything–don’t think twice, it’s fine with me. No matter where she goes or what she does or who she does it with, fine. Bottom line is, she will be back home next week–so let her have some fun while she’s on her own. If she wants to be naughty, so what?

I do know one thing, though. When she gets Saturday evening, she’s going to be very tired. We will spend a very quiet Labor Day weekend, I’m sure.

****

We got some agonizing news at the office this week. Ready?

Our health insurance rates are going up sharply. The letter from the company says “We are facing an increase of 29.9% to maintain our current coverage.” Oh, is that so?

Well, in my case, right now I am paying $103.50 per pay period (twice a month) for my “healthy lifestyle” coverage. Starting in September, that goes up to $164.09 per pay period. So for me, it’s going to be a 58.5% increase.

That also means my take-home pay goes down by $60.59, and that’s a serious decrease, too. On top of that, the deductible has doubled: from $500 per person/$1,000 for the family to $1,000/$2,000. After we hit $2,000 of covered expenses, the copay starts kicking in.

And I know I’m doing better than a lot of others who are collectively known as “the working poor,” those who don’t have insurance or who work a batch of part-time jobs. It just doesn’t add up.

Now, compare that with a friend of mine who works for a university–one of their business offices. She tells me she pays $59.08 every two weeks to cover herself and her husband. The annual deductible is $250 per person/$500 per year family. (There are three different levels of care, and theirs is the middle plan.) On top of that, her husband is retired military, so they have coverage from the government, too.

When my wife and I went on our three-day vacation trips this summer, some of the places we visited were Wausau and Appleton, Wis. Both are the homes of a number of insurance companies, and we couldn’t help but notice the palatial/opulent corporate offices. My premiums at work.

Gee, do you think this is a sore point with me?

Health care insurance reform is looking more distant each day. Sorry to say it, but you can’t deny facts. The “big lie” strategy has succeeded in getting the policy debate completely off course. And now Ted Kennedy has died. He was a great man because he cared about the little people. Like me. There aren’t very many like him: on the endangered species list. And, as for him being an unapologetic liberal, that breed may have just gone extinct.

There have been a few blog posts about the health care debate over the last month or so, and they have ignited flame wars. More heat, less light is not going to solve anything.

I just wonder about those who read about the debate in other countries and how they must be rolling their eyes at this. I’m a proud American, and I don’t like it when my country makes a fool of itself.

But we seem to have this knack.

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Chaos theory in print

I wanted to write something wise and profound this week, but it's not going to happen. I know that even as I type these first words.

I wanted to write about a very busy four days due to two very different trips (one for my son, one for myself). I wanted to write about my wife finally deciding to go on that long trip late this month. I wanted to write about the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. I wanted to write about the first anniversary of B's first letter to me (which was yesterday). I wanted to write about John Hughes' passing--a rare Hollywood filmmaker who seemed to understand young people.

But there's really not much time this week to reflect thoughtfully on things. My son (from near Detroit) is visiting for a couple days--he arrives this evening. He doesn't visit often--usually, just around the holidays, and then he's gone again. Then the county fair is this weekend, and I will be spending much of the weekend there. And the board that I serve on has its annual meeting Saturday morning; I, as president, have to write a letter to the members. That board has a regular meeting early Wednesday morning. Then I've got the football scrimmage Friday morning out of town. And I've also got to write the editorial and track down the girls volleyball coaches for season previews.

This is going to be one bloody long week.

So here it is. Chaos theory for a while.

The first trip (Thursday and Friday) was to take my younger son to Green Bay. Essentially, it was a shopping trip for him, and I was his chauffeur. We made our regular stop at the Green Bay Packers Pro Shop, Best Buy, a shopping center, a video exchange place and finally the NEW Zoo north of Green Bay. NEW=Northeast Wisconsin. He paid for the motel. I covered most of the meals. We got back home late Friday afternoon.

The second trip (Saturday and Sunday) was a solo trip to a little farm near Appleton, which is now a private place for people to camp and swim. Oh yeah, it's clothing-optional, too. My friend S and her husband are regulars there and said I could sleep in their tent, so that's what I did. With temperatures in the upper 80s (a rare warm spell this summer), I made a beeline to the pond once I arrived and enjoyed that for a while. Later, S and another woman gave me a very relaxing backrub. (By the way, S did remember to return my Crackberry.)

We had corn and brats for supper, plus potato salad and pasta salad. After that, we sat around the campfire, talking about this and that, listening to the radio and enjoying a bottle of mead (honey wine) S had brought along--once we managed to get the cork out without a corkscrew.

Yeah, we're wild people. Everybody was in bed by 10:30 p.m. or so.

On Sunday morning, it was clouding up with rain on the way, so we went to town for a breakfast buffet, returned, packed away the tents and went on our way. I got back home in mid afternoon. While I was gone, my wife was entertaining her youngest sister and her husband--they had gotten married privately the day before. The three of them had a good time on Saturday while I was gone, and I got to see the them Sunday before they left.

I'll skip Woodstock until life gets calmer (if it ever does). Just so you know, I was not there. I had been at a music festival in Milwaukee maybe a month earlier (we lived in the suburbs), and I had heard about this big festival coming up in New York. But I was working and didn't have my own car. So all I know about it is second-hand.

But God, I wish I had been there!

That brings up a different 40th anniversary. It was right about that time that a girl I knew from high school called me and asked if I wanted to go on a blind date with her, her boyfriend and a girl she knew from work. So I agreed. I guess the girl and I got along OK. She is downstairs now, watching TV with the kitties.

She made her final decision about that trip to Branson, Mo., late last week--she sent in her check. So now we have to take care of a few things: She has to get a cell phone, so she can call me from far away, and she needs an AC charger for her Ipod. She will be gone for a week, and I and the kitties will be soloing while she's gone.

I will miss her a lot--but I really wanted her to go on the trip. I've been trying to get her to open up her world and have new experiences and just ... live a little! While we're still young. She is 10 months younger than me. In many ways, though, I think I am much younger.

The first anniversary of B's first e-mail to me was Monday. I still have it. I wrote her, marveling at everything that has happened between us in the last 12 months ... and wondering what will happen in the next 12. She will be out of town for a medical appointment part of this week.

OK, is that chaotic enough for you? That's my life, at least this week's edition of it. Next week? Should be a lot quieter.

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Stone bridges, a wonder cave and a missing phone

My wife and I marked a quiet 38th anniversary last Friday.

It was quiet because the previous three days were spent running around central Wisconsin on a mini-vacation trip. We came home a bit tired out and spent out. So for the big night, she made chicken parmigiana for supper, and then we went to the local theater (the only movie house in the entire county) to see "Up," which just arrived in town. (According to the posters, "Public Enemies" will be getting here soon. Before the DVD comes out!)

We planned this vacation so she could go to some places she was interested in. With the help of her AAA book and some diligent web-surfing, she picked some pretty good ones off the beaten track.

Our first one was a stone arch bridge in Merrill, Wis., which carries traffic through the downtown area ...


We saw a park nearby and walked down a path to another, even older bridge. This one had a sign from the construction company, dated 1909. It was much narrower--one lane wide ...


The next stop was Wausau. Our main stop there was the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. My wife was mainly interested in a sculpture garden on the grounds, and we walked around there. They had an exhibit with metal sculptures by artist Wendy Ross ...




We also walked down by a small garden, where the bees were busily at work ...


From there, we walked around to the main (temporary) entrance of the museum and went inside. They had two temporary exhibitions. One was photos of jungle life, taken by a National Geographic photographer. The other was called "American Ruins," about places like ghost towns and crumbled, overgrown mansions from long ago. All the photos were taken in black-and-white, using infrared film, so the leaves, grasses and other foliage comes out white, not dark as you would expect. Interesting effects. We studied the photos for quite a while.

None of the photos on their website show the white leaves that well, but they give you an idea of what the exhibitions were like. No photos were permitted inside. The LYW Museum is best known for its "Birds in Art" permanent display, but we had to bookmark it for a future visit. We had one more place to visit this day.

This last stop for Tuesday was way out in the country, about 70 miles away on country roads. Called Jurustic Park, it is composed mainly of fanciful sculptures of animals and other creatures made from scrap metal.

But we had spent so much time at the museum that we arrived about 15 minutes after it had closed for the day. All we could do is take a few photos of the main entrance ...


... and a telephoto shot of a "hobbit house" inside ...


... before leaving. You can look over some of their other creations on their website--they really are fun to look at.

From there, we drove south to Marshfield and then east to Stevens Point, where we spent the night. Wednesday, we drove back west. This time our destination was the Rudolph Grotto, a Catholic shrine, gardens and "wonder cave."

This place was started during the 1920s by Father Philip Wagner, who became very ill while studying for the priesthood in Europe. According to the brochure from grotto, Wagner went to Lourdes in France, to the Grotto of Our Lady, in 1912. He prayed and prayed and promised that if his health was restored, he would build a shrine in Mary's honor. He got better and started planning.

Wagner became the priest in Rudolph in 1917, a new church was built, and he started envisioning flower beds and tree arrangements for his grotto. He used rocks from the surrounding area to build shrines. "Stones and large rocks were piled because he knew nothing of construction or masonry. In order to create the beautiful structures we see here today, Father Wagner began using concrete and the trial-and-error method of construction."

Father Wagner lived at the church and worked on the grotto until his death in 1969. Another man worked with him on the grotto until he died in 1991. They kept making more and more shrines in the park--the last one was completed in 1983.

It is intensely Catholic, of course. There was a series of stations of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, including this one ...


They also had statues for all 14 Stations of the Cross, plus many other shrines, plaques and statuary. Even a little wooden chapel ...


And then there was the Wonder Cave. We couldn't miss that. "A 1/5th mile catacomb-like passageway through the grotto depicting 26 shrines of the life and teaching of Jesus."

It sure was narrow, and you had to duck your head pretty often. Even my wife, who rarely needs to duck her head for any reason ...


It's very dark inside, of course, and the shrines are illuminated with colored lights. Quite difficult for a camera without a tripod or a flash, but at least this scene came out well ...


Outside we walked around the grounds a little longer when suddenly we encountered an untamed Wisconsin wildlife creature ...


And we also stopped at a museum about the history of the shrine, the parish and Rudolph, Wis. And among everything else, we came across this heartbreaking relic ...


One more stop before leaving the Stevens Point area: The Herrschner's catalog outlet store. How many of you have seen the Herrschner's catalog of craft items? This is where they come from. Here is the door to the store ...


... and here is a wall of yarn of all colors of the rainbow ...


They also had a large variety of fabrics. I was impressed, but my wife said she has seen larger varieties at the Hobby Lobby stores, which was on our schedule for Thursday. She was especially disappointed by the relative lack of needlework items and the large quantity of "close-out" items for sale--she thought there would be a lot more to look at.

From there, we got on the highway and drove to Oshkosh, where we met up with S and her husband. It happened to be his birthday, and our original plan was to see "Public Enemies," which they hadn't seen yet (even though some scenes were shot in Oshkosh and they took me to see the preparations over a year ago). But S doesn't like violent movies, so she wasn't going to go. They also had their 5-year-old grandson with them, whom they were babysitting. Hmmm.

We finally decided: We would go to a movie that everyone could enjoy. We opted for the new "Ice Age" movie, and everyone went and had a good time. From there, we had supper at the Golden Corral buffet, and then we went to our motel, to relax in the swimming pool and (especially) the hot tub.

That wasn't the end of our day. They invited us to join them at a neighborhood bar near their home, for a birthday toast. Neither of us visits bars very often, but we went this time, spent another hour with them and had a good time. The highlight was when Johnny Depp (from "Public Enemies") came on the David Letterman show, and life at the bar ground to a dead stop. The younger women were swooning!

That capped a very busy Wednesday. Thursday was supposed to be a lot easier: Just visit a few stores my wife wanted to visit (Hobby Lobby, Fashion Bug) and then start driving home. By about 11 a.m., the shopping was done, and we pointed the car north. In Appleton, the last big city on our way, we stopped at a sub place for lunch. As we walked to the store, I reached for my cell phone out of habit, to see if there were any messages. It wasn't there.

I checked my pockets, to see if I had stuck it in there. Then I went back to the car and checked the area around the front seat. Then the trunk, where I had changed a shirt earlier and may have absent-mindedly put it down.

It wasn't here. It wasn't there. It wasn't anywhere.

My wife said, "Maybe we should go back and look." "Back there" meant Oshkosh, about 30 miles south, where we had started the day. We had only made a few stops, and I knew I had it while waiting at Hobby Lobby. We zipped back south. Once we got there, we stopped at each place. Nobody had seen anything. I left addresses and phone numbers, just in case.

We still hadn't had lunch--it was 1:30 by now--so we went to a Subway, and my wife got something. I was just too upset at myself to eat anything. I had a sip or two of her soda, and that was all. Nothing to do but drive back north, phoneless, my mind racing, imagining the cost and hassle of getting a new phone set up.

Three hours later, we were home. My wife checked the answer machine. Sure enough, a woman had called, saying she had found my phone in a parking lot. The next message was from S. The woman had contacted her, too, and they had gone down to pick it up.

They aren't going to mail it to me: We had earlier made plans to meet again this weekend at that clothing-optional "beach," where they like to camp in summer--I haven't been there yet this year, and that was on my to-do list. A mailed phone wouldn't arrive until late this week, so I told them to just keep it until I get down there.

A hectic end to a busy trip. On Monday, the first official high school football practices were held. Summer is nearly over.

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