January 11 An Anniversary and Memories of Viet Nam

Friday, January 10th, was my 38th anniversary. Joie and I were married on a snowy day, January 10th, 1976. Wow...38 years. Nothing else of importance happened that day.

I spent the morning going over my checking accounts. I hadn't balanced the USB account since November and it was out of control a little. The UMB account checkbook had $1300.00 less than the bank. No idea why.

Weather was excessively windy. Sustained wind was 36 mph and gusts were over 50 mph and they were long gusts. My big trash bins started blowing away. The wind is very noisy in the house.

I had a late lunch and spent some time getting cleaned up. My old beard trimmer died and I got a new one at Walgreens, It is different and I had to figure out how to use it without destroying my beautiful chin whiskers.

This is Friday, my usual day to stop at Kaktus Brewing. They were having a musician in the evening so I decided to go over later. It was reasonably crowded and the guy was setting up. He is a song writer from Santa Fe and pretty good. I met Tom and also Gloria and Stewart..local folks about my age.  Tom and Stew both served in Viet Nam -- Tom in Special Forces. Stew served later in Panama and then went to Viet Nam. As they talked about their experiences they brought up places like Long Binh, Khe Sanh, Bong San, Cu Che and Da Nang, Hue and the Tet Offensive. Wow...those names came back into my memory for the first time in decades. It's clear that these guys had life changing experiences. Each one topped the other with stories...back and forth. Gloria and I just sat and listened.

I had a pretzel bun and mustard and some curry ketchup. Tom and I think they need to serve big soft pretzels on the menu. I talked with the brew master for a while....he's making an IPA. Garrit was there for the first time in a while. I gave him a bottle of home brew I had in the car.

I got home a little after 9 PM and made a ramen chicken soup for a late supper. There was a odd Cheech and Chong cartoon on TV that I watched for a while. I watched a Cadfael later and then read.

January 11th was a much nicer day -- warm, sunny and not windy.

I went to Lowes and bought several solar lights for the yard and some reflector tape for the gate. Afterward, I had lunch at Barnes and Noble...bagel and cream cheese and coffee.

Jill called while I was eating lunch. The house sale seems to be on track...still...but there still hasn't been an inspection or an appraisal done.  They have 20 days left. She heard from the title company and the bank so some work is going forward. John and Ann  met the new buyers and knew when the closing date was when Jill talked to them.

After lunch I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and looked at espresso machines....mine is getting old.  I went to Petco and got Watson some food and litter. At World Market I got some pumpernickel bread and a bottle of wine.

I did a bit of grocery shopping at the Coop before heading home.

I worked outside a little...exchanging and rearranging the solar lights.

I made chicken corn chowder with green chile sauce and cannelloni beans...kind of an eclectic recipe but very good.  I had some home brew later.

I watched Zen on PBS and then a DVD of Prime Suspect.