Guarding Food and Kalamata Olives

 

Where were we? This week has flown by. Between work and making a valiant attempt to get back into the swing of what we know as normal, it has been what I would consider a busy week.

I received news that my best friend's dad, a man I considered as my dad for several years,  had passed away in the early morning hours on December 29, 2023. This was a blow after learning a good friend's daughter had passed about two weeks earlier at the young age of 42. 

As they say, everything happens in threes. My thoughts went straight to my 93 year old mother in Tennessee. My fears were realized when my daughter called me the other day. Mom had gone into A-fib and that was followed by a series of strokes. She was in the hospital over the holidays. I guess she was having some trouble with memory and speaking some words. 

My daughter heard this from my brother who had lost my number. Mom was well enough a few days later to be transferred to a rehab facility where she is getting stronger each day. 

As a family, we are rallying together to make a trip to my birth state to visit her. Mom's sister is wanting to drive, so we are looking at a possible road trip here soon. At this moment I am just happy to hear that mom continues to take steps in the right direction of getting better. 

No, mom is not a "biker chick" by any means. She is a very dignified, responsible woman who has a great sense of humor and loves to have fun. We held a scavenger hunt between those of our family in Tennessee and those of us here, in Oregon. We created a list of things for the family there to find and take photos of and vice versa. My daughter Marina came up with the listing of, "Grandma on a Harley." She pulled through with a photo of herself on the neighbor's Harley and he even threw in a leather jacket for good measure. I love this photo! It has become our favorite photo of the entire contest, for sure. 

So all of that has bogged us down a bit as a family, but we have a plan set in motion should the need arise to take a trip to Tennessee. Because of weather and other conditions, we will be making one trip and that is going to be to say goodbye before anything happens to mom. We have put off the trip for this month, but next month may be a different story. Listening to the weather, the road trip could be a rather difficult trek, with snow through some parts of Oregon and the passes are definitely receiving their traditional precipitation in the form of the white stuff. Chains, four-wheel drive vehicle and lots of slow moving travel, combined with patience will be needed. 

In the household, my hubby and I have been doing our thing. We have taken care of a trip to Costco to shop for the larger amounts of toilet paper on Thursday. Yee haw! It's always so crowded, but we caught it in the evening when it was a lot less hectic. It was nice. Grabbing the large package of butt wipe, we headed to Shari's Restaurant to eat dinner. I ordered country fried steak and Terry ordered the steak. It was very good and a great idea of my husband. 

Back home again, we loved on the fur babies a bit, watched an episode of the series Castle, and then headed for bed. It was a quiet night although we accomplished a couple of things. Once again, we fed our husky, Togo before climbing into bed to sleep. He sleeps and eats in our bedroom/bathroom area at night and has access to the rest of the house during the day. Jasper gets the house during the night while the big boy is in our room. 

While feeding Togo, we noticed a while back that he does have a mealtime quirk. He will stand over his food, drop his head and press his nose on all of the pieces of food in the bowl. Eventually he eats it, but for the most part and especially while we're watching, he will just stick his nose in the dish and inhale. After sniffing each piece, he will often stand over the bowl or lay in front of it with his face down over the food. When we first adopted Togo, I put my hand on his back and moved forward to his face since he behaved this way, just to see if there way any aggression toward us. Food aggression is never a good thing, but always something to be aware of. He never growled or flinched. He just likes to get to know each piece of food personally before eating, I guess. 

Here Togo is covering his food dish to ensure it doesn't get up and run off, I guess. He seems to do this each time he goes in to eat. This continues for several moments and then he will eventually eat. With this and his quirky antics with sleeping with garbage and pot holders on the couch, it all really makes me wonder what his life was like prior to living with us. Or could this possibly be goofy behavior of the husky breed? I've heard they are fairly goofy. 

After a moment or two of Googling the behavior of these dogs, apparently they are goofy because they are intelligent, independent, stubborn, but super friendly, loving people and other animals. This is why they are not known to be any sort of guard or attack dog. That's just fine with me. I never expected to have him as a guard dog. We love his odd behavior. He seems to fit in well. He is our people. 

Friday night I chose to make a turkey pot pie since we had so much of the New Year's Day turkey dinner left. I threw some veggies, turkey, garlic, onion, celery and various ingredients in a rue and made a pie. It turned out well. I enjoyed it and it helped get rid of some of the turkey. 

Unfinished turkey pot pie while baking. It turned out very good! 

Once again, an episode of Castle and off to bed we went. It's getting chilly lately and with a call for snow and rain mix next week, we are definitely displaying the January weather we typically receive. It is also adding some nastiness to the trip to Tennessee if we go, but it is what it is. Will we get snow in Oregon this year? I know Terry hates it, but I love it. I like to have it around for a day or two at least. Then it can go away again so everyone can get back to their life, without the anxiety and drama of driving to places they need to go. 

Terry is from Las Vegas and then lived in California for a few years. He's used to the warm weather, not the chilly winters Oregon sees. Hubby Mac seems to love Oregon, just not in the winter as much as the short summers. But, this has been my home for most of my life. This is what I'm used to. It's typical Oregon weather. "Short summers" are not actually shorter than anywhere else seasonally, but the feel of the temperatures seems as though summer disappears and the fall weather appears quickly. It's more of the feel of things rather than the actuality of Oregon having shorter seasons than anyone else. The rain also feels like it's never ending at times. 

But today it is raining, with a long rainy week or two ahead. There are a couple of days calling for snow mixed with the rain, but in Oregon that's another way of saying, "Nah. You're going to get wet. That's all. We don't really know what's happening, so we'll play it safe and say rain, because that's what this state does." I recall a heavy duty snow in '69 that weather forecasters were not calling for until it hit. We had at least three to four feet of snow, shutting this town down. You had one job. I never trust now when forecasters call for no snow, but all rain. Back then they had surmised that there might be a bit of snow, but nothing to lose sleep over. Yeah, right. When you're in Eugene, making igloos and jumping off the roof of your three story home into the snow below, I'd say that's more than "a bit" of snow. 

This photo is thanks to the Lane County History Museum (duh). Eugene snow of '69. This photo actually looks like it was taken later in the snow storm, after all had fallen and some had melted. 

Remembering the Big Snow - The Eugene Register Guard

I just recall sitting in front of our living room window while large white flakes began to fall. The following day, the same thing. Large, fluffy flakes fell to the earth, filling up areas on the ground fast. The snow fell for several days, pretty much non-stop. Shut the city of Eugene down for about two to three weeks. 

Being Saturday, we chose a lighter dinner tonight. I'm making a Greek salad and calling it a day. Terry used to eat at a place in San Diego where he had Greek salad and fell in love with it. So, I told him I would give him the same thing only in the home. We purchased the ingredients yesterday and we are ready to eat it tonight. Yum. We will "get him to the Greek," so to speak. 

"Traditional Greek Salad" - Delish.com

I'm going to leave this here, filling in the rest of the story tomorrow. Once again the weekend is flying by. Next weekend we have Zyrah's two year birthday party and we can't wait! The family will be gathering again, but this time in a gymnastics venue for the party. 

Until our next blog post, once again, thank you, friends. We appreciate all of you. My husband and I hope your week is filled with fun and happiness. Take care and we'll see you on the flip side!