Optimizing Your Workspace

Here in Bend we have a wonderful island in the kitchen area that is about 4ft x 6ft. Since I have many needs (and no spouse here to tell me otherwise) this is the current view of that island:



Note that there are NO dirty dishes on this island - this is a work area! All of the dirty dishes are stacked up in the sink where they belong! Hopefully they will be moved to the dishwasher at some point, but that is a low priority for me now.

The Trashing of Unit 1112

It could have been a lot worse - I'm saying this now since I need to keep things in the proper perspective.

Yesterday I started the process of cleaning up one of our two rental units. They are of course by terms of the rental agreement to be left clean when the renter leaves. Not so much so this time around...

The refrigerator was TOTALLY filled with food - most of it way past the end of it's useful life. For an example - the freezer:


And what is that gunk in the bottom of the crisper drawer?


The bathroom? Well just a couple of examples:



The cabinets had a few good examples also:


And lastly - how dirty can a floor get?

First Morning in Bend - and what about that lock?

Well this is my first full day back in Bend. Helen stayed in KC to watch over the last of the work on the kitchen. I came to Bend because our friends and partners Robert and Diane are going on a two-week motorcycle road trip and there are things that need to be attended to at our condos.

Of course I woke up about 5:30 AM this morning - the old body is still on KC time. So I got dressed and decided to get some things from the garage, closed the door behind me and when I went to go back in the house - LOCKED DOOR. So I spent from then until 8:15 waiting to get Robert to bring his key over to let me back in the house.

The only "good" thing about this is that Robert said that Helen did the same thing when she was here last month! Don't remember her telling me that...

What The?

Yesterday Helen and I went to our favorite (?) bank to get into our safe deposit box.

The summer intern (my assumption not confirmed by any real info) led us to our box only to discover a "button" stuck in the key slot of the box. Confused Look from intern. Intern says "I'll Be Back". Fear arises - isn't that what the Terminator said?

In the meantime we are roaming around the vault and see a sheet of paper that tells us what the button means. The color was black - so apparently I am deceased!

Intern returns with a Real Employee (one who we assume is experienced). At this point we are both laughing our ____es off - this is pretty much par for the course with us these days. Real Employee says to Helen: "are you Mildred"? - apparently my existence is dependent upon my spouse identifying herself, WITHOUT any form of identification.

SO - we are given access to the box. The explanation, which seems reasonable since it came from the Real Employee is that people bring their children into the room and the children move the buttons around.

No further comment.....