Last infusion

Image from last weekend's family reunion.

Mrs. Random’s last infusion (immunotherapy) was today! Her chemo port comes out next week. The end of that ordeal of a year is nicely transitioning into the new exciting phase of buying and moving into a new house.

Overnight trips again

The Deschutes River near downtown Bend, July 26.

        Friday night was the first time since September 2019 that I’ve slept overnight somewhere other than in our bed. Nearly six years! The pandemic put the initial cramp in my style. We’d been used to taking a least 3-4 trips a year with overnight stays, and then in 2020 I started staying home with the kitties when Mrs. R would go visit her family in Bend. But this last weekend they had a family reunion / memorial for her mom, who passed away in the spring. So we had a friend feed our cats and I made the bold step of coming along! It was quite fun, and I’m glad I did it. There was a psychological hurdle to get past, for sure. But now I’m good for overnight trips again, which is good because we’ve got one coming up in a couple months to go see Sparks perform in Portland!!

Depending on how things go

July 21, North Bottomlands Loop, Howard Buford Recreation Area.

        It’s not like I feel bad, exactly, about not blogging. It’s more like the feeling of wasting a resource. But that’s silly, of course.

        First of all, having made this list for a friend, I’ll go ahead and share it here, for what it’s worth. I have pared my collection down to 17 typewriters this year, from a peak of around 45 machines back in 2018. Here they are:

Adler J5

Royal Empress

Hermes 3000

Hermes Rocket

Montgomery Ward Escort 350

Olivetti-Underwood 21

Olivetti-Underwood Lettera 32

Olympia SM3

Olympia SM9 (“Elite-1”)

Olympia SM9 (“Elite-2”)

Olympia SM9 (“Pica-1”)

Olympia SM9 (“Script”)

Smith-Corona Classic 12

Smith-Corona Galaxie 12

Smith-Corona Skyriter

Smith-Corona Silent

Underwood 320

        Next of all, a little updating regarding our new-house-getting adventure. As noted in the previous entry, our offer was accepted. Then we had a house inspection done and the sewer scoped. The former didn’t really uncover anything major. Some things here and there need to be dealt with at some point, but we can take care of them in our own time. The sewer, however, needs to be repaired, to the tune of several thousand dollars. We submitted an addendum to our original offer asking for a corresponding reduction in the house price, and today we found out that the seller has agreed! Tomorrow they have movers coming to empty the house, and then there are two days of deep cleaning scheduled. Once the house is empty and clean, we can close! So that could happen as early as this week, I suppose. But realistically we are fine with next week.

        Once we take possession, we’ll get the sewer repaired, look into getting a gas insert for the upstairs fireplace, and hopefully get that done soon. We’ll also try to get a few basic repairs done that were noted by the inspection team. While those things are happening, we’re planning to start moving stuff over that we don’t need access to at the old house, like typewriters, CDs, LPs, books, clothing, etc., etc. We’ll also make sure we’ve got chairs and a table, glasses and beverages, and something to play music on over there, so we can hang out and enjoy the vibe of our new house. We don’t foresee actually living there until late next month, depending on how things go. Things are (finally) about to get busy and crazy!

OFFER ACCEPTED

July 16, Howard Buford Recreation Area.

So little of note to blog about lately. Radio, hiking, photography, typewriters, repeat. Same old same old. HOWEVER, today our offer on the new house was officially accepted, YAY!!! Finally the owners are getting their crap out, inspections are scheduled, movers are scheduled, deep cleaning is scheduled. We will close “on or before August 8th,” according to the documents everybody signed yesterday and today.

It feels like it’s been a long process to get to this point! We started looking for a new house on March 9. We heard about this particular house on April 15—an unlisted private-deal opportunity. We expressed our interest immediately, and the seller basically agreed verbally to sell it to us. But he hasn’t been in much of a hurry to clear out the place and complete the deal (he moved to Portland eight months ago), so we’ve put off making an official offer. The house is actually still full of crap. His daughters have been coming down from Portland on weekends and taking what they can by car, which has only slightly dented the totality of the house’s contents.

But this week we heard that actual movers have been scheduled to remove the rest of the stuff by July 28, and deep cleaning is scheduled right after that. Enough movement seems to have happened by this week that our agent went ahead and drafted an offer, and we signed it yesterday. It was accepted today. We can go ahead and have building and sewer inspections done next week. We should be able to take possession of our new house during the first week of August. And I finally have something new to blog about!