Labor Day

A few notes about yesterday's activities and plans for today.

Muffins, Muffins - Jean's Got Some Muffins

First thing yesterday morning I helped Jean make a batch of her favorite banana-bran-chocolate chip muffins. Well, actually a DOUBLE batch. I cleaned up all of the cooking dishes right afterwards as she had plenty of bananas left to make a second batch later in the day. While I was at work at my computer later in the day (see below) she made the second batch and I cleaned the muffin tins a second time. She has frozen most of them, though Deb took some with her back to college yesterday afternoon.

Deb Is Safely Home

Deb came home for two days. We enjoyed Sabbath together - Deb and I led the singing for church. Sabbath evening we finished transferring files, programs and her wireless network card to her new computer and got it ready to go back to college with her. She left mid-afternoon so that she would get back to college before dark and hopefully before the traffic was too heavy. We got a call that she made it there safely before 7 PM.

ABFM Patient Simulation

Every year to maintain family practice certification we have to complete a knowledge base exam and a patient simulation. I have been studying the syllabus for hypertension through the summer and took the exam a couple weekends ago. This weekend I did the patient simulation.

Most family physicians take about 1 1/2 hours to complete it. A window popped up afte 90 minutes pointing this fact out and asking if I needed help! I closed the window and struggled on. Eventually I got the patient's blood pressure controlled for 3 visits and made no serious errors - I didn't see the option to give her an information sheet about high blood pressure, an ommision that was not judged serious. I passed the simulation and am all set until next year, when I will understand the process a lot better.

Driveway Preparation

It's been 3 years since we applied driveway sealer to our driveway. This year is the year to do it again. And it is clearly time to do it. Yesterday I took a weed whacker and trimmed the grass and weeds at the edege of the driveway and walkway. Then I swept the driveway and used a hose to wash off all the visible organic debris. Jean put up red caution tapes around the driveway and before I started cleaning the drive, she moved our cars onto the edge of the road. Today is the day!

Clarinet Maintenance

After we came back from WalMart, where we found a sale of children's life jackets (we bought 3 for next summer), and visiting Allison and Brian for a few minutes, I decided to do some maintenance on Allison's clarinet and my "old" clarinet seeing that my "new" clarinet is in the shop.

The good news is that the bore of both clarinets looks a LOT better after putting bore oil to them. My old clarinet actually had a crack starting to form on the inside of the tuning barrel which is hardly visible after a liberal application of bore oil. Bill Sweet said that LeBlanc bore oil is the best and I stopped and bought a bottle at what used to be Eastern Musical in West Falmouth on the way home last week. I also applied key oil to Allison's clarinet keys (I ran out of time for putting it to my old clarinet's keys). So her clarinet is a lot better now.

The bad news is that both of our clarinets need work on their corks. The lower cork on the top joint has come off while I was working on it. There is nothing wrong with the cork except that it needs to be glued back in place. I may be able to get Eastern Musical to glue it in place. Other corks on both instruments are looking worn and frayed, so they will need attention eventually.

Potato Picking

Today I spend a couple hours picking up potatoes as they are dug at the Community Farm we are members of just a mile or so from our home: 10 AM - 12 Noon. I hope to have the driveway done before I go - we'll see.