Spring may not quite be here, but February gives us a taste of the warmer days to come when the almond blossoms begin making their annual appearance. Missing the days of his blossom walks, Glenn takes a moment from his exercise excursion around the neighborhood to pose by one of the colorful displays. Photo by Glenn.
February 26, 2023: Well, it was bound to happen eventually, and this month it finally did. After roughly 3 years and 2 months, we all got sick. Not with COVID, thankfully, but with your run-of-the-mill bacterial infection. Just one of those raw throat, runny nose sort of things that stays with you for a few days and then runs its course.
Pop culture is on display at the magazine stand inside our local Raley's market. Elvis, Audrey Hepburn, The Beatles, Frank Sinatra and others share space with crossword puzzle mags in this scene from early February. Photo by Glenn.
The Chiefs are Super Bowl Champions again. Photo by Glenn.
Roni decided it was time to tackle the weeds in the front yard beside the mailbox. It was no small undertaking, as some of the roots ran very deep and were entangled with the rose bush. With more rain in the forecast, it is likely this won't be the last weeding of the season. Photo by Glenn.
While Roni was weeding in the front yard, we had a colorful visitor on the back patio. Photo by Glenn.
Who's stalking whom? The neighbor's cat that we call Nomad (because she is always in our yard) has been checking out the peacok on his walk through the garden. She doesn't know what she's up against. Photo by Glenn.
We think this is what the male peacocks do only when they are showing off for the ladies. In this case the colorful plume is a message for the cat — back off, buddy! Photo by Glenn.
Clearly she is offended by the peacock's attitude. "Hey, human, protect me." Photo by Glenn.
Our cat Phoenix isn't much interested in the peacocks when they come to call, and he is still very weak after months of our efforts to nurture him back to health. He does enjoy the sunny spot on our bed at this time of year. Photo by Glenn.
We usually put the blanket over Phoenix when it gets cold in the house, since he has so little body mass these days that he can't generate his own warmth. Note the one open eye — he's watching us. Photo by Glenn.
King Charles III is now featured on the face of the 2£ Britannia silver coin. Britain's monarch or not, "he's one ugly dude," as Glenn described him. Image via APMEX.
This is the reverse side of the Britannia with its very attractive design. If you ask us, the Royal Mint got the two sides of their official coin mixed up. Glenn added this to his collection during February. Image via APMEX.
We've had some crazy weather so far this year, including significant snowfall around parts of the Bay Area within the past week. It's a quarter past 3 a.m. on Feb. 15, and the outdoor temperature at our house hovers just above freezing. We've been running our indoor heat a lot more than we like to this winter. Photo by Glenn.
A closeup of almond blossoms on a tree growing near the sidewalk on Walnut Meadows Drive in Oakley. Photo by Glenn.
Here's the same tree as the image above. The Cline Vineyard relocated hundreds of ancient grape vines to this piece of land several years ago to make way for what is today the Amazon warehouses at the western edge of town. The land had been designated for years to become a neighborhood park, but the funds never came available, so it was decided to let Cline use the property. Almond trees are planted around the fence line to help promote polination, but they also provide a colorful, fragrant display during the spring. Photo by Glenn.
We’re talking about Roni and Glenn, who last got colds during their cruise to Panama and subsequent vacation in Key West, Florida. Not Ben, who has been sick multiple times since 2019, all through the thick of the pandemic, and while he also has never had COVID that we are aware of, he has nonetheless been more exposed to it than the rest of us because of his work at the grocery store.
Roni came down with the symptoms first. We don’t know how exactly, but we suspect it might have been on a visit to the eye doctor at Kaiser late last month. Just because they make all patients wear masks doesn’t mean the place isn’t crawling with other germs. If you want to be healthy, don’t hang around sick people at hospitals.
Or at home, in Glenn’s case. Once Roni was sick, it was just a matter of time before Glenn started feeling his own symptoms. As Ben noted, “you two share the same bed.” True enough. And the same towels, meals, living room, air… you get the idea. It’s hard to be married and not expect to share the gift of a cold now and then, hence the reason the preacher has to add the “in sickness and in health” part to the wedding vows.
The good news is that our colds are already history. Glenn got sick after Roni but recovered first. Roni’s symptoms lingered a few days longer, but we blame that more on her lack of tonsils which allowed her sinuses to drain more into her throat. Ben’s doing better too.
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EDICAL FACILITIES ARE about the only places currently still requiring people to mask up. That goes for dental offices, as well, and we’ve also put in our time at those this month. Glenn was due for his semiannual cleaning roughly around the end of January, but it is easy to forget those appointments when life gets busy. Fortunately — or perhaps unfortunately — Glenn is a patient of Western Dental, and they will schedule your routine appointments for you if you don’t do so first.
In Glenn’s case, he got a text informing him that his cleaning had been scheduled for 4 p.m. on Feb. 20. Nothing wrong with that, except that it happened to be Presidents Day. Don’t dentists take holidays?
Apparently some of them do. When Glenn arrived for his appointment that afternoon, not only was the waiting room packed (and fewer than half of the patients were wearing masks), but he learned on check-in that one of the doctors was out and so the “routine” appointment might take about 90 minutes to two hours. They offered to reschedule, but given that he was already in the office and just wanted to get the appointment over with, Glenn decided to stick around.
It was less than half an hour before they called him in for X-rays and then sat him down in the exam chair. Well, maybe that meant the line was moving faster than expected. Nope. Just because they put you in a chair doesn’t mean you get seen right away, and so it was that Glenn sat for almost 45 minutes while other patients — many of them families with kids who presumably chose the holiday for a dental visit so as to avoid having to miss school — were in and out.
Eventually a harried dentist did come around to see Glenn. He took a look at his X-rays and said, “Those are beautiful crowns. Did we do those?” Um, no. “Looks like you guys are a little busy today,” Glenn said. “That’s what happens when they schedule 40-45 patients on the same day,” the dentist muttered. Oh, and by the way, Glenn’s teeth looked fine.
The whole interaction took about a minute, then Glenn was directed back to the front office and made to wait in a consultation room — which was odd, because the normal procedure is to move on to the next station for a visit with the hygienist to have your teeth cleaned and polished. Instead, a receptionist came by a few minutes later to inform Glenn that there were too many patients and they wouldn’t be able to clean his teeth that afternoon, would he be able to come back tomorrow at 2?
Normally a return trip to the dentist is something to be avoided as it usually means a date with the drill. This is the first time Glenn can remember having had a two-appointment cleaning!
The Tuesday afternoon visit was a complete contrast to the Presidents Day appointment. The waiting room was dead. There was virtually no wait to be seen. The hygienist was in and out of Glenn’s mouth in about 10 minutes, during which he learned a valuable tip for the next time: Don’t let Western Dental schedule your cleaning appointments. Ever.
The reason, as it was explained, is that when they set up the appointment for you, they assume you need full X-rays and an exam, not just the cleaning. And they’ll book you at their convenience, not necessarily yours. Lesson learned. So next time, Glenn will wait to be scheduled, then cancel it and set up his own time. But let’s face it, no one ever wants to go to the dentist, so in some ways it is easiest to just let them make the appointment for you. The good news is that now he won’t have to go back for six more months.
The same is not the case for Ben, who has been living in dental hell for the past eight months. Through a combination of neglect and unfortunate circumstances, Ben has incurred multiple painful and expensive procedures that he’s hoped were nearing their end this winter, but it appears now he will be looking at a few more months of major work.
If there is a silver lining to his experience — beyond the silver of amalgam fillings — it is that he has become much more conscientious of his oral hygiene and is turning into a religious brusher. The dentist turned him on to an electric toothbrush that he bought on Amazon, so every night before he heads to bed we can hear it whirring away. We tell Ben that if he ever tires of grocery work that he should go to school to study dentistry. Much like plumbers and electricians, dentists labor in a recession-proof industry.
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PEAKING OF THINGS silver, Glenn has been back to adding to his growing stash of collectible coins and precious metals. He still doesn’t think of it as an investment so much as buying pieces for their aesthetic qualities, preferring to display them as tiny works of art.
In late January, he placed another $200 order with APMEX in order to secure the new Britannia bullion coin with an effigy of King Charles III. It is the first new monarch to appear on a British coin in nearly seven decades, and Glenn wanted to secure one for his collection, figuring they would sell out quickly despite the fact that Charles isn’t the most attractive face ever to adorn a silver coin — “He’s one ugly dude,” Glenn commented upon seeing the piece up close.
The Brittania by itself was not what brought the order to $200. Silver at the time was selling for around $23.80 an ounce, and even with APMEX’s markup the price was around $32 for the Charles coin. But the company also charges tax and shipping on orders under $200, so it isn’t inconceivable that more than 25 percent of a small order can be absorbed by taxes and fees. Better to save the shipping cost if you can to buy more silver. Which is what Glenn did, buying a total of six pieces.
Some of the other finds in the order included a Canadian Maple Leaf, the new uncirculated American Eagle, a silver Krugerrand from South Africa, and an Australian round commemorating the Year of the Rabbit on the lunar calendar. While the acrylic display case he received for Christmas is rapidly filling up, Glenn still is saving a slot for a gold piece he hopes eventually to acquire. At least that one will be a shoe-in for free shipping!
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HEN IT COMES to investments this month, Sean has us all beat. Glenn’s brother got engaged to his girlfriend Chi on Valentine’s Day, breaking the news on the family group chat with a photo of a diamond ring on her finger and a message that said simply, “So, this happened.”
What “happens” next is anyone’s guess at this point, although we’ve been told a wedding is likely in the cards for this coming August or October. It’s definitely an exciting time for our family, as Sean is the last of the Gehlke siblings to tie the knot after years of speculation that it might never happen. Sean will always be the baby of our family, but at 47 he’s no kid anymore. We all just want him to be happy, and we’re happy for him.
Amid all of this, we are in the planning stages for what would be our third cruise if it comes together this year. Glenn’s parents gifted us a cruise for Christmas in 2021, but life got in the way last year and we never booked it. The plan then was to sail to Hawaii, a place we’ve never been. But we weren’t sure whether we wanted to sail out of San Francisco, which would have meant about half of the 14 days at sea, or fly to the islands first and catch our cruise from there, eliminating many of the sea days.
Then we got started thinking about Alaska — another place we’ve never been that always looks intriguing. We were starting to lean that way when Glenn’s mom called up asking if we might want to go to the British Isles. Okay, scrap those other West Coast itineraries and let’s start thinking about a hop across the pond to see England, Ireland and Scotland. We’re suffering a bit of culture shock and we haven’t even gone anywhere yet. Maybe by next month we’ll have this figured out.
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S WE GET ready to wrap up this short month’s short newsletter, we, like many other Americans, are keeping an eye on the news for any developments on the health of former President Jimmy Carter. Our nation’s 39th president went into hospice care last week at the age of 98, setting off a wave of remembrances and tributes. Glenn has been working on one himself that isn’t quite ready for prime time, so we hope Mr. Carter isn’t too eager to end his time on this mortal coil. But when he finally does, we’ll have just a little something to add to the conversation
In the meantime, Godspeed Mr. President. We’ll keep you and your family in our prayers.
