Sunday, 20 April 2025: Christ has risen! Happy Easter

We started the day with Mimosas and a French croissant breakfast bake to go along with Sunday morning news shows.  Yes, I’ve joined Justin in this ritual.  It’s just a train wreck and I can’t look away.  Later in the day we enjoyed deviled eggs before our special dinner of Gigantes Plaki (Greek baked beans), Kleftiko (Greek Lamb Cooked in Parchment), and, for dessert, Carrot cheese cake.  What a feast!  And, since it was just the two of us, we will have leftovers. 

 

We’ve started projects around the house.  We took out the closet in the bedroom as we will install the shoji doors.  Since we are in the upstairs bedroom, we’ve been inspired to fine tune things up there.  We got shoji doors out from the basement that will now serve as the window treatment for the windows toward Gloria’s house.  

It seems as if we are going with all shoji- all the time.  We bought some shoji-like room dividers from Wayfair to serve as the window treatment in the living room.  I don’t mind going without drapes all together, but we’ve been too exposed on the street side for too long. 

Here’s a story: several years ago we bought the shoji doors from Wayfair.  We paid $700 or $800 and when they arrived they were damaged.  They offered to refund our money since they didn’t have another in the color we wanted.  And they didn’t have us return the damaged one.  Now, perhaps you know, I can replace shoji with the best of them.  Score!!  Now, several years later, the shoji room dividers we bought also arrived damaged.  I contacted the good folks at customer service ice at Wayfair who told me they’d send replacement parts.  I wondered what that would look like.  I didn’t have to wait long before an entire new 4-panel screen arrived.  If Wayfair keeps good records they might not let me order anything else.  We will see.  

Wednesday, 3 April 2025:

Democrats won the state Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin . Justin and I did our part in voting yesterday!  

Today we celebrated by having dinner with Bill and Mary Jo. Rosetta’s in DePere. Pretty darn good Italian and great!!! for Green Bay. It’s always good to visit with our friends.  

I talked to Lorayne today and continued cleaning the house. It’s a beast to get it back to somewhere we can live comfortably. Justin has all these ideas and plans and I just want to cook. Our first trip to the grocery store was Woodman’s and was just over $400. Sam's was about $120. At least it will be a couple of days before I need to go back. We still need to go to Nancy’s to get eggs and anything else she has going. 

Sunday, 30 March 2025: home at Hartung

We are home!

We started our day with Sunday morning news shows: Vance visits Greenland, measles outbreaks across the nation, tariffs abound, relation with Canada plummet, the stock market tanks, strike plans shared over chat in Signal.  It just goes on and on.  And where are we?  We are not even 100 days into this term.    

Saturday, 29 March 2025: on the road to Hartung

 First stop — Arrowhead Stadium. It was only a drive by but that’s all the Chiefs get today.  

Kansas City capital building was the most unique in architecture of the buildings we've seen this trip.  We had a change to photo bomb a wedding but decided against that.  

Iowa City, and a drive by Nile C Kinnick Stadium at the University or Iowa, had been on our list but now we were ready to be home.  

Somewhere on the road I made a list of the states I haven’t visited.  I still need to go to Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.

Friday, 28 March 2025: Kansas City

We celebrated in Kansas City with a stop at "Extra Virgin" in the Crossroads Arts District.  The tapas on the menu convinced me this would be the perfect place to celebrate the recent bump in our bank account.  We were not disappointed. 

We added Topeka, Kansas to the list of stops so now, what started as the four city tour has turned into a State Capital tour also. 

Our next favorite stop in Kansas City was The American Jazz Museum.  The Blue Room is Jazz Museum by day and a 1930s era night club by night.  The three female singers were, well, all over the place.  The three instrumentalists were magnificent.  

I don’t get many phone calls these days it seems. Sometimes I can go for days with texts, WhatsApp, and emails. Yesterday while in the cowboy museum I received two phone calls. One from the title company telling me the funds were delayed (AARGH!) and the second from a company calling about CPAP supplies. Thankfully, the title company called back early this morning and now we know we were “clear to close” and funds were in the way!!!  221 Winter is in the rearview mirror. 

Thursday, 27 March 2025: OKC

Comfort Inn and Suites in OKC. Here’s one we’d never had happen:  we unloaded the car onto a trolley.  I went to park the car and Justin headed to our room.  There was someone in our room!  He scrambled leaving his baseball cap and his still warm cup’a’noodles.  They ungraded us to a different room — how weird. Goodness!!!

We went to the Oklahoma City Natl Memorial & Museum at the Murray Federal Building.  Very somber.  And very impactful.

 Next stop was the Oklahoma capital bldg. Spectacular. Simply spectacular. They’ve done a magnificent job of restoration. No, it’s not as tall as Texas, but in the same style. And, yes, they have their own working oil rig on the capital grounds. 

We didn’t make it to the stockyards and the auctions are open to the public on Mondays and Tuesdays so we will need to come back.  But we did take time to enjoy a late lunch at Bedlams BBQ — yes, this was a five star joint.  

Then on to the Natl Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum where we spent too much time in the boot display before we were on the road toward Kansas City.  

When I lived in Yokosuka, people who didn’t travel to Bali or Beijing or Seoul for Christmas or Easter often said they were going on the “three city tour” referring to Yokohama, Yokosuka and Hayama.  This trip was inspired by that three city tour… we started in Texas City, then Oklahoma City and now Kansas City.  We will also work in Missouri City and maybe even Iowa City as we find our way back to Green Bay.  For tonight we slept in Emporia, Kansas. Just a stop in the road for us on our journey north.