Ray
spouse of Margaret
Contact
born May 30, 1953 · 73 on Oct 5, 2026
260linked records
197mentions
52questions
2011–2026saved
What the account says about Ray
457 records, oldest first2011
Jan 8
Peg Ostrander
Jan 10
Social Security · Ray
Jan 10
The cabin, Skein Lake
Jan 12
Hawkstone Drive (home)
Jan 29
Passport · Ray
Feb 10
OSTRANDER, RAYMOND CARL · Ray
Feb 22
Lucas's fishing log (the app Ray put on for him)
He enters every fish. Ray looks at it more than Lucas does.
Apr 12
Diamond pendant
Round solitaire, 0.40 ct, on an 18-inch chain. Mother's Day 1998, from Ray and the children. Appraised at $1,450 in 2024.
May 8
Opening weekend, May 7 and 8. Earl had the water on by Thursday.
One mouse nest in the silverware drawer. The screen on the lake-side bedroom window is torn at the corner. Ray patched it; needs replacing.
Dock: three deck boards soft at the shore end. Ray replaced them Sunday morning with 2x6 cedar from Lakeland Hardware, $41.16. He says the cribs underneath are the real problem.…
May 15
Owen Raymond Sievert, born yesterday, May 14, at 3:52 in the morning. Eight pou…
…nds one ounce. Ellen is well. I am writing this in her guest room in Naperville with Gus asleep across the doorway.
We were up north. It was our second weekend at the cabin. I was down at the shore at a quarter to six with my coffee, on the bench by the boathouse, because the loons came back to the island on Thursda…
Jun 10
Ray's physical, Dr. Niemczyk. BP 138/86, weight 221. Fasting glucose 108, which…
…he called borderline. Told to lose fifteen pounds and walk. PSA 1.8.
Jul 10
Owen's quilt, finished today. No. 31 in the quilt book.
Sailboats. Twelve 9-inch blocks, navy sashing; 40 x 51 finished. Backing is the anchor print from Stitchery Lane.
Label: "For Owen Raymond, from Grandma Peg, 2011. No. 31."
Hannah's was no. 29 (the ducks).
2012
Jun 29
NORWAY, June 14 to 28, 2012: the log, from the pocket notebook.
June 14-15. Bus to O'Hare, overnight to Copenhagen, Bergen by noon. Hotel on the hill above the harbour.
June 16-17, Bergen. Rain both days. Bryggen, the fish market (Ray ate a sample of whale before I could read him the sign), the funicular up Fløyen. Grieg's house at Troldhaugen on the 17th; take the bus, not the t…
Jul 8
Fourth of July week, cabin.
- Hannah (3 1/2) caught her first fish off the dock on Thursday, a sunfish. Ray held the rod.
- Loons: no chick this year. Per Bev, the pair sat on the island nest in May and the black flies drove them off it.
- Flag cake needs 2 pints of blueberries and 2 of red berries. Write it on the recipe.
For the calendar: Dav…
Sep 21
Pack for Estes Park
Oct 27
Ray's Omega
Omega Seamaster automatic, 1968, his father Carl's. Case reference 166.010, movement number 26418337. Serviced in 2021 (new crystal and mainspring, $640). He wears it to church and to weddings.
Nov 9
Skein Lake Association - the treasurer's email
Ray has been treasurer since 2020. It passes to the next treasurer with the cheque book.
2013
Jun 1
Ray's sixtieth birthday dinner
The Nordic Table, four of us, with Lorraine and Hal. · Ray's sixtieth birthday dinner
Jun 11
STOPPED February 2020, raised to 20 mg. Started June 2013. · Ray
STOPPED February 2020, raised to 20 mg. Started June 2013.
Jun 11
Ray's physical. BP 152/94, then 148/92; the third high reading this spring. Sta…
…rted lisinopril 10 mg. Weight 224. Fasting glucose 117.
Oct 19
The dock. Per Ray: the shore crib lifted 4 inches last spring when the ice went…
…late. Third section is out of level 2 1/2 inches over 8 feet. Two posts are rotted at the waterline. It can be shimmed one more year. It should not be.
The old dock is 40 feet and was here when we bought the place.
Quote from Pike Bay Dock & Marine: a 48-foot aluminum roll-in dock, six 8-foot sections, with decking…
2014
Mar 20
Ray's colonoscopy, 7:30. I drive.
Apr 26
Ray's colonoscopy, Dr. Iverson. Two small polyps removed, both tubular adenomas…
…. Repeat in five years.
Jun 15
The new dock went in yesterday, Saturday, June 14. Pike Bay, three men and a tr…
…ailer.
Per Ray:
- Six sections, 8 feet each, 48 feet. Aluminum frame. Decking panels lift out.
- Wheels on the lake end. Rolls in and out on its own axle. Earl and his boy will do it spring and fall.
- Legs adjust with a crank. Deck set 14 inches above the water at the end. Check level every Memorial Day.
- Bench bo…
Jul 15
Ray's debit card PIN
Platteville in 1975, the firm in 1978. He told me so that I would stop asking.
Sep 21
Zostavax, the old one-dose shingles vaccine. Later redone with Shingrix.
Dec 27
Heronwood Credit Union - online banking
Checking and savings, both joint. Ray has never signed in. The security question is the first dog: Tippy.
2015
Mar 14
Sunset Ridge - certificate for the two plots (1999)
Mar 17
Ray. A1c 7.4, fasting glucose 148. Dr. Niemczyk says it is type 2 diabetes and…
…no longer borderline. Metformin 500 mg twice a day, a meter and strips, and the diabetes class at Arbor Bluff on April 8 and 15. Weight 226.
Mar 17
R. has diabetes. Type 2, per Dr. Niemczyk this afternoon; "no longer borderline…
…" were his words. A pill twice a day, a meter, a box of strips, and two classes at Arbor Bluff in April, which I am going to as well.
He asked for the numbers, asked what the numbers ought to be, and wrote both down. In the car he said, "So it's a maintenance problem." I said yes. He said, "I can do maintenance."
T…
Mar 18
Ray: diabetes, type 2, per Dr. Niemczyk yesterday (March 17).
- Metformin 500 mg, twice a day, with breakfast and with supper. With food, always.
- A meter, lancets and 100 strips. He tests every morning before he eats and writes the number down. Dr. N. wants the morning number between 80 and 130.
- The three-month number (A1c) was 7.4. He wants it under 7. It is checked again i…
Mar 20
STOPPED January 2019, replaced by 1000 mg twice a day. Dr. Niemczyk started it… · Ray
STOPPED January 2019, replaced by 1000 mg twice a day. Dr. Niemczyk started it in March 2015 when the diabetes was diagnosed.
Mar 28
Ray's morning number, 164. Day 11.
Apr 15
Second diabetes class tonight. The dietitian is about twenty-six and holds up r…
…ubber models of food. R. took notes in his field book and asked her to define "moderate."
At home he has made a chart. The morning readings are plotted in pencil against the day of the month, with a line ruled across at the number he is aiming for, and it is taped inside the cupboard door where the coffee is. He wal…
May 3
Per Ray, the new boat.
Before the ramp:
1. Drain plug IN. Check it by hand. Check it again.
2. Transom straps OFF. Bow strap stays ON until the boat is floating.
3. Motor tilted UP. Trailer lights unplugged before the trailer goes in the water.
4. Key, life jackets, bow line in the boat.
Breaking in the motor, first ten hours:
- First hour…
May 26
Airline miles - Ray's
I made his when I made mine, with my password, or it would never have been made.
Jun 19
Carl's cufflinks
Ray's father's, engraved C.O. In the tray in the bedroom safe. Never appraised; Ingrid said they are worth more to us than to anyone.
Jul 6
Family week 2015. Eleven people.
- Loons: two chicks.
- The Lund holds five by its plate. Ray's rule is four.
- Walleye for eleven: 16 fillets. Next year buy potatoes for 14, not 11.
- The sofa bed has a bar. Look at a new mattress for it.
Aug 9
Gave R. his birthday present ten weeks late, because the painter was slow: a wa…
…tercolor of a musky by Walter Kivisto, long and narrow, every scale accounted for. From Paddle & Easel. He hung it in the cabin hallway himself, with a level.
He is sixty-two and sixteen pounds lighter than in March, and yesterday he walked to the landing and back for no reason.
Aug 10
Musky
Fish study by Walter Kivisto, a late present for Ray's 62nd birthday. Cabin hallway. Value is the gallery's price for a similar one in 2024.
Sep 22
R.'s six-month check. Eighteen pounds gone, and the number that matters is back…
…where Dr. Niemczyk wanted it. Dr. Niemczyk came round the desk and shook his hand. R. has mentioned the handshake three times since four o'clock.
I did not think he would do it.
Sep 22
Ray, six-month check. A1c 6.8. Weight 208, which is eighteen pounds down. Dr. N…
…iemczyk shook his hand.
Sep 23
Ray says, what he did, March 17 to September 22. Weight 226 to 208. A1c 7.4 to…
…6.8.
1. Same breakfast every day: oatmeal, one egg, coffee.
2. Walk after supper, the Hawkstone loop, 2.1 miles, about 38 minutes.
3. No second helping of anything white.
4. Beer: Friday and Saturday, one.
Oct 18
Per Ray: putting the Lund away.
1. Last tank of the season gets stabilizer. Run the motor ten minutes so it is all through.
2. Engine oil and filter. Warm, not hot.
3. Lower unit: drain from the bottom screw, look at what comes out. Milky means water and a bad seal; Pike Bay. Clear and dark is right. Refill from the bottom until it runs out the top.…
Dec 20
R. has given them the date: Friday, January 29. Thirty-eight years at Brennecke…
…& Voss. He told the partners on Tuesday and me on Monday.
I have a year and a half to go, if I go when I mean to. I asked what he plans to do all day while I am at school. He said, "Whatever I want, quietly."
Julia is expecting again, in March; we have known since Thanksgiving. David rang tonight to say that all is…
Dec 28
Ray retires January 29. The health insurance, per the district benefits office…
…this morning:
- He comes off the Brennecke & Voss plan on January 31.
- He goes onto mine, Kettlestone, as my spouse, from February 1. I filled in the form today. They need a letter from his firm giving the last day of his coverage. ASK HIM TO ASK THEM.
- He stays on mine until his Medicare starts at 65 (May 2018).…
2016
Jan 8
Ray's last day. Lunch at the Nordic Table at noon.
Jan 29
R. retired today. Thirty-eight years, one employer. They gave him a lunch at th…
…e Nordic Table, forty people, and a Hamilton wristwatch with his initials and the years engraved on the back. The senior partner said that no bridge R. designed has ever been closed for anything but paint. R. stood up, said thank you, said the coffee had never improved in all that time, and sat down.
Jim Hrdlicka dr…
Jan 30
Ray's retirement watch
Hamilton Jazzmaster automatic. Engraved on the back - R.C. Ostrander, 38 years, Brennecke & Voss, 1978-2016. A present from the firm; they told Ray it cost about $895. Never appraised.
Jan 30
Ray's last day, Friday, January 29, 2016. Thirty-eight years. Lunch at the Nord…
…ic Table, forty people.
The firm gave him a watch, a Hamilton, engraved on the back: "R.C. Ostrander, 38 years, Brennecke & Voss, 1978-2016." One of the partners let slip that it cost about $895. It needs to go on the jewelry list.
Thank-you notes: the partners (one note, from both of us), Jim Hrdlicka, the women i…
Feb 11
I'm not underfoot. I'm on site.
Feb 14
Ray says, about the new stereo in the den:
1. Do not lift the turntable with the platter on it. The platter is glass and it is loose.
2. Do not touch the needle. Do not dust the needle. He has a brush.
3. Tracking weight is set. Leave the little dial alone.
4. The lid stays down when it is not playing.
5. Records go back in the sleeve, sleeve opening UP, then…
Feb 14
Two weeks of R. at home. He has alphabetized the spices, labeled the breaker pa…
…nel, and bought himself a stereo (a receiver and a turntable, yesterday, at Brightline). I came home Thursday to find the kitchen drawers rearranged "by frequency of use," and I said a thing I had to apologize for.
Valentine's Day. He gave me a card and a new latch on the back gate. I gave him Brubeck on vinyl.
Feb 15
Stereo receiver
Ray's retirement stereo, in the den. About $250 now.
Feb 26
Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough)
Mar 2
Ray's new glasses, progressive lenses
Apr 3
Table saw
In the garage shop, from Millrace Tool & Supply. The electrician added a 230 V circuit for it. Ray says $4,100 to replace new; used, about $2,500.
Apr 3
Per Ray: the new table saw.
SawStop cabinet saw, 3 hp, 230 volt. Millrace Tool & Supply, delivered yesterday on a pallet. 530 lb.
Rules:
1. The brake fires if the blade touches skin. It also fires on wet wood and on a nail. It ruins the blade and the cartridge both times. Spare cartridge is on the shelf above the saw. $79.
2. Green treated lumb…
Apr 3
The saw came yesterday: a cabinet saw, on a pallet, five hundred pounds of it.…
…Jim Hrdlicka came over, and the two of them walked it into the garage on lengths of pipe, like Egyptians, and declined help. It has a brake that stops the blade the instant it touches skin; R. explained this to me twice. An electrician comes Thursday to give it a circuit of its own.
Apr 24
Living room, painted by Ray.
Walls: Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter, HC-172, eggshell. Two gallons; about a quart left, in the basement on the paint shelf.
Ceiling: their ceiling white, flat.
Trim: White Dove, OC-17, semi-gloss. One quart.
From Odana Hollow Hardware; they have the formula on file under our name.
May 8
Opened May 7. Ice went out April 14 this year, per Bev.
Opener: Ray and Jim, six walleye, and a 26-inch northern.
Found: no mice (!). A woodpecker hole in the boathouse fascia the size of a quarter.
Kangas came Friday about the septic. He will send a price.
May 12
Current, since May 2016. LDL was 164 before and 92 at my April 2026 physical. M… · Peg Ostrander
Current, since May 2016. LDL was 164 before and 92 at my April 2026 physical. Mine is the 20; Ray's bottle is the 40. They look alike, so mine has the red rubber band.
Aug 13
Cordless drill, 20-volt, with two batteries
Sep 18
R. caught a musky yesterday evening off the rock bar on the north shore, fishin…
…g with Arnie in the Lund. Forty-four inches by the tape on the gunwale. Arnie got the net under it, R. held it for the length of one photograph, and it went back. He has fished this lake for twelve summers for that fish.
I have the photograph: both of them grinning, Arnie's thumb over a corner of the lens. He was aw…
Sep 23
Ray. A1c 6.7. BP 132/80. Weight 206. First diabetic foot exam, normal.
Sep 29
Ray says, first season with RampUp Dane: 17 ramps. He was on 14 of them. Slope…
…is 1 in 12. A 24-inch porch needs 24 feet.
He wants his cordless drill marked with his initials.
Oct 6
Ray: mail the passport renewal
Nov 4
Jewelry appraisal, yesterday, Ingrid Solheim. She came to the house and laid ev…
…erything out on the dining room table: 14 pieces, each looked at under the loupe, weighed and photographed. Two hours.
Shown: my engagement ring and both wedding bands; Mom's ring; the pearls; the sølje; Ray's Omega; the diamond studs; the tennis bracelet; Grandma's locket; Ray's class ring; Aunt Inga's cameo; the d…
Nov 11
Ray's tablet - my old iPad, which lives in the shop
He has plans and videos on it and sawdust in it. Not worth insuring and not on the list of valuables.
Nov 14
Ray's passport renewal fee
Dec 3
Passport · Ray
Dec 12
Ray's new passport came Friday. Mine good until March 2022.
Dec 20
UW-Platteville Foundation - engineering scholarship
Ray's, by cheque. · UW-Platteville Foundation - engineering scholarship
2017
Mar 26
Kitchen: painted this week, by Ray.
Walls: Benjamin Moore Hawthorne Yellow, HC-4, in the scrubbable kitchen finish (pearl). One gallon and most of a second.
Trim and the window: White Dove, OC-17, semi-gloss, the same as the living room.
Ceiling: flat white.
Leftover is on the basement paint shelf, labelled KITCHEN 3/2017.
Apr 9
NL-W-00418827
Apr 11
Ray says: ice out April 11. Bev called at 4.
May 7
Opened May 6. Opener: Ray and Jim, eight walleye, kept five.
Found this year: the outside spigot on the lake side split along its length. It froze with the hose still screwed on.
The plumber: Mike Juntunen from Arbor Vitae came Saturday afternoon. He put in a frost-free one. $164.00. So: HOSE OFF in October.
Otherwise: one mouse, no leaks, feeders up.
Jun 11
Retirement: the paperwork, as of the first Sunday of it. All of this went throu…
…gh the district benefits office and the state retirement system, and I have a folder for each.
1. Pension (Wisconsin Retirement System): application filed in March. I chose the option that keeps paying Ray if I go first; the amount is on the annuity statement. First payment July 1, by direct deposit to the credit un…
Jul 3
R. woke me at 3:10 this morning, at the cabin, gray in the face and bent over,…
…with a pain in his right side that he described, when he could describe anything, as a hot bolt. He was sick twice in the yard. I had him in the car by 3:30 and at the emergency room in Woodruff by 3:42.
A kidney stone, four millimeters. I had spent the drive thinking about his heart, and when the doctor said "stone…
Jul 4
Ray, kidney stone. From the discharge sheet the emergency room in Woodruff gave…
…us yesterday noon.
- The stone is 4 mm, in the tube on the right side, and should pass by itself.
- Water: three quarts a day at least.
- Strain everything through the paper strainer and KEEP the stone. The clinic wants it.
- Come back or go to an emergency room: fever over 101, vomiting that will not stop, pain the…
Jul 5
Ray woke at 3 a.m. at the cabin with pain in his right side and back, and was s…
…ick twice. Emergency room in Woodruff. The CT showed a 4 mm stone in the right ureter. Fluids, pain medicine, a strainer, and home by noon. He passed it on the 5th. Calcium oxalate. He is to drink more water and less iced tea.
Jul 9
Family week 2017. Twelve of us.
- The swim ladder. Ray bolted it to the fourth section of the dock on July 1, on the left side going out: aluminum, four steps, flips up out of the water. $149.00 at Northwoods Sport & Marine.
- Loons: one chick, hatched about June 10.
- Walleye for twelve: 22 fillets.
- Sleeping as last year, except Lucas (nearly 4)…
Jul 10
HMO, school district retiree group
ENDED. Ray came off April 30, 2018, and I did March 31, 2020, when our Medicare started. Not valid for anything now.
Jul 23
The sewing room (upstairs back bedroom): done.
Paint: Sherwin-Williams Sea Salt, SW 6204, eggshell. Trim is White Dove again. One gallon.
The table, per Ray:
- Top 72 x 30 inches, maple plywood with a hardwood edge.
- Height 29 1/2, not 30.
- The machine sits in a well, 3 1/4 inches deep, so that its bed is level with the table top. There is a filler board for wh…
Aug 14
Sapphire anniversary ring
Oval Ceylon sapphire, 2.10 ct, in a halo of 18 small diamonds (0.36 ct total). Ray bought it at Hartwig & Daughters on August 12, 2017, for $4,600, for our 40th. Appraised at $6,800 in September 2024. It has to go in every six months for the prong check or the care plan lapses.
Aug 14
Sapphire and diamond ring
Hartwig & Daughters Jewelers. $4,600.00 plus $253.00 tax. Ray paid with the travel Visa so I would not see it on the Mastercard statement. · Sapphire and diamond ring
Aug 20
I looked at a lot of them. This one was the right blue.
Aug 21
Forty years yesterday. We were in Ephraim, at the Linden Gable, room 6.
Yesterday morning R. said he wanted to walk out on the pier before breakfast. He does not walk before breakfast; he drinks coffee and reads the box scores. He had a small box in his jacket pocket and had evidently had it there since Madison, because the corner of the pocket had gone shiny from his thumb.
It is a sapp…
Aug 28
Ireland tomorrow
Sep 16
Ray's truck
Sep 17
R. has a new truck. A Ford F-150, gray (they call it Magnetic), four doors, bou…
…ght yesterday at Sauk Trail Ford with thirty-eight miles on it. He drove three, read the window sticker of each from top to bottom, and settled the price standing up. No trade and no loan.
Earl Koskinen's boy has the old one, the 2001. R. drove me around the block in the new one, slowly.
Sep 17
Per Ray: the truck.
2017 Ford F-150 XLT SuperCrew, 4x4, 2.7 liter EcoBoost, tow package. Color Magnetic. Sauk Trail Ford, September 16. 38 miles on it. $41,260.00 out the door after the year-end rebate. No trade, no loan.
- Tires 275/65R18. 35 psi, all four, cold.
- Oil 5W-30, 6 quarts. Dealer does it while the warranty runs.
- Regular…
Sep 23
Leaving Tuesday for seventeen days.
Gus, to Ellen's on Sunday:
- carprofen, 34 tablets counted out (two a day, with food), plus four spare
- his bed, the ramp, the blue bowl
- 15 lb of his food
- Dr. Aylward's number, and a note saying Ellen may decide anything that needs deciding
House: Marlene has the key and the mail. Furnace set to 60. Water heater…
Oct 7
Harris tweed cap for Ray
Oct 10
Edinburgh, our last two days. Yesterday we took the train out to South Queensfe…
…rry so that R. could stand under the Forth Bridge. He stood on the shore in the wind for an hour and a quarter with his neck bent back, and told me the tonnage of the steel, the number of rivets and how many men died building it. For my part I had the National Library, and a second-hand bookshop on a hill where I bou…
Oct 14
IRELAND AND SCOTLAND, September 26 to October 12, 2017: the log. From the noteb…
…ook. Seventeen days by coach, booked through Marianne Vogel, with 34 others.
Sept. 26-27. O'Hare overnight to Dublin. Our driver for Ireland was Declan Fahy.
Sept. 28, Dublin. The Long Room at Trinity College. Two hundred thousand books in oak, two storeys, with ladders, and I stood at the rope until Ray came back…
Nov 5
Lefse, as I make it at home. Mom's proportions.
The day before:
- 5 lb russets (not red, not gold; they must be dry). Peel, boil in salted water until just tender, drain WELL, and let them steam dry in the pot a few minutes.
- Rice them hot. Twice, if I am being good.
- Into the hot riced potatoes: 1/2 cup butter, 1/3 cup heavy cream, 1 tablespoon sugar, 2 teaspoon…
2018
Feb 4
Gulf Shores: arrived yesterday at 4:40, two days and 1,048 miles by the odomete…
…r. Notes on the place for next year, if there is a next year.
- Egret Pointe, unit 407. Wade, the building manager, is in the office off the lobby from 8 to 4 and has the spare key card.
- Parking space 31. The truck fits with four inches to spare and Ray measured.
- Two elevators. The left one is slow and the right…
Apr 12
Original Medicare, Part A and Part B
Part A and Part B both effective 05-01-2018. His card is in his wallet, against advice.
Apr 20
Medicare Supplement Plan F
Effective 05-01-2018. Plan F is closed to new people; Ray keeps it because he was eligible before 2020. $214.75 a month in 2026. No deductible at all on his.
Apr 20
Medicare Part D, Value Script plan
$31.20 a month in 2026, taken out of his Social Security.
May 2
Ray's Medicare began yesterday, May 1.
1. Parts A and B: the card came in March.
2. Supplement: Aldergate Health Plan, Plan F. No deductible at all on his.
3. Drug plan: Corliss Rx.
4. He came off my Kettlestone plan on April 30.
My own turn comes April 1, 2020.
May 6
Ray says: ice out May 6.
May 13
Cabin kitchen: finished Friday, May 11, the day Nate said in February. $28,750.…
…00 in all, paid in three parts; the last cheque went to him Friday. No extras and no change orders.
- PAINT, walls: Benjamin Moore Guilford Green, HC-116, in the kitchen finish. Trim: Simply White, OC-117. Nate's painter left a labelled quart of each under the sink.
- Counters: quartz. Hot pans NOT directly on it, p…
Jun 14
Pneumonia, Pneumovax 23, at 65
Jul 26
First appointment with Dr. Raghavan, 10:20 (mine)
Aug 28
Ray's first visit with Dr. Raghavan, this morning, done as his Welcome to Medic…
…are examination.
A1c 7.3. BP 136/84. Weight 212. EKG normal.
She did not change the metformin. Labs again in January.
Aug 29
Ray's first visit with Dr. Raghavan, done as his Welcome to Medicare exam. A1c…
…7.3, BP 136/84, weight 212. EKG normal. She wants him back in January with labs.
Sep 9
Gus has stopped doing the loop. He walks to the corner, stands, and looks back…
…at the house, and I take him home. He was thirteen last month. Dr. Aylward says the hips are bone on bone.
R. built him a ramp over the back steps on Thursday: treated lumber, a non-slip surface, at a slope he calculated. It took him forty minutes, and he did not say one word while he did it. Gus uses it.
Oct 22
Gus died this afternoon, a little after four, on the kitchen floor, on his own…
…blanket. He was thirteen years and two months old.
Dr. Aylward came to the house as she said she would, with a bag and a young assistant, and knelt down on the linoleum in her good slacks. She examined him properly and said what we knew. Then she explained what she would do and what we would see, in order.
R. sat o…
Oct 23
Gus. He had not been able to get up the back steps since Friday and had stopped…
…eating. Dr. Aylward came to the house at four. He went with his head on Ray's boot. Thirteen years and two months. His ashes are in the cedar box Ray made, on the den shelf.
Oct 24
Gus. The things that have to be done.
1. The clinic: paid. His ashes come back to Finch Meadow on Saturday and Ray will fetch them.
2. The carprofen: 22 tablets left. Back to the clinic; they take them.
3. His licence with the city: it simply lapses in the spring.
4. Telephone Tess Carpenter's mother.
5. The food (most of a 30 lb bag) and the ramp for the…
Oct 28
The walk around the loop takes twenty-six minutes without a dog. It has taken f…
…orty for two years.
R. has made a box. Red cedar, dovetailed, about the size of a loaf of bread. He was in the shop from Tuesday to Friday. He did not show it to me. The ashes came back yesterday, and they are in it, on the shelf in the den beside the turntable.
Nov 7
Shingrix, dose 1 of 2
Nov 22
Thanksgiving here: Ellen's four, and Marlene. Hannah is ten and asked at the ta…
…ble, straight out, when we are getting another dog. Ellen said, "Hannah." R. said, "We're not," and passed the potatoes. I do not agree with R. about the dog.
Afterward I found him in the den with Owen, showing him how the dovetails on the box were cut. Owen is seven and asked whether Gus was really in there. R. sai…
2019
Jan 16
Ray: A1c 7.8. Dr. Raghavan has raised the metformin to 1000 mg twice a day, wit…
…h breakfast and supper. New bottles; the 500s are to be used up two at a time.
She wants the number checked again in June.
Jan 16
R.'s sugar is up. The number from yesterday's labs is the highest he has had, a…
…nd Dr. Raghavan has raised the metformin. "The holidays," he told her. She said, "Which ones?"
I think it is Gus. He walked two miles a day behind that dog for thirteen years, and since October he has walked to the garage.
We leave for Gulf Shores on Saturday, two weeks earlier than last year.
Jan 18
Ray. A1c 7.8, the highest it has been (the holidays, he says). Dr. Raghavan rai…
…sed the metformin to 1000 mg twice a day. Recheck in June.
Jan 22
Current, since January 2019, when his A1c reached 7.8. Dr. Raghavan. · Ray
Current, since January 2019, when his A1c reached 7.8. Dr. Raghavan.
Jan 23
Wrist surgery, check in at 7:00, Dr. Rasmusson
Feb 3
Gulf Shores, the third week. Seventy degrees, and a fog off the water in the mo…
…rnings that burns away by ten.
R. has walked to the pier and back every day, four miles, and is brown and nearly cheerful. He stops for every dog on the beach. There is a yellow Lab that comes down at eight with an old man in a Navy cap, and R. knows its name, its age and where it came from.
I have read "The Overst…
Feb 13
Shingrix, dose 2 of 2
Feb 16
Slipped on the cabin steps carrying firewood in, about 4 p.m., and landed on my…
…left hand. Dr. Ekdahl at Sawbill Clinic took an X-ray - displaced fracture of the distal radius, left wrist. Splinted. He telephoned Arbor Bluff Orthopedics himself. Ray drove us home on Sunday.
Feb 17
typed with the right hand only. broke my left wrist yesterday about four, on th…
…e cabin steps, with an armload of firewood. ice under the snow. I went down on the hand.
R. heard the wood fall. he had me in the truck in five minutes. Sawbill Clinic in Woodruff, a Dr. Ekdahl, x-ray: the radius, displaced, which I could have told him by looking. he splinted it and telephoned the orthopedic people…
Feb 18
Ray typing. Peg dictating. She cannot use the left hand.
What Dr. Ekdahl said:
1. Left wrist. Distal radius. Broken and displaced.
2. Splint stays on. Do not get it wet.
3. Arm above the heart. Pillows. Ice 20 minutes on, 20 off.
4. Fingers: move them every hour. If they go blue, cold or numb, go to an emergency room.
5. Pain pills every 6 hours with food.
6. Arbor Bluff O…
Mar 10
Three weeks one-handed. Things I cannot do: button a cuff, open a jar, cut meat…
…, put my hair up, fasten anything behind my back, knead. R. does all of these now, the last under instruction.
He has cooked every night. Chili three ways; walleye; an omelet with too much in it. He washes my hair in the kitchen sink on Saturdays with his sleeves rolled, as carefully as he would bleed a brake line.…
Apr 19
Ray: renew his driver's license before the 30th
Apr 19
Ray's colonoscopy, Dr. Iverson: clear. Five years again, so 2024.
Apr 21
Ray's colonoscopy, Dr. Iverson. Clear this time. Five years again because of th…
…e 2014 polyps.
Apr 25
Rebecca Stannard, Stannard & Hoyt: our first real meeting, Tuesday the 23rd, an…
…hour and a half in her office on Pinckney Mews. Our wills are from 2003.
WHAT SHE RECOMMENDS:
1. A revocable living trust, one for the two of us, in place of doing everything by will. The reason is the two houses. Property in two counties means two trips through probate court, Dane and Oneida, and a trust avoids bot…
Apr 28
Ray says: ice out April 28. Bev called.
May 7
Mom, I've been doing it since I was twelve. (I had asked whether she would spea…
…k for us if we could not.)
May 8
Fetch the puppy, 10:00
May 14
We signed the wills and the trust this afternoon at Rebecca Stannard's office.…
…It took fifty minutes and eleven signatures apiece. The house and the cabin belong, on paper, to the trust now. R. asked whether that changed the property tax, was told no, and was content.
Ellen is named to speak for us if we cannot, each of us after the other. I telephoned her last week to ask whether she would. S…
May 19
Per Ray: the weather station, put up yesterday.
- Sensors (wind, rain, temperature, humidity) on a mast on the dock post at the shore end, 9 feet above the water. Solar, with a backup battery: one CR-123, change every two years.
- Console on the kitchen wall by the window. Three C batteries. It also plugs in.
- Range is 300 feet. It is 62 feet. Fine.
- Rain gauge:…
May 21
Weather station
Ray's. Sensors on the dock post, console by the kitchen window. He logs ice-out and first frost from it. No receipt. About $250 now.
May 24
Ask Carol whether she has Ray's birth certificate
Jun 2
POAs. Mine for health is scanned. Ray's is the same with me first, then Ellen,…
…then David - copy in the grey box.
Money POAs, both - grey box. Each other, then Ellen.
Jun 2
A second boat. Ray bought the Hendricksons' pontoon yesterday.
What it does to the dock, done this morning by Ray and Travis Koskinen:
- The last two sections were unbolted and turned to make an L, pointing left (west), so the pontoon lies along the inside of the L and the Lund keeps the right side of the straight part.
- Four new cleats, two on the L and two on the straight.
- T…
Jun 3
Ostrander Family Revocable Trust - our copy, signed May 14, 2019
Jun 8
We have a dog. Her name is Birdie. She is a yellow Labrador, nine weeks old, fo…
…urteen pounds, and she is asleep in a laundry basket beside my chair with one ear inside out.
R. said in November that we were not getting another dog, and said it again at Christmas and at Easter. Then on a Tuesday in April he came in from the shop and said that a man in his woodworking guild knew of a litter comin…
Jun 12
Birdie: home June 8, nine weeks old. From Carol Hefty's farm near Lodi. Her fir…
…st visit to Dr. Aylward was yesterday.
- 14.2 lb. Sound heart, clear eyes, a clean bill.
- Second puppy shot given. Third on July 9, rabies at 16 weeks.
- Microchipped. The number is on the clinic's sheet.
- Heartworm and flea pills begin now, by weight, monthly.
- Spay at about nine months. Dr. Aylward prefers to w…
Jun 18
Ray. A1c 7.0 on the higher dose.
Jul 7
Family week 2019: thirteen, a puppy and a pontoon.
Per Ray, the pontoon rules, posted in the boathouse:
1. The plate says ten people. Ray says eight, plus the dog.
2. Life jackets ON for anyone under 13, and for Theo at all times within sight of water.
3. Nobody rides in front of the rail.
4. The driver is over 16 and has had the motor explained by Ray. So far that is…
Aug 20
Forty-two years. We stayed up north instead of going to Ephraim, on account of…
…the puppy, and R. grilled two walleye fillets and we ate them on the dock with our feet hanging over.
He said, "Next year, room 6." I said, "Next year."
Cool tonight. One of the maples across the bay has gone red already at the top.
Sep 1
Ray's cardiac rehab begins - three mornings a week at 8
Sep 2
Labor Day at the cabin, the two of us and the dog. The last swim of the year: 6…
…6 degrees by R.'s thermometer, and I was in and out in four minutes. Birdie was in for an hour.
R. hauled the kayaks up to the boathouse this afternoon and stopped halfway up the path with his hand on a birch. I asked. He said it was the humidity. It was 71 degrees and dry.
Both loon chicks have made it and are nea…
Sep 10
Ray had pressure in his chest and a heavy left arm while raking, about 2:30 in…
…the afternoon. He sat on the back step for ten minutes before he told me. Arbor Bluff emergency room by 3:15. Changes on the EKG, troponin slightly raised. Admitted to cardiology.
Sep 10
R. is in the hospital. Arbor Bluff, the cardiac floor, room 4117. He is asleep,…
…or pretending, and I have come home for the night because the nurse told me to and because of the dog.
About half past two this afternoon he was raking under the honey locust. I was in the kitchen with the list for Thursday's sorting. I looked out, and the rake was lying on the grass and he was sitting on the back s…
Sep 11
A day of waiting. He is on a monitor that draws his heart in green across a scr…
…een over his head. I have watched that line for eleven hours. It does the same thing every time, and I cannot stop checking that it has.
He is bored, which the day nurse says is the best sign there is. He has asked for the crossword, his own pillow and the lake association minutes.
Dr. Valdivia came by at four to i…
Sep 12
What's the design life on that?
Sep 12
Longer than the warranty on the rest of you, if you take the pills.
Sep 12
It is done, and he is all right.
They took him down at 9:50. Ellen and I sat in a waiting room on the second floor with a fish tank and a television nobody was watching. I had brought a book and held it. Ellen did not pretend; she sat with her forearms on her knees.
At 11:25 Dr. Valdivia came out in her blue cap. She sat down beside us before she sa…
Sep 12
Cardiac catheterization, Dr. Valdivia. A 90% blockage in the middle of the LAD;…
…one drug-eluting stent placed. The other arteries have mild disease only. The heart is pumping normally (EF 55%). Home on the 13th on clopidogrel, aspirin, atorvastatin 40 and metoprolol 25. No driving for a week, nothing over ten pounds for two.
Sep 13
Home at 2:15. He walked from the car to the back door by himself, stopped on th…
…e step where he sat on Tuesday, looked at it, and went in.
Birdie lost her mind. She is five months old and forty pounds and may not jump on him.
He is in his chair with the dog across his feet, and has asked twice whether I brought in the rake. Ellen set up the pills in a box with fourteen doors before she would s…
Sep 13
RAY: HOME FROM THE HOSPITAL. What the cardiology nurse told us at discharge thi…
…s noon, with the sheet in front of me.
WHAT WAS DONE (Thursday, September 12, Dr. Valdivia): one stent, in the artery down the front of the heart. The other arteries have mild disease and need nothing now. The heart muscle is pumping normally.
THE PILLS. Four are new. Ellen has them in the box with fourteen doors,…
Sep 14
The green line on the monitor, except that it was the shoreline of the lake, dr…
…awn from above, and I was following it with a pencil the way you trace a map. Around the point, into the bay, past Bev's. When I got to our dock the line went flat and straight and ran off the edge of the paper.
I woke with my hand closed as if I were holding the pencil. He was breathing. I checked.
Sep 14
Ray - ALLERGIES. Written down the morning after he came home, because the hospi…
…tal asked three times and he gave three slightly different answers.
1. Penicillin - hives all over his chest, 1986, after a strep throat. Amoxicillin counts.
2. Sulfa drugs (it was Bactrim) - rash and fever, 2003.
3. Adhesive tape - blisters. Ask for paper tape.
No food allergies. NOT allergic to the contrast dye;…
Sep 14
I slept four hours. Every time he turned over I was awake and listening.
Ellen has finished the raking. She did it at seven, before either of us was up, and put the rake away.
This morning I wrote out his allergies, because the hospital asked him three times in three days and he gave three slightly different answers, and next time I may not be standing there to correct him.
Sep 14
Current, since September 2019. Do not stop suddenly, per the cardiology nurse. · Ray
Current, since September 2019. Do not stop suddenly, per the cardiology nurse.
Sep 14
Current, and for life, per Dr. Valdivia. Over the counter; it is here so that i… · Ray
Current, and for life, per Dr. Valdivia. Over the counter; it is here so that it is on his medication list.
Sep 14
STOPPED September 2020, twelve months after the stent, as planned. · Ray
STOPPED September 2020, twelve months after the stent, as planned.
Sep 14
Current, since the stent in September 2019. Dr. Valdivia wants his LDL under 70. · Ray
Current, since the stent in September 2019. Dr. Valdivia wants his LDL under 70.
Sep 16
Ray's hospital discharge summary - September 2019
Sep 17
A week today. I have been awake since four, listening to him breathe.
I keep going back over the ten minutes on the step. Not the hospital, not the tracing. The step. That he sat there by himself, deciding whether to trouble me.
His breathing is perfectly regular. I counted, against the clock on his side: fourteen to the minute.
Sep 19
His first walk as far as the corner and back, eight minutes, with me beside him…
…pretending to be walking the dog. He is to add a minute or two a day. He has made a chart.
R. reads every label now. He stood in front of the open refrigerator at noon holding the summer sausage, turned it over, read it, and put it back.
I skipped the sorting at the library. Connie came by with a hotdish and stayed…
Sep 21
R. drove today for the first time, to Odana Hollow Hardware and back, for a box…
…of screws he did not need. I rode along. He adjusted the mirrors as if someone else had had the truck.
I baked. Sigrid had been sulking in the refrigerator for two weeks and came back in one feeding. He had one slice, weighed; he is doing this the way he did the diabetes, as a specification to be met. Two loaves, on…
Sep 22
David came for the weekend, Friday night to this afternoon, by himself. He did…
…not say he was coming until he was at the gate in Denver.
He and R. spent most of Saturday afternoon in the shop, not building anything. R. is not to lift more than ten pounds until Friday, so David lifted, and R. told him where to put things.
In the kitchen this morning David asked me, "Is he going to be okay?" He…
Sep 26
Two weeks. Dr. Valdivia saw him this afternoon in the clinic and is satisfied:…
…the wrist has healed, the pressure is good, and the tracing is "boring," her word, and a compliment. He may lift again as of tomorrow and may go up north, with the pills, the card and me.
I asked her the question I have been carrying around, which is whether the ten minutes on the step did any harm. She did not tell…
Sep 27
Dr. Valdivia, yesterday, two weeks after the stent. He may lift again from toda…
…y, drive, and go up north. Clopidogrel until September 2020, one full year. The cholesterol pill stays at 40 for good. A snowblower is allowed after rehab; a shovel and wet snow, no. He sees her every October from now on.
Sep 28
Walking shoes
Sep 28
The walleye are on the rock bar in twelve feet of water. I've been saving them…
…for you.
Sep 28
Up north. I drove. In fifteen years he has driven every mile of US-51 in both d…
…irections, and today he rode with the seat back and the dog's head on his shoulder and criticized nothing until Tomahawk.
I know to the minute how far we are from Arbor Bluff. Three hours and forty. The emergency room in Woodruff is fourteen. I looked both up before we left and was ashamed of myself, and then looked…
Sep 30
Home again. He fished yesterday morning with Arnie for two hours, sitting down,…
…and came in with three walleye and color in his face.
It is three weeks tomorrow. I have stopped listening to him breathe, most nights. I still look at the back step every time I pass the window.
Tomorrow at eight he starts the cardiac rehabilitation: three mornings a week until Christmas, on a treadmill, wired up,…
Oct 6
We bought a painting yesterday. Three pears on a blue cloth, in oil, by a woman…
…named Miriam Kessel Dahl. It was in the window at Windrow Gallery, and R. stopped in front of it on the way back from the farmers' market.
We went in. He asked the price, and when she told him he did not blink; he looked at me, and I heard myself say yes.
He says he likes that the pears are not perfect; one of them…
Oct 6
Three Pears
Oil on panel by Miriam Kessel Dahl. Windrow Gallery, a present to ourselves three weeks after Ray's stent. Kitchen, over the sideboard. Appraised 2021.
Oct 27
Diamond stud earrings
0.50 ct total weight, screw backs. From Ray for our 25th in 2002; he paid $1,200. Appraised at $1,850 in 2024.
Nov 2
Lutefisk dinner. R. was not allowed on the serving line with the butter this ye…
…ar and was given the coat room instead, where he hung four hundred coats. He had the fish and one boiled potato, no butter and no lefse.
Forty-six dozen from our griddle, by the tally sheet.
Nov 10
Ray's rehab shoes: the white ones, size 11 wide, from the shoe store on Odana.…
…He wants a second pair put by before they stop making them. They always stop making them.
Nov 12
Cherry, 22 board feet
Nov 28
Can you see the thing in your heart, Grandpa, or do you just know it's there?
Nov 28
All of them came. Ellen's four, David's four, Kate and Samir and Theo: thirteen…
…at the table, here, for Thanksgiving, which has not happened since Kate moved west.
R. carved sitting down. Theo is twenty-two months old and ate only rolls. Lucas, six, asked his grandfather at the table whether he could see the thing in his heart, and R. said no, but that he has a picture of it, and after pie the…
Dec 19
R. finished rehab this morning. Thirty-six sessions. They gave him a certificat…
…e and a T-shirt, and he shook hands with every nurse on the floor, and with Colleen, who runs it, twice. He walks thirty minutes on the treadmill at a pace I would have to trot to match. Fourteen weeks ago I thought I was going to be a widow at sixty-four.
He will not say that he enjoyed it. He has said that the Tue…
Dec 20
Ray says, cardiac rehab, October 1 to December 19:
- 36 sessions. Missed none.
- Started at 12 minutes on the treadmill at 2.0 mph. Finished at 30 minutes at 3.4 mph, 2 per cent grade.
- Resting pulse 74 in October, 62 now.
- Weight 214 to 207.
From here: 30 minutes every day at 8. Pulse not over 120.
Dec 22
Ray finished cardiac rehab - 36 sessions since October 1, three mornings a week…
…. Walking 30 minutes at 3.4 mph. He will not admit that he enjoyed it.
2020
Jan 26
The Ohio Star, for our own bed: bound, at last. No. 41.
Queen, 90 x 102. Nine blues, from navy to chambray, on white.
Label: "Peg and Ray, Hawkstone Drive, 2020. No. 41."
Feb 14
Current, since February 2020. · Ray
Current, since February 2020.
Feb 16
Gulf Shores, the third year. The same balcony, the same pelicans. Cards with Je…
…anette and Norm Pavlik on Thursday afternoons. Norm keeps the score from year to year in a spiral notebook. We are behind.
R. walks to the pier and back before breakfast and takes his pressure when he comes in. It was up a little yesterday.
There is something on the news every night about a ship in Japan. Jeanette'…
Feb 26
Ray, Dr. Raghavan, yesterday. BP 144/88 in the office. The lisinopril goes from…
…10 to 20 mg, one every morning. New bottle from Heron Lane today; the 10s may be finished two at a time.
Home readings twice a day for two weeks, then send her the list through the portal.
Feb 28
Ray, Dr. Raghavan. BP 144/88 in spite of everything. Lisinopril raised from 10…
…to 20 mg.
Mar 6
Ray's baseball radio subscription
Audio only. He listens in the shop and on the dock.
Mar 20
Medicare Supplement Plan G
Effective 04-01-2020. $196.40 a month in 2026, billed quarterly with Ray's. Pays what Medicare leaves, after I pay the Part B deductible myself.
Mar 21
Aldergate Health Plan - member site
Mine. Ray's supplement has a login of its own that we have never set up.
Mar 22
The rules, per Ellen, who gave them to us on the telephone. Posted on the refri…
…gerator. For as long as it takes.
1. Neither of us goes inside a store. Not Fenner's, not the hardware.
2. Groceries: Ellen orders them from Naperville and Fenner's delivers to the garage on Fridays. I send her the list Wednesday night.
3. What comes in a box sits in the garage a day. What must be cold is wiped and…
Mar 24
My engagement ring
Round brilliant diamond solitaire, 0.72 ct, six-prong setting. Ray bought it at Brekke Jewelers in La Crosse in May 1977 for $1,150. Engraved inside R.C.O. to M.A.H. 8-20-77. Appraised at $4,200 in 2016 and $4,900 in September 2024. I wear it every day.
Apr 2
My Medicare began yesterday, April 1.
1. Parts A and B: the card came in February. It is in the bedroom safe and I carry a photocopy.
2. Supplement: Aldergate, Plan G. Plan F, which Ray has, is closed to anyone who became eligible this year or after. I pay the Part B deductible myself once a year and he does not.
3. Drug plan: Corliss Rx, the same as Ray'…
Apr 12
Easter. The two of us, a ham the size of a softball, and the service on the lap…
…top. I put on a dress. R. put on a tie, saw me looking, and said, "It's Easter."
Bill Thronson died on Tuesday, R.'s first boss. There will be no funeral, because there can be none; the family will "gather when it is possible." R. read the notice twice and went and stood in the garage. He would have been asked to ca…
Apr 15
Dental PPO, two-person plan
One card for both of us. $706.80 a year. Two cleanings each, crowns at 50%, $1,500 a year maximum each.
Apr 25
Masks. My count as of today: 214, in five weeks.
The pattern:
- Two rectangles of tight quilting cotton, 9 x 6 inches, right sides together.
- Three pleats, half an inch deep, all facing down.
- A channel across the top for a nose wire (the garden twist-ties work; pipe cleaners rust).
- Ties, not elastic. Four ties of bias tape, 16 inches each, or strips cut from T-…
May 2
Going north tomorrow, to stay. What goes, in two vehicles:
The truck (Ray, the dog): the Bernina in its case, wedged with quilts; the cutting mat; two tubs of fabric; Ray's hand tools and the small lathe; Birdie's crate; the chest freezer's contents in three coolers.
The CR-V (me): Sigrid; 40 lb of flour and 10 of sugar; the pills, ninety days of everything for both of us, i…
Jun 10
Dell XPS 15 laptop
Ordered from Dell direct. $1,649.99 plus $90.75 tax; four years of Premium Support included. · Dell XPS 15 laptop
Jun 13
Ray's laptop
He uses this for everything. I have stopped arguing.
Jun 13
Ray's Dell laptop - four-year Premium Support
Jun 17
Yearly visits, both of us, yesterday, by video from the porch. How it was done:
- Blood drawn the week before at Sawbill Clinic in Woodruff, on Dr. Raghavan's order, which her office faxed. Fasting. Go at 7:30.
- The visit is through the Arbor Bluff portal on the laptop. Log in ten minutes early.
- Have ready: the list of medicines, the home blood pressure readings, a scale reading, and (Ray) the…
Jun 28
Skein Lake Association, annual meeting, yesterday. 31 households present of 52.
Ray is treasurer. Per Ray, what he was handed:
- One chequebook, one shoebox, one ledger in pencil going back to 1998.
- Balance $4,812.67.
- Dues are $75 a household. 44 paid for this year so far.
- What the money goes for: the loon nesting raft, the water testing every August, the boat-landing signs, the fish-stocki…
Jul 22
The well pump: what happened and what we have now.
Sunday, July 19, about 1:30, with nine of us here: the kitchen tap ran slower and stopped. Ray found the pressure tank empty and the pump silent, with power at the switch. So the pump itself, at the bottom of the well.
Stig Borgen of Borgen Well & Pump came out that afternoon with his son and a truck with a hoist. Th…
Aug 14
Ray's LAST clopidogrel
Sep 12
A year today since the stent. R. took the last of the blood thinner this week,…
…on schedule, and Dr. Valdivia will see him next month on a screen.
He walked the road to the landing and back at seven, as he has every morning since we came up, and then caught a walleye off the rock bar that he says was twenty-six inches and Arnie says was twenty-four.
Sep 13
Ray's last clopidogrel: Friday, September 11. Not to be refilled.
Oct 8
Current, since October 2020. Dr. Achebe. Dr. Okonjo needs to know about it befo… · Ray
Current, since October 2020. Dr. Achebe. Dr. Okonjo needs to know about it before any cataract surgery.
Oct 9
Ray's one-year cardiology visit, by video. The clopidogrel stopped last month a…
…s planned; aspirin for life. LDL 71.
Oct 18
Closed today, after 24 weeks. The summer in numbers:
- Days here: 168.
- Loaves from Sigrid: 31.
- Walleye kept: 43 (Ray's count; mine is lower).
- Masks sewn here: 96, on top of the 214 at home.
- Quilts finished: one, and most of another.
- Books read: 37.
- Loon chicks: two hatched, two raised, both gone south by the first week of October.
- People inside the cabin o…
Oct 20
Ray, Dr. Achebe. He is up three times a night. Enlarged prostate; PSA 2.4; exam…
…unremarkable. Started tamsulosin 0.4 mg at bedtime.
Oct 21
Ray, Dr. Achebe (urology), yesterday. An enlarged prostate, the ordinary kind.
- Tamsulosin 0.4 mg, one capsule at bedtime.
- Stand up slowly for the first week or two; it can make him dizzy.
- If he ever has cataract surgery, the eye doctor must be told he takes this.
- Back in a year.
Dec 6
Christmas 2020: everything by mail. Three boxes, posted December 5.
To Naperville:
- Hannah (12): women's small. A proper journal, bound, and a good pen.
- Owen (9 1/2): 12. A puck bag, and "The Hobbit."
To Denver:
- Lucas (7): 8. Fly-tying kit, beginner's, chosen by Ray.
- Maeve (4 3/4): 5. Three picture books and a library card holder.
To Portland:
- Theo (nearly 3): 3T. Wooden tr…
Dec 8
Bedroom television
Upstairs, on the dresser. Ray watches the late news on it. No receipt kept. Worth perhaps $120 now.
2021
Jan 9
Per Ray, the snowblower.
1. Fuel valve ON (under the tank, lever in line with the hose).
2. Choke FULL. Throttle to the rabbit.
3. Key in. Prime: three pushes of the bulb. Not five.
4. Plug in the cord and press the starter button, or pull the rope.
5. Choke off once it runs smoothly, about 30 seconds.
6. Left lever drives the wheels. Right l…
Jan 24
R. drives to Wausau on Tuesdays now. Don is failing; it is in the pancreas, the…
…y have known since October, and the doctors have stopped proposing things. The two of them sit in Don's garage with the big door up and a heater between them, in their coats.
A letter came this week from Danny Vue, who left Tamarack Hill in 2004 and who read every one of the Redwall books in fourth grade, in order,…
Feb 7
COVID-19, Moderna, dose 1. He went a week before me because of the stent.
Feb 12
The vaccine:
- Ray: first shot Thursday, February 4. Second, March 4.
- Me: first shot yesterday, February 11, 2:40. Second, March 11.
Both at the middle school on the west side. Moderna. Cards in the bedroom safe.
Mar 3
Carol telephoned at 5:20 this morning. Don died at ten past four, at home, in t…
…he bed in the living room, with Shirley and both of the children there. Five months from the day they found it.
R. took the call standing up in the kitchen in his pajamas. He said, "All right. All right, Carol." Then he fed the dog, tested his sugar, wrote the number on the calendar, and sat down at the table with h…
Mar 4
R. had his second shot this morning. I said nobody would blame him for putting…
…it off a week. He said Don would, and went.
Mine is a week from today. The funeral is Monday.
Mar 6
Don and R. as boys, which I never saw: perhaps twelve and nine, in wool caps, o…
…n the ice somewhere, each sitting on an overturned pail at his own hole. They did not look at me. I was standing behind them holding a thermos.
Don said, "He's got one," though R.'s line had not moved. I unscrewed the thermos to pour and it was full of small engine parts, clean, in oil. Nobody thought that was stran…
Mar 8
We buried Don today in Wausau. He was seventy, three years older than R., and h…
…e taught R. to fish, to drive and to swear, in that order.
Lisa arranged all of it, as she has arranged everything since October. Forty people were allowed in the church, in every other pew, masked, and the rest listened from their cars in the lot, with the radio tuned to a number printed in the bulletin. I did not…
Mar 15
Elmhaven letter, long-term care premium increase - 2021
Apr 6
Ray says: ice out April 6.
May 2
Opened May 1, and Jim was back. Nine walleye, kept six.
The dock: two of the decking panels on the third section had cracked across. The frame is untouched. $118.00 each from Pike Bay, and Ray dropped them in himself.
No mice. Nate's crew comes Monday to start the porch footings.
May 9
Owen's ten-year quilt, for the 14th: done. No. 44.
Sawtooth Stars, 16 inches, twelve of them, in red, black and white, with sashing between. Twin, 68 x 88. Quilted by Kathleen Laufenberg on the long-arm, $119.68 before thread.
Label: "For Owen Raymond, ten years old, from Grandma Peg, 2021. No. 44."
May 29
Arbor Bluff patient portal - Ray's own
He never uses it. I go in through mine.
Jun 20
Ray says: television for the cabin, 55 inch, $369.24 with tax. Antenna in the a…
…ttic, pointed south-southeast. Eleven channels. Unplugged at closing.
Jul 10
Family week 2021, July 3 to 9. Ten of us; Kate stayed in Portland.
The porch sleeps four on cots. Loons: the one chick, half grown.
Julia looked at Ray's right knee and told him to see someone.
Jul 12
Juniper Margaret Khoury, born this morning in Portland at 4:12 their time. Six…
…pounds fourteen. They will call her June.
We came home from the family week on Friday (ten of us this year; Kate could hardly have come), and at half past six this morning I was upstairs at the Bernina, sewing the binding on this child's quilt, which I had sworn would be finished before she was. The telephone was on…
Jul 30
For Ray, August 1 to 21, while I am in Portland. Taped to the refrigerator; a c…
…opy here.
1. Meals: there are 14 suppers in the chest freezer, labelled with the day. The other seven nights are the Nordic Table (once), Marlene's (she has asked for Thursdays), and your own devices.
2. Pills: the box is filled for three weeks. Refills are not due until September.
3. Birdie: 1 1/2 cups at 7 and at…
Aug 19
Ray's class ring
UW-Platteville, 1975, civil engineering. Too small for him now. Appraised at $540 in 2024.
Aug 21
Home this afternoon. The house has a new roof on it, finished yesterday, in the…
…color called Driftwood, and R. walked me round the outside to look at it before I was allowed to put my suitcase down.
Yesterday was forty-four years, the first one we have spent apart. I telephoned at seven, as I had said I would, and he answered before the first ring had finished.
He had flowers on the table, fro…
Aug 22
The roof on Hawkstone Drive: new as of Friday, August 20. Thornapple Roofing. $…
…16,900.00, paid by cheque on completion.
Per Ray:
- Full tear-off, one layer.
- Ice-and-water shield at the eaves, the valleys and round the chimney.
- New flashing at the chimney, new pipe boots, a ridge vent.
- New gutters and downspouts on the front only. The back ones are from 2009.
- Two sheets of decking repla…
Sep 19
The garden shed behind the garage: a new padlock. Ray cut the old one off this…
…morning with the grinder. The new one has no key. Four brass wheels on the bottom. The combination is 0530. His birthday, May 30; he chose it.
Marlene knows it, for the hose.
Oct 12
Ray, cardiology. Treadmill stress test - nine minutes, no changes, no symptoms.…
…Dr. Valdivia is pleased.
Nov 18
Service of Ray's Omega Seamaster
Hartwig & Daughters' watchmaker. Cleaned and oiled, new crystal, mainspring and gaskets. Not water-resistant any more. · Service of Ray's Omega Seamaster
Nov 19
Ray's father's Omega: collected yesterday from the watchmaker at Hartwig & Daug…
…hters, six weeks after it went in.
Done: taken apart, cleaned and oiled; a new crystal, mainspring and gaskets. $640.00. The dial was left exactly as it is, on the watchmaker's advice and Ingrid's.
No longer to be trusted in water. Wind it if it has sat more than a day and a half. Service again in five to seven yea…
Nov 21
The quilt from Don's shirts, for Shirley: finished. No. 46.
Eight flannel shirts, all plaid, cut into 6 1/2-inch squares. Ten squares across and twelve down, 60 x 72. Tied, not quilted, with red yarn at every corner.
Ray is driving it to Wausau on Tuesday.
Dec 2
Sizes, ours.
RAY
- Hat: 7 1/2. (Large in a cap. The tweed one from Scotland says 60.)
- Shirt: 16 1/2 neck, 34 sleeve. Large in anything knitted, tall if they have it.
- Trousers: 36 waist, 32 inseam. He was a 38 before the diabetes and still buys 38 if not watched.
- Belt: 38.
- Jacket: 44 regular.
- Shoes: 11 wide (EE). Boots 11…
2022
Jan 1
RampUp Dane - year-end gift
Jan 10
Ray tested positive for COVID at home, two days after coffee hour at church. Co…
…ugh and aches for four days. Because of the stent and the diabetes Dr. Raghavan prescribed Paxlovid; the atorvastatin was held for those five days.
Jan 12
COVID, positive home test, three days after Ray's. Sore throat, fever to 100.8…
…for two days, tired for ten. Dr. Raghavan's nurse said no antiviral for me and to call if my breathing changed. It did not.
Jan 16
COVID, both of us. The dates.
Ray:
- Thursday, Jan. 6: coffee hour at church.
- Saturday, Jan. 8: cough, aches. Positive on the home test at 10 a.m.
- Dr. Raghavan's nurse the same day: the antiviral (Paxlovid), five days, twice a day. His atorvastatin is STOPPED for those five days and started again the day after the last dose.
- Fever never over…
Jan 18
Ray's wedding band
Plain 6 mm band, 1977, resized in 2010. Appraised at $900 in 2024. He takes it off in the shop and leaves it in the dish by the saw.
Feb 13
Gulf Shores again, after a year away. Dottie's condo, the same blue couch. Jean…
…ette and Norm were at the door before we had the car unloaded, and Norm had the notebook.
I walk with R. in the mornings now, as far as the pier. He is slower than he was two years ago; the right knee has begun to give him a hitch that he says is nothing.
Lorraine telephones on Sundays between treatments. Four down…
Feb 27
Gulf Shores, February 5 to 26. Unit 407, unchanged.
- Ray's right knee: he is to see Dr. Rasmusson.
- One new bird: a roseate spoonbill at the refuge on the 9th. Life list 279.
- Booked 2023: February 4 to 25. Deposit with Wade.
Mar 9
Ray's iPhone
The day we closed on the cabin, August 13, 2004. His choice.
Mar 15
Ray's email
Unchanged since 2011.
Mar 29
My passport: renewed. The new one was issued March 22 and came Saturday. Good u…
…ntil March 2032.
Ray's runs to the end of 2026.
May 1
Per Ray: electronics for the Lund, bought yesterday at Northwoods Sport & Marin…
…e, one receipt, $3,534.23 with tax.
Fish finder (Humminbird, 9-inch screen):
- Mounts on the console. Transducer on the transom, starboard side, level with the hull bottom.
- Comes OFF the boat for winter. Hall closet.
Trolling motor (Minn Kota, 80 lb thrust, 60-inch shaft):
- On the bow. 24 volt: two batteries in…
May 3
Trolling motor
On the Lund's bow. Ray takes it off for the winter and hangs it in the boathouse. Same receipt as the fish finder. About $1,500 now.
May 8
Social Security online - Ray's
I set it up in 2018 with him sitting beside me. The code is texted to HIS mobile, so he has to be in the room.
May 8
OPENING THE CABIN. Per Ray, dictated up north on opening weekend, me typing.
BEFORE WE COME
1. Call Earl two weeks ahead with the date. He turns the water on the Wednesday or Thursday before and walks through.
2. Call Rod at Pike Bay about the boats. They come back Memorial Day weekend, not at opening.
3. Call Kivela if the propane gauge read under 30 per cent at closing.
FIRST HOUR
4. Walk r…
May 25
The spot on my nose (left side): Dr. Brodzinski took a piece on the 17th, and h…
…is nurse telephoned yesterday.
It is a basal cell carcinoma. The nodular kind. It does not travel. It does keep growing where it is, so it comes off.
Mohs surgery, in his office, Tuesday, June 14, 8:00. Allow the whole morning; bring a book and a lunch.
Should Ray be looked at? "I would like to see his scalp."
Jun 12
Ray says: truck tires, yesterday at Gary's. 43,380 miles on the originals.
Four Michelin LTX A/T2, same size, with an alignment. $1,286.72.
Tread warranty 60,000 miles or six years. Good to 103,380 on the odometer or June 2028. Only if the rotations are on paper. Every 7,500. Keep every slip.
Pressure 35 cold. 40 in the rear when towing or loaded for closing.
The old ones had 4/32 left. He…
Jun 22
Ray. A1c 7.0. The right knee is the main complaint; sent back to Dr. Rasmusson.
Jun 26
Skein Lake Association, annual meeting, yesterday, 10:00, town hall. 38 househo…
…lds.
- Tom Halverson stepped down after six years. Ginger Stauber is president. Jack Niemi stays secretary. Ray stays treasurer.
- Per Ray, the treasurer's report: balance $6,203.11. Dues raised from $75 to $85 from next year, 31 to 4. 49 households paid.
- Loons (Jack): the nest on the island flooded. It rained nin…
Jul 9
Fourteen. All of us in one place for the first time: June is a few days short o…
…f a year old and had never seen her cousins except on a telephone. She was passed down the dock like a bucket at a fire. She walks if she has the porch bench to hold. Theo, four, has appointed himself her interpreter. Hannah is thirteen and spent a good deal of the week on the swim raft with a book, not wanting to be…
Jul 10
FAMILY WEEK 2022, July 2 to 9. All fourteen of us at once, for the first time.
WHO SLEPT WHERE
- Lake bedroom: Ray and I.
- North bedroom: Kate, Samir, and June (11 months) in the travel crib.
- Back bedroom, the two twins: Ellen and Mark.
- Sofa bed in the main room: David and Julia.
- The porch, four cots: Hannah (13), Owen (11), Lucas (8), Maeve (6).
- Theo (4): the trundle in his parents' ro…
Aug 17
Ray, Dr. Rasmusson, yesterday, about the right knee. I went.
- The X-ray: bone on bone on the inside half of the joint. He showed us. Even I could see there is no gap left.
- The two cortisone shots this year (March and late June) each lasted about five weeks. A third would do no better.
- His words: "You can have this done when you are ready, and you will know when that is." R…
Aug 17
Ray, Dr. Rasmusson. X-ray of the right knee shows bone on bone on the inner sid…
…e. Two cortisone shots this year did not last. Total knee replacement booked for November 8. Dr. Valdivia has to clear him first.
Aug 21
Forty-five years yesterday, in Ephraim, room 6, which we had not seen since bef…
…ore the stent. R. cannot do the shore trail with his knee, so we drove to the places we used to walk to, and sat.
The knee will be replaced on November 8, by Dr. Rasmusson. R. asked him what the part is made of and was given a brochure.
Lorraine and Hal were with us at the cabin for the first week of the month. On…
Aug 22
Norway tomorrow. Judy arrives tonight.
Oct 8
Ray's knee. Check in 5:45 a.m.
Oct 29
Raised toilet seat, shower chair and a reacher
Oct 30
RAY'S KNEE: getting the house and ourselves ready. Surgery is Tuesday, November…
…8; check in at 5:45 in the morning. From the class on the 18th, the booklet, and Julia on the telephone.
THE HOUSE
- He sleeps in our own bed; the stairs are allowed. One step at a time, good leg up first, new leg down first. I sleep in Kate's old room for the first weeks.
- Rugs: every loose one is rolled up and in…
Nov 8
Right total knee replacement, Dr. Rasmusson, Arbor Bluff Medical Center. Spinal…
…anesthetic. One night in hospital, home on the 9th with a walker. Oxycodone for the first days, then Tylenol. His blood sugars ran high for a week.
Nov 8
R. has a new knee. Dr. Rasmusson came out at 11:10 and said it went as planned,…
…and that the old joint looked like a gravel road.
Ben Haldorson drove down from Northfield and sat with R. in the room before they took him, and the two of them talked about walleye for twenty minutes: where, how deep, on what.
I knew where to park this time.
He is on the fourth floor again, in a different wing. H…
Nov 10
Ray came home yesterday at 2, one night after the knee. The first full day:
- Oxycodone 5 mg: one every six hours if needed. Twenty tablets were given and there will be no more. He took one at 6 a.m. and one at bedtime and Tylenol between.
- Ice machine: on for 20 minutes of every hour he was awake.
- Exercises from the sheet, three sessions: ankle pumps, tightening the thigh, sliding the hee…
Nov 12
STOPPED. Twenty tablets after the knee replacement in November 2022. He took el… · Ray
STOPPED. Twenty tablets after the knee replacement in November 2022. He took eleven; I put the other nine in the pharmacy drop box on December 2, 2022.
Nov 13
Four days home. The walker, the ice machine, the stockings, and the chart of ex…
…ercises that Julia wrote out for him in August, taped to the refrigerator, with boxes to tick. He does every one, gray in the face, counting aloud.
I am driving, lifting, fetching, and sleeping in Kate's room so as not to jostle the leg. I have less patience than he had with the wrist.
The pain is worse than he was…
Nov 14
Ray knee - discharge packet Nov 2022
Nov 15
Cold therapy machine, rented three weeks
Nov 18
Take Ray's leftover oxycodone to the pharmacy drop box
Nov 24
Thanksgiving in Naperville, at Ellen's, because R. cannot manage a houseful and…
…will not admit it. He rode down in the back seat of the RAV4 with the leg along the seat and two pillows, and directed my driving from behind.
Ellen did the whole dinner. I was allowed to bring lefse and to sit.
Owen is eleven and has grown into his feet. He took his grandfather's walker for a lap of the driveway a…
Dec 4
On Friday I put the last nine of R.'s pain tablets into the drop box at Heron L…
…ane. He took eleven of the twenty and wanted the rest out of the house.
He walks with a cane indoors now and goes to therapy twice a week with a young woman named Megan. He may not drive until January. I have learned where he keeps the ice scraper (under the seat of the truck, not in the RAV4, where one might need i…
Dec 6
Ray's cane: 36 inches, per Megan. LEFT hand.
2023
Jan 6
Ray may drive again as of yesterday. Short trips first.
Jan 8
R. was cleared to drive on Thursday and has been to the hardware store four tim…
…es since, once for a single washer.
No Gulf Shores this year; the knee is not ready for sand, and he has therapy into February. Dottie has let the condo to someone else for our three weeks.
I have a quilt for June on the frame and eleven books on the stairs.
Jan 18
Water heater: the old one let go Monday night and put fifty gallons across the…
…basement floor. Dan Tuckwell had a new one in yesterday by four.
50-gallon gas, the same size as before. $1,890.00 installed, including hauling the old one away. Tank and parts guaranteed six years, to January 2029; Tuckwell's labor for the first year only.
- A pan under the new one, with a drain line to the floor…
Jan 20
Bedroom safe
On the floor of the bedroom closet, behind the shoe rack. Left four turns to 36, right three turns to 12, left two turns to 28, then the handle. Ray cannot remember it and it is written nowhere else.
Jan 22
Where things are NOW, after the basement flood. Nothing that matters goes back…
…on a basement floor or a bottom shelf.
CHRISTMAS
- The ornaments: four tubs with red lids, numbered 1 to 4 on the ends, on the high shelf along the back wall of the GARAGE, to the left of the rafters where the winter tires go. Tub 1 is the tree lights and the star. Tubs 2 and 3 are ornaments. Tub 4 is the children's…
Feb 9
Ray's last physical therapy visit for the knee, 24 in all. It bends to 124 degr…
…ees and straightens fully. Cleared to drive since January 5. Dr. Rasmusson discharged him on February 14.
Feb 12
Hearing aids fitted, 1:00, Vanderhoef Audiology
Feb 12
Ray says, the knee, final numbers from therapy. Megan has signed him off.
- 24 visits, November 14 to February 9.
- Bend: 124 degrees. The other knee does 131.
- Straighten: all the way. Zero.
- Walking: no cane since Christmas. Stairs foot over foot since January 10.
Mar 3
Ray's hearing test, yesterday, Kelsey Vanderhoef.
Moderate to severe loss in the high pitches, both ears, worse on the left. Hearing aids, both ears. He said yes.
The pair she recommends, with the charger and three years of visits, is $4,890.00. Medicare pays nothing and neither does the supplement.
Fitting: Thursday, March 16, 1:00.
Mar 3
R. had his hearing tested yesterday and, to my surprise, has agreed to hearing…
…aids. Both ears, worse on the left, which is the side I walk on. The audiologist played him sentences with half the consonants missing, and he got about three in four. I have said everything twice since about 2020.
What persuaded him was Kelsey Vanderhoef showing him a chart with a curve on it. He asked what the aid…
Mar 4
Ray's hearing test, Kelsey Vanderhoef. Moderate to severe high-frequency loss i…
…n both ears, worse on the left. Word recognition 72% left, 80% right. Hearing aids recommended and, to my surprise, agreed to. Fitting on March 16.
Mar 15
Ray. A1c 7.4 after a winter on the couch. Dr. Raghavan left the metformin alone…
…and told him to get back to walking.
Mar 16
Phonak hearing aids, pair
Vanderhoef Audiology. Both aids, the charger case, the fitting and three years of follow-up visits. No sales tax. Paid by check. · Phonak hearing aids, pair
Mar 16
My own footsteps are louder than I would have designed.
Mar 17
The hearing aids went in yesterday. Each is the size of a lima bean.
In the parking lot he stopped with his hand on the truck door and said, "What is that?" It was the turn signal of the car beside us. At home it was the refrigerator, the furnace, the dog's toenails, and his own footsteps on the stairs, which he says are louder than he would have designed.
This morning he was standing…
Mar 17
Ray's hearing aids, fitted yesterday. Kelsey's instructions:
1. Into the charger every night, lights facing up. Three hours gives a full day.
2. Off for the shower, for swimming, and for the table saw (ear muffs over bare ears, not over the aids).
3. Wipe them with the dry cloth each night. No water, no alcohol.
4. The wax guard (the little white filter at the tip) about once a…
Mar 18
Ray's hearing aids - Phonak three-year warranty with loss and damage
Mar 18
Ray's hearing aids - the app
On his telephone. Kelsey set it up at the fitting. He uses it to turn me down, he says.
Mar 26
Cherry, 18 board feet
Apr 15
Two starters now. Lorraine gave me hers on Thursday. Ray has labelled the jars…
…S (Sigrid) and S Sr.
The Saturday routine, for both:
FEEDING (Saturday morning, before anything else)
- Take the jar from the refrigerator. Pour off all but about 2 tablespoons. (The poured-off part goes into pancakes or the compost, not down the drain.)
- Add 1/2 cup flour (half bread flour, half whole wheat) and…
Apr 27
Lorraine. Born January 26, 1954; died Saturday, April 22, 2023.
- Funeral: Saturday the 29th, 11:00, Bethany Methodist. Lunch after, in their hall.
- I speak after the second hymn. Under ten minutes; at home it runs 8 minutes 50. A second copy in Ray's pocket.
- No flowers. Memorials go to the library at Stony Brook Elementary, for picture books. Our cheque is written.
- Lemon bar…
May 2
After Lorraine's funeral I made Ray sit down, and we wrote this out.
We own two plots at Sunset Ridge Memorial Park, Madison: Section 14, Lot 212, spaces 3 and 4. Bought in 1999 and paid in full ($2,200 for the pair, then). The deed is in the safe deposit box. The opening and closing and the stone are NOT paid for.
Ray: cremation, ashes buried in space 3, "and nobody is to give a spee…
May 2
I made R. sit down at the kitchen table this afternoon, and we wrote out what e…
…ach of us wants done when the time comes, and where, and by whom. It was Lorraine's funeral that did it. It took an hour and a half. He was more definite than I expected, and quicker. A copy goes to Pastor Kristin.
Afterward R. went out and mowed.
May 7
Opened May 5 and 6. Ice went out May 2, per Bev; the water at the dock was 41 d…
…egrees.
Two shingles of bark off the big birch by the steps; Ray is watching it.
May 21
Home since Thursday, for the car and the tomato plants, after two weeks up nort…
…h. The warblers came through the alders last week, and twice I had the telephone in my hand to tell her about the Cape May before I remembered.
R. can hear the loons. He was on the dock at dusk the first evening when the pair began to call back and forth across the bay, and he turned his head toward each in turn.
I…
Jul 9
It isn't an asset. It's where we are.
Jul 9
They left yesterday morning, all three cars, with the usual shouting about swim…
…suits left on the line, and everyone hugged everyone. Kate and David stood by his car for ten minutes talking, which I watched from the kitchen window.
R. and I sat on the porch last night and again this morning and have decided three things. I telephoned each of them this afternoon, oldest first, and said the same…
Jul 9
THE CABIN CALENDAR. Decided by Ray and me on the porch on July 8 and 9, 2023, a…
…nd told to all three by telephone this afternoon in the same words. I keep the calendar.
1. The cabin is not rented. Not to strangers, not through a website, not for a week, as long as either of us is alive.
2. The week of the Fourth of July is everyone's, as it has always been.
3. Besides that, each of the three…
Jul 10
Family week 2023, July 1 to 8. Fourteen.
- Walleye on the Fourth: 20 fillets, which was four short.
- Loons: one chick.
- The outdoor shower needs a proper floor. Ray will pour a small slab.
- Marianne Trost's candle: delivered.
Aug 20
Forty-six years. Ephraim, room 6, two nights. R. walked the whole shore trail o…
…n the new knee and timed himself.
I read "Tom Lake" on the porch swing in an afternoon, in cherry country, with a slice of pie. I would have telephoned Lorraine before I had finished the last page.
I keep both starters going. R. has labeled the jars: S, and S Sr.
Dr. Raghavan has taken me off the bone pill after f…
Aug 21
Ray says: Ephraim, the shore trail, on the new knee. 2.0 miles. 44 minutes. No…
…cane. Two stops, both for birds, both Peg's. Last time he did it was 2018, 39 minutes, on the old knee.
Sep 19
Ray. A1c 6.9. BP 126/76. Weight 207. Prevnar 20 given.
Sep 21
Pneumonia, Prevnar 20, at his September visit
Sep 23
Cabin windows: eleven new ones, finished yesterday, September 22. Nate Lahti's…
…crew, nine working days. $13,600.00.
Which: every window but the big one over the kitchen sink, which was new in 2018. Three in the main room, two in each bedroom, one in the bathroom, one in the hall.
Double-pane, wood inside, green metal outside. They tilt inward to wash; two catches at the top of each sash, push…
Oct 6
Break-ins on the lake, the first week of October. Three cabins: the Trost place…
…next door to the west, and two on the north shore. A window forced at each. Taken: a chain saw, two outboard motors, liquor, a television. Nothing of ours was touched.
Deputy Sara Kivi came yesterday and walked round with Ray:
1. Cameras. Even cheap ones.
2. A light on a timer inside, and one outside on a sensor.
3.…
Oct 13
COVID-19, 2023-24 formula
Oct 15
Per Ray: the cameras for the cabin. Four, with a recorder. Ordered yesterday, $…
…559.14 with tax. Nate's crew will mount them next week, no charge.
Where each one goes:
1. The drive, from the corner of the cabin, looking toward the road.
2. The front door.
3. The boathouse, door and lockbox.
4. The lake side, from the porch roof, looking at the dock.
Recorder: hall closet, top shelf, beside the…
Oct 16
Trust - first amendment, October 2023 (scan)
Oct 18
Cabin cameras - the app
Four cameras: road, front door, boathouse, dock. Ray has the app as well, on the same login.
Nov 12
RAV4: winter tires, yesterday at Gary's. Four Blizzaks on their own alloy wheel…
…s, with the pressure sensors, $1,062.48, at 17,205 miles.
Ray is NOT to lift them down from the garage rafters by himself; each one is 48 lb. Gary's boy will come and do it for $20.
Nov 25
Ray says: television, family room. Bought yesterday at Brightline. 65 inch. $1,…
…948.56 with tax, which includes their five-year protection plan, $249.99. The plan covers burn-in. The maker's own one-year warranty does not.
The console is 68 inches wide. The set is 57. Clearance 5 1/2 each side.
Nov 26
R. went out on Friday morning, by himself, and came back with a television for…
…the family room that is sixty-five inches across. He says it is on account of his eyes.
Thanksgiving was Ellen's four and Marlene. Hannah is fifteen and has given up meat, as of last month, on principle. She explained the principle, well, and ate three helpings of everything else. R. asked whether fish counted. She…
Nov 27
Family room television
On the oak console Ray built. Black Friday at Brightline Electronics, with their five-year protection plan. For the insurance list I put it at about $1,100 today.
Dec 10
Christmas 2023, in Portland, six days. We fly the 22nd. Everything for Napervil…
…le and Denver is posted by the 12th; what goes to Portland must fit two suitcases.
Sizes:
- Hannah (15): women's small. She has stopped eating meat as of October; no beef sticks in that box. A set of good coloured pencils, 72, and paper.
- Owen (12 1/2): men's small. Skates 8.
- Lucas (10): 12. A fillet knife, with…
2024
Feb 19
Arbor Bluff patient portal - mine
Test results, appointments, messages to Dr. Raghavan's nurse. I can also see Ray's from here, as his proxy.
Mar 2
The cabin calendar, 2024. All three claimed by March 1.
- Kate (first choice this year): Saturday, August 3 to August 10. Telephoned February 27.
- David (second): June 15 to 22.
- Ellen (third): July 27 to August 3.
- The Fourth, everyone: June 29 to July 6.
Ray and I will be in Madison for David's week and for Ellen's; for Kate's we are asked to stay.
N.B. Ellen's week…
Mar 15
Ray says: ice out on Skein Lake yesterday, March 14. Earliest in the log, by ni…
…ne days.
ICE-OUT, SKEIN LAKE. Date the lake is open from our dock to the island.
2004 - April 21 (from Gordon Sundquist's calendar, the year we bought)
2005 - April 16
2006 - April 12
2007 - April 22
2008 - May 1
2009 - April 24
2010 - April 3
2011 - April 27
2012 - March 23
2013 - May 12 (latest)
2014 - May 8
2015…
Mar 22
Ray. A1c 6.8. BP 124/76. Weight 206.
Mar 29
Credit · Ray
May 10
Ray's colonoscopy, yesterday, Dr. Iverson. One polyp, 8 mm, taken out; the lab…
…will say what kind. Five years again: 2029.
(May 17: a tubular adenoma, like the two in 2014.)
My own turn is next spring.
May 12
A watch that telephones, bought yesterday, $279.00.
Emergency contacts as set up: Ray, then Ellen.
It is charged at night on the kitchen desk.
May 12
Ray's colonoscopy, Dr. Iverson. One 8 mm polyp removed, a tubular adenoma. Repe…
…at in five years, 2029.
May 26
Per Ray: internet at the cabin, as of yesterday.
- Starlink. The dish is on the gable of the boathouse, the lake end, where it sees the most sky.
- The cable runs under the eave, down the corner and underground in conduit to the cabin, 62 feet.
- The router is in the main room on the shelf by the television.
- Kit: $526.45 with tax. Service $120 a month. It can be p…
Jun 1
Debit · Ray
Jun 20
THE CANADIAN ROCKIES BY TRAIN, June 9 to 18, 2024: the log.
June 9. Chicago to Vancouver. A hotel on the harbour.
June 10-12, Vancouver, three nights. The big park with the totem poles and the sea wall; the market on the island under the bridge; on the 11th the ferry to Victoria and back, an hour and a half each way among islands. That ferry gave me five new birds from the ra…
Jun 29
SKEIN LAKE ASSOCIATION - annual meeting, Saturday, June 29, 2024, 10:00, town h…
…all. Notes taken by me at Ginger Stauber's request; Jack Niemi is away. To be given to Jack.
Present: 44 households of 53 members. Ginger in the chair.
1. Last year's minutes: approved as mailed.
2. Treasurer (Ray): balance on June 28, $7,118.40. Dues are $85; 50 households have paid for 2024, three have not and w…
Jul 7
Family week 2024, June 29 to July 6. Fourteen.
- NEW RULE, as of Saturday morning: no lures, hooks or rigged rods are left on the dock, ever. They go in the boathouse on the rack. Birdie found a lure of Lucas's at six in the morning and put a treble hook through her lip. The emergency vet in Minocqua (open all night; the number is on the refrigerator now) had it o…
Jul 17
Ray's yearly diabetic eye examination, yesterday, Dr. Okonjo: no changes from t…
…he diabetes at all. Pressures normal. His glasses are out of date and he has a new prescription; Brillen Optical.
Aug 3
Ray's new glasses, progressive lenses
Aug 22
EH-LTC-7730418-R
Aug 25
The truck, yesterday: the water pump failed at the seal, northbound on US-51, f…
…our miles south of Tomahawk. Flatbed to Maki's in Woodruff, 31 miles. Darrell had the new pump and a new thermostat in by four. On a Saturday.
$738.34. About 61,420 miles. Paid on Ray's Visa.
Aug 25
The truck boiled over yesterday on the way up, just short of Tomahawk. R. saw t…
…he needle climbing, pulled onto the shoulder, opened the hood, and stood back from it with his arms folded.
A tow to Woodruff, to Darrell Maki, who had the water pump out and a new one in by four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. We ate lunch out of the cooler in his waiting room, with a calendar from 2019 and a very…
Sep 8
Per Ray: fish worth writing down, Skein Lake.
- MUSKY, 44 inches. September 17, 2016. Rock bar, north shore, about 7 in the evening. Black bucktail. Arnie netted it. Released.
- WALLEYE, 26 inches (Arnie says 24). September 12, 2020. Rock bar, 12 feet, jig and minnow. Kept.
- NORTHERN, 26 inches (Jim says 28). Opener, May 7, 2016. Released.
- WALLEYE, 21 inches,…
Sep 10
Directions to the cabin, as I give them on the telephone. The map on a telephon…
…e sends people to the wrong side of the lake.
From Madison: north on US-51, about three and a half hours, to Minocqua. Gas in Portage or Tomahawk; there is nothing between Tomahawk and Minocqua but trees.
At the lights in Minocqua by the bridge, go WEST on Highway 70. Set the odometer.
- 6.2 miles: turn RIGHT on Ta…
Sep 13
RSV (Arexvy), one dose
Sep 18
Ingrid Solheim was here yesterday, eight years after the first time. Fifteen pi…
…eces. She remembered Mom's ring before I had it out of the box.
The sapphire was new to her. She turned it under the lamp for some time and asked who had chosen it. I said my husband, by himself. She said, "He has an eye," and R., who was pretending to read the paper in the next room, turned a page rather loudly.
C…
Sep 24
Ray. A1c 7.0. BP 128/78.
Oct 9
Per Ray: the standby generator. Put in yesterday by Borealis Power & Electric,…
…two men, one day.
- Kohler, 14 kilowatt, runs on propane from our own tank.
- On a pad beside the pump house, 6 feet from the wall, exhaust pointing away from the cabin.
- A transfer switch by the breaker panel in the hall closet. When the power from the pole stops, it waits ten seconds, starts the generator and mov…
Oct 11
Standby generator - the monitoring app
Ray's. It sends him a message when the generator runs its weekly test, Tuesdays at 10 a.m.
Oct 19
CLOSING THE CABIN. Per Ray, dictated on the porch, me typing. In this order.
1. Boats out first. Pike Bay meets us at the landing. Call a week ahead.
2. Dock: Earl and his boy roll it out the last week of October. Chock the wheels. Bench comes off, goes in the boathouse.
3. Water. Breaker 14 OFF (well pump), panel in the hall closet. Open every tap. Drain valve is in the pump house, red handle…
Oct 20
Closed the cabin. Last night R. sat on the porch with his coffee and dictated t…
…he whole closing procedure to me, in order, eleven steps, with pressures and breaker numbers, so that the children will have it. I added the quilts and the starter. He says the starter is not part of closing the cabin.
Harlan Nygaard died on the 11th. He riced potatoes beside R. in the church kitchen every November…
Oct 23
Ray, cardiology. Nuclear stress test five years after the stent - normal blood…
…flow, EF 57%. The next one is in 2029 unless he has symptoms.
Oct 23
Ray, cardiology, yesterday: the five-year test with the dye and the camera. Nor…
…mal. The pumping number is 57 per cent, where 55 was called normal in 2019. Dr. Valdivia does not want to repeat it until 2029 unless he has symptoms.
No change to any pill.
Oct 23
Five years and six weeks since the stent, and yesterday Dr. Valdivia had him ba…
…ck on a treadmill, with the dye and the camera. Normal. The blood goes everywhere it should, and the pump is as strong as it was. She does not want to do it again until 2029. R. asked her whether the stent was still within its design life. She said that he was, too.
I had not known I was still carrying it until it w…
Oct 24
Our back step, in Madison, but Mom was sitting on it, the Mom from the photogra…
…ph, about thirty, with the dishpan of peas in her lap. She was shelling them and dropping the pods on the grass. I asked what she was doing there. She tipped her head at the kitchen door and said, "He's inside. He's fine. He's looking for his glasses." I went in and the kitchen was the farm kitchen.
Nov 3
Find our marriage certificate, or order a copy
Nov 3
Lutefisk dinner, yesterday. For Inez: 90 lb of potatoes; 53 dozen lefse; 381 se…
…rved.
I rolled for four hours and then had to sit down, for the first time.
Harlan Nygaard died on October 11, after ricing beside Ray every year since 1996. His grandson came in his place.
Nov 10
Paint, Hawkstone Drive, every room, in one place. I went through the cans on th…
…e basement shelf today with a notebook.
All Benjamin Moore unless it says otherwise. All trim in the house is White Dove, OC-17, semi-gloss.
DOWNSTAIRS
- Living room: Revere Pewter, HC-172, eggshell (2016, Ray)
- Dining room: Monroe Bisque, HC-26, eggshell (2009)
- Kitchen: Hawthorne Yellow, HC-4, pearl (2017, Ray)…
Nov 20
Lefse board stool: 24 inches, with a back. Ask Ray.
Dec 8
MS-PAF-0093127-09
Dec 15
Christmas 2024, in Denver. We fly out the 21st and home the 28th. Birdie goes t…
…o Naperville on the 20th; Hannah has the feeding card.
Sizes:
- Hannah (16): women's small. Paints, the good ones, from the shop Kate recommended.
- Owen (13 1/2): men's medium.
- Lucas (11): 12-14. An ice-fishing rod.
- Maeve (8 3/4): 10. December's book. Ray is building her a bookcase, cherry, to be delivered in t…
2025
Jan 5
Ashgrove - Ray's travel Visa
His own login, separate from the Mastercard.
Mar 8
Taxes: the folder went to Denise yesterday. What was in it, as a checklist for…
…next year:
1. My pension statement (the state's 1099-R).
2. Both Social Security statements.
3. The 1099s from Pemberwick: my IRA, Ray's IRA, the trust account.
4. Interest from the credit union.
5. Property tax receipts: Hawkstone Drive, both halves; the cabin, in full.
6. The church's giving statement, and the yea…
Mar 18
The boats, since there is no place in here for a boat. Brought up to date March…
…2025.
1. Lund 1675 Impact XS, 2015, red and white. Bought new May 2, 2015 from Pike Bay, $21,400 with motor and trailer.
Hull number LBBHN482B515. Motor: Mercury 60 hp FourStroke, serial 2B114873. Trailer: ShoreLand'r, bunk type.
Wisconsin registration WS 4827 KD. Boat registrations run three years; renewed th…
Mar 19
Ray: A1c 7.2, up from 7.0. BP 130/78.
Mar 21
Ray. A1c 7.2. BP 130/78. PSA 2.9. Foot exam normal. Urine protein test normal.
May 1
Annual wellness. BP 130/78, weight 151. TSH 2.4, LDL 97. Referred for the colon…
…oscopy that is due, and for a hearing test, because Ray says I am the one who cannot hear now.
May 4
Opened May 3. Ice out April 24, per Bev. Opener: Ray and Jim, five walleye.
The shed is empty for Nate's crew on the 12th. Where things have gone:
- The mower and the gas cans: the lean-to on the back of the pump house.
- Rakes, shovels, the wheelbarrow: the boathouse, left wall.
- Paint, 31 cans: to the county's clean sweep day in Rhinelander on the 17th. Ray kept two.
- Canoe paddles, the c…
May 5
Colonoscopy, 9:00, Dr. Iverson
Jun 21
The bunkhouse: finished yesterday, June 20. It was the shed. Nate Lahti's crew,…
…five weeks. $8,900.00.
What it is now:
- 12 x 16 feet on the old slab. Insulated walls and ceiling. Pine paneling, tongue and groove, finished clear (a water-based satin, two coats; Nate left a quart).
- FOUR BUNKS built into the two long walls, an upper and a lower on each side, like berths. Each takes an ordinary…
Jun 22
Hannah, at the cabin for the summer, June 21 to about August 10. The arrangemen…
…ts, as agreed with Ellen ("Treat her like a boarder, not a guest"):
- She sleeps in the bunkhouse: lower bunk, lake side.
- Work: the Paddle & Easel Gallery in Minocqua, Tuesday to Saturday, 10 to 5. She leaves at 9:20.
- She drives the RAV4 to work. Linda Schroedl says a licensed grandchild driving it with our leav…
Jun 27
Grandpa, it's good. You don't have to watch me eat it.
Jun 29
Ray says, association meeting yesterday:
- 46 households present.
- Balance $7,902.15. Dues $85, unchanged. 51 paid.
- Spent: water tests $425, stocking $600, newsletter $270, loon signs $95.
- Loons: one chick, on the island raft.
Road, separately: $230 a lot for Earl's plowing and grading last winter. Paid to Tom.
Jul 5
Fourteen for the Fourth, and for the first time there was room: the four eldest…
…cousins in the bunkhouse, with Hannah as landlady and a list of rules on the door in her handwriting, the first of which is NO OWEN ON THE TOP BUNK AFTER TEN.
On Thursday morning Lucas caught a northern off the end of the dock on a red-and-white spoon: thirty-one inches by R.'s tape, measured twice, because the firs…
Jul 8
Where the money is. For whoever needs this after us. (Ellen knows this note exi…
…sts.) Rewritten July 2025, after the bank replaced my Mastercard.
Heronwood Credit Union, Odana Hollow branch
- joint checking, ending 3306
- joint savings, ending 8841
- safe deposit box no. 417. Two keys: one on my key ring, one in the bedroom safe in the envelope marked BOX. Ellen has been on the signature card f…
Jul 9
Family week 2025. Fourteen, and a bed for every one of them.
- Bunkhouse: Hannah (16), Owen (14), Lucas (11), Maeve (9).
- Lake bedroom: us. North bedroom: Kate and Samir, with June on the trundle. Back bedroom: Ellen and Mark. Sofa bed: David and Julia. Porch cot: Theo (7), with the dog.
For the record book: Thursday, July 3, about 7:30 in the morning, off the end of the dock…
Jul 16
Back last night from two days in Madison for R.'s eyes. No harm from the sugar;…
…cataracts beginning in both, not ready. He asked Dr. Okonjo for a date, and she said two or three years.
We left Hannah in charge of the cabin and the dog. Sixteen, alone on a lake. I telephoned twice the first evening, and R. told me to stop. Bev looked in, she says, "without looking in." We came back to find the p…
Jul 16
Ray's diabetic eye exam. No retinopathy. Early cataracts in both eyes, not read…
…y; Dr. Okonjo says two or three years.
Jul 19
Arnie Gustafson had a stroke this morning.
Bev telephoned at twenty to seven. I knew from the first syllable; she did not say hello. He had come to the table for his coffee and could not lift the cup. His left hand lay on the cloth, she said, as if it belonged to someone else, and the left side of his face had come loose.
R. was across the yards before I had…
Jul 20
Arnie Gustafson had a stroke yesterday morning, July 19. For anyone who asks:
- He was last himself at 6:10, per Bev. She telephoned us at 6:40. The ambulance came from Woodruff in nineteen minutes; from there he went to Wausau by helicopter.
- Hannah was there before I was and did the right things in the right order.
- He had the clot medicine inside the time allowed.
- As of last night: he ca…
Jul 21
The lake had been drained, all of it, overnight. Boats lying on their sides on…
…gray mud, the island a hill. Arnie was walking out across the bottom with his cane, quite steadily, toward the rock bar, and R. was behind him carrying both rods.
When they got there the walleye were standing upright on the rocks on their tails, in a row, like people at a bus stop. Arnie pointed at them with the can…
Jul 23
Arnie has been moved from the hospital to the rehabilitation wing, still in Wau…
…sau. He will be there three weeks at the least. He can stand with a frame and two people. The speech is all there. He told R. on Monday that the food is institutional and that the fish in it has never seen a lake.
R. does not talk about it. He is quieter than after Don, if that is possible. Arnie is four years older…
Aug 3
Julia on Ray's left knee: "Not yet."
Aug 17
The dock has a handrail as of today, for Arnie. He came home Friday, walking wi…
…th a cane, the left hand slow.
Per Ray:
- On OUR dock, since Arnie's has steps down to it and ours has the ramp. He will fish from here.
- Along the right side of the first three sections, 24 feet, from the shore to where the pontoon ties up.
- Aluminum pipe, 1 1/2 inch, on five posts clamped to the frame. Nothing d…
Aug 20
Forty-eight years. Ephraim, room 6. The inn has changed hands, and the new peop…
…le have put a television in the room; we turned it to the wall.
The year after next is the one people make a fuss about. R. says he does not want a fuss. He has been looking at flights to Bergen.
Arnie came home on Friday, walking with a cane, the left hand slow. He cannot run the boat. He told R. so himself, at th…
Aug 31
Credit · Ray
Sep 7
R. and Arnie fish from the pontoon now. Arnie can get aboard from the dock with…
…the cane and R.'s arm, and sit in one of the upholstered chairs like a visiting bishop. R. ties on for him. Arnie complains about the knots.
They were out three hours this morning and came in with two walleye and a perch. R. cleaned them. Arnie sat on the overturned bucket and supervised, and when I brought down cof…
Sep 13
Ray says, cabin, fall numbers:
- Kivela filled the tank yesterday. 186 gallons. $446.20. Gauge now 82 per cent.
- Generator clock: 41 hours since it went in. 26 of them over the winter. One real outage, June 12, 3 hours 10 minutes, a tree on the line by the highway. It started in ten seconds.
- Yearly service by Borealis is booked for September 30.…
Sep 19
Ray. A1c 6.9.
Sep 20
Portugal tomorrow
Sep 20
Ray's fiftieth class reunion, Platteville - two dinners
Sep 28
Ray - cardiology, Dr. Valdivia, 1:15
Sep 28
Portugal, October 9 to 19. Lists.
Before we go:
- Close the cabin EARLY, October 4 and 5. Boats to Pike Bay on the 3rd; I have telephoned Rod. Earl blows the lines on the 6th.
- Ray's cardiology visit is moved from the 14th to the 28th.
- My mammogram is the 21st.
- Birdie to Ellen's on the 8th, on our way to O'Hare, with her food measured out.
- Marl…
Oct 3
Flu, high dose
Oct 5
Closed October 4 and 5, two weeks early, by Ray's list, in order. Additions for…
…the bunkhouse, which the list does not have yet:
12. Bunkhouse: heater OFF at its thermostat and at its breaker. Mattresses stood on edge, away from the walls. Sheets, pads and pillows home. Window locks. The keypad stays on the door; its batteries come OUT for the winter and go back in May.
13. The dock handrail: t…
Oct 14
On the Douro, in Portugal, the fourth day on the boat. The river runs in a gorg…
…e with vineyards cut into both walls in terraces, every one held up by a dry stone wall, and R. has been on the top deck since Saturday with the binoculars, looking not at the birds but at the walls. He is estimating the miles of them. He and a man named Stu from Minnesota talked their way down into the engine room y…
Oct 20
Aldergate Health Plan - 2026 premium notice for both supplements
Oct 21
PORTUGAL, October 9 to 19, 2025: the log.
Oct. 9-10. Truck to Naperville (the dog), then O'Hare; overnight to Lisbon. Marianne had booked the hotel room from the night before, so that we could go straight to bed at nine in the morning.
Oct. 10, Lisbon. The old quarter on the hill, by tram and then on foot, down. Custard tarts, which Ray counted as breakfast.…
Oct 29
Ray, cardiology: echo fine, BP 124/74. Back in a year.
Oct 30
Ray, cardiology, moved back two weeks for the Portugal trip. Echocardiogram - E…
…F 55 to 60%, valves fine. BP 124/74. No changes. See her in a year.
Nov 3
DM-PA-7718305-09
Nov 6
My hearing was tested today, at R.'s urging, by Kelsey Vanderhoef. He has been…
…saying since spring that I am the one who cannot hear now. I came home and reported to him at a normal volume. He said, "What?" He has said it four times since.
A mild loss in the high notes, both ears, usual for seventy. No aids yet. Test again in two years.
Nov 7
Ray, Dr. Brodzinski, Tuesday: five rough spots frozen off, on the scalp and bot…
…h ears. None of them the bad kind. He is to wear the hat.
Me, Kelsey Vanderhoef, yesterday: a mild loss in the high pitches in both ears. No hearing aids. Test again in two years.
Nov 7
Hearing test, Kelsey Vanderhoef. Mild high-frequency loss in both ears, usual f…
…or 70. No hearing aids yet; test again in two years. I reported this to Ray at normal volume.
Nov 7
Ray, Dr. Brodzinski. Five actinic keratoses frozen, scalp and both ears. He is…
…to wear the hat.
Dec 9
MS-PAF-0093127-10
2026
Jan 12
Income for 2026, by the month, after going through the January deposits.
Ray's Social Security: $3,471.00 gross, less $202.90 for Part B and $31.20 for the drug plan = $3,236.90 deposited. Third Wednesday.
My Social Security: $1,897.00 gross, less the same $234.10 = $1,662.90 deposited. Second Wednesday.
My WRS pension: $2,480.00 gross, $2,232.00 after withholding. First of the month.
Com…
Jan 25
Hannah is in. The word from Madison came on Thursday, in an electronic message…
…that she forwarded to eleven people with no words of her own. Nursing, in the fall.
R. has begun, without discussion, to clear the corner of the garage where the bicycles used to be kept. "She'll need somewhere to put one," he said.
The other planning this winter is 2027. Fifty years in August. We have settled it b…
Feb 1
Ray's hearing aid warranty ends March 16
Feb 25
Dentist, both of us, yesterday. Me: no cavities.
Ray: the old filling in the lower right molar (no. 30) is failing at the edge. Dr. Felber recommends a crown before it breaks. Estimate $1,340.00; the Plover plan would pay half. He said he would think about it.
Next cleanings August 25.
Feb 25
Ray, Dr. Felber. Cleaning. The old filling in no. 30 is failing and she recomme…
…nds a crown; the estimate is $1,340, of which the plan would pay half. He is thinking about it.
Mar 10
Taxes for 2025: the folder went to Denise yesterday, complete.
This year is the first in which Ray MUST take money out of his IRA.
- The amount for the year is worked out by Pemberwick from the balance at the end of December and his age. Ask Tom Kittleson, not the custodian.
- Tom is sending it in four pieces through the year, to our checking account, with tax already taken off e…
Mar 17
Ray's hearing aids: the three-year warranty ended yesterday, March 16, and with…
…it the cover for losing one.
Kelsey offers one more year for $380.00 the pair. We have decided against.
He is NOT to wear them in the boat without the little cord that clips to his collar, which is in the top drawer.
Mar 19
Ray's six-month visit and labs, Dr. Raghavan. A1c 7.1. BP 128/76. Weight 205. K…
…idney function fine.
Mar 22
Cherry, 26 board feet, and a quart of wiping varnish
Millrace Tool & Supply. · Cherry, 26 board feet, and a quart of wiping varnish
Apr 19
Ray says: ice out April 19. Bev called at 3.
2025 - April 24
2026 - April 19
Apr 29
Dr. Raghavan, yesterday.
1. Height. The nurse made me 5 feet 4 1/2. I have been 5 feet 5 since I was fourteen. - It is the spine, and it is expected. It does not change the bone plan: scan in August 2027.
2. Three years off the alendronate this summer. Still right? - Yes.
3. Tetanus: ten years since the last. - Given, left arm. (Ray is due as…
May 3
Opened May 2, by Ray's opening list, in order. Found:
- One window screen chewed (back bedroom). No mice in the stations.
- The generator's clock reads 58 hours.
- Bunkhouse dry. Keypad batteries back in; the heater works.
- Starlink started again from Ray's telephone on the drive up.
Opener: Ray, Jim Hrdlicka and Arnie, from the pontoon. Four walleye.
Kivela comes on…
May 19
Ray: decide about the crown Dr. Felber wants
May 23
Elmhaven Assurance - Ray's long-term care premium · $3384.0
Paid June 3, 2026, same envelope as mine. · Elmhaven Assurance - Ray's long-term care premium
May 29
Lake association meeting, 10:00, town hall
May 30
R. is seventy-three. We came home for it: the Nordic Table, where he had the wa…
…lleye, and afterward at our own table the flourless thing with the almonds that he is permitted.
Lucas telephoned him, by himself, from Denver, to report a rainbow trout of nineteen inches and to ask a question about leaders. They talked for forty minutes. R. came out of the den afterward and said, "He's thirteen in…
Jun 1
Ray's birthday dinner
Jun 14
The dock: one of the leg brackets on the fifth section has worn loose, so that…
…the section rocks when Owen runs on it. Ray shimmed it with a washer and wants to know whether the frame is still under warranty before he does anything more permanent.
From memory, since the papers are in Madison: the frame is guaranteed 15 years and the decking was 5. The dock went in in June 2015, the same spring…
Jun 28
Ray says, association meeting yesterday:
- 41 present.
- Balance $8,655.20. Dues stay at $85. 52 paid.
- Loons: two chicks, hatched last week, on the island raft.
- Water clarity last August 14 feet.
- No break-ins for the third winter running.
Road: $240 a lot for last winter. To Tom.
Jul 9
They went home yesterday. Fourteen, eight days, and the bunkhouse full.
Hannah is seventeen and off to college in seven weeks. Owen is fifteen and six feet tall and eats standing up. Lucas, twelve, fried the walleye on the Fourth, all of it, at his grandfather's elbow, with R. saying nothing but "now" at intervals. Maeve read on the porch swing. Theo is eight and announces the tree nuts h…
Jul 9
FAMILY WEEK 2026, July 1 to 8. Fourteen people, eight days.
WHO SLEPT WHERE
- Lake bedroom: Ray and I.
- North bedroom: Kate and Samir, with June (5 on the 12th) on the trundle.
- Back bedroom, the twins: Ellen and Mark.
- Sofa bed: David and Julia.
- Bunkhouse: Hannah (17) lower lake side, under the blue quilt; Owen (15) upper lake side, under the green; Lucas (12) and Maeve…
Jul 14
Pemberwick - Ray's rollover IRA, second quarter 2026
Jul 15
Ray's diabetic eye examination, yesterday: no changes from the diabetes. The ca…
…taracts are a little denser than last year; he sees 20/30 with each eye in his glasses. Dr. Okonjo: not yet.
Jul 16
Ray's diabetic eye exam. No retinopathy. The cataracts are a little denser; 20/…
…30 in both eyes with glasses.
Aug 2
2027: August 20 is fifty years. What is decided, and what has to be done by who…
…m.
DECIDED
1. The week of August 14 to 21, 2027, at the cabin, all fourteen. No hall, no caterer, no speeches.
2. Then the two of us to Norway in September, about two weeks. Sogndal first, to Astrid and Knut. Then wherever Ray's bridge is.
3. No Ephraim that year.
4. Not to buy each other anything.
TO DO
- RAY'S PA…
Aug 20
Forty-nine years. Ephraim, two nights, room 6. We have decided this is the last…
…time for a while: next August is spoken for.
He asked what I wanted for the fiftieth. I said Sogndal, and for him to walk up the hill with me this time instead of going off to look at a bridge. He said there is a bridge on the way.
It rained on the fish boil, and they held it anyway, under a tarp. R. had the whitef…
Aug 21
Ray - labs 7:30, Dr. Raghavan at 8:40
Aug 29
Hannah: moved in yesterday, August 28.
- Sellery Hall, B tower, room 614. Sixth floor.
- Her roommate is Sanvi, from Schaumburg, who is studying engineering.
- Post goes to the hall's front desk with her name and room number; they send her a message when something comes.
- She answers messages faster than calls.
From us to there: twelve minutes by car, or…
Aug 30
Hannah came to Sunday dinner. It is the first of what I am told will be a stand…
…ing arrangement, five o'clock, during term.
She moved into the dormitory on Friday. Ellen and Mark brought her up with a carload, and we came at ten with lunch, a fan, and a small toolbox from R. with her initials on the handle of the screwdriver. The room is a concrete box on the sixth floor with a view of a parkin…
Aug 31
Sunday dinners for Hannah. The list on the refrigerator, so that I do not make…
…the same thing three weeks running.
1. The lentil thing (below).
2. Squash soup, with bread.
3. Mushroom and wild rice loaf, the Christmas one.
4. Egg bake with spinach and cheese.
5. Pasta with the garden's tomatoes, while there are any.
6. Bean chili, the pot without meat.
7. Lefse, potatoes and three vegetables,…
Sep 2
Norhaven Life - Ray's whole life premium · $2340.0
Paid September 10, 2026. · Norhaven Life - Ray's whole life premium
Sep 5
Our Saviour's, the wedding, and my veil caught on the pew again, but this time…
…nobody played the recessional twice; they all simply waited. I turned round to free it. The church was full. Mom and Dad in the front, Lorraine three rows back with a program, Don on the aisle, Gus lying in the vestibule with his chin on his paws. And the grandchildren, all six, at the ages they are now, sitting amon…
Sep 7
Winter tires on the RAV4 - telephone Gary this week
Sep 7
Ray's passport - mail the renewal this week
Sep 13
West Side Woodworkers Guild - dues
Sep 13
Ray says: truck at Gary's yesterday. 77,118 miles.
- Rear shocks, both. Originals.
- Oil.
- Brakes looked at: front pads 5 mm, rear 8 mm. Fronts next year.
- $389.75.
- Tires: 6/32 in May. Gary says one more winter.
Due this fall: the registration sticker, and the insurance. Peg is to ask Linda once more about putting the truck on the RAV4's policy.
Sep 15
Ray. A1c 6.8, the best in two years. BP 126/74. Weight 204. Cardiology is Octob…
…er 13.
Sep 15
Ray ushers - fourth Sunday, the 9:00 service
Sep 16
R.'s number came back yesterday at 6.8, the best in two years, and Dr. Raghavan…
…told him so in those words. He has written it on the calendar and circled it.
The ramp crew finished for the season today. Seventy-one ramps since 2016, by the organizer's count. He came home with sawdust in his hearing aids.
An email arrived on Monday, in capital letters, to say that the warranty on my car is abou…
Sep 17
Ray, Tuesday's visit: A1c 6.8, the best in two years. BP 126/74. Weight 204. Ca…
…rdiology is October 13.
The ramp crew finished yesterday for the year. Seventy-one ramps since 2016, per their count.
Sep 19
Ray - cardiology, Dr. Valdivia, 1:15
Sep 20
Ray health summary - screenshot from the Arbor Bluff site
Sep 21
Medicare open enrollment opens - compare the drug plans for 2027
Sep 22
Ray - woodworkers guild, 7:00
Sep 24
Flu, high dose. Heron Lane Pharmacy.
Sep 24
Carol's birthday - she is 70
Sep 25
Ray - Dr. Achebe, 10:00
Sep 30
Ray says: generator, yearly service, done yesterday by Borealis (Cody Rasku).
- Oil and filter, air filter, spark plugs checked, battery tested, valves checked.
- 74 hours on the clock. Two real outages since May, 40 minutes and 2 hours.
- Propane 61 per cent. Kivela before closing if it is under 50 by then.
- Paper is in the truck and will be scanned. That is the second yearly service on recor…
Oct 2
Hannah is eighteen today. Her card went on Monday. We telephoned after supper,…
…and she answered from a corridor with a great deal of noise behind her; her floor had made her a cake out of something. The proper dinner is Sunday, when her parents can come.
Eighteen years ago this morning I was in the library at Tamarack Hill, shelving the new picture books, when Bunny came to the door herself in…
Oct 3
NL-T-02260514
Oct 4
Before we close the cabin (we go up Friday the 16th; close the 17th and 18th).
DONE
- Earl: telephoned. He blows the lines Monday the 19th. His winter bill is $810.00 this year, up $30, due November 15.
- Generator serviced.
- Chimney swept in September.
TO DO THIS WEEK
1. The dishwasher: its year of warranty is nearly up, and the wheel on the lower rack has been sticking since August. Telephon…
Linked records are confirmed graph links; the arrow and name are the link the app receives. A mention is only a text match on the name and is never treated as a link.
Comments
0
Comments are added in the local viewer; this copy is read-only.
Facts
| First name | Raymond |
|---|---|
| Middle name | Carl |
| Last name | Ostrander |
| Nickname | Ray |
| Company | Brennecke & Voss Engineering (retired 2016) |
| Job title | Civil Engineer, P.E. |
| Date of birth | 1953-05-30 |
| Gender | Male |
| Comments | Married August 20, 1977, Our Saviour's, La Crosse. Call the mobile and let it ring. |
Phones
- number: '6085550117' variant: Mobile - number: '6085550103' variant: Home
Emails
- email: ray.ostrander@badgermail.example variant: Personal
Addresses
- variant: Home street_address_1: 1846 Hawkstone Drive city: Madison state: Wisconsin postal_code: '53711'
People
Peg OstranderRay is spouse of Peg Ostrander
Appears with
People linked to the same records.
Dr. Valdivia · 11 records Hannah Sievert · 9 records Arnie · 8 records Ellen Sievert · 7 records Lucas Ostrander · 6 records Don · 5 records Dr. Niemczyk · 4 records Dr. Rasmusson · 4 records Kelsey Vanderhoef · 4 records Gus · 4 records David Ostrander · 3 records Kate · 3 recordsQuestions
52
Questions whose supporting records include Ray or a record linked to them.
q165 What is the file number on Ray's birth certificate? q167 Do we have a copy of our marriage certificate saved? q020 What have I got coming up for the rest of this month? q021 Which of my old reminders did I never tick off? q023 When is Ray's heart doctor appointment? q024 What happened in September 2019? I'd like the whole month back, in order. q027 Where was I when each of the grandchildren was born? q028 Walk me through Ray's heart since the stent, year by year. Has it held? q029 What was it Ray said to the cardiologist after the stent went in? The children want it for the anniversary toast. q030 What was the name of the night nurse I liked so much when Ray was in the hospital? q031 What did we decide about the cabin? q032 Whose turn is it to choose their cabin week first next summer? q033 Where did my sourdough starter come from, and why is it called Sigrid? q034 Who named Birdie? q035 What did Hannah do the summer she lived with us? q036 Make me a list of every book I have written about in my journal. q037 Have I dreamed about Mom since she died? What were the dreams? q039 What did the doctor say about Ray's heart? q043 Find what I wrote about our trip to Italy. q045 In which summers did the loons on Skein Lake raise no chick at all? q047 Did Ray give Hannah the slide rule? q048 Who was at the table for Hannah's birthday dinner? q050 What did Ray say to Lucas to get him to let that pike go? q077 Did we go to Gulf Shores in 2023? q083 Did Ray ever get that crown done? q084 Is Ray up to date on his tetanus shot? q090 I need my husband's driver's license number for the rental form. q092 What's the VIN on my car? q093 What is the VIN of Ray's truck? q095 Hannah needs her Social Security number for a form at the university. What is it? q096 We are going to Norway next September for our fiftieth. Are both our passports good for that? q099 I want the same inventory for the Madison house. Everything of value, please. q111 What do we pay a year for all of our insurance policies? q116 What do the two long-term care policies cost us together? q121 What do we pay each month for the Medicare supplements? q126 What strength is my atorvastatin? q127 Please list what Ray takes now, for the cardiology form. q128 What was Ray's last A1c, and what is the highest it has ever been? q129 What was Ray's LDL at the March labs? q131 Is Ray due for a tetanus shot? q134 What happens to the cabin when Ray and I are both gone? q135 Who takes over as trustee after the two of us? q136 If Ray could no longer manage things, what would have to happen before I could act for the trust without him? q147 Is Ray allergic to any medicines? The surgery center is asking. q153 How much does Ray have to take out of his IRA this year? q157 What is my IRA worth? q158 Does June get the same as the other grandchildren under the trust? q160 Is the tape allergy on Ray's chart at Arbor Bluff, or only in my note? q162 The MRI people want the make and model of Ray's knee implant. What is it? q169 Did Ray ever decide about the crown? q170 Have Ray and I had this year's COVID shot? q172 What is running out in the next couple of months that I should deal with?