December 6, 1931 ~ August 22, 2009
In loving memory of Dear Betty - My Cousin, My Aunt
The Quilter
I sit, in the wee hours, by her bedside.
Well, it really isn’t her bedside, but it is. It is not her bed, but one on loan for her use, so to speak.
Pesky is bedded down on the loveseat hide a bed a few feet away.
I sit in a wooden chair at 3 am. My eyes now blinded by the brightness of the laptop screen. The light in the pink tiled shower stall is on, the bathroom door ajar, letting a small column of light splash across the wall at the end of her bed.
I struggle to see the erratic rise and fall of her chest, my eyes blinded by the whiteness of the screen. I dim the screen as far as it will go.
The steady rhythm of the oxygen machine punctuates the near quiet every 9 seconds with a second long vacuum release.
A snort, she moves, I close the laptop lid. Was it her, was it Pesky? She shifts in her bed, turns her face away from me and toward the hide a bed where Pesky lays sleeping a restless sleep.
She stirred from her uneasy place, appearing to be resting, but really I believe working very hard.
“Is that old Tom over there?” she said in a barely audible voice, her sunken eyes turned toward the hideabed.
“Yes”, I say, “he is getting some rest, he is worn out.”
“Ice” she says in the barely audible voice.
I reach for the Styrofoam cup. The one on the mobile tray. The one with the white plastic spoon in it. The tray is right next to me and right next to this bed she lays in.
She slowly and deliberately grasps the cup, pulls it to her chest. Spoonful of ice, deposited perfectly into her mouth. Spoon returned to cup, hands lowered, eyelids lowered. She drifts. I return the cup to her bedside table.
I stop typing, lean over my laptop. It is resting on my right thigh and the left calf, which is resting on my right knee. I struggle to see her chest rise and fall, my pupils too dilated to see it easily.
I squint; focus with all my concentration as I struggle against eyelids heavy upon my eyes, requesting sleep I will not afford them. I squint, she turns her head. I quickly close the lid of the laptop to stop the light from illuminating her bedside. I hold my breath, hoping she remains in this state of assumed slumber.
I presume it is slumber but do not know, cannot know, what might be taking place.
The Quilter’s chest rises and falls erratically, but with some semblance of regularity. I close the laptop lid.
Pesky has his hand over his face, and appears to be sleeping. I gently place the laptop on the bedside table and quietly exit the room. I walk steadily toward the other end of the hall. My white gym shoes placed deliberately with each step.
It is a nice hall. Laminate floors, still new, mimic a real hardwood floor, one with 4 inch dark wood planks polished shiny. I think to myself as I drink in the laminate floor, this is a metaphor. Imitation wood for imitation living?
The fluorescent lights illuminate the pale yellow walls covered with wallpaper. The walls are adorned with country style prints in thick walnut colored frames.
The print hanging right outside the Quilter’s room is a 2 story wood sided country house in the background. It has a tin roof, like the roof of my childhood home, the ole home place, as my mom calls it. Also in the background is an old wooden shed, unfinished wood and slightly tilting, but still sturdy. The middle ground is a fenced pasture, complete with aged wooden wagon. It has an aging split rail fence in the foreground.
Hanging across the rail of the fence is a quilt. Large red rectangles interspersed with blue and red squares and white patches making a box. This pattern, this style has a name and I am sure the Quilter would know it. I have no clue. It is pretty, but that is all I know. How apropos, this painting. Outside my cousin’s room. My cousin, the Quilter.
Two days ago as I sat by her bedside. I told her about the picture outside her room and described it as best I could. I thought she would enjoy knowing that she had a quilt picture outside the room. Then again, maybe these mundane details are the province of those who are not dying.
At her home, just months ago, she showed me her sewing room. She was weak with the cancer then, but things were different. Her time on earth was not measured in any tangible way. Remissions, chemo, radiation all factored in. Back then.
In that room, she showed my mother and I the fruit of her labors. Quilts. Quilts in all sizes, all patterns, in all stages of production. Maybe 50 quilts or more.
I walk the length of the hall, passing 6 hospice rooms. Pretty rooms with fashionable soothing wallpaper and beautiful valances atop the windows that face the river. If it were not for the wooden nurses station with the wheelchair next to it, the ladies in nursing garb and the storage room shining very bright with fluorescent light, you would think yourself in a nice hotel. There might be a swimming pool down on the 3rd floor, just outside the fitness center. Motor coaches full of tourists and college athletes and musicians could be in the parking lot, coming and going, to and fro, in the chaotic dance of life.
This is Hospice.
It is a nice place. Given the role it plays in modern day culture. That bridge between our highly medicalized lives, and the natural biological rhythm of life.
Once we did not have such a place. Once we were born in the company of our own kin, we lived surrounded by them, and died among them. Now, we are whisked away to sterile places with bright lights, strangers with, if all goes well, warm loving dispositions, willing to care for the stranger who is sick, who is dying, in exchange for money they can use to keep their own lives going.
No longer do we live with the hand nature and biology deals us. Now we try to defy the natural order, find a way to eek out more years amongst our concrete jungle. Struggling against the inevitable.
I arrive at the family room. Oversized soft sofas in a brown print, tasteful. A nice wooden desk with a pc on it. Nice entertainment center with large screen TV, complete with pay TV service and a small selection of DVD movies. Coffee table covered in magazines, remotes and a forgotten Styrofoam cup.
On the brown sofa, against a side wall, my mother lays on her back, under a white summer weight blanket. Her sleep is punctuated by jerking movements. I wonder what is happening in her subconscious. My mother endeavors to stay strong for her cousin-sister, the Quilter.
My mother, who has never known a world that the Quilter was not part of, is enduring a breaking heart. Her cousin, 3 years her senior in life. Her cousin, neigh, sister. They call each other sister. Who is this? They say, this is my sister. Close.
I worry about my mother. She is just now really standing solid in the wake of my dad’s passing. No other death, save one of her children, could affect her more intensely than this one, the passing of her sister, the Quilter.
I return down the hall and re-enter my cousin’s room. Her husband is still resting on the hide a bed, I am relieved. He is not much for sleeping, even under the best of circumstances. Now, his heart breaking, his mind reeling with the impending death of his wife of 57 years, he struggles, bloodshot eyes, shuffled movements. I struggle in these nights to create situations in which he will be compelled to lay down for a bit.
I sit down in that wooden chair again. I strain in the dim light to see her chest rise and fall. I wait, and finally am rewarded with the desired movement. There are pauses in her breath. One must be patient to confirm that she is still partially in this world.
Satisfied and relieved, I sit back in the chair, pull out the laptop and wait for it to come alive. I quickly dim the screen as much as it will go. I minimize my window to reduce the white glare in my face, dilating my pupils and lighting the room. I decide my seaside desktop image is too bright.
I find a black and white print of a leaf, really grey halftones, but what does it matter? The Quilter is busy with her work of dying. The mundane details of life pale in comparison to the drama being played out a foot from my hands.
I hear a rustling; I close the lid and strain to see clearly. Turned her head. I sit back. I hear a quite knock, it is the aide, she is here to do temp and BP. She does 2 BP’s, the first was low, and she wants to double check. 85 over 53. Low, very low.
My cousin’s journey toward her death continues at a slow relatively steady pace. The aide, a temp, is concerned by the BP. She goes to tell the nurse. I accompany her. I listen. The nurses are as loving, sensitive and patient as you could ever hope for.
Hospice.
The nurse smiles warmly at me in those wee hours. “It is a marker on the path.” I say to her. She smiles tenderly. She tells me there are many, and the road is varied. She says the Quilter may keep this BP or may roller coaster.
There are no absolutes in this process. Save the ending. Or the beginning.
The Quilter wanted to die at home. Or so it had been said.
Hospice.
It looks less and less likely that they will move her home. Her needs seem simple, bedpan, depends, oxygen and pain meds. She has a DNR. She signed it at the hospital, using my short black pen, just hours before being transported to hospice, that mid place, the on the way back home place.
Here we sit. Here she does her work. Here she is sewing her final quilt, making a pattern we will never be privy to. A private quilt. The quilt of her life, her time with us, and her path onward to whatever lays ahead.
I close the laptop lid, set it on the floor beside the practical bedside table. I sit up in that wooden chair. I train my eyes upon her face, upon her chest. I watch. I glance over to see how Pesky is fairing. Should he find the peace she is likely headed toward. His coming months full of pain and suffering.
I watch the Quilter as the dark night sky slowly gives way to day. As the hours pass I am keenly aware of the ebb and flow, keenly aware that while I have a beautiful quilt made by the Quilter’s own hands, and given to me upon my return to the place of my birth, the most beautiful quilt that she will make, and the one most cherished in my life, is this private quilt she now quilts, and the honor of attending the Quilter, as she quilts.
While I cannot name the patterns on the quilts in her sewing room, I can name the pattern of the one she now quilts.
That is the one that matters.
You are already missed, my dear.
Dad - Being his typical silly self...
We miss you dad!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Life's Long & Winding Journey
Gifts come in places we don't often expect. Sometimes major gifts arrive in the most seemingly painful of ways.
I remember being a child and being fearful of death and what it entailed.
Our culture was already fairly compartmentalized and human death of loved ones was not part of the fabric of our daily lives. Living in separated nuclear families, the very young did not often live with aging/dying relatives as a normal experience. We had lived in close proximity to life and death for probably most of our 1.5 million years on earth, but in the last few hundreds of years, we have drifted away from the basic ebb and tide.
The dominate forms of religion that surrounded my childhood exacerbated my fear. The religious things I can recall, before briskly walking away from it at 12 and declaring myself and atheist, were harsh.
I recall from childhood things like put the fear of God in them, the judgment, and some others I now cannot recall.
I think I just hit the exhaustion wall where my brain may now be mush.
I recall during my 12th summer riding a church bus that picked up the neighbor kids. During that summer the church had a contest, the boy and the girl who brought the most new kids on the church bus during the summer session would win brand new 10 speed bikes. One for the boy, one for the girl. In Sunday school we were showered with candies for answering bible study questions - correctly or not. At church picnics we were plied with tons of ice cream for free.
I recall quite clearly my displeasure. I questioned why, if what the church had to offer was so good and valuable, they had to resort to what appeared to me to be bribery to recruit kids and keep them. They then talked about fearing god, eternal damnation and all manner of things that made their god seem highly undesirable and their church desperate to get kids any way they could lure them.
Today I would probably see this as a recruitment and conversion objective. Terms leveled harshly at me throughout my life, by those claiming to represent Christianity.
I guess this church elected to go for the kids. Most Jehovah's Witnesses I have talked to at any length were recruited through jails and rehab centers, when the person was at a very low vulnerable point in their life... I guess my beef is that if what you have is so daggone good and worthy...why the vulnerable and innocents are the ones targeted. If it is truly good, let them come on their own, with strong minds ready to accept while standing upright and clear headed. I am sure many come under this condition, but I do struggle with what to me feels like organized predatory approaches.
I recall being very disgusted with the religion available. A mean god and the church has to resort to bribing kids. That is just how it felt that summer.
One night at girl scout camp, my close friend slid out of her cot and onto her knees to pray before going to sleep. We had been laying in the dark joking, giggling and such, as 12 year old's will do. When I did not get on my knees she asked me about it. I told her I was an atheist and did not believe in her god, so it would be wrong of me to pretend to pray to her god.
I had decided I was an atheist. I only knew the judgment and fear centered religions that surrounded my childhood. I knew nothing of the existence of the Bahai's the Hindus, etc.
In my world it was the god that must be feared or nothing. I had little difficulty in electing to become an atheist. What I had seen of religion did not mesh with my own morals, values and desires for my life.
I felt I did not need a god that was mean and must be feared. The constant conflict the church represented did not help.
God is Love. Put the fear of god in you.
Judge not lest ye be judged. Those who do not believe as we do are sinners and do not know god and are heathens and so on, worshiping false gods/idols, not worthy, etc..(isn't that judging them? it sounded very judgmental to me).
My friend at camp was extremely visibly upset by my assertion that I did not believe in god. Had I understood just how she would melt down, I might not have been so matter of fact about it. She ran crying to our leader's tent. I was going to incur the wrath of her God and she feared for me. Truly feared for me and my eternally damned soul.
If I had any doubts about walking away, her palpable fear dispelled them. She was a wreck.
I had no trouble walking away from what was presented to me as my religious option in life.
It was not until I was 17 that I knew what a Jew was, and then only sort of. It would be many years before I understood anything about Judaism and I still know very little. I do know that if I was forced to make a choice only between Christian and Judaism, I'd be a Jew without the bat of an eye. Fortunately, the world is broader than that, I am not forced to make that choice or be ostracized.
In college as a 21 year old I learned of Bahai's and was intrigued. I became aware vaguley of Muslims, Hindus and so forth. I gradually shifted my stance from aethist, to agnostic during my early to mid 20's. In my mid 20's I began to open my life to newer experiences. A few years into my life in SF and I was open to explore the world's bounty.
I transitioned from agnostic to something undefined in my mind. I remained open to the idea of a universal force but heavily rejected the label God and Jesus Christ as it smacked so hard of that which was problematic to me from childhood. I continued to reject the word God and stumbled with Christ until I gradually became aware that Jesus was only one of many Christs.
I learned what Christ meant in the bigger world, the universe. The core essence of Christ made sense to me, more so than the fear of god that has always been presented with Jesus Christ as though Jesus was the only Christ.
I still choked over God with a capital G. It still had a singular meaning tied to the religion of my childhood, not acceptable.
I gradually became aware of an approach that many organized religions with strong hierarchical structures in place did their best to marginalize and relegate to the "kooks" - metaphysical or my favorite name "new age" despite the fact that most ideas reach much farther back in time than the founding of the relatively new religion of the Judea Christians. But new age, spirituality and metaphysical became the playground of the weirdos, the kooks, the fairies (derogatory in nature) and the hippies and druggies. Judge not lest ye be judged? Is this not judgment? I simply do not understand that whole piece of it... Perhaps all religions that are fairly organized and hierarchical have many conflicts within them. I have not studied them and only know the seeming incongruities of Christian based religions because it was what surrounded my life.
I was happy to explore an approach that said this is not a contest, this isn't a situation in which there is only ONE single correct way to worship or one way to interpret the Infinite Source of love, God, Allah, the spirits, whatever language and imagery works for you, because it is all the same in the end, that life source of energy that connects, that allows life to continue, it is the essential building blocks of living organisms.
Interpret how you will, but know love, the pure love, of the infinite source and live your life in love striving to be Christlike.
It took a while to wrap my mind around all those things that had been driven from my consciousness during my childhood. I gradually became aware of the IS within me and sometimes it was a scary revelation and I would run the other way for many years. Then I would peek back, ready to peel back a bit of another layer. An entire layer of our existence pushed out by people who are taught to fear.
Time passes, life happens, we seek, we explore, we grow, we shrink, we move, always moving.
A friend of mine who lives her life in a very linear path once made a comment to me about how I needed direction in my life.
I was silently amused at her comment, in a warm way, not mean spirited. She viewed life as one straight rugged climb up the side of the mountain, straight line, just go.
My climb up the mountain was a trail with many switchbacks and false spurs. Totally different approaches to the path of life, both equally valid, both elected by those traveling them. For her, mine was not working. It was working beautifully for me, just as my kook spirituality is.
I'll keep my switchbacks, thanks very much.
My fear of death began to truly morph when my friend Wayne was dying of AIDS related concerns. He died at 37. He gave me the honor and gift of being at his side throughout his last years and days of life. He slipped away from me one night, waiting, I know, for me to doze off. I woke to his final exhale. His death and his sharing of his experience removed the fear that had occupied my childhood. My buddig awareness of spirit and IS was not bound in fear, but love.
I now feared not living, rather than dying.
It was not dying that was the problem, it was a life not lived, a heart not at peace. For many years I was caught up in a life not lived being partially equated to the material plane, the activities with which we fill our time, and slowly segued into experiences, people and personal growth to define a life lived.
There have been other deaths between Wayne and Dad. I am still trying to get clear on a way to write about Dad's gifts to me. I am probably too close to it, still working out what his main teachings are, wallowing around in the muck. And then there is Betty.
Betty's spirit put me "in my place" so to speak last night. She bounced me back out of her space and spiritually said she was not in need of me, she was strong and growing stronger on her way. It was Pete and those whose hearts were heavy who needed my spiritual energy. I checked in with Pete as he slept next to her body. I gave him what I had. It wore me out to have that experience. A few short minutes in the wee hours, but fully exhausting.
Betty's request for me to take care of them was multi-dimensional, and last night she made that clear. It wasn't just about making sure Pete ate and did not lay in bed in a depression in the coming months. It was so much more.
Her eyes tonight held mine as I told her I intended to make good on my word. Every last dimension I am capable of comprehending and taking action on.
Betty will teach me much in the coming hours and days. I am very exhausted, have no one local to process with or share with as I unravel her lessons, but that will only slow the comprehension down, not thwart the growth.
For the Betty of my childhood I give many physical hugs and kisses. I thank you for your 3 slap on the face warmth and tenderness to show how much you love.
For the Betty of my adulthood, my teacher, I receive your lessons with a most gracious heart. May I have the strength and fortitude to receive all you have to offer.
Holding you in my heart as you journey on your path. Gradually receiving the baton of the physical existence, as it is passed from your generation to mine. May we have the wisdom to use it well.
I remember being a child and being fearful of death and what it entailed.
Our culture was already fairly compartmentalized and human death of loved ones was not part of the fabric of our daily lives. Living in separated nuclear families, the very young did not often live with aging/dying relatives as a normal experience. We had lived in close proximity to life and death for probably most of our 1.5 million years on earth, but in the last few hundreds of years, we have drifted away from the basic ebb and tide.
The dominate forms of religion that surrounded my childhood exacerbated my fear. The religious things I can recall, before briskly walking away from it at 12 and declaring myself and atheist, were harsh.
I recall from childhood things like put the fear of God in them, the judgment, and some others I now cannot recall.
I think I just hit the exhaustion wall where my brain may now be mush.
I recall during my 12th summer riding a church bus that picked up the neighbor kids. During that summer the church had a contest, the boy and the girl who brought the most new kids on the church bus during the summer session would win brand new 10 speed bikes. One for the boy, one for the girl. In Sunday school we were showered with candies for answering bible study questions - correctly or not. At church picnics we were plied with tons of ice cream for free.
I recall quite clearly my displeasure. I questioned why, if what the church had to offer was so good and valuable, they had to resort to what appeared to me to be bribery to recruit kids and keep them. They then talked about fearing god, eternal damnation and all manner of things that made their god seem highly undesirable and their church desperate to get kids any way they could lure them.
Today I would probably see this as a recruitment and conversion objective. Terms leveled harshly at me throughout my life, by those claiming to represent Christianity.
I guess this church elected to go for the kids. Most Jehovah's Witnesses I have talked to at any length were recruited through jails and rehab centers, when the person was at a very low vulnerable point in their life... I guess my beef is that if what you have is so daggone good and worthy...why the vulnerable and innocents are the ones targeted. If it is truly good, let them come on their own, with strong minds ready to accept while standing upright and clear headed. I am sure many come under this condition, but I do struggle with what to me feels like organized predatory approaches.
I recall being very disgusted with the religion available. A mean god and the church has to resort to bribing kids. That is just how it felt that summer.
One night at girl scout camp, my close friend slid out of her cot and onto her knees to pray before going to sleep. We had been laying in the dark joking, giggling and such, as 12 year old's will do. When I did not get on my knees she asked me about it. I told her I was an atheist and did not believe in her god, so it would be wrong of me to pretend to pray to her god.
I had decided I was an atheist. I only knew the judgment and fear centered religions that surrounded my childhood. I knew nothing of the existence of the Bahai's the Hindus, etc.
In my world it was the god that must be feared or nothing. I had little difficulty in electing to become an atheist. What I had seen of religion did not mesh with my own morals, values and desires for my life.
I felt I did not need a god that was mean and must be feared. The constant conflict the church represented did not help.
God is Love. Put the fear of god in you.
Judge not lest ye be judged. Those who do not believe as we do are sinners and do not know god and are heathens and so on, worshiping false gods/idols, not worthy, etc..(isn't that judging them? it sounded very judgmental to me).
My friend at camp was extremely visibly upset by my assertion that I did not believe in god. Had I understood just how she would melt down, I might not have been so matter of fact about it. She ran crying to our leader's tent. I was going to incur the wrath of her God and she feared for me. Truly feared for me and my eternally damned soul.
If I had any doubts about walking away, her palpable fear dispelled them. She was a wreck.
I had no trouble walking away from what was presented to me as my religious option in life.
It was not until I was 17 that I knew what a Jew was, and then only sort of. It would be many years before I understood anything about Judaism and I still know very little. I do know that if I was forced to make a choice only between Christian and Judaism, I'd be a Jew without the bat of an eye. Fortunately, the world is broader than that, I am not forced to make that choice or be ostracized.
In college as a 21 year old I learned of Bahai's and was intrigued. I became aware vaguley of Muslims, Hindus and so forth. I gradually shifted my stance from aethist, to agnostic during my early to mid 20's. In my mid 20's I began to open my life to newer experiences. A few years into my life in SF and I was open to explore the world's bounty.
I transitioned from agnostic to something undefined in my mind. I remained open to the idea of a universal force but heavily rejected the label God and Jesus Christ as it smacked so hard of that which was problematic to me from childhood. I continued to reject the word God and stumbled with Christ until I gradually became aware that Jesus was only one of many Christs.
I learned what Christ meant in the bigger world, the universe. The core essence of Christ made sense to me, more so than the fear of god that has always been presented with Jesus Christ as though Jesus was the only Christ.
I still choked over God with a capital G. It still had a singular meaning tied to the religion of my childhood, not acceptable.
I gradually became aware of an approach that many organized religions with strong hierarchical structures in place did their best to marginalize and relegate to the "kooks" - metaphysical or my favorite name "new age" despite the fact that most ideas reach much farther back in time than the founding of the relatively new religion of the Judea Christians. But new age, spirituality and metaphysical became the playground of the weirdos, the kooks, the fairies (derogatory in nature) and the hippies and druggies. Judge not lest ye be judged? Is this not judgment? I simply do not understand that whole piece of it... Perhaps all religions that are fairly organized and hierarchical have many conflicts within them. I have not studied them and only know the seeming incongruities of Christian based religions because it was what surrounded my life.
I was happy to explore an approach that said this is not a contest, this isn't a situation in which there is only ONE single correct way to worship or one way to interpret the Infinite Source of love, God, Allah, the spirits, whatever language and imagery works for you, because it is all the same in the end, that life source of energy that connects, that allows life to continue, it is the essential building blocks of living organisms.
Interpret how you will, but know love, the pure love, of the infinite source and live your life in love striving to be Christlike.
It took a while to wrap my mind around all those things that had been driven from my consciousness during my childhood. I gradually became aware of the IS within me and sometimes it was a scary revelation and I would run the other way for many years. Then I would peek back, ready to peel back a bit of another layer. An entire layer of our existence pushed out by people who are taught to fear.
Time passes, life happens, we seek, we explore, we grow, we shrink, we move, always moving.
A friend of mine who lives her life in a very linear path once made a comment to me about how I needed direction in my life.
I was silently amused at her comment, in a warm way, not mean spirited. She viewed life as one straight rugged climb up the side of the mountain, straight line, just go.
My climb up the mountain was a trail with many switchbacks and false spurs. Totally different approaches to the path of life, both equally valid, both elected by those traveling them. For her, mine was not working. It was working beautifully for me, just as my kook spirituality is.
I'll keep my switchbacks, thanks very much.
My fear of death began to truly morph when my friend Wayne was dying of AIDS related concerns. He died at 37. He gave me the honor and gift of being at his side throughout his last years and days of life. He slipped away from me one night, waiting, I know, for me to doze off. I woke to his final exhale. His death and his sharing of his experience removed the fear that had occupied my childhood. My buddig awareness of spirit and IS was not bound in fear, but love.
I now feared not living, rather than dying.
It was not dying that was the problem, it was a life not lived, a heart not at peace. For many years I was caught up in a life not lived being partially equated to the material plane, the activities with which we fill our time, and slowly segued into experiences, people and personal growth to define a life lived.
There have been other deaths between Wayne and Dad. I am still trying to get clear on a way to write about Dad's gifts to me. I am probably too close to it, still working out what his main teachings are, wallowing around in the muck. And then there is Betty.
Betty's spirit put me "in my place" so to speak last night. She bounced me back out of her space and spiritually said she was not in need of me, she was strong and growing stronger on her way. It was Pete and those whose hearts were heavy who needed my spiritual energy. I checked in with Pete as he slept next to her body. I gave him what I had. It wore me out to have that experience. A few short minutes in the wee hours, but fully exhausting.
Betty's request for me to take care of them was multi-dimensional, and last night she made that clear. It wasn't just about making sure Pete ate and did not lay in bed in a depression in the coming months. It was so much more.
Her eyes tonight held mine as I told her I intended to make good on my word. Every last dimension I am capable of comprehending and taking action on.
Betty will teach me much in the coming hours and days. I am very exhausted, have no one local to process with or share with as I unravel her lessons, but that will only slow the comprehension down, not thwart the growth.
For the Betty of my childhood I give many physical hugs and kisses. I thank you for your 3 slap on the face warmth and tenderness to show how much you love.
For the Betty of my adulthood, my teacher, I receive your lessons with a most gracious heart. May I have the strength and fortitude to receive all you have to offer.
Holding you in my heart as you journey on your path. Gradually receiving the baton of the physical existence, as it is passed from your generation to mine. May we have the wisdom to use it well.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Well, I went out tonight to look up at the sky in hopes of seeing some of the Perseid meteor showers.
Last year, mom and I drove out to the cemetery. We sat, and we waited, and we waited and we waited. Despite the very wide view unobstructed by trees/buildings and such, we saw nothing streaking across the sky...
Tonight it is a wonderful night, about 70 degrees and a crisp light breeze. The IF Symphony is in full concert. I had forgotten it was that time of year already and only just stumbled upon the news of the showers.
So, I threw on a longsleeve shirt and headed out into the yard. I stood with my head tilted back.
My neighbor, the one that is not a dog genius, has a really really bright yard light that lights up my whole back yard. Still, I was able to see some sky and some stars, if I stayed on the side of my house.
As I stood there, again with the waiting, I recalled the most magnificent night sky I have ever seen.
Kadavu, Fiji.
I was staying at Matava eco resort. Kadavu is an island in the south pacific and the nearest source of lights was in Suva, on the main island of Viti Levu, about 60 miles away. Suva, the cosmopolitan hot spot of the S. Pacific, is not brimming with bright lights at night. 60 miles of ocean between us, it made zero impact on visibility. The nearest major city is over 2000 miles away, in Australia.
Result?
The absolutely most stunning star studded sky you have ever laid eyes on.
It was hard to comprehend seeing that many stars, in that many layers.
I cannot really describe it. There were so many layers to the stars, so many sizes, brightness and radiance. The sky danced, glittered and shimmered. It appeared to be in constant motion.
Pure absolute grace.
No ambient lights to interfere, just the night sky as our ancestors experienced it.
In the prior week, I had been staying on Moorea in French Polynesia and had been enjoying the night sky there. However, we were only about 11 miles from the city of Papeetee on Tahiti, and it had a much larger night time light presence, and was much closer to where I was. Moorea was also much more populated, making the night sky there nothing compared to what I was to witness in Kadavu.
I arrived in the islands in a certain mood to begin with. It was the starting point for my open ended backpacking trip. I had read Kon Tiki during the flight from LA to Papeetee and was in a very magical place as we flew into the airport in the middle of the night. Reading the Kon-Tiki as I was arriving, really impacted my experiences in the S. Pacific.
Anyway, standing in the yard tonight transported me back to those nights at Matava, trying to absorb the true immense nature of the universe.
My mind then shifted to a cold winter night in February 2008. The lunar eclipse. Ohio. I shared this night with dad and mom. I surfed onto the web via an open wireless connection in their neighborhood and showed them live video feed. I went outside and stood across the street and video taped it for dad. That was Feb 20th, 2 short months before we would say goodbye. I remember clinging to every moment of that night, wishing it would never end. But we knew our days were drawing to a close.
Amazing what the night sky can deliver.
I stood outside tonight having one of those odd conversations with dad. Fleeting bits, no sentences completed, but thoughts full transmitted.
I am forever thankful to my dear friend Mandy for telling me to come home that Christmas, she said it would be our last. How I wish she had been wrong.
Well, a bittersweet night to say the least. The promise of tomorrow, the heartache of the past. I think I'll go out and give it another look before I turn in.
Maybe I will reread Kon-Tiki soon.
Last year, mom and I drove out to the cemetery. We sat, and we waited, and we waited and we waited. Despite the very wide view unobstructed by trees/buildings and such, we saw nothing streaking across the sky...
Tonight it is a wonderful night, about 70 degrees and a crisp light breeze. The IF Symphony is in full concert. I had forgotten it was that time of year already and only just stumbled upon the news of the showers.
So, I threw on a longsleeve shirt and headed out into the yard. I stood with my head tilted back.
My neighbor, the one that is not a dog genius, has a really really bright yard light that lights up my whole back yard. Still, I was able to see some sky and some stars, if I stayed on the side of my house.
As I stood there, again with the waiting, I recalled the most magnificent night sky I have ever seen.
Kadavu, Fiji.
I was staying at Matava eco resort. Kadavu is an island in the south pacific and the nearest source of lights was in Suva, on the main island of Viti Levu, about 60 miles away. Suva, the cosmopolitan hot spot of the S. Pacific, is not brimming with bright lights at night. 60 miles of ocean between us, it made zero impact on visibility. The nearest major city is over 2000 miles away, in Australia.
Result?
The absolutely most stunning star studded sky you have ever laid eyes on.
It was hard to comprehend seeing that many stars, in that many layers.
I cannot really describe it. There were so many layers to the stars, so many sizes, brightness and radiance. The sky danced, glittered and shimmered. It appeared to be in constant motion.
Pure absolute grace.
No ambient lights to interfere, just the night sky as our ancestors experienced it.
In the prior week, I had been staying on Moorea in French Polynesia and had been enjoying the night sky there. However, we were only about 11 miles from the city of Papeetee on Tahiti, and it had a much larger night time light presence, and was much closer to where I was. Moorea was also much more populated, making the night sky there nothing compared to what I was to witness in Kadavu.
I arrived in the islands in a certain mood to begin with. It was the starting point for my open ended backpacking trip. I had read Kon Tiki during the flight from LA to Papeetee and was in a very magical place as we flew into the airport in the middle of the night. Reading the Kon-Tiki as I was arriving, really impacted my experiences in the S. Pacific.
Anyway, standing in the yard tonight transported me back to those nights at Matava, trying to absorb the true immense nature of the universe.
My mind then shifted to a cold winter night in February 2008. The lunar eclipse. Ohio. I shared this night with dad and mom. I surfed onto the web via an open wireless connection in their neighborhood and showed them live video feed. I went outside and stood across the street and video taped it for dad. That was Feb 20th, 2 short months before we would say goodbye. I remember clinging to every moment of that night, wishing it would never end. But we knew our days were drawing to a close.
Amazing what the night sky can deliver.
I stood outside tonight having one of those odd conversations with dad. Fleeting bits, no sentences completed, but thoughts full transmitted.
I am forever thankful to my dear friend Mandy for telling me to come home that Christmas, she said it would be our last. How I wish she had been wrong.
Well, a bittersweet night to say the least. The promise of tomorrow, the heartache of the past. I think I'll go out and give it another look before I turn in.
Maybe I will reread Kon-Tiki soon.
Spirituality
I recall, very specifically, thinking about my spiritual development and what that would mean for me here in Ohio. I started thinking about it once it was clear that I was leaving home and moving lock, stock and barrel to Ohio.
My dearest friends gave me a shirt as a present "Friends Don't Let Friends Live in Ohio." I loved it.
Anyway, I recall thinking how this relocation of my life, in many many ways a fish way outta water, would put my spirituality to the test. If I can live the thought in Ohio, then I am truly on the path to enlightenment.
I was only beginning to sorta feel like I owned my spirituality once in a while, so moving to Ohio was going to really be the make or break for me. My spiritual journey has been a long slow road, with many beloved teachers and experiences along the way.
A few weeks ago I had the occasion to speak with a very well educated, and very astute woman who is the ED of a nonprofit. I told her my situation here in Dayton, and she looked at me and asked how it was that I was smiling and not seriously depressed.
Now, for all my pissing and moaning, which you KNOW I love to do for fun, I do smile quite often here, and I am not depressed. Worried, yes.
Driving in a total downpour (alien in SF) at about 25 mph on the highway today, I realized just how well I was doing with my spiritual beliefs, and how well that was serving me. Amazing what a good downpour will do.
I felt pretty good about it too, as I don't have a support system here to keep my spiritual path clear. It is pretty easy in the Bay Area, as so many folks are on some sort of a similar path, or have a level of awareness around some of the ideas.
The few Ohio folks I have attempted to engage in conversation just kinda looked at me with that plastic face of politeness, and at the first opportunity switch the subject.
Alien.
I sometimes struggle with Levi-Strauss' theory of binary opposition. Yet, I have also accepted it as a basic premise in my spiritual life.
As you come to know the inner workings of my mind via this blog, you will come to realize that I live in a perpetual paradox, not only in my spiritual nature, but in my thoughts and ideas about many many things. Don't get me started on culture... even if you weren't a drinker before, you will be, well before my tongue tires.
Every moment in life I am in a position to make a choice. To live in "love" or to live in "fear" - whilst far from perfect at this... I live in love far more often than I live in fear.
To those for whom this concept, or approach to thinking about life, might be new... it means in a very simple example, that when approached by an unknown person, I can choose the path of fear and expect something negative about or from the encounter. I can choose the path of love, and expect something positive from the encounter.
A bit of a self fulfilling prophecy.
We live in the world we create for ourselves.
Focus on the negative, and that is what you will see and feel for your life.
Focus on the positive, and that is what your life will have and be.
I still love dearly a quote by a 17 year old girl from Bam, Iran. The ancient city of Bam, was leveled by an earthquake on Dec 23, just 2 months before I was scheduled to visit. She, like most other survivors (est dead was about 26,000) lost almost every one of her relatives. Rural Iranians and small city dwellers typically live surrounded by close relatives. As the ancient homes crumbled, entire families were taken. This girl was 12 at the time of the earthquake, she writes poetry and shared this thought...
"Life is beautiful for those who seek beauty,"
I can hear the sounds of all the IF critters outside my window. In years past, this would have been an irritant. A fear based choice I made.
Now, in love, I simply listen. I feel blessed to have the ability to hear them.
I listen. I hear beauty. Life is indeed beautiful.
so, as I shove off for bed, serenaded by the IF Symphony, I wish for you the ability to seek beauty, and have a beautiful life.
My dearest friends gave me a shirt as a present "Friends Don't Let Friends Live in Ohio." I loved it.
Anyway, I recall thinking how this relocation of my life, in many many ways a fish way outta water, would put my spirituality to the test. If I can live the thought in Ohio, then I am truly on the path to enlightenment.
I was only beginning to sorta feel like I owned my spirituality once in a while, so moving to Ohio was going to really be the make or break for me. My spiritual journey has been a long slow road, with many beloved teachers and experiences along the way.
A few weeks ago I had the occasion to speak with a very well educated, and very astute woman who is the ED of a nonprofit. I told her my situation here in Dayton, and she looked at me and asked how it was that I was smiling and not seriously depressed.
Now, for all my pissing and moaning, which you KNOW I love to do for fun, I do smile quite often here, and I am not depressed. Worried, yes.
Driving in a total downpour (alien in SF) at about 25 mph on the highway today, I realized just how well I was doing with my spiritual beliefs, and how well that was serving me. Amazing what a good downpour will do.
I felt pretty good about it too, as I don't have a support system here to keep my spiritual path clear. It is pretty easy in the Bay Area, as so many folks are on some sort of a similar path, or have a level of awareness around some of the ideas.
The few Ohio folks I have attempted to engage in conversation just kinda looked at me with that plastic face of politeness, and at the first opportunity switch the subject.
Alien.
I sometimes struggle with Levi-Strauss' theory of binary opposition. Yet, I have also accepted it as a basic premise in my spiritual life.
As you come to know the inner workings of my mind via this blog, you will come to realize that I live in a perpetual paradox, not only in my spiritual nature, but in my thoughts and ideas about many many things. Don't get me started on culture... even if you weren't a drinker before, you will be, well before my tongue tires.
Every moment in life I am in a position to make a choice. To live in "love" or to live in "fear" - whilst far from perfect at this... I live in love far more often than I live in fear.
To those for whom this concept, or approach to thinking about life, might be new... it means in a very simple example, that when approached by an unknown person, I can choose the path of fear and expect something negative about or from the encounter. I can choose the path of love, and expect something positive from the encounter.
A bit of a self fulfilling prophecy.
We live in the world we create for ourselves.
Focus on the negative, and that is what you will see and feel for your life.
Focus on the positive, and that is what your life will have and be.
I still love dearly a quote by a 17 year old girl from Bam, Iran. The ancient city of Bam, was leveled by an earthquake on Dec 23, just 2 months before I was scheduled to visit. She, like most other survivors (est dead was about 26,000) lost almost every one of her relatives. Rural Iranians and small city dwellers typically live surrounded by close relatives. As the ancient homes crumbled, entire families were taken. This girl was 12 at the time of the earthquake, she writes poetry and shared this thought...
"Life is beautiful for those who seek beauty,"
I can hear the sounds of all the IF critters outside my window. In years past, this would have been an irritant. A fear based choice I made.
Now, in love, I simply listen. I feel blessed to have the ability to hear them.
I listen. I hear beauty. Life is indeed beautiful.
so, as I shove off for bed, serenaded by the IF Symphony, I wish for you the ability to seek beauty, and have a beautiful life.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Nails...
OK, so these are the things that just completely and I mean completely boggle my mind.
I mean, really...
So the garage (the one that floods when it rains any significant amount) has some rough wood shelving installed on the west wall. Made out of 2 x4's nailed to the floor joists and hanging down to just a hair's breath from the garage floor.
Next there is a single 10 or 12 foot 2 x 4 running across, parallel with the wall and the floor and about 16 inches above the floor. This 2 x4 is nailed into the ones coming down from the ceiling.
Next there are some nice 18" long 2 x 4's nailed in to create ledges for shelves to sit on... well there are a couple of these only. The rest are little metal brackets.
So, some of the 2 x 4's are literally just nailed into the floor joist with like 2 nails total. This is suppose to hold shelves in a garage....
some have brackets.
Now, somebody along the line decided to pay about 75 cents to a 1.50 for each bracket (2 types) and there is probably a total of about 20 of them altogether.
Each bracket has 2 to 3 holes for nails/screws --- per flat area - meaning that each bracket uses anywhere from 4 to 6 nails/screws.
Well, I guess nails used to cost a bloody fortune cause EACH bracket, regardless if it had a total of 4 or 6 holes only had 2 nails - one for each side.
Now, I just spent like 4 days in the big box in a really loooooooong aisle of nails. Nails for days. I was looking for a 10d 1 1/4"... that is what the bracket said to use. Well, long 4 days standing there later... I come home with a 1 pound box of roofers nails that are 3d 1 1/4" cause the Big Box man said 10d's don't come that short in regular nails... whatever. That box was $2.37.
$2.37 - it has to have like a hundred nails in it.
I also bought more brackets to really shore the sucker up - cause last winter it came crashing down on me, and that was not fun at all.
So, do I only put one nail per bracket side in these $1.50 brackets????????
I mean, seriously, what could you possibly be thinking???? One nail?
I just don't freaking get it. 100 nails, $2.50ish with tax... they had to buy the brackets somewhere... even I, on the verge of selling matches and pencil's downtown could muster up the $ for the nails and will pound a nail in every bleeping hole in the daggone brackets.
So, big shock, the lower bits of the 2 x 4's have water damage. do ya think the slapped some primer and a cheap coat of spray paint on that bare wood before they left it in that garage that has like 2 to 3" of water sitting in it during the heavy rains?
Nooooooooooooooooooo.
So, I have some bits of primer and spray paint left around from last fall and am trying to get the wood dried out good so I can prime and paint it.
I mean really people... do people sleep all the way between 2nd grade and 8th grade?
Aarrrghh.
So I forgot and left my DDP in the freezer for 1.5 hours... not opening that puppy for a while.
Ok... back to making the shelves sturdy so I can get the garage in some sort of basic order.
CA day out there and my energy level is back to what it used to be in my former life. Gosh how I miss waking up ready to conquer the world. I cannot wait for fall, will be the energizer bunny before I hit that long winter hibernation.
Alrighty, back to the shelves.
I mean, really...
So the garage (the one that floods when it rains any significant amount) has some rough wood shelving installed on the west wall. Made out of 2 x4's nailed to the floor joists and hanging down to just a hair's breath from the garage floor.
Next there is a single 10 or 12 foot 2 x 4 running across, parallel with the wall and the floor and about 16 inches above the floor. This 2 x4 is nailed into the ones coming down from the ceiling.
Next there are some nice 18" long 2 x 4's nailed in to create ledges for shelves to sit on... well there are a couple of these only. The rest are little metal brackets.
So, some of the 2 x 4's are literally just nailed into the floor joist with like 2 nails total. This is suppose to hold shelves in a garage....
some have brackets.
Now, somebody along the line decided to pay about 75 cents to a 1.50 for each bracket (2 types) and there is probably a total of about 20 of them altogether.
Each bracket has 2 to 3 holes for nails/screws --- per flat area - meaning that each bracket uses anywhere from 4 to 6 nails/screws.
Well, I guess nails used to cost a bloody fortune cause EACH bracket, regardless if it had a total of 4 or 6 holes only had 2 nails - one for each side.
Now, I just spent like 4 days in the big box in a really loooooooong aisle of nails. Nails for days. I was looking for a 10d 1 1/4"... that is what the bracket said to use. Well, long 4 days standing there later... I come home with a 1 pound box of roofers nails that are 3d 1 1/4" cause the Big Box man said 10d's don't come that short in regular nails... whatever. That box was $2.37.
$2.37 - it has to have like a hundred nails in it.
I also bought more brackets to really shore the sucker up - cause last winter it came crashing down on me, and that was not fun at all.
So, do I only put one nail per bracket side in these $1.50 brackets????????
I mean, seriously, what could you possibly be thinking???? One nail?
I just don't freaking get it. 100 nails, $2.50ish with tax... they had to buy the brackets somewhere... even I, on the verge of selling matches and pencil's downtown could muster up the $ for the nails and will pound a nail in every bleeping hole in the daggone brackets.
So, big shock, the lower bits of the 2 x 4's have water damage. do ya think the slapped some primer and a cheap coat of spray paint on that bare wood before they left it in that garage that has like 2 to 3" of water sitting in it during the heavy rains?
Nooooooooooooooooooo.
So, I have some bits of primer and spray paint left around from last fall and am trying to get the wood dried out good so I can prime and paint it.
I mean really people... do people sleep all the way between 2nd grade and 8th grade?
Aarrrghh.
So I forgot and left my DDP in the freezer for 1.5 hours... not opening that puppy for a while.
Ok... back to making the shelves sturdy so I can get the garage in some sort of basic order.
CA day out there and my energy level is back to what it used to be in my former life. Gosh how I miss waking up ready to conquer the world. I cannot wait for fall, will be the energizer bunny before I hit that long winter hibernation.
Alrighty, back to the shelves.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Life in the Millennial Depression
I figured I might as well start the book now.
Who knows how long I'll have electric to be able to write it on the computer.
Might ought to go buy a used typewriter at the local thrift store and start hording what is left of the old fashioned paper junk mail. I can turn in the bio draft on that and type by day light, should I be able to muster the energy to peck down those keys. Wonder if I can still get my hands on correction tape???????
Seriously though. I feel like we are sitting on the very brink of it. Via Facebook I have been in touch with a handful of my school mates. One of them reported it taking her 19 months to find work and she has lived here all her life as far as I know.
Now, I am pretty sure she had some schooling in there for dental assistant or something, but I don't know if the 19 months included school or was after being qualified.
At any rate, things are rapidly becoming desperate here. Winter cold will be here soon and my current income is any where from 20% to 45% of my bare minimum monthly expenses... this does not bode well folks.
I actually applied for a part-time job yesterday... one that pays enough to pay my basic minimal expenses... sad that actually locating ONE semi-suitable job prospect 40 miles away is exciting, but it was. Cross fingers that out of the hundreds of applicants somebody actually looks at mine.
Boy do I need a real network here...
So, I have begun advertising for life coaching services. Just today I did that. Put ads out in SF, Austin and here in Dayton. Hopefully a few of those folks with good steady jobs or from families with some $ will find my ad and website appealing and contact me about coaching them.
I really love coaching people, and figured I might as well start putting some ads out (they are free). I got some basic (and very appropriate for the Dayton area) business cards to hand out to folks I meet casually.
If I could just land a few coaching clients, I could limp through the winter with that and the weekend sausage gig. Just need to eeek out til spring arrives. Things will be better then, or we'll be eating the neighbors (I am one of the young ones here, so I feel pretty safe...).
Bane/Ollie is a darn good hunter, so if push comes to shove, I might have snake, crawdad and shrew (BTW - the critters he brings in are shrews, not moles...) stew.
Mom is waiting for him to come home with shrimp. I hope she isn't holding her breath. But if he does, WE ARE RICH!
OK, gotta hit the hay. Worked out some technical website related crap today and my eyes are whoooo hooooey... but, I now have google analytics tracking my site and I have a way to see if anybody is actually even opening my backpage and craigslist ads... I love google searching for cool things... It is important to know if anybody at all is opening the ad and in what cities that ad title might be attractive...
So, if you know anybody that is looking for a life coach, please let me know.
I am not posting any details about the site or such on here, as I like having this totally anon personal space to let it all hang out!
Low plane overhead at the moment... has another war started???????????? "they" always say that is good for the economy... too bad it sucks for the living people...
Bye all,
put those + vibes out...
chickie might be running out of Aces finally...but I ain't sinking til the ship does.
Who knows how long I'll have electric to be able to write it on the computer.
Might ought to go buy a used typewriter at the local thrift store and start hording what is left of the old fashioned paper junk mail. I can turn in the bio draft on that and type by day light, should I be able to muster the energy to peck down those keys. Wonder if I can still get my hands on correction tape???????
Seriously though. I feel like we are sitting on the very brink of it. Via Facebook I have been in touch with a handful of my school mates. One of them reported it taking her 19 months to find work and she has lived here all her life as far as I know.
Now, I am pretty sure she had some schooling in there for dental assistant or something, but I don't know if the 19 months included school or was after being qualified.
At any rate, things are rapidly becoming desperate here. Winter cold will be here soon and my current income is any where from 20% to 45% of my bare minimum monthly expenses... this does not bode well folks.
I actually applied for a part-time job yesterday... one that pays enough to pay my basic minimal expenses... sad that actually locating ONE semi-suitable job prospect 40 miles away is exciting, but it was. Cross fingers that out of the hundreds of applicants somebody actually looks at mine.
Boy do I need a real network here...
So, I have begun advertising for life coaching services. Just today I did that. Put ads out in SF, Austin and here in Dayton. Hopefully a few of those folks with good steady jobs or from families with some $ will find my ad and website appealing and contact me about coaching them.
I really love coaching people, and figured I might as well start putting some ads out (they are free). I got some basic (and very appropriate for the Dayton area) business cards to hand out to folks I meet casually.
If I could just land a few coaching clients, I could limp through the winter with that and the weekend sausage gig. Just need to eeek out til spring arrives. Things will be better then, or we'll be eating the neighbors (I am one of the young ones here, so I feel pretty safe...).
Bane/Ollie is a darn good hunter, so if push comes to shove, I might have snake, crawdad and shrew (BTW - the critters he brings in are shrews, not moles...) stew.
Mom is waiting for him to come home with shrimp. I hope she isn't holding her breath. But if he does, WE ARE RICH!
OK, gotta hit the hay. Worked out some technical website related crap today and my eyes are whoooo hooooey... but, I now have google analytics tracking my site and I have a way to see if anybody is actually even opening my backpage and craigslist ads... I love google searching for cool things... It is important to know if anybody at all is opening the ad and in what cities that ad title might be attractive...
So, if you know anybody that is looking for a life coach, please let me know.
I am not posting any details about the site or such on here, as I like having this totally anon personal space to let it all hang out!
Low plane overhead at the moment... has another war started???????????? "they" always say that is good for the economy... too bad it sucks for the living people...
Bye all,
put those + vibes out...
chickie might be running out of Aces finally...but I ain't sinking til the ship does.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Mom's cousin
Well, thankfully she has decided to go with chemo, and has said they have to start her on lower doses and work up, not the reverse like last time.
I didn't really think she was ready yet.
Now I just have to make sure mom starts spending more time with her... and still need to find a way for mom to make some new younger friends.
Mom is a very youthful 75. She needs to be going to lunch, plays and hikes and such.
All for now. Gotta get back to beating the bushes for a buck.
I didn't really think she was ready yet.
Now I just have to make sure mom starts spending more time with her... and still need to find a way for mom to make some new younger friends.
Mom is a very youthful 75. She needs to be going to lunch, plays and hikes and such.
All for now. Gotta get back to beating the bushes for a buck.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
A little more bad news...
Well, my cousin's cancer has come back. It has been less than a year. This time the tumor is pressing against her urethra tube (the exit route for urine) and has pushed the urethra closed so she had to have stints put in her kidneys...
She is 78. She and mom have been closer than sisters since mom was a tiny toddler. They moved from TN to Ohio within a year of each other and have just always been there for each other.
Well the docs said she can do chemo again and they just don't know what will happen, or she can do nothing. If she does nothing, she has 2 to 4 months to live.
Mom is really hurting over this. My cousin has been in the hospital 8 times in the last year and a half. She was in there 21 days and was put in the day before or the day after dad went in for the last time.
She is tired and it is unclear which way she wants to go.
I want her to do what is best for her. I worry a great deal about mom. Her neighbor, Gladys, just turned 90 today, also has cancer and not much longer to live. Mom's other real close friend is in a nursing home and will be for the rest of her life.
Mom needs a shot of young healthy friends to ease the way. I cannot get her to go to senior center events and such and she doesn't have a large driving radius, so she cannot really go too many social places without someone to drive her.
I am worried about her. I am worried about my cousin Betty. I don't really think she is truly ready to be done with her life, but she is clearly tired.
Her husband is the sweetest guy. I don't know if he will make it alone. He just isn't the type. She is his love, his sweetheart since childhood.
I just want to be a kid again. Young parents, young family friends. Healthy and just struggling with other issues, not serious illness and death around every corner... I am not liking this aging thing at the moment.
Live life like you are dying...
Review your top 3 priorities in life. Can you name the 3 most important things in the world to you?
OK, off to a somber bed time...
She is 78. She and mom have been closer than sisters since mom was a tiny toddler. They moved from TN to Ohio within a year of each other and have just always been there for each other.
Well the docs said she can do chemo again and they just don't know what will happen, or she can do nothing. If she does nothing, she has 2 to 4 months to live.
Mom is really hurting over this. My cousin has been in the hospital 8 times in the last year and a half. She was in there 21 days and was put in the day before or the day after dad went in for the last time.
She is tired and it is unclear which way she wants to go.
I want her to do what is best for her. I worry a great deal about mom. Her neighbor, Gladys, just turned 90 today, also has cancer and not much longer to live. Mom's other real close friend is in a nursing home and will be for the rest of her life.
Mom needs a shot of young healthy friends to ease the way. I cannot get her to go to senior center events and such and she doesn't have a large driving radius, so she cannot really go too many social places without someone to drive her.
I am worried about her. I am worried about my cousin Betty. I don't really think she is truly ready to be done with her life, but she is clearly tired.
Her husband is the sweetest guy. I don't know if he will make it alone. He just isn't the type. She is his love, his sweetheart since childhood.
I just want to be a kid again. Young parents, young family friends. Healthy and just struggling with other issues, not serious illness and death around every corner... I am not liking this aging thing at the moment.
Live life like you are dying...
Review your top 3 priorities in life. Can you name the 3 most important things in the world to you?
OK, off to a somber bed time...
Friday, July 17, 2009
Zoo and Bane
So, spent a zooriffic day today at the zoo with my friend Maria, my great niece Savannah and my mom. Maria's beloved, Christi, joined us at the zoo for the cheetah show and then had to get back to bringing home the bacon, no not Sir Francis Bacon, -the pig that was part of the cheetah show - (so named by Maria, btw), but the money bacon.
Well, it was one of those nice summer days. Overcast, cool and really no humidity.
The day was fabulous. Savannah, 7, was a delight. She behaved wonderfully and was very taken with Maria.
Now, Maria is about the nicest and smartest person I have ever known. In fact, she may be the nicest/smartest combo package. She has been going to the zoo for about 35 years and has been a volunteer for probably 15 to 20 years. She is used to taking kids on tours, working the info booths and knows many many people at the zoo. She is a walking encyclopedia.
Savannah was a walking ?, so it worked out well. Just as soon as Maria finished answering one question - in, I might add, the absolute perfect manner for a 7 year old, here came the next question.
Maria must be tired, just from that.
So Ms. S learned a great deal today. Got to feed a giraffe some special giraffe biscuits. Got to have Lorikeet birds crawl on her head and shoulders (as did all of us) while offering up cups of nectar. One apparently mistook my ear canal as some deep welled flower. Tickled at first, but then became a tad bit concerning... Several found my hair to be perfect material to try to pull - perhaps for their nests??? Maria's shirt was mistaken for a porta potty...
Anyway, wonderful day, including watching the cheetahs chase fake prey and make an amazing tight turn and still go in for the kill. We also got to see Tommy T - the 8 month old cheetah cub take his turn at catching the prey. He of course toyed with it after catching it... kids...
To see pics of Tommy, visit his blog. If you go back to November 2008, you can see him as a wee little cub.
So, the day was really wonderful. Then, we went back to Maria and Christi's place, had pizza, got to visit with Christi, got to see their 4 dogs and one of the 5 or 6 cats. After dinner S suggested a game of GO Fish, so we played and I won, whooo hoooo. Then Maria did some magic tricks for S and then S did some magic tricks for us.
Well, it was time to head home, so we dropped S off at her house. When we went to her backyard, her daddy came out of the barn in a pair of shorts and covered in transmission fluid, car grease and dirt. Trying to put a transmission in a vehicle and it wasn't going so smooth. Talk about your grease monkey! He was filthy!
S showed us how she could ride a bike without training wheels (since yesterday!!!), then we had to go home. I dropped mom off and came back to Kia Rio.
Jaz and Heljye waiting on the porch, happily anticipating dinner. Called for Ollie and he didn't show. Sometimes it takes him about 10 or 15 to transition from the hunt to coming inside. I fiddled around the house, and periodically called for him.
After 20 minutes and no show, I got a tad more serious about it. The wind was picking up and it was pretty strong. I got the dog whistle and the treat bag. Now it is 30 minutes.
Last time it took him this long to come when called, I ended up in the Impenetrable Forest with an extension ladder and the Ollievator at 2:30 am.
So, as you can imagine, I was not too happy. I actually have to get up in the morning and be at a part-time job (really PT - like 24 hours a month) so I was not keen on trying to figure out where he was stranded, but what can you do?
So, back in the house. Long pants, tall socks, boots, long sleeve shirt, bandanna, bug lotion, flashlight, dog whistle.
Here we go again.
I start with perimeter patrol. Now it is Friday night and I live on a state route, so there is traffic. There is also a bar out here in the countryside, and it is less than 1/2 mile away. It is about 9:30 or so, so folks are heading out all over the place. Lots of traffic noise to eclipse a weak cat mew in the IF.
I walk back and forth in the yard and hear nothing but loud animal movements (male deer are out there because you can see their markings on the barkless trees) so I am not totally keen on just plunging in. Never mind the raccoons and my neighbor telling me just yesterday that he killed a rat snake in his driveway.
So, after a few trips along the edge of the yard, I go out and walk on the side of the road, hoping not to find his body there. I walk up to the fence - in between cars, call his name and strain to hear a faint mew. Nothing.
I hear my name. It is Oneida, she is on her front porch with a cup of coffee, standing in the dark enjoying the cool summer night. I give her his description and she promises to keep an eye out. I ask about the status of her job interview. They called her twice to update her on when interviews would finish and when she should next expect to hear from them. I tell her THAT is a really good sign, they like you. She was pleased to hear it. Things are HARD here and they have 2 little kids.
So, back at the Ollie hunt. Back into the yard, flashlight to the porch hoping he is waiting there. Nothing doing.
I walk to the best opening spot to enter the IF. I pause, calling his name, flashing the light about to give notice I am in the hood. It is at this point that I think "this cat is the bane of my existence."
I am now in the IF. I am calling. I hear nothing. I move in about 7 feet, get still, call to him and listen. I move 7 more feet crossing over fallen branches and repeat. 7 more feet. Nothing. I hunch down and crawl under growth. repeat. Nothing. 7 more feet. A mew. I call, he mews I zig zag through the growth toward his mew. Squatting periodically.
I am thinking what a total bitch it is going to be to drag a damn ladder back here. Further in than last time. Damn, seems like he is closer to the neighbors house. Call, mew, flashlight around, move. repeat. Jeez, what is mom going to say when I call her at 10 pm and say I am coming for the extension ladder tonight. She nearly had me committed the last time. The biggest ladder I have here is 6 foot. Ok, when I get a steady source of cash, I MUST get an extension ladder. Call, mew, flashlight around, move.
Call. Mew is quite loud and sounds fairly low. Now I am perplexed.
He does not sound high enough to be afraid to come down. What could the problem be? Call, loud mew, flashlight - bingo - I get cat eyes. He is low to the ground. WTF??? I get closer he mews loud, I shine the light. The little fucker is standing on the ground mewing loudly. He is not up a tree, not trapped, not stuck, not being curled upon by black rat snake. Just standing there giving me his loud shrill mew. Not the same one that bolts me out of bed at 6 am, but the other one that demands attention.
Now I am perplexed. I pet him, he is happy. I turn around and begin the zig zag to get back out. I call, he sort of follows all the while with the shrill mew. I wonder. He is walking fine.
I get to the yard, he stands about 10 feet away and off to my left, still in the IF mewing loudly as though he is lost or calling a lost friend.
I call, he comes flying and runs up to the porch and stands by the door waiting to come in the front door with me. I open door, he goes to eat. Heljye jumps him at the food bowl, there is a scuffle. I put Heljye on a cat tree and pet him.
Ollie eats (I pat him down for signs of puncture or other wounds) then walks to his favorite spot in the hallway (world's shortest hallway) and plops down like he was just hanging round all damn day.
BANE.
bane:
killer, slayer b: poison c: death, destruction (the moles use this definition and so do I)
bane:
a source of harm or ruin : curse (we all use this one.)
So, Bane is now sitting in the window of the office, enjoying the cool breeze coming through the window screen and watching me type, then looking outside. Pretty as a magazine cover.
Bane.
I now feel icky ooey and buggie... covered in herbal bug repellent, spider webs and who knows what. Never mind the potential for a snake to drop off a tree at or on me.
So, um, to those people who need to scientifically "prove" that cats control their owners.
F you. Just get a damn cat and save all the research money and time. Please. Any cat person could tell you that while standing in line at the pet store with their umpteenth brand of cat food that the finicky little beasts turn their noses to.
Must bathe and pet Bane kitty nice nice before I go to bed.
Well, it was one of those nice summer days. Overcast, cool and really no humidity.
The day was fabulous. Savannah, 7, was a delight. She behaved wonderfully and was very taken with Maria.
Now, Maria is about the nicest and smartest person I have ever known. In fact, she may be the nicest/smartest combo package. She has been going to the zoo for about 35 years and has been a volunteer for probably 15 to 20 years. She is used to taking kids on tours, working the info booths and knows many many people at the zoo. She is a walking encyclopedia.
Savannah was a walking ?, so it worked out well. Just as soon as Maria finished answering one question - in, I might add, the absolute perfect manner for a 7 year old, here came the next question.
Maria must be tired, just from that.
So Ms. S learned a great deal today. Got to feed a giraffe some special giraffe biscuits. Got to have Lorikeet birds crawl on her head and shoulders (as did all of us) while offering up cups of nectar. One apparently mistook my ear canal as some deep welled flower. Tickled at first, but then became a tad bit concerning... Several found my hair to be perfect material to try to pull - perhaps for their nests??? Maria's shirt was mistaken for a porta potty...
Anyway, wonderful day, including watching the cheetahs chase fake prey and make an amazing tight turn and still go in for the kill. We also got to see Tommy T - the 8 month old cheetah cub take his turn at catching the prey. He of course toyed with it after catching it... kids...
To see pics of Tommy, visit his blog. If you go back to November 2008, you can see him as a wee little cub.
So, the day was really wonderful. Then, we went back to Maria and Christi's place, had pizza, got to visit with Christi, got to see their 4 dogs and one of the 5 or 6 cats. After dinner S suggested a game of GO Fish, so we played and I won, whooo hoooo. Then Maria did some magic tricks for S and then S did some magic tricks for us.
Well, it was time to head home, so we dropped S off at her house. When we went to her backyard, her daddy came out of the barn in a pair of shorts and covered in transmission fluid, car grease and dirt. Trying to put a transmission in a vehicle and it wasn't going so smooth. Talk about your grease monkey! He was filthy!
S showed us how she could ride a bike without training wheels (since yesterday!!!), then we had to go home. I dropped mom off and came back to Kia Rio.
Jaz and Heljye waiting on the porch, happily anticipating dinner. Called for Ollie and he didn't show. Sometimes it takes him about 10 or 15 to transition from the hunt to coming inside. I fiddled around the house, and periodically called for him.
After 20 minutes and no show, I got a tad more serious about it. The wind was picking up and it was pretty strong. I got the dog whistle and the treat bag. Now it is 30 minutes.
Last time it took him this long to come when called, I ended up in the Impenetrable Forest with an extension ladder and the Ollievator at 2:30 am.
So, as you can imagine, I was not too happy. I actually have to get up in the morning and be at a part-time job (really PT - like 24 hours a month) so I was not keen on trying to figure out where he was stranded, but what can you do?
So, back in the house. Long pants, tall socks, boots, long sleeve shirt, bandanna, bug lotion, flashlight, dog whistle.
Here we go again.
I start with perimeter patrol. Now it is Friday night and I live on a state route, so there is traffic. There is also a bar out here in the countryside, and it is less than 1/2 mile away. It is about 9:30 or so, so folks are heading out all over the place. Lots of traffic noise to eclipse a weak cat mew in the IF.
I walk back and forth in the yard and hear nothing but loud animal movements (male deer are out there because you can see their markings on the barkless trees) so I am not totally keen on just plunging in. Never mind the raccoons and my neighbor telling me just yesterday that he killed a rat snake in his driveway.
So, after a few trips along the edge of the yard, I go out and walk on the side of the road, hoping not to find his body there. I walk up to the fence - in between cars, call his name and strain to hear a faint mew. Nothing.
I hear my name. It is Oneida, she is on her front porch with a cup of coffee, standing in the dark enjoying the cool summer night. I give her his description and she promises to keep an eye out. I ask about the status of her job interview. They called her twice to update her on when interviews would finish and when she should next expect to hear from them. I tell her THAT is a really good sign, they like you. She was pleased to hear it. Things are HARD here and they have 2 little kids.
So, back at the Ollie hunt. Back into the yard, flashlight to the porch hoping he is waiting there. Nothing doing.
I walk to the best opening spot to enter the IF. I pause, calling his name, flashing the light about to give notice I am in the hood. It is at this point that I think "this cat is the bane of my existence."
I am now in the IF. I am calling. I hear nothing. I move in about 7 feet, get still, call to him and listen. I move 7 more feet crossing over fallen branches and repeat. 7 more feet. Nothing. I hunch down and crawl under growth. repeat. Nothing. 7 more feet. A mew. I call, he mews I zig zag through the growth toward his mew. Squatting periodically.
I am thinking what a total bitch it is going to be to drag a damn ladder back here. Further in than last time. Damn, seems like he is closer to the neighbors house. Call, mew, flashlight around, move. repeat. Jeez, what is mom going to say when I call her at 10 pm and say I am coming for the extension ladder tonight. She nearly had me committed the last time. The biggest ladder I have here is 6 foot. Ok, when I get a steady source of cash, I MUST get an extension ladder. Call, mew, flashlight around, move.
Call. Mew is quite loud and sounds fairly low. Now I am perplexed.
He does not sound high enough to be afraid to come down. What could the problem be? Call, loud mew, flashlight - bingo - I get cat eyes. He is low to the ground. WTF??? I get closer he mews loud, I shine the light. The little fucker is standing on the ground mewing loudly. He is not up a tree, not trapped, not stuck, not being curled upon by black rat snake. Just standing there giving me his loud shrill mew. Not the same one that bolts me out of bed at 6 am, but the other one that demands attention.
Now I am perplexed. I pet him, he is happy. I turn around and begin the zig zag to get back out. I call, he sort of follows all the while with the shrill mew. I wonder. He is walking fine.
I get to the yard, he stands about 10 feet away and off to my left, still in the IF mewing loudly as though he is lost or calling a lost friend.
I call, he comes flying and runs up to the porch and stands by the door waiting to come in the front door with me. I open door, he goes to eat. Heljye jumps him at the food bowl, there is a scuffle. I put Heljye on a cat tree and pet him.
Ollie eats (I pat him down for signs of puncture or other wounds) then walks to his favorite spot in the hallway (world's shortest hallway) and plops down like he was just hanging round all damn day.
BANE.
bane:
killer, slayer b: poison c: death, destruction (the moles use this definition and so do I)
bane:
a source of harm or ruin : curse (we all use this one.)
So, Bane is now sitting in the window of the office, enjoying the cool breeze coming through the window screen and watching me type, then looking outside. Pretty as a magazine cover.
Bane.
I now feel icky ooey and buggie... covered in herbal bug repellent, spider webs and who knows what. Never mind the potential for a snake to drop off a tree at or on me.
So, um, to those people who need to scientifically "prove" that cats control their owners.
F you. Just get a damn cat and save all the research money and time. Please. Any cat person could tell you that while standing in line at the pet store with their umpteenth brand of cat food that the finicky little beasts turn their noses to.
Must bathe and pet Bane kitty nice nice before I go to bed.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Social & Business Marketing newbie
Well,
first off a shout out to Miwako!!!!!!!!
Hey girl! Thanks for the beautiful email. I will respond soon. Glad to hear about the new job and that my blog brightens your day!
So... Jaz is fine, and yes, Miwako, he is jumpy now. Jumps at every little thing since his run in with the racoon. Always was a bit jittery, but now he is down right jumpy.
Good boy though. Snoozing on the chaise lounge a few feet away.
Ollie is a prolific hunter. Managed to head him off at the pass a few days ago. I went to the window to read the fine print on the hard drive my Stubba Bubba sent for mom's pc (was trying to sort out that master and slave business) -well needing that light was a good thing, cause little Ollie was trotting across the yard with a snake in his mouth.
Well, you know I dropped that hard drive and bolted out the office through the living room and out onto the porch. Ollie was just coming up the steps with it.
I managed to slam the window down to close off the window mounted cat door at just about the time he deposited snake at my feet. eeeeeeeewwwww.
Well, I had the foresight to grab the broom on my way out of the house. So, knowing the snake would play dead for a few minutes, I snatched proud little Ollie up, kissed him and put his butt in the house.
Next, I swept that snake off into the side flower bed. It took a lot of sweeps to get it off and I did feel bad. It had to fall about 3.5 feet to hit the dirt.
It was hot as blue blazes that day and I again felt bad for the little f*er, so I made a shade shield for it. I figured it must be traumatized and just because I don't want the damn thing in my house does not mean it needs to be dead or hurt...
So, next I called Heljye and sweet boy came to me. Walked right by the snake, I held my breath, and he did not seem to see it. I snatched his butt up and took him inside.
Jaz was, well it is Jaz. He was sleeping on the bed. Snuggie stays so far gone that he is not much of an issue... so, the Rough Riders and Jaz stayed inside for a couple of hours to give snake time to slink off.
Then, yesterday, I found an animal that had made a valiant attempt to hide from 4 cats. Unfortunately it died as a result and that was NOT pretty, not pretty at all.
Damnable cats.
Well, I am trying to get it together to work as a consultant.
I am currently working for Sedi, helping her with marketing the airport shuttle...
A Greener Oakland-Marin Shuttle
I am learning to do internet based marketing. I am working on creating a linkedin account, a yelp account and a facebook fan page among other things.
I also discovered that the web designer did not put the correct info on her webpages to get search results to show her website... so working on getting that resolved quickly.
I am not really trying to work in marketing, but it is what she needs, benefits from the great insight of an anthropologist, and, it gives me a client name for my consulting work.
I believe we call that a win, win, win.
Ok, some lunch and back at the marketing work!
first off a shout out to Miwako!!!!!!!!
Hey girl! Thanks for the beautiful email. I will respond soon. Glad to hear about the new job and that my blog brightens your day!
So... Jaz is fine, and yes, Miwako, he is jumpy now. Jumps at every little thing since his run in with the racoon. Always was a bit jittery, but now he is down right jumpy.
Good boy though. Snoozing on the chaise lounge a few feet away.
Ollie is a prolific hunter. Managed to head him off at the pass a few days ago. I went to the window to read the fine print on the hard drive my Stubba Bubba sent for mom's pc (was trying to sort out that master and slave business) -well needing that light was a good thing, cause little Ollie was trotting across the yard with a snake in his mouth.
Well, you know I dropped that hard drive and bolted out the office through the living room and out onto the porch. Ollie was just coming up the steps with it.
I managed to slam the window down to close off the window mounted cat door at just about the time he deposited snake at my feet. eeeeeeeewwwww.
Well, I had the foresight to grab the broom on my way out of the house. So, knowing the snake would play dead for a few minutes, I snatched proud little Ollie up, kissed him and put his butt in the house.
Next, I swept that snake off into the side flower bed. It took a lot of sweeps to get it off and I did feel bad. It had to fall about 3.5 feet to hit the dirt.
It was hot as blue blazes that day and I again felt bad for the little f*er, so I made a shade shield for it. I figured it must be traumatized and just because I don't want the damn thing in my house does not mean it needs to be dead or hurt...
So, next I called Heljye and sweet boy came to me. Walked right by the snake, I held my breath, and he did not seem to see it. I snatched his butt up and took him inside.
Jaz was, well it is Jaz. He was sleeping on the bed. Snuggie stays so far gone that he is not much of an issue... so, the Rough Riders and Jaz stayed inside for a couple of hours to give snake time to slink off.
Then, yesterday, I found an animal that had made a valiant attempt to hide from 4 cats. Unfortunately it died as a result and that was NOT pretty, not pretty at all.
Damnable cats.
Well, I am trying to get it together to work as a consultant.
I am currently working for Sedi, helping her with marketing the airport shuttle...
A Greener Oakland-Marin Shuttle
I am learning to do internet based marketing. I am working on creating a linkedin account, a yelp account and a facebook fan page among other things.
I also discovered that the web designer did not put the correct info on her webpages to get search results to show her website... so working on getting that resolved quickly.
I am not really trying to work in marketing, but it is what she needs, benefits from the great insight of an anthropologist, and, it gives me a client name for my consulting work.
I believe we call that a win, win, win.
Ok, some lunch and back at the marketing work!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
SF - OH Anniversary????
I really don't know, life was such a fog a year ago, but I think today or tomorrow might be the 1 year date for my arrival here in Dayton. Well, I got here around 12:30 or 1:00 am, and I just don't know what day it was. It could have been anywhere between June 25 and 30th...
Not really sure anniversary is what I would call it.
At any rate. I expected my life would be MUCH different than it is today.
C'est la vie.
My current obsession is vanilla bean ice cream with pure maple syrup. Sickening sweet, yes. Somehow in this horrid humid muck, it is satisfying.
In other news, I am dancing very close to trying to launch a coaching and consulting business here.
I am encouraged in this process by having been approached by the author of 2 leadership books (a connection I made as a result of posting a question in a org mgmt group on linkedin) as a possible person to conduct seminars and executive coaching for his second book, The Superperforming CEO. The problem with this was that he thought I was still in SF. Turns out he has somebody for the local marketplaces...and needs some folks in SF Bay Area.
But, his opening up the dialogue gave me a shot of confidence. I still have to deal with a local culture that is very short on leadership awareness and in general has a very punitive and liability minded approach to employees. I have been conducting informal research over the past 2 months with nearly every person I meet, regarding the life of an employee around here. It ain't good.
So, my challenge is to start finding folks that sorta get it and then build from there.
Tons of groundwork to do to mentally prepare for this.
In yet other news: Jaz is just fine. Couple of big scabs on his back, but he is good ole Jaz.
Ok, see some of ya out on FB.
Not really sure anniversary is what I would call it.
At any rate. I expected my life would be MUCH different than it is today.
C'est la vie.
My current obsession is vanilla bean ice cream with pure maple syrup. Sickening sweet, yes. Somehow in this horrid humid muck, it is satisfying.
In other news, I am dancing very close to trying to launch a coaching and consulting business here.
I am encouraged in this process by having been approached by the author of 2 leadership books (a connection I made as a result of posting a question in a org mgmt group on linkedin) as a possible person to conduct seminars and executive coaching for his second book, The Superperforming CEO. The problem with this was that he thought I was still in SF. Turns out he has somebody for the local marketplaces...and needs some folks in SF Bay Area.
But, his opening up the dialogue gave me a shot of confidence. I still have to deal with a local culture that is very short on leadership awareness and in general has a very punitive and liability minded approach to employees. I have been conducting informal research over the past 2 months with nearly every person I meet, regarding the life of an employee around here. It ain't good.
So, my challenge is to start finding folks that sorta get it and then build from there.
Tons of groundwork to do to mentally prepare for this.
In yet other news: Jaz is just fine. Couple of big scabs on his back, but he is good ole Jaz.
Ok, see some of ya out on FB.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
18.6 Pounds
Well... I was hoping to avoid this most recent vet trip, but it did not work out that way.
My dear boy Jaz had a bite on his back - well more like upper hip.
I was kinda relieved because it seemed like it wasn't infected. But then, all his previous cat bites (3 of them...) got infected. This was a much bigger and more intense area affected, so... I was thinking raccoon. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing, but I thought it might not have the infection issue like you get with cat saliva.
Well this morning it was showing signs of infection. Luckily, my vet always has some same day appts available. This is my guess as to why a vet visit here is the same price as in Bay Area - good luck getting a same day appt there, which means a full patient load and solid income. I guess the folks here have to have higher prices to allow for the gaps every day. Given the extreme cost of living difference, you'd think it would cost less here even considering that...
Anyway. My adorable blue-eyed boy weighed in at 18.6 pounds. I was petrified.
That is horrid. I figured he might have hit 16.5. but 18.6???
Ok, it is true he is a big framed cat, but still.
She (young, kinda cute vet) said he really should be about 14 pounds for an ideal weight. She mentioned supercalifragilisticexpialidotious - well, it was kinda like that which was basically when the liver gets "consumed" due to high fat content. bad news.
Jaz isn't there, he is healthy, but shit. Not going there.
A few weeks ago I bought him weight mgmt food and he likes it, so I am gradually incorporating it in his diet.
They are all about to transition to a set am and pm feeding schedule and no more free feeding. The Rough Riders are big enough now that they can deal with it.
I may be irritated to death by 3 cats mewing all day wanting to munch. I had BETTER get a daggone job, or I will go nuts!
Anyway, she felt confident it was a coon bite. I find that interesting since he spends the least amount of time outside of all 4 cats. Anyway, his rabies are up to date, so no worries there. It is a big area and the puncture wounds were good sized holes.
All right.
Cats cats cats.
Crazy cat lady signing off!
My dear boy Jaz had a bite on his back - well more like upper hip.
I was kinda relieved because it seemed like it wasn't infected. But then, all his previous cat bites (3 of them...) got infected. This was a much bigger and more intense area affected, so... I was thinking raccoon. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing, but I thought it might not have the infection issue like you get with cat saliva.
Well this morning it was showing signs of infection. Luckily, my vet always has some same day appts available. This is my guess as to why a vet visit here is the same price as in Bay Area - good luck getting a same day appt there, which means a full patient load and solid income. I guess the folks here have to have higher prices to allow for the gaps every day. Given the extreme cost of living difference, you'd think it would cost less here even considering that...
Anyway. My adorable blue-eyed boy weighed in at 18.6 pounds. I was petrified.
That is horrid. I figured he might have hit 16.5. but 18.6???
Ok, it is true he is a big framed cat, but still.
She (young, kinda cute vet) said he really should be about 14 pounds for an ideal weight. She mentioned supercalifragilisticexpialidotious - well, it was kinda like that which was basically when the liver gets "consumed" due to high fat content. bad news.
Jaz isn't there, he is healthy, but shit. Not going there.
A few weeks ago I bought him weight mgmt food and he likes it, so I am gradually incorporating it in his diet.
They are all about to transition to a set am and pm feeding schedule and no more free feeding. The Rough Riders are big enough now that they can deal with it.
I may be irritated to death by 3 cats mewing all day wanting to munch. I had BETTER get a daggone job, or I will go nuts!
Anyway, she felt confident it was a coon bite. I find that interesting since he spends the least amount of time outside of all 4 cats. Anyway, his rabies are up to date, so no worries there. It is a big area and the puncture wounds were good sized holes.
All right.
Cats cats cats.
Crazy cat lady signing off!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
11 months and 2 weeks - it is official
I wanna go home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
well, as I am standing around the dining room, broom in one hand, flashlight in the other, front door standing wide open, I am sweating like nobodies business... just waiting for that slithering slitherin to come outta there.
Now, part of me thinks, hey get a cat, but then I can envision the Lucy-esk helter skelter that will likely ensue, so I pray they stay outside.
Now, I have a choice, keep the lights on - it is 9pm folks - or turn them out.
Keep them on - this means I can SEE slitherin, but it also means a housefull of bugs, mosquitos, flies, moths, millers, you name it, they are all out there just waiting for an oppty...
Turn the lights out - not so many bugs in the house, but that means me and slitherin are in the house together in the twilight.
Well, dumbass decided that maybe a piece of cardboard at an angle would encourage the bastard to slither up it and I could broom it out the door.
OK, I really have to stop skipping lunch, clearly my cognitive function is suffering from it.
So, after I slammed around the house finding things to cover all the vents and cold air returns, they are all covered, some with plywood, some with plastic grocery bags, some with peel backed vinyl tile squares meant for under the kitchen sink, well, now it is just slitherin in that duct and me.
So, the bastard hides behind the cardboard which puts him right next to the duct work that leads to all the other vents in the house. Well, I don't have to tell you he went for the long dark tunnel.
Now, I just read that snakes can stay alive for months in a duct system.
GREAT.
I repeat.
I wanna go home!
well, as I am standing around the dining room, broom in one hand, flashlight in the other, front door standing wide open, I am sweating like nobodies business... just waiting for that slithering slitherin to come outta there.
Now, part of me thinks, hey get a cat, but then I can envision the Lucy-esk helter skelter that will likely ensue, so I pray they stay outside.
Now, I have a choice, keep the lights on - it is 9pm folks - or turn them out.
Keep them on - this means I can SEE slitherin, but it also means a housefull of bugs, mosquitos, flies, moths, millers, you name it, they are all out there just waiting for an oppty...
Turn the lights out - not so many bugs in the house, but that means me and slitherin are in the house together in the twilight.
Well, dumbass decided that maybe a piece of cardboard at an angle would encourage the bastard to slither up it and I could broom it out the door.
OK, I really have to stop skipping lunch, clearly my cognitive function is suffering from it.
So, after I slammed around the house finding things to cover all the vents and cold air returns, they are all covered, some with plywood, some with plastic grocery bags, some with peel backed vinyl tile squares meant for under the kitchen sink, well, now it is just slitherin in that duct and me.
So, the bastard hides behind the cardboard which puts him right next to the duct work that leads to all the other vents in the house. Well, I don't have to tell you he went for the long dark tunnel.
Now, I just read that snakes can stay alive for months in a duct system.
GREAT.
I repeat.
I wanna go home!
2 cats hanging at the hvac vent in the dining room =
one freakin SNAKE...
ok, what the F*ing hell do I do?????
anybody???
man, man, man, do I ever miss the urban life.
although, yesterday while I was strapped to the pc all day, I was able to look out the office window, whilst sipping blackberry lemonade and watch my unmentionables gently sway, drying in the humid breeze...
but, now there is the snake...
ok, what the F*ing hell do I do?????
anybody???
man, man, man, do I ever miss the urban life.
although, yesterday while I was strapped to the pc all day, I was able to look out the office window, whilst sipping blackberry lemonade and watch my unmentionables gently sway, drying in the humid breeze...
but, now there is the snake...
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The OlliEvator adventure
The OlliEvator
The story begins with a family outing. Me, mom, my niece and her 3 daughters went out to a Goodwill Outlet and then to lunch at a Ponderosa (Sizzler for you west coasties). Mom and I went to the grocery then went to our community garden plot at Possum Creek. Mom headed home about 5 pm at which time all 4 of the boys were underfoot at Kia Rio.
At some point during the next 45 minutes or so, I glanced out the living room window, and for a moment I thought I saw Jaz follow a smallish dog into the IF. Well, I really did not believe Jaz was tailing a dog, so I surmised it was the organish colored cat that comes round once in a while.
Around 8:30 pm I started calling the boys to come in. Normally, Heljye, Ollie and Jaz all come with the first or second call. If they don’t, the dog whistle will bring them. Heljye came. Jaz came. No Ollie. I fed those two, and gave Ollie another 20 or 30 minutes and dog whistled again. Waited. Whistled. Saw Sunggs laying in the flower bed. Picked him up and brought him in.
Put on long sleeves, long pants, work boots and bug spray. Took flashlight and dog whistle. Walked south on Rt 4 looking for signs of trouble and whistling in case he followed that orange cat, and was too far from home to know how to get back.
Nothing. Stood in yard and whistled. Nothing. Went in house and waited. Went back outside and whistled around the yard. Now, by this point it was after 11 and the traffic had nearly stopped so I had periods of relative quiet. Standing still I finally heard a soft mew.
Ollie.
I called and he mewed again. I got a general direction. I called. Nothing. I called. Nothing. I stood motionless. Nothing. I whistled. Nothing. Shit. Cannot find him if he does not mew. Called. He mewed enough for me to narrow down his general vicinity. Flashlight around the IF up and down. Mew is loud. Mew is above me. Mew is above me by about 20 feet maybe???
Flashlight lands on Ollie, hanging straddled over a branch joint in a very skinny nearly branchless tree. He mews. I call, I pat the tree, he looks at me, back feet dangling in the air. Mew mew mew. Well, he wiggles a bit but makes no significant moves.
So, Jaz was following a dog. Well, I am pretty sure it was the same dog that sent Heljye up a tree some time back. Heljye was not so high, and I found him within 30 minutes of the dog scare. Before I could get the step ladder, he had gotten himself down.
It would seem that Ollie had been up his tree for at least 3 hours and probably more like 5, since it was before 6 when I saw Jaz tailing the dog. He had to be tired and scared.
Well, I went in the garage, got the punie little 6 ft aluminum ladder and went back to the IF. I set the ladder up, climbed up as high as I could on the ladder and stretched my arms toward him and spoke very encouragingly. He wiggled around and managed to move his position, but did not seem to have a CLUE about how to back down a tree.
Now, this was a skinny tree and it had a curve in it that was concave, from the side we were on. Cannot blame him for not coming down head first. Well, after about 20 minutes of cajoling him with no progress I realized I need to close the gap up some more for him to feel safer.
That required more height on my part. Now, by this point it is after midnight. Cannot get the Jeep in here, it is just too dense to get through. This ladder is the tallest one I have.
Aha! Mom has an extension ladder in her garage. So, I tell Ollie I will be back soon. I call mom and feel bad cause I am going to wake her up, but better than her getting scared by someone messing in the garage in the middle of the night. She doesn’t answer so I assume she was in REM and the phone didn’t do the trick. Kinda glad really.
I get to mom’s, load the ladder on the Jeep, tie it down all the while the dog across the street is barking like mad. I go home and on the drive try to sort out how to get him down the ladder once I actually get my hands on him. Need both hands to climb the ladder, so what to do with a scared kitten?
Aha! I’ll get my daypack and wear it on my front like I did when I was backpacking the South Pacific countries. I’ll pop his scared little but in it and try not to bump him too much on the way down.
Well, I had REALLY hoped that Ollie would be on the front porch when I got back from mom’s… but he wasn’t so, I called out to him, unloaded the ladder, went inside and got the back pack and tied a bandana on my head. It is now about 1 am and I am headed into the Impenetrable Forest with an extension ladder. The ladder is probably 16 feet long (I think that is the shortest those come) and that is without the extension extended.
Nothing like walking around the woods at 1 am with a 16 foot ladder and a flashlight…
I find his tree, move the 6 foot baby ladder out of the way so I can set the extension ladder up. Now, this tree is skinny. Like, the trunk at the point where the ladder top hits it, is maybe 6 inches in diameter. Not much substance to be setting a ladder against.
Now. The other little detail is the large volume of rain in the recent weeks. Ground is SATURATED. I don’t know how strong this tree’s roots are holding in the soft ground.
But, my little precious pumpkin is up the tree and cannot seem to get himself down. I cannot go to bed knowing he is hanging there and has been for HOURS.
Ok, ladder is set, flashlight in hand, backpack strapped on. Wiggle wiggle on the ladder. Seems sturdy enough. I climb. I reach what I feel is a reasonable height. I hook the backpack strap over the end of the ladder and then hook the flashlight handle over the end of the ladder. I reach up to my mewing little kitten. He just looks at me. I shine the flashlight up at him, his look seems pleading. I reach, I call. There is probably 6 feet between me and him. Six feet of skinny tree trunk with not much slope. After about 20 minutes of this and an increasingly sore neck, I climb down. I stand on the ground and call to him. This isn’t going to get it. He isn’t feeling safe enough, the gap is too big.
I contemplate. I size up the tree. I decide that being on the other side of the tree will probably allow me to get a few feet closer to my baby. I start tromping saplings, breaking small limbs and clearing out enough space to move the ladder and be able to climb it without being a brush face.
I move the ladder. The ground is pretty uneven on this side. The ladder is sitting at a tilt. There is not much for me to work with. I test the ladder on the bottom rung. It slides precariously. I reconsider. I call Ollie. He looks pitiful, hanging there, little eyes closed. Clearly he is worn out.
I have to sort it out. I fiddle with ladder, make it taller, reposition it. It is now close to 2 am. I am feeling like my options are dwindling. I test the ladder, nope. I reposition, I test again. Meanwhile, the night sounds of the forest are alive and well. Lots of little noises going on.
I finally get it where I feel I can safely climb. Well, ok, it is 2 am and I am alone in the woods climbing an extension ladder propped against a very skinny tree. So, ALL things considered, it is as safe as it is gonna get. I start the climb and second guess myself. I climb down to check the locks to make sure they are secure. I check the angle. I climb again.
I am closer. My outstretched right hand is about 4 feet from him. My left is wrapped around that little tree trunk holding on nice and tight! I pat the tree. He seems encouraged. He makes some moves. I get excited. He stops. I get the flashlight and shine it on the tree trunk. He wants to come down to me, but isn’t. I hear the raccoons screeching nearby. Not good, must get kitten out of the tree.
I call. He wiggles. He stops, closes his eyes and just hangs, back feet dangling. I start to feel defeated. I briefly consider the fire department. But wait. I am in the middle of a woods. Not happening.
It is me and Ollie.
I realize that if he had something that he felt he could land on, he would make a move. I inspect this overgrown sapling with no significant branches and realize there is no place for me to build a makeshift platform. There is one branch that is within my reach that is about 1.5 inches around. That is it. It is just above the red tip of the ladder.
Ollie is stranded on that next large branch about 4 feet above it.
Okay, so no platform is a possibility. How else can he have something to aim for. Did I mention it is after 2 am now? So, there I stand on that ladder, thinking. Then I see the distant shock of bright from a streak of lightening. Shit. And then I hear the patter of light rain falling on the canopy over me. Gotta get him outta this tree and now.
Well, idiot decides the only thing else I have for him to jump on is the top of my head. Fool you say??? Well, I stood there, left arm wrapped tightly around the tree, face pressed against it (bracing) with my right hand patting my head and calling my cat. Encouraging him to jump on my head, me on a ladder propped against a skinny tree, alone in the woods at 2 am.
Ok, I am laughing so hard at my stupid self that I can hardly type. I am not sure I can EVER call myself educated again.
So there I am. I am somewhat intelligent. I am calling my cat, patting my head and thinking all the while. OK, when he hits, all 20 claws are sinking into my skull. How do I: (1) keep from careening backwards off the ladder and ending up in broken bits (2) how do I survive 20 claws in the head and then the slashes down the back, (3) how do I keep Ollie from a really long free fall when he lets go of me, (4) how do I avoid crushing him when I land on him, (5) how do I pay for the medical bills since I have no insurance, no job, no job prospects, no more savings, and (6) how long will it be before mom gets my message about my getting her ladder, calls me, gets no answer and gets worried and comes looking for me and finds my damaged self sprawled on the floor of the IF? And, how do I EVER live this down?
Yet, I continued to pat my stupid self on the top of the head and call his name.
It is at this point that I say to myself “You are not Sherry.”
Ok, Sherry, you KNOW exactly what I am talking about. The rest of you… well, my beloved older sister Sherry always seems to get herself into some (I love you sissy) stupid shit. Like the time when she lived in a very busy subdivision. One morning she went up into the storage space above the garage to get some things out. The garage door was open to the street. She was wearing a night gown. A few minutes later, Lucy, I mean Sherry, was hanging through the now broken ceiling - dangling by her arms with her bare ass swinging above the garage floor. And of course people are going by. This is classic Sherry.
I am NOT Sherry. Yet, here I stand patting my head and calling my cat. WTF?
After many attempts, it is clear that Ollie is SMARTER than me.
Ok, plan, what D, or is it E or K? What to do, what to do? My neck hurts from staring straight up a tree.
I then have my stroke of genius (work with me on this). Redemption is in the offing. At the thrift store I bought a 20 quart canning kettle for canning our garden spoils. Ha! I’ll go get that canning kettle and balance it on that 1.5 inch limb and get a small board and make a ramp into it so little Ollie will walk the ramp into it and I can lower him to the ground and we can GO TO BED.
I tell Ollie I will be back in a few. He is just hanging there, little eyes closed, back feet dangling. Exhausted. My precious baby.
I climb down and on the way out of the IF, realize that canning kettle is not big enough. As luck would have it, I have a round plastic tub (the kind you put ice and beer in, but not a huge one, smallish). I get it. I get the left over clothesline and tie it to the handles of the plastic bucket. I get a piece of particle board that is about 14 inches by 30 inches and put it in the tub. I carry all this back to the tree.
I move the 6 foot ladder over and put it against the tree. I set the tub with the board in it on the top of the 6 ft ladder and rest it against the tree. It is 2:30 am. I climb the ladder, stopping to get the clothesline. I wrap the end of the clothesline around that little 1.5 inch branch. I start to hoist the tub up, it slips and falls.
This does not bode well for kitten.
I pull it back up and as the tub nears me, realize the board is too much. I dump the tub so the board falls to the ground. I am a bit giddy with the prospect of a resolution. The tub is now in my hand. I have to now get it above my head, balance it on that little branch and make sure the clothesline is ready and somewhat secure.
I fiddle around and then, standing way up on that ladder, USE BOTH hands to hold that plastic tub up over my head and try to wedge in between the branch and trunk. No hands on the ladder.
Ummmmmmmmm stuuuuuuuupid, yes?
Well, I was close enough to the tree that I could have sunk my ever so slightly buck teeth into the bark, but I didn’t. I stood there, arms above my head, looking UP no less, trying to figure out how the hell I was going to hold that bucket steady when he stepped into it, cause I KNEW he would step into it.
At this point I thought to myself. Thank goodness this wasn’t Jaz, 16 pounds, no way. Or Heljye. He is now bigger than Snuggs. If it had to be anyone, Ollie was the best choice, weight wise. My wee one. So, as I stand there trying to figure out how to securely hold it and how long I can stand like this, I feel PRESSURE. I lean over. I already told you I was STUPID.
I see my darling little Ollie’s behind with his back feet on the branch he was hanging over and his front paws appeared to be resting on the rim. Yipppee! Ok, now how to get him all the way in????
I slightly shook the tub. What the hell. One more stupid move… gotta tempt the fates.
I felt the rest of his weight in the tub. Excellent. I am now up on an extension ladder holding a plastic tub above my head, with both hands, tub is kinda wedged between the little branch and the tree and there is now a 9 lb cat moving around in the tub. (they may refuse to give me my degrees when I get the internships done…)
Now, ALL I have to do is to figure out how to get that tub down without dropping it, cause I don’t have a 3rd hand to grab the clothesline with. I really don’t know how I finagled it, but I did.
I now had an Ollie, who I could not see in the dark night in that black tub, and I was lowering the tub by the clothesline. I then felt the tub rock and get light, just before I felt it hit ground. I got the flashlight off the end of the ladder and shined it down.
Ollie was standing on the trampled vegetation, sniffing at something. That is my Ollie Olfactory! 8 hours stuck in a tree in the woods and when he hits the ground? Smelling stuff.
So, just before 3 am, I scooped little Ollie up and took him to the house.
I left the OlliEvator in the IF.
I took a shower and we crashed.
The next morning the phone range around 8:30 am. I ignored it, but knew it was mom so I had to get up, least she decide I was laying in a paraplegic heap in the IF and rush over here scared to death. When I got up she had left a message. “When did your brain go on vacation?” Now, little did she know the extent of it…
When I called and told her the tale, I am pretty sure she wet herself...
The story begins with a family outing. Me, mom, my niece and her 3 daughters went out to a Goodwill Outlet and then to lunch at a Ponderosa (Sizzler for you west coasties). Mom and I went to the grocery then went to our community garden plot at Possum Creek. Mom headed home about 5 pm at which time all 4 of the boys were underfoot at Kia Rio.
At some point during the next 45 minutes or so, I glanced out the living room window, and for a moment I thought I saw Jaz follow a smallish dog into the IF. Well, I really did not believe Jaz was tailing a dog, so I surmised it was the organish colored cat that comes round once in a while.
Around 8:30 pm I started calling the boys to come in. Normally, Heljye, Ollie and Jaz all come with the first or second call. If they don’t, the dog whistle will bring them. Heljye came. Jaz came. No Ollie. I fed those two, and gave Ollie another 20 or 30 minutes and dog whistled again. Waited. Whistled. Saw Sunggs laying in the flower bed. Picked him up and brought him in.
Put on long sleeves, long pants, work boots and bug spray. Took flashlight and dog whistle. Walked south on Rt 4 looking for signs of trouble and whistling in case he followed that orange cat, and was too far from home to know how to get back.
Nothing. Stood in yard and whistled. Nothing. Went in house and waited. Went back outside and whistled around the yard. Now, by this point it was after 11 and the traffic had nearly stopped so I had periods of relative quiet. Standing still I finally heard a soft mew.
Ollie.
I called and he mewed again. I got a general direction. I called. Nothing. I called. Nothing. I stood motionless. Nothing. I whistled. Nothing. Shit. Cannot find him if he does not mew. Called. He mewed enough for me to narrow down his general vicinity. Flashlight around the IF up and down. Mew is loud. Mew is above me. Mew is above me by about 20 feet maybe???
Flashlight lands on Ollie, hanging straddled over a branch joint in a very skinny nearly branchless tree. He mews. I call, I pat the tree, he looks at me, back feet dangling in the air. Mew mew mew. Well, he wiggles a bit but makes no significant moves.
So, Jaz was following a dog. Well, I am pretty sure it was the same dog that sent Heljye up a tree some time back. Heljye was not so high, and I found him within 30 minutes of the dog scare. Before I could get the step ladder, he had gotten himself down.
It would seem that Ollie had been up his tree for at least 3 hours and probably more like 5, since it was before 6 when I saw Jaz tailing the dog. He had to be tired and scared.
Well, I went in the garage, got the punie little 6 ft aluminum ladder and went back to the IF. I set the ladder up, climbed up as high as I could on the ladder and stretched my arms toward him and spoke very encouragingly. He wiggled around and managed to move his position, but did not seem to have a CLUE about how to back down a tree.
Now, this was a skinny tree and it had a curve in it that was concave, from the side we were on. Cannot blame him for not coming down head first. Well, after about 20 minutes of cajoling him with no progress I realized I need to close the gap up some more for him to feel safer.
That required more height on my part. Now, by this point it is after midnight. Cannot get the Jeep in here, it is just too dense to get through. This ladder is the tallest one I have.
Aha! Mom has an extension ladder in her garage. So, I tell Ollie I will be back soon. I call mom and feel bad cause I am going to wake her up, but better than her getting scared by someone messing in the garage in the middle of the night. She doesn’t answer so I assume she was in REM and the phone didn’t do the trick. Kinda glad really.
I get to mom’s, load the ladder on the Jeep, tie it down all the while the dog across the street is barking like mad. I go home and on the drive try to sort out how to get him down the ladder once I actually get my hands on him. Need both hands to climb the ladder, so what to do with a scared kitten?
Aha! I’ll get my daypack and wear it on my front like I did when I was backpacking the South Pacific countries. I’ll pop his scared little but in it and try not to bump him too much on the way down.
Well, I had REALLY hoped that Ollie would be on the front porch when I got back from mom’s… but he wasn’t so, I called out to him, unloaded the ladder, went inside and got the back pack and tied a bandana on my head. It is now about 1 am and I am headed into the Impenetrable Forest with an extension ladder. The ladder is probably 16 feet long (I think that is the shortest those come) and that is without the extension extended.
Nothing like walking around the woods at 1 am with a 16 foot ladder and a flashlight…
I find his tree, move the 6 foot baby ladder out of the way so I can set the extension ladder up. Now, this tree is skinny. Like, the trunk at the point where the ladder top hits it, is maybe 6 inches in diameter. Not much substance to be setting a ladder against.
Now. The other little detail is the large volume of rain in the recent weeks. Ground is SATURATED. I don’t know how strong this tree’s roots are holding in the soft ground.
But, my little precious pumpkin is up the tree and cannot seem to get himself down. I cannot go to bed knowing he is hanging there and has been for HOURS.
Ok, ladder is set, flashlight in hand, backpack strapped on. Wiggle wiggle on the ladder. Seems sturdy enough. I climb. I reach what I feel is a reasonable height. I hook the backpack strap over the end of the ladder and then hook the flashlight handle over the end of the ladder. I reach up to my mewing little kitten. He just looks at me. I shine the flashlight up at him, his look seems pleading. I reach, I call. There is probably 6 feet between me and him. Six feet of skinny tree trunk with not much slope. After about 20 minutes of this and an increasingly sore neck, I climb down. I stand on the ground and call to him. This isn’t going to get it. He isn’t feeling safe enough, the gap is too big.
I contemplate. I size up the tree. I decide that being on the other side of the tree will probably allow me to get a few feet closer to my baby. I start tromping saplings, breaking small limbs and clearing out enough space to move the ladder and be able to climb it without being a brush face.
I move the ladder. The ground is pretty uneven on this side. The ladder is sitting at a tilt. There is not much for me to work with. I test the ladder on the bottom rung. It slides precariously. I reconsider. I call Ollie. He looks pitiful, hanging there, little eyes closed. Clearly he is worn out.
I have to sort it out. I fiddle with ladder, make it taller, reposition it. It is now close to 2 am. I am feeling like my options are dwindling. I test the ladder, nope. I reposition, I test again. Meanwhile, the night sounds of the forest are alive and well. Lots of little noises going on.
I finally get it where I feel I can safely climb. Well, ok, it is 2 am and I am alone in the woods climbing an extension ladder propped against a very skinny tree. So, ALL things considered, it is as safe as it is gonna get. I start the climb and second guess myself. I climb down to check the locks to make sure they are secure. I check the angle. I climb again.
I am closer. My outstretched right hand is about 4 feet from him. My left is wrapped around that little tree trunk holding on nice and tight! I pat the tree. He seems encouraged. He makes some moves. I get excited. He stops. I get the flashlight and shine it on the tree trunk. He wants to come down to me, but isn’t. I hear the raccoons screeching nearby. Not good, must get kitten out of the tree.
I call. He wiggles. He stops, closes his eyes and just hangs, back feet dangling. I start to feel defeated. I briefly consider the fire department. But wait. I am in the middle of a woods. Not happening.
It is me and Ollie.
I realize that if he had something that he felt he could land on, he would make a move. I inspect this overgrown sapling with no significant branches and realize there is no place for me to build a makeshift platform. There is one branch that is within my reach that is about 1.5 inches around. That is it. It is just above the red tip of the ladder.
Ollie is stranded on that next large branch about 4 feet above it.
Okay, so no platform is a possibility. How else can he have something to aim for. Did I mention it is after 2 am now? So, there I stand on that ladder, thinking. Then I see the distant shock of bright from a streak of lightening. Shit. And then I hear the patter of light rain falling on the canopy over me. Gotta get him outta this tree and now.
Well, idiot decides the only thing else I have for him to jump on is the top of my head. Fool you say??? Well, I stood there, left arm wrapped tightly around the tree, face pressed against it (bracing) with my right hand patting my head and calling my cat. Encouraging him to jump on my head, me on a ladder propped against a skinny tree, alone in the woods at 2 am.
Ok, I am laughing so hard at my stupid self that I can hardly type. I am not sure I can EVER call myself educated again.
So there I am. I am somewhat intelligent. I am calling my cat, patting my head and thinking all the while. OK, when he hits, all 20 claws are sinking into my skull. How do I: (1) keep from careening backwards off the ladder and ending up in broken bits (2) how do I survive 20 claws in the head and then the slashes down the back, (3) how do I keep Ollie from a really long free fall when he lets go of me, (4) how do I avoid crushing him when I land on him, (5) how do I pay for the medical bills since I have no insurance, no job, no job prospects, no more savings, and (6) how long will it be before mom gets my message about my getting her ladder, calls me, gets no answer and gets worried and comes looking for me and finds my damaged self sprawled on the floor of the IF? And, how do I EVER live this down?
Yet, I continued to pat my stupid self on the top of the head and call his name.
It is at this point that I say to myself “You are not Sherry.”
Ok, Sherry, you KNOW exactly what I am talking about. The rest of you… well, my beloved older sister Sherry always seems to get herself into some (I love you sissy) stupid shit. Like the time when she lived in a very busy subdivision. One morning she went up into the storage space above the garage to get some things out. The garage door was open to the street. She was wearing a night gown. A few minutes later, Lucy, I mean Sherry, was hanging through the now broken ceiling - dangling by her arms with her bare ass swinging above the garage floor. And of course people are going by. This is classic Sherry.
I am NOT Sherry. Yet, here I stand patting my head and calling my cat. WTF?
After many attempts, it is clear that Ollie is SMARTER than me.
Ok, plan, what D, or is it E or K? What to do, what to do? My neck hurts from staring straight up a tree.
I then have my stroke of genius (work with me on this). Redemption is in the offing. At the thrift store I bought a 20 quart canning kettle for canning our garden spoils. Ha! I’ll go get that canning kettle and balance it on that 1.5 inch limb and get a small board and make a ramp into it so little Ollie will walk the ramp into it and I can lower him to the ground and we can GO TO BED.
I tell Ollie I will be back in a few. He is just hanging there, little eyes closed, back feet dangling. Exhausted. My precious baby.
I climb down and on the way out of the IF, realize that canning kettle is not big enough. As luck would have it, I have a round plastic tub (the kind you put ice and beer in, but not a huge one, smallish). I get it. I get the left over clothesline and tie it to the handles of the plastic bucket. I get a piece of particle board that is about 14 inches by 30 inches and put it in the tub. I carry all this back to the tree.
I move the 6 foot ladder over and put it against the tree. I set the tub with the board in it on the top of the 6 ft ladder and rest it against the tree. It is 2:30 am. I climb the ladder, stopping to get the clothesline. I wrap the end of the clothesline around that little 1.5 inch branch. I start to hoist the tub up, it slips and falls.
This does not bode well for kitten.
I pull it back up and as the tub nears me, realize the board is too much. I dump the tub so the board falls to the ground. I am a bit giddy with the prospect of a resolution. The tub is now in my hand. I have to now get it above my head, balance it on that little branch and make sure the clothesline is ready and somewhat secure.
I fiddle around and then, standing way up on that ladder, USE BOTH hands to hold that plastic tub up over my head and try to wedge in between the branch and trunk. No hands on the ladder.
Ummmmmmmmm stuuuuuuuupid, yes?
Well, I was close enough to the tree that I could have sunk my ever so slightly buck teeth into the bark, but I didn’t. I stood there, arms above my head, looking UP no less, trying to figure out how the hell I was going to hold that bucket steady when he stepped into it, cause I KNEW he would step into it.
At this point I thought to myself. Thank goodness this wasn’t Jaz, 16 pounds, no way. Or Heljye. He is now bigger than Snuggs. If it had to be anyone, Ollie was the best choice, weight wise. My wee one. So, as I stand there trying to figure out how to securely hold it and how long I can stand like this, I feel PRESSURE. I lean over. I already told you I was STUPID.
I see my darling little Ollie’s behind with his back feet on the branch he was hanging over and his front paws appeared to be resting on the rim. Yipppee! Ok, now how to get him all the way in????
I slightly shook the tub. What the hell. One more stupid move… gotta tempt the fates.
I felt the rest of his weight in the tub. Excellent. I am now up on an extension ladder holding a plastic tub above my head, with both hands, tub is kinda wedged between the little branch and the tree and there is now a 9 lb cat moving around in the tub. (they may refuse to give me my degrees when I get the internships done…)
Now, ALL I have to do is to figure out how to get that tub down without dropping it, cause I don’t have a 3rd hand to grab the clothesline with. I really don’t know how I finagled it, but I did.
I now had an Ollie, who I could not see in the dark night in that black tub, and I was lowering the tub by the clothesline. I then felt the tub rock and get light, just before I felt it hit ground. I got the flashlight off the end of the ladder and shined it down.
Ollie was standing on the trampled vegetation, sniffing at something. That is my Ollie Olfactory! 8 hours stuck in a tree in the woods and when he hits the ground? Smelling stuff.
So, just before 3 am, I scooped little Ollie up and took him to the house.
I left the OlliEvator in the IF.
I took a shower and we crashed.
The next morning the phone range around 8:30 am. I ignored it, but knew it was mom so I had to get up, least she decide I was laying in a paraplegic heap in the IF and rush over here scared to death. When I got up she had left a message. “When did your brain go on vacation?” Now, little did she know the extent of it…
When I called and told her the tale, I am pretty sure she wet herself...
"The OlliEvator"
Stay tuned for the next episode of the Kia Rio adventures...
"The OlliEvator"
comedy, drama and action-adventure
9pm to 3am EST
The Adventures with Pets channel
Hapless homeowner engages in
late night search
in the Impenetrable Forest
for missing juvenile kitten named Ollie.
"The OlliEvator"
comedy, drama and action-adventure
9pm to 3am EST
The Adventures with Pets channel
Hapless homeowner engages in
late night search
in the Impenetrable Forest
for missing juvenile kitten named Ollie.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Unemployment in Dayton = 12.5% for April...
This does not include the recently announced Iams (yes, the pet food company)relocating headquarters jobs down to Cincy which is probably a manageable commute for most employees,
and,
NCR pulling up stakes and going to Atlanta. NCR was a pioneer in employee focused work environments. In the late 1890's and early 1900's, Patterson's NCR was what Google is today. Patterson realized how awful the factory environment was and had floor to ceiling windows installed as well as ventilation hoods. He went on to provide on-site daycare, doctor, cafeteria,, showers and locker rooms, gymnasium, first aid stations, and lovely landscaped grounds amongst other niceties. Certainly was not the typical sweatshop environment that dominated the manufacturing plants of the day. Anyway, NCR is, err, was a Dayton company, but no more.
Not sure what will become of Dayton without the ability to keep our anchors here. Half of Dayton seems to be named after Patterson... I think he'd be pissed. He seemed to have a pretty strong sense of community and social welfare.
So, the national average for unemployment was 8.6 in April. Dayton ran at a cool 12.5 and Ohio, 10.2. The coming months are certain to climb higher.
On another note, my Mr. Barr's wife died on Tuesday. He seemed "ok" about it, but you can never tell with the men of his generation. I am going to be keeping a closer eye on the fellow for a while. She had been in a nursing home for about 5 months, I think. I never met her.
Back to the fruitless job search.
and,
NCR pulling up stakes and going to Atlanta. NCR was a pioneer in employee focused work environments. In the late 1890's and early 1900's, Patterson's NCR was what Google is today. Patterson realized how awful the factory environment was and had floor to ceiling windows installed as well as ventilation hoods. He went on to provide on-site daycare, doctor, cafeteria,, showers and locker rooms, gymnasium, first aid stations, and lovely landscaped grounds amongst other niceties. Certainly was not the typical sweatshop environment that dominated the manufacturing plants of the day. Anyway, NCR is, err, was a Dayton company, but no more.
Not sure what will become of Dayton without the ability to keep our anchors here. Half of Dayton seems to be named after Patterson... I think he'd be pissed. He seemed to have a pretty strong sense of community and social welfare.
So, the national average for unemployment was 8.6 in April. Dayton ran at a cool 12.5 and Ohio, 10.2. The coming months are certain to climb higher.
On another note, my Mr. Barr's wife died on Tuesday. He seemed "ok" about it, but you can never tell with the men of his generation. I am going to be keeping a closer eye on the fellow for a while. She had been in a nursing home for about 5 months, I think. I never met her.
Back to the fruitless job search.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Farewell My Friend
On Sunday Nivedita left this world, on her journey to places we truly know nothing of.
She waged a fierce war with bone cancer, typical Nivedita style, pulling out all the stops, and trying every avenue of treatment she could unearth and maintaining a very positive attitude.
She figured prominently in my life in my early years in SF. She was my first real friend in CA. She lived life fully and with a heart that was warm and welcoming to all.
I met her the day she celebrated her 40th birthday. I was about 24. I had read, in Coming UP! (later to become the Bay Times) about a benefit 40th birthday party being held at Olive Oil's down on the wharf.
I had only been in SF about 4 months, and wanted to meet a woman that would have enough friends to throw such a bash at a big space like that and for it to be a fundraiser. I met her briefly that night. A true social butterfly, she was in high demand on her big day. She briefly told me about a "women's float" that she wanted to have built for the upcoming gay pride parade (well it was many months away) and invited me to be part of the float building team.
Well that was right up my alley, and a good way to meet chicks. I was, after all about 24, and always up for some fun. It didn't take long to click with Nivedita, or Laura aka Larry, who won the design competition for the float. I made a few other friends during those days working on that big styrofoam woman.
Nivedita was in law school and was a very active woman. We would go on group trips to women's weekend at the Russian River and we just hung out a lot. She used to have this cute little tiny doggette type dog that I would keep an eye on for her. When he went to pee, he would stand up on his 2 front legs with his back legs in the air, a doggie paw stand to pee. Funny little shit.
Anyway, Nivedita LIVED life, and I watched the way she went about the world and learned a great deal from her. She never met a stranger, or so it seemed. She was known and loved widely in the bay area.
She ended up moving up to Napa and our visits became limited to special events and so forth. You know how life gets on the treadmill. Good intentions and all that, but it becomes hard to bridge even that distance regularly.
Her impact on my life, however, is present every single day.
Nivedita my love, go forth on your new journey will all the warmth, love and gusto with which you lived this one.
You will always be a part of the woman I grew to be. Thank you, my dear friend and mentor in life.
She waged a fierce war with bone cancer, typical Nivedita style, pulling out all the stops, and trying every avenue of treatment she could unearth and maintaining a very positive attitude.
She figured prominently in my life in my early years in SF. She was my first real friend in CA. She lived life fully and with a heart that was warm and welcoming to all.
I met her the day she celebrated her 40th birthday. I was about 24. I had read, in Coming UP! (later to become the Bay Times) about a benefit 40th birthday party being held at Olive Oil's down on the wharf.
I had only been in SF about 4 months, and wanted to meet a woman that would have enough friends to throw such a bash at a big space like that and for it to be a fundraiser. I met her briefly that night. A true social butterfly, she was in high demand on her big day. She briefly told me about a "women's float" that she wanted to have built for the upcoming gay pride parade (well it was many months away) and invited me to be part of the float building team.
Well that was right up my alley, and a good way to meet chicks. I was, after all about 24, and always up for some fun. It didn't take long to click with Nivedita, or Laura aka Larry, who won the design competition for the float. I made a few other friends during those days working on that big styrofoam woman.
Nivedita was in law school and was a very active woman. We would go on group trips to women's weekend at the Russian River and we just hung out a lot. She used to have this cute little tiny doggette type dog that I would keep an eye on for her. When he went to pee, he would stand up on his 2 front legs with his back legs in the air, a doggie paw stand to pee. Funny little shit.
Anyway, Nivedita LIVED life, and I watched the way she went about the world and learned a great deal from her. She never met a stranger, or so it seemed. She was known and loved widely in the bay area.
She ended up moving up to Napa and our visits became limited to special events and so forth. You know how life gets on the treadmill. Good intentions and all that, but it becomes hard to bridge even that distance regularly.
Her impact on my life, however, is present every single day.
Nivedita my love, go forth on your new journey will all the warmth, love and gusto with which you lived this one.
You will always be a part of the woman I grew to be. Thank you, my dear friend and mentor in life.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Comments
just a note, not sure how it affects those wanting to leave comments...
i started getting spam comments on my blog posts, so I now have it set so that I need to approve comments before they show up.
Just an FYI...
i started getting spam comments on my blog posts, so I now have it set so that I need to approve comments before they show up.
Just an FYI...
Snuggie the Stray
Well, Snuggie is starting to stray.
About 4 nights ago I could not find him. I stayed up until 3:30 calling him (with the dog whistle - so the neighbors wouldn't shoot me or call the cops...) and then woke up at 6 and he still was not around. I finally found him across Route 4 in the edge of the woods behind the house across the street. That house is empty and is alternately for sale and for rent. He seemed real real happy to see me. Not as much as the time he was truly lost for 5 days in El Sobrante, but he clearly was happy to see me.
Next night, I shut him in about 8 pm when he came to eat.
Next night, he did not come in during the evening and I called up until 1:30 and nothing, so I went to bed. I have to shut the cat window to keep the other 3 out of harms way. He came in the next morning about 7 and slept for several hours.
Next night, did not come and I finally went to bed at midnight. Did not come in until nearly 9 this morning.
I have not seen him this afternoon. Got home around 2 from going to the cemetary with Mom and no Snuggie.
I hope he does not make this a habit. I worry with him crossing the road and there are a lot of raccoons here. He is no match for a grown raccoon.
I'll keep you posted... cause I know you are ALL worried about my Snugster!
About 4 nights ago I could not find him. I stayed up until 3:30 calling him (with the dog whistle - so the neighbors wouldn't shoot me or call the cops...) and then woke up at 6 and he still was not around. I finally found him across Route 4 in the edge of the woods behind the house across the street. That house is empty and is alternately for sale and for rent. He seemed real real happy to see me. Not as much as the time he was truly lost for 5 days in El Sobrante, but he clearly was happy to see me.
Next night, I shut him in about 8 pm when he came to eat.
Next night, he did not come in during the evening and I called up until 1:30 and nothing, so I went to bed. I have to shut the cat window to keep the other 3 out of harms way. He came in the next morning about 7 and slept for several hours.
Next night, did not come and I finally went to bed at midnight. Did not come in until nearly 9 this morning.
I have not seen him this afternoon. Got home around 2 from going to the cemetary with Mom and no Snuggie.
I hope he does not make this a habit. I worry with him crossing the road and there are a lot of raccoons here. He is no match for a grown raccoon.
I'll keep you posted... cause I know you are ALL worried about my Snugster!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Big sisters are wonderful
So, a shout out to my sissy.
Thanks for the care package my dear. You are a peach!
Now, what are those long things? I imagine I will have egg on my face when you tell me!
We went to Jungle Jim's today, and I totally spaced on getting the supplies for my sumptuous treat... We also had lunch at Buffalo Wings and Rings, a very POOR cousin to BW3's - they have a new name Buffalo something or other, anyway, they are off the chart for wings-- their garlic parmesan wings are wonderful. The place we went today... forgetable!
At Jungle Jim's I also forgot to get the sambal oelek and five spice for the chicken wings mom wants me to make. I felt real good remembering the kejcap manis... oh well, next time I will take a freaking list with me! I did find some aioli, but it was French, not Spanish and it looked too yellow... not sure how the French and Spanish do it different...
Well, just wanted to say thanks to my sissy for her care packages, sent with love across the miles. You rock!
I am going to take mom to Savannah's (my sissy's youngest grandchild) track and field day at school on Friday. Savannah is almost 7 and a pistol. I'll give her some grandma Sherry love for you.
This Sunday we are going up to Columbus (1.5 hours away) to go to COSI (center for science and industry) with my sister's daughter, her husband and all 3 of the kids. That should be a fun day!
Rest of weekend will likely be yard work - I need to mow mom's yard, weed eat her yard and clean out her front gutter and redo the gutter guards that are not stopping the maple tree things from clogging her downspouts.
Then, there is all the stuff to do in my yard, like about 10 hours of weed eating, removing sod I cut up 2 weeks ago, planting the vine seeds, putting up the trellis' (get the supplies to finish that last 3...) and well, still have done nothing to the inside of the mansion...
living on e street, kicking back eating bon bons!
Yup. wild and crazy living here in the midwest.
Thanks for the care package my dear. You are a peach!
Now, what are those long things? I imagine I will have egg on my face when you tell me!
We went to Jungle Jim's today, and I totally spaced on getting the supplies for my sumptuous treat... We also had lunch at Buffalo Wings and Rings, a very POOR cousin to BW3's - they have a new name Buffalo something or other, anyway, they are off the chart for wings-- their garlic parmesan wings are wonderful. The place we went today... forgetable!
At Jungle Jim's I also forgot to get the sambal oelek and five spice for the chicken wings mom wants me to make. I felt real good remembering the kejcap manis... oh well, next time I will take a freaking list with me! I did find some aioli, but it was French, not Spanish and it looked too yellow... not sure how the French and Spanish do it different...
Well, just wanted to say thanks to my sissy for her care packages, sent with love across the miles. You rock!
I am going to take mom to Savannah's (my sissy's youngest grandchild) track and field day at school on Friday. Savannah is almost 7 and a pistol. I'll give her some grandma Sherry love for you.
This Sunday we are going up to Columbus (1.5 hours away) to go to COSI (center for science and industry) with my sister's daughter, her husband and all 3 of the kids. That should be a fun day!
Rest of weekend will likely be yard work - I need to mow mom's yard, weed eat her yard and clean out her front gutter and redo the gutter guards that are not stopping the maple tree things from clogging her downspouts.
Then, there is all the stuff to do in my yard, like about 10 hours of weed eating, removing sod I cut up 2 weeks ago, planting the vine seeds, putting up the trellis' (get the supplies to finish that last 3...) and well, still have done nothing to the inside of the mansion...
living on e street, kicking back eating bon bons!
Yup. wild and crazy living here in the midwest.
Life
Well, ok, Monday was Dad's birthday.
We stayed super busy that day. I went out early and picked up a load of hay to use as garden mulch and stopped by mom's with it. We did a little planting and such in her yard (mostly sweet potato slips).
Then we drove up to New Lebanon to the bank. Our bank reissued everyone's credit/debit cards because there was a possible compromise of the security. Well, as luck would have it, mom's new card was screwed up. The banker tried to fix it during the 30 minutes we were there, but no luck, so we had to come back.
Now, for most of you, I'll remind you that this is the very bank where Dad fell, the fall that turned the tide of his life. So, we were just going to roll through the drive up ATM, but no, the ATM said her account was deactivated. So we had to sit inside the bank while it was worked on. We finally left, problem not resolved, and went out to Stockslager's nursery to get more sweet potato slips. Duke (second generation owner) was there and he said to say Hello to my sister Sherry. So, sis, Hello from Duke. I told him about your 5 acres and that he ought to be glad you were in TX or you'd be giving him a run for his money!
We went on out to Eaton and had lunch and bought some temporary fencing supplies for our Possum Creek Garden. Mom is worried the deer will eat our moisture/weed barrier hay. We stopped on the way back to visit dad. Boy, that was tough. We either start out these visits laughing and end them crying or vice versa. This one ended with the crying, err sobbing.
We went back to the damn bank where he fell and after another 30 minutes the problem was resolved and mom is now in plastic business. We then went to Possum Creek, planted the sweet potato slips and put up part of the plastic fence. I still have a section to till up with the tiller from HELL - so the rest of the fence won't go up until that section is completed.
Then, we came to Kia Rio and moved a little bit of dirt, aka excavated, my stone walkway. I then took mom home and we had dinner and I got home about 10.
So, that is how we survived dad's birthday this year.
We have been doing stuff in our own yards and I have gone to Possum Creek (PC) to water. We totally skipped spring. It has been in the 80's for a few days now, not good for freshly planted plants and seeds. Praying for rain.
I have been working in my yard and have some headway on the herb/veggies in my own yard.
I have also modified some 2 x 8 heavy duty lattice to make trellis' to place behind the house. They will be about a foot away from the house and I am going to plant annual vines on them. One is a yellow black eyed susan and the other is, I think, a carpet vine or something, anyway, it is red. I plan on intermingling them, so most of the back of the house will hopefully be green foiliage with red and yellow flowers. In the late fall, I will take them down (there are 6) remove the dead vine materials (fun times for all) and store them until next spring and repeat. I'll likely do this until I can (1) afford to buy a really large native tree and (2) until it is big enough to shade the back side of the house.
Isn't my life sexy as hell here?
Oh, more news I have a weird movable bump on my left thumb, right at the joint (not the knuckle) at the web. Mom says it is from over use of gardening tools and said she has had them in the past. My arm still hurts and my hand is still sore.
I still feel like I have a knife inserted by my right scapula, but the pain is subsiding. My darling brother is sending me a Sears card so I can sneak off and do things for mom and let him pick up the tab. First stop??? New freaking tiller. He is a good brother and a good son.
Ok, nuff for this post!
Riveting, yes?
We stayed super busy that day. I went out early and picked up a load of hay to use as garden mulch and stopped by mom's with it. We did a little planting and such in her yard (mostly sweet potato slips).
Then we drove up to New Lebanon to the bank. Our bank reissued everyone's credit/debit cards because there was a possible compromise of the security. Well, as luck would have it, mom's new card was screwed up. The banker tried to fix it during the 30 minutes we were there, but no luck, so we had to come back.
Now, for most of you, I'll remind you that this is the very bank where Dad fell, the fall that turned the tide of his life. So, we were just going to roll through the drive up ATM, but no, the ATM said her account was deactivated. So we had to sit inside the bank while it was worked on. We finally left, problem not resolved, and went out to Stockslager's nursery to get more sweet potato slips. Duke (second generation owner) was there and he said to say Hello to my sister Sherry. So, sis, Hello from Duke. I told him about your 5 acres and that he ought to be glad you were in TX or you'd be giving him a run for his money!
We went on out to Eaton and had lunch and bought some temporary fencing supplies for our Possum Creek Garden. Mom is worried the deer will eat our moisture/weed barrier hay. We stopped on the way back to visit dad. Boy, that was tough. We either start out these visits laughing and end them crying or vice versa. This one ended with the crying, err sobbing.
We went back to the damn bank where he fell and after another 30 minutes the problem was resolved and mom is now in plastic business. We then went to Possum Creek, planted the sweet potato slips and put up part of the plastic fence. I still have a section to till up with the tiller from HELL - so the rest of the fence won't go up until that section is completed.
Then, we came to Kia Rio and moved a little bit of dirt, aka excavated, my stone walkway. I then took mom home and we had dinner and I got home about 10.
So, that is how we survived dad's birthday this year.
We have been doing stuff in our own yards and I have gone to Possum Creek (PC) to water. We totally skipped spring. It has been in the 80's for a few days now, not good for freshly planted plants and seeds. Praying for rain.
I have been working in my yard and have some headway on the herb/veggies in my own yard.
I have also modified some 2 x 8 heavy duty lattice to make trellis' to place behind the house. They will be about a foot away from the house and I am going to plant annual vines on them. One is a yellow black eyed susan and the other is, I think, a carpet vine or something, anyway, it is red. I plan on intermingling them, so most of the back of the house will hopefully be green foiliage with red and yellow flowers. In the late fall, I will take them down (there are 6) remove the dead vine materials (fun times for all) and store them until next spring and repeat. I'll likely do this until I can (1) afford to buy a really large native tree and (2) until it is big enough to shade the back side of the house.
Isn't my life sexy as hell here?
Oh, more news I have a weird movable bump on my left thumb, right at the joint (not the knuckle) at the web. Mom says it is from over use of gardening tools and said she has had them in the past. My arm still hurts and my hand is still sore.
I still feel like I have a knife inserted by my right scapula, but the pain is subsiding. My darling brother is sending me a Sears card so I can sneak off and do things for mom and let him pick up the tab. First stop??? New freaking tiller. He is a good brother and a good son.
Ok, nuff for this post!
Riveting, yes?
Monday, May 11, 2009
My Mr. Barr
So, it is time to start introducing ya'll to the folks in the hood. Well, the ones I know or know something of.
We'll start with my Mr. Barr.
Odell is going to turn 90 this August. He lives about 4 houses down from me in this house:
behind this set of old auto garages, which he still owns:
behind the garages and to the right of the house, is a broken up old greenhouse. To the immediate right of the garages, is a white building/garage that used to be his flower shop. He sold flowers for a living and it sounds like he rented out the auto garage to other folks.
So, Mr. Barr is a willowy man, about 5'8" or so, I am guessing. He has about 7 or 8 of his teeth left, and does not wear dentures. He always wears a ball cap. Because he has so few teeth and no dentures, it is sometimes kinda hard to understand what he says, so you have to listen real close sometimes.
I see him a lot now that the weather broke. He walks nearly a half a mile, always with a walking stick, to the bus stop and takes the bus up to a shopping center called Westown. There is one of those economy grocery stores, a CVS pharmacy, a post office, a dollar store and a few little family owned clothing shops. There used to be some restaurants and such, but most have gone under. This is the poor side of town and things are tough.
Mr Barr has now gotten to where he will yell or do some type of whistling if he sees me in the yard and I do not see him. I love talking to this guy.
He has given me and mom two tomato plants this spring and I just gave him some of the Persian cucumber seeds that I ordered from Reimer Seeds.
Last week he stopped by and was telling me about his white girlfriend down in TN near Nashville where he grew up. He was from a big family. I think somewhere between 8 to 12 kids, not sure, and he says they were the only black family for a 3 mile radius. He told me they were not sharecroppers like most black folks around there during that time. His daddy had worked for the railroad and those were good quality jobs. He said he had pocket money in the summer and would come up north here and goof off as a teen.
He moved into that house what sounds like in the late 40's or early 50's.
His wife (second) is currently in a nursing home. I have never met her.
Today he pointed out a "medicine" plant by my gate. He was pointing to the poke that mom asked me, just yesterday, if I was going to cut and use. She said I needed to get those leaves NOW. Well, Mr Barr said he used to come down here and pick it for the older folks in the neighborhood. I don't know how long ago this was, knowing him it was 2 years ago!
He is a fun guy to talk to and I got a big scare a few weeks ago. For some unknown reason, I was up at midnight, sitting on the couch. I saw a cop car go by with lights flashing. That doesn't really happen a whole lot here. I didn't pay too much attention until the second one came by and was going slower and I could still see the lights flashing. I looked out the window to see the car stopped about 15 feet past my driveway - in the same direction of Mr. Barr's house.
We'll I got worried, hearing other sirens screaming in on us, about my Mr. Barr. I grabbed my shoes and ran out the front door. Just as I reached my steps, I saw big flames shooting up above the IF, in the very direction where his house is.
I tell you I was so scared I had tears streaming down my face long before I got to the cop car. The cop said it was the garage building and as far as he knew Mr. Barr was fine.
Well it was only about 2 minutes before Carter (I'll give you a run down on her another time) was standing next to me, worried about Ramona, another older lady that lived right down there.
We waited for about 30 minutes and no sign of ambulances, so we felt good about Mr Barr and Ramona's well being and we went home.
Next morning I went down to his house and knocked but no one answered. I think his daughter who lives less than 2 miles away probably came to get him. It smelled like kerosene.
Mr. Barr said somebody had been asking him to sell that garage that used to be his flower shop to them and he kept telling them no. He told me that his house does not have water or a well anymore. He gets his house water from the old flower shop building which is on city water. He said he saw the people who wanted to buy it messing around there earlier in the day before the fire. He thinks it was arson because they were mad he wouldn't sell it.
I don't know, but I was sure glad he was ok.
Well, my hand has rested enough, gotta get back out and finish mowing the yard.
I had no idea that walk behind mowers could have such a range of total weight. I used mom's last summer and then in the late fall I bought a new mower from Sears.
Well, my mower must weigh a good 40 pounds more than hers. It is a real bitch to mow along the steep angle by the road and it is just harder to maneuver altogether. To top it off, the power assisted wheels control is just on the right side, so you can only use one hand to hold the handle down.
I'll be glad when most of my grass is converted into something much more sensible.
Oh, I told Mr. Barr that mom was "weed and feeding" her grass and you should have seen the look on his face! I tried to gently explain to her the reasons not to - just related to the true health of her grass and soil, and not budging. Sees too many marketing materials and is convinced that is the way to go.
Grrrr. Get ready for mowing every 4 damn days.
We'll start with my Mr. Barr.
Odell is going to turn 90 this August. He lives about 4 houses down from me in this house:
behind this set of old auto garages, which he still owns:
behind the garages and to the right of the house, is a broken up old greenhouse. To the immediate right of the garages, is a white building/garage that used to be his flower shop. He sold flowers for a living and it sounds like he rented out the auto garage to other folks.
So, Mr. Barr is a willowy man, about 5'8" or so, I am guessing. He has about 7 or 8 of his teeth left, and does not wear dentures. He always wears a ball cap. Because he has so few teeth and no dentures, it is sometimes kinda hard to understand what he says, so you have to listen real close sometimes.
I see him a lot now that the weather broke. He walks nearly a half a mile, always with a walking stick, to the bus stop and takes the bus up to a shopping center called Westown. There is one of those economy grocery stores, a CVS pharmacy, a post office, a dollar store and a few little family owned clothing shops. There used to be some restaurants and such, but most have gone under. This is the poor side of town and things are tough.
Mr Barr has now gotten to where he will yell or do some type of whistling if he sees me in the yard and I do not see him. I love talking to this guy.
He has given me and mom two tomato plants this spring and I just gave him some of the Persian cucumber seeds that I ordered from Reimer Seeds.
Last week he stopped by and was telling me about his white girlfriend down in TN near Nashville where he grew up. He was from a big family. I think somewhere between 8 to 12 kids, not sure, and he says they were the only black family for a 3 mile radius. He told me they were not sharecroppers like most black folks around there during that time. His daddy had worked for the railroad and those were good quality jobs. He said he had pocket money in the summer and would come up north here and goof off as a teen.
He moved into that house what sounds like in the late 40's or early 50's.
His wife (second) is currently in a nursing home. I have never met her.
Today he pointed out a "medicine" plant by my gate. He was pointing to the poke that mom asked me, just yesterday, if I was going to cut and use. She said I needed to get those leaves NOW. Well, Mr Barr said he used to come down here and pick it for the older folks in the neighborhood. I don't know how long ago this was, knowing him it was 2 years ago!
He is a fun guy to talk to and I got a big scare a few weeks ago. For some unknown reason, I was up at midnight, sitting on the couch. I saw a cop car go by with lights flashing. That doesn't really happen a whole lot here. I didn't pay too much attention until the second one came by and was going slower and I could still see the lights flashing. I looked out the window to see the car stopped about 15 feet past my driveway - in the same direction of Mr. Barr's house.
We'll I got worried, hearing other sirens screaming in on us, about my Mr. Barr. I grabbed my shoes and ran out the front door. Just as I reached my steps, I saw big flames shooting up above the IF, in the very direction where his house is.
I tell you I was so scared I had tears streaming down my face long before I got to the cop car. The cop said it was the garage building and as far as he knew Mr. Barr was fine.
Well it was only about 2 minutes before Carter (I'll give you a run down on her another time) was standing next to me, worried about Ramona, another older lady that lived right down there.
We waited for about 30 minutes and no sign of ambulances, so we felt good about Mr Barr and Ramona's well being and we went home.
Next morning I went down to his house and knocked but no one answered. I think his daughter who lives less than 2 miles away probably came to get him. It smelled like kerosene.
Mr. Barr said somebody had been asking him to sell that garage that used to be his flower shop to them and he kept telling them no. He told me that his house does not have water or a well anymore. He gets his house water from the old flower shop building which is on city water. He said he saw the people who wanted to buy it messing around there earlier in the day before the fire. He thinks it was arson because they were mad he wouldn't sell it.
I don't know, but I was sure glad he was ok.
Well, my hand has rested enough, gotta get back out and finish mowing the yard.
I had no idea that walk behind mowers could have such a range of total weight. I used mom's last summer and then in the late fall I bought a new mower from Sears.
Well, my mower must weigh a good 40 pounds more than hers. It is a real bitch to mow along the steep angle by the road and it is just harder to maneuver altogether. To top it off, the power assisted wheels control is just on the right side, so you can only use one hand to hold the handle down.
I'll be glad when most of my grass is converted into something much more sensible.
Oh, I told Mr. Barr that mom was "weed and feeding" her grass and you should have seen the look on his face! I tried to gently explain to her the reasons not to - just related to the true health of her grass and soil, and not budging. Sees too many marketing materials and is convinced that is the way to go.
Grrrr. Get ready for mowing every 4 damn days.
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