Oh, lonesome road…..

It is hot, hot, hot, again today. Did I mention it’s hot? I’m going to have to invest in one of those pull out screens that goes across my windshield. Yesterday, I had to use a mask I had in my car to hold onto my steering wheel after it got so hot in a parking lot. Whew. The weather it be bad, people, and they are saying this is just the tip of the iceberg. Some places are getting torrential rain, others suffering through droughts and dry arid weather, others monster storms. Really unsettling.

I’m not a fan of heat. Coming from Nova Scotia, heat is simply not woven into my DNA. My ex-husband, David, and I traveled across country on a regular basis, as I’ve mentioned previously in many blogs. He was a pipe foreman when I married him, and I became his pipe foreman sidekick. To say we moved around a lot would be an understatement. I broke camp so many times, I finally had to call the game after our third major move, and we left our possessions in a moving and storage facility in Florence, Alabama and moved on without them. My wordly “stuff” remained there until our time on the road, and together, was to reach it’s natural end, about five years later. All and all, I was to pay for ten years on that storage unit. When I met Rick and we got a home together, I called and arranged for the crate to be delivered. For what I paid for the storage plus the cross country delivery, we could have replaced the items several times over plus purchased a condo in Boca Raton. The only reason I did it was because all my heirlooms I inherited from my mother’s family were packed in amongst the useless items like an entire box dedicated to a hot pink punch bowl I probably picked up at a yard sale somewhere. Sigh.

David and my first cross country trip was to be east, well southeast to be specific. Being in California you might say that would nearly be the only destination available as west would drop you in the Pacific, south into Mexico leaving north or east the only viable options if you wished to remain on U.S. soil. Our destination was to be Ashdown, Arkansas. It was the beginning of summer that year as well, and the oppressive heat had already begun to settle comfortably, or uncomfortably, across the middle of the country. The first leg of our trip took us through Nevada. Our small convoy made its way across the high desert in the early hours of the morning to avoid traveling in the heat of the day. David led the way, driving his old yellow Ford pickup piled halfway to the moon with all our worldly possessions covered by a huge green flapping tarp. I brought up the caboose in my car K-car with the staples in the hood as a result a recent accident with an uninsured motorist. Grapes of Wrath had nothing on us. My Shih Zsu, Sushi, rode shotgun next to me in the front seat, and Kitty, our senior, very entitled cat, kept watch on the road from the ledge beneath the window in the back. As the night closed in, my eyes began to fixate on the road ahead. White line fever, I believe is the truck drivers term for it. Around 3 a.m. when my eyelids had began to seriously droop, David’s truck hit a jack rabbit propelling the poor animal high into the air where he disappeared into the darkness at the side of the road. This got my blood circulating again. “Poor rascally wabbit”, I thought to myself. I hate to see an animal hurt in any way. Not long afterward, unbelievably, an enormous owl met it’s untimely end against David’s window. The impact caused him to swerve and veer all over the road, finally coming to a stop straddling the center line. Thankfully, we were the only ones using the road at that time of night, and I was still alert enough not to plow right into his bumper. Feathers and debris floated about everywhere. At that point, I was wide awake, all systems fully engaged. In my sleep deprived mind, I remember thinking, omens, possibly? I hadn’t seen Ashdown yet so had no idea what the future held for me, but have to admit those two events didn’t make my mind rest any more comfortably about what was to unfold with the journey ahead.

Our last stop in Nevada was to be in Ely. Ely, was originally founded as a stagecoach station and today is the county seat and largest city in White Pine County, Nevada. Ely boasts a booming population of 4,047 souls, which gives you an idea of the size of the rest of the county. Locating a small, pet friendly, motel with a neon sign blinking ” acancy”, we paid for a room in order to get some much needed sleep. The room itself was interesting. To begin with, with every light on, the interior remained extremely dark. Even after our eyes adjusted, we could barely make each other out. Checking out the bulbs, we discovered they had used 25 watt bulbs in every light fixture. Swell. I was looking like the walking dead at that point anyhow, so what I couldn’t see couldn’t hurt me or him. I tried to pull the drapes apart so we could at least allow some light in to unpack. Interesting note here, someone had stapled the drapes together. From what I could make out of the room, I believe there was a method to their madness with all this subterfuge. The less we could see, the better off we were. In spite of the poor accommodations, we were both so tired we would have slept in that bed if they’d stuffed the pillows with tarantulas.

Waking up in the early afternoon, we made our way to a restaurant recommended by the front desk clerk as a local favorite. Originally, we had planned to get back on the road that day, but it had been a grueling forty eight hours and it was already brutally hot, so we decided to get a fresh start the following morning. Seated at the counter of the coffee shop enjoying my hot cup of coffee, the man on the stool next to me ordered his second boiler maker, at least since I’d been occupying the seat next to him. Taking a long drag off the cigarette hanging precariously on his lip, he checked his keno cards against the numbers on the plaque on the wall, swore, and tore them in two. Nevada really is a different kettle of fish. Breakfast was surprisingly delicious. The desk clerk had been dipping a pile of Cheetos into a mound of what looked to be barbecue sauce when he’d recommended a good place to et, so I hadn’t held out much hope for it. However, there wasn’t much left to be scraped off the plates by the time we were done with our meal. Wandering about the downtown area to kill some time, the afternoon sun seemed more like a laser beam burning a hole in the top of my head. I couldn’t help but wonder what brings people to off the grid places like Ely? Were they born there or looking for a place to disappear. Certainly it was not the natural beauty of the area. For some people the desert landscape is one they find inviting. For me, I’ve always found it to be a bit intimidating and stark. From the looks of the downtown area, I would have guessed it likely hadn’t changed much over the years. According to the brochure I’d picked up outside the hotel, there was a railroad museum somewhere in town and a number of parks to enjoy in the surrounding area. The topography all around us looked rough and scratchy the way a man might appear when sporting an untrimmed beard. Not a place I wanted to hang my hat for too long.

The following morning, we were up early and ready to leave Ely behind without much regret. After retrieving the animals from our mole cave of a room, and settling them in their usual places in my car, I went back for the bags while David checked that bungee cords holding the tarp were secure. It was hot enough at 8:30, that the activity involved in repacking the car was sufficient to raise a bead of sweat beneath my bra line. Whew. Getting in and securing my seat belt, I cranked the A/C on high and turned to follow the old yellow truck out of the parking lot onto the highway.

The vistas as we rode along appeared much different in broad daylight. The desert floor stretched out for miles until the flatness of it all was broken up at last by a range of mountains. Prickly arms of cactus could be seen reaching out all around us surrounded by scruffy patches of sagebrush. On some of the cactus brilliantly colored blooms were erupting. It’s an irony of nature a plant as prickly and unwelcoming could produce such lovely flowers. Tumbleweeds rolled along the side of the road, and occasionally could be seen hanging like a crucifixion victim, impaled on a piece of barbed wire fence.

We continued uneventfully until around lunchtime, when we stopped at a junction where we were to turn, ate at a truck stop there, and filled up our tanks. David told me the next leg of our trip would take us across the Bonneville Salt Flats. The salt flats, he went on, covered a 46 square mile area and have a salty crust that can reach as much as five feet deep. The salt flats apparently were a popular tourist location and the area was well known to car racing enthusiasts. Also, he mentioned during the summer months the temperatures along the route could be fairly extreme. Yay.

Parking under a large tree, we used the extra set of car keys I’d brought to allow us to leave the A/C on in the car and still be able to lock it. This way the animals were cool while we ate, and they were in the shade. This made the temperature doable when I returned. I refilled their water dishes and once again the animals and I took up the rear as we headed away from civilization. Even with the A/C churning out frigid air, it was difficult to keep the temperature comfortably cool in the car. Sushi had begun to pant so I reached into the cooler on the floor in the front seat and took some ice out to give to her. I was watching the temperature dial on my dash creep up slightly to the hot side. I began praying things would hold, when the back tire on David’s truck began to buckle and fold. With the vehicle limping on the back right side, he pulled it over and I pulled in behind him. Oh-oh.

Reluctantly, I got out of the car. The heat was unrelenting as we stood there looking at the blown tire. There were no cell phones then, and we hadn’t seen a car in a while. The only option, was to change the tire. Thank heavens we had brought a spare, and put in my trunk not buried it somewhere under all our household goods. As we walked to my car, the heat sank over us. It was like sitting under an electric blanket turned to high on a hot day. Sweat was pouring out of me from every available pore as we dragged the tire out and rolled it to the truck. As we walked, my flip flops were actually sticking to the asphalt. David pumped up the jack and laid on his back to get the job done. His face began to take on the color of a very ripe and juicy tomato. As the heat bore down on me I began to feel strange and light headed. David told me to get in the car with the animals. Finding my thinking processes muddled, I saw a car coming up over the horizon. In my addled mind the Mounties had arrived. I stood in the middle of the road jumping up and down like a clown in a Jack in the Box until David came and got me and physically put me in the car. The car passing stopped, but David told them he was almost done and to ushered them on. Once the new tire had been put on and the old one stored in my truck, I noticed he was no longer wearing his shirt. He pointed to where he had been lying, and the shirt was now a permanent part of the asphalt. Wow. Turning around to show me, his back was red and several blisters had risen up.

Sometimes I wonder if that shirt is still there. I can tell you I will never forget that heat, and haven’t felt anything like it since. We had some wild and hairy times he and I before we parted ways. We leave a part of us wherever we venture. Each person you meet brings something to you in your life, and takes something of you away with them into theirs when they go. Have a great and cool day. Find the adventure, enjoy every moment.

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How much is that doggy in the window…..

So, I’m adding Dog Wrangler to my list of qualifications on my resume. The new man in my life has a lovely Labrador retriever, blonde in color. Some time back, the dog enjoyed a tryst with a wolf red retriever that produced eight little puppies, two blondes, and six reds. So cute. When first born, they were just so sweet to watch. Innocent little beings with closed eyes, who ate, slept, and pooped their way through their days. However, like all beings, puppies do not remain little forever. Now, entering their sixth week, their eyes are wide open and they are busy, busy, busy, little bees. They are only sleeping when they have thoroughly worn themselves, and us, completely out. Reminds me of how excited I was to see my daughter take her first steps. The occasion, when it happened, was marked with a video and much ooooohing and aaaaaahing of encouragement from her loved ones. The excitement ebbed considerably, when we realized the child was now fully mobile and able to get into everything and anything within her reach. Oh-oh. Like human babies, everything that catches the pup’s interest (which is virtually everything from an old Q-tip found on the floor to the foliage on your house plants) goes in their mouths. Hounds by breed, they run along nose to the ground searching for something to get into. I had to sit cross legged on the couch keeping my feet off the carpet to prevent them from untying my shoelaces or nipping at the back of my ankles. The mama dog sat in the chair next to me watching the chaos of her spawns of the devil unfold. Every once and while she’d cast a worried glance in my direction like “what have I done, Susie, what have I done”? Another concern is there hasn’t been a big response to the ads to place these puppies in new homes, which is starting to be cause for concern. They are entertaining now and cute, but seven big dogs running around in a small space has less of a tickle your funny bone feel to it. I told him we could stand out front of Safeway with a box and a sign reading, “Free Puppy With Any $50 Purchase”. Some people have no sense of humor.

I can remember days like that when my kids were little. They were born a year and two weeks apart. For the first six months or so, they were both in diapers. I would imagine I had much the the same experience parents would have with twins in the house. Once both babies were walking, it was a full day every day. Their dad and I had purchased our first house when I found out I was pregnant with our second child. He was going to college nearby and working a night shift, and I had a secretarial job during the day. Looking back and thinking I was only twenty seems unimaginable to me. Sometimes I don’t know how we did it all. Looking at twenty year olds now and picturing them with a baby on both hips seems unreal. I’m sure there are a lot of young mothers out there, but I don’t see them all around me the way one did when I was producing offspring. According to my granddaughters, marriage is not in the forefront of the minds of young women coming up in the world anymore. An exact quote would be, “Marriage and commitment are not the priorities, or possibly even on our radar”. Interesting. Girls often go to proms in groups of friends, rather than attending with a date. Dating seems, at least to my well seasoned eyes, a far more casual affair in 2022, more about the moment at hand rather than the ultimate outcome. But who am I to say? Each generation thinks the ones coming after them are totally going about things the wrong way. Basically, if they are not doing things the way we did them, they must be doing them wrong.

Girls when I was growing up were supposed to target a marriage partner once the ink dried on their high school diploma. I was married (the first time) at nineteen. Of the four marriages I have to my credit, this was to be the only “formal” wedding I was to enjoy. I remember thinking as I walked down that long aisle towards the man of my dreams, we would be together forever. Forever, as it turned out, was to last only eight years. However, though the marriage didn’t stick to the wall, during our time together we did manage to produce two beautiful humans who have brought me so much joy since the moment they arrived making it such a blessing. Life has a way of going in the direction it chooses to do, and more often or not we are just flotsam swept up in the current. That sounded rather cynical, and I don’t consider myself a cynical person. It’s only over the years I’ve come to see that sometimes what we perceive as the direction we should be moving in, isn’t always the best choice for us to be making. It has been my experience the harder a push the universe at such times, the more resistance I experience in return.

I have a friend who fathered ten children. Amazing. I used to think I wanted six, but managing two as a single mother could be an uphill struggle. How you spread yourselves effectively among ten kids I cannot imagine, and manage to save a moment for yourself. All ten, so he tells it, are uniquely different with totally individual likes and dislikes, and personalities. Isn’t it funny how you can have children who all grow up in the same house, sharing the same parents, with the same values taught to them, enjoying similar activities and conversations, and still they often grow up to be polar opposites as adults. That would be an interesting study to read about. I’m sure there is a paper out there somewhere on the subject already having been written.

At times I wish I could go back to the early days armed with the arsenal of knowledge I have gleaned and begin at my beginning again. Maybe we should start out really on top of things, bursting at the seams with wisdom, and let it leak out like air in a balloon with a small hole in it until we peter out as we get older? Remind me to mention that to the powers that be, once I get wherever it is I go once I peter out.

On a totally unrelated subject, I actually went to the gym today. I know! Not only did I go to it, for I’ve done that before, but this time I got out of the car, opened their business door, and went inside. So proud, really. I need to do some free weight work. If I take this job I mentioned previously working for the Air B&B cleaning company, I need to strengthen my core. The work is physical and requires agility and free motion. The young woman in the facility was kind enough to say I looked to be in excellent health and seemed in good shape. True enough, my physical self, when clothed, is not a lot different then when I was younger. Admittedly, some southern movement has occurred, one can’t escape gravity after all, but all in all it’s still in fairly good fiddle. The problem lies in, like a well-worn wool suit, the material covering it has gotten a bit stretched and out of shape and doesn’t fit as well as it did when it was new. A little tightening up is definitely in order. This girl started laughing when I said that, and continued to do so every time we made eye contact. I do enjoy a good audience. I signed up for their summer “tightening up special”. Twelve weeks of miserable workouts, three times a week (should you be an abuse magnet) to get you in tip-top summer shape. They also have a pool which offers water aerobics which I will avail myself of. I have friends in my age group who won’t wear a bathing suit in the pool anymore. To me this is incredibly vain. One woman I know, wears pants and a long sleeved shirt to swim in if swimming in a public pool. When she steps in the deep end, she sinks to the bottom like a rock. I refuse to not wear shorts when it’s hot, or a bathing suit when I swim simply because my legs aren’t twenty anymore. As far as I know I haven’t gotten to the point where I traumatize small children, or put dogs teeth on edge, so I’m doing it.

That is what I know for a Thursday. The heat is moving our way. Going to be 107 tomorrow. Ugh. The shorts are definitely coming out.

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Mom-eries…..

My mother will be celebrating another birthday milestone birthday in a few weeks. She has been on hospice for about a year now. That word always feels so ominous to me, but they have been wonderful in overseeing her care and I am glad to know they have eyes on her when I do not. There is no doubt she is slowing down. For me, this means getting as much out of each visit as I can to deposit in the memory pot.

While talking to my cousin in Canada last night we got into a conversation about flying. She related a story of hers where she boarded a plane with her ticket in hand. Locating her assigned seat, she found it already occupied by a gentleman. Explaining to him he was sitting in her seat and showing him her ticket to emphasize her point, he explained to her she, in fact, was on the wrong plane. Whoops. This brought to mind a story about my mother. Any of you who have read my blogs in the past, would know I do seem to get myself in messes. Telling this story last night made me think “the acorn does not fall far from the tree” in our family.

I will preface this story by starting with another. My mother was born with no internal sense of direction. For her, getting from the kitchen to the bathroom involved a map and a St. Bernard with a keg of Heineken strapped to its neck. As a child, I can remember riding shotgun with her and being given a map and expected to guide us to wherever our destination was supposed to be. No wonder I sucked my thumb. That’s a lot of responsibility heaped on an eight year old.

The first year we came to California my mother and new stepfather purchased a house in Fullerton, which is in Southern California. I was enrolled in fourth grade in the neighborhood school, and one of the first things I wanted to do was to visit Disneyland. Growing up in Nova Scotia, our perception of California was sun washed beaches, movie stars roaming the streets, orange groves, palm trees, and Disneyland. I didn’t see my first movie star until I was in my early twenties, but the rest of it was pretty much right on the money. After being in the area for several months, only Disneyland was left to fill out the list.

Anaheim, where Disneyland is located, was at best a fifteen minute drive from our house. I was so excited about going my mouth was moving a mile a minute. Back in those days you bought books of tickets at the gate ranging from A-E. The A tickets were for the less exciting rides, moving up from there to the premium rides which took an E ticket for admission. My mother spent $50 that day on the whole visit and went on about how expensive it was for days. Now that would barely cover parking.

After a fun filled day of rides, park food, and souvenir shopping our feet were tired and we were ready to head home. Again, home was a fifteen minute drive with traffic. As usual, I was handed the map. Mother had never driven the freeways before that day. When she merged into traffic she became totally unglued as cars and massive semis careened by us on either side. Orders were being hurled in my direction faster than a chef calling out meal requests on a bustling food line. Somehow we missed our exit. For whatever reason she never got off the freeway again until we’d merged onto several others and were totally lost. When we finally pulled off an off ramp, it was dark, and we were in Burbank an hour’s drive from our house. Thankfully, a police cruiser had pulled over to the side of the road. My mother pulled in behind him and explained our situation. I remember sitting in the car getting my thumb prepared for insertion lest she get arrested. We made it home well into the evening. It was a long time after that before mother ventured onto the freeways again, but I retained my job as navigator well into adulthood.

There are many funny stories in my mother’s repertoire. The one triggered by my cousin’s wrong flight story was one for the books. Mother was living in the Bay Area when this silliness transpired. Plans had been made for her to take the one hour flight to L.A. to visit a friend of hers who lived in the L.A. area. Not wanting to leave her car at the airport, she asked if I would drop her off on my way home from work. It was a Friday night, and the airport was packed. I asked her several times if she needed me to park and see her to her gate. Each time she said no, she would be fine. As I remember, it had been a long week, and I still had to fight the commuter traffic home, so with some reservations, I retrieved her bag from the trunk, gave her a hug, and told her to call me when she arrived on the other end.

Several hours later a distress call came in from my mother’s friend. It seemed she had waited at the gate where my mother was to arrive, but mother never got off the plane. Asking at the gate an airport employee said she had never boarded. What?

Before I could alert the media, the phone rang again. This time it was my missing mother on the other end. She was laughing so hard, I could barely get the gist of what she was saying. Seems she had gotten on board the plane after I’d left her. After taxiing down the runway and in the air, the pilot came on the P.A. to provide the passengers with a weather report for Seattle. Finding this odd, my mother asked the lady in the seat next to her why on earth he was telling them about the weather in Seattle. The lady replied, “because that is where we are going”. Amazing. So, the airlines, realizing they had a passenger on the wrong plane and they didn’t catch the mistake, put her up in the Holiday Inn and booked her a return flight to L.A. the following morning. Dinner was also provided. Good going, Mom.

Someone pointed out the other day when you have lost both parents the feeling comes over you you are now an orphan. Never thought of that before. I don’t know how I will feel when at last she leaves us, but I’m sure I will miss her more than I can say.

Thanks for the memories, Mom. It wasn’t perfect, but it most certainly has been an interesting run. I hope we have a dozen more years of memories to make together.

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I definitely do…..

My dear first cousin and her husband visited us here in Northern California over the past weekend on their way to Australia. I suggested to them if I laid off my Pringles for a week, I would probably be small enough to tuck in any extra bag, but they neglected to take me up on the offer. Someday, I will get there perhaps. It’s on my bucket list with a number of distant and exotic places to visit. I was sad to hear koalas were on the endangered species list due to the fires on their continent. The climate is changing and the animal kingdom feeling the shift.

No matter how long the span between visits, as they live in Ontario, Canada, my cousin and I seem to reconnect as if it had only been a day or two since we saw each other. I don’t have family in the states so it is quite a treat to have relatives at my door. On both my father and my mother’s side, my mother and I have always been the “satellite family”. Until I was nine, I had grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins and the usual cast of extended family members most people enjoy in the vicinity of where I lived. At nine, when she remarried, we left Halifax, Nova Scotia in the rear view mirror of our new Buick and headed across the U.S. to Southern California. Since then, I have probably returned to my homeland a hand plus a few fingers of times, but it’s not like living close by. Definitely Nova Scotia is high on my bucket list as well, hopefully, over the next five years. Note to Susie “get your new passport and quit procrastinating”. Heard and received.

I’ve always missed that family connection. Probably that is why I have created a family of sorts in the lovely group of women I call friends, but in truth consider my sisters. My friends are really the glue that keeps this ship afloat and I am thankful for them every day. The supportive phone call when I’m feeling a bit weepy, or the laughs over lunches, or simply knowing that they are out there and sincerely care if I set my feet on the ground every morning, means the world to me.

Since many of the COVID restrictions have been lifted, the pace of my life has picked up considerably. The fact that my car continues to have the check engine light front and center on my dashboard, adds a little extra anxiety to keeping up with the program. The part in question, a pricey one, is due in tomorrow. They told me not to hold on to the thought it would actually arrive tomorrow too tightly, as most likely with the supply chain issues this is a guesstimate of when it will actually show up. Kay. This makes keeping my schedule in place a little more difficult, as the commitments on my calendar aren’t going to be kept if I don’t have any transportation to get me there.

Currently, I am undergoing allergy shot treatments. Each week I go to my allergist and sacrifice my arm for my injections in the hope that my asthma will eventually (takes a year or two) become something that fades into the background. I never had asthma until I moved up to Northern California. Well, mild symptoms of seasonal allergies, but certainly never was prescribed an inhaler before living up here. If this is the worst thing I have to deal with in my life, I’ll get by, but it does make life a little more challenging when spring shows up with all it’s gorgeous blooms and copious pollen. They won’t give you a shot if you are symptomatic. You have to keep the cycle in between injections within two weeks in order to keep moving up the maintenance ladder increasing your tolerance. Today is the second time I have not been able to go for my appointment. Like my car, I seem to be having some maintenance problems. I guess this is all part of the equipment getting older and not working as well as it did when it was bright and shiny right out of the manufacturer’s showroom.

Along with everyone else in the country I would surmise, I am tightening my belt. Tightening it figuratively, I mean, not that I’ve shed the extra five pounds COVID added to my frame. Frills and extras are being whittled down to fit in my budget. Door Dash, sadly, has been left by the wayside, and just when I was getting on a first name basis with the drivers. Life’s little tragedies. Cutting down on going out to eat as well, and not so much retail therapy in my near future. I guess with what people are going through overseas, this isn’t too much to ask.

California is currently sporting the highest gas prices in the country. Such over achievers out here. I was filling my tank yesterday and believe the man in the next aisle was actually weeping as he got back into his car. You’d think after two years of battling the bug, life would have settled down to a dull roar, but the irony of the situation is now we are free to go where we’d like when we’d like, and we can’t afford to get there. The gods are toying with us.

On a completely unrelated topic, a friend was talking to me about APP dating the other day. Interesting process that. I met Rick on line twenty-five years ago so I’m not new to the idea. Still, I lean towards the old fashioned idea of seeing someone and being attracted to them and going from there. Continuing with my theme, I am open in my “why not” year to looking at all things available for me to try this year that are not dangerous or fattening. The APP experience would be totally new to me. People cruise in and out on the APP apparently, liking you or moving on down the road to someone else they do. You, of course, also have the choice of liking them, or not. If you decide you “like” one another than you text, talk, progress to coffee at a Starbuck’s and go from there. Will I try it? Probably. I have to admit the thought of having to tell all my stories again from the beginning I find a little daunting. When you are asked if you’ve been married before and hold up four fingers in response, it’s always good for an uncomfortable pregnant pause. One man said to me back in the day, “Boy, you really took one for the team.” Yes, I did. I guess when it comes to love, I would suppose I am the eternal optimist.

Well I’m off for now. Happy Monday. Have a great week full of smiles and adventures. Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I am debating if I want to cook a whole corned beef and cabbage dinner for the cat and myself, but I may just do it!!

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Of all the gin joints, in all the world…..

Were I a knee, I would describe myself as out of joint. I feel uncomfortable, like my life doesn’t quite fit me properly anymore. I suspect this is because I am in the process of shedding my old life as I knew it, and stepping into a totally different and unfamiliar new one. I don’t like it. I don’t like this unsettled muddled feeling at all. Sometimes, I wish I still enjoyed a dry martini now and then. It’s not I don’t drink at all these days, I do here and there, but I can’t remember the last time I downed a martini. I find my life works just fine without alcohol on most days, with the desire for a cocktail usually only popping up in social situations, which have been less frequent over the past couple of years with the virus running amok. Perhaps this uneasy feeling is partly due to the pandemic? It has been two years now, and I think the impact of being constantly vigilant has finally caught up with me. People are getting cranky, stores are low on supplies, and prices are heading up every week. I spent $109 at the store the other day and came home with eggs, cheese and kitty litter. I could not believe the little cheeses I used to pick up for what I considered an extravagant $4.99 are now selling for $11.99. Apparently along with supply chain issues the rising prices are also linked to the rising minimum wage. Don’t misunderstand me, I think workers in any field should be paid a living wage. However, it doesn’t stop there. Rick used to say the problem with raising the minimum wage is that prices go up commensurably leaving us in the same situation we were before the minimum wage went up. It’s a dilemma for sure how to deal with the inflation running rampant at the moment, plus the virus which has one again mutated to take another huge toll on our population. Glad I’m not running this country. You should be glad as well because I find balancing my checkbook an all day affair.

My first husband, the children’s dad, was a genius with numbers. Truly, he was just a genius at so many things. Math was never my strong suit. I endured high school algebra and geometry, but cruised through both classes by the skin of my pearly white teeth. One of my first, and the shortest, job I ever had was working as a bank clerk. I showed up for work at eight, spent the entire morning adding and then adding again huge columns of numbers never getting the same total one single time. You’d think with random luck I might have accidentally hit it more than once, but not that day. I went home at lunch and never came back. Instead I called my new boss and said she would thank me down the road for submitting my resignation, and wished her well on finding a more suitable replacement. Thankfully, there has been much forward progress since then.

Fortunately I haven’t had to add much of late. I have found myself a bit flat this January, as if a lot of air had leaked out of my tires. Dale used to say when he got like that he needed “spiritual food”. Thinking that advice could never be bad for my overall mental health, I got together with his daughter and sister-in-law, both very spiritual beings, to help me reinflate my tires. Yesterday we met “virtually” in person and spent a couple of hours outlining our intentions for the upcoming year. The idea was to create a vision board with pictures indicating our goals, dreams, and aspirations for 2022 to help us focus on where we want to go and what we want to achieve. For me at least, it definitely reinflated my spirit and rebooted my energy. I may not accomplish everything I listed, but at least I have created a loose game plan for myself to follow. If you don’t have some plan of action it’s like sending a football team out on the field with no playbook. They may all be excellent players but once the whistle blows everyone will be running around willy nilly with no united goal in sight.

Trips are definitely in the offing over the next months. I do not want to sit here in my sweet little house watching the grass grow. One of my first trips will be in May. I am meeting a friend who I haven’t seen in over twenty years in Redding for a four day getaway. We chose Redding because, a) there are lots of things to see and do in that area, and, b) it is roughly the halfway point between where I live in the Sacramento area and she lives around Salem, Oregon. While there, I am going to satisfy two of my bucket list items which are seeing the Celtic Women perform live and going zip lining. This is exciting stuff. Well, it’s exciting for me at least. I can’t speak for how riveting it is for you on your end.

I watched “Places in the Heart” around 3 a.m. last night. Saying that, gives you a glimpse into how well my new sleep aid is working. There is a scene in the movie where the newly widowed character Sally Field is playing goes into the bank to get instruction on how to write a check. Before he was killed, her husband had handled all the finances. Now, without him, everything, including raising the children and keeping a roof over their heads fell totally to her. I identified with that scene, having been there myself many years ago. It brought into perspective for me how far my journey has taken me since then. Over the years, through trial and error, I have discovered what works in my life and what does not. I like to think like powdered sugar on a freshly baked donut, the best and most useful of what I’ve picked up has stuck to my sides, while the rest of it that either didn’t work for me or was not needed, has sluffed off and been left behind.

One of the items I pinned on my vision board, was learning new things. My goal is to learn several new skills, or at least try them on for size, every month. To this end, I bought a mason jar. Inside the jar I placed folded pieces of paper with the skills I would like to aim for this month. At the end of the month I will look at those I have actually completed, acknowledge I did them, and toss them. Those left in the jar I will roll over into February and see it perhaps I can accomplish them during that time, and so on. Yesterday, I tried out the first one, hanging it on the line to see how it looked. I signed up for a beginning watercolor class on line. Now, I have been dabbling in art since I was in elementary school, many times earning my living with my creative skills. Watercolor, however, has always been an art form I have been interested in but never pursued. At the assigned time, I signed into Zoom with the other students and picked up my brush. There was a pre-assigned list of supplies to gather, which I’d laid out before me. Also, we had been instructed to download a sketch and duplicate it on watercolor paper before tuning into the class. Done and done.

The instructor, a woman and apparently a teacher on the college level, was chatty and helpful. The student’s video buttons were engaged, but we couldn’t unmute so the only voice heard was the instructor Oh, and her dog, Nelson. Nelson actually wandered in and out of camera range occasionally offering a bit of input on what he was observing. For me being unable to ask questions or share ideas was like having one hand tied behind my back and trying change a tire. I am more comfortable in a classroom where there is an exchange of ideas. This was my first virtual art room. I have to say I prefer meeting in person but like everything right now we are safer apart than huddled together so virtual meetings are safer and more convenient. The sketch we had been given to reproduce was of water lilies. Our first task from the instructor, was to paint our leaves in a wash of green. I was almost done with the first leaf, there were three, when I looked up to see the teacher (all three leaves washed) moving on to the lilies themselves. Ach. Hello, unmute, unmute, expletive. Oh. Anyhow, I abandoned my leaves for the first lily and as I was busy washing pink across my flowers, I heard the teacher telling us to move on the the pistil. Her flowers, of course, were done. I believe the pistil is the center circular part of the flower often yellow in color. However, I can’t be sure of this because I was in mute mode and couldn’t inquire. The instructor was painting that part of her flower, so I abandoned my pink petals and squeezed a blob of yellow on my pallet and began to paint the first of my pestils. Before you could say Leonardo de Vinci the instructor was holding up her completed picture and asking us to do the same. At that point, I hit my no video button as well and waved my goodbyes. Once I signed off, I sat and finished the picture at my leisure which, surprisingly, I really like. There’s one little folded piece of paper in my Mason jar reading “take an art class” headed for the trash bin come February 1st. Yay. There’s an old saying I heard a lot while living in the south I think applies here, “Do something, even if it’s wrong”. I believe the lesson here is that it is better to try and fail then to not try at all. There ya go.

Funny how doing one thing often begets another. Once done with my lilies, I felt the urge for the first time in over a year to pull out my sketch book and drawing tools. For the rest of the day I sat happily at the table creating the first drawing I’ve done since my life became more stressful. What a lovely sense of relief it was to find myself bent over my pencil again. I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever feel a movement in that direction again.

So, create something different in your life today. Take a different route to work, eat something you’ve never tried before. Be brave, make a difference.

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Mooooove it along….

I am sitting here with a fresh cup of coffee next to my laptop, Miss Boo, the Queen of Cats, curled up next to me, the tree lights twinkling happily, and the heater humming. Life, in this moment, is good. That’s all we have really, the moment we are occupying. Boiling some eggs for breakfast, I noticed the windows were fogging up. Another chilly morning in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Always on extreme weather days, whether the thermometer registers high or low, I think of the disenfranchised people. The forgotten people, as I often think of them. Alone, shivering in the cold on a street corner or back alley. Outside, with no place to go and hope most likely not filling their cup. So many of them seem to have animals at their side. I have to assume these furry companions also have no homes to go to or warm beds to sleep in. Makes me think of the movie “Down and Out in Beverly Hills”. Nick Nolte played a homeless man who’s dog, in the opening scenes, abandons him for a lady walking down the street with more promising circumstances.

A long time back I wrote about being without a home or finances for a two week period in my life. I had family I could have called, but pride kept me from dialing their numbers. For two weeks my ex-husband and I lived in our car in Washington state. He had a job, so our future wasn’t bleak, but the present was definitely something we had to deal with. Many people who have lost their homes or for whatever reason found themselves without means, don’t have that option waiting for them. It is difficult to get a job if you have no address, no access to a computer or device, and nowhere to clean up and prepare for an interview. That time in my life made a permanent imprint on me. Never have I felt so vulnerable or unprotected. We had a case of Vienna sausage a work buddy had given my husband, a jug of cheap white wine (one must have some concessions), several large bottles of water, and an assortment of packaged cheese and hot salami packets. Not exactly a banquet. Though there was some money in our pockets, the job we’d driven up to Washington to work on had been postponed. This meant we had to conserve what resources we had for gas, and a hotel room here and there to clean up in before my husband was to report to work. Thankfully, the trees were just beginning to change color in the northwest, so though the mornings were brisk, the days were still comfortable and being outside not yet a dangerous place to be.

Each night we would find a nook or cranny off road to park the car. Using each other for warmth, we would huddle under our blankets and get as much sleep as the uncomfortable car seats would allow. One night, we found a cutaway on a rural road and pulled in under the trees for the night. With no moon out that night, the darkness swallowed us up. Though we could see lights on the hillside coming from a farmhouse, not much else was visible. My husband, a veteran of many long night shifts, could go to sleep standing up in the corner. For me, sleep often eluded me until the wee hours. This particular night, the black sky was alive with an unbelievable array of stars. The view, to understate, was spectacular. Looking out beyond the fence line beyond the front of the car, I kept getting the eerie sensation something was looking back. I remember feeling the hairs crawl up the back of my neck. Looking back, I think the more prudent thing to do in that situation would have been to lock the doors and waken my husband. Being me, and rarely a fan of the prudent choice, I grabbed the large flashlight on the floor of the back seat, and opened the car door. Approaching the barbed wire fence, it seemed as if it stretched all along the property on both sides. Engaging the flashlight, caught in the wide beam, were ten to twelve bovine faces looking back at me. Seemingly only mildly interested in the intruder, some chewed on blades of grass, while others just stared into the light with idle curiosity. Several of them let out low moos, so I responded with “Hello”.

Smiling, I went back to the car and settled back into my spot. In about a half an hour, I found myself in the same position I’d put the cows in, a flashlight beam interrupting my sleep. Both of us sat up in a panic. It was hard to see who was holding the beam with the light in our eyes. Rolling down the window, we were surprised to find a state trooper standing on the other side. It seemed the cattle rancher had recently had some problems with poachers, and seeing my beam flood the pasture, reported a prowler to the police. Whoops.

I can still picture the man standing there. For a moment he reminded me of Paul Bunyon. I wouldn’t have been in the least surprised to see the blue ox grazing not far away. Taller than average by a half, he wore a Smokey the Bear hat on his massive head, a neatly pressed blue uniform, and had a bow tie securing his shirt collar under his chin. Though kind, and not citing us for anything, he asked us politely to move on. I’m sure for most homeless people this is a familiar request.

In two weeks, our ordeal was over. Life for us went back to fairly normal. The local food bank gave us a most appreciated box of real food to see us through until our first paycheck. I remember asking the lady handing me the box how I could repay her. She said simply, “pay it forward”. That is why I have volunteered for the food ministry for the last eight years. My way of paying back a kindness.

If you see a street person, take the time to smile or say “good morning”. You never know their story, or what could happen to put you in their situation.

Have a nice weekend. Stay warm.

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On the road again…..

Have spent the last five days visiting a friend in the San Jose area. She has a lovely home perched high on a hilltop overlooking the entire Santa Clara valley. A view that stretches nearly to Santa Cruz on a clear day.

What a good time we’ve had, doing nothing really. One day we spent doing “girl things”. On my first day here we had our nails done, then we went to lunch and did some Christmas shopping. On another we ran errands and she cooked a delicious dinner which we ate like royalty on china atop chargers in her gorgeously appointed dining room. Her taste runs far more formal than mine. I guess you might say she’s a city mouse, and I lean towards being a country mouse.

Though I love living in a less populated area, it is nice to feel the hustle and bustle of the city for a few days. Having lived in this area off and on over the years I can still find my way around without a problem, and know where to go to scare up a good meal or enjoy a day in the stores. Yesterday we went to Santana Row. Santana Row is a very upscale shopping area in West San Jose catering to people with large bank accounts and expensive tastes. I have the latter. Whether you can afford to buy the luxury items for sale in their lovely shops or not, it is a glorious place to go and browse and enjoy Sunday brunch. The streets are lined with eateries and most have set up outdoor dining areas for customers to eat el fresco. As opposed to where I live where they’ve gotten very unmasked, everyone is wearing a mask here. All stores or restaurants have posted mask mandates on their entrance doors. I guess this varies according to county. Sometimes I wish lawmakers would get on the same page and make a decision which applies to everyone. I don’t know about you but I would like to see news about this virus disappearing in my rear view mirror.

I think I’m still suffering from “grief brain”. It is a real thing. I went through it after Rick passed away as well. People talk to you, and though you process the information, most likely it will be gone like it was written in disappearing ink in the blink of an eye. Also, doing stupid things becomes more the norm then the exception. Yesterday I looked at my calendar for this week. Three appointments were noted on tomorrow’s date, all around the same time. Hmmmmmm. I hope my cloning appointment is first in line. One of them is an hour and a half massage my son and his girlfriend gave me for my birthday. No, they didn’t actually give me a massage, they gave me a gift certificate to get one a a local spa. Remembering they had an on-line appointment function on their website, I went on and moved the appointment up a week to a more convenient day. This is the second time I’ve changed this appointment. I believe I am avoiding it subliminally, or maybe just blatantly. I have never had a professional massage. Makes me a bit squirrely at the thought of it. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it, people do all the time, but there’s something about it that makes me pause. Perhaps it’s the idea of a stranger touching my unadorned self. Could be that.

Content that I had my week back in line, I went back in the kitchen to pour a second cup of coffee. Taking a sip, my mind suddenly clicked into gear. I believe I actually heard it engage. Perhaps it was the caffeine finally hitting my bloodstream. In that moment of clarity, I realized I had changed my appointment to that morning two hours forward rather than next week. Man. Sooooo, when they opened I had to get them on the line and explain I was apparently having a mental breakdown. Thankfully, they were good about it and rearranged the appointment to the time I had meant to change it to. Whew. Seriously, I need a keeper these days.

Tomorrow I turn my car towards home again. Boo has had a house sitter for company, so will be glad to see me I’m sure but not totally unsettled as she would be if left to her own devices. Well, in truth I can’t speak for the cat, for all I know she hasn’t even noticed I was gone. I still have to finish my Christmas shopping this week and wrap what I’ve bought. Next year I’m going to look at this program. My extended family has grown with the addition of Dale’s lovely family so I have to curtail the gift giving and look at another way of sending my love. Either that or marry well before next December shows up on the calendar.

Happy hump day. Cya when I get home.

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Monday, Monday…..

We are coming to the end of another odd year. I thought last year with all the COVID concerns was to be the odd one, but have to admit this year went ahead and really outdid itself. As I’ve said, I had COVID, and obviously survived. As of last month, I can also say I have had both vaccinations plus the indicated additional booster. Now, they are saying there’s a new variant more resistant then it’s predecessors. Whew. It’s like climbing the side of a steep precipice. You can see the top of the mountain from your vantage point, but no matter how high you climb, getting there always seems just out of reach. At some point, you have to say to yourself, “I have done what I can to keep myself and those around me safe. Now I have to let go, and let God (or whoever you believe is in charge).” At times it feels like no one is in charge, though I don’t really believe that. However, lately some days it does seem as if the ship is sailing through rough waters with nobody manning the oars.

The holidays were looming in front of me ominously after Dale passed away October 22nd. It’s odd, though it’s been only a little over a month, it feels like a lifetime has gone by since he last sat in my living room. I’m managing to get through each holiday as it shows up on the calendar, and find myself enjoying my time with friends and family. Perhaps because this is my second immersion in the grief process in three years, I have learned to traverse the minefield without leaving any limbs in my wake. Sometimes the pendulum reflecting my mood leans far to the right. During those darker periods, lifting my heavy feet to walk seems an impossible task. Then, as quickly as it leaned right, it will move dramatically to the left side. When resting there, my toes are happily tap, tap, tapping to a song I’m listening to, or I find myself humming contentedly while fixing vegetables in my sunny kitchen. Grief is such an individual undertaking (sorry that pun was unintended), and each person must in the end make their own way through it however works best for them.

I have begun my shopping for this holiday season. Once I have watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and Santa and Mrs. Claus have driven their sleigh down 34th Street and flown home to help the elves prepare for the big day, I generally get into the swing of things as far as gifts are concerned. I am nothing, if not a creature of habit.

Now that we’re all emptying our bank accounts for the sake of maintaining Santa’s reputation, I’d like to offer a piece of sage advice. Be careful when you order anything off the ads that pop up on social media, particularly when you have never heard of the company. At the very least, check them out on some of the verifier sites before ordering anything. Twice now I’ve been suckered in by a really cute picture only to end up with something not resembling that item in the least. This time I ordered two. Please, I know. Don’t judge me. I’ve always been a sucker for a pretty face. “Let the buyer beware” is really a mantra I should have been saying, quite possibly out loud. If it was physically possible, and believe me it is not any more, I would be kicking my own behind. Duh.

When I contacted the seller he responded, or she, I needed to peel the protective plastic sheet off the item to improve the look. Hmmmmm. It would take more than that I’m afraid. Number one, the original item looked to have dimension and the one I got look like a photograph of that item glued on to a plastic backing. It looks like that because I’m quite sure that’s exactly what it is. They made one, took a picture, threw out the fishing line and waited to sink the hook in some suckers lower lip. I was kind enough to stop by and offer them mine. Number two, the plastic protective sheet was glued or stuck on the plastic and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I reported them on a site I go to report such things. Should have read some of the comments about this company I found there before ordering anything myself. Each comment echoed how I felt. Cheap, poorly made, not representative of the item they had shown a picture of. Check, check, and check. Ah well, another lesson written on the board. I wonder if I’ll graduate one of these days, or if I’m just one of those students who is perpetually sitting outside of the principal’s office?

Thanksgiving turned out to be a lovely celebration at my daughter’s house with her family and a few of her husband’s relatives. My mother joined us, and after a bit of a health scare earlier in the week, we were feeling especially thankful to see her face a the table. Dinner was a fusion of vegan and carnivore, and delicious on all counts. Not being a sweet eater usually, I really enjoyed the pumpkin cheesecake which was totally a vegan recipe. Yummer. I was spending the night, so I thought to pack a pair of “after dinner pants” with a flexible waist. I highly recommend this. Hah. Gave all that dinner a little room to settle into the loose spots. When staying over night at my daughters, I sleep on the couch. Quite often I have one or the other of the two cats in residence join me during the night. Heather, my daughter, is a very creative being. Like her mother, she loves the holidays and her well decorated house reflects her passion. All across her ceiling in the family and living rooms she hangs snowflakes from fishing line. Each snowflake is strategically placed and hangs at a different length on it’s invisible tether than the one hanging next to it. Lying there in the dark before closing my eyes, I watched as the air currents moved the snowflakes in circles like a lovely choreographed winter ballet. Life really is magical, whatever age you are.

Yesterday, my son and his girlfriend drove up from the Bay Area for a quick lunch with my daughter and myself. It was so nice to have both my chicks together. We ate a local restaurant and again I was faced with dishes full of amazing calorie laden food. OMG. Where were my “after dinner pants” when I needed them? For an appetizer (I KNOW, WHAT?) we had baked brie. After tasting it spread on the garlic toast points they provided on the side, I considered for a moment face planting in the center of the serving dish. Soooooo good. It was bubbly brie, topped with caramelized onions, and then finished off with a perfectly cooked fried egg on top. When the yolk was broken, it oozed over the whole caramelly oooey gooey cheesy deliciousness. “Stop”, my stomach cried out to deaf ears. “You’re killing me.” Did I listen? Nooooooooo. I forged on, following up the amazing brie with a plate of eggs Benedict served on crab cakes next to a mountain of home fries. I can feel the acid building in my nether regions as I’m writing this. To begin with, years ago I lost my gall bladder. I didn’t misplace it, though lately that wouldn’t surprise me, but I had it surgically removed. I lost an organ with each marriage, a testimony to the sacrament, and this one was sacrificed during my third. I barely show up on an x-ray any more. Seriously, I can’t afford another marriage with any hopes of remaining erect. I had no after affects worth mentioning after my gall bladder was gone, except for a high sensitivity to garlic. The pungent little bugger will repeat on me for hours once I’ve consumed it. Not a pretty thought I know.

So, today I am taking a cleanse of sorts to right my ship again. When I get off course, I try to correct it and get back in the shipping lane again as soon as possible. The only exception would be spending a week on a cruise ship There is no way to get away from the incessant parade of delicious food there unless you actually jump ship or stay behind in one of the scheduled ports, but I digress. How on earth I got on cruise ships I have no idea. Anyhow, this morning it was oatmeal and fresh fruit followed by a brisk walk, and a salad with micro greens for lunch. No matter how I write that it will never sound anywhere near as enticing as my description of that baked brie. I’m just sayin.

I would guess a lot of you were out and about over the weekend shopping or picking up a tree to bring home and decorate. Have a lovely Monday. Talk soon.

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Litterally, life is just crazy lately…..

The weekend has been busy. I spent Saturday night with my daughter and her family at a Winter Wonderland attraction. For Zeppelin, who recently turned three, this was a magical adventure. Being a “COVID” baby he hasn’t had much exposure to the outside world over the past couple of years. Snow cascaded down on us inside the gate, generated by a snow machine set up towards the entrance to the light show. This, for the small set, was the big deal of the night. The look on his face reminded me of how I felt the first time I saw fireflies while living in St. Albans, West Virginia. Only difference, I was thirty-eight at the time. Wonderment, is wonderment, no matter what the age, I like to think.

The Christmas elf in me seems to surface no matter what external forces are going on in my life. Always, I have come to life this time of year, and in spite the fact Dale will not be with me for the official lighting of the tree, the tree will go up as it always does. My son-in-law stores my tree in his rafters each year. Before going over there I asked him to get it down for me so I could bring it home with me. There was a time when I wouldn’t have owned an artificial tree. Part of the experience of having a tree for me, was to go to a lot or Christmas tree farm and pick out a tree the day after Thanksgiving. Since the kids have their own kids, and particularly now the cat and I are the only ones here to appreciate the splendor, I’m happy to have a conveniently accessible tree-in-a-box to put up instead.

Getting ready to head home yesterday morning, my son-in-law offered to put my two bags in the back seat of my car. I thanked him as I was going out the door, where he pulled me aside for a moment. “Don’t open the bags in the house”, he whispered in my ear. “Why not”, I asked? Apparently, Zeppelin had been playing in the garage with my son-in-law and he told him he was afraid of the bag. When asked why, he indicated the bag had been moving by itself. Oh-oh. Soooooo, I am being told there could be something in the bag? The bag now resting in my bag seat? Swell.

On the way home I jumped every time I heard a noise, and kept looking over my shoulder expecting to see two little rat ears and a big set of razor sharp teeth staring back at me. Thankfully, nothing escaped and hopefully there was nothing to escape. Once home, I unloaded my other items leaving the bags in place for last. Pulling on my industrial plastic gloves, I retrieved a long pair of tongs from my utensil drawer. “I’m going in”, I thought to myself. Dragging the cumbersome bags over to the side of the house, I watched them for a moment to make sure I didn’t detect any movement before unzipping the first bag. There were no obvious signs of entry so I felt pretty comfortable removing the contents, picking them up with the tongs just in case there were any surprises in store for me. The second bag was a totally different story. On one side there was a huge jagged hole obviously gnawed by huge jagged teeth. Let the games begin. Gingerly I pulled back the zipper. Grabbing the section of tree on the top with my tongs, I pulled hard dislodging a jack in the box ornament flying which came flying up out of the hole and landed on my head. The dance that ensued was worthy of at least a 10 from Len Goodman on Dancing with the Stars. Good form, excellent footwork, nice content. When my toes finished tapping, I looked up to see my neighbor leaning on his rake watching me. What? He waved at me cautiously in my direction, as one might do when dealing with a crazy person. In the end, there was no creature tucked in with tree either dead or alive. However, something had definitely eaten a hole in the side of the bag as well as all the fake cranberries off some decorations in the bottom of the bag. Note to self: Find a place in the shed for my trees.

Rats, well pests in general, are a way of life. Whether you live in the inner city or in rural areas a rat or two is going to turn up at one juncture or another. I try to find the inherent blessings in all living things, but I have to stretch a little farther to find the value in these nasty flea carrying rodents. Wherever there is food, rats will congregate. When we owned the restaurant I would sometime see them foraging out by the trash bins. Euuuuwww. When recounting the above rat story to a friend of mine, she said she saw a wire hanging beneath her car. When she reached up to yank on it to pull it out, a dead rat fell out on the ground and she was holding his tail. Ugh. They will get up under the hood of your car for the comforting heat of the engine. While visiting, they will chew on wires and connections leaving a mess if you’re not careful.

Moving on lest you’re eating and rodents put you off your food, this morning I am making soup out of what is left in my vegetable bins. I haven’t been shopping lately the way I did when Dale was here for meals, and I haven’t been cooking much either. The refrigerator, I’m afraid, reflects this lack of interest. I found four carrots, three stalks of celery, two onions, and some green beans hanging on for dear life in the bins. I had a half a rotisserie turkey breast that was about to travel south with the veggies so figured they’d all play well in a bit pot of soup. It’s supposed to be cold today, so what is more perfect on cold days than a piping hot bowl of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, yes?

Murphy has been mucking about in my house the past week. As I mentioned in my previous blog, both toilets went on the fritz one right after the other. At the end of last week I was working on organizing my shed and one of the doors came off in my hands when I tried to close it. Thankfully, I figured out how to reattach it, or that would be the perfect place for critters to take up residence as the cooler weather prevails. Don’t misunderstand me, I do love my critters, but don’t really want any unwelcome surprises when looking for a package of paper towels out there in the dark.

So, this morning I began to assemble my soup ingredients. The landlord installed shelved pantry units in the laundry room to give me more storage. As I’ve said, this is a small house. I am very creative when it comes to using up all the available space, but even I have my limitations. The shelves in these cabinets are held up with little metal fasteners which regularly wear out, or come out and disappear into the atmospheric continuum somewhere. My theory is they are out there hanging out with all my missing socks. I have stocked these shelves fairly substantially so these little fasteners are being asked to hold up a fair amount of weight. This morning they rebelled. Opening the cupboard, cans, boxes, bags of pasta and all manner of consumables came pouring out like the dam had sprung a leak. A large can of crushed pineapple landed on my baby toe which is now the color purple. Ouch. I will find that Murphy one of these days and see he gets some of what he has dished out. Sorry, lost my head for a moment.

Not to be deterred from the task at hand, I sorted through the mess until I located what I needed and made my soup anyhow. What is it they say, “it’s not what happens to you in life that is important, it’s how you handle what happens to you”, or something along those lines. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

Another minor annoyance, more to Boo than to myself, is that because nothing is getting to the store shelves these days, her cat litter brand of choice is out of stock. Boo, like most cats, is not a fan of change. Forced to either choose a new litter or allow the aromatic smell of ammonia to waft up to permeate my nostrils, I bought a different brand. The one I got was clumpable. I know, or really I didn’t know. At any rate, I diligently cleaned her box and sanitized it and poured the new litter inside. Shortly, as she always does, she sauntered up to take a virgin run at the fresh litter. First she smelled it, then after circling the box for ten minutes she deigned to step inside. You would have thought I had filled it with hot coals. She walked around lifting up her paws and behaving as if torture could only be a worse fate. Really? After a few days she accepted the fact that the old litter was not returning any time soon, and adapted herself to the situation. I, on the other hand, didn’t do as well. The clumps as it turned out were how the litter dealt with the bodily fluids etal. Huge clumps form in the litter after the cat uses it, looking like meteorites. They weigh a ton and hardly fit in the trash can I’ve always used to store the ……..um, well, poop. At any rate, it got kind of funny to me at one point but finally just annoying so I went and bought a new brand. Boo is circling the box as we speak. Life on the edge over here.

Happy Monday. The beginning of Thanksgiving week. Stay safe, spread kindness, be happy.

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What the Puck……

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The actual Miss Boo, the Queen of Cats

I have to say, Miss Boo, the Queen of Cats, has stepped up to the plate in a big way since Dale passed away. As it does after someone dies, the house goes from a hotbed of activity, to a quiet, sometimes deafeningly quiet, refuge. Family and friends return to their lives, and you are left alone (if just the two of you) to sort out the remnants of yours. Boo has been my steadfast companion over the past weeks, and I don’t know what I would have done without her. In times where I felt lost, she would find me. Her beautiful silly furry face would lift me up from whatever dark space I had crawled into, and pull me back into the world. God bless animals, really. We could learn a great deal from them about humanity.

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I have had many pets over the years. I never say I owned my animals. To my mind you can’t own a living entity. You share space, possibly rent one for a while, as they can be costly, but never own one. My first “pet” was a loaner who haughtily sauntered into my life when I was about the age of six. Whiskers was a grey tabby with attitude, who lived with our neighbors, The Bells, in the house directly across the street from ours. Not permitted an animal of my own, Whiskers and I made a silent agreement to meet every day in front of the garage for scratches behind the ears and a few moments of cat to human companionship.

I didn’t get an actual pet until third grade, when three guppies, and two angel fish showed up in a small aquarium under the Christmas tree. A puppy was what I had written on my Christmas list, but fish were what Santa delivered. Watching them milling about inside the glass I believe for a moment I thought about leaving him a hunk of coal instead of chocolate chip cookies and milk the following year. To give Santa his due, we lived in an apartment with a “no pets” policy, so fish were all I was allowed to own. He must have read the lease before crossing my golden retriever off his list. They were entertaining, for creatures that basically just swam around, pooped and ate, but they weren’t much when it came to going for walks or playing in the yard. Santa had included a manual detailing the care and feeding of each species, however, it included nothing about the reproductive status of guppies. As things will happen when you put males and females of a species in the same environment, one of the guppies got pregnant. When she produced her offspring, I watched in horror as the father immediately gobbled up all his own children. It seems this is not an uncommon phenomenon among the male guppy population, which leads me to wonder there are any guppies in the aquariums at the north pole to provide for children over the holidays. The following day, my mother found a new home for my tank.

To ease the loss of my guppies, a new furry face arrived on the scene in fourth grade. A Boston terrier by the name of Puck. That is Puck, from Midsummer Night’s Dream, with a P. To be honest Puck was not a name I might have chosen for obvious reasons, but he came to us at six months old, and his previous owner had a leaning towards Shakespeare. Not wanting to confuse him, Puck he was, and Puck he stayed. Puck was a little black and white shivering bundle of energy. He had one blue and one brown eye and was prone to passing truly obnoxious clouds of gas at the most inopportune moments. His favorite game, if left alone and the bathroom door open, was to grab the end of a roll of toilet paper and run through every room of the house until the roll finally came to an end. Often I came home from school to find him sitting in clouds of Charmin looking really pleased with himself. In his defense, the only companion the dog had when I was in school was my mother’s roommate’s brother’s mynah bird. Follow that trail if you can. The black menace, was a contentious feathered creature answering to the name “Uncle Charlie”. Uncle Charlie could match expletives with the vilest of sailor’s mouths and could often be heard in his owners room blaspheming loudly to his little hearts content. Puck’s bent for flatulence, unfortunately, turned out to be more than just socially unappealing, but also an indicator of an underlying serious intestinal condition resulting in his demise before he celebrated his second birthday.

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I didn’t venture into the realm of pet ownership again until the eve of my thirteenth birthday. The doorbell rang that night just after we had cut my cake. I opened the door, to find a delivery man standing there carrying a cage. Reading from a card he had in his hand he announced he had a special delivery for Susan Dennis, which at time would have been me. Handing the cage across the threshold to my waiting hands, he turned and walked down the driveway. Looking inside, I was more than surprised to find two large frightened looking topaz eyes staring back at me. “Hello”, I said? Taking the crate in the kitchen, my mother determined the gift had come from my Aunt Eleanor. Eleanor was not really my aunt, though I called her Aunt El, but rather an old friend of the family. Eleanor was in her seventies at the time (I perceived her as ancient and more than a little eccentric). The woman lit one cigarette off the last, drank vodka by the truckload, owned three beagles who smelled like old socks, and was a retired legal secretary. She had never married, had no children (except her beagles who she called her “girls”), and her only relative was a rather unproductive brother who lived in her spare room with Mr. Charlie the foul mouthed mynah bird. Aunt El, however, in spite of her many quirks, had a heart the size of New Jersey. Knowing it was a difficult time in this girl’s life, she knew a kitten might just fill the fill. Had she asked my parents permission, I’m sure the answer would have been a resounding no. So El came at the situation like she did most situations she had during her life in the legal field, and just cut through the red tape. The eyes as it turned out were attached to a peach colored persian kitten, who aptly came to be called “Peaches”. Peaches was gorgeous even by persian standards. In the dark, her golden eyes shone brightly like the orbs of a underworld goddess replete with locks of flowing curly golden hair. Her regal bearing belied an underlying love of martinis, which came to the fore after a night of partying on the part of my parents and a group of their friends. I woke up to find the living room littered with the remnants of the previous night’s festivities including half filled martini glasses and bowls of crusted over guacamole. In the middle of the disaster sat Peaches happily lapping up what had to be her second or third gin martini.Oh-oh. On seeing me, the fuzzy sot weaved across the carpet in my direction getting about halfway to where I stood before dropping on her side like a possum caught in the headlights of a car. Thankfully, the amount of alcohol she consumed did not do her in, but the next day she had the same look on her lovely face I’d seen on my parents the day before. Peaches would be my steadfast friend and companion for the next two years, before being hit by a car on our street and having to be put to sleep. My young heart, as they say, was broken.

It was to be, that once again I was to mend my broken heart from the loss of one furry friend by finding another one to step up to make me smile. Don’t misunderstand me, you can not simply exchange one pet for another and make everything all right, any more than you can with human beings. Each animal, like each person in your life, if special, occupies a certain space in your heart and mind that is unique and belongs only to them. Their imprint, can never be written over with a new one, but will rather stand side by side with the others. Such was the case with the little Pomeranian puppy given to me on my sixteenth birthday by my mother. Mandy, like another guardian angel, arrived on the scene when life was a bit bumpy at our house and a loving companion was just what was needed.

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When Mandy came into my life I was sweet sixteen, with more emphasis on the age than the description. My home life was complicated, and in reaction to that chaos I was a bit rebellious. Toss all those ingredients in a bag and no matter how much sugar you added the cake it still didn’t taste that delicious. My mother and I were trying to find a way to communicate, and teenagers aren’t notably gifted in this area, and my stepfather, well that’s for another blog. Mandy helped to iron out some, not all of the wrinkles at home, making life a little easier for all concerned. Small in size, with a pointed snout and a bush of reddish gold hair, she resembled a little fox. Before long we were inseparable. She understood me, didn’t ask a lot of questions, and was an excellent snuggler, and for a small being, a fierce protector. What more could I ask for? My stepbrother, Mike, also had a dog, Chip. Mike’s parental visits included every other weekend at our house during the school year, every other holiday, and a month during the summer break. Chip accompanied him on the summer break the first year Mandy came to live with us. My mother and I had discussed getting Mandy fixed as soon as her first heat and come and gone. Apparently Chip, an ardent suitor, hadn’t read that far in the book. Sure enough, before the surgery could be done, Mandy was pregnant. The vet said the pregnancy was too far along so we would need to complete the journey. One night I noticed Mandy was very restless. She stood up, then laid down, yawned, and then whimpered. This went on for some time. Alerting my mother something was wrong, she called the vet and they said we should bring her in. After an xray revealed two puppies, one too large to come through the birth canal, (Chip was a mutt, but a mix of larger breeds) Mandy was prepped for a C-Section. This would end up costing my mother nearly $400, pricey even in those days. Mother was not wearing her happy face on the drive home two puppies richer. Mandy produced her only offspring, Chip and Dale. The boys were healthy but an odd pair, with Chip being at least double the size of his brother. When they were old enough,we put them up for adoption and they were scooped up before the ink was dry on the ad. Mandy remained with me until I got married three years later. She stayed with my mother until I could find an apartment where I could bring her. I think she died of a broken heart, though they said it was liver failure. As I’ve said often, life is a series of hellos and goodbyes.

There have been many other memorable fur babies between Whiskers and Boo. If I mentioned them all you’d have to put on a fresh pot of coffee. Dale’s memorial is tomorrow. Nursing a big case of sad this morning but Boo is here at my feet keeping a watchful eye on me. Happy Saturday!!

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