Story time
Even though Thanksgiving is not generally considered a gift-giving occasion (to my mind, one of its more delightful aspects), Jonathan couldn’t resist bringing Jessica a book which gives the real dirt on the Three Little Pigs. It’s authored by the Wolf himself, and you can see that it held Jessica spellbound. She [...]
This sleeping beauty was awakened with a kiss on Thanksgiving morning.
My sister stopped by on her way home from work to make sure I was awake. She even made coffee, and there are few things nicer than lying in bed and smelling coffee you didn’t have to make yourself.
After checking with Erica, I learned [...]
You can see that the bear-proof fence is almost in place. The posts are sunk deep into concrete, and the wire was a huge score Rob made at the dump. The wire is expensive new, and someone had discarded it, so once again, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. All that’s left [...]
View from the bookstore
In addition to picking up unglamorous necessities at the unglamorous Rite Aid (why do I always run out of all my drugstore items at once?), I also stopped off in Mendocino to pick up the organic, free-range Thanksgiving turkey from Mendosa’s. Fortunately for me, my sister had prepaid it, so all [...]
The road to town
The town
You have to get a lot more up close and personal with your garbage here in Hooterville.
I mentioned earlier that I invested in allegedly animal-proof garbage cans when I moved here. I say “allegedly” because so far they have remained animal-proof, but I’m figuring that it’s a case of “them [...]
I’ve made some fun discoveries during the un-fun process of unpacking.
I found my grandparents’ wedding announcement (they got married in a field of flowers on a summer day with one attendant each, so Nana’s parents sent out “At Home” announcements after the fact. I wonder if there was a great big noisy fuss over [...]
Frost burning off the post*
Yesterday it was raining so hard that it woke me up before 6:30. I lay there listening to the rain on the curved roof, wondering if the power would go out, and realized that the propane heater needs electricity to start and stop, just like my gas oven in Oakland. [...]
Apparently, I have a boat.
I really shouldn’t be surprised. James was the king of the pack rats. I’m not sure that he ever threw anything away, just in case it came in handy one of these days. And to be fair, both he and my brother have shopped the junk piles in the woods [...]
Yesterday’s rain, today’s sunlight
My new house and I go back a long way.
My brother lived on this property for fifteen years or so, and my sister and brother-in-law have lived here for a decade. James and Rose, who lived here before me, were friends as well as neighbors and landlords.
Our good friend Paul, who put [...]
Swine flu* is just so passé. All the cool kids have library-itis.
Its onset can be insidious. You can have a library card for years, lurking in a drawer or making your wallet a little snugger than you’d like, but never take it out or even think about it. But when you come into [...]
Audrey on the porch
It soon became apparent that my in-house doorman* gig had to end.
The door in question is this one, which separates the (somewhat heated) living quarters from the (completely unheated) studio. The studio was where Rose created her pottery – her kilns are still there – and now is home [...]
Library
Literary Cat
One of my few talents is being able to spot a misspelling or typo at twenty paces. I rarely read a book without finding at least one spelling or grammatical mistake*. I guess that makes me pretty white, but I can’t help it. Possibly it’s the aftereffects of having an utterly useless [...]
Waking up is hard to do.
Some of us don’t even try.
What should I do today?
Morning light
The past couple of nights I’ve dared to sleep in my bed, although for some reason it makes my aches achier. But I couldn’t handle the Elephant Man thing of sleeping partly sitting up on the couch anymore. Why is life full of unpleasant choices instead of, say, one fun’n’easy option? [...]
…but it’s not – it’s Fiona!
The Impostor
The Real Thing
Meet Fiona, my neighbor.
She belongs to Rose’s daughter Catrin, who also lives on the property. Fiona stops by whenever she feels like it. Although (or perhaps because) she and June look so much alike, they tend to growl and snap at each other. It’s [...]
Lucky pays a visit
Meet Lucky, my neighbor.
She was rescued as a tiny baby by Mark and Citlali from the scene of the accident which cost the lives of her mother and brother. They bottle fed the little fawn, and she grew into the lovely scenery-eating lady you see here. Mark and Citlali’s [...]
Gertie
Henry and Gertie have switched places. And I feel guilty.
Gertie, an unlovely name for a lovely cat, lived in what is now my house for all of her 13+ years. Even after her owners were gone, she stayed. But once I moved in with my herd of cats, she abandoned the [...]
I could have borrowed the title of this post from the title of Haven Kimmel’s delightful memoir She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts. Yesterday, I performed my own heroic act by getting up off my own couch and accompanying Megan (and, more importantly, Princess Schatzi) to the Mendocino Headlands.
The quaint [...]
Before
After
You can see that Rob’s been a busy bee. He found two pieces of driftwood and some redwood (the house, including the staircase, is made of redwood) and Suzy proofed the loft over the past couple of days. If I can ever sleep upstairs again, it will be good to know that it’s [...]
