Suzy Says

Weekends have a magical ability to disappear. They speed by with lightning rapidity – unlike work days – and by Monday morning, it’s like they never happened at all. All that fun seems so far away…

On Saturday, we had a BBQ at Jonathan’s place. The 80 foot by 80 foot garden has become the summer party pad. I owe you some pictures of the spectacular transformation from hardscrabble pygmy to flourishing vegetables. The latest enhancement is having both water and power piped into the garden, an endeavor which required some serious trench digging (and filling in).

Our friend Clayton, who hosted us in the city during last summer’s popular HospitalFest, arrived after dark and thought he was in the wrong place at first. Some of his friends came up the next day, bringing dirt bikes and a three month old baby girl named Josephine*, an unusual combination. They took turns babysitting and biking, and Josephine took it all in stride. I have rarely met a better natured baby.

After the biking, we gathered around the fire pit (made from a cement well ring) and had dinner while Josephine cooed and napped. It was a nice evening, and it was good to see Clayton again. Hopefully they will come back up again now that the summer visiting season is in full swing.

Also on Saturday, a hummingbird meandered into my house. I had all the doors open, so it must have come in to explore. I heard the distinctive buzzing before I saw it. It was iridescent green with a red throat. I should have taken a picture, but I was so worried about the little guy getting out of there safely that I stayed out of the way and watched him zooming around. Eventually, he went out the balcony door and I heaved a sigh of relief.

Good thing the cats were all outside.

On Sunday, I had yet another memorable encounter with my old friend the moon. That evening, she glided in front of the showier sun and eclipsed its blaze for a little while. Mark came by with his family and a welding helmet, so we all trooped through the house to the balcony and took turns peering at the eclipse through the helmet’s tinted window. It was amazing and spooky to see the sun covered by the moon. Eventually it became a “ring of fire”, and it was spectacular.

It was also eerie, the light becoming dimmer and with an unearthly quality that made me understand why it freaked out the ancient people so much. It kind of freaked me out, and I understood why it was happening.

The cats came in from outside, and Roscoe hid under the bed for the rest of the evening.

*As you may remember, I once had a beautiful Siamese cat named Josephine, after Jo March in “Little Women” (“Such a little name for such a person”), and an equally beautiful sliver-blue 1966 Mustang convertible, the color of my cat’s eyes. So I was delighted by their name of choice, as well as the name’s bearer.

Ironically, after posting that last entry about how much I hate driving, I went to the DMV yesterday.

Ever since I got my license, I have renewed it by mail, but this year, I got a notice saying that I had to go in person. I couldn’t help wondering if it was because I’m about to be really old in a couple of weeks. After all, Jessica had observed a couple of years ago that I no longer look as youthful as the Self pictured on my license, and I imagine that the sands of time have not started rolling backwards in the meantime.

Not for the first time, I find it incredible that our only two options are old age and death. Isn’t there a nicer “none of the above”, where a girl can retain her cuteness and vigor?

Such deep thoughts occupied my shallow mind as I walked the two blocks to the DMV from the jobette. Already the Big Town DMV was ahead of the Oaktown DMV, which had to be driven to in a dismal area of town. Arriving at the office, there were two people sitting quietly reading the paper, instead of the disgruntled hordes in Oaktown.

I had an appointment, so I was able to jump the modest queue. I did an eye test, had my right thumb scanned (twice), and was relieved of $31 before having my picture taken. The photo part made me realize that I probably should have worn my contacts, but DMV pictures are notoriously bad and I am notoriously unphotogenic, besides already looking ancient to six year olds.

I was given a paper license, which looked a lot like my original permit, and was told that I could expect my new and unimproved license in the mail in a week or two.

The whole thing took about ten minutes, and nothing was stolen. Big Town: 1. Oaktown: 0.

I realize it’s almost this weekend, and I haven’t told you about last weekend yet. Let’s look back, back…a long time ago, about last Friday.

It was the first farmers’ market of the year, and it was a beautiful, sunny day. The market was less crowded than it will be when summer really begins, and it was nice to wander about in comfort. I picked up a fresh baguette (to go with the black bean soup I had made) and some cherries, the first of the season:

After that, we stopped by the garden center and picked up several bags of chicken manure. Folks, don’t try this at home. I washed my hands six times after helping Megan to load the bags in the back of the truck, and I could still smell it. All the perfumes of Arabia couldn’t sweeten my little hands. Megan laughed at me.

We also got fixin’s for a BBQ the next evening and bought some redwood boards, which was harder than you’d think, especially since we live in the heart of redwood country. But the pretty boards were warped, and the non-warped ones tended to have fatal flaws, like a giant crack or way too many knots in them. We were looking for six 10 foot long boards. The guy at the lumber yard was really helpful, looking through board after board. Finally, we found two decent 10s and some decent 20s, which he cut in half while Megan paid for them. He even cheerfully loaded them into the stinky truck.

Saturday was a magical confluence of festivity: Cinco de Mayo, Star’s fourth birthday, and the 138th Kentucky Derby!

The Derby has to be the best sporting event EVAR. Can you name another one where there is a red carpet with celebrities, fabulous hats, daytime drinking is positively encouraged, and it’s over before even I have a chance to get bored? And then there are the gorgeous, glossy horses and the winner being draped in roses.

This year, the delightfully named I’ll Have Another won at 15-1 odds, the first horse in Derby history to win from post position 19. His jockey, appropriately enough, was 25 year old Mexican native Mario Gutierrez, making a memorable debut at the Derby after winning Santa Anita last month. I bet he had another!

We had expected company for dinner, so Megan and I bought a pork roast which I marinated in lime juice and spices on Friday, thinking it would be a good choice for a crowd to make fajitas. We hadn’t even thought about it being Cinco de Mayo, but it worked out well that way. Birthday girl Star celebrated spending half of her life in love and safety, where she will remain for the rest of her life. She patiently waited for her birthday dinner:

Other than Star, it ended up just being Jonathan, Megan, and me. We slow cooked the pork roast in foil over the coals, then grilled red peppers and rd onions and had it all with salsa in handmade tortillas by the fire as the sun slowly faded over the garden. We talked about the past and the future, sitting in the garden they have worked so hard to create. Looking at the faces of two people I love most in the world, I thought, “I love my life.”

Also part of our Girl Day was getting a new (to me) couch! I am hideously excited about it. I have been looking for a replacement for my battered old couch for at least a year, so imagine how thrilled I was to find the couch of my dreams for about $250. The store even threw in the decorative pillows for free, and you know how I’m all about the pillows (I think I have eight or so on my bed), especially ones like these, which are gorgeously beaded.

But we had to get the couch from the Big Town to my little house.

On Saturday morning, Megan and I went to our brother’s place and swept out Rob’s trusty old truck. Jonathan has been using the truck while his car is being diagnosed at the shop. We are all pretty nervous about this, because Jonathan couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and that means that whatever is wrong will be really expensive. The car has nearly a quarter of a million rough and tumble miles on it, so it may also mean that Jonathan will have to join Megan in buying a new (to him) car. I really hope these things don’t come in threes, because I’ll be next.

We also took a tarp from the hay bales and realized that we would need a tie down to keep the couch in the truck. Fortunately, one of the tie downs Rob uses for garbage hauling was still in the truck, though one of the hooks was missing. Jonathan sailor tied it to one side of the truck and hooked the other side on. We were ready to go.

Almost as soon as we did go, we saw that the gas gauge was empty. The light was on, but no gas was home. We drove the five miles to the store, hoping for the best, and I put in $45 worth of gas to get us to the Big Town and back, with enough left over for our brother to get to work on Monday.

Arriving at the furniture store, two nice young guys put the couch on the truck, tightened the fastenings, and removed the cushions, putting them inside the cab of the truck, observing that we wouldn’t want them to fly away on the highway, something I hadn’t thought of and was glad they had.

Boys rock.

We made our way slowly home, pulling over frequently, and arrived back at my hippie hovel with the couch still in place. Megan and I decanted the couch and the cushions, but we couldn’t move the old couch. Fortunately, Mark and his friend came over and moved the old one out (revealing a horrifying collection of dust bunnies, thirty cents, a lone pistachio, and a very small scorpion) and the new one in. It took them about two minutes all told.

Boys rock.

Megan suggested that I keep the old couch outside until it starts raining, and then we can take it to the dump, instead of doing it now. So now I have an outdoor living room:

And a much-improved indoor living room. Here’s how it used to look:

And here’s how it looks now:

You may also have noticed that I have new lamps, meaning that my whole house is now officially an IKEA-free zone.

The cats approve of the new couch. It now doubles as Audrey’s and Clyde’s bed (Roscoe still prefers the top of the armoire), and Audrey lounges on it during the day as well. I think she has noticed how well the beaded pillows complement her fur:

As for me, well, I think it gives the place some much-needed civilization.

And it’s pretty!

It seems kind of unfair that you don’t get Easter baskets as a grown-up, which is when you need it most. I’d love to wake up to a basket full of chocolates and cuteness and then test my ability to eat the chocolate before noon. You can skip the marshmallow Peeps and substitute a mimosa. Dinner would be optional.

Instead of eating candy all day, I messed around in the garden a bit before the rain, which is promised to visit us all week, began. I snipped the dead and rangy looking stragglers off the hanging plants, and gave them fertilizer, discovering that the bag of fertilizer mysteriously has a hole placed (in)conveniently near the bottom of the bag.

I finally re-potted the calla lilies Jim gave me (mumble) weeks ago. One of them is looking a little peaked, and I wonder if it was damaged in the hailstorm we had a week or two ago. I propped it up and am hoping for the best:

Speaking of damage: the flower spike on one of my orchids got broken off somehow. I was surprisingly upset to find it lying on the gravel this morning. I put it in water, but I’m pretty sure it will never bloom. After all that work of bringing them inside to keep them from getting frost-bitten, and out again to catch the rain…

Despite this setback, I planted some nasturtium seeds. I have never grown anything from a seed, so we’ll see how that works out. The concept I had for them – they are vine-y ones, and my idea was to put the planter on top of the window Mark made in the studio, so they’d tumble brightly down the side – may or may not work out. A strong wind might blow the planter off the window, and then there’s watering something that’s a few feet above my head:

Practicality is not one of my strong suits.

Rob brought by a planter which looks to my untrained eye to be made of felt:

It had a tree in it before, which is now over on the family property, and he thought it would make a good home for the tree by the propane tank which keeps getting knocked over by the wind. During the last storm, I just let it lie there sadly for days at a time, knowing that if I picked it up, it would just get knocked down again, a sort of anti-Weeble. So I’m hoping that the new container will be heavy enough with dirt to keep it an upstanding citizen.

We had a brief break from the seemingly endless rain today (though it’s supposed to make a return engagement for another week starting tomorrow. It’s like Barbra Streisand’s farewell concert), so I emptied out the rain gauge (two and a half inches) and took a look around the rain-swept garden.

Come and look at what I found:

The tulips are blooming, just a couple of days after the vernal equinox. I think they look like they are singing:

A plant I bought last year because it had really cool silvery-green foliage, like olive trees, has burst into vivid blue flowers. I had no idea it even flowered. But flower it does:

Right behind the mystery flowering plant were volunteer white daffodils, lurking under the huckleberry bushes and pine trees. I wasted no time in getting the trowel, digging them up, and transplanting them to the slow-growing jasmine* which will eventually, one day, cover the lattice and shield my delicate eyes from the sight of the garbage and recycling bins:

They look nice, no?

Clyde supervised me, much as he supervised Rob’s cement repair. In order to get the best view, he hopped on top of the decaying chimera:

Then he got all crazy and chased his brother Roscoe off into the woods.

Speaking of Roscoe: this morning, he emerged from underneath the couch with a mouse in his mouth. I opened the door for him to go outside and got back to work (today was Spend the Day in Your PJs Day, a step further than Casual Friday, though I was the only one who got the memo). After a while, it occurred to me that my transformation from City Glamazon to Country Bumpkin is now complete. I can’t hear on a cell phone in the city; the last time I put my hand on a spider in the shower I apologized to Charlotte’s cousin without a shudder; and the sight of my cat with a mouse in his mouth didn’t make me scream or shriek. Or even think about it.

I hope overalls aren’t next.

*Perversely, the purple honeysuckle on the side of the house and the potato vine beside the shed are total overachievers, when they aren’t supposed to hide anything. Maybe my expectations of the jasmine are too high. Or too fast.

Well, it’s been storming up a storm out there. There’s another two inches of rain in the gauge – maybe more – and the frogs are peeping up a storm. Frogs rejoicing in the joy of rain is usually a winter sound around here, like chainsaws (for clearing trees and branches fallen in storms) and robins (they spend the winter here), so it’s a little strange to hear the frog chorus this late and this loud in the year.

But it’s really been the recent work swampage (and more to come) that has kept me from seeing my family much lately. That, and our busy schedules. So last week, I decided it was high time to make a Date with My Family.

If you haven’t seen the hilarious “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ satire of it (and have civilization-level internet), click on this link to watch it. Made in 1950 and narrated by the inimitable Hugh “Ward Cleaver” Beaumont, it’s a creepy little public service announcement which basically tells people to repress their emotions and act nice at the dinner table, no matter what.

No-one wants to know how you really think or feel!

So when I delivered this week’s Thursday dinner (Mexican chicken casserole with charred tomato salsa), I asked Jonathan if he could go for a drive with me and make sure all is well with Miss Scarlett. After all that front end work and belt melt last fall, I am now hyper-aware of any unusual noises or smells, and I was sure the engine was growling too much and the car was vibrating too much at 60 and above.

So we set off in the rain and wind. Jonathan said that the brakes are in great shape, the car handles really well, and drives true (he tested this by taking his hands off the wheel and noting that the car didn’t drift at all). We drove over 65 and he could see what I meant about the vibration, but doesn’t think it’s anything serious. All in all, he said, he’d be delighted if his car felt as good as mine.

Which made me feel good.

After we hugged good-bye and he set off to his fire department meeting, I went over to Megan’s for a belated celebration of the arrival of Rob’s money. We were going to watch “I Capture the Castle”, a movie made from one of my favorite books, but alas, it didn’t play on her DVD player, so we watched “Five Children and It” instead. Nothing like the also beloved book, but still fun. Especially with Cosmos in hand.

As the year slides forward into spring (don’t get me started about the clocks going forward an hour, plunging the kitties and me back into the hated morning darkness), it seems to be slipping back into winter. All the rain we didn’t get in January and February seems to be descending on us now.

One of Hooterville’s oldest residents (and a sixth generation Hootervillian) says that we will get a good six inches of rain this week. Given the two inches of rain I found in the gauge after Storm One, I think he’s probably right.

So far the power has stayed on, probably because Rob has the generator all set up now. But looking at the ocean this morning, grey and wild, it looks like there’s more weather coming our way.

As I drove to the Big Town yesterday, a young deer darted across the rainy, wind-swept Ridge. I waited, knowing that, as with mice, there’s Never Just One deer. Sure enough, another one made its graceful way across the road. Then another. Then another. And another. There were six or seven of them all told. I waited a little while after the final fawn, just in case.

And as I entered the outskirts of the Big Town, a wild turkey strolled across the highway, far less concerned about cars than the deer. He looked around curiously as he made his way across the road and cars braked madly.

Country living!

Being swamped with work from both the Job and the Jobette has made me too sleep and time deprived lately to give you the lowdown on what’s been happening around here. Amazingly, things other than work and more work have occurred. Such as…

My neighbor Jim stopped by, bearing gifts. This is my very favorite kind of visit. We have been Facebook friends and email buddies for years, and he reads my blog (as all fabulous people do), as well as actual neighbors – he lives about three miles away from me – yet we had never met before in real life.

So it was definitely about time.

Jim arrived bearing a couple of calla lilies to add to the garden:

I will have to re-pot them, but apparently, they grow like weeds. I’m looking forward to their first elegant blooms.

He also brought me a fabulous outdoor candelabra, which might need a cup of Rob to repair it a bit, but it’s certainly a worthy addition to my ever-growing outdoor lighting collection:

I had a great time hanging out with Jim and I hope we get to spend more time together soon.

Megan woke up one day to find several thousands of dollars in her bank account. This what you call a nice surprise. I have heard of them, but seldom, if ever, experienced one in real life.

It was most of the back payments for Rob’s permanent disability. Apparently they give you some of it (after neatly removing the lawyer’s fees off the top) and then give you more six months later, for some reason. But what’s six months when you’ve already had to wait four years?

Now there are decisions and purchases to be made, notably a car for Megan, so we can stop sharing, and some kind of shelter for her and Rob on the family property, so they can stop paying for two places.

It’s happy and exciting news, but I haven’t found time to celebrate with her yet. One of these days…

The splendid pool closed last month. They ran out of money to operate it, despite cranking the water temperature down to 77 (from 85), and I sure felt every single one of those degrees. They also saw fit to keep the exercise rooms open while keeping the locker rooms closed. So – you could go to Zumba or spinning class, but you couldn’t shower afterwards. So that’s out. Basically I am exercise-free until I a) find some time; and 2) find somewhere to do it and get cleaned up afterwards.

On the bright side, Measure A passed last week. It ups the sales tax by half a penny, and apparently the half pennies will add up enough to reopen the wonderful pool and keep it open forever. At least, that’s the story. However, it will take until at least July for enough pennies to accumulate to reopen the pool, so it’s kind of a good news/bad news scenario. I will definitely have to come up with a Plan B if I ever find the time.

The hospital where Megan works is also having financial difficulties. Like pretty much every other company or corporation in America, it’s the worker bees who have to bear the brunt of it. At first, they actually considered closing the Emergency Room at night – yes, the dark hours when babies are born and car accidents and heart attacks tend to happen – but they soon realized the error of their ways.

Unfortunately, their Plan B is for Megan to work three 10 hour shifts one week, and four 10 hour shifts the next, instead of three 12 hour shifts in a row. So it’s more inconvenient; for several hours she will be the only person to answer phones and admit patients and deal with paperwork and transfers. Oh, and she gets less money because she’s not working 12 hour shifts. Pretty much a lose/lose.

On the other hand…we are lucky that we are employed at all in this day and age. As my boss says, this is the new normal.

One thing about being sick is that it gives you time to notice how your house is slowly descending into chaos around you. Dishes and laundry remained undone; dust and spiderwebs accrued at an alarming rate; gravel and pine needles drifted unchecked across the battered wooden floors.

I’d notice all this, and then just go back to bed and watch more mindless TV – surely the best thing about being sick.

Even though I was well enough to go to the jobette – and I worked four days this week, instead of my usual three – I still haven’t really addressed the Housework Situation. Maybe if I ignore it long enough, it will go away.

While the house was undoing its thing, other things happened.

I ordered and received a new coffeemaker. Online shopping is another activity that is suitable for the bedridden. In my weakened condition, it was even more annoying than usual to deal with the French press and its endless, messy grounds. So it was a necessity:

So was replacing my favorite lipgloss from Sephora, since the first day back at the jobette, I was shocked to discover that the tube was basically empty.

I’m never too sick to shop.

While I was shopping, Rob was fixing a hole (or two) in the laundry room/pantry/cat dining room (multi-purpose room?).

The one under the door (being inspected by Clyde):

And the one that was so useful during the great Booze Breakage of 2010:

The repaired door:

And the repaired drain:

We had a storm after the holes were repaired. I set the battery-powered alarm clock and made coffee the night before, just in case, but the power stayed on. In the morning, I realized that if the power had gone out, I couldn’t have used the generator. I used to thread the extension cord from the generator through the hole under the door and into the house, but now the hole (and its draftiness) are a thing of the past.

I mentioned this to Rob, and he is going to drill a hole in the wall near the generator for the extension cord. I’m hoping that we are past power outage season (I’m watching the first Spring Training baseball game between the Evil Empire and the Phillies, so the year has turned a corner), but we should still deal with it before storm season rolls around again.

Well, Le Bug has finally begun to loosen its Vulcan death grip. Sure, I cough myself awake a couple of times a night, and am still the major Kleenex consumer on the west coast, but I was well enough to go back to the jobette this week.

It was a week that reminded me just how petite this town really is. On Monday, I saw my brother and one of his charges emerging from the health food store across the street. I called out to him, but he didn’t hear me through the wind and traffic. By time I could get across the street, he was gone.

The next day, I was just starting up the steps of the office when I heard a horn honking. It was the lovely Monica, waving good morning as she drove past on her way to her store, two blocks away. Daisy, of course, was smiling from the passenger seat.

On Wednesday, I was getting in my car when I noticed a dog across the street who looked a lot like Star. A closer look revealed that it was in fact Star, whose excitement when she saw me too could barely be contained. I honestly think that no-one on earth is as happy to see me as Star is.

It turned out that Rob was walking her while he waited for a new tire to be applied to his trusty truck. When you start seeing metal poking through the treads, it’s time to invest in a new one. We hugged goodbye, and he and Star trotted off to pick up the new and improved truck.

It’s a good thing that I’m feeling better, because my house turned into Grand Central Station last night. Rob stopped by to work on a couple of projects, and Mark called. He needed to borrow a cup of internet, so I told him to come on over with his computer.

It turns out that Mark has a YouTube video of Lucky the deer and Luna the dog which is so popular that he gets little checks from them every couple of months. Who knew? Also, he’s going to New Jersey on Friday to start a huge project: overseeing the dismantling of a L’Oreal factory and moving it to its new home in Mexico.

I missed a lot while I was sick.

Then Mark’s wife (and Rose’s older daughter) Citlali came over to check her email on Mark’s computer. Citlali said that it’s still a little strange for her being in her mother’s house, even though it’s been nearly three years since her death. “But,” she said looking around, “you have really made it your own. Everything is so beautiful.”

It really was: friends and family together in my little house, with the rain falling outside in the darkness and love and laughter within.

Wow – it’s a chilly one this morning, both inside (44F) and out (29F). Good thing I left the tap dripping – to the kitties’ delight – and brought the orchids inside. Still, I shouldn’t complain, considering that a year ago today, I woke up to a blanket of snow.

One thing I will complain about is how Le Bug has managed to totally de-rail my so-called life.

I had to take an entire week off from the jobette, and in my case, no work means no pay, which also means no play. I can’t afford to take more time off this week to go to the City and see the Cult of Beauty exhibit at the Legion of Honor and the Walker Evans exhibit at Stanford. Hopefully I can still go before the exhibits end. I’m really feeling the need for a dose of civilization lately.

Last week was one of surprising phone calls. There was the Rob surprise – the biggest of all – and the next day, a call from my neighbor Catrin (who is Rose’s younger daughter) to say that she and her boyfriend Zach were getting married. On Wednesday.

I figured this gave me at least two shopping days while in town at the jobette, but alas – I was too sick to shop, or drive, or work, or do anything other than drink ginger ale and cough. (I’m still coughing (or barking) and blowing my nose, by the way. I’m going to feel like Typhoid Mary at the jobette tomorrow.)

The wedding day dawned bright and sunny, and was in the 60s in the Hooterville and about 80 at the County seat, which is inland and also where the ceremony took place. The wedding party arrived at Mark and Citlali’s for the wedding party early in the evening, and I dragged my formerly fabulous self out of bed to go and congratulate the happy couple.

It occurred to me how lucky it was that they could have an outdoor party on a February evening, especially considering that it was snowy about a year before. But Catrin thought the date of 2/22/12 was a lucky one, especially since her mother’s birthday was the 22nd (of October), and I guess she was right.

Here are some pictures from the party:

Just married!

Balloons and streamers.

The table, with fresh-picked daffodils and votive candles.

The bouquet.

The bride and groom.

Oh, that Audrey. The most stubborn cat in Hooterville. Or any other ville, for that matter.

Ever since Le Bug descended upon me and I more or less moved into my bed full-time, Audrey has been keeping Megan hours. And keeping me company.

She curls up neatly on the bed and naps all day. I don’t think anyone, cat or otherwise, can look quite so cozy as Audrey as does when she’s asleep. You can tell she really enjoys that beauty rest. When I pet her, she makes little bird-like noises and sometimes stretches, but that’s it.

At first, I was flattered by this. But I soon realized it had its down side, which is that she wants to go out at night and stay out, which is against company policy. All cats have to be inside, present and accounted for, before I go to bed.

But after sleeping all day, Audrey wants to go out and play all night. And since she is the most stubborn cat in the world, she refuses to come when she’s called, and of course, she totally disdains treats, as you would expect from her supermodel figure.

So for the past few nights, I’ve had to go outside repeatedly, shivering in the darkness and coughing up a storm until she appears. My paranoia has not been assisted by reports of mountain lion sightings in Hooterville, though Megan assures me that they are pretty much always around. Either way, I want my kitties inside at night.

Eventually, Audrey shows up, and trots gracefully inside. When she’s good and ready. It’s the Audrey way.

Update: I actually put her outside, in the 65 degree sunshine, a couple of times. She complained bitterly about being picked up – Audrey hates the indignity of being picked up at the best of times, and in the middle of a nap definitely doesn’t qualify – and then came back in about half an hour later and resumed her interrupted program.

Christopher Hayden: Thought our stomachs should start adjusting to French cuisine so I got us croissants and cafe au lait.

— Gilmore Girls, 2006

Yesterday, I turned on the coffeemaker and the heater (in that order; it’s been cold enough to have the orchids in the house at night so the frost doesn’t ruin their budding blooms), and then went to feed the kitties. Arriving back in the kitchen, I checked on the coffee’s progress.

The light was on, but no-one, or at least no coffee, was home.

I peeked inside, wondering if I had forgotten to put water in. Nope. Water and coffee grounds were present and accounted for, but no hopeful brewing sounds were forthcoming.

I went back to the pantry/laundry room/cat dining room area and dug around in the cupboards, looking for the French press. No luck, though I discovered that I had coconut milk, which I had forgotten about, and found the silver polish.

I put shoes on and went over to Megan’s. I knew she would be home from work by then, but I was desperate enough to risk her wrath if I woke her up while stealing some of yesterday’s coffee.

I sneaked in, and was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a full pot of fresh coffee. Olé! I filled up a cup and was preparing to creep out when I heard Rob’s voice. Then Megan’s. Uh-oh.

It turned out that she had taken the night off, so they had just made coffee and were planning to drink it. So I stayed and we had coffee together, which was really nice – I can’t remember the last time we did that. It was a nice way to start the day.

Today is Rob’s permanent disability hearing in San Rafael. As I write, they are heading down the highway toward their 1:00 pm appointment. Apparently the judge has up to three months to make his or her ruling, so we almost certainly will not know today whether Rob will get his very modest monthly payments. But it still feels momentous.

Cross your fingers for us. I have to say I feel like we are due for a change in our luck, after the decade of bad luck and bad times that we have endured since our father’s death. Here’s hoping.

You can thank Roscoe for the title. He just walked across the keyboard. Pretty good for someone who isn’t two years old yet, though his spelling does leave something to be desired.

It’s also what I was thinking last night when the power went out. I was afraid that it was going to happen after hearing the reports of 25-30 mile an hour winds as well as rain. The windchimes, always a cheery harbinger of the outage, were ringing merrily when I got home last night.

I was concerned enough to set the alarm for 5:30 am on the battered old travel alarm clock that usually lives in my bedside table’s drawer, but too optimistic to make coffee.

When darkness fell both inside as well as out, I regretted this foolish hopefulness. Who needs a glass that’s half full when you really need a coffee pot that’s half empty?

As I pondered these dark thoughts in the darkness, Rob appeared, with his headlamp on, and helped me to haul the generator so kindly donated by the Generator Fairy last fall outside. I paused partway through the process to capture the curious cats and strand them in the bathroom. The thought of them vanishing into the darkness scared me more than the darkness itself.

Rob got it going, showed me the on/off switch, and plugged a giant extension cord in. After we got the thing going, I immediately realized that it was a predator repellent. Even with the door closed and inside, it was LOUD. I later learned that sleeping with a generator on, even with earplugs firmly installed and a feather pillow over my head, is a near-impossibility.

Why do these things always happen when I have to get up early and work, pretending to be a responsible adult?

At least I could make coffee.

The cats cuddled up with me, probably thinking “Things are weird. We’d better stick together.” When I called PG&E, I was the first one to report the outage, news which saddened me, since I knew that it would be ages until a crew could get there and start working on whatever downed tree/power line was the problem.

Sometimes being first isn’t good.

Sorry to scare you all with the tale of things that go bump in the night. If we’re not worried, you shouldn’t be! There are still no locks on any of our doors, and so far, we haven’t had any more late night visitors. I still feel about a zillion times safer here than when I lived in Oakhampton. I have yet to come home to police cars in front of the house, or neighbors holding them off with a rifle, as I did there.

Not that it’s a cop-free zone. When I arrived at the jobette on Wednesday, one of my coworkers had just had a close encounter. As he pulled up in front of the office, two cop cars were upon him, blazing with lights and sirens, to inform him that one of his brake lights was out. Oh, the humanity!

It also turned out that his registration had lapsed the day before, so that lengthened the ordeal. As he sat, marooned in his car by a third of the local police force, our co-worker slunk by, pretending not to know him. After all, why get involved? Especially when there was no-one else to answer the phones.

He tried to pay the ticket and registration at lunch, only to be told they weren’t in the system yet. After he went through the metal detector and waited in line. Even small towns are not immune from bureaucracy.

My sister and I encountered the highway patrol and the fire department on our way home from the movies* on Sunday evening. We were in the truck, bumpkins that we are, and we were a little worried about running out of gas, since we were so busy talking about the movie that we completely forgot to get gas when we were in town, and the local store was closed.

We were stopped by guys with signs and flares in the road about a mile from the turnoff to the Ridge. It turned out that some guy had driven off the road – the curve there is sharper than it appears, as are many around here – and when passing motorists tried to help him, he repaid their Good Samaritan-ness by punching them and yelling at them.

He told the officers who responded to the call that men in fiber optic suits had jumped on his car, causing him to drive off the road. Oh, and he hadn’t slept in 30 hours. The car itself was so stuffed with things and stuff that there was barely enough room for the guy to sit in there and drive.

He was wearing a backpack with $20,000 in it.

He was released and sent on his way. The gas held out and we made it home. All’s well that ends well.

*It was “One for the Money”, based on the first Stephanie Plum novel by Janet Evanovich. Megan introduced me to them. They are fun fluff about a bounty hunter in New Jersey. I was concerned about Katherine Heigl playing Stephanie, but she was great and the movie was really fun.

The other night, Megan and Rob were fast asleep. It was, after all, 1 am, a perfectly reasonable hour to be doing so. In fact, most of us expect most of us to be doing just that.

They were yanked out of sleep by Star barking her head off. Now, neither of their dogs are barkers. Megan has put a lot of effort into making sure of this. I used to laugh at how she’d sneak out of sight when she left them in the car and then come back to admonish them if they barked, but now that I’m in town a lot more, I really appreciate this. Not a day goes by without senselessly barking dogs.

It turns out that Star had every reason to bark. Rob opened the little purple door to reveal a strange man standing on the porch. And I do mean strange. He told Rob some tale about his father and a gun and a few other things, then asked for a cigarette.

Rob cheerfully lied that there were no smokes on the premises, and then suggested that the guy call the cops. He mumbled something and shuffled off into the darkness, with both Rob and Megan wondering a) What the hell just happened here? and 2) Hope he doesn’t head to Suzy’s place.

He didn’t; or at least he chose not to come in any of the five unlocked doors at his disposal. Of course, cats don’t bark, so I can’t be sure, but I don’t think we had any midnight visitors.

The whole thing is really odd, though. We live more than five miles down a narrow, rough, barely paved road from a town where the latest thing open is the store, which closes at 6 in the winter. There are no bars or nightclubs within dozens of miles (or more). There are no streetlights. He would have had to go all that way down the road, and then choose our driveway, which is nothing but a dirt/mud track with giant rocks filling the potholes (Mark’s latest repair effort).

He had to pass the front house, which is usually unoccupied, though huge, and nearly always has a light on, and then pick the little offshoot that leads to Megan and Rob’s place. Theirs is the only house which isn’t on the main driveway, which makes the whole thing even odder. Mine is the most obvious after the front house, and I always have a light on at night. Megan and Rob don’t.

Go figure.

They say this has never happened to them in the many years they have lived here, and our brother says the same. I don’t think it will happen again, and in any case, nothing really did happen. I’m not going to fit locks to my doors (or, more likely, have Rob do it). But it’s certainly a mystery, country-style.

Sorry, poodles, I was swept away in a tsunami of work, rain, and power outages. But I’m back!

I missed you, too.

Since we last saw our heroine, she has both recovered her beloved MacBook and acquired a brand-new Pee Cee. This seems very appropriate for a Gemini, and in fact it is completely in keeping with the way things have always been with me computer-wise: PC for work, Mac at home (or Real Life).

Why the Pee Cee, you ask? Are you mad?! It’s like having a small Egyptian curse in the house! This is true, but here’s the problem. The Powers That Be at the firm who maintain our database on line from the traffic wilds of Atlanta saw fit to “upgrade” the system so it only runs on Explorer, which does not run on Mac.

Has upgrading ever made things better?

So my hands were tied with respect to work until I got the Pee Cee. The delivery was complicated by the fact that the FedEx truck broke down on the Ridge about three miles from my house. Since I had already observed the only tow truck going the other way with a trashed white car on my way home, I knew the delivery would be late.

Fortunately, I had already put a note on the door of the shed where FedEx and UPS deliver to our property, so even though I was supposed to sign for it, I didn’t have to, which was good, since it was about 9:00 pm by the time it got here.

Now all I have to do is transfer the files from the Mac and catch up on all the work I have not been able to do over the past week due to technical difficulties.

As for the Mac, I picked it up from the nice local computer fixers embarrassingly cleaned up and working just fine. We bonded over our shared affection for Buffalo, with its splendid Victorians, Frederick Law Olmstead-designed parks, and actual record stores.

The next day, the rain started in earnest, and I do mean earnest. We have received four inches (or more than 10 centimeters) in the past two days, and are slated to get more over the weekend. Don’t get me wrong: we need it, but does it have to be so hard and heavy? It’s so loud in my wood and tarpaper shack that I can barely hear the cats complaining about being stuck inside. There’s something about the curved shape of the roof/walls that seems to enhance the sound. It’s kind of like being assaulted, with the wind howling and the rain smashing and battering against the house.

Needless to say, the power went out, and of course it went out when I was finally done with a long series of conference calls that had started at 6 am. I speed dialed PG&E, only to be greeted with a gloomy recording saying that there were widespread power outages and power could be out for extended periods of time.

Fortunately, it wasn’t out that long, though the house was instantly cold and dark. My brother called a few hours later to ask if the power was still out – his never goes out, since he has solar and wind power – so he could walk me through getting the generator he gave me going. I thought that was really nice of him. It also reminded me that I should get a big can of gas and gas stabilizer, just in case.

I’m pretty sure there are more outages in my future.

Also inside. Let’s put it this way: when I got up this morning, Audrey leapt gracefully on top of the propane heater instead of madly clawing at the door to go out.

The propane heater has a thermostat, which tells you how warm it thinks the room is and also how warm it has (supposedly) heated it to. There’s also a little thermometer on the barometer by the front door. Both agreed that it was a very chilly 40 in the house.

After putting on coffee and the heat, I grabbed a flashlight and ventured outside to check the thermometer there, which read a somewhat shocking 25 degrees. This may be the coldest I have ever experienced here in Hooterville.

I’m glad I left my tap dripping last night, and so were the cats – they wasted no time in drinking from it, even though there is fresh water for them daily inside and outside.

The long string of sunny days and freezing nights is coming to an end, though. We are slated to get at least eight days of rain, possibly heavy, which means there may well be landslides and flooding, the banes of a Californian’s winter existence. At least it will be warmer, as it always is when it rains, the clouds providing much-needed insulation. The high today is supposed to be 40. The low tomorrow, after the rains start, is supposed to be 43.

We haven’t had any significant rain since Thanksgiving, and I read an article in the San Francisco paper which said that this was the third driest winter since 1850. Also that there is more snow in Texas than there is on Donner Summit in the Sierras, a place notorious for snow and requiring chains to drive on in the winter.

Seems the weather is mixed up everywhere, doesn’t it?

My brother’s gate

The other day on my way to work, I decided to drop off some curried chickpeas with spinach and Season 6 of “Dexter” (what a cliffhanger!) at my brother’s place.

I always look to see that his gate is closed when I drive by. It’s a habit left over from the bad old days when he first bought the property but didn’t live on it, and a local villain preyed on the redwoods. He and his good time buddies used to knock down the fences and/or gates we put up in order to steal the trees, mill them, and sell them.

It was hard to catch him, but everyone knew who it was. Jonathan called the sheriff several times, but they couldn’t catch him. Rob confronted the miscreant at the store, and eventually the thievery stopped, though he left us with a lovely parting gift of epoxy gluing the $100 lock we used to keep him out. The gate you see above was villain-proof, once we got the locksmith out here to hack off the glued lock and put on a new one.

So whenever I see the gate open, especially if I’m going to the pool early in the morning, I stop and close and lock it, just in case. Once I locked Rob in there, but he got out anyway. I’ll have try harder next time.

As I pulled up to the gate, I wondered why there was a pine cone on it. Closer inspection revealed that it was one of Rob’s finishing touches: a ceramic sculpture he made which looks like a pine cone, cemented to the gate post to make it look nicer. Rob is a man who appreciates the finer things in life.

I made my way slowly down the magnificent driveway, which has excellent drainage and no potholes or mud, making it approximately 1,000% nicer to look at and drive on than mine. Arriving at my brother’s little enclave, I noticed the frost on the hay bales:

and the huckleberry bushes:

My brother works overnight shifts three days in a row, so he was really, really happy to come home to dinner and a movie. Almost as happy as I was to give it to him.