Suzy Says

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.

Diagnosis: my iBook (or MacBook) needs a new inverter cable. Apparently years of opening and closing the lid have worn the cable, so a new one is required. The good news is that this was the cheaper of the two repair scenarios. The bad news is that it will take three to five days to get said part. However, once it arrives, it will take about half an hour to install, so that’s good.

I repo’d my computer so I can use it at a bizarre angle with accompanying screen blackouts. Better than nothing, right?

When I got home yesterday, I found that the new router had arrived. I also found that there were three missed calls from Megan, so I called her back right away, knowing that she only had a few minutes before taking off for work. “Come over,” she said, and hung up.

I went over there, and she handed me a letter. The letter said that Rob finally has a hearing date for his disability claim. It’s February 17. We are excited, but scared. If they deny the claim, I think we can appeal it, but it kind of feels like the end of the line.

I can’t believe that anyone could look at him and think he could work, but you never know. As with most things, there are so many dishonest people ruining it for the honest ones. I’m actually thinking of password protecting my blog, in case the powers that be read it and think he’s fine, even though it’s unlikely that they have time to surf the web or would know who he is in relation to me.

Back at home, I installed the router without incident (!), and sure enough, the Kindle connected right away. So once the computer is up and running again, it will be all systems go at Chez Suzy.

Things are looking up!

I can’t tell you how happy I was to see the Amerigas truck lurching its way slowly down the muddy, rutted dirt road that I joltingly call my driveway, heralded by Luna’s barking. “Hello, this is Luna*, your doorman.”

Normally, I’m not all that excited, especially because propane is one of, if not the only, utility you have to pay for ahead of time. They fill it up, charge you hundreds and hundreds of dollars, and you use it up at your convenience. Yes, they’ll let you pay off the exorbitant fee over a couple of months, but if you need another fill up before you’re done paying it off, you have to sell your soul or your jewelry or both to pay it off before they’ll even consider touching your tank. No matter how nice the landscaping is.

But, considering the fact that I’ve been trying to get Amerigas to get off their Ameriass since December 15, you’ll understand why their arrival about three weeks and a dozen phone calls later was a cause for joy in Hooterville.

The tank was at 40% then, and thinking ahead to the cooking marathons of Christmas, in addition to heating up my hippie hovel against the 32/0 degree cold, making hot water for washing dishes and Self, and the dryer for Jarrett’s five loads of laundry, I thought it would be good to stock up before the holidays.

Amerigas pointed out that I still owed them $165. I paid it on line the same day, and called them the next day to schedule a delivery. “The payment hasn’t posted yet, “ they said. “Well, it’s come out of my bank account,” I said. They suggested I call back that afternoon, which I did. Nope. Nothing posted. This time, the helpful person said that it could take five days on their end. Five business days. Try back next week!

So I did, armed with an email confirmation from Amerigas themselves saying they had received my hard-earned money. They still claimed they hadn’t received it yet, which was annoying, especially since I might have wanted to actually use my soul sometime. You never know.

I kept calling them, and finally we got to the stage in our relationship where they lied to me to keep me happy. “We’ll have someone out there this week.” “In a couple of days.” “Call me if he doesn’t turn up.” “He didn’t turn up?” Let’s put it this way: I no longer had to spell my last name.

While all this was going on, the propane level was, not surprisingly, dropping every day. Keep in mind that if the level falls below 20%, they have to pressure test the tank and yes, you have to pay for that too, even if it’s their fault for not coming the first 50 times you asked them.

Kids: this is what adult life is really like. You have been warned.

So, instead of having to pay for 40% of the tank’s capacity, I’ll have to pay for 60 or 65%, and considering that the last time I paid $425 for 40%, I’m afraid of what I’m going to have to pay this time.

Not the best way to start the new year, is it?

*Mark says I’m the only person Luna never barks at. I think it’s because I always pet her and fuss over her whenever I see her. It’s kind of like tipping her for her doorman services.

This year was about change: getting the jobette; swimming lessons; having to make peace with driving a lot more. Change is good, right?

One deleterious effect of working more is reading less. I read 118 books in 2011, vs. 140 in 2010. The favorites of the year were Sue Grafton’s “V Is for Vengeance” and Candice Millard’s tour de force, “Destiny of the Republic”.

We are also getting a lot less rain this season. Last year, we totalled about 60 inches (or 153 centimeters), and already had half of that by December 31, 2010. This year, we’ve gotten about 11 inches (28 centimeters) so far. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here by saying there’s probably a drought in my future. Number of power outages: 3. So far this season: 1, and an early one at that.

It was a great summer, though: lots of sun, little fog, no heat waves.

As far as last year’s resolutions went: not bad. I did a lot of work on the garden, though there are more things I’d like to do, given time and money, always in short supply. I still worry about the cats, and probably always will, to some extent. The loss of the beautiful and beloved June was traumatic, and, as Jessica pointed out to me, I’m a worrier. Maybe I should just embrace my inner (outer?) worrier.

This year’s resolutions are to reinstate Thursday dinners for my overworked sister – they fell by the wayside with the increased busy-ness of my schedule – and to spend more time with my brother when there’s no project to be done or special occasion to be celebrated. I always have a great time with him, but I don’t see him often enough.

And, you know, keep working on the garden and trying to minimize Calamity Suzy episodes.

Let me know what your resolutions are. And thanks for reading yet another year!

January:

How to plant tulips. Logging road walk. A check-up for the kittens. A walk with Schatzi. The beginning of A’s life-threatening illness. Another vet visit. A walk through the Village. A surprise visit from Jessica! Falling off a log really is easy. Dealing with two broken fingers: not so much. They still look freaky and witch-like. A brief trip to San Francisco. A is improving.

February:

Back in touch with the outside world. A finally gets out of Intensive Care. And I get the jobette! The boys make a windmill. Week One at the jobette. A’s slow recovery continues. Beautiful new garden chairs. A rare and magical snow day!

March:

A quick tour of the jobette. A graduates from Intensive Care to the HIghly Dependent Unit. Tragedy strikes our sister city in Japan. Doin’ it Rob style. Signs of spring. My beloved father’s 80th birthday. It’s not snow this time, it’s hail! The painting saga. Flooding. The week in pictures. Spring arrives in the garden.

April:

The painting problem is solved – at least, for now. Power outages. Little salon in the big woods. A is finally in a regular hospital ward, while Clyde is a little limpy. A nice little burn to go with my broken fingers. Jessica’s birthday! My blog’s 10th birthday! First BBQ of the year. A sad and loving farewell.

May:

The fabulous circus. New contact lenses. A walk through town. Star’s birthday. My tulips in bloom. Countrified. Fabulous garage sale finds. Girls’ night out. A short visit to San Francisco. The magnificent Balenciaga exhibit. Back home. Megan’s birthday. Car troubles – and a birthday celebration.

June:

Car trouble and bad weather. Truly rural. Bi-coastal. Rainy birthday to me. Happy first birthday to the boys! Rob is scheduled for more surgery. An evening with Erica and Jessica. Rose’s chicken curry. Unveiling the clock of ages. Rob’s surgery is rescheduled. The operation. Back home. Houdini lives!

July:

Audrey turns four. Found poetry. Both Rob and A are on the road to recovery. Kitty updates. Home improvements. Jessica visits the jobette. Musical contrasts. Erica and Jessica move to Portland (~sob~). The last Harry Potter movie ever.

August:

Propane prettifying. Encore de car. A change of address. Garden updates. The tenth anniversary of my father’s untimely and completely unnecessary death. I love you and miss you, Old Bear. More car fixing (or not). The bliss of Brian. Star meets quail.

September:

Mark’s seizure. He has epilepsy and is taking meds for it. So far, so good. Thank goodness. Free palms. The Houdini dog expands her repertoire. Planting the palms. The joys of aquafit. The delights of the County Fair. Clyde takes it on the chin. A visit from the generator fairy. A total meltdown.

October:

The car is finally fixed. I hope. Swimming clinic doesn’t go quite as swimmingly as I’d hoped. Car-share begins (and is still going on). The plague descends. My second anniversary of moving to Hooterville. The arrival of Turbo, Mark’s horse.

November:

Pool problems. Feeding the family. Meetings in San Francisco. Too tired to shop. A delightful day. Back home. The lowdown on high beams. Star and Megan are both stars. Thanksgiving Eve. A happy Thanksgiving. An early season blackout.

December:

Sunny days and sparkling nights. A look around the garden. An amazing experience. Girls’ Night In. A sudden loss. Up with the tree! An adventurous evening. And a tree adventure. Christmas cheer. A magical evening. The wit and wisdom of Jessica.

That’s it for 2011. Wishing you all a happy and healthy new year!

Clyde in a tree

At first, the kitties ignored the tree. Seriously. They came in from their outdoor play, sniffed at it, and repaired to their usual evening spots: the couch by the heater (Clyde); the bed in front of the heater (Roscoe); nested into the pillows on the bed (Audrey).

But as time went by, they got more interested. Most mornings, I’d wake up to find an ornament or two rolling around on the floor. Maybe it’s because yesterday I added a star, some clear snowflake ornaments, and a string of white lights:

Here’s a close-up of the snowflake ornaments:

The star and snowflakes were half price at Rite Aid, probably because they figured most people weren’t still decorating their trees a few days before Christmas. But they reckoned without my amazing procrastination talents.

This morning, while waiting for it to get light enough outside to let the boys out, Clyde decided to get in some indoor tree climbing practice. I think it’s a credit to Rob that the tree stand could stand this.

The dynamic duo

Once again it’s 44/6 degrees in my little tar-paper shack. The boys and I are huddling by the heater while Audrey prances around outside in her fur coat and my thimble of coffee gets cold almost as soon as I pour it.

The coffee maker is in the bathroom this morning. Why, you ask? Well, last night was a little more of an adventure than I would have liked.

When I put up the blue icicle lights on the back deck, I installed a doohickey that screwed in where the lightbulb used to be, and plugged the lights into it. It worked, but it meant there was no light at night in the backyard, other than the icicle lights. So I put a lamp out there and plugged it in the outlet beside the sliding glass doors.

Now, this outlet had been repaired by Mark this summer when it alarmingly sparked, though there’s still a burned looking area peeking out. Last night, it sparked again and stopped working. Something must have shorted out, because the outlet in the kitchen for the coffee maker also stopped working, which is why I relocated it to the bathroom.

Of course, the back yard was plunged into darkness, which plunged me into horror, since all three cats were outside. In fact, I was already somewhat horrified, because for the first time in his life, Clyde hadn’t come home for dinner. I hadn’t seen him for three or four hours, and I am a Worrier.

Granted, it had been a beautiful sunny day and it wasn’t cold then, but after the June Bug Trauma I am not rational when it comes to my cats.

I got an extension cord, plugged it into a working outlet, then moved one of the lamps by the couch outside, where it remains. I went out and called Clyde, walking down the driveway and part of the haul road, but it soon became obvious even to the most paranoid that finding a black cat in the country darkness is the real Mission Impossible.

Clyde ignored me, but Audrey and Roscoe appeared. Unfortunately, they also brought a mouse to guest star, and started chasing the poor thing all over the house. I shooed them outside and went back to calling for Clyde.

Still nothing. I checked on John’s flight and saw that he had arrived early to SFO, though the flight itself was a late one. It seems he missed the Customs cutoff at the Ottawa airport by minutes, along with several other passengers, and had to take a later flight. He was most upset by the fact that he would be too late to get his three cats from the boarding place. He also said that he had a lot of late nights with the family and was exhausted.

I went back out again and there was Clyde. My heart leaped to see his little white bow tie in the darkness. Everyone else came running, mouseless, when they heard the distinctive crackle of the treat bag. Everyone was in, everyone was safe, including John. Whew.

I called Mark to tell him about the outlet. He’s heading to Santa Rosa today, but will come by and fix it on Wednesday, hopefully for good this time. After we talked about the outlet, he asked me if I had found Clyde – he had heard me yelling from his house! Maybe I should just embrace my inner (or outer) Worrier and just accept that’s who I am.

The belated tree

So I finally decided to put up the vintage 1950s Christmas tree. I was helped in this decision by Rob coming up with a stand for the tree. I should have taken a picture of it for you before I installed the tree and covered the stand up with a towel, but you’ll just have to take my word for its ingenuity.

As usual, it was made out of found parts. It has a wide base to keep the tree steady and withstand kitty attacks, while having an opening narrow enough to hold the svelte tree.

As you can see, the tree is kind of minimally decorated. There are lights on the banister and outside the sliding doors where the tree is, so it seemed a little too Vegas to light up the tree. Then someone told me that if cats eat tinsel or icicles, it can kill them, so that was out. Rob said he might make me an origami star for the top, and Megan and I might string popcorn and/or cranberries for it. Or not. We’ll see. In the meantime, the halls are about as decked as they’re going to get.

Tonight my brother is coming over for dinner with a friend who is visiting from Syracuse. Syracuse, the city of my birth but otherwise undistinguished, has been rearing its sooty head lately. It turns out that our friend Clayton, who kindly put us up during Rob’s surgery this summer, also hails from that eastern town, and at our Christmas lunch on Friday, I learned that our CEO went to college there. Small world, no?

Our friend Lichen doesn’t do Christmas. This is hardly surprising considering that he was brought up on a Mormon commune by parents who tried to “beat the gay out of him.” Also not surprisingly, they didn’t succeed.

But what is surprising is that Lichen had never seen “Sex & the City”, and Megan and I decided it was high time we remedied this shocking oversight.

Megan was the hostess with the mostes’, picking up two packets of blueberry pomegranate martini mix and making Dad’s famous honey-mustard chicken, rice and roasted asparagus with lemon caper sauce for dinner. My contribution was vodka for the martinis and pitchers to freeze them in. And my sparkling presence, of course.

Somewhat embarrassingly, I ran into Mark on my way back home, carrying a giant family-size (and bright blue) bottle of vodka at 2:00 in the afternoon. We mixed up the martinis the day before and let them freeze overnight into grown-up slushies.

The mix came with blueberry flavored sugar to go on the rims of the glasses. It kind of made the martinis more SweeTart-like, but we have a boatload of it left over. I’ll have to ask Erica for bright ideas on how to use it up. Sweetening huckleberry pie? Weird sugar cookies? Who knows?

Lichen cut our hair before we started imbibing the martinis, so we looked fabulous for Carrie and friends. Lichen liked the show and found it funny, but was also repelled by the late 90’s conspicuous consumption and shallowness. It reminded him of why he stopped being hairdresser to the stars in Beverly Hills.

It was a great evening, and I set off for home around 11:00, flashlight in hand. Before I had gone halfway down Megan’s driveway, I realized that I didn’t need it. The moon was flooding the path with silvery, magical light. I was charmed by walking home on moonbeams, though I had no idea of the amazing experience in store for me in just a few hours. It was enough to just be in the moment, after spending a wonderful evening with people I love.

This morning, Audrey woke me up about ten minutes before six. I went downstairs to let her out, put on the outside lights, and ventured out into the chilly, pre-dawn darkness.

One of the few good things about my old nemesis is that it makes it possible to see about 1000 times more stars than you can in the city. Sometimes there are so many stars that they are a huge hazy galaxy instead of individually set sparkling diamonds.

This morning, however, the sky was studded with about a million and a half stars, the perfect setting for the eclipsing moon, which I could see through the black trees.

The moon was a rich, luminous orange as it reached the total eclipse. As I gazed in wonder, a shooting star streaked over it, leaving me gasping in amazement. A little white trail briefly lingered, and then vanished into my heart and memory forever.

I stood there stunned for a little while, hardly able to believe what I had just seen. Hours later, I am still deeply moved. Something happened to me on this early winter morning, as night turned to day. But I don’t have the words to express it. I just have the feeling. And the memory of something incredibly special.

Where did the week go? Suddenly, it’s Friday, with nothing blogged. All work and no play makes Suzy a non-blogger.

I haven’t even started my Christmas cards yet, probably because I lost my address book back in June and am still in denial, meaning that I have addresses on Post-Its and in my email, but that’s about it. So I’d have to round them up, write them in an address book, and then write them on a card and send it. I ask you, does that sound like the Suzy you know and love?

Maybe I’ll skip it this year and see if the world comes to an end.

On the other hand, I put up all the lights and have been acquiring things for stockings. There’s an impressive array of boxes and bags and things and stuff in the studio/cold storage. I’m considering putting up my fabulous vintage Christmas tree this year, though there are a couple of problems with that:

1. I still don’t have a holder for its broomstick-slender trunk (I think it may actually be a broomstick); and

b. There are three cats in the house.

But I love the idea of having a fake tree in a place surrounded by real trees. Also, it’s pretty and sparkly.

On Wednesday, I came home from work in the semi-darkness and noticed that a light was on inside the house. I wondered if I’d left it on all day (eep!), but it turned out that Rob had come over to turn on the heat and a couple of lights to make the house more welcoming for me. Isn’t that nice? OK, he was doing some laundry, too, but still.

We hung out a while, and he asked me if I had any projects for him to do. He is planning to fill in the hole in the concrete under the laundry room door, and also make a custom hole for the giant extension cord which will hook up my house to the generator Jonathan gave me (which I still don’t know how to use) so it will be a little less drafty in the cold storage area of the house.

I’m pretty sure I can convince him to make me a Christmas tree stand.

Yesterday when I was hauling the hose around, it occurred to me that it might be fun to compare how the garden is doing now that summer is over and things should be going to sleep for the winter.

I wish I could put these pictures side by side. The comparisons really surprised me. Come on and take a look!

Remember the little rose that could? The one I thought was dead until it put out a single blossom:

I dug it up, re-potted it, and now look:

The red bush is a little less red than it was:

But it’s way bigger, and has lots of little white flowers:

The fuchsia still has buds:

And the petunia, which usually hangs above the back porch with the fuchsia, got benched because it was in the way of the Christmas lights. It’s still blooming away and seems pretty happy in the company of the euphorbia and a couple of orchids:

The passion flower vine has somewhat incredibly gone from this:

to this:

Not to be outdone, the neighboring purple honeysuckle has gone from this (in August):

To this, in early December:

I notice that the geraniums have grown like crazy. As has the potato vine. Then:

Now:

The garbage-concealing pink jasmine still has a long way to go, but when you see how it was a few months ago:

and how it is now, you can see the progress:

There you have it. As a novice gardener, I am beginning to guess that every gardener wants to do more and more. Here’s my wish/to-do list:

• Get Rob to give me the vintage truck flap with “Ford” on it, place it in the garden (I know just where, near the passion flower vine), and have lavender flanking it on both sides, one of them planted in a pot Rose made which looks like a tree trunk;
• – Plant orange nasturtiums to cascade over the window with the purple honeysuckle. I’m leaning toward Climbing Spitfire;
• – Finally get rid of the horrible eyesore that is the non-functioning hot tub, though Audrey may not approve of this plan, since it’s basically her outdoor couch:

  

• – Sow that clover/ground cover stuff that my neighbor J has been telling me about;
• – Plant little shrubs by the house to conceal the unattractive space between house and ground; and
• – Add a little path between shrubs and clover to walk from the front of the house to the back.

Obviously some of these won’t happen any time soon, and some may never happen. But a girl can dream. And I do think this place has come a long way in the two years I’ve lived here so far.

Just another postcard day

This is how the Village looked yesterday. It still looks like this today. In fact, it’s looked like this for so long that I actually had to water the garden today, and I even left the sliding glass doors open most of the day.

A peek at the weather reveals no rain through next Friday. Despite the unseasonable weather, I put up the Christmas lights today and hung my wreath.

The balcony:

Here’s the banister:

And the wreath on the front door:

Maybe it looks a little weird, having the hanging plants and the wreath.

This year, I added blue and clear “icicle” lights to the back porch:

Amazingly, I teetered on the ladder, applying the tiny cup hooks to hold the lights without actually falling down. Or breaking anything. Yay, me.

Other than that, it was a pretty busy day, doing my regular job, making a new recipe (curried chicken meatballs with rice pilaf, anyone?), and interviewing the owner of Dogs at Camp for an article I’m writing for the Dogs In Canada website. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering which Me I am when I call someone on the phone.

Well, my fabulous week continues!

I was woken up by a power outage at 3:30 am. You may ask yourselves how a power outage can wake up someone who sleeps with ear plugs and a mask in the depths of the country, and it’s a good question. I’m assuming it’s a combo platter of my family’s innate inability to sleep through the night, the hum of the appliances turning off, and the crazy gene. Maybe even in your sleep you know things have changed?

Also the kitties were clearly confused and running around.

Fortunately, I had the flashlight by my bed (and another one downstairs), the emergency buckets were full outside, and there was a full Brita pitcher of well water as well as several bottles of water. I found my cheap plastic travel alarm, replaced the battery, and set the alarm. Also a little bit of coffee left over from yesterday. Hallelujah!

I could see my breath in the house, it was so cold. The heater needs electricity to turn on and off, though it runs on platinum propane. So it, like my computer, was a big pointless plastic box at this point.

I called the PG&E outage line – sadly, it’s programmed into my cell phone – and the recording said that it should be fixed by 1:00 in the afternoon. Not much help to me.

To further complicate things, I had a conference call scheduled for 6:30 am. Originally my boss was supposed to join me, but last night he called to say he couldn’t, but would email me the materials for the call. He didn’t send them by the time I went to bed, so I had to wing it on the call, which I did by the light of a flashlight, huddled in a blanket while desperately hoping my cell phone battery would last.

I tried to go back to sleep between 4:00 and 6:00, but it was hopeless. So I got up, heated up the remaining puddle of coffee on my gas stove, and did the call. Megan came by to see if the call was over so we could go to aquafit, so I rushed around in the dark, grabbing my swimming things and getting dressed. On our way down the Ridge, we could see PG&E hard at work on the downed power lines near the firehouse.

On the way to class, Megan told me that Monica invited me via early morning text to an emergency Daisy Davis meeting at 5:00 this evening. I finish work at 4:00, so it’s going to be a long day. It actually already is.

Megan dropped me at work and will pick me up tonight so we can go to the meeting together. I’m sure we can find a way to kill an hour. Maybe some Christmas shopping?

It’s not even 7:00 am and it’s already been a really excellent day so far.

My excellent day started last night, with a triple feature of nightmares. Have you ever noticed that when you’re having a great dream and get woken up from it, you can never get back into it when you go to sleep, but if it’s a bad one, no problemo?

Rob says that dreams come from things you see during the day, but these were: a tsunami where I was in the Fontana Towers* in San Francisco; a repeat, where I was climbing to the top of a building in Chinatown via fire escape to escape tsunami re-run; and being trapped in a high school with a bunch of other people.

Sometimes I really worry about that crazy gene.

I woke up to the alarm clock flashing and could not believe it was time to get up and masquerade as a responsible adult after that marathon of terror and weirdness.

I went grumpily downstairs to find the boys hunting a mouse. Not even a mouse hunt could stop Audrey from catapulting out the front door into the darkness, and as I put the outside lights on, I saw that it’s very foggy out. Great. Worst. Driving. Ever.

Back in the house, I made coffee and the boys caught the poor mouse. I opened all the doors and tried to shoo them outside. Eventually they went out, at which point the coffee was hardly necessary.

It’s going to be a great day!

*Home of Eddie Fisher. John worked with a guy who met him in the elevator and invited him to a party, but the guy didn’t go. Talk about a missed opportunity! Worth it for the Liz Taylor gossip alone.

Star showing off her skills

I’m pleased to announce that Star passed her American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizenship test. With flying colors! On her first try! It’s all the more impressive considering her past. Sometimes I’m still amazed by what a happy, loving dog she is after all she went through, and how much she has changed in the year and a half since Megan and I rescued her one beautiful spring day.

Megan has worked really hard with Star, including the eight week class that led up to the test. The test is given nationally, so every dog in the country who passes has met the same standard. You can read more about the CGC program here.

If/when Megan gets a new (to her) car, she’ll sign Star up for advanced classes, but for now, it’s enough to have the yellow bandanna and the accreditation. A gold Star for our Star!

In other dog-related news, Megan and Monica were on the radio last Thursday morning, talking about their work with Daisy Davis Pit Bull Rescue. The radio station doesn’t stream on computers – what else do you expect in a place with no cell phone service? – so Rob and I huddled in the car with the radio on and listened together.

The girls did great, both sounding calm and assured, a real feat for poor Megan, who had just finished the last of four consecutive 12 hour shifts in the ER and showed up at the radio station in her scrubs. “I just hope no-one bleeds on me tonight,” she said to me the night before.

The DJs were so impressed that they invited them back, and, best of all, gave them a check for $150, inviting listeners to match the donation. I am so proud of Monica, Megan, and Star.

The enemy

I thought I had cured my life-long fear of the dark at Phobia Boot Camp, aka living in a tent in my sister’s garden for six weeks while helping to take care of our slowly dying mother. Being in total darkness once you turn off the flashlight and hearing the various animals sneaking around in said darkness all night is like those immersion classes where you learn a new language by being surrounded by it and unable to escape.

Eventually, I got used to it, and now am practically like our father, who had to sleep in total darkness after years of blackouts during WWII in London. Even here in Hooterville, it’s earplugs and sleep mask for me. The light from the clocks, etc. bothers me.

So I figured I was over the fear of the dark thing. But it turns out that I’m really only over the fear of the inside dark thing. The outside is another matter.

It’s hard to explain how dark it is in Hooterville at night unless you’ve actually experienced it. There is no ambient light and no streetlights. Sure, it makes it possible to see millions or even zillions of stars, but it also makes it challenging to drive or walk in. At least, for me. Even with high beams on, you’re driving in a little puddle of light with blackness pressing in on you from all sides. And if it’s foggy, you can’t even use the high beams, since it just reflects back the fog.

“High beams” have been the biggest disappointment in my adult life since the discovery that painkillers do not kill pain.

Also? The moon can be incredibly bright in the sky, but no help at all.

So Megan decided to help me with remedial darkness driving. Knowing her sister as well as she does, there was a carrot at the end of the stick: the lesson ended with a drink at the Little River Inn’s bar. As I drove slowly through the darkness, it occurred to me that much of my life is remedial these days: swimming lessons, driving lessons. Will I ever be a real grown-up?