Suzy Says

Apparently, March did not get the whole “in like a lion, out like a lamb” memo. It both came in and went out like a particularly rambunctious and attention deprived feline. Or, you know, an Audrey.

I woke on Saturday night to rain and wind battering my hippie hovel. I checked all the doors to make sure they were closed tightly against the wind, and discovered a couple of new roof leaks in the kitchen by stepping in the puddles in bare feet. That will teach me not to wear my slippers, which were snickering quietly by the side of the bed when I went back upstairs, flashlght in hand, Just In Case.

Or not.

As I listened to the roar of the storm and tried to quell my fears by reading the latest in Lisa Lutz’s always entertaining Spellman series (about a family of private eyes in San Francisco), I thought how lucky it was that Megan and Rob had ventured to the city the day before to buy a car. By the time Saturday was over, there had been four hailstorms, heavy rain, a thunderstorm or two, and the highway to civilzation was closed due to the river overflowing its banks. Again.

But Megan and Rob didn’t have to care about all that as they sat with their dogs by the cozy fire. Safe in their driveway was a BRAND NEW CAR!

At least, to us.

So far, they are the only ones in our family to actually own a car made in this millennium (or century, for that matter), this one being a 2004 Hyundai Elantra:

On Friday, they went all the way to the wilds of the unknown East Bay, with Miss Scarlett and Miss Star (leaving me to give Schatzi that unforgettable midday pill) to buy a car. A couple of the other cars they had been looking at online had been snapped up in the meantime, but fortunately, this one remained.

Not only did we conclude the Great Car Share of 2011-1012, we learned why used cars are so #%^$#*%^ expensive. When this car shopping odyssey began, I foolishly assumed that with the economy so bad and the unemployment rate so high, there would be plenty of used cars for sale by desperate people.

I was wrong about this, as with so many other things, both recently and not so recently. It turns out that people are desperately hanging onto their crappy old cars and driving them until they no longer go, like Megan did, since they can’t afford to upgrade. There is a serious shortage of decent used cars for sale, at least in Northern California (Megan searched as far away as Sacramento and San Jose), and when one does come up, there is a bidding war for it between used car dealerships.

As I said before, the new normal is not a pretty one.

So for around $7,500, Megan and Rob got a car with a mere 45,000 miles and 8 years on it, but with no floor mats or extras of any kind, unless you count the slight ding in the windshield. Still, it drives well and has good pickup and good handling around the curves and good gas mileage, which is pretty much all we care about.

As Hootervillians, it has come to my attention that our concerns when making big purchases are not the same as Civilizationites. With cell phones, it’s durability and receptiveness, given the lack of cell towers in our big, but underpopulated County, not how many apps and games and movies you can get on it or how cool or pretty it is. With cars, it’s how safe it is, along with its ability to grip the serpentine, rough roads and enough get up and go to pass those losers who refuse to pull over as soon as you have the chance. Oh, and good gas mileage if you can get it. We do not care about coolness, color, moon roofs, or leather-wrapped steering wheels. We really don’t.

Anyway…I’m happy that they once again have a safe, reliable vehicle (already test-driven by our brother) and that once again, all’s well that ends (or starts) well.

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!

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.

Last week’s storm brought us 7.25 inches of rain in three days, along with the second power outage of the season. It’s hard to believe now, with the sun shining brightly and not a cloud in the sky. It looks like I may have to start watering the garden again soon.

Watering will be easier now, since Rob the genie granted my wish. I happened to mention that I wished I had a hose reel. I hate the way the hose looks, lying all over the garden when not in use, but hose reels turn out to be surprisingly expensive, like fencing of any kind.

About three days later, Rob turned up with a hose reel:

which he had found at “the mall”, aka the dump. He hooked it up and it works just fine. How’s that for granting a wish?

A few days ago, he appeared with a lovely metal candleholder in hand, which he had also found at the mall:

It seems to be in perfect shape. I can’t imagine why anyone would throw it out. It will be a nice addition to the tall yellow candelabras and the table-top one, though now I’m thinking I should spray paint the table top one to match the new one. I’m looking forward to sitting outside by candlelight this spring and summer.

There are already signs of spring as we slide into February. The tulips – the same bulbs from last year’s Christmas stocking – are poking hopefully through the soil:

And the orchids both have flower spikes (on the right):

Hope springs eternal in a garden.

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?

Two webs are better than one

It was 44 degrees (or 6 degrees, depending on whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist) in the house this morning. A cautious peek at the thermometer outside revealed a discouraging 35 degrees (or 2 even more discouraging degrees). Not for the first time, I reflected that living in my house really is quite a lot like living in a huge, overturned rowboat. Or a tent.

The reason for the big chill was that I had turned off the propane heater the night before. Why, you ask? Well, it’s complicated. Go and get some coffee and I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes.

Are you ready?

Last weekend, there was a power outage. By my count, that’s the third of the season, and hopefully the last. In the optimist column, none of them lasted overnight. In the pessimist column, there were three of them, it wasn’t raining, and it was April, for Pete’s sake.

It was, however, very windy, and wind, knocking trees and bushes into power lines, is what usually leads to power outages. As I heard the wind chimes jangling in the garden, I thought, “Uh oh. Wind chimes: the cheery harbingers of power outages.” This is one occasion where I didn’t actually want to be right, but I was anyway.

I called the PG&E power outage line, which is, sadly, programmed into my cell phone, and reported the outage. Then it was time to wait and hope it didn’t get too cold. The only heater in my house, though it burns platinum propane, needs electricity to be turned on and off and maintain its thermometer. So in a power outage, it becomes an expensive hunk of pointless plastic mocking me.

Eventually power was restored, but the light, clock, and heater displays kept flickering on and off. I called Mark, and he checked it with a little hand-held meter and said we were only getting 90 watts instead of 120, or something like that. He would call PG&E.

I called my brother, who inspected it and said the electricity was fine. The flickering continued, though, and it got scary enough that I just turned everything off that night before I went to bed and hoped for the best.

So far, it seems to be back to its old self. I don’t know if PG&E did something, or Mark did something, or it just happened, but I’m glad to sit by the heater with my coffee and enjoy the sunshine. Whatever temperature it may be outside, it’s warmer inside. The way it should be.

The beautiful weather lately has led to some beautiful sunsets, as you see above. And the adage “Red at night, Suzy’s delight” has so far proved to be true. We’re even planning to have a barbecue at our brother’s place this evening. How’s that for daring?

I’ve also been using the break in the weather to try and convince the boys that one of the great things about being a boy of whatever species is that the world is your salle de bains. Clyde and Roscoe, however, come racing inside frantically to use the litter box and then run outside again.

In contrast, as soon as I let June and Audrey outside after we moved to Hooterville, they never went near the litter box again. I’ve heard that toilet training human boys is harder than it is with human girls, so maybe we’re back to the male of the species again.

Or not.

For the past few days, I’ve been putting the litter box outside, hoping that they boys will get the idea of doing their thing outside.

But Clyde seems to have mistaken it for a sandbox:

Or something that must be fiercely guarded:

I guess time will tell!

Audrey enjoys the sun

The beautiful spring weather has not gone unnoticed by the cats.

After weeks of having to choose between the boredom of being inside, or the cold and wet of being outside, the sun is shining and birds are just asking to be chased, trees to be climbed.

Earlier this week, I could not get Audrey in at night. Audrey does not respond to being called, even if she’s in the house. She shows up if and when she’s good and ready, and not a moment before. Of course, this had to happen on a school work night. I left all three outdoor lights on and went to bed, reminding myself that Audrey knows what she’s doing, that dogs bark and cars drive down the driveway and the lights are on, all of which should repel possible predators, but the loss of the Beautiful June Bug less than a year ago was a deeply traumatic event for me.

I kind of half-slept, the way you do on planes or when you are waiting for your beloved little sister to come home from a high school date when she lives with you. Finally, I heard the musical, welcome sounds of claws on glass. Audrey! I leaped out bed and yanked the balcony door open in about a millisecond. I didn’t even bother to put my glasses on. It was almost 1:00.

I was pretty tired at work the next day, but I told myself to try and be more pitbull and less poodle.

I sort of succeeded.

A couple of nights ago, I couldn’t get any of the cats in, and it was after 9:00. I finally managed to lure them in with treats, but both Audrey and Roscoe can usually take treats or leave them. They’re the same way about food – Clyde, the smallest and loudest, is the only one who demands food. So it’s easy to get him in at night. Mr. and Miss Stubborn are another matter.

I tried a friend’s advice of feeding the cats dinner much later. This partially worked. Audrey and Clyde ate dinner at the European hour of 8:00, but Roscoe was nowhere to be seen. When I was ready to go to bed, I went out and called him about 900 times. I saw him slink around but couldn’t convince him that inside was preferable to outside. In the end, I went to bed with the outside lights on again (at least they’re the energy-saving kind). Every time I woke up, I looked for him. Finally, when I let Audrey out at 5:00, I let Roscoe in. He headed straight for the food, then came to bed and cuddled up with me before biting the hand that fed him.

The life of a kitty servant is not an easy one.

Come on and set a spell

Well, March isn’t going out like a lamb – it’s going out like a fuzzy little kitten!

Here in Hooterville, it’s a glorious day. I have the doors open, the cats are nowhere to be seen, and the birds are singing like crazy. A peek at the thermometer reveals that it’s 65 degrees outside (or 18 degrees, depending on how you look at it). Not quite the record-breaking heat the Bay Area is experiencing, but I’ll take it.

It truly feels like spring.

It was nice enough this morning to have coffee outside in one of the yellow chairs you see above. As I slowly woke up amid chirping birds and capering cats, I thought about all the things I want to do in the garden this year.

As you can see, the tulips are getting close to blooming:

They are supposed to be purple and white and fringy, like a flapper’s dress, so I can’t wait to see them.

The orchids are a little ahead of the tulips (which I probably should have planted before New Year’s Day):

Here’s a close-up:

I’m not sure what kind they are, but they sure are pretty.

As if all that isn’t enough, today is Opening Day for baseball, and the world champion Giants start the season in LA this evening. Today is the real first day of spring!

At the jobette last Monday, we had a brainstorming session at the Aquatic Center. So basically, we were working poolside (kids kept peering at us through the windows as if we were on display. Look at the grownups in their natural habitat!). The tables were covered with paper, and we had crayons and glitter to use on it. The idea was to get our creativity flowing. To that end, we also had Legos. And there were cookies. This may have given the kids an inaccurate idea of what being a grownup is really like.

On Tuesday, I spent the afternoon with our county’s official canine ambassador. His Dads’ car had broken down and turned out to be jump start proof, so they were waiting for the (one) tow truck to come. My diplomatic friend was faultlessly behaved, and even posed beautifully:

I was sorry when one of his Dads picked him up, and made a mental note to keep some dog biscuits at work. After all, our ambassador also joins our weekly staff meetings.

It’s only fair to give cats equal time. This handsome boy lives next door, and poses as nicely as Hairy (but don’t tell him):

I noticed this pergola on Main Street, while on my way to Paws to pick up food for the kitties. Now that the boys are almost ten months old, I’ve been feeding all three of them the same food. I alternate between Wellness Core and Wellness Complete Health. More and more, I think it’s really important to feed our companion animals the best food we can afford.

Incredibly, it was raining by the time I got back to work. Hard to believe from looking at the picture, isn’t it?

I took this one at the Hooterville post office on Monday morning. I thought its beauty was a great way to start the week:

And I hope it’s a great start to your week, too.

My back yard now doubles as a pond

Well, the experiment failed. Or succeeded, depending on how you look at it.

The cats all ignored the giant plastic dragon until this morning. I was reading my email and slowly waking up with the help of my close personal friend caffeine when I was attacked by a giant plastic dragon.

At first, I thought it was Clyde, since there were at least four claws digging into my head, but it turned out to be a giant plastic dragon. I removed it, and to be completely honest with you, there may have been a certain amount of swearing involved.

I set the dragon beside me on the couch, and figured that would be the last of it, until Clyde started chewing on the toy attacker. I then put the dragon away and Clyde outside.

What else can you expect when you name your cat after a notorious outlaw?

I’m thinking that we might have to remove the shelf and hang the painting higher to keep it out of paws’ reach, but having seen Clyde leap from the bed to the top of the armoire and from the glass roof of the back deck to the ground in a single leap kind of makes me wonder if we could ever hang it high enough to escape him.

While all this has been going on inside, it’s been raining like crazy outside. Frankly, I find it astonishing that there can actually be any rain left to throw at us. My neighbor Jim, whose serendipitous encounter with some unexpected snow made him an internet sensation, tells me that he emptied out his rain gauge on Tuesday evening and by Thursday morning, there was 3.6 inches of rain in it. Also that he collected a further 1.5 inches since yesterday morning.

This proved to be too much for my laundry room, which was awash in water which had somehow seeped in through the walls. Fortunately, there’s a drain in the floor, which has also come in handy when there was a booze flood in there. Booze floods, being attacked by giant dragons…I really know how to have a good time.

Well, the Supermoon was rained out here in Hooterville.

It would have looked great, too, since there is no ambient light and on a clear (or even a clear-ish) night, the moon and stars are always bright and seem really close. There also seem to be about a hundred times more stars here than there were in the city.

Oh, well. My moon photographing skills leave something to be desired, anyway. Here’s a dramatic orange harvest moon from last September:

And the moon on the morning of the surprise snowfall:

So it may be just as well.

On the first day of spring, the forecast looks discouragingly winter-esque, with rain, showers, maybe some rain, more rain, and, why not? More rain! for the foreseeable future. Looks like the moon, stars, and sun will all be hiding from view the rest of the month.

Maybe we’re getting all the rain we didn’t get in January.

Not to jinx things, but we’re lucky we still have power, at least so far. I’d better refill the emergency water buckets, just in case. And it’s too bad that my rain gauge exploded, though I’d probably have to keep running out in the rain to empty it at this rate.

I was woken at 5:30 this morning by the resounding boom of thunder, so loud it shook the house. The darkness was shattered by lightning, and the rain and hail smashing into the roof/walls was almost as loud as the thunder. The cats were hiding under the bed, and I wished I could join them. At times like this, it’s apparent that my house has way too many windows and doors. There’s nowhere to hide from the storm in Woodhaven.

I figured I might as well get up and make coffee, since it was too loud to sleep and I was too scared anyway. I guess I’m not going to outgrow that one, am I?

When I opened the living room curtains, I was met by the sight of hail drifts, doing a pretty good impersonation of the snow we got a couple of weeks ago. I risked life and limb to move the orchids onto the porch to save them from hail damage, and then took a couple of pictures just for you. Nothing is too good for you, Constant Reader.

All this BC (before coffee).

As I write, it’s raining and hailing again. As I gave the cats dinner, I told them I’d bet $5 that we’d get a third thunderstorm, but there were no takers. Cats are smart.

Before all the time change madness, it was clear that winter was slowly losing its grip on Hooterville. It was less dark at 6 am, the air didn’t smell like winter anymore, and things had begun to bloom.

It’s still raining, which is the number one sign of winter around here, and the frogs are still happy about it, but the robins are scarce and the whales have begun to migrate back from Mexico, where they wisely spend the winter. Last week, I saw a whale – well, its spout – on my way to work and it made my whole day.

I even emptied out the emergency water buckets on the back porch, since they were full of mosquito larvae. Let’s hope there are no more power outages!

I thought I’d share a couple of spring-y photos with you, in case it’s still winter-y where you are (and in case the groundhog turned out to be wrong this year). And as you see, it’s spring-y all over around here.

There are fifteen tulips coming up!

Keeping the orchids inside during frosts has paid off. They’re both covered in buds, which look like they’re going to bloom pretty soon.

I liked the texture of the wood. And how the new plant has sprung up between the two fallen logs. The circle of life and all that.

There you have it. Hope spring finds you soon, wherever you are.

Calm seas

Last night, I happened to be channel-surfing and came across the shocking footage of the Japanese earthquake. Any Californian feels a certain kinship with fellow earthquake sufferers, and I was appalled by the size of the disaster: 8.9 on the Richter scale. To put it in perspective, the 1989 Loma Prieta quake was a 6.9, and the 1906 “Great” quake, which devastated most of the city, was about an 8. Keep in mind that a quake measuring 9.0 is 10 times greater than one measuring 8.0. This is one of the five strongest quakes in recorded history.

Scary, scary stuff.

This morning, I woke up to an announcement in my email* saying that the one and only road to San Francisco was closed, as were several state parks (including the beach I pass on my way to work and back) and schools. I quickly called Megan, since she and Rob were planning to go to San Francisco this morning to consult with some specialists about Rob’s continuing spinal issues (yes, there is more surgery in his future). Fortunately, they hadn’t left yet, though they wouldn’t have gotten far.

They rescheduled the appointment, and we all headed down to the local store, partly to get propane and partly to find out what was going on and have a peek at the ocean. The ocean, as you see above, was living up to its name and was actually calmer than it was yesterday. The local fire department and emergency services were on alert, though nothing had happened yet. This afternoon, I got another email alert saying that there had been serious destruction caused by the tsunami in the harbor in the big town. The very harbor where we have our few but fabulous girls’ nights out.

Wow.

As I write, Dad’s famous honey mustard chicken is slowly cooking in my little oven, filling the house with a delicious, comforting scent. Pretty soon I’ll start the brown rice and later I’ll steam some broccoli. Megan and Rob are coming over for dinner tonight. Maybe there’s something about a disaster that makes you want to keep your loved ones close. I feel lucky that we are all safe, but my heart aches for the people of Japan. Our thoughts are with them.

*I recently joined a local Listserv for announcements, and it’s been quite useful so far. Weather warnings, an armed fugitive in the village (he was caught)…things like that. News you can use!

Well, the snow was quite exciting. I guess those of you to whom snow is a common occurrence and nuisance (all that shoveling! Slush! Ugh!), it must seem about as silly as getting excited about a toothache, but it’s a real rarity here. I’m not sure when it last snowed in Hooterville, but in San Francisco, it was 35 years ago.

It was especially nice to observe the snow from the warmth of the house. And it was a “Gilmore Girls” type of snow, where the snow is just plastered on green trees and grass:

so it was like a little trip to Stars Hollow, which made it extra fun. And it melted by noon, making it even more perfect. Everything was wet and shiny in the bright sunlight, as if nothing had happened but the usual rain.

California really does have everything. Ocean, mountains, deserts, lakes, rivers, San Francisco, Hollywood, vineyards, centuries-old redwoods, fascinating architecture and history. From San Francisco, and even Hooterville, you can drive for a few hours and go skiing, then drive back to your sunny garden, with no shoveling required (though you will need tire chains on I-80). Even here, in the relative winter frigidity, there is always something blooming.

Winter Wonderland

I woke up this morning to a winter wonderland. I set the coffee to brew, then grabbed my cute boots (which were magically turned into snow boots from rain boots) and my coat, threw them on over my kitty PJs and ran outside to take pictures.

The moon was winking at me in the early morning (about 6:30) light:

The tulips were snowy. Megan says it’s barely cold enough here for them, so they were probably enjoying their frosty blanket:

Audrey, the intrepid Canadian, was unconcerned by the unexpected snowfall:

Which turned the rain gauge into a snow gauge:

And little paw prints in the snow:

I was so excited that I heartlessly called Megan at 7:45, waking her up. She and Rob good-naturedly came over for coffee, partly so we could share the fun of the snow together and partly because they couldn’t find their own coffee (it was later discovered, covered with snow, on a shelf on their back porch). By then, the sun was beginning to melt the snow:

It was fun while it lasted!