Suzy Says

It hasn’t all been rain and grumpiness and car trouble, though it is still raining and the car repair is still in progress.

Megan and Rob took care of some neighbors’ sheep and chickens last week, so naturally I had to go over and check out the place, especially since the sheep had just given birth. Two of the ladies had twins! Also, the oldest sheep, whose pregnancy was a surprise, gave birth the day before the neighbors left, to Megan’s great relief. No amount of ambulance experience can prepare you for barnyard births, especially complicated ones. Fortunately, all mothers and babies are fine, as you can see here:

When those little guys are hungry, they are determined! They butted their mothers’ bellies quite hard, but Megan says that makes the milk flow better. You can see one set of twins on the left:

The mothers were incredibly loud. I don’t know if they were saying “Get away from my babies” or “Give me some food” or “What the hell are you looking at?”, but it was surprising in volume. I tried to take a movie of them, and they immediately quietened down for their close-up, but you can hear some of it near the end. For some reason, I could post it on Facebook, but not here. Click to watch!

Steven Spielberg has nothing to fear.

It wasn’t all sheep, though. We stopped to nibble some strawberries – though carefully protected against birds, they were no match for us:

And the chickens were so pretty:

From the house, there’s a distant view of the ocean:

Though it’s hard to tell with the clouds and fog. You’ll just have to trust me.

Audrey woke me up at 4:00 this morning, demanding to go out in the pouring rain. She is the only one who greets a rainy morning with any kind of enthusiasm in my house. I held out for an hour, and then let her out into the cold wetness, deciding that I might as well admit that I’m up.

I have my regulation two sweaters on as well as the heater. Hard to believe it’s June. Last night on the news, they showed interviews with tourists in San Francisco who were horrified by the unseasonable (and unreasonable) weather. One guy pointed out with asperity that the guide book said the rain ended in late March or early April, “and now we are June.” Good point. An exasperated guy in a rain slicker, clutching his small son by the hand, exclaimed, “I hate it!” in a heavy accent. His kid burst into tears.

I couldn’t agree more.

Yesterday, Rob picked me up early and we made our way to Charlottesville for the car part. It occurred to me that we’re lucky we can get the part in Charlottesville, instead of having to spend 5 hours driving to Santa Rosa and back. Also the car parts store opens early and the people are nice.

Rob told them what we wanted, and, as almost always happens in this situation, they immediately started asking questions which were hard to answer. “Is the single-edged doobywhatsit? Or the dual cam whateveritis?” Rob and I exchanged looks. Finally, Rob looked at the part pictures and picked out what he thought was the right one. Then he dropped me off at work and went home to work on my car.

Four hundred newsletters later, he was back to pick me up and tell me that while it was the right part, he wasn’t done working on the car. Jonathan gets home about noon today, so maybe they can work on it together, rain willing. Sitting here in the rainy dark drinking black coffee and thinking dark thoughts, I hope that he put a tarp over the whole mess.

Megan should be here in about an hour, and I can drive her strange car to work in the pouring rain in about another hour. I don’t like driving at the best of times (and the best of times definitely do not include driving), and I really don’t like it in the rain or dark. Wish me (and the boys) luck. If all goes well, I should be driving my own car tomorrow. Hard to believe that’s the best case scenario.

Audrey peeking out from the side of the house

I think all the kitties were happy to see me, though I also think they are equally happy when I’m gone and they can scamper in and out of the house, playing and napping at will. Come to think of it, I’d like that.

When I adopted the boys, the shelter workers told me that they were very happy and affectionate kittens. I thought they were just saying that, but it has turned out to be true. They took turns sitting on my lap that evening and both slept with me (Audrey, of course, slept regally on her throne). And I’m glad that they all get along, whether I’m away or not. Audrey still isn’t their biggest fan, but there’s hardly any growling or swiping these days.

Here are the boys eating dinner after I got home:

I could see that Rob had been at work during my absence. He found these cupboards somewhere and installed them:

No easy task with the curved wall and heater, etc. to deal with.

After he put the cupboards up, he decided that it was too dark to see into the cupboards, which he also decided was unacceptable. The cowboy lamp, though fabulous, does not shed a lot of light.

He got a fixture at the thrift store for $2.50 and wired it into the same switch as the cowboy lamp. Let there be light:

Outside, I discovered that a little rose which I thought was dead was in bloom:

All in all, a nice welcome home.

Our bees

Last week was busy, but between the job, the jobette, and a couple of writing gigs, I still managed to have some fun.

Megan and I attended a meeting of local beekeepers at the library one evening. The group meets once a month, though this was my first time, and they had a guest speaker, the well-known beekeeper Serge Labesque. It was a pleasure to listen to him and learn, as well as ask questions. It was two hours well spent.

From what Serge said, I’m guessing that we should divide our hive soon, or the bees will do it themselves. There’s been a lot of activity in the hive and there are definitely a lot more bees than there were last winter. I’m glad they made it through the winter and that we chose not to treat them for mites, especially after learning from Serge that the bees groom each other to get rid of them.

On Friday, Megan and I met Monica at the Wharf for drinks* and dinner. Here’s my delicious pomegranate margarita:

And the view from the table:

Between Monica growing up here and Megan being on the ambulance for so long and now working at the hospital, a lot of people they knew came in and there was a fair bit of table-hopping and catching up as the sun began to dip low over the ocean.

As we drove down the Ridge, the trees were suffused in a rosy glow, and I realized that living here has made me see the beauty in spider webs, plants making their tentative way through the earth, and other humble, every day miracles.

This week looks to be busy, too, with deadlines looming as well as a trip to the city. I’m leaving after work tomorrow and staying until Friday. So the next time you hear from me should be from the dreaming spires of San Francisco instead of the sleepy woods of Hooterville.

*Whenever we go on a girls’ night out (and when we went to see the SATC movie sequel), I always wear my mother’s bracelets, so she can be there, too.

No, not that kind (though how ’bout those Sharks?) – the yard sale kind.

I headed off down the Ridge on this grey morning to check out a local yard sale. I have been filled with envy ever since one of the guys at the jobette told me that he got a table, umbrella, and four chairs for $25 at a yard sale a couple of weeks ago. He was walking his dog and just happened on the sale, and they let him buy it, even though they weren’t officially open yet. That kind of thing never happens to me, but I haven’t given up hope that one day I’ll find something equally great.

I saw on the listserv (which is full of useful information, such as bear sightings, as well as intra-village bickering under the guise of “discussions”) that there was an “estate sale” just a few miles down the road. With visions of patio sets dancing in my head, I set off.

It was a long-ish walk after parking the car, and there were a surprising number of houses down this road. I finally arrived at the gate, which was a little passive-aggressive, I thought:

You have the festive balloons, but there are the scary “Beware of Dog” signs, and the gate was barely cracked open. I wasn’t sure if I was in the right place until I ventured through it, bewaring of dog as I went. The admonishments continued once I was inside the house:

Everyone seemed to be obeying this one, including Self.

I didn’t find a patio set, but I did find a lovely red handbag to add to the Suzy collection for a mere $2:

Also a delightful wall lamp:

which two people tried to buy after I had already paid for it. Score! Of course, it has to be wired into the wall, but I have Rob the secret weapon on my side. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to hear that I have a new project for him.

Or maybe not.

On the trek back to the car, I noticed a fire hydrant in the middle of the woods:

That’s a new one on me.

Update:

Rob already put the lamp up for me. And it looks more fabulous than I ever imagined:

Burn, baby, burn

Well, I’m afraid that I have officially gone to (hay)seed.

First, I lost my ability to talk on a cellphone in traffic or deal with the sights and sounds of homeless people (how did I ever take all that sadness in stride, all those years I lived in the city?). Last night, I was woken by crashing and thudding noises. I lay in bed and listened for a while, and eventually decided that it was the kittens chasing a mouse. Instead of being horrified by a rodent hunt in my house, I just turned over, thought, “At least it’s not a bear in the garbage”, and went back to sleep.

When I got up, the boys were still on mouse patrol. Before I finished my coffee, they had caught the poor little beast and were running around with it. I just shooed them outside. The only squeaking was the mouse’s. Can you believe it?

Later, Mark came by and took away some things and stuff which were hanging around outside my house, including old hunks of wood and the former buffet from Rose’s funeral fiesta. Removing the wood revealed slugs, termites, a couple of scorpions, and a baby snake, none of which made me squeal in horror. Even the spiders in the house have ceased to dismay me, though their webs have not. I’ve come a long way, baby!

I found this table a few weeks ago. After sanding and varathaning, it looks pretty good. The outside living space is slowly coming together:

I’m multi-tasking today by burning miscellaneous junk (see above), a very country pursuit, while listening to the Giants game and doing some research for a couple of stories I’m writing. We’re running out of burn days, so it seemed like a good time to do it.

But don’t worry. I still have my Vogue subscription and do my modest best to keep Sephora happy and healthy. I’m also planning to go to the city next week and see the Balenciaga exhibit, so I haven’t completely lost my glamor-loving side. Can I be country chic instead of city fabulous?

Well, it appears that spring has sprung. The rhododendrons are in bloom, the birds are singing, the cats are scarce, and there’s pollen all over my car*.

The tulips have all blossomed. Only two of them were the frilly purple ones advertised on the package. There were a couple of yellow ones:

A sort of peony looking one:

And some spiky and frilly ones:

It’s kind of amazing to think that just a couple of months ago, they looked like this:

And a month or so before that, they looked like this:

Next year, I’ll plant them earlier and hope they’ll bloom earlier. Something is always flowering here, but there’s something special about something you plant yourself.

*The last time I was in the city, I noticed how country my car looks. Muddy wheels, paint scratched from the bushes on the narrow driveway, muddy paw prints all over the hood, and puff dust on the dashboard. Not to mention the pine needles on the floor and in the windshield wipers.

As I mentioned, it was a nice walk to the eye doctor’s office. Here’s what I saw along the way:

Small town sign. It reminded me of a hand-written note I once saw on the door of a shop in Bar Harbor: “Open when I’m ready. Closed when I’ve had enough.”

The only remaining vestige of the “Fort” part of Fort Bragg. The town was named after one of the Confederacy’s most inept generals, Braxton Bragg, just like the North Carolina Fort Bragg. My Fort Bragg was founded in 1857, so it predates the Civil War, but it certainly makes me wonder why on earth two towns on opposite ends of the country were named for a man best known for his bad temper and incompetence. Go figure.

The fort was created to “contain unrest between the native Indians and newly arrived settlers to the area”, according to a brochure I got at the jobette. The “native Indians” were sent to a reservation inland, and the fort was disbanded in 1864, near the end of the Civil War. This one remaining building used to be the commissary. Now it’s our local congressman’s office.

Tattered glory near the old fort building:

Spring blossoms:

Someone’s ready to go home:

Guess what? I have contact lenses!

When I graduated to bifocals, I stopped wearing contact lenses. I figured, why wear contacts when you have to have reading glasses anyway? And reading glasses tend to be glamor-impairing, not to mention destroying a girl’s carefully preserved illusion of youth*.

But technology has improved in the meantime, and there are now bifocal contact lenses. I was pleased to learn that my eyesight has not degenerated over the years and my glasses are still just fine. Also, I seem to have adjusted as easily to the bifocal contact lenses as I did to the bifocal glasses. On the other hand, I forgot the case and solution at the doctor’s office, so I couldn’t wear them to work the next day and had to store them in water in shot glasses. It takes a Suzy.

The eye doctor’s charming office is a short walk from the jobette, so I strolled there after work. In the waiting room, I struck up a conversation with a couple who remarked on my Andy Warhol handbag. It turned out that they are art collectors who also happen to do the official photography for the Flynn Creek Circus, and they were at the very same show I was. Small world – or at least small town.

The husband was there getting his 101 year old father’s glasses fixed. Dad apparently falls asleep with them on and then rolls over on them, so this visit was one in a series. Son says that his father was going out to play Bingo with friends that evening, still travels, and is sharp as a tack. Inspiring.

*I was flattered that the eye doctor thought I was about 35 and was visibly shocked at my real age.

Megan and I were lucky enough to have tickets to see the Flynn Creek Circus last week. It was just what we needed to cheer ourselves up after the Sad Day. Lest you think us heartless, I hasten to add that we bought the tickets long before we had any idea of what would happen the day before the show. And maybe we are heartless, because we were both looking forward to laughter and fun. I guess that’s pretty much what life is.

Before the show, we met up with our friends Lu and Rik at Piaci’s, for wine (neighboring county Sonoma unoaked 2009 Chardonnay from Pellegrini) and pizza (Rosa) and catching up. Lu and Rik are both EMS workers, and Megan works those night shifts in the ER, and I have a job and a half, so we don’t get to see each other as much as we’d like.

Arriving at Cotton Auditorium* (which used to be a school)…:

…we saw our brother’s battered old Subaru pulling up at the curb. We were surprised and happy to see him, but he was just dropping someone off at the show before heading home. Still, it was good to see him, and we all hugged each other extra hard.

Fortunately, Lu and Rik had managed to grab four seats together, since there was a great turnout. I tried to take pictures, but with no flash, no particular skill, and a cheap-ish camera, not to mention the speed at which the acrobats moved, the results were blurry and deeply disappointing to yours truly. Here are the least blurry ones:

David Jones and Blaze Birge, the Daring Jones Duo who founded the Flynn Creek Circus and are its heart and soul, doing a funny, yet scary knife-throwing act.

Miss Holly, doing a daring and delightful aerial act.

The show was a celebration of strength and beauty and discipline and joy. I highly recommend that you check out the YouTube video of the Daring Jones Duo performing their astonishing and graceful double trapeze act which closes out the show.

*Later, I learned that it was a New Deal project, completed in 1939. I’m really enjoying learning more about my adopted town(s).

My brother’s cat Twilley guarding the premises

Fortunately, the skunk smell vanished as suddenly as it arrived. I left the doors open when Megan and I ran errands on Saturday, and by the time I got home, it was magically gone. I’m lucky that the skunk didn’t decide to take up residence under the house, or otherwise makes its presence pungently known.

I’ve seen skunks a few times, out in the garden at night, and they are very striking with their black and white fur and dramatic tails. I also find their funny, trundling walk kind of cute. But that’s about as far as I go with them.

My left hand is recovering nicely from the burn. Those burn bandages seem to be magic, because you can certainly see where I got burned, but my fingers aren’t blistered and they don’t hurt any more (unlike my right hand). So yay for Megan and emergency services on demand.

On Saturday evening, my brother convinced me to come over for a barbecue. I was tired from three full days at the jobette, plus twelve hours of conference calls in two days, followed by Jessica’s birthday lunch and a half day of errands on Saturday (the three hour tour). I really just wanted to collapse on the couch and watch that new mini series of Mildred Pierce starring Kate Winslet, but it takes more energy to argue with my brother than it does to just give in and go there, so that is what I did.

David and Jennifer, who jointly own the property with my siblings, but live elsewhere, were here visiting, and it was nice catching up with them. It was a little on the foggy side, but it was warm by the fire. This may have been the first barbecue of the year, now that I think about it. We had purple potatoes (in the foil packets) and skewers of red onion, zucchini, sausage, and chicken:

It was delicious. We had a great time. They were here until Tuesday, but I missed them due to work. Hopefully they will come back more often, now that the weather is (supposedly) getting nicer. Maybe next time they’ll bring their horses!

As I write, the air in my little hippie hovel is delicately scented with eau de skunk. So glamorous!

I woke up around 2:00 to the distinctive smell. I knew all the cats were in for the night, but wondered if an intruder had made his stripy, stinky way into my humble abode without any of us noticing. This seemed unlikely, but I got up and checked the house anyway. The smell was there, but Mr. Le Pew was not.

I went back to bed, and the Audrometer went off around 4:30. I didn’t want to let Audrey out into the darkness, in case the skunk was still there, so I meanly made her wait until 1) it was light out*; and b) I had checked the perimeter.

The good news is that the outside smelled like rain and fresh air, and the area appeared to be skunk-free. The bad news is that it’s too cold and wet to air out the house. So Roscoe and I are sitting by the heater in the stinkiness and hoping for sun, while Audrey and Clyde are playing in the woods somewhere. By the way, Clyde’s paw is much better.

Mine is not.

You may remember that I managed to fall off a log as my own special way of celebrating the new year. Well, that hand has never been the same. The middle finger and ring finger can’t straighten out, and they are oddly swollen and arthritis-y looking, which is painful for the aesthetically inclined. Also it makes it impossible to wear some of my favorite rings on my right hand. And amazingly, it still kind of hurts when I press on those fingers.

Megan thought at the time that I broke something in there, but I don’t have health insurance and can’t afford to pay thousands of dollars to have my fingers x-rayed and what have you. So I’ve just been living with it.

My left hand now temporarily matches my right hand. I made Jacques Pépin’s mustard-crusted chicken** the other night. When I took the skillet out of my little oven I used my very cute red potholders, and set it on top of the stove. Just a few minutes later, I grabbed the skillet handle with my left hand to move it, apparently having forgotten that it had just spent an hour in a 400 degree oven.

I let go pretty fast, let me tell you. I ran cold water over my hand for a while before calling Megan, who arrived with burn bandages and painkillers. The burn bandages look like a second skin and contain lidocaine or some other kind of surface pain deadener. She also lent me one of her ice packs from her knee surgery last summer, so I was all set for a bad night’s sleep.

Nothing like having EMS living on the premises. Practically a necessity when you’re Calamity Suzy.

*Stupid, stupid daylight savings time.
**A quick search of my archives reveals that I have never shared this recipe with you. Will remedy this shocking omission in the near future.

Little salon in the big woods

I don’t know if this happens to the boys among you, but when we girls wake up one day and want to get our hair cut, there is no stopping us until the mission is accomplished. No matter what you do with it, you hate your hair, and lament the fact that you wasted all that time going to college/touring the world/having perfect children, or whatever else you did instead of attending beauty college. Then you could cut your own hair anytime you wanted.

If you live in a city, you generally have to wait weeks, sometimes longer, to get an appointment with the coiffeur (or coiffeuse) of the moment. In Hooterville, we don’t have that particular problem. At least Megan and I don’t.

We call our friend L and find out when he has a few minutes to practice his past art on our hopeful heads. You see, L used to be hairdresser to the stars in Beverly Hills back in the day, before he moved to Hooterville and became hairstylist to the Peakall girls. I have tried without success to get him to dish on the bad old Beverly Hills days, but he is not one for looking back. Also, it makes him shudder.

Unlike city girls, who can hop in a cab or an outfit-destroying subway* and be at their salon in mere minutes, our salon requires a little more work.

You drive down the road for a couple of miles and then turn left. This road may in fact be even bumpier and more pot-holed than the one you just left. You pass llama farms and eccentric housing, and see a sign that reads “Road Narrows”. You think it must be some kind of joke, but it’s not. After a while, you’re down to one lane, driving veeeery slooooowly in case there is oncoming traffic coming around the bend.

Eventually, it degenerates into little more than a dirt track, and you suddenly feel like you’re driving a semi. When you finally arrive at the parking place far above Salon L, you are so relieved to get out of the car that you practically beg your laughing sister to drive you home.

We ignored the slightly forbidding gate:

and began our descent among the ancient redwood trees and peeping frogs. Not for the first time, I wondered how on earth L’s house was ever built, when everything had to be hauled down this same narrow, slippery path to a building site far below, perched precariously over a seasonal stream and waterfall.

I stopped to admire this shell of a once-mighty tree:

And, to be honest, to catch my breath while trying not to think about climbing back up in just a couple of hours.

Eventually we arrived, to be greeted happily by L and his adorable dog. We spent some time chatting and catching up as well as coiffing, and a good time was had by all until it was time climb back up the muddy Stairmaster through the rapidly darkening woods. Nothing like combining cardio with coiffage, I (never) say!

*My boss was in New York last week, bemoaning the traffic and the meanness of Manhattan drivers. He swears he will never complain about Bay Area traffic ever again. We’ll see.

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.

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!

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.

You all know that I loathe the twice yearly madness of the time change, so I won’t tell you again. But I will just say that my body and I are going to know perfectly well that it’s really 5:30 am when the alarm goes off tomorrow. I may finally need the alarm to go off to haul Self out of bed in the newly-restored morning darkness (thanks, government!). In the month since starting the jobette my record of waking up before the alarm has been unblemished (thanks, kitties!).

Now that I have to get up and go to work on Monday, Sunday has acquired the familiar feeling of dread going back to school days, when prison doors yawned and homework was belated and possibly incomplete as Sunday arrived. Just like I did then, I put out my clothes for the following day and try not to think about it.

Monday Eve seemed to arrive particularly fast since I did a special guest appearance at the jobette on Thursday. The database needed wrestling into submission, and time was running out. I have to check 35,000 entries for duplicates and delete the offenders by this Wednesday.

Fortunately, Rob has ceramics class on Thursdays, so we were able to carpool again. But greenosity has its price.

Absorbed in his work, he lost track of the time, and arrived half an hour late to pick me up. He left his cell phone at home, which he had noticed about halfway to town, so I knew there was no point in trying to call him. After he arrived, Star in tow, he realized that he had forgotten something at school, so we went back to where he had just come from.

After that, we took Star to Lu’s house so she could stay there while Rob and Megan went to the city on Friday (the trip that was cancelled by the tsunami warnings, but we didn’t know that at the time). Lu was home sick, but we stayed and chatted for a while.

When we were on our way again, Rob saw that the “add water” light was on the car. The water leakage is an ongoing problem which has rendered their car unable to drive to the city. Rob and Jonathan have been trying to diagnose the source of the leak to no avail. We stopped at a townette which might have water at one place.

The one place was closed. Rob considered puddle water from a couple of different puddles despite my veto, got distracted by a fallen sign which might perhaps be converted to a windmill blade if they make another one, discovered it was still attached to a pole, and rejected it as impracticable.

Partway through the townette, Rob paused the car to show me why you shouldn’t leave your siding and roof unfinished for extended periods of time, pointing out the problems it had caused a certain house. It was interesting, but I really wanted to get home at this point in the game. I thought longingly of my kitty PJs.

Once my daily ration of education was complete, we got back on the road briefly, stopping at the next townette to get water. I was pretty confident that water was available at this location, and so it was. Rob debated getting coffee (unlike the car, he appears to run on coffee and cigarettes almost exclusively) and decided against it.

I was pretty happy to see the welcoming sight of Hooterville, though not happy enough to want to stop there. Rob, however, wanted to check the mail, get half and half, and oh, why not? A coffee to go. While he did all this, I checked the local paper and learned that our seasonal rainfall has reached 38.8 inches*.

When Rob returned to the car, he had a parts catalogue for him, and junk mail for me. Coffee in hand, he started to peruse the catalogue. After a few minutes, I finally said, “You know, Megan’s probably awake and waiting for that half and half.”

By now, it was about two hours since Rob picked me up. I’m now beginning to understand how it can take him all afternoon to go to the dump, or an hour to go to the Hooterville store, a mere five miles away. It takes talent. And it takes a Rob.

*My rain gauge did not survive the unexpected snowfall a couple of weeks ago. The water inside it expanded as it froze and broke into several pieces. Those pesky laws of physics!

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!