Suzy Says

A day of naughtiness really takes it out of you.

Audrey has expanded her repertoire of victims to include birds now. By the time I saw her with it, it was too late, and all I could do was shudder and pity the poor creature. Nature, as my stepmother used to point out in her rich, golden voice, is red in tooth and claw, but I can’t change this Nature channel.

If the early bird gets the worm, the early cat presumably gets the early bird. And mice. So Audrey, after about twelve hours of beauty sleep, is ready to go out and hunt in the dark, pre-dawn hours. She alerts me to her schedule by clawing the glass in the balcony door.

I have considerably less enthusiasm for getting up in the dark than Audrey does, and I figure if I get up and let her out, it will only encourage her (not that encouragement appears to be necessary). So last night, I equipped my otherwise elegant bedside table with an ugly plastic spray bottle filled with water. When the inevitable Audrey alarm went off, I grabbed the bottle and squirted in her general direction.

Pause.

Scrabble-squeak-thump-scrabble-squeak-squeak-squeak!!

Squirt.

Silence.

I subsided into my pillows, tensely waiting. Nothing happened, so I tried to go back to sleep. I had reckoned without my annoyance and the cloud of swear words hovering over my sleepy, yet awake head. Sigh.

As I lay there in the dark, debating getting up, I heard Audrey clawing the hand-carved redwood banisters. After I yelled at her, getting up was inevitable.

It was still dark, so there was no way I was letting her outside. Also, I clung to the faint hope that if she gets me out of bed and doesn’t get to go out immediately, she’ll give up on the whole project. She did keep going to the front door and clawing it, though, despite my verbal discouragement.

Around 7:30, I let Audrey and June outside, Henrietta being far too old and wise to leave the comfort of the heater.

Audrey: 532. Suzy: 0.

Winter skies

Ring, ring!

I open my eyes. It’s still dark. Even the cats aren’t asking to go out.

Ring, ring!

Rob! Something must have happened*. Looking at the clock, it’s around 6:00 am, so maybe Meg came home and found Rob in low sugar hell. Grab phone and answer anxiously.

It’s not Megan. It’s someone asking if I’m Megan.

“No. Who is this?!”

It turns out to be the internet people, asking about billing.

“Are you kidding? It’s 6 am!”

“I’m sorry, I thought you were on the east coast.”

If they were anywhere near the US of A, they’d know that California has never been located on the east coast, nor will it ever be.

If they knew anything about their jobs, they’d know that I don’t get the bills. They go to our IT person in San Francisco.

I explain this to them, and hang up. Despite the early hour, I am so annoyed that getting up is inevitable and coffee is optional.

While I’m in the shower, the PG&E meter reader passes by the window, which is located right in the shower and gives a splendid view of the garden. Or a surprised blonde, depending on your point of view. I don’t know which of us was more taken aback. After he fled, Lucky peered in to see what all the excitement was about, and then wandered away, bored.

I was heading to town to run some errands, so I called my brother to ask him if he needed anything. Since it’s an hour’s drive round-trip, we try to spare our sibs an extra trip if possible.

I called him on my cell, because if I call him on my landline, it’s long distance. Even though he lives less than a quarter of a mile away. The problem is that the sibs’ cell phone numbers are registered in Boonville, about a 45 minute drive from here. So even though it’s the same area code and county, it’s long distance. Go figure.

But we have the same cell service provider, so if I call them on my cell, it’s free. However, the cell service at my house is horrible, so the call cut out. I called him back on the cell, and it happened again, so he called my landline and begged me to never call him on my cell again, for fear of an aneurysm.

He needed five gallons of gas, so it was good that we were finally able to talk. Cheap at the price. Note: if you ever have a plastic container of gas in your back seat, you will be amazed by how your car smells like gas, even after the container is gone.

Before I could leave the house, my cell rang again. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be my brother, and it wasn’t. It was the credit card company, telling me that my account was overdue.

“Uh…I just got an email telling me that payment was due on January 10.”

“Oh.” Pause. “Let me check our records.”

Because, really – why check your records before you call people and harass them a couple of days before Christmas?

It turned out that I was right and they were wrong. I hung up during the apology.

Was it International Stupidity Day and nobody told me?

When I finally got home from my errands, I found a message for Megan on my phone number from my friends at the internet service provider, asking me to call them and confirm that I should be added to the account, despite the fact that I did that THREE WEEKS AGO:

Patience

I handed the whole mess over to our IT person. Merry Christmas! Enjoy!

Despite my new year’s resolution, this one defies categorization.

*It used to be that if the phone rang in the dark, I immediately thought “Mom!” Now I think “Rob!”

Luna

Wherever I am, there’s always Pooh,
There’s always Pooh and Me.
Whatever I do, he wants to do,
“Where are you going today?” says Pooh:
“Well, that’s very odd ‘cos I was too.
Let’s go together,” says Pooh, says he.
“Let’s go together,” says Pooh.

— “Us Two”, by A.A. Milne

The poem could have been written for Lucky the deer and Luna the dog. You rarely, if ever, see one without the other. Luna’s family took Lucky in when she was a tiny, orphaned fawn, and dog and deer have been together ever since. Luna is very protective of Lucky – I think she thinks Lucky is her baby – and if she doesn’t know you, will try and herd you away. “Step away from the deer!”

Luna’s family is in Mexico for the next few weeks, and Luna seems to miss them. She’s barking more than usual (she sounds like the Hound of the Baskervilles. If you didn’t know better, you’d be scared of her) and is often hanging around my house. Ever since they left, I’ve made an effort to spend a little time with Luna each day, petting her, talking to her, and throwing the stick. She’s really happy to fetch, but unclear on the concept of dropping the stick afterwards, so we go through a lot of sticks.

Good thing we live in the woods.

A couple of days ago, I came back from a rainy trip to town with a trunk full of groceries. As I decanted them, both Lucky and Luna stuck their heads into the trunk, sniffing curiously. It was pouring, but I took a minute to pet them, and as I looked into their big, trusting eyes, I felt that I was the lucky one.

Rain on pampas grass

Pampas grass can cut you like you wouldn’t believe – until it does. And it will, if you aren’t careful. I learned that one the hard way. Pampas grass fools you into thinking it’s nice and pretty, with its plumy tops and fountainy looking grass, and then – wham! If you’ve ever dated, you’ll have had a similar experience at some point. In both cases, you learn your lesson pretty fast.

Apparently pampas grass is nothing more or less than a weed, despite its pretty appearance. My sister uproots little ones ruthlessly if they dare to be in her path. Maybe they try to cut her in revenge.

Another supposedly pestilential plant here is Scotch broom. It has dark leaves and grows in witchy hedges, starred with bright yellow blooms. Like pampas, it spreads like crazy and crowds out native plants and animals. It has clearly fallen into disrepute since it was the emblem of Charles VI of France back in the 14th century.

I seem to have a soft spot for weeds. I love dandelions, both the cheerful yellow and the fluffy “clocks”, and the greens are delicious. I have a paperweight with a real dandelion clock magically captured in its depths, and I treasure a little painting of dandelions which used to belong to my mother:

I never want to admit to my sister that I think these plants are pretty. As an avid gardener, she deplores weeds and deer alike, and their cuteness holds no sway with her. So when we walk the dog together, and the sun shines on the bright broom and the pampas sways in the wind, I keep my thoughts to myself. Maybe peskiness is in the eye of the beholder.

Part of my current frugality is that I don’t have caller ID anymore, or call waiting, which is not only retro of me, but it makes the identity of every phone caller a little mystery.

Usually when the phone* rings first thing in the morning, it’s either my brother or my boss, neither of whom tend to call me just to chat. So I figured it was one of them with a question or a request when the phone rang this morning, but it was someone asking for Rose.

This has happened a few times since I moved into her home and kept her phone number. It’s always people trying to sell her things or charities to which she has donated in the past. I say, “I’m, sorry, she passed away a few months ago,” they say they’re sorry back (with varying degrees of surprise and concern) and that’s it.

Today’s caller turned out to be a friend of Rose’s, who had no idea her friend was gone.

She gasped and asked me what happened, so I told her to the best of my ability, and answered her questions as best I could, while eyeing the coffee grinder longingly.

It turned out that she used to live in my sister’s house about ten years ago, so that made her the person who refused to move out, forcing my sister and brother-in-law to camp with my brother, leaving all their furniture, etc., in his driveway until she could finally be ousted. On moving in, my sister discovered that the previous tenant had left her cat there, so she and her husband adopted her.

I kept these thoughts (and others) to myself as I condoled with her and attempted to get her off the phone. She seemed to want to talk to anyone, mostly about death, which is a subject that also takes up far too much of my time, though I generally try to keep that to myself. Eventually, I promised to pass on her to message to Rose’s family and thankfully hung up the phone.

It was a lot to deal with before coffee.

*I can’t tell you how annoyed I was to discover that calling my sibs’ cell phones from my landline is long distance. Even though my sister lives a few hundred feet away and my brother less than a quarter of a mile. Apparently, their cell phone numbers are registered in Boonville, an hour’s drive from here. But if I call them on my cell, which has an Oakland area code, it’s free. Go figure. If only the cell reception wasn’t so lousy at my house.

When I came downstairs this morning, Lucky the deer was attempting to eat the Chico bag I had hung outside to dry yesterday. It probably tastes better than ancient futon filler, but I took it away before she could make a meal of it. Mark and his family are visiting family in Mexico for a month, so I expect more visits from Luna and Lucky while they’re away.

It was so sunny and cloudless today that it was hard to believe it had rained so hard the day (and night) before. Megan and I took Schatzi for a walk after checking in with the boys. They’re working on something to do with lawnmowers which will make it possible for me to run the internet (I can hear you all sighing with relief) and the refrigerator in addition to the heater if the power goes out, mainitaining, as my brother put it, “some level of civility”.

I didn’t ask them to, and am really touched that they thought of doing it and are spending what little free time they have to work on it.

In addition to creating an oasis of civility for me, they’ve capped off the well (Rob added the year):

and made the bee hive bear-resistant with electrical fencing and a little gate. Apparently actual bear proofing is a very difficult and expensive undertaking, so we’re hoping that the first encounter with the electrified fence will be unenjoyable enough that the bear will go elsewhere for a less hazardous and easier snack:

Interestingly, the bears are more interested in the baby bees (grubs) than they are in the honey. Winnie the Pooh led me astray on that one.

Jonathan explained to us how to turn off the electric fence, and hopefully I’ll be better at remembering that than I am at how to reset the pilot light on my flash heater, which is perched precariously on the side of my house so it’s easier for the pipes to freeze during cold snaps and the pilot light to blow out when it’s breezy.

Sometimes I worry that the whole house will just explode one day, what with the unpredictable gas stove, the propane heater in the living room, and the back-up car batteries in the studio. Not to mention the open area on the front of the dryer so you can see the flames of the propane hard at work. All that expensive gas all around me does make me nervous, though it’s undoubtedly irrational, since I had a gas furnace and stove in Oakland, too. Not that being irrational has ever stopped me from worrying.

I thought that when we moved to the country, the kittens’ naughtiness would be confined to the great outdoors. After all, they have trees to climb and claw, birds and bugs to chase, and plenty of room to chase each other and the neighbor cats who come by for a visit.

So I bought a little three foot high tree. I didn’t realize until later that I probably could have gone out into the woods and cut one down myself, but given the rate of accidents since I moved to Hooterville, I probably would have cut myself down instead.

I still don’t have a tree stand after all these years, and I couldn’t figure out how to get the wooden X stand off the tree. Rob came over to take care of the cats while Megan and I were in Berkeley, and took the X off the tree and placed it in a clear glass vase, filling it with colored pebbles, glass beads, and water. How’s that for an elegant solution (and a full service cat sitter)?

Even if I knew where my beautiful peacock ornaments are, I wouldn’t have risked putting them on the tree, especially after June showed up with a bird in her mouth the other day. She burst through the cat door with the poor bird in her mouth. I screamed, and she let the bird go. It flew up to the high ceiling, and then unwisely fluttered down within June’s reach. She grabbed the hapless creature again and I called Megan:

“Hello?”

“June caught a bird! It’s in the house! Oh my GOD!!”

~Click~

Megan came over in her bathrobe and got the bird away from June, putting the horrified avian in a patch of sun. Later, it was gone, so hopefully it flew away and stayed away from cats from then on,

So I knew bird ornaments were out.

I figured a birdless tree would not attract the attention of June and Audrey after they’d been playing outside all day.

BZZZ! WRONG!

They’ve knocked it over three times so far, and I’ve caught them playing with it more times than I can count. So much for that theory.

June also enjoys chewing on the Christmas lights, especially when they’re on, and they both like to claw the banisters and furniture, even though they have an entire woods full of trees for manicuring. Last night, Henriettta smashed one of my favorite teacups:

http://www.puffins.com/beehouse04.html

by jumping up on the forbidden counter.

Maybe naughtiness is catching.

I found a not completely dead mouse on the living room rug this morning.

This kind of discovery nearly precludes the need for coffee.

Henrietta was sitting a few inches away from the intruder, totally ignoring it. June was at the door, so I grabbed her and sat her right in front of it. She was as interested as Henrietta.

This is the kind of thing that makes you realize that you’re a grown-up. No-one else is going to get rid of the mouse in the living room. I have to admit that I considered calling Dial-A-Rob, but a glance at the clock told me that the service was closed.

I swept it into a dustpan, screaming when it squealed, and tossed it into the woods.

Eeeyaghhh!!

After the mouse removal, the next item on the agenda was to do something about the fact that it was 45 degrees in the house, as opposed to 43 outside (I told you it was like camping in here). The cold snap seems to have snapped, so it’s rainy and bleak outside, but at least the pipes aren’t frozen. Winter weather in Hooterville is either sunny and ass-freezing cold, requiring all day heat which makes me envision dollars flying out the window as the propane burns, or somewhat warmer and rainy, which means the power could go out. So you’re depressed by the rainy gloom and in constant terror of blackouts and no heat.

Yesterday, the boys came over with car batteries and some other thing which they attached to an extension cord and then the heater. The heater turned on obediently, and I ran it from the car batteries from noon yesterday until sometime between 3:30 this morning (when it was on) and 6:30 (when it wasn’t). So I know I can run the heater for at least 12 hours if the power goes out, and maybe a little more. I also have a couple of LED lights and some candles, so I guess I’m as prepared as I’ll ever be.

I don’t know what I’d do without those guys!

It took me more than ten minutes to get the hard frost off the windshield and car windows this morning. Blasting the defrost didn’t do much, if anything, so I found a piece of wood and used that for a scraper, which worked pretty well. The whole car glittered with frost in the bright winter sunshine.

The Ridge was icy, and there was enough frost on the grass at the sides of the road to look like a light dusting of snow. As I approached town, I thought how strange it is to see palm trees lurking among the pines and redwoods when it’s below freezing. Not to mention people mowing their lawns all bundled up!

There was one angry cat in the back seat. Henrietta knew something was up this morning. She hid in the studio, and I had to pull a horrible trick on her by pretending to feed the cats and then scooping up all four and a half pounds of her and sweeping her into the carrier. She howled, spat, and clawed at the bars like crazy.

She was not amused.

She’s spending most of the day at the vet’s, since they’ll have to sedate her to examine her and do blood tests. I’ve used the time by buying Christmas stocking items, groceries, and 200 feet of electrical wire. Apparently the bears have been feeling the cold too and have been eyeing our bee hive, so my brother is going to get the fence surrounding the bees electrified as soon as possible.

I’m multi-tasking here at the Mendocino Cookie Company, enjoying the free wi fi while I participate in a conference call and wait for Henrietta to be ready. I’m looking forward to learning more about her. Stay tuned!

Woke up this morning to frozen pipes. A tiny trickle of water came out of the tap, so I was eventually able to make coffee, for the good of all concerned.

I also discovered that the Amerigas fairy had come by and filled up my tank unbeknownst to me and despite the fact that I still haven’t paid off the last staggering bill. I’m glad he did, though, because I’ve had to have the heat on all day and all night for the past couple of days, and today is the coldest yet.

When it was a more civilized hour, I called Mark and he said all the pipes on our property are frozen, including the water tank. He observed, “You must wonder where it is you find yourself”, and I have to agree. All the papers say it’s record-breaking cold, and I certainly can’t remember the last time I saw snow on Bay Area hills or below-freezing temperatures.

Mark came over to work on the pipes and clear out the little loft area above the bathroom. Among the items removed were an old futon and a couple of mattresses. Lucky the deer wasted no time in pulling apart the futon filling and nibbling on it, while June (and I) watched in horror. Mark and his family are going to visit relatives in Mexico for a month, so he wants to get as much done as he can before he goes. I hope he sends some warmer temperatures up this way!

While the freeze is on, I’ll leave the taps dripping and try not to think of our state’s perpetual state of drought. I’ll also finally get started on those Christmas cards. ‘Tis the season!

It’s a good thing we enjoyed the sun and warmth of Berkeley, because the weather here in Hooterville’s been more North Pole than Northern California since we got back.

It was 27 fun-filled degrees this morning when I woke up and shivered my way to the heater, where Henry(etta) was firmly ensconced, soaking up every one of the 54 degrees I allow for overnight. I turned it up to 64 and peeked out at the thermometer, which showed a below-freezing temperature in the bright, ironic sunshine. I’m pretty sure there was a light dusting of snow on the hot tub* cover and the wooden platform beside it. My brother said there was a dusting over at his place, and the papers are full of photos of snow on the hills in the Bay Area, such as this one at Mt. Diablo:

It’s supposed to be even colder tonight. At 2:00 in the afternoon, it’s still only 41 degrees. I know those of you who live back East and in other areas where it’s freeze or fry, depending on the time of year, are laughing at me and thinking how pathetic I am, but unless you’ve experienced the stupidity of California building first-hand, you can’t imagine how uncomfortable it is. For some reason, insulation is an unknown concept, so it’s basically like living in a tent.

Even though I’ve visited here many times over the past several years, I never really “got” how cold it was. It was 45 in San Francisco this morning when it was 27 here – a pretty big difference. I honestly think that San Francisco may be the only climate this princess can tolerate. Its entire range of temperature is from say, 40 to 80 at the most. Don’t forget the ocean breezes and fog, the natural air conditioner for the summer.

At least it won’t be unbearably hot here in the summer. Will it?

*The hot tub kind of works. I think. But it works by a combination of electricity, which Mark pays for, and gas, which I pay for, and neither of us want to pay for anything that isn’t strictly necessary. So let’s guess it will remain unused, other than a place for the cats to pounce on each other.

This is going to be mostly a pictorial, since the working (and digging) of wells is beyond me. Megan and I have limited our involvement to bringing the boys lunch and picking up essential items from the store, like candy bars and cigarettes. Add in some nylons and you have your basic WWII GI rescue kit.

As we walked back to the car yesterday, there was a heated argument going on behind us about kinetic energy. I observed to Megan that our roles were clearly divided along traditional lines, with us doing the cooking and laundry and the boys doing the manual labor.

“Yup,” she agreed, opening the car door. “And I’m just fine with it.”

The first thing I learned was that the well looks like this, not a big hole in the ground that will one day have a stone Jack & Jill type wall around it.

Though we could definitely use a wishing well around here.

The pipe comes out of the well and over this basketball hoop looking thing to a muddy hole and bucket, where the mud, rock, sand(!), and clay are pumped out of the well.

Here’s the bucket and resulting mud pit. Schatzi found this the most interesting part of the operation.

This is the compressor, which powers the whole thing. Jonathan found it on Craigslist (where else?) and went all the way to Concord to buy it from some skeevy guy who tried to rip him off, but failed. You have to get up pretty early in the morning to put one over on Jonathan, especially where machinery and mechanics are involved. He ended up getting for a fraction of the original asking price, though he and Rob spent a couple of days repairing and refurbishing it. But it costs $162 a day to rent one, so it’s already paid for itself.

This is some kind of doodad (that’s the technical term, of course) which has oil and water in it. It has something to do with the actual drill.

The well is sort of done now. All the digging is complete, but there are other things to be done which are beyond my limited grasp of well digging. I’m so proud of the boys!

You can see that the bear-proof fence is almost in place. The posts are sunk deep into concrete, and the wire was a huge score Rob made at the dump. The wire is expensive new, and someone had discarded it, so once again, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. All that’s left is to attach the gate and electrify the fence, so if a bear does try to raid the hive, he won’t try it again.

I hope we chose the right site for the hive. It’s supposed to have both sun and shade, and you can see that it does, but we’re a little concerned that the sun might not be sunny enough. So far, they seem to be pretty happy, though.

Since winter is approaching (and some mornings, it feels like it’s already here), the bees need some extra food to keep them happy and healthy. So every other day, I make them bee food: two cups of sugar, one cup water. It’s kind of zen, stirring it and watching to see when the granulation vanishes. Then I let cool it out on the porch while I do other things.

When it’s ready, I bring it over to the hive and pour it carefully into the modified Mason jar which is now the feeder:

It usually takes a daring bee explorer to be the first one to venture in and have a snack. Once he reports back to the hive with his tales of free sweetness, others follow. This is big news for bees, because they die when their beautiful gossamer wings wear out. The less they fly, the longer they live. Bees can range up to six miles in seeking food. That’s a lot of wing beats.

It’s almost impossible to see from this picture, but the two bees returning to their hive are loaded down with pollen, so they’re still finding non-Suzy sources of food, even this late in the year.

Other than the bees, the big project of the moment is digging a well. The boys have been spending every day this week on it, and they’ve dug down 23 feet so far!

View from the bookstore

In addition to picking up unglamorous necessities at the unglamorous Rite Aid (why do I always run out of all my drugstore items at once?), I also stopped off in Mendocino to pick up the organic, free-range Thanksgiving turkey from Mendosa’s. Fortunately for me, my sister had prepaid it, so all I had to do was put the box in my cart along with the last minute T-Day items: a bag of fresh green beans the size of my head, and equally fresh cranberries for my (in)famous cranberry-bourbon relish.

The last time Meg and I were at Mendosa’s, we noticed that they had ribbon candy for sale. Hand-made ribbon candy. My grandmother, whose wedding photo you recently admired, used to keep ribbon candy in a cut-glass covered dish at the holidays, and looking at the bright candy curls instantly brought me back to her wonderfully festive holiday celebrations. We bought some of the clove flavor, and it was even better than I remembered. I looked for it this time but alas! Others seemed to have discovered it, too, and they were out. They did have candy coal, though, which might be good for Christmas stockings. We’re all a lot naughtier than nice.

With that out of the way, I decided to stop by the bookstore, which has the view you see above. It also happened to have Christmas cards by the wonderful Snow & Graham, so I picked some up, while resisting buying new books, including the latest by Michael Connelly, even though it was autographed. It’s a great place to browse.

I spent much of today being shockingly domestic. I set the turkey to marinate in the brine I made while simultaneously making syrup for the bees (more later on that subject); made a shepherd’s pie with ground turkey also bought from Mendosa’s; did about 5,000 loads of laundry (some for Rob, some bedding for our T-Day guests, and some of my humble own); made lunch for the boys, who started digging a well on the property today; walked Schatzi on the logging road, and etc.

The plan is to brine the turkey overnight, rinse it and let it rest tomorrow, and either smoke it, if Jonathan isn’t on well patrol, or roast it if he is. Tomorrow I’ll cook the cranberries. Erica is bringing the pies and stuffing made with chestnuts she harvested herself, so all we’ll have to make on the day is the turkey, the mashed potatoes, and the green beans.

The first Thanksgiving in my new house! And no travel required.

I could have borrowed the title of this post from the title of Haven Kimmel’s delightful memoir She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts. Yesterday, I performed my own heroic act by getting up off my own couch and accompanying Megan (and, more importantly, Princess Schatzi) to the Mendocino Headlands.

The quaint town of Mendocino is perched on rocky bluffs which jut out into the ocean. The trees there are windswept and bent into fanciful shapes from years of wind and weather. The headlands are bordered by blackberry bushes and rose brambles, and there are trails all along the rugged coastline.

It was a beautiful day, and there was a high surf advisory, so the ocean was even more spectacular than usual. Schatzi bounced happily along, wearing her cozy sweater (pit bulls have very thin fur and really feel the cold. Schatzi literally dances on her hind legs for joy when Megan gets a sweater out for her) and sniffing the exciting smells. I walked along more slowly, careful to look for unexpected rocks and gopher holes. It was good to move again, even if it was somewhat painful. I loved the sea air and the spray on my face and the sun on my aching bones. And the company.

It took a while, but Henry finally decided to venture outside. The weather’s been gorgeous lately, sunny and in the 70s, and I’ve had every door in the house open. I guess Henry finally couldn’t resist. He’s been slinking in and out all day and enjoying the sun. I saw him playing with June, too.

I was surprised that it took him so long to go out, but maybe he felt that he had both been there and done that. Or he thought that if he went out, he wouldn’t be allowed back in. All I know is that we’ve made great strides in our relationship.

When I woke up in pain the other night, I went to sit on the couch, unable to risk the risky stairs (I haven’t been up them since, though Rob is working away at Suzy proofing them). Henry took the opportunity to ask to be petted, which I was happy to do, despite the fact that he kept bumping his head into my book. Eventually, he crawled into my lap and sat there for at least half an hour. Can you believe it?

Downtown

Yesterday, I ventured to the big town (aka Fort Bragg, not to be confused with the military installation of the same name on the opposite coast). Fort Bragg is where they keep the non-scenic things which must not be permitted to mar the quaintness of Mendocino, but which are necessities of life, such as the Safeway and the DMV.

I was surprised to discover that the Safeway is bigger than the one in Oakland, though of course it’s lacking in Ray. Once I got Suzy chow, I headed to the Feed and Pet to get feed for the pets.

It’s been kind of a conundrum for me. The girls used to get fancy expensive food, and Henry got cheapo Safeway food. But now they’re all being fed together, and presumably eating out of each other’s bowls (you know how cats always suspect the other cat has something better and must inspect to make sure), I had to find some middle ground. Like wine for a party. You can’t afford to provide the best for all those people, but you have to drink it yourself, and of course you have your wine connoisseur reputation to consider. The middle ground can be a challenge.

I ended up getting a 16 pound bag of Max Cat for the same price as a 5 pound bag of the fancy food. It was well-received by all. I have to say that feeding time is much harder now, with three cats milling around underfoot and complaining about how hungry they are and how slow I am. I keep stepping on Henry, who is both the skinniest and the most insistent. He was much more blasé about the whole thing when he was outside, for some reason.

After that, it was time for a successful foray to the library, which was closed* when I went to renew my car registration and when I pointlessly interviewed. I got a shiny new library card:

The coast; the wine country; the redwoods

and used it both immediately and later – when I got home, I requested 28 books from my waiting list. Something – well, a lot of things – to look forward to!
*These cutbacks are saving about half of what was originally projected. So librarians and other government workers took a pay cut for nearly no reason.

Early morning in my garden

Today was one of those frustrating days.

The internet was crawling at a pace which would have made a snail laugh as it zipped by (and still is, even as I write), and it was impossible for me to access my work database and get anything done, even though I had a deadline. The phone mostly works, depending on where I’m standing or sitting, so I could call our IT person back in civilization and my boss in Detroit and alert them of the problem.

I tried to do some of my laundry while I was waiting for the internet to be restored (a girl can dream). Among the lovely items needing to be cleaned are the poo carrier and the cloths I used to acquire the housemaid’s knee (which is bothering me today). I washed the regular laundry first, and put it in the dryer. Though the dryer went, it didn’t dry anything, so I spent an hour’s worth of propane for nothing.

I found the clothesline and fastened it to a couple of handy trees, then hung the laundry on hangers on the line, since I couldn’t find the clothespins. Hopefully that will work. I’ll have to alert the landlord about the non-dryingness of the dryer before I attack the rest of that chore.

Add in some wrangling with the credit card people and you have a really excellent day.

On the bright side, Henry purred for the first time today. He was sitting next to me on the couch and I was petting him when I heard a strange sound. It was a rusty and rumbling purr. I petted him until he got overwhelmed and bit me gently. He really just catches my hand in his mouth to tell me to knock it off. Much better than The Claw.

The girls ventured outside today and explored the garden. It was fun to see them looking around. They are definitely cautious – my sister says they know they are both predator and prey – but I think they had a good time. They came to the “front” door and waited until I let them in this afternoon, and they’re safely in now, so this may work out just fine. I’ll be thrilled to get rid of the litter box, let me tell you!

• Housemaid’s knee is receding, but still making its presence known. It has been joined by an unpleasant tingling sensation in my right leg, running pretty much the length of it. I have not yet regained my usual graceful gait, but I promise to be thankful for being able to actually walk once I can. For at least five minutes. And if this is a preview of being an old lady, I’m really not looking forward to that now.
• Besides wishing I could walk, I wish I could unpack. Actually, I’m wishing for Samantha Stephens or Jeannie to twitch or blink the house in order, no manual labor required. Besides being dreary and manicure-destroying, manual labor is what led to the limp in the first place.
• The cats have been getting along surprisingly well. There’s been the odd hiss or two, but no fights that I’ve seen or heard. Yesterday, I found them all asleep on the bed. Henry’s still skittish, but the girls are clearly happy and notably less naughty. They haven’t been racing through the house or breaking things at all. I think they’re enjoying going up and down the stairs and exploring their new house.
• I have no fewer than five doors in my house, but no locks. Today, one of the doors wasn’t latched properly and drifted open while I was out. June and Audrey were outside, but came in pretty easily when I called them. Henry was still inside – I suspect that years of being a stray have made the great outdoors a lot less appealing to him. My original plan was to keep them all in for a week, so they know it’s their house, and then let them out on the balcony from the bedroom, so they get used to the whole outside thing. After a few days, I’ll let them out the door downstairs. I’ll be curious to see what they do, how far they go, and whether I can get them in at night.
  

Backseat Bale

On our way home, we stopped off and bought a bale of straw. Little did I know that there is a difference between hay and straw, and that there would be a choice of straw. Whenever I run an errand for my brother, I’m always lacking an essential piece of information, so it’s good I had my little purple cell phone handy.

The winning straw was rice! Though fairly modest in size compared to some of the bales on offer, it refused to fit into the trunk of my sister’s trusty and dusty Saturn. But it did settle nicely into the back seat (see above). The straw seller kindly placed a sheet of paper on the seat before depositing the bale, but the car, our hair, and our clothes were soon as straw-strewn as the March Hare on a particularly maddening day.

If you’re wondering why our brother required a single, smallish straw bale, it’s because he’s planning to build a cob oven with the straw and the clay on the property. If you’re curious about these ovens, you can read all about them here.

We unloaded the straw and other BBQ fixin’s at his place, then went on to Megan’s. I stowed the groceries while she created the pie. She makes them so quickly it looks like a breeze. She does something with almond meal that makes the crust magically delicious. And with four pints of fresh local strawberries going into her pie, you can see that she doesn’t hold back.

Pie perched precariously on my lap, and Schatzi in the now vacant backseat, we made our way to our brother’s place. Friends gradually assembled, including Lichen, who brought Schatzi’s good friend Padawan. They play together at least once a week. Padawan is another terrifying breed, a Rottweiler who immediately cuddled up to me, then lay down and allowed me to rub his tummy until my arm felt like I’d pitched ten innings. I guess that’s the real danger!

As Padawan and Schatzi ran off to play, I perched on the straw bale while Lichen cut my hair. He had the cape and the fancy scissors and everything. It turns out that he used to be a stylist in Beverly Hills in a former life, working his magic on stars and starlets. I bet they never had their cut on a straw bale! He refused to let me pay him, even though my hair looks Hollywood fabulous.

In the meantime, my brother was barbecuing free range chicken breasts and farmers’ (thank you, Mike!) market corn, so dinner was ready. There was also salad and cheese buns which my brother had made earlier. For dessert, there was the pie.

As we sat around the dying flames of the barbecue, with the sun dipping lower in the sky, I thought how lucky I am to have such a wonderful family and friends.