Suzy Says

Well, hello there!

Things have been really busy (and somewhat stressful) at the job and jobette ever since I got back from San Francisco. And as you know, work = no fun = nothing to blog about. I have the last three quarterly due diligence conference calls at 6 am on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week. Then I have to write up all ten of them, arguably the hardest and most time-consuming part of the process.

We had a little spot of rain the other day, but other than that, it’s been what my sister calls “Junuary”, sunny and in the 50s during the day, though cold and starry at night and frosty in the morning, the Ridge glittering with ice. I was surprised to see in the paper that we have received 27 inches of rain this season, versus 19 inches at this time last year – must have been those early season storms. Last night I noticed the first full moon of the new year beaming through the skylight of the sleeping loft.

I made a little time to head over to the property a couple of days ago. I realized that I hadn’t seen my brother for exactly a month, ever since Christmas Eve. Megan and the dogs came with me, and together we inspected the orchard in progress, which will be right next to the garden they created about this time last year.

There will be apple trees, peaches, and cherry trees. Olives and almonds are under consideration, as are raspberry bushes. Jonathan thinks they will have to electrify the fence, like the one around the bee hives. Otherwise, the bears will move right in and eat everything.

I picked up a hitchhiker this past week. I know what you’re thinking, but I only pick up people I know or the occasional woman. This was an older lady, who turned out to be a delightful German named Heidi, who has been visiting here since the 1970s. There seems to be a mystical connection between Germans and the County. My fabulous stylist is from Germany, as was Rose, my house’s previous owner and occupant. Even Rob was born in Germany. I asked Heidi what brought her here in the first place, and what kept drawing her back.

She said, “We Germans find all the best places. And there is nowhere on earth like Mendocino.”

Before

After

Well, the storm kicked our collective butts for about 10 days, dumping 8 inches (20+ centimeters) of rain, taking the power out twice in Hooterville (and keeping it out in the Big Town for a selected few residents for a week), and closing the road to civilization twice as well. Then it blew away, leaving wreckage in its wake, but almost laughably blue skies* overhead:

Mother Nature has a wicked sense of humor.

As you can see, I am going to need a couple of cups of Rob to fix the passion flower vine. It will have to be unwound from the wreckage of the tree and relocated, I think. The purple honeysuckle is still lying beside the house. Its trellis will have to be mended somehow. It braved all the storms last year, but this year it’s been having a hard time. I looked at my blog from this time last year, and I was still watering the garden instead of the Almighty doing it, as my atheist father used to say.

Anyway, we look set for fair skies for the next few days, though that does mean that the nights are pretty cold. It’s been hovering around the 32F/0C mark outside, and the 45F/7C mark inside when I get up in the morning darkness. But it’s like someone has turned up the stars and planets – they blaze and glitter against the black winter sky.

*Sorry about the Batman angle, but I took it from the car when Megan was driving.

The power came back on before I got home on Wednesday night. Apparently the valiant PG&E crews repairing the downed power lines also came across some faulty equipment, which they repaired, though this took some time, and the power was out for about 9 hours.

It then went out again from about 10 pm until 5:00 am. Later that day, my brother came by with his soaking wet clothes from fire calls and put them in the dryer. Apparently someone had called in a burning vehicle right near Megan’s and my address, adding that a “late 30’s male” was at the wheel. Worried that it was Rob, Jonathan raced to the scene, only to find a downed power line and no car or driver or anything burning. The theory is that someone thought they’d get a faster response if they said it was a burning car, and they did, so their naughtiness was rewarded.

This is often the case with grown-ups, kiddies. You didn’t hear it from me.

As I mentioned, the jobette gave me Saturday off due to the ominous weather reports. We also canceled swimming, and it was weird, yet delightful, to sleep in on a Saturday and not have to work or drive to the Big Town or anything. I took advantage of the break to put up Christmas decorations, which I have been dying to do since before Thanksgiving, thanks to North Star Nursery’s incredible Christmas tree display. Megan and I went there to get things like garlic to plant and ended up spending an hour in a holiday wonderland.

Putting up the tree before Thanksgiving is just wrong, as well as taking up valuable floor space when you are expecting a dozen people in your housette, so I waited like the faux adult I am. But I wasted no time in decking the halls before the rain started again.

As usual, I forgot how annoying, sheddy, and hard to put together my vintage tree is until I was actually dealing with it and it was snowing all over the rug. I love having an artificial tree in a house surrounded by trees, but I am seriously considering getting a real live one in a pot next year which I can put outside with its homies when it’s not Christmas.

Eventually I wrestled the tree up:

Like last year, the cats have ignored it so far, but I don’t expect that to last.

I also put up the traditional banister lights:

And this year, I put up lights on the back deck instead of the front balcony, mostly for the selfish reason of being able to enjoy the show from the comfort of my couch:

Last night, the weather folks warned that this third storm would be worse than the earlier two which took the power out both times, and it was pretty scary. The rain was pouring down hard, and the wind was howling ferociously for hours on end. I was up most of the night because it was too loud and unnerving to sleep. Having an unnerved Clyde sleeping on my head and neck didn’t help. Roscoe also did his best to take up as much bed real estate as possible, while biting my hand when I least expected it. I tried putting a pillow over my head when Clyde wasn’t on it, but there was no shutting out the storm’s roar.

This morning, I got up aching and exhausted, feeling about 103 years old, but happy that the power was still on. I was less than pleased to note a three foot wide puddle in the kitchen and an even bigger one in the pantry/laundry room.

Well, today is going to be a lovely day.

I woke up to find that the kitties had been romping in the garbage and recycling under the kitchen sink during the night. I waited until I was caffeinated before dealing with that.

Then I drove to the jobette in the pouring rain. We are going to have a staff meeting for most of the day, and you know how delightful those always are.

After work, I get to go to the clinic and huddle with the rest of the uninsured masses, contemplating my downward mobility among the homeless folks and welfare mothers with screaming children. And pay for the (dis)pleasure. Undoubtedly I will have to also pay for blood tests and lose more pay by having to take more time off for the blood tests, and more time off for the results, for which time I will also not be paid, though I will have to pay yet again for another visit.

If you don’t have money (or insurance), you always have to pay more.

The I get to drive home in the rainy darkness, which I love, and as an added bonus, miss the beginning of the first World Series game between the San Francisco Giants and the Detroit Tigers. Grrr.

Bitter much?

Tomorrow I get to look forward to keeping Audrey inside until 8:30, when I will attempt to decant her into the cat carrier and bring her to Dr. Karen, undoubtedly to the accompaniment of squalling, puking, and pooping. I discovered a lump near her left front leg yesterday and am concerned. And then there’s this year plague of fleas. I’m afraid that Dr. Karen will think I’m a bad pet parent when she finds out how scabalicious Audrey is from the fleas.

In my defense, I have ordered the flea meds but they aren’t here yet – one of the perks of living in the country. When they do get here, it will be a laundry palooza again, which I’m not looking forward to.

Sigh.

After the rain

First things first – congrats to the Giants on winning the National League Championship! Even though they now have to play the Tigers and it just feels wrong to cheer against Detroit.

And now back to our program, already in progress…

Suddenly, it’s winter!

When I got home from the jobette on Sunday night, I spent some time putting away the outdoor furniture* – the yellow chairs, the warped old wooden table, the glass table and matching chairs and lounger, the candle holders – dragging them into shelter underthe house and what I call the shed. The shed is actually a piece of corrugated plastic on four poles, but, you know. I call a strip of weather-beaten wood planks the back porch.

As I did these chores and filled up a couple of emergency buckets with water, the sky was blue and the sun was sunny, and I felt a little silly. I even called my brother to tell him to get ready for the coming storm, and he thought the forecast was 30% chance of rain until he refreshed his computer screen and then said, “Oh”. It was actually 100% for that night, and they were right. It rained hard enough to wake me up several times, and though I didn’t investigate the rain gauge too closely the following day, there was over an inch of rain in it. I bet Jonathan was glad he had covered up the hay and the golf cart!

It was 50 degrees in the house this morning, and only Audrey was interested in venturing out into the rainy cold (or the cold rain). When I drove to town later that morning, the Ridge was glittering with rain and red with fallen pine needles. I had to defrost the windshield before I went anywhere, and my winter coat made its first appearance of the season.

Looks like winter’s here!

*I really need to take the old couch to the dump. If only Mark were here!

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.