Suzy Says

So, yeah: swimming.

There was a free swim clinic last month at the same pool where aquafit takes places in the cold, early morning hours. Megan and I went, thinking to improve our swimming skills. We learned as children, and swam every summer, in the chilly Atlantic and the (relatively) warm waters of Maine lakes. I figured it would be easy to get up to speed. For Megan: yes. For me: no.

I’m good at finding things I’m not good at.

Everything was going fine until we had to put our faces in the water. Suddenly, I felt like a steerage passenger on the Titanic. My body was horrified, and both of my brain cells immediately agreed, even though there was a lifeguard right there and I could have stood up and breathed at any time.

Logic is not my forte. Call me the anti-Spock.

I kept trying, even though breathing in the water through my nose and mouth gave me instant post-nasal drip without all the bother of having a cold. The more I did it, the more I hated it.

Megan, the former scuba diver, was happily splashing around like a fish and bemoaning her lack of technique. See what a contrast we are? When she was a little kid and told me, “I’ll catch up with you, you’ll see”, she failed to add “And I’ll pass right by you and leave you in the dust”. Or the pool water.

At the end of the class, they told us that we could take 6 more lessons for the reasonable price of $36. Megan immediately signed up, while I flipped through Glamour and enjoyed breathing the air.

The next day, she took Star to her first Canine Good Citizen class. One of the things they address at the class is fearfulness, which dogs express by growling and barking, and Suzys express by crying (at least inside) and/or running away in horror. The teacher said that petting dogs when they express their fearfulness is rewarding the fear and the behavior, and just encourages them to keep at it.

I realized that not going to swim class with Megan was rewarding my fear. So I signed up, too.

I’m still struggling with the breathing. My brother, who swims 45 minutes without stopping four days a week, tells me that he doesn’t put his face in the water, and if he does, it really affects his endurance. Another friend who is a good swimmer told me the same thing. So it’s not just Me.

Also it’s hard to remember all the instructions (keep your chin down, feet floppy, thumbs should hit the water first) while struggling with the panicky, oxygen-deprived feeling of the breathing. Megan says I’m doing better, but I’m not so sure. I wish I had more time to practice. But I’m glad that I’m trying to face my fears. It’s a lot easier to do with my sister at my side. Like everything else.

The saga of the car has been long and spendiferous over the past month.

First, I took it to Mike the mechanic, who made the transmission run better. Miss Scarlett, like me, needs a little time to get going in the morning, but she’s always up to speed by the time I reach the next driveway down the Ridge, and I can live with that.

However, there was a sort of shuddering going on when I braked downhill, a not uncommon occurrence on the curvaceous roads around here. So I brought it to another place to check the alignment (Mike doesn’t have the car lifting thing or the specialized tools to do this kind of thing).

They told me that I needed to have two things fixed before I could have the alignment done. I checked with the boys, and they also couldn’t fix it for me, having a Mike-esque lack of expensive and specialized tools. So the fixing, along with the alignment, cost about $300.

I still noticed the shuddering, so I brought it back in again. It appears that there had been some miscommunication and the mechanic hadn’t understood what I meant, possibly because I don’t speak Car. He investigated, and this time, it turned out that I needed the rear brakes replaced and something done to the rotors. Cost: $400.

Since brakes are important and the boys can’t measure and sand down rotors, or whatever it is that had to be done, I said OK. Goodbye, paycheck. It was nice almost knowing you. And that was before I replaced the two front tires, which were 7 years old (150 in tire years). Cost: about $200.

A few days later, I heard a high-pitched squeeing noise in the car, even over the Ramones. I stopped in at the mechanic’s and asked him to listen to it. He said he thought it was a leak in a vacuum hose and not critical, so I left a rambling message for my brother, asking if he could fix it on Thursday.

The infamous belt incident happened on Wednesday. The consensus of opinion between the boys and Megan is that any mechanic should have known what that noise was. I certainly will if I ever hear it again, which I hope I never do.

On the other hand, it only cost about $70 in parts for Rob to fix it. Working on my second thousand dollars of the month, baby! At this rate, I’m going to need a “Car” category for this blog.

Well, today did not go exactly as planned.

I left the house at the dark and starry hour of 6:30. By the time I got to the store, the sky was brightening, and even at that hour, the ocean was blue. The ocean was also feeling particularly frisky and beautiful today, and it was so hard not to stop and just watch it for a while, especially at Van Damme beach, which may well be my favorite view around here.

As I pulled into the parking lot at the pool, I suddenly couldn’t steer. The steering wheel was locked, and an ominous red battery sign was lit up on the dashboard. Uh oh.

Fortunately for me, I meet Megan on Wednesday mornings for aquafit, and she was already there waiting for me. I was so glad to see her! She managed to maneuver Miss Scarlett into a parked position across two spots. Then we noticed a strange smell, and smoke curling from the left side of the hood. Never a good sign.

Closer inspection showed that the belt had come off its moorings, and had melted slightly in its unmoored state. I grabbed the towel I keep in the back seat to mop the morning fog from the windows – this time, to extinguish the smoldering belt goo on the hood roof.

Megan called Jonathan and woke him up, and then called Rob and woke him up. We decided that the best thing was for me to go home with Megan, and Rob would take Megan’s car back in to town to fix my car. On our way home, Megan and I bought a replacement belt.

When we got there, Rob was drinking coffee and waking up. Undoubtedly he was once again considering the “for worse” part of his wedding vows twenty years ago and remembering several in law jokes that now had an alarming ring of truth.

Megan went to bed, Rob went to fix my car, and I went home to get some work done. Clyde decided to welcome me home by climbing up inside the painting again, this time bringing it down on my unsuspecting head. Surprisingly, no-one was damaged, though Clyde broke the wire holding the painting in place and now it’s leaning against the stairs. He wisely disappeared for several hours after that.

Rob just called and said that he replaced the belt and whatever went wrong was the simplest thing it could be under the circumstances. When Megan goes to work tonight, she’ll drop me off to get Miss Scarlett. Hopefully, we will get home in one piece.

Surprise!

I came home from the pool* on Saturday to discover that the generator fairy had paid me a visit.

Those of you who live in civilization may scoff at the generator fairy, but when the power goes out this winter – and it will – it will be a lot more useful than that $20** the tooth fairy leaves or candy*** from the Great Pumpkin. Assuming he shows up, that is.

Someone gave this generator to my brother because it wasn’t working right, and Jonathan spent a lot of time working on it until it did. Now it can power my whole house, and more besides. It’s a reassuring thought as we slide slowly into winter.

Coincidentally, he gave it to me the day after the official start of Fall, and the day before the first rain of the season (a third of an inch). It inspired me to check my power outage drinking water supply (OK) and look for the buckets (where are they?). Oh, and I should put up the rain gauge my neighbor gave me after that surprise snow exploderated mine.

Be prepared, right?

*I still owe you a post or two abut swimming.

***Not that the candy would have lasted from Halloween until winter. Not around here.

Audrey’s busy being Audrey these days. Staying out all night and wandering back in when I get up at 6:30. Or not.

When she’s in, she’s either demanding canned food or insisting on sitting on my lap and licking me until she’s bored and leaves, or goes to sleep, whatever comes first.

I think her weight is just about right, though on the occasions when I pick her up (to her eternal annoyance), she still feels light as a feather. I think I’ve created a kind of monster by trying to feed her up over the summer. Now she expects the disgusting canned food twice a day, and makes a big fuss about getting it.

Audrey surveying her realm

Oddly, the boys don’t try to eat it, though they do inspect the dish after Audrey has finished and stalked off. They seem to think that there are different rules for Audrey (staying out later; sitting on the table) than for them (not) and they don’t seem to mind at all.

Clyde’s chin is healing up. Megan inspected it yesterday and said it looked pretty good, as such things go. I have to admit that I’m a little concerned it will get re-infected and require another trip to the vet, but hopefully it won’t. Apparently it will take a while to heal. It was likely caused by a cat bite, and I wonder if it was from playing with Roscoe or from fighting with a neighbor.

Matched set

Being the bad cat parent I am, I failed to keep Clyde in yesterday. It was sunny and warm and he was raring to go. It’s hard to keep one cat in while letting the other two out. And Clyde seemed to feel fine, even though his chin was pretty gross to look at. I will spare you the visual on that one.

Also being a bad cat parent, I failed to put the warm compresses on him. I admitted this lapse to Megan, who said he should be fine anyway. When I confessed to guilt about this (how can I compress him when I’m at the jobette all day?), she said, “You’re not a bad mother. Just a working one.”

Clyde slept on my pillow/head last night and the night before. He still does his patented smother snuggle, but he has expanded his repertoire to sleeping beside my head on the pillow and taking up almost all the room. When Roscoe sleeps with me, he prefers to cuddle up to my chest. He always seems more dignified and grown-up than his little brother.

So there you have it. So far, so good. I’ll keep my eye on Clyde and hopefully a return trip to Dr. Karen will not be necessary. Between fixing my cat and fixing my car, I’ve been doing my bit to improve the local economy lately.

The patient

On Saturday night, I was watching “The Hoodlum” (with Lawrence Tierney, on a brief hiatus from jail, and his real-life brother, Edward) with Clyde cuddled up to me. Clyde’s cuddling style is to stare at me, then jump on my lap, climb up my body, and collapse with his head on my shoulder, giving a big sigh before starting to purr.

Both he and Roscoe like to be rubbed under their chin. But this time, something was wrong. There was a huge bump. I felt the other side of his chin. Bump-free. Uh oh. However, it didn’t seem to hurt him and he was acting normally.

In the morning, Megan investigated and said it was an abscess. By then, Clyde had scratched at it and it was wet and much ickier-looking. Being the excellent sister she is, she also called Dr. Karen on the dot of 9:00 on Monday morning, when I was arriving at the jobette. She not only got him an appointment at 11:00, but also caught him and took him there.

I am proud to say that by all accounts, my brave little Clyde did not complain or fuss while having his chin shaved and getting an antibiotic shot. Dr. Karen was impressed with his courage and cuteness. Apparently both were remarked on often. My little guy weighs 8.7 pounds!

I am supposed to keep him in today as well as yesterday. When I came home yesterday, Clyde was sleeping on the bathmat and Audrey was sleeping nearby on a (white) towel she had pulled off the holder just for this purpose. Roscoe, of course, was nowhere to be seen.

The house was like an oven, since all the doors were closed except the sliding glass ones in the living room. Rob installed a found screen in that one last summer, so that was open. I had to put the fan on in the sleeping loft, which becomes unbearable if it’s over 60 degrees outside and the balcony door isn’t open. Naturally this is the warmest part of the year, and it was the warmest day we’ve had in a while.

Clyde was pretty sleepy all evening. Today he seems like his old self and I’m not sure if I can make him stay in all day on such a lovely, sunny day. Stay tuned!

A beautiful day for a fair

First things first: happy birthday to Rob! He stopped by this morning and when I wished him happy birthday, he looked surprised. I hugged him and told him I was glad he was born. He took a couple of things to repair and vanished after he hugged me back.

We’ll have a birthday barbecue next weekend. This one was busy! As I write, Star is at her second Canine Good Citizenship class (she did great last week). And yesterday, Megan and I went swimming (more about that later) before we went to the county fair.

A quick review of my blog shows that I haven’t been since 2008, so it was about time. As you can see above, it was a beautiful day. Megan found a secret parking space, and off we went.

It was hard to decide what to do first, so we had some garlic fries while we walked around and scoped out the possibilities. We made a mental note of the sno cone truck for later:

They really are the most refreshing drink you can eat. Though, disappointingly, they did not have blue raspberry. Even though everyone knows that blue is the best flavor for anything frozen (other than margaritas).

Sno cone in hand, we went to admire the livestock and the kids who handle them. This little dappled cow with its freckled girl was my favorite:

Did you know? Cows are covered with a sort of pomade at these shows, which makes them look all shiny and pretty, but makes your hands instantly filthy and kind of gross. Worth it, though. Also, there were hand-washing stations everywhere.

I resisted the temptation to run my hands through these sheep’s curly fleece:

And I kind of had a crush on this handsome boy:

Ever wondered how to shear a sheep? Now’s your chance to learn how:

It was strange being in the building with all the fleece and hand-spun yarn and beautiful scarves and things without our Erica*. And not seeing any of her work entered for prizes (and winning them). But I got over it long enough to buy a hat, which turned out to have been made by a woman who lives about two miles away. She spun the wool herself, knitted it, adorned it with a unique abalone button, and voilà:

It was hard to believe I’d ever need that hat on a sunny day in the 80s, but I bet I will be glad I got it in a couple of months. And I got to meet a new neighbor!

Some apple (and cider) tasting later:

we were admiring quilts:

flower arrangements:

and some of the biggest pumpkins I’ve ever seen:

The day flew by. Suddenly, it was time to head home, full of fair food and happy memories. Until next year…

*We had a great chat today. They are definitely coming for Christmas. And Jessica loves her new school.

So I have kept up with aquafit, even though the year has clearly turned its face resolutely toward winter and it’s now dark when I leave the house at 6:30 am.

The splendid pool where aquafit takes place has been struggling to stay open, so they have slowly decreased the water temperature to about 79 degrees in the interests of saving money. It was 84 when I first started going, and I can tell you that you feel the loss of every one of those degrees early on a foggy morning. Although I would find 84 on the warm side in the air, in the water is another matter.

I love the teacher and the class, though. Many of the ladies are vintage and they are all delightful. In the locker room, we discuss the latest plays and art shows in San Francisco, as well as the (usually lamentable) performance of the Giants the night before. One of the ladies has a relative who works at the gym where the Giants’ beloved catcher, Buster Posey* is rehabbing from the terrible injury which has sidelined him for most of the year (and which I think was the beginning of the end for the team this year). She says that Buster is as charming in real life as he seems to be on TV, and is hoping that he’ll be back next year. Let’s hope so.

Megan has started meeting me at the Wednesday class, after her long night shift, and she told me that when I was in Napa, everybody missed me. It was nice to hear. Along with the exercise, I love the company of my sister and the Pool Ladies, there in their jewelry with smiles and an encouraging word early in the morning.

About halfway through, one of the ladies calls out our imaginary breakfast after our workout: a big burrito and a Margarita! Nachos and a beer! Her husband just gave her a yellow Porsche convertible to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. That’s the kind of girl she is.

*Surely one of the best names in sports.

The thing about having unplanted plants on your hands is that you have to plant them. Sooner is better than later. But since the soil around my house is hard and unforgiving, dirt had to be imported. Also, it occurred to me that I might want to bring the twin palms with me if I ever move. And since half wine casks were on sale for about $20 apiece, it seemed like a good idea to invest.

The long-suffering Rob took the money and ran – well, drove carefully – to the Big Town and came back with the back of his truck full of dirt and wine casks (which helped to hold down the tarp and keep my investment from flying away down the highway).

All I had to do was shovel the dirt and roll the wine casks around. He even drilled holes in the bottom for drainage.

After rolling one of the palms around on a dolly I borrowed from Mark (who is doing fine so far), I decided to put one near the daisy tree in the middle of the yard:

And one at the front of the house. It had occurred to me one day as I was driving home that there was no particular reason that I couldn’t grub up the huckleberry tree in the front of the house and replace it with a palm.

At the time, I didn’t realize that this involves borrowing a heavy iron pointed thing, like some kind of medieval weapon, and piercing the root ball of the bush repeatedly before yanking it out of the ground, which led to borrowing gravel from Mark. But it also led to Mark filling in the trench in front of my house from the great water project last year, thus avoiding a Calamity Suzy incident. You will be pleased to hear that I removed the berries from the bush before uprooting it (though this led to further berry picking, temporarily diverting me from the palm tree planting at hand).

So, yeah: the huckleberry bush was out, the dirt was smoothed over with gravel, and I was ready to place the palm:

I think it makes a nice entranceway to the house:

That’s Rob’s trusty truck, temporarily in the background.

I hope the twin palms are happy in their new home. As for the bamboo, I have placed it at the corner of the house, right outside the shower window:

I’m hoping it will grow a bit more and give me a tropical oasis feeling while I’m in the shower. At least I can see the palm from there. I have to say, it’s quite exciting, being the proud owner of not one, but two palm trees.

Mugshot

Megan was getting ready for work when she discovered that she couldn’t find her handbag.

In all fairness, it must be said that she is a little careless of it at times. Mostly it lives on the backseat floor of her car, just as her keys live in the ignition, except when she’s at work. How else would you know where they are? And when it’s sunny, she often leaves the car doors open so the car doesn’t get too hot inside.

We knew she had her bag when we were buying the last-minute items for our brother’s belated birthday barbecue, but we couldn’t remember seeing it after that. She and Rob scoured their house-ette and the car while I called the store.

No luck. Megan was late for work, so she had to leave after borrowing some money for lunch – when you work a 12 hour shift, you have to eat twice while at work, so planning is necessary, especially in a place where everything is closed overnight.

After she left, Rob was watering the garden when he stumbled over something.

It was Megan’s wallet.

Then he came across the little pouch with her hairbrush, etc., in it. Eventually he found the bag and the rest of its contents, including a now-empty treat bag. We had taken Star to Big River and used the treats in a training session, and Megan had left them in her bag when we got back to the car.

We know it wasn’t Star, because she was in the house. Remembering the sunny day and the open car doors, Megan realized that Schatzi had taken the bag from the car and brought it into the garden to eat the treats. Whenever you give her a treat, she always takes it back there to enjoy it.

So there you have it. You can teach an old dog new tricks. She can sneak out of your brother’s house at the dead of night and go home, or jump out of an upstairs window without hurting herself, or help herself to your handbag in the back of a car.

It takes a Schatzi!

The dilemma

Ah, the joys of the listserv…

I joined the local listserv back when Erica was looking for a place in or near Hooterville, and Jessica was attending the local school. Now, of course, they are basking in the joys of high speed internet and home-delivered food in Portland, but I got attached to the listserv and stayed on it. How else would I know about bears being spotted a couple of miles away, or about the lost sheep blocking a road? And then there are the yard sales and inter-village bickering.

On Saturday, there was an announcement about free plants. They are my favorite kind. I was the lucky first caller, and even luckier, the plant donor lives about three miles away. She also has a cute little red truck, and offered to drive the orphaned flora here if we could get them into the truck.

Fortunately, Megan is the kind of sister who isn’t surprised when I call her up and ask her if she’d like to help me wrestle some palm trees into a total stranger’s truck. Between us, we managed it, and then unloaded them, as you see.

That was the easy part. Now I have to decide what to do with them.

And in the “never a dull moment” department…

My brother woke me up at 1:00 am on Saturday night. Oddly, when the phone rings late at night, I still instinctively think “Mom”. Once I wake up a little more, I think “Rob”. In this case, it was Jonathan, who got a fire call for our address, making sure I was OK. I was, and so were Rob and Megan.

It was Mark, our neighbor and landlord. He had suffered an epileptic seizure and was unconscious. By the time Jonathan called me, Megan was already at the scene and EMS was on its way. Not for the first time, I was impressed by how quick and how good our little volunteer fire department and our little hospital’s EMS staff is.

They took Mark to the hospital, and he was home in time to celebrate his younger daughter’s birthday yesterday. He has a lot of tests ahead of him, and can’t drive for six months. Apparently it is unusual for someone over 40 to start having seizures, and lately he’s had migraines and very strong memories of his childhood – he feels like he is reliving certain moments. Apparently this is also not a good sign.

He seemed fine when I spoke with him yesterday, so I hope the doctors soon figure out what is wrong and can fix it quickly.

Last night, we belatedly celebrated Jonathan’s birthday with a barbecue in the chilly fog. His friend Carrie was visiting from the city, with her daughter Miranda, and Lichen was there, too. He cut my hair while there was still enough light. Yay! We had a wide variety of sausages, grilled zucchini, pesto salad made from basil Jonathan grew and pie made from huckleberries Carrie and Miranda picked around the property. It was nice to sit by the fire as darkness fell, laughing and reminiscing.

Ready for fun. Or trouble. Whatever comes first.

I really thought I’d get more blogging material out of the trip to Napa. I guess that’s what happens when you plan a trip around an event, rather than a place. No wonder I’ve never done it that way before.

I find it interesting that I blogged more often when I spent most of my time in Hooterville. You wouldn’t think that much happened around here.

Here’s a couple of things you missed:

I am slowly learning the wily ways of wildlife. One day, I was driving down the Ridge in a fog (inside and out), and suddenly, a young deer loomed in the mist. I stopped, and it ran into the woods. I waited, because there’s never just one, and sure enough, its buddy came prancing out, stared at me in the regulation manner, and then took off.

Megan one-upped me as usual by telling me about the time she was stopped in her car at Point Cabrillo Lighthouse* and a deer ran into her. Literally. The deer’s head plunged into the car’s open window, its huge black eye just inches away from Megan’s own. It’s hard to say who was more startled. The deer ran away in horror, leaving no sign of what happened other than fur stuck to the car door.

Recently, Megan and I were walking Star on the property when she flushed some quail. Both Star and Schatzi love to chase quail. I called out, “You’ll never catch one, Star!”, but she surprised us both by doing just that. I told Megan that I thought Star had a quail. She went into the bushes and flushed Star, who had a strange look on her face. One wing tip was sticking out of her mouth.

Megan told Star to drop it, and she did, opening her mouth. The quail beetled away like a wind-up toy, and Star cocked her head to one side, looking at Megan as if to say, “Not good?”

*When you come to visit, I’ll take you there. Great whale watching place, and the setting is amazing.

Welcome to Napa

So I actually left the county for a couple of days. My passport remains dusty and sad in a drawer, wondering what happened to our relationship. “You used to take me out all the time – now we never go anywhere. I hardly ever see you!” it reproaches me. I think it expires next year, and for the first time in my life, I may not renew it. Why spend $100 on something I never use?

It’s a good thing I have a GPS*, since I’m geographically and map challenged. To me, it looked like you went to Healdsburg and took a left and that was it, whereas in reality you have to go south of Petaluma (about 40 minutes from San Francisco) and then take a labyrinthine highway, where there is road work (see above). It took almost as long to get there as it does to get to the city.

Also, for some reason I thought I was going to Sonoma, not Napa. Sonoma has the biggest public plaza in California and the northernmost Mission of the string founded in the early 1800s, like the one that starred in “Vertigo”. Napa seems to be nothing but wineries and overpriced antique stores. If you’re not into daytime drinking or overpriced antiques ($85 rusted metal garden chair, anyone?) or $25 plates of pasta, there’s not a whole lot to do there in the oppressive inland heat. Oh, and visitor guides cost $5.

However, all this was more than redeemed by the reason for the trip: seeing the legendary Brian Wilson in concert:

I happened to walk by the theater the morning of the show, and caught the roadies unloading the equipment for the show:

The concert was held in a beautiful old movie theater:

It was a great show. From the first notes of “California Girls”, the crowd was on its feet and Brian held us in his spell.

It was worth the drive.

*Jill, the GPS voice, does not enjoy those wacky foreign names. It’s hilarious to hear her pronounce things like “Carneros” and “Embarcadero”.

Of course, the other problem with using the date as post titles is that it merely highlights how long it’s been since you last posted, much like that accusing bowl of cherry pits showing just how many you actually ate (instead of how many you’d like to think you ate).

It seems that there is just no good answer to this title conundrum. And as I always say, compromise means nobody’s happy.

One of the reasons that my blogging has become less frequent is because I’ve started going to aquafit class before work on Monday and Welcome Wednesday. I leave the house at 6:30 am for a 7:30 class. The class ends at 8:30, after which it’s a scramble to get dressed, made up, hair styled, and at my desk by 9:00.

I get home around 5:00, so it’s a long day, especially since I have to catch up on my other job when I get home, along with important duties like feeding the cats and making dinner. Answering emails and blogging have kind of gotten back-burnered. Maybe I’ll miraculously regain my long-lost efficiency, but I’m not holding my breath.

Almost as disappointing as the discovery that painkillers do not in fact kill pain is the discovery that cars do not get fixed and stay that way. Also more expensive and inconvenient.

When I first got Miss Scarlett back in Oaktown, she was already vintage, but her previous charioteer had practically ignored her, only putting about 5,000 miles a year on the odometer in 11 years. So I figured that with such light use – before we moved to Hooterville and both of us were consigned to eternal dirt roads and rutted, rough, curvy paved ones, that is – that the car would stay in pretty good shape.

As usual, I was wrong, and things and stuff seem to have gone wrong quite a lot this year. Thankfully the boys have come to my rescue on these occasions. But there are some things, requiring specialized and pricy equipment, that they can’t do. Hence my maiden voyage into the world of Hooterville area mechanics.

Up first was the only transmission place in town. The transmission is slow to engage, though it’s usually fine by the time I get to the next driveway down the Ridge. The Transmission Guy did a test drive and then informed me that in order to figure out what was wrong, he’d have to pull it apart for a labor charge of $700, not including the actual fixing after pulling it apart.

Also? A new transmission is $2,500.

The whole car cost $3,500.

A survey of friends turned up Mike the Mechanic. He gave me directions to his place, north of the Big Town. When I got there, it was a metal shed behind some stores. Hmmm.

I asked in the store, and they said, yes, that’s Mike’s place. So I left the keys and the car there and hoped for the best.

Mike called me and said that he’d like to change the transmission fluid and filter and pour in some goop that would make the pumps work better. He figured this would cost between $120 and $160, so after conferring with the boys, I said OK.

When he called me to say it was ready and doing better, I asked how late he’d be there, since Megan was going to drop me off after we went to aquafit that evening. He said to just put the money in the cast-iron frog on his porch.

Small town.

It turned out that Mike was there, so we actually got to meet him and give him the money in person. It was $120. So far, Miss Scarlett seems to be doing fine as far as the transmission goes.

There is still the front end shimmy to deal with. The diagnostics place said that there were a couple of things that needed to be fixed before the alignment could take place. I brought the estimate ($407!) to my brother, who said that he could fix the two things and then I could have the alignment done for a mere $60.

Hopefully that will end the saga of car repairs for the rest of the year, though I have to buy two new tires to replace the two 8 year olds before the winter rains start…

One of my favorite pictures of my favorite person

One of the problems with flying in the face of convention and WordPress by freeing myself from the tyranny of the post title is that using the date really makes you think about the date. Especially when it’s the Evil Eighteenth, aka the most dreaded day of the year.

Here it is again, and this year marks the tenth anniversary of my father’s death. I can hardly believe it’s been an entire decade since his life ended and mine changed forever.

I still remember my sister’s voice when I picked up the phone early that morning – evening for her; she had already lived through a day of horror by then – sounding small and stricken.

I still remember my brother grabbing my hand painfully hard with his work-roughened one as we headed to the airport together, his blue eyes, so like Dad’s, gazing tear-filled into the horizon as he said, “Let’s do it.”

I still remember wanting to run down the street screaming outside Dad’s funeral,and how seeing the resplendent Indian wedding across the street – something he would have loved, he who loved beauty (and India) so much -somehow gave me the strength to go in there.

I still remember my sister and I holding hands across Dad’s coffin before it vanished into the flames, the pallbearers holding their top hats over their hearts and bowing.

But I also remember waiting for him to come home from working at the lab when I was a little girl, the familiar chemical smell of his white lab coat as he swept me up into his arms asking, “How is my pixie today?”

And I remember riding on his shoulders through the woods in springtime, while Dad called the birds and they answered him. He knew all their names. And he could make clouds disappear, mostly on days with a breeze in the air…

And I remember coming icy-cold out of the chilly summer waters of the Atlantic and lying down on his sun-warmed back as he read the New York Times on a beach in Maine.

He never complained.

He was the best father and friend a girl could ever have. I was lucky to have him. Though the grief is the price of the love, it has also given me the strength to get through this first decade without him, as I’m sure it will in the decades to come. As time passes, I spend more time thinking of the happy memories of my father and less time thinking of the sadness of losing him. I think that would make him happy.

I love you, Dad. Always.

Am I the only one who is sick and tired of trying to come up with a title for each post? Sometimes it’s harder than writing the post itself. Or balancing a checkbook. Or opening a jar if there’s no boy handy. I always leave it until last. Why can’t I just use the date? Maybe I will, and strike a blow for freedom.

We’re stuck with the twice yearly madness of the time change, but this I can do. Take that, powers that be!

Sometimes three times isn’t the charm. For example, seeing your cats with the third bird they have caught in one day. The last of the series was still peeping horribly as they ran off into the woods with it. I know my stepmother always said in her rich, plummy voice that “Nature is red in tooth and claw”, but I practically cried. I hate it when they kill birds. Mice? Fine. Feel free to rid the house of vermin. But birds? Those hollow-boned beauties who give us nothing but pleasure, in plumage and voice? No way.

Old habits can be hard to break, especially when you’re emerging from kittenhood to catness, the way Clyde is. You may remember that when I removed the litter box from the house, he expressed his displeasure by peeing on the bed. I thought I shouldn’t confuse him by bringing the box back in, so I let it go, being careful to bring him in after 9:30 at night. I figured he’d be OK until 6:00 or so.

But for the past couple of days, he’s mewed at the door and clawed at it Audrey-style, so I’ve let him (and Audrey) out at 3:30 or 4:00 am, which I do not enjoy, and hoped for the best.

Nothing has happened yet, but I figure it’s crazy to let something happen to Clyde because I don’t feel like cleaning out the box every day. Better safe than sorry. So I reinstated it this evening, and Clyde wasted no time reuniting with his old friend. He even sat by it afterwards, basking in the glow of once again having an indoor bathroom. I can’t say as I blame him.

When we used to go Maine every summer, it was long enough ago that there will still some remnants of the grand old days when the Island was populated by Vanderbilts and Rockefellers and others of their ilk in the summer months. My parents met a gentleman who used to be a butler for the Vanderbilts, and he said that they would have party favors which involved giving each guest a miniature silver bucket and spade with which to dig out jewels from a box of white sand.

Though that sounds pretty good, which really struck me as a kid was the story of how Mrs. V tossed a priceless Oriental rug onto the lawn and told the gardener to duplicate it in flowers. In retrospect, I suspect that her maid did the tossing, but I love the image. I also love her gardening style, which would be mine if I were a V instead of a P.

I do have help, however. Last weekend, Megan turned up with a bunch of good soil in Rob’s truck, which she proceeded to shovel onto my gardening mistakes (the big pots needed more soil) and then onto a tarp she borrowed from our brother. How’s that for service? Very nearly V.

Rob came over yesterday evening and added some plants to the pink jasmine planted by the garbage bins. The idea is that the jasmine will cover up the lattice and shield my delicate eyes from the unsightly sight of the garbage cans, but apparently this will take years. In the meantime, it looks like this:

I also planted a potato vine:

by the slightly sagging trellis near the shed:

I have to get some twine to fasten it to the trees, since trees sway a lot, especially in the winter. Again with the trying to prettify things. Sometimes it feels like an uphill battle. I’m still trying to figure out a way to camouflage the trailer with Rose’s pottery stuff in it which hulks beside the house.

I bought this red bush for some color, especially in winter. Those of you in northern climes will find this next remark ridiculous, but you get kind of tired of all green, all the time. This should stay red year-round.

This hosta seems pretty happy here. I like the variegated foliage, and I think it elevates the rusted old stove from junk to garden art. At least, I hope so.

The passion flowers are in bloom, giving an outer space look to this garden of earthly delights:

This is a volunteer plant, one that planted itself here. Apparently it is an Egyptian lily, which makes me wonder how it has survived in the hard pan and gravel so long. I have been rewarding its persistence with water lately.

I rewarded the fuchsia with fertilizer this year, and it repaid me with dozens of buds and flowers. Fuchsias are the Suzys of the plant world: shade-loving and showy.

Last but not least, check out the mini carpet of wildflowers that have grown from the seeds in the birthday card Monica gave me this year. Here you see Clyde doing an inspection:

Not a priceless Oriental, but a priceless gift from a priceless friend.