It turned out that the store was hopping on Monday as well. Apparently not quite everyone had made it into the store on Saturday, plus, many needed something more on Monday. We didn't have as many customers, but to make up for it, several came in quite a few times on Monday because they forgot something or something wasn't the right size or what they bought turned out to be defective and had to be swapped out for a different one. We ran out of defective slips. The door went ding dong solid all day. The boss had to close off my lane when my drawer got full because there was no 'quiet time' when he could just wander over and do the pick up between customers.
Among the customers I had Belligerent Man. It's quite possible that Belligerent Man has shopped at BiMart many times before, and I hadn't noticed him. He certainly hadn't noticed my ring before.
"Your ring. What's that mean?" he demanded.
"My husband is Irish," I told him. "He gave me this ring."
"Oh come on," he said, turning red. "I mean really."
At that point I started to feel really uncomfortable. I don't like lying, and I felt like he was calling me a liar. Later on, of course, I came up with all kinds of comebacks. "I'm sorry, but that's a bit personal," headed the list. "Would you like my supervisor to explain my ring to you?" "It means I worship God. And Goddess." And possibly my favorite, "Do you want someone else to complete your transaction today?"
Instead (sigh) I said "it means I'm Wiccan."
"Wicked?" he and his friend say in unison.
"Wic-can," I say slowly, trying not to sound defensive while still being loud enough to be overheard over the constant ding of the registers. And remember, too, I'm trying to do my job here. Efficient and accurate. Stop distracting me angry man!
"What's that mean?" he blustered.
Look it up on the internet, geep, unless you think the internet is evil, in which case, rot in ignorance. "It means I respect and honor nature," I say.
"Do you cast spells?"
Okay, now I have to laugh. "No. We honor the seasonal festivals, you know, solstices and equinoxes."
"Would you tell me if you did?"
Wow, he's really into trying to catch me at being evil. Later, boss man had to admit that when he first started working at our store, he recognized that of all the employees I was the one to fear. Yep, I told him. I'm evil.
And I hesitated because for a moment I wasn't sure that I would tell him if I cast spells, which I don't. But that wasn't what he'd asked about. He wanted to know if I'd admit I'm a liar. Huh? Wait a second. This makes no sense.
"Spells don't work," I told him.
"Do you cast spells?" he demanded.
"No."
He started to walk away. I don't know what possessed me, but I added, "and my husband really is Irish."
It made me realize that I wanted him to feel okay about me, but I'd never change his mind. And why would I really care what he thought? In order to not make waves in his part of the world? What a wuss I'd been. And now he probably thinks I cast spells and I'm a liar. But honestly, I don't cast spells. You can't get something for nothing. The trouble with 'spells' is that saying things in latin and dancing in a circle three times singing woogy woogy woogy doesn't work, especially if you read it out of a book and try it without having any understanding of why the author put those elements together (which unfortunately is all too often because it sounded like a good idea or s/he thought it looked awesome.) What works is will. What works is pure intent, knowledge of how things operate, skill to operate those things and enough understanding, communion if you will, to direct the energy the way you want it to go. It doesn't really matter whether it's a goverment, someone operating a machine, or a circle focusing their living energy to heal someone. Now if 'spells' worked, witches would rule the Earth and Christians would have to practice in secrecy. But I may just be mincing words when I separate spells from rituals. To me it's always been like the joke of the kid who watches the woman rubbing her naked body in front of the mirror for three nights in a row saying "I want a man, I want a man, I want a man" and then the fourth night she's in bed with a man and they're having raucous sex. So of course the next night the kid is in front of his mirror rubbing his body all over moaning "I want a bicycle, I want a bicycle, I want a bicycle."
It does occur to me that I might be doing it wrong. It may be that all the lottery winners *and* everyone who's made it big in Hollywood is into witchcraft and cast spells for their fame and fortune. Dangit, I knew I should have gotten a real raven's wing to fan my incense. Doh!
So as I left that night I looked out at the parking lot, wondering if he might not be out there with a shotgun, rocking in his pickup chanting "thou shall not suffer a witch to live." He wasn't there. Geh, I don't like this feeling, waiting for the reappearance of Belligerent Man. But maybe he'll never come back. After all, I'm clearly an evil witch. He might warn all his friends not to shop there.
Now wouldn't that be nice!
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Monday, September 03, 2007
Little Known Fact
A disgusting, little known fact about my office:
Often I write late in the evening and the computer is the only articificial light shining in the house. This attracts any insect that happens to be in the house to the office, and the most noticeable of these are large flies, most often the irridescent blue kind. I have pads of paper around my desk for taking notes. When a fly lands on my screen, I swat it with the pad and then peel off the paper and throw it away.
So the smears on my computer screen are fly guts.
Often I write late in the evening and the computer is the only articificial light shining in the house. This attracts any insect that happens to be in the house to the office, and the most noticeable of these are large flies, most often the irridescent blue kind. I have pads of paper around my desk for taking notes. When a fly lands on my screen, I swat it with the pad and then peel off the paper and throw it away.
So the smears on my computer screen are fly guts.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Let's Go Shopping!
One of my favorite belly dance ensembles, Gypsy Caravan, has a couple (at least) of numbers where one of the musicians cries out 'Let's go shopping!' and the dancers do a basket dance or a piece where the movements suggest shopping in a bazaar or at a souk. The music is always lively, the dancers wear infectious smiles and I too want to jump up and go shopping.
Well, someone must have started the music and made the announcement, because everyone in the known universe went shopping today, and not just all over, but to our specific store.
At one point, flabbergasted by the sheer volume of customers, I wondered aloud "I thought that during Labor Day weekend everyone went out of town." And then I realized, also aloud, "Oh yeah, for a lot of folks, we *are* out of town. I guess."
During a typical day, I will spend part of my time facing nearby aisles, pacing, sweeping my area and the surrounding areas, wiping down my counter and counting my media, among other chores. On a busy day, several times during my shift my line will be three customers deep. I'll have only a few minutes here and there to count my media, and I might spend five or ten minutes here or there putting back returned items or facing end caps.
Today was, well, chaos. It felt like frickin' Christmas, except that there were only four of us with two backups instead of eight all-day checkers, so technically we didn't have as much volume as the pre-holiday rushes. But still, sheesh! I mean everyone was shopping at our little store. I was not at all surprised when Thor showed up. He'd just gotten back from Norway. (I'm not making this up.) His neighbors were there as well (of course they were, because everyone was at our store, remember?) and they introduced him to their parents/in-laws, who were of course also there with everyone else. Apparently Thor is a construction manager for a local municipality--this makes perfect sense to me.
People from Hawaii were in our store. They kept going through the lines over and over because they'd remember one more thing and they were very excited about our low prices--well, I think about every place has low prices compared to Hawaii.
All day I was happy if I could check fast enough to have no more than two transactions backed up in my lane. I was lucky to be in Lane 1 which has a little secure side counter where I could dump my media, which must be kept secure at all times. That way I could count the media during the very rare times when I managed to clear out my line and had about fifteen seconds before the next person rolled their cart up. Now mind you, I'm not complaining. We must have had an incredible day at the store. The day zipped by very quickly. And I had no nasty customers, at least, not that I noticed. I personally rang through enough fishing and camping gear to outfit a nice little tackle shop, including the live nightcrawlers and extra mantles for gas lanterns. We ran out of weird things, like parakeet food (more should come in on Tuesday!) It was fun.
But by the time I got home all I wanted to do was sit, have a glass of wine, and drool while staring at the view from the deck. I didn't actually *see* the view from the deck, but staring in that general direction was satisfactory. I couldn't hear the ding dong of people coming into the store. The printer was no longer printing reciepts and detail tapes. I didn't have to say all my lines four times a minute. Paper or plastic bags? Did you find everything okay?
Welcome back from Norway, Thor. You were missed. Tomorrow, let's not go shopping, though. Let's stay home, where it's nice and quiet.
And on Monday, back to work. I wonder if it'll be busy, or if once again someone will announce, "Let's go shopping!"
Well, someone must have started the music and made the announcement, because everyone in the known universe went shopping today, and not just all over, but to our specific store.
At one point, flabbergasted by the sheer volume of customers, I wondered aloud "I thought that during Labor Day weekend everyone went out of town." And then I realized, also aloud, "Oh yeah, for a lot of folks, we *are* out of town. I guess."
During a typical day, I will spend part of my time facing nearby aisles, pacing, sweeping my area and the surrounding areas, wiping down my counter and counting my media, among other chores. On a busy day, several times during my shift my line will be three customers deep. I'll have only a few minutes here and there to count my media, and I might spend five or ten minutes here or there putting back returned items or facing end caps.
Today was, well, chaos. It felt like frickin' Christmas, except that there were only four of us with two backups instead of eight all-day checkers, so technically we didn't have as much volume as the pre-holiday rushes. But still, sheesh! I mean everyone was shopping at our little store. I was not at all surprised when Thor showed up. He'd just gotten back from Norway. (I'm not making this up.) His neighbors were there as well (of course they were, because everyone was at our store, remember?) and they introduced him to their parents/in-laws, who were of course also there with everyone else. Apparently Thor is a construction manager for a local municipality--this makes perfect sense to me.
People from Hawaii were in our store. They kept going through the lines over and over because they'd remember one more thing and they were very excited about our low prices--well, I think about every place has low prices compared to Hawaii.
All day I was happy if I could check fast enough to have no more than two transactions backed up in my lane. I was lucky to be in Lane 1 which has a little secure side counter where I could dump my media, which must be kept secure at all times. That way I could count the media during the very rare times when I managed to clear out my line and had about fifteen seconds before the next person rolled their cart up. Now mind you, I'm not complaining. We must have had an incredible day at the store. The day zipped by very quickly. And I had no nasty customers, at least, not that I noticed. I personally rang through enough fishing and camping gear to outfit a nice little tackle shop, including the live nightcrawlers and extra mantles for gas lanterns. We ran out of weird things, like parakeet food (more should come in on Tuesday!) It was fun.
But by the time I got home all I wanted to do was sit, have a glass of wine, and drool while staring at the view from the deck. I didn't actually *see* the view from the deck, but staring in that general direction was satisfactory. I couldn't hear the ding dong of people coming into the store. The printer was no longer printing reciepts and detail tapes. I didn't have to say all my lines four times a minute. Paper or plastic bags? Did you find everything okay?
Welcome back from Norway, Thor. You were missed. Tomorrow, let's not go shopping, though. Let's stay home, where it's nice and quiet.
And on Monday, back to work. I wonder if it'll be busy, or if once again someone will announce, "Let's go shopping!"
Friday, August 31, 2007
September
I love the soft crooning of crickets, but when I hear them I think Noooooooooo, summer can't be running out on me yet! Much as I love cricket song, I love nights when I can leave the sprinklers on until I'm ready for bed, and then I just slip on some sandals and walk out in my pjs to turn them off. I love looking at stars and the moon on the deck. I love getting up early in the morning and working until I'm hungry, which is usually around 10 or 11am, and then I have second breakfast. I love the dry weather that keeps the grass tidy, and the summer rainstorms that sometimes come with thunder and that summer after-rain smell that inspires foolish grins and drunken behavior. I love the swoop and dive of swallows, and the hummingbird wars. I love discovering praying mantises, and as the season grows late, seeing bigger and bigger ones. I love the contrast between sweating in the hot sun and cooling down in the shade of trees with a glass of cold well water. I love working in my bikini. I like the way washing a car feels all sloppy and sudsy and dirty and somehow you end up with a clean car at the end. I like wandering the garden paths at night. I like the swarming birds that come after ripe berries and fluffy seeds.
I love autumn too, and the wandering feelings and intense rushes of longing it inspires, the changes and the sweetness of garden beds gradually dozing off like unruly children finally converting to that angelic stage (asleep,) but there's something special about summer. August is done, and onward to September.
An aside: I managed to stay up and watch the lunar eclipse. Once upon a time, as a child, it happened relatively early in the evening so that I could watch. I'd imagined the moon getting eaten up by blackness. Boy, was I disappointed. I stomped back to the house in a huff, annoyed by boredom. I don't know if explaining the whys and hows would have helped. As an adult, though, I had a good time marveling and staring. Maybe the telescope helped. Maybe it was an appreciation for all those subtle colors of red, amber, burnt orange and how they transitioned from the moon's normally pale surface that did it for me. I dunno. There was just something really neat about the Earth's atmosphere filtering the wee bit of sunlight that got around our massive globe to those burning hues, and the way the shadow's movement didn't seem quite linear but looked like it advanced and retreated in micro-sways, and imagining myself standing on the moon and watching a solar eclipse flare around it. Just like a solar eclipse on Earth, it doesn't turn to night-darkness, just a deep shadow like heavy clouds had passed over the sun. And I wonder, had I been on the moon during an Earthan eclipse, what color the moon's shadow would be on Earth. Would it be reddish also, paler because the atmosphere is so thin as to be non-existant? Would it be a neutral shadow? Would the shadow of the moon on the Earth be too small to see? Or would it be a fabulously perfect round, a cut-out shadow traveling across the world?
So I watched, with Rory beside me, and wondered and let my gaze wander around the Milky Way for over an hour, and afterward I slept so deep and dreamt about being an actress.
I wonder what September will bring.
I love autumn too, and the wandering feelings and intense rushes of longing it inspires, the changes and the sweetness of garden beds gradually dozing off like unruly children finally converting to that angelic stage (asleep,) but there's something special about summer. August is done, and onward to September.
An aside: I managed to stay up and watch the lunar eclipse. Once upon a time, as a child, it happened relatively early in the evening so that I could watch. I'd imagined the moon getting eaten up by blackness. Boy, was I disappointed. I stomped back to the house in a huff, annoyed by boredom. I don't know if explaining the whys and hows would have helped. As an adult, though, I had a good time marveling and staring. Maybe the telescope helped. Maybe it was an appreciation for all those subtle colors of red, amber, burnt orange and how they transitioned from the moon's normally pale surface that did it for me. I dunno. There was just something really neat about the Earth's atmosphere filtering the wee bit of sunlight that got around our massive globe to those burning hues, and the way the shadow's movement didn't seem quite linear but looked like it advanced and retreated in micro-sways, and imagining myself standing on the moon and watching a solar eclipse flare around it. Just like a solar eclipse on Earth, it doesn't turn to night-darkness, just a deep shadow like heavy clouds had passed over the sun. And I wonder, had I been on the moon during an Earthan eclipse, what color the moon's shadow would be on Earth. Would it be reddish also, paler because the atmosphere is so thin as to be non-existant? Would it be a neutral shadow? Would the shadow of the moon on the Earth be too small to see? Or would it be a fabulously perfect round, a cut-out shadow traveling across the world?
So I watched, with Rory beside me, and wondered and let my gaze wander around the Milky Way for over an hour, and afterward I slept so deep and dreamt about being an actress.
I wonder what September will bring.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Time Warps
Man, my schedule has been eating me alive lately. Not the work schedule--that's staying nicely at 3-4 days a week with quite a few stretches of two days in a row off. No, it's how I've been arranging, or rather not arranging, my days. It seems that no matter how I focus my time, something gets neglected. Yeah yeah, I can't do it all. But lately I've been trying to achieve a rhythm where at least the most important things get done, and it's not happening. Grr. Grr I say!
Anyway.
Late summer feels more like autumn around here. There's no rain, though. Sometimes there's a chill in the air, but it doesn't quite have that zip that autumn mornings do. Still, we're getting that autumnal/harvesty/winding downess in the veggie garden (go, my zucchini minions, go!) (winter crop planting time rapidly reaching critical end zone) and some of the trees are getting color in protest of the dry, not-August-hot weather.
In kitty news, The Wiz seems to have an abcess or a bite or something on his flank. The hair fell out (which is normal and good) and it looks--well--it looks terrible and yet it's dry and appears to be mostly healed. This morning, as if proving that there's no need to haul him off to the vet, he was tearing around the house like a maniac. So, we're keeping an eye on him. But not a close enough eye that he licks the eyeball. I hate it when that happens.
In goatie news, we're getting close to breeding time. The gestation period of a goat is roughly in the five-six month range, closer to five. The plan is to breed the girls so that we're not delivering baby goats in February or sooner. The trick is that prime breeding time is (in my understanding) around September/October as far as goatie hormones are concerned. This is probably because in nature (this is my guess) that the babies will be on mommas milk while the grass is still dead, and about the time they're ready to get weaned, poof, there's tons of green grass with the spring flush.
But I don't want them running around in the cold, and also I definitely don't want to be lying on dirty straw in freezing weather at 2 am messing with assisting a goat birth for the very first time.
Any chance they might breed in, say, January for a nice June birth?
I didn't think so. Oh well.
Well, it's back to work time. And this time I won't neglect anything critical. Really.
Anyway.
Late summer feels more like autumn around here. There's no rain, though. Sometimes there's a chill in the air, but it doesn't quite have that zip that autumn mornings do. Still, we're getting that autumnal/harvesty/winding downess in the veggie garden (go, my zucchini minions, go!) (winter crop planting time rapidly reaching critical end zone) and some of the trees are getting color in protest of the dry, not-August-hot weather.
In kitty news, The Wiz seems to have an abcess or a bite or something on his flank. The hair fell out (which is normal and good) and it looks--well--it looks terrible and yet it's dry and appears to be mostly healed. This morning, as if proving that there's no need to haul him off to the vet, he was tearing around the house like a maniac. So, we're keeping an eye on him. But not a close enough eye that he licks the eyeball. I hate it when that happens.
In goatie news, we're getting close to breeding time. The gestation period of a goat is roughly in the five-six month range, closer to five. The plan is to breed the girls so that we're not delivering baby goats in February or sooner. The trick is that prime breeding time is (in my understanding) around September/October as far as goatie hormones are concerned. This is probably because in nature (this is my guess) that the babies will be on mommas milk while the grass is still dead, and about the time they're ready to get weaned, poof, there's tons of green grass with the spring flush.
But I don't want them running around in the cold, and also I definitely don't want to be lying on dirty straw in freezing weather at 2 am messing with assisting a goat birth for the very first time.
Any chance they might breed in, say, January for a nice June birth?
I didn't think so. Oh well.
Well, it's back to work time. And this time I won't neglect anything critical. Really.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Relax
It seems I'm (hopefully temporarily) unable to post comments here. It might be the template making the comments window invisible, or some such, to my poor outdated Mac. I can see all that on other blogs, so it's just picking on me today for whatever reason.
It's an incredible, perfect day so naturally I'm working. It's a fasting day too so I decided to come home for lunch, hence my presence here. Driving home and back to work is one of those, well, I can't say it's a rare pleasure. But with warm wind rushing through the window, in control of a powerful machine that makes climbing the hill effortless and then zooming back down at speeds our ancestors couldn't even imagine except as flight on a magic carpet or a winged horse, listening to music and resting my legs during my work break has extra oomph. Plus, there's the walking around the garden part. That's always good. Waaaaaay better than sitting in a break room under flourescent lights smelling what everyone else is having for lunch, appetizing or not. How about this yucky comparison--it's like at work you have to hold it all in and then at home, finally, aaahhhhhhh, you can pee. Then life is good.
Then you can really relax.
It's an incredible, perfect day so naturally I'm working. It's a fasting day too so I decided to come home for lunch, hence my presence here. Driving home and back to work is one of those, well, I can't say it's a rare pleasure. But with warm wind rushing through the window, in control of a powerful machine that makes climbing the hill effortless and then zooming back down at speeds our ancestors couldn't even imagine except as flight on a magic carpet or a winged horse, listening to music and resting my legs during my work break has extra oomph. Plus, there's the walking around the garden part. That's always good. Waaaaaay better than sitting in a break room under flourescent lights smelling what everyone else is having for lunch, appetizing or not. How about this yucky comparison--it's like at work you have to hold it all in and then at home, finally, aaahhhhhhh, you can pee. Then life is good.
Then you can really relax.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Blend
Still tired from this weekend. Tomorrow I have a day off, and then it's back to the retail trenches for a couple of days. I'm really, really looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. Whew!
Things and stuff:
While shopping for wine for the ABBB, Rory found Jest Pink wine. I'm so saving that bottle. When I put together the jester's garden hopefully I'll find a way to have it out there without risking the destruction of the label. Ideas are welcome. The Jest line of wines is a series of blended wines. For more info on what's up with that read: http://www.winereviewonline.com/splendid_blendeds.cfm
My family has discovered that there can be such a thing as too much chocolate cake. Anyone who wants to come over and help us eat (and drink) leftovers, btw, is welcome.
Yak pot roast is yummy.
Our friends are very tidy and considerate. Despite this, it will still take several days to clean up after ABBB. My mind boggles at the thought of what cleanup would have been like had our friends been wildly messy and inconsiderate.
The scent of summer rain after a long dry spell is very distinctive. Note to self--shamelessly evoke this in my next novel, Signet (working title.) It just happens that it'll be summertime, too, when the novel starts. Yay! But that wasn't the best part during the rain today. The best part was listening to the rain hammer the store's metal roof and remembering the kewl rain storm clapping game that Jill lead at the ABBB firepit circle and then right after work stepping out into that incredible scent and being outside myself completely, a part of the air.
Wizard is fast becoming one of my favorite kitties ever. When I come home he trots up to me and curls his tail into a question mark while rubbing against my leg. When I scratch his back and tell him what a nice face he has he bends down and rubs his chin on the ground, leaning over against the scratch until he rolls onto his side. It's become an elaborate greeting between us and he becomes confused and insistant when I don't follow through all the way to the roll.
The cricket songs are multiplying. Summer is growing late. Noooooooo!
This is the end of the blend, my friend.
Things and stuff:
While shopping for wine for the ABBB, Rory found Jest Pink wine. I'm so saving that bottle. When I put together the jester's garden hopefully I'll find a way to have it out there without risking the destruction of the label. Ideas are welcome. The Jest line of wines is a series of blended wines. For more info on what's up with that read: http://www.winereviewonline.com/splendid_blendeds.cfm
My family has discovered that there can be such a thing as too much chocolate cake. Anyone who wants to come over and help us eat (and drink) leftovers, btw, is welcome.
Yak pot roast is yummy.
Our friends are very tidy and considerate. Despite this, it will still take several days to clean up after ABBB. My mind boggles at the thought of what cleanup would have been like had our friends been wildly messy and inconsiderate.
The scent of summer rain after a long dry spell is very distinctive. Note to self--shamelessly evoke this in my next novel, Signet (working title.) It just happens that it'll be summertime, too, when the novel starts. Yay! But that wasn't the best part during the rain today. The best part was listening to the rain hammer the store's metal roof and remembering the kewl rain storm clapping game that Jill lead at the ABBB firepit circle and then right after work stepping out into that incredible scent and being outside myself completely, a part of the air.
Wizard is fast becoming one of my favorite kitties ever. When I come home he trots up to me and curls his tail into a question mark while rubbing against my leg. When I scratch his back and tell him what a nice face he has he bends down and rubs his chin on the ground, leaning over against the scratch until he rolls onto his side. It's become an elaborate greeting between us and he becomes confused and insistant when I don't follow through all the way to the roll.
The cricket songs are multiplying. Summer is growing late. Noooooooo!
This is the end of the blend, my friend.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Plus is positive Minus is negative
I begin this by saying that she was a nice lady.
A customer came in today wanting to return batteries she hadn't used. Apparently her radio tuner had stopped working and she thought it had merely run out of juice, so she traded batteries and lo, it didn't work. The new device she purchased needed a different size of battery, so she returned the original new batteries (which didn't look opened so I assume she got more than one pack) and got a new radio and the correct batteries for that.
Sounds like a plan to me.
So imagine my surprise when she returned to return the new radio and new batteries. Hmm, I'm thinking. "So, I guess the new radio didn't work out?"
"Oh, it was fine. But I opened up my old radio one more time and realized I had put the batteries in backward. Now it works, so I don't need this one anymore."
If it was a scam, I don't get it. Someone, enlighten me!
August Babies Birthday Bash was happy times. It was a smaller crowd, which is sad because we missed a lot of good friends but wonderful because it was a really nice sized group and not overwhelming in the socializing department. We ate kangaroo (I don't think I'm radically different for having eaten a marsupial, though it was tasty) and sirloin and hot dogs and all the usual junk food. Much alcohol and pop was consumed, and people were overwhelmed by cake (argh, too much chocolate!) I spent much of the day at work, but them's the breaks sometimes. Going to work today was muuuuuuuch harder than having to work on ABBB day. I wasn't hung over in the morning since I had only about three drinks and stopped drinking early, but I was very, very tired and sore, presumably from hiking back and forth between the house and the firepit after standing on my feet all day. It's a good feeling though, the post-vacation need to sleep feeling.
Work again tomorrow, but just a half day. Good thing too. I'll be ready for a nap by the time I get home.
A customer came in today wanting to return batteries she hadn't used. Apparently her radio tuner had stopped working and she thought it had merely run out of juice, so she traded batteries and lo, it didn't work. The new device she purchased needed a different size of battery, so she returned the original new batteries (which didn't look opened so I assume she got more than one pack) and got a new radio and the correct batteries for that.
Sounds like a plan to me.
So imagine my surprise when she returned to return the new radio and new batteries. Hmm, I'm thinking. "So, I guess the new radio didn't work out?"
"Oh, it was fine. But I opened up my old radio one more time and realized I had put the batteries in backward. Now it works, so I don't need this one anymore."
If it was a scam, I don't get it. Someone, enlighten me!
August Babies Birthday Bash was happy times. It was a smaller crowd, which is sad because we missed a lot of good friends but wonderful because it was a really nice sized group and not overwhelming in the socializing department. We ate kangaroo (I don't think I'm radically different for having eaten a marsupial, though it was tasty) and sirloin and hot dogs and all the usual junk food. Much alcohol and pop was consumed, and people were overwhelmed by cake (argh, too much chocolate!) I spent much of the day at work, but them's the breaks sometimes. Going to work today was muuuuuuuch harder than having to work on ABBB day. I wasn't hung over in the morning since I had only about three drinks and stopped drinking early, but I was very, very tired and sore, presumably from hiking back and forth between the house and the firepit after standing on my feet all day. It's a good feeling though, the post-vacation need to sleep feeling.
Work again tomorrow, but just a half day. Good thing too. I'll be ready for a nap by the time I get home.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Wearing the Pirate Band Aid
Today I started about 10 am working on the outside chores I didn't get to or didn't finish yesterday. Some of it was pretty mundane, like sweep the stairs, and took very little of my time. The part that took far longer than I expected was finishing up putting in watering systems for a couple of garden spaces. What I thought would take a couple of hours took--let's put it this way. I had to use a flashlight to check my work. So I didn't get to mulch today. So what!? You gonna say something about it, punk? Boy, the nerve of some people.
Because I was working intensively and trying to get things done quickly, I suffered some superficial injuries including a dashed cut on my finger where something sharp (I still don't know what it was--blackberry thorn?) skipped across my skin like a rock skipping on water, leaving a bloody wake. I washed my hands, put on some antibacterial ointment and a pirate band aid and went back to work. Arrrrrrrrr, avast ye bleeder!
But things got done and stuff looks good. Rory did a huge amount of weedwacking today (yes, there was even more than the huge amount that got done yesterday) and the outside looks really spiffy. Spiffy is a precise, technical term and I don't use it lightly. I wouldn't say it looked spiffy around here unless I really meant it.
There was a minor technical setback, alas. For some reason several of my nice, expensive glass and metal solar lights that were bought at great expense stopped working. Grrrrr! They've gone from useful to merely decorative.
Pictures coming soon, I promise, but right now I have to sleep, and it's too dark to take pictures. I'll be working the next three days but eventually I'll get out there, snap a few photos and post them for the curious, the insane or the poetic.
It was a good day, but I have to say it's just not the same without having ice shoved down my shirt and stalking deer with my pals. And I didn't bleed yesterday--they did. Here's a glass to me mateys--arrrrr, I'll see ye scurvy seadogs at ABBB.
Because I was working intensively and trying to get things done quickly, I suffered some superficial injuries including a dashed cut on my finger where something sharp (I still don't know what it was--blackberry thorn?) skipped across my skin like a rock skipping on water, leaving a bloody wake. I washed my hands, put on some antibacterial ointment and a pirate band aid and went back to work. Arrrrrrrrr, avast ye bleeder!
But things got done and stuff looks good. Rory did a huge amount of weedwacking today (yes, there was even more than the huge amount that got done yesterday) and the outside looks really spiffy. Spiffy is a precise, technical term and I don't use it lightly. I wouldn't say it looked spiffy around here unless I really meant it.
There was a minor technical setback, alas. For some reason several of my nice, expensive glass and metal solar lights that were bought at great expense stopped working. Grrrrr! They've gone from useful to merely decorative.
Pictures coming soon, I promise, but right now I have to sleep, and it's too dark to take pictures. I'll be working the next three days but eventually I'll get out there, snap a few photos and post them for the curious, the insane or the poetic.
It was a good day, but I have to say it's just not the same without having ice shoved down my shirt and stalking deer with my pals. And I didn't bleed yesterday--they did. Here's a glass to me mateys--arrrrr, I'll see ye scurvy seadogs at ABBB.
August Babies Work Party
Another day on the farm, except we had a heap more help today. The yearly wackiness known as August Babies Birthday Bash is almost here, a week from today in fact. This would be panic time except that we have a lot of really good friends that help us out. This year I have to leap into a cheer for Orion and Andrea who were real troopers today, Joe Who Fixes All Things That Go Whirr and Slayer of Blackberries, Rick the Wit and Mighty Mattock Wielder, Melissa of the Wicked Weed Wacker, and Mike the Mysterious Sweeper aka the Shoveler.
The firepit area is weedwacked and swept.
Blackberries are beaten back from paths and garden areas.
Large areas are mowed clean.
A new drip system is installed near the firepit.
Garbage is in the bin where it belongs.
Scrap and trash paper is burned.
Excess food and alcohol are consumed.
An arbor is moved into place and a honeysuckle planted there.
Stairs are cleared and/or cemented in.
Garden beds are weeded.
Even if nothing else happens all week, we're ready! So huzzah to the hard workers--your mysterious gift will await you at the ABBB!
The firepit area is weedwacked and swept.
Blackberries are beaten back from paths and garden areas.
Large areas are mowed clean.
A new drip system is installed near the firepit.
Garbage is in the bin where it belongs.
Scrap and trash paper is burned.
Excess food and alcohol are consumed.
An arbor is moved into place and a honeysuckle planted there.
Stairs are cleared and/or cemented in.
Garden beds are weeded.
Even if nothing else happens all week, we're ready! So huzzah to the hard workers--your mysterious gift will await you at the ABBB!
Monday, August 06, 2007
Will it Rain?
Sometimes it takes me forever to get around to doing something new. If I've done it before, I tend to just heave a sigh, commit and go. If not, I go pathetically slow.
Today it was finally 'drip system' day. It's actually comprised of low volume sprinklers, not a true drip, but it was ideal for the rock garden, which is just under the maximum 600 square feet that the system can handle. After edging the grass side of the rock garden (a good delay tactic) and some weeding (yet another excellent stalling technique) I finally got out the 1/2" main line and strung it through the garden's backbone, the highest point on the slope. Then I read the instructions again. If you read the instructions often enough, it's possible to stall out on the work progress until dark. But it wasn't dark by the time I stopped reading. The fact that I started reading just after lunch time and that the instruction book is only 50 pages long and comprises mostly of illustrations and that many of the pages were not relevent to my situation probably has something to do with it. I set out my stakes and screwed in the little sprinkler heads, pointing them in roughly the direction I expected they'd need to point. and then I got the 1/4" feeder lines. At this point I almost read the instructions again, but severe boredom with the booklet was setting in. I got the punch thingy and started at the lowest end--since I left myself slack, if I made a mistake, I could just cut off the end and try again. But the punchy thingy turned out to be super easy to use. In about twenty minutes I had all the feeder lines in, the sprinklers hooked up, and bam. I flushed the system and then turned it on.
And it worked!
Now I want to set up the other dry places where I have to hand water. There's a couple that I couldn't justify a system because they're so small--I'll pick up a soaker hose for them. But the rest I'll get a drip system set up for them. Now, I could save a heap of money and just keep hand watering. I've got the hand watering areas down to a minimum. There's just one catch.
When we go to Victoria at the end of September, will it rain? If it doesn't the whole time we're gone, the garden will have to be watered. If it's hot, it'll have to be watered several times. Whoever ends up playing caretaker for the house needs to have a simple way to take care of the watering without memorizing where the important plants are among all the weeds. Once upon a time when a good friend played house sitter for us, we went for a walk around the place (it was all hand water back then) and he took notes and I was sure all the important bits would get done. There wasn't nearly as much developed and most of what was developed was in discreet, clear sections. Now some of those areas are overgrown or in partial use, like the veggie garden where some of the areas are fallow and others are in use and you can't always tell one apart from the other. And there are plants on slopes that need to be watered slowly or the runoff will strip away the topsoil, exposing their roots. I can't expect someone to stand there with the waterer in flat or mist mode, watching the water very slowly soak in.
The answer is to get as much of this stuff on water systems where the settings are correct for the plants' needs, and then our caretaker can just go from section to section, plug in the hose, water for a few minutes (or a half hour in the case of the soaker hoses) and then move on.
Or maybe it'll just rain and it won't be an issue. Then it'll just be a matter of feed the animals and go back home. Or go back to watching movies, if we have a house sitter, which would be the ideal. The place is more self-sufficient than it used to be, so a house sitter isn't an absolute necessity like it once was, but I'd sleep easier knowing that someone is there to quiet the dogs if they're barking at night or they'll hear a goat bawling if one gets stuck, etc.
Most of all, though, I hope it rains. At least a little. Because even when it's all set to go, it'll be a long chore. Mother Nature does a much more thorough job than the sprinklers and soaker hoses, too.
Today it was finally 'drip system' day. It's actually comprised of low volume sprinklers, not a true drip, but it was ideal for the rock garden, which is just under the maximum 600 square feet that the system can handle. After edging the grass side of the rock garden (a good delay tactic) and some weeding (yet another excellent stalling technique) I finally got out the 1/2" main line and strung it through the garden's backbone, the highest point on the slope. Then I read the instructions again. If you read the instructions often enough, it's possible to stall out on the work progress until dark. But it wasn't dark by the time I stopped reading. The fact that I started reading just after lunch time and that the instruction book is only 50 pages long and comprises mostly of illustrations and that many of the pages were not relevent to my situation probably has something to do with it. I set out my stakes and screwed in the little sprinkler heads, pointing them in roughly the direction I expected they'd need to point. and then I got the 1/4" feeder lines. At this point I almost read the instructions again, but severe boredom with the booklet was setting in. I got the punch thingy and started at the lowest end--since I left myself slack, if I made a mistake, I could just cut off the end and try again. But the punchy thingy turned out to be super easy to use. In about twenty minutes I had all the feeder lines in, the sprinklers hooked up, and bam. I flushed the system and then turned it on.
And it worked!
Now I want to set up the other dry places where I have to hand water. There's a couple that I couldn't justify a system because they're so small--I'll pick up a soaker hose for them. But the rest I'll get a drip system set up for them. Now, I could save a heap of money and just keep hand watering. I've got the hand watering areas down to a minimum. There's just one catch.
When we go to Victoria at the end of September, will it rain? If it doesn't the whole time we're gone, the garden will have to be watered. If it's hot, it'll have to be watered several times. Whoever ends up playing caretaker for the house needs to have a simple way to take care of the watering without memorizing where the important plants are among all the weeds. Once upon a time when a good friend played house sitter for us, we went for a walk around the place (it was all hand water back then) and he took notes and I was sure all the important bits would get done. There wasn't nearly as much developed and most of what was developed was in discreet, clear sections. Now some of those areas are overgrown or in partial use, like the veggie garden where some of the areas are fallow and others are in use and you can't always tell one apart from the other. And there are plants on slopes that need to be watered slowly or the runoff will strip away the topsoil, exposing their roots. I can't expect someone to stand there with the waterer in flat or mist mode, watching the water very slowly soak in.
The answer is to get as much of this stuff on water systems where the settings are correct for the plants' needs, and then our caretaker can just go from section to section, plug in the hose, water for a few minutes (or a half hour in the case of the soaker hoses) and then move on.
Or maybe it'll just rain and it won't be an issue. Then it'll just be a matter of feed the animals and go back home. Or go back to watching movies, if we have a house sitter, which would be the ideal. The place is more self-sufficient than it used to be, so a house sitter isn't an absolute necessity like it once was, but I'd sleep easier knowing that someone is there to quiet the dogs if they're barking at night or they'll hear a goat bawling if one gets stuck, etc.
Most of all, though, I hope it rains. At least a little. Because even when it's all set to go, it'll be a long chore. Mother Nature does a much more thorough job than the sprinklers and soaker hoses, too.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Still sleepy
I totally need a vacation to get over my vacation. I'm still tired all the time. Best intentions for getting stuff done go out the window. I tried napping but ended up reading and staring at the ceiling in alternate steps. Overtired, I think the term is. Too tired to rest.
At least the garden got watered, and I started sorting through my desk stuff. It's a far cry from gardening most of the day, alas. I'd probably have more energy if I pulled it off. Well, there's tomorrow. A trick I read someplace was to wait to go to bed until you're on the verge of sleep when you're having trouble sleeping. I'm on that verge now. Time to plunge in.
See all y'all in the morning.
At least the garden got watered, and I started sorting through my desk stuff. It's a far cry from gardening most of the day, alas. I'd probably have more energy if I pulled it off. Well, there's tomorrow. A trick I read someplace was to wait to go to bed until you're on the verge of sleep when you're having trouble sleeping. I'm on that verge now. Time to plunge in.
See all y'all in the morning.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
With this Ring
We went to Bend, Oregon for the weekend. Friday and early part of Saturday was for fun. Saturday night time was reserved for a special wedding (aren't they all, though?)
So what do Millers do for fun? Glad you asked.
http://www.maryhillmuseum.org/
It's not really on the way to Bend except in a very loose usage of the term 'on the way' but well worth the extra miles. I hope we can visit again soon. There are so many things that are worth an extra long stare, so many that if you indulged yourself, you'd be there for days. We had time for a leisurely peruse through the museum itself, then moved on to the replica of Stonehenge, where we enjoyed wild winds, the straight-edged shadows and the brilliance of a blue and gold view of the Columbia river gorge through white-edged frames formed by the stones.
Once in Bend, after a good meal and a typical hotel snooze, we dashed out toBig Obsidian Flow and hiked among hills of black, red and silver glass interspersed with pastel versions of the same colors in pumice. A sign describes how people who live near obsidian flows have their lives and art and ideas transformed and imbedded with obsidian. After walking through big flow, I felt it too. I wanted to stay. It truly is a treasure.
Moving on, we went to East Lake and walked along the shore through thousands of butterflies to where hot springs bubble up into the water. No one felt like swimming (the smell and the goopy mud combined with rotted vegetation on the shore may have had something to do with this) so we drove onward to the lava cast forest. The mile long trail took us through acres of lava flow. The tree molds themselves are holes in the ground, although some of them are horizontal tubes where the tree fell over and then burned out on the inside while the lava cooled.
I'm so glad I can get out of the way of lava, or at least have a chance to.
We got back to the hotel in time to clean up for the wedding. The bride was gorgeous, we had perfect weather, and not a single fly buzzed around. Live music, dancing, a charming ceremony, and a whole lot of people in a backyard bbq-style shindig that lasted late into the night. The dogs were exhausted by the end of it, and I'm sure they whined when guests arrived yet again for breakfast. We didn't stay long, though. It was time to go home and take care of our own dogs.
We were swarmed, of course, when we came in, nearly drowning in a sea of unconditional love. I'm so, so tired, and glad to be back, but it was one of those weekends where everything worked out right. I'll sleep deep tonight. Hopefully I won't have that weird bus crash dream again where I helped save the bus driver who'd suffered a massive heart attack. Weird dreams with defined stories--a sign that I haven't written in a while.
So what do Millers do for fun? Glad you asked.
http://www.maryhillmuseum.org/
It's not really on the way to Bend except in a very loose usage of the term 'on the way' but well worth the extra miles. I hope we can visit again soon. There are so many things that are worth an extra long stare, so many that if you indulged yourself, you'd be there for days. We had time for a leisurely peruse through the museum itself, then moved on to the replica of Stonehenge, where we enjoyed wild winds, the straight-edged shadows and the brilliance of a blue and gold view of the Columbia river gorge through white-edged frames formed by the stones.
Once in Bend, after a good meal and a typical hotel snooze, we dashed out to
Moving on, we went to East Lake and walked along the shore through thousands of butterflies to where hot springs bubble up into the water. No one felt like swimming (the smell and the goopy mud combined with rotted vegetation on the shore may have had something to do with this) so we drove onward to the lava cast forest. The mile long trail took us through acres of lava flow. The tree molds themselves are holes in the ground, although some of them are horizontal tubes where the tree fell over and then burned out on the inside while the lava cooled.
I'm so glad I can get out of the way of lava, or at least have a chance to.
We got back to the hotel in time to clean up for the wedding. The bride was gorgeous, we had perfect weather, and not a single fly buzzed around. Live music, dancing, a charming ceremony, and a whole lot of people in a backyard bbq-style shindig that lasted late into the night. The dogs were exhausted by the end of it, and I'm sure they whined when guests arrived yet again for breakfast. We didn't stay long, though. It was time to go home and take care of our own dogs.
We were swarmed, of course, when we came in, nearly drowning in a sea of unconditional love. I'm so, so tired, and glad to be back, but it was one of those weekends where everything worked out right. I'll sleep deep tonight. Hopefully I won't have that weird bus crash dream again where I helped save the bus driver who'd suffered a massive heart attack. Weird dreams with defined stories--a sign that I haven't written in a while.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Place
An empty bottle of Black Swan Vineyards Shiraz stands on the left side of my desk. The computer monitor sits on top of a 16x16 tile that matches the floor--it eases pressure off the G3 box, a horizontal rather than tower design that has no better spot to live in with the current arrangement. I'd move it onto a shelf, but then the cord wouldn't be able to reach the keyboard, and it's too out of date to allow a wireless connection. Three shelves are filled close to bursting with books on writing and books written by friends. Another shelf has office supplies, music and a shoe box that's filled with the clamjamfry that I can't quite bring myself to throw away because it might come in handy some day. To my right, Snape the laptop is shut down and closed up for the night, a combination travel computer, backup drive and photo modification/storage machine. To the right of Snape, in a place of honor, my Oxford Universal Dictionary on Historical Principles, Third Edition with corrections and revised addenda 1955. There are paintbrushes bristling up among pencils, pens and two chisels my son made in metal shop in a pewter tankard. A stuffed koala sits on top a three stack of clear boxes with different sized paperclips in each of them. In the back behind the computer collecting dust, a heavy commercial three hole punch that gets taken out three or four times a year for big jobs. There's an electric pencil sharpener that the kids use more often than I do, spare ink cartridges, game disks I never get out to play anymore, and my beloved fingerless gloves for days when my hands get stiff and cold. A garbage can that doesn't fit very well under my desk lives where a tower normally sits. A box with five reams of paper serves occasionally as a footstool when I kick one leg out to the side to stretch after kneeling in my kneeling chair for long periods. The mousepad has a skull and crossed swords. This workspace exists within a computer armoire that never closes up. Its wings hold poetry, a to do list, pictures of my children, a manila envelope that holds loose paperwork.
This is my place, my writing place. This is where I sit, and dream, and create. I like it here. That's a good thing, because a good portion of my life is spent here. I wouldn't want to spend all those hours in a space I hated.
Hmm. Those paint brushes really need to go in my paint jar upstairs.
Cancel the paintbrushes in the pewter tankard. But the chisels stay.
This is my place, my writing place. This is where I sit, and dream, and create. I like it here. That's a good thing, because a good portion of my life is spent here. I wouldn't want to spend all those hours in a space I hated.
Hmm. Those paint brushes really need to go in my paint jar upstairs.
Cancel the paintbrushes in the pewter tankard. But the chisels stay.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Curse of the Crazy Paint Lady
I wondered today, at about 8:15 (the time when I was supposed to be leaving the store) if blogging about customers now and again had somehow messed up the customer character generator in the big game of retail checking. Characters seem to be melding into each other, or creating weird dopplegangers. Either that, or history is rewriting itself with my full awareness.
Now why would a relatively sane Kami think that?
Because today, shortly before closing, the crazy lady dashed in. "I have only one thing!"
Sure, whatever. The store is pretty full at closing today, so I figure she might arrive at a line if she hurried too much. I would probably be outta here in no time with just a few go backs to take care of when she inevitably changed her mind about her purchases. Except.
The crazy lady reappears near the front of the store. "Um, I need help at the paint counter."
Um, ack?
Someone dashes outside to get the hardware guy (who is doing his job starting the close up the store front since it's now after 8pm) so that we can have the hardware guy help her ASAP at the paint counter. Meanwhile, my line dwindles to zero. The other closing checker gives me a pitying look as she shuts off her light, ropes off her register and heads off to count out for the night. "It shouldn't be too long now," she says.
Uh huh.
Memories of the paint lady coming in (this was during the holiday rush crush) flood back. Could it have been the crazy lady back then as well? The crazy lady I remember from a different day, the post-holiday major percent off holiday stuff sale, where she was fine buying a $2.99 roll of tape (there was a different brand for 1/3 the price) but refused chocolate candy because even with the percent off it was too pricey. That was all fine and good, I get paid either way, and go-backs are a fun way to take a break from checking. I call it anti-shopping, cheerfully skipping through the aisles with a cart of things that need to go back on the shelves and stopping occasionally to spring on unsuspecting shoppers with an overly cheeful "Are you finding everything okay?" or, for thrills and variety, "Can I help you find anything?"
I imagine, as the minutes tick by, the crazy lady choosing colors very carefully while the hardware guy messes with the paint mixer, paces, stares at the different cans of paint and tries to anticipate her decision-making process by asking such questions as "light or dark color? Gloss, semi-gloss, satin or flat? What brand would you like?" How about we go with the first can that comes into my hand and go with, oh, I don't know, pure white?
I have one major consolation. I wasn't sure I would have enough fives, ones and pennies to get through my last hour, and I didn't want to call for those because A. if I didn't use them I'd just have more to count and B. if I used all my pennies and had to open a new roll just before closing, invariably someone, like a child, would come along with lots of pennies to get rid of, say an entire 39 cents amounting to the change on their balance, and I would have 89 pennies to count.
But it turned out that I would make it with change to spare. Yay! Even the crazy lady can't make me require a roll of pennies and a bundle each of fives and -- now don't be stupid, Kami. She might have a $100 bill, buy and candy bar, and want all her change in fives, ones and pennies.
The crazy lady arrives at last with her 'one thing,' which includes 4 large clear Rubbermaid storage bins, two paint rollers, a tarp, candy, sunscreen, and I don't remember what all else as well as the paint. "I'm an Oregon resident," she declares.
"Great!" Sounding like a cheerleader is my primary defense against being annoyed. Being annoyed is no fun for anybody. Just put on a smile, raise your voice half an octave, pretend you have DD breasts and bounce! The job's a game just like in Mary Poppins only career oriented! Check it out! I'm Barbie with a menial job!
I ring her up, but by the end I've forgotten the Oregon thing and I have to back up from the total, not a big deal, but she pipes in with, "is it too late to add an ice cream bar?"
It's not too late to ring up half our office supplies, ma'am. Bounce! "No problem."
So the ice cream sandwich gets added in, tax is removed, paperwork is achieved and I'm done for the night. A supervisor loiters at my checkstand. The hardware guy is locking up the cigarette case behind me, crowding me while I'm trying to get out of my register. The crazy lady is forced to edge around a palette of goodies now blocking the back door. Two employees help her carry her stuff to her car because there's no way a cart is getting out.
I guess that's the way to get primo service. Only next time, I think the managers might close the store a bit early if they see her coming. As for me, I got primo service too. A supervisor helped me count out, and I was on my way out to the car by 8:24. All's well that ends well.
Now why would a relatively sane Kami think that?
Because today, shortly before closing, the crazy lady dashed in. "I have only one thing!"
Sure, whatever. The store is pretty full at closing today, so I figure she might arrive at a line if she hurried too much. I would probably be outta here in no time with just a few go backs to take care of when she inevitably changed her mind about her purchases. Except.
The crazy lady reappears near the front of the store. "Um, I need help at the paint counter."
Um, ack?
Someone dashes outside to get the hardware guy (who is doing his job starting the close up the store front since it's now after 8pm) so that we can have the hardware guy help her ASAP at the paint counter. Meanwhile, my line dwindles to zero. The other closing checker gives me a pitying look as she shuts off her light, ropes off her register and heads off to count out for the night. "It shouldn't be too long now," she says.
Uh huh.
Memories of the paint lady coming in (this was during the holiday rush crush) flood back. Could it have been the crazy lady back then as well? The crazy lady I remember from a different day, the post-holiday major percent off holiday stuff sale, where she was fine buying a $2.99 roll of tape (there was a different brand for 1/3 the price) but refused chocolate candy because even with the percent off it was too pricey. That was all fine and good, I get paid either way, and go-backs are a fun way to take a break from checking. I call it anti-shopping, cheerfully skipping through the aisles with a cart of things that need to go back on the shelves and stopping occasionally to spring on unsuspecting shoppers with an overly cheeful "Are you finding everything okay?" or, for thrills and variety, "Can I help you find anything?"
I imagine, as the minutes tick by, the crazy lady choosing colors very carefully while the hardware guy messes with the paint mixer, paces, stares at the different cans of paint and tries to anticipate her decision-making process by asking such questions as "light or dark color? Gloss, semi-gloss, satin or flat? What brand would you like?" How about we go with the first can that comes into my hand and go with, oh, I don't know, pure white?
I have one major consolation. I wasn't sure I would have enough fives, ones and pennies to get through my last hour, and I didn't want to call for those because A. if I didn't use them I'd just have more to count and B. if I used all my pennies and had to open a new roll just before closing, invariably someone, like a child, would come along with lots of pennies to get rid of, say an entire 39 cents amounting to the change on their balance, and I would have 89 pennies to count.
But it turned out that I would make it with change to spare. Yay! Even the crazy lady can't make me require a roll of pennies and a bundle each of fives and -- now don't be stupid, Kami. She might have a $100 bill, buy and candy bar, and want all her change in fives, ones and pennies.
The crazy lady arrives at last with her 'one thing,' which includes 4 large clear Rubbermaid storage bins, two paint rollers, a tarp, candy, sunscreen, and I don't remember what all else as well as the paint. "I'm an Oregon resident," she declares.
"Great!" Sounding like a cheerleader is my primary defense against being annoyed. Being annoyed is no fun for anybody. Just put on a smile, raise your voice half an octave, pretend you have DD breasts and bounce! The job's a game just like in Mary Poppins only career oriented! Check it out! I'm Barbie with a menial job!
I ring her up, but by the end I've forgotten the Oregon thing and I have to back up from the total, not a big deal, but she pipes in with, "is it too late to add an ice cream bar?"
It's not too late to ring up half our office supplies, ma'am. Bounce! "No problem."
So the ice cream sandwich gets added in, tax is removed, paperwork is achieved and I'm done for the night. A supervisor loiters at my checkstand. The hardware guy is locking up the cigarette case behind me, crowding me while I'm trying to get out of my register. The crazy lady is forced to edge around a palette of goodies now blocking the back door. Two employees help her carry her stuff to her car because there's no way a cart is getting out.
I guess that's the way to get primo service. Only next time, I think the managers might close the store a bit early if they see her coming. As for me, I got primo service too. A supervisor helped me count out, and I was on my way out to the car by 8:24. All's well that ends well.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Miscellaneous Day
Light rain off and on kept me inside most of the day, though the sprinkles didn't keep me from doing a bit of weeding and wandering outside. The goldfinches alternated between the feeder and flitting among the mix of tall, spiny dandelions, evening primroses and other miscellaneous weeds to get at the fluffy seeds. Watching them eat their natural food was something else. They land on the main, upright stalks, sometimes forcing the weed to bend way over, and grab at whatever seed bunches are in reach. And the really, really amazing part--those bright, bright yellow birds that I thought stood out more baldly than chalk on a blackboard actually blended in with the primroses. They're the exact same color. If they didn't move, I couldn't see them.
A lot of writing happened today too, and cleaning. Ugh, the cleaning--taking out the shelves from the refrigerator, disassembling them, cleaning the glass and frames separately and then reassembling and putting them all back in after scrubbing out the walls. I never did get to the door, or the freezer. Tomorrow after work, maybe. I'd had enough of the old food, dried hamburger blood, random drops of dried cream that I missed from a cream spill cleanup a couple of months ago, jars of condiments we'd never get to before they expired if they weren't already expired, on and on. Afterward, I spent a pleasant hour (read much sarcasm here) scrubbing out the catboxes and filling them with fresh litter, because that has to be done now and then.
The good part is that a lot got accomplished despite picking away at random at things that I happened to get annoyed enough at to do. Normally if I don't have much of a plan, then nothing gets finished and there's a mess of half done things everywhere.
Hmm. I wonder if I can get some painting in at the eleventh hour. Well, the tenth hour, actually. It would nicely top off a fine, miscellaneous day.
A lot of writing happened today too, and cleaning. Ugh, the cleaning--taking out the shelves from the refrigerator, disassembling them, cleaning the glass and frames separately and then reassembling and putting them all back in after scrubbing out the walls. I never did get to the door, or the freezer. Tomorrow after work, maybe. I'd had enough of the old food, dried hamburger blood, random drops of dried cream that I missed from a cream spill cleanup a couple of months ago, jars of condiments we'd never get to before they expired if they weren't already expired, on and on. Afterward, I spent a pleasant hour (read much sarcasm here) scrubbing out the catboxes and filling them with fresh litter, because that has to be done now and then.
The good part is that a lot got accomplished despite picking away at random at things that I happened to get annoyed enough at to do. Normally if I don't have much of a plan, then nothing gets finished and there's a mess of half done things everywhere.
Hmm. I wonder if I can get some painting in at the eleventh hour. Well, the tenth hour, actually. It would nicely top off a fine, miscellaneous day.
Monday, July 16, 2007
The Afterglow
I finished writing the first, and possibly last love scene in Masks, and it was fun. And that's all I'm going to say about that.
I spent a lot of time today weeding when I should have been working inside the house. The flowers are grateful, at least as much as flowers can be. The war for complete domination over the earth has swung in their favor, while the weeds must gnash their teeth and sing dirges tonight. It's all a very grim affair, the green carcasses piled high in the compost heap. Meanwhile, the bees hum happily among the blossoms, only occasionally put out when I work too near them. The hummingbirds continue to play flinch. I'm not sure how many hummingbirds we have now. I haven't counted them lately.
It's all very distracting, having so many enjoyable things to do. What's better to focus my time on--writing or painting? Gardening or tiling the office? Priorities get muddy when they're all worthwhile.
I want to do it all, and yet, I want to nap. I think that's because after writing a scene I've been thinking about a lot and stressing over, I have as much a sense of afterglow as poor Mark. And I get that with any accomplishment. For an undetermined period of time afterward, I'm pretty worthless. Finished a painting? Time to sit and drink wine. Got some tiling done? No housework for two days. Write a complete, pivotal scene in a novel? Sitting on the deck and doing sudoku sounds about my speed. I wish there was a way to harness that happy glow and use it to spur on even more work, but I guess we all have to rest sometime. Wouldn't it be nice, though, if after finishing a project, I get so excited I just go straight to the next one?
I spent a lot of time today weeding when I should have been working inside the house. The flowers are grateful, at least as much as flowers can be. The war for complete domination over the earth has swung in their favor, while the weeds must gnash their teeth and sing dirges tonight. It's all a very grim affair, the green carcasses piled high in the compost heap. Meanwhile, the bees hum happily among the blossoms, only occasionally put out when I work too near them. The hummingbirds continue to play flinch. I'm not sure how many hummingbirds we have now. I haven't counted them lately.
It's all very distracting, having so many enjoyable things to do. What's better to focus my time on--writing or painting? Gardening or tiling the office? Priorities get muddy when they're all worthwhile.
I want to do it all, and yet, I want to nap. I think that's because after writing a scene I've been thinking about a lot and stressing over, I have as much a sense of afterglow as poor Mark. And I get that with any accomplishment. For an undetermined period of time afterward, I'm pretty worthless. Finished a painting? Time to sit and drink wine. Got some tiling done? No housework for two days. Write a complete, pivotal scene in a novel? Sitting on the deck and doing sudoku sounds about my speed. I wish there was a way to harness that happy glow and use it to spur on even more work, but I guess we all have to rest sometime. Wouldn't it be nice, though, if after finishing a project, I get so excited I just go straight to the next one?
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Photo notion
So I think I've finally got photobucket to talk nice to me. Keeping fingers crossed that this doesn't end up as so much spaghetti on the screen. It works for my Mac, anyway. I did have to sacrifice my old template, though. The really big pics (at least on my screen) mucked up the formatting and the text became less readable. We can't have that!
The wildflower garden is pretty weedy, and it has a couple of bare spots, but it's surprisingly photogenic. In some ways it looks better here than in RL. In other ways ... you really miss the sounds and scents and the vivid sights. When you walk by the poppies stand out and demand to be noticed. Also, beneath the baby's breath (it's a baby's breath explosion!) there are smaller flowers hiding. Bees hum around, and the hummingbirds zoom through during their war games. Surprisingly they'll stop to take a look at people, hovering in place and blinking their tiny, beady black eyes at me when I'm wandering around. Either they're getting used to me, or they're plotting my demise.
Or both.
But, onward:
Poppies, bachelor buttons, cosmos and calendula swim in a froth of baby's breath.
View over the wildflowers toward the house
Bachelor buttons echo the deepest colors in the sky.
This is not even close to being wildflowers, but what the hey ...
Lagerfeld roses bow from their own weight over the infamous white path. If you stand on the path, you're surrounded by the scents of so many roses--they mingle into an exquisite perfume. It'll smell even better there when the bouncing bet starts to bloom.
Last but not least, for all you animal lovers out there:
The Weeez watches the goats eat from his supervisory perch and scratch post.
The wildflower garden is pretty weedy, and it has a couple of bare spots, but it's surprisingly photogenic. In some ways it looks better here than in RL. In other ways ... you really miss the sounds and scents and the vivid sights. When you walk by the poppies stand out and demand to be noticed. Also, beneath the baby's breath (it's a baby's breath explosion!) there are smaller flowers hiding. Bees hum around, and the hummingbirds zoom through during their war games. Surprisingly they'll stop to take a look at people, hovering in place and blinking their tiny, beady black eyes at me when I'm wandering around. Either they're getting used to me, or they're plotting my demise.
Or both.
But, onward:
Poppies, bachelor buttons, cosmos and calendula swim in a froth of baby's breath.
View over the wildflowers toward the house
Bachelor buttons echo the deepest colors in the sky.
This is not even close to being wildflowers, but what the hey ...
Lagerfeld roses bow from their own weight over the infamous white path. If you stand on the path, you're surrounded by the scents of so many roses--they mingle into an exquisite perfume. It'll smell even better there when the bouncing bet starts to bloom.
Last but not least, for all you animal lovers out there:
The Weeez watches the goats eat from his supervisory perch and scratch post.
Staying Cool
It's another hot hot day here in SW Washington. The thermostat says 100 degrees on the button. The soaker hoses are so fantastic, I'll let them sing their own praises.
[sounds of seeping]
It's like the Sound of Silence, only better. Well, the plants think so, anyway. I'm not completely free of hand watering, not even close, but at least I can water most of the garden (the hoses all run through shade so there isn't too much loss due to evaporation) while I'm inside doing Other Things. Today, that means sewing curtains for our side windows, which let the sun in for about an hour in the late afternoon. Not too bad, all things told, but today it annoyed me, and I have all this fabric just laying around ...
Of course we've hit 5:30 pm, which is nap time. My sleepy brain goes round and round and doesn't get anywhere. The only landmark is a side alley that when my brain looks down it, we see a nice, comfy bed in the dark. Mmmmm. Around we go again, thinking about this chore and that, and there's that side alley with the bed again. I think there might be more than one identical side alley, as often as I think about it.
But, I must not succumb. If I do, I'll continue my badness pattern of staying up until one or two a.m. writing on Masks. That is, it's good to write, but bad to write late. Bad Kami, bad. Good Kami, good! Bad Kami, very bad. Why is it bad? Because early in the morning, it's cool enough to work outside, and if I stay up, I'll stay in bed until at least 8am if not later.
When it cools off tonight (and it will cool off, won't it?) I'll quick connect the hand watering wand and go play in the garden. So far, no casualties that I've found among the plants, even the pot-confined ones. I'll have to post a pic of the wild garden soon, assuming photobucket works for me still. They're in full bloom, and there are some blossoms that I've never seen before (and can't identify.) It makes walking around the garden a small letter a adventure, looking for and spotting things that have come up from seed that I've forgotten or never known because it was part of a misc. mix. Alas, still just the one tiger swallowtail butterfly. But it sure is pretty, especially when it sits on the huge purple butterfly bush plumes.
Note to self: water the butterfly bushes.
[sounds of seeping]
It's like the Sound of Silence, only better. Well, the plants think so, anyway. I'm not completely free of hand watering, not even close, but at least I can water most of the garden (the hoses all run through shade so there isn't too much loss due to evaporation) while I'm inside doing Other Things. Today, that means sewing curtains for our side windows, which let the sun in for about an hour in the late afternoon. Not too bad, all things told, but today it annoyed me, and I have all this fabric just laying around ...
Of course we've hit 5:30 pm, which is nap time. My sleepy brain goes round and round and doesn't get anywhere. The only landmark is a side alley that when my brain looks down it, we see a nice, comfy bed in the dark. Mmmmm. Around we go again, thinking about this chore and that, and there's that side alley with the bed again. I think there might be more than one identical side alley, as often as I think about it.
But, I must not succumb. If I do, I'll continue my badness pattern of staying up until one or two a.m. writing on Masks. That is, it's good to write, but bad to write late. Bad Kami, bad. Good Kami, good! Bad Kami, very bad. Why is it bad? Because early in the morning, it's cool enough to work outside, and if I stay up, I'll stay in bed until at least 8am if not later.
When it cools off tonight (and it will cool off, won't it?) I'll quick connect the hand watering wand and go play in the garden. So far, no casualties that I've found among the plants, even the pot-confined ones. I'll have to post a pic of the wild garden soon, assuming photobucket works for me still. They're in full bloom, and there are some blossoms that I've never seen before (and can't identify.) It makes walking around the garden a small letter a adventure, looking for and spotting things that have come up from seed that I've forgotten or never known because it was part of a misc. mix. Alas, still just the one tiger swallowtail butterfly. But it sure is pretty, especially when it sits on the huge purple butterfly bush plumes.
Note to self: water the butterfly bushes.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Heat
We're in the middle of a heat wave here in the Pac NW. I'm not sure (accurately) how hot it got today up here on the hill, but at one point the outdoor thermostat was around 102 or more today. What I really need is to have a thermostat outside in back to register more accurate temps during the hottest part of the day. The current one sits out front where, in the late afternoon, it is still in the shade but is also in the front porch microclimate where a lot of light and heat are trapped up against the house windows. Tomorrow it'll be almost as hot, so I'll be outside watering.
So how hot is 102ish up here on the hill? It's not a humid heat, and we have a fairly constant breeze, so it's not bad, unlike down by where I work. My theory is that the breeze is the real reason why we have all kinds of hummingbirds and wildlife here and down in town there's not much. The concrete and asphalt are brutal, and breezes are blocked by fences and buildings. There aren't enough trees to cast sufficient shade to offset the heat, but ironically there are enough trees to slow down any breezes that might build up. The result is that hummingbirds pop like popcorn down there.
102 up here is hot enough to melt cats, though. Our cats were melted all over the furniture. At one point Wizard followed me outside, but he only got as far as the back porch cement pad, where he promptly melted. Even his head seemed to flatten as he sucked up against the pavement to cool off.
The weather has driven me to shopping. I got a bunch of soaker hoses and quick connects. I still have to hand water, but boy, not nearly as much as the original set up, the original setup being absolutely nothing set up. Well, I have the wildflower sprinkler, but it wasn't on quick connect. Tomorrow morning it will be. Tomorrow morning I will wake up and quick connect the sprinkler and let it water the wildflowers while I breakfast. That sounds like bliss. Then after breakfast I can hand water the veggies, then start one of the rose garden soaker hoses and weed for a bit. Connect again, weed some more. Connect again, go in and write. On it goes. The hand waterer is on quick connect too so the plants that I couldn't manage to weave a soaker hose too can get caught before I abandon the area.
Someday it will all be on drip system, and the soaker hoses will serve the veggie garden, which will all be weeded. Really. This will happen. And I'll have water features and tall hedges and big, big trees. And a greenhouse. And the porch will be enclosed.
But I get ahead of myself.
I wonder if I can soaker hose myself while I'm weeding--just lay it across my shoulders. Hmm.
So how hot is 102ish up here on the hill? It's not a humid heat, and we have a fairly constant breeze, so it's not bad, unlike down by where I work. My theory is that the breeze is the real reason why we have all kinds of hummingbirds and wildlife here and down in town there's not much. The concrete and asphalt are brutal, and breezes are blocked by fences and buildings. There aren't enough trees to cast sufficient shade to offset the heat, but ironically there are enough trees to slow down any breezes that might build up. The result is that hummingbirds pop like popcorn down there.
102 up here is hot enough to melt cats, though. Our cats were melted all over the furniture. At one point Wizard followed me outside, but he only got as far as the back porch cement pad, where he promptly melted. Even his head seemed to flatten as he sucked up against the pavement to cool off.
The weather has driven me to shopping. I got a bunch of soaker hoses and quick connects. I still have to hand water, but boy, not nearly as much as the original set up, the original setup being absolutely nothing set up. Well, I have the wildflower sprinkler, but it wasn't on quick connect. Tomorrow morning it will be. Tomorrow morning I will wake up and quick connect the sprinkler and let it water the wildflowers while I breakfast. That sounds like bliss. Then after breakfast I can hand water the veggies, then start one of the rose garden soaker hoses and weed for a bit. Connect again, weed some more. Connect again, go in and write. On it goes. The hand waterer is on quick connect too so the plants that I couldn't manage to weave a soaker hose too can get caught before I abandon the area.
Someday it will all be on drip system, and the soaker hoses will serve the veggie garden, which will all be weeded. Really. This will happen. And I'll have water features and tall hedges and big, big trees. And a greenhouse. And the porch will be enclosed.
But I get ahead of myself.
I wonder if I can soaker hose myself while I'm weeding--just lay it across my shoulders. Hmm.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Jestanuther Religious Nut
Religion is a hairy thing, a thing that licks its butt in the center of the living room floor when guests are over. Lately I've taken to telling people, when they notice my ring (worn beside my plain gold heirloom wedding band, featuring a pentacle with Celtic knotwork adorning about half the band) and ask about it, that my husband is Irish. "Oh," they say, as if they now understand. They're easily placated by this non-explanation because they see me smile, feel my empathy and sense my optimism and general sickening-sweet cheerfulness. This person couldn't possibly be Satanic/pagan/heathen/other than me because this is a good person. Her husband is Irish. We like the Irish--they make good whiskey and believe in leprechauns, and I like wearing green on St. Patrick's Day. She must be harmless! (Don't even get me started about this view of the Irish, btw.)
I've already griped about monotheism. Monotheism appears on the surface an advancement, an evolutionary step from the more primitive polytheism practiced by many if not most of the ancients. Returning to polytheism, however, is not a solution but a passage fraught with peril. Our ancestors were in fact primitive in many ways--brilliant in many ways too and in some cases a lot smarter than us (definitely smarter than we give them credit for)--but also lacking in important information that caused them to blame quite a few problems on the wrong agents. They also blamed success on wrong agents as well. They performed elaborate rites, sometimes to the destruction of their own society, to appease forces that may or may not have existed and if they did exist, may or may not have cared.
Which isn't to say there aren't gods. I think there's good evidence that there are--but not scientific evidence. Science itself can become a religion, and going the way of the Amazing Randy and the Skeptical Enquirer is also extremely fraught with peril. Ooo, how about a good example? The Amazing Randy has a standing offer of $1,000,000 to anyone who can provide scientifically verifiable evidence of any paranormal agent or ability--ghosts, telekinesis, prophesizing, etc. The trap is 'scientifically verifiable.' My friend and I, after several hours of concentration and practice, achieved telepathic communication. No sh*t. Great, you think. Call her up, meet with Amazing Randy, and go for it! Well, in order to control the 'experiment' The Amazing Randy would set us up for failure (but not deliberately, as far as I know. He seems an honest fellow.) Under the stress to perform, separating us, possibly insisting that we transmit to a control (person of their choice) so that we aren't 'tricking' anyone by deciding in advance what to send each other or using some other means besides telepathy to communicate with each other, not allowing us to practice first (it took a lot of warm up to achieve) and not taking 'close' answers (we found that the images transmitted at different speeds--the sender would draw slowly in her mind and the receiver would receive a fast image, often retraced many times which sometimes muddied circles into spirals or ovals and turned an oscillating line into a series of waves) and the general air of skepticism would likely get us laughed out of the lab. And then we'd be out airfare because The Amazing Randy won't come to us--we have to go to him. My understanding of how telepathy works and my confidence in that ability is so fragile I wouldn't want to stake twenty bucks on it, much less airfare and scrutiny by some very self-righteous skeptical scientists, assuming he even used real scientists using proper scientific protocols for the experiment.
After I've provided an example of something that could possibly be scientifically verifiable but will have the deck stacked against it to the point that it probably wouldn't even work under those arduous conditions, imagine trying to prove something that can't be measured by scientific instruments? How about beauty? Awe? "Hey man, the dude was really up there, his awe rating was like totally 7.3." How do you explain people in high risk professions who develop a sense that they're being watched by someone or something hostile? Hey, let's test that in a lab under controlled conditions!
Don't get me wrong. I actually very much admire the spirit behind The Amazing Randy's desire to both debunk quacks and charlatans as well as his apparent desire to find actual proof to support paranormal or otherwise fabulous claims. But (and this but is bigger than my butt by a substantial amount) science has limitations, and this is seldom acknowledged by skeptics. Science has been abused like statistical analysis and even legitimate science has 'proven' completely false ideas. People are fallible, and the science they employ is also fallible as a result.
This wraps back around to religion, gods, and the wearing o' the ring. What's a rational gal to believe these days? If the polytheism of old is flawed, and monotheism is flawed (man, Kami, how arrogant can you get here!) and science is limited and its usage is flawed, what's left?
Life, mortality, intelligence, ecosystems, the wide universe filled with distant stars and planets, music that gives you goosebumps, the feeling that you're in a sacred space, the adrenaline rush when faced with a wild predator that has no interest in your survival and every interest in its own, awareness of how small we our and how brief our lives, love for our children, respect, on and on the list goes. What's left is infinite possibilities, and our finite perceptions compressed into a human lifespan. Religion is learning to coexist with the universe with as much awareness as possible; coexisting with things much larger than yourself, bearing in mind that our minds are good at fooling us. What's the difference between someone who hears voices telling him to kill everyone and me hearing a human voice in my office when no one was actually there (and we didn't have running water or electricity in the house so it wasn't the tv or radio or water burbling in the pipes)? A hair's breadth of difference, if any. It's not scientifically proven that I'm sane, and that my religious experiences weren't all chemical imbalances or group hysteria in the cases where my experiences were shared with others. I'm just another religious nut who tends to anthropomorphize my deities when I'm not paying attention and who relies on faith (one of the deepest and most dangerous forms of trust) that what I believe has enough accuracy that I can stake my life, and my soul, upon it. I'm okay with that. I come from an ancient line of people who have lived within the frameworks of many faiths, and the DNA continues onward through me. I'm willing to take a chance on what I believe.
That probably makes no sense to anyone but me.
So why the pentacle?
Because what I believe has no name. The pentacle is a symbol used by some who try to stay in tune with nature, the feminine, and the masculine as spiritual entities with their own power in our world. They don't believe like I believe, not even really close to the same, but the melody for the chorus is similar even if the words, verses and traditional harmonies are all radically different. We get along pretty well, I think, the community of pagans and me. Besides, the ring is pretty. The symbolism works for me, even though it's not scientifically valid, and I like the knotwork. Carve it on my tombstone. I'll rest easy within the tangled strands.
I've already griped about monotheism. Monotheism appears on the surface an advancement, an evolutionary step from the more primitive polytheism practiced by many if not most of the ancients. Returning to polytheism, however, is not a solution but a passage fraught with peril. Our ancestors were in fact primitive in many ways--brilliant in many ways too and in some cases a lot smarter than us (definitely smarter than we give them credit for)--but also lacking in important information that caused them to blame quite a few problems on the wrong agents. They also blamed success on wrong agents as well. They performed elaborate rites, sometimes to the destruction of their own society, to appease forces that may or may not have existed and if they did exist, may or may not have cared.
Which isn't to say there aren't gods. I think there's good evidence that there are--but not scientific evidence. Science itself can become a religion, and going the way of the Amazing Randy and the Skeptical Enquirer is also extremely fraught with peril. Ooo, how about a good example? The Amazing Randy has a standing offer of $1,000,000 to anyone who can provide scientifically verifiable evidence of any paranormal agent or ability--ghosts, telekinesis, prophesizing, etc. The trap is 'scientifically verifiable.' My friend and I, after several hours of concentration and practice, achieved telepathic communication. No sh*t. Great, you think. Call her up, meet with Amazing Randy, and go for it! Well, in order to control the 'experiment' The Amazing Randy would set us up for failure (but not deliberately, as far as I know. He seems an honest fellow.) Under the stress to perform, separating us, possibly insisting that we transmit to a control (person of their choice) so that we aren't 'tricking' anyone by deciding in advance what to send each other or using some other means besides telepathy to communicate with each other, not allowing us to practice first (it took a lot of warm up to achieve) and not taking 'close' answers (we found that the images transmitted at different speeds--the sender would draw slowly in her mind and the receiver would receive a fast image, often retraced many times which sometimes muddied circles into spirals or ovals and turned an oscillating line into a series of waves) and the general air of skepticism would likely get us laughed out of the lab. And then we'd be out airfare because The Amazing Randy won't come to us--we have to go to him. My understanding of how telepathy works and my confidence in that ability is so fragile I wouldn't want to stake twenty bucks on it, much less airfare and scrutiny by some very self-righteous skeptical scientists, assuming he even used real scientists using proper scientific protocols for the experiment.
After I've provided an example of something that could possibly be scientifically verifiable but will have the deck stacked against it to the point that it probably wouldn't even work under those arduous conditions, imagine trying to prove something that can't be measured by scientific instruments? How about beauty? Awe? "Hey man, the dude was really up there, his awe rating was like totally 7.3." How do you explain people in high risk professions who develop a sense that they're being watched by someone or something hostile? Hey, let's test that in a lab under controlled conditions!
Don't get me wrong. I actually very much admire the spirit behind The Amazing Randy's desire to both debunk quacks and charlatans as well as his apparent desire to find actual proof to support paranormal or otherwise fabulous claims. But (and this but is bigger than my butt by a substantial amount) science has limitations, and this is seldom acknowledged by skeptics. Science has been abused like statistical analysis and even legitimate science has 'proven' completely false ideas. People are fallible, and the science they employ is also fallible as a result.
This wraps back around to religion, gods, and the wearing o' the ring. What's a rational gal to believe these days? If the polytheism of old is flawed, and monotheism is flawed (man, Kami, how arrogant can you get here!) and science is limited and its usage is flawed, what's left?
Life, mortality, intelligence, ecosystems, the wide universe filled with distant stars and planets, music that gives you goosebumps, the feeling that you're in a sacred space, the adrenaline rush when faced with a wild predator that has no interest in your survival and every interest in its own, awareness of how small we our and how brief our lives, love for our children, respect, on and on the list goes. What's left is infinite possibilities, and our finite perceptions compressed into a human lifespan. Religion is learning to coexist with the universe with as much awareness as possible; coexisting with things much larger than yourself, bearing in mind that our minds are good at fooling us. What's the difference between someone who hears voices telling him to kill everyone and me hearing a human voice in my office when no one was actually there (and we didn't have running water or electricity in the house so it wasn't the tv or radio or water burbling in the pipes)? A hair's breadth of difference, if any. It's not scientifically proven that I'm sane, and that my religious experiences weren't all chemical imbalances or group hysteria in the cases where my experiences were shared with others. I'm just another religious nut who tends to anthropomorphize my deities when I'm not paying attention and who relies on faith (one of the deepest and most dangerous forms of trust) that what I believe has enough accuracy that I can stake my life, and my soul, upon it. I'm okay with that. I come from an ancient line of people who have lived within the frameworks of many faiths, and the DNA continues onward through me. I'm willing to take a chance on what I believe.
That probably makes no sense to anyone but me.
So why the pentacle?
Because what I believe has no name. The pentacle is a symbol used by some who try to stay in tune with nature, the feminine, and the masculine as spiritual entities with their own power in our world. They don't believe like I believe, not even really close to the same, but the melody for the chorus is similar even if the words, verses and traditional harmonies are all radically different. We get along pretty well, I think, the community of pagans and me. Besides, the ring is pretty. The symbolism works for me, even though it's not scientifically valid, and I like the knotwork. Carve it on my tombstone. I'll rest easy within the tangled strands.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
War and the World
When I was young, maybe ten or twelve (I suspect twelve because that was a huge year of revelations) I started thinking about how awful it is that life eats life. At the time I decided that plants were an ideal, innocent life form and I decided that trees deserved to be some of the longest living life forms on the planet. I wished that it didn't have to be this way.
As in many things, this idea has come around again, but with a forty year old's sensibilities. I've been reading "Achilles in Vietnam" (highly recommended) and my sense of compassion began throwing a temper tantrum (though with a calmer facade than my twelve year old self could pull off. Hey, by 60 years of age, I might even sound wise!) I started (silently) whining about why we all can't just get along. I don't mean the end of war. Although the end of war would be nice, it's pretty unrealistic. I mean that if we must conflict, and it seems we have little choice, can't we respect each other? In the book the author blames the loss of respect for one's enemy in part on the goat herding religions, which tend to cast the enemy as the part of villian/evil/monster/subhuman who God will righteously smite. The trouble being (besides the fact that this is horribly prejudicial thinking not to mention really bad manners) that when the righteous God-fearing people start to lose, bad things happen to them psychologically. They are, after all, losing to someone inferior to them in some (or many, in their minds) ways. How could this happen, except that (gasp): God might not exist, or God doesn't love them anymore, or God is an asshole. What follows is a moral breakdown, an emotional mess, and a human being that becomes a danger to himself and others because he's lost one or several vital things that allow him or her to be a positive force in society. Granted I tend to agree with the author's take on all this, especially the religion part, because I'm a pagan and it serves my points of view. But it also makes terrible sense. How many people have had a crisis of faith because something really, really awful happened? If there's one God and that God is good, then what gives?
The advantage that the pagan has (in the book, he looks at the religion followed by the ancient Greeks--which is not an endorsement for that particular olde tyme religion so don't go flocking to sign up and start sacrificial pyres for that pantheon--it's never that easy) is that there isn't one God, and the many gods aren't necessarily good, at least as far as making life bearable on the planet. Gods don't work like that, any more than corporate chairpeople don't concern themselves with Bob in accounting or Sue in HR unless they happen to take temporary notice and start playing favorites. And when *that* happens, you can bet they all won't be on the same page. In fact because Sr. Exec has the hots for Sue and wants to put her on a fast track up the corporate ladder, Jr. Exec may snarl and start to undermine Sr. Exec's efforts. *Which is exactly what happens among the gods in the Iliad.* So what's this mean? It means that if you aren't a peon, you're not playing the same game the peon is playing. Things that you do to try to help may hurt, and you're helping with a sense (and perhaps not always a good sense) of what the big picture is, which may screw over a bunch of people on the side. Whole departments can dissolve and all it might be is a compromise with another exec--we'll cut this department and boost your favorite, and in return, Sue gets to end up head of HR. This is an unequal trade, so the next time a department gets cut, one of yours gets the axe--my choice of which one. Go corporate politics! It might not even benefit the company in the long run. It's just the way it works.
And so it may well be with the powers (if you believe in such) that are immortal (or near-so) and greater than human beings, but still confined within the tides of Earth. The gods don't have to be dead just because things don't go your way. Right? Maybe it goes the other guy's way because s/he's the favored one, or maybe they weren't even paying attention that day. Even if that's wrong, what really matters is that the other way of thinking, that there's a One True God who Loves Everybody, has done some serious harm to a lot of people.
So my (mature-er) tantrum is this--if it screws people up so bad to disrespect the enemy and believe God is on your side, and people know this, why do so many do it? Why are we still following this system of thought?
Because as a species we're slow to change. Individuals can be fast learners, but cultures are not, and the human race moves forward at a painful crawl. We're still fighting holy wars, for pity's sake, and via that mechanism creating monsters out of decent people. And so my soul wants to bang on the keyboard in frustration. Gaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!
Who would have thought that the concept of respect could matter (and how many nations respect each other--egad)? Who would have thought that monotheism could do emotional harm? In theory, it does. I wonder what else matters that we undervalue. Hmm, several spring to mind without me even having to sweat--work ethic, compassion, thriftiness among them. Most days I have an optimistic outlook on life and living. These past couple of days I've been verging on cynicism, and it's all because of war and the world.
Poopyhead war. Poopyhead world.
I hope that someday it all works out okay.
As in many things, this idea has come around again, but with a forty year old's sensibilities. I've been reading "Achilles in Vietnam" (highly recommended) and my sense of compassion began throwing a temper tantrum (though with a calmer facade than my twelve year old self could pull off. Hey, by 60 years of age, I might even sound wise!) I started (silently) whining about why we all can't just get along. I don't mean the end of war. Although the end of war would be nice, it's pretty unrealistic. I mean that if we must conflict, and it seems we have little choice, can't we respect each other? In the book the author blames the loss of respect for one's enemy in part on the goat herding religions, which tend to cast the enemy as the part of villian/evil/monster/subhuman who God will righteously smite. The trouble being (besides the fact that this is horribly prejudicial thinking not to mention really bad manners) that when the righteous God-fearing people start to lose, bad things happen to them psychologically. They are, after all, losing to someone inferior to them in some (or many, in their minds) ways. How could this happen, except that (gasp): God might not exist, or God doesn't love them anymore, or God is an asshole. What follows is a moral breakdown, an emotional mess, and a human being that becomes a danger to himself and others because he's lost one or several vital things that allow him or her to be a positive force in society. Granted I tend to agree with the author's take on all this, especially the religion part, because I'm a pagan and it serves my points of view. But it also makes terrible sense. How many people have had a crisis of faith because something really, really awful happened? If there's one God and that God is good, then what gives?
The advantage that the pagan has (in the book, he looks at the religion followed by the ancient Greeks--which is not an endorsement for that particular olde tyme religion so don't go flocking to sign up and start sacrificial pyres for that pantheon--it's never that easy) is that there isn't one God, and the many gods aren't necessarily good, at least as far as making life bearable on the planet. Gods don't work like that, any more than corporate chairpeople don't concern themselves with Bob in accounting or Sue in HR unless they happen to take temporary notice and start playing favorites. And when *that* happens, you can bet they all won't be on the same page. In fact because Sr. Exec has the hots for Sue and wants to put her on a fast track up the corporate ladder, Jr. Exec may snarl and start to undermine Sr. Exec's efforts. *Which is exactly what happens among the gods in the Iliad.* So what's this mean? It means that if you aren't a peon, you're not playing the same game the peon is playing. Things that you do to try to help may hurt, and you're helping with a sense (and perhaps not always a good sense) of what the big picture is, which may screw over a bunch of people on the side. Whole departments can dissolve and all it might be is a compromise with another exec--we'll cut this department and boost your favorite, and in return, Sue gets to end up head of HR. This is an unequal trade, so the next time a department gets cut, one of yours gets the axe--my choice of which one. Go corporate politics! It might not even benefit the company in the long run. It's just the way it works.
And so it may well be with the powers (if you believe in such) that are immortal (or near-so) and greater than human beings, but still confined within the tides of Earth. The gods don't have to be dead just because things don't go your way. Right? Maybe it goes the other guy's way because s/he's the favored one, or maybe they weren't even paying attention that day. Even if that's wrong, what really matters is that the other way of thinking, that there's a One True God who Loves Everybody, has done some serious harm to a lot of people.
So my (mature-er) tantrum is this--if it screws people up so bad to disrespect the enemy and believe God is on your side, and people know this, why do so many do it? Why are we still following this system of thought?
Because as a species we're slow to change. Individuals can be fast learners, but cultures are not, and the human race moves forward at a painful crawl. We're still fighting holy wars, for pity's sake, and via that mechanism creating monsters out of decent people. And so my soul wants to bang on the keyboard in frustration. Gaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!
Who would have thought that the concept of respect could matter (and how many nations respect each other--egad)? Who would have thought that monotheism could do emotional harm? In theory, it does. I wonder what else matters that we undervalue. Hmm, several spring to mind without me even having to sweat--work ethic, compassion, thriftiness among them. Most days I have an optimistic outlook on life and living. These past couple of days I've been verging on cynicism, and it's all because of war and the world.
Poopyhead war. Poopyhead world.
I hope that someday it all works out okay.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Smaller than a petunia
The hummingbird wars have commenced.
Last year was a quiet year. Not much warfare, a few skirmishes. Last year I think we had one local rufous hummingbird ruling and the others moved on. Last year I didn't have a hummingbird feeder, or a hummingbird garden, although I had a few hummingbird-friendly plants--butterfly bushes, an ailing honeysuckle, a small patch of monarda, a few penstemon.
It seems I must have outdone myself in providing hummingbird fodder because we have at least four. They're hard to count when they're chasing each other back and forth over the house and into the blackberries at 60 mph. One has claimed the feeder, and guards it from within the butterfly bushes which haven't come into bloom yet (although I saw a few bits of darker purple that may be flowers opening.) Another I call the petunia hummer, and it's cute to watch that one feed because the petunia blossoms are much larger than the bird. The poor thing has a very small territory, the four hanging baskets by the stairs, and is close enough to the butterfly bushes to annoy the feeder hummer. S/he makes forays into the monarda as well, where fights occur with the rock garden hummer who also wants the monarda. Rock garden hummer? Yep. Yet another has claimed the rock garden where all the penstemon are. And then we have raider hummer, who apparently feeds from the fuschia baskets in front and then zooms back into various territories to nip from the others. As the salvia and new honeysuckle by the garden bench grows and the wildflower garden blooms up with hummingbird attractive species (right now I all have a few cosmos, the more percocious bachelor buttons and lots of gypsophila (aka baby's breath)) I imagine that will become highly disputed territory.
So the morning has been filled with the outraged squeaks and mechanical brrts of hummingbirds chasing each other and trying to steal from one another. A couple of them have flown up to see if I too plan to try to claim some territory. If I did, I'd claim the roses. I'm sure they'd laugh at me. Go ahead, stupid human, claim the roses.
Don't mind if I do.
Last year was a quiet year. Not much warfare, a few skirmishes. Last year I think we had one local rufous hummingbird ruling and the others moved on. Last year I didn't have a hummingbird feeder, or a hummingbird garden, although I had a few hummingbird-friendly plants--butterfly bushes, an ailing honeysuckle, a small patch of monarda, a few penstemon.
It seems I must have outdone myself in providing hummingbird fodder because we have at least four. They're hard to count when they're chasing each other back and forth over the house and into the blackberries at 60 mph. One has claimed the feeder, and guards it from within the butterfly bushes which haven't come into bloom yet (although I saw a few bits of darker purple that may be flowers opening.) Another I call the petunia hummer, and it's cute to watch that one feed because the petunia blossoms are much larger than the bird. The poor thing has a very small territory, the four hanging baskets by the stairs, and is close enough to the butterfly bushes to annoy the feeder hummer. S/he makes forays into the monarda as well, where fights occur with the rock garden hummer who also wants the monarda. Rock garden hummer? Yep. Yet another has claimed the rock garden where all the penstemon are. And then we have raider hummer, who apparently feeds from the fuschia baskets in front and then zooms back into various territories to nip from the others. As the salvia and new honeysuckle by the garden bench grows and the wildflower garden blooms up with hummingbird attractive species (right now I all have a few cosmos, the more percocious bachelor buttons and lots of gypsophila (aka baby's breath)) I imagine that will become highly disputed territory.
So the morning has been filled with the outraged squeaks and mechanical brrts of hummingbirds chasing each other and trying to steal from one another. A couple of them have flown up to see if I too plan to try to claim some territory. If I did, I'd claim the roses. I'm sure they'd laugh at me. Go ahead, stupid human, claim the roses.
Don't mind if I do.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Take the cake
Andrea turned another year older today. There's not much I can say except how much she amazes me, and how much I love her. Her favorite dinner includes revenge. She's tall but not yet elegant--working on it. She's learning to choose.
Parents sometimes talk about children as being their legacy. That almost but not quite touches it.
I touched the surface of the ocean, and the waves have made the ripple mighty.
Happy birthday, Andrea. Blessed be!
Parents sometimes talk about children as being their legacy. That almost but not quite touches it.
I touched the surface of the ocean, and the waves have made the ripple mighty.
Happy birthday, Andrea. Blessed be!
Saturday, June 23, 2007
I've got Time?!
I have two days off in a row and only a half day of work on Monday! I can do whatever I want! I spent the whole day with my family, and I can sleep in and do stuff!! I watered my plants in the rain! I pet the cats! I got myself two new pairs of pants! I sat on the deck under the gazebo and read a book! I ate a wonderful lunch at Rock Bottom! And tomorrow, I can do more stuff and I'm not at work I'm not at work I'm!!!!!
Kami will not be able to continue this post as she has exploded.
She'll be back.
Kami will not be able to continue this post as she has exploded.
She'll be back.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Must ... finish ... projects ... Plus, Andrea gets shoes
I'm typing with my new, wonderful, deep purple fingerless gloves that a friend knitted for me. It's cold in the office, where yesterday's weather likes to linger, and they're perfectly warming especially across my wrists where I often suffer pain from carpal tunnel syndrome.
Rory reminded me that I'm neglecting my poor office. I've tiled the minimum space and then I abandoned the finishing work for "later." You all know about later, that mythical future time when there will be peace on Earth and no one will have to earn a living, when houses will paint themselves and my favorite peony will be worshipped as a goddess in certain circles.
Or maybe your later is different.
Anyway, it's past time to finish this puppy, er, office, off. I have to finish tiling first, tiling which I enjoy once I've got all my duckies in a row and put on some music. It takes about an hour to lay five tiles, not counting cutting time, and I've gotten to a stage where just about every tile will need to be cut. I think I've got six, maybe seven uncut tiles to go.
But this is all blathering, thinking about work that needs to be done. At the root of all this is a desire to finish. I want to finish Masks. I want to finish the office, and the porch project, and the vegetable garden (although finishing anything in a gardening sense is even more mythical than later.) There's too much juggling and it's time to set some of the pieces down.
This is probably all brought on by the work schedule. The day after tomorrow, I'm off. I'm free I'm free I'm free! Yee! Just for a day, but that's enough compared to, well, no day. I'd like to finish something that day.
In other news, my daughter Andrea and I went shoe shopping today. I got a pair of shoes for work that are, ahem, somewhat un-work like but I don't think anyone will look close enough to notice. They enclose the toe and the heel, a requirement. They are not sneakers. Voila! Perfect. (Don't mind the skull and crossbones print all over them--it just looks like a geometric design from a distance and who looks at my feet anyway? So there!) Andrea picked up her first set of heels for her 8th grade end of year celebration. I can get all teary-eyed at how my little girl is growing up and choosing (she actually planned on borrowing my heels--which I needed for work and that's how we decided we both needed at least one pair of 'other' shoes) to wear nice shoes and nice clothes to a ceremonial event. Instead of being teary-eyed, though, I'm just so very proud of her it makes me grin. I think she's realized that her jeans and t-shirt lifestyle is a safe place to be and that being safe all the time won't get her to where she wants to go. So she's trying something different, and it's very awesome. You go, Andrea! Mom won't cry. You're not going away. You're becoming (in more ways than one) and that makes me happy.
Misty, aka Mistah Fluff, our long-haired gray mackerel kitty, has leapt on my lap and declared "meh-eh." And now she's purring like crazy.
You said it Mistah. Meh eh!
Rory reminded me that I'm neglecting my poor office. I've tiled the minimum space and then I abandoned the finishing work for "later." You all know about later, that mythical future time when there will be peace on Earth and no one will have to earn a living, when houses will paint themselves and my favorite peony will be worshipped as a goddess in certain circles.
Or maybe your later is different.
Anyway, it's past time to finish this puppy, er, office, off. I have to finish tiling first, tiling which I enjoy once I've got all my duckies in a row and put on some music. It takes about an hour to lay five tiles, not counting cutting time, and I've gotten to a stage where just about every tile will need to be cut. I think I've got six, maybe seven uncut tiles to go.
But this is all blathering, thinking about work that needs to be done. At the root of all this is a desire to finish. I want to finish Masks. I want to finish the office, and the porch project, and the vegetable garden (although finishing anything in a gardening sense is even more mythical than later.) There's too much juggling and it's time to set some of the pieces down.
This is probably all brought on by the work schedule. The day after tomorrow, I'm off. I'm free I'm free I'm free! Yee! Just for a day, but that's enough compared to, well, no day. I'd like to finish something that day.
In other news, my daughter Andrea and I went shoe shopping today. I got a pair of shoes for work that are, ahem, somewhat un-work like but I don't think anyone will look close enough to notice. They enclose the toe and the heel, a requirement. They are not sneakers. Voila! Perfect. (Don't mind the skull and crossbones print all over them--it just looks like a geometric design from a distance and who looks at my feet anyway? So there!) Andrea picked up her first set of heels for her 8th grade end of year celebration. I can get all teary-eyed at how my little girl is growing up and choosing (she actually planned on borrowing my heels--which I needed for work and that's how we decided we both needed at least one pair of 'other' shoes) to wear nice shoes and nice clothes to a ceremonial event. Instead of being teary-eyed, though, I'm just so very proud of her it makes me grin. I think she's realized that her jeans and t-shirt lifestyle is a safe place to be and that being safe all the time won't get her to where she wants to go. So she's trying something different, and it's very awesome. You go, Andrea! Mom won't cry. You're not going away. You're becoming (in more ways than one) and that makes me happy.
Misty, aka Mistah Fluff, our long-haired gray mackerel kitty, has leapt on my lap and declared "meh-eh." And now she's purring like crazy.
You said it Mistah. Meh eh!
Sunday, June 17, 2007
A good day
Today the air calmed, so when I walked into the garden after work the fragrance from our roses kept kissing my face. Kissing is the best word I can come up with. You catch the scent, and it catches you and you want to chase it all at once. All the varieties of roses have their own personal scent, somewhat like a human being does. Lagerfeld is so heavenly it's almost overpowering. Blue Girl is sweet but still has that classic rose sharpness that stabs our nose and says rose perfume. Oldtimer would be candy sweet except it's gentle and softened by musk. All these roses and more mingle into a whiskey blend that stops me in my tracks, but stopping is a mistake. You lose power if you stop. Your nose dulls to the scent while the never-still air runs off with the scent. You just have to keep moving, and if you don't get another kiss, well, you'll have to go steal one by burying your face in a blossom. They feel nice. The petals have that coolness of silk combined with a texture that reminds me of youthful human skin. That creeps me out if I think about it too much.
Also today I got to watch the goats pigging out on blackberries. In a heroic assault my husband and my son tackled the fencing project and finished it, on Father's Day no less. At first the goats were nervous. I'm sure they thought it was a nasty trick. But greed overcame their fears and shortly after I got home from work they started feasting. Serious feasting too. The romans would have had nothing on these goats, who behaved as if we starved them. Especially Skunk, of course. Skunk's body has deepened and she's got quite the belly on her, meaning that she has to act the hungriest of all, grunting and commenting while she gorges herself.
They were, and are, very happy goats. It couldn't have happened without my son's hard work, and I hope he felt real pride. I think he knew he was supposed to, and said as much, as we stood on the deck and watched the goats milling around the edges of a massive blackberry wall. He may not realize it, but he made Rory's Father's Day special and good.
It's going to take the goats a good while to eat those berries down. I expect though that in the war of goat vs. blackberries, the goats will win, especially since they have victorious veteran goats on their side. All hail Skunk, mighty goat general.
It was a good day. I hope most everyone had a good day, though I know not everyone will. I had some young adults go through the checkstand today, three sibs. They bought about $60 worth of candy, pop and chips, and two Father's Day cards. After seeing the total, they decided to put the Father's Day cards back because they were too expensive. They'd call dad instead, because he'd like that just as well as a card. I'm guessing, since they'll be calling, that they won't be seeing him in person and therefore sharing the candy, pop and chips with him. They gave me a $100 bill to pay for their stuff. Who knows. Maybe their dad is a jerk. Anyway, it made me sad. It felt good to come home to family and to smell the roses.
Also today I got to watch the goats pigging out on blackberries. In a heroic assault my husband and my son tackled the fencing project and finished it, on Father's Day no less. At first the goats were nervous. I'm sure they thought it was a nasty trick. But greed overcame their fears and shortly after I got home from work they started feasting. Serious feasting too. The romans would have had nothing on these goats, who behaved as if we starved them. Especially Skunk, of course. Skunk's body has deepened and she's got quite the belly on her, meaning that she has to act the hungriest of all, grunting and commenting while she gorges herself.
They were, and are, very happy goats. It couldn't have happened without my son's hard work, and I hope he felt real pride. I think he knew he was supposed to, and said as much, as we stood on the deck and watched the goats milling around the edges of a massive blackberry wall. He may not realize it, but he made Rory's Father's Day special and good.
It's going to take the goats a good while to eat those berries down. I expect though that in the war of goat vs. blackberries, the goats will win, especially since they have victorious veteran goats on their side. All hail Skunk, mighty goat general.
It was a good day. I hope most everyone had a good day, though I know not everyone will. I had some young adults go through the checkstand today, three sibs. They bought about $60 worth of candy, pop and chips, and two Father's Day cards. After seeing the total, they decided to put the Father's Day cards back because they were too expensive. They'd call dad instead, because he'd like that just as well as a card. I'm guessing, since they'll be calling, that they won't be seeing him in person and therefore sharing the candy, pop and chips with him. They gave me a $100 bill to pay for their stuff. Who knows. Maybe their dad is a jerk. Anyway, it made me sad. It felt good to come home to family and to smell the roses.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Part time work means never having to say I'm available
Before I start, heh, I love the Moody's comment about a period agricultural event. If only ...
And doubly before I start again, I apologize for the repost. This was meant to be posted here and ended up on INK due to some weirdness of Blogger. Eh, I'll live with it, because I'm essentially lazy.
I've been griping about my work schedule for a couple of days now. Apparently part time has been translated into Kami working six days in a row, getting one day off (Wednesday) and then working some more followed by getting Saturday off. Okay, yes, I'm looking forward to the ensuing fat paycheck. But dang! I have stuff to do, people! Once again I'm facing an unhappy chat with the manager which may not become necessary if, on the upcoming Thursday, I look at the schedule and see a heap of days off in a row. Problem solved. Normally I make excuses for management along the lines of so-and-so is on vacation or what's-her-name is sick so we have to fill in, yay checking account. In this case, though, a managerial type is on vacation and there is no such thing as filling in from the ranks for that position. Other supers fill in, not us grunts. They even pulled a super from another store to help. So what gives??!!
What gives is someone who doesn't like to do scheduling, or any paperwork for that matter. Rather than deal with the issue by making everything as automatic as possible (by making the schedule almost identical each week, shuffling people around only as needed to cover vacations, etc.) the manager has chosen to just fill shifts with qualified personnel in pencil apparently at random until all shifts are covered and then tack the schedule on the wall. Which is followed by us recipients of said schedule looking at it and scratching our heads wondering WTF. This negates such niceties like being able to say with fair certainty if you can make the picnic in two weeks or the Friday meeting down at the local burger joint that happens every other week. There isn't even a pattern as to shift or post. Nor is there much advance notice--it's posted week by week, one week at a time Sunday-Saturday on Thursdays, period. How in the world can people plan weekend stuff with their families if they only know if they'll get the Sunday after the Saturday off two days in advance? I've never seen a schedule done this way, dartboard style. I hope to never again. It's terribly inconvenient for everyone, including the schedule maker, although he probably doesn't see it that way. For him, short term, it appears to be the least stressful way to fill positions.
He'll be retiring soon. I like the man, and yet, yay!!
He needs to retire. In the meantime, apparently working part time means never having to say I'm available on a given day. Boo, drat.
And doubly before I start again, I apologize for the repost. This was meant to be posted here and ended up on INK due to some weirdness of Blogger. Eh, I'll live with it, because I'm essentially lazy.
I've been griping about my work schedule for a couple of days now. Apparently part time has been translated into Kami working six days in a row, getting one day off (Wednesday) and then working some more followed by getting Saturday off. Okay, yes, I'm looking forward to the ensuing fat paycheck. But dang! I have stuff to do, people! Once again I'm facing an unhappy chat with the manager which may not become necessary if, on the upcoming Thursday, I look at the schedule and see a heap of days off in a row. Problem solved. Normally I make excuses for management along the lines of so-and-so is on vacation or what's-her-name is sick so we have to fill in, yay checking account. In this case, though, a managerial type is on vacation and there is no such thing as filling in from the ranks for that position. Other supers fill in, not us grunts. They even pulled a super from another store to help. So what gives??!!
What gives is someone who doesn't like to do scheduling, or any paperwork for that matter. Rather than deal with the issue by making everything as automatic as possible (by making the schedule almost identical each week, shuffling people around only as needed to cover vacations, etc.) the manager has chosen to just fill shifts with qualified personnel in pencil apparently at random until all shifts are covered and then tack the schedule on the wall. Which is followed by us recipients of said schedule looking at it and scratching our heads wondering WTF. This negates such niceties like being able to say with fair certainty if you can make the picnic in two weeks or the Friday meeting down at the local burger joint that happens every other week. There isn't even a pattern as to shift or post. Nor is there much advance notice--it's posted week by week, one week at a time Sunday-Saturday on Thursdays, period. How in the world can people plan weekend stuff with their families if they only know if they'll get the Sunday after the Saturday off two days in advance? I've never seen a schedule done this way, dartboard style. I hope to never again. It's terribly inconvenient for everyone, including the schedule maker, although he probably doesn't see it that way. For him, short term, it appears to be the least stressful way to fill positions.
He'll be retiring soon. I like the man, and yet, yay!!
He needs to retire. In the meantime, apparently working part time means never having to say I'm available on a given day. Boo, drat.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Pass the Epsom Salt, please
I've been working like a maniac in the garden again (I guess there's a case to be made for writing 'still' rather than 'again'.) Today I put in about ten hours solid. It's looking up out there, but man, there's still so much to do and I can't keep this pace up. So now it's damage control, sort of. There's really no damage when I give up on stuff--just weeds move in and I don't get all the seeds planted that I want to.
Most seeds, with a few exceptions, can hang out for a year or three and get planted during a different year. The germination rate drops to be sure, and you have to store them carefully (cool-ish temps, dry, dark) but otherwise they're a low-maintenance carry over to the next year. Less seed to buy next year, I guess, but I'm a bit disappointed with myself. I mean, come on, if I'd kept up my mental schedule of getting at least one type of seed in the ground every dry, workable soil day once the growing season kicked in I'd be golden right now.
Man, I really want to get corn in this year. Corn doesn't keep very well.
Kami scowls at the computer, trying to think of a reasonable way to get corn in this year.
Kami thinks about a tractor.
Kami's scowl at the computer deepens as she considers the expense of renting a tractor.
Kami thinks about fresh corn grown in her own garden, pesticide free, sweet, and those tall, handsome stalks whispering in the wind.
Kami thinks more about a tractor.
Kami looks at her wallet.
Hey, hand digging isn't that bad, is it?
Ugh. Pass the epsom salt, please. I need to take a hot bath and not think about corn. Ugh! No corn, no corn, no corn--corn corn corn corn corn corn Corn!
I guess we'll have to rent a tractor. Or get the roto-tiller started. Shake shake shake, shake the corn field!
Most seeds, with a few exceptions, can hang out for a year or three and get planted during a different year. The germination rate drops to be sure, and you have to store them carefully (cool-ish temps, dry, dark) but otherwise they're a low-maintenance carry over to the next year. Less seed to buy next year, I guess, but I'm a bit disappointed with myself. I mean, come on, if I'd kept up my mental schedule of getting at least one type of seed in the ground every dry, workable soil day once the growing season kicked in I'd be golden right now.
Man, I really want to get corn in this year. Corn doesn't keep very well.
Kami scowls at the computer, trying to think of a reasonable way to get corn in this year.
Kami thinks about a tractor.
Kami's scowl at the computer deepens as she considers the expense of renting a tractor.
Kami thinks about fresh corn grown in her own garden, pesticide free, sweet, and those tall, handsome stalks whispering in the wind.
Kami thinks more about a tractor.
Kami looks at her wallet.
Hey, hand digging isn't that bad, is it?
Ugh. Pass the epsom salt, please. I need to take a hot bath and not think about corn. Ugh! No corn, no corn, no corn--corn corn corn corn corn corn Corn!
I guess we'll have to rent a tractor. Or get the roto-tiller started. Shake shake shake, shake the corn field!
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Outside
Sometimes a splurge-y purchase is something that adds nothing. The next day that pair of shoes might be entirely forgotten. The pizza will be eaten. You might desperately want to forget the movie, and pretend you didn't spend good money to go see that turd-come-to-life.
Other times, it transforms quality of life.
We brought home two large boxes, and Rory spent the afternoon putting the contents together with intermittant help from me. When he was finished, we had a gazebo centered on our deck with real outdoor deck furniture, cushions and all, on it. I've seen places with outdoor living spaces. I hadn't imagined we'd end up with one so soon, or that it would come together so quickly. And it fits, really fits the house. It's comfortable to sit there. I spent a good hour reading and felt as cozy as if I had been lounging in our living room, only with the incredible feeling of fresh air. And when it rains, it's nice out there, to be outside without getting drizzled on and yet I get to bask in that rain-scented atmosphere with the tattered clouds drifting silver among the deep green firs. I used to stand under the narrow eave with the rain drops dripping just past my nose and watch the thunderstorms. Now I can sit, or lean on the rail, and dream-watch.
The cats have given their stamp of approval and nap on the cushions in all kinds of weather. After it had been pouring last night, Claire, our allergic-losing-half-her-hair gray short-haired mackerel kitty, came in perfectly dry. She could wait out the weather inside without having to be let in.
Oh yeah, I think I forgot to mention, I love it. Did you catch that?
In garden news, the hollyhocks now have leaves as big as pumpkin leaves, and the buds keep getting bigger and bigger, the stalks taller and taller--how big do these things get again?
In goat news, we're ready to start stringing fence. We also need 15 more steel posts. Soon, soon my fuzzy darling goats will be unleashed on the unsuspecting blackberries.
Those blackberries are starting to come into bloom. When the weather warms again we'll have bees everywhere humming happily. I'm sure they're eagerly awaiting the blackberry bloom flush, as the poppies have pooped out. Oh, how those bees love the big, orange, oriental poppies. The bees swim inside them, drunk with the sheer quantity of pollen, purple pollen that turns the bees purple and makes it hard for them to fly.
Talk of blackberries makes me think of August, when the berries are ripe, and the August Babies Birthday Bash, and sleeping on the deck. Mmmm.
It's all coming back to me, the things I missed during winter, those things outside. I love being outside. Tomorrow it's supposed to be sunny, so hopefully I'll be there. Outside. Oh yes, even if it rains, I think I'll still be there, outside.
Other times, it transforms quality of life.
We brought home two large boxes, and Rory spent the afternoon putting the contents together with intermittant help from me. When he was finished, we had a gazebo centered on our deck with real outdoor deck furniture, cushions and all, on it. I've seen places with outdoor living spaces. I hadn't imagined we'd end up with one so soon, or that it would come together so quickly. And it fits, really fits the house. It's comfortable to sit there. I spent a good hour reading and felt as cozy as if I had been lounging in our living room, only with the incredible feeling of fresh air. And when it rains, it's nice out there, to be outside without getting drizzled on and yet I get to bask in that rain-scented atmosphere with the tattered clouds drifting silver among the deep green firs. I used to stand under the narrow eave with the rain drops dripping just past my nose and watch the thunderstorms. Now I can sit, or lean on the rail, and dream-watch.
The cats have given their stamp of approval and nap on the cushions in all kinds of weather. After it had been pouring last night, Claire, our allergic-losing-half-her-hair gray short-haired mackerel kitty, came in perfectly dry. She could wait out the weather inside without having to be let in.
Oh yeah, I think I forgot to mention, I love it. Did you catch that?
In garden news, the hollyhocks now have leaves as big as pumpkin leaves, and the buds keep getting bigger and bigger, the stalks taller and taller--how big do these things get again?
In goat news, we're ready to start stringing fence. We also need 15 more steel posts. Soon, soon my fuzzy darling goats will be unleashed on the unsuspecting blackberries.
Those blackberries are starting to come into bloom. When the weather warms again we'll have bees everywhere humming happily. I'm sure they're eagerly awaiting the blackberry bloom flush, as the poppies have pooped out. Oh, how those bees love the big, orange, oriental poppies. The bees swim inside them, drunk with the sheer quantity of pollen, purple pollen that turns the bees purple and makes it hard for them to fly.
Talk of blackberries makes me think of August, when the berries are ripe, and the August Babies Birthday Bash, and sleeping on the deck. Mmmm.
It's all coming back to me, the things I missed during winter, those things outside. I love being outside. Tomorrow it's supposed to be sunny, so hopefully I'll be there. Outside. Oh yes, even if it rains, I think I'll still be there, outside.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Getting things done
Around here it's been like "Getting Things Done with Delores". For non-fans (people with a real life?) of "Dead Like Me," Delores is a middle manager character who viewers discover has webcams all over her studio (except in the bathroom) where people can watch her getting things done. She describes it as pressure relief for those who want to get things done but don't have the same energy as her--and they find her inspiring. When the main character goes to stay with Delores she is taken a bit aback by the pace Delores keeps, washing dishes, vacuuming, changing light bulbs, putting up new contact paper in the cupboards (her blog viewers voted on which one since Delores couldn't decide between the two,) etc. Anyway, for whatever reason, be it seasonal, hormonal, meteorological, cyclical, lunar, solar, stellar, pschic or any reason beyond my ken, I've been on a cleaning binge. And when I go outside, I weed like a demon. Like the main character in Dead Like Me, I'm a bit taken aback by myself. I mean, good gods, I even ironed my altar cloth.
Anyway.
To answer a few questions (thanks for the comments!) the Nanopubye blog will eventually resurface at the newly redone Nanopubye site, when the webmaster manages to get to it. She has a lot on her hands, hoping to set up with a much less crash prone server. So all that content hasn't disappeared. The site did go poof without warning, due to a crash I presume, but no data was lost and all will be well. Unfortunately, until I update my confuter (someday) I suspect that the format will involve frames, which for me will mean I'll be reading things in long, single word columns and some options will be invisible. Such is life with an old Mac.
In other news, the garden and puppies are growing apace, and we have a visiting dog who will be staying with us for the weekend--perhaps you've heard of Ris' Beau. Although he's a decent-sized dog of much mixed heritage, he's the smallest dog. So far he's settling in nicely. Soon he'll wear himself out chasing, being chased by and playing and roaming with the other dogs and will probably take a long nap. Also in other news, the Nissan (pushing steadily towards 300,000 miles) had its engine light come on again (groan!!) and so I'm taking it in today, dreading the news. If the Nissan dies I'll be back to driving the awesome but gas-hogging truck. The truck is less gas-hoggy these days, though, as Rory discovered a loose hose that squirted gas (how the truck ran like that I'll never know) and plugged it back in. The gas odor whilst running vanished (no surprise there) and the gas mileage improved (also no surprise.) Still, with nationwide gas prices rising to equal the cost of Hershey's chocolate syrup, I'm not excited about driving another vehicle.
Best get to the auto shop. Mustn't slack off my pace, or my viewers will start complaining how I'm just not getting as much done around here a la Getting Things Done with Delores.
P.S. -- My new pov color is purple, same as the old pov color. So predictable ...
Anyway.
To answer a few questions (thanks for the comments!) the Nanopubye blog will eventually resurface at the newly redone Nanopubye site, when the webmaster manages to get to it. She has a lot on her hands, hoping to set up with a much less crash prone server. So all that content hasn't disappeared. The site did go poof without warning, due to a crash I presume, but no data was lost and all will be well. Unfortunately, until I update my confuter (someday) I suspect that the format will involve frames, which for me will mean I'll be reading things in long, single word columns and some options will be invisible. Such is life with an old Mac.
In other news, the garden and puppies are growing apace, and we have a visiting dog who will be staying with us for the weekend--perhaps you've heard of Ris' Beau. Although he's a decent-sized dog of much mixed heritage, he's the smallest dog. So far he's settling in nicely. Soon he'll wear himself out chasing, being chased by and playing and roaming with the other dogs and will probably take a long nap. Also in other news, the Nissan (pushing steadily towards 300,000 miles) had its engine light come on again (groan!!) and so I'm taking it in today, dreading the news. If the Nissan dies I'll be back to driving the awesome but gas-hogging truck. The truck is less gas-hoggy these days, though, as Rory discovered a loose hose that squirted gas (how the truck ran like that I'll never know) and plugged it back in. The gas odor whilst running vanished (no surprise there) and the gas mileage improved (also no surprise.) Still, with nationwide gas prices rising to equal the cost of Hershey's chocolate syrup, I'm not excited about driving another vehicle.
Best get to the auto shop. Mustn't slack off my pace, or my viewers will start complaining how I'm just not getting as much done around here a la Getting Things Done with Delores.
P.S. -- My new pov color is purple, same as the old pov color. So predictable ...
Monday, June 04, 2007
The Return
Well, it looks like it's official. The Nanopubye blog is dead, toast, gone, entirely inaccessible, even possibly deleted. I've emailed the webmaster for the site and maybe, just maybe, it got archived, but she said on the front page that she archived the *forums*, saying nothing of the dozen or so blogs that were reasonably active there.
Too bad, I guess.
Which means I'll have to employ brand new skills and increasing levels of craftiness in order to do what I love the most--create illustrated and entertaining full color posts on a very outdated computer--on this blog. It'll be a challenge. Sometimes I can access some of the pic-sites, sometimes I can't. We're talking one day I can access site X and do whatever and the next I can't, which brings to mind an image of a MIB-style operative smiling as he sees that I've logged online and holding his finger over two keys, one saying grant access, the other saying deny access, and the finger waggles between the two like a weird caterpiller. Hey, I might even be able to post movies, or links to them, eventually, as I get this all figured out. If so, y'all definitely got to see the puppies playing in the snow when they were tiny.
Tiny no more. The puppies have grown into seven month olds, aka white horses.
But I digress.
So this is the officially semi-new full time Kami blog, which may be a yay or a boo depending on your POV. Catch ya later!
Too bad, I guess.
Which means I'll have to employ brand new skills and increasing levels of craftiness in order to do what I love the most--create illustrated and entertaining full color posts on a very outdated computer--on this blog. It'll be a challenge. Sometimes I can access some of the pic-sites, sometimes I can't. We're talking one day I can access site X and do whatever and the next I can't, which brings to mind an image of a MIB-style operative smiling as he sees that I've logged online and holding his finger over two keys, one saying grant access, the other saying deny access, and the finger waggles between the two like a weird caterpiller. Hey, I might even be able to post movies, or links to them, eventually, as I get this all figured out. If so, y'all definitely got to see the puppies playing in the snow when they were tiny.
Tiny no more. The puppies have grown into seven month olds, aka white horses.
But I digress.
So this is the officially semi-new full time Kami blog, which may be a yay or a boo depending on your POV. Catch ya later!
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Half baked day
Today's theme, partially done projects.
Spent a few hours tiling today. Got five field tiles down and about a dozen edging tile (aka bullnose) on the back wall. When the edging is grouted, I can push my desk against the wall and bring in a bit more stuff. Tile saw needs to be fired up first, though. I get to see if I remember how to score and break properly as one of my very first cuts. Geh. Rory made mortar for me and buttered tile to help things move faster, and he put in a shelf above my door. I'd love to get more done tomorrow, but I doubt I'll be up for it after work. Maybe instead I'll write! I didn't finish Nanowrimo. Too many distractions, too many disasters and too many zero days where I really could have put in at least 500 words if I'd tried. Ah well. Better luck next year. I'm motivated to get it done because I very much want to finish my edit on Masks and get it out to agents.
The wind is howling outside tonight. I have no idea what the weather is supposed to do the next few, but I'm sure it's going to be interesting. Hopefully not too interesting as I get to return to work tomorrow for a full day.
I'm really missing the covered porch today. I had a lot of hopes for it over the winter, having tropical plants in there and art stuff and setting it up so that things could be a little more organized around here. The downstairs area is downright oppressive. But as the office gets done and has more shelves added and as I toss out things that we no longer need (or are outright garbage) it'll help a lot. Then, when it's done, maybe on fair weather days in February I can get back to work on the dream porch.
Spent a few hours tiling today. Got five field tiles down and about a dozen edging tile (aka bullnose) on the back wall. When the edging is grouted, I can push my desk against the wall and bring in a bit more stuff. Tile saw needs to be fired up first, though. I get to see if I remember how to score and break properly as one of my very first cuts. Geh. Rory made mortar for me and buttered tile to help things move faster, and he put in a shelf above my door. I'd love to get more done tomorrow, but I doubt I'll be up for it after work. Maybe instead I'll write! I didn't finish Nanowrimo. Too many distractions, too many disasters and too many zero days where I really could have put in at least 500 words if I'd tried. Ah well. Better luck next year. I'm motivated to get it done because I very much want to finish my edit on Masks and get it out to agents.
The wind is howling outside tonight. I have no idea what the weather is supposed to do the next few, but I'm sure it's going to be interesting. Hopefully not too interesting as I get to return to work tomorrow for a full day.
I'm really missing the covered porch today. I had a lot of hopes for it over the winter, having tropical plants in there and art stuff and setting it up so that things could be a little more organized around here. The downstairs area is downright oppressive. But as the office gets done and has more shelves added and as I toss out things that we no longer need (or are outright garbage) it'll help a lot. Then, when it's done, maybe on fair weather days in February I can get back to work on the dream porch.
Monday, October 23, 2006
It's For Science
[Once again my other blog at Nanopubye.org is down. ]
I love my husband.
Occasionally he asks me "why are people nervous around me?" or "why is admin so uncomfortable with me?" After all, he is incredibly dependable, honest, extremely hard-working. He's loved by his coworkers. He's almost always the first to arrive on the scene when there's a call for back up, even if he's at the opposite end of the extensive complex where he works. He keeps the work environment as safe as possible. He has such a way with mentally disturbed people, that he's routinely called to handle someone, because if anyone else tried to deal with that person, chances are there would be a big fight, and injuries.
The other day he told me that one of the road officers confided in him during one of their training sessions. He let Rory know that if he ever 'went bad' they were just going to shoot him on sight.
So this morning he asked me if, after he retires, he ought to spend about ten years being a bad guy. "It would be for science," he said, batting his eyes at me. "I'd be like the Joker, only more subtle. It would be funny."
He and I had discovered over our many years together, the Universe primarily exists to be funny. He'd be helping it out.
He fails to point out that it would be bad guys who would have things happen to them, not innocents, which makes him more like Batman, only creepier. Batman and Joker's love child? But that would be wrong. Sort of.
Anyway, he still wonders why he makes people nervous.
I sure do love him.
By the way, I forbid him to go bad. He has to be a good guy until the end. Then he can be bad for maybe a little bit, just locally before he heads off into realms unknown.
This is my primary purpose in the Universe; to forbid badness in the Rory. It's a lonely job, but someone has to do it.
I love my husband.
Occasionally he asks me "why are people nervous around me?" or "why is admin so uncomfortable with me?" After all, he is incredibly dependable, honest, extremely hard-working. He's loved by his coworkers. He's almost always the first to arrive on the scene when there's a call for back up, even if he's at the opposite end of the extensive complex where he works. He keeps the work environment as safe as possible. He has such a way with mentally disturbed people, that he's routinely called to handle someone, because if anyone else tried to deal with that person, chances are there would be a big fight, and injuries.
The other day he told me that one of the road officers confided in him during one of their training sessions. He let Rory know that if he ever 'went bad' they were just going to shoot him on sight.
So this morning he asked me if, after he retires, he ought to spend about ten years being a bad guy. "It would be for science," he said, batting his eyes at me. "I'd be like the Joker, only more subtle. It would be funny."
He and I had discovered over our many years together, the Universe primarily exists to be funny. He'd be helping it out.
He fails to point out that it would be bad guys who would have things happen to them, not innocents, which makes him more like Batman, only creepier. Batman and Joker's love child? But that would be wrong. Sort of.
Anyway, he still wonders why he makes people nervous.
I sure do love him.
By the way, I forbid him to go bad. He has to be a good guy until the end. Then he can be bad for maybe a little bit, just locally before he heads off into realms unknown.
This is my primary purpose in the Universe; to forbid badness in the Rory. It's a lonely job, but someone has to do it.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Beautiful Faith
Rory and I pulled up to the LJC Feed store at 5:15. Amid the nursery selections and shelves of bagged feed, a double glass door peered darkly from under deep eaves, marred by the ugly, orange "CLOSED" sign.
"Gah! I thought they were open until 6!" I gripped the Bruiser's steering wheel, the Bruiser that was running on a half tank of gas (actually, two quarter tanks) and whose loud purr proclaimed how happily it devoured heaps of gas and how it would gladly return back up the hill, devouring even more. "Can you see the hours on the door?" I asked Rory, morbidly curious.
Meanwhile a red pickup truck was pulling out. It drew up alongside and the driver's window rolled down. The driver made motions, a tall, dark, lean man. I rolled my window down after a blank moment of 'is he going to ask me a question I can't answer or does he want something or am I doing something wrong?' taking up valuable response time. I'm sure I gaped at him, open-mouthed the entire time.
"You need something in the store?"
I admit my hearing is bad enough that I had to simultaneously reparse the sounds he made, interpreting a sentence, while trying to figure out what was going on. Rory was way ahead of me. He leaned over, which would normally put him in my lap, but in the Bruiser he was still several miles away. "No, that's all right."
Comprehension struck me and I gave the driver my best grateful grin. "I guess we'll just have to come back tomorrow."
"Because if it's something important I can get it real quick. It's no trouble."
"Well, we're out of rabbit food," I admitted.
"But we can just give them some greens to get them by until tomorrow," Rory assured him.
"It's no trouble," the driver assured us, and he parked his truck again.
I maneuvered the Bruiser into a parking spot, hopefully not looking too much more idiotic than a four year old trying to steer a shopping cart, and we followed him into the garage. He chit chatted cheerfully as we looked for the rabbit feed, to no avail. They had the small bags in there, but the big bags were inside the building.
"Sometimes they leave this door unlocked," he said, trying the door into the main building. It wasn't.
"That's all right," Rory said. "We'll just come back tomorrow."
"I have a key to the main building," he said. "It's no trouble."
Warm with guilt, we followed him to the glass doors and he let us in. We located the bag in short order, and the man hefted it. Rory got out some cash, reading the price. $6.99. "How about ten dollars," I offered. "That should cover the tax and everything."
"Naw," the man said, carrying the feed out. "You just come in tomorrow and pay."
Rory made small Irish hospitality protesty noises (they're very cute.)
"We do have to come back for alfalfa hay," I said. "We'll definitely do that."
"But--" Rory continued to make incomplete prostesting noises, waving the $10 bill.
"This is why I wanted to own a feed store," the man said.
Loyal customers for life. I didn't even have to drive in the next day--I didn't want to pick up hay in the rain so I called in, hoping I could say or do something and save starting up the Bruiser. It turned out they could take my credit card info over the phone, after I explained the circumstances. "And could you write a thank you note for me for the guy? I think he said he was the owner."
"What did he look like? Tall? Dark hair?"
"Lean?" I added.
"That's Gordon."
Thank you, Gordon. You'll be seeing us at the store often.
"Gah! I thought they were open until 6!" I gripped the Bruiser's steering wheel, the Bruiser that was running on a half tank of gas (actually, two quarter tanks) and whose loud purr proclaimed how happily it devoured heaps of gas and how it would gladly return back up the hill, devouring even more. "Can you see the hours on the door?" I asked Rory, morbidly curious.
Meanwhile a red pickup truck was pulling out. It drew up alongside and the driver's window rolled down. The driver made motions, a tall, dark, lean man. I rolled my window down after a blank moment of 'is he going to ask me a question I can't answer or does he want something or am I doing something wrong?' taking up valuable response time. I'm sure I gaped at him, open-mouthed the entire time.
"You need something in the store?"
I admit my hearing is bad enough that I had to simultaneously reparse the sounds he made, interpreting a sentence, while trying to figure out what was going on. Rory was way ahead of me. He leaned over, which would normally put him in my lap, but in the Bruiser he was still several miles away. "No, that's all right."
Comprehension struck me and I gave the driver my best grateful grin. "I guess we'll just have to come back tomorrow."
"Because if it's something important I can get it real quick. It's no trouble."
"Well, we're out of rabbit food," I admitted.
"But we can just give them some greens to get them by until tomorrow," Rory assured him.
"It's no trouble," the driver assured us, and he parked his truck again.
I maneuvered the Bruiser into a parking spot, hopefully not looking too much more idiotic than a four year old trying to steer a shopping cart, and we followed him into the garage. He chit chatted cheerfully as we looked for the rabbit feed, to no avail. They had the small bags in there, but the big bags were inside the building.
"Sometimes they leave this door unlocked," he said, trying the door into the main building. It wasn't.
"That's all right," Rory said. "We'll just come back tomorrow."
"I have a key to the main building," he said. "It's no trouble."
Warm with guilt, we followed him to the glass doors and he let us in. We located the bag in short order, and the man hefted it. Rory got out some cash, reading the price. $6.99. "How about ten dollars," I offered. "That should cover the tax and everything."
"Naw," the man said, carrying the feed out. "You just come in tomorrow and pay."
Rory made small Irish hospitality protesty noises (they're very cute.)
"We do have to come back for alfalfa hay," I said. "We'll definitely do that."
"But--" Rory continued to make incomplete prostesting noises, waving the $10 bill.
"This is why I wanted to own a feed store," the man said.
Loyal customers for life. I didn't even have to drive in the next day--I didn't want to pick up hay in the rain so I called in, hoping I could say or do something and save starting up the Bruiser. It turned out they could take my credit card info over the phone, after I explained the circumstances. "And could you write a thank you note for me for the guy? I think he said he was the owner."
"What did he look like? Tall? Dark hair?"
"Lean?" I added.
"That's Gordon."
Thank you, Gordon. You'll be seeing us at the store often.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Escape from Blackberry Manor
I searched the entire house, top to bottom, looking in all the best cat spots and some of the less likely ones: inside cupboards, on top of narrow shelves, in the pantry though the door had been closed the entire time since the last time I'd seen Wizard. I searched when I first got up about 6am, and again after the kids had left about 7:30, and again, and again … About 12:30 I was starting to really wonder what had gotten into him. His food hadn't been touched since I filled it at 6am, he was overdue for his meds, and I had looked *everywhere* a dozen times, including making Rory climb up into my office closet and, using a mirror and a flashlight, checking in the space between ceiling and floor where Claire can squeeze in and hunt for mice. Still no Wizard.
So Rory goes and checks to see what the dogs are barking at now, and Beast is acting more goofy than usual, bounding about, tongue lolling. And then Rory saw him, Wizard, tucked into a tidy cat package near the juniper bushes looking very put upon. I don't know how Rory noticed him, the sandy tabby settled in a spot between the pale grass and the dark shrubs, camoflaging himself exquisitely.
The entire time I think Beast was thinking my gawd, how does Lassie do it? I've been acting like an idiot all morning trying to tell them the cat is out here and do they pay attention? No, they wander around the house, calling the cat's name. Grrr!
And of course Rory, not Beast, is dubbed the hero as Rory puts on his shoes and scoops the cat up. After a thorough examination, Wizard is dubbed sound (though now he has dirty paws from his adventure,) is given his antibiotics and deposited in front of his food, which he proceeds to devour.
It's likely that Wizard did what no one would expect him to do--leap through a hole in the once-screened screen door while Rory was taking out the trash, landing himself in dog territory. And he'd been there all night. I don't know if Beast's constant circling and inquiries as to whether kitty wants to play or if kitty wants a bath or if kitty would like to play chase kept Wizard inside the yard. It might have as easily been the fact that Wiz is not in any shape to climb a 5' chainlink fence and Beast always runs to the gates when there's even the slightest activity there, and those are the only spots where there's enough space for a cat to slip through.
I shiver to think of what might have happened if Rory hadn't seen Wizard there. His wounds are healing but they're still easily openable, with just thin scabs and lots of red. He also needs to finish his course of antibiotics.
He has another appointment in a month to have his second immunization shot, and at that time he'll get microchipped. It can't be soon enough for me. We have had two calls about the ad in the paper, but one was for a large, older cat and one was for a female. Maybe his owner is looking for him, but so far, looks like he's found home.
So Rory goes and checks to see what the dogs are barking at now, and Beast is acting more goofy than usual, bounding about, tongue lolling. And then Rory saw him, Wizard, tucked into a tidy cat package near the juniper bushes looking very put upon. I don't know how Rory noticed him, the sandy tabby settled in a spot between the pale grass and the dark shrubs, camoflaging himself exquisitely.
The entire time I think Beast was thinking my gawd, how does Lassie do it? I've been acting like an idiot all morning trying to tell them the cat is out here and do they pay attention? No, they wander around the house, calling the cat's name. Grrr!
And of course Rory, not Beast, is dubbed the hero as Rory puts on his shoes and scoops the cat up. After a thorough examination, Wizard is dubbed sound (though now he has dirty paws from his adventure,) is given his antibiotics and deposited in front of his food, which he proceeds to devour.
It's likely that Wizard did what no one would expect him to do--leap through a hole in the once-screened screen door while Rory was taking out the trash, landing himself in dog territory. And he'd been there all night. I don't know if Beast's constant circling and inquiries as to whether kitty wants to play or if kitty wants a bath or if kitty would like to play chase kept Wizard inside the yard. It might have as easily been the fact that Wiz is not in any shape to climb a 5' chainlink fence and Beast always runs to the gates when there's even the slightest activity there, and those are the only spots where there's enough space for a cat to slip through.
I shiver to think of what might have happened if Rory hadn't seen Wizard there. His wounds are healing but they're still easily openable, with just thin scabs and lots of red. He also needs to finish his course of antibiotics.
He has another appointment in a month to have his second immunization shot, and at that time he'll get microchipped. It can't be soon enough for me. We have had two calls about the ad in the paper, but one was for a large, older cat and one was for a female. Maybe his owner is looking for him, but so far, looks like he's found home.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Doomed I say, doomed!
It seems that Jestablog on Nanopubye.org is toast for now. Hopefully it'll be back online soon--I haven't finished capturing all my old entries and I really don't want to lose them all. Not that they're all that, just that I put a lot of time and thought and effort and I'm sure it will be published in its entirety when I'm fabulously famous. Thesis students will pour over the entries for insight into my creative life and secretly write sexual stories about me.
Really.
Wizard follows me around the house, mewing. About the only time he isn't mewing now is when he's asleep or being petted. I'm not entirely sure what he wants. His original owners? He doesn't seem to want outside, surprisingly, though I imagine if I opened the door for him he'd go out. The good news is (besides the fact that he has a soft voice--what a blessing! We have another winner in the peace and quiet contest!) that his leg is healing really well. His foot is almost normal-sized now and although he's delicate with it, he can put his full weight on it. He even made a few short jumps today. Blogeois sent me some pics in email (I still haven't found my camera's battery recharger, grr!) I'll be sharing pics here if I can get photobucket to be nice to me.
My pretty boy, Wizard aka Wiz aka Great Wizard aka G. Wiz aka Pinball Wizard
I am Ramen King, here me roar!
I also would like to repost (since right after I posted it, the original Jestablog started giving everyone connection failures) The Positional Vote. Please vote for your favorite orientation. I'm hoping I won't have to change the hanging wire orientation, but I suspect I'm doomed.
Orientation One:
Orientation Two:
Orientation Three:
Yes, there is one more orientation but you won't sell me on that one.
So, cast yer votes me hearties! The final decision has to be made by Nov. 10, 2006 so no more voting after that, I mean it! (Does anyone want a peanut?)
And please let me know if my attempts to add images to this site are an appalling failure. I'll try something else if they are.
Really.
Wizard follows me around the house, mewing. About the only time he isn't mewing now is when he's asleep or being petted. I'm not entirely sure what he wants. His original owners? He doesn't seem to want outside, surprisingly, though I imagine if I opened the door for him he'd go out. The good news is (besides the fact that he has a soft voice--what a blessing! We have another winner in the peace and quiet contest!) that his leg is healing really well. His foot is almost normal-sized now and although he's delicate with it, he can put his full weight on it. He even made a few short jumps today. Blogeois sent me some pics in email (I still haven't found my camera's battery recharger, grr!) I'll be sharing pics here if I can get photobucket to be nice to me.
My pretty boy, Wizard aka Wiz aka Great Wizard aka G. Wiz aka Pinball Wizard
I am Ramen King, here me roar!
I also would like to repost (since right after I posted it, the original Jestablog started giving everyone connection failures) The Positional Vote. Please vote for your favorite orientation. I'm hoping I won't have to change the hanging wire orientation, but I suspect I'm doomed.
Orientation One:
Orientation Two:
Orientation Three:
Yes, there is one more orientation but you won't sell me on that one.
So, cast yer votes me hearties! The final decision has to be made by Nov. 10, 2006 so no more voting after that, I mean it! (Does anyone want a peanut?)
And please let me know if my attempts to add images to this site are an appalling failure. I'll try something else if they are.
Monday, October 09, 2006
The Vet, G. Wiz, and the seduction of a padawan owner
I know, I know, I only ever come here when my regular blog isn't working. I'm such a bad blogger.
So, to update those of you who read this blog and not the other, we recently captured a stray cat that's been wandering about the area, thinking it might be a Bengal that someone had lost and posted a notice about at our local vet's. He's not a Bengal, but he is gorgeous, and today, just 'cause, I did a very, very naughty thing.
Well, only slightly naughty.
I took him to the vet for an exam as he had a very swollen hind foot, and to test for HIV/Leukemia because that would be a problem for our other cats. The clinic was a bit of a madhouse because two people had called in sick (probably with the same thing I'm keeping my son home for--come on, people, germ theory has been around a long time. Keep it to yourselves, for pity's sake like our good local vets and my (admittedly glad to stay home) child.) I had a longer wait than usual, and so Wizard, aka Great Wizard aka G. Wiz (the cat isn't even ours technically and he already has three names) and I had some quality time in which he expressed his appreciation for being let out of the Cat Carrier of Ultimate Evil (TM) (aka C.C.U.E.) by purring loudly and butting his head against my arm.
Finally the vet comes in and we talk while he examines Wiz. No, he's not even 'lightly' altered. No, he's not Bengal, or pureblood anything. He hasn't been well kept in the past. He has a broken tooth. No, the leg is not broken--he's been bitten repeatedly on the foot, leg and flank by something cat-sized, probably a fight. He may have been hit by a car, though obviously not hard enough to cripple him, or he may have been thrown out of a car at some point. He'll need antibiotics, and probably will need to be wormed--really no use in spending the money for a fecal when it's likely he picked up all kinds of things from living wild, though there aren't tapeworm fragments in obvious evidence in his feces. (There was a tiny bone, though, which was kinda kewl.) The vet took him away to shave the hair off the inside of his leg for a clean blood draw for the test. When he returned, the vet began luring me to the Dark Side.
"It would be very simple for you to just leave him here, and we can alter him today," the vet said.
"Well, we don't know if someone might not claim him," I said. "I'm planning on asking whoever might claim him to pay for any services you provide today, as it's to the cat's general welfare and it's not really out of bounds to have a worming done and all that, and the tests are necessary for us to have him at home with our cats."
"Let's have a look at those results," he said.
Five minutes later ...
"He's negative for both Feline Leukemia and Feline HIV," the vet said cheerfully, flashing me a brilliant Dark Side smile. "You know, I don't think anyone is going to claim this cat. It's a typical tabby, and no one did the responsible thing for him and altered him. I doubt anyone is going to come looking for this cat."
"And," I noted aloud, feeling guilty, "if I did have him altered and someone came to claim him, they might be angry, but it is for the cat's welfare and best interest, and if they still wanted him, at least he'd have that going for him."
"He wouldn't be getting into as many fights," the vet added. "I highly recommend the procedure. And while he's under anesthetic, we can irrigate his wounds."
Oh yeah, I think. And if I wait until later, when it's obvious no one wants him, to have this done, then he'll need a second course of antibiotics for the neutering--this way the antibiotics will cover both the neutering *and* the bite wounds.
And the bite wounds, the more I look at the cat, need to be dealt with. He has a sore on one of his pads, and hair coming off his swollen foot, and the more we run our hands over him, the more scabs and bumps we feel. He would *probably* get better on his own, but the swelling ... the swelling on his poor foot worries me. It's like a sausage, and he doesn't like putting weight on it. Even with gentle compression, the cat growls a brief warning at the vet.
It's a big step, but oh the temptation. Wizard isn't helping, gazing at me with big gold-green eyes, purring deep in his throat.
"I have to think about this," I said, wishing I could call Rory at work, but I know he's training today and he'll be out of easy reach. The only way I could justify pulling him out of the class is with an emergency. This is not an emergency, not something I could justify putting a halt to an entire class of law enforcement and corrections professionals on hold at a rate of a gillion dollars an hour so that I could agonize over the welfare of a tabby cat with my husband.
"I'll go put some paperwork together," the vet said.
The vet left me alone with Wizard for three minutes (bastard!) and all the while Wizard purred and preened the air and gazed at me lovingly. When the vet returned, I caved, caved like a Ding Dong that had all the cream filling licked out of it, licked out by this damned beautiful, loving, adorable cat.
"Let's do it," I said.
The vet nodded knowingly.
I'll be bringing Wizard home today at 4:30 if all goes well. Here I am, biting my nails with worry over this cat that came from who knows where for whatever reason--and I feel good. He's going to be all right.
I did the right thing.
Even though it's probably terribly wrong, it's right.
So, to update those of you who read this blog and not the other, we recently captured a stray cat that's been wandering about the area, thinking it might be a Bengal that someone had lost and posted a notice about at our local vet's. He's not a Bengal, but he is gorgeous, and today, just 'cause, I did a very, very naughty thing.
Well, only slightly naughty.
I took him to the vet for an exam as he had a very swollen hind foot, and to test for HIV/Leukemia because that would be a problem for our other cats. The clinic was a bit of a madhouse because two people had called in sick (probably with the same thing I'm keeping my son home for--come on, people, germ theory has been around a long time. Keep it to yourselves, for pity's sake like our good local vets and my (admittedly glad to stay home) child.) I had a longer wait than usual, and so Wizard, aka Great Wizard aka G. Wiz (the cat isn't even ours technically and he already has three names) and I had some quality time in which he expressed his appreciation for being let out of the Cat Carrier of Ultimate Evil (TM) (aka C.C.U.E.) by purring loudly and butting his head against my arm.
Finally the vet comes in and we talk while he examines Wiz. No, he's not even 'lightly' altered. No, he's not Bengal, or pureblood anything. He hasn't been well kept in the past. He has a broken tooth. No, the leg is not broken--he's been bitten repeatedly on the foot, leg and flank by something cat-sized, probably a fight. He may have been hit by a car, though obviously not hard enough to cripple him, or he may have been thrown out of a car at some point. He'll need antibiotics, and probably will need to be wormed--really no use in spending the money for a fecal when it's likely he picked up all kinds of things from living wild, though there aren't tapeworm fragments in obvious evidence in his feces. (There was a tiny bone, though, which was kinda kewl.) The vet took him away to shave the hair off the inside of his leg for a clean blood draw for the test. When he returned, the vet began luring me to the Dark Side.
"It would be very simple for you to just leave him here, and we can alter him today," the vet said.
"Well, we don't know if someone might not claim him," I said. "I'm planning on asking whoever might claim him to pay for any services you provide today, as it's to the cat's general welfare and it's not really out of bounds to have a worming done and all that, and the tests are necessary for us to have him at home with our cats."
"Let's have a look at those results," he said.
Five minutes later ...
"He's negative for both Feline Leukemia and Feline HIV," the vet said cheerfully, flashing me a brilliant Dark Side smile. "You know, I don't think anyone is going to claim this cat. It's a typical tabby, and no one did the responsible thing for him and altered him. I doubt anyone is going to come looking for this cat."
"And," I noted aloud, feeling guilty, "if I did have him altered and someone came to claim him, they might be angry, but it is for the cat's welfare and best interest, and if they still wanted him, at least he'd have that going for him."
"He wouldn't be getting into as many fights," the vet added. "I highly recommend the procedure. And while he's under anesthetic, we can irrigate his wounds."
Oh yeah, I think. And if I wait until later, when it's obvious no one wants him, to have this done, then he'll need a second course of antibiotics for the neutering--this way the antibiotics will cover both the neutering *and* the bite wounds.
And the bite wounds, the more I look at the cat, need to be dealt with. He has a sore on one of his pads, and hair coming off his swollen foot, and the more we run our hands over him, the more scabs and bumps we feel. He would *probably* get better on his own, but the swelling ... the swelling on his poor foot worries me. It's like a sausage, and he doesn't like putting weight on it. Even with gentle compression, the cat growls a brief warning at the vet.
It's a big step, but oh the temptation. Wizard isn't helping, gazing at me with big gold-green eyes, purring deep in his throat.
"I have to think about this," I said, wishing I could call Rory at work, but I know he's training today and he'll be out of easy reach. The only way I could justify pulling him out of the class is with an emergency. This is not an emergency, not something I could justify putting a halt to an entire class of law enforcement and corrections professionals on hold at a rate of a gillion dollars an hour so that I could agonize over the welfare of a tabby cat with my husband.
"I'll go put some paperwork together," the vet said.
The vet left me alone with Wizard for three minutes (bastard!) and all the while Wizard purred and preened the air and gazed at me lovingly. When the vet returned, I caved, caved like a Ding Dong that had all the cream filling licked out of it, licked out by this damned beautiful, loving, adorable cat.
"Let's do it," I said.
The vet nodded knowingly.
I'll be bringing Wizard home today at 4:30 if all goes well. Here I am, biting my nails with worry over this cat that came from who knows where for whatever reason--and I feel good. He's going to be all right.
I did the right thing.
Even though it's probably terribly wrong, it's right.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
