And then it rained

So my DH and I have been getting all enthusiastic about doing some much-needed work on the house, right? You'd think this would make all good things better.

Well.

The last thing we had to do on the deck was to replace two joists. Simple, right? It began as a bit of a chore, because a lot of the screws that held the deck surface to the joists didn't want to come out, and some of them broke off. This is normal stuff for decks. When my mother rebuilt her deck, she came across the same thing.

But then when we pulled the first joist, we found that about three feet of the beam tied to the house that supported the joists was rotten. Not just a little rotten. I pulled out handfuls of sawdust and a couple of termites. On top of that, the wet damage extended down below the beam. I could push my fingers through the siding there. It ran along the family room window.

We have T-11 siding that's tied directly into the framing. There's no intervening plywood.

In short, we have a hole in the side of our house.

This isn't a DIY situation. Luckily, I have a neighbor who's a contractor. When the rain lets up, I'm going to ask him to come over and frown at the damage with me.

Oh yes, I almost forgot to mention. After a long dry spell, it's now raining. And we have a hole in the side of our house. After listening to it rain all morning from about 7:30am, and after the panicked realization that we have a hole in the side of our house and maybe I should like, you know, cover it?, I decided to check the weather report. Intermittent rain after 1pm, it says. Well it's pouring right now. I'm a little afraid to find out what it's going to do in the afternoon.

There's a tarp on the deck now. The section in front of the sliding door isn't safe to walk on, because it's missing a joist and the surface is too soft to trust our weight to it. But at least it's staying dry at the spot where there's a hole in the house.

Weeeee!

I don't know what we're going to do, but I expect that whatever we do will probably be expensive.

Wish us luck!

The Theme of Life

I've been reminded recently that I really ought to have a theme for my blog. I've resisted this because there are so many different facets to my life, and I'd really hate to stop blogging about some of those simply because they don't fit, or fit only awkwardly into my theme. What would my blog be without mention of The Barbie Lady (who has been shopping at our store a lot lately) or the goats or my long sessions of banging my head against the keyboard while trying to learn yet another skill that I have no business learning when I should be WRITING BOOKS & SHORT STORIES.

Speaking of skills, this house is once again putting me through homeowner school, as in it's schooling me. I don't think I'm actually getting an education, but I am developing a nice case of tennis elbow without actually picking up a racket.

My DH and I surfaced the porch. My sister, mother and I put together the new framework for the porch together, oh, about three years ago now. You see, the porch foundation collapsed so that it leaned to the right on the way in to the house, and then the stairs fell apart, and off to the side, part of the porch completely rotted through and our sitting window is currently supported by about 4" thick of crumbling wood. The 4" may be generous. Anyway, the idea was to rebuild the porch, jack the sitting window, put in a new support under said sitting window, and put siding to cover and protect the new support and continue that siding around the rebuilt porch for a beautiful and shiny new front face for our house. At the time I began this project, I figured it'd take the summer.

Three years after putting together the new framework and reinforced foundation for the porch, My DH and I cashed in about a million Home Depot gift cards we'd been saving up for this, pried up the temporary (ha) surfacing which will become the frame for my (someday) greenhouse (at this rate I might build it in about five years ....) and now we're walking on pressure-treated 2x6 boards instead of a mixture of juniper 2x4s (yes, you read that right, juniper! Smells so good!), pressboard and cinderblock. The dogs hardly know what to do with themselves without the dangerous gaps to fall into and with plenty of room for their food bowls. And, bonus, it's much harder for them to set up a dog block on the way to the door, forcing their owners to stop and pet them before they're allowed to pass. That's not a bonus for the dogs. Just me. And I almost always stop to pet them anyway, but usually only if I'm not balancing three arms worth of groceries in just my two.

Such times are of course when the dogs need love and affection the most. Because if I'm not carrying anything heavy or awkward, clearly I shouldn't be bothered.

I plan to put up the rails around the porch as soon as possible. I wonder if ASAP will be measured in days, weeks, months or years this time.

I guess my theme, if I have one, is how people do the best they can with the resources they have, and my premise is that even when things are tough and nothing works out the way you've planned, just the act of creating and working on problems and living is worth writing about. In the future I may change my mind. This might turn into a DIY blog, or a writing blog, or whatever. Until then, you can expect ongoing stories about pet spiders living in my kitchen window, escaped goats, crazy gardening, weird customers at the store, observations about the seasons, and all the other stuff I've written about over the years.

Coming up: Orycon 35, book releases from Wyrd Goat Press, vanishing websites, adventures with paint (I'm now the proud owner of a quart of flat interior lavender paint) and the great bulb planting of fall 2013. Unless something else more interesting comes up.

Sunburn and good food

I have a mild sunburn. It's awesome.

I normally don't celebrate sunburns, but you know, it's been a long cold lonely winter (as the song goes) and it felt really, really good to walk in the sun and lay in the sun and forget to put sunscreen on my part-line on my scalp (and I didn't wear a hat--oops) and feel that tingle after the sunset.

It finally warmed up. Not enough to tempt me to go to the water park, but enough to actually feel a bit overheated by the pool when I stretched out in the chair.

It's cold and rainy now, in the forties (F) with scattered showers and a really unpleasant wind coming in from the east. I will say that it's very, very good to be home and everything looks rich and beautiful and wild here. I didn't see a lot of natural areas in our section of Orlando, and all the parks were theme parks rather than a place to take your dog for a walk or to hike or throw a frisbee. I didn't realize how much I liked living somewhere as rugged and ungroomed as my home county. Of course, wild spaces in that part of Florida would probably be really unpleasant and swampy.

Dunno.

Anyway, it'll be hard to go back to work tomorrow, but it felt really good to sleep in my own bed last night. I'm looking forward to it again tonight. That, and a home-cooked meal. We plan on home broiled steaks. I think ours tastes better than the ones at the fancy restaurants. I had egg salad made with our home-raised eggs and all my favorite seasonings for lunch and it tasted really, really yummy.

Wanna try my recipe? You have to be something of a cook already to pull it off because all the seasonings are to taste. The 'pinches' are estimates at best:

Hard boil two eggs. Drain the pan, put in cold water, and let stand for a few minutes. You can chill the eggs in the fridge if you want, but there's nothing quite like fresh, warm egg salad. Trust me.
In a sufficiently-large bowl (a larger soup bowl works) put in a large dab of mayonnaise--at least 2 tablespoons. Add:
fresh cracked black pepper (or white if you prefer)
tiny pinch of hot paprika
small pinch of regular paprika
large pinch of wasabi powder (or use premade wasabi if you have it)
large pinch of yellow mustard powder
small pinch of coriander powder
small pinch of turmeric
small pinch of cumin
a couple of dashes or a pinch of dill
tiny pinch of salt (remember, the mayonnaise is salty too!)

Stir. Chop or use an egg guillotine in one or two directions to slice the eggs and stir them into the seasoned mayonnaise. Best on toasted Dave's Killer Bread or a nice light rye.

We're Entering the 21st Century!

You're never going to believe this ....

We're going to get set up with high speed internet at the house.

They better buy winter jackets down below, is all I'm saying.

No, the wonderful optical cable they laid right past our front door is not live. And although we are digital call capable (whatever that means) they can't (won't?) pipe internet through there. In the end, we went with an affordable thingy through our phone company. At least, it's as or more affordable than satellite we've looked into in the past. And yes, satellite is not nearly as awesome or fast as optical cable, but it's going to be a lot faster than anything we have at home at the moment.

I'm sure I'll still hop on down to the library to use the Wifi there. I love the library, and the connection will be faster than it is at home. The big difference will be that I'll be able to post blog entries from home (yay! -- we still haven't figured out what the problem is with the sign-in from home, boo) which means I'll be posting more often. And when I finish a project at home, I won't have to wait until the library is open, or cave and go to my favorite Wifi-enabled pub and eat eat eat for four hours while I get my stuff done.

Once we're live I'll get a wifi router and ... I can hardly contain my excitement ... I won't have to relocate when I'm ready to publish a book or send out an email with a big attachment (or make the attachment so tiny it's useless.) This will modestly increase my productivity, and lower gas and eating-out expenditures. Hard to say whether we'll come out ahead yet, but we'll see.

The first board

The Sea of Unconditional Love (aka the barbarians, our outside dogs) had dug out a corner post for our porch at one point, so that the front porch sank about a foot on one side.  Normally this would cause blue flames to shoot out of my eyes, etc. but as the porch had been in iffy shape when we bought the house eight years ago and time hasn't improved on it, I expected we'd just take the thing apart, salvage what we could for various projects, and eventually build a new, smaller one on whatever bones remained (after jacking and resetting that corner, or possibly building from stone, our original plan waaaay back when we first saw it would need to be replaced sooner rather than later.)

Procrastination being what it is, I've been working on other things.  I cringed every time I stepped out to water my plants, because this set my weight on some particularly soft boards, and I knew eventually I would just fall right through.  

Well, never fear no more, because about 12:45 am today, Beast decided to get stuck under there.  I'm not sure how he managed it.  I suspect, judging by the hair, he got stuck by an exposed nail (this porch was never put together particularly well in the first place) and couldn't get out.  So I grabbed a crowbar and rescued him.  The first board I lifted did the trick and he escaped.

So now the first board has been moved.  I'm not replacing it.  Nope, we'll just keep on a'goin'.  

We may end up building this SOB from stone anyway.  We can gather stone for free.  Wood is expensive.  We'll still need to buy mortar, but hopefully that won't be as bad as decking materials.

If it's not one thing it's another.  I don't know why.  As we all know, there's never anything to do around here!

Lists: Loves and Misses

I'm sleeping well (except one incident with sleep walking--haven't done that since I was a kid!) and I'm on local time, but I'm a bit draggy today.  Just a quick post before I start putting up more stuff 'bout Ireland.

Ten things I love about being home:

*Friends are a local phone call or a short drive away!

*Yay kitties!

*Yay dogs!

*The garden--she is blooming!  And I can weed!

*I'm totally motivated about cleaning house.  Weird, but I'll take it.

*Dinner and a movie every night (we often watch videos during dinner)

*My very own laundry room with my very own soaps!

*I can turn around without bumping an elbow in my shower and there's two shower heads.  Ahhhhh ...

*I can meet with  my writer's groups again.

*I can cook my own meals!

Ten things I miss:

*My DH

*Being with my whole family every day

*Stone circles and dolmens (and speculating about bored gaelics with too many rocks about)

*Having a pint with my DH and kids

*Listening to local wisdom, especially when it's unwise

*Good bacon (and black and white pudding, and irish sausage)

*Castles

*Lamb as a regular option on restaurant menus

*No dishes or dusting

*Chasing unfamiliar birds with my camera

Twelve Great Moments:

*Castle bedroom antics (and other antics but I won't use up the whole list for that)

*Seeing the Cliffs of Moher from the sea

*DH's expressions while having a pint at The Crow's Nest

*Running around Cahir Castle until after closing (oops)

*Roaming Ashford Castle grounds, especially the gardens

*Being terrified of the roads to Moll's Gap--and then not terrified after the sun came out

*Sunning (and getting sunburned) on the black rocks on Inisheer

*Rock shop shopping spree

*Distracting Irish wolfhounds from their mission

*Dunmore cave--the creepy learning where people met their fate at the hands of Vikings

*Watching falconry students walk their hawks

*Pony trek around Inisheer (I sure loved that island)

Five great meals:

*Dinner at Markree

*Dinner at Davenport Hotel in Dublin

*Lunch where I had that amazing thick slab of cod--hopefully I'll remember where soon

*Dessert/coffee at Moll's Gap

*Breakfast just about every south coast B&B

Honorable mention to the Rogue Brewery Pub at the Portland Airport -- you guys always rock and I couldn't resist giving a nod even though that wasn't in Ireland

Green Drying

Today my dryer went kaput.  Won't even tumble.  It's just dead.  It's dead, Jim.  It's an ex-dryer.  Now, I had been planning on getting a new washer/dryer set.  Tomorrow?  No!  Like, September, October or December.  Not tomorrow, not next week, not three weeks from now.  And I'm not going to do it.  Not not not!  (Stubborn stomp.)  The good news is that it's summer and the stuff I had in the wash can line dry outside.  The bad news is that I have to line dry outside until I figure out what I want to do (besides research washers and dryers and cave and go to the laundromat.)

I've line dried before.  And those of you who plan on waxing rhapsodic about line drying including how it makes clothes have that special smell and so forth, go ahead but be warned that I may feel an irresistible urge to hunt you down later and talk about how we should all go back to catching and killing our own food and eating it raw.  I can talk for hours about that.  Days even.

Here's the deal with line drying in my limited and reluctant experience.

Upsides:  

• It saves lots of electricity and yes it makes clothes smell nice.
  

Downsides:  

• The clothes often don't feel nice unless you beat and shake them after they're dry.  I especially dislike crispy towels, but some people do like them so this may be an upside for them. 
  
• That nice smell includes an infusion of pollen, so if you're allergic, guess what!?
  
• Spiders and bugs will quickly find the clothes and cuddle up inside their nice shelter.  You have to turn everything inside out and shake to make sure you don't have any unwanted passengers.  Fleas or ticks will not shake out, but fortunately they rarely hop on in the time that you've left the clothes outside.
  
• Birds will settle on the line and leave little whitish and grey presents.  Happy birthday!  (But it's not my birthday ...)
  
• It takes a lot of room.  The pic shows one load.  While you're line drying, unless you have a really nice line drying rig (which I covet, btw) you're limited by warmth and wind as far as how many loads you can do in a day.  
  
• If you want to dry anything big, like sheets, you need a much higher rig than I can conveniently string right now.
  

Hints:

• Don't use a stretchy string or a string that will stretch when wet (like cotton, unless it's woven around a non-stretchy core like many clotheslines are.)
  
• Don't let the clothes touch plants.  Bugs will crawl from the plants onto the clothes.  They'll still creep up the posts and along the line or simply hop on but you won't get as many as you will from the plants.  You'd be surprised how much traffic there is on a single grass stalk.
  
• If you use your spouse's rappelling rope, don't take a pic of it and then post it on the web.  (Oops ...)
  
• Unless you're in a windy area you don't need a lot of clothespins.  Only for socks and underwear.  If you need to put wet clothes out to dry in an emergency situation where your dryer has just quit, assuming it's not super-windy right then, hang the clothes first so they start to dry and then go get your clothespins.  You're less likely to overbuy that way plus they'll be drying while you're driving.
  
• Try not to hang them at a time when they'll be out overnight unless you have no choice.  They'll get dew damp in the morning and you'll have to wait until they dry before you can hang your next load.
  
• Try not to hang clothes in strong winds.  They collect a lot more dust and pollen that way.
• Don't run long stretches of line.  They'll sag a lot.  Additionally, put heavy stuff by the posts first and then hang the remaining lighter stuff in the middle of the line.
  
• If you have jeans out to dry expect that they'll take forever to dry.  Jeans and other heavy clothing items need to be turned and/or turned inside out in order to finish drying.  The rest is fine as-is.
  
• Take in clothes as they dry.  On a warm day things like light polyester or poly-cotton blend work shirts, handkerchiefs, thin socks and/or nylons and scarfs can dry in just a few minutes.  Generally speaking, woven clothing dries faster than knitted.
  
• You can dry stuff outside in very cold, even freezing weather.  It takes longer, but if it's very dry (like it often is in winter around here) the ice in the clothes will sublimate (dry off.)
  

Please feel free to shoot me down or disagree or give me helpful hints or fun laundry stories.  I'm open to ideas, encouragement, and laughs.  Just so you know, I'm also resisting the go to the laundromat option.  It's pretty expensive and inconvenient.  But I'll probably get up tomorrow morning, look at the laundry pile, and cave.

Yes, yes, I'll be looking at Energy Star products, Craig's List (aka I stole this list,) and Sears is at the top of my list for places to shop.  Btw, I've never, ever had a new washer and dryer, so I'm a little excited about the possibility that I'll be getting a new or late-model set.  Not excited enough to offset the aggravation of the timing (couldn't it have quit a couple of months later?) but still.  

My appliance guy had just fixed this thing recently, too.  I may have him take a look, but I've already poured a lot of money into it for repairs, so ... Ugh.

The End of a Shopping Era

Yesterday I had the oddball experience of shopping for everything (within reason) that we might want in the short term (this summer) from the store.  Aqua socks.  Bug spray.  Socks and underwear.  Shorts, capris and shirts.  Non-perishable(ish) food items.  First aid stuff.  Storage bins for putting away winter clothes (at last! and I'm still wearing long sleeves because it's cloudy and distinctly not warm this morning.)  Summer toys.  Hair scrunchies and pins.  Soap of various kinds (including two Kiss My Face shower gels and three of my favorite Palmolive dish soaps.)  Two carts got packed into four storage bins of loot.  We then turned in our employee and spouse discount cards.  From now on we're just regular ol' customers, but at least we're armed with the secret knowledge of cost and can find the best deals on stuff.  Even without the discount, most of the stuff at my old store is still the best deal around, Walmart included.

When I got home, surprise!  Incredibly gorgeous roses, a full dozen of a variety called Papaya, and a teeny tiny miniature rose with quarter-sized flowers for the rock garden.  A chocolate cake declared:  Happy Quitting Day!

I love my family.

This morning I'm filled with enthusiasm and relief.  We have a full day of getting medical, dental and financial stuff done and I can just do it without thinking about how I won't have writing time and the house is a wreck and I won't get anything accomplished before it's time for me to return to work again.  That's been the killer:  on my days off I try to catch up on critical household stuff I've fallen behind on, and never get even half done before I go back to work.  I often had three days in a row which got me just within sight of my goals with maybe a few hours to spare for writing and art before I returned to work.  If I had one day off, zero writing and art would happen because I had to devote all my time to laundry, dishes, and if I was lucky, some weeding or some such outside.

The mile-high sea of grass that's been mocking me is now shivering in fear.  Yes, your days are numbered, as are the days of the endless weeds and the patches of surviving blackberries in the developed areas.  

There's lots to keep me busy, not just for the summer, but for a lifetime.  I'm glad to get back to it.  Retail was a fun ride, as always, but it's time to get back to my real work.  

Ain't It the Life?

Ain't it the life?  (With a nod to Foo Fighters)

This week I had all kinds of time off, which I used to get the boy arranged to go to prom and work on the EstrogenFest memory books, as well as spend some good ol' fashioned family time.  I even got to attend the aforementioned Fireside Writing Session.  I didn't explain the typer thing in that post.  The collective realized that few of us actually write as opposed to typing ... anyway.  I find calling myself a typer less oppressive than calling myself a writer.  The response is 'huh?' rather than 'Oh, what have you published?'

I'd planned to spend yesterday tiling, the thing I'd originally planned to do but didn't the whole rest of the week.  Well.  Come 5am Rory tells me that we have no water.  He's tried messing with the pressure regulator, which we've had to reset several times in the past couple of weeks.  I gear up (slippers, pjs and attitude) and head out to the garage.  There's the little pressure switch thingy with its arrangement of wires and nuts and the box that comes off of it with the red reset button.  I alternate between tapping the switch with various (non-metal handled) tools and pushing the reset button.  Usually this gets things going again, but we've got nothing going on.  Time to summon a professional.

Rory leaves early for work and brings along a towel so he can shower there.  The kids and I brush our teeth employing bottled water and proceed to stink our way through the day.

First I call and leave a message with a plumber that looks like a likely choice given a search through the yellow pages and on google in a pathetic hope that I could find reliable reviews on the businesses I'd hoped to employ.  (I didn't.  C'mon people, review review review!)  Then I wait.  Can't tile, need water for that.  And wait.  Can't wash dishes, need water for that.  And wait.  Can't do laundry, need water for that.  Finally I call them back around 9:30.  Even though I left my phone number twice, apparently she couldn't understand it on the message tape.  How does Friday sound?

Um, let me call around a bit and get back to you, says Kami, contemplating having no water until Friday and imagining trucking bottled water out to the goats, filling the washing machine with bottled water, and the toilet so we can flush, etc.  Friday doesn't work for me.  If possible I'd like to flush today, okay?

Plumbing company #2 gets a call.  She's in the middle of something and she'll call me back.  Forty five minutes later I call her back.  There's some sort of emergency and she apologizes.  She'll call me back--whoa there lady.  The last time we did this--she changes her mind and says since she's not making any headway with the emergency anyway, she'll take five minutes now to deal with me.  She'll call me back, really.  It takes a while for me to explain what's going on with my water system, which is discouraging but hey, she's just the receptionist, right?

She does call back after talking with one of their plumbers, but apparently they don't handle this sort of thing.  Huh.  I've just wasted a total of three hours and my early start on the problem is basically out the window.  I call our local appliance guy, who does fabulous work.  Well, the unions have convinced the legislature that if it involves water, they have to handle it.  He can't even touch a hot water heater anymore.  ??  Who does he recommend?  A local plumber.  I call said local plumber, who turns out to be a real champ and explains a critical detail to me.  Turns out plumbers don't work on this sort of thing either.  Well WTF?  I'm really glad I didn't wait until Friday to find out that pumps are a specialty and plumbers don't know what the heck to do with them.  There's one (ack!) contractor who handles this sort of thing in our area.  The good news is that it's a very good, reputable company.

I call them and explain.  I'm heartened because they appear to understand what I'm talking about at last.  Within an hour a truck pulls into the driveway, setting off the Doorbell of Unconditional Love (barking.)  I lead him to the source of the problem (or so I thought) and adopt the homeowner with a problem posture (hands on hips, puppy dog eyes.)  After some exploration he discovers the reset button isn't actually attached to anything.  The wiring has been bypassed.  !!??  Okay, I've been pressing an idiot button.  I feel so much better now.  More exploration.  The breaker for the pump is off and, when clicked back on, jumps off again.  So we go to the well head.  We dig out about ten gallons of mud and plastic bags and two live moles (so cute with their soft gray fur and little hands.)  Part of the wiring had been wrapped in electrician's tape, implying a previous issue, and it had been chewed through as had some of the copper wiring.  My mind goes into MST3K mode.  This arrow may have something to do with her pain! (aka gee, maybe a severed wire is the reason why we get only intermittent service from our pump.)  He wires it back together and we hit the breaker.  Power!  Pumpage!  Huzzah!  We have water.  Except.  The water tank's bladder has clearly burst, probably a long, long time ago.  It needs to be replaced, which will help to alleviate some of the water pressure bounciness we experience that I've learned to just live with and thought was normal.  Like I'd know!  Long-time city gal here, remember?  

The genius/rescuer promises to return tomorrow (today) with a nice new, bigger water tank.  The best part is that we have water while we wait.  Yay water!  Yay laundry!  If only I'd had enough energy to tile after we got water, but all I managed was a shower and I was done for the day.  I hit the sack early last night.  On the agenda today--late start for work, clear out a path for the tank through the garage, maybe tiling at last (doubtful) and a late start to work because the pump guys probably won't be done until noon-ish and my shift starts at 11:15.  But we have water!  Ain't it the life?

Cleaning

There's something exhilarating, a definite sense of freedom, when I clean house.  The daily drudge work (with the exception of vacuuming--I've always liked vacuuming) I could do without, or at least have less laundry and dishes.  But I actually enjoy getting places cleared out, making things shine.  Today I cleaned out the woodstove.  The glass is all sparkly and the ashes are swept out.  I also swept the stairs (they're carpet but I find sweeping is faster and actually does a better job than vacuuming most of the time) and cleared out part of my office in preparation for tiling.  

Yep, I'm getting back to tiling my office.  

If I could get this same sense of cleaning out and freedom and exhilaration when I edit a story, that would be so fabulous.  Unfortunately I end up pinched between Charybdis (that sinking feeling that I'm making things worse, not better) and The Scylla (getting frustrated with the many layers involved in editing and the fact that it's both a big scope (plot) and small scope (line editing) problem that requires many passes.)  I get exhausted by the immensity of the task.  

Typing at normal pace I can write a first draft in three months.  I can write a Nano in a month, also.  But regardless of how quickly I write that first draft, it takes years to edit it.  That's normal.  A book should take years to put together.  A very skilled writer can write a passable book in six months or less.  Yes, I include romance writers in this category.  There's no doubt in my mind that they're skilled, talented and prolific writers, all traits I admire, and I won't hear a thing said against them.  However, if you gave a romance writer 2-3 years to write a book, you'd end up with a real masterwork.  Someone like me who isn't as skilled at editing would have garbage at the end of six months.  After 2-3 years, I have something passable, or maybe even pretty good.  The time frame, though, really wears me down.  It's not so much the hours.  I love to write, and I even like to edit at times.  It's the number of times going through the manuscript.  

Sometimes I get lucky and I don't have major plot issues on a first draft.  Yay me, because that saves a great deal of headache in the long run.  Unfortunately, more often than not there are plot and structure issues, character issues, and other major stuff that has to be addressed.  By the time that's sorted out, the line editing is a mess, flow is an issue and often there are stylistic issues as I struggle to find character voices, the feel of the setting and other things.  The trick is to make as few passes as possible so that the writing still has freshness and fire.  Each time a writer goes through the document they improve things, but they also polish off some of the good stuff.  It's like a grain of rice.  You start out with this rough, richly-colored grain that's typically too coarse to enjoy (at least in quantity.)  If you polish off some of that coating you get something more palatable, but you also lose nutrients and that wonderful color.  Flavor is also lost.  Polish too much and you end up with short grain white rice--incredibly bland but fully digestible, and also constipating.  Heh.

Like everything else it's a balancing act.  As I improve my editing skills I'm sure it won't be such a chore, but for now, editing is the endless laundry and dishes of the writing world.

My Dog Lick Dog World

I got a question about what kind of dogs I have from someone thinking about getting dogs.  The images here are clickable if you want to see them full sized.  I kept them small for sanity's sake.

The thing about dogs is that they're the most wonderful animals in the world if you get the right one.  So far all my dogs have been the right one, sort of.  Bear in mind that I base the

 following stuff on my experiences.  There are others with far, far more experience and education than me and I may be dead wrong on some points.  Also dogs are individuals and breeding doesn't define everything about who they are.

We have two Great Pyrenees crosses.  Finn is more lab-like, and Brian is more golden retriever-like.  Since they're brothers, it's likely that mom was a Great Pyr and had an interesting night out around the fields, though the story given to the shelter was that she'd been with a golden retriever.    These dogs are my favorite dogs, but Great Pyrs tend to roam and if they get out they could be gone for hours or even days.  They're bred to be very independent.  They make their own decisions and can decide, if given a command, to not obey if they think it's in the best interest of whomever they've bonded with.  They're livestock guardians and are born to roam with herds of sheep over thousands of acres.  They'll stay with and defend wounded livestock (or you) and are very courageous.  They're gentle and nurturing, but if they're disciplined physically they will learn that physical punishment is okay when warranted and will of course then decide that they can physically punish someone or something else for transgressions.  Great Pyrs are best handled by experienced dog people.  Our cross breeds are not as aloof and independent as a full blood and are somewhat more obedient, especially if there's food involved.  They've run off before, which is terrifying.  But they are probably the most loving, beautiful dogs I've ever owned.  They need lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of space to run.  We have a large run for them and it's not big enough in their minds.  In their minds, about a five mile radius is a good run size.  They also are better outside than inside dogs.  There isn't a house big enough in the world for them and they will play in the house until the house falls down around them.  They also overheat easily.  A full blooded Pyr likes temps around 20 degrees F.  Our part bloods are happiest around 30-40 degrees F and wilt in summer.  Living in a year-round hot climate wouldn't be good for them.

We also have an airedale terrier mix named Beast.  This is another

 hard-headed stubborn dog (why am I attracted to the stubborn ones?)  He's a rough-and-tumble, sturdy guy who will forget that anything in the universe exists if he catches wind of a deer.  Since we're in deer country, when he gets out he'll run for miles.  Once when our dogs escaped, Brian came home, probably thanks to his love of comfort and his more people-loving golden bloodline.  Finn and Beast, on the other hand, were gone for five days.  Finn might have come home sooner, but I suspect that Beast either fell in the ravine or he got so caught up chasing the deer that he couldn't quite remember his way back and Finn of course would never, ever leave a friend stranded.  (I suspect that Brian will abandon a friend if the friend is being stupid, hence Brian being missing only until it started getting dark.)  Finn led the way home when they came back.  He probably knew the way all along but Beast probably didn't figure out that he should follow him until, well, five days had gone by.  If Finn hadn't been with Beast, I'm not sure Beast would have found his way back by himself.  Airedales are born to run and I think they are more beautiful to watch than a greyhound when they're on the chase.  They're extremely intelligent and will learn obedience and tricks quickly--and not just tricks you teach them.  Beast learned to lift the gate latch on his own just by watching us.  They will generally listen to you (unless they smell something good) but they'll think about it and take their time getting around to sitting or coming or whatever it is you ask them.  They need lots of space and are a terror in the house when you first let them in because they want to explore everything all the time.  Once they're settled they're fine, until they decide it's time to explore yet again just on the off chance that a deer or rabbit has found its way inside since the last time.

Nikita is our german shepherd.  She is the most amazing dog in the world.  They're one of the most popular breeds in the world, and for good reason.  In my opinion it is unnecessary and even dangerous to train a german shepherd to be a watch dog, and irresponsible to train them as an attack dog.  Believe me, they will watch and attack without any training whatsoever.  If you're nervous, they're nervous.  They're very responsive to their owners and it's easy to bond with a german shepherd.  They're also naturally territorial and usually will not roam and will fiercely defend the fenceline or threshold.  The challenge is to teach them to trust strangers and to wait for you to decide if a situation is dangerous or not.  They need lots of love, and they need to feel safe.  Once they're there, you will have an excellent companion for life.  These dogs can adapt to most living conditions but if they're in an apartment, especially when they're young, they need lots of exercise.  If they don't get it, they (and you) will pay for it in health problems later.  As they age they'll slow down like our Nikita and will sleep for long hours in a semi-alert state.  Until they go deaf they'll wake at any disturbance and bark until the problem is gone for several minutes or until you tell them it's okay.  For this reason some people have problems with their german shepherd, especially if the dogs are left alone, because they will bark non-stop for hours and hours if there are constant disturbances or simply because they don't know where you are and they're calling to try to get you to come to them.  BTW disturbances include neighbors working in the yard, cars driving by, people talking on the phone next door, etc. so this is not an animal you can leave alone unless you live on large acreage and even then only if you have forgiving neighbors.

Last but not least we have our wonderful Dakota who we fondly refer to as a miniature Irish wolfhound, meaning she's only 83 pounds thanks to the labrador retriever in her blood.

  Although they were bred to run down large game (and destroy wolves) unlike the terriers wolfhounds will not by choice run after other animals to the ends of the earth.  You can successfully call them off the chase without having to override their biological programming.  They're great house animals, despite their size, and become very inactive, even lazy when confined to an apartment.  They should be taken out for long walks to keep them from turning into complete slugs.  If they're left outside they adapt to outside life well, but they are one of the most human-needy animals I've ever owned and want to always be near their people.  If they're not, they easily become depressed and lonely.  Dakota is a very quiet dog.  She seldom barks, and her warning bark is one lone, sharp bark that is seldom followed by a second bark.  She prefers to watch rather than listen for problems, which probably explains why she likes to stay close.  She wants to keep an eye on things.  If she can't see it, usually it means it's not her problem, so she doesn't bark at cars or trucks, nor does she concern herself with other animals.  If she hears people making undue noise or pain sounds she immediately investigates and makes certain there's no hanky panky.  Rory has really been restricted to how much he can tickle or tease me now that we have Dakota.  She tells him when she thinks I've had enough with a long, level stare and we've decided we don't want to make her feel like she has to overcome her loyalty to Rory and intervene more stridently--that would be terribly stressful for her.  

My advice to anyone planning to adopt a dog:

Think long and hard before you get a purebred, especially a rare purebred.  Purebred dogs are often (not always) afflicted by problems that mutts usually don't have.  Depending on the breed they can have problems with hip displasia, skin allergies, food allergies, problems with hearing and eyesight, heart problems, digestive system problems like intestinal torsions, etc.  Some are more prone to attract fleas or are allergic to flea bites.  Some get worms readily.  Some have coats that require a professional groomer.  Dogs with very floppy ears combined with floppy skin are more prone to yeast infections and ear mites, and so on.  Most of all, I firmly believe that every family pet should be spayed or neutered, and if you own a quality rare breed animal you're essentially taking it out of the gene pool and if that gene pool is very small your adoption may endanger the breed further.  If you decide to keep the dog intact, you end up with all the problems and responsibility of a viable animal including heat, roaming, marking, territoriality, etc. and you get the added bonus of, when breeding, having additional vet bills and dealing with strangers and their animals.  If you do get a pure bred animal, become educated before investing in the breed.  Often there are wonderful purebred societies you can contact for information, and animals that were born outside standard requirements that make terrific pets.  Usually the breeder will have them spayed or neutered before selling them, and you'll get more info than you ever wanted about health risks and probably get a recommendation for a good local vet.  Educate yourself about puppy mills and try to avoid them.

When getting a dog, whether it's a mixed or pure bred, I hope folks will consider going to their local shelter or contacting a rescue society before going to folks who are gaining financially from breeding puppies in their house or worse, letting their animals roam and then getting away with their irresponsibility by foisting off their puppies on people who may or may not take very good care of them.  Many of these puppies end up in the shelter after new owners decided that they couldn't handle them anyway, so you'll be adopting the same animal you'd get in a newspaper ad.  It's important to talk to the shelter staff about your living circumstances and to allow them to guide you to an animal that they think would be a good fit for your household.  Shelter employees get to know their animals very well.  They know which ones are quiet, which ones are great with kids, which ones get along with other animals, and which ones might suit your personality.  Then spend at least an hour with your animal, whether it's at the shelter, at a breeder's location or in a private home.  It's very easy to get attached to the 'cute' one or to all of them, but try to be objective.  You may love that the little darling is chewing on your fingers, but remember that a chewy dog may chew long after teething is done.  The playful one that barks at you may be a very barky dog.  The shy one may be quiet and sweet, or it may have health problems.  

In general, look for a dog that is attentive toward you.  If the dog wants to please you, it will be much, much easier to train.  Look for a healthy, active animal that isn't frantic or wild.  Try to avoid fearful animals.  Nikita was a very fearful puppy who hid from us when we first met her.  Although I love her I know she's a biting risk due to her paranoia, so I'm very careful with her around strangers. 

 Although I adore puppies (like everyone else) consider adopting an older puppy or young dog.  The advantages are huge.  Often you don't have to house train the dog.  You'll have a better idea of the dog's disposition.  You'll have a much better idea of the dog's adult size.  Brian and Finn were both just under seven pounds when we adopted them.  (They were extremely malnourished and sickly.)  They're now just under 90 pounds, and no, they didn't have big paws until they were older (they're only a year old so they'll probably put on more weight and chest.)  Best of all, older dogs are past the teething stage so you can tell quickly if you're going to end up with a chewer that will slowly eat your couch down to a toothpick while you sleep.  Our latest adoptee, Dakota, we took in when she was 11 years old and it feels like she's always been here.  I don't miss raising her from a puppy at all.  

Also, when adopting a dog, if you know the house is going to be empty ten hours a day five days a week, consider getting two.  Dogs are pack animals, and a single dog at home alone is a stressed dog.  Not only will the dog be lonely, but there's a higher chance that it will develop behavioral problems due to stress.  Two aren't necessarily double the trouble, and two dogs definitely give more than twice the love.

I was going to try to keep this post short-ish, but here we are pages and pages later.  I hope folks found this information helpful.  For more information, take a snoop around the web.  There are even places that help you profile your lifestyle to help you choose a breed that's right for you.  Happy hounding!

Dogs in order of appearance:  Finn (facing the camera) and Brian age 1 year, Beast age 5 years, Nikita age 15 years, Dakota age 11 years, Sadie Sue (Kristi's gorgeous purebred miniature aussie shepherd) age 3 (?) Frey age 8 (and proof that having a mixed breed doesn't spare you from health issues--he was a very healthy puppy that developed food and skin allergies, early arthritis and died young) and Finn and Brian age 9 weeks.  Another aside--when you look at Finn and Brian's puppy pics they look healthy, right?  You have to touch the puppy you buy.  They weighed about half of what they should have at that size, less than our smallest cat, and felt like loose skin over dry bone.  Don't adopt a weak and underweight puppy unless you plan to give it full time care, access to puppy formula and/or high nutritional value puppy food, close vet supervision, and are willing to put up with lots of accidents, diarrhea, and sleepless nights worrying about your precious babies.  Thanks for reading!

More Snow? Bring It On!

I haven't built a snowman in what seems like forever.  Today we went overboard and built a snow ogre that I had trouble reaching to create the nose and a spot for the eyes to rest (Rory pinned them in, and he also provided the creative genius and physical skills for the teeth, mustache, eyebrows, branchy hair and the green beard.)  Andrea and I used truck ramps to roll the snowball for the midsection onto the lower section.  Rory lifted the head up.  Orion provided creative options and some help with the shoulders but mostly he worked on his sentinels for the driveway.   He also made the little snowman on a spit for the snow ogre.  If we only had a tractor, we could build a really gigantic dragon--or I guess I could just use good ol' fashioned elbow grease.  That'd be a lot of grease, though.  Might even be bad for me.  Cholesterol being an issue and all.  Or is elbow grease cholesterol free or maybe the good kind of cholesterol?  Anyway, since we were doing the traditional snow stuff anyway we had a couple of snowball fights (I've noticed that concepts like teams and sides are more fluid in snowball fights than other games) and the kids went sledding.  The neighbor kids came over and had fun and then we all had hot chocolate (the adults had adulterated hot drinks.)  The weather couldn't have been better for all this.  I even abandoned my coat at one point.

While rifling around my gardening stuff looking for seeds (it's time to organize and also to get the slow-germinating seeds into their starter pots) I discovered three bags of overlooked tulips, poor things.  They were still alive, so I planted them.  Going from occasional light and warm air to dark and wet and frigid must have been quite a shock.  I hope they make it.  There might be more bags, as that area is still a mess.  I'll try to get that all organized tomorrow.  Then again, all is a very strong term.  Most might be a more appropriate word, or perhaps even some would be about as much as I can expect.  It's a mess that's been around a long time, so it's entrenched.  I wouldn't be surprised to find mice nesting in there, and I've already seen some impressive spiders who've made a very fine home amid the debris.  Yeah, it's that bad.  

As much as I love summer and gardening, I have to say that I'd be thrilled to have more days like today.  This one will last in memory a long time.  I hope everyone else had a great day too. 

Privilege

I think a lot of these questions reveal that the devil is in the details, but it sounded like fun.

Based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, PLEASE acknowledge their copyright. BOLD WHICH APPLY TO YOU:

Father went to college  

Father finished college  Earned a degree in a foreign country that only partly 'counted.'

Mother went to college

Mother finished college  Earned a degree in a foreign country that only partly 'counted.'

Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor

Were the same or higher socio-economic class than your high school teachers  For most, but not all of my life.

Had more than 50 books in your childhood home  Later on.  Not for a long time.

Had more than 500 books in your childhood home (Detail--my parents left their native country with me and a suitcase.  The country they landed in didn't have any books in their native language.  Hence, we had what they'd packed in children's books, what relatives sent to us, and a few books in English.)

Were read children's books by a parent  Here's a question that puzzles me.  Yes, it's a privilege to have good parents, but from the culture it has little to do with socio-economic standing.  It was expected, whether you were raised by dirt-poor farmers or someone very wealthy.  Then came the schism, where the 'noble' or old families had nannies do that, though that was still considered bad parenting and a sign of being spoiled (the parents, not the kids.)  The whole image of under-privileged children living in squalor hadn't permeated Czech home life.  No matter how bad things got, you kept the house clean and the children washed.  If the kids had no shoes, you made them some.  Penniless households had art on the walls and flowers on the table.  I'm sure this is more utopian than reality in some ways, but I have to say that when I visited the home country it was clean, and the only things that were gray and grim and squalid were what the Soviets had built.  Even there, inside the cinderblock apartments, people might have few possessions but they were kept in a loving fashion.  Maybe being Czech should be listed as a privilege?

Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18

Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 (gymnastics, swimming, sports, music--usually through community recreational programs, school or at home)

The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively  With the caveat that almost no one was Czech in media, but as I'm white and during school became English speaking, this one ends up bolded.

Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18

Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs

Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs

Went to a private high school

Went to summer camp

Had a private tutor before you turned 18  (My parents tutored me.  I knew how to read and write to a certain extent before I ever went into kindergarten, though not in English.)

Family vacations involved staying at hotels (big time campers.  Sometimes we'd rent a house with my great aunt and great uncle or with friends of the family, split costs.)

Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 (eldest child, no nearby relatives except great aunt and great uncle)

Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them

There was original art in your house when you were a child.  My parents painted the vast majority of art in our home.

You and your family lived in a single family house

Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home

You had your own room as a child (for a short time my sister and I shared a room in my great aunt's townhouse.)

You had a phone in your room before you turned 18

Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course

Had your own TV in your room in High School

Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College

Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16  To get to the U.S. we flew.  I'm not sure how that was paid for.

Went on a cruise with your family

Went on more than one cruise with your family

Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up  Of course!  My father was an artist as well as an engineer.  Even when we could afford very little we budgeted for this.  Another devil in the details, much like being read to by a parent.  It points at privilege of good parenting, which at least in the Eastern European culture I was raised in knows no class.  Didn't matter if your house had a dirt floor and you ate little more than potatoes.  You went to the museum at least once.

You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family  Never the amount, but sometimes the grinding of teeth could be heard from a good distance.  Does that count?

Maybe growing up in privilege blinds me to some of the stuff this is pointing at, and I'm sure I have a skewed perspective on my childhood.  It definitely measures a society more American than I am, despite the fact that I am an American--raised and educated in America in a primarily English-speaking household.

We started with nothing.  My father worked for a Chinese newspaper when we moved in with my great aunt and great uncle in their townhouse in Pacifica (Bay Area)--he spoke neither English nor Chinese.  We grew from that to owning our own home, my father making a handsome living as an engineer, but even then he saved up to buy things, including things that would only take maybe a half day of work of his wages.  What privilege is being measured?  Being born into a good, hard-working family which can be found even among the generationally poor, or being born into a financially independent circumstance?  It's apples and oranges in my mind.  You can be born to both and neither, either, or.

For the record, I have a much nicer house than most of my relatives, and my husband earns almost as much as my father did when he worked in San Jose (adjusted dollars.)  I think my kids are less privileged familially than I was, because I'm not as attentive to them and the house as my mother was.  Does that mean that despite my upbringing and family ideals, I fit in with whatever this quiz is trying to measure somehow?  If we made more money, had more savings, would I read more to my kids, take them to more lessons, have more books in the house (although the idea of more books in this house is rather frightening and yet intriguing)?  If I'd completed college would it be more likely that we would have planned to support the kids through college?  I'd like to see what this exercise shows and teaches us.  I do very much like that it makes me think about these things. 

Flying

Still reeling from all that's happened in a very short time.  It doesn't help that the post-Christmas rush at the store isn't.  Today I probably checked through about a dozen people during my eight hour shift.  I spent the balance of my time facing the drug department, bringing in carts from the rain and hail and returning go back items to their places.  Anyone who came into the store today got great customer service, at least from me, because I was begging for things to do.  

I'm not sure where to go from here.  I have this feeling like I've been pushed off a cliff.  I'm fairly certain I can fly, but I'm not sure how well I can or where I should try to land.  It's all clouds and wind and storm when I look through one eye and a strange room with firelight and shadows watching me in another.

No, I'm not becoming schizophrenic so don't make an appointment for me and then drive me to it.  I think I'm just experiencing the equivalent of an emotional concussion.  Like a concussion, right now it doesn't feel bad.  I just feel fuzzy and disconnected and I have this strange sense of safety within chaos, and a sense that if I put a toe out it'll get lopped off.

Which means, of course, I have to put a toe out, or better, my whole foot, and start that first step toward walking.  Don't want to get stuck here.

Once upon a time I made a high altitude flight as part of my paragliding certification.  When I hit a strong updraft the universe showed me what it's really like to have a god lift you up.  It's like jumping off the high dive in reverse.  I had no control.  Wind, rather than gravity, had taken over and Its force overwhelmed me.

Sometimes all you can do is yell "Weeeee!"  Or in this case, all I can do is say none of this is about me.  It's about beings I care about and forces beyond all our control.  I doubt any of us will be inspired to yell "Weeee!" and put our hands in the air, but we can hold each other as long as we can and hope the wind sets us down gently.  But if holding on is what I should do, why do I feel like I should fly?  And where should I go?  So I'm going round and round.

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.