house cleaning and book reports

We’re finally getting some rain today, kind of slow and steady, some thunder rumbling now and then, enough to set the dog off into her neurotic response to rain and thunder. Thank all the powers that be no lightning. 

Since the yard has been put in order I’m clearing off surfaces and cleaning house this week pre-party. Not just sweeping or vacuuming or a quick wipe of dust but cleaning hard to get to window sills and baseboards, wiping down every piece of art on the walls, all the tchotchkes, daddy long leg wispy webs in the corners of the ceiling. A real spring cleaning, something I rarely do as I have a high tolerance for the detritus of life. The only thing I’m not doing is oiling all the wood furniture. No time for that but maybe I’ll do that after the party. Or not. Monday and Tuesday I did my bedroom and the big work room/in house studio/office. 

Today I start on the rest of the house, bathrooms on Saturday. So since that’s all I’m doing and I doubt anyone wants to read a blow by blow here’s the report on the last six books I’ve read. Not going to mention how long it took me to read six books.

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley - Francesca and her twin older brothers are the grandchildren of the last lord of Tome Manor in the English countryside where they vacation every summer. When they are 16 Frankie ‘adopts’ a girl as her best friend for the summer whose family vacations at the nearby caravan park after meeting her on the beach and who she calls Sparrow. Frankie and her brothers are not nice people. Fast forward 15 years and Frankie, now Francesca, has remade herself and the Manor after inheriting it from her grandfather. The Manor is now a high end organic spiritual retreat hotel and she is married to the architect who made her vision a reality but things are not as calm as they seem. The locals, who Francesca detests as being beneath her, are not happy about her attempt to privatize the woods and the beach, the woods where legend has it there are mysterious avenging creatures, The Birds, that exact justice when needed. Opening night during the Solstice is sold out but during the Midnight Feast celebration things are not going the way she planned. There are intrusions, a body is unearthed, the guests are acting strangely, there’s a fire and it’s up to Detective Walker the next day to unravel the events of the night that unfolded, rooted in that summer 15 years previous. It took me awhile to get invested in the story but when things started happening, I stayed up late into the night to finish the book.

The Bad Weather Friend by Dean Koontz - if I didn’t know Koontz wrote this book I would never have guessed. It’s written in a light hearted unserious style with the story teller injecting now and then suggestions for discussions if being read in a book club. It’s the story of Benny, a 23 year old high real estate agent who shows up for work one day to be patted on the back and told to clear out his desk with no real explanation, his girlfriend dumps him, his attempts at reaching out to other real estate companies ignored. On the same day he receives the shipment of a casket sized box with a letter about the gift/contents from an unknown uncle who appears not to exist when Benny tries to contact him. When Benny goes to breakfast with his PI friend Bob, but before his girlfriend dumps him, he meets Harper, the waitress and as it turns out Bob’s assistant and PI in training. When Benny’s kitchen is trashed the next morning he calls Bob who shows up with Harper. While Bob is investigating the garage and the crate, Benny and Harper discover what was in the crate, a 7’ muscular supernatural being whose sole purpose in life is to protect and set aright Benny’s life from those who would destroy him because he is too ’nice’. As Benny and Harper and Spike set out to find those responsible for Benny’s plight and rectify things, Benny’s story is revealed from childhood to adulthood as memories that come to him during the night. Benny did not have a normal life. I don’t know if I recommend this one or not. It started out entertaining enough but I lost interest about halfway through, sat down finally to just plow through it and thought the ending was pretty good. It is not a typical Koontz book.

Harlan Ellison’s Greatest Hits edited by J. Michael Straczynski - I mentioned that Ellison was one of my favorite authors back when I was reading science fiction almost exclusively. Some of these stories I have read and some I had not, at least I don’t remember them. One I skipped over almost completely after a few pages because I found it tiresome. Oddly enough it did not include A Boy and His Dog, a glaring omission to me.

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig - I read The Midnight Library by this author which I liked so thought I would like this one. Nope. The premise is an alien presence hidden in the sea grass off the coast of Ibiza that heals those it reaches out to who venture under the water near it and gives them extrasensory perceptions like mind reading and is also a sort of portal to that alien world. The island itself and its protected ecosystems are under attack by a developer. A 72 year old woman retired math teacher whose only child died in an accident at 12 and whose husband is recently deceased inherits a house in Ibiza which changes her life as she helps to save the island from the developer. Eighty percent of this book is filler...lectures, preaching, whining about being a useless person, lots of repetition. It got to the point where I would just skim over stuff until the writer got around to advancing the story. 

Things Don’t Break On Their Own by Sarah Easter Collins - It’s been a long time since I picked a book from the library that grabbed me immediately and read in (what counts for me these days) record time. Twelve pages in I already liked this one way more than the entire previous book. It’s the story of three women, two sisters and a best friend of one of them. Willa, the perfect golden girl in her father’s eyes, is 3 years older than Laika, headstrong and is abused and berated. Willa learned early how to avoid their father’s wrath, Laika refused. One morning on the first day of school 16 year old Willa is anxious to get there and see her friends while Laika is dragging so although they always walk to school together, this day they don’t. Thirteen year old Laika leaves for school, never arrives, and is never seen or heard from again. Her sister’s disappearance devastates Willa and to avoid the constant press and the pity of her friends her parents send her to a boarding school where she meets Robyn. Willa and Robyn are each other’s first love. The relationship doesn’t last but they remain friends and Robin supports her friend in her efforts over the years to find Laika whom everyone assumes is dead. Twenty three years later Willa attends a dinner party being given by Robyn and her wife Cat. Their brothers are in town at the same time and they are anxious to meet Cat’s brother’s new French girlfriend who he talks about constantly. I don’t want to say too much more. It’s a great story and I highly recommend it.

Return To Blood by Michael Bennett - The second book featuring Hana Westerman. Set in New Zealand Maori ex-detective Hana has returned home to start a new life (I have not read the first but I gather it’s the story of her last case and why she quit the police force in Auckland). Two decades previous the body of a young woman was found buried in the dunes and now the skeleton of another young woman who went missing four years ago is uncovered in the same area, discovered by Hana’s daughter Allison. Allison sets out to learn more about the young woman Kiri while Hana can’t leave her talents behind and conducts her own unofficial investigation and thinks she has uncovered who committed both murders. There’s a twist at the end. 

party prep and Eostre

The idea of a party for my 75th seemed fun when asked about. The reality of making it happen filled me with anxiety…at first. A guest list? I have to make a guest list? I don’t know anybody here, really, who would I invite besides my two glass couple friends who don’t even live here and a couple of neighbors and family, a puny prospect for a party, although as my daughter said, we’re a party all on our own. Then I was reminded about the people I volunteer with at SHARE and the ones I go to yoga with. I discounted the class in El Campo, I’m the oldest person, as old as everyone else’s parents, and their attendance twice a week for 40 minutes at a time is sporadic and we don’t really socialize. The yoga class here though, I invited the older couple who comes every time that I’ve gotten friendly with and one other person. 

That left SHARE wherein most of my anxiety stemmed. Can I invite just the volunteers I work with in the back or should I invite all the volunteers. I don’t really want to hurt anyone’s feelings if word got around they weren’t invited but it’s not a SHARE social event. Ultimately I invited all but three that were there last Thursday when I handed out the really cute invitations one at a time that my daughter made. And I have to tell you I was really surprised by some of the delight and positive reactions I got. In the end I invited about 40 people (some I know can’t/won’t come) about half of which are family. That’s a lot. Too many maybe. What if it rains and we have to have it in our small house? I was anxious about who to invite and now I’m anxious that they'll all show up!

I’ve been working out in the yard, doing things I ordinarily ignore like picking up all the bricks laying around and empty pots, made the table a new leg, 

cut out all the brown and tattered leaves from the aspidistra, moved some pots around. It’s looking very nice. Of course all the pretty things that have been blooming all month will be done by next Sunday but some of the day lilies might be blooming and the purple coneflowers are starting up.

Next week I’ll be doing house cleaning and putting stuff away. Sarah came over yesterday afternoon to plan for food and drink and chairs. Basically barbecued chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs, a potato dish (getting that from a local eatery), a green salad, a pasta salad, maybe deviled eggs, a cake, cookies, beer, wine, lemonade, tea, water.

Yeah, I think it’s going to be fun despite my misplaced misgivings.

And today is the stolen holiday of Eostre, the pre-christian celebration of spring and fertility when Mother Earth is renewed in the form of Virgin Spring proudly showing off her tender pretty lady bits inviting all the pollinators to come fulfill her. Getting it on with your loved one is especially appropriate today.

 

surprise!

Yesterday was full of surprises. I left the house at 7:30 to go with my friend who is battling cancer to her doctor’s appointment two hours away. I do this to keep her company on the long drive there and the long drive back, plus it gives us extended girl time but it pretty much takes up the whole day. 

When she dropped me off at home I came in through the garage door and glanced to my right to see this IN MY HOUSE!

I keep the door to the fenced little backyard open when the weather is nice to get fresh air and listen to the birds and since I don’t have a screen door it allows the cat and dog to come and go as they please. And also, apparently, snakes. Now, I’m not afraid of snakes, by far the majority are harmless to humans, but I still get that automatic jolt of fear that seems inherent in humans when I come up on them unexpectedly. So when I saw this one just chillin’ about 8’ in from the open back door my immediate reaction was to yell ‘there’s a snake in the house’ which brought Marc into the room. We were pretty sure at first look that it was a harmless rat snake but rat snakes and copperheads have similar coloring. Copperheads which are venomous have a distinctive patterning, a triangular shaped head, vertical eye slit pupils, and only get about 30” long. Rat snakes vary in color and pattern, have round eye pupils and can get up to 7’ long but I wasn’t going to get close enough to see its pupils.

At this point the snake had not moved remaining motionless so I got a long walking stick and nudged it to see if it would strike. It didn’t but it did unwind enough to see that it was at least 4’ long so yeah, rat snake. I very gently and slowly used the walking stick to slide it towards and out the door. It didn’t object and it moved under the metal plant stand against the side of the house where it stayed for about 20 minutes and the next time I looked it was gone.

A very handsome specimen.

This is not the first time I’ve found a snake in the house. It’s happened at least twice before. The first time was soon after we had bought this place, same room, a much smaller and similarly colored snake I saw when I looked down from the couch where I was sitting with my feet up. The second time was a few years ago when a green ribbon snake found its way in through the open back door.

The second surprise of the day was when the mail came. I got a letter from Frank Hofer, a consultant and accounts manager with a reputable Investment Bank in Canada. He found my name in a search for the next of kin of a deceased customer of his bank, one Allan Abbott, a real estate investor and precious stone dealer, who lived and died in London, a Cancer Victim from a COVID 19 attack in 2020. Since no one has come forward to claim the $9,500,200.00 in his estate and all efforts to find next of kin have failed, Frank, out of the goodness of his heart, proposes to present me as next of kin to claim this money and it will only cost me 50% of the $9+M. Only fair, you know, since he’ll be doing all the work. I need only reply via his email for further clarification and details. Seems legit. Here’s Frank’s not sketchy at all signature.

All my worries are over! $4 1/2 million transferred directly into my account! 

a week of my life part whatever

I haven’t felt much like writing this past week, haven’t done much to write about and the situation in this country just keeps getting worse. 

I got most of the work in the yard done, the garden is planted but still needs to be mulched as do the flower beds. Still have to clean up the east side of the house where nothing much grows because it’s in shade almost all the time, some variegated shell ginger that never blooms because our winters have shifted due to global warming and we get those arctic blasts now every winter sending temps into the 20s. Shell ginger blooms on last year’s growth. About the only thing I’ve done is move the sprinkler around and resort to my soapy water to kill the fire ants. The organic ant killer only makes them move so they have moved out of the flower beds and into the grass outside the borders where I can’t see them and they’re all over my feet before I know it. Can’t use the soapy water in the flower beds because it’s bad for the roots. I did finally cut back the dead banana trees over in the shop yard.

I still have to get the trimmer out and go around all the flower beds (done after breakfast) and mow the little backyard both of which I planned to do over the weekend and neither of which got done. I can’t even remember what I did Saturday instead but Sunday I made blueberry pecan pancakes for breakfast because I needed to use up the blueberries and then I swept and mopped the kitchen floor and then my grandson came over with Paisleigh and she and I watered the little backyard and got the chalk out and drew a hopscotch and I showed Paisley how to write the numbers by writing them lightly with white and she went over them with pink (she had particular trouble with the 4 for some reason). 

So we did that until she went in to get some water and managed to shut her fingers in the door, not badly, just a little scrape but you’d think she had lost a finger and wanted her daddy who was working over at the shop. So by the time I got the wagon and put Minnie in it she was mostly over it but halfway to the shop driveway she remembered her fingers and the closer we got the louder her wailing became. She got a few minutes of attention from both her parents, Audra was there with Harrison washing her car, and that was that.

I mentioned to Audra that I needed to get my car washed and she said, bring it over, I’ll wash it after I finish mine and detail the inside. Audra does that to her car every week. I’m not that great about housecleaning and that extends to my car so she had no idea what she was getting into but I said great! After I ran my one errand getting more food for the outdoor cats I parked my car over at the shop and played with Paisleigh 

or held Harrison all day so Audra could do my car and it looks fabulous inside and out. I apologized afterwards because it took her a lot longer than she expected but she said to consider it a birthday present.

Speaking of which, my birthday is the last day of the month. My daughter asked me a couple of weeks ago if, since I was turning 75, I wanted a birthday party. Yeah, sure, I guess. So Sarah is planning a party for the 27th, the last Sunday afternoon of the month to be held here at my house because it’s more accessible than her house and property. Make a guest list she told me. So this is the tricky part. the two people I’m closest to, Dick and Kathy, live in Houston and Dick’s health is poor and Gene and Brian live even farther away but I know they’ll come. After that there are my neighbors I’m friends with, two couples and three singles, and family. What about the people you volunteer with at SHARE, she suggested, or your yoga mates. So SHARE. There are three groups of volunteers; the women in the front who interview people to determine what if anything they qualify for, the women who sort the donated clothing and help people with their selections, and the guys and me in the back who fill the food orders, and then there’s a floater who helps wherever she’s needed. The only time I see these people is at SHARE. Would it be rude of me to only invite the guys and their spouses who I know and the couple of other women I’m most friendly with since this is not a SHARE social event? And what if nobody comes? That's always in the back of my mind since it happened to me one year growing up, had a birthday party and only one person came. 

Update on the dog…he trotted off mid-morning last Tuesday and there's been no sign of him since so maybe he wasn’t dumped and was just out for an adventure or maybe someone picked him up. 

Update on Minnie…after trying to chew the wrapping off the splint in two places Tuesday and Wednesday and I had to add more, she seems to have resigned herself to it and is getting around just fine. She walks on it now if she’s just moseying along but lifts her hip and swings that leg around otherwise, really amusing to watch. Sometimes it’s easier to pull her in the wagon than have her walk between the two driveways. 

She made it down the six steps of Pam’s house while I locked the door. I thought she was going to lose her balance and go head first but she negotiated it. One more week.

 

a tale of two dogs

I hate people. People are assholes. Someone dumped a black dog here Sunday night. 

It spent all day over in the shop yard on Monday. It’s a fairly big dog, looks like it has some black lab but not as stout and has really long legs and looks to be in good health. When Mikey tried to run it off yesterday evening it growled at him when he got too close. But I can’t have a stray dog living in the shop yard. Paisleigh comes with her dad sometimes on the weekends when he’s working on a car and Robin is afraid of it. Not to mention Minnie and I going over there to work in the yard and feed the outdoor cats.

Mid morning Tuesday it was over in the yard on the opposing corner next to my house so Robin and I closed the gates to the shop. Problem is there’s about a 14” gap so we secured a piece of sheet metal across the gap and chicken wire above that in case the dog tried to jump over the top of the sheet metal. So yeah, now the dog can’t get in but people and cars can’t get in or out either. I can probably engineer a more user friendly barrier with just the chicken wire but I need some bungee cords (accomplished on Wednesday).

So far it has not discouraged the dog. First it went and hung out under the carport of the house on the opposite corner but when I got back from the grocery store it was laying in front of the gate in the shade and is still there. He was over here earlier. I think whoever dumped him has a car like mine because when he saw me driving by on my way to the grocery store he got up and started following me and again when I was coming back. Even though he growled at my grandson, he is friendly enough and looking to be with people. The six year old girl, who is fearless and who lives at the other end of the street, was at this end playing with the little girl who lives at this end and coaxed the dog to her, petting him, tail wagging. He followed her home but was back in front of the shop gate this morning. 

I feel sorry for the dog, the poor thing is confused and afraid, but I already feed four outdoor cats thanks to my sister and one feral cat and I have a dog and cat of my own and am not looking to adopt a big dog. And before anyone suggests calling animal control, there is no animal control here in this low population rural county. I have emailed the local animal rescue group but they are usually overwhelmed with strays and in fact they just called me back, they aren’t taking any adult dogs and the best they could do is partner with me to have him euthanized. 

It just pisses me off when people dump their animals instead manning up and surrendering them to a shelter. Cowards, they are just fucking cowards.

Early afternoon - I saw the dog trotting down the cross street mid morning and haven’t seen him since.

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So I called the vet early Monday morning and the earliest they could get Minnie in was 3 pm. They took x-rays and she doesn’t have a fracture. She chipped a piece off the end of one of the bones in that joint on her leg. How the hell she managed that is anyone's guess. The chip is still in there somewhere though it didn’t show up on the x-ray. The vet said it would cause more damage to the joint trying to get it out than just leaving it in there. So they put her under and fixed her up with a splint which looks more like a cast. The vet says while the bone won’t grow back of course it should heal by forming a sort of callous around the injury and she should be fine. She has to wear the splint for two weeks.

She was pretty loopy the rest of the day and was clearly uncomfortable with this big clunky thing on her leg she didn’t know how to maneuver. 

She did a lot of quiet whining when we went to bed Monday night until she finally settled down and fell asleep sometime in the wee hours. Consequently I didn’t get much sleep last night either. But Tuesday morning she was much better, learning how to walk with it, thumping around like Peg Leg Pete, doesn’t seem to be in any obvious pain. And the dog has learned nothing. We were in the big backyard when the black dog came down the driveway. I didn’t see it but Minnie did. She took off after that dog barking the whole time and chased it back to the street. Dog! 

 

puppy injury, dope, and goop

Friday evening before dark Minnie sat up at attention and when I opened the storm door she dashed outside taking off after one of the black and white cats that we see around here. The cat with Minnie in hot pursuit disappeared beyond the side of the barn. A few minutes later Minnie came back hobbling along on three legs refusing to put her back right leg down. I examined her leg and foot not finding anything stuck between the pads of her foot or feeling anything obviously wrong with her foot or leg. She made no vocal or physical reaction to my manipulations but refused to use the leg the rest of the night. 

Saturday morning she still refused to set her leg on the ground and now there was some swelling just past the ankle on the foot side. 

I called the vet I normally take her to but they are only open a half day on Saturday and couldn’t or wouldn’t work her in. Monday morning was the earliest I could get her in. So then I called the other vet in town that is open all day on Saturday and is generally more expensive and their walk in fee is really high but they would work her in. So I took her there and didn’t have to wait very long. The vet examined her; hip seems fine, knee seems fine, he felt around the swollen spot and elicited a couple of whines from her and determined it could be a torn ligament or a fracture. I could get the x-ray then or wait. If it improved by Monday she likely wouldn’t need an x-ray. He thought that waiting until Monday even if it was a fracture would be fine since he couldn’t feel an obvious break. If it is a fracture, he’ll splint it to stabilize it while it heals. They gave her a shot for pain and sent me home with pain pills. Sunday morning there has been no change and I’m pretty sure it’s a fracture and now I’m wishing I had gone ahead and had the x-ray yesterday. She's been either in my lap or laying next to me since it happened.

Rocky finally came by the end of last week and gooped up the threaded end of the plug on the drain field pipe and I started filling the trench back in. Friday I got all the rest of my little seedlings in the ground that I have room for; 4 yellow squash, 6 cucumbers, and the rest of the nasturtiums. The onions have all come up, carrots too but fewer of those, far less than half the seed I put in. the tomatoes are growing and blooming though we had a cold front blow in yesterday and it got down in the 40s last night. I finished filling in the trench yesterday.

Thursday at SHARE one of the volunteers brought in two boxes of this stuff that somehow her church had acquired. One of the Elders that volunteer opened one and it looked like a cross between rancid peanut butter and baby poop and smelled about what it looked like. He stuck a finger in and tasted it and said it tasted about how it looked. Then he read the back of the package.

Turns out it’s for people with feeding tubes. It all went in the trash.

To end with something a little more pleasant, the mock dogwood/orange is in full bloom.

earworms, library thing, and the pecan trees are finally convinced

It feels like my brain is obsessed with earworms. If I’m not mentally engaged with something, there it is ready to fill the void. It’s aggravating, it’s maddening at times. I will wake up with one running through my brain. Sometimes I know why I’m repeating a particular lyric, just heard the song that day or the day before or read something that reminds me of it but often one will pop in my head and I’m, what the fuck? I haven’t heard that song in years. It’s really annoying when I'm trying to fall asleep. I have to actively counter it with something like planning a yoga routine asana after asana or repeating a mantra over and over with my breath. I don’t know why but it’s a rare day I don’t have a lyric on repeat.

You might remember that a book I checked out of the library and returned unread and even unopened had a torn end page in the front and they have accused me of damaging the book. I never even opened the cover once, not in the library plucking it off the shelf in a hurry from the author’s name alone, not at home. I gave my side of the story to one of the librarians and she told me not to worry about it and I have checked out several books since. Yesterday I returned a book and went to check out another and they wouldn’t let me. There is a hold on my library card because of the damaged book. The librarian was very apologetic but couldn’t do anything about it. I have to talk to the director who is out of town right now at a conference. I imagine I’m going to have to pay for the book at this point. Pisses me off. Once I get borrowing privileges back I’m going to examine every book carefully before checking it out. 

Issue resolved, the librarian I'm most friendly with called today to let me know that the book had been replaced and the hold had been taken off my card and I'm good to go.

Monday the guy that mows and trims the shop yard and around Pam’s house came and when I went over to pay him, as I usually do before he finishes, I saw a clump of blue eyed grass that had sprung up in front of the house where Joe had not mowed yet. First time I have seen this clump so I’m not sure how long it’s been there and since I didn’t want it to get mowed down I dug it up and put it in a pot temporarily. I’ll get it in the ground next to the clump I dug up years ago out of the easement in front of the house on the corner. It’s in full bloom.

It’s been warm and very humid the last several days, the humidity making it feel warmer than it is and it’s been making me sweat some, a harbinger of the summer to come. Today is another miserably windy day; sustained 16 mph, gusts up to 28 mph. The wind is coming out of the southeast today though instead of the south like our previous very windy days. Despite the wind and the humidity I got some stuff done. I put the biggest plumeria in it’s summer location directly in the ground (it gets dug up in the fall/winter after it goes dormant) 

and sunk the biggest and next biggest pots in their holes in their summer spots. The other three in pots are still on the cement apron in front of the barn. One of those will get moved later. When I came in it wasn’t so hot and humid that my clothes were soaked but my hair was and sweat was dripping off my face. Oh joy.

The only other thing of note is this: the pecan trees coming out.

Winter is officially over.