spring cleaning of a different kind, Minnie progress report, last of the spring flowers

Two weeks of house cleaning, company and recovery and the inbox on my email account was astronomical. I get a lot of daily emails from news accounts and individuals who write about what’s happening in the country and some other interesting stuff. This morning I read two and then just deleted the rest unread. One can only tolerate so much.

Friday night we finally got some real rain, about an inch and a half, and of course it came after I spent the day watering all the beds in the big backyard. It also brought in some cooler and dryer weather and since I had finally brought over the unused 3’ x 6’ folding table in my sister’s shed for the party I spent the day Saturday hauling all the pots and buckets and other gardening miscellanea and the small table I’d been using out of the barn. First I raked out all the leaves that had accumulated, then I put up a little shelf, put the new table in, hung some stuff on nails, busted up all the broken pots into shards and put them into a planter I’ll never use, reorganized all my pots and hosed off everything, and a bunch of other stuff. Looks great. Did I take a before picture? Of course not, have you met me? But this is how it looks now.

I should have gone to the feed store and bought bags of dirt and compost and mulch since I’m out of all that but that will have to wait. Sunday I started weeding the east flower bed, the one that is the most neglected. It’s where the two plumerias go in the summer and where the orange cosmos and the rock rose dominate; the cosmos in the fall, the rock rose all summer. It’s also the one that gets full sun first and so I didn’t get much done even though the rain brought in some cooler and less humid days before it was time to move in the shade. So I switched over to the west flower bed that has all the day lilies and other bulbs and dug out all the dewberry vines, a never ending task because it’s impossible to get all the roots out.

I haven’t reported on Minnie’s recovery but she got the cast/splint off two weeks ago. She is gradually using that leg more and more. Today she stands on it, scratches with it, goes up and down stairs, will jump up on the couch but nothing higher though she’ll jump down off higher, she’ll slow walk on it but anything faster and she lifts it up. That dog is fearless and took off after a bigger dog in the yard two days ago and she can go pretty fast on three legs when she wants to. Took her in today for a new X-ray to check on the healing and that joint has developed some arthritis which the vet said is a response to the injury and healing. He thinks that given time she’ll use it more and more but may have a bit of a limp. He gave me more pain/anti-inflammation meds and an antibiotic because he thought it felt a little warm. Might help and won’t hurt in any case.

Here are some things that bloomed that I never got around to posting pictures of and some things blooming now. I’ll post food garden picture next time. So in order: penstemon done and going to seed, purple iris over at Pam’s I intended to dig up last year and move to my yard also done, german verbena, rock rose, day lillies first of many varieties, byzantine gladiolus, purple coneflower. Very pink and purple. Zinnias are starting up but I’ll save them for another post.

Tomorrow I have to arrive at the hospital for cataract surgery at 7 AM.

nine days later

Every room in the house and almost everything in the house was clean by end of day Saturday, a few things on one wall and a high shelf in the kitchen I didn’t get around to. It took me 6 days but I have to say, the house looks spectacular. I’ll probably never do this again, not the whole house, not everything at once. My brother and sister in law Cathi arrived late Thursday evening at the AirB&B where they were staying for his every five year high school reunion in Houston on Saturday and the visit just happened to coincide with my birthday this year. 

Sarah and I did the grocery store and liquor store on Saturday. Sunday I made the two salads I was making. Cathi made one batch of cookies on Friday and I made another on Saturday. Sarah showed up Sunday around 1 PM with a truck load of barbecue pit, chairs, and the food she had made. Her husband Mike showed up shortly after and got the barbecue pit and the chicken leg quarters going while Cathi made the hamburger patties to go on later.

Mikey had towed the truck over to the shop yard on Friday (needs a fuel pump) and I moved the car over early Sunday so bbq pit and chairs and coolers of drinks and ice were set up on the concrete apron in front of the garage and barn in the shade of the oak, crepe myrtle, and magnolia trees; food was spread out on my big work table inside. 

I had ordered a warm onion bacon potato dish from the local barbecue place earlier in the week, enough for 35 people which they said was a gallon and a half, paid for it in advance and when I went to pick it up on Sunday somehow between my ordering it and the kitchen getting the order it became 2 1/2 gallons! Since I had my paid receipt that showed clearly 1 1/2 gallons they waived whatever the extra cost would have been but what was I going to do with 2 1/2 gallons of potatoes! It got divided up among family afterwards and I still have some in the freezer.

It was a fine party, people started showing up at 3 PM and by all accounts everyone had a good time. I counted 31 people including Marc and me, a very varied group of people; friends from our glass studio days, friends from the neighborhood, a co-worker from the antique store days, co-volunteers from SHARE, fellow yogis, and family. Finally it was just the family sitting around and well after dark by the time we had all the food put away and coolers emptied, chairs folded and stacked, tables cleaned off. Fun day. Did I take any pictures? No. Jade took a few, Sarah took a couple. My party planner daughter and son.

Monday everyone slept late and after John and Cathi finally made it over we basically just sat around all day. Tuesday we had planned to drive to Galveston and spend the day so we left about 9:30. We walked the Strand in the historical district with all the shops and eateries. I made a beeline as soon as we got there to a store that carries the jewelry of an artist whose work I have long admired. The last time I was there with my sister and niece they didn’t have any and I was sorely disappointed as I planned to buy something. This time though they did and I had barely stopped in front of the case when the salesgirl appeared asking me if I would like for her to open it, probably because I did not saunter around the store looking at anything but went straight to the case that usually contains his work. The top shelf had a collection of phlox pieces; a gorgeous full necklace, earrings, necklace drops, and charms. I wish I had taken a picture of the necklace just to show but I did pick out a pair of earrings and at the counter mentioned to my brother that I hadn’t bought myself a birthday present yet and he said since he had not brought me a birthday present he would get them for me. Earrings by Michael Michaud Designs 

Then he treated us to lunch at a seafood restaurant (my brother wears the best shirts)

and after lunch we drove down Seawall Blvd and parked to walk on the beach for a while where the seaweed from the Sargasso Sea was coming in as it does every year around this time. The city used to scrape it off the beaches and take it to a landfill because tourists thought it was icky until the beaches and dunes started eroding away. The seaweed is essential to protecting the sand and building the dunes.

Wednesday was my actual birthday and after browsing two shops on the Square where I bought two more crystals and made a quick stop at the grocery store, we just sat around all afternoon watching cooking competition shows. John and Cathi left early Thursday morning heading back to Washington state. 

The next few days are going to be very laid back and then on Wednesday I’m having cataract surgery on my left eye.

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.

------------

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!