Aberrant Prose

Spring Break Garbage Can Madness

Robert and I woke at one o’clock this morning to a clatter in the road—actually more like the sound of thundering wheels pounding on pavement. I thought it was thunder. Dakota and Paris bolted out of bed and headed to the door to furiously bark at the racket. Robert too reluctantly got up to see what the ruckus was about. Although too dark to see anything he had a pretty good idea.

On our drive to the park for our daily walk we immediately saw one of our garbage cans missing. No surprise. Six houses down the road we spotted it tipped over on its side having burped its contents all over the road. Ours wasn’t the only one rolled off during the night. Others were tipped and tilted pell-mell, their contents also spewed on the road and in neighbors’ yards.

Back from our walk Robert dropped me off to rescue our can and to pick up all of our trash: pieces of junk mail, empty toilet paper rolls, asparagus stems, tissues, dirty paper towels, dental floss, empty food containers, grimy lids, yucky cans. Just as I finished this unpleasant task and headed back home pulling our can behind me the garbage truck came barreling down the road. I stopped and faced our garbage can toward the road hoping the truck would stop to pick it up and empty it. When the truck reached me the driver stopped and leaned out of his seat toward me as if to tell me he wasn’t about to pick it up because how was he to know I was a legitimate garbage customer.

Instead he told me he was out on the road at six this morning and there was trash scattered up and down the road, it was everywhere and it was a mess! He continued to tell me how every year during spring break this same thing happens. “EVERY year,” he lamented. Neither of us had any idea how it had all gotten picked up. I am guessing commuters were up early to face garbage detail, an unpleasant disruption, before heading into the city. The truck driver then kindly picked up my garbage can and emptied it into his truck.

Picking up garbage on the road early in the morning in 35 degree weather risking my life as cars zipped by within inches was certainly not an ideal way to start my day.

Facebook bitten

Just a few days after writing my last blog I became a facebook user (thanks to Kathy). This may well be why I am not blogging as often now. That and my continuing battle with piriformis syndrome. It is hard for me to write a lot when I can’t sit at my computer for very long.

I admit I am quite addicted to facebook. It’s easy to get drawn into it between activities. While I am waiting for a job to print, or a file to upload, an email to be answered, a phone call to be returned, I jump over to facebook to read what people have just posted and for entertainment.

When I first joined I didn’t expect I would get into or be interested in all the games and questionnaires associated with facebook. Now I am sending Easter eggs, cultivating a farm, discovering Olivia is the name I should have been given, Redding is the town where I ought to live (unless I move out of state then it is Seattle), the breed of dog that best describes me is a Cattle Dog (!), and my real age is 46.

Of course what I like about facebook is how little writing is required, just snippets to share what is going on in my life.

Better yet I enjoy seeing the photos people post and discovering what is going on in their lives. I found out a niece of mine has a dozen horses, another niece is now a doctor, yet another niece just got a new puppy, my sister graduated from Clatsop Community College, a first cousin of mine now has a new job and her husband went skydiving on his birthday.

Another nice aspect of facebook is there is no wading through a lot of spam associated with email. Plus attachments don’t bog down incoming email. Messages, photos and videos can be shared by posting them directly on facebook. And sharing with lots of people doesn’t mean sending lots of emails (good for not bogging down the internet especially when there are attachments involved). Best of all people respond! Often when I email people they don’t (most likely because my email gets blocked by a spam filter).

After a month and a half I am still enjoying the facebook connection, which leads me to wonder: Have I now moved from blogging to facebooking? And what’s next? Twittering?

Shoo deer shoo

The deer are back. There are three of them in our front yard right now. They have been there over an hour. Apparently they have decided to settle in. Dakota first spotted them while Paris was outside (thankfully). She started barking a little but not enough to startle them. I quickly scooted her outside to the patio. When it was evident they were not going to leave Robert made a barricade to keep Paris and Dakota out of the living room.

After a half hour Robert bravely closed the curtains. The deer barely moved. They stood in the middle of the clover and just watched.

Why are they here? Why are they staying so long? Are they all looking for the deer that was lost recently?

Apricot picking injury

This time of year we harvest very delicious apricots from our field. Robert was doing just that late yesterday.

Around four o’clock he came into the house holding his right hand, his little finger wrapped in a bloody paper towel and asked me if I knew the last time he had had a tetanus shot.

Why would he need a tetanus shot if he was just picking apricots?

Well, to pick apricots, you have to have a (tall) ladder. Having a ladder means you are going to climb high. The apricots he was after were at the very height of the tree. The ladder was next to the fence. He was wearing loose shoes. Reaching for apricots using both hands, he lost his footing and fell—right toward the fence. The fence is covered in rusty barbed wire.

Although he managed to keep from landing on the fence (an amazing feat he tells me) he still threw his right hand out to break his fall, and in so doing, his finger was jabbed by a barb.

I had to make a call to the doctor for him because he was bleeding too much. The doctor wasn’t able to see him until this morning. She told him yes, it was a very good idea to get a tetanus shot, that rusty barbed wire is a prime conveyor for tetanus. She thoroughly cleaned out his wound telling him he had hit an artery and that if she had been able to see him yesterday she would have also stitched the gash.

Although this pales in comparison, this is one more out-of-the-ordinary incident to add to Robert’s list.

Hanging clothes out to dry all for a staple

Handyman Robert pulled our dryer apart this morning. His quest: to search for the cause of a strange harsh swishing noise we heard last weekend just as a second to last load of clothes finished drying.

Fighting the urge to call a repairman, he reluctantly took the front off, inspected the easy to access areas with his flashlight and found nothing but a lot of dirt and dust. He sighed and told me, “Looks like I am just going to have to totally dismantle everything. This could take awhile.”

Within a few minutes he had the vent trap and inner door dismantled and instantly located the source of the noise. “Okay, it’s my fault,” he told me as he showed me a bent up staple. He had forgotten to remove it from his pocket before throwing his pants into the hamper last week!

Sure glad he didn’t call a repairman for something so small!

Graduation, trialing,
trucks, bankruptcy and pills

First off, congratulations to Melissa! She is graduating from high school this Friday!
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I bit the bullet. I entered Paris in her first agility match in Rohnert Park this coming Saturday. I have no idea how she will do. Well, actually I do. She will refuse to go over the first jump and if I do convince her to go over it she will decide to run ahead of me and run the course the way she wants to run it. When she sees a tunnel she will head straight to it even if it is not the next obstacle on the course. If she does a sit or down on the pause table and sees she isn’t getting a treat for doing it right (since no treats will be allowed) she will say the heck with it and run off course to chase a scent (because, she will tell me later, she is a hunting dog after all).

Since this event in Rohnert Park is a fun match it doesn’t really matter if she doesn’t do everything right. I just hope she does well enough to run all six matches I signed her up for, well okay at least four of them. Actually I will be happy if she does two. All right, the truth is, I will be elated if she does one! The main mission this time around is to expose her to the world of trialing so it really doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter. It REALLY…
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Gary now has a new truck. Last Thursday Robert drove his Mom and Gary to Carmel to pick it up. Gary’s previous truck (SUV) bit the dust the end of May. The timing belt broke and ruined the engine. This all happened when Gary and Fely were on their way home from Benicia. The two of them had to walk the rest of the way to Watsonville. They didn’t get home until two in the morning!
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Last week we received notice of a bankruptcy filing from the City of Vallejo. Why would this mean anything to us? Because we just finished designing and printing Vallejo’s water quality reports and billed them several thousand dollars. We knew going in that Vallejo was talking about filing bankruptcy. However, our contact at the water department assured me we would be paid, that the money would come from different and unrelated funds. Just the same, the notice made us very anxious. We even received a call from an attorney offering to buy our debt. Happy to say the check arrived in the mail a couple of days ago. Whew! We were somersaulting in the air when it came!
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I went in for a physical yesterday, you know that annual exam we are all supposed to do when we get older. Except apparently I don’t really know what annual means, the last time I had one was in 2005. When I made the appointment, lab orders were sent to me in the mail. When I saw the doctor she had all my results on hand—very efficient!

I was shocked to find out how much my cholesterol was up. I have always had a good report. Without asking about my diet or my lifestyle, my doctor just listed the reasons as being hereditary and possibly stress. My ratio is now higher than Robert’s (of course he has been working on lowering his for a couple of years now)! My doctor prescribed fish oil capsules, same as what Robert is taking. With so much hype about high cholesterol and over medicating, I am having a hard time dealing with this. Taking fish oil is good for body, mind, and heart though so I guess I will just grin and swallow my medicine.

My blood panel also revealed I am low in Vitamin D. My level is 27.6 and it should be between 50 and 100; my doctor translated this to mean I am mildly insufficient. This is another surprise to me. I always thought I drank plenty of milk and spent enough time outdoors. So along with the fish oil I will also be taking Vitamin D supplements.
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Today Robert went in for his annual exam. His doctor and my doctor (who is married to Robert’s doctor) appear to be in cahoots. He is recommending Robert take vitamin D too (even without an indication of a below normal level)! Did those two just go to a seminar or what? On top of that Robert’s doctor prescribed Robert a much bigger variety of pills than me. Two are for what he has been taking for cholesterol all along but then he added a third one for cholesterol. The others are an array of vitamins and supplements; one of them is for the prevention of Alzheimer’s. I am thinking, since my doctor didn’t prescribe so many pills for me she must have played hooky during the vitamins and supplements portion of the seminar!

What is crazy about Robert getting yet a third pill for his cholesterol is that his ratio is down! He has been working so very hard maintaining a low cholesterol diet. He’s ratio is 2.6, which is only one tenth of a point above the recommended 2.5 (compare that to mine which is 4.0!). Trying to figure out if what the doctors are telling us is right, what we should take and what we can ignore is all quite trying.

After not taking much more than a daily multi-vitamin for years (and being healthy) it appears Robert and I have entered the pill-popping phase of our lives. Are we now at this point because we are senior citizens or are we at the beck and call of an overzealous medical community? I have to wonder how much do all these pills really help and whose pocketbook is getting fatter from the sale of so many pills? I know whose pocketbook will be thinner.
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Thirty something, thirty years ago

Robert and I are always amazed how much is going on in the lives of our kids; the commitments they make and the projects they take on. Where do they get the energy? How are they so courageous? Where do they find the time?

Come to find out, time has faded our memories.

Recently I started reading a journal I kept thirty years ago because I couldn’t remember when I started Kathy in preschool. I wanted to know because of Rylan recently starting preschool himself. What an eye opener. I rarely, if ever, have read all the detail that I recorded back then. I picked up my 1978 journal dated May to October, and was surprised to discover what a busy, activity-filled six months we had that year.

Robert and I were on a bowling league. We played volleyball at a nearby church weekly. Robert took swimming lessons, Chris was in tap class and Kathy started a dance class. The kids were also enrolled in swimming lessons during the summer and I took piano classes when Solano College was in session. Kathy started preschool in September going three half days a week. Chris went to a craft class a number of times every week when he was off from school (he attended year round school back then). I was also on a daytime bowling league. In the fall Chris had extra dance rehearsals because he was selected to be in the Lodena School of Dance Christmas program. Chris and Robert joined Indian Guides, a special organization for fathers and sons.

Robert’s Mom and Dad were at our house up to four or five times a week either picking up Chris and Kathy or dropping them off or stopping by for a visit. They were wonderful about taking them when Robert and I were at our evening bowling league or giving us the opportunity to go out to dinner, to a party or just to have some alone time.

I belonged to a babysitting co-op. That meant other mothers were always dropping off their kids for me to watch.

In August we joined Carol, Morgan, and Stephanie for a houseboat adventure on the Delta.

In 1978 we rented booth space at the annual craft fair in Benicia. In readiness for selling our own handmade creations Robert built wooden trains and I made piñatas, gingerbread dolls and puppets.

During this six month period we bought a house on Benicia Road then did tons of work on it to rent it out. We also drove up to Washington to sell a house we owned in Renton. After selling it for $25,500 we started looking for a second house to buy as another rental.

This was the year Robert and I drew up plans to add a deck and entryway to our own house and had most of the major work done by fall.

From time to time Robert helped Morgan work on the new house he was building in Benicia. Robert was also putting in a lot of overtime, pretty much every weekday night, and several times, he traveled out of town for his job.

I was always making clothes for both Chris and Kathy, often staying up until midnight or 1:00 to finish them. This was the summer I made a quilt for David Lewis who arrived in January. Kathy and I went to lots of Thursday morning Holiday House meetings to help Robert’s Mom with sewing projects for her annual church bazaar.

I even sent out a quarterly family newsletter.

I made Martian costumes for a Halloween party put on by Navelex (where Robert worked). Kathy wore a cat costume I had made the year before but Chris wanted to be something new so I made a really awesome Darth Vader costume for him.

Through it all, somehow I found time to write in my journal daily (not something I was good at doing previously or subsequently) and thank goodness too because how else would I have enjoyed discovering all this detail?

It’s true I wasn’t working and I didn’t have a young, puppy-like dog to take care of (back then we had Karmen who was old and slow). Just the same I’d say we likely were just as active, fearless, and energetic as our kids are today. There is definitely something to be said about being thirty something!

Below is link to a slide show of pictures from 1978:

1978 slideshow

A peacock day

Sometimes when we return home from the park we find a peacock on our roof. Today was one of those days. After our park walk this morning, when we put Paris and Dakota into the backyard, we spotted a peacock on top of the pool house. When the peacock saw us, he flew to the garage roof. We figured that would be the last we’d see of him for the day.

While we were eating breakfast I spotted him again. He had returned to strut on our lawn! I grabbed the camera. When he saw me sneaking up to take his picture, he flew to the barbecue, over the fence and headed past the green house to check out Madison’s arch. Not being able to get any closer for pictures I decided to just let him be. I figured he would probably just jump the fence and head home.

Back in he house, I told Robert the peacock had gone into the field and asked him, “What would Dakota and Paris do if they found the peacock out in the open like that?” We both decided they just might catch him because he wouldn’t be able to fly very far.

Later this afternoon when Robert took the dogs out to the field to get eggs, Dakota found the peacock next to the chicken pen investigating our chickens. Dakota was startled and surprised. She did not even come close to catching the peacock. When the peacock spotted her, he immediately flew from the chicken pen all the way to the neighbor’s garage roof. Without any effort at all!

For 2008, I resolve…

… to eat less, eat healthier, lose weight, exercise more, drink more water, write a book, read more newspapers, finish all my sewing projects, give to the needy, call family and friends more often, master Flash, listen to more music, illustrate a book, enter Paris in agility trials, travel more, do more housework, appreciate Robert even more, throw away useless stuff, play the piano, improve my interior decorating skills, win a contest, stop mixing darks and lights when I do laundry, print all my favorite photos, take classes, go green, burn all our home movies to DVD, sleep less, stress less, watch TV less, back up my computer files more often, plant flowers at Alston Park, send Christmas gift thank yous, print out my legacy writings, transpose Albert Osborn’s diaries, convert our wedding movie to digital, knit sweaters for my grandchildren, read more books, drink less coffee, wash my car more, give Dakota and Paris more baths, fly a plane, keep the pool cleaner, volunteer in the community, walk more, win a game show, do more yard work, buy fish for our fish tank, cook more, design a toy cupboard for the living room, draw more, visit my sisters, and blog a lot.

Actually, throw all those out. The truth is I am only making one resolution: Not to make any resolutions at all. I am just going to live 2008 one day at a time.

Happy New Year!

Internet T.V. smitten

With client work at an all time low, I find myself looking forward to watching T.V. shows. Unfortunately most of the shows aren’t all that appealing to me. The other down side is that most of the time Robert is watching what he likes. Last year I discovered Ugly Betty, which, you guessed it, is on at the same time as Survivor, a not-to-be-missed and must-be-viewed-on-the-big-screen favorite of Robert’s.

About the time I discovered Ugly Betty I also learned about ABC streaming T.V. shows from the Internet for FREE. So I sort of watched Survivor with Robert and the next day I enjoyed Ugly Betty on my laptop at a time convenient to me; a surprisingly clear and smooth image given it was traveling through the air to reach my computer.

How I wished there were more Ugly Betty episodes per week. How sad I was when re-runs came much too soon.

With the new 2007 fall season, I am back to happily watching Ugly Betty laptop style and have now discovered Carpooling and tomorrow I will be checking out Samantha Who. All of these are ABC based. I haven’t been excited about anything else on other channels. This is a good thing because of ABC’s superior video-play quality.

There are commercials of course and it appears there are more of them embedded than last year however ABC by far is superior in its ability to present video compared to other stations. The Click to Continue after a commercial is annoying and the fact ABC offers so many free episodes online it is a hassle to scroll through all of them to get to the one I want doesn’t lessen my attraction.

As you can see I prefer to watch stuff that is easy on the brain. I don’t like to have to think too much when I watch T.V. Robert watches the more complex stuff (often while solving Sudoku puzzles) with over-the-top graphic scenes and convoluted plots and reasoning like Lost, Heroes and all those C.S.I. shows.

It’s exciting to see how T.V. viewing is moving to the Internet. ABC now has 20 shows online! Given how ABC is backlogging all this viewing opportunity, I predict within the next three years (or sooner), all programs will be available through the web just like radio station programming is now. Unlike radio though, it will be on-demand!