sound bites...

...from a horror movie. This is what I think I must sound like if you don't know it is my disabled self, stumping along down the hall. Makes me think of those awful movies where you see the frighten innocents cowering, wide-eyed with fear, tears streaming down their dirt smeared faces as they huddle in the basement, in hopes of being invisible. While overhead you can see light seeping through the cracks in the flooring. And the enhanced sound track of someone walking around in the kitchen: thump, drag, thump, drag, thump,...looking for his next victim!!

I've been to the foot doctor for the third time. So they now have three sets of x-rays of my right foot, with the broken bone on that connects my little toe to the ankle parts. The plastic and Velcro boot I have been wearing for over a month is tedious, but definitely helps. The bone that the dr. said has a 'stress fracture' does not hurt at all when I am encased in the awkward get-up and thumping around sounding like a peg-leg pirate bumping across the deck.

The doctor, who is (seriously: I might have taught him in first grade Sunday School) young enough to be my child, said I don't need to come back unless I think I do. So I guess I am through letting them bill the insurance company for more x-rays every two weeks. I am to wear this bump-thump for a couple of weeks, then 'taper off', wearing it when I will be on my feets  for an extended period of time during the day.

the rains have come...

...and we are thankful. I hope those places up in TN and elsewhere that are dealing with wildfires, threatening homes, businesses and entire communities are getting some relief as well. It has been raining here for the better part of two days, causing the last of the colorful, deciduous fall leaves to come down - but the blessing of drenching rains is so needed.

I've been dragging garden hoses, wrestling with nozzles and periodically soaking myself by accident. I am delighted to know there is a reprieve from the watering necessary to keep landscaping alive.  We needed rain literally months ago, but will be thankful for what has fallen in the past forty-eight hours. As well as thankful to know we are not in the agriculture business, being totally dependent on the whims of the weather for a livelihood.

I received this interesting little contraption several months ago, and more recently had it installed. It is designed to hang from the guttering along the edge of the roof, for water to run into as it is headed towards the earth. Called 'Lily Cup Rain Chain', a series of small metal cups connected with loops of metal to form a chain from the opening in the gutter down to the ground.  There has been no rainfall here in nearly three months, so no way to see how my rain chain actually works - other than one of the people who installed it standing on the ladder with the hose to run water into the gutter, with onlookers laughing uproariously.

It has finally been tested. When the rain is coming down so hard it appears to be a 'frog-strangler', the water pours straight down out of the gutter where the down spout was removed. But after that first gushing downpour, the rain chain works, looks neat, and is quite amusing. I need to get a basin to go at the bottom of the series of cups, to collect water, and perform double duty as a bird bath/watering spot for local wildlife.

the story from the DA's office...

... might qualify as one of the amusing tales from Paul Harvey's memorable: 'The rest of the Story' series. You may remember the home invasion we had a couple of years ago: it's been a while, two years I think. We got a random call from the prosecuting attorney, who wanted to report that the man who kicked in the front door was being sentenced for a number of similar break ins.

You will be as surprised as I was to hear that the culprit was actually in jail at the time the crime occurred. None of this makes much sense to me, either, but this is what we learned from the District Attorney's office. The crime was done, along with a series of other similar events, while the man was on his lunch break as a 'trusty', living on the taxpayer's dole as an inmate, but being released during the day to some sort of work detail. I cannot provide details, but think he might have actually been assigned to work at the public golf course right across the street from out house.

What we lost: a couple of small caliber handguns, some jewelry, and an accumulation of pocket change from a basket on the dresser when pockets are emptied each night. One piece of jewelry was returned, unique and readily identified, but all else vanished.  We replaced the front door, and door frame. The lesson learned, if you recall: your door frame is put together with staples. It is pre-fab., made in China out of cheap wood, and poorly assembled. It does not matter how many lock/deadbolts you put on the door. The door might hold (our metal door was only dented by the kicks), but the wooden frame will give way.

The culprit was already in jail, so he confessed. He was sentenced to many more years, but who is to say he will not eventually become a trusted inmate in the future. One who is not observed during a lunch break when the supervising individual takes a break as well. I am thankful the evil-doer did not know that my little handgun was in the reusable grocery sack, and the diamond rings were in a box in the bathroom. I guess now that the cat's out of the bag, I should move them, huh?

book review: "Fast into the Night"...

...with a subtitle of ' A woman, her dogs, and their journey on the Iditarod Trail', by Debbie Clarke Moderow, copyright 2016. You've already figured out what the fascinating book is about, but might be surprised to know that it was such a good read, I would take it to work, and read during my lunch break, instead of eating. (The fact that I might have nibbled quite a bit on juicy, ripe, sweet pineapple chunks most of the morning might have a part in the lack of lunch.)

She grew up in the New England states, Conn. or Vermont I think, and went to Alaska on a lark to meet some friends for out door adventures. She was living in Wyoming at the time, but when she went to a party and met her man, Alaska became her home and lifestyle. She had two children, with the family enjoying out door life. Her devotion to dogs began when someone gave her a 'retired' sled dog, that soon became part of the family.

The first time she attempted the Iditarod, it was an unseasonably warm winter, and the thousand mile trail was altered due to some rivers not freezing enough to be traversed by sled. At one point, at least half way into the trip, the dogs balked. Sat down and refused to travel on towards Nome. The team was willing to turn around and return to the previous check point, but would not complete the challenge. It was understandably humiliating, for her to not be able to control or make demands of the team she had worked for many months and miles to train.

Her son, young and adventurous in his twenties, decided to make an attempt, and with many of the same dogs as part of his team. He succeed in completing the Iditarod, all the way to the finish line in Nome. Debbie took some shorter trips, other challenges, over time, reassessing the makeup of her group of dogs.Her awareness of the individual personalities, and quirks of each of her team was fascinating. It obviously takes a tremendous amount of time devoted to interacting with these animals to be so fully aware of their likes/dislikes and individual abilities.  She talked to some experienced breeders, trainers, and mushers hoping to find the right combination of dogs to make a second attempt. No spoilers here....

Some of the descriptions of the landscape are so well written, reporting on the brilliance of the starlight on a cloudless night, with temperatures at twenty below freezing, the air so clean and clear it hurts to breathe. The team of dogs determinedly trotting along across mile after mile of snow and ice, with only her headlamp to reflect on trail markers as a guide. She tells of seeing the colorful display of the Northern Lights, with constantly changing shades, so glorious in their shades of the rainbow, colors that adjectives cannot adequately describe. Traveling along rivers, frozen solid, hearing the ice creaking and groaning. And running all night in the complete silence of the north, with moon light so bright the dogs cast shadows as they run in unison, huffing clouds of steaming breath.

I've read a couple of other books about dog sledding, living with huskies, traveling in the land of ice and snow. By people who loved that life of being outdoors in minus-degree temperatures, in the mountains of the north or west. And would love to go to Alaska, or someplace where the stars are as brillant as a spilled bottle of sparkling glitter. Where the Milky Way is visible in all its splendor, with no light pollution to interfere.

today is the 29th...

... of November, my mom's birthday. I've been thinking of her all day. And even after all these years, since she died in 2009, wishing things had been different. Not that I could, either now or then, do anything to make her a different person. Or there is any possibility of changing the past, but just wishing that the relationship had been warmer, and we had been better friends.

I think watching the decline of her last sibling, as she struggles with the family curse, makes me wish that my mom and I had been closer in those years when we could have enjoyed time together. I guess I never really felt like I was an adult around her. And as we all tend to do with parents: wishing, hoping, angling for approval.  I'm pretty sure the best thing I ever did from her perspective is give her granddaughters. We sent her cards and love notes for years reminding her that she was the best grandmother in the universe.

I put a memorial notice in the newspaper every year around her birthday, and again in January when she died. The weekly paper in that small town where she lived her entire life comes out on Wednesday, so I don't have a copy of the memorial to show you just yet.  I send a photo, and try to find a sweet poem, remembrance, Bible verse,  thought-y passage to include, so people who knew her (fewer and fewer as the  years go by) will think of her on her birthday. And  say: "My goodness, has it been 'x' years already?.

Then remember what an amazing person she was. If she choose you to 'gift' with her friendship - you were very fortunate. She could be more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Hilariously entertaining, thoroughly amusing, a woman with a real zest for life. I think/hope I got some of that....

So there: that's my memorial to Choppy.

draggin' the garden hose...

...for weeks and weeks, moving sprinklers, connecting and disconnecting nozzle to spray stuff in pots. Hooking up various soaker hoses that have been laid out in beds to keep things alive during this awful drought. Tired of trying to keep things alive, but thankful my livelihood does not depend on the weather. As well as grateful that us here at this house do not depend on growing our own food to keep ourselves fed.

I vowed I would never plant tomato plants again, but then Spring occurred. The weather got warm, sunny and I got itchy when accidentally veering off through the garden shop at Wally world. Even though I could remind myself of how disappointing results were in the past, and frustrating the process of planting for nought. But hope that next spring I will remember my plan to plant zinnias in that spot where tomatoes have been a failure for more years than I care to confess.

It does, of course, make me think about my mom quoting her mother-in-law the lifelong Presbyterian. Anytime something unusual enough to be of note in the media and worthy of comment, would likely be discussed after she said: "We are living in the last days". That was decades ago, and here we are: still at it, doing stupid stuff that damages the environment in ways that cannot be reversed.

too old for this...

... being employed full time. It happened by accident in the past few days when co-workers were not on the scene, some by choice, some not so much. Resulting in putting in too many unwanted hours of being employed. It is understandably nice to be the beneficiary of a well fed paycheck occasionally. A good night's sleep works wonders. And pay lagging a week behind means I have usually pulled back from the edge of exhaustion by the time the funds appear in my account. So mostly unlikely to remember how weary my poor tired feets were at the end of an excessively long day.

Today has been a day that reinforced my desire to not be employed full time. There is not enough of me to put in a forty hour week and still feel like a human when I get  myself disentangled from work. The store was closed for the holiday, so everyone had the same day off. But when we opened again on Friday, the area where I work was undermanned by two people. (Three if you count the one who was sent home/suspended for three days, but his work ethic is so marginal, it's debatable if he should be counted either absent or present.) It's been rough, trying to get caught up. Everybody doing the work of at least one and a half, struggling to get it all done, feeling like we are bailing the Titanic with a teaspoon.

Finally began to get the feeling we were making some headway today. And no longer swimming against the current. Thankful that when I get to 39 1/2 hours I will be done doing all I can do.