Month: November 2021

No follow-up on the possible “murderer” in the neighborhood.  My thought was that if there had actually been a fugitive in the area, by the time we heard about it s/he was a long distance away.   

~~~

I finally made my way through the process of making an appointment for my COVID booster shot …. today at 1100. I bummed a ride with a neighbor and got there to find a sign on the door that said “Closed”.  No explanation.  I had not received any word about the situation.  No email.  No phone call.

So we went to lunch and talked a lot.  All in all, it could have been worse.

Will update you later this week.

~~~

Weather has been nippy … frost in the morning and chilly days, even when the day turns sunny.  

~~~

 My Thanksgiving was quiet as it has become my habit since 2017.

To paraphrase Louise Erdrich …

Life will try to break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself just sit and listen. Tell yourself you tasted as much life as you could.

My day was quiet but I was and am grateful.

So … ‘til next week …

It has been a comparatively calm week.

It began after I did a bit more pruning of the butterfly bush. One more session should have it ready for winter and a new spring.  But this last thinning held a new surprise.

I’ve been told a fox lives in this neighborhood.  I haven’t seen it, but monday night or early yesterday morning something found another stash of Paul’s leftover hair from the shearing his Dad gave him a couple of weeks ago and there was light brown/blonde hair in the street again, but this time with scat.  Jennie, my neighbor who walks the circuit every day depending on the weather, alerted me to the new scatter and I went out to clear it away.  When Jennie came by on her next round, I was out there sweeping and we compared notes.  I had seen wet tracks between the area next to my back door and there was fresh scat on the trimmings which resembled some I’d seen on my back porch.  I had thought those were raccoons since raccoons are nocturnal, but these tracks weren’t raccoon tracks.  

Jennie told me about the local fox resident and took a sample of the scat (her dog Jewel walks with her so she always carries a poop pick-up bag with her) to show to her husband.

While we were talking, I spotted another cache of hair deep under the bush where I planned to prune next, so I cleared it out as well.  Let’s hope the fox or whatever hasn’t hidden some away which will show up later.

Jenny’s comment was “Why drag the hair out into the street and then poop on it?”

Oh well …

~~~

We missed most of the moisture from the off-shore low pressure areas.  We did, however, wake up to frost a couple of mornings.  So far no more snow.

~~~

A nursing friend and I used to go to several Oregon Shakespeare Festival productions in Ashland years ago, before Libby someone (I seem to have blocked her name) made an effort to turn Ashland into Broadway west.  After Libby, membership rose from the $250/year which was the price when I first joined.  For that we had access to the members’ lounge and special prices on tickets and in the gift shop. All that changed.  Prices for the fifth row center seats (which was our favorite place to sit) went from less than $50 to close to $250.  Naturally it’s been years since I last saw a show.

There have been two or three artistic managers since the early 2020s. Libby has been gone since about 2005.  In addition, COVID seems to have changed things. Maybe tourist income has dropped to the point that OSF management decided it was time to court the locals again.

We’ll see.  I might be able to afford a show or two again.  After all, the live in HD Metropolitan Opera productions in a local theatre in Medford are only $25 and they’re the best seats in the house.

~~~

It is 0855 and a neighbor from down the street just came to my back door to tell me she heard from a local friend that there is a murderer on the loose in the neighborhood so she was walking the neighborhood to alert all the neighbors.  The rest of the report was that early this morning there were police in the area right across South McCloud Avenue from my place, near what we called an auto court when I was a child, and shots were heard.

Her name is Heather and she is a caregiver for a neighbor down the street.  She had a good-sized Rottweiler with her which she noted was of a “nervous” temperament.  She also suggested I keep things locked.

As she hears more, or the local radio station has news, she’ll let us all know. 

Stay tuned.

~~~

Many years ago, there was a small Mom-and-Pop store just down the block from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Black Swan Theater.  It was called “Java Joe’s” and , of course, specialized in all things coffee.

They are the ones who introduced me to cold brewed coffee.  It is smooth without any acidic components and delicious.  I drank it for years.  But my “Toddy” brewer failed to make the move into my new situation and so I called a net store and ordered a new one.

Then the fun began.  I tried to use the Visa card I’ve been using for years and a twit, who sounded young enough to be my great granddaughter, said they had to establish that I wasn’t an identity thief.  That conversation didn’t go well.

I wound up talking with the head of the PR department who got it straightened out after I sounded a bit weepy, told him how old I am, and had never faced this situation before.  My Toddy was supposed to arrive yesterday, but no show.  I’ll wait until tomorrow, and if it’s not here, I have an extension number for the PR manager.

I  guess I have to wait a bit longer for my cold brewed coffee.

Oh well …

~~~

After assessing my endurance situation, I decided I’m ready to resume some chore I used to do and decided sourdough no-knead bread was an option.  A new starter is on the way.

~~~

A cousin who is not quite my age sent me a list of laughs for those of who qualify as “elderly”.  Here’s a couple you might enjoy regardless of your age …

Having plans sounds like a good idea until you have to put on clothes and leave the house. 

and

It’s weird being the same age as old people. 

So … ‘til next week …

Sorry .. a day late …

Last week provided an unexpected two days of joy.  The aspen trees which had been planted between this small community and the RV park next door had grown to the point that the view of the Mountain from my front porch had become obscured.  I knew she was to the north, but not exactly where.  

Last thursday most of the aspens had dropped all their leaves and the sky cleared and there She was …

She doesn’t look the same as before, but I am now seeing Her (when I can and the trees are bare) from the south rather than the west.

Then last tuesday we had our first snow … about 2”.  It melted with the next rain.  But I was up early and saw deer tracks in the snow beneath my office window.

This morning was clear when I first looked and the sun was shining.  But by 0800 clouds had moved in.  I’ll keep checking.  Seeing Her makes me happy.

 I just have to remember to check every morning during late autumn and winter to see if the view is clear.

~~~

A self-doubting anxiety resolution began yesterday.

The time with Mark routine had settled into wednesday mornings.  Mark drops Paul off at school and then comes here to see what I need to do or have done and to do his church work on his iPad.  Yesterday it was time for me to try my driving skills.

It felt strange after nearly three months and my success-failure expectation ratio was not in balance.  However the only big re-learning was the brakes.  On the pick-up, brakes required determination.  In the Volvo soft is the word.

I drove to the post office and then made a stop at the local grocery on the way back home.  Not a very far excursion (at most 2.5 or 3 miles).  

By the time we got the groceries into the house and I had most of them unpacked (fridge and freezer stuff) I was pooped physically but my anxiety over whether I could do it was lowered. 

Next wednesday will be a second trial run.

~~~

Last  week’s early morning anxiety hour presented a new challenge.

During moving all that stuff, I couldn’t recall what happened to the fire safe containing the “engagement” ring George  bought for me in  that small, basement shop in Milwaukee. It also contained my passport, the set of pearl necklace and earrings he gave me, and other assorted important items.

The question filled a couple of anxiety hours and then one morning, when I was in the closet rearranging my underwear, there was the safe … under the black panties.

Now all I need do is find the correct keys for it among all the keys left for this house or for other items belonging to one or both of my grandmothers (most of which were unlabelled or labeled incorrectly) and who knows what else.  

I have no idea how long sorting out all those will require.

However, one discovery was that the keys which had been labeled for this house’s back door and set aside as not working, actually do work.  You just have to fiddle with them a bit like a safe cracker listening and feeling for a click.  I gave the locks a spritz with WD40.  We’ll see what that does.

Onward …

~~~

The “Grandmother” clock is home.   When I was moving off the farm to polish and do any necessary repairs John had taken her.  She has been in George’s possession (and now mine) since Grandmother Shaffer died back in the 50s.  She had run well for so many years, but when George was failing she began failing as well and needed attention.

Last tuesday (the 9th) John brought her back to me.  She is over 120 years old.  She still needs more work because of her age, but that work will have to be done by someone who builds new works for aged ladies (both the clock and her owner).

That is on the to-do-later list.  

However, for now she is keeping good time and hearing her chime during the night is soothing.

~~~

There were also a couple of giggle-producers last week as well, but they will wait for another week …

With writing your memoir all in fashion, there is something you need to keep in mind.  Make sure you can distinguish, when remembering, between what is actually what you saw, heard, participated in yourself or knew about a close friend from what an author of a recent “autobiography” calls “artistic “imagination”. 

It’s a fine line.  Good luck.

So … ‘til next week …

Last thursday morning, as I sat eating my breakfast, my attention was captured by a covey of California quail, complete with their identifiable topknots, as they scurried across my morning view.  I wondered where they had spent the night and where they were headed for the day.

It was a bit like the evening a week or so ago when after Mark et al had been waiting for the Victorian era street lights to come on (they didn’t come on for another hour) and the family finally gave up and left.  Within minutes I saw a trio of deer move in through the seldom used entrance into the RV park and begin to nosh on the newly green area across the street from me.

The aspens are bursting with colour and evenings lately have been full of the sounds of migrating ducks and geese.

And during one of last week’s rainy days a group-flock-family (?) of Juncos kept me entertained by flying in and out of the butterfly bush outside my genealogy office window … talking a lot, sometimes seeming to scold.  

The bush is badly overgrown due to a couple of years of non-care.  I’ve been pruning it back slowly.  

The Juncos made me wonder if I should leave some of the bush as a place for them to nest?  I know I can’t set out a feeder for them since that would attract the bear who shares this area after dusk.  S/he was last seen close when s/he showed up to check out what was happening as the neighbors who maintain the community garden began closing it down for the winter … rototilling etc.  Wish I could have been there and taken a picture.

Quail and deer and juncos and bears … oh my …

What an exciting place to live.

~~~

And speaking of rain … there were a series of days over the weekend during which rain reigned.  There was even one afternoon when I saw a lightning flash (but not the actual strike) and heard the thunder.  It was only one strike however, not the thunder storm the weather report predicted.

~~~

One problem involved in moving was solved last friday morning.

While unpacking storage bins I kept coming across fabric projects in various stages which I had started but not finished before George’s decline when my time was commandeered for other occupations.  So far there are several packing boxes of fabric and some tools.  

I had been awakened several times during the anxiety hour of the morning (around 0300 … anyone else awake at that time?) wondering what was going to happen with it.

Then I remembered a spinner named Nancy and thought “spinners are also quilters or at least know quilters” so, on a hunch, I called her.  I couldn’t stand the thought of destroying all that good stuff and if-and-when I resume crafting, I’ll just get new stuff.

Nancy seemed pleased with the offer and said her quilting guild would know what to do with all that stuff.  Once I finally have it sorted and packed in moving boxes, she will organize the quilters she knows and someone will come collect it all.  

Problem solved (no trip to the dump) and sleep restored … although the sorting speed was sped up which is probably a good thing.

~~~

Something that has been occupying the news for the last few days has been the shooting of a production member on the set of a movie being filmed in New Mexico.  Lots of fingers are being pointed.

However, some things I learned when I was just a kid being taught how to handle a gun came to mind.  My Daddy had some non-debatable rules … 

Always know where all the ammunition is, i.e. how much of what kind and where.

Always check a weapon when you pick it up whether to hand to someone or if it is handed to you.

Never … repeat NEVER aim a weapon at something (or someone) you do not intend to hit or kill.

It would seem there was enough carelessness that day to share around … 

~~~

Another new adventure I am facing is learning how to use the internet for things which, in the past, always required my actual presence such as obtaining meds (when needed) and supplements such as Vitamins. 

That made me think of the report I heard about folks who had moved into the Sears Tower in Chicago, which had been designed to provide everything needed (schools, parks, gyms, stores, medical care, etc.), and have actually never been outside the tower since they moved in.  I’m not sure how much truth there is/was in that report (it would seem to require an enormous number of service folks both live-ins and imported outsiders for specific purposes such as teachers, repair people, etc.) but as every year goes by it seems less and less fanciful and more and more possible as the number of introverts-by-choice seems to be increasing.

When I once again gain the ability (and nerve) to drive, I think a trip to gather the mail and do some grocery shopping for fresh stuff two or three times a week will become part of life’s routine.  Maybe even an occasional trip around the Mountain to Mt Shasta for bran muffins …

~~~

Can what you are currently experiencing be seen as a trial or possibly a test?  If so, for what position or upcoming situation are you being tested … or … for what are you on trial? 

How can you tell the difference?  

Does it matter?  

How are you managing?

None of us are immune to life’s challenges.  How we move through them is what defines us.

So … ‘til next week …