Hyper drive

It looks as if this soybean field is diseased with stem rot or stem canker of a sort. I am not sure. It makes for a colorful photo, though. I am still having the early morning insomnia.

I ended up being in a state of hyper activity yesterday, probably due to sleep deprivation. It wasn't the coffee I purchased because that was basically undrinkable. By the time I arrived at the meeting I was in supersonic "ON". I was practically beaming. I tend to be funny (quite possibly annoying) when I am in this state. I tried to "check" myself many times. I would say to myself 'calm down' or 'relax' a few times.

After the meeting I went on to another job in a neighboring county. That went okay. I ate a quick lunch, then home to take a 20 minute nap.

At the dinner I was in super sonic mode again. I bounced around an overheated cafeteria chatting with small children who were complete strangers to me. That is what I do. I move around quickly so I don't come across as a freaky stalker. By the time it came for me to sell raffle tickets my hyper drive was in full force. This may have been in part to the cream stick I ate after my late lunch. Hmmm.

I kept the never ending line of folks in stitches. Again, maybe I was annoying. I didn't need to worry about the dinner falling flat. It was so successful they sold out of dinner tickets and had to start using them over again. It went all too fast and at the end I was left with a feeling of complete and utter melancholy. I walked the halls of the high school (no longer my daughter's school) lost in a wave of sadness, watching the students pump up for the pep rally. The band was in full swing as they marched through the halls to the cadence of their snare drum player (memories of when I was in the high school band).

All of a sudden I was in 1975 with my clarinet feeding off of the roar of the crowd. My daughter is not a part of this. She never was. She shuns school and her fellow students.

I watched five minutes of the rally and sadly walked to my car. I remember selling raffle tickets for a millennium quilt when she was in third grade. I had parked in the exact same spot. Nine years have come and gone. The crash had begun.

The reception

Here is the backdrop of where the wedding party sat at the event earlier this month. It was a beautiful get together with family and watching two wonderful people get together after 6 years of dating.

I woke up at 3 this morning. It is going to be a long day. I have to drive to another county for a technical meeting and after work I am helping out with my daughter's class spaghetti dinner. I get to sell raffle tickets. I probably won't be home until nine p.m.

What do you do to keep you going all day on a marathon day? I am feeling groggy now, but this is the normal time I get up so I need to go and hit the shower. Cold to wake me up, I guess. I drink coffee but I can go to sleep right after a cup, so that doesn't do much good.

I'll take my camera and drive with the window down to get the fresh cool air on my face. Staying awake during the boring parts of the meeting is the hardest part. At another meeting two days ago I had taken migraine medicine and was rubbing my forehead and I swear I fell asleep doing that.

No riding with anyone because I have a job right after at a school close by the meeting place, so I have to go off on my own. I doubt that I will get to lunch with the group, but I just did that on Tuesday so I am okay with that.

Most of the fall colors are faded, but maybe I'll find a jewel out there today. Headache is starting so I am off to drink some cool water and shower.

Backroads

I think that is one of my favorite places to be. Driving on a back country road in Ohio taking pictures of the beautiful scenery. I love it!

Senior pictures are taken. The weather was superb. A little breezy and my daughter's eyes get dried out, but the sunshine was fantastic. He took a lot outside. I get to view them Saturday. I have to squeeze it in. I have something at 11:00, view pics at 12:15, (back to the earlier event) then a birthday party at 4:00.

Photographer spoke a lot about the election. (Is there anything else?) He said the perfect candidate should be a gay, black woman. Then he said something about Condoleezza Rice, but I didn't catch it.

Valley View

My daughter is getting her Senior portraits/pictures taken today. Gah! Weather forecast: High of 53, abundant sunshine. We will be outside for half of the photos. Double Gah! I think I will stay in the car. Partly to stay warm and partly to refrain from making any comments which will certainly elicit a negative look, comment and mood from my teenage daughter. Triple Gah!

Numbers

Driving the other day I couldn't resist the numbers depicted in this license plate. 79 for the county, and the birth date of 7-09 started it out. Then I saw the number 9. I also saw the 3 + 4 = 7. If you add the remaining 2, you get NINE! Wow! When I showed my daughter she said, "Well D is the 4th letter of the alphabet..." That got me thinking. If D is the 4th, N is the 14th and P is the 16th. Add them all together you get 34, right? So what? Until you add 3 + 4 and get SEVEN!

No sunshine

Returning from a school in another county on Friday I tried to capture some of the foliage, but the sun did not shine that day. At least not while I was on the road. It is a little disconcerting for me to look to find that I have not posted in four days. I like to read back over the years to see what I was doing last October or last Easter. Things like that. When I don't post, I tend to omit things that may bring back a quirky memory for me years from now. Oh, well. Life gets in the way.

Where to next?

Just so you know. I did NOT choose the socks.

Geese

Across the lake is Canada... no, it isn't. It is still Ohio. There are just Canadian geese over there. Lots and lots of them. This was just one snapshot of the far side of the lake.

In the late 80's my brother and I rented a huge farm house in the middle of nowhere. There were two house on a long dirt lane. Our neighbor had geese. The big white ones. I was not and am not fond of geese. Mean critters. They attacked my car. They tried to attack me but I was having none of that. Purses come in handy. They were gone before my daughter arrived.

That story sounds like my brother and I were from a family of inbreds. No. His girlfriend was living with us and on any given week-end his kids were there from his previous marriage and her kid lived with us. When I had my daughter I moved out after 4 years. I had finally landed a decent job and matured enough to support she and I and create a home for the two of us.

Swimmingly

Yesterday was a beautiful day for duck feeding and playing in the park. Our park has a great new play area in the shape of a train. Wow! It was fantastic. Today was just as nice. No playing, though. Mowing.

Sunglasses

I am getting a visitor today. Without my sister and niece. Just the wee one. And me. Well, my daughter will be here but "she hates kids". Uh, no she doesn't. You should see her with the little ones. They run to her.

Anyway, we may go to the park. It will be a nice reprieve playing with this one while my calendar is full of scheduling senior pictures, college visits, SAT tests and the like. Oh, the time. The time does fly.

When folks say that, I laugh and say "It's been the longest (insert age of daughter here) years of my life!" Now it is all coming crashing in around me. I am trying to apply the brakes. Can you smell the burnt rubber? My heels are digging in. I am leaning way back. I won't give in without a fight, I tell you.

Oh, I finished the book by William Shatner. Very funny, very good read. I have moved on to a political one. The name escapes me. Google found it, "The Great Derangement" by Matt Taibbi. Not sure if I am going to stick with this one. So far, so good. If the book is anything like the introduction, I'll like it.

Up to my ears in it

Today I read and provided some documentation on how to resolve DNS problems. Yeah, I had a headache. But it wasn't just from the dreary DOS CLI. From 8:00 to 10:00 I listened to my co-worker yak, yak, yak about her re-modeling her kitchen. More about the recipes she was reading out of a magazine. More on her new "date" last night.

"I got a kiss last night!" We are 48 and 44, not 18 and 14.

At around 10:00 she leaned around her desk to look at me. I position my monitor so she can't see me, or better so I cannot see her. "Did you know that broccoli has..."

That was it, I blew my gasket. "I'm trying to work here!"

"Oh!" and she hung her head. I heard some sniffling. But I got peace and quiet. For about an hour anyway. Good grief.

Ladder in the street

"Well, Doc. It seemed like a real good idea at the time."

I can see this photographer telling the emergency room doctor how he got hit by a car while standing on a ladder in the middle of a one way street in downtown. The nut.

I am still playing catch up. Washing clothes, fixing dinner, cleaning the kitchen. I got hit with a classic migraine at noon today. I got the visual auras. I have not had those in years! Maybe more than a decade if not twenty years. I've not started any new medicine. Out of the blue.

I immediately took my medicine (for migraine) and ran to McD's to get some salty french fries. I went home, put the sleep mask over my eyes and listened to the television while holding my cat. I took the rest of the afternoon off. I figured it wouldn't be long before I was feeling well enough to get up and do chores. It was over four hours before I felt like doing anything worthwhile.

By six p.m. I was washing clothes, cooking dinner, washing pots and pans, getting the garbage out and I am still going with laundry. My daughter and I both had a mountain to wash.

Last week I finished the book "The Mapmaker's Wife." It was very boring at first. It appears as if the author did his research very well and went on an on about how in the 1600's and 1700's they were measuring the earth's circumference, etc.. barely anything about the woman that represented the book title. Then it seems to have wrapped the story up quickly, like he ran out of time or something. Or, maybe because he started to write about her miraculous trip down the Amazon I was more interested and it seemed to go faster.

I can't even tell you how horrifying her trip must have been. She started out being carried like a princess and ended up wondering around by herself in the Amazon territory infested by army ants, and bugs that dug down into her skin and scalp (may be chigoe fleas), bats that actually crept up at night and sucked their blood (so says the author), and billions of merciless blood-sucking mosquitoes, jaguars, who knows what kind of fish and of course the dreaded anaconda. (Shutter).

I am relieved to say that the next book I am currently reading is funny and has me laughing until I cry. It is William Shatner's "Up Till Now." He may have been arrogant and hard to work with but this book is great.

The cake

I'm playing catch up. I've been trying to get my photos posted so the family can see them. The Happy Couple better not be waiting for them. I'm thinkin' they have better things to do here.

Not this year

Sigh. I am skipping so many things this year. Skipped a vacation over the summer. Skipped the county fair. Now I am skipping the October Fall Festival. Oh well. I have a big family wedding this week-end out of town. We could go to the festival tomorrow afternoon/evening but my daughter has put off shopping for new shoes every day this week. I am trying to get her butt in gear this evening, but no. I need to mow the grass and we need to go shopping. I have my clothes, but I always like to look and see if there is anything nicer out there, you know?

Anyway, I suppose that will leave us tomorrow evening running around trying to find her a comfortable pair of dress shoes. And my daughter wants to go and see a movie tomorrow night. I usually don't buy anything but a welcome sign for my door. Maybe some candles. It is the food and atmosphere that I enjoy. They have Indian dances and a colonial display of tents and outdoor fires. It is a colorful and aromatic adventure for the soul. One year I purchased a flute CD of Indian music, another year Celtic music with a hammer dulcimer.

Did we miss the parade?

What if they sleep through it? I guess you have to get your spot early if you want to see the parade. There was an old classic car show to see, too.

Too much

Somebody really has to like their job or their store to decorate every square inch. It was a sight, I want to tell you, but it was so overwhelming. You really would have to spend hours looking at the stuff or you would miss most of it. It is mental overload.

I am the type of person that is just awed by the colors and shapes here that I don't see the item unless it is huge and staring me right in the face. So, I miss the small stuff. The purple flower I would remember, but if they would have asked if I saw the shiny money-shaped twig at the bottom of the photo, I'd be like "huh?" Or, the little bear hanging from the black rod, or the blue monarch butterflies, I missed them all.

I don't know if this type of sales layout works or not. It gives me a headache. But, what doesn't?

Plum Cat

Isn't she/he pretty? I could not resist taking a picture of this beautiful cat posing in a store at the Swiss Festival. It ended up being a beautiful day weather-wise although it was a bit close and muggy. I did get a migraine right in the middle of this store and I took medicine. I had to lay low and walk and talk easy for a couple of hours, but for the most part the headache did not progress after that. Whew.

There was an elderly gentleman that kept trying to get my daughter to dance with him. I YouTubed him. If you want to see him you can go to www.youtube.com and perform a search on "happy feet Swiss festival" and it should bring up 2 videos. He was good but my daughter did not care for our teasing her about him. LOL!

His steps at the end of the first video reminds me of clogging and river dancing. My Mom said my dad was a good clog dancer back in the day.

We ate at our favorite restaurant, Der Dutchman. I only ate my mashed potatoes (craving salt during a migraine) and took the rest home. Roast turkey, dressing and green beans. It made for a great supper later in the evening when I was feeling better.

Once the rain began, my headache dispersed. It took it a while.

I purchased 6 mums that I hope to get in my front yard today or at least this week. It is cloudy and rainy out today.

I tried to talk politics a couple of times yesterday with my friends. They didn't seem to want to, so I dropped the subject. They did want to talk economy, though.

My friends and daughter had a good time laughing at me. I am the type of person that talks to strangers. Anything can spark my conversation. I usually zero in on ones with children. I read the parents' response and reaction. If their face reads "back off" I back off. If they smile and reply to what I say, then I chat a while. A lot of folks brought their pooches to the festival also. I told my daughter we will take Sable the next time we go. The dogs made for great conversation starters.

We caught the tail end of some Alpine horn players. I think they would have performed again, but there was a loud polka band (Mr. Happy Feet) just a couple of blocks away and the horns would not have been heard. Sigh. I so wanted to get a video of them playing. YouTube has plenty of samples.

When we went to the popular Amish market to purchase meats, dry goods and baked goods it was swamped. The bakery was wiped out. It was elbow to elbow tourists mixing in with the regular Saturday Amish shoppers. Forget trying to navigate a buggy. This is where I purchased my mums for $3.79 each. Great big huge, blooming ones and some with lots of buds. In my area they are $4.69 each.

My daughter had wanted a pumpkin roll. They didn't even have frozen ones. So, I got out my last can of canned pumpkin and made pumpkin bars of my own. I found a recipe that looked interesting and they are cooling now, waiting to be iced. I also made the cream cheese icing. I hope they turn out good. Or, at least edible.

Edit: No worries about the pumpkin bars being edible. You just need a big glass of cold milk or a cup of hot coffee to go with.

Cloud cover

I don't know where this photo was taken. It was on the camera's memory card when I took pictures of my basement. I like the sky and cloud cover. I did enhance the photo a bit to bring out a prettier shade of blue in the sky. If you look closely you can see my smeared windshield.

And while every other house on my street had one dinky little garbage can set outside for the trash pickup, my front yard looked like this! Oh, Mea culpa!

Hair

Years ago, before my daughter got her hair cut, I took one of her pictures and blew it up on the scanner and printed it. I taped it to a window and traced it. The features I added were much older than her 12 years. I thought, let's see if this is what she looks like when she gets older. I didn't anticipate the hair cut and coloring. Oh, well. It doesn't really look like her at all.

I finished the John Denver autobiography. This one he wrote, I believe in 1994. I didn't like it. I finished the book not liking the guy at all. I am now reading a biography of The Eagles: The Untold Story.

I can almost understand their drug taking and drinking. The party never ends until they burn out. What I cannot understand is "groupies." Where do these people come from? How in the hell are they raised so that they worship a rocker? I think somebody should write a book on groupies. Women who have followed bands around and lived to tell about it. What were they thinking at the time? Where are they now and how are they living their lives? Did they marry and have children? Or, did they all die of a sexually transmitted disease? What values do they carry with them today? Will they let their daughters run out and follow bands around the country sleeping with any band member?

Oh, I don't get it. Oh, okay. There have been books written. Maybe I'll see if my library group has the book(s). I'm not sure I would even want to read it, but curiosity gets the better of me.

Never missed a meal

They came. Five of them. Big strong sturdy men to work in my basement. One of the first remarks as one of the fellows looked at my dog. "Looks like she never missed a meal!" What? Did you just insult my dog? I said "What? She's our baby and we love her very much!" Humph! She is just built stocky! Sable didn't mind. She loved the guys.

They anchored my basement wall with steel supports and put a new drain system in that empties into my sump pump. Now comes the fun part. Washing the walls down with Clorox and water mix, and painting with waterproof paint. I think if I can choose, I'll choose a deep rust or orange color. Why paint them boring white or yellow?

Now, I have a root/fruit/wine cellar again. Should I dabble in wine? Why not? I'll get a small wine rack and put in there. Although I am not sure how cold it gets. Hmmm. I don't think it freezes in there. It is below ground, so I don't suppose it can. It does have a window. That may not be good for the wine.

Kiss this week good-bye

Here is my little grand niece blowing kisses. Or doing something. I am not exactly sure I recall what she was doing when I took this photo. She was laying on the floor, that much I remember.

I have to mention again what respect I have for the folks who go through a hurricane or tornado with stronger winds than what I saw Sunday night. I hope to never have to witness or endure anything like that ever again.

I have to clean up my basement closet for the workers to start installing support bars for my basement's west wall. I procrastinated and now it is like I have Saturday and Sunday. I also have to clean out the root cellar. My niece made it her own personal trash room. I didn't realize this until after she left. It is where the water came in and I never cared to open the door. I am sure there is mold. If I get the time or the inclination, I'll take pictures. Woot!

It was a pretty crazy work week. I finished it today with my head wrapped around the Mandriva flavor of Linux. I have something screwed up and I can't get httpd to start. I tried Ubuntu, didn't like it. I like for this to be difficult and have snags, because then I learn more. If everything worked the way it was supposed to, I'd be sitting there looking around saying "That was easy." And, I wouldn't know what started what and how things worked underneath the desktop. That's probably why I don't like the Mac. Boring.

Which reminds me. You should see me using my iPod. I try to do "windows-related" things when I am syncing it up to my computer and I think I am making it worse. LOL! Oh, well. My music is getting moved over though and I am having a wonderful time with it.

Half car...

During the storm, I snapped a photo west of my front yard. One neighbor drives a small truck and one drives a large car. Put them together and this is what you would have. If the front end of the truck were a wee bit higher.

I went to the park today. I need to take my camera over there soon. The trees that came down there were pretty big. Two huge trees were completely uprooted. As I said, Ohio has not experienced this strength of a wind storm in such a long time, this one just sort of took out the weakest links, I guess.

Many are still without power. Schools are opening their gymnasiums up in the mornings for folks to come and shower. That is a blessing in itself. There is free water somewhere else for folks to come and help themselves. I hope that only those in need take the water and nobody greedy goes to get it.

I had my head stuck in a Catalyst 4006 all day today. I had to replace the supervisor module. That was the easy part. Re-configuring the switch took up most of the time. The part arrived at 11:45 a.m. It was shipped out from Texas yesterday afternoon. I find that remarkable.

"The Mothman Prophecies" is getting ridiculous. Talking about folks being abducted by aliens or some taking spaceship rides to other planets. I am breezing through it just to finish the crazy thing. I am hoping that the author writes the last paragraph "This was all a joke, I really don't believe this stuff."

The author is getting more and more absurd as the book goes on. He is now speaking of aliens predicting events in 1967 (R. Kennedy shooting and attempted assassination of the Pope and MLK murder). Things of this nature. Little red lights, spaceships hovering in the air. It will end with the collapse of the silver bridge and how people knew something "bad" was going to happen because of all the sightings in the area. How they made a movie out of this is beyond me.

Breezy

A neighbor's house on Sunday

If Sunday's wind storm was any indication of even half of what the folks that go through a hurricane deal with, then I want no part of it. I guess it is half. Our winds gusted to 70 mph or more. That is a "weak" category 1. A measly 1 and tree limbs fell all over the state. Trees snapped in half and were uprooted. Maybe it is because we don't get that kind of wind that often, I don't know.

It was intense. We were without power for 18 hours. Some folks are still out. My brother got word that his power may be back on Sunday. That is an entire week without electricity. He has a generator. He is cooking on the gas grill. Folks are tossing out food left and right.

Schools were closed yesterday. Some were still closed today. My office is dark. I had to use a flashlight to go and pick up my work cell phone and laptop. I told the two schools I went to today, even though YOU have electricity - the fiber connection (Time Warner) has lines down all over the state. 260 plus lines down. Some do not have their Internet. Not very happy campers.

Funny how different folks deal differently with situations. One guy was angry and spoke to me in a very annoying manner. The afternoon school personnel was friendly, joking and laughing. They understood that certain aspects of the job are out of my hands and left it at that.

A massive migraine hit me at 4 a.m. Monday morning. Not sure if it was the cold front moving in, or an after effect of the storm stress. Running around, catching flying lawn chairs, making sure I don't catch the house on fire with the dozen of candles I lit, hoping the huge pine tree doesn't fall on my house and hoping my house stays put. The monkey is still with me today, but not nearly as bad as Monday. I lost most of Monday to the pain. I was supposed to be outside picking up tree branches out of my yard. I managed to get out there Monday evening when it was much cooler outside and pile them in a huge pile where my garbage men pick up the trash.

It gets really frustrating. There are so many things I want to do. Although I must admit, life is much better than before the medication.

I am still muddling through "The Mothman Prophecies" which is NOTHING like the movie. It is about some guy who researches UFO activity and all things associated with it. The history. He states that the witches of Salem and vampires were probably these 'mothman' sightings that were seen in late 1967 in WV. Wings, capes, flying. Mothman, vampires, witches. Mmm hmmm.

Lost (almost) Children

There were 8 children in my family. Here are 4 of them.

1. 1942
2. 1944
3. 1949
4. 1953
5. 1954
6. 1956
7. 1957
8. 1960

I am number 8. Above are 2, 3, 4 and 5.

I went to a workshop yesterday. It was with Sister 1944. It was in the county where I had grown up. She had spent a lot of her life growing up in that county also. It was a Genealogy workshop. There was a speaker who had written a book about a Children's home from this county. Lost Children. Sister 1944 said that we were almost placed in this home. She didn't specify what year, and I plan to get back to working with her on this project and asking her questions about this fact.

At the time this photo was taken, I was not born yet. Sister 1956 was in the photo, but she was in the lap of a neighbor, so I cropped it out.

The book is about finding the children who lived in this home and how their life was and is as a result of it. I have the book but have not read it yet. The speaker had asked one lady if he could put her story in his book. She declined. She passed away this Spring and he was now able to tell her story to the group.

Her father had died and her Mother was unable to care for her. She was placed in this home. The Mother said she would come back for her. Years went by. The girl wrote to her Mother, pleading with her to write back to her. The girl received nothing. The Mother died and the girl would visit her grave and crying in anger, curse her Mother. She would cry "I loved you! Didn't you love me?"

Years passed. A decade or so ago, this girl went to look at her records. The director of the home handed over her files. There were piles of letters from her Mother, unopened. She broke down and cried. Her Mother had written to her after all. Why didn't she get the letters? Who was responsible for this complete act of mental cruelty?

She quietly stood up and told the director, "I have to go to the graveyard. I have to go and apologize."

As a side story, the writer spoke of an Interstate that was planned in the late 50's. The home was in the way, so it was to be torn down and moved to another location. The record shows that there was a certain dollar amount provided for this section of highway. It included monies for a cloverleaf. This was a rural area. No cloverleaf was placed there. The money was given to the county for this cloverleaf. What happened to the money? Did dirty politicians make off with it? One has to wonder.

At the workshop I won a prize. A year's free membership to the society. Will I attend the meetings? Will I become involved? Only time will tell. It does interest me. The answers will all be determined by how my experience goes when I attend the meetings. I plan to give it a fair shot. The drive is about 60 miles one way. Let's see what this society is about. My daughter will be 18 in the spring. I need to get involved in a few projects. I had plans to take an electrician class, a water color class and I was looking into some other things. I may as well give this opportunity a go, since it sort of fell in my lap.

Golden opportunity

When the dust has settled
and the sun has set
Let us take this moment

And never, ever forget.

Bugs!

Another view of the bugs that ate my pumpkin. Or, at least they gave it their best shot. My Anti-Virus program has acted up since I updated it in July. This time when I called, they gave me the update to 2009 for free. I had forgotten that when I purchased the product in 2005 I had purchased for 3 computers. They gave me the product key and serial number for when I went to install it on the other 2 computers.

Eh. I forgot. My daughter will get hers updated, but my niece no longer lives here. That leaves me with an extra copy. My work laptop? No. I have the corporate edition there. My old work laptop (that work gives us) - maybe. It isn't worth much. 256MB of RAM in the poor thing. I guess that leaves me with an extra copy. Maybe I'll put it on a sister's computer.

I have more books from another library south of me. Web Design. More HTML, XHTML, CSS and JavaScript coming up. If I get the motivation maybe I'll change my blog background and have some fun. I also have an autobiography of John Denver. The Untold Story of The Eagles. The Mapmaker's wife. And, The Mothman Prophecies. The movie was weird, but I also got it because it is pretty close to Ohio. It was a bridge that connected Gallipolis to WV. That's close to where the Bob Evans farms are, by the way.

At work I am busy installing and learning Ubuntu. Fun stuff all around. My previous experience was with the flavor Mandrake. I think I will be returning to that flavor of Linux.

I finally mowed my grass. I cannot remember the last time it was cut. I had strange sprouts of weeds poking up here and there. In a couple of dry spots, I couldn't tell the line where I was supposed to mow. And it was dusty in places. We had a little rain a couple of days ago. Big booming thunder storm the other night, too.

I've been taking our cat, Moose into my bedroom with me every night so the cats don't fight through the night and wake my daughter. Moose is comfortable in there and I was hoping that we would bond a little more. All went smoothly for a week or so. Until last night. Cats are not dogs. I didn't take the necessary precautions. I was roused from my slumber by some scratching. I slapped my hand on the bed to make her stop. In my drowsy state it didn't occur to me what was going on. Can you tell where I am going with this?

Then it dawned on me. I jumped out of bed and snapped the light on. Too late. Moose was in the crouched position on my runner (thank God it wasn't in my bed!) on the floor. My daughter came in at the same time to tell me the telephone was making strange noises. I cleaned up Mooses' mess and unplugged the phone. Grumbling I went back to bed. It was 2:30 A.M. I sighed and rolled over. That's when I discovered the other mess. The wet mess. Oy vey. Peruby. You should have known better. I didn't sleep much after that. It kind of reminded me of when my daughter would throw up in the middle of the night. Pull sheets off the bed and throw them into the washing machine. Put a towel on the mattress or turn it over and put new sheets on the bed. And try to get back to sleep.

I should sleep good tonight with fresh, clean sheets, a deodorized mattress and no cat in my room tonight. They can kill each other out there for all I care.

Amish house? Yes, No?

I thought it was an Amish house. The bird feeder, no electricity lines visible, drab-colored clothes on the line. The car in the driveway threw me off a bit. Maybe it is just company visiting. I see a basketball hoop, but no trampoline.

This photo was taken whilst I was looking for the falls. I see a lot of house like this in Amish country. Holmes county Ohio.

I am really getting back into the music life. I confiscated my daughter's iPod. She doesn't want it. She uses her Blackberry for everything. And now she has a Palm Pilot somebody gave her. Not sure what she can do with that. I passed on it. She is having fun with it. Checking it out, seeing what she can do. She'll tire of it soon enough and forget about it.

I have finished reading a memoir by Pete Hamill. "A Drinking Life." Since I drank a lot in my past days, it caught my eye.

The woods and the jungle

Here is another view of the falls I found last week. It is as close to the jungle as we get here in Ohio. I wanted to mention the book I finished reading a couple of weeks ago.

When I was in high school I remember the war ending and I remember having a Vietnamese family move in down the road from us and our bus would pick them up for school. I worked for a restaurant where the owner was a Vietnamese lady. Tu. She had married a service man and he brought her back to Ohio with him. She was not afraid to try anything. The last I heard she had moved to Las Vegas. She divorced and they say it was her family money that purchased the restaurant so she got to keep it. I worked there about three years on and off. Other times I drank there and we kept on good terms. I have no idea where she is or what she is doing. If she even stayed in Vegas. She was married about a total of 4 times.

The book was about the Hmong people. I had never even heard of this race of people. The life is from a girl's perspective. She told about her family and how it came to be that they ended up in Minnesota. Her family lived in the jungle. I think it was in Laos. After the war ended, they were not welcome in Vietnam, Laos or Thailand. After some years in a refugee camp, her family came to the United States. It was a very good read.

I find myself thinking as I read about what happened to her Mother in 1979. Because the woman was close to my age. A year or two younger. About the time I was 19 and working an office job, dancing in the discos at night. Her Mother was struggling to stay alive in the jungle.

I sat humbled by the story. Why is it that I could dance in a disco while her poor Mother dodged bullets in the jungle at the same time?

I found it

I found the falls that my niece spoke of. It is about 15 miles from our house. I think there are 2 sets of falls. This is the "lower" falls. I've been trying to get there for years to take pictures and I said "Today is the day." I was close to them while working at a school. I skipped lunch and found them. I snapped a few pictures and headed back to the office.

In case you ever wondered, salt 'n vinegar chips with lukewarm coffee do not a good lunch make. I'm just sayin'.

Looking for the bugs

She wouldn't touch the squash bugs. Whenever I would touch one, she squealed. She is a squealer. My daughter was very annoyed at this squealing coming from my Grand Niece. The bugs are eating the pumpkin. A few survived the shower of Sevin that I gave them and made their way the few yards to where I moved the pumpkin and have started to eat away at it.

I noticed that I didn't follow up with the shaving of our cat Moose. That is because this chick completely forgot her appointment with the vet. I was to drop Moose off between 8:30 and 9:00 on Thursday morning. I called at 9:10 when I remembered and they said it was too late. I was a bit forgetful all week long. Too busy, too stressed? Probably.

My sister brought me a whole basket of tomatoes. They are the kind that are sweet enough to eat by themselves. Like my Mom used to do for dinner. She would fix dinner and on the side serve sliced fresh tomatoes and cucumbers from our garden. Pure heaven.

I have the day off from work. The long week-end went fast, of course, but it has been a very nice one. The weather was a bit on the warm side but the late afternoons and evenings were beautiful. My neighbor had a big party last night. They sounded like they were having a good time. They are a couple (I guess) in their 30's. Two dogs, two cats but no children. On the other side I have two elderly widowed ladies living in a duplex.

Squash bugs galore

Oh, my. Oh, my poor pumpkin. My brother said this is normal and his pumpkins are always covered in squash bugs. He studied biology in college. He had dozens of bugs, snakes, spiders, frogs and turtles in baby food jars, mayonnaise and pickle jars in formaldehyde when we were growing up, he could have opened a museum. My friends used to come over to my house and ask to go down to the basement to see them. I had to ask him what kind of a beetle/aphid these were.

I pulled the pumpkin and moved it away. I pulled what was left of the sorry pumpkin vine and put it in the trash. I am pulling up my near-ruined hosta plants. So far the hydrangea and moonflowers are okay. The moonflowers were very weak this year. Some years are like that.

I had a concert to go to Friday night. I had company on Saturday and today. So much for getting anything done around the house this week-end. I have tomorrow, but I think my nephew is coming back. We will probably cook hot dogs and burgers on the grill.

I went to listen to The System in Akron Friday night. Before Capri was born I lived for music. I cooled it after I had a child because I wanted to hear every little noise she made. I knew almost every word to each song, even though it has been a few years since I listened day and night. But, rock and roll never forgets. :-D

Shaving Moose

Here is Moose a couple of years ago. When she first came to our house, I figured as she grew to trust us we could carefully cut the tufts of matted fur from her coat. Didn't happen. I managed to cut away maybe a dozen. She does not like me to mess with them. She is still covered in them.

Because of the recent trauma that we have been experiencing with her in our house, I chose to take her to the vet today instead of Casper. She got a check-up from the doctor and she passed. The doctor said she looks fine. She asked many questions about Mooses' behavior.

We spoke of the matted fur. The vet explained to me that some pets will become irritated because they have to work so hard to groom and the matting makes it hard and tender in the areas they are trying to clean. I will take her in to get her shaved on Thursday. The vet said if she were a docile cat, we could have a groomer do it. I nixed that idea. She is very timid, so she will be sedated while the vet shaves off all of her fur. I do not want her traumatized by the ordeal.

Moose was very difficult to get into the pet carrier. With 5 cats to care for, they get the basics. They get their shots and I get them fixed. Unless they are sick or we have problems like we have recently, I don't take them back unless the vet tells me it is time for a booster. So, it had been a while since she took a ride in the carrier.

I have a few new scratches on my arms. My daughter and I laugh about Mooses' claws. They are little and piddly compared to some of our other cats. Casper can slice your hand open. My nephew found this out the hard way. He used super glue to piece his skin back together. Moose only slightly scratched me. And she gave a half effort to bite me as I placed her in the pet carrier. Still, she put up a good fight.

While at the vet's office and after her exam, she tried to hide her face and head underneath my arm. It was sad but so sweet. I was holding her in an attempt to comfort her. When the visit was over, I said "We'll try to get her back in the carrier." The lady vet was a smart one. She said "Oh, she'll probably go in willingly to get away from us." And, in she went. No problems at all.

Now, for Thursday.

More from the zoo

Here is a lazy bear (probably bored) from the zoo we visited in mid-month. The bears (all animals) were just too hot to move around very much. The tiger played in the water. He looked like he was enjoying himself. I have a small video of him (boring).

The ad in the store where I purchased my daughter's desk had that item on sale today. I went to the store and got the discounted price. My daughter didn't believe they would do it. I said "Sure they will. Besides, (I told her) it does not hurt to try." Now, if I needed to drive 40 miles or more it may be a little more of a process, but this was only a couple of miles away.

It was really interesting watching her put it together. I have put plenty shelves etc... together. I knew she was in for a tough time and I tried to soothe her as much as I could. She did get angry and I advised her to go to bed and start fresh in the morning. Things went much smoother the next morning.

I never did get my ceiling fan or my new porch light installed. There is a class on beginning electricity at the career center where my daughter is attending school. I might take that class and perhaps just put the fan and light in myself. Maybe I can also overcome my fear of electricity and wires.

Casper had to sleep in my room again last night. I let him out at six a.m. and took Moose back in with me. They are at it again. We are watching because it appears as if Moose if fighting with other cats also. Being that Casper is the Alpha cat, he may feel the need to restore order if she is the actual problem. Still. I cannot have that degree of violence.

Speaking of violence, we went to see "Death Race" last evening. Very violent and fast moving. I was outvoted for the movie choice. I do like Jason Statham so I was okay with it. I liked the character who played Coach. And the baby-faced boy was so familiar. I researched and discovered that he is none other than the young boy who played Chip on Kate & Allie from the 80's. Again, a little far-fetched in places, but there was a lot of action.

This photo is from Memorial day at my sister's house. The beginning of summer. Labor day always seems to announce the end of summer. There has been a lot of talk in our local paper about starting the school year after Labor day. When I was in school we never started before September. This is my daughter's last year. I don't care what they do.

We are moving furniture around this week-end. We got a new desk for my daughter's computer and along with the re-arranging comes a lot of cleaning and a lot of asking ourselves why we collect so much stuff. My garbage is going to be full this week. The Goodwill will get some, too.

I read the biography of Johnny Cash by Michael Streissguth. I really didn't learn anything new about the man that I had not already read. It is astonishing the amount of drugs he ingested if this biographer is to be believed. Another surprising note was the fact that he started up again at 40 and basically lived his remaining years addicted to pain medication and that June may have matched him in the pill popping area. Next on the list is The Latehomecomer by Kao Kalia Yang.

This coming week is busy. I have an appointment every evening. Groan. Our one big black male cat (Casper) has become violently vicious towards the shy and scared female cat, Moose. My daughter has had to stop him every night for the past week, but the other night she said he was really over the line. Poor Moose let loose a stream of cat poo while trying to get away from Casper. My daughter said usually Casper stops when she yells. This time he was not quitting, she said. He was out to kill Moose. She put him in my room.

That is too much. I usually try to let the pets work things out for themselves, but I won't abide violence of that nature. I am having Casper checked by the vet on Tuesday to see if there are any obvious reasons for his behavior. He is not treating the other cats this way and he is very sweet to me. For obvious reasons he is giving my daughter a wide berth.

Long week

We said good-bye to Sable's little cousin yesterday. Her Mommy came and picked her up. Her Mommy had quite a week with her son (that cartwheeled off the cliff on an ATV). My sister looked whipped.

I have had a very busy and grueling week at work. I collapse in the evenings when I get home. Not sure if it is the work or if I am getting sick. The machines really whipped me around today. I fought them all day to get them to do what I wanted them to. I got most of it working.

Back at it tomorrow.

At home I have been helping a relative fight her computer. She does not have anti-virus and she got a nasty case of malware. The about:blank one. I did something right. Her Internet is working again.

I got into it with my Internet provider last evening. They advertise that if you get the "turbo" feature of their Internet, you get 5GB of email space. I don't. I get 1 GB. (70,000MB to be exact). We went round and round. I knew it was going to come down to the fact that I am a former "adelphia" customer. It did. That is their excuse.

I told them I was sick and tired of hearing that as an excuse for my Internet/web page/email not working the same or as well as others on their network. I ticked off the customer service representative and she ticked me off. I gave them a scathing survey review and I gather that the former "adelphia" customers will be transferred over in September.

That was what they said 2 years ago. Maybe I should begin asking "September of what year?"

Old time

My Mom's favorite place in her house was her fire place. Here we have it without the mantle. My brother wanted to save that part of the house. The rubble is piled in the corner and ready to be demolished. We are still hanging on to the memories. So hard to let go.

My daughter and sister liked the golden hues to this photo. Something. My daughter said she liked the way the bright colors of the fruit painting in contrast to the old falling down house. My sister picked out the photo today as her favorite. Must be something they are seeing. I can only see the memories.

I dread the day I drive past the house and it is gone. No doubt the new owner will demolish it. It has to be done. My brother had to move out that road past her house, so that I will have to go that way sooner or later. If he still lived in town, it may have been years before I would ever have to travel out that road. As it is, there is a back way and I may take that route until I can handle the emptiness. I lived in that house from 1966 until 1986.

I was warmed by that coal fireplace for many years. My Mom would build the fire in the fall and keep it going until spring. She hated it when the fire would go out. She (or I) would "bank" it every night. Since I spent the majority of the time with her in the later years, I was trusted to bank it. To "bank" a fire, was to let it calm down for a couple of hours and then scoop ashes over it, (also know as putting it to sleep or to bed and covering it up), that way in the morning, it could be stirred and fed some fresh coal and would fire back up.

I recall one time while she was away on vacation, I let the fire go out. Or, I almost did. I spent over an hour holding a newspaper up against the fireplace. I don't exactly understand the terminology, but this would cause a suction of sorts in the fireplace and pull the air up the chimney and the fire would flare up. I got it going again. To start a coal fire, was a long and tedious process.

I probably inhaled enough coal dust over the years to equate working in a coal mine for a couple of years. I also recall getting some loads of coal that would spit. You needed to be careful if you were sitting or standing around the fire if a piece of coal spit at you. This is where a piece of coal exploded and flew out of the fireplace. My Mom always had an extra piece of linoleum or fireproof carpet in front of the fireplace for this purpose. It scares the bejesus out of you and would sting you like somebody flinging a rubber band at your arm or leg. We never had a big explosion, just little sparks fly out once in a while. And, not very often. I would just move across the room to the other side of the dining room table.

I don't recall ever asking my Mom why she didn't opt for a wood fireplace. Fear maybe? It was scary enough with the coal. One November (1983) my sister came over to help me put plastic on the bedroom windows. She threw a piece of pressed plywood in the fireplace. My Mom had a way of telling if the fire was out every morning. As she came down the stairs she would look at the varnished wood on the doorjamb to the dining room. If she saw a little "orange/gold" she knew she had flame. If she didn't see anything, she knew it was out or close to it.

Well, after my sister put that piece of pressed plywood on the fire, I said "Uh, you may want to get a bucket of water." My sister ran for the kitchen. My Mom heard the panic in our voices, she was upstairs. As she came down the stairs she said the entire varnished door jamb to the dining room was orange. 8 feet of door jamb glowed bright orange/red. She knew we had trouble.

Even though the piece of plywood was small enough to fit in our fireplace, the fact that there were multiple pieces of very fine plywood "pressed" together made for quite a blaze.

We had to call the fire department. The end result was our fireplace got a good cleaning out and the entire neighborhood was engulfed in a dark black smoke for a couple of hours, but the house was in tact. Cars were stopped in the street in front of our house because they couldn't see to drive. My brother was in the fire department and lived just over the hill from my Mom. When my sister called him he just took off for the station (also close by). He realized as he ran out of his house he didn't recall if she said it was at Mom's house or her house. He didn't have to wonder long. When he reached the top of the hill he saw the smoke.

We laughed (and still laugh) about it later. Funny stories included my sister carrying the fire screen out to the front porch, not realizing hot, still lit embers were falling off the bottom lip the entire way onto the dining room floor with the possibility of spreading the fire.

The fire department placed a chemical stick into the fireplace to extinguish the flame. I don't know much about this device but it looked like a brick red road flare. They gave us an extra one in case it happened again. It sat in a drawer in our dining room for years afterward. They also had to plug in a huge exhaust fan. The outlet I showed them was overloaded. How embarrassing.

It all ended happy. No injuries, just a lot of excitement. Aw, the memories.

Shredded zucchini

I made a chocolate zucchini cake today. It smells good. It looks good. I am waiting for company. We are having steaks and vegetables on the grill with potatoes. I hope they like it.

This morning my daughter and I caught an old movie from 1974. "Earthquake" had us laughing pretty hard at the pathetic special effects. When the elevator fell down the shaft, they actually drew blood splatters on the screen! Fake beyond belief. It was so awful it was hilarious!

Funny to see Pam from Dallas in an Afro. And the errors in the film were plenty. It was amusing to see that they cast Ava's character as the daughter of Lorne. He was 59 at the time the movie was made and she was 52. Good grief! She looked way too old for the part.

And, what in God's name were they trying to do with Walter's character? A dancing drunk. It was very, very sad.

For the record

Here is a picture of the giraffe statue at the zoo. The real giraffes were far away and my photos were a bit sub par to do anything with.

My nephew is home and "resting." So says his sister. He is wearing a neck brace and his side is all bandaged up and if I know him he is probably playing in the floor with his little niece.

I am going to attempt a chocolate zucchini cake tomorrow. I hate to jinx it. I got the chocolate chunks instead of the chips. I dug out my bundt cake pan. As I have mentioned before, I do well on top of the stove. When I have to open up the oven door, eh, not so good.

More school shopping tonight. Lots of people out and about. Mad rushes to finish up the shopping.

And for those of us who spent their teen-age years in the 70's, a sigh for the memories. The record(s) may be broken, but certainly not forgotten.

The one, the only "Mr. Sp!tz"

Sprinkling sunshine

On the north side of my Mom's house, looking up into the tree. I didn't spend much time on this side of the house when I was growing up. It was a narrow strip of yard bordering on one of the meanest neighbors known to young children. An old grouchy man (think Mr. Wilson of Dennis the Menace) and you have the one, the only Hatchie Truex. Hatchie. Honest to God. I have no idea what his real name was. You grow up with a name hearing it on a daily or weekly basis you get used to it. You don't think about it until you say it out loud to somebody years later and they fall off their chair laughing. "Hatchie?" What kind of name is that? Beats me. It fit, though.

He shot birds with his bee bee gun and shot my sister's car window one time. We also believe that he shot one of our beagle dogs with a bee bee. Could not prove it, but we suspected. He didn't like kids. He was rumored to have been married. For a week. A week. Rumor has it the lady ran back home. You can imagine what kind of stories we kids made up about that.

If you look at a comic strip of Dennis the Menace and see Mr. Wilson, that is almost exactly what this guy looked like. Without a shirt. I can still remember that vision of this balding guy with a gut as big as a beach ball out there tilling his garden in the hot sun. It was not a pretty sight and it has taken me a long time to erase it from my memory. If I have.

My nephew may be released from the hospital tomorrow. He healed internally (I hope). He will wear a neck brace for a while. Not sure of the condition of the other fellow. The other fellow had his pelvic girdle operated on. He landed on his behind, whereas my nephew landed on his chest. They believe they landed on the ATV's.

The Railroad companies are having to crack down on this illegal activity all over the country. It has become a very popular (albeit dangerous) sport for ATV's to ride the rails.

I finished an autobiography of Glen Campbell, "Rhinestone Cowboy." The book had me laughing out loud in a few places. I had to smirk at his remark that he never lies, and when asked if he had an affair with Bobbie Gentry his reply was "We were never in love." What a way to skirt that issue.

He ended this amusing and colorful story with a sermon. It was his story. He can do what he wants. I have more books to read. One of Johnny Cash and one of The Monkees. Come to find out that Glen did a lot of guitar work for The Monkees in the mid-60's.

Some jelly fish from the zoo

Beautiful, cool. Out of the hot sun, inside the Aquarium. Glow in the dark jelly fish.

Not much news on my nephew. I understand the my sister is probably spending a lot of time at the hospital and travelling. You cannot use a cell phone in the hospital. I have tried calling her cell phone, but she does not answer and the mailbox is full.

My other sisters have heard bits and pieces here and there. The land owner may file trespassing charges. One sister told me that our nephew called his Mom while she was at the house, so he is able to sit up and use the phone. We think the hospital is waiting to see if most of his injuries heal on their own. No word on the other rider.

Active and Feisty

This dog barked almost all day long while we cleaned up my Mom's old house. It has been 7.5 years since my Mom passed. We don't let go easily.

Some folks meander through life at a leisurely pace, some cartwheel through. My nephew is the type that cartwheels through life (active and feisty). He did Motocross for years, taught hang gliding in North Carolina and sometime last night shortly after midnight cartwheeled a 4-wheel ATV right over a cliff.

The news is reporting that the cliff was 80 feet, but we are thinking it is more like 30. My nephew was wearing a helmet. Another rider went over also, not wearing a helmet. The other rider was life flighted directly from the scene, my nephew was taken by ambulance to one hospital and then later life flighted to another hospital.

The word is that my nephew and his friend (a co-worker) were in a group of riders, following an experienced leader who knew the terrain when for some reason or another, the two of them took off on their own. The story will unfold as time goes on. My nephew, of course, has no memory of the accident. In some cases, that is how the brain handles trauma.

My nephew has a bone at the bottom of his skull that is broken. He has a punctured lung, a bleeding spleen, and a laceration on his bowel. They were in water for over an hour before professional help could arrive. The terrain was that dense. My niece's boyfriend arrived at the scene first and held their heads above water until more help arrived. He said the water was chest deep.

My nephew is no stranger to broken bones and injuries and hospitals. You don't drive Motocross for more than a decade with no injuries.

Yep. So I get up this morning and after hearing the news, I prepare to drive back to Pittsburgh. That didn't happen. My sister called to say that he is in ICU and they won't allow any more in the room than 2 at a time. My family travels in packs of 8 or more.

My sister and her family were gearing up for this fair. They have always shown cows, sheep and such. They were not showing any animals this year, but my niece sings with the band and her boyfriend is heavy into the tractor pulls.

This will be a fair year they won't soon forget.

Penguin rally

It appeared as if they were all gathered together and listening to a speaker. We were at the Pittsburgh zoo all day today. Whew. I am whipped. Yesterday we shopped til we dropped. Just about. School clothes. No sales tax in Pennsylvania (on clothes).

Lucky brand Sundowns broke the bank. Ouch. I am still rubbing my sore wallet.

I got turned around a couple of times in Pittsburgh. There was construction. The AAA Triptik had to go out the window when the bridge they suggested was closed. Couldn't they have at least checked here before they filled it in? From then on it was vague memory and my wits.

My wits were out because of the wee bit of sleep I got the night before. In the motel room, I had an air conditioner unit that was on the fritz. My daughter was sawing logs, so I didn't really want to call anyone to come and fix it. I listened to it pop and snap a few times, click, click. Stop and start and then I just finally put it out of it's misery (and mine). The room got warm, but not too bad. At least I fell asleep after that.

We watched some of the Olympic Parade of Nations. And, what a city to be in when the Steelers beat the Eagles.

On the roof

I guess this is one way to ride along. He probably wouldn't give her a turn. They are relatives of my niece.

Migraine hit hard last night and all day today. It still hurts. I want to go to bed, but that is when I feel the pain the most. When I stop. Ugh.

We are headed out of town for the week-end. I hope to have pics of some wild and crazy critters when I return. I really hope the pain is gone by morning.