Rhetta's Thoughts in Middle Age

Bottle of water vs fireworks

2011-07-08T14:53:00.001-07:00

Ok, I have some more issues with national security. I can’t take a bottle of water onto a plane, but I can go buy thousands of dollars of fireworks without showing ID or proof of what I plan to do with it. I can transport them anywhere and no one is going to care about it. Now really, does this make sense? Let’s just forget that spending that much money on something you’re going to burn is just crazy anyway!

So, I guess if money is no option, terrorists should just skip the fertilizer order, and the chemistry classes, and web searches, and go to the neighborhood fireworks stand and everything I need is right there. In fact I could wait until the last day of sale and get everything at a huge discount!

I’m just saying, this is nuts!!

4 women, 3 kids and the beach

2011-06-23T09:41:00.001-07:00

I am getting ready to go on a small vacation. “Small” may be the wrong word because work has been so busy and will be even more so when I return. Perhaps this is really a big vacation even though it is only for about a week and a half and I will not stray too far from home.

At work I have been feeling like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, all the time knowing I am only delaying the inevitable deluge that will fall on me like a 50 foot wall of water and stay at nose level for the next year and a half. So, this is an opportunity to kick up my heels, and/or lie on the beach and let it all drop away for awhile. Calgone take me away!! – Shit I have to pee now from all this water metaphor crap!

I am really excited about my beach trip, or as we say here in the Pacific Northwest, my trip to the coast. We have rented a house right on the beach, like you step out of the door and into the sand and surf. Big picture windows for prime sunset viewing. And, best of all I’m going with my three best friends! We have talked for years about taking a vacation together, but this will be the first time. Granted there is the potential for disaster on a truly heroic scale, but I have faith in us. We practically live in each other’s pockets now. I think it is safe to say we know each other, warts and all. Not that I’m saying any of us are possession of any warts. I’m a good friend and will stridently proclaim that they are all, all three of them, absolutely perfect in every way. Even better than Mary Poppins, who was only practically perfect in every way.

I think the real hic-up potential for the trip will be the kids. I say this for three reasons, 1. We are taking three children and three kids can only get along for just so long and then two will either gang up on the third, or close them out, both actions creating hard feelings. 2. As much as we love each other, we are all mothers before anything else and bears when protection out cubs. And, 3. None of them are mine so I can truly be objective. Oh yeah, and two are girls and one is a boy. Even thought I know we will work out whatever comes, I fear we are on a collision course to drama.

Tonight we have our first big challenge, the packing! Our plan is to pack up Wendy’s SUV with almost all our stuff. This is stuff for four women, two adolescence girls and one boy. Thanks goodness we’re not flying, it would cost a fortune! Tomorrow morning Danna and I will drive over, with the kids, in my little red car. Wendy and Debbi will follow after work. By themselves, no kids. Danna and I are so screwed if they don’t show up!!

I’m still really excited and despite of all that can go wrong, I know we will have a great time!

I think our next vacation together will be Vegas. No kids, No man. And, what happens in Vegas will stay in Vegas.

Osama is Dead

2011-05-02T12:03:00.001-07:00

Last evening we learned that Osama bin Laden has been killed by a unit of Navy Seals. My first reaction was to not believe it, simply because it seemed impossible. Once I believed it, I felt excited, but not so much I wanted to jump up and down. I was conflicted, for a couple of reason: 1.) his death will probably not have a big impact on terrorist activities, and 2.) it just wasn’t right to be happy that someone was dead.

Hopefully bin Laden’s death will mean that some of his money will stop flowing into Al Qaida and that will hamper their ability to pull so many misguided people to the organization. Of course this bring up the question of is a fractured Al Qaida any less dangerous? I don’t know.

I am very proud that our president carried through on his promise to make getting bin Laden a priority, and actually got the job done!! I know that an ongoing frustration within the military is when they have a group or a person pinpointed and then can’t get the go ahead to make the move. In this instance, our president made the right decisions all along the way. Our service members are second to none in the world, especially when they are allowed to do what they do best.

How sad is it that someone with so much influence and power, chose to focus it on evil actions to so many around the world? He was a man with every opportunity, and a vast amount of resources at his disposal and at every point seemed to be unable to make a choice that would truly benefit the world he lived in. He made an art of attracting the disenfranchised and building on their insecurities and then using them in the most thoughtless ways, and without regard for them or their families.

The really sad thing is the loss to all us of the positive potential that he and his followers do not live up to.

Damn I'm Old

2011-02-16T16:48:00.000-08:00

The other day I was replying to an email from a co-worker, giving my opinion on some proposals from a consultant. I went to wrap up my missive with, “There’s my 2¢.” It took me awhile to find that cent mark. I’m old enough to remember when it was just above the 2 on the typewriter key. Of course, I’m also old enough to remember typewriters. In fact, I actually learned to type, not keyboard.

Typing was a skill I learn under complete duress. I fought hard to stay out of that class in high school. Once I was in the class I only learned the bare basics. Because there were more students than working machines I spent most of my time ready books for pleasure and giving the teacher oral reports once I finished.

Fast forward more years than I care to think about, and here I am spending a good deal of my time typing away at over 70 wpm, with a decent degree of proficiency. Who would have thunk? Certainly not me!

Today I was in a meeting with said consultants, and over the corner of the conference room was a stereo with an 8-trak player. Holy cow Batman!! Where did that come from? Half the people in the room didn’t know what an 8-track tape was. I’m not kidding. I’m so freaking old!!

A Soldiers' Angels Christmas

2010-11-29T16:36:00.001-08:00

The day was young, and the sound of music was light,
We gazed round the room and cherished the sight.
The items were heaped, over flowing from a chest,
Food, snacks, toys, books, silly thing and, all the rest.
We divided and stacked, the socks a pile of white,
Christmas cards, and multicolored stocking filled with delight.

This weeks shopping was better then we could believe,
There would be enough for all our soldiers on Christmas Eve.
Our eyes were bright, as we packed the boxes deep,
The liquids were baggied so they wouldn’t seep.
The heavy items placed in cardboard corners, near the seam,
And little tiny candies and mixes, fit in tight spaces like a dream.

As we packed we laughed, and wished our soldiers were near,
But instead told stories of emails and letters in each others ears.
There were special things, to each other we wanted to show,
Things with meanings, we knew our soldiers would know.
We each told stories, so fun to hear,
And in our hearts, holding our solders dear.

Once the boxes were filled, and taped down tight,
We broke out the markers, and decorated them bright.
There were angels, and flags in colors so bold,
And then we added trees and snowmen so cold.
Once we were done, with gladness we smiled,
Standing over our boxes, we whooped it up wild.

"I think mine looks best?" I said without fear,
"Look at the halo, and the wings right here!
There’s a nice red heart, and trim on the sleeve,
She’ll bring a smile come Christmas Eve!"
For barely a moment I saw their eyes shift,
Away from me, to their boxes their sites did drift. .

Their opinions differed, and their voices weren’t light
They sighed and then said "You’re looking for a fight,
Ours are great, too. We think we all did alright.
You can just simmer down, and put your box back in line,
There’s still more, it’s Customs Form time.”

" I hate Customs Forms and they hate me,
All that writing and writing until I can’t see.
My hands turned to pains, and cramps,"
I sighed, "Let’s get start, go get the lamps.
Why must there be 5 pages, man oh man,
We press down with the pens, as hard as we can.

In the north is Mosul, and a little east is Kirkuk,
Baghdad is central, and for the west at the map we must look.
There is Jason at HHC, then there’s Nicole at CID,
And Elizabeth and Dat in Company C.
"I hope they have decorated, and aren’t feeling alone,
I wish they were with family, in a house and at home.

Those retched forms are done, and we rise to our feet,
It was time for the post office, through the rain and the sleet.
We can carry the weight, we’re each a mother,
Stacking the boxes in the car, next to one another.
We have the Customs Form for one and all,
Ready for that cute postal clerk, John Paul.

"Wal-Mart has socks on sale," Mom said, "and a little flashlight,
We can stop on the way back, just take a right."
"After that we can stop at Target, their price for deodorant is best,
And toothpaste," I said, "and then it’s the Dollar Store for the rest.
We’ll still need to add some things, like Hunny Buns,
Wouldn’t it be a great idea to add some magnets, maybe of a sun.”

As we drive off down the road, we plan our next box,
"Do you think it’s possible, perhaps to pack some lox?”.
Angels live for letters and cards, received and sent,
For a good themed box, and hoping they don’t get bent..
Angels love and care, always knowing it’s important that things are said,
We remember that our soldiers fought and bled.
We carry soldiers in our hearts, and in our pockets a Solidiers’ Angels coin,
and we hope you will visit www.soldiersangels.org to join."

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

2010-08-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

1. How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the

tomb of the Unknowns and why?

21 steps. It alludes to the twenty-one gun salute, which is the

highest honor given any military or foreign dignitary.

2. How long does he hesitate after his about face to begin his

return walk and why?

21 seconds for the same reason as answer number 1

3. Why are his gloves wet?

His gloves are moistened to prevent his losing his grip on the

rifle.

4. Does he carry his rifle on the same shoulder all the time

and if not, why not?

He carries the rifle on the shoulder away from the tomb.

After his march across the path, he executes an about face

and moves the rifle to the outside shoulder.

5. How often are the guards changed?

Guards are changed every thirty minutes,

twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.

6. What are the physical traits of the guard limited to?

For a person to apply for guard duty at the tomb, he must be

between 5' 10" and 6' 2" tall and his waist size cannot exceed 30." Other

requirements of the Guard: They must commit 2 years of life to guard the

tomb, live in a barracks under the tomb, and cannot drink any alcohol on

or off duty for the rest of their lives. They cannot swear in public for the

rest of their lives and cannot disgrace the uniform {fighting} or the tomb in

any way. After two years, the guard is given a wreath pin that is worn on

their lapel signifying they served as guard of the tomb. There are only

400 presently worn. The guard must obey these rules for the rest of their

lives or give up the wreath pin.

The shoes are specially made with very thick soles to keep the heat

and cold from their feet. There are metal heel plates that extend to the

top of the shoe in order to make the loud click as they come to a halt.

There are no wrinkles, folds or lint on the uniform. Guards dress for duty

in front of a full-length mirror.

The first six months of duty a guard cannot talk to anyone, nor

watch TV. All off duty time is spent studying the 175 notable people laid

to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. A guard must memorize who they are

and where they are interred. Among the notables are: President Taft, Joe

E. Lewis {the boxer} and Medal of Honor winner Audie Murphy, {the most

decorated soldier of WWII} of Hollywood fame.

Every guard spends five hours a day getting his uniforms ready for

guard duty.

ETERNAL REST GRANT THEM O LORD, AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON THEM.

In 2003 as Hurricane Isabelle was approaching Washington, DC, our

US Senate/House took 2 days off with anticipation of the storm. On the ABC

evening news, it was reported that because of the dangers from the

hurricane, the military members assigned the duty of guarding the Tomb of

the Unknown Soldier were given permission to suspend the assignment. They

respectfully declined the offer, "No way, Sir!" Soaked to the skin,

marching in the pelting rain of a tropical storm, they said that guarding

the Tomb was not just an assignment, it was the highest honor that can be

afforded to a serviceperson. The tomb has been patrolled continuously,

24/7, since 1930.

God Bless and keep them.

I thought this was worth knowing.

Dialing "1" under pressure

2010-08-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

To dial one, or not to dial one, that is the question. At least it’s kind of the question I asked myself yesterday. There are two different area codes for the city of Portland, one of them is 503, the other one is something I can never remember. In part, because I just don’t run across it very often, and considering the number people I talk to every month, tells me that there really aren’t that many people with this other area code. So, I’m in the process of calling someone back who has left me a voice mail. I dial “9” to get the outside line, then the area code (not 503) and the number. Well, of course this area code is not that other area code I can never remember. It’s for someplace other than Portland, even though the caller is calling about a their home address here in Portland.

So, you know what happened, I got that annoying recording telling if I need to dial “1” when calling this number. Usually I just hang up and dial again using the “1” as directed. I’m such a mindless drone! For some reason yesterday, this recording really irked me. For one thing aren’t area codes unique? So if you’ve dialed an area code doesn’t the system know where to send the call? How does dialing “1” add anything to the process? The system obviously knew it needed a “1” so why didn’t it just send the call one. Why to I have to put in something you already know is part of it? And, why does the “1” on a long distance call still even exist?

Why can I make the same call, without the “1”, on my cell phone and there’s no annoying recording. It goes through, no problemo lameo! Why are land lines not keeping up with cell technology? I have a theory, of course. They want to piss up all off so we will all move over to cell phone service. Which we are as individuals, but at work we still have land lines to deal with.

My co-work, the ever sane Stephen, watching me have my mini meltdown over the issue of the “1”, just smiled and said, “Rhetta, I hope you’re not going to lose sleep of this.” He is now my meditation master. The one to call me down from the ledge. The one who will gently take the gun and unload it, while speaking in a calm and steady voice.

After my run in with the “1” I heard about the flight attendant who had the meltdown, gave a piece of his mind to an ill behaved passenger and then lowered the escape ramp and left with a couple of beers. You know I can really sympathize with this guy, and there have been many times over the past 15 years that I’ve worked with the public, that would have loved to do something very similar. Hell, I wanted to do it yesterday with phone company! You’ve read my blog on municipal black ops hit squad. But, so far I’ve managed to walk away without losing it. I’m just hoping that trend will continue.

It’s only a matter of time before there is a really nasty issue in the air, not involving a terrorist. It will however, involve a customer who has reached the absolute end of their rope. Flying used to be a civilized activity, people dressed nicely, and were treated very well. Now some passengers don’t even bath before getting on planes, and we’re all treated like cattle being transported to the slaughter house. Hell, cattle are probably treated better.

You have to have the patience of Job to fly commercial today. You wait in line to be checked in, unless you’re paid an extra fee so you can pass through the express line. Then you have to pay if you actually want to take luggage with you on your trip. Airlines used to want you to check your luggage and NOT carry it onboard with you. Now they have devised a system that has everyone carrying their luggage onboard. Next, you wait in line to pass through security, unless you’ve paid extra to pass through the express line.

Once through security, you’re alone and lugging all the stuff, you used to check, with you down the long hall looking for your gate. Along the way you want to pick up a bottle of water, since you had to leave your’s at security. You even think about getting a magazine to read while you wait to board the plane. After paying five dollars for a small bottle of water, you decide you can’t really afford to look at magazines and continue your three mile trudge to the gate, to wait some more.

Because you didn’t buy a first class ticket, an obviously indictment against your worth to society, you have to wait while the “special” people board first. Of course, as you board, somewhere in the middle of the pack, it’s impossible to get down the aisle because everyone is trying to stow their luggage. Once you find your seat, you have to try to find a place to stow your luggage. It worse than fighting off a pack of wild wolves to get your stuff put away before some else grabs the spot, usually some tall, oblivious 20 year old.

You’re finally seated and now you have to start worrying about who will be setting next to you, and in front of you, and behind you. These people will, to a great extent, be determining the level of your comfort for the next several hours. You get the mom with the screaming baby, of the child that likes to kick the back of your seat, or the guy in front who thinks it acceptable to lean his seat all the way back. Who is there a reclining function on an airline seat? Who thought that was a good idea? There are also the people with stinky feet who take their shoes off, the ones who pass gas and the ones who smoked a pack of cigarettes just before boarding. And, the heavy drinkers!

Then, just because this experience isn’t as awful as it could be, let’s just throw in a machincal difficulty that delays takeoff for, oh I don’t know, two hours!

It’s true that planes should have a warning, like aerosol cans, “Caution: Contents under pressure.” In fact, this warning could be spray painted across most public buildings as well.

How would a municipal black ops hit squad work?

2010-07-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

As I work through more whining citizens I couldn’t help but wonder how a city run black ops hit squad might work. Thinking about this really helps while I was talking to the guy this morning who has decided he really doesn’t want a green stormwater facility next to his property, after practically getting into a fight with his neighbor last year to get one. The neighbor wanted it too and was trying to get us to move the facility in front of his property.

Their real agenda was that they both have some big trees in their planting strips that are at the end of their lives and they know they need to come down. We will cut the trees down and grub them out as part of our project, at every site has the stormwater facility. But, if there is not facility adjacent to your property, we aren’t going to take your trees down, You will have to get that done on your own, and at your cost. Honestly, I think the neighbor is saying no now to spite the other guy for saying no to him a year ago.

So with prep work already under way, and the big equipment literally weeks from moving on site, he thinks its reasonable to request a change, and that we will just jump up and say, “OK, no problem. We don’t mind re-engineering the site, writing change orders and paying a lot more for this project. Just so you’re happy, that’s all that matters!”.

So this guy, Lady X and Lady Y all live along the same street. I figure a really good sniper could line them up and do the job with one bullet. It’s obvious there isn’t much between their ears to slow the projectile down. Three for one would save the city money as well, the cost of at least two bullets. A squad could introduce poison into their water line, or sewer gases in to their house. The could create a sinkhole under the house that would suck it in, in the middle of the night.

The squad could camouflage itself as a regular city work crew, with orange vests, hard hats, and various equipment. The equipment could be altered for special dual uses. For instance the surveyor’s transits could become rocket launcher, or high powered rifle. An inspector van could become a listening stations, just like in the movies. You know how you see work crews and you think they’re not doing anything? What if they were really a hit squad just waiting for the right moment to expel justice for the lowly city worker who has been misused and abused by the public? We might need to get the squad some tights and capes. This is bringing a tear to my eye!

You know a hit squad wouldn’t have to be quite so violent; they could just mess with the oppressor. They could run the sewer backwards through their house, so it all comes out in their kitchen. They could increase the water pressure into the house. Or just shut off service all together. The squad could send the code inspectors to their street every month to write up every infraction they see, and make sure parking patrol circles the block several times a day and all the neighbors know who they have you thank for the attention.

There are other more indirect methods, like reconstructing every street within three blocks of the oppressor’s house all at the same time, and making sure all the work is at night, with the loudest equipment available, and the ones that cause the most vibration. The squad could continually make a $1000 mistake in the oppressor’s water/sewer bill for a year and than send it to collections. They could mark the curbs as the approved locations for outhouse placement during construction, or for storing materials and equipment. That backhoe will be coming and going to load up dirt and rock all day long, with its back-up beeper, and banging scoop.

Than they could really just mess with your head. You know, every time you call they would ask for all your info again and thank you for finally calling, just like we’ve never talked to you. They could pass you off to someone new each time and say they’ll get back to you, but never do. They could send people out to your house to ask you questions about stuff totally unrelated, but say it is, and give you that “are you crazy” look when you question them about it.

I know people think this is what government does already, but the truth is, no matter how much fun it would be, we don’t have the time, and we certainly don’t have the money. I’d love to have a budget set aside to fund something like this, heck I’d love to be on the squad!! Until that time, I’m stuck talking to whiners and dreaming of a hit squad.

Why city government needs a hit squad

2010-07-01T15:57:00.001-07:00

It has quite some time since I’ve written a blog for, sorry about that.

Recently work has been a bit challenging. We are at the critical juncture on several projects and interest always picks up then. But I have to say that some people just really have more nerve than should be allowed. Case in point, Lady X, who is in love with her yard. According to her it is perfect, and they work hard to keep it that way. Also, according to her, the neighbors have awful yards because they don’t care about them. To hear this woman talk you would think they have created the next Kew Gardens. So the first time I drove past the house, I was shocked to see that it’s really just a grass lawn with a few bushes and a tree. The grass is nice and uniform, but really it’s just grass!

She pitched such a fit about the grass in her planting strip (the area between the sidewalk and curb) that we changed our designed to more the new stormwater facility out into the street. Insane!!! Now we are past the design phase and getting ready to start construction, so I had the survey crew go out and mark off all the stormwater facilities. At her location this required two small stakes be placed in the planting strip. She had a cow!! She went out and pulled them out, threw them into the street, and then called to complain about us ruining her yard. The woman is just not sane. She has demanded that any survey markers be some other place then her planting strip. I have reminded her on numerous occasions that the planting strip is part of the right-of-way and not a part of her property.

I mean really, it’s just grass!!!! Get a grip!!! I keep telling myself I should be grateful I don’t have to live near her, or with her. When this project is over, I won’t have to talk to her again. Yeah!!

Now we can move on to Lady Y, who happens to live across from Lady X. Haven’t heard anything from her about any problems with the plans at her site, other than she didn’t want her roses removed. So time goes by, we continue to send her information and have meetings. She’s participating, and at all times we have the complete design drawing for her property right there in the materials. Five weeks to construction, with a low bidder chosen, guess what? She has a problem. Even though she lives on a corner lot, it seems it would be putting her out too much to expect that she walk to the corner to cross the street. She has decided that she must have access to the street in a direct line from her front door. So, we need to redo our design to either extend a ramp across the stormwater facility, or shorten the facility. Because, God forbid she have to walk a few feet to the corner, where she could legally cross. Did I mention she’s from New York, complete with the accent?

Let’s move on to Lady Z, who can’t decide if she wants to keep her trees, or not. We have spoken to her numerous times and she has changed her mind every time. Well, here we are ready to begin construction and she has decided that her stormwater facility is too long, and shouldn’t be any longer than 30 ft. I have no idea why 30 ft is such a magic number, but there it is. Shortening it will require that we remove at least one tree. Again, she lives on a corner. She is worried about parking. She still has the whole side of her property with her driveway and garage to park along the curb. Not to mention the curb across the street on two sides. I just don’t get it.

For all these expectations will increase the cost of this project. We now have to send out the survey team again to re-stake what Lady X has pulled out. Any change to the plans for Ladies Y or Z will result in change orders, which add onto the accepted bid amount of the project. And because it’s a change order they can charge you more than they would for like items listed within the bid. And let me tell you these people don’t want to hear about fiscal responsibility when it comes to something they want. But, if it was what someone else wanted they would be screaming about wasteful spending. You just can’t win!

I always say that in the business of community outreach, the center of the universe changes with every phone call. Galileo didn’t know squat. And the neighborhoods that drink the most wine produce the biggest whiners!!

So, I’m proposing a super secret black-ops hit squad, that can be deployed to take care of unreasonable people. If we take just a portion of the money they cause us to spend above the bid price, we would still be getting off cheap!

Hawks and chickens

2010-05-26T14:41:00.000-07:00

During the day, at work, I occasionally pull up the Raptor Cam and check out a Red Tailed Hawk nest in downtown Portland. This year a pair of Red Tails laid three eggs and they all hatched. While the little ones were still all fuzzy we lost one. The other two have grown and continue to develop well. At the moment they are busy flapping around the nest and hopping onto the railing and window ledge. It won’t be long until they take up flying. I can’t wait to see that!

If you’re interested in seeing them you can go to: http://www.kgw.com/community/blogs/raptor-cam/KGW-Audubon-Raptor-Cam.html

At this same site there are also some photos of the Peregrine Falcons that nest on the bridge.

I guess this is my year to be fascinated by birds. I go home every evening and let my chickens out to roam the back yard. I love watching them. I also love that as soon as they see me coming out the back door they all run to the end of their enclosure. It’s great to see six little faces all so happy to see me.

I’ve been giving them new and different things to eat: bread, grapes, strawberries, and peanut butter on bread. The last is by far their favorite! They like them all, but something about the peanut butter really get them excited. Wel,l that and the flowers in my containers along the edge of the patio. I keep a spray bottle handy, full of water to shot them with when they start wrecking havoc. I think they are beginning to learn not to mess with the containers, but at the same time they still need regular reminders in a liquid form.

The other day Sugar, who does everything first, started clucking. I mean really clucking, not just a screech as they have all been doing from time to time. The whole gang was all clustered up at the edge of the garden pecking away at grass and leaves, when she began to cluck. Cluuuuck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck……Cluuuuck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck …..Cluuuuck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck. She looked quite distressed, like she couldn’t figure out what was happening. She wasn’t the only one. All of the other girls ran across the yard, next to the run, huddled together and stared at her. They kept their distance for awhile after she had gotten over her little spell. None of them are quite sure what happened but they don’t seem to be looking forward to a repeat.

They are all taking their turns at flying. This usually happens when they have been spooked by something. This could be such terrifying things as a gust of wind, a falling leaf, a butterfly, or nothing at all. All the squawking starts, the running, the wing flapping, and then at least two or three will lift off. At first the landings were a bit rough, but they seem to have gotten the hang of it now.

People keep telling they will fly up into trees if I don’t clip their wings. I don’t have any trees in my yard, and they all seem determined to get back to the run as quick as possible when they get spooked, so I’ve decided not to worry about that. At least not until one of them actually flies up onto a limb of a neighbor’s tree. Then I will be faced with how to get them down. What fun!!

Craigslist and treasure hunts

2010-05-17T16:45:00.000-07:00

I have a wire rabbit hutch for sale on Craigslist. This is the first time I’ve tried to sell anything on there, and I have to say I’m not having the best of luck. My ad says, “Rabbit Hutch, wire, $40.00. Wire rabbit hutch in excellent condition.” And, I’ve included a photo. I didn’t think I really needed to say anymore, you know a picture is worth a thousand words, which is a good thing because Craigslist won’t let me use a thousand word. Honestly I don’t think I could come up with that many words for it anyway.

So everybody that has emailed me, all 3 of them, have wanted to know something. Mostly the dimensions, or if it has trays in the bottom. I guess I should go in and edit my ad to include that info, but I can’t seem to find any of the 9 million tape measures I’ve bought over the years! I even buy them in neon colors so they will be easier to find!! I have been reduced to giving approximate dimensions.

My brother can throw up an ad on Craigslist that says, “Ratty old fencing and post, $50.00” with no pictures, and people will get into a bidding war. I am definitely missing the salesman gene!

My brother and his family are coming to visit next month and I sure hope I have this thing sold and off the patio by then. Of course there are other things I need to get off the patio as well, like what is left of the dresser I bought for the drawer to use as nesting boxes, and other parts for other things. Luckily the neighborhood cleanup is just around the corner and just before they arrive for vacation, so this could be a good thing.

Speaking of our soon to arrive family, my family is really heavy on boys, so these visits are always rowdy affairs. Over the past few years we have been doing a treasure hunt. Its great fun weather you’re a treasure hunter part of the planning and set up. Last year, the kids were all old enough to have our treasure hunt spread out over the neighborhood. It took them about an hour to make it through all the clues and arrive at the final location, the field behind my house. My sister, sister-in-law and I were all on the back patio watching them search for the treasure. For 20 minutes they crawled all through the grove of tree trying to find the treasure. They went around the tree the treasure was hanging in about a hundred times. It had a red rope tied to the tree to let it down. But, around and around they went. Those of us on the patio were laughing so hard we were in near hysterics. I’m already planning the hunt for this year, I can’t wait.

2010-05-14T10:58:00.000-07:00

The sun is shining, the temps are up, the garden is growing, the chickens are happy and life is good… outside. Unfortunately I’m stuck inside at my deck wishing I was home and outside. Damn! Who came up the idea of work anyway?

Of course on wet and miserable days I don’t mind working inside, or on those hot and humid day. We have so few really exceptional days that I feel staying inside for them is just plain offensive. I’m in search of a car at this very moment so can do some site visits on some of my projects. I won’t even have to carry along my wet gear, just my sunglasses.

I’m in the market for a new warm weather drink. Yesterday I went to lunch with a coworker and she ordered an Arnold Palmer. I was a little taken aback thinking she was drinking during work hours, and she is so not the type to do that. Apparently an Arnold Palmer is half ice tea and half lemonade. Doesn’t that sound lovely? I’m going to mix up a batch this weekend with some good tea, and maybe even splash in a bit of something more potent. I’ll be on the patio if anyone wants to come try it out with me.

Just got back from vacation recently and I thought I should let you all know that my trips through the Kansas City Airport were a great improvement over my previous trip. I made it through without a single meltdown.

Time with the grandkids was awesome!! They’re brilliant, and amazing, and totally wonderful!! I wish I could have packed them all up and brought them home with me.

My daughter is so brave. I don’t think I could what she is doing. Starting college again, with two very small children while here husband is deployed and having no one close by that she knows well. She just makes me so proud! I wish she was closer, or that I could be there more often to help out.

I was driving down the road the other day when I saw one of those things that just make you scratch your head and say, what were they thinking? There is a road side business with a sign out front, and erected next to the business is a big billboard. Now these two signs were stacked on in front of the other, so the first is for the business and says, “XXX Adult Videos”, the billboard is for the Boys and Girls Club and giant letters is says, “Be passionate!” I nearly wreck the car for laughing.

Kansas, not exactly what I thought

2010-04-28T09:19:00.000-07:00

OK, I knew Kansas would be a little different, but what do you say when Kansas gets weird? "You're not in Kansas anymore" just doesn't fit the occasion.

This morning on the radio I heard the D.J.s do a phone in contest to give away Extreme Midget Wrestling tickets. I mean really, not just midget wrestling, but EXTREME midget wrestling? I don't even want to think what that might involve. And what was the contest you might ask, well you had to guess the age of the Guinness Book of World Record's smallest person, who could walk. This was a man who recently passed away in China. He was 21, a chain smoker and had reached rock star status in his home country. Or, at least according to the D.J.s.

Following this contest, of which there was no shortage of phone-in participants, they went right into their headlines. The headline given the most attention was of a woman who found an unlit cigarette in the bottom of her son's Happy Meal. The D.J. went on to say that MacDonalds had offered the mother a settlement including free meals for the family and money. The mother has refused and is planning a suite against the food chain. Now apparently the D.J.s had a photo of the child, who happens to be a year old. They made a few comments about the mother in choosing to give her 1 year old son a Happy Meal, then went on to describe the child as a "tank". In fact, they spent quite a bit of time discussing the size of this little boy.

Just driving around here in the sticks of Kansas you will notice a lot of things with the word cowboy, spelled with a "K", Kowboy.

Manhattan, Kansas, where I happen to be is the home of Kansas State University, which by all accounts is an excellent school. Their school colors are purple and white, so everywhere you go there are people wearing purple, purple flags, purple dumpsters, purple everything. No ruby slippers, but I'm dead positive that at least one person here owns a pair of purple glitter shoes.

We visited Ft Riley the other day for a childrens' festival and after wards we went to the PX on post. Along the way we noticed a group of what we thought were horses in a field, but turned out to be mules. Apparently Army mules. Who knew they still existed?

While driving through the post, in its more wooded areas, you will see signs that say "Tank Crossing". These signs should be taken seriously. Drivers should slow down or stop and watch for tanks. Tanks always have the right of way. Well, duh!!

Oddly enough I haven't seen a single scarecrow, even though this is big farm country. The radio is filled with ads for crop insurance, farm equipment, and seeds.

So the next time you think about using the pharse, "You're not in Kansas anymore", you might consider if it really fits the situation, because it may more like Kansas then you imagine.

Vacation to Kansas

2010-04-19T16:33:00.001-07:00

This is my last day of work before I leave for vacation, and never has a day gone by so slow! It is now 4:02, and I have decided to leave at 4:30, just in time to catch the bus home. Once I arrive at my car, I will then get in it and head back to Portland, and a party for a co-worker who is leaving us at the end of the month. Very sad for us, good for him. I also need to arrange a ride to the airport. Should have gotten that taken care of sooner. Just realized today that I didn’t have a ride. May need to schedule a taxi.

Tomorrow morning I will register for my boarding pass at exactly 10:10, which is 24 hours before I leave. I’ve set the alarm on my Blackberry. What did we do before we had all these little helpful devices? Then I will have a dentist appointment at 11:00, pick up my prescription in the pharmacy afterwards and head out to get a little shopping done. I have to get a presents for my grandchildren, buy travel sized (or at least something smaller than the super economy sized) shampoo and conditioner. Oh yeah, and I have to go purchase a new camera, because mine broke over the weekend. Ugggh!

In the afternoon I will do the last bit of laundry, plant some tomatoes, and have a good bye conversation with the cat and the chickens, my girls. Then I will do my packing, watch Idol, and get some sleep.

When I would fly to Hawaii, it was a five hour flight and all there was to see was water. It was like the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.” or something like that. I was on a plane so I obviously had access to a drink, of many kinds. But, because the flight was 5 hours long and I didn’t want to use the on-flight facilities, I kept my fluid intake to the bear minimum for the 24 hours before my flight landed on the island.

My flight to Kansas is much shorter, but will still be planning my fluid intake to avoid the on-flight facilities. Unlike the flight to Hawaii, there should be plenty to see outside my window, so I don’t have to stay up all night so I can sleep through the flight. Yeah!!

I will fly into the Kansas City airport. This will be my second time. The last time I was 13, and it was my first time to travel by plane. Because my parents didn’t what to have to change planes, they chose a flight that took to Des Moines, Iowa without a plane change, but it stopped at every airport between there and Houston. Kansas City happened to be one, and be the time we make it there, I was really hungry and starting to feel a bit sick. The attendant, for stewardess as we called them then, suggested I get off and grab something from the vending machine and come right back. We had plenty of time for that. So I did.

I found the vending machines just where she said they would be, quickly made my selections, and hot footed it back to the gate. The gate was closed and my blue Branaff was taxing away. I had a melt down. There was shriking and crying and all kinds of goings on. Finally the gate attendant settled me down and pointed to a blue Branaff at the next gate and said, “That’s your plane.” I said, “Oh” I felt like a complete idiot, which I was, and to make matter worse I couldn’t just hope on my plane and avoid all the stares. No, I had to wait for two other plane to clear the terminal before I could reboard my flight. It was the longest 5 minutes of my life. I’m hoping to comport myself better this time around.

Weather, day lilies, and the police

2010-04-06T17:07:00.001-07:00

Where is the sunny warm weather? I’m starving for decent temps and some nice warm rays I can bath my aching joints in! Not to mention, I have chickens I need to get in a chicken coop. Of course, I need to get the coop finished first, which means I need some decent weather! Wait, I’m dizzy. It feels like I’m running around on a hamster wheel.

I got a nice email for my friend (hi Wendy) to say she had left me some day lilies on my back porch. (Thanks!) I’m hoping I can get them into the ground this evening when I get home, and I’m really hoping I don’t to do it in a down pour! They should look lovely very soon when they bloom.

My cat is also panting to go outside. She has managed to get out a couple of times under the covered patio in back, but that is about as far as she is willing to venture in the rain. Of course if the rain is too hard, that just freaks her out and she has to run back in and hides under the bed. That’s my fearless kitty!

I am currently in a tug of war with my local police department over my volunteer status. After being approved for volunteer training, I have been suddenly denied with no explanation. To say the least I’m shocked and have asked for an explanation, and been told pretty much, -- tough noogies we don’t have to tell you anything. Since I have been background checked for employment and volunteer work in the past with police and schools, I’m quite taken aback by this development, and stunned by the hard line I’m coming up against. I was a crime prevention specialist for Portland for over 6 years for pity sake! I had a key that allowed me access to every building they occupied. I trained officers in various subjects involving community policing, and routinely sat in on mission and daily briefings. Now Vancouver has a problem accepting me, after I’d been approved?!!

My fear is that this has all arisen as the result of my recent resignation from the board of my neighborhood association, which I have not wanted to make a big deal over. One of the board members is a member of this program, and I think that person has, in some way thrown a wrench in this business. It is just a bit too coincidental that my sudden denial came just after my resignation. I can not let this matter go since there is a very good chance that I will need a background check from the police department in the future related to volunteer work or even future employment, and I can’t have an incident showing where I was denied. This means I may have to drag some issues out of the neighborhood closet I really didn’t want to have to drag out. I’m really hoping someone comes to their senses before this has to get really ugly, that would not do certain neighborhood board members, or the police department, any good.

More over, I really believe in the value and effectiveness of community policing. I have often wished that Vancouver had a program like this one. I have been very eager to recommend this program to people up to this point, but now I don’t think I can in good conscience do that anymore, and that really sucks! I will now have to warn people off, for fear they could end up in a similar situation. I hate this! I could just spit!!

2010-04-01T10:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, I’m sure everyone is like this, but maybe not. There are things in weird places all over my house. Most of them I’m sure I have left there, others I’m not sure who left them where they are. For instance there is a glass desk top leaning against the wall in my bedroom. I’m sure I put it there thinking it was temporary when I dismantal it for the new desk. I'm sure I meant to move it out to the garage, the rest of the desk is out there. It’s still in my room and has been for at least a year. It has become invisible to me. I’m hoping now that I’ve embarrassed myself by telling all you this, I will finally remember to get it moved. Maybe I even get it, and all the rest of the odd stuff I have into the neighborhood cleanup this year, or onto Craig's List.

Other items end up in odd places for really odd reasons. Like the cracker box sitting on the vanity in my bathroom. – I should point out that my bathroom is so small that calling the counter a vanity, or a counter for that matter, is being really generous – It got there because I was using it to cover the top of a bucket while carrying my young hens. I was putting them in the bathtub. – I know weird! But, it was raining outside and I had to clean the cage. Where else could I put them? – I put the box there while unloading the chickens and forgot it. It’s been there for two days now.

I’m a little concerned that I will continue to forget it, and then everyone coming into my house and going to the bathroom will think I eat crackers in there. How embarressing would that be?

By the way, who is Craig, and how did he get a list? I'm just wondering.

Sunny days, chicks, cats and dogs

2010-03-25T09:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a BEAUTIFUL day!! In fact, one of the principals in our state, Washington, gave all the kids a day off as a Sun Day. They have had no snow days this year, so he thought it was only fair that the kids and staff get a day to celebrate a day without rain and with a lot of sunshine. With the announcement he included a picture of himself on a motorcycle with sun glasses and thumbs up. I love that story!

Yesterday I was unlucky in having to be at work, but lucky in that I was out doing site visits so I got to enjoy the day at least a little. When I got home I gather up my little chicken (which are getting bigger every day!) and took them out to the temporary run while I cleaned out their cage. By the end of the process, I was sunburned and my little girls were in chicky heaven pecking and scratching away outside.

There is something elementally calming about watching chickens with their tails in the air scratching the grounds and pecking our nummy morsels. Not to mention the Keystone Cops comedy of antics when one of them finds an especially juicy worm and the others give chase. Inevitably the worm will be dropped and they will all scramble for it, ending in another chase.

They are getting pretty big now, and have just about lost all their baby chick fuzz. They look like small, skinny versions of adult hens at the moment. This is their awkward stage, also known as the ugly stage, or adolescence. They are getting braver and starting to stretch their wings. In fact, they are trying to fly. They all excited and will actually get off the ground, but I think when their feet leave the ground they get a little freaked, because they will suddenly freeze, drop and then look around like they’re asking, “What hell was that?”

My cat is both fascinated and confounded by them. Bird watching has been a longtime preoccupation of hers. She loves to site and watch them through the window, and will track them if she is outside. Up until now she has never really gotten close to any. She loves laying on top of their cage and just watching them. She can do it for hours. She seems totally confused by them.

Yesterday while the girls were in their temporary coop outside, she found a loose place in the fencing and stuck her head in, then freaked out when the girls ran over to check her out. Poor Hinata, she doesn’t have a brave bone anywhere in her little body. I’m afraid she’s going to have to give up her cat card any day now.

Last weekend when I had the girls out in there temporary coop, my sister’s big ole red dog, Rusty, managed to find a way in. So, here is this huge dog in a small coop, with six small chickens and anywhere else this would there would be some serious feathers flying, and really fresh doggy treat. Not for our Rusty! He was too busy trying to convince the girls that he is their new best friend, as they whines to them and licks them. The girls were unimpressed and unafraid. They just kept on with the important work of being a chicken, scratching and pecking.

It’s always something!

Language, what?

2010-03-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

“For crying in the sink!” and “Good greifinhimmer!” These are just a couple of fun sayings by my supervisor, Megan. Add to this the fact that when she laughs it sounds like someone is tickling her. She has a silly sense of humeor and is a real hoot!

We all say things at times that are so uniquely us, or at least out of place to others. For instance Megan is from upstate New York and for all I know these could be very common saying there, but here not so much. I find myself saying, “Holy molie canoli!” Not real sure where this came from, since it doesn’t seem common here and wasn’t common when I lived in Texas. Not to mention that this phrase mixes Hispanic and Italian culinary arts. It’s just crazy!

Language is such a funny thing, not to mention the English language in particular. English spelling is just flat out insane. A millions rules and a million exceptions to them all! It’s no wonder I can’t spell worth anything. But, the language does give you room to express yourself. I remember my grandmother describing her longing for something as a hunger, like being hungry for spring. That twist, gave her longing more intensity and suggest an actual physical response.

Here in the Pacific Northwest you will see signs in construction zones that say, “Caution: Abrupt edge”. I had not seen this phrasing before moving here, and it struck me funny the first time I saw it because it seemed for formal and proper. I also noticed signs that said, “Ahead Rec Veh Park”. I remember wondering what kind of organization Rec Veh was that they could sponsor so many parks. I mentioned this to a friend, who laughed and told me Rec Veh was short for recreational vehicles. Well, duh, it seems crazy obvious once I was told, but you know a couple of periods would have been good clues that these were abbreviations!

Chicks in the house

2010-03-01T10:02:00.000-08:00

For years I have daydreamed about chickens and have periodically thought how nice it would be to have a little flock of my own. I was unprepared to commit to a rural life in order to have them, so it was just a nice, pleasant fantasy that went nowhere.

A couple of years ago, for about 8 months, I worked as a code compliance inspector for the city. My job was to investigate complaints, and to inspect home businesses for their licenses. During this time I learned that you can have chickens in the city, but no roosters. In fact, I got to see quite a few really nice backyard chicken set-ups during my inspection of home businesses. I also got to ask some questions about how it worked. I learned from chicken complaint calls that neighbors really hate it when you have a rooster, or when you don’t keep the coop cleaned out. There are literally hundreds of households in Portland, that keep chickens, only a very few complaints are made each year regarding them.

So time goes by and I’m still thinking about chickens. This year, is my year of the chicken. Saturday Danna, Tiger and I went and picked out our chicks. This brought back memories of my grandfather taking to us the feed store, and seeing the baby chicks. Back then, at Easter, they would dye the chicks in a rainbow of colors. Not so much any more.

We ended up taking home six, all different breeds. They’re so cute! Currently they are living in a box in my house, waiting to grow big enough to be moved outside to a new home, as yet unconstructed. They will be a very pretty flock when they grow up.

Some things I’ve learned so far: 1.) Chicks eat and drink a lot! I’ve filled the waterer and feeder several times in just 48 hours, especially the waterer. 2.) They’re little poop machines. 3.) They live to scratch. In fact, part of the reason I’ve filled the waterer so many times is that they keep scratching the bedding into the water dish.

The heat lamp has been the biggest challenge. Unfailingly it always needs to be at some point in mid-air where you just can’t get it. At one point we have a bar stool turned upside down, with a foot stool balanced on the bar stool’s feet, and a dowel rod counterbalanced in a hole of the footstool, with the heat lamp hanging from the dowel rod. Oh yeah, and all this was on top of a counter. Even after all this engineering, I’m not it’s in the right place, but hey they’re still alive!

The next step is to build the coop. Stay tuned for that! LOL

2010 Winter Olympics and my observations

2010-03-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

Loved the projections during the opening and closing programs!! The closing was awesome. You’ve got to love a country with a sense of humor!! Based on Russia’s whining in the news I’m thinking that the next winter Olympics will not be as light hearted, and what a shame.

I have a new favorite sport, snowboard cross. It is absolutely the most exciting thing to watch!! Of course, I would hate to be out on the track watching or participating in it. You know how I feel about snow and ice, it should be enjoyed through glass. Either a window or the TV screen.

Speaking of the TV, I found myself doing a lot of screaming at the TV during the coverage. I kept screaming, “Shut up Bob!!!!” Bob Costas, is there any more annoying person in the world? Probably, but your uncle Fred isn’t on TV, usually. His need to fill every moment with his own voice, there has to be some kind of clinical therapy for that. If not, I think a good roll of Duct Tape would be a good investment by the network. I mean really, if they just said something in English and are now saying it in French, does Bob need to tell us what is being said? SHUT UP!!

Curling, you have to love a sport where men know how to use brooms. I want to marry a curler!! I think we need to invent a competitive sport involving toilet scrubbing!!

Skiing: I mean really how many times can you watch a bunch of people slide down a mountain on skinny sticks? There is the slalom, the giant slalom, the super G, the normal hill, the big hill, the combined, the individuals and the team competitions, and on and on.

Is it just me, or has all the artistry been sucked out of figure skating? I haven’t watched it in a long time, probably since the last Olympics, but the routines seemed so bland. Only a few exhibited any kind of the musicality. I will say this, Frank Carrol’s skaters are easy to pick out, because their programs hold true to the art as well as the athletic intent of the sport.

OK, I admit I really only know two things about hockey: 1) you advance the puck by hitting it with a stick while in skates on ice, 2) when the puck goes into the net of the opposing team, you score one point. With this as my knowledge base, It’s understandable that there are some things about the game that totally confuse me, when compared my knowledge of other sports. Like, how can you be out-of-bounds? There is a wall around the rink! And if you do get out-of-bounds who would care, because you’re now out of play? And what in the hell is high sticking? Is that like a high five but using your sticks? Why would that be a penalty? And why is it called Hockey?

How credible are we?

2010-02-09T15:35:00.000-08:00

Today on NPR the questions was “Should you be penalize for the actions of your family?” OK, I was pretty quick with a “Hell no!” Then the example they used was of the New York Times editor in Jerusalem, whose son has volunteered for the Israeli Army. The question became, can he be objective in his reporting?

Well to begin with I thought the first question was totally miss leading, and implied that a family member had done something egregious where someone needed to be penalized, and I didn’t think that was a fair representation of this situation.

That said, I found myself pulled in a number of ways by this dilemma. My first knee jerk reaction was he should be reassigned given the magnitude of hostilities between Israeli and its Arab neighbors, but then I had to take a step back. As the various experts banged away at the issues I could see the points they all were making, no matter what their viewpoint was.

I’m still not sure exactly how I feel about this, but I did start to put myself in the place of this father and son. In a way I’ve been there. I have certainly experienced the worried and pain of a parent whose child is in the military, and has been put in harm’s way. Many people have assumed that they knew how I would feel on a subject based on the fact that I have children in the military, one severely wounded in battle, or as a member of Soldiers’ Angels. Rarely have they been completely correct in their assumptions.

All of us are impacted by the lives we choose to live, the random acts that occur in that life, and by choices others make whether they are close to us or not. This is exactly why none of us can truly be objective. We can only speak from the accumulation of our experiences. The question isn’t if he can be objective, it is how will this situation, added to all his other life experiences effect how he interprets what he is reporting on? I’m reminded of the joke about three blind guys, each standing a different place around an elephant describing what they feel with their hands, leads them to believe there are three different animals there with them. We are all handicapped and empowered by our past and present when interpreting an experience. Does this make our reporting more or less valuable or credible?

Men baking

2010-02-08T12:45:00.001-08:00

You have to love a man that can bake!! One of my co-workers (male) brings in the most wonderful baked goods from time to time. Today it was an apple coffee cake, which was beautiful with thin wedges of apples baked ringing the top. Wonderful!!!

Dan, that’s his name, does this about 3 times a year, and it’s always something different. I’m not sure how often he actually bakes, but boy is he good. Every once in a while another one of the guys on the floor will bring in something they have cooked, and most of it is really good, but Dan is the only guy that brings in baked goods.

Now I’m wondering why there aren’t more guys who bake. It seems to me that of all the cooking types, baking would be most up their alley. Appealing to their love of precession is the exactitude of measurement and the endless debates on weather ingredients should be at room temp or kept cold in the frig. The endless experimentation with ingredients, and the quest to improve a recipe. And how about the power tools? The food processors, mixers, choppers, peelers, timers? Then there are all those nifty hand tools too: whisks, spatulas, and spoons, presses, nut crackers (OK maybe there’s a clue there). There are also a 1001 kinds of pans, some of with come apart and some are spring loaded. Not to mention that at the end of the process there is something to eat. It just seems to me that almost every guy would be into baking.

Of course they’re into BBQing, And let’s face it, they are ALL drawn to fire but, the tools are so limiting and basic. Maybe the next evolution will be man learning to bake on his BBQ pit?

Neighborhood meetings, characters and dogs in the park

2010-02-05T11:44:00.000-08:00

Last night was our monthly neighborhood association meeting. As is usual it was a rather mixed bag. We heard from our city liaison about a couple of trainings coming up for citizens. Our neighborhood police officer reported on cuts in the department and how some duties are now being covered by volunteers. We heard an update on the start of construction of a new development and we had a couple of presentation, one on elder services, and the other on airport noise.

I know, it’s not exactly stuff to keep you on the edge of your seat, but it was all useful information.

Our neighborhood is lucky in that we usually have pretty good attendance, about 20-30 people on average. Most neighborhoods get a dozen on a good night. Our groups has a lot or regulars, and then there are always a few odds ones thrown in.

Where our meetings get interesting, at least if you’re any kind of student of human behavior, is when the more odd, and off the beaten track individuals start to chime in. We have the guy that sits in the back, and has lived here all his life. He will decided that a particular point has interest for him. This point is ALWAYS some very small piece of the topic being discussed, it is ALWAYS something that we have very little or no control over, and he ALWAYS wants to discuss it in detail and have someone fix it. Never fails!

We also have “The Grandmas” 3 older ladies (there used to be 4 but passed a couple of years ago) who always come together, and sit together in the front row. They almost never bring any issues, or have opinions on issues, but when they do you had better listen. They attend every function in the neighborhood, and can be relied on to volunteer for committees.

We also have the guy who has to be the “character”, the one with a story for every occasion, has experienced almost everything. In our case this person has lived a pretty incredible life and is totally devoted to our neighborhood. He also happens to be our president and is the one who conducts our meetings. Being a “character” and the president can lead to some really long meetings with a lot of stories, most of which we have heard before. I should also mention that tact is not his strongest suit.

So last night we endured a mind numbing long presentation from the elders services group, we were their first neighborhood presentation. We also had some fireworks between the president and the sergeant-at-arms over the railroad and their use of horns, resulting in raised voices and the possible resignation of the sergeant-at-arm, who also something of a “character.”

After all that we got down to new business and community concerns. The big issues related to dogs in the parks. (We have two neighborhood parks.) To be specific what dogs leave behind in the park that their masters are not picking up. We have installed doggie bag dispensers recently to address this issue, but apparently they are not being used.

The other issue was dogs off leash. And, here is were the meeting became truly interesting. One of the neighbors (A) said that her neighbor (B) routinely brings her dog to the park off-leash. Neighbor (A) gently reminded neighbor (B) that all dogs need to be on a leash. Neighbor (B) responded that her dog did not have to be on a leash because her doctor has written a note for the dog. ---- I’m telling you, you can’t make this stuff up!!----- I turned and put the questions to our neighborhood officer who hadn’t heard the story because he was talking to another neighbor. I said, “Drue, is it true that a person is exempt from the leash law if they have a doctor’s note?” He looked at me as if to say, is this a trick question. Then he looked around like maybe he was being punked or on Candid Camera. I’m sure it’s one of the stranger questions he’s gotten. For the record, the answer is NO.

Soldiers, care packages and "Free Mail"

2010-02-04T12:28:00.000-08:00

I adopted a new soldier several months ago. I don’t know anything about him since I haven’t had any communication from him yet. It’s not uncommon for soldiers to not communicate, or to only communicate a few times, so I’m not really worried about it. It is a strange kind of thing to write to someone you know almost nothing about. Basically I know that this soldier is male, his name, rank (if he hasn’t been promoted), his mailing address and that he is in the Army, deployed somewhere in Iraq.

This is precious little information. Today I started to order him a t-shit and realized I don’t know his size. I also don’t know what kind of snacks he likes, if he has any allergies, is a health food nut, the kind of work he does, or if he is in southern Iraq or northern Iraq (the temps and weather conditions can really vary). Does he like country music or rap music? Is he 6’5” or 5’5”? Does he read westerns or sci-fi? Is he craving hot and spicy chips, or a moon pie? Does he need a set of sheets, or a sand scarf? Does he have access to a micro wave, or a freezer? These are all very helpful things to know when you are putting together a care package.

When organizing a care package there are some things you know are always welcome, like a brand new pair of socks, or something silly that will make them laugh. Over the years I have mailed blankets, pillows, books, movies, toys, games, puzzles, flash lights, bungee cords, duct tape, funnels, coloring books, crayons, markers, pens, paper, and even a set of horse shoes. I’ve also sent a lot of food and snacks: canned meat and soups, homemade cookies, cakes, soups, pickles and breads, tons of chips and candies, and mountains of jerky and gum.

I’ve also sent themed boxes for various holidays and other occasions, as well as the run of the mill boxes. I start with a military flat rate box and then stuffed to the gills with whatever I think a soldier might need or enjoy. I also try to include enough that they can share with buddies. The key to cramming the maximum amount into a care package is to take most things out of their original packaging. You also need to put liquid or goopy items like shampoo into zip lock bag just in case they burst open. I really like the vacuum sealed bags for large bulky items like blankets, sheets, and pillows. I can actually get all that into one box and still include bedtime story book.

As a Soldiers’ Angel member we always want to know how much a box weighs. My personal best is 17 lbs. Any angel you talk to can tell you their best.

I also like to decorate the boxes I send. We started doing this when my brothers were in the Navy. We wanted them to know how much we missed them. We also wanted them to be able to pick out their boxes right away. My youngest brother says he used to grab a forklift, put his box on the forks, then raise them all the way up and drive around showing his boxes off. He said was always became really popular at about that time. LOL

Building a box is really an involved activity. If you’re like me you have the post office deliver 25-50 flat rate boxes, with custom forms, to your house at a time so you don’t have to rely on the local post office having them. So, first you have to get all the stuff together. This could require you to do some shopping, cooking, knitting, sewing, or whatever. You will need to clean off your kitchen table to have room for everything, stack it all up on one end of the table. At the other end you will need to decorate, address and tape your box up. Then comes the packing, you need to distribute the weight, also try to cushion fragile items. Socks are great for this! Save really small and flat items for the last. Use the small items like gum and individually wrapped candies, lip balm, band-aids, to fill the gaps, and then lay the flat things like a letter, card, or magazine on the top. Then you have to tape it closed and start on the custom form. Of course if you are me, you will have to open the box at least twice to squeeze in something you forgot. Also if you are like me you will likely mess up the customs from on the very list thing and have to start all over again. They are such a pain!!!

Once all this is done you get to carry it down to the post office for mailing. This can be a hassle but I go to my local Hallmark shop, where there is a post office in the back. After I get through with my mailing I like to look around and I usually find something to put in the next box.

After all this work, there will come a day when you check your mailbox and see the thing that is most prized by all Soldiers Angels, a letter with “Free Mail” written where the stamp should be. This letter has been mailed from a combat zone. You are so excited you can’t wait to get to the house to read it, you tear it open on the spot and start to read what your soldier has written to you. You read it at least three times before you tack it your bulletin board with all your other Free Mail, then you get online and tell all your Angel friends that you just received Free Mail!!

NOTE: To learn more about adopting a deployed soldier visit www.soldiersangels.org

Gardening

2010-02-03T08:59:00.000-08:00

I have been starting seeds for my vegetable garden. This is only my second year to have a garden so I’m still in the learning stages. Last year we started plants from seed too, but we just started everything at the same time and planted it all in the garden at the same time. Learned a few things from that!! So this year I have been visiting websites, using catalogs from local seed companies, and reading books and pamphlets on gardening. A lot of it just confuses me but I did find this awesome planting chart that tells you how far apart to plants things, what seeds to start inside, and which to plant directly into the garden. It also tells you when to plant, how log before you can start to harvest, and tons of other info that I don’t really know how I’ll use just yet.

So, for the last two evening, as I watch TV, I’ve been starting seeds in trays. This is the time to start eggplant, peppers and tomatoes. I have everything set up on the coffee table, I have 7 trays with 72 starter pellets in each, a knife to open the seed packets, and a pair of tweezers for placing exactly 2 seeds into each little starter glob of dirt. Oh yeah, I also have a table lamp set up because I need more light to see what the hell I’m doing. Those seeds are wicked small. All those years of playing Operation as a child have finally paid off!

What I realized is that even though it seems like they don’t put very many seeds in a packet, they really do. On average I’ve started about 36 of each and that is using only about half of the seeds in a packet. So, I’m going to have more plants than I will have room in my garden for, and I still have all these seeds left over with not dirt for them. Nature is pretty incredible when you think about how many seeds a single plant can produce, it’s a wonder we aren’t overtaken by plants every day. I still hate to waste the seeds I didn’t use, so I’m saving them and keeping them with their envelopes and I will pass them on to the neighborhood school which has a garden where the kids learn to become gardeners. As for the extra plants I grow, I will share them with my neighbors, or maybe I’ll get a booth at the local farmers market and sell them. I would be like a real farmer! LOL

Some of the things I really like about gardening are:
-- I like getting out and moving around, which I really need to do that
-- I get a kick out of watching the plants grows
-- I feel completely accomplished when I pick and use what I’ve grown
-- I love sharing the harvest with my family, friends and neighbors
-- I feel a sense of connection with my ancestors who were farmers
-- I like that I know exactly how and where my food was grown
-- I enjoy when the kids come by and they get to pick something, they get so excited
-- I like watching my cat pretend to be a jungle cat as she slinks through the plants
-- I enjoy sitting on the patio and listening to the wind rustle the corn as the sun sets

Marines and flight attendants

2010-02-02T14:16:00.001-08:00

Email a former adopted solider of mine (we’ll call him “John”) the other day, I learned that he is back in school and studying something to do with aviation. I asked what his degree would lead to as a job and laughingly asked if it would qualify him to become a flight steward. He laughed and said he was sure that wasn’t in his future.

Now John is a Marine, and I adopted him during his Iraq deployment in 2005-2006. He’s still in the Marines.

I got to thinking, what if all flight attendants were members of the military? How would that pre-flight safety presentation change?

“Hi, I’m Sgt John of the US Marine Corp, and I’ll be your flight attendant today. OohRah! In the case of emergency you will receive clear and forceful direction from me, and you will obey. As for any terrorists that might be on this plane I will be carrying my side arm, and I am trained in hand-to-hand combat and will use extreme prejudice. To anyone else that wants to get snippy with me or cause a disturbance, I have advanced training in clipping elbows with a drink cart.”

John thought this was really funny. We decided that it would make YouTube about 3 seconds after the plane landed.

TV ads, what are they thinking?

2010-01-28T16:01:00.000-08:00

I’ve been seeing some crazy ads on TV lately. There is one where this guy is going on and on about how rugged his new SUV is and how it can get him where he wants to go. They show him, with his SUV, on the very top a mountain and he’s standing on the edge of the drop off getting ready to sky down the mountain. Dude! He drove up alone and is now leaving his brand new SUV on top of a mountain covered in snow!! I’m not sure this is the demographic the auto sellers really want appeal to, they are too stupid to live long enough to pay off the loan.

Also there is this ad for Oreos with Donald Trump and his double. Who thought this was a good idea? The Donald is not the most attractive guy, or personable for that matter. Who thought having him hawk Oreos was appetizing? And, one Donald wasn’t enough, they had to double him? Yuck!! He must have bought the Oreo brand. That is the only explanation that makes sense. Crazy!

And the toilet paper commercials with the bears in the woods. They are talking about how their toilet paper doesn’t leave paper behind, and you can use less of it to get the job done. Hummm, do bears really worry about this? Is this a topic on which I would consider a bear an expert, or even knowledge? Wouldn’t any kind of paper get stuck in all that fur? What are they doing with all that used toilet paper? Doesn’t seem environmentally friendly.

Ear rings as self defense

2010-01-21T14:12:00.000-08:00

Ear rings aren’t just a nice fashion accessory; they are a defense mechanism for some of us. I know, you’re asking how could I possibly defend myself using an ear ring. Is Rhetta fixing to break loose with some weird, SEAL inspired self defense tips? You could be asking yourself just what kind of ear rings I’ve been wearing? Maybe some of those fighting stars all the ninjas use? And how do I keep from having them cut up my neck and ears while I wear them? That’s me Super Ninja Girl!

Actually, in this instance I’m talking about emotional defense. As an example I give you the experience of a good friend. She went to get her hair cut and the stylist got a little carried away cutting her hair way shorter than usual, and shorter than my friend was comfortable with. She’s a tough cowgirl and decided there was nothing she could do about it; after all it wasn’t like all that hair could be re-attached. I know there are hair extensions, but like I said my friend is a down-to-earth sort of person with a real life, not into self torture or being overly self indulgence. She knew it would grow out soon enough, so she sucked it up and went about her life.

Well…..about a week later she join our little group for one of our Ladies Nights and was a little fluster. She’d had a pass thrown at her, and it wasn’t by an eligible bachelor, it was by another woman. This was a first for her. Of course, the first question we all asked her was, “Were you wearing your ear rings?” She had to admit that she had forgotten them that day. Until her hair grew out, she made it a point to carry an extra pair of ear rings in her purse and keep a pair in her desk at work.

Oddly enough I just heard a very similar story from a co-worker today. She has a new and very short hair cut she did not intend to get. She voiced concerns about unwanted attention if she forgot her ear rings.

So, ear rings are important for emotional self-defense, or at least the belief that we are safe. Because, as we all know lesbians never wear ear rings. LOL

Boring naked people

2010-01-19T10:40:00.000-08:00

I was listening to the OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) the other day and they were discussing a new law that has been adopted by the City of Ashland that prohibits nudity in open public areas. Blah, blah, blah, blah…. We needed this law because we’ve had three strange instances over the past two years involving nude people. And the other side… We should have the right to be nude anytime and any place we want, it’s part of our freedom of speech, and our right to protest.

Now I could only take about 10 minutes of this before I was bored to tears. It’s really just one bunch of people over reacting to a few odd incidents, and another bunch of people that just want to run around naked. I mean really, how irrelevant dose your life have to be that you’re willing to devote this much energy to this topic?

Why would anyone think that going naked to protest something will get them taken serious? I’ve only heard of one time where it really made an impact and that was over 200 years ago. Young women were commonly stripped and publicly flogged for fairly minor offenses, while men and older women were either not punished, or if they were it never involved public nudity. A woman of a certain age and several friends committed infractions they knew would get a younger woman stripped and flogged. They insisted that they be treated the same as the younger women. The stripping stopped for all women. Basically she was pointing out that nude women being flogged was more about titillation for the male population than punishment.

There will always be crackpots who feel they need more attention and will decide to commit outrageous acts to get it. For some this will mean riding a bike around town in a hemp g-string, riding the bus pantless, or walking around in their birthday suit. Why someone chooses to get attention this way is a mystery, but I guess it’s less harmful than some other things people do.

Back home if we saw someone walking around naked we would have assumed that someone’s very slow relative had gotten loose and needed help getting home. If we saw a large number of naked people, we would assume that there was a short bus somewhere close missing it’s riders and they needed help finding their way back.

Middle aged?

2010-01-11T12:08:00.000-08:00

I visited a blog site where an interesting question was posed, in essence it was about what do middle aged people want to be called. Hummmm. Very good question! Everyone seemed to agree that middle aged wasn’t quite getting it. Middle of what? Life? We are more the between age, like between birth and death, parenthood and grandparenthood, angst ridden and grumpy, clueless and know-it-all, taunt & perky and wrinkled & sagging. I’m not sure I’d like to be called between aged any better then middle aged. So, what’s the answer?

I’ve really been thinking about this, I think I might have come up with some better options, or at least different suggestions:

The Revered Ones: Who doesn’t want to be revered? Hey, we’ve put in the time and learned a lot. I figure later we could be called The Most Revered Ones. I think both levels should have to be addressed with our title, making me Revered Rhetta Drennan and later Most Revered Rhetta Drennan. There would be harsh penalties for failure to address us properly. The title would also come with extensive special privileges, like whacking idiots in the back of the head when they prove their status.

Interesting Individuals: Let’s face it young people just aren’t as interesting as they think they are. I mean what have they done? We on the other hand have lived long enough to do things, learn things and to have overcome things. We know more than what is between the covers of People magazine, and on Extra TV. Speak of between the covers, we know quite a bit more about that too.

And my favorite, the Spicy Set! I’m not sure this would apply equally to men and woman, since I don’t think men are as spicy in “middle age” as women. Women seem to really hit their stride at this time and gain a whole new level of appreciation for themselves and embrace their freedom. Where we used to hold our tongue for fear of saying the wrong thing, or hurting someone’s feelings, now we’re laying it all out there and daring everyone to deal with it. We’re finally free of kids, and in many cases husband, and we’re going out to do the things we want to do. We’re eating spicy food, drinking adult beverages on a week nights, and being loud and rowdy. At the same time we’re volunteering our time and skills, and nurturing our grandchildren. We ROCK!

Bottom line…. There are so many better descriptions than “middle aged.”

Getting ready to grow

2010-01-11T11:00:00.000-08:00

I’m so excited, I have ordered my first ever seed catalogues!! Last year I put in my first ever real garden. It was a lot of work, but I really enjoyed it. I learned that I really don’t know much about gardening, but I didn’t let that stand in my way. Danna and I went to the garden shops and garden sections of stores and bought starters and seeds. We built some raised beds, and got to work. We planted corn, tomatoes, two kinds of peppers, garlic, two kinds of onions, green beans, peas, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, basil, three kinds of lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, and pumpkin.

We have varying degrees of success. A couple of our seeds turned out to be something other than marked on the packages. For instance our corn did well but it was not sweet corn, and not worth eating. Our red bell peppers were just plain ole green ones, and our spinach was actually basil. Likewise our cucumber starts where not all English Cucumber, but they were all cucumbers. On the plus side, our Giant Pumpkins were massive. I donated the largest to the local elementary school where the kids made guesses on how much it weighed. A neighbor girl won with a guess that was just one pound short to the 97 pound total.

This year I’m hoping to do better with seed choices and starts. I want to find a really good pickling cucumber for this area. I put up about 20 quarts of pickles and that wasn’t near enough. I only put up a couple of quarts of tomatoes which was really pitiful! I learned that peas and beans need more light, and I really want to get the right corn seed this year!!

In an effort to do better I have ordered catalogues from two places within the Willamette Valley hoping to find seeds to meet my needs. I just can’t wait for them to show up in my mailbox. Everyday I check my box hoping to find them, but so far no show. I feel like Ralphy looking for his Little Orphan Annie decoder ring. (Christmas Story reference) I have my graph paper and pencils all lined up and ready to go. I’ve got my plan for expanding the garden another 10 feet by 3 feet. I’ve been exploring new trellis options, and I’ve got my tools primed and ready to go. I’m also going over my Northwest Gardener handbook.

Stay tuned for the growing.

Cell phones, clocks and Alzheimer's

2010-01-07T11:55:00.000-08:00

I’m having a bit of a love hate thing going on right now with cell phones. In the past the hate thing was typically reserved for my former service provider, Sprint. (Don’t even get me started on what a horrible, no good, rotten company they are. I could go on for ever!) Today my issues are related to four things:

My phone is showing the wrong time. It’s off by about 8 minutes. It’s slow. Now I don’t spend a lot of time looking at the clock on my phone, in fact I spend very little because I can’t see it without putting my glasses on. (It’s hell getting older!) Most of the time I refer to clocks on the wall or across the room that I can see without glasses. Here’s my problem, when I need to set one of these other clocks, I’ve been setting them by my phone. This morning, when the person on the radio mentioned the time I happen to be looking at my alarm clock, set to my phone’s clock, and realized why I have been running late for the past week.

Now, I had to reset the time on my phone. I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to do it and could never figure it out. So, of course today I was even later getting to work. Apparently I can set the alarm for the clock on my phone, but not the clock itself. Technology, don’t you just love it!

Periodically, like every 3-4 months the ability of my phone to receive email just goes away. You have to reset it. I’m assuming this is some kind of security function, and I’ve asked to have it remove. Apparently they can’t. Now, most people don’t have a problem resetting their email function. It is a very simple thing to do that really takes only a few seconds. They are smart enough to remember how to do this for themselves. Not me. I’m still going in every time to ask one of the very nice people in the AT&T store to reset mine. I should be able to do this! I feel so defeated!

Just about everyone I work with on a construction project has a cell phone. So, why is it that every time I absolutely need to talk to one of them right away, I can’t get them? Of course this is the same thing that happens when I need to talk to individuals not related at all to work. It’s like a universal constant, if it’s imperative that you talk to someone right away, there is no way in hell you can get a hold of them. Why is that?

As frustrating as these things are I still love my Blackberry and I’m still glad that the people I work with are generally accessible. I think cell phones are great. I even read this morning that a scientific study has shown that cell phone use by Alzheimer’s prone mice cut the occurrence of that disease by 68%. I have no idea who the mice were calling, if their phone kept better time than mine, or if they could reset their email functions, but I’m feeling a lot better about my mental health in old age.

Men, women and exceptions

2010-01-06T15:10:00.000-08:00

My girly peeps and I were together the other night and we got to talking about men. I must admit this is a common subject for us. We usually talk about how we don’t understand them, or how we do, or how different they are from women. There are sub-sets of these conversations, like: grumpy old men, real hot men, what-were-we-thinking men, and so on.

That night we were discussing how different men are from women, and they really are. Years ago I watch a show where they took groups of people and ran them all through the same tests. There were clear differences between the sexes. For instance, men really are very good at navigating and women can multi-take like crazy. What was really interesting about this study is that even thought there were very clear skills that men general did much better than women, and that women did much better than men, every person was an exception to the rule in at least one area.

Think about it for a minute. Science has proven that we’re all exceptional. That’s pretty cool. It’s something our family and friends are always telling us, but we don’t really believe them. Now, science has proven it. Of course science may not mean it in the same way as family and friends.

During our conversation, Danna cited a saying she had hear, “Men are like waffles and women are like spaghetti.” I laughed. I’d never heard this and could not figure out any logic to this statement. Then she explained. Men are like waffle because they have little compartments for everything. They need to leave one compartment and go to another to deal with that issue. Women are like spaghetti because everything is mixed up and tangled with everything else. It’s so true, except for the exceptions. :-)

Winter rant and finger prints

2010-01-05T16:23:00.000-08:00

This will be my winter rant, hopefully not to be repeated again until next year, in hopefully a different and even more entertaining form.

The Pacific Northwest has a particularly dreary form of winter. The world is encased in a thousand shades of damp grey. At times it’s like your looking out the window at the ghost of the world, not quite the real thing. When the fog settles with an icy bite, it will feel like the world is collapsing in on you.

As if the grey and wet aren’t enough, let’s add a little light deprivation into the mix. Our days are short, really short. I get to work in the dark and go home in the dark. It’s like living on a vampire’s schedule, and we’re not talking a sexy hip vampire lifestyle! This is more the old grandma vampire lifestyle. We’re all cranky and likely to bite!

We’re more than a little desperate for some sun. Of course when it comes we will all be blinded by the light, just like mole people. It’s a wonder any of us can see at all moving between two extremes: sun all summer and no sun all winter. In the summer we have sunglasses, and this part of the country buys more of them than anywhere else. But, I’m thinking what we need are glasses that block out the gloom in the winter. Where are the really useful scientific breakthroughs when you need them?

Another thing that needs developing are finger print readers for computers. How lame is it that we are all trying to remember so damn many logins and passwords? What we need to be using are finger prints. We all have them, and it’s not like we’re going to forget them anywhere. You either have the right finger print or you don’t.

Question: I you your finger across the pad, will a finger print reader still read your fingerprint? Do you have to wait for it to heal? Will a new scar foil the system? Just asking!

Bomber detection

2009-12-30T12:07:00.000-08:00

OK, not to beat a dead horse (just where do saying like that come from anyway?) but this whole bombs-on-planes thing and how to prevent it, is just not working for me. I know the government is trying to come up with ways to detect threats and deal with them, but I don’t think they have hit the right balance yet. I’ve decided to throw in a few ideas of my own.

1. Have everyone on a flight put to sleep before they are loaded onto the plane, and do not wake them up until they are taken off the plane. This policy could cure a lot of problems for the airlines, like having to sit on the tarmac, noisy children, rude passengers, etc… No one would care.

2. Make it a requirement that everyone deposit their family as hostages while in flight and they would not be allowed loose until you have deplaned. Those flights to Europe and Asia are going to be hell on the family too.

3. Have everyone fly naked, and then try not to laugh.

4. Make it mandatory that a passenger must sign a legal waiver to their right to any and all virgins. That should dramatically cut back on the men willing to commit suicide.

5. Issue spare shoes and X-ray vision glasses to all persons entering an airport. If you detect a strange item you can then beat any suspected bomb totting flyers with the shoe when you find them. But you know they would buy the cheapest shoes possible so we will be beating terrorist with those paper thin flip-flops you get with a pedicure.

6. Instead of the same old safety lecture that the attendants give, how about a briefing on the most effective ways to take down a terrorist? That should cause some second thoughts.

7. All passengers should be handcuffed to each other, like a long chain. No one could do anything without it being noticed. It would also make potty breaks interesting.

Well, there are seven solid actions that could be taken to cut back on this kind of lunacy. I’m sure TSA is at this moment gearing up to incorporate them all. So be prepared the next time you fly. Of course, you might want to consider the train or bus as an alternative.

Bombs and security

2009-12-29T10:08:00.000-08:00

OK, how do you get a bomb on a plane? I really want to know the answer to this question because I have yet to get on a plane without having to leave something with security.

In my case, the repeat offender is my pocket knife. I carry a tiny Swiss Army knife. It has a nail file, a pair of scissors, a toothpick, a pair of tweezers and a tiny blade. A blade that is two inches long, max. I could stab you all day long with this blade and never cause you serious damage. If a Navy Seal had his choice between this blade and a piece of paper for defense, he’d choose the paper. If I pulled this on someone, the biggest threat would be that they would laugh themselves to death. And yet, I’ve had to leave dozens of these at air ports, and other security stations. I’m beginning to think this is Swiss Army’s diabolically plan to boost sales.

Pregnant soldiers and Prince William

2009-12-22T14:53:00.000-08:00

Ok, today I read that the Army commander in northern Iraq has issued a no pregnancy order for all soldiers while in his theater of war. Apparently several female soldiers have become pregnant and they, along with the fathers who are also soldiers, have been issued letter of reprimand. Well, there is just all kinds of flak over this!

I personally think the order was pretty much a no-brainer. Getting pregnant in a war zone, when you have the ability to prevent it, should be regulation. I mean, can we say, “Duh!” For one thing I know for a fact that the military medical plan covers birth control. For another, how stupid are you to be having unprotected sex? (Which is just another whole rant I could go on.) I mean really, who goes to war and thinks getting pregnant is a good family plan? OK, obviously they aren’t thinking.

I’m not naive, I know when you put man and women together, in any way, some of them are going to invariably exercise bad judgment or a total lack of judgment, and end up in a physical relationship. But for Pete’s sakes don’t jump all over the one person who had enough presence of mind to anticipate the problem and try to put something in place to deal with it. If I were the one in charge, all the women would be put on mandatory birth control, and the men too, as soon as it becomes available.

And you just know the Muslim extremists are going to be all over this as an example of American immorality. This behavior just leads to worse treatment for woman soldiers who end up as prisoners of war! It also increases concern about the kind of protection women in the population can really expect from an male American soldier. This kind of blatant behavior should be treated in the same vain as putting a fellow soldier in danger.

I’m really disappointed that this commander is backing off of his policy because of pressure. At least he’s opened the door and hopefully the military will consider a real, and comprehensive policy to address this. Maybe they should hire mothers my age to act as chaperones and house mothers. LOL

Also in the realm of the stupid and bizarre, apparently Prince William spent the night out on the mean streets of London as a homeless person to better understand their plight. Not to take away from his wanting to do good, but really, who believes for a moment that his spending a night as a homeless person is anything like the real thing? It’s just ludicrous!

In the article they talked about how it was 24 degrees out, they had to sleep behind trash bins, and that they could have been roughed up by thugs. Oh please!!!!! The photo says it all. The alley looked like it had been scrubbed within an inch of its life, and they have a lot of bedding laying around for some supposedly homeless guys. And I wonder how many body guards were posted in the area? Homeless experience my tookus! As for the 24 degrees, he wears a kilt in Scotland for mercy’s sake, and he’s been military trained, I’m sure it wasn’t too tough to handle.

I love Prince William, but in this instance, I think his handlers have not done a very good job. He should have cleaned out REI and handed all the stuff out to the homeless, that would have been much more helpful to them.

Making a difference, and keeping soldiers safe

2009-12-21T11:58:00.000-08:00

As you all know I am a supporter of the Central Asia Institute (CAI), a wonderful organizations that is changing the world, and doing it on a shoe string.

As you all also know, I am the mother of two Army solders. When I donate to CAI, I do so with the firm belief that I am taking a positive action that will keep my children safer, as well as other US soldiers.

For the past 15 years I have worked as a community organizer, and outreach specialist for the City of Portland. It has been clear to me from the beginning of our conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq that military force alone will never solve our problems. I feel strongly that self determination and strong, healthy communities are the answer. Thee Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools are books that follow the life of Greg Mortenson and his work in founding and establishing the CAI. They also chronicle the ongoing work they are doing. Their successes reinforce my belief that I have always been right about the power of community.

In 1993 Greg suffered a life changing failure. As a member of a mounteering team set to make the final assault on the summit of K2, he not only failed to reach his goal, he also failed in fulfilling a promise to leave a memento at the summit in honor of his sister who had recently passed away. Broken in spirit and depleted in body, he had to make his way down the mountain on foot with his guide. As he crossed the glacier, he became lost. Later, sick and at the end of his physical limits, he became separated from his guide and wandered into a very small village in northern Pakistan. He didn’t know where he was, or even who he was. For days this village that could barely feed and cloth itself cared for Greg and nursed him back to health.

From this monumental failure and seemingly divine intervention, Greg discovered his true calling, to build schools for girls in the most remote areas imaginable. His beginnings were rough and it took him years before he recognized the calling he had received. Now the CAI is building schools, literacy centers, water treatment systems, and good will all over Pakistan and Afghanistan. In areas where extremist madrasas have been the main source for education for young males of limited resource, and breading ground for Taliban and Al Quida, CAI is making a difference.

Before CAI will build a school the community must agree to several things, 1) that girls will be allowed to attend just as boys are. 2) that the village will donate the land, 3) that the village will be responsible for monitoring the construction. Together the CAI and the village become partners in the project. In the end the village owns the school, and as a community they are responsible for it’s success with support from CAI.

Greg’s books are required reading at the Pentagon and Special Forces training in counter insurgency classes. The U.S. military have been quick to see that bombs will not win a lasting peace, but education might. The militaries of the U.S., Pakistan, and Afghanistan, as well as local mujahidin leaders have become supporters of the work CAI does because they know how valuable it is.

If you are looking for a great gift to give, consider either Three Cups of Tea, or Stones into Schools, and if you are looking for a worthy organizations to donate to, consider the Central Asia Institute.

Tis the season

2009-12-21T10:41:00.000-08:00

This past weekend my sister and I did our annual baking marathon. Three days of cakes, fudge, and assorted goodies we share with our friends, neighbors, co-workers and family. After all the cooking was completed we still had to package it all up and make out card to the more than 30 individuals, families and organizations on our list. It’s quite the job, but very rewarding in the end!

Some of this year’s highlights were the constant battle to keep the dog, kids and cat out from under our feet; a few burned fingers, the mystery of the non-rising cake, and the moment when Rusty (the dog) made off with a cake.

I happy to report that we now have dipping and swirling down to an art, and we’ve added a great new Bundt pan to our inventory of cooking tools. Also, our old hand-me-down antique table with six leaves is still indispensible for laying everything out, and working on. It has to be the best investment my great-great grandmother ever made!

The cutest item rendered from a kitchen this weekend did not come from my kitchen, it came from Jason and Emma’s. They made gingerbread men and women holding hands, to represent themselves. They were as cute and Jason and Emma are, which is to say, too cute for words!

Still on my list of things to do this season, is to get a tree in our park decorated. Me and few other neighbors will randomly choose a tree in our park and hang decorations. The idea is to do it when there are as few people as possible in the park, and to do it as quickly as possible. We want it to seem as if it has just appeared. We always have a great time with this. Last year there was almost two feet of snow on the ground so that was different.

As we all know, I am not a fan of interacting with snow on a personal level. I firmly believe that, as for as I am concerned, snow should be enjoyed through glass. However, many among us hold different views for themselves. All the kids and Matt, are on watch for snow, not that there is any inkling of it in the forecast. Matt has his snowmen already planned out and kids just want to play in it. Matt is planning to build a classic snowman, but with a depressed frown, holding a blow dryer to his head. Last year is was a snowman trying to out swim snow sharks.

As a new treat this winter, I have decided to start a snow sculpture contest for our neighborhood. Since snow is something we can never depend on, there is no way of knowing when the contest can be held. I kind of like that!

Have a Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year!

When will home be "home"?

2009-12-17T14:37:00.001-08:00

You know I moved to the Pacific Northwest, Portland area, from Houston almost 21 years. That’s a long time! I’ve attended college here, raised my children here, bought two homes, and made incredible friends here. So, why do I still refer to Texas as “home”?

I constantly find myself saying things like, “Back home, we would ….” Do other people who have moved her from other places find themselves making the same kind of statements? Will we ever completely move our hearts as far as we have moved our bodies?

Why isn’t here “home”? What is it my mental make up that keeps me rooted in Texas? Is it me or is it Texas? Is it the memories of youth warring with the adult ones? I just don’t know the answer to these questions, but for some strange reason, even though I’ve lived and worked in four states other than Texas, that is were my mind takes me when it thinks “home”. There is still a part of me that still longs for Texas, but when I go for a visit I always come back to the Pacific Northwest happy that I live here instead of there.

There are many things I miss about Texas, and probably just as many things I’m glad to be separated from, like my two ex-husbands. That’s right I’m just like George Strait, all my exes like in Texas, but I don’t feel like I’m stuck here. I really miss the family I still have there. I also miss the indefinable quality of that pervades life there. The pride in your state, a pride that has the whole state covered in state outlines, and state flags. The sense that if you’re in Texas there’s just no other place anyone would want to be.

I also miss the particular flavor of Texas hospitality. People here hospitable, but Texas has different feel to it’s. I’m every place does, but it’s that Texas flavor I miss.

Although there are things about Texas that horrify me now when I return for visits, like everyone’s complete lack of interest in recycling, the constant boasting about Texas, and cultural divisions that aren’t even questions. I realize that I probably have a good portion of all those traits, but I guess I elect not to see them in myself. Funny how that works.

So, I’m going to try to feel more like a Northwesterner, and less like a Texan in the new year. I’m not sure how successful I will be. I guess I’d better get out and visit the nearest REI and practice.

Death, horror and the human spirit

2009-11-30T14:10:00.000-08:00

Last week every time I turned around I heard another horrific story about death, dying, and on the verge of dying. It reached the point that I was afraid to start a conversation with anyone! It was horrible!

At a holiday party on Saturday everyone was asked to state something they were thankful for. I didn’t have to think for a moment, I’m thankful my family is healthy!! And, I’m praying we all stay that way!!

When you think about it, it’s pretty amazing what a human body and spirit can endure. Not only endure, but come back from. How, as a specie, we seem to be predisposed to overlook, overcome, and move past the most awful things and grow. This isn’t the first time I’ve made this observation, but it still catches at times and humbles me.

As most of you know my son was severely wounded while deployed in Iraq. He lost his left leg and nearly died. At the time, his wounds and rehabilitation was all consuming, but now I hardly ever think about it and I’m always a little surprised when someone asks me how my son is doing. I have to stop a second to remember what they are talking about. He’s great, at least when he isn’t ticking me off.

One of the stories I heard recently was about a family where the wife (44) died unexpectedly, then the husband (44) died of cancer, the cat died of cancer, and father died of a heart attach, all within one week. The mother is left behind and grief stricken as you can imagine, but at some point in the future she and the rest of the family will move past all this, as inconceivable as that seems to them now.

I caught a part of a show over the weekend about the trade in sex slave in the U.S. Not my usual sort of viewing, but as I listened to this one young woman talk about her experiences and the absolute horror and terror she lived through day after day, I kept thinking how can she still be sane, and how does someone get over that? How does she go on to live a normal life? Yet there she was doing just that.

When I worked in North Portland, I met an older gentleman who was always so pleasant and cheerful. You would have thought he had lived a charmed life, and I think he would have told you that he had. I found out later that he was a survivor of the Bataan Death March, the only member of his military team to survive. None of it showed on him.

As humans we are amazing creatures. I wonder what it is in us that allows us to not only survive such awful events, but to grow beyond them. Without this ability I’m sure humans would be long since extinct by now.

Stuff, littler stuff, and needing your stuff

2009-11-24T13:21:00.000-08:00

Well, Thanksgiving is almost here and for the most part my workload on the job is slowing down a bit. Of course the work required at home is picking up. I guess I shouldn’t complain. My daughter, Kristin, called today to say the movers will be there to pick up their stuff tomorrow. I can’t imagine having to pack-up everything you own and trusting it in the hands of total strangers. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve moved, a lot! But, I never left my stuff with strangers. I’d be a nervous wreck.

Not only are total stranger moving them, but they will not see their stuff for over a month! They will be visiting relatives for the next 30 days. Once they finally land in the same state as their stuff, they will still need to find housing before their stuff can be delivered. I would suffer so much separation anxiety that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself.

I remember when I was young, in my teens; I used to daydream about how great it would be to travel the world with a backpack and a bed roll. That so does not sound appealing now! My daydream now is to travel the world by being molecularly transported to locations around the world with my house, shop and garage. Because, I just might need something and it would be so much handier to have everything there. Not to mention I could sleep in my own bed, with my own pillows every night. I’d have my car and all the things I know so well. Not to mention a bathroom handy.

I like that commercial on TV where the girl jumps out of her big jacked-up truck, hits the lock on her keychain, and then hits another button and the whole thing folds itself up until it will fit in her little tiny purse. That is brilliant!! You don’t have to worry about paying for parking, someone hitting it, or it being stolen. And, if you’re at the mall, you don’t have to walk back a mile to get to it, its right there in your purse when you’re ready to go. We need scientists and engineers working on this kind of technology. You know something really useful to everyone!!

Parent of whiney, crying babies could maybe do the same thing, especially when they bring them on plains!!

Leafing along in the Northwest

2009-11-13T11:46:00.001-08:00

I haven’t written in awhile, and that was brought home to me at a gathering on Wednesday evening where a few people mentioned my lapse. So I’ve decided to take keyboard in hand and log an entry in the ole blog.

Trees have been my life lately, at work and off work. At work I talk to citizens about which tree they want planted in the stormwater facility on their street, whether they want a tree in the facility, how and why we are trimming the trees in their neighborhood, why we are cutting trees, and how lateral sewer connections affect their tree roots. I should be a frick’in arborist! Yesterday afternoon we had our quarterly get together offsite, to do brainstorming. Guess what one of the topics was…that’s right, TREES. To be specific, how to get more people to plant street trees.

At home my interaction with trees is less stressful, it involves watching leaves change color, and observing how they tumble and dance around in the wind. I love fall in the northwest! The color is inspiring, and uplifting to the spirits. There are a few downsides to them though. For one, there is the raking, and two, the slipping and falling when they get wet and begin to decompose. With the amount of rain we get this time of year leaves can be problematic, but I love them anyway.

Speaking of weather, we have officially entered the rainy season, which means we will experience precipitation in one form or another pretty much every day from now until June. This situation is the main reason more sunglasses are sold in the northwest than in any other part of the country. We are all so light deprived that the smallest amount of sun will blind us.

This weather is also the reason that almost everyone keeps multiple pairs of shoes under their desk at work. I personally have a pair of closed clogs, a pair of open clogs, a pair of lace-up leather shoes, and two pairs of boots. You never know what you will need to get through a day. In fact, I need to go shoe shopping for some new commuter shoes that will keep me from tripping on all the leaves. So I’ll leaf you now to embark on other duties. (I know, it’s a real groaner!)

The greatest gift

2009-10-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

The past two weeks I was on vacation. My daughter and granddaughter came for a visit. It was wonderful!! My daughter is such a wonderful spirit and an incredible mother!!

My granddaughter is just too cute for words and one of my very favorite people in the whole world. In fact, she may be my very favorite person in the whole world. She will be two years old tomorrow and everything is new and interesting to her. It was amazing to see the world through her eyes. She felt totally accomplished when she discovered that she could pull a foot stool over to the wall, climb up and turn the lights on and off for herself.

She is going as Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz, for Halloween, and he mom still hadn’t been able to find a pair of ruby slipper for the costume. I brought home a pair and while she was sitting next to me I slowly opened the box to expose the shoes. Her eyes got really big and a grin spread across her face as she pointed and, filled with awe, whispered, “shoes.” She then immediately pulled the shoes she was wearing off and starting trying to get the new shoes on.

We wear shoes a pair at a time, but she feels on such restriction. She will wear a shoe from two different pairs at the same time, or will wear two pairs at once, a pair of her own and a pair of her father’s. She refused to be limited by the restrictive norms of society and good taste. She wants it all!

She loves to runs! She’s not trying to get any place in particular or be somewhere on time. She just wants to run for the pleasure of it. To make it even better she likes to chase things or have things chase her. She’s all go and no stop.

She likes pulling vegetables in the garden, blowing on dandelions, loading the dishwasher, feeding the cat, and coloring. There is nothing that doesn’t fascinate her and that she doesn’t want to be a part of. She is a learning machine, eager to soak everything in. While here she learned the Itsy Bitsy Spider song, how to feed chickens, about jack-o-lanterns, how to say a dozen new words, and the names of everyone she came across.

She is the most complete person I have ever known. She lives fully in every moment, and finds joy in it all. What a gift grandchildren are!

Personal ads and black holes

2009-10-05T14:35:00.000-07:00

The girls my friend Wendy works with have posted a personal ad for her. They gave a very good description of her and what she was looking for in someone she would consider dating: must have a long-term stable employment, must have his own place, and must be between 45 and 52. Wendy, like many women in their 40’s and 50’s looking to date, has a problem finding a man who can keep a job, or a place to live. I can’t tell you how many of my single friends have this problem. We’re so tired of men wanting us to take care of them. It’s not just cleaning and cooking anymore, it’s housing, paying bills and spending money! This is the major contributing factor us still being single. We’ve raised our kids, kicked out our deadbeat husbands. We’re ready for mature relationships with people that can and do take care of themselves. -- I hear all my sisters out there saying, “Amen! and Halleluiah!!”

Often people see a women in her 40’s, or older, who appear to have things well in hand and figures there must be something wrong, or she would be married. Guys figure she’s a real ball-buster or a lesbian, of course. If expecting a grown man to be able to take care of himself is being a ball-buster, then I guess we are.

As for being a lesbian, I’ve often thought how much easier that would be. I know a good number of lesbians, all with good jobs, long-term employment records, and their own places. Unfortunately I just can’t swing that way, I’m just too attracted to men, damn it!

Of course there are probably men out there wondering where are the women that aren’t looking for a man to take care of them. Women who can take care of themselves. Apparently we’re living in parallel universes, or on different plans of reality. And you know what that means……. we are not going to hook up until we all get sucked into a black hole. What are the odds it’ll be the right black hole?

Disturbing emails for Mom

2009-09-28T15:08:00.000-07:00

I received a couple of very disturbing emails from my mother last week. The first one was titled “Having trouble with squirrels in your bird feeder”. When I opened up the message there were four photos that opened with it. In this series of photos it shows:

Photo #1: a bear in a tree looking at a bird feeder hung on a line between the tree he is in and another.

Photo #2: the bear hanging from the line, headed toward the feeder

Photo #3: the bear at the feeder with his paw on it

Photo #4: the bear has wrapped himself around the feeder and is having lunch.

Now you all know me and this whole thing just begs a few questions: What kind of line are they using to hold this feeder, and where can you get it? Who was the fool standing there taking the photos? What the hell was in that feeder? Will the birds or squirrels ever use the feeder again? Is this bear sharing the location with other bears? One morning will the owners wake up to find multiple bears on the line? And will they still be taking pictures?

The second email was Halloween themed. It was of a, I suppose sumo wrestler, sitting bear bottomed on a stool with his big butt cheeks painted like a jack-o-lantern. Now, again, this just begs some questions: Who looked at a butt and thought jack-o-lantern? Who would think they wanted their butt painted orange with a jack face? And, why would that person allow it to be photographed? What kind of person takes pleasure in painting another person’s butt like a jack-o-lantern? And, last but not least, are they going to display this jack-o-lantern on Halloween and where are they going to stick the candle?

Champagne Divorces?

2009-09-28T14:35:00.000-07:00

Mom called the other day to see I was home, which I was. She wanted me to turn on the TV and watch a commercial for Champagne Divorces. I couldn’t believe it. This woman comes on and tells everyone that if you’re ready for a divorce you should talk to her ex-husband the divorce lawyer. She goes on to talk about how caring and gentle he is.

WHAT?!

If he’s such a great guy why are they divorced? Usually when you recommend someone’s services it because you’ve used them yourself. While I’m sure she’s used some of his services (wink, wink) did she really use him as her divorce lawyer? Seems unlikely.

Obviously he’s a very good lawyer; he has his ex-wife doing his commercials. Can there be any doubt that he has some real skills at negotiating a settlement? Not only can’t she tell the world what a crappy husband he was, she has to go on TV and recommend him!

What’s up with the name? Champagne Divorces? And why isn’t Robin Leach doing the commercials? I’m just not sure what kind of message is name sends. Obviously champagne is good for celebrating, but it’s usually for something life affirming like the beginning of a marriage, the start of a business, the launching of a ship. It just seems that divorce calls for something different. Rot Gut Divorces I could understand, or Crying In Your Beer Divorces, maybe even I’ll Never Drink Again Divorces, but Champagne?

If we have Champagne Divorce, you can bet that Caviar Prenups are not too far behind.

Quilt, shoes, pickles and a hatchet kick

2009-09-28T14:14:00.000-07:00

It’s been awhile since I’ve had time to write. Big goings-on in my life. I’m preparing for a visit from my daughter and granddaughter. I can’t wait for them to get here!! The quilt is coming along, I’ve finished the top and now need to get it quilted and finished off.

Have been shopping for winter clothes for Boo (my granddaughter, Michelle). I have found some really cute and good quality things. And, a lot of fun shoes since she is really fascinated by foot wear at the moment. I sent her some crazy, big house shoes that are shaped like frogs. They’re for adults but thought for a buck she could have some fun with them. Apparently she loves them and has discovered that they will make a rip-it sound. I had no idea they would do that when I bought them. My best find so far has been a set of six pairs of Disney princess slippers, and cowgirl boots with pink cut outs.

This weekend I found one of those big plastic play structures with a little slide. All the pieces slide into place, it’s like a giant Tinker Toy set. We took it apart, scrubbed it down and put it up in the backyard. It didn’t go back together quite as easily as it came apart, but luckily Matt was there and could give it something called a “hatchet” kick and that did the trick. Can’t wait to see the yard ape having fun on it!!

My daughter received the last box I sent, which had a bunch of stuff for Boo and two jars of homemade pickles for Kristin and her husband. Now you know she’s pregnant because she served Polish dill pickle for lunch with potato chips and PB&J sandwiches. LOL

Time for me and the cat

2009-09-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

My cat is feeling very neglected lately. I’ve worked late three nights straight. I barely have time to throw some cat food in her dish and fill here water bowl.

While I’m sitting on the couch watching T.V., the time I would usually be unwinding from the day and petting her, I’m now working on The Quilt. You know the one I started two years ago and that I’m now actually getting somewhere on? So, my cat is feeling really deprived of attention. The situation is made even harder because she won’t let anyone else touch her. There are scads of people who would love to cuddle with her and pet her, but she’s having none of that mess! Bless her heart.

In the mornings I usually give her a little petting while I’m putting on my socks. This morning she was so needy it was really kind of pathetic. I noticed that she had a sore between her shoulder blades so I put some antibiotic crème on it, and of course she didn’t care for that. She’s acting all mistreated and put upon. You would think I’ve committee animal abuse!

This evening I should get home at my regular time. YEAH!! There is a lot of housework I need to get caught up on, like changing out the litter box. But, I will be able to open the back door and let her roam around in the yard, which she loves, at least as long as I’m out there with her. That’s OK, I need to work on the garden, refill the bird feeder, pot some plants and any number of other things. Shit, I’m tired just thinking about it all!

Maybe this evening I can even find some time to just sit and give her a good petting. Now if only I could find someone to do the same for me. Or better yet, someone to change the litter box. I crack myself up!!!

Expedia is a piece of SH**!!!

2009-09-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, today is a rant day, so be warned.

Expedia is a piece of SH**!!!

Over the weekend I used their site to purchase airline tickets from Honolulu to Portland and back. Leaving Hawaii on Oct 10 and returning Oct 25. Big production, lots of excitement to get the dates just right.

I go in today to send the itinerary to my daughter and low and behold the return date is Oct 20. Obviously I called Expedia (that piece of SH**) and explain that there has been a mistake. So sorry, so sad, fork over $150.00. After two levels of supervisors and more then an hour and a half later, even after they admit I chose Oct 10 and Oct 25, so sorry, so sad, fork over $150.00. Their excuse? It’s not our fine it’s the airline’s. Yeah, but who’s system screwed up? So sorry, so sad, fork over $150.00.

Here is what I’ve learned:
---Don’t us Expedia (that piece of SH**!!) because they have a flaw in their system that they refuse to be responsible for
---Check your email confirmation as soon as you get it and call immediately, no matter how many tickets you’ve purchased in the past that have always been correct. (Still not sure this would have help, but just putting the company line out there. Those SH**s!!)
---Expedia is a piece of SH**!!!!!!

Woes and wonders

2009-09-09T13:24:00.000-07:00

As anyone who follows my blog knows, I have a real love/hate relationship with the weather. It’s a big factor on my overall general mood at any given time. In a lot of respects I’m like a cat. I don’t want to be wet, I don’t get how anyone could enjoy snow or ice except through glass, and the dog days of summer are NOT my cup of tea.

The last few days we have entered the first phase of the coat – no coat season. This is when the temps are cool enough in the morning to need a coat, but by 9:00 you’re looking to shed the coat and some clothes. Of course the problem is in the afternoon when you have to lug all your coat and clothes to the bus stop, and try not to look like a bag lady. I live in fear that someone is going to offer me a handout.

This is also the hack and hack some more season. This season is much longer and will in fact last until next summer. It starts with the nasty nose that all of a sudden needs to be blown every hour on the hour, then progressed to a much more frequent schedule. Your snot are long and stingy and could in fact be used as an industrial adhesive. Then comes that nasty little congestion in the back of your throat that causes you to do that cough and spit thing that is sooo attractive. You’re basically in a state of constant Kleenex readiness. You may leave home without a coat, but you always have Kleenex!

There are some things that balance this pesky season. For instance, we have already had a few mornings when the fog gathers in the low areas and depressions of the landscape to give the world a mystic flavor. This morning we had an incredible sky show of velvety purples and neon oranges, that lightened to a perfect Tequila Sunrise. Soon the leaves will be turning in mass, giving us a colorful landscape with wood smoke scenting the air, its enough to make Hallmark envious.

I guess Mother Nature really does know her business. To distract us from our blowing, hacking and shivering woos, she gives us a show we can’t take our eyes off of.

A quilt's tale

2009-09-08T13:57:00.000-07:00

About two years ago I started a quilt for my granddaughter. Because she was a girl, which we had been really hoping for since girls are so rare in our family, and because she was being born in Hawaii, I planned a Hawaiian quilt. On my first trip there, while my daughter was pregnant, I purchased a book of traditional designs, and some great Hawaiian print fabrics.

Once I got home I poured over my book and chose designs: an octopus, a turtle, a pineapple and various flowers. I worked the copier hard getting them copied at just the right size. I realized the turtle wouldn’t work for what I had planned and ended up having to come up with my own design. I got the fabric fused, then pinned the designs and cut them out.

At this point I realized I needed to develop my appliqué sewing skills. Up to this point in my life I have only used a very old straight stitch Singer sewing machine from the 1930’s. I found a new machine with a lot of bells and whistles, and an appliqué stitch at a garage sale that worked, but now I needed to learn how to use it. That has been a bit daunting. Since my granddaughter has been living in Hawaii, where it is always in the 80’s I haven’t felt a big need to get this little project finished. Of course now that her family is moving to northern Kansas in December, I’m felling the need to get this done. Not to mention that with the new baby due in March, I’ll need to get a second one planned and completed as well. The pressure!!

So, this weekend I took up the quilt project again. Now I have to tell you that I usually find things like sewing, operating machines, and being creative come pretty easy for me. So it’s been a frustrating weekend trying to get the hang of a satin stitch with a sewing machine. In my youth, when my eyes were superior, I had a great hand for this and didn’t need no stinking machine! Now the eyes are not so good and I really need the machine, but even more I need to figure out a technique that will work for me. Sad to say, I’m not quite there yet. In fact, I’ve had to place the quilt pieces in room separate from the sewing machine because I’m afraid all the cussing will somehow leave bad karma on the finished quilt if it’s too near. It would be a bad thing if my sweet little granddaughter started cussing like a sailor for no apparent reason. Worse, I might get blamed!

Tonight is will start basting the designs onto the squares, and maybe by the weekend I will have progressed the point where I feel my skill level is good enough to actually apply the sewing machine needle the pieces. Hopefully the blue haze around my house will be less then expected and thing will go smoothly. Wish me luck!!

Observations from the waiting room

2009-09-08T11:19:00.000-07:00

Last week my sister, aunt and I spent a good deal of time in the waiting room while my mother had shoulder surgery (try saying that three time fast!). When you’re sitting around you have time to notice things, especially me, because that’s what I do. How else would I have anything to say here?

So, I happen to notice that there was a variety of reading material available to us, including magazines, health pamphlets, announcements posted on the walls and novels. Novels? That’s right about 20 of them, and we’re not talking the condensed Reader’s Digest versions. We’re talking full blown, 300 pagers, no pictures! Fist of all it takes time to get through a book that size, even for me. I know it feels like forever when you’re sitting in a waiting room, but really!

I also noticed that there were about 10 puzzles. The smallest one was 350 pieces, one or two where 500 pieces but the rest were 1000 pieces. Really? A 1000 pieces? It take me a week to put one of those together, with help! Also I’d like to point out that while they had 10 puzzles, they only had one table. That could be the cause of a nasty puzzlers’ dispute, causing even more need for surgeries.

You know what I didn’t see that would have been some what appropriate? An Operation game!

"SALE" + arrow = successful garage sale

2009-08-31T16:03:00.000-07:00

Friday I went with my sister garage saleing? Saling? We went to a bunch of garage sales!

We had good luck. I found a lot of winter clothes for the grandbaby in excellent shape, and found some other great items as well: A Fiesta Ware pitcher for $4, a box of comic books for $10, a garden pitch fork (or maybe I’ll use it as part of a Halloween costume) for $3, a wrought iron plant hanger for $3, and some artwork for what else, $3. It was a really good day for garage sales.

That is until you’re trying to track them down. What is wrong with people? There were a huge number of signs with miles of text and no arrow! All a good, no great, sign needs to say is say “SALE” and have an arrow pointing the way. A big, well defined arrow, not an anorexic little thing that you have to be standing over to make out. You need a nice beefy one with a fat pointy end. How hard is this?

Also, if you’re going to use big poster board, cut it into quarters, the big pieces are too big and the corners end up flopping over and covering your miles of text, and any arrow you might have on there. Neon colors are a good idea you can see them from a long way off. Use BLACK markers, because who can read yellow? The key to a successful garage sale is to know your customer. We’re older, blinders and we don’t have the same quick responses we had when we were younger. We like big, bold, simple, and well placed signs with ARROWS!!!!!!!!!! We’re too blind to read the address, and we’ve lost too many brain cells to remember it for more than a block anyway.

Spam/junk mail and women

2009-08-27T16:03:00.000-07:00

I have just preformed my after task of checking my junk mail. Today there were 26, which is about average. I’ve got to tell you, I always feel like I need to go take a shower after dealing with this little chore. Honestly, I really try not to read any more of the message title then is necessary to figure out if it is spam or something real. I mean really, does anyone ever open an email titled, “You big give great pleasure” or “Nude pic Angela Jolie pregnant”? It’s a sick world out there, and if you don’t believe that, just read the titles on your junk mail.

Let’s hope we aren’t being judged, as a society, by this. If so, I’m afraid the universe has a giant finger heading for the destruct button.

But really, who would open any of this spam? As a woman I can tell you without a doubt that I do not want to grow my penis by 3 inches, receive Viagra at an 80% discount without a prescription, or re-grow my hair. Have you noticed how there aren’t that many catchy spam titles out there for woman? I can think of a few that would get my attention, of course not enough for me to open them, but at least I’d feel I had been considered.

-- Free maid service for 1 year
-- Pampered spa retreat for your input
-- Free removal of unwanted hair
-- Shoes that look as good as they feel
-- New boob support without a bra
-- Remote volume control for people
-- Force field that keeps dirt out of your house
-- Star Trek replicators now available, they really work!
-- Hunky heterosexual men that don’t watch sports, drink beer, belch or fart, and are looking for older, full figured women

Of course as a woman, I know none of this exists, but wouldn’t it be nice!!

Determining sex

2009-08-24T16:52:00.000-07:00

We had a baby shower today at work, and I was part of the organizing committee. As a part of my duties I picked up a few decorations. Boy, have times changed!! When I was having babies, back in the 80’s, it was extremely unusual to know the sex of the baby before it was born. This was first generation ultrasound so you could barely tell it was a baby when they took a peek. To find out the sex they had to have that thing that I can’t spell (not even well enough for Spell Check to get), the thing where they stick a needle through your belly button and extract fluid. This usually meant you were having some major league problems with your pregnancy to begin with. Not a fun time for anyone.

Your other option for determining the sex was the local witch doctor, or countless grandmas and aunts. Their methods involved all manner objects being suspended over your belly, from a sewing needle, to a pencil, or a lock of the father’s hair. The sex was pronounced depending on weather the object moved up and down or side to side, or rotated in a clockwise or counterclockwise manner. There was also the “What are you craving test”, salty items for boys and sweet items for girls. And, of course if you were carrying the baby high it was a boy, while girls you carried low. Or was it the other way around? There were a million ways to tell if your were having a boy or girl.

The most telling factor about all this homespun knowledge and wisdom is that when you went to buy shower decorations, they were all in unisex color schemes. You would have had to look really hard for pink or blue. In fact you would pretty much have had to make your own or special order them. Now days it’s the complete opposite, almost all the shower decorations are either pink, or blue, and unisex colors are a bit more hard to find. They’re still out there, but not in the same kind of variety.

I can’t imagine not wanting to know the sex. I hear people talk about not wanting to know, but 9 times out of 10 they end up asking. They always say the same thing, “I want to be surprised.” I figure you can have your surprise now or later, it’s not like you knew at the moment of conception what you were creating. Of course that day is probably not far off. I wonder how they will do it. Will there be some pill or gel you use that will block all the boy sperm so you get a girl, or all the girl sperm so you get a boy? It would kind of be like the club houses we built as a kid and put up the “No boys allowed!!” signs. Now there’s a packaging concept!

Bestest buds and bubbling flesh

2009-08-20T17:17:00.000-07:00

How do you know if a friend is true? Yesterday I had a run in with a frying pan full of hot grease. I was running on a small amount of sleep and three weeks filled with a lot of work. I was trying to stay up until at least 9:00 so I wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep. I was pretty much running on nerves alone.

I decided to make a fried egg sandwich for dinner. Just as I was getting ready to break the egg into the skillet, a giant bubble of grease popped and went all over my fingers. I’m screaming, but I have to put down the egg before I can dash to the sink and run cold water over my poor abused digits. I’ve been burned before, hell I ran the grill and fryers at Jack-in-the-Box in high school. I know from pain! On so many levels.

So last night I was sitting around, without an egg sandwich, with my scalding fingers in a bowl of ice water. Every time I took them out for longer than 10 seconds they would get to burning so bad I had to submerge them again. I was really stressed too, because I couldn’t miss work. The next day I have a public meeting I’m in charge of, and is the culmination of more than 2 years work. I have to be there! So what was I going to do?

I’ll tell you what I did, I called my bestest buds. Debbi showed up with gauze and burn ointment and then went to the drug store to talk to the pharmacist and bring home more burn cream and Tylenol 3 with codeine. She got the Tylenol from her house not the pharmacist. She even rounded me up a super supply of ice. She sat with me while I was being pitiful and made me laugh.

I managed to get some good sleep thanks to the Tylenol. Also the original burn cream, which was a natural product, seemed to give me the most relief. Who knew? It so seldom works out that way.

Even though my fingers are covered in bubbling flesh today, they are working well and there is little pain. Of course its really, really ugly, and I’m living in terror of knocking it against something.

So the moral of this story is that a bestest buddy will come to your aid, stay by your side, make you laugh, and even call you the next day to check on you. Not to mention give you something good to blog about.

Love you Debbi!!!!!!!!

Pickle day

2009-08-19T02:00:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was Pickle Day in my neighborhood. The first batch of pickles I made was July 18. I make polish dill pickles, with fresh dill, garlic and peppers. This first time I got about 8 quarts put up, and gave them all out to neighbors with instructions to wait a month before opening and to put them in the refrigerator the day before. Putting them in the frig makes them crispy. It cracked me up to hear that several neighbors had actually marked their calendars.

Years ago when my kids were very young, teenage girls used to love to baby sit for me. Not because my children were so well behaved. These girls wouldn’t let me pay them with money, they would only baby sit if I paid them in pickles. I make great pickles, what can I say?

Now, here’s the kickers…I don’t eat pickles. I’ve never cared for them. When I was an adolescent it was all the rage to go to the movies and buy one of those big dill pickles to eat while you watched the movie. I remember buying one and trying to eat it. Thinking I could convince myself that I really did like them. It was such a bummer because not only did I find out that I really, really didn’t like pickles, no matter how much I tried to, I was also out my snack money. Like I said bummer. I’m a popcorn girl!

Old men, bah!!

2009-08-17T16:13:00.000-07:00

Old men with nothing to do are the bane of my existence. These are the calls I most dread at work. This morning an old guy with little to occupy him called wanting to know about the project we are getting ready do on his street. In and of itself, this not such an unrealistic thing to want to know.

Of course he starts out asking about the schedule and then he wants to know exactly what we will be doing and exactly where, and then he wants to debate the virtues of dry wells verses the use of perf pipe. Let me tell you, he doesn’t know much, but I’m nice and don’t point that out.

He then wants to go off on costs and how the city is wasting money. How the ground there infiltrates just fine, how the old dry well is just fine, and how the last time anyone did work on his street they cut the phone line and they didn’t have phone service for a day and then they were on a party line for a week. He also has to tell me all about the developer who extended his street, and the other dry well on the other street and the neighbor who wants to buy his boat, and the other neighbor who can’t control his kids, and a partridges in a pear tree. Like I don’t have anything better or more pressing to do than take a drive through his random thoughts and opinions. He should get his own blog!

Cheney, a bus driver, and the DMV

2009-08-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

It’s been a strange morning. First of all, on the radio while I was getting ready for work, I hear that Cheney is writing his memoirs. I wanted to crawl back in bed and pull the covers over my head. I really don’t want to know what goes on in that man’s head. What he lets out is frightening enough.

Apparently he is whining that Bush stopped listening to him during their second administration and started caving to liberal political groups. I’m very sure that what Cheney considers liberal most of us would still consider conservative, because anything we would consider liberal he just dismisses as a crazy bunch of idiots. I personally consider his kind of conservatives a scary bunch of crazies, but hey, that’s American politics. It takes all kinds of crazies to make he run. It may not be getting anywhere but its running.

We had a very interesting bus driver this morning. He welcomed us on board, gave us the time and weather, a traffic report, and an estimated time of arrival. Wow! If that wasn’t enough, he didn’t slam on the brakes, sending us all grabbing for support and having to readjust our seating, even once. The temperature wasn’t too hot or too cold. He apologized for being later than his estimated time of arrival, and he lowered the bus for all stops. This guy deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. It everyone did their jobs so well, the world would certainly be a much better place! I could kick myself for not getting his name, so I could write C-Tran a letter.

As my bus crossed the river and entered the heart of downtown Portland, I noticed an older model Saab with an interesting license plate: CRASH-B. It made me wonder about a lot of things. Like why anyone would want a license plate with the word “crash” on it. Isn’t that like welcoming doom? Also, what happened to CRASH-A? Is it in a scrap yard some where, or at home in the driveway quivering in fear of the road, knowing its days are numbered?

I also wondered what the DMV was thinking when they issued this plate. I know they have people that act as moral sensors who approve all vanity plates. While CRASH is certainly not typically thought of as a word with 4-letter connotations, I would think that the DMV would have concerns with promoting this particular concept, especially on the road. Hey, that just me, it may be crazy talk but I’m just putting it out there. Someone needs to ask the questions.

Shock and awe

2009-08-11T17:00:00.000-07:00

Matt came back from three weeks training in Idaho with the Guard. While he was gone they moved him to a new unit and made him a squad leader, or something like that. I never get it completely right. He seems to be enjoying the new position, and once he gets through some kind of leadership training, again I can’t keep all the alphabet soup straight, he will be promoted to E-6. For me E-6 means he is a second level sergeant, also known as a Staff Sergeant. I know this is important to Matt because at this level he can become a trainer, which he really enjoys.

While on this training with his new privates and specialists, he was putting them through their paces. They are getting used to him and he is learning about them. At one point they are running a drill where they are simulating building searches. Matt has all his soldiers stacked up the way he wants them and they’re ready to go. Matt step up and kick in the door with his left leg and oops…. He forgot the liner on his prosthetic that morning. The door bangs open and Matt’s leg goes flying through the opening to land in the middle of the room. While Matt’s arms are pin-wheeling to keep his balance, all his soldiers are frozen place. They can’t believe they’ve seen what they just seen. Their sargeant’s leg is laying in the middle of the room. Apparently Matt hadn’t mentioned to any of them that his leg had special powers. The fun you can have with limbs.

Resting on the weekend

2009-08-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

This was a very pleasant weekend. I didn’t have anything that I had to do. I worked in the garden; I put up pickles and tomatoes, and have my sister, my friend Wendy and their kids over for dinner Saturday. We ended up with some extra kids, but we usually do, no bug deal.

After dinner Danna, Wendy and I played some dominoes while the kids ran around outside and played. There were 4 girls and 2 boys from 10 years old to 14. As is the usual case, the boys and girls seem to group themselves together and then proceed to pick at each other. The girls decided they needed a force field and ended up sitting in Wendy’s car while the boys made faces in the window and blew bubbles at the car. I can’t explain it, I just report it.

Of course the girls had to whine and complain about being bothered by the boys so we told the boys to get away from the car and leave the girls alone. Their answer to this was to move a couple of feet away and continue to make faces and blow bubbles. Again, I can’t explain it.

Eventually the girls got tired of sitting in the car and decided to go play in the field behind my house, and they let the boys go too. Before too long they are running in out showing us what they’ve found and reporting each others words and actions. Alright, they were tattling.

Oh yeah, did I mention that Rusty, my sisters big red dog is there too? Running around chasing the kids and generally being in the big middle of everything. One of Rusty’s favorite things is to run out one door, go all the way around the house and in the other door. It’s enough to make you dizzy. Saturday he was doing is typically circuit around the through the house, and all of a sudden there’s another dog with him. A brown and white dog we have never seen before. A really friendly guy who was really enjoying Rusty and the kids. After about 20 or so loops through the house and some wrestling on the front lawn he disappeared as quickly as he arrived. I think I will call him the Lone Ranger.

I guess it’s just another day in an everyday life.

P.S. I won at domineos!! Hey me!!

Stencils, spray paint, gator board and teamwork

2009-08-06T16:32:00.000-07:00

Today has been an interesting metal exercise. Our program would like to advertise some structures that will be coming to neighborhoods soon, stormwater facilities, aka: green streets. So we have run through several ideas, starting with yard signs. The first yard sign is nice and glossy and will be used for a special event, but it costs $200. To mark all locations we need something very cheap since we’re looking at about 200 sites, so I start off thinking little Corex (corrugated plastic) signs. That would be much cheaper and they could be reused, at least the ones we get back. Of course, there is the storage issue, we have no place to store them when not in use, and I would have to track where they have been posted. Too much work, I don’t have that kind of time!!

Then a co-worker has the great idea that we use a stencil. (I’ve told you before I work with geniuses.) So now the discussion is, do we use a simple stencil sheet we can lay on the road and give a quick shot of paint to, or do we look at a larger, foldable stencil that would allow us, or the survey crews, to mark the actual outline of a facility? The first version of the big foldable idea had it made out of hinged plywood. I pointed out that would be too heavy and large for easy use or storage. The next suggestion was to use gator board instead of plywood.

(Our discussion on this topic has been via email. I love email, at least when it’s not spam.)

Gator board? I’d never heard of if so I turned to my pod mates and asked if they know what it is. Stephen thought it was the mesh you use to mount tile. He’s been tiling his two bathrooms for the last couple of weekends so he can be excused the thought. David popped up and asked if that is when you try to waterboard an alligator. I’m not sure what David has been doing in his off days, and maybe I don’t want to ask.

It turns out that Gator Board is a brand name for a foam core type product. (I also love Goggle!) It’s more durable then foam core. I’m still thinking we need something thin and pliable, like maybe something you can roll up and put a rubber band around when you’re not using it.

The second issue we’re faced with is spray paint. It’s basically nasty stuff for the environment and since we are an environmental bureau we should try not to harm it anymore. So I did what else? A Goggle search for eco friendly spray paint. Boy were there a lot of people who have posted questions about the availability of such a product, but not very many products. I found one brand that carries low VOV latex spray paint. It’s still aerosol though. I’ve sent the info to the team we’ll see what they think. Our only other alternative is an electric paint sprayer, not very handy. The paint companies need to busy on this idea!!

I love this whole process. We start with a very simple idea: get our future facilities marked. In a matter of a few emails shared between about six people we are moving toward something that will be better than anything just one of us could have come up with. I love good teamwork!

Fun with tanks and horses

2009-08-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

This is a very busy week at work. I am working extremely late two nights, putting in 13 hour days. Yesterday was one, and today is another. Last night I attended a National Night Out neighborhood party where I manned a table with information on a project we are proposing for a major stretch of road in the area. It was actually quite a nice party with a good band, people dancing, kids having fun, plenty of food, and attractions to keep everyone engaged.

The attractions included groups and organizations with tables set up to make information available, like mine. I noticed that the tables giving away something, anything, had the largest numbers of visitors. It didn’t matter if it was a pin you could clip onto your shirt, a bumper sticker, blow-up beach ball or a fabric shopping bag, people just love to get something for free.

Other attractions involved the mobile precinct from the police bureau, a tank from the FBI, and fire engines. The most popular, by far, were the horses of the police’s mounted patrol. I use to work closely with the commander at Central Precinct, who commanded that unit. He always said if he had a dollar for every time someone petted one of the horses, he would never have a funding problem. They really are great horses!

Every time I looked over at the FBI tank the same little boy was hanging out the top hatch with a big grin on his face and having the time of his life. If possession is 9/10 of the law, that child now owns a tank. “Mom, look what I brought home!”

Tonight I’ll be working late with a community action committee for an upcoming, very large and high profile project. I’m pretty sure there will be no band, no ice cream, no horses and no excited kids. Few of will be having any fun at all.

Amazing response

2009-08-03T17:01:00.001-07:00

Friday my sister and I went to visit our mother, who lives about 45 minutes from us. Most of the trip is along I-5. Going was no problem and we had a lovely visit.

On the way home, at about the half way mark, the truck him front of me swerved from the middle lane into the left hand lane. As the view cleared I see a big twisted chunk red metal in my lane, and a motorcyclist lying motionless between me and it. Luckily I wasn’t follow very close and had plenty of room to stop, and the vehicle behind me was a fair distance back. (How often does that happen?)

I get stopped and set my flashers, so no one can run over this guy. Immediately several people with some emergency response experience stop and start to render aid. Everyone is on the phone calling it in. I’m directing traffic trying to keep vehicles moving past the site and another guy is up the road waving all the traffic over the far left lane. At this point the highway is down to a single lane.

One woman stops and gives us every thing in her emergency kit. Most people move through at a good pace and everyone up the line makes way for the police and EMTs as they arrive. All in all it was an amazing, unrehearsed performance done in unison by complete strangers, all for the benefit of a guy lying helpless in the middle of the road.

I’ve thought about this a lot over the weekend. This was such an amazing event, not because something dramatic and life threatening happened, but because so many people took immediate action on behalf of someone they didn’t know, in a situation they didn’t have any responsibility for, and none of them ever questioned why they did it. What an outstanding example of all that is right with our country, and the human race!

Too often we get really cynical about the human condition, you all know I’ve certainly suffered from that, but actually there is a lot with us. We need to take the time to see it and acknowledge it.

I think about the motorcyclist, laying there in the road, unable to move, but aware of his surrounding. How terrifying that must have been, to know you’re down, in the middle of the highway. I’m sure he expected to be run over.

I wonder what happened to him and if he’s going to be alright. We didn’t stay. As soon as the EMTs and enough police showed up take over my traffic duties, and Danna’s schlepping duties, we left. We hadn’t seen the accident happen, and we would have just been in the way at that point. So we have no idea where he was taken, or what the on-site assessment of his condition was. We just hope he is doing well, where ever he is.

If you have moment please send out a prayer, or some positive thoughts for him.

Fun with horse rings

2009-07-30T12:14:00.001-07:00

In Portland, as you drive or walk down a street, you are likely to see metal rings attached to the curb. They aren’t everywhere, but there are enough that if you look for them you will certainly find one. They puzzled me at first, but then someone explained that they were a holdover from the days of horses. This is where people used to tie off their horses. That was just so cool, that there were still some around. In fact, it is written into the city’s building code that if one is removed for any reason, it must be replaced. So all construction projects in the city are pretty careful with them.

The neighbors in Portland being the slightly off center folks that they are, will often use the rings to tie up their My Little Ponies, or other toy ponies. Then there are those that use them to tie up other items like flying saucers, dinosaurs, monsters, whatever. It’s a fun thing to keep your eyes open for.

I currently have a capitol improvement project getting ready to start construction, and I’ve had several neighbors, with horse rings at their curbs, call because they are worried about their rings. One of the neighbors happens to have horses tied to her rings, so I suggested she put them out to pasture for the construction phase. We talked about how she could build a diorama out of a shoe box with a meadow and mountains. We agreed that her horses might not like the curb so much after a year in the meadow.

Today I had another neighbor worried about his rings. I assured him we would be careful and that any rings removed would be replace. I also cautioned him that if he had horses tied up he might want to pasture them as well. He said they only tied up a Mustang occasionally. I pointed out that Mustangs can be a bit high strung at times, and that Pintos were a little easier going.

I love neighbors with a sense of humor!!

Temps, photos, the web

2009-07-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

I just checked the weather site and it’s currently 102 degrees in Portland, and 100 in Vancouver. Yesterday it also reached 100. After work I went home, measured my windows, and set out to buy an air conditions. The store clerks actually laughed at me! They had sold out early in the day. The best any of them could offer me was another fan, and there were precious few of those. I’m pretty sure they’re all gone by now. My bedroom is like a wind tunnel at this point. It does wonder for the wrinkles but not too much for the temperatures.

Today I saw a video about an Army Calvary Scout that took some unbelievable photos while deployed in Afghanistan, or the A-stan. While the photos are compelling, I found this soldier to be even more so. He’s a good looking and healthy young man, just as you would expect, but like so many of them that come back, especially those that have been in the middle of combat, there is something in his eyes. He has eyes that are deep and knowing, but also guarded. You can tell they have seen a lot, but you can also tell that you would have to work hard to gain enough trust for him to really tell you about those experiences. How could you ever understand what it was like stand in his shoes? Luckily he took his camera and he knows how to use it. You can go to YouTube and search Jeremiah Ridgeway, Photos from the Front Line, or copy and paste this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onp9WlIiKBw Sorry I couldn’t provide a better link.

I love YouTube! At work there is this whole paranoid thing about posting to YouTube and the question of how ethical it is to send someone off site for information. A lot of municipalities feel this way, but I say why try to reinvent the wheel and maintain it? YouTube is there, they obviously know what they’re doing and everyone goes there first to find stuff. The other day I was ready to make my first ever pesto and I was doing a web search for recipes, and I thought I’d go to YouTube and see if there was a video. There’s just nothing like seeing it done to understand how to do something. Abracadabra! There were several videos. In less than 3 minutes I knew exactly how to make pesto from a video. Instance gratification is wonderful!

Take phone books. People are all the time trying to leave phone books on my door step. I try to catch them and tell them I don’t want one. I still come home and find books left there. I mean really who uses a phone book anymore. It’s obsolete technology, and is dated almost as soon as you get it. If I need a number, I go to Dex Online, or do a web search. Why would I want another thing in my house that never gets used? It also aggravates me that paper is being wasted in printing those books. Is my green showing?

Just checked the temps again, 104 in Portland and 106 in Vancouver. That’s hotter than Austin, Texas!!

Hot weather, gardens and the crazy cat lady

2009-07-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

Today is really hot, especially for the Pacific Northwest, and the next few days will be even hotter. We’re into triple digits. Now, having grown-up in Houston and living there for 30 years I know about the heat and humidity. Getting out of all that was one of the major benefits to moving!!

Alas, I have become a weather wimp, because I’ve decided that on the way home today I will be stopping and buying an air conditioner. I can’t believe I’ve sunk to this level, but I really need to get some sleep! Last night was a nightmare of sweat, twisted sheets and tossing and turning. I had two big fans blowing on me and all the windows opened and it was still oppressive.

The weather is good for the garden and I’ve been putting up pickles like a mad person. I’m also hauling in stuff to work to give away. In fact everywhere I go anymore I’m carrying around a bag of something, cucumbers, peppers, beans, basil, and soon tomatoes. The corn has developed long tassels and the ears are filling out nicely.

That’s right we’re picking tomatoes now!! I can’t wait to start canning what my grandma called tomato soup. It was really a lot of tomatoes and whatever else was going, like corn, beans, okra, peas, and potatoes. Just whatever you had a lot of.

We had our neighborhood picnic Saturday, which was a lot of work, but also a lot of work. I was so happy when it was done. Me and my peeps landed at Debbi’s house for adult beverages and unwinding. As usual we had a great time together, and we even made some pesto, with our fresh spinach-basil! I feel so cosmopolitan!!!

Debbi has had a surprising development in her household. For her daughter’s birthday they adopted a cute cuddly kitten from the Humane Society and named him Pepper. About a month after they brought him home, he disappeared. Emily has insisted from day one that Pepper would come home to her, but when a month passed and there were no signs of him, they took Emily back to adopt another kitten. Well, the kittens were so cute that they ended up bringing home two, Tink and Sprite.

Two weeks later, guess who shows up? That’s right Pepper. He had grown so much that Debbi wasn’t sure it was him even though Emily was certain. Debbi took him down and had his chip checked. So, Pepper is back home with a much expanded family. We are teasing Debbi, telling her she is has now become the crazy cat woman of the neighborhood. We’ll have to be careful opening the door for fear that cats will start pouring out.

During our winding down evening we were playing Granny Dice and three of us were holding kittens in our laps. Wendy was being silly taking to the kitten she was holding trying to keep it from climbing onto the table, which Debbi doesn’t allow. She told the kitten, “No you can’t get up there your grandma Debbi doesn’t like that.”

Before we knew what had happen, Wendy was being pelted by dice. Apparently Debbi doesn’t see herself as a grandma.

Crime call #2

2009-07-21T16:52:00.000-07:00

Years ago while I was still a crime prevention specialist, I received a call from a man who was looking for a particular officer who had helped him in the past. I explained that the officer wasn’t available, and in fact had retired about six months before. The man became really upset insisting that only this officer could help him. After talking to him for a while and assuring him that I would do everything I could to help, he told me that the officer had been coming out once a year to help him fix his home security.

Well, that sounded a little off because officers don’t usually get that involved in home security issues. Mostly they will offer some general advice. Anything more in depth they would refer citizens to a crime prevention specialist. So, of course I told this citizen that home security was one of fields of expertise and assured him I could help.

That was when he hit me with the big question, “So, you have some of that special foil too?”

I’m thinking oh no here we go again. “Hum, what foil are you talking about exactly?”

“You know that UFO foil!” he explained.

“Aaaa, UFO foil?”

“Yeah! About 3 years ago he came to my house and I explained how those UFO’s kept hanging around over my house and making my brain buzz.”

“Really!?” I mean what else could I say? At some point you have to strap yourself in and ride it out.

“Yeah, he walked around the house with me and looked at all my windows. He realized right away what was wrong.”

“And, what was that?”

“I was using the wrong kind of foil on my windows. He left and came back later with the right stuff and helped me cover my windows. It was great! The buzzing stopped right away. He came by every year with some more foil and helped me recover the windows.”

“Oh, that foil! Yeah, I know what he used.”

“REALLY?!!” He was excited and relieved.

“Sure, you have to go get Reynolds Heavy Duty foil. Don’t get the regular stuff, it’s too thin, you need the thicker heavy duty roll.”

----Crime call #1 was posted March 26, 2009---

Spinach, basal and basil

2009-07-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

The garden is going like gang busters (what the heck does that mean anyway?). The corn has grown well above the 6 foot fence I share with my neighbor, the broccoli has spread out to the point that it is over shadowing the cabbage and the beans. Our cucumbers are producing like a house-a-fire (yet another strange saying). I put up three quarts of pickles this weekend. I haven’t made pickles in 25 years!!! All the tomato plants are covered with fruit; in fact we have already picked a few ripe ones. And the pumpkin plant is huge, massive, gargantuan!!

One of our greatest successes is our spinach. We bought a little six-pack of tiny starters and they have really taken off. The problem is that it turns out that it isn’t really spinach. It took a while to figure out that what we really have is boat load of basil! It reminded me the scene in Secondhand Lions when it dawns on them that their massive garden is actually filled with nothing but corn. Like them, we’ve decided to just go with it. In fact, this morning I brought a bunch of little baggies filled with fresh basil into work, left them in the kitchen and sent out an email to let anyone know it was there for the taking. I went to a meeting and when I came back, it was all gone. Yippee!!

I’ve also collected several good pesto recipes from co-workers. I’m really excited to try them out. I love pesto and had forgotten it was made with basil.

This whole incident has also improved my spelling. When I sent the email out I said “basal” because that is what spell check gave me. It didn’t look right but neither did anything else I could think of. A few people have sent me emails with the correct spelling and at least one person left me a post-it note. Gees, it’s not like they didn’t know what I was talking about! They obviously didn’t think I was hawking poison in a baggie.

Let me off the plane

2009-07-17T14:10:00.000-07:00

The other day, on the bus, I was talking to one of the other regular riders. We’re both from Texas and we really enjoy visiting with one another. That day I was telling her about the 5 hour and 7 hour layover for flights from Portland to Kansas City. We got to talking about plane flights in general. During the conversation she laughed and made the comment about flight time and layover time is added onto the 5 hours you will have to wait on the tarmac to just take off from an airport. If you figure that I will have to take off from two different airports that could add another 10 hours to my traveling time.

We laughed but you know it’s always a real possibility, which is a really sad comment on the airline industry. I’ve already made up my mind that if I’m going to be stuck on the tarmac waiting for a flight to take off, I’m just ringing the attendant over and telling them to call the FBI out to meet me at the door, because I’ll be getting ready to throw a hissy fit. I’m not about to wait for the toilets to fill up, the air conditioner to be turned off, and the drinks to be consumed. The older I get the less I tolerate confined spaces, small bathrooms, people with attitudes (read attendants here) and asinine policies.

The truth is that the airlines should have a special file on me concerning this issue. Think about it, I can be a bit out spoken (Ok, you can take the laugher down a notch!), and I do know how to make a scene. (Really do need to quite laughing so hard) Really, they don’t want to leave me in the population of passengers. I’m a community organizer, that has to represent their worst nightmares!

The panty line conspiracy

2009-07-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

The fashion industry has spent decades perpetrating a conspiracy on the women of the world, and it all involves panties. In the 60’s we all wore briefs, granted some were more frilly than others and they came in various colors and some even had the days of the week on them. We might have worried about getting caught in an accident without clean ones on, but one of the things we never gave a thought to were panty lines. That didn’t come until the 70’s and hip-hugger, high cut leg panties were introduced. Then the 80’s brought us the bikini panties and more angst about panty lines. So the answer to all our worries was the thong, which is really just a new name for a G-string, all which boils down to butt floss, and no panty lines.

Now instead of the hated panty lines, we have to live with the peeping thong. You know that instance when you realize that all essence of class has been wiped form the younger generation, as a girl bends over and above her jeans you see her thong and her butt crack. Of course this is in perfect harmony with her date’s outfit. His jeans have been belted around his knees so that he can barely walk and his boxer cover butt is right there for all the world to see. He’s obviously not worried about boxer lines.

Camping update

2009-07-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

Thought it was time for an update on Debbi’s Great Camping Adventure. LOL The most important point to report is….she survived!! It’s also significant to report that she and Jerad, as a couple, survived as well.

The morning they returned I spoke to Jerad first, I asked if there were pictures, and how it went. He said one of the relatives had taken video. I told him I knew people that might pay handsomely for copies. Here are some highlights:

Six people and the dog were all stung by bees.
Emily, who is easy going and usually ready to go along with most anything, was in the car at the crack of dawn buckled in and ready to leave for home.
Debbi drove an hour and a half to the restroom. I asked if she did that every time and she said only once. I asked what she did the rest of the time, and she said she only went once! She claims to have gone 6 days before without use of the facilities when someone sighted a rattle snake. If that statement came from anyone else I’d have to call “Bullshit” but with Debbi I have to admit that I believe it.
Not only where there no modern facilities, Debbi was also horrified by their consumption of beer and fatty foods. In her campaign to Not Go, she restricted herself to cheese.

Debbi is pretty much done with bare bones camping, but she is excited about doing some more things in the Gorge. However, she will be insisting on staying someplace with clean sheets, room service and of course, indoor plumbing.

Post Office pains

2009-07-09T13:39:00.000-07:00

Holy crap, Bat Fans, what day is it!? Where has this week gone? I’ve spent a good portion of it in Mail Hell, working on an extremely complicated mailing at work. Thank God someone was paying me to figure it out and get it done, because if not that thing would still be laying around.

What is it with the Post Office? No wonder they’re running out of money. They have not made an effort to bring their processes up-to-date with current technology, or only marginally so. For instance, when I mail a package to my soldier, I send it military priority mail (good price) but it involves filling out a long customs form by hand. There are 5 carbine copies so you have to make sure you write firmly enough to go through, or the clerk will make you rewrite it at the post office. At which point you lose your place in line or everyone behind you stares daggers at you.

It’s true that you can fill our the form on the computer, but you must then print 5 pages to make up for all the carbons. Imagine if you are mailing just three boxes, that’s 15 sheets of paper. Also, because it’s going outside the country you have to physically take it to the post office to mail it. What’s that about? I thought we were concerned with dangerous items coming in, not going out.

For a certified letter, which is what I have been sending my time on for the past two day, you have to address the envelope, address the tear off sheet, address the return card twice, transfer a sticker from the tear off sheet to the return card, and check at least one box. Oh yeah, and for all your hard work you will pay over $5 to mail it. How crazy is that? On top all this, I also had to include a mail merged letter, site specific map, project flyer, two pamphlets and a self-addressed postage paid envelop. I’m telling you the diagram on the instruction would have look like one those drawing where it takes a thousand senseless steps to get for point A to point B. I was trapped in a Rube Goldberg drawing!

I had to go to the post office to pick some more certified letter materials. I asked for a set of 100, they only had 150 sets so all they would give me was 10 sets. They needed to save some in case other customers needed them. What’s the deal with that? Isn’t the point in printing them to get them used? It’s not like I wasn’t going to use them, I really needed them! It wasn’t like I was trying to horde them so other people couldn’t get any. What if no one else came in for certified mailing materials, they miss the opportunity to have them go to a good home. And really if I need a 100 than 10 just isn’t going to do it. For a moment I had flash back to my times with Sprint Customer Service. (As vile an organization that ever existed and the ultimate oxymoron.)

I used to have to do bulk mailings at another job, and let me tell you there are a thousand ways to get those wrong, and a lot of it depends on who is manning the counter when you take it in. I used to cruise the parking lot peeking into the windows to see if it was even worth going in. One clerk in particular you just couldn’t please! She would always have you at one of the tables making changes, or send you away completely. Who your clerk is, is a big factor in determining how successful and painful your visit is. The truth is you’re not getting out of the Post Office without some pain involved. It’s a wonder that its only been postal worker shooting up the place.

Grandbabies, long distances, and the yenta gene

2009-07-06T17:10:00.000-07:00

I got the best picture of my grandbaby the other day. It was taken on the beach in Hawaii and she is buried in the sand. While that in itself would be an adorable photo, it’s the look on her face that just sell the whole thing. It screams, “It’s good to be me!” It is now officially my favorite picture of her.

Physically she is so much like her mother at that age that it will be hard to tell their pictures about later, but Boo has a different kind of energy about her. Kristin was a studier, and in her pictures she is almost always looking head on at the camera and is very aware of the fact that her picture is being taken and she is focused on that. Kristin was good a sitting still or posing. Boo is a constant motion machine, and we have almost no pictures of her where she is interested in taking a good picture. She’s all about whatever she’s doing, and she is constantly doing something. Getting her to look into the camera for more than a half a second is a Herculean task. I wonder if her dad was that way when he was her age. I need to do some note checking with the grandparent-in-laws.

Of course, it would be nice if Kristin could come home more often, or if Kenny came from here, that way they wouldn’t have to divide their time between the Georgia, Washington and Texas. It’s tough on everyone. It would be great to meet Kenny’s family and see them with Kristin and Boo.

So, in the end I’m kind of stuck between regret that they have to live so far, pride that they are so independent, happy that they are getting to experience different places, understanding that they have to try to fit us all in, and wishing that whoever is going to invent the Star Trek transporter would get a flipping move on!!

Meanwhile, in my ongoing hope that I will eventually have grandchildren from my other child, Matt, I try to keep on the look for any indication that he is at least seeing a particular girl on a steady basis. He never talks about a girl unless he adds that they are so and so’s girlfriend, they are 40 something years old and just a friend, they’re married and have children, or some other disclaimer so I don’t get my hopes up that he might be serious about someone. He knows that I know, that would be the first baby step to grandchildren. Really I just want him to find someone to be happy with, even if they don’t produce any grandchildren. But, grandchildren would be nice. With Matt I have the biggest hope of having grandchildren near me.

On the 4th of July Matt came riding his scooter past the house while all of us were setting off fireworks in the street (yes, another white trash moment in my life) with a girl on the back. Not too long later he came around again with her. Well, me, Danna, Wendy and Mark are all wondering if Matt has a girl. We’re getting a little excited about the possibility. Except for Mark, he’s just curious and isn’t affected with the Yenta gene that we women are. So the next day Matt’s comes by the house and I try to ask casually who the girl was. He laughs and asks which one. Apparently there was a different girl each time. One was Ali’s girlfriend and the other was “just a friend.” Damn it!! I think he’s baiting me now.

Debbi - comfort = hell for somebody

2009-07-02T13:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my good friend Debbi, and my next door neighbor Jerad, came over to borrow my 10x10 canopy for their camping trip this weekend. This is a trip Jerad takes every year with his family, but it will be Debbi’s first time. Every year they camp at the same place, it’s a pretty rustic place with no restrooms or camping amenities at all.

Frankly, I can’t wait for Jerad’s photos. Debbi’s idea of roughing it is having to give herself a pedicure, and even then she will have every pampering product known to womankind to finish it off. Debbi is a material girl, and most of her materials need electricity to run, and she needs adaptors that accommodate multiple plugs. In short, I’d pay good money to watch her “rough it” for even a day. Longer than that would just be cruel.

Given Debbi’s love of electricity, plumbing and overall general comfort, we have been speculating on how long she will last, and/or what excuse she will come up with to come home early or move into the nearest hotel.

What the hell was Jerad thinking? He’s been dating her for two years he should know by now that she can make him pay dearly for something like this.

Yeah, these picture ought to be something.

Getting there from here

2009-07-01T14:37:00.000-07:00

The daughter, Kristin, has informed me that they will likely be heading to Ft Riley, Kansas at the end of the year. Understandably I’ve been lobbying for Ft Lewis, here in Washington, but Ft Riley should be a better commute to visit. When I asked why they chose Kansas, she said because it was central to all the grandparents and didn’t overly favor one over another. Well, at least they will be closer.

I don’t know about you but 5 hours confined in a plane over nothing but ocean is wearing on my nerves. Not to mention the whole trying to avoid going to the restroom on a plane thing. Which is one of life’s truly torturous, and mentally scaring experiences, second only to wedging your backend into those tiny seats between two people you don’t know and have no desire to get to know. Basically commercial flight is just one big pain that the pharmaceutical companies have invented a cure or treatment for yet.

So the other day I did a Goggle search on Ft Riley and found that it is in the big middle of nowhere. Actually, it might be about 3 miles beyond nowhere. We’re talking 200 miles from Kansas City, and 100 miles from Topeka, no airport!! Still I figured I could fly into Kansas City and do a puddle hopper, or rent a car. So I do a quick check on air fare and schedules. I’m floored! It’s more expensive! I have my choice; I can do a 7 hour layover in Denver, or a 5 hour layover in Denver. I’d be on layover longer than it takes to fly to Hawaii!! Oddly enough, the layovers on the return flights were only an hour. Can anyone explain that?!

So, I thought I’d check Amtrak, 3 days there and 3 days back. Apparently you can’t get to Kansas from here in any reasonable timeframe.

My sister suggested that I contact the Army and see about a high altitude drop. I’m not sure how that would work on the return trip. I remember in the movie The Green Berets they hooked a guy up to a big balloon, had a plane flew over, grabbed the line, and swung him up at high speed. I could probably do the drop, but that kind of return just isn’t going to work for me.

Oddly enough I don’t mind military transport. Granted it’s a completely no-frills kind of ride, you don’t even have conventional seats. The seats are really just butt hammocks hug along the sides. It’s cold, really, really loud, and the windows are too high and small for a view. The trick is to get on bundled up in layers, bring something you can drape over your head and get yourself comfy in the hammock and go to sleep. You wouldn’t think sleeping would be possible with the loud engines, but it’s like having a big fan going at a really high speed, A LOT of white noise. You sleep like a baby. You can also read and if something is funny, you can laugh out loud and no one will mind, because they can’t hear you. You’ll just look like on of those strange people that talk to themselves.

Vacation, cats, mysterious men, and the Reaper

2009-06-29T15:03:00.000-07:00

Vacation is over, bummer! It was really hard getting up and heading in to work this morning, but we do what we must to keep the cat feed and house over her head. I mean really we all work for either our pet or our children. That may be a redundant statement on some days. Oh yeah, and one of the email in my inbox informed me that one of our city commissioners is proposing a halt of all merit raises for at least the next year. Wonderful! How will I ever afford the diamond studded collar for Fluffy?

Loved having my brother and his family here for a visit!!! We don’t get to see them nearly enough. The time always seems too short, but at the end we’re all worn out.

I read three comics daily: 9 Chickweed Lane, Non Sequitur, and Rose is Rose. I know a weird kind of mix, but it works for me. In Non Sequitur today was especially great.

http://news.yahoo.com/comics/nonsequitur

What a great observation!! Men are not mysterious at all. Of course I’d propose that women aren’t all that mysterious either, you can read our projections just as well as men’s. The problem is that men refuse to learn to read them. Every other woman in the world knows what’s going with one look. So the problem isn’t projection, it’s illiteracy in men. It couldn’t possibly be our fault!

It looks like the Reaper has made a mad dash through the celebrity and semi-celebrity ranks: David Carridine, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, the Pitch Man, Ed McMahon, and Bernie Madoff. Granted Bernie is still alive and kicking, but he won’t be seeing the light of day for a good long while. It’s crazy out there.

The World, vacations and room to roam

2009-06-16T14:36:00.000-07:00

I came to work today and looked out my window and found a huge cruise ship docked at the river’s edge. Being in a city with an active river front it’s not uncommon to see fairly good sized boats and ships at dock. In fact, last week we had Navy and Coast Guard ships here for our Rose Festival. This ship, The World, dwarfs them all. This is a super deluxe condo community for the high seas. Check it out at http://www.aboardtheworld.com/ Yeah, how would you like to look out your window and see that? I’d rather be looking out over my deluxe seagoing condo balcony at the Portland skyline. I’m not stupid!!

Well, I guess I’d enjoy it for awhile but eventually I’d get tired of it. In fact, it probably wouldn’t take that long. Cruises seem like a wonderful idea, and if you’re with the right people and on the right water for a reasonable length of time, it probably is great. But, I have to honest with myself and after two week on Oahu, that island got to feeling really small to me. I think I’m too much of a westerner to appreciate small spaces for long. Let’s face it, it’s a little hard to get in the car and go tooling around a ship. I guess The World would not be big enough for me. LOL

My favorite vacation ever was when Kristin (my daughter) graduated high school and we took a driving vacation. We started by driving down the Oregon coast on Highway 101 until it connected with Highway 1. We followed it all the way to San Francisco. We saw the redwoods, Banded Dunes, elk herds sitting right on she shoulder of the road, small towns, roadside parks, and cheesy tourist traps. We had a great time!!

After San Fran we went to see Hearst’s Castle, Yosemite, Crater Lake and about a billion acres of land and sky. It was a vacation of open possibilities. We could just take off in any direction we wanted and see what interested us. We were limited only by our imaginations and our wallets. The second being the most limiting factor.

Of course, my wallet would be a real limiting factor to cruising on The World as well.

Laughing with the Pres

2009-06-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

I just watched the video where Steven Colbert has his hair buzzed off by the commanding general in Iraq. I guess if you’re going to get your hair cut it’s good to have the General do it.

What was just as funny was the President chiming in saying he had overheard Colbert saying it would take more than a general’s orders to cut his hair. The President promptly commanded the general to cut Colbert’s hair. Colbert asked if the President’s spy satellites were that good, to which the President responded, “No, my ears are that big.” Which received a big laugh by all the soldiers. They also enjoyed watching Colbert getting buzzed by the General.

A few days ago the President was in Egypt at the Great Pyramid at Giza getting a tour. At one point the President points out a carving on the wall and remarks on how it looks just like him. It was a head that was round on top, pointed at the chin, with big ears on the side. I love that he has such a great sense of humor about himself! At last least the world is laughing with our president and not at him. That’s a step up!

Weedeating mystic

2009-06-08T15:17:00.000-07:00

Last evening I got out and weedeated the yard. (That sentence just sounds so wrong!) I really enjoy this for some strange reason I can’t explain. I don’t even mind when the string doesn’t feed and I have to pop the spool off and fix it. There is something about weedeating that fulfills the human need for both destruction and order. At the same time I to mow down any weeds and grass that meet with my displeasure for being where I don’t want them, I’m also bringing order and definition to my yard and garden. There really is something mystically about the whole experience.

I have to do this work (or meditation if you will) either in the morning before I take a shower, or in the afternoon when I’m sure I won’t be going out again. At the end of the process, I’m covered in weed guts and pieces. It must be something like a warrior returning from battle covered in gore, except without the blood, smell, and disgusting factor. Once I’m through I can wash it all off and either get dressed for the day, or for bed which ever I feel like.

The garden, a mullet and balance

2009-06-05T18:15:00.000-07:00

This morning I went out the garden to see how it did through the storm, it did just fine. While there I picked our first handful of peas! I also did some weeding pulling. When we built our raised beds we made them 5 ft wide and place them against the concrete base of the fence. This seemed like a very good idea, that is until we discovered that you can’t reach the back half of the garden. We had to put in some stepping stones, this kind of negates the advantages of raised beds, which is that you don’t have to bend over completely to weed and work with the plants. Not being the most nimble person, I keep my weeding and working to the perimeter and my more agile sister works the back portion. Danna has been down in her back this week so I’ve been the one doing all the weeding this week. This has left our garden neat and trimmed in the front and on the side, and bushy and wild in the back. In short, we have a garden with a mullet.

Today Danna and I were out doing some errands, which we finished up around noon. Just in time to grab some lunch. At first we thought about grabbing something a Wendy’s on the way home but them remembered a couple of friends telling us about a great new place called the Pita Pit and decided to stop there. It had been raining and the place was packed with people. We walked in excited about trying a new place. No sooner had we stepped through the door and I went down on the floor, slipping from my wet shoes. That’s me, the personification of grace and dignity in all that I do! I was really embarrassed and it didn’t help that the whole incident was witnessed by about 50 people and that the manager kept asking if I was alright.

I’m happy to report that the food was excellent and that we will be going back again. As we left I mentioned to Danna that it was a good thing I didn’t kill myself before I had a chance to try it out. Danna said, “Yeah, that would have been the pits.” You know how I love a pun!

I dropped Danna off at her house and helped her carry in her grocery and slipped and fell again! I’m too old for this crap! I went home, carried my groceries to the front door, placed them just inside the door, took off my shoes and carried them to the kitchen, put them away, took 3 Advil and took a nap. I’ll be fitted for my tutu and ballet slippers soon.

Tired, Blazing Saddles & a poor woman's Med cruise

2009-06-04T16:02:00.000-07:00

Today is Thursday, but it’s like a Friday for me because I’m off tomorrow. Of course I will be working; it just won’t be the kind of work I get paid for. My list of errands is getting longer and longer.

This has been a quick and busy week, so much going on at work and at home. I had Walking Buddies Monday after work, a recital to attend Tuesday night, Wednesday evening I helped my son make a flyer for an event he is organizing, and tonight is the neighborhood meeting. The days and evenings have been full this week!

I felt so bad about not getting a box together for my adopted soldier that I went online and order him a cooling scarf and a sand scarf from the Soldiers’ Angels Store, and a gift box from Hickory Farms. He’ll love it but I feel like I took the easy way out, which I did. There won’t be a personal touch to either box, other than the notes. Of course being so busy I’m not sure I could have put much personal touch into anything.

My three closest friends, My Peeps, have all had equally hard weeks. I know they’re tired as well. In honor of us needing a break to just relax, I sent them an email with a link to YouTube for Madeline Kane’s performance in Blazing Saddles, as Lily von Stuchpp singing “I’m Tired” and inviting them to my patio tomorrow evening. We can let the kids run wild in the field, let them roast hot dogs and marshmallows, while we sit and watch and sip our adult beverages. This is as close as we’re going to get to our ultimate goal of a Mediterranean cruise anytime soon.

Last weekend I bought a big wooden spool at a garage sale to make a yard table. I decide to leave it as is for awhile and let the kids play on it. I remember when we were kids we had two 55-gallon barrels. We had a lot of fun with those things. We taught ourselves to barrel walk, had races and barrel fights. We also used them as construction material to build our forts, and of course we used them for drums. I anticipate that my wooden spool will ignite similar ideas in the kids. When they get tired of it there will still be time to turn it into a yard table.

Red light cameras, tickets & a hard question

2009-06-03T16:32:00.000-07:00

I had an engineer come by to talk to me today about a project we are working on, and then we got to talking about other things. We got on the subject of red-light cameras. I mentioned how the City of Portland doesn’t make any money on tickets from the cameras. Because a city our size is prohibited by state law from running our own courts, all traffic tickets go through the county court system. So, any money left after the contractor (who operates the program) has been paid, pretty much goes to the state and county. People are always surprised by this information.

This engineer was no exception. He thought that supported his stance, which is that all red light cameras should be removed at once. He willingly admits that his opinion is colored by the fact that he recently received a ticket in the mail from a red light camera. He is also convinced that they cause more rear-end accidents, but grants that they perhaps reduce t-bone accidents.

His parting observation was that we always hear how these cameras are loved and adored by people, but if that is the case, he would like to know why they are always housed in bulletproof, armor encased, housing?

Got to love those engineers!!

Dancing in Iraq

2009-06-01T16:09:00.000-07:00

There are some very clever and fun dance videos on YouTube made by soldiers in Iraq. Of course there are a lot bad ones as well, but even in those there are some good moments, like an American airman attempting to break dance in a room with several Iraqi soldiers watching on. It’s clear they are not impressed and are pretty much wearing an expression of, “WHAT?”

There are also videos out on the streets with soldiers performing for citizens or getting the local kids to join into the dance. These are fun, but not usually for very long. At least they’re not good enough to watch more then once.

I have two favorites that I have watched many times and have sent on to others so they can enjoy them too. One is by a British unit and it’s basically one soldier walking around the FOB (Forward Operating Base) and lip-sinking a song while other soldiers come into the frame with him and exit. Each group coming into the frame is telling its own little story, or joke visually. It’s also quite funny that a bunch of British soldiers would choose a song about Texas for their video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIRerGVrEeg&feature=related

The second one is a clever mix of music and some very creative soldiers, complete with dance steps designed to incorporate fire arms. You’ve got to love that, how often do you get to see a thing like that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW1toLy_FMQ

Go onto YouTube and search “soldiers dancing in Iraq” you’ll find some great stuff.

Suprise award

2009-05-28T13:11:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I received an email from the Employee Recognition Committee, telling me I had been nominated for and will receive a Values Award. To be considered for this award you must be nominated by a co-worker. I was a little confused because I had nominated someone for this award. I thought maybe they had made an email mistake and sent it out the person who did the nominating. Color me surprised when Leland told me I would be receiving the award, and that I had been nominated by no less than four different people. WOW! I was a little speechless, and embarrassed.

It’s really great to be acknowledged by your peers for the work you do. It is also great when someone you have nominated receives an award too, so I’m very happy to report that Bill (the person I nominated) is also receiving an award. J Of course I will now have to find a place to hang my new award. I have three others at my desk: a Blue Heron Award (our bureau award for outstanding work by an individual or group – mine was for work as park of a group), the Queen of Portland Trivia granted to me for my demonstrated knowledge of useless trivia, and my Certificate of Excellence from a co-work that certifies that I received in recognition of outstanding service for “Damn Near Everything.” Luckily I just move and have cleaned up a lot of junk I had hung up at my old cubical so I have some wall space. So I guess all things happen for a reason.

Tuesday, all the downtown employees will gather for our awards event. (We have employee at three basic locations, so there are events at each location. This keeps us all close to work, and only our bureau director has to trek around the city.) Anyway, on Tuesday Dean (our Director) will read the nominations as they were submitted, and present the awards. It’s a nice time, there is usually some joking and laughing, typical of all events of this nature. I’m a little curious to hear why I was nominated. Of course I’m already worried about what to wear, where to sit, what to say, and not tripping as I walk up on the platform.

A view to a jail

2009-05-27T16:55:00.000-07:00

I’m completely moved into my new space at work and it hasn’t been as traumatic as I had anticipated. I’m actually back to the original space I occupied when I first came to work for this bureau. I have a great view out my window of the Willamette River, the downtown park blocks, and the exercise floor of the jail.

Having the jail just a block away is an interesting experience. For one, I get to watch them play basketball. What I really find bizarre are the visitors on the sidewalk 9 floors below. The girlfriends and wives of these guys line up and shout out their guys’ names and things like, “I love you baby!!” I mean really, if you find yourself standing outside the jail screaming words of love up to your guy in the exerciser yard, you might want to seriously reconsider the choices you’re making in your personal life. If you haven’t had a clue before that point that thing weren’t going to be sunshine and roses, let this be it, and get thee gone!

It's interesting to note that women are overwhelmingly represented on the, as I like to call it, “Sidewalk of Losers.” There isn’t a single man there yelling up to his girl. I’m not sure if that says men are smarter about picking up loser signs in their potential mates, or if their less loyal. I’ll save that quandary for more noble thinkers than I.

So, be careful in your choices of a mate, and if you find yourself on the Sidewalk of Losers, recognize you have some work to do on yourself and get the hell out of there!!

Writing for Memorial Day

2009-05-21T13:30:00.000-07:00

I’m a member to the veterans affinity group at work, called the Veterans Empowerment Team, or VET for short. I was asked to write a message that could be sent out to all city employees’ emails for Memorial Day. It went out this morning.

Writing this was an interesting exercise, since I have not experienced a personal loss on this level. The first thing I did was a Google search of “Memorial Day”, then I went to Wikkipedia, clicked the link for Flanders Fields and read the poem through completely. Also an interesting exercise. I also did a search for quotes related to Memorial Day, veterans, military service, military losses, and military dead.

After all this research I was ultimately left to do the actual writing, which was kind of a daunting task because you never know if you can hit the right note. I always live in fear that I will offend someone unintentionally. As I’ve mentioned before Portland is a city that loves its protests and the war has certainly been a favored subject. We even had grandmas picketing a military recruiting station. I know that many veterans, especially from the Vietnam era, are careful to keep their veteran status quite because of the response they might get. So, I’ve been my usual nervous self about this one. I’m happy to say that so far all the feed back has been good. Would it be tacky to say, “Dodged that bullet”?

Here is what I wrote:

May 21, 2009

…We are the dead. Short days agoWe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,Loved, and were loved, and now we lieIn Flanders fields… from “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae

Freedom is never free, and while many citizens pay a portion of the cost to preserve our freedom, some have paid a higher price than others. May 25th is Memorial Day, a day to remember those who have paid with their lives, to insure the freedoms we all enjoy.

Many of us will spend this day at BBQ’s and picnics enjoying friends and family. That is a very fitting way to celebrate, by participating in activities that our fallen brothers and sisters would have enjoyed.

The Veterans Empowerment Team asks that we all take a moment at noon on that day, to observe the national moment of remembrance for all those who have paid the ultimate price. To quote Calvin Coolidge, “The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.”
We hope you all enjoy a bright, cheerful celebration while remembering all those who are no longer with us.

Number crazy

2009-05-19T15:59:00.001-07:00

At five minutes and six seconds after 4 AM on the 8th of July this year, the time and date will be:

04:05:06 07/08/09

This will not happen again for a thousand years.

Really? This is kinda cool, but who in their right mind is going to be up at that hour on a Wednesday morning? Especially for a totally artificial number. Well, I guess there may be some real math freaks that could get into it. Anyone else up at that hour is walking a crying baby, working, or has partied way too hard on a Tuesday night. There may be one or two people up using the bathroom.

All these crazy things about numbers. There are those people with the Bible code, that is absolutely no good because you first have to know the event and then you go looking for something that you can tie to it from the Bible. Most of the time the tie is so vague that it’s a real stretch. Because of this kind of crazy talk, I didn’t read the De Vinci Code until it had been out for over a year. I thought it was about some crazy fortune telling hocus pocus thing with De Vinci’s works. Once I paid attention and found that wasn’t the case I started reading the book, and boy was I cranky that I had missed out on such a good book for so long. Of course that’s the good thing about a book, you never really miss it they’re always there. Well, that is if you don’t wait too long.

Speaking of books, have you checked out the Kindle? How cool is that thing!! I have a friend at work that just bought the newest version. I’m so jealous!! The problem is I’m too cheap to spend the money. As soon as the price works its way down to a manageable point, I’m owning one. Someone said I should wait until they let us download books on our cell phones. Well, there’s no satisfaction in that! Phones are too small, the Kindle is kinda the same size as a book, and the print is the same size, but if you need to you can increase the font size. Reading a book on the phone would be just so wrong. Listening to one would be OK. I wonder if I can download audio books to may Blackberry? I gotta go!

Frustrating day

2009-05-18T15:55:00.000-07:00

Today has been a frustrating day, on a number of levels.

1. It’s beautiful and I’m stuck inside. I’d much rather be out on my patio or working in the yard.

2. I’m the victim a forced moved at work and when I got to my new location nothing was working but the phone, and of course I couldn’t call anyone because all the numbers are in the computer!

3. For most of the day my space was filled with boxes and surplus furniture. Then there was all the dust stirred, and that called for cleaning.

4. And just because my day wasn’t crappy enough, our whole group had to attend a mind numbing meeting on our upcoming change in timekeeping. We learned NOTHING!!!

5. My new window faces east and the morning sun was blasting through, super heating the space. The blinds are broken.

Other then that the day was great. I have high hopes for after work when the Walking Buddies meet in the park at home. It will be wonderful to walk around and smell the flowers. I’d better take a kleenx for the sneezing that is bound to occur.

Best commercial ever!

2009-05-18T15:33:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me this commercial by Bush Brewing. Needless to say, I love it!

I love puns!

2009-05-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

I love puns!! I know, most people just groan at puns, but I really love their creativity. A friend sent some really excellent ones today:

CREATIVE PUNS FOR "ACTIVE MINDS"

1. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

3. She was only a whiskey maker, but I loved her still.

4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.

5. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.

6. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

7. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

8. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

9. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

11. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

12. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

13. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.'

14. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

15. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'

16. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, 'No change yet.'

17. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

18. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

19. The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

20. A backward poet writes inverse.

21. In democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes.

22. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

23. Don't join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects.

Bus rules

2009-05-11T15:27:00.001-07:00

I ride the bus to work every day and most of the time I read. On occasion I might finish a book and be left trying to fill the time during the commute. The other day I found myself in this situation and started reading the various signs post inside the bus. One of them was the Rule of Conduct. It was pretty much what you would expect: no eating or drinking, no loud radios, no guns or knives, blah, blah, blah. No surprises, at least until I get to number six.

Number six wasn’t really surprising for its content, but more for its vocabulary. No expectorating. It made me smile because I thought immediately of the Disney cartoon, Beauty and the Beast. I’m not sure I would even know what expectorating meant if it weren’t for the fact that the villain in the story sings a song about how wonderful he is and lists out all the things he does really well. One of them is expectorating. At which point in the song he demonstrates his spitting superiority.

I’m thinking who ever wrote the bus rules was a Disney fan. Thanks for the laugh!

I don't want to move!!

2009-05-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

I’ve worked for the City of Portland for 12 years. The first six I worked for the Office of Neighborhood Involvement (ONI), a much over worked and under funded bureau. The phrase “Rode hard and put up wet” is a very good description of what it is like to work there. After six years of intensive work with the public on crime prevention issues, budget cuts and union issues I was exhausted. For nine months after leaving them I worked for the Bureau of Development Services (BDS) as a code inspector and had one of the greatest bosses I’ve ever had the honor of working for. He actually took me aside and told me to slow down, that I was working too hard! To this day, I swear that directive is the reason I’ve stayed sane. (No comments from the peanut gallery!!) After leaving there, a much saner person, I went to work for the Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) doing community outreach for construction projects.

Now here’s the thing, at ONI the budget was so tight I had to drive my own car on city business, carry my own person cell phone, flex days instead of getting overtime pay and constantly figure out how to get things done with no money. – This actually meant that things were not done to a satisfactory level. – And, little things like office equipment, office space, and moving expenses were pretty much non-existent. At BES I was only in the office for a very short period of time each day, I was visiting compliant site most of the day, in a City car. I had everything I needed to get the job done in a proper way.

At BES I again have all the resource I need to do my job. Nothing extravagant, but what I need without adding undue hardships and stress. Well, that is except a constant work space. In five years my workstation has been moved three times. Or at least it will have been three times by the end of this week. Oddly enough I’m ending up right back where I started. All three spaces are within 30 feet of each other. Moving is a stressful process, and aggravating beyond belief. It takes one day to get it all packed up, then another day to have it moved, and a third day to get everything set up again the way you want it. I really like my current space and I’ve been very resistant to this move, but its here now and I’m trying to accept it. Ok, maybe I’m not trying as hard as I could, but cut me some slack! I’m giving up storage! Do you know how valuable storage is? I have no idea how I’m going to fit everything in at the new/old location.

There’s the fart/burp factor to consider as well. I’ve been known to be a little gassy and right now I’m in a cubical all by myself. Starting Monday I will be sharing a pod area with two co-worker and an empty station for a third. I’m going to have to be on constant alert for escaping gases, and vacate the area at the first signs of a gas leak. I’m also going to have to watch the level of my voice on the phone. I’m not good at self awareness on this level!! To put it mildly, I’m a little freaked!

My closest pod mate (I don’t want to be a pod person!!) has a map and paper fetish. He is physically incapable of throwing out either one. As a result his cubicle is filled to overflowing. This does not bode well for my future since there will now be no barriers between our work stations. If you don’t hear from me, check under the pile of papers and maps.

The good news? I’ll still have a window and I’ll be slightly closer to the printer. I’m hanging onto that thought with both hands!

Great weekend

2009-05-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

Big weekend for me! I adopted a new soldier from Soldiers’ Angel, spruced up the house, helped celebrate a neighbor’s birthday and the arrival of their new kitten, and hosted a Mother’s Day BBQ at my home.

I’ve been a member of Soldiers’ Angels since 2006 and have adopted dozens of soldiers over the years. My infantryman went on mail stop May 9, which means he will be heading home in about a month. YEAH JASON!!!!! I’m always so excited when they go home safe and sound. My new soldier is actually a Marine. I’ve only had one other Marine, which was actually my very first adoption. Bless his heart, he emailed me almost everyday!! Some Angels get solders that write very little or not at all. That can be very discouraging. I can tell you there is nothing like getting “free mail” in your mailbox. You just get crazy excited.

Anyway, my new Marine is still a big mystery to me. There was no entry in the gender field and the name is non-gender specific so the box I sent out Saturday was pretty generic. I’m waiting with bated breath to hear back from them. It’s so exciting!!

Sprucing up the house is always a mixed bag. You inevitably find something you’ve been looking for and forgot where you put it, in my case it was a book. You also get things put away you’ve just been pushing to the side for a while, for me it was the staple gun. And, you finally make a decision on whether to keep things or throw them away. That can be a painful process, and you might need to call a friend to talk you through it, or rely on a heavy dose of chocolate for those really hard decisions.

Our little Emily turned 12 this weekend. She is the most delightful kid, who loves everyone and always brings a smile to your face. – Her mother (Debbi) assures me this is not always the case. – For her big day she got to go to the SPCA and adopt a kitten, a grey short-hair with four white socks, named Pepper. He’s very cute and seems to be quite sturdy, since he survived the first day in our neighborhood full of kids wanting to hold him and play with him. Then there is Rusty, the 100 lb dog next door who just wants the cat to love him. Can you imagine being the size of an adult shoe and having something big enough to swallow you in one bit, stick its nose in your face and sniff? All I know is I wouldn’t have lived through the day this cat did.

Mother’s Day was great!! We had seven mothers present and eight of their 15 children present. Some of us were doing double duty. Aunt Violet and Aunt Billie are mothers of sons and have no daughters, so our mom has always shared us with them. It was like having all three of my mothers there at once.

I received a very nice gift from my son, Matt. He sculpted, out of found metal objects, a flower on a base for me. It is so awesome!!

The BBQ was incredible, thanks to Mark. The house still smelled of BBQ this morning. Is there anything that smells better than the first BBQ of the season? It’s right up there with the first wood smoke of winter! The rest of the meal was just as good. I think I over estimated our need for pie. I made 4 and even after sending some home with everyone I had almost a whole one left.

It was really hard to come to work this morning and say good-bye to such a satisfying weekend; I just wanted it to go on forever!

Presents for Mom

2009-05-07T11:06:00.000-07:00

Mother’s Day is just a few days away, and I know this because the air waves are clogged with ads for the potentially perfect gift for mom. There are ads for plants, flowers, slow cookers, dinner, vacuum cleaners, trips and so much more. Now I think all us who have moms can agree that mom deserves a good gift so let’s really think about what a gift might say.

Plants: Because you don’t have enough to take care of now.

Flower: Here’s something pretty that will last at least a few days – or – I really put a lot of thought into this.

Dinner: You fed us for years so we’ll take you out to a really crowded and noisy restaurant to pay you back. Well at least mom won’t have to clean up or do the dishes. Of course if dad or the son is picking out the restaurant it will probably be a steakhouse of some type.

Vacuum cleaner: You suck – or – You’re house is so dirty this was an obvious choice

Trips: You’ll get to take care of us with different scenery, and if you’re really lucky there will be a language barrier to overcome as well.

So I’ve been thinking about how to get your mother the perfect present. First of all, don’t ask her what she wants. That’s just too lazy; is it really coming from the heart if it has been dictated? No! Consider the type of person your mother is, what are her interests? When she has free time how does she spend it? What is it that really gets her excited?

For my mom is a home body with an adventurous spirit. She loves thinking about taking trips, and likes to take little short trips, but is always ready to get back home after a few days. She likes her bed. She loves music and really great singers. We’re talking singers with real talent and training that sing songs you can understand. She loves her family and enjoys us in short bursts. She enjoys cooking and has an incredible talent for it, as well a singing. She enjoys playing games, reading and doing sudoku puzzles. And, she loves to laugh.

So, for my mother the perfect gift would be three day stay at a very nice hotel in a scenic location, where her family would visit for about one hour. She would have a Boise sound system with all her CDs handy. There would also be a really comfy recliner with some books and puzzles, and a great view out a big picture window. The kitchen would be roomy and everything would be in the same place she has it at home. There would be a five star restaurant in the hotel wit great views that she could visit or get room service. She and Aunt Violet (of course Aunt Violet would be going with her, heck we might even throw in Aunt Billie) would be able to jump in the car and take a little drive and see more great scenery. They would take some pictures, maybe have a picnic, and they would definitely call to gloat! This would be a perfect Mother’s Day gift for my mom.

Actually the perfect present for my mom would be a transporter device she could use to transport her whole house and property to various locations. I wonder if Sharper Image has that little item yet.

Never mind

2009-05-04T14:56:00.001-07:00

Today I sat in a meeting, the purpose of which was to determine if the alternative evaluation criteria laid out for a proposed project are on-point or not. I think I was the only person in the room without an engineering degree, or for that matter without a degree of any kind. To say that these meetings can be mind numbing would be to create false hope for excitement. These kinds of meetings are the reason electro shock was invented!!

So we’re going through all the categories, the objective for each and the measurement for each objective and scoring ranges. So it’s pretty much blah, blah, blah, blah, blah until we get to the last category “Stakeholders” of which the general public is included. At last, my area of expertise!!!

While the blah, blah, blah, blah, blahing was going on I was going through the spreadsheets, diagrams, and site photos, and I notice a glaring problem. So, up to this point they have discussed every aspect of measurement related to the choice of options A or B. Now they’re down to me and I have to inform them that they have a potentially fatal flaw in both alternatives, as well as point out to them that even though public opinion accounts for only 3% of the total scoring, that 3% could be a deal breaker in reality.

You could just hear the mental brakes being applied. One of the engineers presenting has a hard time with my evaluation and pushes a bit. She’s understandably concerned about having to redo work she already spent a great amount of time on. It doesn’t take too long until the whole group sees what I’m saying and begins to look at how to work the problem.

That is the awesome thing about working with the people I work with; we really care how our work impacts the public on multiple levels. I received one of THOSE emails this morning which basically calls us a bunch of unfeeling, stupid, incompetent jerks who are just trying to wreck everyone’s lives. I just want to smack people that send me this stuff!! Of course I don’t, instead I spend an hour and a half putting together a response then send it around for comments, and then spend another hour incorporating all the comments into an official response. I also have to copy the aids to three city council members because this guy copied all of them on the original email.

I blame this kind of behavior on politicians, who are always talking about “making efficiencies” in budgets instead of calling them what they really are, cut backs. When you talk about budget cuts in these terms you are inherently implying that government has been wasting tax dollars by being inefficient, or wasteful. So not true!!!

It’s like when I’m talking to people and they start going off about how government is problem and cause of everything. How you can’t expect anything out of government workers. I’m like, HEY, I’m standing right here! Do you realize you’re talking about me? Do you realize what you pay me, and that you’re a pretty sucky boss?!! But do I go around spewing that around the universe? --- Wait, maybe that’s what I’m doing now. So, in the immortal words of Roseanne Roseannadanna, “Never mind.”

May Day

2009-05-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

Today is May Day. Growing up in Texas I don’t recall ever having heard of this as being a special day. It was just May 1st. Of course we had Cinco de Mayo to focus on, but here in Portland May Day is a big thing.

Every year there is the May Day Parade, which tends to be an excuse to block traffic at afternoon rush, and to protest a plethora (don’t get to use that work often) of issues. In fact, I don’t know why they don’t just call it Protest Day. Possibly because that might imply that it isn’t OK to protest on other day? Horror or horrors!!

Portland is the most protesting city in the country, and every time someone feels like protesting guess who pay? Anyone trying to use the streets downtown. I’m glad there’s something these people feel passionate about, but do they have to inflict pain on my day? Because, I’m telling you right now, that kind of action doesn’t endear me to them or their cause(s).

Here’s the other thing, who is protesting? The unwashed crazy looking groups that’s who. You know the white kids with ratty looking dreads (hardly ever a good look on us white folks), patchouli smelling, hemp wearing, tattooed, body pierced, vegan eating, composting toilet using group. You know that group that feels superior to all the rest of us because their lives are somehow more important. Why? I don’t know!

So, to avoid the marching, drumming, chanting, superior attitudes and inevitable traffic jams, I’m leaving work early today. I’ll spend my afternoon, delivering neighborhood newsletters, finalizing details for tomorrow’s neighborhood wide garage sale, watering the garden and flower pots, and hopefully I’ll get in a few laughs with some friends. Not a big statement by standard of Portland protester, but my version of a great way to celebrate May Day.

Job avoidance and angry cleaning

2009-04-30T15:42:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how much you can get done when you’re trying to avoid something else? For instance, there is this big mailing I need to get out at work, and I just can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t know why. I’ll get done tomorrow because that’s the deadline I’ve set, but I could have done it today or yesterday, but I just couldn’t get myself to do it. I even tried a couple of times, but nope couldn’t do it. I did however get my desk pick up, organized some files, got some filing done, submitted work request forms for two projects, and compiled cost estimates for two other projects. A lot of work, but the one big thing I could have been doing.

It’s kind of like cleaning the house. I clean best when I’m totally pissed off. I get mad and pretty soon there is no dirt or mess safe from my wrath. All that energy focused on dirt and grim, as well as letting off steam. Don’t get in my way unless you want a high gloss finish. I take no prisoners. I of course, clean at times other then when I’m not angry, but it tends to lack a certain residual energy.

White trash tomatoes and the smack down

2009-04-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

You know my sister and I have been working on putting in a vegetable garden at my house this year. It’s awesome! 100 square feet of raised beds. We spent a weekend hauling dirt from up the road to our beds. No we didn’t actually do it ourselves. My son Matt and his friend Jason did the work, but we cooked for them, and they will get picking rights.

Last weekend we finally got plants into the ground. Yes, Danna and I did that work ourselves. We planted starts for corn, peas, beans, cucumbers, radishes, shallots, Walla-Walla onions, Anaheim peppers, red bell peppers, garlic and tomatoes. We didn’t plant the tomatoes in the garden. We planted one in a Topsey-Tervey. You know that thing they advertise on TV that hangs from the patio and you plant the tomato upside down in the bottom? The others we planted in buckets. As our friend Debbi says, we’re having a smack down to see which method works best.

After we were done, we were sitting on the patio admiring our work and enjoying a drink. I pointed out to my sister that we needed to move the tomatoes to the far end of the garden. She asked why and I explained that they were unattractive where we had them. That particular placement kind of screamed WHITE TRASH. We had planted them in empty cat litter bucket with all the labeling still on them.

Danna informed me that if people didn’t know that about us yet, they probably wouldn’t catch on. So the tomato buckets remain in their original positions. I’ll let you know how the Great Tomato Smack Down goes.