Nothing’s Happening Here

I’m just going to pretend like my world is going on an even keel right now, and that, as I am one week away from being back in school full-time, with all the time constraints that will hold,  things are great.  “Nothing’s happening here….”

This afternoon I am headed for a concert at the state college, free because my mother holds a membership with the local art gallery.  I used to suffer through them, but now, I actually enjoy going, sitting, and doing nothing but listening.  The venue goes from Opera, to light Broadway, with Classical and Modern thrown in for good measure. We hear groups and soloists. One of the best was the harpsichord concert.  I don’t know what today’s program will be, but it will be a happy and cool break from the digging I am doing in my back yard.

I have dreams of a landscaped back yard.  I know I have the space for a truly amazing area back there.  Instead, I have Dallas grass, Bermuda grass (very invasive), and a bathroom for the dogs.  I am trying to make a sidewalk around the back, without having to spend any money.  I have been on weed patrol for a long time now, trying to find an eco-friendly way to KILL THE WEEDS.  I’ve tried vinegar and salt, but I’m ready to move on to just salt, and then to the hard stuff if I have to. My hands and hips are aching with the physical effort.

Not that I’m complaining. I could be in a place with no yard, no frogs, no fruit trees…

Time to get ready to go.

a little bummed

The last time I got into a car accident, well, the time before last now, I was so devastated when the insurance companies and the CHP report blamed me.  It was unjust then, and I have an overwhelming feeling that somehow the same thing is going to happen this time.  I feel it coming.

I got a call from the insurance company tonight.  They wanted to tell me I wasn’t supposed to leave my car in the repair shop and get an insurance-paid-for rental until the shop was ready to work on the car, had all the parts, was actually repairing it.  Somehow that was lost in translation.  I guess I was supposed to take the estimate to the shop and they would order the parts from that.  Then, when they had them all, I was supposed to take the car in.  That got a little muddled and I guess I jumped the gun.

It’s not like I wasn’t already confused, and passed around from one person to the next, and then ending up with a totally independent claims adjuster who told me they wouldn’t know if they needed other things til they had the bumper off in the shop.

Oh well, I am supposed to call the shop and urge them to get it done so that I can take the car back.  I just know that on top of all this, they are going to find me at fault for getting hit in the rear on the freeway.

I want to curl up in a ball and cry.  When things go wrong, I start to take it personally.  I feel like all those thoughts of my inadequacies are indeed justified after all.

I could have done without this!

Mouse Brains and Cow Skin

I don’t want to write about human vaccines and their controversial nature, but that is what is on my mind.

I am not an expert about them.   I do know I am skittish about getting the flu shots that come out yearly.  I think coming to a decision about giving them to your own precious newborn is about as hard as they come.

Mouse brains and cow skin?  Those are ingredients in those vaccines.

I read a book called THE MICROBE HUNTERS for one of my science classes (microbiology? biology?).  That’s where I learned about Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine, which I was given on a sugar cube.  And now, there is a vaccine for the German measles, the disease I will always credit with having robbed me of my perfect vision, leaving me with a lifetime of stumbling when I need to get up in the middle of the night and my contacts are in their container by the bathroom sink.   I did gain one thing from that 10-day episode of a high fever and excruciating eye pain: a lifetime of remembering the words to the song KING OF THE ROAD.  (“Trailer for sale or rent, rooms to let: 50 cents. No phone, no pool, no pets. I ain’t got no cigarettes…”)

I vaccinated my children.  I was always worried. They got fevers. They slept. They were cranky and unhappy. But I could say, with the best of my knowledge, that I was protecting them from things that were worse than what they experienced.

Now there is a lot more research out there.   There are many more voices added to the mix.  To whom do you listen?  I think you find someone you trust and you do a lot of praying, and you realize that you can’t possibly predict the outcome.  Your stomach will churn, and this will be one of the first of many choices you make wherein you do what is, to the best of your knowledge, best for your child.

ole paint

I know first born is going to have issues with my choice of paint color in what used to be third born’s bedroom.

I love the color I chose  (even though, while drying, I can’t really tell what color it is going to be).  I didn’t choose a shade of yellow, because I heard on NPR that babies in yellow rooms are fussier than those in other colored rooms.  Yes, they did a study on this, and it turns out that cheery yellow does not bring good cheer after all.  And since baby grandson will also sleep in there someday,  I chose my favorite color, a shade of green.

Green is the color of living things. It is the color of trees and plants, and meadows, and other soothing places. (I hear you: “It’s the color of pond scum, frogs,  and goo, too!” but I’ll ignore you….).

My mom came over and we put the first coat on the walls. The trim and closet, and doors will be a contrasting off-white, and the curtains third born chose for her room will still go on the windows.  But I WILL put a rug in there.  Hardwood floors are so cold in the winter!

I can’t wait to see what color it is in the morning!

a hero among us

Some of those sirens last night were two fire engines, chalk full of firemen, in the half-block behind my neighbor.

After a long internal debate, I changed back into clothes and walked over there, despite the fact that it was ten at night.  That’s when I found out that my neighbor, the fire inspector, had saved the life of an elderly man across the street from him.

The granddaughter had called on him, thinking he was the paramedic type of fire fighter.   Despite not being that kind, he rushed right over, found the man with no pulse, did the Heimlich maneuver on him, and got the food out that he had choked on. I assume he did CPR, too, but I don’t know for sure.

By the time I arrived, they were closing up the trucks, and the ambulance had departed, taking the man off, now with a pulse.

It just figures that our local fire inspector is a hero.  He’s a really nice neighbor, too.

helicopters

OK, there is one thing I am not too fond of where I live. The helicopters fly above day and night. No, I don’t live close to a hospital with the heliopad for emergency personnel.  At this time of night, it’s not the traffic copter that checks hwy 99 behind the park, either.  No, this is the copter that flies around, sometimes saying garbled messages through megaphones, sometimes sending a beam of bright white light earthward.  Then suddenly, it will start to fade. Only tonight, it’s not doing that.  Tonight, it is going round and round and round.  What unseemly senario is taking place, and how do I find out?  What does happen in this neighborhood after dark?

dog days are lonely days

Leia and Rory spent the day alone again, after a good walk in the freezing morning hours.  At least I had that to fall back on, that I had taken them for a walk.

Now here we are, 9 PM, and they are lying here at my feet, faithful as ever, despite my ignoring them all day. But I will do better by them tomorrow.   My plan is to stay and prep the front bedroom for painting.  I got the ladder  from the youngest child who now lives across town.  I got some painting supplies and my vacuum cleaner, too.  So now all the hair that is under the couch and in the corners, and of course on the rug, can  be sucked away.   One week of not vacuuming and I could weave a coat from all the hair.

I got to lie on the rug at the youngest child’s house today, and stretch my neck and back by doing a little yoga. (A gloriously hair-free rug might I add!)  Yoga, as well as writing, is something that has taken a back seat to everything else lately.  But since the accident I had on the freeway almost two weeks ago, my neck and back have been like steel. That stretching and rolling on them really helped.

Then I helped son-in-law bring in two IKEA couches and I need some more yoga time.

I also got to hold the new little guy, my grandson. That is always a worthwhile way to spend the day.

Oh yes, and I drove out to where my son lives to let him in his home, since his key was somewhere, but not with him.

I started the day with my mom, walking the dogs.  I ended the day with my mom, eating dinner at a little Mexican restaurant down the street in our shared neighborhood.

I got to visit with my nephew  in midtown where we used to live next door to him.  It was really strange being there, walking up the driveway of the house that used to be home.

Finally, though, I am home.  I love this home. I love the open windows with the breeze that comes through. I love the 1956 kitchen, complete with it’s 1956 oven, range, and brown tile.

It was a hodgepodge day, and thus it is a hodgepodge post.

paralysis of the blank page

A blank piece of paper holds everlasting promise, until the first word gets written. Then it’s all over. Then the critiques can flow with abandon, the snears begin, the questions of grammatical correctness can be asked, and the writer (in this case me) just crawls back in the shell and gives it up.

I’ve given it up for umpteen years. I’d rather write in Spanish than expose my lack of creativity in English.  My Spanish is not good.  I suppose you will be the judge of how good my English is.

But maybe you aren’t here to judge. That would be something. We’ll go with that. We’ll assume you aren’t here to judge, and in that case, I can just ramble on….