elders, pecans, and kittens

Thursday at SHARE one of the boys, the 18/19/20 something kids they call Elders, asked me if I was excited about christmas as the other asked if I was ready for christmas. I gave them my stock answer…as ready as I ever am. Which is to say, not at all since I don’t do christmas. It’s just easier to brush off the inquiry with a false impression than to get into why I don’t believe in or do religion especially with ardent young men who are out doing their ‘good work’ knocking on doors which is part of what they do when they aren’t volunteering at SHARE and in fact were on my street Friday afternoon. I saw them as I was crossing back over from Pam’s house. Apparently they weren’t having much success as they asked me if I knew anyone who would want to hear about Jesus. Since everyone I know is already a believer or they aren’t interested, perfectly happy with whatever alternate beliefs they hold or none at all, I told them "no, no, I really don’t". I can’t imagine there is anybody in this country who doesn’t already have even a rudimentary knowledge of Jesus since it’s so pervasive in our culture and society.

We get new Elders about every couple of months as their church shifts them around to other locations and, it appears to me, are kept a close eye on, I guess to make sure they stay on the straight and narrow of their Mormon teachings. They used to show up in T-shirts and jeans but the last month or so they’ve been showing up in their uniform…black pants, white shirt, and tie. This week was a food delivery day from the regional food bank in Victoria and so it was very busy getting it all sorted and put away and consequently we had a veritable mountain of boxes piled up. When I empty a box, I collapse it immediately, takes 10 seconds, and take it out to the main storage area but I’m about the only one that does that. Just about every week I tell the boys that if they are in-between, sitting around waiting for the next car to pull up for their food or whatever they’ve been asked to do, to collapse the boxes so that I can take them to the container for recycling. Thursday I didn’t. I just went out with my box cutter during a break in food orders, and started in on the pile without saying anything to the boys who were sitting around also not doing anything during the break in food orders. After I’d dealt with a few of the boxes one of the boys came over and started helping and then when we were nearly done the other picked up a box or two. I wonder if next week they will just do it or if I’ll have to remind them again.

The weather is being schizophrenic these days which is usual for this time of year. Wednesday and Thursday were lovely, Friday was overcast, colder, wet and icky. It rained off and on all day. Saturday colder but sunny. I’d been planning to make another foray into the backyard of the vacant house across the street and adjacent to the shop property to pick up more pecans. There are three big trees back there and the ground is solid with them that no one is picking up, in fact I don’t think the people who lived there ever picked them up but I could be wrong about that. Since I knew the weather was going to turn I finally did it Thursday after lunch filling up two of my bigger metal buckets. As soon as the kittens saw me back there they came running up and meowing but no hissing this time. Sorry kids, not feeding time yet. These are the pecans I have picked up from my yard, about 160 pounds, minus the ones I’ve shelled (about 40 pounds giving me 20 pounds of shelled pecans).

These are the ones I’ve picked up from the two neighbors' yards.

I’m having a hard time getting this post finished and published. I’ve been working on it for 3 days now. I write then change my mind and take stuff out, change day names from yesterday to whatever it should be, add stuff in, and then just peter out and walk away. Another cold but clear day though we’re on a warming trend now after last night. And speaking of last night, an update on the socialization of the kittens. The ground was wet from the rain so I didn’t want to sit and offer food in my hands. When I walked around to the back porch they all came running out, running right up to me, no hissing! I squatted down and coaxed them to me and the brown tabby, he’s such a handsome fella, finally came up to me and let me pet him and stroke him and scratch his head and then the gray tabby who is very vocal also let me stroke him quite a bit, all before I got the food out of the shed. This is major! Since Momcat has been fine with petting that just leaves the female who looks like mom who has been the most skittish. Still waiting to hear from SPOT about getting them fixed but they are still working on it, apparently had some other kittens that took precedence but I think they have been dealt with now.

One last picture or two. Atmospheric conditions were just right for contrails the other morning. This plane was streaking across the sky above three other fading contrails, one above the cloud, one at the bottom of the cloud, and one beneath the cloud (the second picture).

kitties, the Mac mini, and death effects

I'm still waiting for SPOT to arrange to have the three 'feral' kittens fixed and sent to their new homes. I have feral in apostrophes because they aren't exactly feral, not completely tame but not completely feral either. They are very wary but I've been doing what I can to acclimate them to human touch. As reported earlier, I am able to stroke all three kittens while they eat. Sometimes just two or three times as long as I don't try to touch their heads before they back off except for the brown tabby. He lets me stroke him the most. When I go over to feed them in the evening about 4:30 they come running out and hiss at me.  Saturday night before I put food in the dishes underneath the screened in porch I sat on the ground with a handful of food in my outstretched arm calling to the kittens. The gray tabby circled me continuously, would approach but never got up the courage. I held out the other hand with food as well and, being hungry, all three would sort of approach but then back off because I was watching them. So I averted my gaze and waited patiently and the brown tabby finally got up the courage to eat out of my hand and then the female that looks like Momcat came and ate out of the other hand which really surprised me because she has been the most skittish. The gray tabby that I thought would be the first never did. After most of the food was gone out of my hands I filled their dishes. So I did it again Sunday evening and last night. They were quicker to approach last night.

I spent most of the day Sunday and the morning yesterday getting my new computer set up and all the data transferred with constant help via face time from my niece’s husband Greg so now I’m using the Mac mini with a Dell monitor. Yay!!! I’ve unplugged my ancient iMac and moved it aside. 

When I wasn’t setting up the new computer Sunday I was moving more plants in as it dipped down to near freezing that night and we definitely had a frost. 

But no rain, all the chances of rain dissipate so now I’m back to watering my yard and Pam’s. I’ve been doing a little maintenance over there, mostly weeding her few flower beds. She swore when she moved into that house that she was done with flower beds, just wanted a few plantings and an herb garden. I scoffed. Little by little a little flower bed appeared and then another and then another, five or six. 

When all the family was here I think the grandkids went through some of Pam’s christmas ornaments and took ones they wanted. All her christmas stuff is in tubs in her shed. I need to sort through that stuff now that the immediacy of her death is over, take pictures and canvas her kids and grandkids and see if they want any of it before I donate it somewhere. She had an antique Santa that people have tried to buy off her many times. 

It was a month last Sunday that I found her. Has it only been a month? She’s drifting further and further away. I’m a little freaked out when I think about it. Our father died of a massive stroke at 73, the age I am now, my sister at 76. She and I, we expected to take after our paternal Aunt Doll who lived well into her 90s and only died because she got tired of living so this was a cold splash of water in my face. What does that mean for me? Do I only have a few years left? Should I start getting my ducks in a row, preparing like my sister did? Her will and the letter that accompanied it that she started working on after she moved over here was so organized…here’s where this is, here’s where that is, this is what to do about this other, these are the things that are valuable, this book has all the information you will need, etc.; as if she knew somehow. Maybe she did. She was very open to the spiritual world, she saw ghosts unless she walled off that part of her psyche. I wondered if she would appear to me. So far no, not even in a dream, but then I’ve never had that ability to see. 

They say one of the stages of grief is anger. I’m not angry. I’m sad that’s she’s gone, I’m sad that she abandoned me. I can’t think of her too much, about how sudden her death, without crying still.

OK, that’s enough of that.

 

another week gone by

This is what the sky looked like Tuesday night.

Also Tuesday was the outing to Brookwood in which I had a very good time. Our fearless leader couldn't get lunch reservations at the restaurant, busy time of year, so we just did a little shopping, wandering around the gift shop and then the retail greenhouse which was 90% poinsettias, amaryllis bulbs, and christmas cacti.

This is the main hall between the restaurant and the other 'shops' all decked out in christmas trees, ornaments, decorations, gifts, and general holiday stuff a lot of which is made by residents. It leads out to the retail greenhouse. 

The other retail space has a small art gallery with paintings, bronze sculpture, woodwork, ceramics, glass, jewelry. This just shows about 1/5^th of the space.

The hattery.

This room had fancy food items.

There was also an area with clothing which I did not take a picture of. Finally we all wandered out to the retail greenhouse.

I bought two crystals but they are so much bigger than the ones I already have hanging in my window so I may give them away or I may keep the one on the right. That's a quarter for size reference.

Wednesday Rocky showed up to fix the sagging back wall of the studio. When he built out the space we combined two rooms into one taking out a load bearing wall which he thought he had braced sufficiently but sometime during the summer it began to sag. He was also making a trip out to the transfer station so he loaded up my big pile of crap in the shop I was throwing away onto his trailer and hauled it away for me. 

Still picking up pecans and shelling them though my trees are just about done I think. Hard to tell with the thick layer of leaves, have picked up 142 pounds of pecans from just my three trees. So far I have 15 pounds of shelled pecans, have given away four of those and have three more to send out. The rest will be for me. I want enough for two years just in case I don't get any next year. I have no idea how many that would be so I'll shell til I get tired of it and sell the rest along with the ones I've picked up from two neighbors' trees which I don't weigh at all.

Picked up the death certificates and my sister's ashes yesterday afternoon so we can finally settle Pam's estate. The boys seem to have adjusted to Pam's absence and Robin's continued presence.

The only thing blooming now is the cosmos, roses, and the shrimp plant.

Another front is blowing in and the wind is fierce and gusty.

life goes on for the living

I had a fairly normal day Wednesday but then I didn't have to talk to anyone, had three errands to run; took the recycling to the site, got a box from the post office to send all those jewels and lenses to my friend Steve in Colorado that does stained glass, and got another bucket of pecans cracked. So far I've shelled eleven and a half pounds of pecans and given away four. I'm still picking pecans up out of the yard and my neighbor's yard. So many leaves have fallen now that it takes longer shuffling through them but it'll be easier once Marc mows/mulches the leaves.

I went to SHARE Thursday and got lots of hugs and well wishes and every time I would tear up but it was good to be busy and have something to focus on. My station was a mess. Not a messy mess but nothing was in the right place and I had to rearrange everything back to the way I like it. On the other hand, yoga at Hesed House that night was particularly hard. Stephanie always starts out with quiet breathing and focusing on any aches or pains and emotions and how those emotions connect to your body and tears were just rolling down my face and I was thinking it was too soon, too soon, but once we got into actual body movements it was easier.

We had rain Thursday, nearly all day but it only amounted to 5/8”, and drizzly yesterday. The rain packed the leaves down and I picked up over two gallons worth of pecans yesterday. My little food garden is growing. The broccoli is starting to form. I don't know if you can see it in this picture (assuming I can figure out how to change the picture from MB to KB on my phone and add it in) but the very center is a tiny broccoli head. 

The cauliflower doesn't look like it's making yet but the cabbage is starting to form little heads.

Still no movement on getting the kittens fixed and moved to new homes. I feed them every night, Momcat still lets me pet her and last night I managed to stroke the two tabbies, one brown and the other gray, several times but only while they are eating. Their hunger is overcoming their fear whereas before their fear was overcoming their hunger. It still takes me several tries. The third kitten which resembles Momcat and is bigger than the other two and damn near as big as Momcat who is a small cat, still backs off and won't let me touch her.

Today I may try to get the pansies in the ground that I bought a month ago but it's still very wet and overcast out there or maybe I'll pack up the glass jewels or maybe I'll go poach pecans from the backyard of the vacant house that's for sale across the street or maybe I'll just sit and read all day and give my poor arthritic left thumb joint a break from shelling pecans.

Thursday I did something I don't think I would have done if my sister was still alive. It was almost time to lock the door and several of the volunteers were sitting around chatting when I walked up and one of them said they were planning a trip to Brookwood to shop for Christmas and have lunch and did anyone want to join them. Brookwood is a residential community for adults with disabilities and a wholesale nursery where the residents do all the work with supervision from planting the seeds to caring for the mature plants. They have a craft center where the residents make garden related items, a gift shop, a retail greenhouse, and a fabulous restaurant. It's been years since I've been out there and I had planned on suggesting a day trip to Pam before she died so I piped up, I'd like to go. Of course that night my social anxiety popped up, what have I done, but life does go on for the living even when there is a big hole you have to navigate around.

 

grief, dreams, and living

Today is grocery shop day and one of my nights to fix dinner and on top of that it's my turn to do the dishes when all I want to do is crawl back in bed. I don't feel like I've really woken up and was having weird dreams before I did, a series of weird vignettes which I suppose were connected in some way. I dreamed I was trying to wake up, was actually up and moving around but struggling to get my eyes open and when I did things were either so blurry I couldn't make anything out or it was a whiteout. I was in a room going through boxes of clothes trying to find something to wear. I wasn't at home but some other place, not a motel but maybe some sort of residence where there was some sort of gathering going on. Another scene I walked into a building or out of an elevator into a small room with only one other door. A man was in there and he gestured towards the door. I was going to a doctor appointment I think and I asked him if he knew the room number. No, he said, you'll have to call. I went through the door into a small landing with a very narrow set of stairs going down. Then I'm trying to find the number but I can't get to the calendar on my phone. Another scene I'm telling someone I'm going to my place at the table which I think is sitting on the table but when I get there I see there are two empty chairs so I sit in one. Another flash I'm struggling to walk/climb up a steep slope that others have already climbed.

Grief. This is something new to me. I've never really felt grief. Not when my grandmother died, well, maybe when she died but not like this, not when my aunts and uncles died or my father or mother. Real daily life is intruding and all I want to do is crawl in bed. It was easy to keep it at bay when family was here. Denise and Greg left Friday, Robin moved in to the house on Saturday keeping me distracted. But yesterday was, and today is, a little rough. I've been wearing Pam's long sleeved shirts I kept. The rest of her clothes that no one wanted are going to SHARE with m on Thursday.

I was ready to start going to yoga last night but Abby couldn't make it and I wasn't in any kind of mood to lead so class was canceled. This morning I did my home routine for the first time in over two weeks. I've been picking up and shelling pecans I get cracked. So far I've picked up 109 pounds not counting the full 1 gallon bucket's worth I picked up yesterday. So far I have almost 8 pounds of shelled nuts and have given away half of them to family and a neighbor who gives me honey from his hives and eggs from their chickens.

Well, I got the grocery shopping done and dishes washed and thank goodness I have enchiladas in the freezer from the last time I made them for dinner.

Damn. I updated my phone and now it and the desktop I'm not supposed to be using won't talk to each other anymore so I can't download pictures. I'm on my desktop to write this and publish it because using the phone is a pain in the butt. Maybe I can add a picture from my phone.

 

tech is a pain in the butt and cats

Trying to do everything on my phone is a pain in the butt. I managed to figure out how to comment on Steve’s blog as me but can only comment as anonymous on other’s if it lets me comment at all. Says I need to sign in with my google account but I already am as far as I can tell. When I click on the link it tells me no can do.

My grandgirl Robin moved into Pam’s house yesterday so now the boys have a human in residence instead of all those people in and out the last two weeks. They know Robin as she always house sat for Pam when she traveled but now they have a new resident as Robin brought her cat Noodle since she will be there for nearly a year. There’s been a little hissing but they’ll work it out.

Speaking of cats, a homeless mom cat with 3 kittens moved under Pam’s shed some months ago. She worked with the animal rescue group SPOT to catch Momcat and get her fixed and released back at Pam’s. She had been feeding them all and so I have continued. Now I’m working with SPOT to get the kittens trapped and fixed and rehomed. SPOT says they can be fixed at 3 months and we believe they are that old. They have a program called Barn Buddies for people who want barn cats to keep the vermin down.

I haven’t figured out how to reduce the size of the images before I post them here so I hope it’s not the 3MB the info says it is.

starting the new normal

I hope everyone had as good a day as I did yesterday. This house was filled with love and laughter and loudness. Myself and Marc, my niece and nephew in law, my daughter and son in law, my granddaughter Autumn and her boyfriend whom we met for the first time and I hope we didn’t overwhelm him, all gathered here bringing various assigned dishes to add to the meal. In the midst of the loss we all felt, we affirmed our love and life.

I’m composing this on my phone, first time to try this. When my sister died it was as if someone threw a bomb into the middle of my life. 

This morning my niece Denny and her husband Greg left for home in Albuquerque. Robin doesn’t move in until tomorrow. So the house is empty, all family back to their respective homes, the first normal day in 2 weeks only not normal.

And then this, it is possible my 14+ year old computer, so old it cannot be updated, is seriously compromised. In the last week or so I’ve gotten two emails, one on each of my two EarthLink accounts, from me to me citing different reasons why that email would be deactivated if I didn’t click the button to validate it. Spam, I ignored them. But then in between those two I got a another, from me to me, on my personal account claiming to have hacked me and a virus installed that gave access to every keystroke and unless I paid $600 in bitcoin he/it would release all the videos they captured of me masturbating to porn. Also spam except my password for EarthLink was included in the email. So I spent about an hour on Marc’s computer changing the password for all the email accounts, though I may have given access to the new one when I logged onto the Webmail and had to enter the new password. Anyway my tech guru nephew in law Greg said turn my computer off, don’t use it again, do everything on your phone and he’s sending me a Mac mini as soon as they get home. So now I have to spend the day changing that password on every account I used it on…on my phone.

And because shit comes in threes, my neighbor on the east side told me the other day that he’s thinking about selling his house and acre, has already shown it and got an offer but hasn’t made up his mind. He has several other houses so I expect he might go through with it.

Note to Steve of Shadows and Light: while I have been able to comment on other blogs on my phone, yours won’t let me. Says I need to log in but I already am.