Ruffled Feathers and Spilled Milk

Farming with ducks and dairy goats, chickens and children.

Scary Stuff.

Posted on | November 1, 2022 | No Comments

This is as far as the Halloween decorations made it this year. The back porch.

I did keep the seasonal candy jar full because…well, because candy.

Luckily, there was plenty of spooky decor around the house and yard without me having to do much work. The spiders have done a great job of being festive. So I left their work intact on the front porch to greet guests. Very creepy! (Take that, Hobby Lobby.)

This spider gets bonus points for adding fall leaves to her display.

There’s a delicate and diaphanous web in the bathroom.

And a black-hued web in the kitchen window. I don’t know why it’s black. Probably says bad things about the air quality in the kitchen. Extra scary.

The neighborhood gopher has created lots of ominous (and ankle-twisting) grave mounds in the backyard.

The garden loves Halloween. From the decaying echinacea heads…

To the bizarre fluff of the clematis…

And the alien pods of the imaptiens.

I did do some decorating. Look at this dreadful stack on the kitchen table.

That’s a box of 150 bulbs that I ordered in the spring. Which seems like a great idea in March. And is ghastly when it arrives in the fall and has to actually be planted.

Then there’s the laptop that someone needs to attach to the printer in order to make it print (the wireless feature on longer works). That same someone is gonna have to find a compatible driver, download it, and make it all work together. Shudder.

Scariest of all is the thick green folder. That’s the FAFSA folder. FAFSA opened on October 1st and needs to be completed for all 4 children. Horrifying.

I did a get a little help getting into the Halloween spirit. I did my nails at a friend’s house and later discovered I had shellacked a black cat hair into my nail polish.

Thanks, Chubby!

Best of all, several friends went with me to the annual Pumpkin Bridge.

by Brent Clark Photography

Where we walked across the bridge during a lightning storm. Night of frights.

I asked the kids if they missed having the house decorated for Halloween.

“No”, said Little. “You can just really do it special for Christmas.”

Um…terrifying.

Buddha Moon.

Posted on | October 27, 2022 | No Comments

Astrology is not my specialty. Sure, I set intention candles every equinox and solstice. When the seasons change it seems like an ideal time to reflect and readjust. Of course, every time I consider the 3 things I want to release and the 3 things I want to focus on, it turns out to be the same 6 things. Which doesn’t speak a lot for my progress. I’m gonna say it has less to do with my commitment and more to do with the dollar store white candles. Definitely the dollar store candles. I should probably upgrade and switch to this one:

Intentions candles are just another version of Sunday hikes when I try to walk off the stress of last week and tread in better habits for the upcoming days. Those habits usually last until Wednesday night or so. When I married a Baptist I was baffled by Wednesday night services. We were supposed to go to church twice a week? Now that I’m older I realize even God doesn’t expect us to go past mid-week without starting some of our correspondence with , “As per my last email…” Not without divine intervention.

Anyway, I am usually oblivious to how the celestial bodies are messing with my life until someone gives me a heads up. In early fall I was getting treatment from my craniosacral therapist for unbearable neck pain when she said, “I would ask if you have been stressed but that’s a ridiculous question when Mercury is in retrograde.” At $110/hour I figured I might as well get an astrology lesson too so I asked her to explain.

I’m incorrectly paraphrasing here but apparently when Mercury is in retrograde it seems like it’s moving backward even though it is really just moving slower when normally it moves faster around the sun than the Earth. If that sounds confusing then that’s the sensation of Mercury in retrograde. Communication, travel, and technology are in chaos and there’s nothing to do except console ourselves with clever memes like this (if we can get our internet to load):

So if your September 9th to October 2nd was a little rough, you can blame Mercury. I’m not gonna bore you with my trauma and drama but I did end up in a 3 1/2 hour therapy session on September 28th. And my therapist gave me 3 things to focus on and 3 new tapping points. I wrote those 6 things down and stuck that piece of paper under my intention candle. Let’s all hope 12 is my magic number.

Needless to say I was very concerned when a friend texted to tell me that there was going to be a New Moon Solar Eclipse in Scorpio starting on October 25th. And that its effects would last until the Total Lunar Blood Moon Eclipse on November 8th.

I know what you’re thinking.

We’ve been apart for 2 years and I have fallen off the cliff.

You’re not wrong.

Sometime during the Covid years when my job was imploding, my family was struggling, my community members were attacking each other, and the government entered FUBAR status, I went over the edge.

And in typical Wile. E. Coyote style I scrambled to get to solid ground. Lots of waving arms and spinning feet and dramatic music. Struggling frantically to get back to where I was before.

Oh, friends.

There is no going back.

Which kind of left me right here:

Now if someone warns me about Mercury in retrograde, I pay attention. And if you tell me the New Moon Solar Eclipse is here I’m definitely going to google that sh*t.

Feel free to do your own googling, but it seems like the best thing to do in this period of time is hang tight and lay low. Rest and accept. Smile and nod.

Most of you realize that non-reactivity isn’t my specialty. My therapist occasionally uses words like “catastrophize.”

But I have a Buddhist friend who provides lots of support during these moments. I only understand about 1/3 of what she says to me. But to incorrectly paraphrase, Buddhism involves feeling an emotion, looking at it (Oh, look. Anger/fear/sadness.), and then letting it pass by. No reaction needed.

Let me give you a real life example.

Think about when you’re leaving the WalMarket. There might be a person standing there, asking for your receipt as you exit. You might feel angry because why does WalMarket need to treat you like a thief when you just dropped $212.57 in their store. You might feel frustrated because you already dropped your receipt into a bag and you have no idea which one. You might feel sad because why is someone’s grandma having to work as a receipt checker at WalMarket. You might feel anxiety because you’re pretty sure that you scanned the jumbo pack of paper towels under the cart, but what if you didn’t and now you will be a thief and are they going to get those undercover cops or (Dear God, no!) make you stand in the 17-people-long-line at Customer Service to pay for the paper towels and what if you have friends, neighbors, or co-workers in the WalMarket and they see this going down and maybe you should just kick those paper towels off the bottom of your cart before you get to the receipt checker because what kind of monster uses paper towels anyway when all the forests are on fire but does that make you look guilty and…see catastrophize above. Heck, you might even feel disappointed because you went to all the trouble to have your receipt in your hand and now there’s no one standing there to check receipts.

If you’ve never been to a WalMarket then f*ck you, I mean, pretend they check receipts at Trader Joe’s.

But Buddhists just proceed through self check out and approach the exit. Maybe they have their receipt in hand, maybe they don’t. Maybe there is someone checking the receipts, maybe there isn’t. No need to get worked up over it. This is WalMarket Buddhism.

Probably. Maybe. The remaining 2/3 that my friend talks about may be relevant here. Any Buddhists can feel free to correct me inthe comments. But they probably won’t. Because they will just say to themselves, “Oh, look. She explained Buddhism wrong.” And then let it go.

So light your candles. Meditate. Go to church. Go to therapy. Don’t hit Reply All to any emails even if you really, really really want to and the person really, really, really deserves it. All we have to do right now is nothing.

We can do it! I mean, not do it. ( I hope.)

Death and Sh*t.

Posted on | October 19, 2022 | 1 Comment

Where were you?

Yeah. Me, too.

So we’ll just have to be old friends. You know–the ones you don’t see for several years and then, when you finally run into each other at CVS buying rapid COVID tests, it’s like you were just hanging out yesterday. Sure, there’s a lot to catch up on. But that takes more time (and whiskey) than is appropriate for the aisle at CVS. Better just to start here. Right here:

That’s Florence the Granddog. She lived with me for a huge chunk of COVID times. We tore up the trails around here, sometimes hiking twice a day . Then Florence moved back in with Pretty. Olivia the Cat resumed her position as High Priestess of our household. The High Priestess is not into trail hikes.

A couple months ago, Pretty and Florence the Granddog moved in down the street. So now it’s an easy stop to pick up the granddog on my way to the woods. And we’re back in action–mountain loops, biking trails, forest preserves, and walking paths. There’s a lot of joy in watching the granddog during her off leash romps. Flying around curves at full speed, zigzagging through the trees on scent trails, crashing through underbrush, splashing into creeks and bounding up river banks. Take that joy and mix in a bit of fear that the next person you run into is gonna shame you for letting her off leash, add in adrenaline from rushing to keep up, include the kick of endorphins when you pass the 2 mile mark, and it’s a refreshing emotional and physical release.

Of course, our first hike back together wasn’t exactly the same as our last hike.

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Ever since Covid I’ve struggled with shortness of breath and a racing heart rate with exertion. Not every time, not during every activity, but sometimes it is very noticeable. Once on a trail that I hike several times a week, my friend abruptly stopped and stepped off the path. I almost crashed into her.

“What? What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Oh,” she said, “I thought I heard someone with a dog coming up behind us. Lots of heavy panting.”

That was me. I was doing the heavy panting.

I don’t recommend hiking with skinny friends. I mean, I’ll do it. It’s just not my favorite.

For a while I was convinced that a bout of Covid left me with myocarditis. I insisted my paramedic partner run an EKG and then run another one after I jogged in place for 5 minutes as a DIY stress test.

“I don’t think this is going to work,” he said. “An EKG isn’t the best tool to diagnose this and I’m not gonna know if it’s myocarditis.”

I assured him that he was entirely adequate for the task. Then I jogged in place for 3 minutes and told him to run the EKG again.

“Um, this really isn’t that same as a stress test. And I thought you were gonna jog for 5 minutes.”

“I jogged for 3 minutes and I’m feeling stressed! That’s good enough for government work,” I insisted.

Our highly sophisticated testing method did not reveal anything diagnostic of heart problems.

Unfortunately, the most reasonable explanation for my huffing and puffing appeared to be that I was fat and old. My friends and I conferred. It was decided that fat and old did not explain the entirety of my symptoms such as brain fog, nightly legs cramps, and 3 chin hairs that could be plucked at bedtime only to reappear and be 3 inches long by sunrise. No, this was perimenopause.

Oh happy day!

Because perimenopause meant menopause was approaching. And menopause meant I would no longer have to reach into my EMS pocket, not knowing if I would withdraw my penlight or my emergency tampon. It’s 50/50 when you’re wearing gloves, people. 50/50.

But the endocrinologist found my estrogen and testosterone were just fine. Adrenal glands and thyroid were working just fine. Turns out I was just anemic and needed some iron supplements to get back on track. And I should cut myself some slack until I had some more red blood cells. Which meant by the time Florence the Granddog was back on the scene I was used to taking little breaks. Resting on inclines. Mapping an easier route.

That’s right. In case you forgot, as fascinating as my menstrual cycle is to everyone, we were actually talking about the return of Florence the Granddog. With her leading the way I was forced to pick up my pace on the trails again. Turns out there are lots of health benefits to that increased speed. But for me, it was really just that joy of a dog cut loose in the woods, the birdsong, the rustling leaves, the breeze from my quicker pace drying the perspiration on my forehead and ruffling my chin hairs.

Until, on the first day back together, Florence the Granddog came dashing past reeking of muck from bottom of the River Styx. Somewhere she had discovered a pile of sh*it or a dead animal or its decomposed mushy remnants. She actually smelled as if she pulled off the ultimate dog hat trick—rolling in the remains of an animal that sh*it itself just before dying then partially rotted away in its own feces over several 90 degree days.

I encouraged her splashing in the creek to get most of it off. But huge chunks were rubbed into her ruff and the backs of her ears and embedded in the clasp of her dog collar. This was the act of a professional. On the way home, she grinned madly out the window as her odor encompassed us. My nose wrinkled, my eyes watered.

And I laughed.

Because I am 49 years old now. And 49 year olds don’t rage at death and sh*t. We don’t curse and gnash our teeth. We don’t weep or wail. We just laugh at the simple joy of a happy dog, very well pleased with her stink.

Because death and sh*t can only steal your joy if you let it.

It reminded me of when a friend and I pulled up at a restaurant for dinner. Before we could even open our doors, her daughter called with bad news. The daughter’s geriatric cat had not just been sleeping in the couch for the past 2 days. The cat had died in there, the daughter couldn’t reach the stiffened corpse, and she didn’t know what to do. Of course, we headed over, removed the dead cat, tore off the soiled lining, and bleached the body fluids off the floor. Then we took her daughter to dinner and later drove off with my friend’s dead grandcat in a box in the backseat. You know, back to my friend’s house for a proper country burial.

And we laughed.

Because there is such simple joy in helping your child in a time of need. Our adult children rarely ask us moms for help anymore. Yet it fills our hearts to be there. (So call us. We got you.)

Besides, death and sh*t can only steal your joy if you let it.

Yeah, I had to bathe Florence the Granddog when we got home. But then we got to hang out on the couch together, watching Better Call Saul, until she was dry. My friend and I missed a relaxing dinner in order to clean up that dead grandcat. But we spent spent the ride home reminiscing about Sacrifice Stump, something we hadn’t thought about in years. I’m still trying to get my anemia under control, but I get to meet a friend at Big Bob’s Grill for a thick greasy bacon cheeseburger as big as my head, guilt-free, on occasion. And now I’m finally writing a blog post again, despite years of death and sh*t trying getting in the way.

I’m here for it all. All of it.

Hike with me.

I Trust Us.

Posted on | December 31, 2020 | 4 Comments

I got my first dose of vaccine today. Not just because I believe in science. Not just because I am desperate for hope. Not just because every sniffle or headache or sore throat sends me running for a piece of chocolate. You know, to ensure my sense of smell and taste is intact. (And you thought I was stress eating. How dare you?)

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I don’t trust Albert Bourla at Pfizer and I don’t have a lot of faith in Stephane Bancel at Moderna either. I understand that CEOs (even researcher CEOs) have money on their minds and their minds on their money. I have doubts that Operation Warp Speed is going to pull off the mass distribution effort that I was expecting—-cargo trucks of vaccines and tent cities of soldiers descending upon American communities to inoculate the citizens. Which may mean that my expectations were falsely raised by too many disaster movies. Or may mean that since I work for the government I’ve seen the government trip over its own bootlaces in the past. It’s never pretty.

So why did I just let someone inject me with the fastest vaccine ever developed? Why was I excited to get it instead of scared, despite the rampant misinformation online. (None of which I will repeat here because come on, America. Take about 20% off.)

Week 4 impressions: Brissett - Page 13 - Colts Football - Indianapolis  Colts Fan Forum

Because I don’t need to trust Big Pharma or Big Government to believe this vaccine will make a difference. I trust us. I know that in every large agency, public or private, the people at the top tend to be very disconnected from the people at the bottom. In the best case scenarios, administration is many career years removed from the work on the ground. In the worst case scenarios, administration never did the work on the ground–they got hired because they had an MBA and a financial improvement plan. And/or (grrrr!) the right connections. But the people on the bottom—those are my people. That’s me. That’s us.

So I put my trust in Katalin Kariko. The woman who kept working on mRNA theory even when the money dried up. Even when she was passed over for promotions. Even when she just had a handful of fellow researchers who believed in her project. Those are my people. That’s us. And for every scientist or researcher that was selling stock options, there were 100s (probably 1,000s) more that were trying to save their grandmas, their primary care providers, their kids’ teachers, their communities’ essential workers. And in the process they are saving us.

While the politicians and civic leaders were battling over mask mandates, researchers at the local university’s physics department were testing the effectiveness of masks with a cell phone and a laser beam. The impetus for the study? “…A professor at Duke’s School of Medicine was assisting a local group buy masks in bulk to distribute to community members in need wanted to make sure the group purchased masks that were actually effective.” That professor is just one of us, trying to reach the people where he lives and works. I don’t need a mask mandate from the Governor with the Duke Physics department working on the ground. I trust us.

Every time someone in my household has a potential COVID exposure, I don’t waste a lot of time on the many pages of the CDC website. I’ve tried calling the local health department but agency hours are only Monday through Friday from 8-5. ‘Cause you know, government work. So I go straight to the source—I have a nurse friend that works at the local health department and another that is the Public Information Officer and another that is doing contact tracing. Despite the fact that these women are exhausted and broken and barely have time to eat, or sleep, or see their families they are still always up to date and have all the answers. Because the people are the ground don’t spend time golfing or visiting their palatial estates to escape the pressure of leadership. They can’t give up when the citizens are clamoring for public health services —regardless of those same citizens’ failure to follow the medical guidelines. They know us (they were there back in the days when we stumbled in with an STD and acted like we had no idea how that could have happened), they are us, and I trust us.

And while it doesn’t look like the National Guard is pulling off a vaccination operation any time soon, local public safety is holding our own. It’s true that public safety is like a large family. Not necessarily with all the warm fuzzies you see posted online. After all, if you haven’t ever wanted to punch a family member in the face at least once, are you really family? If you haven’t seen your brother slip and fall and laughed for few minutes seconds before helping him up, is really your brother? In public safety we can feud with the best of them but when we’re done fighting over station duties and call volume, when the sh*t really hits the fan, we’re just like family—we’ve only got each other to lift one another up so we might as well wade in and get it done. There have been many times since this virus hit the streets that a co-worker, a supervisor, or even an administrator grabbed me by the hand and pulled me up. Even if they made a heavy sigh first. Because, you know: Me. Again. (There are rules at my agency made just because of me. And I can never decide if I’m proud or ashamed.) So, in the end, I trust us.

Which is why I drove up to the local high school and got my vaccination. My co-workers and other county volunteers had traffic cones and paperwork and the Pfizer vaccine that might just be the beginning of the end of this nightmare. There wasn’t a lot of info on how the second dose is going to be handled. But despite the news about backorders and shipping issues and impending delay I wasn’t worried about it. There are people on the ground getting it done. There are always people on the ground like us doing the work and God knows we aren’t doing it for the money. We’re doing it for our families and our co-workers and our communities. There are plenty of us doing the work. And I trust us.

Image may contain: one or more people, people standing and outdoor, text that says 'VACCINATOR 152'
P.S. I stole James Johnson’s photo 🙂

Pandemic Prep.

Posted on | June 11, 2020 | 6 Comments

I suppose I was better prepared than the rest of you. Not because I had a pantry full of food or a gas mask. Just because I spent the last 2 years eating change for breakfast and drama for lunch. Whiskey for dinner as needed.

I’ve had some kids move out and some kids move in; some kids hunting for jobs and some kids almost making as much salary as me; some kids just learning to drive and some kids who have had their driving privileges revoked until I see fit.

I’ve never had less than 2 children in puberty for the last 5 years. Which means we’ve dealt with drugs and alcohol and sex. And because the tobacco industry is the devil incarnate, we’ve dealt with vaping, too. It’s enough to make any parent too nervous to buy Tide pods. While the rest of the world was buying a Smart Doorbell Cam to see if someone was stealing their packages, I was wrestling with whether installing security cameras in every room in the house was a problem because it was too invasive or because I really, really, really didn’t want to know what went on when I wasn’t home. (The result: I decided it wasn’t invasive if I put the camera in plain view. So I put it on a bookshelf next to piles of books. It took them 3 months to realize there was a camera. Because, you know, next to books. On a piece of furniture that only holds books.)

I lived in a 32′ long RV for 14 months, including winter and hurricane season. Loved it and would do it again in an even smaller RV. Might get to do it again if the world continues to careen out of control and we all end up working virtually. We all might have to do it if this stuff progresses to End of Days. Don’t worry I’ll help you dump your waste the first few times. But you’re gonna need a Flush King.

Now I live in a 25 year old double wide and am making excruciatingly slow progress on updating the flooring, replacing popcorn ceilings, and a long list of DIY projects. For which I can’t even summon that much angst. Most days I figure it’ll get done eventually. And on the rough days I just sit on the screened porch because I can’t see a single unfinished project from the screened porch. Sometimes that’s exactly the kind of scenery a person needs.

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This Is Me.

Posted on | August 9, 2019 | 4 Comments

If you know any gardeners then you know that their gardens tend to resemble them. That person with a clean car, an integrated Google calendar, and a Dave Ramsey budget has a garden with perfect borders, straight rows, and neat plant markers. The person who pulls an outfit from the pile of clean laundry on the couch, leaves the plastic bags inside the cereal box ripped and gaping, and is always (at least) 10 minutes late has a garden with overflowing beds, a haphazard color scheme and some of last year’s dried husks still hanging from the trellis. It’s all OK–the garden does not judge (even if the neighbors do). The garden makes every effort to thrive where it is planted, which is probably a good life lesson for all of us.

My garden started out organized this spring. I rotated my crops appropriately, provided trellises and cage supports, grew beneficial companion flowers, and amended the soil with the last bit of compost in the barn. I even put down some weed cloth, which is not something I usually do, because I was expecting it to be a crazy busy summer. I thought the weed cloth might give me more time to focus on stuff outside the garden without worrying about weeds overrunning the plants.

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Muuuuvin’ On.

Posted on | June 12, 2019 | 4 Comments

So where was I?

I have no idea so let’s just start where we’re at, shall we? I haven’t posted in so long that the formatting on WordPress has changed. Which should make this post very interesting. If you consider lots of random spacing and a variety of photo placements to be interesting. Turns out I was 11 versions of WordPress behind. I failed to update to the latest version of WordPress for many years because I had no idea how to make a backup of my previous posts. Even my IT guy didn’t know how to do it since I had so many posts and was so many versions behind. But WordPress advises you very strongly against updating versions without a backup. So I just didn’t update.

Until today. Today I sat down to write a post, saw how much time had elapsed since my last post and thought, “Whatever.” And I hit the update button. Everything I’ve ever written could have disappeared into the ethernet. I think the word “ethernet” actually refers to some odd computer cable that your crappy rural internet service provider always blames for outages when the problem is really their crappy internet service. But if the word “ethernet” was used properly, obviously it would refer to the black hole of the Internet where all your work disappears when you didn’t bother to save an updated copy. In this case I fully expected all my posts to disappear into the the ethernet. But all that happened was that a new version of WordPress appeared with annoying new formatting.

Huh. Very anti-climatic. I probably didn’t need the shot of whiskey ahead of time. But better to be prepared, people, be prepared. Unless being prepared means backing up your work on a regular basis. Who the hell does that?

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Active Shooter.

Posted on | November 9, 2018 | 7 Comments

Active shooter days are hard for me.  I know they’re hard for everybody.  I know that a lot of people take comfort in that saying from Mister Rogers:

Image result for mr rogers meme, look for the helpers

The problem is that I am one of the helpers.  And here’s the cold hard truth, America: the helpers aren’t going to make it in time.  Between 2000 and 2013 the FBI reported there were 160 active shooter situations, the majority of which ended quickly. “In 63 incidents where the duration of the incident could be ascertained, 44 (69.8%) of 63 incidents ended in 5 minutes or less, with 23 ending in 2 minutes or less.”

The 2016-17 report from the FBI didn’t include time data.  Maybe because it was too hard to ascertain.  Maybe because, in addition to the increasing frequency of shootings, the limited amount of time for public safety to respond was too grim to face.  The time for a police response to any 911 call varies a lot depending on which study you’re reading and where you live but it hovers around 7-12 minutes.  The time to get an ambulance on scene is generally the same or longer.  Which means the shooting is over long before help arrives; all that’s left is the dying.

Of course, having law enforcement arrive quickly (or paid security on scene, for that matter) isn’t a guarantee of anything; they get shot and killed, too.  Dead cops can’t save anyone.  And when EMS arrives, they aren’t able to enter the scene until police know the shooter is down or has left.  Because dead medics can’t save anyone either.  In desperation, FEMA, the FBI, and Homeland Security are changing this element of response—now, police are urged to enter a shooting scene immediately, even if they’re alone.  When EMS arrives, they are now escorted into active scenes by law enforcement.  I’m not sure how many citizens can be saved if EMS ends up treating the cops who are shot escorting them into the building.  But, really, EMS’ ability to save anyone at an active shooter scene is limited. Read more

Halfsies.

Posted on | November 4, 2018 | 3 Comments

This is National Novel Writing Month which means I pledged to write every single day this month.  It also means I am doing everything except rewriting the 198 pages of the novel.  Not editing, rewriting.  Because I decided it was way too descriptive and I also wanted to change it up to start each chapter with an action scene.  It’s okay, I can face making the change.  I just need to do everything else in the world before facing it.  Since I can practically spit clean (that’ s a real thing, by the way, and science backs it up) my house in all of 15 minutes I had to venture out into the garden.  The fall garden needed a lot of fall cleaning.  A lot.

I decided I would move forward with my plan to shorten the rows to leave an open area for a bonfire pit as well as large spaces for herbs.  Now that my kids are so busy they only eat at home about 3 times a week I don’t need as many veggies.  But I do need a bigger bonfire pit suitable for whisky drinking and s’mores (surprisingly good together).  Also I need to move the current bonfire pit away from the front engine of the RV–although using the headlights for light is convenient, it kind of makes my guests nervous.  I’ve assured them the gasoline tank is a solid 24 feet away from the engine but people are such nervous nellies about fire and gasoline.  Plus I should certainly start experimenting with a wider variety of herbs.  Homemade herbal tea goes well with living alone, having cats, and spending as much time reading in bed as possible. Also herbal infused or mulled whisky drinks are all the rage and seem so much classier than just sipping it out of the bottle between bites of s’mores. Read more

A Day In San Francisco.

Posted on | October 11, 2018 | 1 Comment

We beat the traffic in San Francisco and parked at Union Square. Even the homeless people were still asleep and none of the shops on the square were open.   So we made our way to Mr Holme’s Bakehouse and by the time we had navigated our first San Francisco “hills,” we were ready for specialty croissants and donuts.  Plus a pic with the famous sign.  I don’t think Little gets it, do you?

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