PNewL PNewS 32.1

PNewL PNewS

 

Volume 32 Issue 1                       “All the pnews that phits.”                                     May 2024

 

 The Art of Digging Up Rocks

Where I live, one does not dig holes, one digs up rocks and collectively they reveal the hole. I suspect I’ve said this before—my neighbor used to say, you can’t stick a knitting needle in this dirt without hitting a rock. Sound familiar?

     The problem is, when I first hit a rock, I do not know if it is marble-size or coffee table-size. It’s all part of the fun and adventure.

     Everywhere I have created a hole, there is a pile of rocks…sometimes I create a border with the rocks but that is ineffective and hard to mow around. In one area, I gathered them into a quasi-artsy display, a rock garden of sorts but the earth is absorbing them and these giant (to me) rocks are disappearing. One of these rocks was so heavy, I pinched a nerve in my shoulder moving it. And now, it’s half submerged. I moved others to a stepping stone walk to the outdoor shower. This spring, ants have apparently moved in between the rocks and dug up dirt beneath them and they too are sinking (the rocks, not the ants. The ants will survive us all, along with all the other bugs). These projects obviously need some work and more regular attention.

     Every spring I have these moments of grandeur when I think I will plant trees and bushes and plants and bulbs. These all involve holes which involve dealing with rocks

     I am not a gardener, but I do aspire to my yard looking…better. (There was a meme on social media that read, You are not a bad gardener—the plant just didn’t try hard enough. Words to live by.)

     It may seem that I have spent enough time writing about my yard—and if you saw it, you’d think it should look better.

 

Things I am Learning

& Miscellaneous Observations

• Since I returned from away, Buster has been a bit of a challenge. He’s eaten three candy bar/gifts + candy sushi, nine mini Kind bars + half a bag of dates (unpitted), part of a bag of dry beans and three bananas. He knocks over and inspects the paper recycling almost every time I leave the house without him. Sigh. Beth said something like we would never accept the behavior in our human friends that we accept daily in our pets. Indeed.

• In a small corner of my life, I read scholarship applications and rank them. It’s a humbling experience. I keep wondering what it would be like to be so smart and athletic and successful at such a young age. When one’s report card (do they still call it that?) is covered in 95-100s, how do they feel when they get an 89…or an 83? Those scores break my heart for them—but I would have been pleased to see those on my report card…

• In three years, I will have been writing the PNewS for half my life. This is the kind of thing that comes to mind as I walk Buster. (It was a more complicated story problem than I would have imagined. Math never was my strong suit.)

• I finally uploaded my last tax document. I was trying to figure out why this is such a traumatic (I tried to decide if that word was overkill, but really it isn't) experience, filing my tax documents. It is a seriously fraught time for me—this year in particular. (The accountancy firm merged with another and this is its first tax season under the new name and management--I hope that's why it's been so challenging.) For me, there're authority figure issues, not feeling capable, frustration with others I am waiting on who don't exhibit any responsibility or urgency, and then the exposure of my private business to my accountant and her staff. I have spent a stupid amount of time this year trying to get the link to their "vault." Why does it always feel like this is the first time people have done this stuff? [Editor’s note: It’s over, I survived another tax season. Hopefully it won’t come up again til next year!]

• Recently I read the following quote, written by a young person. There is so much here I find charming, I had to share: “I know that if I continue to be motivated to learn and better myself, …and keep reading books and being curious, I will be on track to be seventy years old, sitting on my pleather couch, reading a book about gardening.”

• I'm reading a book by one of the people who I'll take a class from at the writer's retreat. It's about the importance of everyone having a physical address. (I thought about my homestay in San Jose Costa Rica--I remember my house was described as near a bike repair shop that didn't exist anymore.) It's fascinating. They mapped a neighborhood in the slums of Kolkata and gave them addresses that are more like GPS coordinates and it was really effective in making people feel like they belonged, were part of something bigger PLUS people can get services they can't get without an address. There are people in government in all our states whose job it is to assign addresses. One guy in West Virginia had to name thousands of streets. He said it was exhausting. Who knew?

• And another tidbit from Diedre Mask’s book “The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power”: In England in the 1700s, 90% of men were named John, Edward, William, Henry, Charles, James, Richard and Robert. Sounds like my elementary school class. (BTW, Diedre was wonderful—I want her to be my new best friend.)

•  Sometimes when I am sending an email or posting on social media, I think, that would be a good pnewsy kinda thing so I copy and paste it into the file that becomes the next edition. Sometimes it’s interesting. Ofttimes it’s not.  

• I have a friend whose father used to ask deep probing questions every time I saw him. The first time I met him, at a barbecue, I was a deer in the headlights. After that, I would prepare myself not to look quite so boggled. As I continue to ponder how different people’s brains work, I was reminded of these interactions which I came to enjoy: what’s he going to ask this time?!?! That’s the way his brain works and I love that about him.

     My brain? I was walking Buster this fine cool morning and had an AHA! moment about car paint. There are new cars that have a different look to them because of the paint—it looks matte but it’s actually…well, more like gel nail polish. It’s kind of thickly one dimensional. I watched a vlogbrothers YouTube video the other day and Hank was ranting about this too! And he did the research. Turns out (and I kinda figured) the new paint doesn’t contain the shiny bits that make my (nine-year old!) car look different from new cars.

• I went through all my credit card statements to gather up information for taxes. I find it a kind of 

retrospective of the year. In some ways I am very frugal, in other ways, not so much. Some months I wonder what I ate, sometimes I feel like I must have spent half the month in the grocery store. And often I think, what are you going to do with all that yarn?

• Back in the early days of the PNewS, it was a hard copy, on paper. I asked folks to send stamps. I went to Office Depot and steeled myself for the lengthy process of getting front-back copies without jamming up the machine. I taped the copies together and mailed them. Once I got a notice from the post office that “mail like mine” needed to be secured better. I taped more. Then it was a website—I learned to write code--which wound up unsupported by the provider. At that point, I started attaching a PDF copy. That reminds me of a friend who said she couldn’t read it because her download was so slow. Now it is a blog. It’s been a long winding road—wonder what’s next.

• In a jet lag haze post-overnight flight to Reykjavik, I decided pho and a beer could be the perfect meal for a solo traveler—good for me, filling, tasty and takes forever to eat. I would like to hang out in cafes and restaurants like others do but I eat fast and boom, it’s time to go. The first really nice meal I ate out early on in my travel career, I finished in less than 20 minutes (that’s from when I sat down to when I got up). I am not a good lingerer.

• Recently, I moved a mirror in my house because it was behind where I sit for Zooms (only took me four years of Zooms with glare behind me to deal with it!). Now I come across the mirror in its new location and am surprised, and I miss it in its old location where I could do a just-before-I-walk-out-the-door check in on hair and oh I don’t know…to check if there is toothpaste on my shirt? I am such a  creature of habit.

• A woman I met at the writer’s retreat recommended a podcast/blog that focuses on memoir. As with all mailing lists, I paid attention in the beginning and now I scan and delete, and eventually I will unsubscribe. This one caught my attention: “What if the smallest almost forgotten moments were the ones that shaped us most?” I thought, well, that sounds like the PNewL PNewS.  

 

“At 51, believe it or not, or believe it and pity me if you are young and swift, I still don’t know, truly know ‘what I want to be.’…But in that profuse upstairs delicatessen of mine I’m as open to every wild possibility as I was at 13, although even I know that the chances of acting them out diminish with each heartbeat.” Seymour Krim

 

Editor’s note: I have written a bit about my recent trip to Iceland and it is a separate beast. I’ll post it to the blog when I get to it.

 

PNewL PNewS Volume 31 Issue 4

 

PNewL PNewS

Volume 31 Issue 4         “All the pnews that phits.”           February 2024

 

Let’s talk about Cooking

     I have a love/like/I don’t want to relationship with cooking. I never hate it, but there are plenty of times when I just don’t want to. The older I get, the more frequently that is true and the more often I find myself expressing gratitude to those who cook for me (most often in restaurants).

     I have had friends who raised children who proclaim they never cooked. What did the children eat? My mother did not really like to cook but she raised five healthy well-fed children, in a traditional protein/veg/carb manner. (She took to cooking more adventurously after we left the house when she had a more appreciative audience and only a party of two.) As a kid, I remember occasionally imploring her to think about dinner—it seemed like time was short and she was reading her book and making no moves towards the kitchen. Since her repertoire was pretty limited and she relied heavily on The I Hate to Cookbook, she had the timing down.

     Dad helped with meals occasionally—he was the grilling guy and had a brief interest in making fresh pasta but that was all pretty special occasion-ally. We didn’t really eat out because Dad ate out at lunch every day, so Mom cooked for a family of seven endlessly and we usually finished the meal in under ten minutes. We were ruthless and not an inspiring audience.

     I am a bit more adventurous than mom—and that’s probably because our situations were so totally different. Often cooking for “just me,” I can get away with a fair amount. I can eat just about anything (except liver—well, all organ meats—and beets…and don’t bother thinking you can get me to like beets). In addition, I have had the time to take cooking classes, and study recipes online and while traveling.

     I’ve been on a cooking jag of late. New York Times Cooking has been helpful—I like all kinds of Asian cuisine and they have been inspiring. And Instagram and Facebook think I need new recipes so they show me stuff. And a knitter I follow posts recipes every day of January which she calls Veganuary. I want to make it all so I make my grocery lists and come home with most of what I need but not all and then I can’t remember which recipes I’d bought for and inevitably don’t have all of what I need for any one thing so I make do.

     The other night when it was cold and blustery and I wanted comfort food, I did my occasional dinner from cans. This always seems like cheating, and unfair that it can be pretty darn tasty. Cans of beans (pinto or kidney or some sort of white bean), tomatoes (whatever kind is on the shelf), chopped green chilis + more heat (as Susan calls it), put in a big pot with sauteed onions and garlic (and whatever other veg is lying around) and chopped up sausage or in this case, leftover fancy hot dogs. Add a sprinkle of grated cheese. Ta da.

     I do get tired of things though. Sometimes when I look at the pot of whatever I came up with, I wonder who I think is going to eat it all but more often than not, it gets eaten. Leftovers are a blessing and so is a space in the freezer.

 

 

 

 

 

The Buster Report

I was kinda thinking there wouldn’t be a Buster report this issue. He has generally been pretty good. He hasn’t run away for more than a half-hour in a while. He is a crazily affectionate guy. He’s good company and he is good when he’s at Bonnie’s Puppy Camp.

     The other day, just as it was heading toward dusk, I looked out at the backyard, and there were two bunnies…playing…or doing a mating dance or some combo of the two. It was precious—they chased and hopped over each other. It truly looked like they were having fun. Then they departed for parts unknown. Shortly after, Buster wanted to go out, and he retraced every step those bunnies took…and he has been looking for them ever since. (Editor’s note: Shortly after writing this, I came home to find Buster had eaten half a bag of dates. Sigh.)

 

Just a Teeny Bit about Travel

Bill, Denis and I made another trip to Portugal—a little bit of Lisbon, several days of Tavira, and a road trip up and back. (It’s less than four hours so it wasn’t much of a road trip.) It was delightful. We went for the period before Christmas so we got to see how another country does it and I didn’t have to defend my lack of interest in celebrating the holiday. Our apartment was right across from an itty-bitty Christmas market and the venue for live music—they had a production of something each day in the run up to Christmas. Some of it was truly wonderful, some not so but still win-win. Oh and I was in Tavira with Bill and Denis! Always a good thing.

 

Things I am Learning

& Miscellaneous Observations 

• Don’t you love it when people who don’t respond to multiple emails are provoked when their emails aren’t responded to pronto? Pet peeve.

• Maybe this is just an introvert thing, but there are times when I am grateful for getting points for making a date to get together and then it’s cancelled for weather, illness, general malaise or some other snafu, and I get to stay home.

• I was once a very good speller. The computer has destroyed that.

• Sometimes I sit down and my watch warns me that I need to stand up to get “credit” for this hour. (I was just standing…) Smart watch? I’d like to quibble.

 • I saw on Instagram that there was a knit-tiny-things knitalong and that sounded like fun and there was a pattern for a garland that included a pig that I liked for $3. Such a deal! I bought it. It’s in Norwegian! I thought, how hard can it be? VERY. Google translate helped but there’s a long way to go. I’m a nut.

• I made an ATM deposit. I realized there was a mistake but figured that someone would find it when they audited the activity that day—it’s happened before. I guess they don’t look at them anymore. I called the branch to rectify the problem—it became my problem, not theirs. After convincing the branch manager that I was not a lying cheating scoundrel (I feel that way most of the time when I deal with them…and it’s a Credit Union for crying out loud…they are supposed to like the people…or so I thought), it took them two days to give me my $50 back. Note to self: be more careful.

• I took off for a morning of errands. At the first stop, I looked down and realized the black fleece jacket I was wearing was covered—covered—in short red Buster hair along with the occasional longer white Peggy hair. There was also a small something that when scraped turned into a fine powder that spread across the jacket. What to do? I decided to ignore it—I’m at the invisible age. No one will care, or notice, but me.

• An unintended consequence of lackadaisical laundry habits allowed me to go through my entire stack of blue jeans. Since I buy most of my clothes at Goodwill, the jeans are various sizes colors shapes and brands. Going through each one at the beginning of the season reacquainted me with my inventory. It’s almost like I planned it!

• I do not buy potato chips often. When I do, I need to buy the potato chips I like—not the ones I think I “should” or that are on sale—or I’ll just waste empty calories.

• I was driving home from downtown on a sunny day in later December. It was kinda warm and my windows were down. Two guys from the City (there was a white SUV with the city logo parked nearby), opened the fire hydrant, and blasted my car, inside and out, temporarily making it impossible to see. I was understandably shocked. Thankfully there was no one ahead of me or coming towards me and I was fine—shook up, but fine. My concern was that the person behind me was on a motorcycle! This all happened suddenly and there was no time to react. I drove the next quarter mile in a daze... By then I figured it was too late to go back and I was wet.

     When I got home, I wanted to let someone know, but who? I found a Facebook page for the Asheville Fire Department. (I figured they must know something about fire hydrants!) We had a friendly exchange and they determined the people were not Fire Department people. I wrote the Water Department and got no response. Then I wrote the Question Man at Asheville Watchdog, the independent online news source in town. He said he’d check into it. He did! He got about as far as I did, though someone from the City said they thought their people would be smarter than that but they’d tell folks to be more careful or some blahblah along those lines, and it was determined no motorcyclist had died on that day or been badly injured so there you have it. My advice: when you see someone messing with a fire hydrant, make no assumptions about their intentions.

• Just spent an hour listening to Brennan Center for Justice’ lawyers talk about some of the things happening in the courts these days. I am so glad there are people whose brains work the way theirs do. I could no more think or talk the way they do than fly (which no one should trust me to do either). It has given me something to ponder—how different people’s brains work. It made me wonder if that is the source of issues I’ve had and have with some other people—we just don’t get each other. Our brains work so differently and perhaps I don’t appreciate that the way I could. I am sorry it has taken me so long to grok this.

• I’ve been pondering my next tattoo. I have—to my mind—a great idea. My research has taken me down several rabbit holes/black holes of time. It’s potentially controversial if done disrespectfully and I would never want to do that. I have been contacting sources who have weighed in and I think I could do it appropriately. I still need to talk to people closer to it to determine if I am going to offend and then confirm some details. This is complicated (and permanent!) When I get somewhere with it, I will let you know. (Well, that was kind of mysterious—I love me a little mystery.)

• It has come to my attention that it is February 20th. How’d that happen? Seems we were just wading through the holidays and now we are waddling towards Spring. Slow down 2024! This is going to be long year—we need to pace ourselves!

 

It’s been a while...nice to see you again

PNewL PNewS Vol. 31 Issue 3

     

PNewL PNewS

Volume 31 Issue 3                      All the pnews that phits.”                    November 2023

 

     It’s been a while. The thought of writing a PNewS didn’t even cross my mind til way past the date I shoulda woulda coulda written it. That always says something to me. I’m either busy or depressed. This time I think it was a little of both—busy summer, little lost coming into autumn…often a little lost that time of year. During my Medicare “Wellness Check” (seriously??), I said I was a little down, I said it might have to do with the change of seasons or that I’d had a big project that ended, she said so start a new project!!! Ah youth. In the should-we-be-concerned depression screening, she manipulated the answers so that I came out okay. I appreciate that. And so here we go…

 

The Buster Report

     I just re-read the last issue of the PNewS. It’s hard to believe that all that wildness (Bears and Deer and Snakes, oh my!) happened in June. Seems like things calmed down quite a bit over the next couple months though I was out of town a lot in August. We had several more run-ins with bears but nothing disastrous, and eventually, they ate all the fruit that was available and broke a lot of tree branches and moved on.

     I took Buster up to the (extended) family place in Ontario, aka Osawa, for the first time. He was not perfect, as one might have guessed. He didn’t mind the power boat which surprised me. He got pretty comfortable in a kayak as long as he could tap dance on my legs between strokes (the bruises really were impressive). But on land, he had his own agenda. He bullied sweet dogs on one meeting and played the next time. He took long romps into the wilds and came back a little banged up. This place being an island was helpful as I knew he would come back but still…it was not always restful.

     Like Roger, he loved the campgrounds on the way north and on the return trip. He could happily go for walks from the time we arrived til I insisted we call it a night. There are so many smells and curiosities. The appeal is endless.

 

 

Just a Teeny Bit about Travel

(I thought I’d put it here in case you don’t care, you can skip it!)

• While checking into the campground at Pymatuning State Park Campground in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania, the young woman asked if I had any discounts. I said I was 66 years old—did that count for anything? And she gasped--audibly. That was unexpected!

• In August, I went to Montana to meet Felix and check in on his extended family. Felix was, of course, adorable. He is Sterling’s younger brother—he has to be! He was at the just slightly beyond the blob stage of infancy. Talking to him I felt like he was just about to become a conscious human, and by then I would be long gone. Sigh. Thankfully, his parents keep me up to date with his progress and it’s precious. I also got to see Peter who joined us from Oregon. Yay! A good time was had by all though the summer smoke season continues to be an issue.    

 

Things I am Learning

& Miscellaneous Observations 

• I took a class in “amigurumi” which is very tight crochet of little critters. The description made it sound like I knew just about enough to do it. Turns out I was wrong. About a half-hour into the class, I said to the teacher that I was going to watch and listen to the rest of the class because I was not able to do what she was doing. It was a combination of a couple things—my crochet skills are lacking and her project was complicated. She looked so disappointed (and I don’t like to disappoint). A few minutes later another student agreed. The third (and only other student) was an experienced amigurum-ist(?). We watched the two of them whizz through the project (a llama). I felt badly for the teacher though when she suggested that our “old hands” might be the reason it wasn’t working for us, I decided to worry about her feelings a little less.

• I have been working on an inbox emptying project and took the opportunity to say hello to some folks I hadn’t said hello to in a while as I found years-old emails in the inbox. It’s fun for me—during the pandemic I sent a lot of cards but emails are okay too. The inbox emptying project came up after two days of driving which I am finding is getting harder on the body as I age. To give myself credit, I am a pedal to the metal kinda gal—ten hours minimum is my usual jam. But I am finding that 10+ is beyond my comfort zone now, and the day after I need a nap though I usually “need” a nap—I am the napping sort. Emptying the inbox is a thing I can do on those days.

• Yesterday, I was dealing with a slow response on my computer and got overzealous and moved my entire inbox to the spam folder. Expletives were spat. It took some time to weed out the spam from Things I Thought I Needed…some messages dated back to pre-pandemic. It was interesting reading messages early on in the shutdown…we were so naïve. The Inbox emptying project needs to continue. (I remember when I thought I could keep my inbox to under 50 then under 100 now over 1800.)

• I spend summer mornings sitting on the front porch and doing what Peter calls “paperwork.” Often, as I have mentioned before, my internet SUCKS. Today I had all my electronic toys out with me and when one said it couldn’t refresh my feed, I picked up another and asked it to do email. Sorry hon—when the internet ain’t working one, it ain’t working on any of em. Surprise.

     Today I brought a bunch of stuff out on to the porch—magazines I needed to decide if I’d read enough to recycle, lists, papers to organize, and a bag of stitching supplies to go through. Guess which one I did first?

• I just found a list…there are so many floating around…This one said

…Blueberries

…Toilet

And I knew when that was and why those were on a list. And I knew I could throw it away.

• There was a poison ivy report on NPR. It included the fact that rising temps are good for poison ivy, improving the environment for it to grow. I can vouch for this. My neighbor wants me to spray, which is so hard, but there is a quality of my life issue (and hers) now. Ugh.

• I went to an inspiring Open House at The Industrial Commons in Morganton NC. It is an incubator for employee-owned businesses. I was wowed. Some of the businesses are textile related and a couple are textile recycling related, marrying two of my favorite subjects.     

     For example, Material Returns recycles socks. Smart Wool has receptacles all over the country for Smart Wool socks. You can get a bag, put all your worn-out socks in it, Smart Wool and others, and they send the bags to Morganton where they are separated (I watched the kid who does it) and the Smart Wool is ground up and made into new Smart Wool yarn and socks (“Second Cut”) which are at least as strong as Smart Wool if not stronger, and the other socks are ground up into “shoddy” which becomes among other things, car seats. They recently received their millionth sock. I love all of this.

     These businesses are housed in a reconfigured manufacturing plant. My tour guide through the facility was the guy who works with the businesses to improve their administration. I think it was called Workplace Development. In describing what he does, he said “People don’t leave jobs, they leave bosses. And I want to help people become better bosses.” (The first part of that quote is word for word, the second sentence might have been the gist of it.) I loved that too.

     They are in the process of creating a downtown campus for these businesses as well as housing for their employees on what appears to be property that is an eyesore in the middle of town. Another win-win. These folks are on fire! [A month or more later: they really are on fire…they are getting funding from everywhere. Truly inspirational.]

Bon Voyage Jimmy Buffett

     I first heard "Come Monday," still my favorite Jimmy Buffett song, when I was working as the assistant cook at Montana Outdoor Leadership Expedition in West Yellowstone in the summer of 1975. It played on the local country-western radio station--which had an active request line. I called in daily...as I recall.

     In college, Monica and I took one of the administrators, Andy Key, to a Jimmy Buffett concert since we were always saying we'd be Jimmy Buffett groupies when we grew up--he was curious. I remember stopping at some place like Denny's on the way home, where Andy and Monica smoked cigarettes (maybe I did too?) and we drank coffee and ate midnight breakfast, to compare notes after the concert. Andy wasn't impressed.

     Monica died not long ago and I can't commiserate with her about Jimmy's death though we gave up our interests in being JB groupies around the same time our paths went separate ways.

     When I was at Saturday Night Live in 1977, John Belushi invited me to go to the After Party for the Hotel California show (The Eagles with Jimmy Buffett opening) at Madison Square Garden. I told him I couldn’t. (I was young and not very savvy and didn’t have money for cab fare home after.) I asked him if he would get me Jimmy Buffett’s autograph. He did. The next morning, he summoned me to his dressing room to deliver the autograph and tell the story—meeting Jimmy Buffett for the first time, saying before we get into it, I have to ask you this favor, etc etc. He was so proud of himself and I am grateful for the memories.

 

Things I am Thankful for

Well, lookie here…I waited a few extra days to get this out and it’s November and time to be thankful (I am thankful other times of year, but this is the Official Thankful Month of the year, eh?).

     I am thankful for people who actually read this and even for those who mean to read it but never do…and for the change of seasons here in Western North Carolina…and for family and friends that feel like family…and I am thankful for all my privilege (I admit it, no matter how guilty it can make me feel) and I wish I could spread it out further. I am thankful for black coffee. I am thankful for being able to travel and hope that continues for the foreseeable future. I am thankful for people who do the hard work of trying to keep our world going in the right direction even when it feels like we are so far off the path. And I’m grateful for the wackadoo little dog who gets me out of bed and moving every single morning.

            Here’s to you all.💖

 

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”  Maya Angelou

 

PNewL PNewS Vol 31. Issue 2: A Wild Wild World

 

PNewL PNewS 

Volume 31 Issue 2          “All the pnews that phits.”            June 2023 _____________________________________________________________

A Wild Wild World

This has been the craziest season for wildlife interaction. I am beginning to wonder what is next. Let’s see--where did it start? I think it might have been a turtle—a box turtle or a snapping turtle? Can’t remember. Buster barked and I walked him away. Then there was the snake in the driveway who was all squiggly (fear reaction)—may or may not be the Snake Now Known as Ursula.

        Then there was the bear Buster found in the gully across the road. She had been seen with two babies. Buster had a long loud discussion with her—she snorted and stomped around in the water. It felt quite real. I called Jeff on the phone and asked what he would do if he were me. He said he'd be right there. He used his Big Boy voice and Buster left the bear in peace. (Helpful information: Buster does not listen to me. While Jeff’s voice is authoritative, mine is the end of fun.)

     There was the baby deer found after the tractor mowing (enough info). And then there were the two bear moms + two cubs each on the Parkway. And finally… no, not finally, but lastly for now, the Snake Now Known as Ursula. I heard noises in the garage and went out to find shelves cleared and things broken. Then when I got in the car and threw stuff on the passenger seat, I noticed her on the dashboard, directly in front of me. I ejected myself out of the car, leaving the driver’s side door open and screamed at her from the passenger side: I HAVE TO GO—YOU NEED TO LEAVE. She slithered out. I drove away.

     Later, I heard her in the ceiling above the front porch while in a zoom class, then in the crawlspace above the kitchen. I have a video of Buster barking at the ceiling. Yes, sweetie, it’s confusing. Today, I went out in the morning and didn’t see it but at noon noticed a very long fresh snake skin in the bush along the sidewalk so I am thinking Ursula is still in residence.

     Recent addition: I took Buster and his neighbor buddy Everly for a walk which ended in a challenging interaction with a deer and maybe a baby. I had never heard a deer in distress or seen a deer attack—or attempt to attack--a dog. I’m feeling like this is going to be a long summer.

 

Three Boxes a Day—or Not

I was having a conversation with yet another of my people of a certain age (mine or usually older) about the amount of stuff we have that we don’t want to leave behind for someone else to deal with or just the amount of stuff in general or we want to move but not all the stuff. With all my remarkable intelligence (not), I boldly said, go through three boxes a day. (This person has a lot of boxes—I was trying to say do something manageable…and keep doing it… but I sounded so confident about three boxes. I am full of it.)

      When I got home, I looked around and I thought, I am full of it. I couldn’t get myself to go through three boxes. I could maybe get to a pile or a drawer, but every day? I am an arrogant all-knowing goofball. It’s official.

 

“There it was again—adults and their on and off again relationship with the truth.”

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

 

Just a Teeny Bit about Travel

     (See comment below. Sorry, I just can’t resist. I’ll try not to bore you!) I went to Iceland again and it was as wonderful as it was the first time, only different. The writing workshop was friendly and helpful and entertaining and all the right things with people I have known for many years. And then I flew to Akureyri in the north and drove around for several days on my own. Just writing that made me feel all warm and fuzzy. It is a magical country. While most of the people live in the south—I’ve heard 300,000 of the 380,000-ish residents live in the south—the north is sparsely populated and there’s a lot of wide-open spaces up there. In one town, I was directed to what turned out to be a hardware/garden and office supply/craft store (and more) to buy yarn. There just aren’t enough customers to warrant having a bunch of separate stores! (In another town, there was a Hardware/Liquor Store.)       

     And I got my fill…well almost…of puffins! I went to the end of the road at the northeastern edge of the country and there they were, flying around like drunken sailors, smashing into the ground and the water. They have very few things they have to do—flying is one of them—why haven’t they gotten better at it?? They nest on a rocky and grassy promontory beyond the town in Borgarfjörður Eystri. They say there are 100 people living there and 1000 elves plus in the spring and summer thousands of puffins. Lovely! (And I learned that in the off season, their beaks are grey. They are not trying to impress their mates! Fortunately, much of that time, they are at sea.)

      Other highlights were hot water places. Most people know about the Blue Lagoon, but there are now places all over the country where going out for a soak in a large artfully crafted pool filled with geothermal hot water—some more elaborate than others—is a sociable thing to do. I highly recommend the one outside Husavik. The views are breathtaking.

     No problem with snow this year but the fog on the way to the airport was pretty intimidating. I had not allowed a lot of time for making my pokey way that morning but as it often does, it all worked out. Lucky me.

     And then Buster and I did another road trip—this time to the Northeast. We stayed in a couple state parks—one in Delaware because I am trying to sleep in all the states and that’s one I haven’t been to before, took a ferry to New Jersey, and then landed in the driveway of David and Kim’s houses and Laurie’s house and Kim and Toby’s house. I had overbooked the time so I had to do some trimming but all in all it was a most excellent time with good visits and new scenery.

     Next up (that’s just a phrase, I have other things coming up sooner but this is now high on the list), I want to visit the State Parks of North Carolina. I am such a fan of these facilities, it’s time to check out the ones close to home.

 

“It’s not your imagination: most people are awful.”

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

 

Things I am Learning & Miscellaneous Observations 

• It has been brought to my attention that I may not be disciplined enough to be a writer. I was also told I talk about travel a lot (too much?). And lastly, I was also told that I need to remember it’s not all about me, that I am a minor character in other people’s dramas. All interesting feedback. Anyone else?

• I am the Queen of Bad Email Management. My worst habit is reading something, nodding, saying Okay by me but never responding so the person who asked the question or made the suggestion never knows what I am thinking. Apparently knowing I do this has not improved anything.

• I was listening to NPR the other day and they interviewed the mystery writer Dennis Lehane. He has started working on a television project which suits him better and he’s not sure if he will write another novel. He said his most recent book “needed to come out of me which is how you become a writer in the first place.” I feel a little bit like this pnewsletter needs to come out of me and maybe that’s why it comes to you on a varied schedule. While I don’t seem to have the discipline to be a real writer (see above), I think I will just keep faking it.

• Cathy and I went to hear Barbara Kingsolver talk about knitting. It was an odd evening. Turns out it was the closing night of a weekend knitting “camp.” I felt like I had arrived late to a very friendly party so I didn’t know the in jokes and hadn’t made friends. Everything Kingsolver said was greeted with knowing laughs and applause. It was kinda fun and kinda tedious. She said this was much more fun than a book tour because she really wasn’t selling anything and she was hanging out with knitters. She also said she’s had several (5?) operations on her hand and can no longer hold a pen so she can’t sign books, but she can still type. She doesn’t want to think about a next surgery as she figures that will be the one when she will no longer be able to knit.

• There just may be a sesame seed shortage. I went to my usual spot to buy sesame sticks and there were none to be found. Then I went to another place—nada. (I think there were a few more stores in there.) Then I googled it and learned that a lot of sesame seeds come from India and due to climate change, flooding has damaged crops and many of the seeds have been defective (!?!). It made me think of the fragility of our environment and the potential for loss when something we probably don’t think a lot about comes from one place. Harkens back to the discussions of supply chains back in the not-so- distant past. (This morning alone—it’s 7:53am—I’ve heard that there is a pine nut shortage (an insect is eating them in Lebanon) and a sriracha shortage (droughts in Mexico.))

• It is impossible to keep my fingernails clean on the van trips. No matter how many times I wash my hands….

• When plotting my course on a road trip, I don’t always notice much other than “includes toll roads,” which, by the way were everywhere in the Northeast. $2.10? Every five miles or so? New York! Give me a break! But I digress. I have an itty-bitty problem with bridges and tunnels and I think map apps might want to warn those of us who don’t like them that “This route includes bleeping terrifyingly long tunnels.” (Iceland, I am looking at you here!) Mostly I am okay but lengthy examples of either are not my favorite. And there I was, paying a $14 toll to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel, which by the way is a bridge tunnel bridge tunnel bridge, if anyone is keeping score.

• Proof that my memory is not as bad as I thought: I found the thumbtacks in the first place I looked. And it’s not an office drawer—way weirder than that. Ta-dum!

 

“Change is what we’re chemically designed to do.”

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

 

I keep looking at this blank little corner of the pnewsletter (in the pdf form) and thinking—do I just keep blathering on or leave it blank, or explain that I know it’s there but I really want to get this out so you get a slightly unattractive white space, or do I bump up the font size? Or I could add a photo. That’s it—an itty-bitty photo of my friend Ursula the snake on the dashboard. It’s small in hopes it is not hard on people who fear her.