PNewL PNewS is 25! Whoo-hoo!!!

PNewL PNewS
Volume 25 Issue 1                     “All the pnews that phits.”          April 2017

The Usual Rambling

     It is apparently past time to write an update. I just opened a bottle of bubbly water that sprayed all over the kitchen despite not having been touched in 24 hours and Roger didn’t like it but he didn’t care and I felt compelled (for some unknown reason...) to tell someone and that someone is you. Usually something bubbles up (how apropos!) as a topic for this part of the PNewS but over the past couple weeks, I have tried to force it. When I looked at what my life entailed other than knitting and working on wrapping up this year’s work for the women’s giving circle Grants Committee, and dogs and walking and eating and sleeping, I thought, really, I’ve been pondering.

     I thought that at some point life would just kinda go along without a lot of effort or twists and turns. My parents were lousy role models in this regard as they made it look pretty easy. But then I was a kid and what did I know? Self-centered little twit like most of us are, I never saw them ruminating, figuring, planning, crying, arguing. They also had five kids and busy lives so I suspect they didn’t always have a lot of time to navel-gaze. So lately, as I face one of those big birthdays, which seem to raise some flags and are ripe for pondering, I have been wondering if what I am doing is what I really want to be doing and if this is where I want to do it, and what about the people with whom I am doing it? The problem with having an endless number of choices is that there are a LOT of choices.

     Then Cami came into my life. She is the latest foster dog. She was found at a dump in Georgia or so the story goes and was totally “shut down.” That is shelter speak I guess. I found her beyond terrified of humans. It took a couple weeks but Roger (and then Trooper who had been here before and came back for a week while his human went away) showed her the way and they fast became a pack. She started going outside all by herself. She let me pet her. She started sleeping on the furniture. I dreaded her going back to the shelter but she had to eventually and there were things coming up that meant a lot of time away from the house for me. Then the man came to repair the window that someone/dog broke, Trooper and Roger barked their fool heads off, and she flipped out and escaped. Shelters don’t look too kindly on people with escape-able fences so they took her back to the shelter.

     But first, the nice part of the story: I was a wreck (this isn’t the nice part)—I hunted for her but knew she would never come to me. I had to ‘fess up. The shelter people were not happy. They sent out a “trapper” (honest). Meanwhile, Loveeta came over and helped me look—she saw her immediately, on the other side of the creek lounging against Jeff and Susan’s fence. She didn’t seem to be going anywhere—she wasn’t leaving, just getting away from all of the ruckus. Then the trapper came and we set up stinky food in the trap and he left. She never bothered with that. As it started to get dark and it was time to eat, she came across the creek and Roger went to play with her. After several romps in the yard, Roger brought her back inside the fence. Roger is my magical hero. Tragedy was avoided. My heart was broken but everyone was safe, if not happy about it.

     I don’t know how Cami fits into this essay. She got in the way of my pondering. When there is a being for whom just survival is a daily process of pain and terror, pondering seems kinda less than essential. Puts things in perspective, but then she’s a dog and I am a human. There’s that.

     I haven’t come to any conclusions but I do like the process of pondering. I now have several weeks of celebrating ahead so pondering may go on the back burner for this human, or maybe not—I never know when the good ideas will come.

Things I am Learning

& Miscellaneous Observations

• I took a class in the fall from an inspiring artist who is funny and talented and generous. I have been following this person’s progress since. Checking the website and Instagram page. Awkwardly, I don’t know what pronoun s/he uses.  On his/her page, s/he says gender is complicated. That has haunted me since I read it. What is it like to have gender complicated? Life is complicated enough—I am grateful that that is not one of the things I have had to think about. But it makes you think, don’t it? On the Instagram page, people refer to the hard times this person went through to get where s/he is today. Brava or bravo! (PS Since I wrote this, I went back to the Instagram page and there was a comment about the other pronoun: ze has one now.)

• I confess: I understand texting while driving. I know it is incredibly dangerous and stupid and don’t do it, but I get it. Since I started driving, we have added a lot of distractions: changing CDs/tapes, talking on the phone, looking at “navigational systems,” etc. I just got my first smart phone and as I feared: I love it. I keep finding new things that it does and that make me happy. Like when I got my first iPad, I carry it around like a teddy bear. When it dings, I want to respond… immediately. It makes me understand texting in stupid situations—we have blurred so many lines.

• As I suspect I have mentioned many times, I am an audio book addict. What I want to know is: What are people eating that gets all over the back of the CDs? I had one recently that I had to wipe down EVERY disc because of the unidentifiable goo on the back. I am currently in the middle of one where I had to chip some stuff off the last disc. Makes the downloading from the library option pretty darned attractive…and now I have a smart phone that will make that a piece o cake…see?

• I can't imagine sharing an email account. I have some couple-friends who do and it boggles my mind! Dear friends do and I learned they have over 300 unread emails in their inbox (bugs me out—but they are both fine with that) and when I gasped, Ernie said then you don't want to know how many read emails we have! (And they are both fine with THAT!?!?)

• I have started figuring the route for our (Roger and me) road trip this summer: I have little sticky notes each with the name of people I hope to see on the trip. I am moving them around a calendar--old school: paper calendar.

• I bought a used vehicle in December and since then have received at least six very formal official looking letters accusing me of being irresponsible in not contacting them to get a warranty on my new-to-me van. At first I was taken aback. What to do? (nothing) Is this real??? (no) Now I am just annoyed. (And then I got a letter from the DMV saying that State Farm who I send a lot of money to year after year says I don’t have insurance. THAT is more than annoying! It’s SF’s error that I have to rectify. Looking for a new insurance agent/company.)

• I used to like to pick clever or fun passwords. It occurred to me recently I have to change them so often it isn’t worth putting much energy into it.

• While pulling bittersweet out of the holly tree, I wondered whether I hated bittersweet more than brambles or vice-versa. I think the truth is I hate the one I am pulling out right then. (Jeff says the brambles are worse because of the thorns. Susan reminded me to add  honeysuckle and multi-flora roses to the equation. And I have them all…in abundance. Lucky me.)

• Love it when I put something somewhere and think, I am going to forget, but no, since I have thought that, I won’t, and then I do. Almost thought I was going to have to pay for a missing book but found it when I remembered thinking I wouldn’t remember. Confused? Welcome to my world.

• The day after tomorrow I leave for a metalwork class and my test-camping sans the pooch. My shoulder is at around 85%. I have proved to myself that I can set up my “rig.” (I have joined a couple of FB pages about women camping solo in vehicles—well, they say RVs but I can’t. Mike gave me a membership in RVing Women, which has a magazine and a list serv that look to be helpful. They all call em rigs, so I will now too.) I am still a little nervous about things like propane and water and batteries but I figure I am going to have to learn as I go. Meanwhile, I have lists and have started packing. Need to check the battery on my welding hood….yes, I own one. It’s a go! The bummer is my first full day: 100% chance of thunderstorms.

     Remarkably, after much calendar comparing and campsite hunting, I have a second test drive scheduled on Jekyll Island with Roger, Gini and her dog Blaze. I confess I wasn’t convinced we would find a date or that it made sense in the big calendar picture but I am getting excited. Time for a good visit, to confer with seasoned veterans of the road (Gini and Blaze), and the beach. This celebrating is addictive.

• I decided to start reading books I own rather than the constant distraction of bright shiny volumes at the library. I have piles of books in my bedroom that someone recommended to me though I can’t remember who it was or why they recommended them. I picked through a few and thought, I am not inspired to read them. I want to be the person who wants to read these but I am beginning to think I am not. What to do? Hold onto them until I am or take them to the library and say, you deal with all these misfits. I just realized that, although I find GoodReads.com a good place to keep a list of all the books I want to read in one convenient place, I still don’t always know who recommended them or why.

• And so the PNewS turns 25. If I weren’t supposed to be doing something else, I would sit down and count the number of issues. It’s well over 100. One of these days, I will do something with them. The 25^th year was my original deadline. Maybe I could look at the end of this year? Anyway, I’m pretty proud of it. Haven’t stuck with much else for this long. On we go, my friends.

“So guys just remember, if ever you feel weighed down by the bureaucracy…of modern life don’t fight the frustration…let it be the catalyst for whimsy.”  

   Comedian James Veitch

[Editors Note: if only...]