PNewL PNewS Volume 26 Issue 2

PNewL PNewS

Volume 26 Issue 2                          “All the pnews that phits.”                                  May 2018

April 14, 2018: Getting stuff done

• Checked email while still in bed

• Morning ablutions

• Fed and walked Roger, gave neighbor horses carrots.

• Breakfast

• Loaded recyclables in the car

• Drove to town

• Picked up repaired vacuum

• Dropped hard 2 recycle stuff at the drop off place on Tunnel Rd.

• Bought Necco wafers at Joann’s as I read on Facebook the company was going under.

• Spent a ridiculous amount at Whole Foods which I justified because it saved me a trip elsewhere.

• Drove home on the Parkway (a good thing)

• Went next door to the doublewide

• The truck was dead and the riding mower had three flat tires.

• Went home and had lunch while calling AAA to jump-start the truck battery.

• Walked to Loveeta’s to borrow a bike pump b/c, after hours of looking, I couldn’t find mine.

• While walking to Loveeta’s, I was called by AAA twice – they wanted to be sure I was okay with a jump start and not the option of a replacement battery, and was told the driver would arrive at 1:27 which I thought was funny. Dispatcher didn’t.

• As I walked back (~1:04pm), the driver called and said he was at my house.

• After much misremembering how to drive the truck I have owned for 26 years, it was charged. (Will not elaborate to protect my reputation for being at least mildly intelligent)

• Drove the truck to make sure the battery was charged—AAA dude said I should drive for 30 minutes. I had about 10 minutes of gas.

• Poured in gas from the lawnmower can to make sure the truck didn’t run out

• Used the rest of the lawnmower gas for the riding mower. It all spilled out on the floor. (Broken fuel line?)

• Mowed the doublewide yard with the push mower

• Couldn’t figure out Loveeta’s pump. Finally found mine--on my bike (see “hours of looking” above. Not kidding)

• Pumped up two of the mower’s flat tires

• Neighbor Jeff arrived (my hero). He pumped up the third.

• From crap in Ray’s garage, he fashioned ramps into the back of my truck

• We (mostly he) pushed (I steered) the riding mower into the back of my itty-bitty old pick up

(I was a little nervous—this is how people get hurt.)

• I produced a bunch of different rope that came from I know not where.

• He complained about all of the knots.

• We tied the mower in.

• He went home and filled tanks from his air compressor because the truck tires were frighteningly low. (Maintenance is not my strong suit over the winter.)

• Filled tires. (“Have a tire gauge?” he asked. “I did once,” I said, rummaging.)

• We drove 1.1 miles, mostly downhill thankfully, to the nice man who is renowned in our neighborhood for mower repair. (When Roger and I were driving by earlier, I noticed one mower ready to go in his driveway as another was delivered.) His name is Zane Justice. He should be a sheriff in the Wild West or he should write country western songs. He has an almost cherubic face and smile. He was sitting in a camp chair in his front yard waiting for us. I cannot make this stuff up.

• We introduced ourselves, shook hands.

• Jeff was charming.

• I commented on Zane’s name.

• He acted like no one had ever commented on it before.

• I listed the issues with the mower. He smiled and nodded.

• I asked if he knew Ray Dillingham and he smiled and nodded.

• I said this was Ray’s mower. He thought that made sense – “I worked with him a lot over the years.” I told him I have lots of other mower looking items Ray left for me and he smiled and nodded. “Sounds like Ray,” he said. I could bring them by and he’d see what they were and if they were worth fixing.

• Uneventful drive home.

I thought I was going to cry.

> Ray died 3+ years ago leaving me a houseful of stuff I didn’t know what to do with.

> Wesley gave me the mower repairman’s name almost a year ago.

> Jeff had made things that are hard for me happen.

• Stuff got done. This was a long time coming.

Update May 18, 2018: The truck battery is dead. In trying to be prepared for a helper, I thought I would push the dead truck out of the garage into the driveway. Mid-push, I knocked the door open and it flattened the track of the garage door. I thought maybe I had hurt the car door as well. I put a call out to favorite helpers. David bit first (bless his heart). We freed the truck door and found it was only minorly bent and still closed. Watching him straighten out the track was art. Meanwhile, the gas leaked out of a crack in the tank of the lawn mower. David asked if there was anything else he could do. Nah. Just slam the garage doors and walk away. There’s always a chance lightning will strike.

Update May 28, 2018: Truck is still dead but I think I’m going to sell it. I own too many things that break. Mr Justice appeared unannounced and took the mower away along with an unidentified mower-type thing. I’m good with it all.

Things I am Learning

& Miscellaneous Observations

• Happiness can sometimes be as simple as a strong internet connection.

• Last month, I spent the better part of the early morning (4-6am) watching a bear in my backyard. He (let’s pretend it was a he) was on my back porch, dragged the large plastic file box of birdseed over near the shed deck and ate... actually not as much of it as I thought as he spilled a fair amount en route. I couldn’t stop watching though most of the time all I could see was his mouth when he was chewing—he’d lean into the box and fill his mouth up and lean back and chew. Finally at 6 as it was getting light, I opened the back door and said, “OKAY, it's time for you to go home”...and he left.

• Spring is when Mother Nature does some of her best work, in my humble opinion. The unfurling of all that green. The blooming of all those blossoms. Sigh. She also gets a bit reckless with wild and wonderful…and not so wonderful…weather. But it’s rarely dull. When Roger and I were walking, I noticed a post in the fence across the way that had been uprooted by a honeysuckle. Just grew up taking the post up with it. Then I happened on—and wound up helping—Jeff and Susan fixing the roof of the goat shed. The wind had lifted the sheet metal off the structure and it took three of us to get it back in place. Impressive. And now the rain. 20 inches in 15 days. And it’s not over yet.

• I have a debit card that expired which has a chip and I thought there must be something different about disposing of it. I googled it and there was a six step process. How (or why) we made life so complicated, I don’t know. I like the advice that you don’t have to put each piece into a separate garbage bag, but almost….

• I have made some new discoveries in this year’s season of outdoor showers: My shower, lovingly built by neighbor David out of corrugated metal, has remarkably good acoustics. I’m not suggesting I sound good but I sound better singing in that shower than in the one inside. AND, it is a wonderful bird blind! When I come out onto the deck, the birds fly away. Whilst in the shower, my feathered friends will hang out. Bonus!

• We have some folks who wander around this countryside seemingly randomly trashing the place. This spring, either the energy company or the DOT cut everything to shreds around any power line. You can drive two trucks along the powerline at the bottom of my road. And then in some places there are piles of slash. Super attractive. Then someone came along and cleared the ditches along the side of the road and dumped all the leftovers near a little bridge across the creek my neighbor uses. Unsightly! The gasman gouges the hillside along my driveway every single time he comes out. But Mother Nature will do her thing and heal these wounds. Meanwhile, aesthetically unpleasing.

 • I don’t know how people live without lists or calendars. I get frustrated when I find a stack of lists but I just noticed that if I don’t grab a piece of paper and write it down, it’s gone, and so the stack grows. I now know how to tell Siri to make me lists and soon Alexa might be called into action, bu I’m not sure a stack of digital lists will be as satisfying as the paper ones.

     Calendars? I have friends who always seem amazed when something we have talked about for a while is finally happening. Do you not write these things down? We are all different.

• This morning was Creative Mornings and the speaker was local restaurateur Meherwan Irani. His talk was on commitment and he talked about commitment vs obligation. Perhaps not versus but more are you committed to something or obligated?  I have been chewing on this all morning.

• We have had a lot of rain lately. Three times the normal amount in one week and now Alberto is bearing down and there are flood warnings all around. The creek behind my house has been incredibly active. I keep thinking I hear voices and then have to remind myself: this is where the term babbling brook comes from.

• Ah, I remember the days when I could only handle 25 emails in my inbox, then I upped it to 100. Now I have two email addresses with 389 in my main one (ouch) and hundreds in each of three different categories in the other. This is how things get lost in the shuffle.

• So I was sitting in the lounge on the good ship Ocean Adventurer, bobbing around the Southern Ocean when the speaker asked us to call out the name of our happy place and before I even had a chance, the nice man behind me said, Pointe au Baril. My jaw dropped. Pointe au Baril??? A small town along the shores of  Georgian Bay in what used to be the remote land of northern Ontario. It is hardly a wide spot in the road but it is the gateway to a paradise I have been visiting all my life. And this guy has been too??? Turns out he has. And he’s working to help the Great Lakes gain the respect they deserve. And he had a fabulous time in Antarctica too! Check out his work at http://greatnessglp.com

• The Reluctant Gardener has been relegated to a mere endnote in Things I am Learning & Miscellaneous Observations because I am sooo aggravated and frustrated by the fact that plants can grow while it's raining but I can't mow while it's raining. So in the brief moments of sun (with humidity above 80% (it’s 32% in Weaverville CA by the way)), it is too wet to mow. Meanwhile, everything is growing at an overwhelming rate and all I can do is whimper. Well, that’s not quite true…I swear a lot. Between politics and gardening, I am developing quite the potty mouth. And between singing in the shower and my potty mouth, perhaps it’s best to call ahead before coming over…

Onward my friends…