PNewL PNewS Vol. 18 No. 2

This is a long one. It's been too long between issues and I just can't stop. Bear with it...or not.

Oh and my photos are up on Facebook, and if you are not a member, they can hopefully be found on Kodak's website. If you want to see them I think I have to send you an email. Let me know and I can do that.

Athens to Venice by Boat and Bus

Lisa called about nine months ago and asked if I would like to join her on a trip that would financially benefit the non-profit she works for. I said sure. She suggested I look at the website and itinerary, and give it some thought. Since then a friend suggested an inscription on my headstone were I to have one: I wanna go. So I signed up for a trip I probably never would have otherwise gone on.

Three weeks before the trip, when Mercury was in retrograde, things started to shift. Lisa had to have surgery (she’s on the mend) and wasn’t going to be able to go. Would I be willing to room with someone else? Would it be ok if it was a man? Did I still want to go? I decided to continue as planned and as luck would have it, I got a room to myself. It was a good trip—not the one I had envisioned since Lisa, a major piece in this puzzle, was unable to go. I met lots of nice people, saw lots of cool stuff, but didn’t think I laughed enough which I would have if Lisa had been there.

We left from Athens in a handsome yachty-sailboaty-looking vessel which qualified due to its length to be called a ship, the Pan Orama. There were around 30 paying customers on board and a crew of many. I suspect we didn’t even see some of them. The adventure was pretty much seamless. (The Albanian government threw us a curve ball but otherwise, seamless.) From Athens we headed through the Corinth Canal and over to Itea where we got on a bus for Delphi. That evening we headed to Ithaka at the end of the Ionian Sea (or was it the beginning?), then north along the Dalmatian Coast to Albania and Montenegro and Croatia. It was stunningly gorgeous, every inch of it. Mountains rising out of the ocean. Who knew?

We saw all sorts of natural beauty and a lot of old man-made stuff: buildings, towns, churches, museums. When people ask me what my favorite part was I have to say it was that I had no idea the east side of the Adriatic Sea had such a gorgeous coastline. And each country was fairly distinct from each other.

Greece continues to impress me with the huge amount of what we, the Fitches and I on my first trip to Greece, called rubble. Not to mention they moved the rock that became rubble around on small boats a really long time ago. Like who thought moving honking big chunks of marble from the islands to Delphi before the Corinth Canal was built, that being a trip of something like 300 miles, was a good idea? Meanwhile, Albania has lousy roads but lovely views. The fjord-like part of Montenegro we saw consisted of towns clinging to the flat spots between the water and the mountains—and the road up and out, with its 25+ switchbacks was very entertaining. Croatia is lovely stem to stern—at least what I saw of it. They have many lovely old red roofed walled towns that are simply charming with the occasional visible reminder of its war torn history. And then the Adriatic: the water is so clear (and wildly aqua) that one time I put my feet down to walk out onto the rocky beach and it turned out the water was about four feet deeper than my legs are long. All good.

I left the Pan Orama in Hvar, a really lovely island about mid-coastline, and watched my new friends take off for Dubrovnik (we spent a day there earlier in the trip) and Disembarking Day. I spent a few more days there to decompress after so many days of being with other people. It was odd going from chatting and listening all the time to very little conversation. I wandered and swam and took a boat to a neighboring island and wandered some more. It was luscious.

I ferry-ed to the mainland with a young woman from New York City and hung out with her for the morning in Split which was fun—especially since guidebook reports weren’t all that glowing. I returned to Sibenik and Krka National Park for a longer visit and then to Zadar to wander and catch the ferry to Italy. In Italy, I spent a day with Carolyn and her family. I got to do the family scene with a group lunch, a performance of Carolyn’s choir, a bike ride through town and a tour of the first library in the world (!!), and a rhythmic gymnastics performance by Camilla and a cast of hundreds. More good.

My final stop was a few days in Venice, a fun chaotic wacky place to hang. Three words describe Venice in my mind: over the top. And that can be a good thing. The crowds were there but weren’t overwhelming, and it wasn’t beastly hot.

I am not going to bother mentioning the trip home. We all know that the best part of travel is not the airplane ride. My father used to describe his flights as “uneventful” (when they were) and that was about the best thing one can say any more. Mine were eventful but I got home on the day I was supposed to (Well, it was 1 a.m. of the next but let’s not pick nits.), my luggage was there and I was still alive. All, again, good--very good.

Things I am Learning & Miscellaneous Observations

• My computer screen saver is a slide show of pictures from my IPhotos. It pulls random pictures from the previous 12 months. It is very entertaining. I often import other people’s photos and sometimes it’s a surprise to see pictures I didn’t take pop up among Bowen waterskiing and snowy dog shots.
• Will it be a relief when I really can’t do some of the things I try to do and probably shouldn’t like cleaning gutters on my almost second story porch roof?
• On my recent trip, I thought a lot about the impact tourism has on a place. Some places, like Venice and San Francisco and Asheville, have adapted to the influx of visitors. Others, like Montenegro and Bhutan and Croatia are in the process of adapting. I am concerned about what a place has to do to adapt and accommodate us.
• Several weeks ago I was walking the large hound when I looked up to see a V of geese although they were flying south...in April. That made me wonder. Are they trying to tell me something?
• One of the most prevalent sounds in Venice is that of rolling luggage on stone.
• I dragged my neighbor to a talk at the local garden center about…something like landscape design. The only “take away” I got (probably because she said it several times) was the importance of looking at where you are in your life so that you don’t bite off more of a commitment to new plantings than you are willing to chew where you are in your life. I think she makes a good point. And I think it is transferable to other things.
• When I got home from Europe, I took the card out of my camera and attempted to load the photos therein. The screen read, Card Error and when I put it back in the camera it read something like Format card, or maybe I am getting them reversed. Anyway, to my mind it meant that all the pictures I took after I left the group (145 it turned out) were gone. After some noodling around on the internet, I found all was not lost, only corrupt (which I felt was very judgmental). Chris directed me to Iris Photo + Digital where the nice man, after quite a bit of time, found my pictures and put them onto a CD. OHMIGOSH I was so happy. He says this happens all the time. He also says we should re-format our photo cards each time we have saved the photos somewhere else (I do it via the tools menu on my camera). It kinda covers over the damaged bits of your card and doesn’t let the camera use that part. DO IT NOW.

• A few weeks back, my assignment at the library was to go through juvenile non-fiction: to make sure it was in order (it was not), to repair damaged books and to pull any that were beyond repair in anticipation of a busy summer season. As usual, I came home with a sack of books to read. And almost all of them were really interesting and helpful. I had started in the biographies. And I read them all in one night. It’s a great way, especially for someone like me with a short attention span, to get a lot of information in a limited amount of pages. Now, I want to learn more about Eleanor Roosevelt and Marco Polo. With the exception of the Governor Vance book, which I frankly found unreadable, I enjoyed reading all of these books and may read some of them again.

• Here’s the list of what I read

• "Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai" by Claire A Nivola
• "Marco Polo" by Gian Paolo Aserani
• "States Woman to the World: A Story about Eleanor Roosevelt" by Maryann N. Weidt
• "Sojourner Truth: Preacher for Freedom and Truth" by Suzanne Slade
• "Governor Vance" by Cordelia Camp (his birthplace is around the corner from my house)
• "The Boy on Fairfield Street: How Ted Geisel Grew up to Become Dr Seuss" by Kathleen Krull

The Reluctant Gardener

I thought this might be the topic of the next issue but I think it will be an ongoing topic in my life and so, should you actually read this, it will be something you will read about.

As I have mentioned, I live in a place of wonderful and inspiring neighbors who are really smart and talented in ways I am not. I keep reminding myself I have some skills but they don’t seem to surface here much. Anyway, I do want my various gardens to look better but I have neither the knowledge nor the patience so I am TRYING TO LEARN.

Upon my return (having been gone at the height of the world’s most prodigious growing season on record), I found the jungle on the magnitude of …oh dang…was it Gulliver’s Travels with the serious jungle? Suffice it to say, there were independent weeds standing taller than I do…everywhere. Oh my. And so I have spent some time weeding and contemplating--I'm trying to get a bit Zen about this--and here I am, in the middle of yet another Reluctant Gardener episode.

When I finally found a cool shady spot to weed at 2pm, I pondered the habit of the local snakes (some harmless, some not). Do they like cool dark spots like I do at the heat of the day? Jeff says it doesn’t much matter what the harmless ones like—they are harmless (see I told you my neighbors were smart)—and the harmful ones seem to like rocks and wood piles. It calms me.

Ray, my other neighbor and the truly wonderful person who mows my yard because he has the time, offered to come over and help weed—it’s that bad—but he only wants to do it when I am there because he’s not sure what’re flowers and what’re weeds. I told him it was a problem I had myself.

Meanwhile, I wondered if it’d be better to stay on top of weeds from the early days of the growing season or waiting like I did, until they got really really big and are very satisfying to pull out. Stay tuned.

PNewL PNews Vol.18 No. 1

Note: Once again, I am battling with blogger. I can't seem to get it to accept my changes style-wise, and at this point who cares? Hope it doesn't make reading this any more difficult than it usually is.

PNewL PNewS
Volume 18 No. 1 “All the pnews that phits." March 2010

Allison called a couple weeks ago and asked if I would help her install a new garage door opener. I said of course, and the whole way over thought “So I guess we’ll make an effort, screw it up and then hire someone to clean up the mess.” A mere couple hours later, she was pushing the remote button and THE GARAGE DOOR OPENED. I was in awe. I bowed at her feet. But the truth of the matter is I even helped. I mean, I made suggestions—I noticed things she didn’t. We made a great team. Two sets of eyes are better than one. I was hooked.

Then a week or so later, I went back to Women Build at Habitat for Humanity. I signed up for a day when we were doing something I hadn’t done before—avoiding setting the decking which almost killed me last year. Surprise! Schedule change! Decking day! We were short several members of the crew so there was a nail gun involved, but I still spent most of the day on my knees banging nails and the next day wimping around in pain. The following week, we built walls and then I ran the chop saw, measuring and cutting boards The bottom line was I felt good about what we were doing and my ability to do it.

I came home and looked at my list of things to do around the house and acknowledged that several were within my ability if I just take it one step at a time. I think that is often my problem—being overwhelmed by the scope of something, be it a project or travel plans or a recipe or…well…anything.

First, I worked on my fear of ladders. I needed to clean my gutters. The problem is my gutters are pretty high off the ground and the ground, especially after this winter of rain and snow, is soggy. I figured out ways to steady the ladder and climbed aboard. No problem though the gutters were disgusting and the job a wee bit overdue. I think there’s some pretty rich compost there.

Next was a pegboard I wanted to hang in my sewing room, to hold the various tools I can never seem to locate when I need them. I have little drawers that hold bobbins and needles and all kinds of hooks for scissors, rotary cutters and rulers. It’s handy and when I hung it last time, it seemed complicated. Peter did most of the work on that one and maybe the complicated part was that we were drilling into concrete block. This time, I tried to think how Robin and Allison would think. First, I primed and painted the board and the 1x2s that are behind it. I confess to doing it with spray paint (please forgive me, environment) because last time I painted a pegboard all the bleeping holes filled up with paint. I marked where the holes would go on the 1x2s and pre-drilled them (Aren’t I clever?). Then I screwed the center 1x2 into the wall and leveled it. I measured at least twice for each step and it all came together in a surprisingly short amount of time.

Here I had waited almost two years to do this and I did it in one afternoon without any help and it’s perfect, and my confidence level, as an added bonus, has taken a giant step forward. How cool is that? I am woman, hear me roar.

For those of you who are yawning right about now, pretend this is something more complicated that you have put off for a while and imagine what it would be like to get it done. It’s a good thing.

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Things I am Learning

& Miscellaneous Observations

* Dogs don’t have a watch, a calendar or know how to hold a grudge. And we have the ability to make them wag their tails. All good.

* Another reason to come visit me: Asheville Tourist season’s opening day is April 8. (The Tourists are the last team that “Crash” Davis of “Bull Durham” played for.) And they just announced special event nights—May 21, for instance, is “Feed your Face Night” (all you can eat certain concessions) and there are 13 Thirsty Thursdays (buck a beer). Tempting (and a little scary), ain’t it?

* I have come up against a tool that seems to be a weak link in the tool department: the staple gun. Typically I have to make a couple trips to the hardware store to get much of anything accomplished. I am working on that. But the staple gun has me stymied.

I had one that is heavy duty. I used it very few times though granted it is probably ten years old…maybe more. It doesn’t work—it’s like it can’t be cocked any more. I am sad. Then I borrowed Loveeta’s and had to make two trips to the store to buy staples—and her stapler started doing the same not-cocking thing but would re-set itself if I gave it a few minutes between staples.

Staple sizes are not standardized. Just because something is 5/16^th of an inch doesn’t mean it’s going to fit THIS 5/16^th inch staple gun. And the guys at the store are the first to admit this is wacky. So I know what I have to do: I need to buy a staple gun with a lifetime supply of staples, but being me, I have to wait for the next big sale or til I have a coupon or stare at my broken staple gun and will it to work again (I already have staples for it…what will I do with them?). It’s always something.

* PNewL PNewS turns 18 this month. Happy Birthday/Anniversary!

* A recipe suggestion. I tend to make too much salad for parties or potlucks. So I stumbled on this: I made a salad based on spinach (very good for you), broccoli slaw (that bagged stuff) and sliced peppers onions etc and serve it without dressing. It makes GREAT stir fry on days 2 and 3 after the party.

* I just finished listening to “Committed,” Elizabeth Gilbert’s follow up to her bestselling (and one of my recent favorite books) “Eat Pray Love.” First, she is a great reader of audio books. Second, I loved lots of it—especially the parts where she wasn’t ranting about the problems with marriage, but was ranting about other things. Third, I am curious to hear more people’s opinions of the book.

* The first meeting of the Bucket List Babes finally took place on Super Bowl Sunday. (We had to re-schedule because of weather.) We are a group of women who like to travel—and apparently eat as the food spread was grrrreat. We are making plans--to go places. We gathered to compare lists of where we want to go, to compare travel styles and sample budgets. And until the big ticket trips come up, we plan to make some day or weekend adventures. Whatever happens, there will be some fun involved.

* Why I Love My Neighborhood: Recently, in the midst of yet another snowstorm (did I mention we are over 20 inches above average—I don’t always like being above average), Bear and I took to the roads. We did our usual routine, sniffing everything and trying to find Samson, his buddy, who wanders all day long. After that, we ran into Susan who was heading out with one of her dogs. We walked up to see the Bison (I cap that word because they are so darn BIG) though they were not around. Just that much further up the road, the snow was thicker and deeper. The dogs had a blast (Samson meanwhile had found us), and Susan and I had a good visit. When we got back down near our homes, Susan peeled off and I ran into another Susan and David coming down the hill. David was going to plow the community’s roads. Susan wanted to go see if the main-ish road was clear. Wanna come? Well, sure. So we walked and talked about travel, a favorite subject of, I learned, both of ours. When we got back to the crossroads, Susan went home and Bear and I went to check on Sculley’s chickens. They had water and were staying inside. Our usual 45 minute walk had turned into 2 hours. And while this didn’t happen that afternoon, the following day, while Bear and I were on our morning wander, when there was only one fresh set of tire tracks on the icy road and schools were closed, Ray came down the road. I said, Ray, What the heck are you thinking? And he said a buddy had called him the night before and asked him if he wanted to try the new breakfast at the Cracker Barrel and he said, heck if you can get there I can get there. He said the problem with drivers around here is we don’t know how to hold the traction. I asked him how you do that—“Hope and pray.”

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When two people are really happy about one another, one can generally assume they are mistaken. Goethe

Winter: An Analysis

Since Ms Sarah Palin was hired by Fox News--for probably a fair amount of money--to be a commentator and analyst, I figured, why not me? I think I will make some business cards that say Commentator/Analyst. And here is my first analysis:

Winter is very very very very cold sometimes.

This, my first full winter in North Carolina, feels biblical. I said that to my boss at the library and she said, so next you are expecting frogs raining down from the sky? Well, I have to say I wouldn't be surprised...though they would be flash frozen and that would hurt.

It started with a heavy wet snow that fell hard and fast, downing trees and powerlines which led to no power for many many many many many many hours. I believe somewhere in there, there were one or two days of moderate weather but it's a bit of a blur. Shortly thereafter, the deep freeze moved in and stayed and stayed and stayed. I am pretty good at wrapping up now. [Hot tip: I went to the fabric store and bought a half-yard of 60" wide deep purple embossed fleece, cut it in half lengthwise so I now have two 9" wide x 60" long mufflers--no sewing. I wrap one around and around and around and am very comfy in the whipping winds. It cost something like $3.69.] Yesterday it was 28 degrees and I thought there was hope. My hands were not frozen inside my mittens.

This morning, Baru Bear and I headed outside for our morning walk and it was, again, 28 degrees with a misty rainy snow like substance falling from the sky. By the time we hit the asphalt road at the bottom of mine, it was slippery. My neighbors came around the corner. I told them it was icy--something that might be more obvious in rubber-soled Merrills than in a Subaru Forester. Bear and I continued around to say good morning to the horses. It's not a bad place to walk because I can hear cars coming from either direction and we can get to the side that is wider in plenty of time. As a car came speeding down the hill, I said aloud, Careful...it's slippery, and the car hit the curve and started fishtailing, heading straight at the Large Hound and me. My heart was beating extremely hard. I pulled Bear in close and got as far out of the way as possible, not knowing which of the ways was out. I don't know if we were why she went into a 180 degree skid or if that was part of her efforts to slow down but thankfully she came to a stop across the road--where Bear and I would have been had we not run across the road. It was a heckuva way to start the day. My Introduction to Black Ice.

I went into the library a couple hours later. On the road in, which is a 45 MPH zone, even the usual cowboys were going under 25MPH. A relief to me. There were several cars in ditches along side the road. It wasn't pretty.

So we've had record snows, record winds, record power outages, record temperatures, and record broken pipes (in town--not at my house yet...so I guess I could expect that one day soon). Black Ice was ice-ing on the cake. I am not sure what else winter has to offer but heck, we still have over two months to go. Bring it on.

PNewL PNewS Volume 17 Issue 4

I wanted to get this done earlier--and you will notice that most of this was written a few weeks back--but I found a lengthy early winter storm caused some distress. This goes on a bit...because apparently I needed to. Bear with me (pun?). I hope this finds you all in a happy place at the beginning of a new decade. I hope you and your credit cards survived the holiday season and that's the last I am going to say about any of that. Stay warm, good health, and lots of friends and fun. Onward!!! Let's see what the New Year has in store!

PNewL PNewS

Volume 17 Number 4 "All the pnews that phits." January 2010

Life with Dog in Winter

It seems important for me to note, as perhaps I have in the past, I am not a dog person per se. That is: I can find myself smiling at other dogs—I generally like dogs—as opposed to not being a cat person where I really just don’t care for the concept of cats though can occasionally find a cat I enjoy being with. But my life is not about dogs, I do not “champion” or volunteer for/with dogs, I only watch dog shows on TV if channel surfing really drags, the two dog shows I attended were just short of coma inducing, and there are plenty of dogs I plain don’t care for. But MY dog, be it Rocket, Dusty, Sally, Beandip or Senor Baru Bear have been as dear to my heart as many a friend.

Hanging with Bear lately has been a treat, a gift and a challenge. Tonight, with over a foot of snow on the ground, the power out (and a fully charged laptop), candles glowing all around the living room (who knew I owned so many?), and Bear chewing heartily on a bone, I am as grateful for his presence as I have perhaps ever been for almost anyone. He is good solid company.

Recently our co-parenting relationship of the extremely large hound has shifted. Gini who seemed to be the more regionally stable person was no longer and I became the person who knew where she was going to be for the longer haul so Bear is here for the most part. I admit that was an adjustment but made me feel even better about the exorbitant amount of money I put into the backyard fence. (Amortized over the –brief—life of a Great Dane mix, it’s still wonky…but his being here closer to year-round helps.)

In September, he was diagnosed with heartworm which is just what it sounds like—worms in the heart. While he has taken the preventative meds, there is a chance we missed a day or two (I swear he has the most delicate constitution of any body weighing 120 lbs), and there is a chance the meds don’t always work (which is why dogs NEED the test). After an additional three months of heartworm meds (to see if the existing worms might die on their own), he underwent two days of treatment in the hospital. He came home with two bare patches (on his Bear butt) where they injected the poison, and instructions to keep the big boy calm (no excess heart pumping exercise). Oh joy—he’s a puppy—it’s hardly in his nature. When I ran into my neighbor Eddie the Vet, he said the worst time could be about 21 days post-treatment (when the heart is pumping the dead worms away). Doing the math, that’s Christmas, baby.

So we are being calm. Instead of my life’s work being to exhaust the dog, my new job is to keep the dog calm. We have gone through two expensive leashes. (Sorry Martha—I’ll explain. I know I asked for a new leash for Christmas but it’s already come and gone despite the fact I shouldn’t have opened the package yet. Thanks for the thought—love ya!) He loves winter: loves the ice— loves breaking it and falling into the slushy cold water below. He seems to like the steamy air he exhales. He has mastered slipping on the ice and testing the snow for exactly how it will react to his weight. We have to go down and see the horses at the end of the road to make our morning walk complete. We find distractions but he hasn’t really been tired in a long time—nothing tires him like other dogs.

And that is the tragedy of this experience: keeping him from his puppy buddies and not being able to explain why. We often walk over to Leah and Loveeta’s houses which are Puppy Central. There is usually someone to rile there and Bear is always looking for Sampson, who is often hanging around. So we are struggling with this being calm stuff and walking walking walking without other dogs. Neighbors stop and marvel at how often they see us on the road. We are certainly part of the ‘hood.

Watching Snow Melt

It’s Monday, mid-day, Baru Bear’s 4^th Birthday. The power went out on Friday evening. Rumor has it we might get it back tomorrow night. I actually got part of the house hot today with the gas fireplace. That is a welcome change. The sun is out and it is really quite lovely. Snow filled trees, mountains surrounding us filled with the white stuff, big puffy clouds, blue blue blue sky. I feel lucky to live here though it might be better if my hair was clean. I could use a shower.

The snow came in quickly and heavily on Friday—schools were closed in anticipation. It broke gobs of trees all over the region. When Bear and I went out for a walk on Saturday morning, he was afraid of the wind and when I saw the debris on the road, so was I. There were lines down in a couple places. Everything felt a wee bit out of kilter, unstable, intimidating. When people who know how to deal with this stuff were out and about, branches were trimmed, others were out walking and things felt a little less precarious.

We got out yesterday and the world beyond our neighborhood is in a somewhat business as usual routine. People were shopping downtown despite the fact most parking spaces were filled with snow plowed from the streets. We went to a Christmas music event—Swannanoa Solstice—and attendees looked pretty presentable on the top with hiking/combat/snow boots on the bottom. It was nice to feel normal. I totally get Cabin Fever now. And the music was fun and festive, reminding of us that oh yes, it’s Christmas time.

There are still a lot of trees hanging over wires, even in town. It appears that we in the hinterlands will be at the end of the list of homes getting back on line or close to it. Some of my neighbors are already back up but Ray says we are “at the end of the rat’s tail” because of the way the lines were run. As of yesterday (Sunday), they’d gone from a high of 70,000+ without power to under 30,000. Meanwhile, my car is going to have to wait for more snow to melt before I can get it to the road and over the piles plowed at the end of the driveway.

I’m frankly a bit weary of it all. I was telling my neighbors that I could keep an upbeat attitude until Sunday morning but after that it was going to be a stretch. Sunday morning, I cried to some poor neighbor facing his own challenges, “I’m a suburbanite for crikey’s sake. I have no skills for living like this!” My neighbors with skills are splitting wood and running generators. All of that scares me. I just want water and power and garbage collection, and mail and newspaper delivery and “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” on the dark silent radio.

A couple weeks later: Now, I realize I do have some skills to deal with the storm. As I was telling someone, I got to a point where I just couldn’t do it any more and we both laughed. She said, “It’s like childbirth—you think you can’t do it any more but it doesn’t really matter. It’s happening.” Yup. And I recognize the upsides (a couple weeks after the fact) to this experience.

Three neighbors called just prior to the storm to make sure I was ok and was prepared (“fill buckets, find flashlights”) and that felt really good. We stayed in touch in person and via cell phones throughout.

The snow was really pretty and quiet and Bear loves it.

I made a new friend walking endlessly up and down the roads. She introduced me to a crampon-like product that fits over my boots that will make icy walks safer. I will get a pair this week from Curtis Wright Outfitters on Main Street in Weaverville. (There Jeff—it’s not the sandwich board you wanted me to wear but it’s a teeny tiny advertisement!)

I had three dead trees removed this fall and am pleased with my responsible behavior as the pick-up-sticks look to my front yard is moderate compared to what it would have been.

The holly tree only lost a few limbs, what Sculley calls Nature’s pruning—and it needed it.

Being limited in what I was able to do was ok…for a while. (I loved when Chris called and said, “You are right. I am so over this”…and we still had a ways to go.)

I have a clock that runs on batteries that plays a stanza of a different Christmas carol on each hour. It was really nice when there was no other sound in the house.

Candlelight provides such a pretty glow.

Things I am Learning

and Miscellaneous Observations

* Days without power, water and phone is a “Things I am Learning” extravaganza.

* Buckets of snow melt down to a disappointing amount.

* I can light the gas fireplace without fear now and it kicks out some real heat.

* The large hound puts off some good heat too.

* Having friendly neighbors solves most problems.

* I could survive a long time on the contents of my pantry and freezer.

* Watching snow melt is about as productive as watching paint dry.

* I am totally and completely addicted to electricity.

* Now I know why I own so many candles…and thank heavens I do!

* “Winter storm warning” will forever elicit a Pavlovian response in me of “Fill the buckets and pitchers” and “Go take a shower.”

* And I now know why to fill all those buckets!!

* This winter, I have been learning so many things it’s hard to keep track of them but three things I totally get now are Cabin Fever, Fleece and Wind Chill Factor.

* While preparing for a house guest recently, I came across something left by a previous guest: two packets of ketchup left on one of my “curio” shelves. Interesting.

Things I am Thankful For /

New Year’s Resolutions

Because I didn’t get a Holiday edition out, much less one for Thanksgiving, here's this stuff now.

Thankful for…

Friends and neighbors

Great restaurants in Asheville

Finding yoga again

Libraries (and books in general)

Freedom and independence

Naps

Travel opportunities

Bear sleeping so I can get this done

Resolve to…

Focus

Explore (Get out and about more)

Do what I can

Finish unfinished projects (quilting, organizing, painting etc)

Read some of the books on the bedside table

Make my travel bucket list

Be realistic (which means this list ends)

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

Friedrich Nietzsche

So...how much is a hot shower worth to you?

I found out recently that a good hot shower is worth over $600 to me...because that's what I paid...

Recently, I called the plumber. I told the guy I was calling him because my shower leaked. I pretended to be a helpless female. I knew I could actually fix that but I didn't want to admit that I didn't know how to turn off the water main. I also didn't know what all the stuff attached to the pipes in the basement was. Seemed I was just looking for information--the strong hot shower wound up being a happy unexpected result.

The plumber--let's call him Pete because frankly, I can't remember what his name was (I do know his wife had a baby in the middle of our bill negotiation)--arrived in a downpour. Each trip between his truck and the inside of the house and the inside of the basement, he got wetter and wetter. Fortunately it was a warm day.

Pete fixed the shower leak in a heartbeat -- he even had the cartridge that needed to be replaced saving me the $75/hr trip to the hardware store. Eventually, it seemed that each time he peeked his head in the front door there was either really great news or really horrible news. The time passed, the news continued. In the course of this, he discovered that a) the water main shut off was a little tiny thing that looked like it belonged in the office supply world rather than the plumbing department, and b) there was a lot of stuff in the basement he could not explain. First, he suggested we replace the shut off--I agreed since I thought it might break off when I needed to use it.

Turns out the original installation of the system was bass-ackward and included a couple different tanks which were unidentified and unidentifiable. Who knew things could be this complicated, this wrong and this expensive? He rearranged the things he could ID and at some point, he finally left. The upside was that I felt like I knew a whole bunch of stuff I hadn't known before.

A couple weeks later, I realized that water pressure had deteriorated since Pete's visit. I called him to see what he thought. He thought he needed to figure out what the stuff in the basement was. I thought that sounded reasonable. A few hours later, he said, let's just take this tank out and check the water quality and see if anything changes...then we might know what that tank is. When he pulled out this giant tank, he found it was full of what I could swear must be toxic waste. We still don't know what the tank was for--and there's another one still in place so there're opportunities for more visits with Pete, but meanwhile, the water pressure is good, the water quality is fine, the silt at the bottom of my water bottles is gone. Life is good. The really really really great upside is the hot pelting shower. I love it. A mere $638 later.

PNewL PNewS Volume 17 #3...finally

but first...help me win a pink vespa (I mean, how fun is that?) Sign up for the Army of Women between now and November 23, 2009--go to armyofwomen.org, pick from the referral field "Vespa Contest," enter your email address in the corresponding field and you will not only be helping me win a pink vespa (...cool), you will be helping find the cure for breast cancer. Life is good. Thanks for your help...

On with the show, this is it...[Once again, Blogger and I are having some issues...I will try to resolve them one day, but in the meantime, pretend the formatting is right and that for whatever reason, part of this is not really little and in italics.]

PNewL PNewS

Volume 17 No. 3 “All the pnews that phits.” October 2009

Some days Up -- Some days Old

You are only as old as you feel, the saying goes, and I am feeling old. I know that many reading this are older but I have always felt that no matter what other people think, if it feels true for me, I have to accept and deal with it. Within the last couple weeks, I almost broke my toe as I jammed it into the magazine rack, dinged my knee when I fell trying to clear brush, and at the beginning of 15 hours of a yoga workshop, overdid it and I am sitting here with an ice pack, arnica, an ace bandage, and a stuffy nose from a pity party. Just feeling old.

A few weeks back, I was in a different yoga class where we spent a fair amount of time holding poses and Diane said, “Think about how your body feels.” I thought this was fabulous advice because she always told us to calm our monkey minds and be present and I knew I wasn't allowed to think about my grocery lists or what I was going to do with my day or what I wasn't going to get done and should, but I was never quite sure what I could be thinking about and now I know!

So each time we were supposed to calm our monkey minds, I started thinking about how my body felt and occasionally—nay usually—ran into judgments...about my body versus other bodies in the room and my body versus 10 years ago, and I thought—this is not productive and is all negative, which I know is not the intention. And then it came to me: I am really really really mad at my body. Each ache and pain, each joint that doesn’t work the way it once did. Each muscle that doesn’t stretch as it used to. News at the doctor never seems to be good…and there was the Aha! I am angry and sad. News stories about people getting older and old include people of my age. Obituaries include more people like me. When did this happen???

Granted, it’s not like my body couldn’t be mad right back—I’ve abused it along the way. But it seems this aha moment that exposed the most recent little storm is big. It’s something I can work on. The result is I joined the Y and am actually going, and that is a good thing.
It is ironic that the latest injury—the ankle as big as the Ritz—is yoga-related. In class this week, we were talking about falling down and how nice it is that toddlers are built so close to the ground, padded by diapers, since they tend to fall all the time. Falling down at 18 months is a lot different from falling at 52.

So I have recovered from the pity party. Time marches on (isn’t that what this is about?) and all the injuries have healed. I am back at yoga, Pilates, dog-walking, pumping iron and Zumba, not in any particular order. All of this old-ness has caused me to re-think my mantra. I have changed it from “Change is good” (which has served me well for 14 years) to “I do what I can." Onward.

Things I am Learning & Miscellaneous Observations

* A reminder to back it up: When I came home from from being away, I found that the three messages on my answering machine that I had saved of my father singing me Happy Birthday, wishing me a Happy Fourth of July and one other generic one (Hi Peggy, it’s your Daddy), along with a message from cousin Ann were all gone. I had meant to somehow transfer them to my computer but had never gotten around to it—now I won’t be able to…ever. Then a msg came across a listserv reminding us to back up our computers as the writer’s hard drive had crashed when she was installing new software. I thought it was a good reminder only I couldn’t remember where I hid my hard drive. Oops. I don’t know what it all means, but I thought I would share that with you. [Eventually, I did find the hard drive, but it’s a better story the other way.]

* We have had a charming stretch of rain—day-in/day-out—and so I finally left the house (having exhausted my Netflix options) to see a movie. I chose Julie & Julia, which started after a remarkable 20 minute stretch of trailers. I like a few trailers, especially if they are similar in genre to the movie I am settled into seeing, but enough is enough. So in the course of this epic series, I started thinking about the men and women in the various movies (that weren’t slasher type which were liberally sprinkled in the list and seemed like interesting movies to advertize to the Julie & Julia crowd). And I even remembered to look the following up:

Movie News: Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep, b 1949) was married to Paul Child (Stanley Tucci, b 1960) who was 10 years her senior. Amelia Earhart (Hilary Swank, b. 1974) was married to George Putnam (Richard Gere, b. 1949), who was 10 years older. And that’s the real people. In another movie, coming out this holiday season, Meryl Streep (1949) is divorced from Alec Baldwin (1958) and dating both him and Steve Martin (1945), for what that’s worth.

* I saw my first bears in North Carolina! This morning, my dog Bear and I ran into the kids in the neighborhood who were arguing about how big real bears are. Then a mere 11½ hours later, I saw not one but THREE bears dart out onto the road directly in front of me. And if they weren’t all youngsters, then NC bears and my real Bear stand around the same height at the shoulder, but I think the fuzzy bears may have my Bear beat on weight. Cute factor? A draw.

* I have mentioned my problem with adult onset ADD in previous issues. I have some additional information that some of you might find interesting. There was an article in The Sun Magazine called “Computing the Cost: Nicholas Carr On How The Internet Is Rewiring Our Brains” by Arnie Cooper (March 2009, Issue #399—you can read it online). It’s about Carr’s theory that Google (among other browsers/search engines) is re-wiring our brains. I can’t remember if he described it like this but our thoughts are like pin-balls bouncing around as we get distracted by links and ads and Facebook and Word Drop and WE ARE ALL DOING IT…well, many of the folks I know are…and it was in some ways comforting and other ways terrifying. Carr (who originally wrote an article in July 2008’s Atlantic, “Is Google Making us Stupid?”). His fear is that “deep contemplation and reflection” is being lost. He could be right. There are some more basic concerns I have but I won’t go into them again.

* President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I just wanted to say it again.

* When I got home from dinner last night, one of the string of smoke alarms in my house was chirping. Bear, the 120 pound hound, was cowering in the corner. Neither of us react well to sudden loud noise.

I went online in search of the manual for these beasts, then stood under them to figure which one was the offender. I wound up taking down three smoke alarms and two carbon monoxide alarms because I was so frustrated and my dog was a wreck. Today, after buying a load of batteries, I started reinstalling them and realized they are networked and that part of the chirping isn’t dead batteries, it has to do with their relationship to each other or a button that was inadvertently touched and that disconnecting them doesn’t do anything any good. Meanwhile, the large hound is plastered up against the back door looking at me through bloodshot eyes. Why, pray tell, do things have to be so complicated?

* RIP Gourmet. I was sad to hear that Gourmet Magazine is another victim of the economy. I was a loyal reader of the magazine for several years… several years ago. I can blame (credit?) Gourmet for my traveling obsession. It was actually because of Gourmet that I came up with the World Tour back in the mid-90s. Originally, I read an article in Gourmet about a cooking school at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok and I wanted to go. But I thought that my first big trip should be to the land of my people and being a full-bred WASP, that land was England and Europe. But once I was there I was almost to Bangkok, and once I figured out how to get months off from my life, what difference would a few more months make? The irony was that when I got to Thailand, I had been living on nothing and it didn’t seem in sync with my life to spend $100/day on a cooking class. Apparently the folks agreed—when I went to look at the cooking school, they escorted me through the Hotel to the classroom—they didn’t seem to want riff-raff like me wandering around. Thanks for the memories and inspiration, Gourmet!

“The only thing you own in the end is your story.” Neil Fletcher, Australia (movie)

When I grow up, I will be a better blogger

But for now, what you see is what you get. So I thought I would upload a few pictures-speak-a- thousand-words.

I started dyeing fabric again not to mention some of Maggie's Organic socks which are no longer organic but which take the dye--even my funky old dyes--beautifully.Then I started working on another project with Dad's bow ties--he was the King of Bow Ties--but I fear they had suffered from a lack of laundering...and so here they are drying (with aforementioned socks in the background)

And finally, this was in a recent Dilbert--I hope it isn't too wrong to do this--but I thought they were words to live by...A PNewL PNewS is in the works. I am sure that makes your day.