Still Loving My Hyundai

I had to go to the dealership this morning. When I shut the car off last weekend, it made a kind of clanking gurgle (technical term !) for 5 seconds or so. It sounded like something's timing was off. I lifted the hood, determined I needed a quart of oil, but doubted that had anything to do with it. So I called Richard over.  The only thing he could posit as a cause was an old belt. Most likely the serpentine belt, especially after I contacted the dealership and verified that the engine has a timing chain, not a belt. 

That greatly erased one worry, that of destroying my engine by procrastination. The chain should last "forever," per their service department. The car currently records a history of 145,500+ miles, a long way from forever in my many Accents' driving history. The serpentine belt has an official expectation of 50k miles. (Uhhhh, oops?) It was definitely due for replacement. 

More Googling, and I researched the consequences of continuing to drive the car if the serpentine belt snapped. So long as my only "long" trip was to the dealership, the car shouldn't overheat to get there. Still, it was a cautious half week with only a couple <1 mile trips. I didn't even drive far enough to get that quart of oil. The dog's toenails had just been done, the larder was full, there were few club duties in the next few days, so I found no need to invoke my paranoia by putting the car to the test. 

Well, at least not paranoia over that part. Back to Google, I tried to find out how much the new belt installation would cost. Results ranged from $860+ installed down to $78 if they didn't count installation. I did of course. No way was I going to fool around with that on my own or with some wannabe mechanic. There were the usual offerings where I could get a more precise quote if I gave them a lot of information. 

Screw that!

I at least had one ace in the hole. When we switched satellite companies, we were promised a "rewards card" with a debit balance of $300. It wasn't good for cash, only for purchases. I'd been waiting and waiting. At first I thought I'd apply it two weeks ago to the annual renewal of our Rec Center dues, or at least a bit over half of it. But that deadline came and went so they got paid out of the budget.  

Then Steve and I agreed a good place to spend the money was in replacing the propane grill. The old one had a leak somewhere in the line between tank and grill. We'd researched getting a new line but our grill only had them from some RV supply store. Not worth the effort. No grilling for over a year, but we got by. Now that the card was coming, and my daughter was coming to visit, having a functioning grill seemed like a great idea.  I went online, found a decent price and decided to get one delivered. The old one went to the curb and disappeared instantly, before we could even call the garbage company for a price to haul it away. (Good luck, whoever you are!) The new grill also came out of the budget with no card in the mail yet. We'd spend that amount on some regular bill or something and juggle the books later. Last time we'd switched and gotten one of those cards, it simply was applied in full to a bill, with no payments needing to be paid until the $300 ran out. They were happy, we were happy.

Saturday the mail included the long awaited card. FINALLY! It at least would pay $300 worth of the new belt installation worst case, or have a balance left in the best case. Turned out we had the best case. I now have to keep track of the balance and be sure to spend it within 6 months. That won't be a problem. Remembering the 4 digit pin if I used the card somewhere which required one might have been. I know I wrote it down. It just wasn't where I keep the rest of the information for logging into the Satellite company website. Fortunately, after finding out the car dealership didn't require it when I used it there, it popped back into my head... an hour later. Steve and I developed a system for pins, basing them on a word instead of random numbers. To use it we just have to look at my phone number pad where numbers = letters in order to come up with the numbers. It's just like an ATM keypad, which helps us every time Steve needs to change his bank pin number because somebody's stolen his card number... again. And yet again. He comes up with an apt word (not all are curses) and then spells it into the ATM.

I keep the pin with the card, on the same piece of paper wrapped around the card which has the latest balance. WTF you say? It's not the actual code. Just another word that cues my memory. We've already found out that the local grocery store will accept the end balance on one card and the rest of its payment from another, or cash, so we can spend every penny. 

With that card, in a way, my serpentine belt replacement was free. Not only that, but had I been paying more attention, and replaced the belt every 50,000 miles just because somebody decided the old one only lasted that long, I'd have already bought two more in the meantime.  That's one of the reasons I love my Hyundai. Now if this one is like my last one, I should need to get the starter replaced at around 287K. Then there'll be the decision as to whether to replace the tranny shortly after the 300K mark.  I'm not halfway there yet. The car is a 2013, bought at the end of 2013 after that school bus rear-ended me. It got less than a year of high work miles on it before I retired, and gets few enough miles now to require only two oil changes a year with our traveling back and forth to Minnesota. With my luck with several of these cars now, this one may outlive me.

Mental Illness, My Ass! A Rant

 A long time ago, children died from diseases, starvation in famines, birth defects, even in wars. In more recent times, many died in automobiles when they crashed. Even seat belt laws didn't stop those deaths, though they helped when used. We have a new primary cause of children's deaths now: mental illness. The Governor of Tennessee was on TV insisting that the cause of the recent school shooting was mental illness. He didn't say that the true highest cause of children's deaths is now guns. He didn't mention guns. It was all mental illness.

People can and do get mental illnesses. It happens all over the globe. We are no sicker than any people anywhere else. Other countrys' children are not dying in such numbers with bullets ravaging their small bodies, despite mental illness in their populations. But ours are. Toddlers find adults' guns, think they are safe, or toys, and suddenly a bullet goes where it shouldn't. Or several bullets do, because it is so easy to shoot off multiple rounds. That was curiosity, or playing what they see on TV. Not mental illness. Not unlesss you count the parent's inability and/or unwillingness to keep their guns out of the reach of children. 

Older children, even adults, get angry just like the rest of us, get mentally ill, learn to hate. They "act out", grab a gun from the home, or a friend, or wherever guns can be found these days which is practically everywhere. They go hunt their targets, whether teachers, classmates, or whoever needs to pay in their minds, and find their fame. We can blame mental illness, bullying, thrill seeking, or whatever. Those things used to be "solved" by a schoolyard fight, where bruises, bloody noses, possibly even a stabbing or a broken bone might have been the result, followed by suspension of those involved. These days there is too often no one left to suspend, with the final victim often being the shooter.

We lump it all under "mental illness". Who else would go around shooting bunches of people if they were mentally healthy? Calling it by that name means we are not at fault for what is happening almost daily in this country in schools, churches, anywhere people gather.  We as a nation fall back on the reasoning that our constitution gives us the unimpeded right to bear arms. It's just a few bad apples who misuse them.

Those bad apples are finding close at hand the tools that have only one purpose: kill. Kill as many and as fast as possible, without stopping to reload, to think, to let any inconvenience slow them down. We call that misuse to pretend we don't know that is exactly why they were made, call them hunting rifles as if we were going to feed ourselves on a deer with 30 bullets in it. We blame the shooter for picking up the weapon so easily at hand, call them mentally ill. We stockpile guns, play soldier on the shooting range with them, pat each other on the back for our prowess at pretend killing, hitting targets with human shapes instead of circles on them, and find ourselves innocent of any wrong. We are so "innocent" that we defend rabidly our right to do that, without restrictions of any kind, just because of a piece of paper back when muskets were necessary for safety and defense when our white invader ancestors were claiming territory in this country. We hadn't killed off wolves and bears which might have found our presence an invitation to attack for a ready meal or to fend off a danger to their young. We hadn't yet destroyed all the peoples already there who were willing to fight for their lives because they were here first, or others from overseas who also wanted to claim this land for themselves and a different king.

But muskets had to be reloaded for every shot. Better have good aim and kill immediately what you aimed at rather than risk vulnerability while reloading. After some years one could shoot six bullets without pause, then 30 or more. You didn't need to aim anymore as the spray would find its victims. Any victims.

We kept interfering in attempts to regulate the possession  of firearms, arguing "rights". We stopped the bans on instruments of war for home use and entertainment, because "rights," and because the aftermath of a tragedy of a mass shooting just "wasn't the time" to do it. Now they come so frequently that there never is a right time by those standards. We refused to stop violent people from owning them, or home grown militias from stockpiling them. We defined "rights" as absolute, inviolate. No other rights were given limits, after all. Right?

We have the right to freedom of speech. This freedom can come with penalties, however. You can't tell lies about another and defame them without expecting consequences. You can't  incite violence, start a riot,  or cause panic in a crowded theater by falsely yelling "Fire!" Too many don't understand that being free to speak one's opinions is not also the guarantee of an audience.  Having nothing worth listening to is not to be equated with somebody shutting down your rights.

We as citizens have the right to vote, but persons of color are less able to use that right. The poor are less able to travel to where they can vote, after first having to travel to procure the "proper" ID and getting time away from work to do all of that.  Felons can't vote under many different circumstances in individual states. We impose age restrictions and all sorts of requirements before that right is actually allowed. 

Pick a right, and you'll find laws about how and where and when. But laws to control the use of guns, or even who should be able to own which kind of them, are fought against tooth and nail. People gotta make money, doncha know.

So maybe it really is all about mental illness after all: the mental illness of American society that can support the blanket defense of the tools of violence while decrying their use in the way they were designed. Pretty sure that's not how the Governor meant it, though.

Tracking A Package

I love tracking with the USPS. When I ship packages, I always follow where they go. When I order things to be delivered, I "appreciate" some of the wild journeys they make. Take that appreciation however you will. One of those is due here this afternoon. Maybe. It's been on an interesting journey.

It started in Durango, CO on the 21st. The first entry is that a tracking number has been provided. Often it means only that the shipper has generated a number. It doesn't guarantee the item has left the shippers location. I've seen that take as long as three days before the package is acknowledged somewhere as having left the shipper's location.

An hour later, to the minute, it is recorded as SHIPPING LABEL CREATED USPS AWAITS ITEM. Impressive progress, right?

In an hour and a half it has progressed to "SHIPMENT RECEIVED ACCEPTANCE PENDING" followed just over an hour later as "PRE-SHIPMENT INFO SENT USPS AWAITS ITEM" which clarifies that the post office hasn't actually gotten it yet. Busy, busy tracker, but all of it gets summed of as a kind of "we're planning to see you."

In a total of nine hours, and 5 notices of progress later, it actually arrives at the post office in Durango, only they describe it as "ORIGIN ACCEPTANCE".  Whew! I've been through Durango several times. It's totally charming and scenic, but not very large. Maybe they walked it through town, enjoying the views? Stopped for coffee?

Exactly one hour and 15 minutes later,  however, it is "PROCESSED" through the Albuquerque, NM USPS. So far all of this is the same day, March 21st, from 11:17 AM to 9:48 PM. Such a lot of paperwork before action, but when it finally moves, zip!!!

And now it sits. People gotta sleep, you know. But early birds take over and by 5:49 AM it "DEPARTED" Albuquerque. Now we start to see actual progress, not those "we see you" kinds of notices which fill the tracking form. At 11:47 AM it DEPARTED" Flagstaff, AZ. Despite appearances, that actually takes 7 hours, due to a change at the state border from daylight savings time to standard time. Aside from the Navajo reservation which covers contiguous parts of 4 states and thus has chosen to exercise their sovereignty by keeping the AZ part in the same time zone as the other three states through the entire reservation, Arizona does not set our clocks ahead and back. It confuses a lot of people who are used to certain hourly differences and then they change, and change again, twice every year. I long since lost track of how many times I hear,"Oops, I thought you were awake by now, sorry" or it's opposite, depending on which way others' clocks changed.

Note here another shortcut in tracking. It hasn't bothered to "ARRIVE" in Flagstaff, just depart. Heaven help us if it should have disappeared somewhere in there. We'd never know whom to blame. However, it has "ARRIVED" in Phoenix three hours later. Nice drive down the 17.

An hour an a quarter later it gets "PROCESSSED" in Phoenix. It sits overnight. Apparently the processing hit a glitch, because the next morning, a bleary-eyed 2:55 AM, it "DEPARTED" to be noted as having "ARRIVED" 45 minutes later... in Scottsdale. Not Sun City. Nope, Scottsdale. It went north, not west. The zip codes share the first 2 digits, but that's all.

Now we're really having fun.  I keep checking on it all day of the 23rd, and the only posting is at 11:00 AM that morning: "MISSENT" from the Scottsdale location. I go to bed waiting in vain via tracking info for it to be sent back to the Phoenix processing center which it would have to go through before being sent out to here.

This morning, the 24th,  there were several interesting postings. The first one seemed to be a misguided attempt at CYA. It is now positioned on the tracking chart by yesterday's time code, despite never showing up yesterday on tracking, but claiming that it "ARRIVED" in Sun City at the post office 11 minutes after it was also somehow noted as "ARRIVED" in Scottsdale. It apparently sat in two places yesterday at the same time. Hey, I did not order Schrodinger's cat! My only conclusion is that it was way too big an ass for somebody to cover despite their best efforts.

This morning at 3AM it was again "PROCESSED" through the Phoenix facility.  Two hours and 17 minutes later it "DEPARTED" there to "ARRIVE" in the Sun City post office 58 minutes later.Within 11 minutes it was loaded on the mail truck, finally, officially, "OUT FOR DELIVERY" !

Whew!

I'll be looking for it around 1 PM at the house. Unless.......

 

An Atypical Day

And thank goodness it wasn't typical.  So many things don't need to be repeated.

Rich has one of those emergency type phones the government gives out to people who can't afford modern smart phones. As a downside, mostly it works - at least so far as Rich had worked with it - via some wi-fi system. So I guess one better have their emergencies near public hot spots. I hope 911 calls have a better instant connection, but he hasn't needed to try that out yet.

My sleep patterns are... uh... interesting these days. Often I wake  up around 3 or 4, get up for a couple hours until I feel sleepy again, and return to bed. While I was up this morning, and Steve had gone to bed, his phone gave the beep that means he's getting a text. I ignore them for two reasons: I don't text myself so don't know how to access them, and even if they weren't private, they mostly are junk texts or from another sleep-deprived friend. It beeped about three times, and I made a mental note to let him know once we were together and awake. Neither of us does a good job of checking our phones periodically to see what we've missed unless we have a good reason.

A bit after I returned to bed, and hadn't quite fallen asleep yet, I heard my phone ringing across the house. It was 5-ish, and that usually means my Minnesota friend is calling, either having trouble with our sudden two hour difference , ot thinking this is one of my early mornings. I just called her yesterday, but she had company. She promised to call me last night but it didn't happen. No real problem, but I just wanted her to know I cared to reach out and see how her brand new job was going. The net result of that 2 second reflection on who likely was calling, and the need to cross the house to find a hangup instead of getting back to sleep, meant I didn't pursue it. I also forgot about it for hours.

It was after 8 when I mentioned to Steve he had some texts. It turned out they were important. Rich sent them. His bike had broken down (flat tire we later found out) and he need Steve to tell me to go to his friend's house, the friend with the really big pickup, to come rescue him, his bike, its trailer, and its huge load, at a specific intersection. 

There were problems with that request. I don't know where his friend's house is. I have been there, but don't know the address. Besides, the friend was by this hour likely busy working on other people's tax returns, and not available to do a rescue. I did call and left voicemail with Rich's request. At 4PM, I haven't gotten a call back.

Another problem was I was unable to reach Rich with a call back for more details. What happened? How worried should Steve and I be? Which quadrant of that intersection should I look for Rich in? I had after all determined by then, at least partly due to the hours of cold rainy weather he was stranded out in, to drive myself there to see what I could do, even if it was only to provide a very warm and dry seat for a bit. I knew he was on his bicycle, and would be towing a trailer he'd build especially to use with his bike for hauling things, even a person, around in. His need for a large pickup might be mitigated if he could unload some of whatever was on the trailer into my hatch. Despite not having breakfast or coffee yet, I popped in the car as soon as I was dressed for the weather and took off. I'd left him a voicemail, and had Steve text him, to inform him I was on the way.

There was no response.  I went anyway. It was an intersection I knew how to find. 

Once there, I found a major intersection with a stop light. Three corners were heavily commercial and one had a large apartment complex. I looped here and there through them, looking for any sign of Rich or bike. After fifteen minutes of that, I left him another voicemail, letting him know where I called from, and which way I was  heading home from there as the most likely way he'd try to trek back home, looking for him all the way.

Nada. 

A while after returning, I got a call from him. He confirmed one of our early guesses, that he hadn't charged his phone enough to be able to call back. That was fixed. And yes, now he'd gotten my voicemails. No, he hadn't heard from his friend either. But he was fine, inside, warm and dry. I heard a female voice in the background. Since he indicated his location was over a mile (further away!) from the intersection he'd originally called from, I presumed he'd found a bit of a rescue. 

I asked what I could do. He needed a replacement bike tire. It was currently on the front wheel of a bike in the back yard, and he proceeded to direct me to the location of his crescent wrenches, with instructions of how to remove the wheel so I could bring both wheel and wrench to his new location.  I told him 'd see if I could take the wheel off, and call him back. My muscles aren't what they used to be.

It was unexpectedly easy. Those nuts were not tight! We arranged the location to meet, only this time I asked for a landmark to meet him at. He gave me a grocery store and which quadrant of the intersection it was in. Back in the car I went, this time with the dog along. She wasn't included the first trip since I had no idea whether there would be any room in the car if I were bringing some of Rich's stuff back. The original plan from this call was that he'd direct me to where his bike was, but instead he just asked for the wheel and wrench. I did him a bit better, including the washers and nuts which came off the wheel I brought. He seemed pleasantly surprised that I brought them. I simply had assumed that not every bicycle tire axel was identical and it was a good idea to know they fit.

I got home for breakfast by 11. Rich just showed up, almost 5 hours later. It was a ten mile trip. Must have been either some very nice company connected with his rescue, or one hellacious load to haul back.

 

Worst! Haircut! Ever!!!

I just don't speak "hairdresser", I guess. When I walk in I get greeted with "We have you down as a number 2." Uh, say what?  So I ask, "What's a number 2?" And the slightly uninformative reply is, "Oh, that's a clipper." They used to have me down as a number six and didn't explain that either.

OK, I like the very edges around the ears and bottom back finished off with a trimmer. But I've done enough clipping of dog hair to know that there are many attachments you can put in the trimmer to make it stand away from the (head in my case) different distances for different lengths of hair left on the head. Still, what is a number 2? How short or long?

I have learned not to trust the people cutting my hair. Perhaps one cut every other year is the way I wanted. Then that hairdresser moves on.  If I'm lucky, the only complaint is that they just left it a little long in places I can reach myself, and I quickly fix it. Before my shoulders turned into crap, I used to cut my own. I learned by cutting the kids' hair when they were too young to complain. But I can't communicate to the people with scissors.

Here's how I like it these days. Nothing is longer than 2". But that length is for my crown, and spread out a bit in all directions from there. If you poked a pin in the whorl of hair that marks my crown - and I trust we both know you won't because that  would hurt!!! - and the pin was attached to a piece of a string almost 3" long, and you swung it around the pin in a circle, that is the area where it should be 2". Almost like wearing a hair yarmulke, where what's under it is 2" long. 

From that "border" in all directions the length tapers down. On the top of my head I want it an inch long by the time you reach my face. Slow long taper, that's the trick. Then, down along the sides of face, over the ears, and along the nape it should end at the hairline in about a 1/16th inch. Completely clear of the ears. Those two points of hair running slightly down the neck should be shaved off, rounding across the bottom. I can't see how that's so hard to understand.

After I explained this to my scissors person, she asked me, "So, you want the number two then?"

How the hell should I know? And yet, I still let her go ahead.

Things seemed to go reasonably well as she started with the crown. But she reached the 1" length about 2" away from it, not at my forehead. Despite that, she left one side of my head, over my right eye, at 2". It waves there, and she kept pulling the hair down and forward, rather than up to check the length. I fixed that at home.

As she started down the sides of my head to the ears, she reached a half inch as soon as she started. At least she didn't leave it long over the ears, so there's that, I guess.

She left the back for last, starting at the bottom. She was well into a long discussion of the benefits or drawbacks of cutting with scissors or clippers, and after using the scissors going up to the crown, seemingly just the right length, she got out the clippers and repeated the job, taking off another 3/4 inch or more. She announced she was finished, took off the cape keeping some of the clippings off me, and asked how I liked it. There was no offer of a mirror to show me the back. I always have low expectations at this point because it needs to be shampooed and tamed to its new length and combed without their idea of what a blowdrier should do to it before I can really tell. I told her it seemed OK, at least all I could see, and she informed me that was all there was in a short tone before kicking me out of the chair while she swept up my hair. Everybody else in the place escorts the customer to the desk, settles the bill, and then goes back and cleans their station. Not her. Good thing my knees are pretty OK these days while I stood around and waited.

When I got home I got a rather shocked reaction from Steve. It was time for the hand mirror. It told me what my hands hadn't discovered yet, just how short the cut was in back, including one bare spot. Not bald. This was down below the crown whorl. Shaved clean! No wonder she hid the mirror.

And to think I actually tipped her, just because it's what I do for a haircut! 

Here's a tip for all you locals who read this. If you go into the Great Clips in the shopping center between Subway and Fry's, and you see the middle aged woman with barber scissors and a comb tattooed across her left forearm in solid black... RUN!!!

Bye Bye Birdie: The Rest Of The Story

Our 'Broken Bird" has flown, if that expression isn't too off the mark for a person missing a leg. It wasn't of her own volition - or should I say it wasn't because she thought there would be actual consequences for her actions Monday night.

I didn't realize it until Tuesday morning taking the dog walking out front, when I passed a pile of collected things at the corner of the yard. It wasn't recycle day, though it is recycle bin location on those days. Dim as it was so early, I had enough visibility to make out a folded walker in the stack. Shea's of course.

Once the dog was done, I went in the back of the house to wake up Rich. He confirmed she'd gone, while fighting waking up so strongly that I decided to let the details wait till later. I  knew he'd been up late in pain from an abscessed tooth. I didn't know why else he was so tired.

Since the last post about her, there have been some changes. Broken Bird has had problems getting the right kind of insulin prescription. It seems, if I have this right, she needs a combination of fast acting and slow release versions. Her doc sent the wrong scrip in, and as a result she spent a day sick to her stomach in the back of the house.  Rich explained that her blood sugar levels were too high, and spent most of a day keeping her hydrated and cleaning up after her. 

The dog got walked elsewhere all that day, apparently as revolted as we would have been by the smell she would have to have passed through on her way to the back yard. While concerned about Shea, we found the dog's reaction somewhat amusing. I guess I won't expect canine company if I ever get the stomach flu.

When  Shea was well, many of her days were spent with a woman friend, sometimes here, sometimes out and about since her friend has a car. Shea's pharmacy transportation and other trips became the friend's responsibility, presumably voluntarily. Her mother also picked her up for a few hours, but returned her. There is apparently some conflict there.

When I woke the morning after Shea was sick, it was in a bit of a panic. I hadn't seen her go through the house to the bathroom the previous day, hadn't heard her at night, as I have done on most others. Were either of the two making sure her blood sugar levels were OK during that time? Might I find I needed to call an ambulance for her after whatever I saw of her when I took the dog through that now clean(er) space? However, she was sitting up and busy on her phone, either texting or surfing. I didn't ask, just let her know I was glad she felt better.

That was Sunday. Tuesday she was gone, her possessions at the sidewalk. I immediately woke up Rich. I hadn't gone out that way with the dog because Rich spent Monday working on the rollers on the patio door and the way was blocked.

Around 10:00 he rose, and came into the living room and talked to both of us. He had kicked her out the previous evening. She had informed him she was going to quit taking the medication which is the equivalent of methadone but for those addicted to fentanyl, keeping the body from withdrawal but denying the high. 

And here I thought just having diabetes was scary enough!

As soon as she finished passing on that information to Rich, she proceeded to start smoking something she called "blues". (More ignorance here: I never knew there was a smokeable form of fentanyl.) Rich immediately kicked her out of the house, then packed up her belongings, meager as they were, and hauled them to the curb. He informed her that this particular location is a traditional location to anybody passing that whatever sits there is available to anybody wishing to claim it, and if she wanted any she needed to pick it up before they did. As he was explaining this to us, he glanced out the window and noted that most of the pile had disappeared. We have no idea with whom, Shea or somebody passing. Her wheelchair is gone with her. The folding walker and a tote of clothing remained, and I went out and pulled both into the carport. They will be donated locally, per Rich's directions of where, presumably in the next day or two, or perhaps Steve will find he needs the folding walker and it will stay. His balance is getting worse these days.

Rich's Broken Bird has chosen to remain even more broken than we knew. We are left wondering how much of what we "knew" was true: the flu? The reasons for getting kicked out of other places? Was it abuse aimed towards her? Or defense against her version of self abuse? Or are they even mutually exclusive? Did the friend become supplier? I do know we all tried to be kind. She seemed appreciative. But we couldn't fix her even temporarily, just kept her safe from the elements and prevented her diabetes from winning this round. We are a little sad, yet a little not, disappointed but not angry. I guess we've seen too much by now to be angry.

Rich is doing his best to deal with his tooth. Our lives go on.

With A Nod To Pat Schroeder

I listened to her obituary in the car this morning. She was a pioneer in a time when women were supposed to have their place, and it wasn't in Congress. A much quoted retort of hers was, "I have a brain and a uterus, and both work!"

I'd have loved to have had a bumper sticker with that one it. I still would, it it didn't need to say, at my age and after all this living, "I had a brain and a uterus, and both used to work."

Sighhhhh.

Thoughts On An Italian Festival

This was a new event to Sun City. The group putting it on has been making these presentations in various places in the larger metro. They coordinated with our rec center offices which coordinated with our craft clubs, asking if we wanted to be vendors for the event. 

The downside? Before anybody got inside the area to buy food, or inside the auditorium to sit and eat that food while watching the stage entertainment and do some possible shopping, they had to buy tickets at $10 a head. Before they got as far as our club's booth, they had to get past a lot of outside vendors and a long line of indoor ones. Once they did we had a limit of 3 6-foot tables to set up on. Several members of the club decided they wanted to do this anyway, one took charge, and I mostly just passed along emails.

I became just another club member for the event, sending a small selection of my pieces in exchange for  6 hours of volunteering over two days. Mine was a sit-down job, taking the tags once a sale was made, attaching them to the card which gets filled out for every store item before going to the treasurer for payment of our commissions, 80% of the sale. The club gets 20%.

I did a special project for the club to sell there. We were encouraged to create things with Italian themes.  I already had earrings made with wire wrapped millefiore beads. Since that theme wasn't required, I also sent other items. In keeping with the theme, however, I discussed with the supply room head pulling out several pieces of glass from the half price sale last month. These were already pre-cut in small sections appropriate for making wind chime pieces, three strings each in each chime either all green, white or red, the colors in the Italian flag and in the order they show on it. With a couple issues and a limited supply of the glass (like red turning orange in the kiln) there was enough to make two chime sets to sell there. Since I didn't pay for any of the supplies, by arrangement the total sale of the items went to the club.

Both sold.

Another member made glass plates with a flag pattern, and both of hers sold there. A third member and one of the organizers for our club has a special style in twisted sterling hearts that all sold out the first day. She got a very nice check. The rest of us generally sold a couple things here and there.

So much for our participation in the festival. I promised to provide thoughts on the event as a whole. I can sum it up, short version, in a single word: LOUD! When you have to yell to be heard, to talk with customers or among yourselves during all the slack times, it makes the time spent there less than wonderful. Ironically the best entertainment was also the quietest, with drums and applause being the loudest things going on.

The first time I watched was a surprise. My Saturday shift started at the beginning of the festival, and while I sat I people watched. There were several youngish men wandering around in costumes that I took to be heraldic uniforms of some sort. Don't ask me - I'm not Italian. They were also carrying square flags in similar patterns on long poles. Instead of looking over any of the wares as they passed they were purposeful, going from here to there in twos or threes. I figured more was to come, some purpose to be revealed. When the drums started up outside, several older men with fancier uniforms entered, followed by our flag carrying crew, moving in a pattern through the clusters of tables and chairs up to the cleared central open floor in front of the stage. That's when the entertainment began, twirling the flags in grand swoops, tossing them high and catching them, tossing them to another who tossed theirs back. I never saw a flag drop. The highlight was when they started making towers of men (and at least one woman I finally saw), standing on the head of another while twirling their flags in new patterns, and finally a tower of three tall. The applause punctuating various high points was very well deserved.

The rest of the entertainment was the LOUD! part, music at full volume. A lot of the songs were familiar even to me. There were sets designed for dancing and the floor was occupied, once a very skilled dancing couple broke the ice. The three go-go-girls up on the stage shaking their tinsel tiered dresses looked silly but very familiar as something from my very early adulthood. Other long sets of music were just instrumentals, including a solo accordian,  with a couple selections with a trio of tenors singing one of the most famous arias from an opera I couldn't name but have heard often on AGT  competitions. It's a favorite of Steve's as well.

The irony is that when the MC got the mic, he couldn't be heard. I could see him talking, caught soft snippets of sound occasionally, but sincerely hope he wasn't telling the crowd anything important. Should he ever have to clear out the crowd in a hypothetical emergency, nobody would know.

I didn't try any of the food. Prices were a bit high for my budget, but several club members bought pizza from a nonstop open air grill/oven, and others a dessert that wasn't called gelato but looked like it. All of them encouraged the rest of us to go try some. Even if I'd wanted some, the pizza line kept a couple of our members away from the table for over a half hour each. Besides, there'd be plenty of pizza at the club volunteer recognition party on Monday.

I heard today that Facebook was full of comments on the festival. The one getting the most reaction in the club was from somebody complaining that the antique cars weren't there. They came for the cars. Where were the cars? Now I don't follow these things, but we all chuckled when one of our members informed us that the car show was last weekend.

In A City Of Volunteers...

Sun City prides itself on its volunteers, to the extent it's our nickname. You've heard me talk about my time spent in the club, which depends on volunteers as well. If it didn't we wouldn't survive a week. Next week we have our last membership meeting before our snowbirds scatter, with pot luck and a pizza party which we are throwing to honor our volunteers. Being current President I get to (have to) set the agenda for these meetings, and they open with timely comments.  For example, when we came back from our months long closure from covid, there was a long moment of remembrance for all those lost to us from whatever reasons. October is often welcoming old friends back. November tends to be acknowledging those who served in their country's military, not just ours because we come from three different ones to spend warm winters here. February was remembering loved ones, here or not, and thinking about that special smile or other favorite memories.

In thinking about Monday, I'm planning on having everybody give a show of hands if they have volunteered for this club in various ways. We all think of monitoring, since that is a requirement. It's a position as both greeter and periodically wandering around making sure equipment is being used safely. If no monitor signed up, everybody leaves. Period. That call out usually brings somebody to volunteer to monitor for a couple hours to keep the club open. But we have also closed the doors.

There are a lot of other ways we volunteer, and I started a list. By the time I get through it Monday I bet there will be more than a few sore arms from going up and down, up and down.  FYI I did decide against having people stand for each one they've done. I'm not the only one who hasn't been or no longer is in a position to be bouncing in and out of their chair. I'll ask them to raise their hands if they have ever:

-been a club officer
-monitored
-served on the jewelry selection committee
-taught a formal class or workshop
-showed another person how to do something they didn’t know
-told another where to find something either in the club or from a different supplier
-greeted somebody walking in the door and made them feel welcome and at home here
-showed a prospective member around the club so they can see what all we do here
-worked at a festival in any capacity
-worked in the jewelry store
-worked in the supply room
-cleaned up somebody else’s mess
-repaired club equipment
-shopped for club supplies
-bought something another club member made, encouraging them to keep going
-donated anything to the club, money or something else
-administrative duties like membership, tracking volunteer hours
-preparing flyers or business cards, sending notices to the papers,  
-made signs,
-organized the calendar board for the next month
-worked to make or improve club forms or bylaws
-reorganized club space
-mixed chemicals like pickle or saw lube when they were needed
-given a ride to another club member, either to/from club or elsewhere when they needed it
-planned or set up for a meeting, event or party, cleaned afterwards
-made something that sold in the store, bringing in funds to the club
-helped design this club space before it was built
-built something for use in the club

Once you start thinking about how we help out, the list doesn't seem to stop. It will be longer by Monday's meeting. Most of it we don't get credit for volunteer hours from doing, but it all gets done and keeps us going. When enough of us chip in, we don't get burned out. Combined, it makes the club feel like a family, the very best kind.

A Little Weather Report

 Weather has been in the news now for weeks. If it isn't politics, or shootings, it's weather. Most often weather leads in the headlines. I thought I'd send you a little report, as of noon, MST.

Shafer, MN today: Wind out of the north at...  (checks again) ... zero mph.  (So how can they tell it's from the north?) High today, 34. Current temperature, 35.

Sun City, AZ today: wind out of the east at 3 mph. High today, 78. Current temperature 80, but to be fair, it only feels like 79.

Bemidji, MN today: wind out of the north at 1 mph. High today, 34. Current temperature 35.

Draw your own conclusions.

"Broken Bird"

Her name is Shea. For a couple weeks now she has been living with us.

Rich tends to have what I refer to as a "broken bird syndrome".  These aren't literal winged creatures, rather the two footed kind. Or in this case, one. Rich befriends and helps people who need it, to the best of his ability. All too often it backfires on him. His "friends" haven't tended to let his kindness stop them from stealing his things, or damaging the house, though to be fair, many times the ones doing the damage have been those connected to his "broken birds" and are the reason these "birds" have been or remain broken. These "birds" can be male or female, including one homeless gentleman named Paul who likes occasionally to trade a little work for either cash or a piece of jewelry which he hopes will gain him the favors of a female companion. A lot of weeds have gotten pulled in his cause.

Rich's last serious relationship, back in Minnesota, was with a woman who left an abusive marriage, and theirs wasn't a very good relationship because she hadn't learned how to trust - or better said, how to know whom to trust - so she couldn't commit to this one. It was on again, off again, up until Rich finally left and came south. She died from melanoma a year or so back.

Even some of those relationships limited to basic kindness and friendship haven't done well, with many of those people unable to abandon abusers or being abused by those unwilling to let them go in the slightest ways, including a few minutes of friendly conversation. A notable one I won't name was the kind of friend whom he just talked to casually, but offering support. The abuser was also a pimp, it turned out, and the abuse heaped on her finally contributed to ending her life about a year ago. With her death, her abuser's attention to our family abated, thank goodness, but I still haven't quit wondering if he's behind other things like the periodic presence at night of a drone in our patio or carport caught on cameras. (Security systems can be both great and their information unsettling.)

Rich travels these days via a bicycle, often toting a trailer behind it which he built out of scrap pieces and rescued wheels / tires. The latest iteration (he keeps improving them)  is strong enough to haul another person behind his bike, provided they are not too heavy. It was on one of his outings with that when he passed by Shea. She'd been abandoned by the person who'd dropped her off and promised to pick her back up  later. They never returned. She was also without her wheelchair, any extra clothing, and any personal items or supply of food from where she'd been staying. She was simply stuck. Rich couldn't just pass her by without doing something.

The wheelchair was necessary because the piece of trash she'd been in her last relationship with had kicked her out of a moving car during some kind of argument, then driven over her. Before you ask, she hasn't gotten up what it takes to overcome her fears and tell the police exactly who he was. It wasn't his only abuse of her. It did, however, cost her a leg. The short thigh stump has healed in the meantime, and she's almost ready for the next step, putting some kind of a constricting "sock" over the stump to start squeezing out excess fluid to shrink it before fitting a prosthetic leg, one that will transfer her weight to be supported by her hip, not the bottom of her stump.

For the last couple weeks she has been sharing space - very cluttered space, because Richard - in our house. She's warm, safe, fed. I've driven her to where her clothing and personal effects, few as they are, were being stored, with Rich along to give help getting her in/out of the car and supported by a walker, which was the very first thing we did for her, a small purchase from the local thrift shop. It's a nice one, wheels and a seat, and we'll keep it when she doesn't want it any more. Which will be soon. She has a non-wheeled walker, which is more stable for her and easier to get through, say, the bathroom door. She also has a wheelchair, which Rich helped her pick up since it was being stored (by a friend?) a couple miles away. The trip  to get her two small bags of clothes was impossible via bike/trailer, about a 110 mile round trip. I didn't mind getting out and getting the car going for more than a two minute run. It needed it. As a bonus we all got to see snow covering the tall mountains about two ridges out from "the valley". A few of those  atmospheric river dumps on California have lived long enough to bless us as well.

Shea celebrated her 33rd birthday here yesterday. Rich baked her a cake, but we didn't load her down with presents because that would just be more stuff to find a home for in an already very crowded location, and to haul around to wherever her next stopping place will be. We're working on a women's shelter, and I doubt she'll give out that driver's name until she's got long term safe shelter with all the connections to social services she needs, but they are crowded and have waiting lists. She does get food stamps (whatever they are called these days), and a little bit of child support even though the kids for now are with their father, another in a line of abusers. It can't be helped for now. She has a couple of friends who come and pick her up for a few hours here and there, for company, food shopping or food shelf visits, hunting for more clothing, etc. Right now one took her to a medical appointment.

She is quiet, shy, and we almost never know she is here if not for a trip to the bathroom, or having to pass by her on the way to letting the dog out in the back yard. She makes sure to thank us for anything, from hygiene items to a ride, and helps by cleaning the bathroom while sitting, or getting Rich to toss some of his clutter which he, until then, remained convinced would be useful... someday, some way yet unknown.  The space is getting organized and a garage sale is actually planned for this weekend. It should be in the 80s then, and she can sit out in the carport and make change, proffer bags, chat up the customers, though that latter is Rich's forte. Since it's forecast to be in the 80s for almost a week, we hope she can soon enjoy more backyard time comfortably.

But she is still doing a whole lot of recovering, physically and emotionally. She startles easily, an extreme reaction, helping Rich learn he needs to redirect his frustration into anything that doesn't remind her of previous violence. Even snapping his fingers sets her off. Steve and I have come to an accommodation with our unexpected guest and stopped asking Rich regularly just how long she'll be here. Things have been started, like applying for space in a women's shelter. She doesn't bring trouble, and is doing her best to be useful, is providing her own food, is absent when she can be, safely. We are hopeful that by the time she leaves she can begin to trust that not everybody in her life has to be abusive, and she can start down a healthier road.