So We Traded An Oven For A Door?

Good news - bad news. 

Good news is the oven was delivered early. They guaranteed it by October 1st. It came this morning. No installation, just a pair of boxes in the way.

Bad news is there was a loud "crack" when it came through the front door, suspended on a pallet, tilted back on two wheels, up and over the threshold and twisted a bit too soon, before it was in all the way. Now the wooden front door, the only thing separating us from today's 109 degrees since our other front door is a hardware cloth kind of screen, great for security but no insulating value whatsoever, no longer closes enough to offer even that . Our wood door kinda goes into its slot, but the top leans toward the inside and the bottom - well, I first had to move its bottom trim strip over toward the hinge side so it would close at all, because it stuck way out past the frame, but only just barely closes. The combination, even after Rich worked on it for about 15 minutes before he ran out of ideas, leaves the front door unable to latch. The merest hint of a breeze, even the neighbor's sneeze from across the street, I'm sure, blows it back open. You can almost see the money pouring through the gap.

We can't locate exactly what cracked. Just the result. We thought one of the rubber wedges we own would keep it closed. Nope. I thought about duct tape, but am loath to leave behind all the adhesive marks either as an add-on or a paint remover. So right now there's a gallon plastic bottle of weed killer which sits behind it on the floor as a barrier to its opening more than a fraction. Still, our 81 degrees is flowing out and the 109 degrees is muscling its way in. When it's time to carry out the garbage or get in the car or whatever, it's now a hike out the back patio door, through the fence gate, and on into the front yard. Need I add, shoes definitely required?

THANKS WAYFAIR!

Not.

 

Things I'm Not Supposed To Know

Nobody is. But it's being whispered around, and Rich passed it on to us.

Adam, his assailant, has not been seen anywhere by anyone in the homeless community for 5 days now. One simple explanation is he got so scared at what he'd done that he skipped town. It's an easy explanation, though it doesn't give closure. An arrest and a long sentence would give closure. But we may never know.

Incidentally, Rich is recovering, moving a little more easily each day. His post - ER doctor's visit was this afternoon, and it went well enough. It will still be a while until he's back to himself, particularly since he's overworking himself. But no actual damage is being done, just a longer recovery.

The previous two paragraphs are not in the "not supposed to know" category. Just a bit of framework.

Rich has made a lot of friends in the local homeless community. He's been there (homeless) himself, and has used his skills to help them, finding things they needed and giving them away to those who could use them, always with respect. Sometimes there is a barter of sorts, as he will put word out about what he himself could use, and someone knows where it can be located. Sometimes there is a small fee when it can be afforded. Sometimes it's a gift of goodwill.  A single example is one man who has back problems who'd been sleeping on a thin blanket over rocks in a nearby river bottom - meaning a dry riverbed of course, high enough to remain so even in monsoon weather. Rich found several thrown away rugs, toted them over to this man to put under his bedding, layered  for a substitute mattress. Weeks later we got word his back felt better. There are many more instances.  Rich doesn't brag about his good deeds.  But he definitely has friends.

Adam hasn't made them. In fact, he's made so many enemies among so many people, and this latest attack was so egregious, that the word is out that he'd been "green lit." The homeless community, so often the brunt of uneven justice, has supposedly developed its own code. To be green lit isn't just evicted.  It means license among the community to make him permanently gone, in a way that he will never be found again. Nobody is saying that's what has happened to Adam, of course. But local lore holds that it has been known to happen, and that there are people out there who will undertake seeing that kind of justice imposed. And who will see that in is never known about, just part of local lore. The supposed fact that no bodies have been found under river bottoms is touted as a reason to believe that being "green lit" is a sentence carried out without consequences for those who partake.

Then again, if Adam heard the word, he'd be smarter than I suspect he may be to head out of town and never look back. Heck, fear of the local cops should do that right now.

As for us, we're not about to step down our vigilance. A long jail sentence would be closure. This keeps us looking over our shoulders, looking for that white chevy pickup, waiting for the next attack or piece of vandalism. If that is no longer necessary,  despite no arrest, I don't want to know. Everything I've just written about his possible fate is just rumors. 

Absolutely. Just rumors.

So We Ordered An Oven

If you've been keeping up, you know we have no usable oven. Gas guys condemned the old one. After way too much "fun" trying to locate something that fits in the cabinet the old wall oven still sits in, a spot with no room for any size adjustments without totally demolishing the kitchen, I finally located one which fits... pretty much. It's just a hair less tall, but they make a cover plate matching the oven finish. For an extra fee, of course.

After checking both locally and online, this was the only oven which fit our needs. It even came with a note in the description that it was meant to fit the niche left behind by older ovens needing to be replaced when nobody else makes something to fit anymore. 

We had a choice of three colors: black, stainless, and white-by-another-name. We chose stainless. Or at least I thought we did. After calling the company and talking with their sales rep, I was informed the price was a couple grand higher than what showed on my screen. Could we send him a screen shot to prove our price? Ten minutes later it was managed. (Geezer delay.) While he went away to confer with a higher-up, I reloaded the page I had just shot, having mistakenly not opened a new tab to send that email. Lo and behold, the same page I'd just looked at had miraculously gotten an instant price increase. 

The good news is our sales guy came back and assured us the company would honor the price in our screen shot. The better news is in getting back to that page, we'd gone past one for the same thing in black, for $300 cheaper. Having had a long enough wait to discuss it with Steve, we informed him we were changing our color choice to black, and thanks anyway for honoring your earlier price. We'd saved enough that our budget now included the warranty package, extending a few years past our intended use, and their guaranteed installation.

It is expected to be delivered and installed October 1. It turns out that this is plenty of time for the company to e-bomb us with all kinds of ads for other expensive products. Every day. Some days more than once. Craftily hidden in the barrage is the very occasional notice of importance, details on the delivery, for example. It's just often enough to make sure I can't erase their emails without a quick look. It stops there however, and as soon as we're done with them, it will all get marked as spam. We still haven't won the lottery, so our budget rules.

So I still read the e-bombs. The most recent one was all about reassuring us of the covid precautions their delivery people would be taking. They would be washing their hands at least twice a day (big whoop), hand sanitizing, leaving the machine outside the door for social distancing "as we requested" - though we're paying an extra small fee for them to put it inside the door - not in the kitchen, just inside the front door - since we've been having the vandalism issues. All kinds of reassurances on their part to make us happy we'd chosen their company. 

All except one. There is no mention of their delivery people masking for the delivery. All the other stuff they mentioned isn't what really counts. Masking is what protects us.

So I sent them a return email, "suggesting" that they inform our delivery crew that we would appreciate them masking up. After all, we would be doing the same thing inside our house during the delivery, extending the same courtesy to them.

Turns out their email system isn't set up to receive any replies. It bounced back, unread. 

Of course it did.

Sigh....

What's In A Dog's Name?

There are so many ways to name your pet dog. Some people love human names, others loathe them. Some go for cute, others for something sounding vicious. Some watch the dog for a bit and try to pick out a behavior or personality description, or describe their appearance. Others will say call it anything but a word pronounced with a long "o", because it sounds like "no" and confuses them.

(Koda, are you listening from dogie heaven?)

I'd suggest there are as many names for dogs as there are dog owners, but simple arithmetic doesn't back that up. First, those of us who love dogs usually have more than one, either together or in sequence, even both, which argues for more names than owners. But second, many names are chosen by whole bunches of different people, arguing that there are fewer dog names than owners. And if you really, really must keep naming all your dogs "Ralph" or something, it totally screws up any of the arguments. But come on, who cares?

I love picking names for my dogs, but sometimes they come to me with names already, since so many are adopted. I could choose to change the name, but it seems to be too much bother teaching the dog its new name, unless the old one is totally obnoxious. And cats are even worse! Don't get me started on how hard it is to even get a cat to acknowledge its first name, not to mention changing it on them. 

When the latest dog arrived with my name, everybody at the shelter laughed, assuming I'd immediately change it. Even I thought I would. But then....

She needed her free, post-adoption well visit at the vet before I'd come up with something new for her. Her vaccination record and new license were recorded under our name. So I just did the easy thing and let it go. Since covid mandated making appointments, sitting in the parking lot until your time rolled around, being asked upon opening the door if you had the appointment opening right then, and what your name was to prove you were allowed in the door, I simply told them I was Heather and she was Heather too. Of course they all laughed, but they also entered her into their records as "Heather Too."

It's stuck.

It's never been a problem, at least inside the household. The grandkids love her attention and a chorus of my/our name echoes across the yard incessantly when they visit. I often have to stop myself from answering, remembering they don't call me anything but ''Grandma." But at home it's "Mom," "Love," "Honey,", and such. Meanwhile Heather Too answers promptly to just "come," "out," "ready?" "in," "Sweetie," ''Girl," "Good Girl," "Good Dog," and most reliably, "Come Get A Treat!"

So why mess with her name?

Cruelly Insane! (A Rant)

No matter what your ideas on abortion are, the current Texas ban really has nothing to do with preserving life. It may walk like a duck, talk like a duck, but it's really a raspy voice in a suit of feathers over a waddling wolf. It's about POWER - nothing less. Not about life.

Even if we assume more children are born in the next 8 months than before as a percent of started pregnancies, or however long this law stands, the same people behind the ban are also making sure that those children are coming into a world where the adults around them will be doing their very worst to make sure that whichever variants of covid there are out there at the time will easily find them and have a chance to kill or at least damage them. They celebrate controlling other women's bodies while they whine about ruling their own bodies by being free to not vaccinate, not wear a piece of cloth on their face to prevent spreading a deadly disease to others including  those pregnant who might as a result miscarry, have a stillbirth, or a baby fighting for its life even before their first breath and requiring intensive healthcare support for who knows how long a term. Those same people are also doing their worst to destroy the livability of the planet these new babies will be trying to survive on. Not only that, but by increasing the overpopulation problem, those children will have to fight even harder for a sustainable share of limited resources. Every way, more will die once they get here. 

They will suffer in the process.

The "success" of the ban will be distributed unequally across the population. Rich women never have to be denied abortions, since money will find a way. It's going to be the poor who can't afford to travel, take the time off work, and find child care for existing children, who are the ones who will have to struggle with the extra mouth feed or find a back alley abortionist and risk their own life and health in the process. Rapists who impregnate their victims will have free rein to propagate wildly, then turn around and claim parental rights, an excuse to maintain contact ( aka terrorism) with their victims.

Women will die, whether from the complications of the pregnancy they want to abort for medical reasons, or from seeking out illegal methods. Because woman will still seek abortions. Children will suffer, whether from being unwanted and more vulnerable to abuse, or from impoverishment giving them and their siblings even smaller portions of limited resources. And the rabidly extreme Christian right will smugly ignore all that and pat themselves on the back for "saving" them. Don't call them the Texas Taliban. There is no Taliban in Texas. There are a lot of extremely religious folk who call themselves Christians. So little of what they do or believe is actually Christ-like, a better name for them might be "Christianists." While they "think" that they are being virtuous, doing what Jesus taught, they haven't bothered to read their Bibles. Jesus never taught against abortion. Never. And you can be sure we was well-read in the teachings of what we now call the Old Testament, where there are instructions on what women should take to induce an abortion.  If you want to counter that with the "be fruitful and multiply" text, well, mission accomplished, eh? It makes sense when there are only two. How many billions of us does it take to override that instruction?

Let's throw in a dose of heavy irony here. The same people making that anti-abortion law are the ones making the voting restrictions laws, not even bothering to hide these days that they believe only the white folk should be allowed a voice. Demographics show the increase in people with darker skin tones in this country. The right wing admits they can't win elections if they are held fairly, especially since they are so extreme right now that only a minority of the country are left who like their views. But the people most likely to be forced to grow their population faster by this abortion ban, the ones already on the bottom of the economic totem pole who can't afford the go-arounds, are the very ones those white supremacists most fear: those with darker skins.

And for those supremacists, the darker-skinned people are still only good enough for one thing: being their slaves. Maybe not legally, at least not yet, but as close as they can make them be, given non-living wages, shrinking safety nets, and by snatching away all their available power to give to the white folks. It's not hidden, not a secret. They're getting so bold now that they've even forgotten to quit saying the quiet parts of their scheming out loud. (Think of this as an indication of their stupidity.)

We can fight. We MUST fight. For those of you who wish to eliminate abortion, recall that President Clinton said that the best way to stop abortions is to eliminate the need for them. Promote good healthcare for women. This includes good education about and access to reproductive care and birth control. it's about proper nutrition for both mother and fetus, proper family support so the decision is not a forced economic one when children can't be fed and clothed. It's about fair wages for women so they don't have to try to raise children and work three jobs.  It's not about penalizing the women who get raped, carry a damaged fetus, are too young, or have health concerns, whether physical or mental, which mean carrying a fetus to term causes the woman harm. It doesn't mean adding all kinds of extra requirements which add unnecessary cost, embarrassment, intrusion on their privacy, treat them as stupid, or create fake reasons like claims of post abortion depression, or that a fetus can survive at 15 weeks or some other arbitrary age not founded in science or medical experience. It means keeping our own noses completely out of any medical decisions we are not a participant in, either by being the patient or the doctor.

Above all, it means getting out and voting!!!!!!!!!!  Choose less cruel and more sane decision makers!!!

Loop Mail: Oh, De Joy!

The USPS seems to have another change we didn't know about. We used to have to notify the home PO to forward mail, and the away PO when it was time to stop the forwarding. You did it early enough that it had time to get into the system (which we did do) and by the time you arrived home your mail either was being held or being delivered, depending on which box you checked.

We filled out the cards and gave them to the postal clerk in tiny Shafer. She never breathed a word about our need to also notify the home PO to stop forwarding our mail. There was no longer a box on the form to check for holding your mail for pick-up. The deliver-to-home date was a couple days before I even left Minnesota, figuring that Rich was checking in daily at the house, was still getting his own mail there, and it would be no biggie. Since Steve's flight was still a week after my departure, I figured any mail still heading north would be brought down with him.

A week after I returned, I was still getting no mail here. It was when I tried calling the home PO that I discovered 1) that they had changed their number, 2) that my phone had problems. By then, and after the hassle of trying to improve phone service, it was too late in the day to actually go to the PO.

There was stuff to deal with the next day, so it was late morning before I hit the PO. Their clerk, 1 of 4, was very helpful. She quickly filled our names on a new orange form, took it back, and came back with the news there was no mail for us waiting. (Interestingly, there was mail for me in the afternoon delivery.)

Then she told me about what had been happening in the more than 2 weeks since I filled out the original form. First, everything had been sent north. Second, anything reaching north had been sent back south. Then, everything arriving south had again been sent north, and around and around. It's called "loop mail." 

It's apparently fairly common. She's well practiced in explaining it. While I was at the counter waiting for her to come back front, the next person down was going through the same thing. Just another way of messing with speedy mail service, in the name of "saving money." Like traveling around the country in a repeating loop is saving anybody anywhere money.

Damn good thing there wasn't an election happening, eh?  Thanks, De Joy!

Recovering

If you didn't read the previous post, go get caught up.

Recovering  means all of us. Rich has no broken bones, so no worries about ribs puncturing anything. Pain is a different thing. And we know soft tissue damage can take longer to heal. In the daylight, I can now see the holes in the shirt he was wearing that are only a hint of how much damage his back took. It was his favorite tee shirt, and I've ordered its replacement for his  upcoming birthday.

I'm finally caught up on sleep, at least enough to think I can think straight. That might be another catch 22.

Steve is not doing well yet after his plane ride. Yes, 3 days in the car would have been worse, but immobilized in his airplane seat was, minute per minute, worse. He goes to his doctor in a few hours for other things, and sees the eye doc later in the month to start whatever the process for his cataract. He'll have to wait for an insurance approval to start dealing with the new back issues.

The dog is fine, now that all her people are home. She's missed Steve this last week-plus.

We all are still wary. Adam is still out and about, not in custody. Amanda finally let us know she was OK and home after helping clean up the scene, so we are relieved on her account - for now.