If You Had To Flee In A Hurry

The California wildfires are, luckily for us here in sub-zero (at the moment) Minnesota, far away and unlikely in our near future. However, there are always circumstance which could make having to leave home in a huge emergency our only option for survival. I'm sure you all can think of something that would drive you out of your own home to save your lives.

As Steve and I watched the coverage, we spent some time thinking about what needed to go with us. What's irreplaceable? What's possible, given age and health?

A presupposition to having any choice at all is that we'd be awake and dressed for whatever weather is outside. If that weren't so, there's very little point in making further plans. Imagine waking up to a house fire when one needs 5 minutes to dress, find shoes, and maybe locate the car keys... this time. Oh, and where's the wallet or purse which carries your credit cards and IDs? After arriving in MN during our move last year with most of our important documents packed with the rest of our possessions and sitting 1800 miles away, the importance of having certain ones of those at hand was driven home. You need the car, the car needs gas, gas needs money in some form. For a bed to sleep in, you either need somebody who'll take you in, or again, money, as well as ID if a motel is your answer.

Since we're not in a location that suggests disasters can happen at any moment, a go-bag isn't sitting by the door waiting to be used. Were wildfires close, that would change and the must-have list would change. If we had floods forecast, or earthquakes likely, or major rioting happening, they'd be packed and ready... enough. Some would already be in the car.

But assume the very unexpected nightmare was imminent. Minutes only were allowed. What has to be taken with you?

We came up with two things for each of us. First, our laptops. Charging cables would be optional, as they're replaceable. But our lives are on those laptops, from family photos to information on contacting other people to medical info to financial info. For some of us, cell phones would be just as important, but those are usually in the same places and fit in a pocket or purse on our pass through.

The second thing, for us with our health histories and the variety of medications that keep our quality of life as good as possible at our ages, would be grabbing all those meds to take as well. While our pharmacies do keep records of what we need and when, that doesn't mean one can wait perhaps 5 days to find one far enough from whatever made us flee, yet also be quickly accessible as well as in a network to track our history and have a supply on hand  that insurance can cover on an emergency basis.  Steve would have to grab a large bag of his bottles, not too far from where his laptop sits. I'd have to raid my organized stockpile in the bathroom (which I'd be sure to have used by then) and dump them in a bag to bring along. There are always extra bags nearby, so not a big deal. I could even dump out the wastebasket liner and fill it with meds as a last resort. Who cares at that point if litter is left behind? Somebody's going to come in behind me and tsk tsk how dirty my dirt is?

This scenario is one time I think we're lucky that my allergies took over, forcing us not to keep pets that would need to be rounded up and removed, with all the chaos they'd likely be going through at the same time. That's a likely recipe for tragedy, either theirs as they hid, or ours as we stayed too long and searched.

With more warning, more time, more things could be salvaged. But those are just things. The loss would hurt. But we would recover. I already have secondary lists for "in case". But we know now what is most important, after each other.  We have a plan.

Do you?

Car Maintenance In The Time Of Frostbite

It's January in Minnesota, and even the southern part of the state is getting some below zero readings on their thermometers, and worse with factoring in wind chill. Yes, we returned north to that, even while hoping climate change might take effect locally a wee bit speedier in honor of our arrival.

January does not mean staying home, cocooned away in some warm building, reading, watching TV, sunbathing.....  Wait! What? I said Minnesota, not southern Florida!

Since one still gets out and about, despite all best intentions, the car has to be taken care of just like the rest of the year. Only now it's a nasty job. For a lot of things I try to remain independent, though I haven't changed a tire since I retired (the first time. The second is out somewhere in the future.) One thing I have to keep an eye on is my oil level for the engine. It has started either leaking or burning oil. It's likely I'm burning it since the car doesn't leave greasy puddles... unless I make them while pouring oil. Oops.

Adaptations have had to be made, given what I can/can't do these days without difficulty exacerbated by pain. Once the hood release is pulled, I need to work it up over my shoulder to hold it without raising the arm, thus transferring the weight over to my torso and legs. I can shift its position bit by bit so I'm now able to reach and release the thingy which holds the hood up for me. (Yes, I'm sure it has a name. I am not going to bother to look it up.) It pulls off by going sideways, then I guide it down to fit in a notch in the frame. Easy peasy as long as my arms don't have to hold the weight simultaneously.

In fact shifting the strength requirement to my legs instead of arms is how tires get changed, stepping/jumping on the lug wrench to move it in the right direction. But that's not what's getting done now. In fact this car came new with no jack, lug wrench, or spare! Guess who's been lucky for a dozen years! These days tire changes mean buying a new set, needed twice now in its life. I let the tire company have all that fun.

Back to the engine oil, I keep bottles in the hatch. Periodically I check the dip stick and add what's needed. When it's warm outside, the process works well. My hands don't have the strength to twist open and remove the plug so I can add oil, but I thought I'd taken care of that when it was warm. Unfortunately, that's exactly what I did - solved the problem as it presented in warm weather. To do that I had to get a small pliers to grip the top ridge of the plug to twist it by, and borrowed one of my jewelry tools to do the job. Perfect! Except when it's zero outside. No way in Pluto's heat-deprived hell was that going to work in a sub-zero morning, and I knew by the time I'd given up trying that oil was definitely needed before driving to Minneapolis and back for a doctor's appointment for Steve.

I had to find a different way to add oil. So of course I did. After all, what measures oil levels has to connect directly to the oil supply, right? I already knew the dip stick moved easily, since it just told me how much oil I needed. I'd add it there!

Luckily we have a (new) set of funnels in a variety of mostly-unnecessary sizes. I dug through to find the one with the smallest bottom to fit - hopefully - into the narrow tube the dipstick used. It actually went in, enough to hold it straight in the tube instead of falling out. Of course its top was correspondingly small, holding about three tablespoons of oil while it slowly drained down.

Very slowly.

In below zero wind chill.

With no room for padded gloves added to my hands to still fit in the space while the oil drained down. Brrrr.....

Still slowly.

For all 8 refills.

Since that was all my hands could tolerate, it will get repeated tomorrow. Maybe even again until I know enough has spread out all over to lubricate the engine. I figure that the "again" might wait till the weekend. It will be warmer then. 

They promised. 

The "heat" might come with snow. So the lingering job will likely be wet as well. But I probably can avoid frostbite... maybe... if I decide I'm willing to risk getting dirty oil and other miscellaneous under-the-hood car dirt on my new down coat.

Maybe I should have bought it in black.

Next time. Though I do have a dirty old denim coat with great pockets that could get slathered in automotive grease/dirt and I wouldn't give it a second thought. It's great for, say, working outside in 40 degrees. Unfortunately those would have to be above zero.

Sighhhhhh.........

So What's With The Glut Of UFO Nonsense?

 I will be sticking with "nonsense" in this post. Most of the stories I'm seeing could, perhaps would, have been front page on the "rags" next to check out counters. I don't even notice if those exist anymore, and if they're still at the counters, I ignore whatever the covers blare at potential customers. Even if they're so ridiculous they might make me laugh, it's a hard no. Call it mental censorship.

But suddenly the stories are all over the place. Let's start a couple years back with pilots supposedly having video from their cockpits of "TicTac" like UFOs following their planes, suddenly making right angle turns at speed, dropping into the water of the ocean without slowing or splashing. If one could believe them, they'd be amazing, some kind of technology way above us at this point. But... CGI. It exists. I haven't the skills to duplicate that kind of video, but I've seen it in theaters. You likely have as well.

There are alleged brown skulls that have the huge eye holes in the face that would do any alien-party role player in Roswell, New Mexico proud to wear... except it wouldn't fit over their heads. Thank goodness there's flimsy plastic white ones for sale there, eh? Meanwhile, I look at those photos and think "movie prop." Any human with the skill set and a streak of mischief could have manufactured one. So, proof of nothing alien, unless you judge the mindset of such a designer/manufacturer to be "alien" - to you at least. Maybe not even so alien if making it came with the right price tag. I bet they could do T-Rex skulls too, or super giant King Kong ones. Heck, I'm sure they already have. We've seen those movies too.

It used to be the stories were about abductions and surgeries to find out the internal anatomy of helpless victims. Somehow those folks always managed to arrive back on earth, a "big chunk of weird", but somehow scar free and with a deep thirst for whatever was served in the local bar... on somebody else's tab of course, since telling long stories is thirsty work.

The flavor of the stories has morphed again. The most recent ones are alleged to be from some previous administration's has-been, spouting secrets about how jets at 40,000 feet are stopped and held stationary for a bit before being safely released to continue to wherever. Or our moon walking astronauts either never arrived but the "proof" was set up by resident moon aliens who somehow knew how to get all the details right, or our astronauts did arrive and were being observed by aliens while hiking around on the moon. No doubt those aliens were waiting to see what was going to happen to the neighborhood now that some "wrong color" new neighbors were starting to show up with big reflective heads, and wondering how they'd affect property values. Was it time for them to move further out to the suburbs... of Mars?

Conspiracy theories abound around these stories. Maybe they're waiting for us to overheat this planet and make it perfect for their next colony? Or they're in league with (pick an enemy, real or fever dream) and will reveal themselves as they start to round us up for dinner - theirs, not ours. Maybe they have the "fix" for what makes us (fill in the blank with your favorite flaw) and with enough study will step up and rescue the deserving of us from the flawed rest of us. Note that nobody ever manages to come up with a reason for them wanting to rescue us. I figure that last is just our own desperation and unwillingness to change speaking.

I suggest a more plausible conspiracy. The actual humans who wish to take control of the entire planet have figured out that fear, especially irrational amorphous fear, can make us do just about anything. We'll attack anybody "other", align with whatever silly improbably hope seems to be offered, believe almost anything without question. All this combined would prompt a vast majority of us to cede our own thought processes to a leader, do whatever is "required", and enable such a professed hero/leader to do whatever the hell they want to whomever the hell they want for as long as they just keep us afraid and make promises for improvement.

If you have trouble accepting that concept, tell me how recent elections around the world are NOT proof it's already being done. No aliens necessary, of course. Sorry if that spoiled it for you.

How To Get Haunted

 Or maybe this should be "how to haunt somebody." It's a "Concept of a Plan."

I was joking with a friend online earlier that I've never actually met in person, and who's now in hospice, about seeing my crocus when they bloom this next spring. It started with a notation by me that now that the snow had again melted, the tips of last fall's crocus bulbs were poking through the dirt by between a  quarter and eighth of an inch, and really needed snow again to protect them with the expected sub-zero weather coming up. He replied with the assumption that they would be yellow, to which I countered with a list of all the colors I had ordered them in, some of which I'd never seen in a crocus before, like orange or blue.

Both of us know he won't be leaving Arizona for Minnesota to see them in bloom. It's not necessarily his expected life span, as he's been holding on for a nice while now. Even my dad hung in there with official hospice status for eleven months, and I've heard of both longer and shorter stays by different folks.  In his case not traveling that far is guaranteed by his health concerns and difficulty in any mobility. Travel of any sort isn't happening. I'm not sure he even makes it to see his doctor, as a nurse pops in to visit him regularly. The nurse is the go-between for things like a change in medications, in addition to tending immediate needs.  Anyway, he's already been sticking around for longer than he initially expected. The positive is his mind is sound, he spends time researching a specific climate change topic, and he still has - at least occasionally - his sense of humor. Some days it's rare, but it hasn't fully deserted him.

I told him that we wouldn't know till April the actual colors the crocus the crocus would bloom in. But then, a few practicalities occurred to me, and I shared those with him.

"We'll have to see what's left from what the squirrels dug up to eat. This means, of course, to find out you have to stick around till April.  : ) That, or figure out how to haunt me as a ghost. So-o-o... first you have to believe you can be a ghost, then manifest as one, then figure out that you'd want to bother with haunting anybody, then whether that might be me, then figure out how to find somebody you've never met.... I suppose there's a part in there where  you'd have to decide if it's worth all that energy! LOL "

His answer was prompt:  "Cute, me a ghost? Why not? :-))) "

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Meanwhile I expect we'll continue to correspond almost daily, sharing thoughts about the world, politics, climate, personal history and experiences, philosophies about life and death and what has meaning, etc. We'll continue till it can't.

Santa's Judgment

I will presume you've already read my post "Then On The 25th". If not, this won't make much sense to you. There were consequences, and decisions were made.

Billy's father contacted Santa after Billy's misbehavior. After all, those presents came out of a year's long observation of "naughty" and "nice" behaviors. And yes, Santa still had enough magic after his flight with his reindeer around the world that he had enough energy left to spend a few necessary moments discussing the problem together with Billy's Dad. 

I mean, just think of how exhausted an ordinary magic person would have been after such a tremendous amount of work all in one night! Why I'd have been so tired I would have needed to sleep until the following October, relying on the elves in the workshop to keep things running! And I'm not magic at all. Santa's magic is truly amazing and powerful!

Santa did delegate a few elves to head back over to Billy's house to sort the tags and re-wrap most of the presents for the other members of the family, while Billy was sent to his room. Daddy sent most of Billy's presents back to the workshop, maybe for another year, maybe for other children who'd been better behaved that night. Only Santa and his elves really know, and they aren't talking about it.

But Santa did remember the good things Billy had done all the past year, and decided that Daddy could pick out just three presents to keep, though not to give to Billy, or at least not quite yet. In the morning, Billy was told that, only because he'd been mostly good the last year, he would be given a chance to earn his presents back. But only by being extra good through this year. Santa sent one of his elves, a young one still in training at the workshop, to keep an eye on Billy and see how he was behaving. If, and only if, Billy went back to behaving well, then Santa would let Billy get one of his presents to keep. And then another after earning it, and finally the third. But he'd have to earn each by being extra good. It would happen either in the next couple months of the next year, since Santa couldn't spare his junior elf for very long away from the workshop, or Santa's elf would take the last three presents back to his workshop and some other well-behaved child would get them instead.

I know we're all hoping Billy can earn his presents back. He's usually a very nice little boy, and smart enough to learn his lesson pretty quickly.

Late December Fog

 This will be more pictoral than verbal. We've had several days now of fog with unseasonably warm temperatures. (Spoiler: it ends very soon. A deep freeze is coming.) I spent a bit of today outside with my camera, after discovering this morning how icy everything was. Not hoar-frost icy, but watch-your-damn-step! icy. It was a freezing fog. I had to sprinkle salt on the porch steps and the path to the car, in near pitch black dark except for what was picked up and bounced around by the droplets, to get to my job. The drive takes me up a steep hill. But fortunately there is a longer, shallower slope back entrance, which I'd studied ahead of time. If we get solid ice, I'll stay home. It's understood at the job.

A bit later in the morning I got the camera out, since I had about an hour to kill at one point. There were some places I'd had in the back of my mind to shoot, given the opportunity. First spot was the local lake, just a check on visibility and the craziness of folks out in their fish houses, considering how high temps had just been for days.

The horizontal ice stripes were mostly narrow bands of re-frozen melt water close to shore. But a bit further out were two ice houses, somehow lightweight enough for the ice to hold them. The one on the left is shown on runners, the other flat on ice. Fog hides other details including color and backdrop. I happen to know there are trees in a direct line behind them, as they are tucked in a bay, but it's early in the day yet. The weather forecaster claims the fog will be gone in about another hour from this point.

A few miles along the road is a well used boat launch, at least in summer. Over a half dozen vehicles were parked there today already, but none so stupid as to have hauled a standard ice house out on the lake. The color of this one is almost beginning to show the deep blue tent it is made of, while fog is thinning enough to reveal a side of the bay and the point behind it. Water levels, well frozen, are low enough to allow one to walk out on concrete lanes down into the lake, so my angle is about ten feet from shore.

Just a few degrees to the left are two more, much closer, with the land behind forming the bay more visible. Somebody is working on putting up the support poles for their tent - the red - while closer to the far shore is a modest square blue. Either the blue was unattended or its occupant content to sit inside, likely on one of the ubiquitous 5 gallon plastic buckets used both for hauling in/out, and sitting meantime.

If I turn  fully left and zoom to the next spit of land you can see where a supply of summer docks have been pulled out to wait through winter. Well before fishing opener in the spring they will be anchored back in the lake, jutting out from shore where boat owners pay for slips for the season they can walk to from their cars, or even their back doors. Another bay opens on the other side of this spit of land, again too far  to spy through the fog. The white along the shore on this side is likely where snow drifted on the ice and didn't fully melt in the latest warm spell.

It was finally time to try a different spot. I've been waiting for the perfect lighting to catch the shot I wanted, for several years now. There's no lake here, just a drop to the highway below, and one old tree which is having a difficult time deciding whether it is going to die outright or just a bit and spring back with new growth from the trunk. Those are not vines clinging to it. It has a rather cluttered background, with office buildings, a motel, signs, large trees, and steady highway traffic. Fog is a must for a shot of it, isolating it enough so it can stand out and show it's own unique beauty.

One of the medical buildings on this side of the tree uses the nearby ground under it for snow removal from their parking lot. Of course it's not completely necessary to showing off the tree,though the angle showing the snow is otherwise more effective.

Next summer the clinging red/brown leaves will be replaced by green ones should the tree survive another winter, the trees across the highway will be solid green, and you'll almost have to know this tree is there to see it... and its beauty.

Kettle Drums In The Back Yard

I've been hearing the thumm... thumm for months now, after my head hits the pillow and the dark house is nearly silent. My head is next to the outside wall, a bit down in the next room from the front door. There could be many explanations. There just never are.

Several times I've gotten up and looked out the window to see if there was something I could point to, perhaps something needing fixing, to pin the noise on. I'd open the front door, step out, look around, try to pinpoint a noise, a source, some reason. Eventually I'd give up worrying and go to sleep. However, if I woke in the wee hours I could hear it again, or at least until my bad shoulder drove me out of bed to finish sleeping in my recliner where the pressure would be off the shoulder and eventually I could sleep again.

In the middle of the house. No windows next to me. No outside wall by my head. 

I wondered if there was a leak somewhere from the roof or in a wall, perhaps even in the plumbing underneath where I slept, or inside a cabinet - any excuse for the noise, any reason for a repair being missed  that we could address. 

Nothing. When I walk around, it always seems to come from outside, never has a source I can find.

Oddly, it never seemed to depend on the weather. I opened the front door several times to look out, see if something was dripping off the roof, hitting, say, the porch to make the noise. There'd be no drips off our roof, the porch was dry, no snow was thawing, no rain falling. Was it in the walls? Would something ignored be rotting away to fall apart with us inside the home?

Sleep can be a challenge with those thoughts running through your head.

We just had a really good rain the last couple days, with temperatures in the high 30s, and snow melting from all but the most determined banks where shovels and plows have piled it. A look at the lake reveals glass where two days ago it was solid snow white. So far no fishermen are braving the ice, sensibly wary of how thin it may have gotten. Rabbits have been in the yard, piles of droppings sitting where they long munched on missed clumps of green grass formerly hidden by snow. We'd been seeing the tracks where they had passed through, but nothing had looked like them stopping for a buffet, until now. Our trips to the garbage and recycle bins will have to be in daylight for a few days so we can monitor where we step to keep shoes clean, but the rabbits are welcome to the grass. Normally we have to pay for the trimming.

But last night brought the kettle drums into the back yard. It was no longer a steady slow thumm... thumm. It was a percussion masterpiece, an endless performance worthy of Symphony Hall. And no, it didn't emerge from off our roof at all. Or at least not the house roof.

Instead it came from out in the yard, where the shed sits, or to be even more precise, where the sloped shed roof deposits water onto the trash bin, and the recycle bin. Each has a slightly different quality of plastic hinged lid, with different levels of emptiness inside to mellow the sound or accentuate it. Those were our kettle drums! I even called Steve to come and listen to them for a bit, which he did.

While they were loud, the sound soon soothed me to sleep, rather than keeping me awake with imagined cares.

It's going to be dry again tonight, and likely for several more. I'm wondering if the thumm... thumm will return tonite. I'll be sure to poke my head out and search for a cause when it does. This time I'll make sure to check the shed roof to see if it's dripping onto the bins. They have tended to be wet in the mornings, or even iced up when it's cold enough inside a little trough at the hinges. Sometimes I have to  whack the lids to get them open.  I know it doesn't really make sense that they'd be a source of the nightly dripping, but I do want to be sure. I'd love to settle in to sleep without needing to worry about some missed repair somewhere. 

But in a good rain I'll also be alert for the kettle drums to return to the yard. We both love a free concert.