Anybody Wanna Breathe? With Addendum

It wasn't too bad this morning, around 7:30. I had to go out and drag the empty garbage bin back from the curb, and went as soon as I was dressed to avoid the heat we've been enduring but still be respectable. The neighbors are very close, after all, and some wake up as early as we do.

Turns out I was also still able to breathe... nearly healthfully. I'd had plans for very light gardening, mostly just plucking dead blooms for the compost pile and marking plants with string to denote bloom color not making them something I wanted to keep. Next good morning I'll be out, tracing marked flower stalks down to the ground to see what needed to be dug out, then dig and bag those for new homes in other peoples' yards, per recent discussions. Most of those new locations belong to various staff in the doctor's office. (Who else do I see often enough?) I decided to boot the "strawberry candy" daylilies. The color was represented as red and pink. It's more salmon and red, and like so many other people, it's not what I had in mind. Yep, I'm fussy. If I can make other people happy with free hardy bloomers, and the rest of what I have will fill in quickly, as daylilies do, where's the harm in being fussy? I plucked one new day's blossom, pulled individual petals to press in the fridge so folks can see actual color later, and will take those along on tomorrow's PT visit.

But I had to drive Steve to his surgeon for his "how ya doing"check-in plus hip  X-ray visit this afternoon. As soon as the car pulled out of its parking spot, we glanced at the lake, out of habit. I'm still convinced we could see a shadow of the opposite shore but Steve expressed doubts. A look at the county road in the other  direction looked like a heavy morning fog. I suppose you could call it a "dry fog" the way Arizonans refer to a"dry heat". We had good enough visibility to drive safely. I'm not so sure about breatheability however. I was in no way tempted to go for the camera the way I often am for standard morning fog photos, even if we hadn't been on  a deadline.

It was so thick that even I could almost smell the air. What I could detect instead was an almost metallic tang to it in my mouth. We set the car AC on recycle going both directions, both for keeping cooler and so we'd take in as little smoke as possible. One car-full each way seemed generous enough.

All of this was smoke from fires, primarily for us smoke blowing south from multiple wildfires in the BWCA, which has been closed to all except fire crews for a couple days now. One of Steve's sons had been planning a fishing trip there along with his wife, but it got canceled the night before they were to leave. Nobody knows whether it will reopen this season, and if so, who might have precedence for any remaining limited permits. They believe the cause is lightning, combined with very low rainfall for months. Those whose permits were cancelled will have refunds. Hardly a tradeoff for a vacation in our northern natural beauty. No telling what will be left of it by the time the fires are over. No refunds or other remuneration are available for those who live near the area who make their livings off the tourist season, not to mention the loss of the area and habitat itself to them.We can only hope they have the protections they need for their lungs and overall health through the time it takes to finally quell all the fires.

On our way back home, the air was thicker, nearly every car had its lights on just as they had on our earlier trip as if there were actual heavy fog, and the lakes we passed on our return showed only their near shores. It seemed to bring out the rudeness in fellow drivers, especially those seeming to hope we'd make an illegal move to speed ourselves along so they could follow at warp speed themselves. It wouldn't have helped any. I know those roads, their stop lights, speed limits and lane changes, and even the recent addition of cops monitoring speeders through town who seemed bound to contribute extra to the local coffers while sitting in their vehicles enjoying our local atmosphere - and not just the kind we were all being forced to breathe today. Bless them all for their ambitions to keep road taxes down for the rest of us who live here through their unnecessary and unexpected contributions. 

And Steve wonders why I don't get annoyed at all those obnoxious other drivers out there. It's not just that my annoyance or lack thereof never has any effect on them. As somebody once not just a professional driver who learned a bad attitude became expensive, but a representative of a small  community wrangling every cent out of small budgets, I'm always willing to let somebody else pay our tax  bills. And of course there was the oft repeated tale of a reckless idiot who passed me barely safely at the start of the local hiway on our way home, and visibly kept passing car after truck after car with narrow escapes from oncoming vehicles each time. What I knew and he learned was that by the time we both got 18 miles down the road to where coincidentally we both turned off, he was still just the car immediately ahead of me at the corner.  All the drivers he "bested" had turned off on other roads along the way. Whether you count on frazzled and lucky, or relaxed and smart, he was just 3 seconds ahead... and now I knew where he lived! We were neighbors, and I had no impulse whatsoever to make his personal acquaintance for the years he lived just a couple blocks away. 

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Addendum: Next morning

Yep, we're overachievers here. With a pollution rating where 100 is is high enough that people with asthma or other issues are told to stay inside, don't exercise even indoors, wear a heavy duty mask rated 95 if you must go outside, this morning's news tells us we in most of the state are rating 300!  It's the highest it has registered in MN and covers most of the state, including here, as well as the Twin Cities metro and beyond. If you like colors for your graphics, deep burgundy is the worst, and we're living in it... "living" being the operative word.

Did I mention we're still having our heat wave? Wheeeee hack hack cough gasp! There's a bottle of water in my purse, plenty of ice in the fridge.

At least my scheduled PT for today is mostly stretches, extending range of motion, gently working only just to the point of hints of pain. And I'm sure it's nowhere near what I should have in a mask like a "95",  since I'm not making the extra trip to go find/buy one, but I will be wearing one from my supply of regular surgical masks purchased for avoiding covid and keeping airborn powdered used kiln paper out of my lungs from my days doing glass fusion. And yep, car AC on recirculate for the two mile trip each way.

Steve will be staying home, period.

I'm expecting a plant delivery today, I'm told. I hope the Fed Ex driver has a good mask. At least it will come straight to our main door porch. I can likely hold my breath long enough to step out and grab it. Planting can wait.

Oh, the Delights Of A Summer Shower!

OK, an outside shower can be pretty nice too, cleaning the air, watering all the plants so we don't have to, barring lightning  and hail of course. But I'm talking about the inside kind, clean warm water and soap, ridding one of all the buildup of dirt, salt, and (presumably) stink, as well as making my hair manageable again.

I have a new appreciation for those these days. It's been a bit too tropical outside recently, meaning it's expensive running the AC and fans enough to be comfortable indoors, and uncomfortable to do many necessary things like housekeeping, taking out large bags of garbage for cans needing to be hauled to the curb weekly, pulling the weeds which always sprout up regardless of it being too hot and dry... all that stuff. Even after the sticky has dried off my skin, the salt is left, and on my skin it only serves to make the little irritations sting.  I presume that in addition, odors build, despite my nose no longer recognizing them. I have absolutely no reason to believe human body chemistry changes enough with aging to eliminate the usual combination of stinks. I have faith that all of you appreciate my showers as well, any time you get within several feet or so.

I have recently realized just how much a slightly hot shower relaxes my post-surgical shoulders, allowing me to move them into positions they used to go without complaints and which are very helpful with mundane things like hanging up the wrung-out washcloth over the shower bar and spread it out to dry there rather than mildew. That newfound looseness, for however long it lasts, allows toweling in locations unreachable for a long time. When Steve was in the hospital for his surgery, and later in rehab learning to walk again, for the first time in a long time I managed to do those chores for myself without him, and mostly without any pain from stretching those muscles.

Do I need to mention I'm not anxious to test that when winter comes and fuzzy fabric has to "slide" over fuzzy fabric so warmth can be achieved without kicking up the utility bills even more? I'll have more practice by then, so fingers crossed, both for the doing it myself and for not needing to because Steve's still here.

Then there's being able to reach up to comb my own hair, or even trim the edges around my face. It still takes more time than 20 years ago, and I only do the face parts for trimming these days where I used to trim my whole head with a scissor, but it saves me about a haircut every two months I'd have to pay somebody else for.  They cost twice what they did before, now that I have half the free budget to get somebody else to try to understand exactly what I want. (How difficult is it, really, to understand no longer than two inches at the crown and tapering to nothing at the hairline, with a curve instead of those two points at the bottom in back? They try to indicate their understanding by giving me a clipper number. It's like expecting me to know a fifth language or something, when these days I barely know three of the four I learned,  and none of those substitute numbers for words. Does my confusion make them feel superior? It doesn't get me the haircut I want 90% of the time.)

My PT lady asks me how well I can do with certain milestones in strength and flexibility. How far in different direction can I lift an arm? How long can I hold it? What can I do again for myself without help?  All are better after a nearly-hot shower. The one that gets me is can I scrub my own back? As long as she puts it in "scrub" terms, I brush the question off. The water rinses all the dirt and salt off my skin, and my large towels pulled from their ends from side to side behind me get loose skin and water. What else is needed? Does some unknown sticky mud accumulate on my back where it's never seen by me that somehow everybody else on the planet can scrub off for themselves? 

As for dressing, my clothing is all loose enough to be pulled down once the skin is dry, at least in my summer wardrobe. I don't own anything that fastens behind me in any way. If we're talking pants they're all  loose enough to be pulled up/down by their waistbands into position, and either elastic or drawstrings keep them in place or a front closure does the job. I haven't had a back closing bra for decades, despite other women suggesting I just fasten it in front, twist it around to the back, and somehow force my arms through the straps. Ladies, if you want to  go through all those contortions yourselves, have at it. I'll try not to laugh in your faces, imagining your tryouts for the circus. I actually can manage to be that polite most of the time.

The mild gardening I've been doing this spring/summer, along with normal housekeeping chores, have been doable, so long as it's nothing heavy and high. I have people for that, or they don't get done, period. Mildly heavier things like dishes in the cupboard get where they're needed, just mostly lower or with a stepstool with a grab bar . I still need help opening my car hood, but I've expected than ever since I heard my surgeon give me a lifetime 20 pound limit for lifting either arm. There are workarounds, like getting my son to do it to check my oil in exchange for my pulling some weeds in his garden, since very few of those hold that high a deathgrip on the ground with their roots, and there are chemicals for the ones that do. By the time his weed maple trees get that tall in his garden, it first means I've not been pulling his garden weeds for too long, and a clippers and stump killer are needed to do the job. And as it turns out, my extra reward for doing that for him, getting all sweaty and itchy for a few minutes, in addition to his lifting my hood and checking/filling my oil, my exercising my arms, and improving my balance, is another nice shower when I'm back home! 

Win, win, win.

Fighting With AI, Walmart Style

 I was trying to place a Walmart order online to be picked up early the next morning in order to avoid our current heat wave spoiling my mostly frozen ordered food, especially the ice cream! I've done that many times - the order, not the ice cream part in a heat wave - and all was well with their form until time to pay. The card on file had been discontinued and replaced a while before, due to fraud, but I just hadn't put in an order here since then, and they still had its old number in my file.

There is a place on the order form to change your card number. It wasn't working. 

I tried to call the folks who gather your order and bring it out to your car. After being on hold while they checked for the person who might actually assist me, I was informed she wouldn't be back in the store until 6AM the next day. Way-y-y to late to be useful. So I was given a 1-800 number to call for the assistance I needed. Since I fully trust you've read the title, I'm confident you can guess what answered the phone.

Of course, I immediately asked to speak to a human. Request denied. Could I explain what I needed  better? (Well no, apparently not in the next three tries, but I did start to play the AI game.)  AI apparently speaks a language I don't: tech jargon. I countered with a question: what does that (jargon) look like on my screen? About 3 questions later I finally got a description and my hunt could begin. 

Success! Don't get excited, we're only talking about one symbol on the desktop.

Of course, the next things I was directed to offered jargon options without explanations of which was the correct choice for the situation. Try again, rinse-repeat, reset... reset....  I finally got to a point where I was supposed to enter data but where exactly? I'd tried to put in the new card number after several missteps in getting the blank to pop up, and nothing would register. Maybe it wasn't the correct location? Rinse-repeat, reset.  

Once I finally got the correct location and my numbers started to register, AI just kept talking and talking and talking.... ARRRGGGHHHH! If I'm going to have anybody get paid so I can get food, they'd need the correct numbers from my card. I need to concentrate on getting them right, and give a quick double look to be sure I was right about them being right. Frustration does increase typos. I can't prevent that when an obnoxious voice in my ear is still yapping in my ear, not to mention my little flip phone doesn't find earwax as being conducive to keeping the phone in place over my ear, even if one might expect a good result when every piece of glop in the world sticks to it as the wax builds. So now my brand new shoulder is shoved up in hopes of bracing the phone because that side of my head hears best, my eyeballs are working on dancing back and forth to check that numbers are in the correct order as well as simply the correct numbers. Are you dreaming about success yet?

Silly!

I make several discoveries in the process. AI will acknowledge a request for a human but deny it. AI does not understand one needs to set the phone down for a minute in order to type in a long string of card numbers. In fact is so clueless that one tends to suspect it has no actual head or even ears.

 It cannot comprehend the need for a mobile voice source on this end to hold the portable laptop in position, repeat several previous moves in order to get back to the site needed to start the whole process over again and work through it. Not even when you try to explain it. I suppose I did forget to mention mobility is involved, so perhaps mea culpa. AI also has no clue what it means when you ask for silence for a minute so you can concentrate on numbers, since even after my phone falls I can still hear it/her yammering yammering yammering in nothing clearly legible from that distance which one might or might not choose to interpret as a set of directions. It sure didn't sound like it from a foot or two away... or however far the phone was where I finally located it again. It also hadn't stopped when I got the phone near my ear again. It apparently totally lacks the programming to understand "SHUT UP!" or "BE SILENT" or "I NEED TO CONCENTRATE A MINUTE" but can do an excellent imitation of parroting them back to you as if your understanding of it's (alleged) understanding is more valuable than any possible actual demonstration of such understanding... by SHUTTING UP A MINUTE! 

(I briefly wonder if there are any nasty curses which it's programmed to react to, perhaps even by changing course? Is anybody studying that yet? I have suggestions....)

Deep breath here. Sidewise look at laughing husband. Eye roll combined with next deep breath, which he doesn't notice while involved in his online game.

Perhaps AI is lonely and is searching for a friend and has been programmed to react this way despite all evidence to the contrary of such a tactic working? Yeah, I don't think so either. GIGO.

As various parts of the forms I was to be filling out proved their reluctance to accept numbers, or clicks on a charted list, say, of 12 possible months denoting the expiration date on the replacement card, or another improbably long list of possible expiration years including some which have passed, we again were going nowhere in circles.

The time it has taken to write all of this is actually faster than the AI communication dragged out, and yes, I did have to correct a few typos in this process. But suddenly, without any acknowledgment of justification or change in the process, I was actually speaking with a warm, breathing human! He introduced himself as "a human named.....". The first words out of my mouth were,"First, I want to thank you for being human!!!"

We both had a chuckle - proof of his claim to humanity -  since AI has shown no programming for humor whatsoever, along with it's lack of programming for intelligence - and progress ensued. My data got updated, we both could see the old number replaced by the new one, or more properly, the last 4 digits of each. This part of the process took less than two minutes. He could remain silent when asked. I could type in correct numbers my first try! I could hear Steve again laughing next to me as he listened to me explain my frustration over the non-intelligence, even while continuing his computer game. Before signing off, mission completed, I again thanked the guy on the other end for being a human. 

He in turned let me know I'd be getting an email from Walmart with a survey, which would have his name on it, and would I please give feedback? (Yep, more proof of being human, no need for him to check off the number of boxes with bicycles or some such, even more annoying when the boxes are too small to distinguish between a bicycle and, say, a tree.)

Absolutely I will! Those kinds of feedback tend also to get links to the appropriate page on my blog.  

I haven't seen the email yet, but I'll be sure to look again in the morning after I bring home a few bags of frozen groceries and get them put away. Maybe while I'm having another spoon of that ice cream I ordered, my version of proof I AM NOT AI!

Non - Sense

I'd been spending the early morning arranging what was needed / wanted for Steve's homecoming later this morning. It had been pretty busy so far, which I say not as an excuse but just a statement of fact.

Yesterday had been dealing with groceries, stocking up on what was needed with him home and a celebratory supper tonight with my son attending, and a tiny bit of purging in the fridge after he's been gone so many days. It's not foolproof, after a bout of covid still leaves me with essentially no sense of smell except for the occasional flash of something, no sooner registering than gone again, not to return. I'd been tasked with dealing with old milk. One carton had been opened before he'd been returned to the hospital. I informed him that he'd have to evaluate the unopend one, and check on everything else that might have spoiled, but the instant I picked up the opened one, a huge clot of curdles told a tale nobody needed a nose for. I poured the thin liquid around them down the sink, put the cap back on, and took it out to the garbage can inside a plastic bag, just in case it expanded in the heat or something and leaked. There was more to add to the can, so I did that too, then took a couple turns around the circular raised daylily bed to pull off the spent blossoms so it would look its best when the car pulled up for his first view. They hadn't started to do more than suggest buds when the ambulance took him out. Now we have about 5 different colors showing off, more to come.

There were all sorts of other preparations to make, in order to get both him and his stuff into the car and inside the house. I was just finishing my own breakfast and coffee when I decided to check in with him and verify everything was still go and at the previously set time. Sitting in the bathroom seemed a good time to do so. Multitasking! 

In our  discussion, I asked him when they were serving breakfast, to which he asked me what time it was. I knew what program had just started on the TV, and went by that with my estimation, apologizing for not having better information because there was no clock in the bathroom.

Ahah! I bet  you've already figured it out, haven't you! 

No excuses, just distraction. We both had a chuckle, and hung up our phones to finish getting things ready for his return.

Another Crex Photo Contest.

The submissions are in, at least from me. I admit to needing help this year, not with the photos per se, but with getting them onto the form to send in via computer. My granddaughter is much more computer literate than I am, and welcomed a visit. No taking 8 x 10 photos over by hand, no writing out information on each one like my name, contact info, title of the shot, location of shot (very restricted area qualifies) and the modest submission price to cover their turning my electric file into an 8x10, mounting all submissions, and printing out voting sheets. In each category anybody who walks into the building can vote in each category for top places, with a final vote for best in show. You have to actually show up for that. It opens the 24th and closes... well, it's written down somewhere here in the house. Or check online.

My skills are fine for moving a thumbnail out of my photo files, onto my desktop, and then onto a standard email or into my blog. I admit it took me a long time to figure out the blog glitch. I needed a hole to drag the thumbnail into, meaning it needed a line of text both before it and after it with a line of space in between. It was by accident of course. Nobody ever explained it. One day it worked, the next months it didn't, but eventually I tired it again and again until I finally figured it out.

Here's my space, created ahead time to go back and plunk a photo into. This photo above I'm calling "Butterfly Magnet" and its category is wildflowers. I could have done it featuring the butterfly instead, but here it is. What else is the point of a flower?

This one goes there too, and is simply called "Blue Wall." It's not that I have high hopes for it, but we are allowed/restricted to two photos per category, and I figure paying for more photos is a way to both have fun submitting, and supporting them from the modest fees for entering. I have been known to email them an occasional photo for permitted use if they like it, unconnected to their contest, just for the fun of what it shows, not for any hope of being in a contest. But that is still the most fun, and the only way to see what others are shooting.

Landscapes are another category, and this particular shot, "April Reflections". is hard to get unless you go there in early spring  after ice is gone but before the trees leaf out and the water between them and shore hasn't filled up with water lilies yet. It's actually the first time I'd gotten there that early in the year. The clouds were just a bonus. Like most details they show much better in reflections when the photo is up to an 8x10 size, what all submissions are printed out in for viewing.

My personal favorite shot for this contest is this one, taken late last September. I'd finally, in all the years going there, figured out where Fish Lake was. I know, it's on their maps, but I just needed to figure out a reason to go there when the lake is mostly hidden in trees with little direct shore access. Most visits already take enough time that I never explored further. Once I finally did, I managed to notice the sign to the boat launch, the only feasible way to actually reach the water. The road ruts there are so deep my little car was bottoming out unless I steered with one side in the high middle and the other on a high side, rather than in the ruts other vehicles had made through the years. There's a strip of land at the end of the road in that's wide enough for a boat to get backed down, though in the times I've visited since finding the spot I've never seen sign of a boat there, nor a trailer bringing one. I managed to walk down avoiding the plentiful poison ivy.

This was just after last year's contest when "night landscapes" was a category. I never had a night shot there, period. I decided I wanted something where I could take advantage of lake reflections and the direction I wanted to shoot in , from west to east, didn't yield close water access along a wide uninterrupted stretch of open water. Maybe a full moon? Finding the boat launch was perfect. So was the calendar. I knew the harvest moon was coming up, though that was  before hearing that technically this was the second full moon in the month so it was officially the Corn Moon, so the harvest moon would be in October. Almost nobody I ever talked with got that message - but not my problem.

I thought my opportunity was spoiled when it rained near the time to leave for the shot. Plus I had a 40 minute drive to get there. But it finally cleared, leaving rainbows locally, and on impulse I decided to head over and see what I could see - or even better, shoot. The storm had moved off to the east, but the clouds were so tall, that while the sun was setting behind me their tops were high enough to catch the sunset colors. I had to wait for the moon to clear the lower clouds, but I arrived just in time to blitz about 20 shots before all the light  was wrong. Nobody else was around who could have gotten a similar shot. It could only happen from that side of a lake, and few opportunities exist in the allowed photo area with a road along the west and enough open water for the reflections.   "Corn Moon Rising After The Storm" should be completely unique. I make a point of that after last year's contest where nearly all the submissions were a night with auroras caught in sky and lake, so similar that when I was voting I couldn't tell enough difference between them to pick a favorite. 

So many years the same bunches of photos come in. There are a lot of breeding trumpeter swans in that area, so water shots often are loaded with those for the bird category. Of course sandhill cranes are a huge draw as well, but the 30,000 acres hold a lot of other birds to shoot in addition. I've done my share of trying all of those. Lots of other people do it better. Sometimes I have to go for unique instead.

This is a trumpeter swan, taken in early April. The day I was there I shot photos of three different swans in this position, one I'd never seen before.  So... try going for unique. Research informed me they were working to regulate their body temperature by sprawling across the water like this. They had just migrated north and ice was recently out, so I could make a case in my head for them either warming or cooling themselves, and spent hours arguing both cases against the other. Mostly they looked exhausted, as still as they were sprawled, only the head barely moving for proof of life. I opted to title this one based on that impression, so this is "Don't Wake Me Till Saturday!"

I had another unique-for-me shot from years back that I spent weeks hunting fruitlessly for after our move back north. I finally gave that one up as a lost cause, along with a huge bunch of Crex photos from previous years, completely within the timescale of shooting allowed. I did however have a set of "nearly as good" shots, if I could ignore lying to myself about how settling for one of those would be OK.

The lost shot was a close-up of an eagle next to the road, peering down intently from its perch on a dead tree spike at what I presume was its intended dinner on the ground. I'm still frustrated that file disappeared. Another time in the same general location I caught this pair up in a dying tree. Both the two perches no longer exist. At some point in the intervening years they have been removed, possibly while doing controlled burns, possibly removed as hazards, especially likely to fall from storms or too much human attention. This "consolation submission" I call "Double Eagles".  (No, I do not golf. If I did I'd be making triple bogies instead of any eagles.) In a different shot taken within minutes of this one it appears that a rudimentary nest had been started on a crotch of the same dying tree. The eagle on the right sits next to it in that shot but was moving its head as the shutter clicked, then turned its back to the camera. That's what you get with wildlife.

One of these days I will have to ask where they are nesting these days. I've been assured some are still within the area. Most years a staffer will happily point out what's special in which location that day, like a wolf den entrance along a road that season, or a drying pond holding a dozen great blue herons scarfing the more easily available fish, or even three stray whooping cranes joining the sandhills before migrating south. This year's greeter isn't quite so forthcoming with information.

I referred above to night landscapes last year. It was a special category that one time. This year the special category is "Animal Families". It has to show both adult(s) and young in the same photo, interacting. I have bunches of those in Canada geese families as well as trumpeter swan families. It's the main reason why I keep going there, of course. I manage the occasional crane with a colt, or even a doe and fawn I entered last year... but I entered that one last year. The shots I selected for that category are pretty much what everybody gets, and most of those much better. But as I've said, much behind these is to support Crex. I go there to shoot pictures when I can, rather than shop in their store. So these are my way to give back.

This turkey family along one of the roads is just two from a string of them, picked not for numbers of birds since I was too close in my car to get a wide angle, but for the best color in the adult. I had fun watching them in small groups scooting into the grasses and popping out again, presumably with a meal. I rarely get this close to wild turkeys, but this one reminds me of a time when I was working and pulled into the dock area of a business only to be attacked by turkeys defending "their" territory. What stuck with me the longest was how blue the head and neck of the meanest one was. At least these were shot with a good zoom lens!  The car managed to keep pace with them for a bit, until they stayed hidden in the grass, but the only title which came to mind was "Turkey Trot".

There are a lot of possibilities for "shooting" Canada geese in open water where the family is gliding along. Sorry, but BORING! I got this family stretched out along the edge of a pond next to the road. This one was my favorite even though it only shows five of the goslings of the seven in another shot. I figured this family was as successful as it was because they were playing "Hide and Seek In The Rushes".
There are a lot of predators both from above and below that find them quite tasty, and later season shots tend to show smaller families.

If any of this gives you a desire to see even better photos in the contest, go visit Crex later this month if you'd like to vote, or all during the coming year since all the submissions are displayed in the visitor center lobby until the next contest. It's on the north side of Grantsburg, WI. That's close to Minnesota on US 70. The town has a nice campground if that's your thing. If you want to get your own shots, maps are available for free of the wildlife areas. Just be polite and drive slowly so as not to raise dust clouds or scare the critters into hiding or flying. Everybody is welcomed, free of charge.

Not Your Ordinary Party

 

Note that this post has been delayed for for over a week. It paused from frustration and my need to de-stress, and paused again for other things I needed to say instead as the days went by.  Some of what is written about, as in present, future or past, is a fubar jumble from where this one will land. You may have already read some  of it in previously published posts.  I don't feel like apologizing or huge rewrites. Read it or don't. I'm kinda busy lately. But weird stuff happens when hours worth of organization don't reach those it's planned for. Murphy must have been on the party planning committee with me.

Steve had planned for his 83rd birthday party for nearly a year, including this time having no cake.  His last two birthdays he'd ordered a nicely decorated one from the local bakery, fishing decorations in both frosting and in edible decorations on the top, like a boat, fisherman, and line, the end of which had always snagged a huge fish, regardless of the actual fisherman's luck. But it's been a hard year for justifying something that expensive. So the plan had simply been to invite family to our home, grill burgers and hot dogs, and hold a nice potluck. He didn't even shy from the idea of everybody singing "Happy Birthday" to him, though both of us are the two known musical tune carriers in his family and find it close to torture to smile through the dissonance some times.

I have discovered that it happens in the families of good friends as well. I'm learning to experience it as a minute of joy, and concentrate on the good wishes expressed. This year the way things turned out, nobody got around to singing anyway. The good wishes were all still there... despite everything else.

With Steve in a rehab facility, we weren't having the party at home. First step was to talk to them and find out if, huge as they are, they had some kind of party room we could hold his party in. Yes, and I got a tour through the maze of halls and turns to a large room with tables and chairs, a small sink, and an adjoining bathroom which was well furnished with grab bars, as well as being large enough for anybody in a wheelchair plus their attendant. I was shown the closest door to it in relation to the parking lot, and another door opening out back to a large grassy area with a large swing up a small hill. One needs a code to go through those doors even in daylight hours since there is no staff overseeing comings and goings like the main entrance has.  I wrote that code down and memorized it. It turns out that after hours - however those are defined - one needs to call staff in order to leave even the main entrance. Of course that code lets you leave without having to call somebody and wait for them to be able to reach you in this fairly distant wing, but nobody explained that fine point to us. Somebody who'd been given the code to get in for the party simply typed it in without asking if it worked and we found out it did, though this was well after cleanup when we were last ones out. We did discover that holding the door open for the last straggler did manage to set off an alarm. As it shut off as soon as the door closed, and nobody had come to check on us during that delay, we just left. Why wait around to make an explanation? Especially when nobody seemed to be bothered.

Part of the "fun" of this facility is the maze. On my second visit I was able to navigate to Steve's room with minimal wrong turns. It took my fourth visit to leave without asking staff's directions. Going from his room to the party room... I'm saving that part for later. At least eventually there were signs so we knew we were heading in the right direction. They just didn't say "Party Room" so people had to pay attention to what they hadn't learned they needed to pay attention to. By the time we all knew they needed more information we just extended the line of people so one could always see somebody familiar ahead of them.

Oy! But I'm getting ahead of myself. Guess I'm not totally de-stressed yet.

As bare-bones as the party room is without a kitchen, and a big part of the menu being grilled burgers and dogs, the first question had to be could we set up a charcoal grill outside the building? Nope! OK, grill at  our place and haul the cooked meat over. Only 4 1/2 miles door to door. So what if they cool a bit? As planning progressed, the family bringing the meat (their present to Steve) wound up with delays in arrival. So the party started almost two hours before the meal was ready.

 The family includes grandchildren from independent adults to elementary school age. Then there are great-grands from preschool to elementary. The youngest needed something other than adult conversation and some food to keep them happy. It's becoming a tradition for Grandma to provide a cardboard playground to keep them busy, then recycle the remaining pieces afterwards, however many loads into the recycle bin it takes. The huge new furnace box has been occupying the living room just waiting for kids. It was finally time.

My very helpful son not only came over with his keyhole saw the night before to cut all kinds of interesting and varied holes in the "tunnel" with different sizes, shapes, and folding spots for hours of creative play. He even vacuumed the carpet afterwards. The cardboard crumbs were more like sawdust! At least they match the color of the carpet, so nobody will know if any got missed. I won't tell!

For the littlest people, the monster furnace box became their playground while they waited. The person with a pickup who could have hauled it over to the party area to a large patch of grass outdoors, or inside if weather required, was tied up at work. An angry customer and cops were involved and we still never have heard the story - but we will ask next time we see him - so the families with the little kids arrived at our house with a box to play in, well before heading over to the rehab center and the official party. At least there were snacks for the wait.

One of the kids had informed his mother a few days earlier that he had plans for destroying the box this time. He's been excellent at doing it in the midst of play during other visits with normal boxes. I assured her that he'd have a difficult time with this box since any box holding a furnace for shipping has be be extra strong. And frankly, any inroads he could make - or all four who used it together - would be helpful to me by saving work in recycling preparation. It turns out that the box still sits on the living room floor as intact as Paul made it after his saw redesigned it. The kids even got up on top of it hoping to squish it flat, and while it bent slightly under the largest one, as soon as she got down it returned to original shape.  Every time I look at it I wonder if there's a daycare in the area that would love to haul it to their location and turn kids loose on it... with a promise of recycling of course. Otherwise it's the saw and a vacuum again. I'm really not interested in keeping it long enough till the next big family event, Thanksgiving. There's not really a place to store it out of the flow of traffic, and right now, on that point, it's good Steve isn't here having to figure out how to avoid it.

(Note that this problem was solved days later by a neighbor. Not the Steve part, the box part. You may have read about it already.)

Steve was in a wheelchair for his mobility getting to the party. He didn't know where it was since I was still figuring it out myself in that maze, and I couldn't push him around the place by myself with my shoulders still having restricted activity even if I weren't tied up at home. So a good friend of his went over early, was directed to his room, and spent time with him while waiting for all the rest of us to show up. I had gotten such great assistance from the weekday staff in locating the party room, checking out the facilities, etc., that I made the huge mistake of thinking that the weekend staff knew what was going on and how to get Steve there. 

I had sent out long emails documenting which main entrance to go in and where from there, passed the code for the doors on to all, and thought that was what was needed. It is totally simple from the parking lot, just go in the door  next to the huge chapel which cannot be mistaken for any other purpose, put in the code, see the room door under a huge clock up near the ceiling as soon as you walk in, and it will be the only large room, off the area,  full of tables and chairs with a bathroom off the corner. Much easier done than described... in theory.

First problem is not everybody read the email. Some ignored it, others had changed their email addresses and nobody told me. Even so, when they showed up at our place, I made sure they heard "door next to the chapel"  and a reminder to use the code for the door, in the same sentence as questioning that they did in fact have the door code.

That means, of course, they all went in the main door by the flagpole instead.  Sigh! That is the front desk, but it's not staffed on weekends. Every bunch of people had to hunt for somebody who knew, first, how to find Steve's room since they at least knew his name, and then find staff who could point them to the party room from there.

Remembering the words "next to the chapel" would have made a huge difference. Instead the staff    directed everybody to a small room with a table and a few chairs that is often used for a group of visitors or even a patient plus staff conference meeting. It's as far away from the party room as is possible to get in that facility. It was also completely packed, no room to move. 

When I arrived in the proper location the party wasn't there! It was my turn to hunt up people, starting with finding staff who knew where our party had been relocated to despite having reserved the large party room. It was, crammed, everyone was hungry with no plates or anything since all that was in my car, with nothing to keep little kids entertained to be found. 

That family left early. There was no communication to the outside because the walls of the building are solid concrete block and cell signals don't penetrate. I'd had to stay behind to make sure the grill cooked all the meat, the coals were quenched, and the house was locked. The rest of the people made the best of it until I arrived.  I finally tracked them down,  then led the way to where it was actually to be held, but only because my son had stayed back assisting in the grilling, had a key to our place to lock up, and sent me on my way about half an hour before the meat finally arrived. I arranged for everybody to parade through the halls carrying what they needed to, snaking around corners to the proper location, occasionally waiting for folks to catch up instead of getting lost a second time, until we arrived in the actual party room.

We have no plans to try that again!

Of course we didn't have plans for how it turned out either, but once we were all together in the right spot we had a good time... mostly. Gifts were opened, tables spread,  stories told. One of the adults who'd been grilling got violently ill, had to leave with his family early and stop at the hospital after somebody insisted it could be appendicitis from all the symptoms. After sitting in the waiting room for three hours, waiting for blood test results that was so delayed the blood coagulated and the staff asked for another sample, he was totally fed up and walked out. So far as we know, he's been fine since, so it must have been something he ate before the party since nobody else was ill.

Steve got to see most of his local extended family including some he married into on my side, except the ones stuck at his job dealing with the cops.  He never made the party. Steve's friend who had arrived at the rehab facility early to keep him company, stuck around long enough to wheel him back to his room afterwards, so he had a  good time all the way through, and his friend did as well. (Or if he didn't, I never heard about it, nor did Steve.)

I've asked for email addresses from those who have changed theirs, as well as asking other family members who did have those newer email addresses, could they please send them off to me for the next party we will be planning or whatever family communications?  Of course nobody has sent me any yet. We'll have to find new problems for the next party we try to throw since we trust nobody will be in that same facility recovering from major surgery again. Since those parties tend to be in snowy months, I figure I don't have to do any work  in arranging problems. The weather will do all the work for us. Even for people who can't/won't read  emails they still know where our house is, so the weather may have to get creative. It would tend to fit in with this year.

I just need to come up with more boxes by then for the wee ones. Please, no more new furnaces needed for box donations!

If you've managed to stick with this post for this long, here's a bonus reward: Steve gets to come home Friday. He's been working hard on his PT, walking with his walker, using their stationary bicycle, getting himself in and out of bed, and finally working on stairs today. The surgical crew stopped by since he couldn't come visit them, pronounced his surgical site to be in good shape yesterday, bandages and stitches now gone. His insurance will allow (pay for) the extra days until Friday. He'll miss the Friday bingo game, but not enough to stay, and after winning three prizes last week, somebody else will get a chance! On top of all that he'll have three weeks of Jeopardy recorded on the TV to watch when he gets here. My reward is not just having him home, but that he didn't ask me to save the weeks of all his cooking shows on the DVR for him to watch to make up  for all that time missed!  What a guy!

Preparing For The Next Storm

The forecasts changed from "not gonna get here" to "it will likely rain" to watching the radar images slide our way. Tornadoes were possible... just not here, at least. Morning news showed damage from elsewhere in the state. But lightning was steady and strong through the system, which I verified for myself from the Real Time Lightning Map which remains bookmarked among all the other reliable weather sites bookmarked on my laptop, up to and including Space Weather.com.

(OK, that last one mostly never affects what happens here but it does indicate interesting things in the sky should we ever get cloud free night skies.  Dream on! It was useful in Arizona though.)

Anyway, I had to get busy before hitting the sack. My son had just been over, despite still having 80-plus degree temperatures and high humidity until sunset, at a level a local TV forecaster refers to as "air you can wear." He was demolishing the rotting porch/stairs combo outside the door facing the street. No, we never liked it, now won't use it, having declared it totally unsafe since the old furnace was removed and the new one installed through that door. He's been putting its replacement together and will be ready to bring segments over for installation as weather permits. The house door was dead-bolted so nobody can use the entrance, and with the old framework now gone there is no temptation to injury in that spot.

There was, however, a huge mess. First, an unexpected pile of last year's dead leaves had managed to find the right winds to slide them through between gaps in the wood and pile up unmolested. Not our leaves, of course, but maple and oak leaves, none of which come from our lot. I had also inspected the area covered by the concrete slab which supported the former porch, visible once the large crap was gone. It was additionally loaded with piles of collected dust and dirt, decorated with abundant, somewhat painted chips and chunks from the former wood so badly maintained by former residents. My son kept mentioning their lack of using proper screws for the construction. Good thing he's a perfectionist! I know we can trust the safety of its replacement. And yes, it will get repainted regularly.

My original plan was to be out bright and early in cool morning air to clean it up. The amended weather forecast pushed that plan forward to after dark but before bed. That turns out to be local mosquito time. I'd turned on the outside light so I could see to clean up properly. They noticed. I'm tasty. Amazingly they were my first mosquito bites of this year, as the steady lake breezes keep them at bay, but my back is busy reacting with a heavy dose of itch. SOMEBODY forgot to buy OFF! this year.

Oops. I'm making a shopping list for later today.

Meanwhile with a broom and dustpan I managed to tightly pack a wastebasket to the brim three times, each load dumped into the garbage bin which goes curbside tonight. No, mea culpa, I didn't take the extra time to treat the mosquitoes to a feast by stopping to bag the stuff. I just hurried to get rid of it all before the rain showed up, though mostly to remove myself from the evening menu. 

Yep, selfish me! Hey, you feed them all you want!

The can goes curbside tonight. With the next round of storms expected later today/tonight, maybe or maybe not here again, there's enough ballast in it to withstand normal storm wind gusts. There was a lot of detritus on that concrete pad which had chipped off over the years. I still think "wood hamburger" is an appropriate reference. It might be heavy enough that I'll ask Paul to wheel it out for me, since I still shouldn't be handling heavy stuff, and my limitations are pretty wimpy with titanium screws holding my shoulders and arms together. I'm officially approved for PT now, and I'm counting last night as part of it!

The storm rolled in on schedule, most of its power spent by then. I'd been watching, both through slightly opened blinds and TV/laptop reports, and clearly clocked one lightning strike one second away. But I'd taken the time to air gap certain electronics, and delayed what would have been a much welcomed shower for my salty/itchy back. I'd always been warned not to be in water, indoors or out, during interesting weather. It didn't pass until 2AM, and my late activity kept me awake through it, coupled with mosquito bites. 

There was one incidental benefit. Since my back stopped me from relaxing enough to sleep in my recliner, and my shoulders won't let me sleep on my bed (I swear that mattress is harder than the one I selected in the store!) I decided to stack pillows on the couch and give that a try. Almost instant zonk!

At least I slept till 7:30. After morning duties, I opened the front door to see what might have been left on the concrete pad. No wood chips or chinks, no hardware. Whatever the dust had been composed of, the storm arranged it into piles of small black pebbles. Weird! After breakfast I'll head out and clear it off, checking what it might be and hoping it isn't cemented together. But maybe a nap first, eh? Or at least, coffee for sure.