Bumping Up Against Other's "Religious Liberty"

The Supreme Court is making some "interesting" rulings in the last few years, notably when somebody's rights conflict with other's religious liberty. Or so they claim. Is it religious liberty to be able to demand others follow your beliefs? Because that's what I see happening.

Take Hobby Lobby. They won a case allowing them to deny health care insurance coverage for reproductive choices. We're not even talking abortion here. Just birth control. In effect, that rule mandated that their employees either had all the babies that chance decreed might start from any sex act because they wouldn't get coverage for birth control, or somehow found the funds to pay for it themselves. It may not seem like much, but did you imagine that Hobby Lobby employees were paid enough to be able to make that expense decision freely? Especially when you compare those employees against other company's employees making the same income, looking at just how much is left in the budget for medical coverage after making all the same other purchases. Comparatively, other employees were free - literally - to choose their own reproductive situations. Hobby Lobby chose for their employees. The owners of Hobby Lobby had a religiously informed viewpoint and were given the freedom by the Supreme Court to impose it on their employees, in every store, across the entire country. They didn't even have the possible standing of an actual religious institution to do so.

Note that only the comparatively wealthy employees, possibly due to a generous second family income or other factors, had real freedom from Hobby Lobby's religion.

There are so many other cases where some supposedly religiously based bigotry is given rein to force other's behaviors. We're not talking about murdering somebody here. But let's think about how historically recent divorce was legally allowed in this country. Or even how it's forbidden in other countries, or a privilege given only to husbands. Religion forces others all too often to go along whether or not they believe in that religion's tenets. I believe I should be free to divorce a husband for a wide variety of reasons, including abuse of me and/or my children. I did so. It was allowed only because of how relatively recent it was. 

Gender issues are the ones bumping up against other's "religious" bigotry these days. We've barely gotten homosexuality decriminalized, nevermind being broadly accepted. Adoption is still a cusp issue, where religions insist the only fit parents are a heterosexual couple. Even single parents are preferred over the benefits a second parent of the same gender can provide. If I were in a place to adopt or foster a child, and in a same sex relationship no matter how loving and nurturing, my odds would still be extremely low, no matter how many children still need stable homes with loving adults. It's a battle still in process.

The latest religious bugaboo is the practical demonization of transgender people. Where religion is the alleged reason for the bigotry and fear, laws are rapidly being enacted about sports eligibility and bathroom use. Listen, when I gotta pee, I really gotta pee, and when your religion decides I can't do it here and now, your so-called religious liberty is simply cruelty under another name. While I'm not transgender, I got my fill of bathroom challenges when I was working in a uniform that was gender-free. (Translation: they were designed for men because mostly men were hired for that job. Even the shirt buttons were on the "man's" side.) I get a glimmer of what transgender people are up against because somebody else thinks it's their religious freedom being denied if they can't be an asshole because they haven't personally inspected somebody's birth certificate and current genitalia. Or even if they have, however that came about.

Let me warn you, the older I get, aside from the legal issues here, the more often you decide you have the right to challenge my use of a bathroom, the more likely your only gain will be a puddle on your floor! Happy mopping, jerk! It I ever have to bump up against your version of religious liberty, one way or another you're going to lose. Whatever my gender is, however my body is formed, it's none of your business unless I choose to make it so, say, by deciding whether or not to have an intimate relationship with you. Your religion doesn't get a say except in whether you decide you want an intimate relationship with me. And by the way, I'm taken, so it's never going to be relevant.

It shouldn't have a say in whether and when I reproduce, or with whom, or how, and you shouldn't get a say about whether you can get cheaper insurance for me because you don't wish for me to use certain parts of what that insurance covers for everybody else. (Would you really want me to decide which medical procedures I want to fund for you to be able to have and call it religion? Really?) You shouldn't get a say in whether I can be a parent to a needy child based on anything other than what kind of parent I can be, and certainly not on whom I love or what my body is like so long as I'm healthy enough to do the job. As long as I use bathroom facilities behind a closed door for privacy, it shouldn't be your decision which door is the "right" one. 

Your religion has whatever rights you give it to affect your behavior. Not mine. I cede none of my rights when I bump into yours. Swing that religious fist all you want to. You have that right. But it stops just before my nose.

What Can Happen With Time On Our Hands

Steve is still chuckling about it. There are even pictures on Facebook now, posted by others.

We weren't sure there would be time on our hands. I scoped out our estimated travel time, Steve added almost another hour, but there were three stops along the way after the only planned-for-sure one was filling the tank. We did know we raced a deadline. All along the way everything conspired to slow us down: extra stops, a couple of heavy downpours, heavy Sunday afternoon return-from-vacation traffic.

The event was his fishing trip with his oldest son, Lance, out on the launch on Lake Mille Lacs. Catching walleye was the stated goal. Seeing his son after two years and spending the evening fishing together to celebrate Steve's birthday was the real prize. I was along to drive, so Steve could take any necessary pain meds and still travel safely. The dog came along because what else? We Heathers stayed in the car most of the time, because after bumping my tailbone the car seat is the only really comfortable place to sit for any period of time. I wasn't fishing. This was Steve's event. I brought magazines to read and a dog to walk. There was always MPR to listen to, a few pictures to take along the lake, and eventually what I'm pretty sure were noctilucent clouds after sunset. (Look them up. I recommend NASA's site SpaceWeather.) It wasn't boring.

Our deadline to show up at Twin Pines  Resort was 5:30 PM to pay for the 6:00 departure. We got there a bit before 5:00. Steve headed in, and 10 minutes later came back out laughing.

He loves t-shirts with fishing themes, particularly when fishing. This particular one was black with white lettering saying, "If fishing was meth, I wouldn't have any teeth." Turns out he doesn't have any teeth - another story. As he related what happened to me, he couldn't stop laughing, but luckily I also heard it later from others who were inside as it happened later, while I ordered a hamburger for my wait. As Steve approached the bar, one of the women read his shirt and told him, "I need that shirt!" Steve stopped, started stripping off his shirt, and replied, "Give me yours." Without hesitation, she ducked down behind the bar, peeled her (outer) shirt off, and they swapped. A photo was taken, shirts were returned, and after much laughter and finishing his business, Steve returned.

It wasn't quite over. I had a chance to chat with her a bit later, resulting in an exchange of information so we could get a copy of the photo, and the story being repeated among the new set of customers lined up paying for their trips. Finally, a second photo was taken, both of them side-by-side just like the original photo, this time in their original shirts. After Steve was out on the launch and things had settled down inside the bar/restaurant, she came out to the car and let me know they were posting the pictures on Facebook. After his trip ended, Steve returned to the car still laughing, saying he was now "famous" on the boat.  So for those of you who want access, look for Twin Pines Resort out of Garrison, MN. Or you can contact Steve, giving him another chance at laughing about it. It's going to be one of those stories for him to relate forever.

"Change The Ref"

I'm still emotionally reeling.

I hope you got a chance to watch Rachel Maddow on MSNBC last night, June 23. If not, there's probably some way to review back episodes, or just this one. It's about gun violene and the "Lost Class of 2021". 3044 students didn't get to graduate in the US this spring due to gun violence.

The parents of one of them became activists. Their organization is called "Change the Ref", a phrase from their son. When playing basketball he often complained of bad referee decisions, suggesting that they change the referee. They put together a video which carries quite a punch to the gut, particularly as it's interspersed with snippets of 911 calls from students in schools during an active shooting. What we saw ends with hysterical, panicked breathing, silenced by loud rounds of rapid gunfire.

The video was shot in Las Vegas. A couple of NRA bigwigs were invited to speak at the graduation of James Madison Academy, named after the "father of the 2nd ammendment". Each was given an "annual"  award for doing so, and requested to go through a dry run of their speeches ahead of time to test lights, sound and video equipment. 3044 empty white chairs were spread out in rowsacross the field as if waiting for the class to sit in them for the actual event. Their speeches of course were about gun rights, and how the students should, after graduation, follow their dreams and not let others stop them, not knowing the so-called graduates had already been stopped.

In fact, they never knew the significance of this class. They never bothered to look up this school and realize it didn't exist. No questions were asked, just ego and greed, presumably, taking over and taking advantage of spreading their particular "gospel." When the speeches were concluded, they were "regretfully" informed the graduation ceremony had been canceled due to a credible threat of violence. Then the footage of their speeches were edited together with the 911 calls and text of their actual records of stopping sensible gun legislation.

My description of this does not do it justice. I strongly suggest  you search it out, watch the whole video, and prepare to be disturbed in a way the sanitized unending news reports do their best to avoid.

Not Exactly Service Dog Material

Owwww. Yes, I'm sitting to write this. And yes, it hurts. As does standing up. And walking for those first few minutes. It started, like many of these things do, with a little stupidity.

It had rained on and off most of the day. Heather Too wasn't exactly thrilled about going outside to do the necessary when wet grass tickled her tummy with every step. Too much time in Arizona, I suppose. Not to mention a bit too little lawn mowing in the yard. It was more than time for her to go out. Putting her out didn't mean she'd venture more than a foot from the door when things were this wet, and she always kept looking over her shoulder as if asking just what we thought we were doing to her.

That's when I got my stupid idea. I'd go out ahead of her. It had stopped raining for a bit after all, so why not now? Just going to the doggy door in the screen house wasn't very persuasive, so I opened it and started strolling down the ramp. You know, just a casual walk, showing her I'd actually be out with her. Her separation anxiety usually does the rest of the persuasion. I got so into my role playing that I got stupid enough to head down the wooden ramp without holding on to the  rails on either side. Just to show her how easy it was to go down the ramp. Like that's a thing.

Of course you know what happened. It's an old ramp, lots of layers of slick-crap-when-wet on the top of it. Since it hadn't actually rained since we arrived, nothing tickled my brain cells to halt my version of stupid. The next thing I knew my feet flew forward, my butt landed on the ramp, and I slid another foot down the ramp that way. The second I landed I felt my tailbone take the knock.

Fortunately, my hip also took just enough of the landing as well. Steve assures me I have a nice bruise just a little off center to the tailbone. It didn't feel like a break. I'd had one of those in junior high. The pain is much sharper and there is nothing resembling any degree of comfort for months afterwards. But even the bruising takes some time to recover from. And let's not forget the usual challenge getting up from ground level.

Luckily, the ramp is where I'd last perfected getting up from the ground. I needed to go further down first. After a little rest, a little silent cursing, and some plotting of the least painful direction to roll in to accomplish my mission. I also needed to check how slippery the surface was where I'd wound up and where, since it was, I needed to move to in order to ensure safely standing.

This took about 5 minutes. During that time I observed what wasn't happening. My beloved dog was not coming down the ramp behind me. Not to comfort her mistress-in-pain. Not to head out into the grass to do her thing. Not even to get close to me for some possible patting and hugging. Not even when I called her.

I gave up on her and started, finally, rolling and sliding into position. That's when she decided to come join me. Each of the next five moves were interrupted by her being exactly in the way of where I needed to move a part of me. I wound up gently - though exasperatedly - shoving her away each time so I could finally stand up again. She finally went back to the top of the ramp, apparently guessing just where I was heading and not willing to be left behind - this time.

My shoes are filthy. Luckily they are the ones I wear out in the yard. And my shorts look just as bad, but over a larger area. I just pulled them out of the clean laundry for this event. No skin lost, no tears in fabric, and a brush will make the shoes (more) presentable. But owwww. And owww. And even more owww.

At least there were no puddles in the house the next morning when she finally, tentatively, headed out in search of drier grass. Maybe that's hero enough?

A Little Interruption

It wasn't the ordinary interruption. Those involve running out of stump killer, or getting too many thistle pokers inside my gloves and having to remove them, or deciding I need a different tool. For those bigger interruptions, it's just plain exhaustion. I've hit my wall.

Today it was a gas leak.

An outside one, fortunately. I was continuing my weeding along the south side of the house. Paul insisted there were actual blueberry plants still growing in that mess, so I decided to prove it either way. They'll be edible before too long, assuming they survived, and they're a favorite. Progress so far is about 4 feet per day. That's not square feet, but linear, in a patch mostly about 3 feet wide. This is day four here if we don't count the two it took clearing out the AC at the end of the house. The whole ares is infested with long and short grass, violets, Canadian thistles - the spikey ones, not like sow thistles - several unidentified weeds, lily of the valley now that it's shady at ground level, virginia creeper vines, and innumerable shoots from trees that were cut back in previous years without benefit of stump killer. Those include maples, box elders, chokecherries, high bush cranberries which are actually viburnums so not quite trees, and whatever else has taken root.  There is also a significant amount of dead blueberry branch bits. Some cut, some attached. Attached means to something still living.

I have yet to find a fully dead blueberry bush. I'm pretty sure a couple are missing however. And there are new shoots popping up, though I don't know whether from seeds or roots, so I have no clue whether and/or how they'll bear fruit. I do know they're yellowish, so I went and bought iron for them yesterday when I got my new lenses in my glasses. 'll have to remember to spread it tonight. There's a hope of rain tomorrow. Otherwise, pull the hose up from where it's embedded in in the lawn - yes, seriously: what happened last year? - and turn it on.

This morning's progress led me to the thistle patch surrounding the first one of the meters along the house. I figured this might be the first time this particular meter had been read in years, the thistles were so thick and tall. Of course, if it were the water meter, they can read it from the street. They put in that system back in the 90's. But as I leaned forward to eliminate a thistle growing between the meter and the siding, I caught a whiff of a familiar smell. Mercaptan.  This was the gas meter. Leaking. There is an octagonal gizmo in the piping, two flattish pieces with a gasket and screws holding it all together. The leak was from there. When I put my nose right on it, like when reaching behind for the next weed, I could tell.

Of course, I wasn't in any danger. Plenty of fresh air diluting the stuff, no smoking, digging, or electrical anything happening, not even my cell outside with me. Just two sizes of manual trimmers and a bottle of chemical plus a brush. The wheelbarrow (plastic) sat next to me out in the grass, and I sat on a resin chair. Nothing to make a spark anywhere. So I kept working, figuring whoever came to fix the problem would appreciate not having to dig into a field of thistles. Besides, I still had some of my morning ration of energy left.

After about ten minutes  more work, I headed inside to make the call. I was told they would be out in about an hour, after asking bunches of questions and giving advice of what not to do. I went back out to prune more thistles while I waited. It turned out to be more like 15 minutes, so there were still a few thistles left uncut or unpulled, but it was mostly a workable area. He confirmed my nose's accuracy, and I headed into the house with the dog for breakfast. He promised to knock at the front door if he needed anything - like warning me to get out of the house fast!

I'm contrasting this visit with one of the first ones from the gas company in Arizona. When we leave the house untenanted because we've gone north, we have the gas shut off completely. Once back, we have one of the gas company employees come out to turn it back on and check every single place it comes through for any possible leaks. They insist, and we appreciate it. That first year when the fellow finished I detected the smell under the stove top. Now that I could cook something, I'd opened the doors under it to get a pan out while he was still down the hall, checking out the water heater. I informed him of the leak. He insisted he'd checked and there was none. He then left. 

Periodically I continued to smell the leak. It wasn't always there, and for some reason I didn't continue to complain to the gas company. However, the next season when we had the gas turned on again, I mentioned it to the new person checking our appliances. He found it instantly and fixed it. I double-checked it this spring when we had the counter replaced and a plumber had to disconnect and reconnect that same stove top. No new leak.

I'm going to go out and sniff that octagonal gizmo on the meter before this guy leaves. If it hasn't heated up outside too much, I think I'll do more weeding. There was a pretty tall blueberry with lots of tiny berries on it sitting right past where I left off.

Not The "Big" Progress

It's not as visible as usual today. Yes, I was still out in the yard for my morning hour+, but you won't see fewer trees or anything else major or highly visible.

I blame Paul. I was prepared to  do the major jobs, at least the ones the right size for the loppers. Anything bigger requires the chain saw in my opinion, like the one Paul took to the way overgrown lilac hedge Saturday. You can even tell where his arms got more tired as he went. The height of the stumps left behind to sprout out again got lower as he went. Of course, I'm also going with insider knowledge, since he came inside and sat for a couple hours before returning to the hedge. But that kind of work is highly visible.

I don't know what he did with the loppers after cutting much of the downed lilac branches into firewood-sized chunks on Sunday. I also wasn't about to chase over the yard hunting them. That would have taken half the energy available. So I did other things. They aren't so spectacular.

I located more creeper vine in the yard and cut parts back. It'll keep growing, but that's another day's work. Right now it's somewhat curtailed. I cut down more scattered cup flowers. Short ones, not the ones already 6 feet tall and still climbing. They are popping up all over the yard, so it's walk over here, chop, carry with you over there, chop, etc. Then they get tossed into the old pond to decompose, along with their old dead square stems.

A whole mound of previously cut creeper vines, now thoroughly brown and thus finally dead, got relocated from just over the fence for the raspberry patch and into the former pond. If you hadn't seen the mound there, you'd never notice.

Previous pruning/chopping left small piles of brush scattered around. Most of those had lots of leafy stuff attached, something Paul wants in the pond rather than the wood pile. I get that. I was just too tired to do anything when I hit my wall those days, so they sat. I took two apart this morning, stripping off tender branches with leaves for the pond, putting woody branches in the bigger brush pile. Of course, that bigger pile already had a big mix of non-woody cup flower stalks - on the bottom, no less - that I had to strip out individually and haul over to the pond. So four piles became one of mostly brush - hey, I didn't strip ALL the leafy stuff out - and a higher level of stuff decomposing in the old pond.

Note to self: do NOT try to walk across that pond, not matter how much you want to trim the wigelia back and kill/remove the trees behind them scraping the house when the wind blows. It's a walking hazard. Let Paul do it.

Nothing more is dead today than when I started, at least nothing major. There was a bunch of grass pulled at the bottom of the stairs, along with creeping charley and dandelions. Enough got cleared that some deadly nightshade vines lost their hiding spots and got somewhat demolished. Some moss patches got cleared off the concrete steps now that sun can hit them and it's drying up. I still put my hour+ in, and the dog whining reminded me that I promised Steve not to overdo it this morning.

But like I said, nothing major happened out there. You can't look around and see progress like in previous days. Not unless you're part of that ant hive I disturbed at the bottom of the stairs when the rocks topping it got rearranged when creeping charlie roots lost their grips. At least they're not the biting kind. If I can't get positive acknowledgement, I at least want to avoid complaints.

Eye Opener

Literally... and figuratively as well. What is it with these guys? Or am I painting with too broad a brush, considering I'm selecting two out of the universe of these guys?

Today was my get-new-glasses eye exam. I have my own unique way of prepping for one of these. I don't wear glasses for hours ahead of the exam. I want my eyes to be  examined in as near a possible to their resting state. I discovered years ago that if I had been reading in the car while waiting for my next run to come along, and reading lasted over half an hour or so, when I refocused my eyes on the road I'd see double. Not everything, but double power lines stood out against a blue sky. If they changed for that, they might change from any wearing of glasses for a period of time before the test. I so seldom am perfectly satisfied with my next pair of glasses. Since I can see better driving without them right now, there seemed no down side to the idea.

All the technical stuff, checking the "new" lens where the cataract grew, looking for possible macular degeneration, effects of pre-diabetes, all that stuff had already been checked out by my eye surgeon before we left Arizona. But he's a little pricey, so I tend to go to a chain store to get my prescription for glasses checked before getting new glasses. Big savings! Turns out I still got charged $93. Just for the simple exam. Used to be under $50.

I need new glasses. Not the frames. They're perfect. Titanium, purple, flattering to my face, and fashionable from my grandmotherly point of view. But lately I'd been frustrated while trying to read road and street signs. Even watching TV was clearer without the glasses. It was time. A little research pushed the idea that I might consider switching back to glass rather than polycarbonate lenses. Glass, after all, is what is used in precision optics like camera lenses. I arrived at my appointment with questions.

The first one wasn't what I'd planned to ask. The vision center requires mask wearing. Not a problem, I keep a supply hanging from the turn signal arm in the car, handy for any place requiring them when I'm out and about. But the optometrist ( right word?) wore his under his nose. So what I blurted out was whether he knew it didn't do him any good unless it covered his nose? He rather firmly replied it didn't make any difference. Masks didn't prevent any body from getting covid, and only people who watched CNN or MSNBC didn't know that. There was absolutely no scientific proof otherwise. None.

Well, I immediately pegged him as a FOX watcher. Since I'm fully vaccinated I really didn't worry for myself and he could wear or not wear his mask any which way he chose and it wouldn't affect me. Nonetheless, my second question was to mildly inquire whether he'd gotten his vaccinations then? This time he got a bit huffy. He considered his vaccination status as a private personal health issue and he wasn't about to share it with anybody! I took that as a "No." Everybody I know is happy to talk about where they were in the process and which vaccine was used, along with reciting the ease or struggles they had with getting their shots. But again, I didn't figure it affected me, so we got down to the exam.

Somewhat surprisingly my eye prescription hadn't changed ... in 5 years! Other than the cataract, of course. That's where my records with this store went back to. This was when I asked about glass vs. polycarbonate lenses. He took a close look at my current glasses and informed me the nonreflective coating (optional) on the glasses was flaking away, distorting my view through them. He wasn't sure if real glass would react the same way with that coating, but glass was pretty rare in his business these days so it was probably a moot point. Anyway, I could just order polycarbonate without the coating. I'd likely be as happy if not more so with those lenses.

The discussion had distracted him from the bifocal exam. Or in my case, trifocal. Every time he offered me a choice between two lens corrections, saying that I likely couldn't tell the difference, I found a distinct difference. Not sure what each set was about, but one was always quite clear and one not in each pair today. This was novel to me as well. I've usually had a hard time distinguishing between those pairs.

After discussing the other things in my eye history which had already been examined thoroughly and making notes in my chart, we finished up amicably and he sent me off to the other part of the store to order my new lenses. More surprises lay waiting. I asked again about the possibility of glass lenses, and she had to check. The only way those are available these days is with "Transitions" lenses, the kind which darken/lighten depending on inside/outside conditions. Those  never worked for me. Before I'd bought them, nobody had ever bothered to inform me that car windows block the UV rays which trigger the change. I just wasted my money on them since I spent my days in a car for 29 years. (That's why the left eye cataract.) Still, I was curious about the pricing, now that I was retired and spending actual time outdoors. Another check, then I was quoted a price three times the cost of polycarbonate lenses. That decision was easy!

She walked away with my current glasses, put them in a machine in the back alcove, then returned them to me. No measuring where on the lenses the bi-and tri- focals should line up. No keeping the glasses to put the new lenses in. I was surprised. I had an older pair at home, still good enough, which I'd packed for such a contingency. The only reason I didn't have them along was I left finding them till there was no time for an extended search to figure out where I'd packed them, once we discovered it wasn't in the glove box as I'd thought. Just as well then. Still, I asked why I got these back, and she explained the machine had done all the measuring, the new lenses would be cut to specifications, and in about a week they'd pop the old ones out and put the new ones in.

On my way out the door my mind returned to wondering just what it was with optometrists and their "science" opinions. Of course, I admit my universe of two was this guy, and Rand Paul. This guy at least had real credentials, not resorting to making up a way to credential himself like Rand Paul had done. Still....

Uhhhh... Say What?

I didn’t notice at the time. I was on my cell talking to a friend, having left the living room to do so without the sound of the TV interfering. Our bedroom is two doors from there, so I didn’t hear anything. Well, except for the siren going off. I haven’t been back here long enough to remember we don’t actually have a 6PM siren in town, so that didn’t register either. There’s enough light this time of year that I hadn’t turned one on in the bedroom either, all circumstances combining to keep me from being aware that the power had gone off.

I found out when I emerged after the call. The TV wasn’t on. Paul was sitting in the living room talking to Steve rather than in his room playing video games. Hmmm, surely AGT  should be on now, right? That’s when I was informed that the lights had flickered and died just seconds before the siren triggered.

We sat around for several minutes discussing how long it might be off. It’s sticky out, and the house AC is very welcome these days.  The fridge and basement freezers are packed full. No fans blow, no internet, no microwave, Steve is stuck in his lift chair … the list started to grow of reasons to begin concern.

I still keep the  phone number for the power company here in my cell directory. I decided to call to see what we could find out about how long we should expect to wait. What I got instead was a very interesting voicemail system. After the usual prompts, I wound up where power outages get reported, and information about them is provided. However, there is a backup, and perhaps I might wish to go to their website to find out what was happening in my area.

Uhhh … Say what?

*     *     *     *

Paul eventually called the local sheriff's department to find out what they knew about the shut-down. Nothing. They referred him to a different number for the power company and they had no clue either, so he wound up reporting the outage. After taking a walk around the neighborhood, he assessed it was at least that area wide. Nobody but us had reported it, apparently. On his phone call we were informed they had just assigned a truck to deal with it. Paul set a candle in the bathroom before we retired to a hot sticky night of trying to sleep.

A loud blast from the smoke detector over our heads woke us around 4 AM. While I slept however fitfully, Steve had managed to work his way out of his lift hair and join me in bed. With AC now working I moved back into the living room, sprawled across the couch with my mobile furry lap warmer, falling deeply asleep enough not to hear Paul get up and leave for work. Now it's time to try to recall just how each clock resets, except the battery one in the kitchen that Paul made for me back in high school. And Steve will get another lesson on how to find the missed episode of AGT on demand.

Grunge Day

Don't get close! I'm sure I reek. Really, really, reek. Mind you, it's just a logical conclusion, since my nose gets stuffy in this humidity, especially when out pulling grasses beginning to sport pollen. Not only did I work two  morning shifts of yard work - less than an hour each -  to the point where even the bandana can't keep the sweat out of my eyes, but I'm recycling the same work clothes without bothering to launder them for the last couple weeks in between times. I mean, what's the point? 

I promise you I shower as many times a day as is necessary to appear in even semi-polite company. But the clothes are old, sturdy,  and pretty well saturated by now with Deep Woods Off! and still do an excellent job of keeping most of the mosquitoes at bay. That's a big thing. I'm the person they zoom in on even in crowds. I recall decades ago liking to date one particular fellow because the  mosquitoes liked him even better then they did me! It was a gift.

I have no plans to go out any more today. Not anywhere. Tomorrow holds errands enough, and yesterday did as well.  Today I needed to make more progress on the yard. There are days when I have to force myself to get out there, especially when if I delay it's going to creep up in to the 90s. For you AZ folk, recall those are humid 90s. I'd be perfectly comfortable working in the dry air. Or at least that's what I tell myself when I get whiny here. And remember, it's a self-assigned task. Today was one of those days when the job kept nagging at me to return and do more.

The raspberry patch has been essentially completed along the south side, and had a bit done along the north. There's still a bit of grass to kill or pull, and by now my vote is in for kill. It's not near anything that needs to live in case of wind drift. The ground weeds were much more fun when I started, when the ground was still moist from recent rains so the roots pulled up easily, and the chair feet sunk in about two inches before I finished each spot. Yes, I'm doing as much sitting work as possible. But the main job has long since switched to cutting. Cutting trees. Cutting virginia creeper vines so old they spring from embedded vines-become-trunks over an inch thick and impossible to pull out of the ground. So I have to follow behind myself after each cut by painting the remaining "stump" whether tree or vine with stump killer. Then there's piling up, dragging out to new piles, and trying to keep my footing in very uneven ground.

Along the way it's helpful if I can manage to keep track of my tools. I "lost" my paint brush for over a day. I know exactly where I put it last, next to the hand pruners and loppers just outside the fence where I stopped for the day. Even the bottle I use to hold small amounts of chemical as I go around was right there. But could I find the brush? I dug back grass, pulled out leaves, checked on the other side of the fence in case, and... nothing. I started again the next morning, sure I'd overlooked something perfectly simple and there it would be right in plain sight. It was. Right in front of my nose if my nose was at the right angle. It was clinging to a cross wire in the fence! You know, only about a foot off the ground. But hey, those leaves and grasses needed to be cleared out anyway. I guess.

I dug out the "before" pictures of the garden I took as part of the whole yard project and compared them with current progress to make sure I wasn't just imagining my level of progress. In the "before" you can't even see half way back into the raspberry patch. Now one side is empty and at the far end the three old bird houses can be clearly seen hanging precariously where they are wired to fence posts, awaiting replacements (ordered) so new families can grow up there. The other side shows some progress when you know where to look, but you have to know vines got removed there too before overhanging branches got chopped off. Still lots of work there, like raking up piles of dead vegetation, but I decided on a change-up.

It's Paul's fault. He started clearing a bit along the deck railing. It was pretty solid box elder trees, multi-stemmed from previous attempts to cut the trees down without killing stumps. Five years ago the west side of the deck was lined with nanking cherries. For whatever reason, Paul cut those down and replaced them with honeyberries. Yeah, I'd never heard of them either. Two short bushes have survived and he's picked a bowlful of very oval blue berries for me to eat. They are very tart but delicious combined with cottage cheese, my breakfast these last three days.  Anyway, in order to get at the honeyberries he needed to pull out grass taller then they were, and he also started taking out sow thistles and smaller trees. Apparently he wasn't waiting for my efforts to reach that part of the yard. Berries ready now! NOW! So I switched from the other side of the raspberry patch to the deck. Clipping and painting, tossing large branches over the honeyberry bushes onto the grass to be stacked later next to the garden with all the other woody refuse so far.

It's a much bigger pile now. It would be even larger but I hit my wall, not just in energy but in what I can do without a chain saw. I turned the corner and started working on the south side of the deck next to the old pond. Those trees have huge convoluted stumps. I'll cheerfully follow Paul around with a paint brush after he takes those down close to ground level. But my tools literally won't cut it. Meanwhile he should be impressed with my progress.The honeyberries should too, now that they're getting more sun.

But I've changed my mind. Enough grunge day. I NEED A SHOWER!

Ten Lessons Learned In An Overgrown Garden

First, be careful what you wish for. And plant, however far away. Specifically, don't plant Virginia creeper along your fence unless you want it to be an invasive mess 30 years later. Now, I like Virginia creeper vines in their place, and the fence should have been ideal. But the ferns appeared and choked them out (!!!!!!) so I no longer saw that brilliant red fall foliage offset by blue berries. Now that I'm snowbirding, I still don't see it, though not because the plant is no longer there. Like me it's merely relocated. Not south, but to the raspberry patch.

After a week of hard work, most of the leafy vines are gone. Some of the underground roots too. However... once the full patch gets cleared out we can go in and saw trees down, chop vine roots and "paint' them all with stump killer. Then sit back and watch for whatever returns and needs another deadly dose.

Of course, there won't be sitting. Not this year. Too many high priority jobs remain. After those, too many lower priority jobs remain.

Next lesson: when Virginia creeper vines create a canopy over the former raspberry patch, they create the perfect shady conditions for the lily of the valley to take over at ground level. Again, I love lily of the valley and planted it deliberately - in the front of the house. The flowers smell lovely, something from my childhood as well as much of my adulthood. They require so little care they tend themselves to become invasive. The good news is when you go in to dig out the few remaining weeds and new trees they haven't choked out of their patch, stepping on them doesn't destroy them. For long. As to how they traveled from the front of the house to the deep back yard, I blame birds. Those pretty red fruits get chomped, seeds pooped out. Boom! Population explosion.

Lesson Three: The grass in the original "lawn" is still alive and well. Forget bluegrass, red fescue, whatever you think you need in your lawn. When we moved in, it was a "virgin" lot. There were no trees, nothing above 6' tall on the whole property. The 6' groundcover consisted of grass, thistles, grass, sedges, thistles, grass, dandelions, and grass. Plus some weeds of course. Our philosophy for lawn care is whatever survives the treatment we give it is welcome. We did try to add white clover early on, another childhood favorite, but it didn't last. And of course Paul reseeded purple violets from the half dozen plants we brought over from our previous home, all over this new yard. Deliberately, He'd watch the seed pods and catch them just before they !popped! open so he could control where they landed. It worked. But that tall grass still exists in those niches where mowers don't reach, and that includes the gardens.

Lesson Four: Eventually purple violets will self-seed and invade the raspberry patch. Especially when grass clippings are dumped there for a couple dozen years to enrich the soil in the patch.

Lesson Five: Remember those amur maples you loved for their fall color and planted at the front corners of the house back in '91? Remember how many seeds they produced? Remember when you finally got sick of them and chopped them out? Remember how they still pop up all over the yard? 'Nuff said.

Lesson Six: There is no such thing as finishing the job. Nor doing it in a single day. Or week. Work hard but pace yourself, just like in the pool. Start stopping - yeah, I know it sounds funny but bear with me - when you start to tire rather than after you hit that wall. There is still the job of moving piles of what you pulled or dug out, collecting tools and your presumably now empty water bottle and putting them in their places, and the requirement for getting into the house where you can consume a quick snack to replenish your energy. Exhaustion lasts hours. It lasts longer if you can't bother to walk another 10 feet to the refrigerator and back again. And need I mention the likelihood of that post-sweating shower when you can't bring yourself to even eat?

 Lesson Seven: The bird house boxes do rot out after being ignored for too many years. However, while they can't use the boxes anymore,  birds will use the vine canopy as a foundation to keep doing what they need to do. (I had to check the nest to verify it wasn't in current use.) They will be different birds however, since the ones that use boxes are a tad fussy about having their fully enclosed spaces, and are unused to winding twigs around vines and fighting their way through to feed their brood. Next time, paint the boxes! Often. And keep the vines away.

Lesson Eight: Wear your sweats. Not just because you will sweat, since this is summer in humidville, but because the mosquitoes can't get you through the fabric. and the buggers really do love you. It could be considered a compliment, but.... anyway, hold those out fromt he laundry and keep wearing them for the yard work. Why launder stuff every day when it's just going to be nasty immediately again? And don't forget that part of lesson six about saving enough energy to clean yourself and putting on something more discretely fragranced.

Lesson Nine: Wear a bandana. First you have to locate a couple. Once that is done, wear it above your eyes. They really do allow you to work past the point where you start to sweat, keeping it out of your eyes. Of course, again refer to lesson six about not overdoing it out there, now that you've lost that cue.

 Lesson Ten: I consider this the most important lesson. You can get up off the ground again after you fall when you overbalance out there. When nobody is home, or just sleeping. When you didn't bring your phone out. When there's nothing to help pull yourself up again and the knees and their assorted muscles don't do the job by themselves, and you can't kneel painlessly because you no longer have kneecaps. When you do your best to avoid the resultant pain where it feels both fake bones are trying to cut their way out through the knee. When your arms alone can't pull you up and you can't get the leverage to get your legs into position.

At least the ground is soft, not rocks all over like in Arizona. And at least your mom taught you to butt-walk as a kid and you found it fun. It took an hour, trying various things, finally giving up doing it inside the garden and butt walking over to the ramp from the deck. Admittedly, part of that time was due to deciding as long as you were going that way, you'd pull out more weeds along your route from the other side of the patch you'd been ignoring thus far. 

The solution turned out to be getting the right leverage. It involved a final yard of crawling, but once at the bottom of the ramp, the vertical posts gave the arms exactly what they needed to assist in stabilizing the torso so the legs could get into position and do their work. I'd offer to show you, but really, I'd appreciate it if you don't actually ask me to.

Meanwhile, I'm avoiding overbalancing out there. And I told the guys to please check on me in the garden if they get home from work or fishing or just wake up and I'm not where I'm supposed to be. Just in case. I might be a long way from the ramp. I'm just hoping it becomes their lesson learned too.

Surreal

Today's episode follows our intrepid blogger as she tried to complete a few simple errands.

OK, overblown much? Mea Culpa. Might as well have titled this post "Damages." Every stop reinforced how covid has changed my former world. Steve and I may have just sat relatively peaceably at home through it all for way too long, but getting out and about turned into a series of shocks this morning. And afternoon.

I had a list. It was fairly long, so I didn't want to forget any of the errands. 

First was the local post office, returning a magazine sent to our house number (correct) but ours was the wrong street, and nobody here reads Architectural Digest. It'll get redirected. However, on the way in, I saw a familiar face. I've known him for years, a property owner all over the county, including the actual post office we were standing outside of. He also owns in our town an apartment building and the former creamery which had been rehabbed partly into a venue where Steve and I had our commitment ceremony back in 2012. In his role as a landlord, I had a question for him. Did he know how to get in touch with where a former tenant had moved (in with her sister) before she died? We had something of hers and were trying to figure out how to connect with her relatives. This was a person well known to him, from a variety of connections, for years. He didn't recognize her name. As I tried to explain to him who she was, I quickly recognized he wasn't the sharp dealer I'd gotten to know over several  years, including his several times appearing before the city council trying to get beneficial ordinances - or exceptions - for his particular wants. I quickly settled for the usual "glad to see ya" pleasantries that hurry a conversation to its close. He'd certainly changed in a couple years. I didn't stop to explore why.

On the way I reorganized where some of my errands would be located. Two were financial institutions, with various branches. I could just hit Forest Lake, 17 miles in towards the metro, for the first, the site of my final stop, a WalMart. But I needed to hit my credit union, much sparser in locations available, and decided to relocate all but the final stop to a small area of the metro. There lay the sites of one fantasy stop and another at my favorite camera store. It had been in the back of my mind ever since planning to head up to Minnesota again that I'd hit that particular camera store. And since I was doing that, I had the opportunity to dither about whether or not to stop at my old place of employment to see if anybody there still remembered me. So that would be first stop on the rest of my list - if I still wanted to do so.

I had all but decided to  stop by work when I ran into road construction. Lots of road construction. Lots of signs, few of them helpful. It's been my observation that detour signs and this-way-to-that-exit signs make more sense  the second time you go through them. The first time you find out what they didn't actually mean. Was my desired exit still available? It wasn't last time I drove by, two years ago, and it's now in the heart of a huge project. Roads go different places now. Others don't go, period.  So in my first mistaken turn, I took advantage of a place to turn around by utilizing a gas station with a posted price $.11 cheaper than anything I'd seen in a week or more and filled up. My second wrong turn showed me some new and old roads  that got me deciding that yes, I definitely was going to stop at work, but I was taking the next exit instead of where I was. I knew there was a way to get there from here, but which street exactly? It was no longer that familiar, construction of roads and new buildings, loss of landmarks both contributing.

OMG, I was losing my map! It was something I took complete confidence in, knowing everything about how to get around in the metro... until now. I was confident in my workarounds, being able to figure out from the alternatives how to get there. But there was that hole there.... Finding my old route in, my recent missteps had me wondering for a bit how much of the changes I was seeing around me were new and how much might be just stuff I'd forgotten. Is this how Alzheimer patients started, knowing there were gaps but not how to fill them? 

In the end, my drive-by of the old work site turned out to show a wholly different company occupying the building. Scratch that fantasy, guys. Did the old company survive the pandemic? No way to know  this day, so on to the camera store. They could be a block away, or just reduced to the back end of the building, and I'd never know.

Roseville is also under construction, two lane streets converging into one feeding into 4-way stops where the lights were out. A familiar Burger King had  (my) usual exit blocked off, and even the motorcycle ahead of me changed tack and didn't try to ride in that way. When I finally got to the "L" shaped strip mall with the camera store, it wasn't there. About half the storefronts were vacant, others held different companies. National Camera Exchange was one of the casualties, at least at that location. (Further research once home showed the other ones have survived.) It was being driven home to me by now - yeah, slow learner, folks! - that I probably should have checked what still existed before I left the house. I knew businesses had folded, now was being slapped in the face - and my ignorance - of how extensive that has been.

OK, my next two stops were very close. First, my credit union. It had always been between Good Earth - great restaurant and still in business, hooray! - and a mattress store. No mattress store. No credit union, replaced by a bank I'd never heard of before. At least I have the credit union's phone number in my cell phone. I was assured the Roseville branch was still open. Eventually she gave me their actual address, and yep, they'd moved. About a block away, and once I'd turned the corner, there it was. I pulled into a parking space in order to endorse a pair of checks to deposit, and upon backing out needed to pause for an idiot coming head-on towards me the wrong way on the one-way drive. She missed me, at least. But the ATM was built for somebody in a jacked-up SUV, not a hatchback. I had to do my own repositioning of the car, and half step out to reach the slots and buttons required for a deposit. It's definitely not a walk-up machine, or it would have been simple. Bad engineering. But at least I finally knocked another item off the list.

The next one was Steve's bank. It was kitty corner across a major intersection also all muddled up with construction, overcrowded streets full of impatient drivers. I decided to scratch it - at least at this location. There's one back up in Forest Lake, where the WalMart is. No need to fight my way through this mess. Instead, I inadvertently chose to fight my way through a bunch of other  messes. The freeway back north is something from a very wicked person's nightmares. It kept pointing me ahead to reach the actual freeway... and then dumped me off again at the next exit. After three of those, I chose to take that particular road  a few miles to a spot well beyond the construction mess. Maybe next time I get on that.... No, scratch that, I'm taking something else to get there, or better yet, not going there at all again. Without the camera store, I see no reason to visit Roseville again this summer. Golden Valley should be a good alternative branch location. Or I could call. Or check online. Or....

Forest Lake's bank was another ATM, but this time set at a height for ordinary cars. Errand done. Back to the WalMart I bypassed on my way.

By now I was worn out in more ways than one. My morning had started with its now usual hour in the yard, after breakfast and before my return to civilization otherwise referred to as a shower and clean clothes. All the driving and frustrations added to my tiredness, so for the first time in years, I opted for a motorized scooter. I knew going in that 1: this was an unfamiliar store and 2: I would be hunting all over for several things before even hitting the grocery section. So, list: Nikes shoes. The website says this store carries them. It lied.  Next, bandanas, needed to keep the sweat out of my eyes so I can work longer. After asking three different people where they were located I finally found somebody who knew. No, they weren't "up in front with the men's hats." First, what men's hats? Anybody? For future reference, bandanas are in an aisle next to jewelry. And boy is there a selection! I'm guessing they stocked up with weird shi... uh, stock after lots of people decided they made covid masks. Something had to explain the selection. 

Next, bras. Always a disappointment for a variety of reasons. Let's just start with my requirement for a front closure due to my rotater cuffs. Walmart had one kind that had a front closure, and they'd likely fit a 5-year-old just fine, should she need one. You know, another of those sound business decisions some people make. Anyway, I'm still wearing out the 4-year-old ones I've got. No joy at Walmart.

Except for the groceries on the list. They had all I needed, and even just in that department I was glad of a scooter for all the hunting and backtracking I needed to do. It was time to head home. Now some of the groceries are in, others still in the car - if you can consider paper napkins and laundry detergent as groceries. I'll get them in when needed. I'm getting too old for this stuff.