Helping Even When It Hurts

That's when it really counts. Let me give you an example.

I have a stepson who lives in the Knoxville area of Tennessee. He drives for a company much like Uber. Naturally the recent high gas prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its consequences are hurting his bottom line. He'd called his father before and let him know what the impact and his frustration with it were.

Yesterday he transported somebody to just a few miles from the Wears Valley fire. It was expanding quickly at the time due to high winds. An evacuation was mandated, and he got caught in the traffic. I got a call while his father was sleeping and heard a few details, like how it took him over an hour to go just a mile in the congestion and smoke.

His father talked to him later in the day to make sure his son was home safe, which he was. But once he'd dropped his customer off, he returned to the area people were evacuating from, and gave rides to several carfuls of them to help them flee. He never charged them a penny.

That's the kind of action which matters.

Robo Call

Ring..... Ring....

Caller ID gives a Minnesota area code, 651-478-3825. No other info.

"Hello?"  .....

Nothing. I'm already suspicious. But what the heck? Again, "Hello?"

A recorded "Hello?" comes back to me. 

Pause, slight click.

Then, as if the recording hadn't already just said "hello", an uninflected voice continues,  "Hello, this is Sarah from the Department of Visa and Master Card. How are you today?"

"Not answering robo-callers. Bye."

Click.

Seriously? There's a "Department of Visa and MasterCard?" Department within what? A department is a subset of something bigger, but what? Aren't Visa and Master Card competitors? And why just pick those two? Don't they like Discover? American Express? I'm sure they have no clue whom they just dialed, and fully expect me to cough up that information for them, along with account numbers, etc. Just how dumb do they think we are? AKA how dumb are they? And for that matter, since these kinds of people keep calling, there must be something in it for them, begging the question just how dumb are we?

*   *   *   *

I've gotten similar calls over the years from somebody forgettable offering to let - uhh, help - me screw my credit card companies by $10 grand each to minimize my debt. I never took them up on it, though I'd heard there was a way to do so legally. Even when my main card was nearly at its max, I wouldn't consider doing that. I've worked for many years to establish and grow my credit rating. Why would I mess with that? Even when my balance was high and I unexpectedly retired ahead of time, I wouldn't consider it. I just kept working to shrink that balance  down. Right now I have two cards, nevermind which: one's a debit card so no actual balance, the other with several hundred sitting on it. Periodically something comes up and the balance goes up, like when we returned last fall and needed a new oven. The last of that lingering expense will be gone in a couple weeks. So no, whatever the heck they're offering, no way I'm buying.

Perhaps, however, some day when I have enough spare time for a little mischief, I might decide to engage with them for a few chuckles. 

Or then again, maybe not.

One Lasting Image

I'm pretty Ukrained out. Not that I've stopped caring. No, I follow the news still, to an extent. I just don't - can't - embed myself in it, every offered source, any medium, every hour. One or two stories a day, noting how video keeps repeating, some losses here, a bit of progress there, that's my limit.

There is one image that keeps with me, along with all the questions I likely will never find the answers to that go along with it. How did he get to this point? What became of him? What kind of scars will it leave? If there will be one image that tells the story of the awfulness of war, for me it will be this one. Not the rows upon rows of demolished buildings, broken bridges, stalled convoys of tanks.  Not the burning Russian ships in harbor, suddenly unable to unload their cargos of destruction. Not even any of those shots of Zelenski, staying in his country, leading, encouraging all his countrymen to follow his example, and still begging for more help.

The image which haunts me, etched in my brain, is from the very early days, when evacations of women and children were starting. It is of a single child, perhaps 4, perhaps 8, nothing giving a better hint of age besides the roundness in the features of his face and short stature. He's bundled in a puffy coat, a scarf around his neck. Somebody cared enough to protect him from the winter weather. He's walking on whatever road was the way to hope for those leaving. There is a small group several yards ahead of him. Another walks several yards behind. 

He walks alone, frozen for all time in my mind, crying.

Grieving, In Advance

Steve is grieving these days. Even little reminders will set it off. He somehow believes he needs to apologize to me for the tears running down his face and the quaver in his voice, once he can get himself together enough to speak again. I have to remind him that no apologies are ever required for that.

He has a treasured childhood friend named Gene. Unlike what many of us have had, this is a relationship which has lasted through the decades. They might have not spoken for a year or more at times, but they always reconnected as if they'd just spoken, but now had some more news to share.

I got introduced to Gene as a concept, hearing about him and their childhood games. The boys were in elementary school, and Gene's house had that magic prop for all their adventures, a back porch. It was a fort, a house, a wagon, whatever imagination and need turned it into. 

There was one favorite game, always starting the same way before branching off exploring new possibilities. The Civil War had just ended, and our two soldiers, after fighting for opposite sides, met again and paired up. Any conflict from the war was buried: there was A PROBLEM which needed to be solved. Somebody needed to be rescued, whether from wild Indians or rogue bandit ex-soldiers or whoever was evil on the western frontier where their imaginations roamed. Before suppertime, of course all was again well, our two heroes triumphing once again just in time for that call to return home. If you think any of this sounds familiar, there was a John Wayne movie back when that may or may not have stolen the plot from one of their adventures.

I got introduced to Gene in person several years ago. He and his partner Vickie were living in Jacksonville, Florida. We flew out to join them to fulfill one last adventure, along with some socializing, a visit to Homosassa Hot Springs to see manatees and feathered wildlife, and the Atlantic coast which neither of the two of us had visited yet. The adventure in question this time involved visiting one of those costumed photo studios, dressing up in their chosen soldier roles, and getting shots to keep. Nevermind that it was two old men in those pictures. In their own eyes they were forever boys on that back porch.

As a reward for my providing transportation, Steve had me dress up as a fancy lady (lady? well, fancy anyway) of the time, and we got a shot together. Turns out the trick to most of those costumes is they have no backs, and if you are on the large side, and posing carefully, they appear to fit. The cameraman and I - as well as Gene - had disagreements about how our heads should be tilted. With attitude? (Our preferences.) Or chins and hats way up so the entire face shows. The results were kind of in-between. Everybody had to compromise.

Fast forward a few years to the present. Gene has been in a nursing home for a couple months now. No diagnosis for him, or at least none shared. He's wasting away, getting weaker, frailer, and barely able to eat, just a shadow of his former self. He's as tall as Steve but down to 115 pounds. By the time he became unable to reach over and pick up his own cell to answer a call, he also announced he was hoping that he didn't have to live much longer. Steve several times contacted the home and asked for his nurse, or one at his station at least. Sometimes that worked, so Gene at least knew his lifelong friend was still caring and trying to connect, even though calls were necessarily short. Other times nobody seemed interested enough in making the connection possible. 

Gene was finally given hospice status, though it didn't involve relocating to another section of the home. Reaching him became nearly impossible. But just a few days ago, Steve got a call from  Gene's phone. He'd had help making it of course, and it lasted perhaps three tear filled minutes. The messages passed were essentially "I love you" and "Good-bye." For Steve the most important one was Gene telling him that he'd been the closest thing to a brother Gene had ever had.

I doubt either of us believe there will be another call. Well, not except for that very last one telling Steve it's over. He tried to ask Gene if he could put him on the list of people to notify after the end. I'm not sure Gene ever comprehended the message, since Steve broke up several times trying to say it. Hopefully Vickie will call when she's able to so we know. Meanwhile everybody's in a kind of limbo, hanging on to not knowing as if that were actual news, waiting for that final notice that ends any hope.

And Steve grieves.

Warning Received And Noted

I get notices via email from my home and auto insurance companies each month reminding me that they will be pulling $..... from my account of the x-teenth of the month. When it's just that, I give the account a quick check for checking balance, and myself a mental reminder to either shift funds or make sure not to spend them until afterwards, since those are the last large bills each month. No biggie.

When I get something else from them I pay attention. It might be a notice of rate increase, or even a request for current vehicle mileage just so they can check to see if I still qualify for the low distance discount. I always figure that even in my fuel efficient vehicle, when I put less than 10 gallons in the tank a month, I still qualify, even with our annual summer trip north.

Last week it was a notice of annual renewal, with accompanying documents to read, to be followed by actual paper ones IF I ignored their notice to just read the emailed form. Since my email makes me read attachments in about a size minus 1 font, I ignored that. Sure enough the readable paper version showed up a couple days ago.

Today, however, was a different kind of email altogether. It warned me to prepare my home for floods. It assumed I am somebody stupid enough not to realized that even if I'm NOT near a stream or river, that rain, melting snow from the back yard (why not the front? no explanation) or even ice off the roof could flood my home and cause damage. I needed to check out everything to avoid those problems.

What it didn't say but I assume was implied in their warning was my possible need to upgrade my coverage to cover flood damage. I also happen to know that flood insurance only covers you and is only available to buy if you are in a "likely to flood" area, better known as a flood zone. I never have carried it. Never qualified.

I could have used it at the last house, once. It was built just after state laws were changed to mandate an egress window, such-and-such sized, for the basement. My builder, we found out later, was battling the bottle more than maintaining construction standards, and had the back yard graded so that our egress from said window was made easier by having a nice wide swath of yard slope gently up from that window to meet the rest of the yard. Translation: A nice wide swath of the yard sloped down into the window, carrying the entire load of rain falling there right through the window into the basement. Of course, by the time that 10" rainfall occurred, the documents had been long signed and no monetary damages were obtainable. Thus started my many treks to a local compost pile with a shovel and tarp in the back of the hatchback, delivery via wheelbarrow to the back of the (fenced in) yard by the window, raising the ground level via concrete retaining wall blocks, until that couldn't happen again. Made a nice spot for hostas, tiger lilies, and a bazillion suddenly well-fed weeds, including a few trees I worked hard to kill off last summer. It kind of kills the point of an egress window when trees prevent its opening outward.

By the way, the hatchback survived nicely, even if the tires looked a little squished on a few of the drives home.

Now I am about two miles from a river here.  I know that because there is a sign announcing it every time I cross it on a bridge. The sign is the only reason I know that large open space is considered a river and not somebody's open dumping space, or to-be-developed-once-prices-get-high-enough land, or something. There are no cottonwood trees lining the banks to point out its path. There is no channel visible from any of the bridges while I'm driving on them, and not just because the car is a compact and the bridge walls are high enough to almost keep trucks from driving off them. There just isn't any water in the Agua Fria River, despite its claims, neither cold nor warm. There are homeless people encamped there, along with typical Arizona desert wildlife: birds, coyotes, rattlesnakes, brown recluse spiders, ants, bees, and the occasional javelina, none of which apparently discourage the homeless population from seeking the shade under one of the overhead bridges. They do tend to sleep on high ground there, though I suspect it's because of the shorter distance for them that way to local streets and businesses rather than fear of being swept away.

I have on a couple occasions actually seen water pooling in small areas of the backyard, I must admit. Mostly in very scattered spots, low enough to get the runoff from other scattered slightly higher spots. In a daylight downpour, it looks to get to be about an inch deep in the low places. My slab which the house is built on sits up about 2 - 5" above ground level. 

I think we're pretty safe here from spring flooding. 

(Delete)

The Free Rock Sale

OK, it started as a sale. That's before the club discovered we had well over twice as many rocks taking up unnecessary space in the club as we thought. There was a whole other room! They HAD to go.

We did advertising via email out to the club membership. A few - relatively - of them were polished or tumbled. Many were slabs ready to cut and polish for cabochons. Wayyyyyy too many more were chunks. Some huge chunks. Yard rocks. So we had to let everybody know that however they desired another hundred rocks, we pretty much had  it for them. For the yard, check. Line a flower pot, check. Make coasters, check. Work your lapidary skills on, check. Gather a variety for your favorite children to interest them in rocks, check.

By the time the second room yielded its bounty, the officers all decided that since we HAD TO get rid of all of them, we'd change our pricing system and make them all free. We all agreed to show up Monday an hour before the sale started to gather them, spread them out on the set of tables that stretched about 24 feet long, and organize them. Silly us, thinking first that all of us would show up then, and that it was enough time to get the job done.

I worried about that enough to come into the club on Saturday. First task was taking all the various pieces of carpet and foam rectangles, line them edge to edge all the way along the tables, just to protect the surfaces from the rocks. That took the first 15 minutes. By then three other people showed up, planning to do their own something-else in the quiet of a Saturday morning. They wound up hauling boxes and 5 gallon buckets and totes of rocks out and onto the tables, organized somewhat by size, large to small. The large ones got spaced just far enough apart that they could be picked up without smashing fingers. The smallest ones - 8 foot of table worth, got stacked about 5" deep because they needed to be. (This had the benefit of revealing real beauties to latecomers after having been buried by several previous layers.) 

The middle of the length of tables was mostly rock slabs, standing on end in boxes and totes so pretty much all of them were visible and easily picked out. Possibly the oddest items in the sale were various size rocks attached to 2x4s. When I say attached, I mean they were not coming off. The point of the wood was for our very large rock saws, the kind that turn round rocks into a series of slabs, ready for further cutting and polishing, etc. The wood goes into a clamp, the clamp moved into place so the saw cuts through the rock in a series of parallel cuts, avoiding all fingers and any other inadvertent body parts. Wood can be separated from rock, possibly with a wood saw judiciously used, possibly by freezing if the adhesive is wax,  partly by the old good-luck-to-you-finding-the-right-solvent method. If necessary they can always have the wood buried in the ground to "keep it from rolling away" as rocks are wont to do when others envy them.

Not everything went into the sale. We have a long-standing practice of offering small polished rocks free to children, so long as they come in with an adult. (Hopefully the adult is shopping, but that's not a requirement.) We also have tiny ziplock bags one can fill for $.50. Our supply was getting low and there were hundreds of candidates to pick out, painstakingly. More went into a labeled box in the office for later refilling the children's supply. Some complete crap went into a wastebasket or three, or set out on a table with a "free" sign attached. While the sale was announced to start promptly at 10:00 AM Monday, the few of us helping on Saturday got a limited reward for their work. 

Very limited. While we opened the "sale" up to everybody at 9:00 AM for review, and strategy development for getting the most top choice rocks before others did, we refused to officially open until exactly 10:00 before any rocks could be picked off the tables. We wanted to make it fair to everybody.

Recognizing it wouldn't be a case of easily carrying out their selections, several of us provided boxes and bags for everybody to collect their treasures in. I brought in my heavy-duty two-wheeler, aka hand cart, for hauling heavy loads out to cars as they accumulated. Seven or eight people greatly appreciated that, mostly ones gathering yard rocks of course. Including me, also of course.

I took my camera, getting shots of the whole layout before people showed, the layout with folks looking them over, and the actual picking and boxing. My last shot was one person with her box on the two-wheeler heading towards the door. The picture does not show the first two boxes she loaded on her first trip. All those shots will get sent to the club for use on our website. 

There was one very polite discussion when two people wanted, very badly, the same yard rock. They  reconciled it by agreeing to saw the rock in half, literally splitting it. Practically everything else was one of several, even multitudes of others, even some lapis lazuli pieces suitable for making jewelry. Our pair of British members, both rock experts, willingly gave identifications of rocks for any interested. Our two newest members now are seriously considering taking their class in lapidary so they can learn to work with some of their new treasures. That's a win for everybody!

By the time I left, nearly 2:00 PM, the tables were cleared back to a short stack of three bowls of rocks. They will remain through tomorrow morning for one member who requested a look at the remainders and couldn't make it in Monday. Otherwise a different member promised to take the last dregs home to her yard. Those tables are needed tomorrow. Tuesday afternoons are workshop days, and the space is needed. Meanwhile, we can walk into the saws room again without finding a path between 5 gallon buckets of rocks. Half a wall of office space is now available for... well, I'm willing to bet that within a month we have the answer to that as well. My front yard has about 10 new decorations, and a new plan for plantings in between that can actually survive going from full shade to hot summer sun down here. There's a bag of rocks for the great grands, once the youngest is past putting everything in his mouth, to hopefully interest them in the variety out there in the world of rocks. If so, another big win!

Meanwhile it's nap time. Rocks are WORK!

The War Just Got A Little Closer

 It's a tiny thing. It's about a bunch of tiny things. But I just "found out" I have a connection to the Ukriane war.

I've been thinking about ordering some new beads, since some I recently bought to use in jewelry are both selling well and making great gifts. The beads are tiny glass ones, rosebuds, more defined and realistically shaped than the first flower beads I bought, more dainty and delicate than the second large batch I bought. The sales have been doing well enough I thought I'd like to stock up more on a very particular bead along with very similar ones in slightly different colors from the same seller. I've done some "window" shopping, if that term applies to online shopping, where one can put things in their "shopping cart' to be a reminder of what they want in the future, a direct connection to the source selling it, and where one can go back at will and order.

Today was going to be that day. I have a seller who is top on my list of providing the best of its kind, at least so far as I've found. I pulled up the cart, and "this item is unavailable" pops up in red letters. OK, well, I was open to buying from half a dozen more varieties from that shop. The next one said the same. And the next. All the way down the list.

Finally, there was a note on his site that informs his potential customers that he is unable to make beads right now, nor ship them. His shop is closed. It's in Ukraine. And he's gone to fight for his country. It is dated two days ago.

I haven't felt quite so foolish in a while. Of course I knew in the dim dark recesses of my mind where those beads came from. I'd tracked the previous order, though it only registered locations when it departed London on its way to Los Angeles. But the packaging, once here, listed Ukraine as its origin. I forget what part, exactly, not thinking to pay attention, not thinking it mattered that I had a connection, however trivial, with someone over there, not even exactly sure then where it was located in relation to everything else. And of course the wrapping is long gone. After all, I still had the information to connect for another order. What more did I need? Except maybe to give a thought that I knew of somebody involved in that war right now.

He is an exquisite artist. Now he's a soldier. I can only hope he has a chance to be an artist again. This little corner of the world has just gotten a reminder that war is about all the human beings involved in it, not just the refugees, the bombed out apartments, the weapons used, the video shown on TV, the opinions of the world in reaction. Every person involved in it has an individual life, individual dreams, an individual family, and leaves behind an individual mark upon this world. I can only hope that he and others like him don't have to just leave it all.

A Contrast In Attitudes

While I may be cynical about the outcome, it's heartwarming to read the stories and see the videos about the resistance and mocking of Ukrainians and others towards the Russians. From a leader refusing to leave, to an old woman telling an invader that at least the national flower will still grow where he dies, to road signs that not only don't give directions but inform invaders that in every direction they choose they can go f*** themselves, to a Georgian ship refusing to refuel a Russian one, suggesting they row instead,  while giving them the same sentiment, to somebody offering to tow a tank out of fuel back to Russia - I can't help but wonder how we would react if invasion came here. 

 

Ukraine is a shining example to the world. Too many of us sit here and whine about a piece of cloth across the face. Do we even know how to be an example any more? A good one, that is?

 

A Little Vacation 6: Homeward Bound

Of course I was the early riser again, but I actually like it. Well, until the cold of the main room penetrates my bones. The thermostat still isn't improved, since why would it be if nobody's complained? Or even if we had while somebody (us) is staying there? My PJs are just fine while under the blankets, but Steve was still using those and I couldn’t drag them out with me. Worst case, I’d return to bed if necessary. Not really a worst case since Steve's a human furnace.

The morning brought a bonus. The snow had accumulated on the tops of the low mountains in the western distance, and I was finally able, now skies had cleared, to catch them front lit by the sunrise. There wasn’t a  lot of red, but enough to go for the camera. The grass in the nearer orchard had just a touch of frost, lasting just long enough to be seen by Steve when he got up. You'll have to take my word on the frost, since the grass there is so light in color that frost doesn't show in a photo.

Since he was up, I went in and packed everything of mine from the bedroom and brought it out. Steve later did the same with his stuff, but left some of my forgotten things behind since his belongings had covered them, hiding them when I packed. Eventually our stuff was out and the bedroom cleared.

Our friends filtered into the common area and another story fest began. Steve read several of his favorites from his blog. While listening, my friend had been filling in a sketch she’d made the previous day of one of the fresh oranges I’d brought up to share. This one had two leaves still attached, since that’s how the neighbor had cut it from his tree, and she found the now slightly shriveled appearance of those leaves worth immortalizing before eating the fruit. Now she brought out her paints, mixed a few, and added oranges and greens to her work. Once finished, she presented it to me. I had earlier taken a photo of orange, pile of pencils, and sketch sitting on the table once she’d left the room after finishing the drawing part. The orange was now long eaten, pencils put away. I took another photo at home after the painted sketch was dried and flattened. 

Both photos were later emailed to her. I figured it helped commemorate the good news she'd gotten while up here once her cell started receiving signals again. She had submitted drawings to a friend who has been working on publishing a short children's book, and just received the text announcing the project was to be printed, along with a picture of a several-page layout with pictures included.

Once Steve finished his stories, he told a tale that reminded me of a couple of mine, posted years ago. I spent some time locating them while conversation flowed, and read them as well. But time was running out. I promised to email her links to both sets of stories, his and mine, and we quit telling ours and listening to theirs. We were nearly packed, but they weren’t. At least one still needed a shower. So I packed the car, double-checked everything, and Steve and I decided to head out so they could concentrate on clearing out before the deadline for checkout passed. Professional cleaners were due within a short window before the next occupants arrived.

One question had gone around the group earlier. The owners wanted feedback, so what should we tell them? How about it was beautiful inside and out and we found it relaxing? Don’t forget the toaster needed to be replaced. It burns the outsides of the bread, but heats nothing on the inner sides, and never trips the spring to pop it up. The shower/spa tub wasn't safe for geezers like us, having a slick bottom and no safety bars, so suggest a mat or adhesive rough surface and something to hang on to? There was one fall, resulting "only" in bruises. The pool cues need new felt tips. When used they would send a ball anywhere... else. Steve vouched for his fishing buddy that he was in fact a pretty decent pool player and the cue tips were indeed awful. Only one game was played. My friend bemoaned the lack of any measuring cups or spoons in the kitchen, but part of me doubts many customers really cook from scratch while on vacation and miss those. Maybe that’s just me, but I’m not there to cook, I’m there for the companionship and the scenery. And shopping, I guess. Add that the furnace has those long delays between turning on and back off. Oh, and another light would be handy in the living room area, though we disagreed about what kind. We actually borrowed a light from a different area for the table during meals, reinforcing my idea that dim light for eating just isn't romantic. One of the group suggested a ceiling light, but since the likely location was over the pool/pingpong table, that didn’t seem ideal to me, just scattered glass shards waiting to happen.

Going home was actually relaxing. It was just the two of us again. I’d looked at the gas gauge in the car and discovered just over half a tank left, so decided not to fill until we got home. Just as I decided, we drove past a sign advertising gas for $.50 per gallon less that we’d seen for months. Too late to stop. The funny part was the next sign I noticed was another $.40 higher. Was this the effects of the invasion catching up that quickly? Likely not, for by the time I did fill our tank it was almost exactly the same price as when we’d left.

We reminisced  about the week, and enjoyed the snow on all the mountain tops in the distance, surprised that there was high snow even to the northern exurbs of Phoenix, later finding it had rained in our yard. If you think that's an odd phrasing, it simply reflects how scattered rain patterns are down here.

Have you ever heard dog cry? Not whine, actually cry? That’s what I was greeted with as we came inside the house. I was just happy that she didn’t pee on the floor just to see us, back like my aunt’s little dog used to do every time somebody came to the door. But Rich had been taking good care of her. Not the house so much, but the dog was fine. I took her out back for just-in-case. The rain guage on the back fence registered half an inch.  Next day heading out in the car I noted  the volunteer long-spined prickly pear in the front yard has flower buds covering all the outer edges of each of the pads. We should have the first blooms about a week, looking at how the temperatures are supposed to rise by then.

Meantime, the house is a bit cleaner than when we arrived home to a protest of “But you were supposed to be gone until tomorrow” from Rich. The car is unpacked, my laundry done, and my lap dog doing an excellent job of warming my lap again. She’s still trying to decided which of the two of us, me or Rich, is her official feeder now. I finally figured out that was her issue this morning. She hadn’t eaten for two days since we got back, but suddenly Rich popped his head in again and she raced to her food bowl and cleaned it out.

We’re gonna have to work on that. The tail whipping he gets when he shows up - nobody really wants to cure that.