A Welcome Storm

The planting was all done in the circle garden. Two days, aching, sweating, dirty-dirty everywhere, both me and the house. But it was all over for the month.

Oh yeah, it's the end of the month already. OK, for next month too. Labor Day should be enough time for the next cycle of planting, and for these to settle in.

Of course I watered in all the new plantings. As exhausting as it was, I had a reason to finish up. Thunderstorms were expected, promising perhaps a full inch of rain. I wanted to ease my workload, and my water usage, by taking advantage of the weather. 

Of course there are other consequences of thunderstorms. I was kinda hoping for lightning. Sure we heard a lot of thunder, and some strikes were close enough to count off the seconds and know they were about three blocks away... a mile away...two miles away. But nothing was worth a camera. 

Not so the beginning of the storm. Here's a "before" photo, by about a week. Our "limelight hydrangeas" were starting to turn pink. Our next door neighbors have theirs all pink right now. Or whatever's left of course. I haven't gotten that far out yet.

Note how tall this one is. Plans for fall mandate severe pruning, in hopes it won't be scraping the house next summer. That little yellow stripe in the lower left corner is a pointy-bottom shovel. The window bottom is that high off the ground, and the screen is taking whatever abuse is dished out by the hydrangea.

When the storm started it was with a large prolonged burst of wind. We were in the family room, its window facing the street, although blocking most of that view is a limelight hydrangea, twin to the one on the side. We watched it thrashing back and forth, back and forth. With rain already falling, making the huge blossoms even heavier, it was a wild show. Since it kept raining, I wasn't about to take the camera out front for a shot, but decided to check the one on the side.

You can see it's dark by then. In addition, the blossoms are pinker as this was several days after the above shot. Notice the two birdhouses poking up from behind the bent branches? The hydrangea has grown so much that we haven't seen those since the chickadee family fledged from the top one, not being visible from any direction. I'm standing under the protection of our porch roof, using flash which is caught in the reflection from our neighbor's window across the street and back from their porch railing. As a quick note, the house blocked most of the wind from this one. And yet....

Since I was outside, I decided to check on how the storm was doing in soaking the circle garden and supporting my new plantings.

It looks like a pond, because right then and for over an hour later, it was a pond. Obviously, being raised, it does have good drainage. It just wasn't keeping up very well last night. You can see lots of daylily stubs poking up from the dirt. Many more are temporarily swamped. (I checked this morning and they're fine: high, dry, and thriving.)

The rocks on top of the wall were ones dug out of the garden when its soil got turned over. They are looking for their new home. The pile in the center covers a ground fault circuit interrupter. We're covering it over, having no earthly use of it - pun intended. Right now it's covered with rocks, some of which will remain when we later fill the low circle around it with daffodil bulbs and a few bags of soil. We just want to remind anybody that you cannot plant right there. Period. The path in/out which points at about 2:00 will also get more soil once the need to use it is over, and filled with September's other plantings, which are planned for spaces through the rest of the bed: iris, crocus, tulips, scilla, and violets.

I may have over-shopped. 

If I decide I have, some of those will go into the other beds, like where a pair of very nasty thorny roses will be removed. I have this firm prejudice against things in my yard which can do more harm to me than I can do to them.

I will, as necessary, fight back.

Big (Tiny) Surprise

[Note: adding photos somehow messed up the margins. I decided I have enough to do without reinventing the whole post, so please excuse the format.]

Some days nothing feels as wonderful as a cold shower. Especially after doing garden work for three hours on what is the hottest, muggiest day of the year so far. The kind of day where wearing a bandana around your head, especially across your forehead, to keep salt out of your eyes and from clouding your glasses from you sweating only works for the first half hour. I had to wring the bandana out after I got home. I was too beat to rinse it of course, so it'll be nice and crusty when I go to fold it up for use next time. Say, tomorrow. Early in the morning. Because it will be even hotter and muggier unless the weatherman lies. Sure, they make mistakes, right? But I'll give them credit and say "lying" is a step too far. 

Unless, of course, it's DJT with a sharpie pushing a hurricane into Alabama. That was simply a lie. But he's no weatherman either.

This morning was "digging daylilies day", with help from my son Paul. They were ones, or mostly sections of clumps of ones, which I planted in the front garden starting in "91 when that house was built and which I added to over the years up to and including last year, even though I'd sold the house to Paul ten years ago. He let us summer there when we were snowbirding from Arizona, and I helped with the garden... most years.

 Now of course I have a different home and a different, empty, raised bed to fill however I want to. If you've been reading you know that. If you knew my parents you'd know my dad hated daylilies. When he grew up they all were orange. Two weeks of bloom and the rest of the year they'd look like unmowed grass. Now they come in a lot of forms, colors, and different shaped petals including fat frilly ones, even bicolors and tricolors. They bloom for a couple months, if you plant a variety of them. I'm told some are even fragrant, though covid "cured" me of the ability to know that.

The best part, for the lazy gardener like I am, is that they are nearly   impossible to kill, providing you start them right. I have transplanted them, dug them completely out to go to a new location, and several years later found them again in their original location. (Those of course got dug up again, put in a different new location, and so far are thriving as well.) If they grow thick enough they even drive out pesky weeds like invasive tall grasses. Currently they have done that for a steeply sloped piece of  the yard next to the driveway that can't be easily mowed.   

A few years ago I saw my very first purple daylilies, in the landscaping around a Dairy Queen. I HAD TO have my very own. HAD TO! After searching garden centers, then catalogues, I finally located several varieties of them. There were tall ones with large blooms, and short ones with tiny ones. Some even claimed to be rebloomers, but after having borders of Stella D'Oros, I decided they only would bloom once in this northern climate zone. So I didn't bother with ordering those since others were cheaper.

But now that I'd seen those, I started checking out other colors. And buying them of course. The weirdest one was claimed to be a blue one. There was a blue, highly colored photo next to the ad. I decided to gamble. I was pretty sure it wouldn't be that blue, but worth a try, right? They came in sets of 5, so why not? They came from China, so more of a gamble with the time for shipping, but I just had to try, right?

 

 

About a month later, the package arrived. They were tiny, not packaged with anything to keep them moist, had short brown crispy leaves, and brown roots. Healthy daylilies have white roots, bulbous where they store their water and nutrients to last through hard times.               

 

Dang! I was so disappointed! I complained about their being dead, complete with a photo, and got my money back. Only after that process, did I bother to research the company online, and sure enough, they had a whole lot of complaints, same as mine. However, the company complained about me, insisting they were still alive.

 

I was by then planting some other, purple daylilies in an open spot, ones I'd left in their garden center pots until they'd finished blooming just so I could enjoy them that year, so the timing worked to plant them all at one time. I figured they were only worth mulch value, adding to the soil. The company insisted they'd live. So why not put them in the ground where I could keep an optimistic eye on them, so long as I was already digging and there was room between plants? The "between the plants" location meant I had markers to check on any progress.

 Fall frosts came. No leaves had ever emerged. Oh well, just mulch then. At least mulch isn't nothing. Winter, then spring, then next summer. I just had to check the dead ones. Still nothing.  At least the purple "marker" ones were blooming vigorously, with signs of offshoots giving more blooms the next year. Which by now is this year. This morning those marker plants were the first ones to come out of the ground. I had to clear grass and Creeping Charley out from around them so we could get a "clean" dig. They still have to get soaked, dirt removed, stray roots pulled out from insistant weeds. A lot of work went into clearing everything out of the raised bed to ready it last weekend for planting.

Of course I remembered they were markers for the dead ones. Certain fantasies are hard to kill. I was very careful pulling out the weeds from the area. There was something there that was neither thistle, cherry tree starter, Creeping Charlie, grass, milkweed, or burdock, the fill-ins for the rest of that patch. The leaves were quite skinny but long and straight, more delicate than the daylilies I'd been digging. In fact they came out of the ground in a straight line, five separate tiny clumps of them.

I felt like Dr. Frainenstein! "Its  alive!" Or more accurately, "They're alive!"

There are no flowering stalks, not this year anyway. They'll go in a new, special, marked spot in the new house's garden, after, of course, getting all the dirt rinsed off the roots and anything alien getting tossed away. Exactly the treatment all the others will get. Maybe next summer I'll be able to see if in fact they are blue, as claimed. After all, they are alive, as claimed. As delicate as their leaves are, I may even find out that they're technically not even daylilies. 

It should be fun to find out.

Of course though, now my conscience is bothering me. Their grower didn't get paid. I can't dig up the old records to find out who they were, since they're too old and my takeaway then wasn't their company name, but just the "only buy live plants from the USA" warning I've mostly stuck to. Well, except for some heirloom iris seeds with fantastic colors.... But they were cheap. And apparently I'm a sucker for that kind of thing. Stay tuned for a couple more years for their update, eh?

(Still) On Hold

This process started at the beginning of this week. Steve finally had his last straw with his bank. It shall remain nameless, but we can nickname it as the Stage Coach People.  It's not so much what they did but more what they seem incapable of doing, i.e., providing good account security. For several years now it has become a regular thing for some unknown person/people to gain access to Steve's debit card numbers and put charges on it that have nothing to do with him. 

Sure, they always refund the money and issue him a new card. Every. Single. Bloody. Time! And Steve waits two weeks or more for his new(est) card to arrive in the mail. Meanwhile he can't use his ATM for funds, or order something online, or hit a drive thru for a quick meal, or... anything. He's taken to proactively pulling funds out of his accounts so they get no interest, just "in case" the next fraud happens. Because it always does. Steve pays his bills with automatic withdrawals set up on his debit card, and when he has to keep calling those accounts and letting them know it's a new number... again! ... they are less than pleased. Of course he's never skipped a bill but some are a bit late.

Shortly after we moved to Minnesota his laptop case broke, and needed repairs. The process included recovering his hard drive memory, then making a copy with new security software added. Just in case that was the means used. It's already happened twice again since then. So he feels justified in finally taking the step that I and several family members have been suggesting he do, now, for years. He withdrew all his funds from the Stage Coach People and opened a brand new account in my credit union. The same one as his son's credit union. As well as the same credit union as several several other members of both parts of the family.

None of us have that problem. Ever. At all. For one thing they issue a card before we walk out the door, so no waiting two weeks.

Steve has spent much of the rest of this week on hold. There's the usual "Here's my new account/card number", and with many of his bills being with either large or understaffed companies, perhaps both, each call can take a while. But he knocked off three of them in less than two hours. He is so looking to that being his last set of those calls. But that was the easy part.

Like mine, Steve's income comes from Social Security. It's never been involved before this, since Steve's bank itself never changed. Now it's different. And it's a royal seven ton headache.

They advise you to start online. "Many people find that the easy way to...." I have no idea who those many people are. I'm not one. I tried the online approach to getting a duplicate SS card during our mail woes earlier this year, and wound up driving to Minneapolis to do it in person. I never could sign in to their site. I wrote about it because of course. The half day was well worth it... or would have been had that card ever arrived. Still, dinner with my daughter was my reward. 

Steve had the same problem. His name is the same, but not his bank and not his address. They kick him out faster than he can try to type in whatever his latest try is to figure out exactly which magic words and numbers will get their attention. So he called them.

Tuesday he opted for the "we'll call you back in _____ minutes" promise.  That was early morning. By suppertime his phone still sat, lonely, untouched, bereft of news.

Wednesday for a change of pace he spent hours trying to get his way through the new credit union's method of signing in to get online access to his new credit union account to see what his current balance is. To start off they require you to offer them a way to have them send you a 6 digit code, which you in turn type in their form to prove 1) your phone number is the one you gave them when you joined so they can text you, or 2) that your email etc., etc.,.  He was on his phone with their tech staff at the time, so trying that and having him switch over to read the number, having me write it down for him so he had it to type in on the online form, all in time before it timed out. Apparently speed is a factor in proving identity. Meanwhile in switching to his texts he lost the call with the tech person coaching him through the process. 

Start over. This time he went for sending him an email with the code in it. Of course he's again online with their tech, and first try takes so long to arrive that he's advised by the tech he's working with to send the request in again. Just after he does that the first number comes back. He types that in but it's timed out. He has to start over, and by the time he does that he's totally kicked out of the system for too many tries or fails or both. Try again later. Hours, maybe. Or tomorrow.

Part of the problem with the last try is he only has one window open on his laptop, and switching to one site cuts off the other. Thus a quick lesson in splitting his screen. Note that he has Microsoft and I have Apple. I could just pull up a new tab and switch back and forth, but I have no idea what to tell him to do with his system. He doesn't understand mine any better. So the split screen thing doesn't happen till that afternoon. Even with that, much the same happens. Try again tomorrow!

Frustration takes its toll. Yesterday morning he's finally relaxed enough to take a couple hints on switching back and forth from me, staying off his phone so he can get the numbers via text, much faster than email in Steve World. My phone is available for him to call in, and his open to texts. Try again.

Today it finally turns out to be simple after all, with the right kind of help, and he now can log in and see how his accounts are doing. Next week we'll try some fancier stuff, but the credit union has a great phone service where you can call, ask for $___ in account A  to go into  account B or C or wherever. He can move his money around however he wants without hitting a credit union branch or an ATM,  except for cash. Later he can do it himself online. I can show him. I'm sure of it. Right? At least there's no switching pages, just navigating on the same page, which looks and works exactly like the page I get from them.

This afternoon he was finally ready to tackle Social Security. The second try. Well, considering the online crap, third try. He called the number, and this time decided to stay on the line. Whatever it took. 

What it did take was not answering an incoming call from a good fishing buddy. Switching dropped the call. That's after about 38 minutes on hold.

Start over. This time there was a different fight with the automation that comes on to sort out which department to stick you in the que for. File a disability claim? (That came with a disclaimer about getting no joy from them without all kinds of investigation and months of waiting, if even then.) Ready to retire? His other tries via phone he got the part of the system that understood what he was saying. "Change my direct deposit." This time it started feeding back something else to him, "I see you want _____, is that right?" "NO!" "OK, do you want___?" "Direct deposit, direct deposit, direct deposit!!!!"

Apparently something clicked in the system. I'm going to avoid describing the on-hold music. We both agree it was the ploy of some bureaucrat who gets paid to ferret out the worst possible choices in order to shove everybody off the phone system as quickly as possible, screaming in pain/frustration/nausea/boredom and onto the computer. We'd already proved that was a dead end.

I worked on laundry while Steve waited. I filled up his insulated mug with ice cubes so he could put his drink in it. I advised him not to answer the call from his favorite nephew which came in. I dug out the ice cream carton and sat spooning tiny bits out of what had turned into a green and chocolate rock before putting it back. Steve and I chatted. I started writing this. He played a game online. I read some of my favorite sites while sitting next to him.  We discussed pessimistically our plan for when we got hung up on at the end of the day, which included heading down to Minneapolis on Monday to try to accomplish something there face-to-face. We joked about whether DeJoy had stealthily infiltrated the Social Security system like he'd openly done to the USPS to destroy it as much as one person could possible accomplish from a position of ultimate power.

This last final phone try, one hour and thirty-eight minutes on hold later, finally got answered. Ten more and Steve's address was now current, his credit union was on record, and we were advised that the first check would still go to his old bank, the Stage Coach People. They will send it back (she knows they will so it must be so) and when received back it will then be sent to the new credit union. I reassured Steve that his bills which clear on the third of the month will be covered because I'll transfer in funds to cover them, and he can give it back when all unfolds as it ought.

Because it will. Right?

Right?

Successes

 It's been a long day. For me it stated before 6. Once up, I headed out of my room and went online, checking emails.

Not first in line, but first to catch my attention, was from the DMV. Somebody named Carrie demonstrated she can not only actually read, but knows how to locate the records referred to in previous correspondence. Yes, they have a valid record of Steve's new driver's license. It will be mailed to him in just a couple more weeks.

Having verified it existed, and as of the time specified, the title for the home was no longer being held up. It too should be in the mail in a couple weeks. In reply I thanked her by name, and stressed again our appreciation because of the importance of Steve's need not to go stand in long lines unnecessarily.

Today it was necessary, however, though most of it was done from a chair. For about the 15th time in a couple years, his Wells Fargo debit card had had its number used for bogus purchases. Each time they refund the money, so that's not the total issue. It takes them over two weeks to get the new card to him, during which time bills he pays via his card cannot be honored, creditors have to be called with new numbers for this latest time around, and he has to show up in person to withdraw any cash for spending, a 25 mile round  trip.

He'd finally had enough. A recent upgrade of his computer with new security had recently been done, but still it happened. So the logical conclusion is the Wells Fargo's security isn't what it needs to be. After several years of trying, I finally managed to talk him into switching to my credit union.

We left the house at 9:30, for a stop along the way to his bank. He got a call while we were halfway there that they guy he had his appointment with was going to be late. So we took a scenic detour on a country road. It still gave us 20 minutes sitting in the car in their parking lot. I stayed there while Steve went in. A full hour later (!!!) I went in to see what the &*%$(*^ the holdup was. They were still signing paperwork, but about to finish. For all that delay, Steve was still in a great mood. He was done with them!

He was also a bit apprehensive that he might not get into my credit union. He had a suspicion, which turned out to be well founded, that since he operated for many years on cash, he wouldn't even have a credit score. He bet me a dollar as we went in that they'd turn him down for a new account on that basis. I promised him if they did that, we would just wind up with a joint account, with separate savings accounts to keep our finances separate. Turns out no credit score is not a terrible thing. A low one shows one is not managing money wisely, not paying off accounts promptly and having to pay interest. No score often means just what Steve had been doing, cash basis. No black marks. I got the dollar.

I haven't decided how to spend it. Yet. For sure, it won't be getting framed! I will spend it, one way or another, probably with other cash in a purchase where it's leaving isn't even noticed.

A bonus for Steve is that the credit union paid him $150 for opening his new account. I'm pretty sure he'll find that easier to spend than a single dollar, though it likely will sit in a savings account for a while. He likes to collect enough to get something a bit expensive. There have been enough low budget times in his life, just like in mine, that pleasure can be found in buying something one could never do before.

Tomorrow the other hassles begin, starting with calling Social Security, always a major headache, about them depositing his monthly funds in a new financial institution. After that come his bills, and after that a bit of shopping. A few prescriptions need renewing. He already has the new card to buy them with, having walked out of the credit union with it. No more waiting for the mail. But now, finally home at 3:30, it's off for a nap.

An Open Letter To Kamala

Yes, THAT one. Of course. 

Joe broke our hearts today, or at least those of us with courage. He's been one of, if not the best, President for achieving a progressive agenda, rescuing the economy, helping the working folks, promoting education and healthcare. I will back his decision to step back, not down, while at the same time resenting each and every supposed Democrat who forced him out. Yes, forced him out.

I also bemoan our supposedly free press, the myriads of them who cravenly went for the "eyeballs" instead of telling the truth to the American people and the world. Should their constant haranguing of him and every tiny thing while ignoring the real threat Trump is to this country result in bringing down this democracy, it will be bitter justice with a heavy sprinkling of schadenfreude when Trump's Project 2025 shuts their doors permanently. And way too many of ours as well.

You are our hope. He recommended you to run in his place. As just a practical matter, though it is much bigger than that, you have access to the campaign donations in the fund. No other American can do anything but start over. You will be able to build on what you two have worked together building. When he chose you to run with him, he saw what few of us had yet seen. Now he's chosen you to run for him, and you've got the character, the knowledge, the skills, the experience, and the fight to carry the banner forward.

I ask only one thing of you. Don't pussyfoot. Lies are lies. Crazy and cruel are crazy and cruel. No mincing words to be "polite". Or ladylike. Take the gloves off, get the hell out there spitting fire, take it to them and FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! And pick a good, strong fighter to fight by your side, on our team.

Win it for Joe. Win it for you, who've earned it. Win it for all of us, even those who don't know enough to appreciate it... yet. It will be your fight of a lifetime. It will be ours too, and we're all in it with you!

Early Morning Drive

The alarm was set for 5:00 AM. Since I hadn't set the alarm on this clock in years, naturally I woke up at 4:30. Not trusting the alarm was set properly I couldn't get back to sleep. That's typically me these days. When I absolutely have to be somewhere early, I wake up well ahead of time. No matter, I wound up with a few minutes to spare before I had to leave to drive somebody I care about to their appointment with a surgeon. It's just over an hour drive, first to pick them up, then head to their hospital. 

We were early, of course. And she's recovering fine now.

With some time to kill before leaving the house, I popped online and checked out a couple sites. One was "All Hat No Cattle", a favorite for years, mostly politics but highly eclectic in topics as well. I'd missed her post from yesterday. Too busy. Within five minutes I found a real gem she'd posted, a flash mob video from 2014 in Nurnberg. It starts in what looks like a town plaza full of people, church bells tolling, when one man sets up his doublebass. And waits. A young girl approaches him holding her recorder in her hands, stops in front of him, and starts to play. The notes are immediately recognizable: "Ode to Joy", also known as the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th, his choral symphony. The two alternate  phrases, gradually cellos join in, violins, booming kettledrums, horns,  finally the singers. I bookmarked  it to return to, since I didn't have the time to finish listening right then. Look it up under yesterday's date. It's still impressive the 4th time through, at least for me.

I trust you can guess it put me in a great mood for the day ahead. Then again, I'm usually fine behind the wheel, out in the country, low traffic levels that early, plenty of space to safely scout the countryside as I roll through it. One rabbit safely crossed the road in front of me. Everything else seemed still asleep. It didn't hurt that I turned on the classical music station of MPR and started listening to the St. Paul Suite by Gustav Holst, another favorite. The combination of the two pieces prepared me for what was next, put me in the frame of mind to capture it. No camera? How about a pen on a napkin after reaching the hospital?

 

Early Morning Drive

Ground fog shushed the scattered fields,
Hugging them in soft embrace.
As morning sun tossed her basketful
Of roses and oranges across the sky
She bid the fog to kiss the nearby trees
As it rose through their branches,
Drifting away
Secure in its welcome
To return another night.
They would play this game again.

The Next Garden

OMG!  I've gotten old! Not sure when it happened. All the work in packing and unpacking, hauling boxes, putting stuff away... somehow I thought I was doing pretty good for my age. I'll admit, I don't do ladders - I just flat out don't! Somehow that turned into a phobia, where I swear by the third step they begin to move. My shoulders are arthritic, so I don't reach up high without pain, and always without muscle control. So what happened? When did 3/4 century mean "old"?

I have had help in the house with a lot of practical things, like light bulbs, and picture hangers, assembly of shelving units, all that kind of thing. But those aren't the skills needed to start a garden over. That's what needs to get done here. Now.

When we moved in, the raised circular bed in the yard was solid weeds and two flowers. One of those was a dandelion. I know enough to get out the chemicals. Twice, since many of the weeds were barely fazed the first go-round. Maybe too much rain? Little leaves are popping up again, so digging becomes necessary.

I started yesterday, bought a brand new shovel for the job. My son Paul wasn't sure if he had one I could borrow, and I wasn't sure even if he had one that it would still have a strong handle. I took a folding chair out, set it in the shade along with a bottle of water, and started in. One shovel strike proved that even though the rain has stopped for a few days, the ground is easy enough to dig.

 Easy enough for whom, you well might ask. I did prove I can balance on one leg and lift the foot on the other side high enough to stomp down hard to get the shovel in the ground. It was news to me since I hadn't actually done that since my knee replacements. But immediately I discovered that what appeared to be small rocks on the top of the garden were actually just the tops of much larger ones. Like icebergs, a significantly larger portion of them was under the surface. They'd sunk over their years in the garden.What looked to be about 5 pounds... well, let's just say I somehow managed to get them up, and out onto the concrete wedges forming the circle. Any further would have been a miracle. And at least they won't sink in any more, for now.

 

Their future is undecided. A few are interesting with fossils in them, but if they're just going to disappear.... Others are gawdawful ugggly! Maybe they can cover some other spot somewhere to prevent a few weeds. Every time I even think of them I am reminded of how heavy they are, with full assurance that in their next move to wherever, they will still be that heavy. I was totally drained for the rest of the day.

But I couldn't stop working.  The first new flower orders arrive tomorrow, live plants, not just bulbs. More arrive Saturday. They need a home ASAP. And since they will be followed later by even more plants, then later bulbs of assorted kinds. followed by even more plants for fall planting, the bed has to be all dug up and turned over now,  with my plan in place for where it all goes. along with a solid idea of how not to step on what's planted just to plant more. They will all be intermingled so there is continual blooming from snow melt to late summer, somewhere in the bed.

First, I had to check out the weeds which were stubbornly refusing to die despite all efforts. In went the shovel again. Something stubborn was under the surface, something hard, woody, tangled, and about the size of any of my fingers in diameter. They have GOT TO GO! Right now!

But I'm already exhausted. Naturally I divert myself from my exhaustion by doing something else. As in not sitting. The red peony has finished blooming, so I grabbed a bucket and clippers and topped it off, deadheading all the knobs left. Then I looked along the side of the house to where two fairly large flower pots sit, home to another collection of weeds. I have offered the buckets to a friend who accepted, at least until she tried to help move one.  Could I please get rid of the dirt in them first?

 I started with the shovel again. Yes, the pots are that big. Now that rain has stopped, the weeds are drying out, the soil is drying down to a deeper spot at least. I started chopping chunks of it out of the pots. Turns out the first one was ordinary potting soil down about 6 inches. I emptied the peony bits from my bucket and scooped soil chunks into it instead, then dumped it on top of the garden space. Every little bit helps, right? Better this than buying all new compost, especially since my rock removal revealed how rich and black the circle bed's soil is. But pot number one soon revealed how much of its contents were that same heavy black dirt, and still wet enough to be the cause of its tremendous weight. Potting soil was just on the top. So more work with shovel, trowel, and bucket, sections at a time, filling abandoned rock holes and dumping dirt  wherever. It still mostly has to be turned and blended. Once the pot was empty, the whole thing weighed less than a pound. My friend would love this, once I told her about proper cleaning/bleaching before replanting.

 Pot number two was a breeze after that. Pulling it out from behind a bush where it had been abandoned, I discovered all that was left inside was dried up potting soil. I simply dragged it to the circle, up and over its wall, and dumped it out. It still sits there, an inverted version of the pot's inside shape, a big lump waiting for demolition and blending.

 Then I finally gave in and rested. And rested. I didn't put tools away, just propped them close to the garden. Too much work to haul them to the shed, then right back out again. The management is fussy out here, and we heard this morning that it's yard inspection day. But they better be able to comprehend a work in process doesn't get finished in a day. If they complain, I'll let them know that the main digging is hired to be completed and the first "real" plants put in over the weekend, with more coming as the season requires/allows. First will be the daylilies and the bearded iris, once the dirt is ready. After another month bulbs will start arriving, more spring ground cover plants filling in, and finally the tulips, daffodils, and similar bulbs before the garden rests for winter. I still think I'll mulch it.

 So, after leaving the tools in sight and an unfinished garden, do you think I quit for the day after getting exhausted? Have you met me? I had already arranged to head over to my son's house to select some plants to dig out and bring over, with his permission of course. It is his garden now, no matter who bought all those original plants. I arrived before he did from work, and went in to pick up stuff we hadn't cleared out after the move over to the new place. Then with most of the daylilies blooming, I carefully noted which exact colors of plants I wanted and where they grew. I had brought a ball of twine with me to bind up clumps later to dig from, just because I'm fussy.We'd go over each choice together once he got home. Plus I wanted to dicker with him for his time and work this weekend in exchange for $$ and lunch.

 The end impression I got from him was a combination of pleasant surprise at getting paid, and a strong willingness to get rid of a whole lot of plants if he could. I did promise to only take out sections of each kind of daylily clump, leaving him with his own and new space for them to expand into. Well, except for the two purple kinds I planted last year with the idea of those being temporary since we were already planning to move back north this year. Oh, and the pale blue bearded iris down by the huge boulder in the front yard because they make it hard for him to mow there. I'll take all of those, giving one to a friend as promised a couple years ago. His balloon flowers have sent out a volunteer copy of themselves, right in the middle of a most inconvenient spot, blocking a path. The stems on that now are gathered inside twine to hold them together until I dig them out, cut the stems way back, and remove them. I figure, tall as they are and towering over everything else in my new garden, they'll get plugged right in the center. In other words, they'll have to go in just about first. We don't need to trample everything else just to plant them no matter which direction we come at them from. They'll be the last gasp of summer in the garden.

Oh, by the way, I'm still exhausted today. Sure am glad the younger generation is willing to do the real work around here!

The View We'll Be Losing

When we moved in, the blinds were rarely opened. We were surrounded by other homes, bushes covered many windows, we had to step outside to see the lake. There was still plenty of light, and plenty of privacy for our messy stacks of boxes and scattered furniture, as well as ourselves.

Then one day there was a lot of noise next door, the downhill side, towards the lake. Two days later that lot was empty.The house sat on steel beams over a wheeled platform down the street. A Bobcat was grading and smoothing the lot. Within a week the now mobile home was gone. I happened to see it go from out on the county road, paused before making my turn in by Wide Load guide vehicles stopping traffic both ways until it cleared overhead wires and made the turn between both sides of the street without any apparent damage to anything. Some jockeying was necessary, and the crew in the guide vehicles were out signalling stop, go, turn more, or whatever it took to accomplish the task. It was gone.

A week later a huge backhoe and large dump truck were in place, chopping up the concrete patio slab into small-ish  chunks, each landing inside the dump truck with echoing booms. A few days later the bobcat returned to grade the lot smooth, remove plantings, and leave, an indication to us that a larger home will be moving in, needing a bigger footprint. The grading was repeated three more times so far, possibly because with all the rains the ground needed repeat packing down to support the new home coming in. We hear we'll have a new neighbor in August.

We find that both good news and bad news. The old home obscured our view of the lake, the street, and mostly, the mail shed. It was nice to have the blinds open in the mornings and until the sun poured in for the afternoon, no worries about privacy, seeing geese on the shore and boats going past. But the most useful part was seeing when the mail truck showed up. Some days it was in the morning, some in the afternoon. No explanation for the variability, and some of our neighbors just never bother to go collect their mail till afternoon. Not even the ones who who weren't gone in the day because they're retired.

 For my eye, and my camera, the best part of the view, the one I'll miss, is seeing when the rain comes down. If you're looking between blinds slats and through a screen, it can simply be cloudy or it can be wet. Unless, of course, it's a thunderstorm outside. But the best part of it raining is that the street turns reflective. The blinds/screen combo can produce an optical illusion of raindrops falling past the window. A glance at the street proves if there's rain or not.  If the rain ends it dries quickly. 

The Monday weather forecast said rain for the morning, no more for a week at least. So I kept checking. Knowing we'll be loosing that particular view any day, I wanted to be sure to catch a few shots of what we're going to miss. I picked out one wide angle, one zoom. I'll miss them both.

Bonus Mom

Blended families are pretty common these days. We've come up with ways of naming the new relationships. When feeling are deeply hurt by the endings of previously family ties, nasty terms are often used. But when people get along well enough, one frequently hears "step _____" for the new relationship. 

Steve and I have lovingly "adopted" each other's families. Yes, they're step-whatevers, but we don't bother with that terminology unless some confused third party needs an explanation, and we find a need to indulge them. We are just family. I don't have just 1 grandchild, for example, I have 9 (if I counted right.) Sometimes Steve and I have to sit down and carefully add them all up. Then there are 5 "great-"s. Blood relatives or not, they all call me Grandma or Grandma Heather. My generation is thinning out but grandmothers are not a total rarity and we get first names added. Hugs don't depend on titles, after all.  

I'm even friends with Steve's kids' Mom. During a phone call between her and Steve yesterday, there were two other contributors to the conversation, their daughter and myself.  I'll be heading over with some things for them at the end of the week in the car while providing a needed ride to one of them. (I get to pet the cat too.) Details were discussed, of the "do you still want...?" variety. Mostly those are things Steve promised his daughter years ago, and finally decided to send to her now, to make sure she gets them. During this conversation, I heard something that truly set me in my place in the family. I am not a "stepmom". I am a "bonus mom"!

I absolutely love it! My bonus daughter considers my kids as brothers and sisters. Not step-anythings. We are, simply, family, all a bonus to the others.

Following Up With The DMV

Remember this?  http://werejustpassingthru.blogspot.com/2024/07/dmv-woes.html

That was my saga/ complaint with the reasoning the DMV gave for not having Steve's ID on file and thus not being able to issue the title to us for the new home. 

There have, of course, been developments, which actually tend to reinforce my opinion of "competence" in the department. First, their letter to me, usual deletions:

"Thank you for contacting Driver and Vehicle Services.

"The identification that was scanned was not valid since it was punched. We require a valid Id to be scanned with a transfer. Please let us know if you need additional assistance. Include this email chain in your replies.

"Sincerely, (first name), agent #"

Naturally, I had things to say in reply:

 

"Are you serious!!!!  Steve's ID wasn't punched until July 1 when he applied for his new DL.  On the other hand, MINE likely was since I worked on getting my MN DL much earlier, even before knowing we had purchased the home and needed to transfer title. I could say a lot of things here, but I'll settle for asking clarification:

 "First:  Is my ID, then punched, valid or not? I have my replacement finally, so do I need to come back in and show it to you?

"Second: Steve is still waiting for his new MN DL, presumably still in your hands somewhere in the system. Since in May his AZ ID was not punched, does he still need to come in and how can he until you produce his new ID for him?

"Still sincerely, if less respectfully,

Heather M. Rosa"

 

I wonder if they actually know how to read, how to research documents referred to by their date and other factors like purpose. I am beginning to believe, however, that they have unwittingly replied to my final query in my first email to them. They do not, in fact, appear to be in search of competent employees for their department.

It will be interesting to find out what their reply to this is. I'll keep you all posted.   (Hey, what keyboard symbols do you use for "evil grin"?  Anybody?) And by the way, Id is a Freudian term, as in id, ego, and superego. ID is what he is supposedly referring to. Capitalize both letters or neither. Nobody gets my id for ID purposes. I'm keeping that to myself... except for what I'm sharing here.

Life Can Get Crowded...

...when you're trying to pack and have no idea where or what you'll be moving into, what the new spaces are, how they're shaped or sized. You try to imagine every contingency despite no knowledge. Should I sell this? Keep that? What if I have to replace A, B, C, and X? $$$$$$$! Wow! and Ouch!

Or do I pack it all, pay the extra premium to pack and ship it wherever, and hope it was worth it?

Then after unpacking, always the question of the boxes. Our former new next door neighbor solved her empty box problem by giving us all of hers. ALL of them. They still weren't enough so we scrounged more. We should have bought shares in tape and bubble wrap, but who thinks of that? Could we "pass it forward?" We asked the family and friends who helped us move in, and who also change addresses more frequently than Steve and I do (12 years!) whether they needed boxes, but nope. The wooden hangers in our new home's closets, where our clothes arrived on their own hangers with more newly purchased ones in other boxes, found a couple of new homes with family. Grateful family, I might add. Just not into boxes right now.

We had other thoughts on the boxes. How about Habitat For Humanity? There was a store on the way to where we shop... which had just closed. Darn. Maybe ask a thrift store when we had all unpacked and more time? Put up a notice by the mail center? Advertise in the local paper? Oops, $$ there. Still looking for free. We'd ask random new folks if they knew anybody needing boxes. No luck. So a widening stack of folded ones grew along the living room window, held in place against it by a single piece of furniture... so far. Eventually they may simply have to be recycled, but I'm cutting up other smaller boxes these days for that purpose, saving a few for specific tasks, and even with a huge recycle bin we haul out every two weeks it's not up to the entire task at once, including regular household recycling. Give us till mid fall.

Note that most of those boxes were left with whole bunches of bubble wrap once emptied. I did select a bit out of that for personal use, like shipping December packages. The rest is reserved... for the grand and great grand kids. It's a growing and extended family, and kids know a good present when they see one, meaning whatever comes wrapped in layers of bubble wrap. They of course ignore the item we adults think of as THE present and go straight to the bubbles. I could probably pack a handful of dirty pebbles, one to a sheet of bubble wrap, and get their undying gratitude. Or at least until the next time they are expecting more bubble wrap and find it's gotten used up by then. (It's a trap!)

There was another issue, a quickly growing annoyance: rugs. We left a house with bare floors to cover and moved into a nearly completely carpeted one. What we brought weren't suitable for bathrooms or the kitchen, they were large and heirloom quality, even the smallest being a thick plush of wool and silk. True, a bit dirty as well, but comparing the cost of cleaning when you have your own rug cleaner to the cost of getting them yourself, well, we figured it was no contest. The bigger two had been bought at auction from a dealer who was going out of business for unknown reasons. There was a mild suspicion that his claims that the Persian ones had been exported before the embargo were just a tad ... optimistic. But many of them sold at a series of auctions, including two to me. There was this large one, pale blue, cream, burgundy, and touches of black. I fell totally in love, put in an absentee bid matching his minimum price,  took it home at the end of the day, then to AZ, then back north. After much foot and paw traffic, a couple spills, canines shedding,  and a couple haboobs forcing not-too-reluctant dust into the house, its glory was diminished but none the less loved. It only needed a floor. A couple other rugs accompanied it north. Only one was destroyed by a visitor during our years south, and abandoned. 

Had we the need for what we brought, they'd be gracing our new home right now. Instead they became tripping hazards, and not just for the slightly disabled. They had to go. I'd stumble over the large one, rolled up and strapped together, taking the entire middle of the room we were busy setting up shelves in so we could unpack other stuff so it could be organized and useful. Luckily I never really fell, but it was close, being always in the way no matter what we were doing at the time. Then it got dragged out into the living room to wait for a new owner, while the other ones found smaller corners to fill in an effort to get overlooked. I caught them both at it, and foiled their plans!

I finally found somebody to solve our problems with all the rugs and a bunch of boxes. There is a family with their youngest child heading off to college, staying in the dorm. The mom is a friend. Today a large pick-up showed up for not just all three rugs but a bunch of the folded boxes, with a promise from me if more boxes were needed they'd still be here. And yes, free. All of them. We're happy to be rid of them, and they're happy to clean them or tape them, as individually  appropriate. Their house isn't carpeted,  she loves the colors, and her husband is willing to do the cleaning himself, even after I pointed out the worst of the dirt.

Did I mention a small tornado kissed the top of their house a couple years back? Insurance never covers what we think it should, and budgets can be tight even without an extra dose of bad luck.

Now that more things are gone from here, the house is feeling much less crowded, less a hazard, and a bit more lived in. My son will be over this afternoon to help hang more pictures on the walls, now that we've decided where we want them and which ones I can't do myself. (Hey, I did 6 last week!) It turns out that I was wrong about how many shelves I'd need to store my supplies, tools, and completed projects from the club. Four shelves isn't enough, wide and sturdy as they are. But I re-purposed another entire unit, putting its former contents on yet other shelves recently vacated from unpacking, so progress is still happening. I am still discovering things I'd totally forgotten I had, like the tote which had its top covered in styrofoam cups and napkins, hiding a sweet supply of sea shells. In bubble wrap. Some things are still hiding that I KNOW I packed, personally. So I can't stop  digging yet.

However...

The temptation is there to let the inside rest and start working on the outside, literally a different kind of digging. Last night I drifted over to a bulb catalog site to drool. I've discovered that the time when flowers mean the most to me is after the ground thaws. Scillas, crocus, daffodils, tulips, iris, violets, and then huge varieties of day lilies, in that order. I need a bed without weeds, newly dug and separated from yard invaders, full of colors other than white snow, and later other than grass green. Then it's done, tuck it away for the fall, let it be independent from the needs of work when it's hottest. I have the space, I have the dreams, I've asked my son to bring over the shovel to enable work to start, clearing out the remnants of the weeds I killed off in late spring, loosening it up within its raised bed for all the bulbs to go in, stretch out their roots, and sleep in expectation.

Do I need to mention I did more than drool? My order will arrive in the fall. Steve thinks some of the choices are pretty interesting, in a good way. He loves tulips so I showed him several to pick from. It's likely time to head over to the yard I planted way back in the 90s and mark what I want to dig out of it - with permission - while I can locate my favorite colors in daylilies. I know already where the "good" iris are.

There is a maybe-problem with the digging in the round raised bed here. The former family put in electricity. (Say what?) It seems they planned to put in a fake fire right in the middle, so they could sit around it of an evening, feed the  mosquitoes, and pretend to roast weenies or s'mores or who knows what they had in mind.  

Me? I'm totally spoiled with the real thing, wood in a fire pit in my son's back yard, all the family invited, fenced space for the kids to run around in, brats and buns and whatever anybody else wants to bring. Nothing? That's just fine too. We provide OFF! In the fall there are apples on the ground, serving multiple purposes, including a chance for the little kids to pick them up, toss them in the compost, and earn a bit of money for themselves.

Back to the new place, and digging around unknown electric wiring. Nobody seems to know where it connects to outdoor  house wiring. Two directions are logical, the AC hookup, and the shed hookup where Steve's scooter stays charged and lights work. I suspect, but can't prove, it's the direction of the shed. The management company suggested I can call 811 to have it traced. However, 811 says that is a private utility and not a public one since it's an add-on. They won't come, but "here are some private references." Those folks don't answer their phones however.

I do know that whichever way it runs, it's buried well under the grass in the lawn. So at least up till the retaining wall, not only will it be safely deep, but it at least starts that low as it enters the raised bed. It may angle up, but here's the plan: dig carefully and gently - trowel if necessary - along where it is at the surface, follow it down about 6-7 inches. I won't be digging any deeper than that in a 10" high bed. If I don't hit it, I'm going to assume I'm safe. I'll loosen the top layer, pull out the remains of dead roots to throw away, add some black dirt or compost since it's settled about an inch from the top of its wall, and plant everything. Once and done. Cover with mulch, and let the plants fill in over the years. Nearly all of what I've chosen will keep everything else out, with minimal care.

Then I'll have to go do heavy pruning on the plants around the outside of the house. They've been badly neglected over the years, speaking of crowded. It will definitely be cool by then. The yellow roses will go away. Pretty for a couple weeks, it serves as a formidable barricade to prevent anybody keeping the limelight hydrangeas in check from trying to grow though and into the sides of the house. Now that would be truly crowded!

Get The Don A Bandaid!

I'm sure you'll hear first thing about somebody trying to shoot tRump at his rally last night, if you haven't already. 

Remember this:

Two people died, the shooter and a rally attendee, presumably innocent of the shooting. tRump got an ear lobe leaking a bit of blood.

The Secret Service did their job. Trump thought his job was to roil up the crowd further than they were by giving his fist bump, signalling his followers to get out there and fight.

His followers have been fighting... to keep the most weapons with the fastest firepower in the most hands despite age, sanity, crime records, and what have you. In turn his followers already decided to blame the media for the shooting as they left the rally.

if you want to be useful, folks, let's not stir up civil unrest over this. Somebody, please, just get the man a bandaid for his ear, and a damp hankie for his terrified white face.

DMV Woes

Just when we thought we'd paid all the fees, produced all the documents,  jumped through all the necessary hoops to transfer everything over to Minnesota, we got another letter in the mail today. This one was about Steve not producing ID showing he was "entitled" to own our home. Despite all indications to the contrary, it is registered as a vehicle. He needed to show a driver's license, unexpired, to prove he can drive it... or something. I guarantee you neither of us will ever drive it! I tried sitting on hold on the phone for 40 minutes. I even had to plug in my cell, which had registered a nice charge in the morning. After rereading the letter, I noted the part where we could email them with any questions.

I did come up with one. Because of course I did.

It needed a bit of explanation first.

Here is my email, with certain identifying deletions you will understand, including the precise email address and title number their letter and my response referred to:

*     *     *     *     *

Dear Sir or Madam:
You need my husband's ID (legal name) for the title transfer to go through. Let me supply some history of incompetence:

May 30: We both went the the DMV in (name of town) with the then current owner, (name). She had a document showing she was entitled to sell it after her father's death. After completing her part of the transfer process, I had to go the the county office to pay the property tax and return with documentation. Once back at DMV both my husband Steve and I gave the clerk our AZ driver's licenses, as well as "the letter" (for tax payment) and the copy of (previous owner's) documentation. His AZ DL number was (number), exp.2/15/2027. (Currently punched full of holes during July 1 transfer to MN.) Fees were paid, documents checked, sent away with job completed.

AS  IF....

July 1: responding to a letter, we returned to the DMV as the copy of (previous owner's) document was missing. I secured my own copy of it and turned it in that day. Once more we were told all was in order, after the clerk sat at the computer for around 20 minutes, consulting back and forth with other clerks. ALSO on that day, Steve applied to change his license to MN. Current number: (number). It's for the address of the home we now live in, which all these problems revolve around. One error he noticed as he walked out is they marked him as needing glasses. As he was reading the eye chart he cleared several rows of letters until the clerk laughing asked him to stop, obviously passing and then some. However, he was too annoyed with all the hassles by that point, and being disabled (Check your handicap hanger records) refused to stand around any longer to try to fix it.

That same day, I applied to change the address of my (missing) MN driver's license. I'd changed it very early after we relocated to MN but never got my card. I'm sure you should be able to locate that application however, as the DMV staff informed me it was undeliverable. (We had lots of mail issues at that time, but not your problem.) At the same July 1 visit I also got MN plates for my 2013 Hyundai Accent, switching it's registration from AZ as well.

Now if you are unable to locate the original title application which we got called back to the DMV for, or locate any of Steve's recent records, let me please just ask you a simple question:

ARE YOU LOOKING TO HIRE COMPETENT HELP?

Most sincerely.
Heather M. Rosa

FedEx: Don't Fire The Driver, But...

 We've been getting deliveries lately. Mostly shelving units, unassembled. We'd put one or two together, designate its location and purpose, load it, then go on to the next need. Boxes were getting emptied, broken down or repurposed. Space appeared. It might seem easy to make a master plan and order all in large chunks.Yep, tried that, changed my mind based on what happened with each last shelving delivery. Sometimes we need bigger/wider/stronger, with more or fewer holes in the shelf itself. 

I firmly believe I'm done getting more shelves now. They weren't delivered this time. I went to the store to see if they had exactly what I needed to finish up the job. 

They did. One unit left, sitting exactly on top of and looking identical with the units having one more shelf in them. I'm glad I spotted it where it wasn't supposed to be. I'd found the shelf tag giving its proper price about three feet away over an empty space, but this sat under a tag with a higher price, suitable of course for the additional shelf in each of those other packs. 

I'm hoping not to need that extra shelf. I can't use that extra shelf. I wouldn't be able to see or reach what's on that extra shelf, since the spacer/posts are all the same length. The use it's being put to, all the stuff left after selling off most of my club supplies and finished projects, had better fit on that smaller number of shelves. It will be close. Currently they fit in a tote plus a box formerly housing a gas grill, with scattered units appearing out of other boxes along with other odd places as those get emptied. Fingers crossed! One hope is that some of it will be going away as various gift opportunities arise, since many of you indicated that you actually liked what you got last time around.

It's your fault if you lied!

I didn't go to the store today just because of delivery problems but it helped. I also needed to peruse the garden section for a better sized pot for the plant (which I actually bought after the first pot) which needs repotting, a Pink Princess philodendron. If I treat it right, it will eventually grow into the way-too-much-larger pot I bought before I picked out the plant.

Quit snickering! Like you've never done that! Besides, after reading up on its needs, I needed different soil for it too.

My problem with recent FedEx deliveries is that they do not follow the delivery instructions the company I've been ordering from has on file. To be fair, I can't see those instructions anywhere on the shipping labels, so I don't know if it's a communication issue between the companies or a stupid driver issue. Doesn't seen fair to blame it on stupidity if nothing's there for them to see.

Yesterday, however, I kinda blew my stack at them. Of course it didn't do any good because I didn't know the extent of the issue until after they drove away. I did know it wasn't in the correct place, the one where it's easy for me to bring it inside. What I did find out as I tried to open that door was that they'd tossed the packages down such that one box blocked the door from even opening, and the other boxes jammed that one in (mis)place.

Four packages, multiple long trips, multiple stairs on both ends, each way. The packages could have so easily been stacked a couple feet away from the door so I - or anybody - could have opened the door, stepped one step down, and easily tucked the three smaller ones inside the door. The big one still would have to have been dragged to the east side of the house and up its stairs, but like I said, that might be a communication issue and not a carelessness one,  or an I'm-in-too-big-a-hurry-to-bother issue.

The more suspicious side of me noted that it was a late Saturday drop (5:30 PM) in a 4-day holiday weekend, and how the packages landed when tossed may have been a passive-aggressive display. Perhaps not so passive at that. (Note that I always had to go for signatures for deliveries, and made sure to strive for customer satisfaction. FedEx drops and splits.)

I decided somebody at FedEx needed to be communicated with from my end. I gave myself a little time to think about it while grumbling, opening packages, grumbling, checking contents, and of course, grumbling. I realized I couldn't truly ascribe motive to the mess, however likely it seemed. I also might have to simply put out a bigger sign a driver couldn't actually pass and which they couldn't ignore, directing them to the actual drop location. It would have to be waterproof of course, all the rain we've had lately. But their blocking the door? Not tolerable! 

(Reminder to self to stress the senior community part of this location, and the extra challenges many of us here face.)

(Pause here to mentally assemble a list of all the things which could possibly happen to turn an annoyance into a tragedy when blocked inside....... Done? OK.)

I googled FedEx to find a way to email them. I decided to simply ask for them to bring to all their drivers' attention that they need to be more careful when piling packages at a door to avoid blocking the door.That seemed to be the one thing that could be addressed for the better. I had gotten my stuff after all, nothing destroyed or lost. And this morning showed that most times I can go ahead to the store myself, find what I need so long as I know it's carried in the store (like these shelves are, when in stock, when properly located), fits in my car, and doesn't come from across the country the way many things I order do, like camera batteries specific to my camera, sent from New York.

Of course, as previously mentioned, it was (now even later) on a Saturday evening in a four day holiday weekend. I was given several options to call different phone numbers for specific problems, none of which were my problem. I wanted to email, send something carefully worded rather than risk losing my temper, something which could be transferred up the chain to the "right" person. I got an apparently untended chat room with formulaic prompts for content, which I was still working on. Once sent, I kept getting formulaic prompts, on repeat, If I already answered a question, it got repeated. I finally decided I could only hope that come Monday, something, somewhere would get through to an actual human who cared. Maybe a memo would go out. Maybe training would improve by a sentence or two. 

By the time the last repeat of a prompt came through that I could tolerate, I was fed up. It was some version in business-speak of what-do-you-want? I answered before clicking off: Pretend that somebody read this!

Somebody Up There Is Laughing At Me

I'm not sure I believe in "Somebody Up There". But it's looking like somebody up there is trying to get my attention. And not in a good way, unless you possess a particular kind of humor. The mischievous kind.

This one goes way back. In the process of moving, I knew I didn't have room for all my prized collectibles. I knew, and it was confirmed, that many still had value, unlike, say, Beanie Babies. (I never understood that craze. Did you?) I selected some Chinese stuff to keep, along with a bunch of Native American pueblo pottery. An auction house inspected what remained and accepted most of it. The rest went away at several garage sales.

And yes, I'm still unpacking pottery. By now it's been so long that many of them are a delightful surprise to see ... again. I'm missing a stand for one large plate, but those can always be found somewhere. Pretty much everything is intact, so I'm happy with my packing efforts. I'm also happy to have shelf space for more than all of it despite having less total shelf space, period.

The auction house separated my treasures into several different auctions. Some results were exciting, some disappointing. The last one really stands out however, and begins this particular tale. It was held April 24, and had put such a high estimate on the single remaining piece that I was chomping at the bit to find out the results. Even though it came in at the low range of their estimate, it was a nice final check from them. Or was supposed to be.

If you've been following, you know about the mail issues we had. This part goes back before them. I'd been having my auction proceeds deposited directly into my credit union account. However, they'd merged with another credit union, and suddenly the ACH number was wrong. I was having to pay for the credit union to refuse the transfers, highly annoying in itself. But communications with the auction company were annoying as well. For this last check I decided to take the "safe" road and have a paper check mailed to me.

The first one never arrived. Emails were exchanged. Another check was sent. It too never arrived. More emails were exchanged. I finally got the mail situation straightened out, but only just recently. Remember, this goes back to an April 24th sale. With full assurances that the mail would finally reach me, now that other mail finally was (except for certain things which were requested much earlier and dropped in some black hole somewhere) I asked for this third try at sending their check.

It arrived in three days! Only! Three! Days!

I was getting paid for a few other things and waited a couple days for everything to be received and the holiday to pass before driving to the credit union, now about 35 miles from our home. I justified the mileage by doing some other shopping "in the neighborhood" (another 8 miles) at the same time. I endorsed everything, the clerk deposited everything, I left. Busy day, more stuff to do, and I was napping around 3 PM when I got a call from the credit union.

What the ???

She regretted to tell me that the check deposited from the auction company had been taken back out of my account. It seems nobody, not the auction company, not me, not the teller, had noticed that it hadn't been signed by the company!

After more than two months, thinking everything was done and we had no more dealings together, after I'd plunked the collected correspondence into my email trash, I needed to reach out and let them know we still weren't done with each other!!!

The credit union is holding their check in their vault, pending somebody's decision on what needs to be done with it. Mail it to me so I can mail it back to the auction company to sign and mail back to me again? Come in to the credit union, take a photo of the unsigned check for proof and see how they want to handle it this time? (Actually, if I had a smart phone I've heard those photos can be texted to the necessary recipient. However...)

One other thing I did while there was double check and get the new, proper ACH number now for anybody who needs to deal with  them for me, whether for a deposit or bill paying. I'm glad I did. It has a whole bunch more zeros and ones in it, and she printed out a full page for me with the number and other data. Since I have that, maybe we can go that route?

I dug through old dead emails and found the lengthy connected correspondence with the auction company, giving me the proper email address for the accounting team and the contact's name. I guess I'm lucky it hadn't been purged yet, but I haven't been that efficient for a long time. Very carefully I sent her another email. A bit tongue in cheek I started out suggesting she probably didn't think she'd be hearing from me again. After all my last contact was all praise for my finally getting their check. Yeehaaaa! I went on to explain some of the suggestions for dealing with the newest issue as offered by the credit union folks, an acknowledgement that she may well be on an extended holiday like a lot of the country also is, and my expectation of hearing from her as quickly as circumstances allow.

Now do you think somebody up there is laughing at me? No?

Well, after that email got sent off, I went and collected today's mail. It contained another check from somebody else I hadn't expected. I'm going to have to go to the credit union next week again anyway.

Do you believe me now?

No, The OTHER East!

 Moving includes ordering a lot of new stuff to be delivered, especially when you leave one place while not quite sure yet what the new place will be like. Packing to leave is a version of sorting what is loved, absolutely needed no matter what, and will fit in whatever kind of conveyance you can arrange for the task, from what you can either sell or donate before you leave. As a result we arrived in our new permanent home with both things we can't use and needing things we don't have. Hence the deliveries.

(BTW I have a lovely light blue Persian rug that has no place on our carpeted floors. Anybody? Needs just a bit of cleaning....)

The new home can be confusing at first glance. There is a door facing the street, up a few stairs to a tiny porch. It opens on the utility area, if your idea of a welcome is coming face to face with the water heater, laundry, and furnace. Our real front door follows the sidewalk along the east side of the house to a significantly larger porch with a very nice overhang to keep at least some of the rain off you, and opens to the living room. There's an actual "Welcome" sign once you open that door. 99.7% of the time we mean it.

To deal with possible confusion...OK, fooled us too the first time... we taped a sign in the window of the utility room door. It says "USE OTHER DOOR PLEASE" and for those still confused, has an arrow with a bend in it showing the way. 

Apparently it can be missed.

I've been ordering a lot of stuff from one company for the house. Mostly it's things not available in our other favorite shopping place, local thrift stores. Or perhaps things that don't fit once assembled into the hatchback. Or are heavier than my arms feel like dealing with for as long as it takes to drag it out of the car, along the walk, up the few stairs, and inside. A lot of it is shelving, assemble-it-yourself kind, "yourself" being my youngest son of course. We've been seeing a lot of him lately, even more than when we were living with him temporarily.

(Hmmm, maybe we should move more often if this is what it takes?)  

NOPE! Been there, done that, got the wrinkled tee shirts. Good thing I know where the nearest laundry is, eh? We even remembered to save the laundry baskets with wheels on them.

The company in charge of shipping has noticed our move, and asks on its form if we have any special instructions for delivery. Boy howdy, do we! Often what is meant by the question is whether it's a gated community with a code, or is there an apartment number, or must it be left with, say, a concierge.

Like we'd be fancy enough to have a concierge! 

My directions are simple: leave on larger porch on east side. Simple, right? Larger porch implies there is a smaller one to be ignored.  East side helps the delivery people who can't figure out relative sizes by eyeballing them distinguish between north side and east side. Or vice versa, I guess. But a couple days ago I was reminded that some people have no sense of direction, when a FedEx driver left two boxes outside the utility room. 

You know, the one facing north.

The OTHER east, I guess.

I'm just lucky that neither box was too big nor too heavy for me to wrangle inside the narrow space and around the corners to bring them inside before it rained... again.

My son will assemble them in a bit. This time it's a pair of inexpensive rolling chairs. Tomorrow it will be shelf units matching what we already ordered before and, once divided, will both raise their heights one shelf and provide my (still) only houseplant a home in a window. We'll see my son again then too.

Maybe we should plan on feeding him?

An ATM Hack

No, not the criminal kind. Honest!

I was out with a friend yesterday who needed some cash. Being early birds, we arrived at her local bank branch before it opened, changing our plans, which required cash. Of course it has an ATM inside its first set of front doors. Just one teensy little bit of a problem, however.  She can't remember her 4 number pin. 

I shared our secret with her.

If she's like me, it wasn't all that hard the first time she set one up. But those darn security conscious banks are regularly asking you to change it. If you need to replace your card because somebody got a hold of your card number, again, change your pin for a new one as well. It never ends.

Numbers are particularly hard to come up with and remember. Nearly all the time, 4 numbers carry no meaning in themselves. I drew such a blank the first time I needed to come up with one about 40 years ago, I just plugged in 3-2-1-0. Hey, I was unique, wasn't I? I mean, everybody else goes 1-2-3-4. I wasn't everybody. I kept that pin for over a decade, and am only revealing its big secret now because I'd never do that again.

Steve uses a bank he's very loyal to, despite their well known abysmal record of security for their cardholders' information, among other things. It's the one reason I never would give them a credit card number when I tried to cash a check there, even one written on the bank, and required because I wasn't a customer myself. I couldn't even endorse a check over to Steve to deposit without that. They mailed it back!

We came up with a work-around for that, solving my problem without risking my security. But Steve continually has a problem with his card number illicitly being used, requiring him to get a whole new card from the bank. (That was way more than inconvenient when we'd just moved and mail deliveries weren't. Delivered, that is.) If I can count correctly, he's had ten cards replaced since we've been living together. I may be underestimating. He usually has me drive to the ATM for him and plug in his code when he withdraws cash, a royal literal pain with my short car and arthritic shoulders. Those things are designed for those tall monster fuel hogs. But each time he has to change it, I get his new code to punch in. 

He shared his secret with me for remembering all those new pins. They aren't numbers. They're four letter words! Just look at your phone pad and translate them back to the number each letter sits on. "J" is a 5, for example, if your word has a "J" in it. It's easy for both of us to remember the words. Some times they are actually what are colloquially referred to as four-letter-words. It might just depend on how annoyed either of us were - because yes, I do that now too - when the need for a new pin number came up. Go ahead, use those anyway if it helps. The machine isn't going to know what, say, 7448 translates back to.

I bet you can figure it out, eh?

I bet you won't forget it either. Go ahead, neither of us is currently using it.

I Feel A Rant Coming On...

How dare they!!! Who do they think they are, rewriting the foremost principles of the constitution with one idiotic, thoughtless, nay, criminal verdict? Oh wait, it's not just one verdict, just the latest before they skip town. They've been dismantling our Democracy for several years now.

In case you've been in a coma the last 30 hours or so, I'm referring to our formerly respectable Supreme Court. You know, the one whose majority no longer trusts women to make decisions about their own bodies and is allowing each state to make their own rules about what we may or may not do, mostly based on ignorance, making power grabs smothered in warped religiosity. The same Court which has been making it impossible for this government to work for our betterment by allowing businesses (because they're "people" too) to pollute without restraint and destroy first their neighborhoods and soon this whole planet, just for the sake of ... what? Better stock prices? Higher CEO pay? Their own imagined luxury retirement where by some miracle they have a nice spot tucked away on this planet where a few people can still breathe an atmosphere with a healthy ratio of CO2 to O2, with no weather disasters which are worsening each year, destroying agriculture, habitat, and survivability? Yeah, that Court.

Perhaps they imagine that granting unlimited power to a single person without repercussions is just a technicality, that nobody would take unfair advantage of facing no criminal repercussions, and we would never elect somebody who is a power hungry narcissist anxious to take revenge against their imagined enemies who simply don't march in lockstep with them. Maybe our Founding Fathers only imagined the destruction even back then, when a single person empowered as king could wield hell upon their own country as well as those they wished to conquer, subjugate, enslave, control, or destroy in whatever way they could. After all our founding fathers had only just finished a war against George to get out from under his cruel thumb, and couldn't possibly have long enough memories to work to prevent it happening again, from inside this time. Right? Did these current appointed "Justices" forget our Founders came up with principles like everybody being equal under the law? Nobody got to be king. Of course they made a few glaring oversights back then, like women and African descended persons being property, only fractions of human beings, needing to own property (without regard for the people already inhabiting it) in order to even have rights and value. But we've been working to fix that for over 200 years now, and until recently we'd been doing a steady if not rapid job of fixing that oversight. After all, people with ultimate power over others will wind up abusing it, one way or another.

Do these "Justices" somehow delude themselves into thinking we've grown past those abuses? We only elect sane, responsible, thoughtful people to power? Crooks can't get past the system and reach the seats of power? Were they asleep since 2016 when a certain now 34 -times convicted felon took office? Did they take a holiday in the Bahamas on January 6 of 2021 with no benefit of news or internet, thinking they were just avoiding a loud party across the way?? Come on, people, are we going to believe they're mostly just stupid, ignorant, blind in their high thrones of power? Will we look at their reaping all kinds of riches and gifts from "friends" who just happen to occasionally have cases before the court which coincidentally just happen to be decided by the majority in their favor, and think instead about what we're going to do with our friends Friday after work that week, everything's fine?

Ask yourself what will be the next legal constitutional domino to fall? Can you see how it will affect you and yours? Do you fancy yourself in one of the "immune" or "protected" groups? Do you honestly think there ARE any protected groups any more, when the whims of an offended narcissistic madman can take anybody down, should he regain power? Could air that isn't breathable be somehow separated from the rest of this planet's air just for you? Do you really think enough people are paying attention to realize where this could be headed and keep a felon out of the Oval Office? We let him in before, didn't we. We also kept him out once. But now they are apparently endorsing all his criminality as just an ordinary part of the job.

Are we really going to buy that? 

Are we?