Another Journey

We do this each year, one way or another. Head north, head south, take the fast route, the scenic route. We've arrived, safely, are recovering, pretty much, and between naps. I'll just give the info that makes this trip a little different. Like the dead armadillos perhaps. Or my separating car bumper. Or... well, I'll  let you read this.

Packing was put off as long as possible. Even the list making was. We weren't sure exactly when we'd go, waiting to find out whether Steve's back treatment would do any good. As it turned out, it has done some good, giving him the relief of getting his pain levels down to a 5 (on a scale of 1 - 10) on occasion, but still prone to 8 or 9 given any reason. Like bumpy roads. Still, those times of 5 are  much better than before, even though not as good as hoped. But we gave ourselves an extra day before leaving, went the fastest, flattest route, aka boring, and the cheapest, meaning Motel 6 and no gas prices over $5.49.9/gallon. That of course was Sun City, our first fill and worst fill. Best price was Texas, $4.39.9, a local spot just inside their border along 40 which happened to be making their own breakfast "tacos" which really were burritos, but with a chorizo sauce Steve would go right back for now if it were feasible. 

I'm insisting no.

But let's take this in order.

Day 1: "Too Little Too Late:

The plan was to make Tucumcari. Awake by 3 AM (check), everything done and on the road by 5:30 (almost check, missed it by 5) and 600 miles later, bed. The route was planned a little differently than straight up tp Flagstaff and west on 40, instead cutting off from 17 in Camp Verde on 260, angling east on 260 to 87 unto Winslow. It passes through some beautiful high and wooded country. We actually saw a fawn near the road on the way. And Trees! Real actual trees!

While I often get up at 3 these days, I also usually get in a nap for another hour, perhaps at 5, maybe 7 or 8, perhaps not til after lunch or even around suppertime. Whatever, however it falls out, there is a nap, because the next bedtime is around 9.

No real nap today. There was a 10 minute snooze just before we crossed the border into New Mexico. Just enough to keep me going till Albuquerque, climbing up Sandia Mountain in early afternoon rush hour traffic, before things had a chance to get terrible. I was badly in need of a break. It arrived in the form of a gas stop, a short dog walk, a pit stop, and a bitty bag of popcorn. So the issue of needing a nap returned about a hundred miles before Tucumcari.
 

Adrenaline helps, have you noticed? As we headed west, the main thing on our minds was the storm in the distance, whether it was moving south out of our way, was the pavement showing signs it had rained recently, were those dark rumble strips wet? and hey! Can you smell that? Rain! Woo hoo!

Right about then, a few miles shy of Santa Rosa, we saw blue flashing lights ahead, in the freeway median just past a bridge. Nope, correction, two sets of blue flashers. Two cops then. Something was going on. Not just ordinary road construction, which, come to think of it, AZ didn't seem to be doing much of. They stood outside their squad card, waving us to slow down with large yellow flags. Trucks started putting on their flashers, we started slowing and bunching up. Both lanes. I put our lights on, slowed to within 40 feet of the semi ahead, and promptly got honked at by my tailgater.

WTF? Did they know know there was no way faster than however fast the traffic was going? Nobody would be cutting in to come between us if I stayed back that small amount, but HONNNK! I ignored them, other than exchanging a few choice comments with Steve. All my tailgaters get the same treatment: I slow down. Maybe they’ll leave. This one can’t of course, but if you honk, I slow. After about two miles of this, stop and go, creep a bit each time, there were finally red flashing lights up ahead in the median.  Our (right) lane slid over onto the shoulder, and the left lane slid even further over to merge with ours. Most everybody took turns. There's always a couple, but most of them did. We were all in this together after all.

As we got close, then passed, we saw a jackknifed semi in the median, three squad cars around the front and three tow trucks around the rest of the truck. And…we were gone. Just like that.

Just as we started gaining speed again, Steve read the new sign along the road: “Safety zone next 12 miles.” We both laughed, and almost simultaneously said “A little to little, too late!”

DAY 2: The Lonnng Day.

This was the planned 700 mile leg, aiming for Lenexa, KS. There were no reasonable accommodations at the 600 mile mark or thereabouts, and as grueling as we expected, it make the last leg a "mere" 500. Our room had been comfy, nice beds, with an AC unit in the wall which actually worked. There were a couple issues: the door didn't lock properly, the safety catch coming out of the woodwork and the deadbolt requiring much adjusting to engage.  Despite the website, there was no fridge or microwave, no coffee pot, and it turned out the toilet stopped flushing after the first two. I opened up the top to see if I could adjust something, like a chain which might have come off the lever to let water out the bottom, but it was plumbed very differently than I'd ever seen. We just left them a note about it. Heaven forbid they'd think we were that kind of people! Noise levels proved the walls and ceiling were thin, but they usually are and we managed sleep anyway. 

Until 3AM. Even after losing an hour crossing into New Mexico, my internal clock adjusted to their 3 AM, and we'd lose another hour on this leg. Steve was awake and we agreed there was no reason to stick around. Since I'd gotten to bed almost the minute we were inside the door, I was feeling well rested. And for sure this early there'd be less traffic!

Back on the road, we had an excellent view of the stars, particularly Venus, very bright despite the sky lightening up, and usually dead ahead. I clearly identified Cassiopeia out my window, the first I'd seen of it since... well, I guess last May in Utah on our big trip. Minnesota skies had been mostly obscured all summer with Canadian forest fire smoke.  Phoenix skies aren't helpful. Orion maybe, at their clearest.

Wind farms began to show up, then Venus disappeared just as we were wondering whether the soon-to-be rising sun was going to stab our eyeballs. Clouds dead ahead! Low ones. Suddenly the windmills showed only the bottoms of their towers and the rotating blades only showed about a third of their bottom blade at any time. Flash! You see it. Flash! You don't. Flash! The next blade's bottom is in view. Abruptly the semi ahead of us put its flashers on and slowed way down: fog! We were in and out of fog the next 60 miles or so, with it finally rising for the heat island of Amarillo. As we'd stopped for gas much earlier, there was no need to do more than drive straight through, and by the time the clouds ended, the sun was so high it wasn't a factor for driving.

Much as I hate Texas on principle (several of them in fact), Steve commented that they did one thing right, at least this far into the trip. The road smoothed out the minute we crossed out of Mew Mexico. His back was ready for that!

Most of the drive was uneventful. Just very, very, very long.  We did see more wildlife along the way though aside from cows all over, “life” was a misnomer. Call it roadkill: a small skunk, several turtles, a couple armadillos. I’m used to thinking of that latter as being in Texas, but these both were along the turnpike in Kansas.  We finally hit our motel in Lenexa, a western suburb of Kansas City, KS, about 6:30.

Heather Too was being her usual self on the trip. It takes her a while to adjust to changes, so her intake of both food and water was down for these first two days. She’s contented in the back seat on top of two soft duffels Steve packs his stuff in, with one of his sweatshirts on top to snuggle into. She’s happy to get out and sniff all the other pooches who’ve used the pet areas on our stops, but by the end of the 2nd day had very little of her own to contribute. She's a true desert dog, hates grass, especially if it's at all wet, either from dew or rain. She keeps pulling at her leash to get off the grass. Where's that gravel back yard she's used to?

I’d figured out how many hours we should have driven, and kept coming up short. It finally hit me: road construction! Lower speeds, single lanes, even over a weekend. From 4:40 AM to 7:30 PM, all freeway from Tucumcari to KC, Kansas. It was supposed to be 700 miles, but turned out to be about 750. When we hit our room, it looked exactly like the previous one, with one important difference: the wall unit for AC didn't exist, just the overhead unit for heat. In theory anyway. We were chilly, so I turned the heat on. The room got colder. And colder. We hadn't packed winter pajamas! I had a snuggely warm dog, but even the bath towels for extra blankets didn't help. I finally got smart enough to turn off the "heat," and Steve went to the car and brought back two sets of sweats. They were almost enough. This was well after the young children running all over and yelling outside our door for about 3 hours after we tried to get some sleep, because of course they did. Did those kids even have parents? Steve made me promise no more Motel 6 stays. Period.

Day 3: Lost!

I think we both got about 3 hours of sleep that night, and this time didn't hit the road until after sunrise. Shortest leg, but most grueling ahead. Getting lost didn't help.

I need to explain that, taking pride as I do in in finding my way  around almost everywhere, particularly when I've driven through there several times before. But northbound through the Kansas Cities is always a problem on their good days, although I've nearly figured them out. This wasn't one of their good days. And the MO side isn't known for good signage.

35 was under construction. Closed, even. We were to take something else, but I was still trying to figure out their sign which stated "closed 12th St" - or maybe Avenue. I didn't know, nor care. Cones narrowed that section of freeway to one lane... and we'd zoomed past it. Now the only signs discussed 70 and 760 and I had no clue where any of those went, although I had noted that 70 was closed. So... take 760 then? (Or was it 670? Remember how sleep deprived I was.) We opted for the one with a 6 in it, and subsequent signs gave that route as 35 and whatever that number was, so I thought we were OK, but we kept going and going west. I needed north. I finally found an off ramp that didn't threaten no return freeway access, located a convenience store open that early on a Sunday morning, and stopped for help.

Apparently she was used to people like me who couldn't figure out the bad signage. She'd been one of us her first couple of times through there and she already knew the roads. She gave verbal directions that sounded simple: turn left back onto the street we'd taken to her store, go under that piece of freeway, under the next one which was the closed 70, and eventually we'd see signs for north 35. Easy peasy. Right? But then she decided to check with Google and print us out a map. It would get us to Des Moines, but I could do that part myself, if I could only get back on to 35. The map had a size scale where the needed part was a pin prick in size. NOT HELPFUL!!! I decided, after thanking her, that I should just trust her verbal information. The six sheets of printout had as instructions 2 and 3, to go to the light where we'd turned in, take a left (number 2) and take a right (number 3) onto the very same street. We had 6 sheets of scratch paper for the car!

Sure enough, her original directions were easy to follow. We were back on 35 northbound, heading out of Kansas (again!), and this time Steve saw a sign I'd missed both times through the tangle that told us which road to take instead. Moreover, more decent signs followed. FINALLY! Homeward bound.

It was pretty much same old same old from there, a stop for gas, a rest stop with a nap attempt (failed), an oil check (fine), breakfast (free because they got our order screwed up AND we caught it at the window), another nap attempt (successful), lunch, and finally Minnesota! We were back in roadkill territory, but this time is was all fawns. Every single one. There were well over a dozen along the shoulder, every few miles. No adults, just another fawn. Eventually there were a couple of widely separated raccoons just for variety, before the last dead fawn.

Finally we hit the Twin Cities, and 35E is still under construction, or at least constricted right in downtown St. Paul. How many years has that been now? 10? Seems like I was still working when they were doing the north end, around 694 and up. It really started to feel weird when we hit the Chisago Lakes area. It was home. But it wasn't home. I was simply too tired by then to deal with it, just needing to get home safely. I got Paul to help unload the car and we discussed the changes to the yard - or what still hadn't changed despite last summer's work. (They're called weeds.) More of some flowers are blooming however, like 4 columbine plants instead of last year's one. Perhaps I really made some progress after all.

I spent my last brain reserves making the adjustment for the TV from Dish in AZ to Dish in MN. Different schedules, offerings, even the remote. Where the heck is that button? How do I turn this on/off again? Eventually I set a few timers and decided to go to bed. Unpacking would wait. 1846 miles later, and We. Were. Finally. Here.

Uff da.

Seven Hours. Just Seven Frickin Hours!

Steve got his spinal injection this morning. It's his second this year. The first was just outside the vertebrae, his doctor believing it was arthritis plaguing him. That one lasted two blessed hours of relief. Only. The doc considered that a failure. It should have lasted months.

Today the doc decided to treat the pain as being caused by spinal stenosis, a different shot, different location, slightly different symptoms. Again, the expectation was for it to last several months, and could be repeated regularly to keep his unrelenting back pain at bay. He got it at 11, under anesthesia, meaning no food or water for 8 hours before time, and I had to stick around to drive him home. 

As if I'd be anywhere else!

He walked out pain free! He was a little loopy from the anesthetic, but who cared? As the hours went on, optimism grew. Hope crept in.. We even discussed possibly taking a more scenic route heading north, not just the fastest one to get him to where he could lay back and relax as much as possible as soon as possible. Enjoyment versus endurance.

It's a few minutes after 6 now, our time. He just got up and went to lay down. The pain is coming back, and he wished to have that one last walk down the hall as pain free as possible before it came crushing in again.

Seven Damn Hours!

Not Our Fathers' Varnish Job

I've been taught by experts, as well as some who thought they were. I've painted large parts inside of several houses, some "hobby" creations (aka almost recognizable furniture), and have respectably wielded a brush on most of those occasions. Always, always, like a mantra, was the need to blend new and old surfaces so there are no brush marks left, nothing drips, everything is evenly covered.

I doubt a single one of those fussy people ever varnished saguaro ribs.

The varnish was free, a donation from a friend of Rich's who conveniently works in wood himself and has a renter who does creative things with cactus and sells them. I'm talking about the woody skeletons left behind after they died, of course. The varnish included a dark stain, not my first choice but the price was right. So was the advice his renter provided, noting that cactus wood is thirsty. Very very very thirsty! Seriously thirsty!! Whatever you put on it gets slurped up almost immediately, well before drying of course. I presume it's that characteristic which keeps desert plants alive, that ability to slurp and store liquids rapidly. Apparently it works after death as well.

Yesterday I had 7 pieces of skeleton to varnish, and today, after more sawing and brass-brushing, had another 8. Yesterday's pieces got two coats. You think they exhibited the least bit of shine this morning? LOL! They had dried a tad lighter in shade than when completely wet, but still a very matte finish. Hardly an indication that they'd been sealed at all. 

Today I really slathered the varnish on the fresh pieces, left them on the chicken wire to drip, then started right in with the first of those again for their second coat. The first one had already been soaked up, just as rapidly as yesterday's. Varnish levels in the container were dropping so I made sure to give them everything I could while I could.  With a second coat applied, and still having varnish left, coupled with very little desire to drag it all out to a third day, especially considering how stiff the protected-from-air brush was this morning and having no more plastic gloves for my hands, it was today or never. So I slathered them again, all but finishing up the varnish. (It's air drying out now until garbage day.)

The point of this is, however, that the surface of saguaro ribs is very three dimensional. Its grain has patterns in all directions, not by color but by grooves in a variety of patterns and depths. If you are ever in this position, prepare to sacrifice your brush, since there is more jabbing and stabbing to spread the varnish than there is smooth stroking. Lots more! Especially since there are channels nearly half an inch deep which have openings to the surface much smaller to stab your brush through. Best to apply it while still dripping varnish so it runs down in to be spread immediately later than try to do anything resembling a neat job. Coverage is key, especially if your piece is going to be outside in non-desert conditions, and more especially if those conditions include freeze-thaw cycles. Besides, all that slurping up is going to suck whatever whats to run, drip, or pretend to leave brush marks while it still is wet. You won't see any of that once it's dry.

In hindsight, I was pretty prepared for the sloppy application, but not quite enough. I wore old clothes where whatever happened to them didn't matter, wore plastic gloves so I could hand-hold the pieces, and was barefoot out on the front slab, so no worries about shoes either. An old resin patio table covered (nearly) with newspaper ad circulars held the varnish, it's lid for brush resting, and most of the drippings. Not quite all. I could have spread the newsprint out better, but I didn't care about the table in the first place. A few drips of varnish landed on the concrete, but again, I don't particularly care. I presume a few more years of Arizona summer sunshine and foot traffic will pretty well take care of those as well. Worst case it can be either painted, or astro-turfed again. Astro- turf hates bare feet however. The cardboard from the broken up box caught most of the drips from today's varnishing while the ribs dried on chicken wire above, though it did catch all yesterday because I was working more "old-school" in being careful with the varnish than today. The brush actually looks pretty good - must have accidentally bought a good quality one! But it's going to dry stiff and well varnished, just because I'm done. I'll buy another when needed.

Tomorrow or Wednesday I'm going to pick out the ribs to haul north for windchime assembly this summer. Amount of solvent odor left will be one major determining factor, since we'll be living with them in the car for three days and the windows will not be open because of the AC. The rest of the finished ones will find a summer home, hopefully safe from theft and mischief, though it's impossible to predict that after last summer. I'm not finished cooking all my glass, but I'm done for now. I tried some glass fusion with a few pieces yesterday to see how they turn out. If I like them, I'll probably use most of what's left to make more like that. But all will need to be drilled, and that will wait another three months. Today I just need to hit the club and pull the last two batches out of their kilns, then pack them away with others that aren't drilled. Since my Ukrainian bead order arrived in time (!!!!) there's one wire and bead project left to do as a gift for somebody down here, and then it can all be packed away or packed for travel.

And there's still all those lists to make!

Hey, you don't think I've been avoiding that, do you?

On A LIghter Note, Rubbing Cactus

The glass cooking is progressing well. A few pieces are turning what should have been lovely colors into black, but I'm told that's a hazard of the art. Many many more are turning out splendiferous. (Hey, it's a real word. Google it.) The new batches are mostly much easier to drill. Unfortunately the dremel decided to go on vacation. A new power cord to replace the one that heated up enough to melt its rubberized covering is in the process of being ordered. Luckily for me, the pieces I have already drilled should be enough for 5 or 6 chimes sets that I plan to put together on my own vacation. Apparently I just may have over-used it. Most people in the club just sit at its table and make one hole for one project at a time. It may not be made for steadier use.

Note to self: next fall just drill a few pieces of glass each day: really, a few, like 3 or 4. Each day. If I'm there when other members are working, they'll always be interrupting me for stuff anyway. How do I...? Where is ...? Can you...? What's the policy on...? When is the next...? It's why previous presidents slip in after hours in order to get something done, like I do now with the glass, or do lots of things at home like most of my wire work. My predecessor is currently into lost wax casting for sterling, and both shuts that room door shut with a "Do Not disturb" sign that you DO NOT IGNORE unless the building is burning, and comes in after hours with another member doing the same thing. That process is much more dangerous than what I'm doing and you have to have two there. Perhaps three. More is too crowded for safety again.

I talked to the RIGHT PERSON finally in the club, a fellow officer who does lots of fused glass work herself. She imparted two very valuable pieces of information. First, how easy it actually is to run a second small kiln the club has, so twice as much cut glass gets cooked at a time. When it was first explained, the workshop instructor went into so much detail about what other buttons are for which you don't use for what we do, that I got totally lost. Turns out what is involved after loading and locking it is... pushing one button. Many times, since each push gives a new readout. If you pay attention, it tells you this is in Program 4, used for fusion, how high it heats in its next step and how long it stays there before heading higher again. Fine if you need to know. Or, just keep pushing that button until it reads "ready" and push one more time till it says Go. Or something. But it starts humming so you know it's cooking.  Make sure the fan is on to vent fumes, not from the glass but the kiln paper under it. Turn out the lights, shut the door, and walk away.

For how long? That was the second valuable piece of information I got. Usually we start it any time one day, return to the club the next and empty it. What we can actually do is start it at, say, 8 AM, then empty and reload it at 8 PM. When you first open those kiln doors it's likely to still be warm, but it will tell you how much. When I got there this morning both were registering around the one hundred teens. AKA summer outside in Phoenix.  I just opened them first thing, went to cut glass for my next two loads, and returned in about 15 minutes, pulling out the slabs holding my newest glass pieces comfortably with bare hands before sliding the new slabs in and pushing buttons again. Now instead of one load, perhaps a dozen pieces per day, I can do four times as much. I should be through all I own in time to store away for fall. These pieces will get drilled just a few at a time in the fall until there are enough for more chimes before the holidays for those who won't get theirs during a personal summer visit. After that I'll be making my own.

The wire and accessories for summer are all packed already, drilled chimes bagged by color, so the only thing left is what they will hang from. It will be unique. The class instructor provided each of us an old wooden spoon to hang ours from. Hmmmmmmm. Ri-i-i-ight. I had a different idea.

When we bought this house, back in a fence corner, prevented from our access by an overgrown ocotillo and a clump of overgrown yuccas, all very spiny and ornery, was about a 3' skeleton from a saguaro cactus. You know, the ones that live a hundred hears before they send up their first arm from their trunk, grow maybe 40 feet tall, and are the icon of the Sonoran Desert? The ones everybody dug out of the desert for their home yards before they became protected? We had a piece of a trunk from one of those. Long since defleshed, it was stood upright in that back fence corner where only the neighbors could see it through the fence. Until last winter.

Having grown used to ignoring it, I was prowling the yard one day last winter when I noticed it lying on the ground. What the? One of the neighbors was doing yard work and knocked it over. One of his tools went through the chain link and unbalanced it. He apologized, but I thanked him for tipping it. I had Rich go fetch Steve's long handled grab stick and drag it out. In the process it broke into three vertical sections, each combined of multiple ribs. It sat out in our yard waiting for... something. A purchaser? An idea? He placed an ad, but nobody seemed to want a broken up, bug-holed, who knows how many years old one. An idea then was needed.

Life continued on, until wind chime workshop day. And a puny wooden spoon. I had something better. Or at least hoped I had. Time to go check how intact it remained. Lots of it looked pretty rough, but the main bits of ribs were solid and lightweight, an almost contradictory combination. I suddenly didn't want them stolen so I loaded them in the only secure place where I wouldn't be making (another) mess inside the house: my car trunk. They were so light I could carry the whole of them through the back yard into the carport. Setting them down so I could access the hatch door was more of a drop, and suddenly I had many more than three sections. Those ragged parts looked even more so. But there was still promise, or so I hoped.

Today was time to finally face facts. I reached in and after much thought pulled out a 3-rib section. I noted in places it was a 2 rib section. Rich provided a bucket and a hand saw, but not the labor. He was pulling weeds, and besides, this is my project. A half hour's work removed one third of the length, proving that despite its lack of heft it has plenty of strength. Sure, smaller loose pieces fell off into the bucket, some even onto the concrete where I sat working, but I continued taking off the other third of its length. In the process, several individual ribs fell away. 

Finished sawing I examined them again. They were dirty. Part brown desert dust, part blackened wood, dirty. Rich brought me an old old old brass bristle brush, most of which's bristles from long hard use were curved over on top of themselves. My work turned the black to grey, the brown dirt to tan wood with a very unique grain pattern to it. The brass didn't scratch the grain like a steel one would have. Once all the easily removed bits still clinging were removed, what was left retained both beauty and strength. These will be excellent tops from which the chimes will hang.

Tonight, after cycling glass in the kilns again, when the sun has set and the air begins to cool back into the 90s, they will get spar/acrylic varnish brushed over them, then set to dry. I'll be working outside under the front door light, and have already set up a spot for them to dry. Seems I was a bit lax in clearing out the old small chicken wire cages from the front yard I'd had set around some new plantings to keep the rabbits from their preferred feast - anything brand new from the nursery which had been well fertilized (yummy) and watered (tender!). It never matters if they will ignore the same plant after a couple years adjusting to AZ climate cruelty. The new ones are irresistible. Last summer they managed to push up all the cages I set out and eat the plants down below dirt level. 

The cages themselves are about perfectly sized to surround a 2 liter bottle. Old tent stakes crisscrossed through the mesh hold any two together, and five in a row with an old cardboard box beneath should be the perfect drying rack for them, laid across the tops. It's not pool walking night so I should have enough energy to get at least some of them done. Then we can pack them up in a few days, hopefully without them stinking up the car.

I Can't Even...

It's way too common. But that's been true with the first one, years ago, and each since. None are acceptable. They should never have targeted kids, much less in schools, but I guess those are the easy victims, the ones who "give shooters their 'names' ". We almost are getting numbed to them, just taking a mental note that this time it wasn't us, wasn't our dead and injured, unless we weren't lucky this time. We shake our heads that schools these days have to have active shooter drills the same way we grew up with duck-and-cover drills to "protect" against atom bombs, but still believe that at least the shooter drills will offer something more than imaginary protection.

Wrong again.

But this time was particularly egregious. All those good guys with gun, the ones we hire and put into uniforms to protect and serve, failed us spectacularly. They protected themselves, served nobody. Somebody, somewhere, "decided" that the shooter was barricaded, the kids were OK, and they could wait to go get him until reinforcements arrived, because the 20 cops or so on the scene "might get shot".

Yeah, that comes with the badge, doncha know. You might get shot. You have guns, vests, adult know-how (supposedly), and a job to do. But somebody might get shot, something so many cops are afraid of these days that they shoot first, killing people armed with a candy bar or a cell phone, or maybe for just not respecting them they way they "should" and turning away.

The kids inside have none of that equipment and training, though some of them seem to have been smarter than you. There was the girl who kept calling 911, asking for the cops to come, why won't they come, the shooter's still there? There was the girl huddling next to her best friends bloody body, smearing herself all over in her friend's blood so the shooter might think he'd already killed her too. There were the boys hiding under a table with a cloth over it, keeping silent, only to hear one of the cops in the hall, once they'd finally come in, call out to the kids to call back to him if they need help, and when one child did answer instead of keeping silent she was targeted by the shooter and killed.

Uvalde Texas is a town with not only regular cops, but an 11 person SWAT team. There is no mention of the latter turning out. Instead there was a Border Patrol squad who took an hour to get there from wherever they had been. There was a mother who implored the cops to go in who got handcuffed, a father who tried to enter the school who got tased instead. And there are reports of cops who went in and got their own children out during that hour delay. To be fair, some did go in and clear kids out of rooms the shooter was in, but meanwhile kids were bleeding out in the two adjoining classrooms where he and his victims still remained. Some of them might have survived.

Don't forget, there is an NRA convention this weekend not to far away from this town. The manufacturers of the specific weapon the shooter used pulled out of it, informing media that their product had been "misused", when of course the shooter used it exactly how it was intended, by shooting the most people possible in the shortest amount of time with the least danger to himself. It is a weapon of war. Sold to anybody. Because this is 'Murica. We're all at war, or so we're told by certain TV networks and media outlets, and all who aren't "us" are the "they" you're fighting. The NRA takes advantage, a long ways from its original purpose of promoting gun safety, instead protecting the safety of gun manufacturer's bottom lines, and spouting nonsense like "a good guy with a gun...." 

They even want teachers to become those "good guys with guns" because somehow a teacher is the ideal role model for that position. Because, you know, a trained person for educating our children who has been denigrated for years, had their budgets all but removed and their salaries frozen or at least made to cover basic school supplies for their classes, is somehow now also supposed to be armed and capable enough to blow away a shooter before one can get to our kids without accidentally shooting our kids as well. You can bet they'll make the teachers pay for those guns themselves too, don't you think?

Well, plenty of supposedly "good guys with guns" were just as scared of that AR-15 as an elementary school full of kids who were trapped inside with the evil person wielding it. They failed to respond properly, failed to own up to their mistakes for two days. Apparently the phrase so many people believe in is a failure too.

I can't even watch the coverage of these shootings any more. But it seems I just can't escape it either.

Taking A Side With Limited Information

I confess: that's me this time. I have one person's account,  and the only information given to me was by her. She's a party in the issue and I'm taking her word for what the situation is. I don't know the others. I shouldn't know the others. That would be a violation of their privacy, their confidentiality. But it's a story I heard Wednesday night, pool walking, and I'll pass it on to you, who won't know the people involved either. It's about risk, and hope, and it touched me. I can't wait to find out more.

The person telling us the details, unlike the rest of us last night, is still working. She's a social worker, specializing on working with children who for whatever reasons have been either removed from their families or need a competent adult present when they go visit a parent for a few hours. Her days can get long, as lots of travel is often involved, and we seldom see her at the times we are there, but last night she was, as always, welcomed back into our group.

The family in question has no involvement by the children's mother. Reasons were not given. The older child, I'll refer to her as the big sister, doesn't see her father either. Again no "why" is given. She is in foster care with her younger brother, who has a different father who lives in another state. At this point the plan is to reunite little brother with his father, and he has applied to take the older sister as well, keeping the siblings together. 

But there's a hitch in that giddyup. Big sister doesn't want to go. She is attached to her foster family, who have indicated a wish to adopt her. Neither big sister nor the foster family wish to have a long term connection with little brother. He has multiple disabilities, and frequently acts out violently. The court hasn't ruled yet, and big sister needs to get the courage to inform her attorney and the judge that she does not want to leave her foster home and go with little brother. His relatives are strangers to her, and worse from her point of view, little brother and all his problems including his violence are way too familiar. The foster family is not allowed to push her in any direction. But the social worker does have the authority in her position to inquire and advise her what might be the best for her, primarily involving speaking up for herself. It requires her learning to value herself and respect her own needs, not selfishly as she may believe, but simply because despite what's happened to her, she too has value. The social worker's opinion is that older sister will wind up being little more than the primary caretaker for her abusive little brother if she goes to his father's family. Instead she needs to finish growing up in an environment which supports her, her needs, her goals. A good option is available to her if she asks for it, according to our friend.

So hearing that much, having no reason to believe more information needs to be presented, I've got an opinion. I'd love to hear when we return after summer vacation that big sister is living with her foster family and getting ready to be adopted by them. Before parting ways the other night, I asked our social worker friend to be prepared to let us know in the fall how it turns out. I almost can't wait.

Fighting The Glass

I must have gotten the wrong kind. That, or the kilns are cycling wrong, a periodic but known event. But then again, some of what I'm fighting with turned out perfectly.

I refer to my recent setbacks in making glass wind chimes. All started out well enough, encouraging me to make a big thing of it. I got more glass, cut it, popped it in kilns and hardened it. At least some of the new glass got slightly too hardened. OK, who am I kidding? It got WAY too hardened.

All this last week I've had problems with drilling holes in the pieces. It hasn't mattered which shape of diamond drill bits I used. Many shapes work, though our instructor had a favorite. I got my own set, since tools with high club usage tend to get worn out quickly, not to mention bent, warped, broken, or "disappeared". When I started having issues, I retired the one bit I'd been using, even though it still showed plenty of diamond left. The new bit didn't have much better luck. I tried a different shape, then yet a third shape.

Normally, the bit is set on the glass at a slight angle, held by your hand braced against the pan of ice water you drill in. Withing 3 or 4 seconds, the bit makes itself enough of a dent that the drill (dremel)  can be tilted up to vertical and then bites straight down through. Patience is required, but a hole takes 3 to 5 minutes. Only.

Everything I tried this week became a non event. One kind of glass never set that first hole but kicked my rotating bit scuttling over the glass, leaving nothing more than what looked like a bug trail meandering over the surface. Again, same. And again. OK, other kind of glass from same "bake". The first bite took longer than usual but eventually dug in, then went nowhere. I timed a hole for 20 minutes, could barely see any progress, and when probed the hole only went in a millimeter. In the process the cord coming out the back end of the dremel became too hot. I gave it up. No need to wreck a tool.

I'm hoping I can find a club here which uses laser drills. A fairly inexpensive membership, or a payment to the club, might be an option for getting holes in the glass, one or two per piece, depending on its location in the chimes. I haven't thrown them out yet. It's a lot of glass. Perhaps they can be wire wrapped by somebody, though not for wind chimes as the wire will keep them from clinking against each other. They're too big for jewelry, too irregular to set in decorative paving stones. By now I even doubt they can be used for breaking in a wild tantrum. 

Not that I have any plans for one, of course.

At least not yet.

I'm not completely discouraged, of course. I did find a selection of smaller pieces online, promised to be shipped here by midweek. Each is different, though from the same shipper there is only a single shipping charge, so it pays to get whatever I'm interested in at one time. Each is large enough to give me 5 or 6 pieces, if I can get my plan right and they break where scored. (Translation: if I can score them properly!) It will be simple to run one kiln's worth of samples, a couple pieces from each set so none completely lost if the kiln fritzes, and test drill them next day while the next kiln batch runs, and still get them ready to bring with me before packing so I can put them together over the summer with all the materials needed.

My only question to myself right now is how much stress do I want to pack -get it? pack? - into the next week-plus of time in order to get ready to leave? At least the driving is relaxing.