Thursday This n That

I've been watching old reruns of the show EMERGENCY!  If you're not familiar with it, it's from the early '70s and it's about paramedics in LA.  I mean, there are doctors and a nurse that also feature prominently, plus firefighters in secondary roles, but the two main characters are paramedics.   John is a bachelor and kind of a goof, Roy is a family man and kind of a stabilizing influence.  (When I was a little girl, I LOVED this show, and I had a major tot crush on Johnny.)  Other than that, I don't know a damn thing about them and I'm happy with that.  It's got some tense moments and some light moments.  Not much that's too deep.  For the most part, it's one and done.  And every episode is encapsulated.  No long running side stories.  No deep backstory stuff that haunts the characters.  If it touches on an issue - like say child abuse - it says it's piece and then let's it go.  Hell, the other night, Johnny was run over by a drunk driver who fled the scene.  It was tense until he got out of surgery and then it was light.  One short offhand comment about 'the police got that guy who hit John' and they were done with it.  I'm enjoying the show mightily.  If you get FETV, it's on at 10pm Eastern - 9 Central, which means I'm staying up late these days.

Speaking of staying up late, I can't sleep anyway, so why not watch a little something amusing?

Another show I've been addicted to lately is MOM.  I'm not sure why.  It supposed to be a sitcom, but it is often not funny.  I mean, there are bits that are hilarious, but other bits that are heartrending.  It's a total change from Emergency!, let me tell ya.   

Yeah, I've been watching a lot of TV lately.  Part of the reason is that it keeps me away from the computer - which keeps me away from both current events and the need to smoke many many cigarettes.  The other part is it distracts me from all the other crap going on in the world.  Although, they do keep trying to insert irritating issue stuff in the commercials.  Thank goodness for mute, eh?

I spend a lot of time not leaving the house lately.  If I have to go someplace, I do it, so I'm not like a shut-in or anything, but I'm not inclined otherwise.  I keep meaning to go take a walk, but meh.  I have yardwork to do, too, but also meh.  I really need to break that cycle.  Unfortunately, it's raining.  AGAIN.  Enough with the rain already.  If this keeps up, it'll be the wettest month since we moved here.  We were just over 10 inches for the month before this latest batch of sky water.  And we still have 6 days left.  Blerg.

When I was at the mechanics getting my new brakes adjusted, I brought a book, but instead of reading, I spent the whole hour or so in deep conversation with the 2-yr-old daughter of the mechanic.  She was awesome.  I only understood about half of the words she was saying, but like I said, awesome.  Once she warmed up to me, she had to show me everything her mama had packed for her to play with.  And by the way, according to her, the cow says baa.  So does the sheep.  She really made my day.  And with the world taking a shit the way it is, it was nice to find a bright spot.  Thinking about her now still makes me grin.  

Anyway, that's it for me today.  Got anything on your end to yatter about?

Thursday This n That

Scars... I haz 'em.  A friend of mine posted yesterday about an ungraceful thing she'd done that ended up with an ouchie.  It got me to thinking about all of my ouchies over the years and then all the scars I have.  Like I said in her comments, my life has been a journey of ouchies and my body is the map.  I can pinpoint where most of the scars came from - starting with the one on the back of my neck from when I was small.  Spook the cat got me when I tried to carry him.  Or maybe the two on my chin were first.  Those came from a poodle bite when I was like 4.  I actually have a dent in my jawbone from one of those.  :shrug:  My mother is amazed the experience didn't make me fear dogs, but nope.  (I still don't like poodles of a certain size, though.)

I've been bit by too many animals.  The poodle started it.  Cats, of course.  Snakes - of the garter variety.  I have a scar on my hand from Zeus the German Shepherd, who was a goofy, sweet dog - unless he was chained up and then he was on guard duty.  I didn't see the chain attached, so I tried to pet him and he engulfed my hand.  Luckily, only one tooth got me.  I also had a Doberman nip me in the face, but he didn't break the skin, thank goodness.  I got bit by a horse once.  JR was as dumb as a stump.  One day I was cleaning his stall while he was still in it - don't ask why, I don't remember - and he bit the back of my leg.  Thank goodness for denim or he would've taken a chunk out.  Left a baseball-sized bruise instead.  I think he's the only living thing I've ever punched.  He bit me, and I turned around and nailed him in the neck.  He never bit me again.  Of course, I was never stupid enough to be alone in a stall with him again either.  

Sometimes, I don't know when to keep my thoughts to myself.  It's usually when I think I'm helping, so it's not with evil intent, but the results are the same.  I'm sorry.  A while back, I had a friend who spent a lot of time talking about what seemed to me to be her mentally/emotionally abusive relationship with her husband.  One day, I suggested she find a way to leave him.  Never heard from her again.  She's still out there, but I'm blocked.  Maybe she just wanted someone to vent to and not advice.  I'm bad at figuring that stuff out.  

And people wonder why I'm a hermit.

Thursday This n That

I'm at 80% on making edit notes on this book.  The end is near.

I keep finding old metal things on my property.  I have a horseshoe, part of a pitchfork, a piece from a saddle buckle,  part of a hitching post.  It's like a little museum of rusty things.  I also have a totally rusted set of pliers I found at the lake that looks as old as the things I've dug up out of the ground or found in the woods, which amuses me greatly.

Why is it 'set of' with pliers when there's only one?  I tried typing 'found a pliers' but that was just wrong, man.  

Hubs sawed up the cedar that tipped over. Every bit of it but like 4 ft of the stump are now stacked on pallets under the house drying for when we have a woodstove.  Now we're dragging other limbs and trees up and he's sawing those up, too.  Excellent exercise.  We're taking a few days off, though.  It's raining and we need the break.  Cuz we're old and junk.  Teehee.

Woodstove should be one word.  Jus' sayin'.

"Coffee is a potable plant." - Hubs

I only had two in-person friends.  One of them moved away.  The other retired from where I always saw her.  Yesterday, I ran into the latter friend.  It was nice seeing her again.  I just happened to pull into a parking spot across from where she was talking with another friend of hers.  She waved like mad and I waved, and then I walked over and chatted with her.  Like old times.  But yeah, that's about the extent of me hanging out with people these days.

The person my friend was chatting with... well, I didn't know her... but she was all like 'you must know my dad, everyone knows my dad' and I was all like 'Nope, I don't know anyone.  I'm a hermit.'  

I'm making chili today.  I bought the stuff and was going to make it yesterday, but by the time I recovered from the shopping, I was tuckered out.  I was also going to make pizza this week, but I forgot the damn mozzarella.  Dollar General, here I come.  But not today.  Cuz rain.  

For years, I've heard about the movie 'The Big Lebowski'.  I tried to watch it yesterday.  Nope.  Not for me.  :shrug:  I did catch a weird little thing - cuz we have free pay movie channels right now - called "Pieces of April' that was strange but nice.  I also watched a movie called The Quartet that was nice.

Okay, well, that' probably enough out of me this morning.  Have a great day wherever you are. Drop a comment if the mood strikes you.

Sunday Update - Week 34

Well, number 34 is in the books and it was a week I'd just as soon not repeat.  And for this week I'm gonna change the format of this week's update a little bit.

We started the week on Sunday and it was fine.  Monday morning, Owl announced that the university had sent her an email telling her she couldn't move in for an additional three weeks, which sent us all into a spasm.  We got that sorted out and started to be okay with it.  Tuesday afternoon, she got another email saying she was approved for 'special dispensation' and could, in fact, move in on Saturday as planned.  We got that sorted out, too. 

Friday morning, we loaded everything up and headed north to the airport.  The trip there and back was fine.  Her flights were fine.  Everything was lovely.  Until she reached the rental car agency in Detroit and discovered a snafu.  I get a call from her that she is trapped at the airport with no way to get where she needs to go.  After much wrangling and back and forth and phone calls and internet searches - the buses had been suspended, the taxi services all had answering machines, no one at Lyft would pick her up - she finally got a luxury car service to pick her up and take her to her dorm.  Not cheap, but at least she arrived in style in a chauffeur driven Town Car.  She spent the night on a friend's futon, since she wasn't scheduled to move in until Saturday.  The majority of her belongings are still at my mom's place - which was why she was renting a car - but she'll deal with that later.

Needless to say, I lost a pound last week.  Specifically, lost a pound on Friday.  178.4 Thursday morning, 177.4 Saturday morning.  Imagine that.

Also, needless to say, I didn't get a lot of writing done for this last week of AuGoWriMo.  Only about 2900 words on the three days I did write.  Thank goodness I finished Cinder Ugly before last week happened.  I did have some ideas on where to go next with the mystery, which I wrote down, so I do have writing plans.  I just haven't mustered the will to write in the past three days.

No other writerly things got done.  Natch.

I spent yesterday putting the house back to 'hermit couple mode'.  The spare room bed is now up against the wall, giving me room to exercise in there again.  The extra chair we'd put in the living room is back in its place in the office, giving me room to dance around in there again.  The extra desk chair for her in the office has been moved back into the storage closet, leaving Hubs the entire conference table to work at again.

I'm now looking forward to things getting back to as normal as anything can be right now.  I'm still looking for Owl to come walking into the office here and there.  Five months of her being here can't be changed back in a day.  It would be sad if it could. 

So, anyway, that was my week.  How was yours?

Thursday This n That

I had a really great idea for the beginning of this post, but by the time I got over here, it was gone.  This is the story of my life.  LOL

Saturday, I ordered a new Foreman Grill and a pastry cutter from Amazon.  My Foreman is getting too old to clean well enough to feel safe about cooking on it and I don't own a pastry cutter (silly, I know, considering how much baking I do).  Anyway, Amazon tracking said the package would be delivered Thursday or Friday of this week.  When I checked tracking on Wednesday, It said it would be delivered that day, but it wasn't showing 'out for delivery'.  It was showing that it's here in the area - in Hollister, so about 75 minutes from here* - so I was thinking Thursday.  Then Hubs reminded me it has to go through our local post office.  That adds a day usually.  So Friday.  48+ hours to get a package about 40 miles.  Woohoo.  (Update: My mistake... it actually arrived yesterday afternoon, but it came UPS, which explains why it was here on time.)

*Google maps says 52 minutes but I've never made that drive in less than an hour and a quarter.  And people wonder why I don't visit Branson more often.  (Well, distance plus it's all peopley there.)

Speaking of that, people are amazed about a lot of places around here I've never been to.  Harrison, Rogers, Bentonville, Joplin...  I've never even been in Springfield proper.  Only to the airport, which is on the west side of the city, so I never have to actually cross into the real city to get to it.  Cities... blerg.  They're so peopley.  I can't imagine the lure of being in a space with all those people.  And don't get me started on traffic.  Here there's a traffic glut if 5 cars are at the four way stop at the same time or if I have 3 cars behind me when I'm on the highway.  (In cases of people behind me, I often pull off somewhere and let them pass just to get away from them.)

For the past 7 years, I've talked about going down to Beebe, AR to visit the graves of my great-great-great? grandparents (Mom's Dad's Dad's Mother's parents).  I've also talked about visiting her great grandfather's (her Dad's Dad's Dad) grave over in Coffeyville, KS.  They're each only about 125 miles from here, but I can't seem to muster the will for traveling anymore.  And poor grandpa Frank is laying over in KS all by himself after a horrible accident where he was smushed between two trains.  (The grisly part of genealogy is learning the gruesome ways our ancestors died.)  His wife took the kids, remarried and moved down to OK where I lost track of her, but I know none of them are buried near Frank.  =o(

My new Foreman Grill is the kind with removable cook plates for easier cleaning.  They can be put in the dishwasher, but I'll wash them by hand so they last longer.  All I know is when I did the pre-use wash, it was easy peasy.  Cleaning the old one was a pain in the buns.  I love the cautionary bits in the instructions - make sure plates are completely cooled before removing.  Umm, duh.

And that's more than enough out of me today.  What's up with you?

Thursday This n That

I actually got to pet the neighborhood puppies.  OMG, they're so cute!  And I so do not want one.  Really, I don't.  I mean, they're cute and all, but those two boys sound like a handful.  Beagle mix of some kind.  The mother originally made me think beagle/sheltie, but the pups look like beagle/jack russell.  Either way, two breed mixes I do not have the time or the energy for.  But yeah, I'll happily play with them when I get a chance.  Don't despair, though.  It looks like the gal who took them in will be keeping the last two if she doesn't find homes for them.  So cute.  Ugh.

Also got some neighborhood gossip, which doesn't really mean anything to y'all, but it's interesting to us.  Looks like someone is getting ready to close on the vacant lot that's been for sale since before we moved here.  And for some strange reason, he was under the impression that, once the leaves were off the trees, the property would have a lake view.  Umm, no.  He'll have a view of the neighbor's house one way and the cow pasture the other way.  Methinks some realtor sold him a bill of goods.  We're closer to the lake than he is and we don't have a lake view - even in the winter.  Sorry, bud.  Best get out of that contract before it becomes final.  Please get out of it.  You won't like it here.  He told our neighbor he likes to play his music loud and have cookouts.  Noooooo.  She told him we all like it quiet here and we all keep to ourselves.  And he was rude enough to ambush her at 7:30am while she was letting the puppies out for potty, which doesn't bode well for future hopes of courtesy, lemme tell ya.

Speaking of neighbors, there are so many new people here.  We have no clue who most of them are.  So, we went into the local real estate portal and looked at all the property owner names.  I made a map of the neighborhood when we first moved here and a list with all the neighbors.  But so many of them have moved or died, that it's been wrong for a while now.  It's finally correct again.  Well, except for Vacant Lot Dude.  He hasn't closed, so it's still in the old owner's names.  And yes, I am weird.  But it's better than referring to one guy as Walking Dude and that house as Mold House.  (Although, we'll probably still refer to them that way because it helps keep it straight in our heads.)  And there's the one guy who I thought was named Dan for the first year he was here, and since then I thought his name was Tim, but it turns out it's actually Scott.  Umm, yeah, not good with names.  At all.

I don't actually want to meet any of my neighbors, but I like to know who they are.  Duh, hermit here.  And it's not that I would refrain from meeting them if the opportunity arose, but I won't be going out of my way and it won't be a social thing.  I don't like social things.

Cookouts?  :shudder:

I've found over the years that the more I get to know people, the less I want to know them - for the most part.  Every rare once in a while I meet someone cool who stays cool even after I learn more about them.  Usually, though, the more I learn, the more I'm likely to want to crawl back into my hermit hole.

Would you believe the letters ASE&D are already wearing off my new keyboard?  Ugh.

Your turn. 

When Hermits and Company Collide

I've told y'all before that I am a hermit.  Hubs is a hermit, too.  And the cat is basically agoraphobic.  We don't socialize.  With anyone.  Ever. 

Now, we aren't quite at the level of the cat.  We don't run and hide when people happen to come over.  But those who have come into our house are either service personnel or neighborly drop-ins.  The service people come in, do what they need to do and then leave.  The drop-ins are rarely here for long and they don't usually make it past the dining room/entryway. 

Today, however, is a red letter day at our little hermitage.  We have actual people coming over.  People we invited to come over*.  And they'll be staying for at least a few hours. 

We've cleaned the house furiously.  Because, ya know, hermits.  And while we don't live in a pigsty, it's usually not 'company coming' clean around here.  We don't really care if there's a bit of dust or a little clutter.  Anything we use regularly is left out somewhere instead of put away.  That sort of thing. 

Plus, we smoke.  And while we don't notice the mustiness of leftover cigarettes, we're betting other people will notice.

Anyway, the house has been dusted and vacuumed and Febrezed to within an inch of its life.  And we're ready for them to come today.  It's actually kinda nice having the house all spiffy.  And it'll be kinda nice to sit around and socialize with other human beings for a while.  I'm going to try to put on my extrovert costume - I hope it still fits - and not be a wallflower.  Today we'll be a normal couple hanging out with another normal couple, doing couply things.

Fingers crossed it all goes well.

What about you?  Do you do 'company' or are you a hermit, like me?


* If you drop in on me, you get what you get - ratty clothes, messy hair, untidy house.  You took your chances when you didn't bother calling first.  (And they never seem to call first.  Not sure why that is.)

A Problem of Basic Philosophy

I really had intended to post yesterday.  Then I woke up and read the news. 

I'm still kind of stalled.  There are things I could say.  I could rant and rail and shriek.  I could wave my arms.  I was silent yesterday.  Pissed, but silent.  Because as angry as I am, there is nothing I can do.  There's not really anything any of us can do.

In no time at all, there were people screaming about outlawing guns.  (And apparently, according to a famous woman, silencers because silencers kill more people somehow.)  Yeah, that's worked so well in places where there is already anti-gun legislation.  Anyone sufficiently motivated to slaughter other people really isn't going to give a rat's furry white ass about the legality of acquiring weapons.  And if all guns were suddenly disappeared from the planet, they would build bombs out of common household items and slaughter people that way.  Or knives.  Or sticks and rocks.  Their bare hands... You get the drift.

It's not a problem of weapons.  It's a problem of basic philosophy.

And that's a problem that took decades to create, so it will take decades to fix.  If there was actually any kind of impetus to fix the problem, that is.  I don't honestly think there is. 

I certainly don't know how to do it.  I'm sure y'all don't know the answer either.  We all live our lives to the best of our abilities.  We've raised our children as well as we could.  We live lives of obeying the laws, keeping our hands to ourselves, and valuing our fellow man - sometimes even when he's being a shithead.  We're nice to strangers, or if we can't be nice, we're civil.  

How to convey that kind of philosophy to the growing number of shitheads and whackadoodles escapes me.

The only other way to stop things like this from happening is to live in a total police state where everything we do and everything we say is watched, and everything is outlawed but the things the state deems 'safe'.  I'm not willing to go there.

Actually, for the foreseeable future, I'm not willing to go anywhere.  No cities.  No crowds of people beyond what I encounter at Wallyworld - and even then, I'm constantly vigilant.  No freeways.  No airplanes.  No parks.  No monuments.  If you want to see us, you'll have to come here because we sure as hell aren't going there.  And if we want to see the sights, we have the internet.  With some of the technology out there, we can walk around pretty much anyplace we'd like to see without leaving the comfort and safety of our home.

Yes, the writer has gone full hermit.  See you around the interwebs - because the outside world has a profusion of bad philosophy and I want to live.

Stay safe out there, my friends.  :hugs:

Thursday This n That

Last week a neighbor brought us some squash.  I used it to make bread and then gave her a loaf.  Yesterday, she stopped by with enough squash for me to make eight more loaves.  She really liked that bread LOL.  I told Hubs it would take us months to eat 8 loaves.  He said, you make it, I'll eat it.  So, I'm making it. I was going to start in on that this morning, but I don't have enough coconut.  Maybe I'll make one batch (2 loaves of my regular recipe - the one I usually double) and freeze the rest of the squash.

Then while we were talking with the neighbor gal, she told us how she'd been mowing her lawn, but her mower lost a wheel off the mowing bed and it was tearing up her lawn, but her husband wasn't home to fix it.  Well, being who we are, we talked about it after she'd gone and decided to drop over there and help her out.  We'd never actually been to her house.  She's a neighbor only in that she lives in the general area and they drive by regularly on their golf cart, so we've developed a neighborly relationship with them.  Lemme tell ya, I was not expecting what their place looked like.  It's huge.  I mean, when she said they mow 7 acres, I expected they kept a couple fields near the house short with a brush-hog or something.  Nope.  7 acres of parklike lawn.  It's freakin' gorgeous over there.  And her home is lovely.  Like a lodge you'd rent out for a vacation by the lake, but cozy.  Set way back in the woods where you can't see it from the road, and overlooking the lake. So pretty. Anyway, Hubs fixed her wheel and then took her riding lawn mower for a spin while I toured her home and then we came home despite her invitations to come inside for a while. 

A pertinent note here, I'm really uncomfortable being inside other people's homes. Like approaching panic-attack uncomfortable.  But she's so sweet and she so wanted me to see her home that I sucked it up.  They've invited us to come visit dozens of times since we moved here, and I feel bad about declining necause they're both so nice, but what's a gal to do?  I think I need to take her aside and explain the situation, so she doesn't think it's them. Or that it's their dogs. I love their dogs. They have awesome dogs.  It's totally me.

Well, that's it for me today.  What's going on with you?

The Hermit Goes Exploring

I love to go exploring. Which probably sounds a little weird coming from a hermit.

I mean, we've lived here for a little over 3 years now and I've never been to Springfield - unless you count the airport, which isn't in the city proper.  I've never been to Branson.  I've never been to Rogers or Fayetteville or even little Harrison, AR.  The locals are shocked to discover these facts about me.  "What?  You've never been to Branson???" 

Umm, no.  And I'm not really interested.  Oh, I joke about going to the Andy Williams Theater.  And who wouldn't want to see Barry/Greg from the Brady Bunch live on stage?  Or Yakov Smirnov?  (That last one is probably most interesting to me.  I always thought Yakov was a hoot.)  Not interested.  There are too many people doing stupid things.  I get panicky in crowds.  And the panic increases when stupid is thrown into the mix. 

Seriously.  What is it about being on vacation that makes people lose all common sense?  Too many times I hear news reports of someone walking in front of a car in Branson.  They have clearly marked signals and crosswalks and everything.  Ugh.

No, I'm more interested in exploring the non-populated places.  Show me a trail.  Give me a boat launch in the middle of nowhere.  Present me with an out of the way park.  I'll be happy exploring that.  Sans people.  If I want company, I'll talk to the chipmunks.  Or Hubs, if Hubs is along - which is nice, but not necessary.

Gah, give me a dirt road pointing off into nowhere.  (And a better car, but beggars can't be choosers.)

We've been here 3 years and there's still so much untouched area to discover.  Using Google Earth this morning, I located at least three more potential fishing spots within fifteen minutes of home.  I'll go check those out sometime soon.  And when I get bored with discovering stuff within 15 minutes, I'll go out 30 minutes.  That should take me another decade or so. 

Why exactly would I need to go into a city again?  :shrug:  I have plenty to keep me occupied here in the back of beyond.

Have you explored where you live? 

My Hermit Life

A friend of mine posted about throwing some type of social gathering and it got me thinking...  I haven't actually invited anyone over for anything but a cup of coffee (which my former neighbor and I always drank outside while we smoked) in ages. 

Looking back, I can see that over the years, my hermit tendencies have slowly crept over me like kuzdu. 

And I'm okay with that.

Oh, I have no problem going out into the world and socializing with other people - should the need ever arise.  And I have no problem reaching out to people here on the internet.  "Come in and know me better, man," is what I say.  Here.  Not out there.  Out there, I'm a happy hermit.

Of course, moving out to the middle of nowhere in southern Missouri nudged that along quite nicely. 

Except for people keep stopping in the road while I'm outside, introducing themselves and carrying on conversations.  I do my best.  I really do.  The elderly couple who pulled into the driveway and chatted with my husband and I for a good 20 minutes were very nice.  But the gal who stopped while I was taking a short walk yesterday made me want to pull back into my snail shell.  Kinda snobby and uppity for someone who lives in this neighborhood, if you ask me.

Anyway, I am a happy hermit.  All y'all keep me properly socialized in what is probably my most public arena.  Otherwise, I'm in my hole, writing and reading and bird-watching - which are solitary pursuits anyway.

What about you?  How social are you in real life?  Does the hermit life appeal to you or do you need other humans around to be happy*?

* no value judgments there - we all do what makes us happy in our own way.