camping out inside

just when i was ready to work...right... the ice storm came in and turned off all the electric which meant, no tv, no computer, no videos, no cds, no dvds, no lights, no heat, no cold for fridge, and no water or sewer. and for a week! good think i had a down sleeping bag that was good for 20 below. felt like a homeless person hanging out in the malls and stores to keep warm and use bathroom facilities. finally braved taking a bath sort of with 1/2 gallon of cold water in a cold room. felt better even if it was bracing. not ready for artic dips though. finally had heat but no water or sewer. they had the pump going but after a very short time the water line to my house broke...frozen and it took 2 days to fix that. i think light was probably the greatest invention ever. it gives heat and lets you read and most inventions would not have happened without this start. it was really hard to read by candlelight.

what lies beneath

i always thought our elderly money person (younger than my self-but squarely in hippy era) was probably a hippy in his youth. he is a vegan, grows beautiful gardens, and wears sandals. so the following tale was a shocker.

he saw rats eating in his garden...they especially liked his beets and beans. he trapped several of them, but one wily huge old fellow...as big around as an overgrown zuccini...eluded him. the fellow lived under the little garden shed in the back yard. so our money man waited to people were off campus, got out his 22 and shot the thief in the heart. it didn't kill him right off; he was able to crawl back under the garden shed and die in an unreachable place. ....getting his revenge by smelling up the place.

turns out our money man grew up hunting and fishing, served in vidt nam, and owns a rifle. who knew!

the three mums and vase story

my cousin called me yesterday....at least it wasn't at three in the morning so i was coherent. he wanted to know about the vase and the mums. the beginning. the best i can remember is that my dad gave the vase and three football mums to nanny, his grandmother, one thanksgiving when he couldn't be there. i think it must have been in the late 30's or early 40's. in any case the part of the story i didn't know was that my grandmother gave the vase to richard--my dad's cousin. then she decided to get it back. made richard mad so he went out and bought a 600 dollar waterford crystal vase. i can understand. my grandmother was always attaching great importance to things that did not necesarily have inherent importance. in any case she got it back, and i wound up with it ... it skipped my dad....and i gave it to my daughter. i think my sister would have liked it. not sure how i wound up with it.

in any case, my sister, myself, my daughter, i hope my son, richard (when he was alive), my mother(when she was alive), richard's son and i don't know who else... always have three football or other large mums in a vase at thanksgiving.

gobble gobble

it doesn't matter if you are a veggie eater or a meat eater, thanksgiving has lots of gobblers. but why, there is usually much more food than can be eaten. maybe the length of the meal depends on the stories told around the table. in that case you have slow stuffers. my relatives on my dad's side were all great story tellers. i was always mad because when the best stories were being recited, i was at the kids' table. sigh. now i am going to have to rely on my cousin's memory for the stories. he suggested i drive up to sioux falls with my laptop and write them down. i think that is a good idea. will have to find a non snowy weekend. meanwhile, i will find a good book and rest my digestive system.

holidays

it seems like the holidays instead of being relaxing, turn into a frenzied rush to get everything done. i volunteered to help put up the xmas tree in the chapel. i hadn't done it before so was relying completely on ms. m since she has done it for ten years with another (former) teacher. we spent the first hour trying to stablize the tree in the stand. turned out we had the middle section on the bottom. went way faster when we put the bottom on the bottom and the middle in the middle. bummer.

just around the corner

about the time you think things are smoothing out...wham.....life, God...the devil, does not let you rest. we loose a student, gain a student, etc... prospects good. catch a few students breaking the rules, arrange for some community service, and counseling, progress....maybe....more things blow in with the dusty air and wham, three students gone...for the best i believe, but it is still depressing. good thing, wanted enough to be asked to stay another year.:)

running to and fro

i remember that just before the divorce there was a flurry of activity... new house, decorating new house, new car, seeing counselor, new babies, moving twice..... then the end

now- here there is a flurry of activity, cows gone, new roof on chapel, new roof girls' dorm, new entrance gym, new paint on houses and trim on ad building, new furnances, new staffing, old gym being torn down, ........ so then.....?????????

cat attack 2

last Sabbath as I was relaxing on the couch reading i hear this yelp and remembered that the cats were outside. i dashed downstairs and opened the door. the two cats were at the door and came in while digger the dog was walking calmly and innocently with his owner.

what really happened?

the cats were waiting to come in when digger saw them and charged them. both arched and fluffed, but dennis charged back with claws and teeth, hence the yelp. by the time i got to the door, digger was acting as if nothing happened. he is only 3 or 4 times bigger then dennis.

farm trucks

If you have driven in the countryside you have seen this....farm trucks mating. they stop right in the middle of dusty roads and on the edge of plowed fields. they always seem to sidle up to each other like two worms exchanging dna info. even though they mate in the open, there are only a few teenagers around which must mean that either the young are very well hidden or there is a high mortality rate.

gifts two

more than one person understands what i like....we share a number of likes, art, music (but different types), our kids, travel, books, books, and horses. so the gift she gave me for my birthday was a .......horse book. it was one by ben green. i had read several of his books and had given several to my grandfather. but sadly they did not get passed on to me or my sister when he passed away.. so the book was for me and to share with my sister when i finished reading it. it will be in our bookcase upstairs where we are going to put all the books that make us look smart. the romances will be downstairs or farmed out to friends. it isn't that we don't read the books upstairs.....we do.... it isn't just for show. ......altogether....well when you are old you kinda want people to know that your brain isn't dead.....

gifts

often gifts reflect what the giver perceives as something you want but based on what they themselves think they would like to get. My daughter is really good at really thinking about what people would like as a gift as shown by her gift of a horse book to me for my birthday. :) But others are not so perceptive. Take for example, the gifts given me by Dennis Rodman - my cat. Yesterday I was taking a much needed nap, the back door was open so the cats could go in and out. In the middle of my nap I heard a meow. When I woke, I looked over at the gift Dennis brought me. A 2 1/2 food garter snake, alive and unhurt. I know he thought it was a very special gift. It was one he would really like to get. Just think of the fun. Well Mr. Snake found himself flung with great vigor back outside to the middle of the unmown meadow that is my backyard. I can only appreciate the thought of that gift, whereas I will really enjoy reading about Secretariat!

beware of cat

not only does dennis rodman the cat growl when unknowns knock at the door, he chases away intruders. the campus scary dog (he will take off your hand if you are not careful) decided to check dennis out. dennis and his pal sam were just lazing around watching the fininacial vp garden, also the owner of scary dog. as the dog comes towards dennis, dennis rises up and heads straight toward the dog at which point the dog turns and runs. good dennis.

escape

for four days i wandered around the hotel at oprey land in nashville courtesy my employers. there were three coverec court yards filled with water features and tropical plants. it was cooler and drier than outside, but certainly not as dry as colorado. it was very relaxing. meet lots of old friends and teachers from years past. since this is my last convention it was nice that i could go. i am retiring at the end of this year....i think. so if the convention was scheduled for next year i would have missed it. i saw the ann, english teacher at campion who has been unretired for two years now and mr. williams who i think is never going to retire. also met people who had taught in boulder when i was there...paul and deann, del, and students, caleb c who is now going to be a teacher, and old classmates from union- barb s. a nice goodbye. ps. i actually did go to meetings and learned about hunters' registrar program.

summer rodeo

FOURTH OF JULY - BELLE FOURCE
the rodeo arena is quite new but it is a little wide so since i didn't have a big expensive digital with big zoom the horse is a little far away. they had professional big time buckers and bulls which the local cowboys complained about. but i liked the show. the bulls were awesome. before the rodeo there is a parade with a little bit of everything. people grab seats early in the morning along the route. the cowboy band marches by the first time, with the older old members on the bed of a semi, but the band goes by two more times with all the members on the semi. they play for the rodeo too. and they are pretty good.














there are semis all polished in the parade, army trucks and stuff, lots of horses, some tractors, rodeo queens and princesses, little kids, more horses, some mules, politicans, clowns, high school class reunions, water guns, lots of candy being thrown, and fire trucks. and probably more. whew! great parade.

toad house

i was reading about global warming when i ran across an article about toad houses. you just have to make a hole in a clay pot at the edge, turn it upside down in the garden and provide a saucer of water and presto--instant bug snappers. just have to convince my sister. i know she doesn't like snakes, but i don't know how she feels about toads.

it was sort of a coincidence that i rented the movie the day after just two days before about global cooling. sort of scary. so which is it? warming? or cooling? or first one and then the other?

mystery solved

this week is take care of all the stuff you should have done...ie, oil change, teeth cleaning, health check-up. so the boys were stuffed into one cat carrier...dennis protesting with claws and taken to the vet about 20 minutes away. dennis was so stressed his paws turned bright pink and sweaty plus he shot lots of white hairs everywhere. sam though was very nonchalant....he never has had to stay several days at the vets after an operation with two shunts in his face. the vet seemed chatty, so i asked him about sam's diagnosis of kitty hiv. found out that when a kitten is little they may have antibodies for hiv if their mother had hiv, but after a while the antibodies will dissappear and then the kitten will test negative. it is clear that sam does not have kitty hiv. he is fat, shiny and mellow. he sleeps a lot but that is what older cats do... and older people too.

good and bad

the good first, going to belle for the fourth and going to the rodeo, they have a nice small town rodeo and i haven't been to one in a while. they also have a really nice fourth of july parade....lots of horses and fire engines..
and i am really done with all my classes.

the bad...as part of my class looked up info about the rapid paper. they have a community of 20 % non-white but only 3% non-white working on the paper which gives them a parity of like 15%. Chicago has a parity of 67%. Even the Denver Post is in the 60s. Oh thank goodness for the internet. and books stores, and the mail. think i will subscribe to a national paper. at least on sundays.

i am DONE! almost

i finished the research paper and all the other writing things, so now just have the multiple choice and the final essays. sigh

the good thing is i will never have to do it again........

sunday afternoon

it was a rather nice day, not to hot, so i turned off the air and left the back door open for the cats. all afternoon i had to listen to the starlings harassing dennis. he was just laying on the little back porch. i don't know why the starlings thought that was there territory. they would scold and swear at him for a while, fly off, and then come back and do it all over again. poor dennis.

later in the evening, two of the farm cats who don't exactly live on the farm but wander all over campus begging for handouts showed up at the front door. i was trying to get him in for the night, but he was square in the driveway growling and whining at the two intruders. i just picked him, held his claws and brought him. had to shut the door fast, the two oranges were trying to get in.

sunday morning

i have always loved sunday mornings...late breakfast--if your lucky somebody makes waffles from scratch--reading the funnies, hanging out in jammies, watching sunday morning. so this morning i am listening/watching sunday morning and doing my mental exercises on the computer, set game, jigzone....when my whinner cat starts in.. at first i don't really hear because i am really concentrating, but then because it is so insistant i turn around. much to my suprise sam has something in his paws. at first i think it is a mouse and this is what i get for giving them the priviledge of an outdoor outing on sunday morning. closer look reveals it is very much alive, seemingly whole and unhurt and it is a little ground squirrel. after sam almost releasing it, i managed to get it away from him and release it back outside out of view of both kitties. the kitties are getting old, when they were younger they would have hunted it back down and brought it back in.

when not to do important things

i don't know what possessed me...well, yes i do...i waited till the last minute to get something done, per usual. anyway i signed up for two online classes because i need them to renew my certificate for one more year. they both have to be done by the end of june. both involved a lot of reading and writting....how else could you do it online....
so i am thinking of buying a used car with air to drive in the hot weather, also to get better gas milage. but, since i am stressed out with class work, i don't think i should be thinking about buying a car right now. i just hinted at it and my sis told her son who works at a car place and presto, i'm at the car place looking at cars. i just need to sit on the idea for a while, but now i feel bad because i am not immediately buying a car from my nephew's business place. PLUS, i have this attachment to my jeep. we have been through a lot togeather. 2 weddings, 2 crashes, one trip to the airport to see my son off to africa for 6 months, trips to the mountains, trips to see the kids.....we have a life togeather...doesn't that mean something?

cord mania

Is there such a thing as a planned move involving things with cords? Sunday my boss came in the office and started moving everything. (don't ask why I was working on a Sunday at school in the summer). That meant moving the computers. There was no careful rolling up of cords. It was pull, lump, and move. By the time the componets were in the copy room, the cords were all twisted into each other. I had actually spent some time organizing the cords earlier that year. I needed that computer, not any other, to run transcripts for seniors getting ready for their freshman year at college. SO, yesterday I untangled everything and stole a network cable from another computer and set the stuff up in the conference room. I didn't even bother to try and organize them. Please, send me wireless. Yah! like that is going to happen.

ps. you don't really have to move anything for the cords to entwine, when I wasn't looking my own comuter and stereo/tv/dvd/ set up tangled up their own set of cords into a gordian knot.

dog story

so i called the wife of the driver of the sheep. i had forgotten that two years ago some friends of the single young farm assistant had given him a baby male lamb...for what reason i do not want to speculate. anyway when he left the half grown sheep went to live with the family of the man with the truck. they had goats for their daughter's faa project. so the ram and the goats lived together. now the daughter is off to college, the ram just eats and eats, and they couldn't find anyone to sheer it this year so he and a few billy goats went off to market. however the dog always follows the truck down to the pens when it is feeding time. so dog follows. after truck loaded, dog is smart enough to know she can't get caught because then she will not be able to go with the truck. she is quick enough to dodge capture. so driver tries to go fast enough around campus to tire dog out. he gets almost to the nearest little town, a mile away, when he calls for family to come and get dog. there were several solutions to this scenereo. lock up dog before going to feeding pens. if dog is at feeding pens and ram and billies in truck, open truck door and dog will jump in; then drive to house and have daughter grab dog when door is opened. however, as it was, the fast dust raising drive around campus entertain not only myself, but several other campus staff memebers.

quiz

your job should you choose to take the challenge is to figure out what is happening and why.

at lunch i looked out my window and saw a staff member fly by my house in his truck...my block is only one block long and he was really flying... inside the truck was a very fat sheep with all the wool still on. racing madly beside the truck was the staff member's yellow dog. while i was thinking about that... as far as i knew this staff member did not own a sheep.... he zoomed by again... with sheep in truck and dog chasing after.... and it happened all again one more time.

he speaks kinda slow and walks kinda slow...never seen him drive so fast.

renewal, sort of

crazy me signed up for two online courses to run congruently--june 5 - june 30. i checked to see if they showed up where they were supposed to. i was able to get to blackboard where they were supposed to show up, but they didn't. emailed both professors. one said she would activate the site on monday, the day the class started. + for professor

the other said there were server problems, and...... i would have better luck using explorer. - points for professor

how does he know what i am using to start with, and if i can get to blackboard then.... i think i am okay....i think he\she just hasn't activated the site.

but they both emailed a prompt return. +'s for both

ring, ring

after sitting in interstate traffice for an hour at a speed of 1 mile an hour, my temper and my bottom decided we needed a break. it was past lunch time and i needed gas so i pulled off into some unknown place and found a country kitchen for refueling me after refueling muffy. i'm sitting quietly reading my text for summer on line classes when the phone rings. just twice. before i can pick it up it quits. so i read. it rings twice at least two more times. really annoying. so i pull it out and press recall on the last incoming call and ask stravens what can i do for him. he says i didn't call. i figure he is embarrassed because he called the wrong number...... 5 times. so i look at the number on the phone which is his, but it was the wrong time. i put the phone away thinking it is going psycho. i read, the phone rings, i pull it out, look at it, put it to my ear..... the waitress says... it isn't your phone.
sigh

stranger in a strange land

i know that is a title of a sci fi book, but today i really, really realized how i don't fit here. an implant from boulder to the middle of nebraska is just weird. so many contrasts.. oxymoric...

the tallest part of the lower 48 to the probably the flattest, from a very health aware place where people may drink wine, but are really into organic and good fresh food and exercise and people are quite fit to the place where they really ought to be the most fit and healthest and there is no whole foods, (except for your own garden), or farmer's market and cows are fed hormones and antibotics, etc. the ground force fed fertilizers, the water sucked out of the aquafier. from more saved by grace to yeah that is true but i had better work hard at being perfect. from a collage of language and cultures to a place that endorses english as the state language and putting fences up along the border and no citizenship for people here already.
you can not find really good bread in the nearby towns, but on campus there are people who make truly great bread, and there are people who exercise, and there are thinkers, and believers in grace. there is a small fresh spring.

i am here for some reason

ps ... boulder is not perfect ... i know....

a whispered word

because of a word said in passing, a word taken as a hint, a word passed on with cues, all is changed. i thought the changes were long overdue, but why do i feel so guilty, sad. i am probably only one small pebble in the stream that changes the course of events. sometimes the course of events need to be split.

you can think an idea to death, i have to believe it was meant to be and i was just a way of passing the word along.

four and twenty blackbirds

well, maybe not quite....it is lawn watering season. since i don't have automatic sprinklers, i move the thompson twin around about every 2 or 3 hours. ie when i get back to the house from where ever. each time i come back there are birds, mostly red-winged blackbirds and robins having a spa day under the sprinklers. oh to be a child again and play in the sprinklers. walking in a gentle rain is almost as good.

double checking

it is a good thing that the official document for graduates is the transcript. i swear if i ever make a document without an error i will fall over dead from shock. i put down two students as having honors when they didn't. good thing a program is just a program. it was gone over with a fine tooth comb. of course the students wouldn't say anything about being promoted.

the art of saying no

you would think that by my age i would know how to say no. i am not volunteering to do anything from now until the middle of summer. my house is a disaster area, my lawn needs mowing, and the ironing is really, really piling up. so what brought all this on? i volunteered to make photo collages of the campus and students for leaving personnel. i volunteered to teach a girl how to drive a stick shift, i volunteered to sponsor the kids who wanted to make mother's day cards, i volunteered --sort of--to buy the gifts for the going away people. what was i thinking. my regular job entails checking classes and transcripts for students at the end of the year, making my own tests, and grading them, making sure the seniors have everything in place, and i have all the reglia....which reminds me, i volunteered to do the seniors weekend handout program. urggghhhh!

spring of farewells

the cliche is that spring is a time of new beginnings. it probably depends on the angle. for school it is the ending of many things--papers, books, exercises, grades, classes, and for some the end of being at this particular school. of course, the seniors will be going on as they should. but, we are also loosing an english teacher, a bible teacher, the cafeteria director--we lost the boys' dean in the middle of the year. it is a good thing or bad? probably some of each.
in public school teachers can stay on in places for years. my sister went back to a place where she had taught at least twenty-five years previously and there were still some of the same teachers. i know a few academy teachers who have stayed in one place for a very long time--one a science teacher which was a good thing, and the other an english teacher who comes with mixed reviews.
it is probably good that things do change else everyone and everything gets in a rut and the world goes forward while the rut diggers are not looking up from their work.

it is probably time to stop teaching people to follow the ruts.

Lilacs

a close up of part of the picture.

the lavender room

my sis is into lavender and purple big time. so when she saw this cool quilt in spearfish she bought it and i bought the picture of lilacs to go over her hand made cherrywood chest. i do not know how it originally came into the family...maybe my cousin doug knows. but my grandmother had it for a while and then for some crazy reason sold it to some friends of hers. the only thing i remember about them is that the lady could make great bisquits using the wrong techniques. anyway it caused a great rift in the family and finally it came back to grandmother. and then to my sis. it is a great chest. i hope she has written a history on the bottom of one of the drawers. or maybe grandmother did. i have pieces of furniture with her writing on the bottom of drawers and shelves. i have added my own comments. the picture is her birthday and christmas present and all other occasions gift for the year 2006.

being thrifty

my nephew just moved his business to a new place and requested a wreath for the wall. since i needed to have a display for the music conference of young students, i decided to combine the two projects. so first i used all of the flowers for the music program.... i got minus points from my distance employers for not doing anything last year. it was a matter of money. since i am using these for another project it didn't cost my close or distant employers anything.

just about when i was going to weld them into a wreath, i found out there was a big board meeting. so reconfigured everything, took out the flags and the gold stars.

no it is all at home and i have about 2 days to make a wreath before i travel northwest...... and do my taxes.

going to work

my trip home was slowed frist by snow in the sierra's...the train was 5 hours late. but it plugged along pretty good afterwards. but when i reached hastings a blizzard had settled in. and it took my ride a little while to get to the station.
it was so snowy that the bus drive to the east to pick up students was delayed until the next day. but i postholed it to the office to do some work. and the next day also. it cleared enough by tuesday night that the principal drove the bus east and picked up students in the night and brought them back in time for classes on wednesday morning. walking in the snow can be quite a challange...no walks shoveled and only part of the roads cleared. couldn't drive the jeep! a 5 foot drift in front of the garage and this old lady does not do shoveling of big drifts anymore. the tractor was late doing driveways because the milk truck...a big semi...got stuck down on the farm. but a week and a half later almost all the snow is gone. yesterday was rain, hail and watch for tornado day. i just want it to be nice tomorrow so i can go crane watching.

lolita in tehran & bad dirt

over spring break my daughter and i traded books. i love annie p and bad dirt. i think i read it in two days. i traded it to my daughter for reading lolita in tehran, much different in temperment, but very revealing. both reveal culture of a specific time and place but one with wry humor and the other with a wistfulness for better times.

this is the suggested reading list for reading lolita in tehran compliled by the author.

nuha al-radi, baghdad diaries
margaret atwood, the blind assassin
jane austen, emma, mansfield park, & pride and prejudice*
saul bellow, the dean's december & more die of heartbreak
emily bronte, wuthering heights* (read only once-too dark, now that i am older, want more cheerful items)
lewis carroll, alice's adventures in wonderland* (if only i could figure out the math stuff)
jaseph conrad, under western eyes
henry fielding, shamela & tome jones* (:))
gustave flaubert, madame bovary
anne frank, the diary of anne frank (hasn't everybody read this is grade school or high school)
henry james, the ambassadors, daisy miller*, & washington square
franz kafka, in the penal colony & the trial*
katherine kressman talor, address unkown
herman melville, the confidence man
vladimir nabokov, lotita (don't think i can read that one), invitation to a beheading, & pnin
sarah orne jewett, the country of the pointed firs
iraj pezeshkzad, my uncle napoleon
diane ravitch, the language poice
julie slamon, the net of dreams
marjane satrapi, persepolis
scheherazade, a thousand and one tales* (loved this book when i was in high school)
f scott fitzgerald, the great gatsby (never read because it just seemed to decadent)
*ones i have read

picture worth a thou....

monday was twin day....that's all i am going to say

free acrobatic show

as i was driving home this evening ...close to sunset...i saw a swarm of birds performing acrobatics. group acrobtics. the snow geese are flying overhead now in their typical raggedy v shapes, but i am pretty sure the swarm was not snow geese. they were tightly packed and performed as one, it seemed as if they had one mind or were connected like the borg. the maintain a tight group that folded over and over on itself making them appear like a black cloud one minute and nearly invisable the next. sometimes they were in an oval shape and sometimes they stretched out into a pencil shape. i had my camera but they were to far away. they would have been like pencil dots.

acrobats

There are some pictures online, but they do not do justice to the actual visual image of birds swarming. The snow geese have been overhead in their typical intertwined v shapes, but the birds i saw coming home this evening were more acrobatic than geese. they were quite far away and it was almost sunset, but they formed a black cloud that twisted to darkness and then to almost complete transparency. they stayed in an aemebic shape that changed from almost a perfect oval to a worm shape all the time folding over and over on themselves. it was as if their minds were connected in some fashion a la borg.

i don't like cloudy overcast days, but there is something about low laying fog that is interesting. maybe because it softens the harshness of the world around us. distances become a mystery. paths lead into unknown places. there is a little bit of scary, too. who knows what is lurking in the mist.

monday morning

after mumbling about it being a melt down weekend last weekend, i found 8 beautiful red roses on my desk on monday. i got a personal thanks for the sabbath school lesson from an adult and one of the students said it was the best so far this year. unfortunately one of the students sort of gave it away during one of the exercises. ... the student was to walk across a mine field of raw eggs blindfolded with the help of two friends ( one pretending to be the good angel and one the bad angel only the blindfolded person wasn't supposed to know that). No eggs were broken even though i kept rearranging them ( the kids didn't think it quite fair, but i said the devil cheats all the time) because of the careless words of one student the blindfolded student knew who to listen to. but it was okay. the students still got the point. so the roses sat beautifully on my desk for one week and then i took them home to dry. this monday is the monday after board meeting so it will be interesting to hear what transpired. time to go to work.

why i don't make lots of money

i absolutely know that i could not handle a leadership role in any circumstance. i was asked once if i wanted to be a principal and without even blinking, i said no. i cannot handle conflict or stress. this week has been rather stressful....behind on yearbook, missed one deadline...behind on getting restricted list published...forgot to send out reminder cards for a meeting...responsible for a faculty family dinner....have to teach a sabbath school lesson to teens and keep them interested...get the house sort of clean for the faculty family dinner...on top of the usual classes and supervison duties. so, i sort of lost my phone again...left it at home instead of bringing it with me.... caught the lid of the powder creamer on a shelf and had to clean up the counter and the floor....had a lid on a paper cup of coffee and heated it the microwave too long, it blew up and had to clean the microwave out completely....turned the oven on to heat the lasagna and the pie filling that i forgot i spilled caught on fire.... then i had a cover loosely on a container of rosemary butter i was melting for making non-garlic bread and it blew up in the microwave and i had to clean it all up. i think i'll go to bed.

oxymoron

retired hippy~ barbie phone

ghost

i really did want to find my phone. i didn't want to spend the big bucks for replacement. i didn't want to have the contract renewed. so now in the middle of the night i sort of wake up like people do - not quite awake, not quite asleep- and i see a flashing red light. i think, my phone. the thing is, it appears in the same place. when i look in the morning, moving furniture and everything there is no phone. my phone has come back to haunt and harassess me. hahahaha you can't find me. actually i am beginning to think it is one of those big coal trains rumbling by that wakes me and that the red light is from the rail crossings or the light on the caboose. Or maybe it my phone calling me.

phone trap

the phone is lost. i let the battery die before i realized it was missing. since i don't have a land line, i went to the local dispenser of cells and got a new one. the nifty prices are for first time users. then they pull you into a longer contract by "giving" you a discount on the phone. contrary to my sister's opinion, i bought the cheapest one i could get that was a flip phone. the only one they had in stock was PINK. can you imagine me and pink.

i am going to make a little purse with a snap handle --for jean belt loops -- the ones in the stores are all glittery or 50's prints. i didn't like the prints then and they have not aged well.

the big thing is recollecting all the phone numbers and entering them. since i have the same number, i am hoping people will call and then i can just save the number.

i cut down the number of hours but added some roaming hours because this particular provider does not cover western nebraska and the black hills. when i move i will have to change. then i can get a cheap phone with lots of stuff :)

what they need to invent is a little long powered gadget of some kind that starts beeping when the power is almost gone. beeping loudly for people like myself. or i could train my cats to be search cats, like they have search dogs for people and drugs, i will train dennis to find my phone. right.

getting old

getting old magnifies all the faults of yesteryears. once i was able to write a menu for the week down on a piece of paper to take to the grocery store. after one look in cupboard and fridge i was able to go to the store and pick up the items i needed. now i have to write down all the items needed to complete the menu.

now under stress i often misplace my keys. i have one set of car keys lost right now.

and i have lost my cell phone. it has been gone for a week, but i called the phone company and nobody is using it so it is in the house someplace.

my eyesight is worse, i am going deaf, my joints and feet creak, walks are shorter, and i almost fall asleep in church.

and you know the old ladies who wear so much perfume it knocks you out....yeah. well, now i know why. they can't smell it unless it is turn up. i try not to do that to my coworkers.

but what about the good things, do they get accentuated too. am i going to draw better, be more patient? be more sure of myself? hmmmmm

keeping up

From a distance you will see tall silos and some metal buildings and it looks pretty nice. as you drive closer however you see that there is a struggle to keep things in order. it seems as soon as something is new it starts deteriating. it is just a few magical moments that something is almost perfect. this door had been minorly attacked by students driving a little front end loader carrying feed to the cows, but nothing like the attack by the feed truck delivering the feed to the building. you can understand 14 and 15 year olds not quite making it through the door, but a licensed driver? what was he thinking?

the next question is how long will the door look like this? will it ever get fixed. there may have been an actual door that could close the opening, but that was long gone by the time i arrived. i wonder how it disappeared? there are so many things that need fixing around here. windows replace, roofs fixed. the art room roof finally is fixed so it doesn't make lakes in the room when it rains or the snow melts. needs more loving care though. mice can come in in droves under the front door. sometimes when we are working i will see one race along the wall, very fat--actually it is a waddle run. once we made paper machie masks and set them out to dry and when we came back the next day the mice had eaten all the paper off the wire structure used to shape the masks. buggers.

artic freeze and never say never

some old sayings are just old sayings, but some old sayings have some truth. red sky at night sailor's delight~
red sky at morning sailor's take warning.

after this hazy red prairie sunrise, we have had, it seems like, ages of cold, snow, and no sun. i had to go out and buy a parka so i wouldn't freeze on the two block walk to work.

for a person who needs the sun to be cheery it is dreadful.

i said i was never going to retire where it was cold....so what did i do... i bought a house 100 miles farther north than i live now that generates it own little storms and weather patterns. .... just north of the black hills.

isolation

where? a warm pot of chocolate in a french window? a forgotten crock in a miner's cabin? too white..the clues ambiguous..the window rain scared. the frame metal so not old... a new alone pot
but on the inside i know there are kids making there hands as nimble as possible polishing holes in fishing weights...piece work.
hopefully it is an electric kettle for warm tea to cheer the task in a room with metal air

view point

if i have my camera with me, i am more likely to see the beauty around me and also the details of the ordinary. one evening as i was walking to the cafeteria ...with my camera... i saw the sunlight reflecting through the wings of a small crowd of insects. they would have probably been unnoticable if the light had been different. the LIGHT makes many things beautiful and many things seeable.

design crash

when two strong personalities get together, well, there is some adjusting to do. like opposites on the color wheel...for example. red and green. my sister has beautiful green glasses...a lot of them. i have dark red plates plus some blue things and cream, and yellow. so the the question is can they go together.. i think so, if those strong colors can make it together, so can we.

i found this pressed glass pitcher at pier one . it has no handle only the the pinched top which works and just a little tiny pour spout. it goes with the glasses. sort of ... same color only they are plain.

black and white

who can resist the rays of warm sun on cold day espescially when your owner keeps the house in the 60's. and if there is someone else in the basket even if it is really only big enough for one fat cat, well, somehow you can sort of fit in with your friend.

what to do with stuff in small space

just stopped in builder's warehouse to pick up plastic to cover windows. they had a little display of unfinished furniture in the very front. something new for them. anyway,, there was a cart like the small one pictured here with a side addition that was a cupboard with a door. i like that it is on wheels. i thought it might fit at the end of our island in the kitchen. kind of hard to remember the space. it is 14 inches deep, 30 inches wide and 34 inches tall. could use it to hold kitchen linen and little used utensils. could even roll it in the closet. well maybe.

wallpaper

well i just spent an hour looking for a border pattern because i clickedon the first selection after a google search. if i had read just a little farther i would have seen the home of the wall paper company and that it had super advanced search. after clickling on that i found the pattern in two seconds. i am thinking i could convince my sister to put the border up someplace in our house. not sure where. but it reminds me of pine ridge where she used to live and to the hills around where we live now. well, she lives and i will in a little while. the link is in the link box if you want to see what it looks like.

growing things

it is hard to think about growing things when it is cold and dreary outside. at least until the spring catalogs come. our resident home gardner has plowed all his garden plots and they are now covered with blown in leaves. the farm fields have been chiseled down to just dirt, not sure why, seems a little stubble would keep the dirt from blowing away. but in any case the fields are being covered with cow pow to meld in the ground over the winter. the new house has two new trees...a locust which will grow tall and because it has small leaves will give filtered light and won't leave much to rake up...especially if the wind keeps blowing like it has when i have been there. we could have picked a house that had a big cottonwood in the yard shading the deck. but my sister and i thought it was too old and would soon be causing problems....like falling into the house. our other little tree is a nannyberry. our great grandmother was called nanny by her kids and grandkids and great grandkids so we thought that was appropriate. i think we can make jam from the berries if the birds don't get to them first. now we just have to work on grass and those other little plants that will make the yard cosy. a little grape vine would be nice for jelly. and maybe a chokecherry or two for jelly. roses for fragrance. every house needs roses. gardening will keep us busy and young for the rest of our lives.

birds & berries

cool dusky air settled over the campus today. everybody seemed a little sluggish and unperky, except the birds. they were swooping all over the campus as i walked out of the cafeteria. birds mostly are silent during the middle of the day, but these were chirpping here and there as they swarmed from one tree to the next. maybe it was the chill signaling that they needed to be packing up and leaving. one funny shaped juniper that had been topped out by lightning and now has two tops and is filled with clusters of frosty blue berries. after standing still under the tree for awhile, i could see that the branches were filled with young robins, their breasts just turning to rust, gobbling up berry after berry. there was such a glut to choose from they would pick the best from one bunch and then flit to another to rob that bunch of the prime berries. they were either chirpping from just being happy or maybe the berries had ripened a little bit beyond perfection.

water

if you look closely you can see the green grass floating around the lighthouse in the middle of the plates which matches the green glasses. every since my sister visited her son in maryland and witnessed pony penning, she has been pining for the sea.

there is something about the smell of salt in the air and the feel of water settled in space, and the sound of lapping water against the shore that calls to the soul. evolutionists would say it is the cradle calling us home. maybe. but is only soothing when not storming. tourists probably remember the gentle waters and sweet sun. most are not around when the tropical storms whip in. so in the middle of the prairie - which some say--probably true--was once a sea, my sister's house is inhabitated by shells, lighthouses in various guises, and other things nautical; but not fish. she doesn't like fish. i however like their looks, colors, designs, and i have to admit, how some of them taste. they are designed so beautifully. on the other hand she is a swimmer, once she belonged to a sync swim team. but i am afraid to be in over my neck. we will have to make some comprimises when we live together, but that is just like all people living in the same space. i will probably have to keep my fish in my room. i will have to try and convince her to eat fish as it is better than chicken and beef in a thousand ways.

paradoxically, people who have lived on the prairie--true prairies--most of their life, make very good sailors. they are used to waves (of grain) and wind and being able to see for miles. the life on the ocean is more like life on the praririe than moving to anyother part of the country. where you live also influences how you look at things in your life. being able to look forever helps you see the the overall picture, you become less focused on minutuia. well, maybe that is a bit much, it doesn't matter where you grow up if you grow up poor and with second stuff--you want all the minutuia you can get---stuff and more stuff. but that is another whole discussion.

waterpark fun without water

when i was young a long time ago i went to a small school in a small town. shop was downstairs (really a half basement similar to the one in the picture), the first floor was four rooms -> 1&2, 3&4, 5&6, 7&8. Then the 9-12 was the next floor up and a half floor up was a little castle like turrent where the principal lived. Outside of a boy who was sweet on my sister (5 years old in first grade) running down the picnic table at the end of the year celebration, i remember sliding down the fire escape once a year for fire drill. of course back then we girls had to wear dresses. i remember somebody sort of waxing it before the drill so we could actually slide down and the teachers at the bottom to catch us smaller ones. it was quite a trip trying to get down and your dress down too.

i am not sure if they still use this one. it looks well kept, but if there was a real fire would someone have to run around to the back of the school to unlock the grate? not a problem if it is a drill because you can do it ahead of time. maybe they have a kick release so the first one down can push it open. or perhaps it is just there for reunions so the old folks can slide down and remember trying to either keep your dress down or sneak a peak at the girls coming down.

the last time i took a trip down one gas was 16 cents a gallon. entertainment is lot pricier now!

outside

hopefully, we will have grass next spring. we plan to put rose bushes in front of the porch. easy to care for ones with great fragrance. probably reds and pinks.


there are two steps up to the deck/porch. the inspector said not to put anything on the wood until next fall. guess the wood has to season. there is no step into the house. just right for two old ladies. :)



the two chairs on the deck are my sister's. my two are still in nebraska in the back yard next to the fire pit. you can see a little bird house sitting on the railing. in the back is part of the landscape we see. deer still come out there to graze. i don't know how long that will last when the rest of the houses are built.

getting comfy for a good read

above left is the chair that once belonged to my great grandmother, nanny. my sister own's it now (i have nanny lapel watch) and had it recovered in a whitesh tapestry that is called snowflake.

to the far right is the chair that i saw in the second had store, although i am pretty sure it is an overstock from somewhere. i laughed at it when i first saw it, but then sat in it and it is perfect for watching tv or reading a book. comfy first class. besides it has funky legs and above all it is GREEN!


this is the free green couch that goes with t he navy blue color scheme for our new house. notice the little kitty scratches right under the curl of the arms. it is chunky and comfy. just in case you didn't notice the glasses on the table are green, the receipe on the bookcase is framed in green and the plates on the table have green grass growing around the lighthouse.

we found the bar stools at Martha's place. the end tables are on loan from my nephew.

house chairs

So I get easily distracted. My sister gave away her nice walnut table and chairs because of the memories associated with set. With no money to really buy a new one, her son offered her a "classic" from the 50's. Well, the chairs were from the fifties. The chair on the right shows original condition. The grease was so thick on the plastic you could cook fries for a year. ugh. The padding was so old that it was like sitting on the wood. There was no way I was going to sit on that even for a minute. So I bought some padding, vynal, and tacks at wally world and spent a day and a half redoing the chairs. Probably should have thrown them out and just bought folding chairs. Would have been less time intense and probably a little cheaper.



The bookcase behind the chair is my sister's ex. It is on loan for the occupancy of the house. Notice that it has a drawer in the bottom which mine does not.

We bought some black folding chairs at Martha's place to fill out the set. We had eight people around the table and two sitting on bar stools at the center counter for our first meal. I made colcannon and my sister made a lentil loaf.

more trains at gibbon

the cat cranes arrived on a big truck. it didn't take them long to be on the ground crunching over piles of coal and debris in preparation to lift cars out of the way. i wasn't able to stay and watch as i have a job. as i was talking pictures all sorts of vehicles and equipment arrived including a semi loaded with concret ties. in a couple of days i will go and take some pictures of the repair.

even though the train crashed, hundreds go by every day without incident and so i am thinking of traveling west to reno during spring break to visit my family. i think i was on a train when i was about three or four, but at sixty-four i cannot remember the experience. i think the prices are a little less than air and it takes longer, but i think i would like to experience a train ride before too much more of my life goes by.

emily and nina

i met two nice, well one nice cat and one wild cat during my stay in illinois. emily decided that my suitcase was a good place to sleep, rest, and check out the world. she is a nice gray and orange tabby who has been trained to stay off counters, but likes to be in the bathroom when someone is taking a shower, sort of like dennis. she had a little kid's canvas chair bought for her, but didn't seem to like it. it has since been taken over by the little squirt--nina. nina's pupils are never tiny.... it is like she is on a permanent adrenaline rush. once when she was chasing emily she jumped staight up in the air from the floor onto the couch. her feet are pretty big so she might turn out to be bigger than emily. her tail is in a constant fluff. i am not sure it can lay down. neither are real snugglers to strangers. i think only sam, who is has his own issues is that friendly to strangers.

big crunch

it didn't happen close to campus or i am sure we would have heard and felt it. twenty seven cars crushed into each other destroying cars, dumping coal, closing a side road, and attracting sightseers. by the time i arrived they were busy fixing things. you can see the cat picking up wheels and moving them off the track. while i was taking pictures two cranes on cat treads arrived to pick up cars at either end and move them around. by the time i got back from a visit to my son and daughter-in-law in illinois--5 days later--only 6 cars, empty, were left. new track had been laid and most of the coal hauled away.

what people think we are

it is interesting to here what people think about you. most of it is based on bits and pieces of what they think they know. once i was deemed unfit to teach in the church school because the people of the church did not see my children with me in church not understanding that they were always with their dad on that day because he always worked on sundays. i had a cousin who was a minister's wife who people thought spent all their money on clothes,but she had excellent taste and was a great seamtress. currently my peers think i know a lot more about computers than they do only because i helped them find lost files a few times---they couldn't find their draft mail, or had changed the home view of their grade program ---and i just called someone to find out how to print report cards from our networked data base, something last years registrar couldn't figure out. it doesn't take computer know how to pick up a phone and ask for directions. i just wrote them down. and it worked. in another environment i would certainly not be considered expert in any fashion whatsoever. i miss the college town. hopefully when i move to belle there will be enough intellectual stimulation in rapid where the school of mines resides. it actually has a world wide reputation, so i would expect the town to be more interesting than being in the middle of the cornfield. maybe i need to look deeper.

soft touch

i ran into town the other day to deposit my check--i miss direct deposit--when a train came to a halt in the main part of town. i could see that some switching of cars was going on so when i could i drove to a crossing--which was blocked by the train, of course,-- and watched the engineers at work. it was a short train of cars to be deposited here and there pulled by two engines and as far as i could tell run by two engineers. one of the engines was number 813 which i have seen go by often. both the engineers where out walking and switching the tracks. as i watched they deposited one grain car by an elevator i thought no one used and then remotely backed up the forward part of the train to the detached back of the train. i waited for the crunch of the couplings, but none came. the engineer with his remote backed up the two engines and about ten cars so sweetly that there was not a sound above that of the engines as the train was rejoined. they walked back to the engines, each getting in there own, the train starting just as the forward engineer stepped aboard. no sound of jerking cars crunched the air waves as they slipped on to the next site. not everyone is so skilled as i am often awakened at night by the patterned staccato of cars being jerked one after the other forward.

sweet summer nights

last evening i rode the yellow bus into town with chattering teens. the windows were down and the warm air blew nicely through the bus. the teens had were in a party mood and had prepared with baths, clean duds, and maybe a few with a bit too much deoderant or perfume. but no cow smell for this group. a few were brave enough to sit as couples in the front of the bus. :)

as i snaped pictures at the mini-gulf course, some tried to hide, others kept checking the results and asked for retakes until they look perfect in their overly critical eyes. but the air was the same summer air that i remmebered as a teen. it was the air of wandering through the neighborhood, looking for friends, for hanging out, for driving to the a & w for a rootbeer float. nobody should be in school yet, air.

spare body parts and telomeres

now that i am soon to reach a certain age where i am told that i should not tell my age i am wishing for a few spare body parts stashed away that i can use as needed. like new ears. the last docotor...who i shall not return to...did not help my ear. i found out from the real ear doctor that i have a fungus in my ear. it seems a hearing aid creates a closed system of nice warm moist stuff just right for a fungus. sigh more meds and a return next wednesday. now if the solved the problem of the ends of the telomeres falling off and people loosing part of their instruction codes i wouldn't have to worry about the spare body parts. lets see.... what else should i replace?

fighting pink

well, except for a black photographer who doesn't have to come to meetings.... the yearbook staff is all girls. save us from themes about rainbows and dreams. and layouts like cosmo!

silliness

how often do we know what is really going on and just close our eyes. ha! the kids were treated to a movie last night for evening entertainment. it was a cute idea. psuedo drive in movie theatre. shark tales was shown agains the wall of the old gym with the kids sitting on benches and couches and chairs draged out of the boys dorm. my favorite was the inner tube. plenty of off was available to discourage the bugs. christmas tree lights ran up the sort of aisle and over the posts that had the electrical outlets on it to keep people from hitting the post while walking in the dark....or was it to shed just a little light on the couples. some brought out blankets even though it was at least 70. were they to wrap couples in? .....alas that was forbidden...maybe it was to keep the bugs off. still it was dark and people sitting close together ... plenty of opportunity..for a little touching. they know it and certainly staff knows it. nothing serious of course, but it is always exiting if you think you are getting away with something.

in the nick of time

i sit here with my real coffee late in the evening listening to vivaldi.. i am not supposed to have cafine after lunch if i want to sleep, but i am addicted. mostly i don't have any in the evening but it is the end of the week, i worked till five, still have a meeting to go to, and coffee goes well with the sun skimming the top of the corn tassels and the four seasons. dennis cat is warming my left arm as i type. there were a few house keeping tasks to do before sun down so i put the clothes in the dryer, started filling the sink to wash dishes, gathered all the trash and then decided i need a little jt blocks. after one game something niggled at the back of my mind and i went to the kitchen just in the nick of time. both sides of my double sink were full to the top and the water still running. sigh that's when i decided i needed a little caffine.

i love the way eugene peterson has translated (loosely) the psalms. in chapter 107 he describes some of the fixes people can get themselves into or find themselves in. and there it is-- at the end of each dilema..... then, in your desperate condition, you called out to GOD. He got you out in the nick of time; i just wonder how many times we get rescued in the nick of time without realizing it. i wander around oblivious to lots of things. i never hear the dryer bell ring telling me to get my clothes out now so i don't have to iron them... i always have to iron. pots boil over. once my truck ran out of oil. once i had to surriptiously go down to kings and buy cat food on the sabbath. if that happens in my physical life, what is going on in my spiritual life which is even less tangible?

i need his parenting always.

TIARIA FRIDAY

slimbolala.blogspot.com A CURIOUS PLACE

flying sorties

because i have supervision duty every thursday evening, i found myself setting in the sunset rays slipping through the thick cover of fog and clouds that have taken up residence. it was just enough light to glisten on the wings of a small squadron of heavy duty dragonflies buzzing the football field for flies and small no-see-ums. you know they are big when you can recognize them in the middle of the field from the bleachers. i am sure that they were bigger than some hummingbirds. they are quite interesting to watch but even more interesting is close observance of the crystaline patterned wings. i have a dragonfly string of lights...lights wound with wire to look like dragonflies courtesy of pier one --a few years ago. my cat who when he was young could jump high in the air and catch moving dragonflies has managed to unwind of few of the psuedoflies. maybe he is dreaming of his youth.