Mulch Mushrooms---Alleged

They're baack!

October 28, 2018

Expiration Date

  Yesterday I threw away Dorothy's driver's license renewal. It was mailed to this address, where she used to stay after her loss.  Her present license would expire on her birthday this year, Dec. 29. I remember when her license was last renewed, we joked about how she'd be good for at least those 8 years. Hope is what we live for.

Cat Creepiness

   Maybe and I have shared this house for 13 years now.  She can do pretty much what she wants as long as she is faithful to the litter box and stays off the kitchen table and counters. She has always obliged.
   She is not a lap-sitter and so does not go on the chairs, though she likes the sofa. That's fine with me. When Dave left, she slept on his empty bed for a while. I put a towel over the bedspread, and she slept  there for several weeks. She has never attempted to get on the bed where I sleep. Never, that is, until last week. Probably she found it when I was away for several nights. She now will not stay away. I shoo her out and she returns. I close the door and she paces and meows. When Andrew is here, she knows she's protected.

First and Last Rose

Dorothy's rose bush has bloomed every year, but this year not until October 18, just "ahead of" the frost. It's pink, pale and puny, but still...

Guess I'll Have to Dig the Dahlias

I picked these October 17, just before the first light frost. They used to bloom end of August, then by September, and this year not until October. It doesn't seem to matter when I plant them. I threaten to leave them out all winter, but they are pretty.

Dreams---where things at least happen

  I was cooking a large leg of lamb. I might have done so in real life once in the 60's, but certainly not since.  We were in the backyard of the old house, a number of people around. I cooked it outside. It was huge, juicy-looking and easy to slice. I looked for a serving platter and put the slices on the platter, but they seemed to disappear.
  The house a few doors down had been sold, and when the owners moved they had dismantled and taken with them an  outdoor utility shed. Where the shed had been  was a deep cavity, muddy and ominous looking. A little boy was peering into the deep hole. He said he'd not go nearer because he knew the danger.
  By the time I got into the house where the lamb had been taken, all the people had eaten and were off on their own pursuits.  There was still a lot of meat left on the leg of lamb.

Word of the Day:

SEQUELAE

Winter Predictor?

I wouldn't depend on his forecast. Turns out he was dead.

Before the Frost

Dahlias---(1-3)so late that I said I'd let them freeze this year, but I'll probably dig them up again. Even planting early doesn't mean earlier blooms, seems they flower later each year.
Zinnias---(4-5)so tall you can't even see the flowers on top. I don't know where these seeds came from. They're pretty though.
Marigolds---(6) planted a lot of seeds, but only these grew. Pretty, though.
Cherry tomatoes--(7) They self-seeded in pot from last year's gift.
Basil in pot---(8) from Christmas gift. Pesto anyone? Help yourself.
Yellow flowers---(9)Don't know what they are or where they came from.  Cute.

Country Music

   Because I can't bear the news, not wanting to hear about the tragic limousine crash or the Supreme Court debacle, I turned the channel, at bedtime, to CM Country Choice. Did you ever realize Dave Dudley's "The Pool Shark" sounds just like Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue?"  Me neither, but then I didn't know I could remember the words to songs I haven't heard in decades.  "It's almost like a song, but just too sad to write."  "Heaven's Just One Sin Away"  and many many more.
    If the regular TV news was too sad to watch, the music nostalgia was even sadder. All those semi-forgotten talents and replaced by what. O the Horror! And to see that Tammy Wynette was born in 1942, and she's been gone for a very long time. I remember being in the maternity ward at St. Mary's and my roommate had just given birth to her 4th daughter. She and her husband were trying to pick a name for her, and Tammy Wynette was singing on some TV show. The husband said "What about Tammy?' and that's what they named her. Dave got a kick out of that.
 

Crowded House

  There was a time when I thought too many people lived in the house. Of course, my parents and sister and brother; they were always there. Uncle Joe lived with us as long as I can remember, in a series of houses in a few short years before Valley Falls. Aunt Helen came to live with us about a year after her mother died in 1950.  At one time my mother provided  day care for a number of different families, and then she provided overnight care, Sunday evenings through  Friday evenings for  a family, who would leave 3 or more kids with us, depending on their ages.  When that ended, my parents took in foster children who lived with us. Several were short-timers but 2 of them stayed with us for about 10 years.
  The house was fairly large, but old, with only one bathroom, and the bedroom I shared with my sister had a door in each of its 4 walls. Helen and at least one of the resident children would have to pass through our bedroom to get to their rooms, and Helen, with her job at a hospital laundry service, would leave for work at 6 a.m. Monday through Saturday.  She would have to make several trips through our room, tending to her oil burner and her cat and dog.
   There was always someone coming and going, noises, discussions, arguments. There was very little privacy or even time to be alone.
    Sara's store was next door, once accessible through a door in our middle room, which my father had boarded up. There was always activity there. Someone was almost always on the front porch, or the back stoop for that matter. I "helped out" in that store from the age of 11, from 6 to 7  all seven days of the week and then on weekends and school vacations also from 1 to 2. Sara had to eat lunch and dinner, and sometimes she and her sister would take a Saturday off and I'd be there all day. It was strange how adults, always women of course, would sit in the extra chair and confide in me, in Sara's absence. I had nothing to offer, but I did listen, which I suppose is what they wanted.
   The point is there were always plenty of people around, and of necessity almost constant interactions. And this carried over into my professional life as a teacher and later as a tutor and advocate. Most of my life I was paid to talk to people.
  For almost thirty years, the same was true for the smaller house I lived in. At first 3 people, then up to 5, all ensconced in a small residence, with all the usual coziness and conflicts. The number of inhabitants reduced gradually from 5 to  4 and then 3, and finally (or so we thought) to 2 of us. The excitements and discoveries lessened but still there was the interaction of another life in the house.
   A lifetime of being steeped in and saturated with human connections is replaced with silence and all the privacy anyone could want.

Waiting

   For all the years when I sat in my car and waited outside schools or at other venues for my kids, I wasn't worried that they wouldn't appear. I knew they would, but a separate part of my mind believed they would never appear. That schism wasn't helped by the fact that whatever child I was waiting for always seemed to be last or near last. I can't remember a single time when they appeared first. That deep part of my brain believed, calmly enough, that I would not see them emerge from whatever doorway held them. That was the phantom part of my brain.
    That same thought process has returned. I'm waiting for a mailing. I see official word that it is enroute. I know mostly what message is being relayed,  and I am told it should arrive soon. I can't really believe it. Maybe it's a form of PTSD.

Medicare Card

  I have not received my new Medicare card.  Not that I'm concerned about it, but I've read several notifications that we all should have received our new card by now and to call if we had not. So yesterday I called. After the usual screening questions, the rep, sounding surprised, said, "Oh, I see I haven't sent it yet!" Oh my gosh, someone taking personal responsibility. What a nice touch. Then she adds, "You can expect your new card in 4 to 6 weeks."  Good thing is I don't really care.

Bugs

The Good, Bad & Ugly

Some of it...

Back in the Day

  A friend and I were drinking at Fay's in North Greenbush when the band played a song she didn't want to hear.  She threw a cigarette pack at them; they didn't pay any attention. But if she were to run for Supreme Court Justice, I'd have to call her out. I have the details: the song was "I Left My Heart in San Francisco."

Geese Flight September 30, 2018

First sighting of Canada geese. Seemed they were flying northeast.