Icicles

Here are my thoughts on the weird icicles that formed on the south side of my house. We've had a good bit of snow and it had been cold, so there was plenty of snow on the roof ready to melt. It had warmed up the day before for the first time in a while, and was above freezing when this happened. The weird icicles formed near, but not exactly across from, the window. There are both normal and angled icicles.

I think that the straight ones formed normally, when the temperatures were warming up. I think the angled ones also formed normally, but the radiant heat from the house pushed the dripping water/forming icicle away from the house as it formed. It wasn't particularly windy, so I think it's a heat thing, not a wind thing.

In other news, I've grown weary of Valentine's Day things, right on schedule. I dislike being reminded that I'm. still. alone. Even though things are going just fine right now. I feel inadequate in that regard, courtesy of the media. Thanks for nothing.

What's going on here?

I took this picture on Saturday, at about 10:30 in the morning. This side of my house faces south, and the temperature was around freezing and getting a little warmer. You can see two kinds of icicles, the regular straight up-and-down kind, and also some that jut out from center. 

Any idea what's going on? I have a couple of ideas, but thought this was an interesting thing to share.

Very close

Well, the date for the demo of my kitchen has been set, and my contractor has put together a schedule that runs over about two weeks, where they will hopefully be able to get in and get out as quickly as possible. 

We have run into a little snag with the countertops, and it remains to be seen whether this will affect the schedule. When I met with the guy, it was my recollection that I had asked for prices on the Cambria, and the sales person did not have that recollection. I'm trying to be fair about this, but after a couple of weeks, I sent an email to my contractor, specifying what I wanted estimates for. He forwarded this email to the sales person. Still I heard nothing. Finally, early this week, I get an email from the sales person asking when I can come in and finalize choices. I say I'd like prices before I come in again. He says I didn't choose anything that he could give an estimate on. I reference my email with specifics. I hear nothing. 

Then we set up a meeting for yesterday (Saturday), and I figure he's got a few days to get the estimates. Then it's Friday (the day before) at 2 pm, and I don't have the numbers. I send yet another email saying I will not meet Saturday without seeing numbers ahead of time because (I mean, did I really need to spell it out?) I didn't want to see the numbers for the first time there in the showroom and feel pressured to make a decision there and then. Geez.

So he emails again yesterday morning, saying he'll have numbers by the end of the day Monday. I don't know if they'll be able to fabricate the counters in time, but I guess that's my contractor's conundrum now.

Grr. I'm getting frustrated just thinking about it. It'd be great if he came forward and said, "Oops, I didn't see that email where you asked for prices very specifically." But it will all work out.

I bought a new stove and a dishwasher yesterday. Of course, that has a story, too. I thought I would do a good turn and shop locally for the appliances, so I hopped online and went the downtown appliance store's website. I cross referenced the Consumer Reports recommendations with what the appliance store offered, and selected the stove above (a Frigidaire, gas, self cleaning, convection oven) and a dishwasher. For some reason CR likes expensive dishwashers, and I thought one shouldn't cost more than the stove, so I looked at models and then went down a couple of steps. Like the guy at the store said, if you're the kind of person that scrapes dishes before they go in the dishwasher, most of them will do a great job.

So I go into the store with my choices, and the sales person says, "Oh, yes, well that's a third party website, and we don't have control over those numbers." Pause. I raise my eyebrows in disbelief. She says they've been trying to get it changes so the site doesn't show prices, because (get this) the site shows the very lowest prices, on par with larger stores. Umm, OK. But she was able to sell them to me at those prices, and after a couple hundred dollars more for delivery, installation and hauling away my old stove, I've got shiny new appliances that will be delivered when they are needed. I'm keeping my fridge until it doesn't work anymore and I don't care that it is white an these are stainless. So there.

As I'm writing, I think that I should mention this or that, but this post is already pretty long, so more later. Hope you have a nice Sunday!

Sad face

We were supposed to get yet another big storm coming through last night and we got...a dusting. The roads are dry. There's supposed to be 3-5" possible today, but we'll see how that goes. It won't be a problem to get to where we need to go this morning. Grumble, grumble.

I was hoping for a snow day. Not for my own selfish purposes, of course. We're in drought conditions here and it would have helped to get a big dump of snow. And I feel bad for my kid too, who was looking forward to a day off. Now we both *sniff* have to carry on.

Seriously, though, this is the third 'major' storm that has come around in the last month that we've gotten storm warnings about and has subsequently fizzled. Not sure if we are now in the Colorado banana belt or what, but it's a little weird.

I had visions of shoveling snow from the alley and walks onto my garden for the free water. Too bad.

What are the chances

For reasons unbeknownst to me (I think it was a collaboration day at his school) Mr W was off yesterday. I had not arranged anything with his dad, so I took half a day off and worked half a day. I was busy doing bracelet stuff in the living room, which looks out to my yard as well as the neighbors' yard.

It was kind of noisy outside because the city was doing its leaf clean up, so there were street sweepers doing their thing, and tiny leaf bits being blown around. Around mid-morning, I'm standing behind Mr W, and he says, "Is that smoke?"

I jump the gun and say, "I don't think so. I think it's leaf dust". Then I look more, and it sure looks like there is smoke coming from the direction of the neighbor's compost pile. I had seen one of them go to the pile earlier, and had noted it because I had let the dog out and was thankful that she didn't bark at him. I head outside in my sweatpants and slippers, step up onto their approximately 8 x 8 ft. pile and it is indeed smoldering. In fact, it's burning a hole down into the pile a few inches.

I walk (briskly) back to my house, give them a call, and they're not home. The message was something like, "Um, this is Linda from next door. Your compost pile is smoking and I'm going to dump some water on it." And that's what I do. I dump two buckets' worth and that douses it.

This leaves me a little shaken. The pile is full of dry leaves, and sits on the property line, at the base of my wonderful (and about 50' tall) fir tree. It's between my neighbors' and my old wooden garages. It's entirely possible that the garages (maybe the tree?) could have caught fire. The corner of the roof of my garage is a few inches from my house.

The thing is, I am almost NEVER home at that hour. If I hadn't been there, things really could have turned out badly. They called later and left a message on the machine, obviously a little shaken at what could have happened and promising to check the ashes to their smallish outdoor fire pit much more carefully in the future. Those ashes sat all night, with lows in the 20's, and were still hot enough to burn leaves.

It's a head scratcher. I send sincere thanks to the circumstances that allowed me to notice.

Just funny that way

So I'm at my banjo lesson yesterday, and I have practiced maybe 30 minutes the previous week. I almost always feel guilty when I don't practice enough, even though my instructor doesn't admonish me for it. But I feel like I get my money's worth more if I do practice, so that we can move along as I get better.

Anyway, I had sent her the music in a tabulature (not sure that the right word, my spellcheck is no help)  form for several song that are played at these jams I go to. She was playing this one when I arrived at my lesson.



This is called "Shove the Pig's Foot a Little Further Into the Fire". It is not a cooking song, it's a blacksmithing reference, which someone had to tell me because I am clueless about such things. Anyway, it's a really nice old timey tune and I'm really pleased she's learning it to teach to me.

We were playing a song together as practice, and as we went along, I did this thing that cracked her up and she said it was bizarre. In the good way (so she said...). But as we played, if I lost my place, I would sing in a dum-de-dum kind of way until my fingers could jump in and pick up the playing again. Kind of like the singing was a placeholder while I found a place to get back into the song. I figured everyone kind of did that, but apparently not. I later though that it's probably because I'm not relying on reading the music; I've memorized the song and so am not looking at the sheet music.

Anyway, it's an adventure.

Another weird dream

My family got to town yesterday - hooray!! They started at my little house for dinner and refreshments and then we drove over to the condo we rented for them and that is going to work out well, I believe. It's so new, this condo. Funny - the doors close evenly, there's texture on the walls and ceilings of the rooms, it has - get this - a DISHWASHER (whoa). Very impressive. It is configured as three small layers stacked on top of each other, so there's a den and one garage space at ground level. The kitchen/living room is the second level, and the bedrooms are on the third. You'd be pretty fit if you lived there, with all that stair climbing.

Anyway, I'm writing to share this dream I had the night before they got here. The thought had occurred to me that the last time they all came out, it was my summer of discontent, seven (!) years ago. I had just made the decision to file for divorce and my life was  totally upended. I can remember Mr W misbehaving and feeling, "I'm going to have to do this alone. I don't have any backup". Well it's all worked out, and we are doing fine. Better than fine, actually.

So in the dream, I was back in that time, and had been trying to make things work between the ex and had just realized it wasn't going to work out. Even though the events that set the divorce in motion weren't my doing, I still felt like a failure (I don't anymore :-)). But in the dream, it was that heavy feeling of dread. Then in the dream, he and I were sitting in two carts, like toy pedal cars. He went off in one direction, and I went off in another. However, I ended up going through a bunch of people who were eating at an outdoor cafe. I had to back up, go backwards (I think that is pretty darn metaphorical) to get to where I needed to go. Here's the thing, though. People were really nice about it as I backed up my goofy little pedal car. Then I woke up.

Oh, and the van is finally done. I'll at least pay for it today, I'll see if they'll put it on consignment. It will be nice to have that done.

A little catch up

Happy weekend! It's supposed to be near 100 for the next two days. I'm volunteering at our local brewfest this weekend. It'll be fun, I need to drink lots of water. So, what's been happening here? 

Well, at work, I got work done on a project and it's ready to hand off to my boss, who was this week collecting ticks in Missouri. The magnitude of my gratefulness for not being asked to go on this trip is huge indeed. Ick ick ick. So, that's good. I worked from home yesterday afternoon on a little proposal that helps explain the connection between the sort of research we do and public health. It's not always a straight line, and it helps to try to make it clear for the people who at the top who make decisions. 

I've been working a lot on Etsy shop stuff. Well, it seems like I've been spending a lot of time lately trying to promote my stuff on Pinterest, Facebook and Tumblr. The overlap is definitely there, but it seems each has its own different audience. But setting that stuff up and keeping it current takes time. I do enjoy it, though, so it's not like I feel like I'm wasting time. Those earrings are the last of five pairs I posted recently. I used mainspring barrels from old watches, plus the little glass cabochons and my clay tiles. If you've got an opinion, what do you think of the price? Reasonable?

I'm also doing a giveaway on the FB page. Check out Wednesday's post for details. 

It's been so very dry here. I know it's not like that everywhere, for sure. I've been dutifully watering my garden and sometimes my grass. I'm trying not to let my lawn die this year. I've gotten a so-so harvest from the lettuce and spinach - it got too hot too fast after I planted them. But the rest of it is coming along. I planted a bunch of cantaloupe, and with the hot summer, I'm hoping we get a few good ones. It seems like it's around the beginning of school by the time they are ripe, but the plants have flower and I'm hopeful. The dog's been helping herself to the raspberries, which I think is quite funny, and I'll just need to try to get out there before her.

I can tell you this because it's done and there's no jinxing it now. I had gone out on a few dates with someone I met online. I know, I know, why the online stuff again. In short, because I feel like there's no one out there (so I don't spend much time on the site), but yet I'm an optimist, so it feels like leaving a business card in a jar. Anyway, we went out for lunch a couple of times and went hiking once. Each time, it was this thing about how busy he was, and whether he'd be able to make the agreed-upon time. We moved things around several times, and the last straw was when we had agreed to go out, potentially, on a Saturday night before he was leaving for a conference. We had set up the potential outing at least a week in advance, so it seemed to me he could find a couple of hours to do go out. He emailed at 6 pm, not to apologize, but to say he couldn't make it, he had too many things to do yet.

The reason I mention this is because there was a time when I would have put up with this bs. There was a time when I would have thought this pretty normal and would have been understanding. In fact at the beginning, when we had to reschedule or he couldn't make it, I thought, "well, he's got a lot going on, so I'll be flexible." And you know what? We all seem to manage to make time for the things we think are important. We do. We are all busy, too. So I emailed him and said that he seemed like he was always too busy, and that there was no hard feelings, I just didn't want to conduct things that way. 

And I never heard from him again. I guess he's too busy to reply. 

But things are good. I was telling a dear friend who came up from Denver and took me out to dinner last night (and has been married forever) that yes, I still sometimes can't believe that I have been single now for 6.5 years after the divorce. But I have come to realize, especially after hearing about how one half of a couple can make bad choices and make things difficult for both parties, that it's nice to come home to a friendly dog and just check my email and go to bed. 

Our in-town fire

You may have heard about the High Park fire that's burning just west of Fort Collins. Here's a link to our local paper, and one to a TV station. At least 118 structures, lots of displaced people, lots of smoke down here in town. My house isn't in any danger, but the fire is less than a mile from where I work. The building is pretty smoky, and it's hard to concentrate. They don't seem to think the fire will crest over the hill close to the building, but it's been an unusual fire, and people are a little anxious, myself included.

It started Saturday morning, from a lightning strike. Not too much more to say about it, but it's unfolding.

In other news, I had a couple of interesting dreams last night. In one, I was with Mr W and we were standing on the side of a street. All of the sudden, this life-sized pink plastic VW Beetle comes bouncing, literally, down the street, doing several car lengths at a bounce. It's got a big black push button on the bottom of it. Mr W is unimpressed.

In the other, I've got friends over to the house and some stuff has been delivered that I'm supposed to work on as part of my craftiness. The pieces are on my porch, and it's something like a large dining room table top, and three wooden cutouts of animals. For the life of me, I can't remember what I'm supposed to to with them. Then I find a letter, also on the porch (where my mail gets delivered) and that explains it.

I got an email from Mr W's dad yesterday saying how all Mr W wants to do is play on the computer, and I was telling him that the kid needs to be gently pushed to do the other things we know he's interested in. I fear the kid will be unimpressed by anything not on a screen and we have to work on that balance.

The other dream I suspect has to do with this button stuff, although I'm sitting really good on making the first batch - they look great.

I'm delivering a meal for a family from church with the mom undergoing chemo this summer. Just so happens I ran into an acquaintance in the grocery store over the weekend, also undergoing chemo this summer, and is also signed up at the same meal-delivery-organization web site. I'll get on that schedule too and count my blessings.

These are not my tulips

Spring's pretty far along here, as everywhere in the country it seems. I cleaned out this bed on Saturday, and am still very happy with what's in there. I'll have to divide the iris again next year. They're so hardy, it's too bad I can't replace my grass with them. In this bed, different plants are dominant at different times of the season, just like in a real garden bed. It just sort of worked out that way, I can't really take much credit for it. But I do like the look. This bed is right outside my back door, so I see its progress daily.

Anyway, the tulips. Those aren't my tulips.

I have this thing against white flowers. At first it wasn't conscious, but after a few years of gardening and not considering white a color, I see that I don't have any white flowers in my garden. Seems to me that if a flower comes in a color, I'll favor that instead of white. There's a house up the street that had a nice little bunch of tulips in red, orange and purple, and I think that's what I was going for when I bought bulbs last year.

As you can see, the first ones to pop are white. They're a little washed out in this picture, as they are really a cream color, but they still count as white in my gardening mindset. I cannot believe that I chose these. Anything's possible, of course, but especially in the spring, I want a vibrant pop of color. The best I can figure is that they got mixed up at the nursery where I bought them. I don't have the time or energy to dig them up and return them, and will enjoy them just about as much as ones with bright colors. I'll take another picture when the rest pop to see what color scheme is actually planted there.

Nonnews

I suppose it's an indication that thing are going fine that I am going to post about this breaking topic today.  I did get some cough medicine (she prescribed these little gel caps instead of the more sleep-inducing narcotic liquid, but I think they are working) and hopefully will kick this thing for good in the next few days. After that, I promise! I will try to remember what this feels like to better appreciate when I'm feeling good.

The first Screen-free Tuesday night was a little rocky, but overall a success. We had dinner, and went out to buy Mr W a new pair of shoes. Sadly he's crossed the threshold from boys shoes to mens (mens'?), where the prices jump quite a bit for basically the same shoe that is just a smidge bigger. It's funny what kid's tastes are for shoes. Mr W is not a kid that really cares what he's wearing, but he sure liked the running shoes with neon accents. Too bad those were $85, and were vetoed. Also interesting how different brands actually do fit differently. He tried on another brand next, and they just felt better on his feet.

With shoes in hand, we went home for a refresher in, I'm a little embarrassed to say, shoe tying. How is it possible, you ask, that a kid who just turned 11 does not know how to tie shoes? Well, it just worked out that way. Between slip on shoes, velcro and laces with those little plastic keepers on them that keep the lace tight, he did not know. But he got the hang of it pretty quickly.

When he was going to bed, I said something like, "Goodnight, shoe-tier". And he said, "Mom, don't praise me for that. You should have taught me how to tie my shoes years ago." Ouch. True, but he didn't want to know, either, so it's kind of a draw.

Six degrees of Kenny Loggins

Mr W has his school's music program tonight. A few weeks ago they sent home a flyer telling the kids what they should wear. After not doing anything about it for all that time I asked him a couple of days ago what he was supposed to wear. Now, to be a stickler about it, I did ask this question when I got the flyer and was told "normal clothes". I asked again to be sure, and was told "something 80's", and the flyer said they would be covering the song Footloose.

Something 80's, huh? Now, I was there, I'm sure of it. Those were my high school and college years. In the middle to late parts of the decade, I was going through my retro thrift store phase, where I would buy old men's dress shirts and wear them fully buttoned with the collar cut off. Oh, and jazz flats. I even had a tail (the hair kind) for a time. As I think about it, I had several blouses with shoulder pads. However, I don't really remember how males dressed in the 80's . So I did some research, and if you think something along the lines of Duran Duran, that's what people are thinking.

Buying a yellow suit wasn't in the cards, so I bought him a bright green polo shirt at the thrift store, and he'll wear it with the collar up. That's 80's, right? It'll have to be for tonight, anyway. His hair is getting long, so maybe his dad can help him sweep it up on the sides with some hair gel.

Given all this 80's stuff, it's not surprising that the song Footloose has been going through my head the last couple of days. Remember how Kenny Loggins had a string of movie theme songs? Top Gun, Caddy Shack, Footloose. Anyway, we get to the thrift store and there's actually a Kenny Loggins song playing, although it wasn't Footloose and I can't remember what the song was at the moment. I pointed this out and Mr W was unimpressed. No context, I suppose.

We do one circuit around the back to see if maybe, just maybe there are some appropriate shoes for the kid to wear (no), and go past the LPs. Yes, the LPs. You know, those big black disks old people used to play music? They had a bunch of them. There at the front was a Loggins and Messina album. I don't know what the title was (wasn't much of a fan). I point this out to Mr W as well. Isn't that oddly coincidental? Two Kenny Loggins things in the thrift store while we're shopping for a Footloose-y shirt.

Sciencey (or even remotely logical) people would point out that I was tuned into things Loggins, not that there was anything supernatural about seeing this stuff. Fair enough.

Mind tricks

As expected, there was a banquet held as part of the conference I went to. Funny how there is a huge range of outfits for these events. Plenty of suits and cocktail dresses, and then the rest of us. I just wore what I wore to speak that day (slacks and a jacket), and it was fine.

Something different they had (it was California, after all) was a magician who did 3 or 4 short acts during the course of the evening. He did card tricks and the expected stuff, but then he did a couple of tricks that weren't  sleight of hand at all. Instead they relied on reading people. It was really interesting.

He got a volunteer from the audience and asked her to think of her best friend from childhood. Then he asked her to think of the first letter of her name. He asked her to say "no" as he went through each letter of the alphabet. So it went: "Is it A?" "No" "Is it B?" "No" "Is it C?" "No" regardless of whether that was the right letter for the name or not.

He guesses the first two letters correctly, L and I. I'm thinking the name is Linda, so I tune in to hear what she says as he gets closer to N. L? No. M? No. N? No - but her voice went up when she said it. It was so goofy. He was tuned into it, so he easily guessed the rest of the letters.

I think it's a good thing that we aren't generally good liars. I find the details of life quite enough to keep track of without having to remember things that didn't happen or happened differently than my story says they did.

He did another one, and I can't remember the details, but it was another thing where a volunteer was asked to recall something, and he asked her each number or letter. This time, she held her palm out, and he pushed lightly on each of her fingers in turn while he asked and she answered. Something about the amount of resistance from each push on a finger gave him the information without his volunteer giving it directly. J from the dog park, who is up on things psychological, had a name for this and knew of the phenomenon.

It was pretty entertaining. Whether people who can read people like this use their powers for good or evil is another matter. I'm guessing that TV psychics use similar tricks to seem legitimate, while the client is giving them most of what they need to know. On the other hand, I've met a couple of people who I would call truly intuitive, and it does seem like a gift.

In other news, my cold is taking its sweet time to exit my system, stopping to visit lungs, head, throat, etc. This morning, I woke up with what I'm guessing is sinus pain - ouch. I can't recall having it before. I still have a junky cough, but my throat doesn't hurt. Mornings definitely are the hardest. I haven't felt much worse, just differently icky over the last few days, so I guess that means my system is fighting the good fight. I did go to Spin class yesterday, thinking I'd take it easy and leave if I started on a coughing jag. It was fine though, and it felt really good to do it again after being absent for a week. When this clears up, I will appreciate my symptom-free condition a little more!

The Sally diet

I took beloved doodle Sally to the vet yesterday because she's got ear gunk. She's got sort of heavy ears, so I do look for gunk occasionally, and this round seems to have developed pretty recently. When we got there, they of course weighed my dog.

70.8 lbs.

Excuse me? Can you do that again? I remember her weighing 80 ish, and at one time 85 lbs. The nice tech reweighs my cooperative non-wiggling dog. Yup. 70.8 lbs.

She's a large dog, but still this is a lot of weight to have taken off in the last year without me really paying attention. The vet wasn't concerned, because she's healthy and she was too heavy before anyway.

Our secret? A smaller scoop for her food. I don't remember what happened to the old scoop. Oh, wait, yes I do. It was an old pint-sized container from a deli and she chewed it up. Take that as you will.

I looked in my vast tupperware library and found something that I could fill to heaping and was the 1 1/4 cups she gets twice a day. And we've been using that ever since. She still gets plenty of treats, so I guess we're doing it right. It was just sort of weird that it was happening without my realizing it.

So now (she says, facetiously) I'm going to write a book on how if you buy my special set of plates and measuring spoons and cups, you'll be able to lose 15 % of your body weight in a year. ;-)

One of those dreams

This morning, I was sleeping solidly when Mr W came in and announced he was up. I was dreaming, and it was one of those time when I could remember it. I was at a mall, and was sitting on a ledge about 12 feet up in the air. Just a ledge on the side of a building. In the mall. There was a person next to me, old and out of shape, and we both needed to get down. I knew that I had gotten up there myself, but it looked too far up to just leap over the side. I was contemplating turning over quickly so I could hang onto the ledge and drop down. The person next to me was gone, and I looked to my left, and started scootching along the ledge toward the end on the left.

When I got close enough to see, there was a chair at the end of the ledge and that made it easy to just swing my legs around and get off the ledge. I turned around, and the ledge actually sloped down from where I was to the end where the chair was. As though I didn't see the easy solution until after I thought about the hard way to do it.

18 years

Hard to believe, but my mom's been gone for 18 years now. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which had spread to her lungs. She was a smoker, and was never able to kick it. It was pretty quick, six weeks from diagnosis until she died. I regret that we never really discussed the idea of her dying with her. We were so completely overwhelmed by the idea of her being sick that I think we never considered that she'd die until it was just about over.

I'd like to think I did a little better with my sister, at least trying to ask what she wanted to do, and to listen to her vent her outrage and sadness that this had happened to her. You can search the label "Sister Kris" to read my posts about her. My sisters in law referred to her as "Sister" because my dad's partner is also a Chris(tine).

I was thinking a couple of days ago, as I felt this day getting closer, that I do OK with these losses if I take them out and examine them occasionally, but continue to look forward. I'm not as afraid of getting taken early as I once was. Or of dying alone, without a partner to support me emotionally. I'm not sure if it's simply the time having passed, or that I feel like I'm eating pretty well, exercising, getting health screenings and trying to watch my stress, and so am doing really all I can, prevention wise. It sounds morose, but after I went out for a drink the other day with the person I dated briefly and now is just a friend I thought, "He'd take me to chemo if I needed it." I'm not sure where that came from, I have no diagnosis to share, but it did prompt a bout of list-making in my head of people I know (some whom I've dated, and friends) of people who would pitch in in this manner if need be. And I was comforted. Not planning on needing the help any time soon, but it felt good to have the knowledge.

ANY-way, sorry for the somber tone of this post, but I wanted to share another thing. Oh, wait. Before I do that, I haven't mentioned how fabulous my mom was. She was a nurse, had three kids one year apart (plus one more, six years later) and went back to work after her kids were in school. She juggled it all, and had a clean house, cooked dinner every night. She was my friend as well, and a solid supporter of me getting a good education so I could support myself. After she graduated from nursing school in the late 1950's, she and her friend took an epic road trip out West, and worked at various hospitals as they saw this part of the country. Two single gals seeing the world. Love that.

OK here's the last bit. Last night I went to a Meet Up meet up called "Haunted Fort Collins". Two women do walking tours around downtown and one does the history, and the other can see spirits of local ghosts. Now, I am a solidly evidence-based gal. I figured she'd be all bluster and drama, but I bought it. She's quiet, sincere, humble, and absolutely confident in her abilities, which she says she got after an accident made her die briefly before being resuscitated. We made 4-5 stops around downtown, and the history woman would tell us about the site, and then the spirit woman would tell us who was there. She said she calls them in. At one point, the history woman was talking, and I glanced over at the spirit woman, who was absolutely looking into what I saw as empty space as though she saw something.

I felt nothing. She said this is normal. I was a little wary of going back to my old house all by myself, but I feel nothing of that sort here as well (phew!). See how I sort of want to believe? So much so that I took one of the spirit woman's cards, and might have her do a reading for me. She does kind of general readings of past and future stuff. While I stood there listening to her describe her services to someone else, she told this person she can "see" into the body as well. And proceeded to point to this woman's hip, saying she had something funky going on with a ligament there.

Since this happened close to a time when I'm thinking about my mom and my sister, I thought, wouldn't it be nice to hear that they're doing fine? I don't know. If they aren't, and it takes a lot of money on my part to get them there, it would start to feel like a scam, you know? It was really interesting to me to be in the presence of someone who felt as though they could tap into something I had no access to. As I said, I'm all about the evidence. However, I'm also not so arrogant to think there is stuff that science can't explain at this point in time. So, color me intrigued.

Ma? I might be in touch.

Eventful

Yesterday was busy and eventful. I volunteered at the Tour de Fat bicycle parade in the morning. That's me in my goofy costume. Hey, no one should take themselves too seriously, right? And my get-up was totally boring compared to many of the participants. If I had a dollar for every guy in drag that was there, well I'd be a rich woman... I went through the crowd and had people sign a waiver to participate, and also hit them up for donations to the bicycle non-profit that was the beneficiary of the event. People were pretty generous, and I had a good time.

Then, I went out to dinner with someone I met online and had spoke to a few times on the phone. He was nice enough, but lives an hour away and I need to be able to see my guy more than twice a month. (My parenting schedule gives me every other weekend free.) I told him this at the end of the evening, and feel it was the right decision. It's still a bummer to back away when the other person wants to proceed.

When we were at dinner, I saw my neighbor who lives across the street from me. I was pleased when he bought and renovated the house, because it had been a rental with three creepy guys for a couple of years. Whenever I was in my yard, I felt like I was being watched. I haven't spoken much with the neighbor, mostly waved and said hi. He's retired, probably in his 70's. To my astonishment, he made a pass at me. Held his hand out as if he wanted to shake it, and then didn't let go, but held it to his chest. I suppose he was drunk, but I couldn't believe it.

When I got home, I saw that the van had received a parking ticket for expired plates! My city's zealous parking services department, out there making sure no one parks goofy for the Tour de Fat. Yeesh. It didn't pass emissions, so I couldn't renew the tags, the mechanics can't get to it until Tuesday, blah blah blah. Another small problem, but I'll be glad when it's fixed and I can sell it.

The weather has turned delightfully cooler. Almost sweater weather, comparatively. I need to paint my fence, and will enjoy poking around outside today, I believe.

Wasn't I just saying...

While I was out with the van yesterday doing errands, I came out of a store and saw about a cup of antifreeze had leaked out in the 20 minutes I had been in the store. My first thought was, "Crap! Two cars down, how am I going to manage the logistics of this?" The second thought was, "I'm SO glad this didn't happen when I was off camping." Isn't that strangely weird in a good way? Things held together just fine while I was off by myself, and sort of waited until I got back to home base to go kerfluey.

But this leaves me with some scheduling to do. I can ride my bike to work tomorrow. I'll have the Honda towed to the repair shop today, and I hope they can fix whatever's wrong with it and be done by the end of the day. Mr W's first day of school is tomorrow, so I can walk over and get him when he's done, and I can ride my bike to Spin class. The repair shop is good about giving me rides, so it will all work out. The weather's supposed to be warm and dry, so I won't worry about getting rained on for the moment.

It's funny, the community center where the Spin class is held has been closed for the last week for maintenance, so I haven't had class for the last week. I miss it!! It's funny how things become routine, and I'm looking forward to getting back to it. Yeah, I can't believe those words just came out of me regarding exercise either.

So it remains, what do I do today? No car, but of course have the bike. I was at the store yesterday to buy canning supplies, and while I got some jars, I balked at buying the big pot for the water bath. The one they had was so big, I thought it would be hard for my sort of basic stove to keep boiling. Then I remembered that I had an Amazon gift card that I could put toward a pressure canner, so I did that. I got a 23 quart Presto. It should be here in a few days, which is fine, because the main things I wanted to can, tomatoes, have been so very late this year. I have had three grape tomatoes, and every thing else is still green. Crazy.

Mixed

I got an email from the x this afternoon, telling me that he and his girlfriend are now engaged. No firm plans on the particulars yet but they are staying in town.

I have mixed feelings on this. I don't mind, or care that he's taking this step. I really don't. There has never been any ambiguity as to our status, and I am thankful for that. And furthermore, as I told him when I replied to his email, anything the promotes stability in Mr W's life is fine by me. She seems a reasonable person, has a son of her own (a couple of years younger than Mr W) and doesn't seem to have any hangups about her role in his life. I asked Mr W tonight what he thought, thinking that, like a lot of kids of divorced parents, that he might be a little sad that this event meant that his parents really would never get back together.

He said it was fine, and then asked right away how I felt about it. And then asked if I was ever going to get married again. I hope I don't appear like this crazy spinster type person to him. I told him that I was really looking forward to being married again, I just hadn't found the right guy yet. His response was, "So someday, I'll belong to two families." Yup, that's been the goal, my sweet offspring.

This gets to why this news kind of sat like a pebble in my shoe today. I'm a little bummed out that I am not in the same place. I'm a little sad that I am not in the same position. I haven't by any means lost hope, but I figured I'd be there by now. But here I am, and life is good. I'm looking forward to a lot of things. The job thing will resolve itself. My kid and I are healthy. The important stuff is in place.

Coupons

I've tried, I really have.  I know that some people clip coupons and save a good chunk of change when they go shopping.  I suspect that the avid ones actually enjoy this process.  I'm sorry to say that I don't.  The thought of maintaining a little folio of coupons fills me with dread. 

There's an organization in town called Be Local, and they put out a coupon book twice a year or so, with, obviously, coupons for goods and services from local businesses.  Last year I bought the book for $10-15 and put in in my car, where I would have it handy for all the local shopping that I try to do anyway.  I didn't use any of the coupons, and they're all expired now, as the new book is out.  Ergggg.

I was talking to a friend at the dog park yesterday.  She's very good at supporting local businesses, and volunteers pretty regularly for various events around town.  She told me she never used any of the coupons in her last book either, and that made me feel a little less bad.