His Master's Voice

Inspirational song: How Soon Is Now (The Smiths)

I aged several years last week. It was all too much. By the time we returned from the mountain last night, I wasn't faking it saying I needed to go straight home, even though it fed into our ruse for the surprise party. I was wiped out. I tried to be cheerful, but I could see on my face how worn out I was. My cheeks were flushed, my face was puffy, and I looked used up.

I intended to sleep late, but I kept waking myself up coughing. It was a combination of sawdust and road dust and dust dust, I'm sure. The man didn't let me sleep past 730, saying if I didn't get up I'd miss one of my favorite kinds of mornings, where it was chilly and overcast and somewhat damp outside. The house was freezing, or at least as close as it ever ought to be. We still hadn't turned on the heater, although by mid-day I went ahead and turned it on low, so there would be a better baseline. This way I can still walk around barefoot and not regret it. I felt rough all day, and slept off and on in my chair until after noon. It helped somewhat, but I still needed the comfort of wearing fleece pajama pants when I went next door for the actual birthday gathering, the one our neighbor had planned. We watched football and ate bratwurst and played Mario Kart. It was the best sort of Sunday.

The dogs had to stay outside while guests were over. Barley got to be in for a while, but Hops was stuck in the backyard the whole day, until everyone except us left. Barley pouted at me like I was responsible for him being outside, and Hops was happy that his substitute food-bringers were around. While we watched the end of the night game, the boys sacked out on the couch. Then an ad came on with a little dog getting a yard for the first time, and barking as he got to run into it. Hops perked his ears up and gave the tiniest of growl/barks. He stared at the TV for several seconds, until his daddy teased him for putting up such a brave front to protect the household. Hops is still finding his place around here, but he sure is cute while he's learning.

Change Plans on the Fly

Inspirational song: With a Little Help from My Friends (v Joe Cocker)

It was supposed to be such a simple plan. We would leave super early for the mountain, slap on the rest of the upper roof decking, call knock it off by five o'clock, and be back home by seven. I was supposed to send texts all along the way home, and when we pulled up at the house, the gang would pop out on the porch, and yell happy birthday to our neighbor, who had no idea we were planning anything.

Part of that worked. Our neighbor was truly shocked that we organized a surprise party. That's about it. Eight o'clock this morning came and went, and I was still dressing while we waited for our neighbor. Turns out Barley started his morning ripping off his pinky claw, and had to be rushed to the vet. He was sedated for the claw removal, and we didn't get on the road until 10:30. Okay, fine, we could still work and do the rest, right?

We all only took one trip up the mountain (as opposed to me climbing once and the guys doing multiple shuttles with building supplies). We focused on the roof, but got lost on a few tangents along the way. I appointed myself time keeper, and I tried to keep us on the revised schedule. We were going along okay until we accepted in our hearts that the roof decking wasn't going to be finished before we left. So we unrolled the giant tarp I had spent 45 minutes de-roping, stretching, and folding. Seconds before we started tying it down, the wind started kicking up. It took twice as long to seal up the roof as it should have.

There is a spot on the rough trail across Forest Service land where we keep saying we need to move a couple giant rocks. Today, we drove right over them. We bounced our neighbor around in the back seat excessively. Seconds later, we heard a loud hissing noise. I thought he had pierced the radiator or something. Almost as bad--we pierced a tire. We rolled down to the neighbor's claim on a totally flat tire, where it was flat enough to change it out. The only jack in the truck was a piece of crap that Mr S-P had picked up in a junkyard when he got a replacement part for the 4Runner. It kept trying to seize and it barely worked well enough once to raise the truck. It wouldn't go back down and we had to back up the truck to get off of it. We lost over an hour to these delays. Thankfully we found a smooth route home to get home with the fewest possible stoplights.

We originally thought we would have all the friends decorate our neighbor's house, but I was the voice of reason and insisted we set up at our house, just in case the idea of having everyone at his place while he was gone freaked him out. It was the right call, especially after the dog drama of this morning.

Our party theme was a combination of Mario and "11x3." We had Mario party favors and three cakes with 11 candles each. There was a portrait backdrop with picture props. And of course we played everyone's favorite: Jackbox. We dragged my bedroom TV out to set up in the living room, rather than piling down into the basement. I may have lost Quiplash twice, but I am still the Trivia Murder Party champ!

Favors

Inspirational song: You've Got a Friend (Carole King)

It was *aaalllmost* my day today. It was supposed to be cooler than most days this week, but thick clouds kept the temps much lower than predicted. I drove around all afternoon, and never saw the car thermometer read above 48 degrees. We actually wished we had brought coats with us when we went shopping, my foster daughter and I. If it had just been wetter, with drizzly rain, then this would have been my favorite day of the year. Maybe next week. It's coming.

Hours of shopping wore me out today. We only intended to go to the party store to get a few themed items. I started expanding the itinerary immediately, starting with the Whole Foods salad bar for lunch (because it's my version of the cafeterias my ancestors frequented), and including the grocery store and Target. We found most of what we needed, and a few things I didn't necessarily need but sorta wanted. We managed to put a few things back that were cute but frivolous. And then we dragged ourselves home through rush hour traffic.

I still had to cook when I got home, and clean up the house "just in case" (you'll understand tomorrow). And then I had to watch a thoroughly satisfying football game. I didn't have the energy to get it all done right away. I had to take a lot of breaks. Thus here I am, after midnight, waiting for a gluten free cake to bake, while I look on enviously at the girl cats sacked out on the super fuzzy blanket on the bed, wishing I could be asleep too. We are leaving early for the mountain tomorrow, with our neighbor, hoping to finish the upper roof deck in one trip. Tomorrow is going to be rough and long. Today's weather reminded me of how quickly that hill is going to go from summer to winter. We are almost out of time.

Golden Hour

Inspirational song: Wild, Wild Life (Talking Heads)

The mountain was the perfect refuge for a day like this. I was very aware of what was going on, but blessedly, I didn't have to watch or listen to it in real time. That would have been too triggering, not being able to fast forward it, or not have it filtered down into sound bites. As it is, I am upset hours later, and in a national sense, I am not alone. I have a difficult calculus ahead for future relationships, though. I think some deal breakers have been thrown down by people I have known since I was a little girl or young woman. My world may get more lonely soon. But I can't think about this right now.

I've been wanting to see wildlife on the mountain for as long as we have had that land. Until today, I had seen very few creatures, mostly squirrels and chipmunks. Today on the way there, a few miles past my favorite spot on the drive (a tiny, private lake), we saw something dash across the Peak to Peak highway. It wasn't something I recognized immediately. The Mr informed me that it was a badger. I don't think I have ever seen one in the wild. Maybe I've seen one in a zoo in my youth, but I haven't been to a zoo in so long I can't be sure. (I'm not big on animals in cages.) Apparently it's so rare to see them at all up in these mountains, that it was as special for the Mr as it was for me.

Later, while we were working on the cabin, my back was turned when a chipmunk ran up close to me. Mr S-P announced he was there, but before I could turn my head, he dashed under the cabin. As we drove home, there was a magpie flitting around the dirt roads near the house that I call the "Dog and Pony Show" in my head. (They have horses and dogs, and separate training areas for each visible from the road.) A little farther down the road, I saw a doe picking her way through the trees about twenty feet off to my right.

In addition to all of these fun signs of wildlife, there's one more that I'm less certain about. I was bringing up the rear on the march back to the car. I was still well above where I saw Elsa relieve herself on the way up the hill. I should not have been able to smell what she left hours earlier. Honestly, it also didn't smell like dog poo. (I shouldn't be a connoisseur of such, but with a dog like Murray, I am all too familiar.) I'm not an expert, but based on the aroma, I did wonder aloud whether there had been a bear on the mountain not long before we walked past.

For most of my life, I have avoided being around sunlight at that point in the afternoon when everything goes yellow. Because it was a migraine trigger, I hated it. It wasn't until the last few years, when between diet and medication I got my migraines under control, that I even learned that it was called the "golden hour," loved by photographers and painters. I've started to appreciate why. The landscape was beautiful on the drive home. The sun highlighted things I'd never noticed in all of these trips over the last few years. I most often keep my eyes focused on the road right in front of the truck. Today, I took in the long view. Today, I appreciated how incredibly large the mountains are, and how small I felt in relation to them. Today, I was awed.

I Do Not Like Kombucha

Inspirational song: Life to Fix (The Record Company)

My house smells like kombucha. I spent all day since my doctor appointment this morning cleaning house for company tonight, getting everything including the scent profile to be just right. While my sink was full of dishes and later mop water, I had to put off taking care of the plum wine that had been sitting in a primary fermenter in my kitchen. I needed the sink to sterilize all the containers and tools to rack the wine into smaller secondary fermenters. Once my friends left, I was able to tend to the bucketful of stinky plums.

It took two of us to get the siphon to flow properly and the tubing to stay in the jars while they filled. On my way back from the doc, I had stopped and bought two glass jars and air locks, and we quickly learned that I should have gotten three. We ad libbed and washed out a growler from 300 Suns and got another half gallon set up. Unfortunately the old air lock we had from a big glass carboy was about an eighth of an inch too big, so again, I had to improvise. Press and Seal and a giant hair tie for the win! (If this wine ends up even vaguely drinkable, the little growler will be for the guys, since it previously held beer. There may not be even the smallest molecule of gluten left, but I’ll take no chances.) The liquid itself is cloudy and pulpy. I wonder how long it will take to settle. My guess is “months.”

I have no idea whether I was careful enough with temperature, oxygen, sanitation, or ingredients. I’ve never tried to make wine before. Maybe it is supposed to stink this much. It is fermented fruit after all. I am not a fan of kombucha, which this resembles strongly. I tried two or three times to choke it down, and that was enough for a lifetime. To have my kitchen reek of it is not my idea of a good time, especially after putting so much effort into making the house smell of Lysol, Simple Green, “Autumn Gatherings” wax melts, and a “Flannel” candle. From that to sour plums. Ugh.

Chance of Frost

Inspirational song: Change in the Weather (John Fogerty)

We made it, y'all! We survived another summer in a brick oven with no central air conditioning. I did better than last year, and the year before that. Last night a new cold front blew through, and it was pleasant light sweater weather all day. I've been feeling blue for days, and this went a long way into helping me put the demons back into boxes and cheer up. We aren't in the clear yet. It'll still be warm in the afternoons. But I pulled the fans out of the windows, and I expect to get the first good night of sleep in the cold in ages.

Continuing my efforts to plug back in to local news, I got the TV switched over just in time for the weather forecast. I'm close enough to a frost advisory that I immediately paused it again and jumped up to decide which of my porch plants to drag inside. There were two juvenile geraniums that needed to be in right away. There's a tiny jade that has struggled ever since I took it outside. (It probably needs to be planted a little deeper too.) Then I discovered why the Boston fern always looked like it was dying, all summer. I kept thinking it was not being watered deeply enough, and that the sun was scorching it. Turns out it was floating in stagnant water. I tipped it over and drained about a liter of water onto the driveway before I carried it in. (And then I put it up on top of the liquor cabinet so the cats don't eat it.)

I don't think it's really going to freeze tonight, but it's still exciting knowing it's closer. I needed something to look forward to. I was never a fan of summer, but the older I get, the more my disease advances, and the more scarred my soul becomes, the harder it is to put up with them. I can cuddle up in a blanket and solve multiple problems (chase away cold, soothe my senses, and attract all the cats -- 4 today on me under the new microfiber plush one). It's much harder to feel good in the heat when you can't stand the sun on your skin, can't snuggle with cats when they feel like little charcoal briquettes. It's feel-good season, and I say welcome to it.

Lost

Inspirational song: Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel (Tavares)

This has been an awful, long week. I keep getting reminded that it’s Monday. Don’t care. It’s a bad week already. I hit my limit, and I need a mental health break. I’m super sensitive to sounds, especially percussive ones, and my nerves are jangling. Let it go, let it go,

I’m back to working out the kinks for the cosplay coat that I’m designing. It’s for my young friend’s comic he has just completed, Lost Heaven. The Kickstarter for it ended today, with the publishing expenses fully funded. My kid has been invited to its premiere to be a live model for the lead character. This is why I was cutting out muslin yesterday, to make a mock-up coat, so I can adjust the sizing before cutting the good fabric. There is a lot to adjust.

It’s also why we made a customized dressmaker’s mannequin a few weeks ago. I learned something important about that, by the way. I didn’t have enough polyfil batting inside of it at first. It seemed way bigger than my daughter, even though we made it form fitting with tight duct tape wrapped around her body. I bought a giant bag of polyfil this afternoon and packed it in tightly. The more full it got, the narrower it got. It seemed counterintuitive until I realized that it was also getting taller. Lesson learned, don’t scrimp on the stuffing.

With the dress form too squishy, I cut the initial pattern too wide. It looked dumpy and wrong. Once my daughter came over and we fixed the form, then we fixed the mock-up. Well, mostly fixed it. It has a long way to go yet. It’s closer, though. Maybe if I’m lucky by tomorrow I’ll be fitting in sleeves.

Raw Wounds

Inspirational song: Try a Little Tenderness (Otis Redding)

This is a rough time to be a Twitter addict. Also a trying time to follow Facebook, news apps, television, magazines, newspapers, or to talk to your friends about current events. The trending topic this week has opened the floodgates on pain and grief and anger that many of us have been sitting on for years. Some people — men and women, but mostly women — have exposed the rawest of nerves and spoken openly about past abuse for the first time. Some came clean about it last year with the MeToo movement. A fresh wave of exorcisms have come this week on the hashtag WhyIDidntReport, with its twin WhyIDidReport. Some people are finding healing and power in the telling. Others are triggered and brutalized all over again reading what others went through. Still more are still minimizing their own experiences, because it wasn’t as bad as some of the stories we are reading.

I fall into that last category. Friday I took several deep breaths and wrote a comment on a thread by Meredith Salenger about my own experience when I was 18. I can’t believe that I hit send on it. I haven’t said a word about it in at least 25 years. I almost felt like a phony for writing it, because I wasn’t physically injured, and so many other stories were way worse. Yet to this day I still have after effects that I know are undeniably linked to that night. I can’t swallow food or drink if someone is touching me. If someone tries, that memory comes back, and I have to bury it again.

I’ve been needy for days, since all of this fresh hell was stirred up. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be in the lonely purgatory where I live. But my stuttering attempts to express what’s happening to me are missing the mark. Or maybe they’re just being ignored.

Please be kind to people in your orbit right now. You don’t know what is going on in their heads. Walls are paper thin and the demons we keep hidden are breaking through them. If all of this is affecting you, please take care of yourself, and ask for help if you need it. I hope you get it.

I don’t know what sort of picture goes with this kind of blog post. So I will fall back on the best kind of picture, my very favorite sort. Harvey was “helping” me cut out muslin on the floor. He’s muslin colored, so maybe he felt like he blended in. Just those blue eyes popping out for contrast.

Jeepers Creepers Leaf Peepers

Inspirational song: Gloria (The Doors)

For the last three weekends, we have been expecting this sort of traffic. The drive up Boulder Canyon was agonizing. Traffic stopped dead two blocks from the roundabout in Nederland. The Peak to Peak Highway was clogged with gaggles of flatlanders who came up to view the aspen leaves, even though the peak color was easily a week and a half ago. I guess Denverites thought they had to wait until the first full day of fall to come up and leaf peep. It felt like there were a lot more people crawling over the mountains after dark, too. We saw so many people car camping, setting up tents just off the dirt roads, and dragging campers today. I know they can't all be hunters. (We both wore our bright orange shirts again, just in case.)

We thought we were going to get a lot more done today than we did. Even without starting the deck, which I really hoped we could do, we did important work. We hung the screen door that used to separate our basement stairs from the garage, as a way to keep dogs in and air flowing, when the big door is open. Then we started building the exterior door. We ran into several hiccups, like bolts shearing off and measurements that were 1/8 of an inch off. We persevered, and eventually had a functional door that is wedged in tightly. I have to hope when next we go there is low humidity and that someone stronger than I am can pull that thing open. I think I'll travel up with a planer or rasp next time to make it fit a little better. Oh, and it might qualify as more than a hiccup, that of the three Phillips head drill bits we had on the claim, two snapped after just a tiny bit of work on the screen door frame, and the third one that was loose in the bottom of the backpack was already broken. I guess this is why so many of the screws in the cabin are star drive. Harder to snap those off.

I'm lobbying to go up later in the week when he does an overnight, so that we can start framing out the deck. We keep adding details that make it tough for me to climb into the cabin. I need steps. And maybe Murray's ramp already. If the trip up Saturday with our neighbor goes as planned, we might -- MIGHT -- have the place dried in by sundown when we leave. I can't believe how much progress we have made since early June. When you're carrying up a few pieces at a time, especially the small pieces I carry, it seems like it will take forever to carry a cabin up a mountain. Yet here we are, with the skeleton of it nearly complete, and the musculature more than halfway done. There is still a chance we will have it skinned by the time the first snows start to stick.