Unplanned

Inspirational song: Nothing Ever Goes As Planned (Styx)

My timing is off. I keep getting distracted and behind schedule. I opened up the page to write this about two hours ago. See how well that worked, considering I'm just now actually starting. Been the story of the day so far. We keep getting turned around and ending up doing things we don't plan on. It wasn't a throwaway day, it was just one that never went in the direction it was supposed to.

I tried to get a good picture of the squirrels before we left this morning. We were dressed and ready to go out, and we noticed the pushiest of the squirrels were in identical positions over each of the feeders after we put fresh corn cobs in them. I stepped out to take the photo from the best angle, with the little tree rats lined up perfectly. Alfred darted out with me, ran over to the tree, and almost immediately went up after the squirrels. Neither seemed the slightest bit fazed by his presence. One did move about four feet higher in the tree, and he just sat and stared at me while I chased my boy. I made eye contact with the squirrel, and asked him not to attack Alfred. He gave me the time I needed for Alfie to make it far enough down a branch that I could reach him. Before I made it inside with the boy, the squirrel was back in place like nothing happened. Me, I had to go change clothes because I had big, wet, muddy cat prints all over my shirt.

Bought bulk coffee again today, and dumped the big bag into one of the grinders at the front of Costco. Hit the button. Nothing happened. The grinder was jammed, we eventually figured out, after we had to dig all our beans out of it and scoop them back into the bag. The man got a plastic knife and poked out some of the clogged ground coffee. When we saw tiny metal flakes, we realized how badly the machine had been grinding itself. The motor had apparently burned itself out for good. I just wish we hadn't forgotten to tell the customer service desk that (a) no one ever showed up to assist us after she called and (b) that we left it unplugged because it was dead. I hope no one just went back and plugged it in without checking it out.

I tried taking pictures of the pretty drive home. The long views of the mountains were lovely, but I never seemed to get the right angle as we zipped down the county highways. We cut across to get out from behind slow traffic, and found a housing development we never realized was around here. We'd been driving past large neo-craftsman homes, when suddenly we saw ultra-modern weird things. I suppose these appeal to somebody. They just took us by surprise.

Long Work Day

Inspirational song: Don't Eat the Yellow Snow (Frank Zappa)

Can I first just share my excitement that for the first time in my entire life, I heard Don't Eat the Yellow Snow on the radio? Okay, sure, it was satellite radio, but still. I was driving across the frozen tundra, or at least the snow-covered fields of rural Colorado, the delicate perfume of cattle feed lots still lingering in my nose, when I heard a familiar wind-swooshing noise as the next song on the radio started up. I immediately recognized it, but waited in disbelief for the actual music to start before I accepted that I really was hearing it. I turned the volume up way louder than I let anyone else play tunes in my car, and sang along to the saga of Nanook of the North, but I was horrified and disappointed when it faded out just as the "watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow" chorus began. Bait and switch, that's what it was! Ah, well. Those few minutes made the long drive pass a little faster.

It was indeed a long day, but such a productive one! I was in Fort Collins for my weekly check-in with the office, and then I drove out to Greeley for not one but two interviews with potential clients. I was admittedly nervous after yesterday's blizzard that one or both wouldn't make it, but they both showed up. Even better, they were both interesting women who I would love to work with. I talked with each of them at length, separately, and am determined to do everything I can to impress them with what I can do to find them houses that fit their (quite reasonable) demands.

By the end of the second interview, I was wiped out, though. Barely able to string words together into sentences. I admitted to the young woman that I had nothing left in the tank, and that my doctor had told me I should be getting long naps every day, which just isn't always possible. Thankfully she wasn't horrified that I was worn out in the middle of the afternoon.

I don't know why, but in the next parking lot over from the library where the second meeting took place, there was a fire truck spraying water in three directions, for several minutes. It was beautiful, the big arcs of water, not as choreographed as the fountains at the Bellagio, but no less hypnotizing to watch. But where the Bellagio water is recycled, this ran in swift streams down the library parking lot, and drained into a storm sewer. What was the point of this? Also at that library, was a bench dedicated to a Renaissance woman with the best epitaph I can imagine. I'd like to be remembered this way. (See photo)

Selene

Inspirational song: Snowblind (Styx)

And this is why I haven't set any tender plants outside yet.

I wasn't sure I believed that the storied "spring blizzard" was really going to happen here this year. Sure, I expected a little snow here and there. I wasn't surprised when it snowed a few inches on St Patrick's Day, and I was even less surprised when it melted a day later. They told us a storm was coming for today, but it wasn't until late last night that they started really using the B-word. The system was moving more slowly than they thought at first, and they promised that overnight things were going to get icky. They sure did. I couldn't sleep last night (it's becoming a disturbing trend), and I heard the rain blow in somewhere around one or two am. The wind howled, and the rain sounded vicious. I peeked outside a couple times, to see whether it was icing up, or just raining. I woke up a couple hours later, and looked out to see heavy snow. Another couple hours later, and it was a little after six. The house was still mostly dark, so I was surprised it was as late as it was. I got up briefly, and looked out the front window. In the span of about four hours, from when I first looked out and saw rain, something like five or six inches of snow had piled up. That was only the beginning. Heavy wet snow piled up, weighing down the trees and bushes, sticking to the vertical surfaces of fences and posts, and making strange snow-art on the sides of our vehicles. I think I spent the entire morning staring out the window, watching it snow. I certainly didn't get anything more productive accomplished than that. Good pictures, though. At least, I thought so.

I heard snow totals ranging from 16 to 25.5 inches fell on Boulder, so I don't know what to believe over there. Near the tail end of the storm, the man measured our yard as 10.5 inches in the front (where the wind blew straight through most of the day) and 14.5 inches in the back. That seems to align with what I heard for our city. Suddenly I'm less concerned with how our snowpack compares to averages.

Mix It Up

Inspirational song: Perceptions of Johnny Punter (Fish)

Was this just one day? It felt like four completely different ones. At least that many, maybe more. The morning felt like an entirely different day from lunch, which was separate from the early afternoon, and late tonight was a whole new day all over again. We woke to more horrible news from Europe. I spent the morning glued to the news. It was infuriating and heartbreaking and unfortunately not a unique situation anymore. It doesn't make me afraid. It just makes me angry at the perpetrators and promoters of this BS, and it makes my heart ache for the victims.

By the time I got to my usual Rotary lunch, I was able to separate myself from the atrocities overseas, and blend in with the gang. I'm really starting to feel like I'm one of them. I don't feel like a guest anymore. I feel more like a freshman. I see good things ahead with this group of people, and every time I'm with them, I pat myself on the back for recognizing that I belong here.

My writers group this evening was a fabulous escape. We were encouraged to bring in works by other writers that we particularly enjoy, so I brought a snippet of a Fish lyric. (I wasn't the only one to laud a lyricist -- an older man read song lyrics, and a woman younger than me read Shel Silverstein. She wasn't familiar with the Dr Hook connection before tonight, but she is now.) I explained that I'd had this song stuck in my head for a week, and after this morning, the spoken word section of a song railing against ethnic cleansing (of Bosnia -- it was a 20 year old song) was appropriate for this evening. Then we had a writing exercise. We brought in random items to trade in group, and we wrote about what we'd been given. I brought in a pocket-sized Operation game, a spool of green thread, a giant push-pin, and a plain white tile. The Shel Silverstein lady got my offering, and wrote a neat little vignette about a dream where she'd fallen out of a tree and been patched up in a cold tile hospital room, green stitches down her arm. I received a lint roller, a purple dog collar, a bar of oatmeal-almond soap, and a newspaper clipping of a Dear Abby column about teens who have been cutting themselves. I wrote a very quick piece in the 15 or 20 minutes allotted, and I'll transcribe it here. It's mostly fiction, but that scientific law contained in it is a universal truth, and it is all mine. I just pretended someone else coined the phrase.

It is as yet untitled.

It's been four months now that Duke has been gone. The kids stopped missing him within a month, and ever since, they've been bugging me about getting a cat instead. I think I need to grieve a little longer. I'm still vacuuming up dog hair off the couch, even though house rules said he wasn't allowed on the furniture. I'm pretty sure that the kids sat with him in their laps for the entire last month he was alive, cuddling him while they watched TV. I pretended I didn't notice. I don't think anything will completely remove those pale red dog hairs off of my best black blazer. I keep a lint roller in the car for before I go into meetings, but I know there will always be a few stray hairs stuck in that coat. With my luck, the kids will insist on a white cat, so this cycle will continue, or worse, they'll pick out a calico, so that no matter what color clothes I wear, a contrasting cat hair will be visible. My ex-husband would have called that the "inverse cat theorem," and I can't stand that he would be right. And if we got a cat, I know that my hands would be covered in little scratches, and what would my clients think of that? I finally got to stop bathing Duke with that stupid oatmeal soap that gave me a rash, only to end up a cat mom who looks like a self-loathing cutter? Then again, we always had a cat or two when I was growing up. They were easier to take care of than a dog who needed someone at home to let him out every few hours. Maybe I could sneak a kitten into the house. A little gray kitten, maybe, with a little purple collar. I could go to a shelter while the kids are at school, and surprise them. That way, they wouldn't each pick out a different cat and talk me into both. But then again, maybe two cats would be okay... I can let the kids think it's their idea.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Inspirational song: Ghostbusters (Ray Parker Jr)

I couldn't sleep last night. I tossed and turned all night, and no matter how much I tried to stay in bed, I had to admit defeat about seven thirty this morning. Like most Americans, the first thing I reached for, before my glasses even, was my phone. There was a notification of a new lead from the work website, and immediately, I knew this one was different. I ran to my computer ("ran" being a relative term, as it was first thing in the morning, and I'm usually stiff and sore when I first crawl out of bed) and made sure no one was due on the floor early, to be upset if I swooped in and claimed it. All was clear. But since it wasn't even eight am, and this person requested information after midnight last night, I sent the new lead an email rather than calling. I promised in my email that I would call today, and after my morning meeting, I did. For the first time since I started doing this, the person I called answered the phone. Even more amazing, she was friendly and talkative, and really, really interested in pursuing a home search. I knew going into this that internet leads were tough to work. I've heard that success rates on them are somewhere around three percent. My record has hovered right around zero thus far. So I was shocked when I actually talked to a real, live, nice human being. At the end of the conversation, I made an appointment to meet with said nice lady to further the process in person. And as I hung up the phone, my inner Annie Potts threatened to break loose. I couldn't yell, because I was at the office, but inside, I had my Ghostbusters moment.

My weekly check-in call with the boss started while I was driving back home, and we talked about how and why this time was different with the internet leads. He even celebrated a little with me. And then he pointed out that there was another new lead that came in while we were talking. He encouraged me to try that one too, and damn if that person didn't answer too! She lives in the same town, so I made an appointment to meet her a couple hours after the first one, but I am not sure she was quite as into furthering the conversation as the first. I will find out soon enough how committed she is. Right now, I'm just happy that the seal has been broken on the difficult side of this business.

So pardon me if this is all I can think about tonight, even though I'm sure I have deeper subjects I could have been exploring for this evening's post. I've been struggling so much over the last couple months, while I was too ill to pursue it properly. It's so much of a relief. I'll come back to earth tomorrow. Maybe. Or maybe I won't.

Happy Kitten Snuggle Time

Inspirational song:

Probably not the best night to split more than a single bottle of wine between two people. Really, it wasn't. I'm supposed to go meet with mortgage bankers tomorrow morning. I am going to regret every sip tomorrow as I drive in the morning sun.

I've been pondering when to have a cat-based blog post again. Like an entire night devoted to nothing but cats. Maybe a night when the red wine is in control is the best time to wax poetic about the little fuzzy ones. I'm happy to notice a sea change with Athena, and it makes me wonder whether I should have watched more carefully at the timing with the other kids. I remember someone telling me, right around the time that Elsa joined the family as a not-quite-puppy, not-quite-adult-dog, that for the first two years, labs are horrible animals, but somewhere around their second birthdays, they suddenly mature and become great family dogs. Elsa needed to make it closer to her third birthday, but eventually she did calm down a lot (and stop chewing everything frantically) and became pretty cool, albeit still an insatiable eater. I have seen this gradual maturation in a lot of my cats too. Most of them, especially the males, seem to be little poopyheads for the first couple years of their lives. The adults who have to live with them do so very reluctantly, with much protest. A few cats have had more trouble with this transition than others. Torden, the little old man we lost in the summer of 2014, had the added difficulty of a TBI (a ladder fell on his head when he was a young kitten) making him act like a little shit, in between episodes of grand mal seizures. But by the time he was around three years old, things changed. He found himself an only cat after the death of my first cat Berkeley (first since I left home and went to college), and the seizures started happening with increasing frequency. I adopted three kittens all at once, the famous GKs (Godzilla's Kittens), and when Torden got to be Uncle Poo to the kids, his seizures all but stopped and he grew up all of a sudden. He became everyone's favorite cat. One of the GKs was a little feral tabby boy named Rio. He was the absolute worst as a baby, most likely the reason the three little terrors earned the label as the destructive beasts that Godzilla would have kept as pets if he had been (a) real and (b) a pet parent. He took serious, concerted effort, and constant reminders not to give up on him. He was so mean and so intentionally naughty that it would have been easy to turn away from him. But right on time, he turned into a sweet, cuddly boy, and even now, my daughter lives with him and gives him all the loving he came to expect during those high maintenance years.

Now it's Athena's turn. She is easily the most bi-polar cat I have ever met. For two full years, we did not spend a single day together when she did not bite me at least once, usually many, many more times. Every day, while we were having a perfectly pleasant conversation, she would reach out and snag me with those sharp needles on the ends of her floofy paws (trying to clip her claws is a certain death sentence), and bite me over and over, just to the point of breaking the skin, but not digging deeply into the tissue of my hand. And it was always my hands she bit. She was awful to the other cats, stalking, ambushing, and generally being horrible to everyone. She still wanted my attention, and would come out of nowhere to stand on my collarbone, purring and begging for affection. But snuggling with Athena was like being on a Japanese game show. Fun for a few minutes, but you knew that any second someone was gonna get hurt. I called that game show "Happy Kitten Snuggle Time," and just tried to minimize the damage that she did when she flipped the switch and got mean. But I refused to give up on her. Just like Rio, I gave her as much space as I could to be herself, and to accept her on her own terms. I praised her for being exciting and interesting, as much as for being cute and sweet (when she wanted to be). She's now just a few months away from her third birthday, and the same miracle is happening to her. Happy Kitten Snuggle Time is happening a lot more often, and in the last two weeks, everything has suddenly stopped ending in Band-Aid moments. We might be coming out of the most dangerous era of her development. Some relationships are extra work, but the payoffs can be extra sweet because of all that effort. Athena may end up being one of my biggest success stories. Boy, is she worth it.

Wordsmiths

Inspirational song: Turn the Page (Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band)

There's something that has been bugging me for about a week and a half, and I just can't let it go. I was at writers group early last week, and an older woman I'd not met before came over to the table where my friend and I were sitting. She asked what good books we had read lately and what we'd recommend. I said, well, I read romance actually, and I paused to see her reaction. She got a disgusted look on her face and said never mind, before she walked away. It really got under my skin. I've been defensive about my favorite genre for years, and I'm tired of apologizing for reading what I like.

I approach my defense from two different angles. First, the books I read are not garbage. I read things that are well-researched and well-written. If the characters are shallow caricatures or over the top stereotypes, I'll abandon a book without a second thought. If the plot line is too stupid to believe, I will walk away. To be honest, if even the grammar is weak, I lose interest. I have a list of automatic-buy authors, and very few of them let me down. There are very intelligent (mostly) women (plus a few men writing under women's names) writing excellent books with engaging characters and engrossing stories. Last fall I built that giant bookshelf that I showed off (http://scenesfromsmithpark.blogspot.com/2015/12/born-in-barn.html) just so that I could unbox my extensive collection of keepers that I pull out to re-read every so often. The books I've read that are good are exceptionally so, and I won't let anyone convince me otherwise.

But even so, who cares? What does it matter whether the books I'm reading are well-crafted or pure drivel? The point is that I'm reading. I'm using my brain. I'm feeding my imagination, and I can feed it fluff if I want. No one has to like the same stuff I do. And if I don't like my friends' reading material, great. Doesn't matter one bit. Read whatever you want. Just read. If you're lucky, you'll enjoy doing it.