I Knew It

Inspirational song: Bloody Well Right (Supertramp)

It brings me little joy to be right about everything I said last night. I needed every minute of today for recovery, and there are still two hours to go to get them all in. I did way too much hard labor and every muscle is screaming today. My arms and legs feel like they are choking with edema even though there isn’t even a hint of swelling. My right hip is on fire from inflammation, which makes being lazy in bed feel awful. And maybe it’s my eyes trying to get used to the new glasses prescription that made me sleepy enough to take two short naps this afternoon.

It’s not all bad though. This is the kickoff for my college football season. I have the Rocky Mountain Showdown on tv as I write, and the Buffs are holding a comfortable lead. I hesitate to say winning, as I still have flashbacks to the game in Kansas when they blew a 52-3 lead in the second half. They are leading, and that is as much as I will assert. There are some very talented young men on the team, which makes me optimistic that the next eleven weekends will be fun for me.

I barely touched my phone today. Took no new photos, not even of the football game. How about the Halloween decoration I clearly need for a blog like this? They have a huge Zoltan at Lowe’s that I’d love to put on my lawn. As good as I was about predicting exactly how this day would go, it would be the perfect avatar for me, wouldn’t it?

Double Workday

Inspirational song: Come Together (v. Aerosmith)

Several years ago, there was an incredibly rude cartoon series called Drawn Together. It was a spoof of the Big Brother type shows, where parodies of cartoon characters lived in one big house, blanketed with cameras capturing their every move. There was a Superman character, a Betty Boop, a Link, a Pokemon, etc. Every episode was weird and offensive and absolutely absurd. One short bit that we have never forgotten involved some gag around medical research where they infected the Spongebob character but were not able to heal him after. In the "speak directly to camera" part, he took all the blame on himself, saying, "Damn me and my incurable polio," before limping off on crutches squeaking "ow..ow..ow" with every step. My daughter and I have used that line often over the years, as shorthand to express stiffness, pain, and fatigue that comes from things like yard work. Today, after limping to my car, and barely having the arm strength to steer it back home, it seems particularly fitting.

Four times a year my brokerage participates in volunteer projects, and I'm always happy to jump in with enthusiasm. Usually the ones that occur outside during hot months give me pause, and I have to weigh the costs versus the benefits to decide whether I should go. Two years ago we volunteered at the Gardens on Spring Creek community educational garden in Fort Collins. I enjoyed it greatly. Today we had the opportunity to return for another project. I took the risk and drove up. There were only five of us this time, just agents, because space was limited. We five, plus a Gardens employee, spread a mountain of mulch over an area that will be covered in fruit trees next year. It felt like we covered half an acre in the new expansion section, but in real life it probably wasn't much bigger than my back yard. It was all pitchforks and wheelbarrows, and everyone took turns at every single job for two hours. Dusty, tired, and smelling a bit like a horse barn, we adjourned to lunch in old town Fort Collins. While there, I got a text asking whether I was up for a trip to the cabin this afternoon.

So here I sit, bouncing in the passenger seat of the 4runner, for once thankful for autocorrect. I figure blogging now, at 230 in the afternoon is the only way this is going to make it out today. I will be entirely used up by dark. I will most likely not be able to walk in from the truck to the house tonight. As it is, I plan on carrying only one single board up the hill. I'll help put up sheathing and Tyvek, but hauling is out of the question.

Damn me and my incurable polio.

Expecting Too Much

Inspirational song: Freeze Frame (J Geils Band)

I thought I was being so totally sneaky. Almost a week ago, I dragged my daughter along to approve a new frame selection for the most recent glasses prescription, the one I'd been sitting on for almost three months because I a- kept forgetting and b- kept spending my money on other things. I didn't tell another single person in my family or friends group that I was getting them. I wanted to see whether anyone noticed. They came just in time for what was supposed to be regular Wednesday game night. But then people started dropping off of game night like flies. First my foster daughter had a commitment. Then my old college roommate had to work late. Then we asked the guys who live in other towns whether they still wanted to try to cobble together a group a little bit late, and eventually it devolved into a board game night with just four of us at our neighbor's house. The men I'm not related to didn't notice a thing was different about me. The Mr kept looking at me funny, like there was something he couldn't quite put his finger on. Eventually I just pouted to my neighbor that no one figured it out, and pointed at my face. He said, "oh, you got new glasses?" Maybe I shouldn't have expected a bunch of men who think of me as one of the guys to pick up on little details like that. It's on me, really.

I wore myself out so badly yesterday moving furniture around and doing a deep organizational cleaning that I could barely move at the end of the night. I took a cyclobenzaprine and did my best to sleep through the night. (The one time I got out of bed, I had to hold on to furniture and walls all the way to the bathroom and back. The world was all wobbly. Or maybe it was me. Probably me.) My plan was to get a great night's sleep and be recharged and loose by morning. There was just one problem with that plan: Me. All of me. I still made myself do normal things today, but I'm regretting it at the end of the day. (I don't mean that as the trite "at the end of the day" turn of phrase. I mean literally, it's almost midnight here as I write, as usual.) The next two days will be even harder. Tomorrow I am doing a volunteer project, and Friday will be another trip to the mountain. I am trying to delay the inevitable stay-in-bed-all-day day that is coming. I'm probably making it worse by putting it off. It's time to start practicing the word "no" again.

Put That Thing Back Where It Came From or So Help Me

Inspirational song: Cirkus (including Entry of the Chameleons) (King Crimson)

Poorly hidden between the lines of yesterday's essay was the confession that I was horribly behind on housework. I'd been burning the candle at both ends too much over the summer, and the tide of clutter swamped me. This morning I had to have a maintenance guy come over, and that prompted me to panic clean, as it usually does. Once I was making headway on the mess, I kept going, even after he left. Coming home after Rotary with a bagful of crickets to feed Bruno and Dahlia inspired even more enthusiastic housework.

When the exchange student was here, I pulled half of the contents of my dressing room into my bedroom, so she would have a place to stay. She moved out over two months ago, and I had only partway reclaimed that room. I still had an overflowing closet in the bedroom, and one of my dressers in there as well, the one that was full of t-shirts and stretch pants. I had to walk back and forth between the rooms two or three times to dress pretty much every single day. It was rare that I could accomplish it in only one room. That got old quickly. Sitting on top of that dresser was the lizard tank. It had been in my bedroom for two years, so that I would remember to feed and water them because I saw them every day. Instead, with them back in a corner that was blocked by a bunch of junk that I'd moved out of the other room for the exchange student, it was so inconvenient and annoying to walk around to them, I dreaded watering and feeding them, and grew to hate doing it.

I've moved most of my clothes back into the dressing room, in batches. I also thinned out clothes that were too small, that I wasn't prepared to give away. But with all of the construction labor at the cabin, I ran out of energy to box up the too-small clothes or finish the move back to the dressing room. Today I used the momentum of the morning to finally make giant leaps forward on all of it. While I was at it, I had the Mr carry the lizard tank to the kitchen to be scrubbed out. (I can neither lift the tank nor catch the lizards, and I needed him to help.) I swapped the dresser for the empty one that the XS was using, and now I'm almost completely consolidated into one room.

The lizards did not appreciate being captured into a large Pyrex casserole with a lid. They were quite miffed when I carried them to their new digs in the dressing room. (Technically this is the old location of the tank, but since neither of them were alive when Agnes occupied the space, I struggle whether to call it their "former home.") I want to think they liked that the walls were clean, that the plants were buried in the soil instead of drying in pots set too close to the heat lamp, or that I scrubbed the poo off of the lizard ladder and cactus spine where they hang out. It's probably closer to them feeling annoyance that they were moved and stressed out. They didn't even hunt the new crickets I gave them for the first half hour. Instead they glared at me and at Athena who loves to lurk on top of the screen lid, trying to figure out how to kill them without me stopping her.

My biggest hope is that they feel less stress where they are, and maybe turn green once in a while during waking hours. They're only green when they're sleeping, and that doesn't seem like a good sign.

Homestead

Inspirational song: My Hometown (Charlie Robison)

In less than a month, the class who graduated two years ahead of us in high school is going to hold a multi-year reunion in my hometown. They specifically invited our class and the one between us, although I’m sure folks just outside of that window would be welcomed graciously too. With everything we have been trying to accomplish this year, and with the financial setbacks that came with vacant rental properties three times in one year, I’ve not felt inclined to go. It would be cool and all, but I just don’t think it’s in the cards this year. I’m sure to second guess my decision thirty times between now and then, and I’ll definitely feel envy and FOMO when I hear stories and see pictures. I hope this is a smashing success, to the extent that the class of 84 will want to do the same thing next year, and give me a mulligan.

I can barely keep track of my own schedule, and if an obligation or opportunity isn’t in my phone calendar, I absolutely will not remember it. Thus it is unsurprising that I have no idea what my parents’ travel schedules are like. Last night I dreamed that the doorbell rang here, and then my dad walked on in (without waiting for an answer just like we have trained all of our friends to do). In the dream I was both super excited to see him and soul-crushingly mortified that I hadn’t cleaned my house before he came. This dream was still shimmering around the edges of my memory around lunchtime today when I got a text notification from my stepmother that said “guess where we are” on the lock screen of the phone. My stomach clenched just like in the dream when I thought about how laundry is everywhere in the upstairs bedrooms and bath, the kitchen counters are a wreck, and the yard looks like we just gave up in June (sorta true). I was just sure she was going to say something like, “we just cleared Denver, and will be there in an hour.” Instead I found pictures that left me both jealous and nostalgic.

I have never loved a house more than the one I grew up in. After moving between a few properties all in the same block or two in the 1920s or 30s, my grandparents/great grandparents bought this house on a huge lot, and my family stayed there until 2003 or 2004. After my great grandfather died, my granny lived in the small apartment over the detached garage, and my grandparents raised my mother and uncle in the big house, expanding it as needed. When my mother was pregnant with me, she came to stay there, while my dad was either in training or deployed with the Air Force (I forget which), and this was the first house I came home to as a newborn. When my mom married my stepdad, we moved into the big house, and my grandparents moved into the small house we had been in after the divorce. I grew up there, and when I graduated from college, I followed in my mother’s footsteps, and went there to have my older daughter, while her dad was finishing up at CU. And later, while he was training with the Air Force, the girls and I went there to live until right before the family sold it. Much of my life happened in that house, and most of my dreams were set there, even fifteen years after I stopped going there. I used to go as often as I could, after I grew up and moved out, saying I needed to recharge my batteries. As an adult I think of it like Harry Potter needing to return to the Dursleys’ house once a year to keep the protection spell intact. It's a part of me in a magical way I could never fully express.

When I went back to town for reunions, sometimes I wouldn’t go past the house, because it hurt my heart too much knowing it wasn’t mine anymore. In later years, I would drive past, but would only sneak photos discreetly, for fear of seeming like a creeper. My parents were much less meek today. I don’t know whether they asked for permission from the current owners, but my stepmom sent gorgeous photos of the property, which looks very much like I remember it, other than they painted it a soft, pale, buttery beige, instead of the pure white it once was. My stepmom told me that they were in a town about an hour north, camping with an RV group, and decided on a whim to go down and get a Folger burger (which I can only enjoy in memories now). I’m so glad they did. I haven’t had a dream set in the old house in many months, but I will bet you dollars to donuts I will tonight, and I will love it.

Dog Days of Summer

Inspirational song: I Woke Up In Love This Morning (The Partridge Family)

Much as when National Cat Day came around a few weeks ago and I couldn’t single out any one story above any other because it’s always cat day here, I am struggling to come up with something I haven’t already shared for the corollary, National Dog Day. All of my recent adventures with Elsa and Murray were written up right away. All save for Friday and Saturday.

I was up late Friday night, as usual, writing my blog, when I got a distress call from our older daughter. She needed her dad’s automotive advice, and he didn’t hear his phone ring. I passed the emergency off to him, and went back to my blog. Over the sound of the tv and fan in the window, I kept hearing his voice outside by the gate, and I assumed he was still on the phone with the girl. It wasn’t until the next morning that I got the whole explanation. He had finished the phone call, and Murray started barking like a fiend. He went out to chat with the dogs, thinking maybe there was a mouse in the garage, distressing Murray. He heard a little shuffling noise by the back door and went to check. He was looking near the food bin when he caught sight of a face peering in through the back screen door. Barley was in our yard, seeking companionship with his best friend. Our neighbor had gone on a date down in Denver, and was late getting home. Barley was at his favorite barking window, and something set him off. He ripped out a large dog sized hole in the screen and ran into his front yard. We have no idea how long he ran around, but eventually he discovered that the side gate to Murray’s yard had been left unlatched, and came around looking for him. As much fun as Barley is, we have never authorized a sleepover (mostly because Murray and Barley would get less sleep than a group of sixth grade girls at a slumber party). The Mr had to call our neighbor, who was thankfully almost home, after midnight to let Barley back in. That’s what I’d heard while I was composing.

The next day we determined we needed to introduce Barley’s new little brother Hops to our two, so that when needed, we could dog sit here and keep the neighbor boys out of trouble. Hops is just over a year old, and much smaller than the other three, even skinny Murray with his atrophied legs. He also spent his entire first year in shelters and foster homes, so he is still a bit unsure of where home is and how to process other dog families. At first he was really tense and didn't know how to react to Elsa. She followed him around like finding a Mini-Me was the coolest thing ever, but the entire time they both had their hackles up. At one point Hops got way over stimulated and there was much barking and showing of teeth, but no actual biting. We didn't give up, however, and after a while it all settled down into Elsa on her own, Murray and Barley hanging out as the best buds they are, and Hops dashing all over our yard at light speed, chasing squirrels and birds. It was a little weird, seeing a window into our past when Bump was exactly like that, especially since every time Hops barks he sounds EXACTLY like Bump did. (When I hear him I frequently get a little nostalgic and misty-eyed, missing Bumpy.)

I think we introduced Hops the right way over here, and later that day we discovered that there was indeed a wrong way. A friend of our neighbor's brought a dog to visit them, into Hops' territory. He was less than amused. He picked on the much bigger dog, and had to be sent outside for the entire time the other dog visited. So apparently our yard is going to be like Dog Park to him, but I won't expect to be able to take our two over to his place anytime soon.

Agony and Ecstasy

Inspirational song: In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel)

A ridiculously long trip to Costco and the surrounding environs with my daughter has left me with only enough energy for a few comments prompted by visual aids.

I found comedy:

(When you don't think anyone is going to notice the notes you made to yourself in the receiving dock.)

And tragedy:

(Yep. That's an entire Costco sized collection of grape tomatoes, scattered on the parking lot, where they committed suicide rather than go in someone's trunk.)

And horror:

(That's a double-stacked shelf full of NOPE.)

That's pretty much it for today.

Near the Ends

Inspirational song: Out of the Noise (Jethro Tull)

Age and infirmity kept coming up as topics of discussion today. Obviously I've been watching the news, and am aware of Senator McCain choosing to end medical intervention for his terminal brain cancer. I feel like most of the country, in that any and all philosophical differences I might have had with him are unimportant now. I'm left with nothing but respect for his lifetime of service. I wish him minimal pain and maximal peace as he winds down his time with his family.

I got more texts early this morning, describing progress on the tiny cabin. The Mr put the fixed window up high on the east side, where it will provide light but no air flow over the "cathedral ceiling" side. There's more OSB siding on the exterior. I commented that it must have been warmer now that there were fewer openings, with walls and windows nearly complete. He said that it was a little better, but Elsa was still very, very cold. She woke him up three or four times during the night to pee, and she shivered in the night chill. Last week we had found an orange shirt tossed on the side of one of the 4WD tracks that we picked up and planned to cut up to use as padding for the stabilizer bar on the ladder (its protective feet went missing long ago). Instead, that shirt became a layer of warmth for my old dog who no longer likes to be out in the cold. Elsa will be eleven this New Year's Eve, if my math is right. She's a graybeard now, and she's content to stay close to home, close to her bed. I think of her as a widow, since her man Speed Bump died this spring. She has always responded poorly to stress, and I worry that it is aging her even faster since he left us. I wonder whether all these trips up the mountain are getting hard on her joints. She doesn't actively complain, but she seems to ride more awkwardly in the truck on the way to and from the claim. And I still feel weird about leaving that massive lipoma on her left hip. I've been assured it's not dangerous, but it looks like half a lime has been inserted under her skin. As long as it doesn't negatively affect her quality of life, I'll leave it, but if she starts to be distressed by it, it's gotta go. She has earned golden years of comfort. It was rough raising her from a big puppy. She took three years to settle down. But since then, she's been a great dog. Smarter than we gave her credit for at first, and the most earnest soul I've ever encountered.

Some of the kids came over to play games this evening. We started talking about the old cats at one point. I said how I still missed Cricket, who died four years ago this week. The disease that ravaged her took her so quickly, and it still pains me to remember that summer, watching her waste away. Rio, who was a couple of weeks younger than her, lived so much longer. We were amazed he made it as long as he did, until just a couple of months ago. And Smacky, Cricket's littermate, is still out there, still hanging on. She has almost no teeth left at all, and she's thin and raggedy. She's not quite as accepting of Ralphie anymore, even though Ralphie still loves her with all her heart. I want that old gray girl to stick around as long as she possibly can. She's now our family record-holder for longest living quadruped. All I can do from here is cheer her on, and be grateful for every moment of joy she gave us, especially our older daughter who has cared for her for the last eight years.

Air Tight

Inspirational song: I Threw a Brick Through a Window (U2)

I don't remember why I decided not to go to the mountain for this build cycle. There was probably a reason. Now that it is way too late, I wonder whether I missed an engagement I had promised to attend this evening. It didn't make it into my calendar, so it didn't make it into my life. As it is, here I am, in the flatlands, while the man and the dogs are up at altitude. It's probably just as well. I was achy and stiff today, and wouldn't have wanted to do much construction.

He sent me a few photos of the evening's progress, which is good, since I did so little photography on my own today. The first one showed the great accomplishment of the day--now all the downstairs windows are roughed in. I carried up two and a half of them last week. (Halfway up with the third one, he Tom Sawyered me into thinking that carrying the extension ladder instead would be easier, and we traded. It wasn't easier. There were stabilizer bars on the end that caught on Every. Single. Tree. Branch. On. The. Mountain. I was duped.) He took up the fourth window, and put the two sliders on the front of the cabin, the side that faces the incredible view of Mount Evans. He also sent one looking in through the front that had the weirdest optical illusion. I'll let you study it and be as baffled as I was, until you realize what exactly you're looking at. He said that it was amazing the difference it makes, cutting off the wind that blew freely through the space before. I'll bet it's a lot warmer tonight, especially with a couple of dog bodies heating it up.

I found another way that I'm unreasonably hyper-vigilant about my food. I was standing in the checkout at the natural grocers, when the guy behind me tossed a box of shredded wheat on the belt, touching the stack of gluten-free goodies I had gone for. My first thought was "Eek! It's touching my food!" The box. The cardboard boxes were touching. I miss the days when food was easy. This is turning me into a freak.

Lost and Found

Inspirational song: Don't Pay the Ferryman (Chris de Burgh)

This was very nearly one of those heart-wrenching, tragic posts that I hate to write. I worried all day that it would be. I walked the neighborhood until my feet hurt and the sun made me sick. I spent the remainder of my time staring out the front and back windows, waiting to see a little blur of black and white bounding across my yard, acting like nothing was wrong. I had a really good cry in the shower.

Around 6 pm, after I had driven circles around the neighborhood because I could no longer deal with the sun, I had given up and was lying on my bed, wondering how I was going to live without my Bunny Boy, when the Mr came home. I did what I often do: paused the television and got up to have a conversation with him. Before my feet hit the hallway, there was Alfred, dancing circles around my ankles, wondering why he had to skip dinner...and breakfast...and dinner again. I nearly threw up in relief. And then I fed him a mountain of canned cat food, and later when he wasn't full, I gave him a handful of crunchies.

He has scared me like this before, but this is the longest he has ever been missing. I had gone so far as to register him as lost on the microchip website, and the Mr had gone to the humane society looking to see whether he had been picked up in one form or another (shudder). But then this evening, when he drove up with a truck full of cardboard to toss in the recycle bin, he drove down the alley first. He was putting the cardboard in the bin when he heard frantic meowing. Alfred was in a neighbor's yard, unable to get over his fence to come home. We theorize that he had wandered in through an open garage and gotten stuck overnight. We had combed the alley over and over, but he never meowed until that moment.

It was all I could do to leave him behind and go next door for game night. Normally games are here, but I was so physically and emotionally drained I just couldn't deal with cleaning for company. I determined, as I was trying to find a good picture of him to update the chip website, that I don't take nearly enough pictures of him. I think Harvey gets the most (which is common when you have a kitten, I'm sure), and Rabbit the next. The two black girls get some pictures, but lighting is tough on them. I wonder whether it's because Alfred is in constant motion and he often shows up as a blur. I plan on changing that pattern. I was afraid today that I would never get pictures of him again. He's going to get lots of new ones, starting with the ones from the kitchen tonight.

Sweet

Inspirational song: Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah (Song of the South)

Today had been just peachy up until the very end. I mean that quite literally. I had been in an excellent mood, finally rested from the hard work over the weekend. It was a Rotary day, and I got to spend it with so many of the people in town whom I admire and whose company I enjoy. It was not a slow news day, so I (along with millions of people worldwide) was bombarded with major developments to absorb and speculate about. And I concluded my daylight hours handing out the crates of Palisade peaches that we sell as a Rotary fundraiser every summer. It was a great freaking day. I spent most of it humming along to myself, as cheerful as a girl can be, especially knowing that there are now eighteen pounds of the state's most perfect fruit in my kitchen.

Then about thirty minutes ago, just as the Mr was preparing to go to bed, he asked me, had I seen Alfred lately. I couldn't say that I had seen him since I came home from selling the peaches. He put his shoes back on and circled the block a couple of times, while I started looking in typical sleeping spots inside. Neither of us found Alfred. He went ahead to bed, and I took over searching the alley, with no more success than he had. I went out front and looked up and down the street, with the same result.

This is not the first time that naughty boy cat has decided to roam the neighborhood late at night. I have had several occasions to worry about his absence. Chances are I will not be sleeping well tonight, getting up every half hour or so to check the backyard, waiting for him to return. Way to harsh my buzz, Alfred. You'd better be okay, wherever you are. Hurry up and come home.

Scratch

Inspirational song: Home Grown Tomatoes (John Denver)

Is it possible that in all the decades I've been fearless in the kitchen, making everything I could possibly imagine, that I never once tried to make a tomato sauce from scratch, using fresh tomatoes, not canned? I don't recall ever trying the trick of blanching tomatoes to remove their skins. As of today, I realize it's easy, and not the tedious or unnecessary step I imagined it to be before I tried it. I learned quickly that you don't want to work in batches, but rather one tomato at a time, so that the flesh neither overcooks while you are fishing them all out of the boiling water, nor waterlogs in the ice bath while they wait to be peeled. It's also less than ideal to attempt to add the cute little yellow pear tomatoes in to the mix. It takes too many of them to make a difference in quantity, and they cook too fast in the blanching process.

Last year the tomatoes never really ripened, under the shade of the black walnut on the other side of the fence. This year, I moved the tomatoes about five feet to the south so they would get more sun, and the walnut tree decided to die in the span of about two months. So now I have a mass of ripe fruits and I'm eyeing that tree, wondering how much it would cost to find someone with a sawmill who could turn the dead tree into usable fancy wood, assuming our neighbor lets us be the ones to cut it down, for a handful of boards.

I consulted Pinterest for the instructions on how to start a good sauce from scratch. The recipe I found that was posted by Buzzfeed didn't disappoint. I used a mix of Better Boys, Cherokee Purples, and Yellow Pears, because that's what I grew this year. I had planted Sweet 100s, but they failed. I probably could have cooked my mirepoix longer, but I was anxious to get it going. If I had had a whole head of garlic and patience, I would have roasted it as instructed, but I knew I had bought a jar of minced garlic for the first time ever, and I just used a scoop of that. When it came time to add the wine, I decided the only one I could use with fruits of my own garden was a red wine that was made by my neighbor. Good choice. Even the basil and oregano was from the herb pots on my front porch.

On night one of the sauce, I used it in what could loosely be called "unstuffed cabbage rolls," again inspired by Pinterest and my own memories of food fads. I cooked rice separately, and sauteed cabbage in butter. I combined everything in the bowl at the end. With no attempt at false modesty, I will assert that this came out exceptionally well. I'll be interested to see how it matures over the next day or two. I'll share some with the neighbor, since his wine is in it, and maybe in return, we can have The Talk about his black walnut tree.

Jack S

Inspirational song: Promised You a Miracle (Simple Minds)

Promise made, promise kept. After the three days prior when we were working ourselves into the ground, I swore I would do absolutely nothing today. I was as good as my word. I couldn't sleep too terribly late, because my brain just doesn't play that way anymore. But I managed to stay in bed comfortably until after 8, so that counts. I took my time over coffee. I sat in the hot tub until it overheated me. I stayed in it another 15 minutes, in order to clean the scale off the sides with a microfiber washcloth (it seems to work the best). And then I spent the rest of the day in a too-short bathrobe and not much else. This became a problem when our neighbor showed up to store a beer in our basement while it ferments, but I just pointed him to where he needed to go, and never stood up, so as not to embarrass either of us. I failed to make the red sauce I intended to from a mound of home grown tomatoes, but I did pre-brown the beef that will go in some killer spaghetti sauce once I get around to it.

In short, I recovered. I rested. I took a Me Day. I'm still sore as hell and covered in bruises, especially the big purple ones on the backs of my ankles. I can't raise my arms above my head. I'll try to stretch a little tomorrow. For now, all I care about is doing as little as I can get away with, and today, that was exceptionally little.

I feel obligated to take a couple of photos a day, unless something truly tragic befalls me. No tragedy today, so I was free to photograph my favorite subject: cats. In my lethargic state, I declined to cook for myself, relying instead on the leftovers from yesterday's mountain trip. I discovered, as I was nearly through the bag of banana chips, that Harveys really, really like them. He ate them with the gusto normally reserved for catnip flavored Temptations treats. A little later, I was finishing the last handful of Cheetos from yesterday, when he came back, asking to try those too. I warned him they would turn him orange, that they were magic pills that would make him look like his brother Ziggy. He was a bit dubious, and he kept considering the tiny Cheeto he took from me, and looking to see whether I was serious, then back to the Cheeto... Eventually he ate one or two of them, but that was all he was willing to risk, without a serving of half and half to turn him back to ivory for balance's sake.

The moment Harvey discovered banana chips exist and realized that I could have been feeding them to him this entire time... but DIDN'T!

While he debated whether I was teasing him about the Cheetos-will-turn-you-orange thing.

Zooming Ahead

Inspirational song: Tom Sawyer (Rush)

The Three Day Building Bonanza (tm) is complete. There is no muscle left unstrained in any of us, including me, Mr S-P, our neighbor, Elsa, and Murray. We all hurt everywhere. But after three hard days of work, never leaving the mining claim until well after 7pm each night, it’s totally different up there. The upper walls are built on the east and west sides, and the five rafters between them are in place. There is still some finessing to be done before the roof decking goes on, but the guys were able to pull the bigger tarp that I removed from the tepee over the top, and it’s well-enough protected from the weather. It went up just in time. A major thunderstorm rolled over as we were leaving after dinner in Idaho Springs.

We went down the same route last night, and the difference one day to the next was startling. I showed you the few bits of aspen color we saw on Thursday’s trip. By dusk today there was more than double the amount of gold in the forest. By the time we go next, the leaves will be predominantly golden. It feels like an early fall, and not one of us is complaining.