Free At Last

Perhaps "free at last" is a little too much entheusiasm for the occasion, but..... I completed traffic school. Last Saturday I sat down at the computer and figured I'd check out a few on line schools. One stated it was "4 less time", so I signed on and did that one. It turns out that Saturday was the last day I had to complete the school so It is a good thing I did it online and had the results sent directly to the court! Today I received an email from the court stating that I was now "free and clear", ie., fine paid, traffic school done on time, etc. Whew. Guess my insurance won't have to go up after all. I don't think I have to take the driving test for my license renewal in 2011 either. When I'm on the freeway now I set the dang cruise control and keep my led foot off of the accelerator.

We had a terrible summer forest fire near here yesterday, in Auburn. Auburn is about 20 miles East and North of us. Anyhow, the fire started outside of a subdivision, jumped (or burned) a fence and roared through the subdivision and onward. Sixty homes were lost. On one street every home but one burned to the ground and on another street all but two homes are gone. Further out into the coutry the destruction continued, taking farm houses, outbuilding and anything else in its way as well. A wedding party had to disband and run for their lives to get out of the way of the fast moving fire. As far as I know to this point , there were no lives lost, although there were a few cases of smoke inhalation and minor burns as people tried to get out. All of the local TV stations carried nothing but fire new from the time it started about 230 yesterday afternoon until mid-morning today. It is now fully contained but not out.

Fargo and I have managed to brave the evening heat and walk two or three times this past week. I keep threatening to dress when I get up at 6 and walk then. Somehow the motivation is there in the evening but not in the morning. I used to walk three miles every morning, at 700 all week and even weekends during the summer. When I visited in Canada during the winter I still donned my boots, heavy coat, cap, gloves and "face" scarf and plodded through the frozen snow for about 45 minutes or so. Now I wonder what ever happened to that motivated person? Someone else has lost a few pounds. I know this for sure because I found them - right around my waist!

My oldest daughter has been diagnosed with a kidney disorder that I think is called "IC". The doc explained it to her a Chrohns of the bladder. The Doc thinks that this may have been (and still is) the source of all of her pain and symptoms for the past 13 or 14 years. I think of the numerous surgeries and procedures she has had to endure in an effort to fix the problem, with each specialist being "sure" that he or she knew what was wrong and could fix it with their specialty surgery. The disorder she has is no picnic and there is no cure, but there are symptom relief medications and diet. These would have been more effective 10+ years ago, but better now than never. The one thing that really made my daughter feel better was to learn that one of the common complaints is that riding in a car for an period of time causes pain and discomfort, probably from the filling bladder and the steady road vibrations. My daughter was afraid that we all thought she was just stressed at traveling, which might have been somewhat true early on, but certainly not the past few years. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could somehow take our children's pain and carry it for them for awhile? Of course, there are times when I wish the reverse! I'm being summoned to join Ernie and Sarah for "Jeopardy". Peace.

This N That

Ernie and Sarah have Rachael Maddow on right now, after having watched Keith Oberman. I can't agree more with what they are all saying, but I've personally had it "up to here" with all the rhetoric from both sides of the health care issue. Why oh why do we keep electing officials in both parties who take office and become stubborn children? Compromise? The good of all? Strike a bargain? No way!! California has a Democrat majority in State government. It has been this way for many years. It does not have a 2/3 majority though. Any budgets passed in California has to be passed with a 2/3 approval by the State Senate. We have not had an "on time" budget for several years now. For ALL of 2008 the state operated without a budget. This year the State ran out of discretionary funds and for months had State workers taking two and three days off per month, without pay. In effect a 25% wage reduction, without their consent! Of course this did not apply to the legislators themselves, the pay raise or benefits they receive or to their staffs. Is this reasonable? The problem? The Democrats make a budget and the Republicans, en-masse, vote against it. Over and over. The Republicans in the California Senate have not created a budget, offered concrete suggestions, etc, they just in effect have "veto" power. California ranks number 49 or 50 in credit ratings among the 50 US States. How can this be for one of the richest States in the Union ? California is borrowing millions, perhaps trillions of dollars to get through this fiscal year. Even with layoffs, reduced wages, new hirees getting less benefits, massive staff reductions including in prisons, State hospitals, fire departments, police departments and the school system, California will have to borrow to pay its bills. But, NO NEW TAXES and no RETURN to the higher business, property and higher-income taxes that helped keep the gears of government oiled will be approved by the minority party. OK, new topic!!!

I am treating myself to a rare treat this week. I am having a woman come in and clean the front part of the house, dust, vacuum, tidy up. It will be soooo nice to come home to a sparky place, even if it will only last for a few days. Sometimes I think that I sound "house proud", like one of those women who clean and clean and have to have everything put in its place. This is far from the truth. I clean, I live and mess up and when it reaches some "critical point" I clean again. On the clean again binges I am angry at myself for not keeping up better inbetween times. During the inbetween times I can sit and enjoy my surroundings and not "see" the dust accumulate or the pile of "stuff" growing on the coffee table. Not that my home is filthy, it's just a little dusty and cluttered. I remember telling my oldest daughter to clean her room, three of four times, before finally saying "I want the stuff off the floors and dressers and put away". My daughter would give me an incredulous look and say "STUFF, these are my THINGS". Well, I have too many things! How does one get rid of the hand print made with love in Kindergarten. Or the painting that won a prize in 3rd grade, or the cute little knick-knacks that say "worlds best Grandma", or the stuffed animals given for comfort during a difficult time, or the "small" collection of angels that now takes up two full shelves, or the.... well, you know what I mean.

It has been too hot in the evening to take Fargo for a walk and we are both eating too well and exercising too little, so we're getting some extra stomach "muscle" (ha). Perhaps I'll force myself to actually dress at 6am and walk him then, before my coffee and crossword puzzle. I used to religiously walk 3 miles every morning. Ah, the good ole days. Peace.

Grandkids and other Fun Stuff

We had our grandson Daniel here last week, along with his friend Daniel who is 18 months older. The two Daniels have been best buddies for about nine years now. Daniel's sister Angela was here a couple of weeks ago, along with the "other" Daniel's brother Ivan. We love having the grandkids around, although they are getting older. Angela will start fourth grade this fall and Daniel enters 9th grade. Where does the time go?

Yesterday I got to do one of my favorite things; shop with a purpose. We have a family friend who is having a hard time financially. Her two kids (here to play with Angela and Daniel) start school tomorrow and there wasn't money for new school uniforms. I always used to get a new outfit for at least two grandchildren every fall, sometimes more. I "grandopted" Kerrigan and Blake and went shopping for the bare necessities: uniform pants, shirts, undies and sox, plus a backpack and a few school supplies. It felt wonderful and the kids were so excited. Kerrigan's mom has to get a size smaller pants as she is to skinny and they didnt' have a "slim" in her size. Oh well, one trip to exchange an item isn't too bad.

We are having summer here interspersed with some cool weather. Sarah and I were out in the pool yesterday, but it is supposed to cool down again for a few days, then warm up a gain into the mid to high nineties. I enjoy the summer. In the high desert where we lived it got hot in April or May and stayed hot until November. On the other hand, there were a gazillion stars in the sky at night.

Sirens, sirens and more sirens, the thick smell of smoke. Right after Sarah and I got out of the pool yesterday all the excitement began. Fargo started to howl and I peeked over the fence. OMG the trucks were directly across the street and smoke was billowing from the rear of the house high into the sky. I quickly dressed and harnessed Fargo and we went out with about two dozen others to "looky loo". By the time Fargo and I got outside another four fire trucks, an ambulance and a fire marshalls vehicles had also arrived. Turns out that the neighbors fired up their outdoor bar-b-que and it somehow caught the patio overhand on fire and spread rapidly from there. So many responders were because the lady of the house informed the first crew that they had just filled the tank with propane for the bar-b-que. Funny, all those crews on standby "in case", but the lookers weren't made to move back any further than the house next door or across the street, as we are. The fire department brought in two big fans and cleared the house of smoke and I think the residents were back in before bedtime. Our other neighbors arrived as all the commotion was ending and said what it shock it was to drive onto your street to a bevy of emergency vehicles. I recalled doing this not once, but twice.

Our first fire occurred when our two older boys were four and six, or perhaps a year older. We had a ton of company, about 14 of us in the house at the time. My youngest son had an ear ache and my father-in-law-and I took him to the doctors. Ernie was at work. As I was leaving the doctor's, I got a call warning me that the fire engines were at the house, but that everybody (the kids) was alright. Both Ernie and I came home to the fire trucks in front of the house and to two frightened and chastised little boys. They had gone into our closet with matches and one of them caught a dry cleaning bad that went "poof" in flames. The boys carefully shut the heavy wooden sliding doors and tip toed outside. When one of our guests came in from outside, he asked what was burning.. nothing that was cooking, so he went looking. When he got to the master bedroom, and slid the closet doors open the fire took off like wildfire. We had to repain the room and the bathroom next to it. rebuild the closet and have the hardwood floors in the bedroom and hallway replaced and the bathroom repainted and retiled. The only clothes either of us had left was what was in the laundry hamper in the basement, on our backs or at the dry cleaners.

Four years or so ago when we were living at our sons home in El Dorado Hills, a fire started at the corner of the fence in the front yard. The fire marshall said it was spontaneous combustion. We always suspected the neighbor woman of accidentally throwing a lit cigarette butt into the wood chips. At any rate, when I came home from the grocery store I saw two fire trucks in front of the house and Ernie sitting outside in a lawn chair. When I first drove onto our street I feared that the toddler next door had somehow fallen into their pool, so I was almost relieved to realize that the trucks were at our house instead. Damaged a good chunk of fence, the door to the garage, the side of the house there, one bathroom window frame and the interior end-part of the garage. When we moved out, all looked as good as new.

I can tell that it is past my bedtime and morning comes early. Peace.

Friends Across the Sea

When I signed on to my computer this afternoon I saw an email address that I didn't recognize and I came within a hair of deleting it unopened. I am so glad that I didn't! The message was from a former reader of my old aol blog who was wondering where I am now. Since I've acquired very few "followers" here and my days have become incredibly hectic I haven't done much writing and I've missed the outlet. Thanks "Friend Across the Sea",

There is a large farmers market/flea market a few miles from here called Denios. Ernie has been pressuring me to take him there for several years now. Because he has so much difficulty walking I have always "promised" but somehow never got around to it. Well, today was the day! I got up drank coffee and then got a map to "the place". We stopped off at a new restaurant for breakfast and were on our way. The place is huge. I trusted my instincts and detoured slightly from the map and took the "Denios Loop" road, which took us right past the open air market section. I found parking directly across the road from the entrace. We parked, walked across the way and into the hub of Denios. I've not seen so much produce since I was a wee child and would go with my grandmother to a place in Salt Lake. The main purpose of this trip was to obtain a delicacy for Ernie - garden peas, still in the pod.

Peppers, tomatoes, asparagus, yellow cauliflower (?), fruit of all persausions, cactus, other things I have never seen before, but NOT ONE SINGLE GARDEN PEA. Ernie made it through one length of the market stalls, then found a shady place to sit whild I strolled through the other three or four. I found two places that had "dried" peas (we bought a bag on the way out), but no fresh garden peas. The Language of the day everywhere was Spanish. If I hung out there long enough I could probably learn how to converse a little Espanol. Now I'm restricted to taco, tamale, burrito, etc. After delivering the sad new to above mentioned spouse, I decided to stroll off a little though the "flea market" section. The side of Denios that we were on was rather pathetic and very seedy. I think that had we driven around and entered in from the front, the stalls would have been cleaner and had more "stuff" to look at. I did succeed in making my right hip hurt like the devil, which ruins my good mood no end.

I see the back surgeon at the end of the month, it will be 8 month post surgery. Two months post surgery I was singing his praises. No longer. While the pain level is still less than before surgery, it still hurts enough to walk and stand that I find myself avoiding it whenever possible. Whatever he says there is no more back surgery in store for this lady. Not only was it a more painful experience than I had anticipated, I have pushed the envelope of time off to the limit on the job. Sooo, for the next couple of years I'll pop a pain pill when I want to get about and be thankful that I can.

I love life! Grandkids (Angela, Daniel, friends Daniel and Ivan) were here for four days last week, as well as the two children of a friend of Sarah's, sort of an adopted-daughter. Stacy's two are the same ages as Angela and Ivan and the four hit it off well. So well that the extra two spent one night and two days here. The pool got lots of use, pizza consumed and just about every other edible that wasn't "good for you" or in a container too hard to rip open. We "crafted" twice and the kids glued and painted wooden models and decorated small flower pots and filled them with artificial flowers. Angela had made a "list" of things to do here and "crafting" was on the list. So what's $80.00 when it comes to the kids?

Sarah is asking for a companion to go on a little shopping expedition. Since I've had a chance to sit awhile I'm raring to go. Peace.