NO MIDDLE GROUND

I have the windows closed.
Not because it is too hot but because during the night I got too COLD!
It is 55 degree now and is 8 in the morning. I do not know what it was when I woke up at 1:45 but I was all snuggled up with Cooper.

Feast or famine.

REPO!!

(photo from Google)

Today has been very quiet Bwaaahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahaah.

First I went over to the Real House and cleaned. I cleaned the bathroom sort of. I got the cobwebs, the tub as clean as it gets (it is peeling) and the toilet and sink bleached and disinfected.

I cleaned part of the kitchen-- the counters, the dishwasher, the double sink. I don't have good water pressure in the kitchen so I had to haul water in a bucket from the utility room to rinse it properly.

Anyway that's what I did this morning.

Then this afternoon I am sitting happily (more or less) in the rental house when a biiiiiiig flatbed went past, with tow lights on it. Uh Oh.
This is not a good neighborhood to see a flatbed with tow lights. It went down the street.

There is a program called REPO or something like that. I watched it once. They had huge mutant people driving the tow truck and being very aggressive. The owners of the car being reposessed attacking these huge mutant people with chains and pick-axes and rocks and whatever, and the mutants-- the good guys after all-- instead of picking up a cell phone and calling the police fight back with fists the size of jackhammers etc etc and everybody yells and hollers and threatens and insists the payments were made etc etc. It was a horrible program, in my opinion, and I watch a lot of trash tv, but not this.

So the truck went down the street and stopped. And in a minute I hear it:
shrieks, screams. High pitched and VERY ANGRY voices. Men, women, children, all screaming at once, totally unintelligible at least from 5 houses away.
The street, so far as I could see, seething with people. Tow lights flashing....
No quiet voice of reason anywhere just loud and angry shouting.

Then the first Cop  SUV showed up. The noise ramped downward but didn't stop. I could, however, hear the rattle of chains. Voices rose; the second Cop car shows up and silence drops. The truck drives off with a lovingly cared-for, waxed, polished and snazzy red car  on the flatbed. One cop follows, the other must have left shortly.

Peace.

Uh not really.
Ten minutes later the voices start up again. Apparently one person thought the other person paid the bill (isn't it always thus?) and the threats were audible. I will not repeat what little I could actually understand. It seemed to involve the death of someone by violent means.
Pretty soon the street was choked with screaming people again. Someone called it in-- no doubt sighing heavily, the police returned asap, this time with their lights on and probably really annoyed.
Two cars. Three--one from the other direction.
Silence.
More silence.
Even more silence.


It has been a very very quiet evening.

How very nice.....

WEATHER

Sitting at the desk at the rental, watching a major storm move in. It is the first time in two days I have had the a/c off and the windows open, but it won't be for long because when the rain starts, I will have to close up.

Cooper has had his Composure and is wearing his Thundershirt and has been escorted into Llewis's crate (his crate of choice, since he doesn't actually have one.)

It has been, basically, one long thunderous roll and the sky is very very dark. The guy across the street is trying desperately to get his lawn mowed, but it isn't going to happen.

My friend Susie called me awhile ago from Britt, Iowa at a horse show, and said they were trying to dry the ring out, so maybe this is the same storm. She called to invite me to the Waverly, Iowa Draft Horse Sale in October. This is a big deal and we have tried to go several times but something has always interfered. Presumably by then we will back in the real house and maybe it will be cool enough that I can take Cooper. Making the assumption, of course, that his health holds.

This is the kind of horse they sell at Waverly....And these....

                                      And this.

But you knew that. So I don't know. We'll see what the next month brings, whether we are in a motel someplace or at home.

I hope the windows are closed at the other house....

SUMMMMERTIIIIIIME.................

I have never spent so much of a summer indoors as I have this year. I just realised that.
First it was too rainy. Then the house fell apart. Then we were back and forth between a motel and restaurants and fast food places and the house packing and loading and stuffing ourselves with grease and sugar. Mmmmm. Oh, sorry.
Then we were here and couldn't-- or wouldn't-- leave the dogs unattended, and besides it was 100 outside and the humidity at Tropical levels.

In self-defence I discovered Trash TV. I mean really terrible stuff that I would watch avidly. Not soaps but almost. BRAVO is really good for Trash TV in my opinion. The only things I really cannot watch anymore is the Millionaire Matchmaker thing. I can't watch most reality shows because I swear they find mutants to be in them.
I watched a lot of animal planet. A lot of True TV Cop stuff. (AP has a lunchtime show called K-9 Cops--for me, the best of both worlds.)

I go painting on Tuesdays, but I have not been for two or three weeks and next week is Labor Day week and WE SHOULD BE MOVING BACK TO THE HOUSE!!!
I have to board the dogs and have them all bathed and groomed.Cooper is a complete mess. He has mats. I am ashamed but I have neither the right tools or the grooming table and he HATES having me groom him. He demands the professionals. I will have to call and see when either Annette or Dawnie are going to be available.

The Food Network is good at night and occasionally during the day. I have to remember, this Saturday, to watch the Pioneer Woman's new cooking show. See there are a thousand ways to avoid going outside.

Usually I am out all summer, walking the dogs or gardening or mowing the lawn.
I am in a shell this year.
We have mice. The outdoors is coming in.
I do walk over to the house now and then.
I have to get out more.....

THE HOUSE AGAIN/STILL

Our stay here at the rental appears to be drawing to a close. The insurance company has made it clear that the lease is up on the ninth of September and the company is picking up our rented furniture that day so I sure as hell hope the other house is done and our stuff back from storage.
The floors are finally in. The painting is done except for spots that need touching up. The wiring needs to be connected, the lights put in and the gas hooked up.

The carpeting is in for John's room and upstairs, and down the stairs.

This is nothing to most people but in all the years we have lived in that house we have never had carpeting, only rugs. And never upstairs or on the stairway.

We still have an unusable bathroom upstairs which will require re-plumbing, but it was undamaged by water and so the insurance paid nothing towards fixing it. We have decided to wait until we re-group after learning what we owe for the extra stuff we did-- like the furnace and this carpet.

The Laminate flooring is also in. We have always had the original tile on the floors and/or some other kind of tile, covered by rugs.

This floor to me is much more exciting than the carpeting. The depressing part to me is we are getting back the same junky stuff we shipped out, and it all has to be put away, oh good Lord what a chore!!

I had Cooper at the house the other day, with part of the flooring in, and he seemed to take it all in stride-- it was nothing new but they won't feel that way once we really move back. It will smell entirely different and, I suspect, need to be marked (Thank you, Nigel. He will have to be watched very carefully.)

And we need new curtains or blinds. And area rugs.

And something has to be done with the back yard.

There is so much to do.

I have contracted with my son and his glassblowing company to make us a fixture for the living room ceiling light.

My housewarming gift to me.

THE MUG

This is MY MUG. Many many years ago when the earth was green and we were young and svelte, my good friend Heidi Heinlein Paul (Now she is Heidi Paul. When I met her she was 18 or 19 yrs old and not.) Anyway she gave this to me as either a birthday or Christmas present, and I have treasured it ever since. It perfectly reflects my life.
It has gone through many changes with me (as has Heidi) and now my children are grown and gone (when I met her I still had to wait to get them off to school before I went to work at FSAH, where she was kennel manager.
Her son, who she had no inkling she would have, is a sophomore in college.

And I still have the mug.
When we had to suddenly evacuate the house May 26th, I frantically searched for the MUG, I had to have it. And so it went to the motel with us. I brought it when we moved into the rental.

I take comfort from it. Everything changes. Children marry, divorce, remarry, have major ups and downs, dogs come and leave, breaking our hearts: friends get sick and die, or just get sick, we argue with our spouses over whether to throw out the 20yr+ freezer or not, we see fantastic sights-- get caught in a cattle drive, win marathons or at least give it our best shots. We get new puppies (hope springs eternal) retire, move, make new friends.

And through it all is MY MUG. I love my mug. Somehow, I think the MUG has grown fond of me.

And it still represents my entire life.

Thank you Heidi.

THE WREN

I tried to get you guys a photo of our resident (rental) wren but she was singularly unco-operative, even with the zoom lens.

There is nothing happening, at least to us. Or for us. Except of course the skylight in the upstairs bathroom at the real house has begun to leak and the landscapers (rental house) are coming tomorrow morning, read DOGGIE THRILLS and SHRILLS.

I have capitulated and accepted the fact that I can, after all, stand to substitute cauliflower for potatoes. I add onion, celery, green pepper, mayo and hardboiled eggs. I do not add dill, mustard or capers. I hate capers. I mean, I really hate capers. I do not know what capers are.I have had them once.

Years ago I worked at a bookstore called Maeyama's. George was first generation American/Japanese. His parents spent WW2 in a "camp" here in the states, along with (probably not in the same "camp" with my German teacher's parents and grandparents. A shameful thing. Horrible.) Anyway there was a woman who worked there with me who thought of herself as a Southern Belle. The closest she got to living in the south was central Illinois.

I never liked her much. But I loved the other woman I worked with, who has since vanished from the earth or at least is where I cannot find her at all.
Once we agreed to share lunches. One week one of us would make sandwiches and the next another and so on. The first week the Southern Belle made tuna and caper salad sandwiches. OMG. Nasty little dark green buggers they are. I suppose they are truly delicious but I did not like them and begged off the sandwich carousel. My acquaintance with capers. First last and only.

I also have the very last filet mignon from my late brother in law. The Last One. It is defrosted. I thought about keeping it forever in his honour but Hal would have wanted us to eat the damn thing, so I will. It's a tough job but someone has to do it.