These are really my toes...

See how sparkly they are?

And these are my fingers.

I did girlie stuff today. Josh's sister Gena is getting married this weekend. It got a manicure and pedicure. Man, what a whole process that is. There are so many steps. They rub this stuff on and then clip stuff and then rub more stuff on, then file and buff and clip and then put one coat of something and then two coats of color and then another coat of something and then they spritz some other thing on them. It felt like it took forever.

And look at the shoes with the ridiculously high heels that I am going to wear. I walked around the house with them and didn't break my neck, so I think I'll be okay. And I'm feeling adventurous.

See how the front of the shoe is open? Hence, the sparkly toes. I was told by the young manicure girl that silver is the way to go for an evening wedding. I had picked out a classic, understated, pearly white color. I was told that it was sooooo daytime wedding. She also asked me if I wanted extra sparkle things, or glitter enhancers, or something like that on my big toes. I declined.

Doofus in nature - part 2

I don't know how this has turned into some kind of nature journal, but here I go again.

I saw my first rattlesnake. Actually, I heard him before I saw him. Which is exactly how it is supposed to work. He rattles. I jump ten feet in the other direction. He stays where he is. I stay the heck away. Everyone's happy.

Okay, maybe that is not exactly how it is supposed to work. I'll admit that it might be better if I see him before I get so close that he has to rattle at me.

It was late afternoon and I was walking in the park after work. I was on the main, paved road that runs through it. There is a curb right in the middle of the road to separate car traffic from pedestrians and bikes. I was walking closer to the curb in the middle of the road so that I wouldn't be near the wilderness side of the road in case some early evening creature decided to mosey out. I walked right by the snake before he rattled at me. I really did jump in the other direction.

See my creative overhead view below. The thick black line is the curb running through the middle of the road, and the circle is where the snake was. (No, I wasn't barefoot.)


Then I turned to look at him. I didn't think it would be wise to try to get any closer to take a picture with my crappy cell phone camera. So then I just walked on. I would have told other people to watch out for the snake, but I didn't run into anyone else the rest of the way.

And I call myself a doofus because it is funny. You don't have to worry. I really do know what to do if I were to be bitten by a rattlesnake. Do you?

This is a sign that is in the parking lot of the park.

Hummingbirds

This morning the backyard was just infested with hummingbirds. They were buzzing around everywhere, chasing each other and stopping to feed at the new hummingbird feeder. It took about 7 tries and a lot of patience, but I got a couple of decent movies with my camera. The camera doesn't really take great video, but it was the best I could get.

(And here's a computer lesson, in case you don't know. Whenever you see a slightly fuzzy picture with a sideways triangle in the middle - that's a video clip. If you click on the triangle, the video will play.)

Am I bugging you yet?

Okay, just one more bug-related post and then I'll stop. This is a moth on my screen from a few weeks ago.

Cycle of life

This morning I was crouching down near some plants, cleaning out the dead pine needles. I saw what was probably the green bug from before. It was dead. It was hanging from its front legs, tied by some sort of web, swinging in the breeze.

It looked like some poor Guantanamo Bay detainee about to be subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques." (But no torture...of course we don't use torture.)

Or maybe there is a gang war going on with the bugs. This bug strayed a little too far into the enemy's territory and they had to make a grotesque example of him.

Or maybe that's just the way it goes - one day you are bright green and hopping around and the next day...

More things in my yard

You might think I spend my time looking around for lizards and bugs. I don't. These creatures just FIND ME and then I must take their picture. Look at this fascinating green bug. How could I NOT take its picture.





The grasshopper at the top of this blog only gave me one chance. He hopped away as soon as I took that picture. But this guy let me take a whole bunch of them. I was putting the camera really close to him and he didn't seem to care. I swear he was looking at me the whole time with his funky red eye.

Pathetic

See!!!

See what happens!!!




I've had this plant less than a week. I did water it (at least I am pretty sure I did.)
And look at it.

What more does it want from me?!?!?!?!?


I know, I know...I gave it more water this morning. And I'm planning to put it in a bigger pot this weekend. I don't know how you crazy gardening people do it.

toxic dryer sheets and other fun stuff

I don't use fabric softener. I just never understood why it was necessary. I believe it was a marketing ploy by the detergent companies to get us to buy more stuff.

So my clothes aren't fluffy soft - big deal. Sometimes pieces stick together with the static when I take them out of the dryer. So what? I like the crackly noise when I pull them apart. And they don't smell like the chemically-generated equivalent of a field of lavender. That's actually good for me because I can't stand to be enveloped by a single smell.

It turns out there are very good reasons not to use fabric softener. Toxic chemicals galore and over time the dryer sheets can damage your dryer. Click here if you want to read more.

There is something called Dryer Balls that you can get at places like Target that helps your clothes come out soft without the chemicals. I haven't tried them, but they look cool. (It could just be a big marketing ploy by the dryer ball companies to get me to buy more stuff.)

When I started to write this I was searching on Google to try to find an article that I had read about dryer sheets. It was months ago so I didn't remember where I had found it. I looked up the phrase "toxic dryer sheets." And look what comes up on the search page:


Capitalism at its best. You want toxic dryer sheets? Someone, somewhere will try to sell them to you.

I tried some other interesting search phrases and here's what I got:It's a little bit misleading of me. No one is really selling children's cigars or flammable toys. Those listings are for books and CD's. But I like how technology can still be so dumb sometimes.

Worm Poop!

I'm so excited today to try my worm poop plant food. I found it yesterday at Target of all places. The nursery that I like to visit is closed on Sundays (good for them!) So I went to the gardening section of Target. Everywhere I looked was Miracle-Gro this and Miracle-Gro that. I don't know why, but anything Miracle-Gro just makes me think of a bunch of chemicals.

Maybe I'm mixing it up with Chem-Lawn. Remember that? The sickly sweet smell after they came and sprayed our whole lawn with who knows what? Maybe that's what made me and Bobby grow so tall. I remember one summer, when the Chem-Lawn guy came we ran around the lawn as he sprayed it, like we were running through sprinklers. The Chem-Lawn guy just laughed and laughed. JUST KIDDING!

So I'm looking for some kind of plant food that isn't Miracle-Gro and at the top of the shelf is a spray bottle. What caught my eye was a tag on it that had someone's handwritten name. The plant food comes in a recycled soda bottle that is collected by different schools throughout the U.S. The schools get money for turning in the bottles. I looked at every single bottle to find one from R.I. but didn't find any. So I settled for Peter from New Jersey.

If you want to read more about the worm poop go here: TerraCycle

The other good thing about it is that it sounds easy. I just have to spray it on the soil and leaves once a week. Even I can handle that.

I also bought a new pink plant to take the place of Mr. Finicky-I-need -full-shade plant that isn't doing well where I planted it. I'm going to dig it up, transplant it to a pot and put it under my bed. Let's see how it likes that.


This plant can take the full sun. Here's the before picture. Look how healthy and green it looks. Let's see what it looks like after a few months in my care.

Gross kitty

Look at this face. He looks so sweet and innocent. He's not.

The other night I saw the cat pounce on some small, dark shape in our dining room. Then he ran out the back door. I wanted to see what he had caught.

He had run into a dark corner of our backyard. I couldn't see anything, but I heard - CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH.

Ewwwwww!

I couldn't help myself and I got a flashlight. I saw him chomping on the remaining half of a grasshopper. A big grasshopper. Looked just like the one at the top of this blog (except it no longer had a head or many of its legs left.)

I told the cat he was gross and left him alone to enjoy his snack. I wonder if he really likes it or if he just feels obligated to eat it now that he's caught it. Like when you order something at a restaurant and find out that it is not as good as it sounds but you eat the whole thing anyway because you are paying for it.

cold

I've had a cold for the past 2 weeks. Started out as your normal cold - sore throat, congestion, coughing. It lingered on and every day I just felt worn out.

The Internet can be dangerous. I look up my symptoms on WebMD.com and find out that I could possibly have Tuberculosis, Histoplasmosis or Pneumonitis. Somehow these sound more glamorous and exciting than just having a cold.

Went to the doctor after a week because people at work said, "Maybe you need antibiotics." At the urgent care department, they had signs plastered on every square inch of wall space that said:

Colds are caused by a virus. Antibiotics do NOT work on viruses. Don't even THINK about asking your doctor for antibiotics if you have a cold. We mean it. We'll just roll our eyes and sigh heavily as we point to this sign and say with more than a little disdain in our voice "Duh!"

The doctor had no problem giving me a prescription for cough medicine laced with narcotics (codeine) which the label said "May be habit forming."

Another week goes by and I am still coughing and my nose won't stop running and I still feel tired every day. Went back to the urgent care place and this time I pinned the doctor on the floor and put him in a headlock and forced him to give me antibiotics. No, I flashed him my winning smile and charmed him with my adorable personality and he gave me antibiotics. The truth is that I had just passed the time limit - if my symptoms hadn't gotten better in 2 weeks, then MAYBE it is bacterial and they can then give me the antibiotics.

Started taking the antibiotics and took the next day off work and I am starting to feel better.

This DOESN'T bother me, REALLY IT DOESN'T

In an attempt to raise the reading level of this blog, I did an entry with just lists and lists of SAT words that I copied from some webiste. Then I ran the reading level test again.



Ha!
SAT words bumped me up - but not that much.

From now on, I'm using only 5 syllable words. I know it might be superfluous and inconsequential, but I am unabashedly discombobulated by this unfathomable development.

I shouldn't have done this

Now I feel stoopid.

Saturday afternoon at the nursery

Went to a funky, local nursery to attend a cooking with herbs class. It wasn't so much about lots of different things you can do with herbs. It was more just a baking demonstration with a few herbs. It was still wonderful. She made everything look so easy to do.

It was held in the house of the guy who owns the nursery. His house is on the same property. It was a lovely, light-filled kitchen with plenty of space. The whole front room was basically a large open area. There were at least 30 people there. I wish I had brought my camera.

She made Lavender-Lemon cookies, Basil-Lime cookies (with cinnamon basil), and a tart with a Rosemary-Madeira Wine crust. Everything was yummy. Now I know how to use real vanilla beans and vanilla bean paste if I ever have to. I want them to have a bread baking class next.

And, by the way, some people (who we won't name) should really come out for a visit, if only just to visit this nursery with me. Some people would really love it. City Farmers Nursery

And while I was there, I asked them about the lavender plant that I thought I was killing. She told me that they just get that way and I should just take off the brown parts and trim about 3 inches off the stalks. So I guess I'll try that.

Volunteering

Volunteered tonight at a children's center.

What a heart-wrenching experience. What a chaotic mess. You can tell that the staff are trying to do the best they can but whoever is in charge really needs to re-think the procedures. I am no expert at child behavior, but isn't it obvious that having 15-20 toddlers in one main room is not going to be conducive to getting them in a calm state of mind before bedtime? Wouldn't it be better to separate them into small groups? They have the staff for it. About 1 staff for every 4 or 5 kids. Shouldn't we NOT give them candy before bed? Shouldn't we NOT play (at a very loud volume) a slightly scary kid's dinosaur movie before bed? Can't we have some routine part of the night that is calming and soothing in some way instead of just jerking from one activity to another and then suddenly to bed?

We play with them and read to them as best we can in the big main room. It is pretty loud the whole time and there is nothing calming about it. At one point a staff person leads the kids in songs. Most of them sit right down in front of him and join in with the singing. They seem to want this kind of structure. We sing about 5 or 6 songs. Then they hand out candy. It isn't a large amount. The kids get to pick out one piece each - a little roll of sweet tarts or a small lollipop. Then they turn on the movie. The movie is just turned at some point in the middle of the story. There are dinosaur and monkey friends who watch the world end with a big explosion and then are trekking across burned out wasteland and start to be chased by a gang of smaller, evil, biting dinosaurs.

It is time for bed before the movie is over, so they just turn it off. The kids are told to go to their rooms and we volunteers will read to them. I go into a room with three little boys, M, J and another kid whose name I didn't get. Another volunteer is reading to him. I try to read to M & J. M isn't that interested - he's about 5 and playing with a toy truck. J gets into it - he's about 3. He points at the pictures and makes comments.

Earlier in the evening J had asked me something about his mother. I had a hard time hearing him in the noisy room and it can sometimes take a practiced ear to decipher the words of a 3-year-old. But he said something to the effect of "Where is my mother?" I said something like "I don't know honey, maybe you'll get to see her later." I tried to distract him with a book and it worked.

At bedtime, in their room, I'm reading to J and a staff person comes in and tells the boys that they all have to be in their beds laying down or we can't keep reading to them. M gets in his bed, but J starts saying "I need my narm, please." He kept saying it, "I need my narm, please." Even the staff person didn't know what he was asking for. I tried to figure it out.

J, is it a stuffed animal that you play with?

I need my narm, please.

What does your narm look like?

I need my narm, please.

What color is it?

I need my narm, please.

Is it something you put in your mouth?

I need my narm, please.

Is it a bottle?

I need my narm, please.

When a second staff person is asked and doesn't know what it is, I try another tactic.

J, I don't think we can find your narm. Is it okay if just for tonight you keep this with you? (handing him a soft, stuffed ladybug.) He'll stay with you all night.

No! I need my narm, please. (Now he's getting more upset each time he says it.)

J, I'm sorry but we can't find it. This guy will stay with you all night. (the ladybug). He wont' leave you.

No! I need my narm. (Now with tears filling his eyes, he throws the ladybug aside.)

The staff person decides that nothing more can be done and says "Just lay down and go to bed. It is time to sleep now." Even in this small room with just 3 boys it still feels chaotic. The no-name kid is crying his head off because the volunteer who was reading to him has just left. The staff person is in the room trying to just tell them all to go to sleep.

I have to leave this 3-year-old boy with tears in his eyes looking so lost and becoming more and more frantic, knowing that he is not going to get what he needs. He's not even going to get a gentle, comforting person to sit with him and hug him until he feels better or falls asleep. He's only going to get an overworked staff person who is thinking about all the other kids he has to get to sleep and has decided that he is done trying to figure this one out. And I have to leave.

I try to give him some comforting words before I go, but I am starting to cry. I leave him sitting on his tiny bed with the staff person in his room.

I get in my car and bawl my eyes out the whole way home. I say a prayer that this little boy will find some small comfort tonight and that his parents will get whatever it is that they need in order to be able to bring him home.

Hang up and drive

Here's a great article with lots of scientific research about cell phones and driving from Salon.com:
Hang up and Drive

Where I walk

I have been wanting to write a whole, long entry about the park where I love to walk. But wanting it to be long and full of perfect pictures is preventing me from writing about it at all. I haven't been able to go in a while because I hurt my achilles. I miss it. Here are some pictures I took a while back. Maybe I'll write the longer entry once I get back there.

It might be hard to see, but there is a bee inside this flower.

You can hear water from the river at different spots on the walk.

Learning to dress myself

I almost left the house without a bra today. Took off my bathrobe after a shower. Put my pants on. Went over to the closet to decide what shirt to wear. Apparently, that used up just about all of my brain power, because once I decided, I took the shirt off the hanger and slipped it over my head. It wasn't until I was bending over to put on shoes that I felt an unusual bit of jiggling and realized what I had done.

At times, I've almost walked out the door on my way to work with flip-flops on, but never this. It is almost too bad I remembered before I left the house. This could have been a much longer, much more interesting blog entry.

Paper or plastic

An older woman ahead of me in line at the grocery store was paying with a check. It was Sunday. I wasn't in any hurry, but I still managed to be silently annoyed with her. The woman behind me in line started to get twitchy and you could tell that she truly wanted to let out a big sigh.

I don't understand why anyone would pay with a check because it just doesn't seem logical. You can use a debit card and the exact same thing happens - they take the money out of your checking account.

But I can fast-forward 40 years and I know exactly what will happen. I'll be the 80-year-old woman in line who insists on spending all that time to slide my plastic card through the card reader slot and punch in numbers on the key pad. While people behind me in line roll their eyes and sigh because they can't understand why I don't just pass my head through the scanner to use the perfectly good chip implanted in my brain by the Government/Haliburton Conglomerate. Or something like that.

The cat and the dog

Taking care of the big, black dog for a week. I love this dog. The cat is not as thrilled.

What is funny about it to me is that it all comes down to communication. The cat has no idea that the dog only wants to stick his giant head right in the cat's face so he can sniff around a bit. The cat sees 75 pounds of black danger, madly wagging its tail. He makes weird howling noises at the dog and hisses if he comes too close. The dog just really wants to play the way he does with the cat he lives with at home. And there's no way to tell the cat this.

They've developed a tense, working relationship. The cat seems to have agreed that there doesn't have to be any violence between them and the dog has grudgingly conceded that play time is not an option.

The cat did give in to his own curiosity for the briefest of moments. He was perched on the dining room table and I brought the dog into the room a bit suddenly. The dog stuck his face near the cat and instead of backing off, the cat put his face out too. Their noses were almost touching and they both took a few seconds to sniff each other. I see it as progress.

Today's happiness

Hanging my clothes on the line to dry.

My basket of clothespins.

My begonia starting to bloom.

Adventure downgraded

Talked to a Park Ranger today about my animal sighting. I guess they do actually care when people see a wild animal. He wanted to know details because he tracks these things.

The Park Ranger had a touch of laid back hippie in his voice. He seemed to really like the fact that I just stood there and stared at the animal and the animal stared back. He said I was one of the lucky people who actually got to see this kind of wildlife. He was really grooving on the experience.

Turns out I might have seen a Bobcat instead of a Mountain Lion. I'm not completely convinced yet. It is way cooler to say I came face to face with a LION, not a CAT.

The spots that I saw on the face could indicate a young Mountain Lion or any age Bobcat. He asked about the ears, but I don't specifically remember taking note of them. I swear they were not as pointy as a Bobcat's. But maybe that's because he was just hanging out, chilling.

He said that if it was a young Mountain Lion, the mother would most definitely be around. Yikes! He also thought that the Mountain Lion would tend to be on top of the boulders, not lying next to them. They like to hang out in trees and other high places because that is how they hunt.

He didn't seem to think that I needed to tell everyone else on the path when I saw such a thing. He said, "Well, sure, if you want to share the experience with them, that would be great..." in that peace-and-love kind of voice. (A tiny, little bit like that painter guy who used to have a show on PBS.)

It was still a great experience and I'm going to keep my eyes open for more things like that when I take my walks. The Park Ranger told me to look for deer bucks. They've been seen lately.

MEOW!

Doofus in nature

I saw a mountain lion yesterday evening. In the park where I love to walk. I was walking down the paved road that runs through the middle. It's a narrow road, with a one-way lane for cars and the other lane for pedestrians and bikes. It has guard rails on both sides to keep people from walking off the designated trails.

The mountain lion was just about 40 feet away on the other side of the guard rail, sitting next to some big, flat boulders. I wasn't afraid, but maybe I should have been? It was not very big and it was just sitting there. Didn't look like it was in an aggressive mood.

So I just stopped, turned to face it and stared at it for a while. It just stared back. Then I walked away while still staring at it (hoping that I was giving it my best "Don't even think about following me" look.)

So here's where the doofus part comes in. I had no idea if I was supposed to tell anyone about it. I thought maybe they are just there all the time - it's really their habitat, not ours. They have a statue of one at the visitors center at the entrance to the park, so they obviously know that the mountain lions are around.

I kept walking to the visitors center about 3/4 mile away. Looked for a park ranger but only found a large group of boy scouts with their parents. I went up to a couple of Dads (they had tan faces so I figured maybe they were the outdoorsy types and would know what to do.) Asked them if they thought I was supposed to tell anyone. They said YES, not in a condescending way, just a little excited.

There was a phone number for the rangers on a sign so we tried that. They guy that answered the phone said that he was just the guard at the gate and gave me another number to call. That number led to the voicemail of the park rangers. We saw the non-emergency number for the police on another sign and so I called that.

The dispather took the information and asked if I could wait for the patrol car. She asked me to wait inside my car even though I told her how far away the mountain lion was. The police officer showed up and said that a park ranger was at the other end of the road looking for it. I told him where I saw it and said that I could show them exactly where if they needed me to.

The cop had that attitude like "I am so completely in control of this situation and at the same time, so completely bored by the whole thing, Ma'am." He asked me how big it was and I guessed the size of a big dog, about 60 lbs. So that was all he seemed to want from me. He was just going to sit in his car and wait to hear from the ranger.

AND he was also not stopping anyone from walking down that road. I also made a point to mention to him that there were a bunch of Boy Scouts outdoors at the visitor center, but he didn't really seem to care. So I guess it really isn't that big of a deal to them. I did call the park ranger's voicemail and left a message to give him my number in case he needed any more information from me.

And it wasn't until I was driving home that I thought 2 things:

Like an IDIOT, I didn't even think to try to take a picture of it with my cell phone. I use my phone to talk - it just doesn't occur to me to take pictures of everything. But I also think that there is something special about just enjoying that unique moment - staring into the eyes of a mountain lion. Rather than wasting time fumbling with my cell phone, I was really present at that moment. And who knows, weird beeping noises might have spooked him.

Like an IDIOT, it never occurred to me that there might be MORE THAN ONE OF THEM. I remember thinking that the one I saw was smaller than I would have expected. Holy crap, it could have been a BABY and that means the MAMA might have been right around the corner.

I did some reading about mountain lions when I got home. Turns out that I did mostly do the right thing.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO IF YOU ENCOUNTER A LION?
(from US Forest Service website)
The following suggestions are based on studies of mountain lion behavior and analysis of attacks by mountain lions, tigers and leopards.

Do All You Can To Appear Larger: Raise you arms. Open your jacket if you are wearing one. Again, pick up small children. Throw stones, branches, or whatever you can reach without crouching or turning your back. The idea is to convince the mountain lion that your not prey and that you may be a danger to it.

Fight Back if Attacked: A hiker in Southern California used a rock to fend off a mountain lion that was attacking his son. Others have fought back successfully with sticks, caps, jackets, garden tools and their bare hands. Since a mountain lion usually tries to bite the head or neck, try to remain standing and face the attacking animal.

So maybe I am not such a doofus. I knew not to run. I knew about making yourself look larger and talking in a loud voice ("I am NOT your dinner!")

At no point during the encounter did I think anything bad was going to happen. I had full confidence that I would be able to scare it away if I had to. I was bigger than it was, for goodness sake. So is that being an unrealistic doofus? Or is it that law of attraction thing - I didn't imagine any bad outcome, so it didn't happen.

The other weird thing was that I had been thinking about mountain lions the whole walk. The road is 1.8 miles one way. I walked to the end and then was on my way back when I saw it. Before that I had been looking in trees wondering if there were mountain lions there. Maybe that statue at the visitors center just puts that vague thought into my head every time I go there.

Or maybe I wished it into existence with my special, super-secret powers.

One morning in Healdsburg

Sitting outside drinking coffee in the morning.
This is more about the sounds than the visual.
A lot of wind blowing throughout, but can you hear the birds?