Custard-- Letters from the Rescue Bear Society

I found him on the toy table at the Salvation Army,
looking sad and puzzled. 

His name, he told me, was Custard.  Charlie approves. 
He looks a bit shaggy, but I think he was a sleep bear,
not a play-with bear, since he's old but not worn. Just
matted.  All in all, a good day in all directions.

3. Poem of the Week--Wild Geese

Wild Geese--Robert P. Tristam Coffin

Beauty is coming North again

Slanting eager as the rain;

With necks like arrows on a bow

Across the sky the wild geese go.

Beauty is coming moulded by

High winds of the upper sky

Into shapes that burn to be

In a patterned symmetry.

Loveliness comes like a host

Of lean ships headed for a coast,

Every sail and every keel

Pointed at a common weal.

Comeliness in company,

Every wing where it should be,

Their feathers are communal things.

They help each other with their wings.

Microsoft Security Alert phone call

got one of these just now, a recording with a stern warning that if we do NOT call this number immediately we will be charged for them reinstalling  a Microsoft Security Alert, to the tune of 249 bucks.
Got a phone number.

Once my heart went back into it's proper place I thought, hey.  Microsoft doesnt work that way. so I checked out online, and apparently a lot of people thought they did.

if you get one of these calls, just ignore it.

wow.

T13 let's eat!

Meat and potatoes

Bread and butter

Soup and a sandwich

cake and ice cream

cheese and crackers

tea and toast

coffee and doughnuts

peanut butter and jelly

toast and jam

salt and pepper

table and chairs

eggs and bacon

pancakes and syrup


T13

2. Poem of the week A.E. Housman

                                                                      

 A.E. Housman

Oh when I was in love with you

then I was clean and brave

and miles around the wonder grew

how well I did behave.

But now the fancy passes by

and nothing will remain,

and miles around they'll say that I

am quite myself again.

Monkey see, monkey do (Thursday 13)

elephant in the living room

quiet as a mouse

dog days

bird in the  hand

turkey day

eagle eye

fish out of water

dovetail joint

plumber's snake

sittin' in the catbird seat

fight like cats and dogs

horse of a different color

mine canary



Thursday13

Butterfly days

Mourning Cloak

In this light it appears to be black, which slowed me down a bit in finding out what it was--turns out it's actually brown (but then I bet you  knew that already).  They are  the kind of butterfly that gets moisture from gravel driveways, probably because with that wingspan if one tries to drink from standing water, one good flap and the wings are trapped by the surface tension. Not good.



http://www.butterflyidentification.com/mourning-cloak.htm

1. Poem of the week-- Richard Wilbur

Some poems seem okay to reprint, but this one does not,
and I respect that.  It's also long, and not everyone likes
poetry, so this gives you a chance to
read it at your leisure, or whiz on by.

Richard Wilbur "Advice to a Prophet"

If you're having a slow day...

Hire me.  I may not make the day any faster,
but by criminy I can make it way more interesting
and get your heart thumping in a most terrifying way.

It will enable you (as it did me) to discover the innards
of your computer, your programs, and what that
strange inner distress is.

It's called "omg what did I just do" and I just did it.
The trick is not to TELL anyone who will sneer
at you and look at you as if you're one stupid
person. "why did you DO that?" they ask.
Don't tell them about it, not even after the fact,
in case it happens again.  The other reason to
not-tell them, or even ask for online help, is
that you cannot take a screen shot of what you
don't know you did, nor can you describe the
steps you took to get to where you are.

And after you have not-told them, you open every
damn window and program you can find,  open
Chrome if you have it, root around in FireFox,
and start looking under all the rugs, behind all
the slightly ajar doors and don't touch ANYTHING.
Yet.

Then you suddenly discover a quiet, overlooked
bit of stuff, you think, oh. That's it.  You can't make it
any worse, you reason, knowing that is almost a
given, but hey, nothing else has worked. So you
push the button, reboot, and viola, you're home.

I was so excited I went downstairs  and moved furniture. =)

Two by Two (T13)

Burns and Allen

Cagney and Lacey

Abbot and Costello

Dick and Jane

Batman and Robin

Laurel and Hardy

Adam and Eve

Martin and Lewis

Simon and Garfunkel

Penn and Teller

Bert and Ernie

Cheech and Chong

Lewis and Clark


T13

The cat and the cardboard

when we first got Charlie, he was terribly careful--not shy, but careful--boots made him back off, cardboard boxes sent him right out of the room, especially if someone wearing boots was carrying it.  Over time  he got used to us. He trusted our boots, if no one else's, and also started shredding cardboard;  aha, I thought. He's got some stress going on.  He's not the first cardboard shredder I've had, so I just let him have at it.

There was a large collection of soft corruguated cardboard pieces that hadn't found a home yet, and he made them his playplace.  Hid his toys there,  played games around it. gradually they slid  down flat on the floor, and he started sleeping there, maybe having a chew or two before sleep, like a baby with a pacifier. 

He weaned himself off the cardboard-as-comforter, but never really slept anywhere that I would deem comfy;  no chairs were large enough,  and anything too soft, apparently, was a heat retainer; and with his double coat of fur the last thing he needed was heat retention.  He chooses, usually, sisal rugs. I have them all over the house, and he uses every one of them.  

However. I did notice that when he has a Moment, because  either the other cat tries to beat him up, or he's had an encounter outside,  or he's disciplined for trying to eat the silverware,  he retreats to his cardboard comfort place.  It's time out,  maybe, time to think things over and regroup.  The last time he did this,  Toby had just beaten the starch out of him, and Charlie spent two full days and nights on the cardboard, shredding bits of it,  working things out. 

He still likes large 3-sided semi-enclosed spaces with lots of crinkly noise-making paper that he can crash into, CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH, and he hides his toys in there.  

It gets silly (which is shorthand for "I hate changes")

There is a new deal in this state (and possibly everywhere else) about driver's licenses. 

You can opt for the mail-in type, with your old photo, which I prefer, or this new ID photo which requires a birth certificate, a marriage certificate (both of which have to have been stamped by a state or county person), an unlaminated and unmessed up Social Security card (those two requirements do not work well together),
 a proof of identity such as a bill with your address on it, and I suspect they will be examining my teeth and asking me if I can walk a straight line with my eyes closed. 

If I decide not to get the Scary One, I will be unable to enter any government buildings or travel by plane anywhere in the US.  That  means if I commit a federal crime I will be unable to attend my own trial, or be incarcerated in a Federal Prison. There is hope yet.  

But it also means I can no longer be allowed to be in the military, or enter a Federal courthouse for any reason. And that may also mean I won't be able to enter post offices either.   It gets weird. 

Things Change

I was hunting through my  papers (the kind usually capitalized "My Papers" because that distinguishes them from shopping lists, notes, line drawings your kids gave you, and other bits) for some stuff  I needed to get my new Driver's license,  and I happened across a bill from the local hospital from 1946;  my mother had been in the hospital for 14 days, in a two bed room. 

$73.50 room
$13.00 operating room fee
$10, anesthetic: Gas, oxygen, and ether
$ 1.50  medicine (Sulfa, synk(?), and P.A.C
$6.00  Routine & Pathological Examination

$104.00

I mean, really.   And a firm note at the bottom of the bill states that "all bills be paid before the patient leaves the hospital."

Before and After (as promised)

You only get one chance at Before, but there are usually a LOT of Afters.  I don't know if that's
comforting or not, but...

 When we moved up here in 1972  we bought a small trailer (an old 1957 Airstream) and lived across the driveway from the house for four years.  I took this photo before we moved up, which explains the wealth of field between me and the house.  It was truly a mess.  The old shed on the right  had a decided lilt northward and the house foundation had a decided lilt south (meaning the photo is a tad crooked), and the first thing we did was everything.

 The house was literally sliding off its old cut granite foundation, and like everything else up here, it went south. I suspect the bedrock under everything has a decided southward tilt, lord knows the property does...So we took down both chimneys,  dug out underneath the foundation (it pays to have neighbors with backhoes, yes indeedy), and hoisted the poor thing up on building jacks where it spent the winter and part of the next summer.  We also replaced the roof, one side at a time.

The windows were replaced, bit by bit, year by year.  When the siding was put on, we decided oh what a good time to add that porch.

I still miss that old shed and the attic above it.  It had an air about it, a sense of ancientness, and even though it swayed gently when the wind blew, I  mourned a bit when we took it down.

Adding to my wish list

Friend of ours who runs a drone-for-hire company took a spin over the property a few weeks ago, and these were two of the shots in the footage.  It's a huge huge file, so I won't strain the blog with the entire thing, but this is the house, surrounded by what apparently are tiny fields and great poufy trees. 

 It's a damn doll house, with pretend trees, isn't it.

I have just added "get drone" to my wish list, which now includes a cat tower, a pair of middle aged female cats, a motor cycle (with helmet), and a new honda hatchback.

Front view