birthday pres jul 08

Originally uploaded by Lady Birchwood

When we were in Duluth a month ago, I found some beads in a shop that reminded me of my friend, Miranda, because of jewelry and colors I’ve seen her wear. I purchased the beads — the rectangular ones — and fashioned them the next day into the emsemble you see in the photo. I also made a pair of matching earrings. We went to dinner last night to mark the anniversary of a special occasion in her life and I gifted her with this set. She seemed to like it, and it made me feel good to see someone else appreciating something I had made with my own hands. My creativity doesn’t run very deep, but this is something I can do with some success, and I always like giving my creations as gifts.

This is how the schedule is shaping up for the rest of the summer:

I work this weekend, July 19-20.  Dale is in Atlanta right now and flies home Friday evening.  Saturday morning, he is planning on going up to our land in Two Harbors and taking an overnight R&R to practice his fly casting, walk in the river, and maybe take some photos.  I’ll stay home and get caught up with laundry and no doubt take a nap with a book and a cat on top of me.  I’ve got the DVD, “Torch Song Trilogy” due to arrive from Netflix today and perhaps I’ll watch that Friday or Saturday evening. The weekend sounds fine to me.

Next weekend, the 26-27th,  is actually relatively  low key as well.  I’ve got a date with my friend Debbie on Saturday to go out and celebrate my birthday a couple of weeks early.  (I’m turning 49 for the fifth time on August 12.)  Usually we meet for lunch, and this is either followed by shopping or a movie.  I’ll be home by suppertime.  No plans yet for Sunday, the 27th.

Dale is back to Atlanta for the week of July 28-August 1.

Dale wants to go up to Duluth that first weekend in August.  There is a festival that weekend, The Festival of the Tall Ships.  Off to Duluth we’ll go Saturday morning.  (The “Tall Ships” actually make their arrival in port on August 1, but we will not make it up there for that.)  We will camp in our shed in Two Harbors Saturday night because all the motels, hotels, and B&Bs are full because of the festival. 

I have taken August 7-8 off from work as a treat to myself for my birthday.  I changed these vacation days to the 7-8 instead of the 11-12th, so that Dale could take some time off, too.  He is in Atlanta the week of my birthday, August 11-15th.  We have talked about making a trip to Spring Green, Wisconsin to see Taliesin, the home of Frank Lloyd Wright.  We’d leave on Thursday, spend Thursday and Friday nights in Wisconsin, and come back on Saturday.  We’d have Sunday at home.  Dale then flies out to Atlanta Monday morning.

We’re actually open right now on the weekend of August 16-17.  I think that’s good.  On Wednesday, August 20, Dale’s sister and her two daughters, ages 25 and 18, are flying in from San Diego and will be staying with us.  I’ve taken Thursday and Friday off from work on the 21st and 22nd.  Thursday, August 21st is Joan’s 50th birthday.  That may be a Mall of America day followed by going out to dinner for the Big Day.  We’ve mentioned about going to the State Fair on Friday.  On Saturday, we’re hosting a family get-together at our house to celebrate Joan’s birthday with everyone who can attend.  Sunday they fly home to San Diego.

The next Friday, August 29, we leave on a nine-day vacation to Chesapeake Bay.  Am I excited for my first major vacation trip in a long time?  Right now, no.  Right now, it’s making me tired just thinking about everything that’s going on ahead of time, and I’ve had no energy to even think about that trip.  I’ll try to throw some stuff together, make sure that my housesitter/cat nanny is oriented to her duties and get on the plane.  That’s about the best I can manage right now.

Frankly, I’m exhausted.  I had a dinner date last night with a friend, a coworker of my husband’s whom I haven’t seen since she moved to Atlanta about 7 years ago.  She is here in the Twin Cities on business this week, and I picked her up at the hotel at 6:30.  We went to a nearby Indian restaurant and by 8:30, I was ready to plunk face-first right into the remains of my basmati rice.  I wanted to just go home and go to bed!  What a sorry excuse for a dinner companion, although I did pretty well for the first hour or so!  Then I started to fade.

It’s the constant heavy workload here at the lab that is fatiguing me and keeping my repetitive strain problems in a chronic state of agitation.  I’m taking ibuprofen or Aleve everyday, and that tends to drag me down, too.    It has a depressant effect on me; I’m well aware of that.  I’ve got to take something, though, to keep the inflammation at bay.  I’m battling to keep my spirits up and my head above water right now.  There have been times this week when I feel like I’m losing that battle.  I wanted to call in to work sick today and just sleep!  (I didn’t.)

That’s how it’s shaping up!

more cat pictures

This reminds me so much of the cat who was such a part of my life and my heart for over eighteen years. She was a beautiful cat, but she really wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. She used to love to sit in the sink, just like the cat in the picture above. My husband used to tease her all the time with little things. (Make no mistake about it, the cat thrived on this “abuse!”) One of the things he would do when she was sitting in the sink was turn the faucet on just a dribble and then pull the stopper closed in the sink. Mandy would sit there until her butt was soaked before she’d jump out of the sink, wondering how her bottom got so wet! She never really seemed to catch on to some of these little jokes….

I miss her.

Shakespeare once penned in his play, MacBeth:

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time…

Time creeping in a petty pace?  I’m afraid not, Sir William! 

As I wrote yesterday’s date, again and again, I was reminded that it was my mother’s birthday.  Daughters almost always remember their mother’s birthdays.  My mother has been deceased for awhile now, and I paused to recollect how old she would be had she still been alive.  At first, my mind settled on 79.  Then I thought, no, wait a minute.  She was 73 when she died, and that was in 1993.  She would be 89 now if she were alive. 

The number 89 didn’t shock me.  What shocked me was the fact that she had been dead for 15 years now.  15 years!  How does 15 years go by so fast?  The memories of those painful fourteen months between the diagnosis of her lung cancer and her death on St. Patrick’s Day 1993 are still fresh, are still very much with me.  Everything about that experience is still with me, not so very far under the surface.   It doesn’t seem possible that a span of over 15 years separates me from that event.

Time is a strange thing.  It goes so fast at times yet it cannot separate a person from some experiences and emotions.  Some things will always seem like they happened only yesterday.

Funky Lamp
Originally uploaded by Lady Birchwood.

We decided today to shop for a countertop microwave oven to replace the one that is mounted over the stove and is being held together with duct tape. A range hood only will go in over the stove to replace the hole where the microwave went.

We went to ApplianceSmart this afternoon, an outlet store operation housed in a concrete building in an industrial area just off our I-280 freeway in St. Paul. We found a suitable microwave oven that will tuck into the corner of the counter by the refrigerator. We loaded the new microwave into the trunk of the car, and then Dale said, “Let’s go into that store next door!” It was called River of Goods, there was a BIG SALE sign out front, and neither of us had any idea what they were selling. So we went in.

It was a huge store selling goods from India, Pakistan, and China. They were going out of business and everything in the store was 70% off the lowest marked price. There was a lot of really funky stuff in there, like the footstool with elephants mounted on all four corners and the Victorian-style peacock lamp. The base was the body of a peacock and the shade was stained glass featuring the “eye” pattern of the tail feathers. I liked it but it wouldn’t fit in with my Arts & Crafts simple decor.

However, we found this lamp, and Dale really liked it. It is a simple style resembling maybe Asian, maybe Frank Lloyd Wright Slash Prairie School. Maybe it actually defies having a style hung on it, but Dale kept going back to it and looking at it. We had no idea really where it could possibly be placed in our home, but Dale finally said, “I think we need to buy this lamp.” I said fine.

I was laughing inwardly at the major redecorating that can take place over something simple as buying a lamp you don’t exactly know what to do with. First, you need to go out and buy a table to put it on. Then the old chair doesn’t really go with the new table, so then you buy a new chair. Of course, you need a new sofa to match the new chair. And then the new furniture looks too big in the living room, so you buy a new house. All because you bought a new lamp on sale (this one was $47.00), even though you didn’t know quite where to put it!

We also bought a new rug for the living room. The old one is about 12 years old, and I was in the mood for something new, something with a lighter background. (Doesn’t show the white cat hair as much!) The old one is now under the dining room table and the braided thing that kind of went okay in there at one time and now doesn’t work so well anymore (13 years old) will get donated to someone.

New Rug
Originally uploaded by Lady Birchwood.

And the new rug for Bubba, the long-haired white cat! (This was a steal, too! 47 bucks!)

I’ll let you all know how the redecorating and/or new house buying goes! (Just kidding…. I think!)

Duct Tape Repair
Originally uploaded by Lady Birchwood.

My microwave oven, which was new when we purchased the house almost 14 years ago, is mounted above the stove. The microwave works just fine and I don’t recall that we’ve ever had a problem with the “guts” of the thing. The problem is that over the years — and this problem started not too long into its lifetime — the plastic parts that comprise the frame of the door and the control panel, the handle, and the vent above the unit have deteriorated. They’ve literally cracked and crumbled and fallen apart! Glue has been used to repair some of the fractures. Screws have been used in other areas. For months now, the handle has been hanging by one screw, and I mentioned to my husband that it would be nice to get those broken parts replaced. It doesn’t affect the functioning of the microwave and the door seal is still intact, but it’s unsightly and I hate inviting a housesitter to come in and look after the cats and have that junky-looking thing in the middle of an otherwise nice kitchen.

Dale took the front of the microwave apart today to determine all the parts he would need to replace. He then sat down at the computer and went to a major appliance parts website to order the parts. Guess what? The parts are no longer available! They’ve been discontinued by the manufacturer!

So I have a perfectly good microwave with the plastic parts falling off the outside of the it. The parts have deterioriated because of exposure to heat and grease and steam, all the exposures that one can expect when a microwave is designed to be installed over the stove! We’ll need to buy a new microwave to remedy this situation.

In the meantime, there is…..

DUCT TAPE!!

Duct Tape Repair 2
Originally uploaded by Lady Birchwood.

Well, it’ll do for now, I guess.

On the Island

Originally uploaded by Lady Birchwood

This does not seem like the best place to have a computer work station: right in the middle of the kitchen on the center island. And, indeed, I am a bit in the middle of things here, although my husband says it’s not a problem. He said it WOULD be a problem if I were parked in front of the cabinet under the island where we store the liquor, but that’s not the case, so everything is cool. Access to the liquor is unimpeded!

Why have I set up shop in the kitchen? The first reason that plays heavily into this is my cockadoody Verizon Wireless Internet connection. I chose this last year over Comcast, my only other option for highspeed Internet service in our area. Well, after a year of Verizon Wireless Internet service, I’ve discovered that it is NOT highspeed Internet service unless you’re sitting right under a Verizon relay tower. Then it works fine — just about as good as highspeed service. Unfortunately, I do not seem to either close enough to a tower or have enough unrestricted transmission to make Verizon a great provider for me. It’s slow and I get disconnected frequently. It seems a bit worse upstairs in the study and somewhat better downstairs in the kitchen/dining area of the house. Why don’t I just dump their sorry butts and get Comcast? Well, it’s called a two-year contract, and I don’t want to pay the $200 penalty to end my contract early. Next spring, though…. I guess I’m going with Comcast unless a better option comes up.

Second reason I’m parked at the center island:
I’ve been having a lot of trouble over the past six weeks or so with what I think is tendinitis in my shoulder area and extending down my right arm. Doing things at the computer when my body is not in correct alignment is aggravating the problem, and I was not in a good position just sitting at the kitchen table. I discovered that sitting on one of the stools, installing a full-size keyboard and regular mouse under the island, and placing the laptop on the counter aligned my arms pretty well.

So that’s my answer to why I’m here!

Stay tuned as I answer more of the mysteries of life later on. Maybe.

The Superhero of Pet Owners.

You rock.

I want you to own me.  Really.  Your pets are lucky to have you.  Keep doing what you’re doing.  You’re doing a great job of knowing how to take care of your pets, what to feed them, and how to give them a healthy lifestyle.  They will live long and happy lives thanks to people like you!

Take the test!  http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-am-i-a-good-pet-parent-test

 

When I got home from work on Tuesday, the “comfort advisor” from Sedgwick’s Heating & Air Conditioning was there. My husband had informed me that the representative would be showing up between 5:30 and 6:00, and I rolled in at 5:31.  By the time I arrived on the scene, Dale and the Sedgwick’s Comfort Advisor dude had already written up the paperwork on what was going to replace our kaput AC unit. I was asked to throw out a credit card for the guy since I had my bag in my hand and Dale’s wallet was upstairs. Without so much as an explanation as to what I was paying for — I only knew from glancing at the paperwork that whatever it was cost $2900 — I tossed the  dude my credit card.

Well, what I paid for was a basic model air conditioning unit, the only one Sedgwick’s carries that replaces the compressor that they installed almost 14 years ago when the house was built. Anything else would require rewiring and repiping since the newer units don’t even use freon anymore. The model we bought can be a basic replacing of the unit that we had with no extra work required.  That’s what $2900 buys us.

I’m still ticked about having to buy a new AC unit for that much money since we only use it a handful of days during the summer. I’m glad on those days that we DO have it, but I probably wouldn’t even opt for central AC if it hadn’t come as part of the house. And, of course, when you own a house in an “executive development,” it’s expected that it will have central AC in it. That AC compressor that we’re replacing was probably run a total of less than 150 days in its 14-year lifetime, and if left to my own devices, I wouldn’t even replace it and opt instead for air-conditioning the sleeping quarters with room AC only when needed. I could buy a lot of room air conditioning for far less than $2900!

But that’s not what we’re doing because we have to have central AC to be good suburbanites and have what everyone else has, to have what people would expect us to have to own a house where we do. We’d have to replace the central AC eventually anyway if and when it comes time to sell the house, which is what we’re planning roughly 10 years from now.

I could have burst into tears when this transaction was completed on Tuesday.  I felt so frustrated.  We need whole-house, central AC like we need typhoid fever, considering the handful of days it is required during a typical summer in Minnesota..  I lived for almost 40 years of my life without central AC.  What I found frustrating to the point of tears is that we’re locked into this decision because of cultural expectations that a house in a certain kind of neighborhood will have central AC.  We’re required to conform to a certain standard of living in order to live where we do.

I hate that.  I hate that with a passion.  It hit me full force again how much I hate living in the “executive development” environment.  Yes, I like my house well enough.  I like my wooded lot and our wildlife.  I like the way that I can sit on my back porch and ignore the fact that I’m in the middle of suburbia.  But on occasions when I’m forced to pan out from that narrow focus and recognize the cultural environment I live in, I realize how ill-suited I am to be a member of that community.  I’m too much of an individualist and a non-conformist.  I don’t do at all well with cookie-cutter environments.  I don’t do well with societal norms and expectations when it comes to making personal decisions about my lifestyle and what I need out of it.

I don’t NEED a new cockadoody central AC unit!  I would have preferred to talk about OPTIONS rather than what we need to keep the house at a certain standard of living, a certain level of expectation more designed to fulfill someone else’s needs than ours.

But I don’t have that choice right now and therin lies the frustration.

The new cockadoody AC compressor is suppose to be installed today.  Happy birthday to me.

 

I am very busy at work, people.  You know that Salmonella outbreak that has been going on for awhile now nationwide, the one that allegedly involved the tomatoes?  Investigating stuff like that is what I do for a living.  I work on the people side of things, meaning that I don’t analyze fruits and vegetables.  I analyze what the sick people and their friends and coworkers are shedding in their bodily substances.  The folks in the other half of our building who work for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture analyze the food products that may be making people sick.  Between the two of us, we come up with data that link the two.  Suffice it to say that we are currently up to our eyeballs in fecal material, to put it somewhat delicately!

Interestingly enough, the subspecies of Salmonella that we’re looking for is named Salmonella Saintpaul, named because it was first identified in this area many, many years ago.  My namesake!  I just hope that I never catch my namesake!  That is what my job is all about — trying ultimately to prevent people from getting sick with these things.

Well, off to work!