Dear Family and Friends,
Yes, it has been a little while. Perhaps it was simply a case of desire needing to overwhelm procrastination for there has been much which has come and gone, and yet it is only now in which I feel the need to take the time and write. Taking the time to sit and write of my thoughts, happenings, and life in general as it takes place in our little place on the planet seems to be the stumbling block from the incubator to the tangible for there seems to be few times when my brain isn't buzzing with some thought on any given subject. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have an on/off switch so I could just turn it off and sit and enjoy all the sensory stimuli minus the analytical persuasions.
Saturday evening, driving back from the bi-monthly trip for nicotine and four long-shot-dream-drawings, a beautiful sunset was in progress. I pulled into the grocery store with my truck facing the west and wanted to just sit and watch it until it faded into darkness. Hoping my quick purchase would allow me the time to catch the last half of nature's show was in vain. It was over almost as soon as it started. The bright neon pink light highlighted by the varying cloud cover was quickly becoming an after thought to the earth's rotation. Time was in more of a hurry than I.
Much has happened since I last wrote. This year's version of the flu finally caught up with me. SJ had it about a week before me, although not nearly as bad, and then had another dose of it about two weeks ago. I missed a few days of work because of it. I think it happened in August and could give reference to the exact day if you knew when a certain stock doubled the day after (chuckling, I'm really into it don't ya know!), but I doubt you would be able to use my reference for any meaningful time frame.
SJ had her hands really full while I was ill because her mother was also in a bad way. She had come to stay awhile after coming home from the hospital where she had been admitted a couple of days before for an eating binge which had sent her blood sugar up to dangerous levels. Then, the day before I returned to work, she managed to hurt her back while still with us and was immobilized to the point where we had to call the ambulance to take her to the hospital again. She spent another three or four days there before again coming to our home to recover. She finally left one afternoon after I noticed she was dressed to go out and asked about her plans. She said she was going to check on her flea market booth. SJ and I were getting to the point where her presence was becoming annoying for it was obvious she was well enough to go home, but she was staying just to be babied and taken care of. I told her if she was sick she should stay in the house. I guess she took the hint and left as soon as I laid down for a few minutes prior to going back to work. But it didn't stop her from trying to play the guilt card on SJ for a couple of days after she returned home claiming she wasn't feeling well.
I've taken a much harder look at the relationship between SJ and her mother. SJ's mother is much more manipulative of her youngest daughter's feelings than I had ever really taken notice of before. She expects to be taken care of by SJ regardless of what circumstances are in play and mindless of any hardships which might be incurred by SJ and I for her well being. From all of the stories SJ has told me of incidents involving her mother and herself, I'm almost of the belief SJ was adopted for the sole purpose of attending to the needs of the woman she calls mother. SJ's life would be far less stressful if her mother would let her live her own life. While it is a very unkind thing to say, I wish SJ's mother would just plain die. The unfortunate irony is when her mother does pass away, SJ will be very unhappy for a time because both of her parents will have then passed on.
I never really understood, until just recently, why SJ would say from time to time how she really liked our family. After having witnessed her mother and hearing of what it was like to grow up with her older sister, it makes far more sense [yo little brothers, SJ's sister was ten times meaner to her than I ever thought about being to you. yeah, I know, you'll just have to take my word for it. (smiling)] when SJ says she really loves our family. Now you guys know why she is so eager to talk to you when we speak on the phone on rare occasions. It is also no wonder why she misses her dad so much. They had a wonderful father/daughter relationship from what I've heard. And the little time I did know him before he passed, it was obvious he was very protective of SJ, wanting only the best for her happiness.
Well enough of that.
We finally got a new computer. The 486 with Windows 3.11 wasn't connecting to the internet any longer (I suspect because the ISP just wasn't going to support the 3.11 operating system any longer). I thought if I tried to re-install the connecting software (the system was constantly bugging out and it seemed getting connected was becoming a hope and a prayer), I might be able to stretch the operating life a while longer. So one night I just deleted the ISP stuff off of the hard drive, and then tried to re-install the original disks which the ISP sent us. Nope, it didn't work. Well dumb me, I had no idea one had to UN-install a program before RE-installing it. I suppose I ended up being the initial reason for buying a new (used) computer, although in my defense, the ISP had said on their home page that they were no longer going to offer tech assistance for anything less than Windows 95.
So now we have a newer and soooooooo much faster system. I don't remember how much ram and all of the other specifics, but I do know it has a 10 gig hard drive and has Windows 98 as the operating system. Honestly, I kind of like the old Windows 3.11 better, but I'm getting used to Windows 98. It isn't so bad especially now that getting connected is a snap. Darn near every site loads with ease and quickly, too. Also, NOW! I can play the Monopoly CD game SJ got me two years ago for Christmas without the computer getting schizo after playing it. And play it I have! There is hardly a night that goes by that I don't play the game at least once. We've had the computer now for about 6 or 7 weeks, and I still love playing the game. One of these days I'll have to try and get a CD of Risk. By the way, the used computer only cost six hundred dollars. If it lasts two or three years it will have been more than worth it, although I kind of wish they would go back to the style which looked like a video cassette player. The tower system takes up more space in my opinion. But I guess beggars can't be choosy. (laughing)
Work has been very busy. Last Friday was the first day in about a month in which I actually felt I could spend the whole weekend doing stuff I wanted to do without feeling I should go in and try and get caught up. Of course I'm sure that won't last for long. We've got one customer which seems to be on us every day for some of his product. He had the brilliant idea to attach a 72 hour shipping clause in his product advertising for this year. The "just in time" business model doesn't work for a small shop like our's where we've got so many other customers and never know which one of them is going to order what at any given time. We've (or more appropriately...I've) pretty much let him know by being late with his expectations a few times, he'll just have to stand in line like every one else.
I didn't plant a fall garden like I had planned to do a couple of months ago. While we have had some rain a couple of weeks ago, it has been just to warm and to dry to, in my opinion, justify a higher water bill especially since natural gas prices are known to be going much higher than last year. We need to try and keep as much money as possible in our checking account to be able to offset the other higher utility bills which will inevitably come. Saturday, I finally pulled the last plants up. I've been slowly but surely digging trenches in the garden about 10" in depth and filling them back in with alternating layers of leaves, compost, and topsoil in hopes of having a good nutrient base for next year's garden. I've got about 25% more to do and then I'll be done. Had I been thinking, I should have used the lawn mower with its thatching blade and attached bag to chop up the leaves before I put them in the trenches. But I didn't. As a matter of fact, it was SJ who suggested the idea. It never occurred to me, but it sure was a good idea. It will just take a little longer for the leaves to break down. Hopefully, not so long that it will have been a waste of time come spring. Speaking of the lawn mower, I haven't used it since the end of July. It has been that hot and dry. The grass is only now starting to grow a little with the rain from a couple weeks ago and the cooler weather.
And speaking of cooler weather, we've already used the fireplace this year. We burned wood for heat for four or five days when we got that cold spell at the early part of last week. I was looking at our wood pile a couple of days ago and wondering if it was going to get us through the winter. With the winter we had last year, there would be plenty. I think I'll try and make some time Sunday to cut some wood. We've got two big trees down from a big blow we had back in July (scary, thought we were going to have a tornado for sure, but it only amounted to winds gusting to around 80 miles an hour), so I can start with them.
There was one thing which has happened since I wrote last which I was able to enjoy even as brief as it was. I guess because it has been so dry, the wildlife has been venturing a little closer to civilization in search of food. We had a compost pile next to the garden, and we were throwing our fruit and vegetable scraps into it pretty much on a daily basis. One evening, after the sun had already set, I was still out in the garden trying to get the watering done before going into the house for the night. As I'm standing in the enclosed cage of the garden, a red fox comes walking up out of the woods on the southwest side of the garden area. He was making a bee line for the compost pile.
I was taken aback because I've never, in all the years I've lived here, witnessed a fox coming as close as it did to any human before. He was easily within 20 feet of me at the closest point. It was getting dark and maybe I was just quiet enough and outside the range of his sense of smell that he didn't know I was there. I didn't waste much time getting a closer look because I had the garden door wide open, and I know foxes have been known to carry rabies. I hastily moved the tomatos off the bottom board which supports the sides of the door, and then quickly shut the door so he couldn't get in. By the time I got that done (no more than 15 seconds) the fox was gone. I didn't get a chance to see where the fox went because the growth of the tomato vines was so dense it blocked my view of the compost pile. But I thought it was so cool just to have seen one at such a close range. Haven't seen the fox again.
A final thought. Although the moisture level has been substantialy lower than we would be normally used to this time of year (though it seems to be normal for the past three years now), there is still plenty of color in the foliage this year. The colors aren't as vibrant, but they're still diverse enough to be an enjoyable view. It was all I could do while making my bi-monthly trip to keep my eyes on the road. The color of the foliage of the hardwoods against the conifers in the hills is still enough to have made it difficult to keep my eyes on the road. Nature still has a way of surprising. One of the major reasons I love living here.
And the market, lets not talk about that. (laughing)
Love ya,
Mike, SJ, and Bear(day by day these days) |
