Can You Believe It?

And now a vole. (Look it up. I did.)

Yes, a vole in my front yard.

Good night nurse!

P.S. Later:
I bought some Gophertox, poured about a tablespoon of it into a trowel and put it as far down as I could get it into the vole hole. If that's what it is.

I won't know if it works, I'm thinking, because I never saw the vole in the first place. But if there is a vole and if this stuff really works, then good. I'll be glad.

Did I say I don't like raccoons?

Yep. I was right. Too easy. The raccoon was back yesterday evening, well before dark. He was digging up what the squirrels had buried. Nuts, I suppose. And eating them.

This time I was upstairs on my bedroom deck. I banged things and yelled and waved my arms. He wasn't alarmed, and he didn't go anywhere very fast.

I was looking for something heavy to throw at him. All I had was a flower pot, which would have broken, no doubt.

I don't know if it's the same raccoon. It looked bigger. I don't like it.

Rudy says he'll bring a trap. Linda says try wasp spray.

I think I'll try both.

In the Wild Right Here at Home

Last night I came downstairs to put away my cleaned strawberries. It was raining, so I stepped into the garage and set my sprinkler system to r, for rain. It was about 7: 15, plenty of daylight left. Back in the house, as I looked out my kitchen window onto the back lawn, I saw a raccoon walking toward the house. Daylight, remember. They don't come out in daylight. . . . . . Except when they do. Obviously.

I do not like raccoons. I've written about them before, because they have been in my yards before. And in the neighbors' yards and driveways and under porches and on my upstairs deck. And quite threateningly there. They scare me. Their claws are sharp. And the one on my deck let me know that if the door had not been between us, I would have been very sorry. He bared his teeth and made an ugly noise, finally turning to go and climbing down very slowly. I won't be forgetting that encounter.

So I needed to scare the raccoon in my yard last night.

It came to me in the early hours of this morning that I should have a baseball bat--or a gun. You might know it's against the law to kill a raccoon, but if I could do it, I would break that law this minute.

Anyway, I've thought the gun thing through and think I can't have a gun. Who knows what might happen if I had a gun? Still, a baseball bat would mean I'd have to get close to the animal, and they're fast. Scares me to think.

Here's what I did last night, not knowing if it would do any good. I pulled up the blind. The raccoon heard it. I lifted the window, and he stopped moving. I growled or shouted or whatever I thought to do, and he turned and ran. Of course, I looked for him all night and have looked for him all day today. I will most certainly look for him tonight, because that just seemed too easy. I yell and he goes away.

I do not know where he went. I wish it would be someplace far away, though I suspect his nest is near. But he went, and I am very glad he went. I think I'll ask at Home Depot or Zamzow's if there is something I can put down or spray that would keep the raccoons away.

Do you think that's likely?

Sad

Andrew called yesterday to tell me they took Missy to the vet and had her put to sleep. The long sleep. 

Michelle, Aaron, and Nick took her, and they went in and held her while it was done. So she wouldn't be alone, so she would know they loved her. At the end, she dropped her head into Michelle's lap.

So kind of them. 

 

Then that Schiess family spent the rest of the day crying. Still tears come, but they know it was the needful thing. She was in much pain, couldn't eat or see or hear and could hardly move around. 

She was part of their family for 15 1/2 years. Even Andrew, who said he didn't ever want a dog, loved her.

It is sad, yes, but they loved her, and such love is never wasted.

Wind

The wind is up today.

Someone told me that a windy day dries up all the water you may have put on your lawn. I am certainly no expert on things like that, but it appears to be true. And so, while I had planned not to water tomorrow morning, I guess I will, because, judging by the strength of the wind and the length of time it's been blowing--all day long--everything must be really dry by now.

I do not like the wind, but I don't want to complain, not with the folks in Moore, Oklahoma, having lost everything to the wind and its accompanying power to destroy.

We have had a few tornadoes, probably more than a few, in Idaho. That Kuna desert is a bit of a tornado alley, but nothing has touched down in the inhabited areas to do damage. Nothing worth mentioning. No loss of life or property. Unlike the two in Oklahoma, one Sunday, and the worst in history on Monday.

According to reports, it was more than a mile wide and its 200+ mile-an-hour fury lasted longer than 40 minutes. No doubt more than one person thought it was the end of the world. And it was for 24 people, the end of their lives on this earth.

I've seen those news films of the place that was a city of neighborhoods, now rubble and ruin.Such events do much harm and destruction, but they also show the goodness of people--those who rush in to help. Many, now, are coming from far distances and working beyond their normal strength, just to help. I am thankful for them.

I'm not sure why I write of this today.

Later . . . 
Now I know. I just saw an interview with one of the teachers at Plaza Tower Elementary School, where seven children died. But not the four she had with her.

One boy said, "I love you Miss Crosswhite. I don't want to die with you today."
She said, "We're not dying today." And to the reporter she said,  "Then I did something I'm not supposed to do as a teacher."

"What was that?" asked the reporter.

"I prayed. Out loud."

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'Please, God, don't take these children today.'"

This is worth writing about. And now I'll say no more, except that I ask you to ponder that a while.What she did and what she said about it.

May 18

I had thought to go up to the cemetery today, Wayne's birthday. I want to and I don't want to. It's never very satisfying. He isn't there, and I don't know what to do with myself. I talk to him here, and I don't usually talk to him there. 

Yes, it's a lovely place, but it would be lovelier if he were standing there beside me.

Anyway, if I go, I'll go alone. Duh. And I suppose I'll note it here. 

In the meantime, he is 74 today. That is, on this earth, if he were here. I do not know how they count those things in the realm where he currently resides, or if they count them at all. Don't even know the proper words to use when writing about it. Obviously. I haven't been there. And, truth to tell, I'm not anxious to go. That is old news.

No, I'm not scared.

Nancy called to tell me Bud Pedersen died. Alone in his house. Was not discovered for several days. Died at his front door. Was he going out? No answers to that question or the many others, like why did he die? What killed him? He had just turned 70. Yes, younger than I, another person who lives alone and does not want to die alone. Does not want to die . . . period.

Bud was a colleague at BSU. Taught in the English department for 25 years after his 20 years in the military. I liked him fine, but we weren't close friends. For many years he used an essay I wrote on how to achieve "voice" in writing. Nancy, too. Both used it as a model for students in their E101 classes. That is a fact and it pleases me, but it's not the fact I started out to write about.

It's Bud's death I'm writing about. No autopsy. Nancy thought it was the law here, as it is in her home state of Texas, that when someone dies alone an autopsy must be performed. Apparently not.

Nancy said she spoke to Bud the week before, tried to get him to go for a walk with her, and he said yes, then, the morning of the walk, said he had decided just to stay in bed and watch TV. She said he had put on weight since his retirement from teaching.

I never saw Bud other than slim. 

Right. The issue is not his weight either. It's dying alone. No one knowing it. I don't like the thought of it. 

I say again, someone in my family ought to call me every day. Just to see how I'm doing. Just because. 

 

Yes, Angelina Jolie

Something I read not long ago (45 days, to be exact) got me writing daily. Again.

I hoped to be writing important and profound things. I mean, who doesn't hope that? But, so far, it's not much more than a journal, a daily dumping of stuff and events and weather and grumbling about my yard or the squirrels or the neighbor's pine trees. Whoa. I nearly got going there.

I know a journal is not all bad, but it is less--less to be valued, I think--than I want it to be.

For many years we have been told that we write our journals for those who come after us. I disliked that notion, although I have to acknowledge the truth of it. Witness my dad's journal, which my sister Janeen has been transcribing so that all of his children may have it to read. This some thirty+ years after his death.

But these pages, 45 days in a row of them now, are for me. I have called them About Being a Person and have no idea if anyone will read them. Ever. And, although I taught my college students that all writing is written to be read, I have had to divorce myself from that idea as I write these pages.

Sure, sometimes I think I have written something clever or noteworthy that I'd like someone to read. But not often. Once in a while I put something from it here or at Carol's Corner. So there.

All the above is a long introduction to this: Today I wrote about Angelina Jolie. It's true. I did. Pretty unlike me to do so, but, nevertheless, true.

So if you want to know why, go to Carol's Corner (because I did just copy/paste what I wrote today) or look into the news today and you'll find the story of the remarkable thing she has done. I'm not being sarcastic here. It is remarkable, risky, and other adjectives. Maybe good or kind.

Wow and hmmm

Andrea: They're giving samples of decaffeinated coffee.
Me: Oh goody.
A: You could drink that. Couldn't you?
Me: No. I don't drink coffee.
A: But it's decaf.
Me: I don't drink coffee. Why would I drink decaf?
A: But you could.
Me: It's moot. I don't drink it, and I wouldn't drink it. I stick with water, milk, juice, and an occasional soda.
A: You can drink soda?
Me: Sure.
Judy: Yeah, she can drink soda because they bought the Coca-Cola company and the Pepsi-Cola company.
Me: (Having heard at least half of that one my whole life), That is not true.

A few things come to mind.

1. Soda is not necessarily Coca-Cola or any drink with caffeine. It can be 7-Up, Root Beer, Sprite, Ginger Ale, Orange soda, Squirt, just plain soda with no flavoring, etc. and etc.
2. Why are people like that? "They bought the Coca-Cola company," as if it were a fact or a secret finally revealed, or as if it settled something.
3. I don't like to say that people are stupid. That is not very kind, and I do want to be kind. But really.