Tree trash

I've had two tree guys come and give me estimates. I think I'll not have any others come. I liked both of those guys, but there's $560 difference in their bids, for the same work.

I have several trees I want trimmed up, and I want the limbs of my front dawn redwood cut so they don't hang in the Shuells' yard.

The other neighbors' pine trees bother me, of course. I want them cut back so their limbs are not over my space, over my property line, which they are big time at this time. I have spoken to my neighbor and told her what I plan to do. She was agreeable, but I don't think that means they'll pay, although they should because the law says their trees are trespassing.

Did you know that?

I asked her if she knew when they bought the house they bought the trees also. She said, "No."

But it's a fact. And there are three pines in their front yard and two in the back. Four of the five trespass onto my property. And, by the way, contribute greatly to the crummy way my lawn looks.

I didn't say all that to her, but she said to me, "I actually thought these were your trees."

Fat chance.

One of the tree guys, Matt, the guy I won't be hiring, said, "These pine trees. People plant them and then look what happens to them. They get huge."

"I know."

 "And why did they plant them so close to your property line? They're almost on your property line."

"I don't know and I know."
 
(My across the street neighbor was over and I told her I was tired of sweeping and raking and hauling pine needles. She said, "Well, but you don't want them cut down, do you?" I said, "Oh yes I do."  But I guess I'll have to settle for cutting them back.)

Matt pointed out something I should have thought of, as in DUH. "Even if you cut these lower limbs, the tree will still drop needles on your property."

"Oh brother. That is true."

He said, "These trees belong in the forest."

Exactly.

My dilemma

Paul has spent half an hour on the phone with me, helping me troubleshoot (try this, try that) my printer. He is very good and patient to do that. We went down all of HP's steps. At least twice.

Nothing worked.

My printer is broken. Right? I never had a printer that broke.

Do I have to buy a new printer? Or should I buy a new car?

Just kidding.

Addendum:
Just kidding about the car. I bought a new printer today, Friday, the 13th. 

A Small Story

Yesterday I found a little note from Wayne, my husband, to his mother. He was four years old when he wrote it and missing his mother very much. She was gone for ten weeks because she was struck down with polio in July 1943.Wayne's baby sister, Kate, was six months old. A very hard time for them all. The children moved in with their grandparents for those ten weeks and maybe a little longer. I suppose Goldie spent his time, when not working, at the Kaiser Hospital with Doris.

When Doris returned home there were many people--nurses and others--to care for her and help her because she could do nothing for a long time. And the children were kept from her. Eventually, she could walk again--I do not know how long that took--with a cane and a brace on her left leg. That is how I knew her.

During her convalescence at home, Wayne was responsible for carrying and emptying the bedpan. Kate says he told her years later that he liked doing that job because of the warmth of the bedpan. It was warm like his mother.

The note breaks my heart. The printing is large and irregular, but clearly it was important for him to write it. He drew lines across the paper to help himself keep the words straight.

DEAR MAMA

I AM A GOOD BOY. HURRY UP AND GET WELL. WE MISS YOU TOO. LOVE FROM KATE E AND WAYNE

Kate E is Kate Ellen.

It's the "I am a good boy" that breaks my heart. I think he always wanted to be a good boy, especially for his mother.

A Little Grammar

PB2. I already don't like it, but that just means I have a) a closed mind; or b) a resistance to change; or c) an aversion to products using words incorrectly in their ads or on their labels; or d) all of the above. It's powdered peanut butter. One reason I don't like it is that the label says 85% less fat calories. Less is the wrong word.

Less is used sometimes as an adverb and sometimes as an adjective. In this use it's an adjective, but it's still the wrong one.

Here's why: Because the noun, calories, is plural, the descriptor must reflect the plurality and so has to be fewer. Fat doesn't really influence the adjective because it is also a modifier of calories. If the message on the label said 85% less fat, that would be correct. But it's fat calories.

You get it, I'm sure.

Nobody cares about that kind of stuff but me. But to me it speaks of carelessness, in every sense of that word, or ignorance, and reflects on the product itself. That's, to me.

Yeah, I like peanut butter. And I buy the old fashioned kind you have to stir. But you don't add water and stir. That's something else I don't like about PB2 right off the bat.

You try this powdered stuff and let me know. 

P.S. Amazon sells PB2, sent me the picture of the jar, its price--$4.79--and encouragement to buy.

A Few Matters

Last night Lola came and waited for Anna and Paula. We had a good visit, about 30 minutes, but she had to leave before they arrived. Then they came, and Carol Pladsen was with them. We went to dinner, they came in afterward and stayed an hour. This story has a point. It's this: all the while, I was wearing only one earring. Here and at the restaurant, of course, and no one said a word about it. No one. This substantiates my claim that women become invisible as they age, especially white-haired women. And, no, my hair does not cover my ears. It's just that nobody really looks at me. Oh well.

Or perhaps they think I'm losing my mind and they didn't want to call attention to it. 

Naah. That's not it.

*     *     *

Troubled by my dream. Wayne was in it. So was Gary O'Keefe, but he was not the troubling part because he means nothing to me. It was Wayne, his indifference, his total okness without me. Just a dream, Carol. Funny, they both looked as they used to. Only I had white hair.

*     *     * 

My friend Joan says I should keep telling myself I'm young. I'm trying to. Last night didn't help.

Oh Well

My daughter has a new hair style and a new color. Her hair is darker, and she now has bangs.

Her 10-year-old son said, "Mom, you look like you're 20 years old."

She said, "Thank you."

He said, "It wasn't a compliment."

Watsonville. It's About My Dad

I stopped in at Whole Foods today, looking for tart cherry juice, which, says Julie, I should drink before bed time to help me sleep. Okay. I got some. I also bought some fresh strawberries, even though the price was too high. But they were from the USA--good--and from Watsonville, California--better.

Watsonville is one of this country's finest agricultural places, close up to the Pacific Ocean. Yes, I've been there, but that's not the point. The point is my dad. I can't think of Watsonville or see the name without thinking of my dad. It's a place he loved. The place he wanted to retire to after Mama died. He'd drive her big Dodge out there, buy some property--he was good at that--and live out his days as an artichoke farmer. (I've written of this before.)

I wasn't there, but I've been told that his other children, who were there, reminded him that he simply couldn't do such a thing. He was 88, weakened by his age, and handicapped by his eyes--this was before today's slick cataract surgery. They told him such a thing was out of the question. He said, "I know, but I want to." 

This small story, especially his response, breaks my heart whenever I remember it. Of course he wanted to. I may have thought I understood him when I wrote about it nearly 30 years ago. But now, I know better how he felt. I am without my husband, as he was without his wife. And what happens is a mix of things. I mean, sometimes I think I can do anything I want now, go wherever, because I have enough money, and I have a 
certain freedom I didn't have when my husband was here.

That's a hard thing to write, because . . .  just because. And hard for me to think my dad may have felt a certain freedom after my mother died. Seems wrong, disloyal, to even think it. Nevertheless, he wanted to go away and be somebody and do something he'd never done before. I know the desire.

But there's another part of the mix. We are not as free as we think. Something holds us back. Our age, our bodies, and, for me, my very aloneness.

Well, anyway, the berries are nice.