Mislaid post from late November ...

I am between housekeepers. This may sound less than tragic to some of you, but I'm here to tell you that it is no small thing. The wonderful woman who kept house for me for ten years has moved on to other employment that doesn't include other people's homes. The women who is to become my new housekeeper can't start until the week after Christmas. She has kept house for ten years for my Girlfriend Judge in Athens and assures me that she is sure I will be "no problem" (sic). I'm not entirely sure if the fact that we are judges (she also keeps house for another judge, but he is a guy) makes us somehow more difficult to deal with. My last housekeeper always said I was one of her "easy" ladies. I'm not sure if I'd rather be a difficult judge or an easy lady ... At any rate, what all this is in aid of is that I find myself having to make some effort at keeping my house from falling to wreck and ruin in the interregnum between the Queens of Clean. While I am perfectly capable of cleaning house, let's face it; I hate it. That's why I have a housekeeper. I'm one of those OCD cleaners who practically uses toothpicks, cotton swabs and toothbrushes to clean. By the time I'm through messing about with pet hair, pet paw prints, pet nose prints, etc. (are you sensing a theme here?) I am so tired, achey and grumpy that no one in their right mind would want to be around me and the furkids can't figure out what my problem is. Tonight I got as far as scrubbing down the kitchen with 16 different kinds of cleaners and moving everything except the refrigerator to clean behind, above, next to and in front of. There are now enough cleaning cloths in the washing machine to cover a football pitch three deep. I hope I can control myself and not fall, weeping, at the new housekeeper's feet when she arrives.


The holidays, which were looming large and scary on the horizon, have now come thundering over the ridge and are bearing down on us with merciless and terrible speed. I had envery intention of attending the Lessons & Carols program presented by the local collage choirs. It seemed like a civilized and lovely way to start the proper season. However, after an unnaturally long day of perfectly uncivilized behavior in divorce court, by the time I got home all I could think of was a glass of wine and putting my face in a pillow (not at the same time). So on to the next holiday adventure; the city Christmas parade on Saturday. I have the same argument with the courthouse decoration committee every year; they may not put a Christmas tree and Christmas decorations in the courtroom. They decorate the living daylights out of the rest of the courthouse, but not the courtroom. You always know that Santa's coming when you see the jail trustee inmates, in their festive orange jumpsuits, dragging the ladders and boxes of Christmas decorations up from the courthouse basement. A strange sort of turning of the seasons. Beyond that, the season picks up speed as the parties and holiday functions start coming hard upon each other. Then my family will arrive on a big silver bird from Idaho and things will swirl into a whirlwind of ho, ho, ho.


I'm not at all certain how the furkids are going to take all this holiday hilarity. The Christmas tree is always a bit of a struggle. The question inevitably arises; what is the function of this thing inside the house? The answers are different depending upon whether you ask a dog or a cat. And none of their usual answers are satisfactory to me. Oh well, we've survived it before and we shall do so again. I'm wondering if this is the year I'll actually break down and procure proper storage for the tree ornaments. A number of them are as old as my adult life and a number were made by small children who now have children of their own. I suppose I should do something more respectful than chuck them all in a plastic box and threaten anybody who looks like they are going to sit on it. I'm am skeptical of the little ornament chests with all the little drawers for ornaments. That just seems too persnickity to me. Now that I have taken custody of the cedar chest that was in my parents' house from my earliest memories, I suppose I could store the Christmas stuff in there. After all, that is where the Christmas regalia was always stored during my childhood. For me the smell of cedar is the smell of Christmas. Well, good! That's settled then. No doofy cardboard ornament storage for me.

Daffodil & Baby Lamb waiting for Vacuum Monster

I think I've been sitting here long enought that the furkids have regained their sangfroid after the Vacuum Monster's last performance. The vacuum cleaner is noisy enough, but Daffodil, the butterball corgi, insists upon defending me against all dangers, foreign and domestic, that may ensue from allowing that machine to run wild in the house. She barks the entire time it's on, charges it, bites it, and generally makes a perfect nuisance of herself. And I don't feel a bit safer. The other dogs just growl menacingly from whatever perch each has assumed. The cats ignore the machine but they complain of the dog barking. We're all a wreck when the job is done. So now we're in a more sedate configuration; each is disported in some restful position around the room, from which they can leap to my defense if the occasion demands it. Thank God the UPS guy is through delivering for the day; I thought Owen was going to wear himself to a rag alerting all and sundry of the comings and goings of the big, brown truck. A ragamuffing feral cat, who would fit comfortably in a cereal bowl, has taken up residence on my front porch. He/she won't let me get near, but does deign to clean out the bowl of food I leave on the porch. I suppose I prefer the cat to come to the front porch because, when the neighbor's cat, Nicki, comes onto the back deck and sits just outside the french doors, my cats have epizoodies on the other side of the door. I shudder to think of how everyone's dignity might come unstuck if the glass suddenly disappeared ...


I think my equipoise has been sufficiently restored that I can venture disengaging myself from the furry tentacles thrown around me and go see if there is some new way I can mess up the kitchen. Be of good cheer, y'all.

Somehow mislaid from last month ...

I find myself with an unexpected morning to myself. The messy civil case scheduled for the legal crack of dawn today either settled or was otherwise momentarily compromised at the virtual last moment yesterday and, so, off the docket today. The multi-agency meeting long scheduled for the afternoon was, similarly, kicked into the latter part of the month instead at the end of court yesterday. It's a fine thing to sleep until it is light on a mid-winter morning. Even the dogs, in uncharacteristic cooperation, failed to greet the rising sun with their usual bravado.


I seem to have managed lately, in text messages or snippets on FaceBook, to disgruntle, annoy or confuse any number of people. I shall, therefore, take advantage of this unforeseen free time to either attempt reconciliation or further bumfuzzle things. You just never know how it's going to turn out.

~Grace does cat yoga ~

Firstly, to those who now think that I have no sympathy or consideration for the feelings of cats in general and house cats in particular; I refer you to the conditions obtaining in my actual home. While I have, in fact, gone so far as to make sure that the cats who live with me are incapable of reproducing and, further, have mutilated their little front feet so that they can not completely destroy the interior furnishings of my house, I believe that they will confirm that they don't have it so bad. I think the worst they can say of me is that I do not invite them onto my bed to snooze. Everything else in the place is up for grabs. The long and elegant fabric throws with lots of fin de siecle fringe not only give the couch and love seat a touch of shabby refinement, but also distract from the places underneath them where, over the centuries, feline teeth in fits of pique have said, "Oh, yeah? Watch this." I have a duo of felix domesticus so that neither should feel abandoned. In the dark watches of the night, however, it often seems that the noise level from battle joined between them bespeaks a signal desire for a solitary existence. I, at any rate, come off feeling that way when I have to listen to it! They consume pricey specialty foods and demand precedence in all domestic activities involving the non-human members of the corporation. In short, they probably live better than most of the human population of the world. I do not apologize for this; rather, I just wish that my correspondents who do not have to deal with me in person on a regular basis would not give such a PETA-worthy response to my off-hand remarks. Those of you who do have to deal with me know that I'm as likely to recess the mills of justice or reschedule appointments and other obligations in order to run home and let the critters out or take them to the vet as I am to do the same for a nuclear attack. As I wite this the furkid contingent has gracefully draped itself across furniture and along available sun spots on the carpet, waiting patiently for the next item on the day's agenda.


Then there is the matter of my apparent inability to fully recover from hip replacement surgery last year (12/21/10). While I really do not want to become one of those annoying old women who constantly and exclusively whine about their health, it's tough to ignore it when the first thing people ask is "How's your hip?" I suppose I should just embrace dissimulation and say brightly, "Great! Never better." Then limp away. I suppose the post-50 slide to oblivion has begun for me and I just don't want to accept it. Girlfriend Emily and I have re-enlisted at the YMCA and are trying to find some sort of regimen that allows us to get some useful exercise and companionship. At one time, when we seemed decades younger, we would meet at the Y every morning to exercise at 5:00 a.m. After awhile, getting up at 4:00 every morning became tedious, my mid-line joints started failing, and it all went pear-shaped. I have faith, however, that we will be able to figure out something. I think I might be ever so much more fun to be around if I felt more life-like. Please, God, don't let that be an illusion!! For the moment, though, it's amusing to watch the corgis go tearing through the house and out the back door in the morning for first airing, while Pumpkin (aged Dachshund) and I limp and groan along behind. Must keep a humorous sense of the world.

Lastly (and because I have to finally get about doing SOMETHING today), there is the matter of amateur music and funny headgear. I love my girlfriend, Jeanne, dearly and respect her many talents. She has, however, a baffling affinity for dressing up and theatrics. I say baffling because I don't share the penchant to the same degree (wearing feathers in my hair during a party at my own house doesn't count). We play music together and we play music for others. There was a minor contretemps the other day over wearing funny hats while we played for some folks. I didn't want these hats when we had to buy them years ago. I have always fussed and complained when she decreed that we would wear them to play for others. I finally, last week or so, just said, "No." I may, now I think on it, have said some other things, but they were mostly for emphasis. There is something slightly ridiculous about a bunch of post-menopausal women dressing up like Renaissance teenage boys. Especially when they need to wear glasses to see the music. I don't discount the misplaced fervor of those who who choose to attend Medieval Fairs (faires) got up to look like mutton dressed as lamb, but I have no wish to do so. So, no funny hats and better tempers when we play together. I have no objection to concert black, but I don't wear pumpkins, reindeer, hearts, shamrocks, flags, etc. to denote the season of the year. Maybe some nice feathers in my hair ...

And, with that, we shall leave this lamentable episode ...  

(Winston Churchill)

Nesting ... what's that all about?

I have never considered myself a particularly domestic woman. In years past I seemed to be busy enough that I didn't pay a lot of attention to my home decoration. Get a couch, sit on it. Paint a wall and leave it. Are there enough chairs at the dining table? So, why this sudden onrush of gilding the nest? It would be a miracle of nature if I was planning to populate the nest, so that's not it. Do I need some sort of validation that this is my little space in the universe? Am I just tired of what is already here? Who knows? But I have just dropped a shocking amount of hard-earned income into the coffers of several companies who flog wall stencils. We'll see how this all works out when they arrive and I try to figure out how I'm going to configure them. I've priced drapes/hardware for the bedroom and summer drapes for the living room. I can't really buy any more print art because I've run out of wall space and the stuff that is already hanging on the walls is there because I still love it. 

When I bought the house some years ago the fact that all the rooms were painted the same deep taupe-family color and all the molding was the same material seemed like a mindless relief from all the visual and emotional Sturm und Drang of the house I was moving from. When I decided to spend one year's income tax refund on a bathroom remodel, I had to repaint that bathroom when a wall was removed. That project inspired me to consider what else could be made better (more "me") in my living space. It has become an ongoing project. I have lists and lists on the List Apps on my smartphone. I'm not one who feels comfortable exhibiting all my thought processes in social media, so don't look for me on Pinterest or anything such like. I did go as far as getting out my stencil project file the other night when friends were over for dinner. The women looked at what I was considering, made intelligent comments on size, weight, color, placement, etc. One of the men said, "So, you're going to paint weeds on your walls?" They're not weeds, they're ornamental grass. Oh well, that particular individual spends hours and hours every weekend on a lawn tractor mowing acres of lawn during the growing season. As my mom used to say, "Consider the source ..." I've asked my Latin guru for a couple of translations that I'm considering for a statement on the dining area wall. Fortunately, his sense of humor doesn't run to telling me something scatological or inflammatory as the correct translation ... I hope!


My yard guy, Jay, and I are doing our annual winter dance in which we try to find a time when we both can be at my house at the same time to decide what needs to be done while the plants are still dormant. In a fit of manic exuberance (that may be redundant), I planted several American River birches along my driveway when I first moved in. They are now rather tall trees, which, in the summer, droop their weighty branches all the way to the ground. This is aesthetically pleasing, but it also means I have no idea what's coming down the road until I'm at the end of the driveway. So, we prune in the winter. The ornamental Japanese Maple needs attention again so that it doesn't look like a Dr. Seuss creature in the summer. I keep threatening to plant flowers somewhere, but that would simply involve weeding so it will probably remain in the threat category. I  plant the myriad of pots on the deck and then forget to water them. Jay constructed a line from the solitary water faucet on the back of the house to the deck, so maybe I'll have better luck this year. My green finger friends suggest a drip system. Sounds a bit medicinal ...

I have a new housekeeper. My last housekeeper was with me for ten years, so starting with a new one is a bit traumatic. It's rather like a new, intimate relationship. Frankly, people who are cleaning your house for you get to know an awful lot about you, and I have rather serious trust issues after the last couple of intimate relationships (which involved no house cleaning!). However, this woman comes with sterling references from people for whom she has been house cleaning for years. We've had our minor contretemps, but I think it's just the settling in process. What I have never been able to figure out is why housekeepers never put anything back exactly where it was when they are cleaning. My sense of the aesthetic may not be brilliant, but it is my own, and in my own home I want things to be where I intentionally placed them. Someone suggested that it's the housekeeper's way of letting me know that those things were, in fact, cleaned. Hmmmm. I think I'll know if they aren't cleaned without having to spend 15 minutes after I get home moving everything back where it belongs. Oh well, she leaves the harps alone and my music stands remain in their normal condition of artistic disorder, so I am reasonably content. I don't think I want to know what she may be thinking about me at this stage of our relationship!! At least the pet hair gets scraped up weekly ...


With that I shall force myself to get back to what little I actually have to do at the weekend. May all the best be with you and yours.

I'm not sure if there's one right place I'm supposed to be, he said, but I know a couple of wrong places I'd give a second try in a heartbeat. (StoryPeople)

In the Bleak Midwinter (apologies to C.G. Rossetti)

I spent an hour last week composing a blog on my iPad and managed to lose all that work and deathless prose in the slip of an unintended keystroke. I am firmly planted in front of the desktop computer this time with all the benefits of having to "mash on" (as they say in The South) about 47 keys six times before any command will be executed. I am used to this level of cooperation because I live with three corgis and an antique miniature Dachshund. Let us hope for better things with this effort at publication.


In addition to that, it seems that the fine folks at Blogger have, yet again newly "improved" the  user experience by moving everything around and changing the way things look. Have these pointy-headed young people in small cubicles nothing better to do with their time than change things that we foundation members of the Wrinklies Brigade had finally figured out how to use? Alas, change is inevitable and one must accept it. One does not, however, have to like it! I shall press on, but if things look decidedly dodgy, please address your editorial comments to the pointy-headed people.


In a fit of geographic and temporal dissatisfaction, I have lately found myself watching a ridiculous number of foreign language films set in Europe c.1930 - 1960. Some are more recent efforts than others and all show me a viewpoint different than the American view of that place at that time. The fit before that seemed to be reality dissatisfaction and I was watching a long series of films in which The Enemy hailed from another planet and/or had mutated or mechanical abilities not available to the average soldier, scientist, or citizen. It is curious how similar the themes of Europe's c.1930 - 1960 conflicts are to interstellar or inter-cellular conflict. Being a child with a vivid and active imagination, I have an almost endless capacity for manufacturing wild and exhausting dreams when I sleep. It has been most curious to see the effects of incorporating the visions of these European filmmakers into my already vivid dreamscapes so that I wake up in a breathless panic, not sure whom I can trust or where safety is to be found. I suppose these are old themes that all societies have had to grapple with, but I wish they wouldn't pursue me into sleep. For many years my catalog of dreams has included scenarios in which I was being pursued by something dangerous. During the last marriage there came a time when I suddenly found that, if I could only reach Someone, I would be safe; I would be protected. It was an especially bad dream the night my sleep story revealed to me that this particular safe harbor no longer existed (if, indeed, it ever had). Thereafter, Someone now appears in the dreams as one more dangerous pursuer; albeit not violent. The gloss given to this by the foreign films is the edgy and dispiriting visual images that add the sense of hopelessness in the middle of conflict; whether interior or exterior. Watching relationships and buildings crumble in a more violent and temporal war, during which no one really knows whether all this sacrifice is going to make a spit's worth of difference, gives a vivid imagination loads of fodder for sleep-time wildness. So, in addition to every other thing I can manufacture to make my life more difficult; the dreams have been wild! This is not to say that my dreams are never pleasant; they are, sometimes. To be honest, though, more often than not, I wake up thinking, "What the hell was THAT?"

On a saner note, my strange and amazing grandson has been dropping teeth like a birch tree in the fall! While the Grand Kids were here at Christmastide, we watched the entire Harry Potter canon. I was given to understand that there was, thereafter, conversation in Idaho about how to save up for Harry Potter costumes. I'm not sure that this tooth-shedding exercise is not in support of that effort! I may just send him a gift certificate for some Harry Potter memorabilia website and tell him to stop trying to look like an extra from Raging Bull. 


Else, the midwinter is settling in with its usual seductive invitation to sleep and to eating too much. The foodie publicists are all displaying huge articles with succulent photographs of vast pots of soup, chili, stews, and all manner of wonderfulness. I have a slow cooker (purchased in a moment of midwinter madness one year) that has the capacity to do almost everything except clean under the refrigerator. Sadly, it is most useful when preparing a meal for 36 people. Why is it that winter comfort food seems to need to be made in party or battalion amounts? Yes, yes, I know; "make it and freeze it," you say. I suppose so, but there is still something a bit tragic about taking one's shabby little one-cup serving bag of frozen food out of the freezer and standing in front of the microwave waiting for it to thaw and warm. Much more festive and companionable to ladle great scoops from the pot into bowls and onto plates. Alas, it is not to be. Thankfully, there are friends to invite over for midwinter dinners and cook with! And, notably, one of my foodie websites had an entire fistful of recipes for cooking with kale that did not involve black-eyed peas or other nastiness. I shall make some attempt at vegetarian-inspired healthfulness this winter. 


And now, furkids and harp practice call to me. Best to each of you!

"If life is a muddle, we can't look for love to make it all come right" (P.D. James)

(translate: Get your skates on, Jayne, and straighten up!)