thefantast

The remodeling of my house is proceeding nicely. This week the doorway between the dining room & the kitchen-family room got widened for a eventual French doors, & more sheet rock got put up. For weeks he was mostly replacing old wiring & adding outlets. It was nice to be able to gather up all those extension cords, but it wasn't dramatic changes when you walk in the door.

But the most important change was replacing the rusty main sewage pipe with a plastic one. The plumber said it was a good thing I got that done--the old one wouldn't have lasted much longer. The old pipe ran across the basement low enough you had to duck under it to get to the circuit breaker. I got rust stains on the shoulder of several shirts & a nice jacket because I didn't duck low enough. He was able to hang it high enough I can walk underneath it without ducking at all. The electrical inspector after the flood said normally he wouldn't approve a circuit breaker with something blocking access like that. (The power company required an electrical inspector after the flood whether you hired a licensed electrician or not.)

Also this week my contractor dug up the rusted-through conduit to my garage & buried a new plastic conduit. So my garage has lights & an outlet again. Woo hoo! I spread the strips of sod on a low area of the back yard. Now we need some rain so that grass won't completely die & so I can stomp on the edges of the sod making them more or less level with the surrounding grass. (No, I'm not watering it. It's a long way from the faucet & I don't care that much about the section of lawn behind the garage.) The now-grassless strip beside the sidewalk will become flowerbed.

Yesterday I had mowed much of my lawn when the switch to turn (& keep) the mower on broke. I took the switch apart & found that a vital plastic piece had broken off. I've only had that mower about 2 years. I looked on-line to see if I could order a replacement switch, but couldn't find it. So I guess I'll call the company. There is a service center in Binghamton, with hours not convenient for an employed person (at least the hours weren't when they looked over my 1-year-old flooded lawnmower ~2 years ago & declared it not worth repairing). I just checked--there's a 2nd authorized service center now--about the same distance away but closer to the highway.

Normally I mow the front & side lawns 1st, but yesterday I mowed in a different pattern & started the back before the front was done. Then my lawnmower broke. I borrowed my next door neighbor's almost-new push reel lawnmower just to finish that little section in the front. I can remember being allowed to push a reel mower when I was a little girl. This one cut the grass shorter than I like, & little twigs stopped it & needed pulled out of the reel, so I don't think I'll be buying myself one.

This morning when I checked my email there was a message from Bill Cooper that my sister's ex-husband Dan Henley had died. This was a shock--he was only 48. Bill wrote that his death was related to his diabetes. I hadn't seen Dan for a number of years--we used to go to an annual camping & Renaissance Faire gathering but those ended when too many people moved out of the area.

I found his obituary on-line:
Daniel "Chip" Henley, 48, died suddenly on May 6, 2009. Funeral Mass is in St. Aloysius Church, Caldwell, on Monday at 11 a.m. Visiting is in Farmer Funeral Home, 45 Roseland Ave. (at Eagle Rock Avenue), Roseland, on Saturday evening from 5 to 8 p.m. Interment is in Prospect Hill Cemetery, Caldwell. Chip was born in Montclair and was a lifelong resident of Caldwell. He received a B.S. degree in biology from Cook College-Rutgers University, New Brunswick, in 1983. Chip was a self-employed jewelry designer and maker. He was the son of Jane Blessing Henley and the late Daniel John Henley; brother of Jane Puleo (husband Nick) and Katherine Henley (husband Dan Martindale), and uncle of Lauren Puleo, and Caroline and Thomas Martindale. In lieu of flowers, donations to West Essex First Aid Squad, P.O. Box 662, West Caldwell, N.J. 07006 or American Heart Assn., 1 Union St., Suite 301, Robbinsville, N.J. 08691 would be appreciated.

OK, I've decided to try blogging on weekend mornings. Because that's when I used to write in a journal. (But my journal didn't lure me into mindless online games.)

A week ago Thursday there was frost on my windshield in the morning. The next day it got into the 70's, then Saturday & Sunday got into the 80's, & Monday it got into the 90's!. And it was a 3-day weekend for me--Monday was my pass day. I enjoyed it being warm enough to do things outside, but it really got too hot. I opened all the windows & storm windows & turned off the furnace. (I finally turned it back on last Thursday when cloudy skies meant the house didn't warm up enough during the day.) Katy was freaked by a curtain blowing in a window, then enjoyed sitting next to the screens smelling the outdoors. I planted some pansies & did some cleaning including hosing off the front porch & its furniture. Now I have a nice clean place to sit outside much earlier in the season than usual. I'm close enough to the street that it gets quite grungy over the winter.

I guess my biggest news of this week, which will seem weird or TMI to most people, is that while cleaning Katy's litter boxes I saw sausage-shaped poops! I'd had her for some time when she used the litter box in front of me, with really bad diarrhea. And I realized I'd never actually scooped proper sausage shapes out (it's all coated with the litter). I didn't rush her to the vet because she seemed otherwise healthy--instead I experimented with different cat foods. I thought she might have a food allergy.

When we did go to the vet he said it was probably chronic colitis due to giardia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giardia) from drinking out of a puddle (the shelter took her in as a stray), but if he sent a stool sample to Cornell for testing it would probably come back negative. He gave her a shot to reduce the inflammation in her gut, & some syringes of medicine to give her for 10 days. There was improvement that wore off as the shot wore off, but little effect I could see from the oral meds except that she became increasingly wary of me. He also told me that multiple treatments generally don't get rid of chronic giardia, but a high fiber diet manages it--he recommended a brand sold by vets. And she isn't contagious. Just wash my hands after cleaning the litterbox, don't let toddlers play in the litterbox, etc. Giardia apparently prefer specific species, but cross-species infections do occur.

I've been feeding her Iams Digestive Care, with gradual improvement. I had tried it before, but didn't notice immediate improvement so tried others--some definitely made it worse! Sometimes she stepped in diarrhea with a back paw while trying to cover it with her front paws, then tracked it around the house. Ugh! She never understood that when I held a paw under a faucet & washed it I was helping her.

I probably have to assume she'll carry the protozoa for life, which means not getting a 2nd cat (sharing litterboxes). And dogs have been known to treat litterboxes as snack boxes.

In other Katy news, one evening this week she suddenly ran under my chair & was doing something under there. I assumed she was playing with one of her catnip mice. Then she came out carrying a real mouse. A little gray house mouse, not a field mouse like we used to have in Big Flats. She played with until I managed to scoop up it up with a yogurt container & a piece of paper--it was apparently wounded & could no longer run. She watched me scoop it up, but kept looking around for it.

Rodents don't freak me--I handled (& sometimes killed) plenty as a biology & psychology student as well as in my 1st post-college job, but I don't want wild ones in my house. It's an old house (~1885) & not well sealed up, so I wasn't really surprised.

All day today I've been hearing on the radio & TV news about tornado deaths & devastation in Lone Grove OK(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Grove,_Oklahoma). Which is saddening me more than usual because I used to live there. I was only a month old when we moved there & 3 when we left so I don't really remember it, but when I was growing up my parents sometimes reminisced about living there--with affection.

We survived the Bush-Cheney regime and have entered a new era. I am extremely (& perhaps irrationally) excited & optimistic.

I didn't expect to watch the inauguration live but our computers at work weren't working (as usual) so I joined a small crowd of people watching on a smallish TV in a training room. That room used to have an enormous TV, which recently was replaced by a smaller (but still large) flat screen TV. But it apparently hasn't been connected yet. Anyway, I sat near the front & had a good view. There was applause & laughter when Katy Couric announced that Biden was now President because it was after 12:00 & Obama wasn't sworn in yet (& J___ pointing out Obama automatically became president at 12:00 without the oath), and more applause when he took the oath, & especially vigorous applause after the Address. Most of us left immediately after the Address. I was planning to make up for missed time by working during my lunch hour but the computers weren't fixed yet so I listened on my little radio while eating my lunch then went for a walk (indoors), getting back to my desk minutes after we were allowed to work on the computers again. There was a tiny illicit TV near me, and I occasionally checked it too.

My thoughts about the ceremony itself? The Obama girls were adorable. Warren's invocation was annoying but could have been worse, & I was glad Obama was more inclusive in his Address. Aretha Franklin is definitely past her prime but was still pleasant. The quartet was lovely but awfully quiet for the setting. I was surprised how badly chief Chief Justice Roberts flubbed his lines--that oath isn't that long. The Address was wonderful. I heard only the end of the poem after I got back to my desk. And Lewis's closing prayer was great.

Thank you, all veterans, especially my son Nathan (Afghanistan), my brother David (Viet Nam), & my nephew Scott (The Gulf).

I have a big tree in my front yard which always keeps most of its leaves longer than my neighbor's trees--which have been basically bare for a couple weeks. Tonight when I pulled into my driveway my front yard was covered with leaves, & I looked up into an almost bare tree. I don't know what triggers it to suddenly drop leaves. It's been a warm fall, with frosts but not yet a hard freeze, & this week we're having unseasonably warm weather.

I voted in my 11th presidential election* today. Using one of New York State's ancient mechanical-lever voting machines--probably for the last time. I hurried over to the Owego Elementary School as soon as I got off work. There were a lot of cars there, but I got a parking spot close to the door. Ladies at a table just inside the gym door asked me my address & directed me to District 7's corner. As I walked over I thought to myself that I've stood in longer lines than that for school board elections. Then one of them came hurrying up behind me & apologetically told me I was really in District 6. That corner had no line!

*For the record, my first vote was for Hubert Humphrey in '68. Some of those past 10 elections were tough decisions for me, & most of the candidates I voted for lost. This time as the campaign continued I became increasingly dismayed by McCain, whom I used to admire, & impressed by Obama.

Nathan scolded me for not writing in my blog for a long time. Most of the time my life is pretty boring & when it isn't I'm busy, but he said he wants to read about boring—so here goes.

I had a little over 100 trick-or-treaters. Somewhat fewer than previous years. I can't blame the weather—it was lovely for this time of year. My favorite costumes were a pair of toddler/preschoolers with little blue-grey wigs, white face paint, red shirts & pants, & white ovals attached to their fronts with "Thing 1" & "Thing 2" written on them with glitter.

Yesterday I finally got my $600 tax rebate check. Woo hoo! But sorry, politicians, it won't change my votes a bit.

And today I got paid (or at least I got the stub showing 2 weeks pay going into my bank account--officially tomorrow). But this was no ordinary paycheck. We finally got our 3% raises. And besides the 3% raise that all the NY state employee unions got, our union is getting a gradual raising of our pay scale to bring us up to the rest of the state's unions. Because when our union split off from NY's biggest union (in, I think, the early 80's) NY punished them by creating a new, lower pay scale, etc., just for the new union. The other punishments have been removed over the years, contract by contract, (for example, I now get as much sick time per year as state employees in other unions do). With the new contract we get pay increases each year until in 2010, when we will be paid by the same pay scale as all other state employees. And this 3%+ pay increase is retroactive to the end of our last contract, with the retroactive amount added to this check instead of being sent as a separate check. So, this paycheck is over twice the size of the my paycheck 2 weeks ago--probably the largest 2 week paycheck I will ever receive.

This evening a little before 10:00 I was surprised to hear fireworks. Surprised because last year the fireworks were at the end of the Strawberry Festival, on Saturday night. But the Festival started Friday evening this year, with bands performing downtown. I didn't go to that because it rained most of the day today & looked like it could easily rain some more. For the same reason I didn't rush out to see the fireworks--but my curiosity soon won & I grabbed a rain jacket. As I walked toward the river it got foggier & foggier. When I reached a gap in the trees on Front St & stopped walking I could faintly see them rocketing up, then the clouds overhead would turn red, or gold, or whatever--with no visible fireworks displays. Soon the fog cleared enough I could faintly see the fireworks themselves. It really was weird. And fascinating. Oddest of all were the corkscrewing ones, because the lighted clouds had a writhing look. The limited number of people around me were mostly quiet but the finale brought the sound of cheers from the crowd down by the park, and honking car horns. Which I soon realized were car alarms set off by the vibrations from the finale.

It's in the 90's this afternoon, & not much cooler inside. A good day to try to get caught up on my blog.

Last week Rachel & family came to visit. They arrived early Wed. afternoon. We all headed outside where we picked buttercups & played on my next-door neighbor's swing/climbing set and in a pop-up playhouse* I have.  Rachel mentioned that we didn't have to worry about fire ants because there aren't any around here & Nick found that hard to believe.  We ate dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant (http://local.yahoo.com/details?id=11682184). 

Thurs. afternoon we went to Hickories Park (http://www.townofowego.com/hickories.htm).  Nick enjoyed the '60's/'70's metal playground equipment & throwing rocks in Hickories Creek.  Zoe enjoyed the baby swing.  We adults had fun playing with them.  At 1 point I climbed to the top of a snail-shaped climber because, well, I've always climbed to the top of climbers.  Nick was alarmed, afraid Grammy would fall.   We had dinner at  the famous Blue Dolphin Restaurant in Apalachin (http://local.yahoo.com/details?id=11676622).  I ate all Greek food.  

Fri. morning we stopped by my office to show off the kids.  Zoe smiled & dimpled & charmed while Nick hid behind us & under my desk, & begged to leave.  Oh, well.   Then we went to The Discovery Center (http://www.thediscoverycenter.org/) in Binghamton.   There were school busses all over the parking lots & the museum was mobbed with kids on field trips.  I believe a year ago Nick would have been overwhelmed by the noise, etc., & at least would have needed his ear protectors, but he had a marvelous time.  He spent most of his time playing with the bubble stuff & climbing over ramps, etc. with traffic cones etc. apparently representing construction jobs.  He also waited patiently to get into the firetruck cab.  Zoe enjoyed the under-3 room.  One of the things it had was a padded rectangle on the floor about 10' long & 2' wide with 4 raised ridges (sort of like soft speed bumps) across it.   Rachel put her at 1 end & ran to the other & called her.  Zoe crawled to her with increasing confidence going over the bumps, then turned around & crawled back!  I went to that end, & Zoe crawled back & forth a surprising number of times--I called it her baby roller coaster.

Sat. about 5:00 AM I woke up enough to notice the sound of voices through bullhorns/speakers.  I immediately guessed there was a fire nearby, & when I opened my eyes & looked around I saw a bright light that definitely wasn't the moon shining through my blinds.  Looking outside, I could see water squirting out below the bright light, so I knew it was a big enough fire they were using the tall ladder truck.  Soon it was light enough I could see that the fire was only steaming at that point, & soon after that they turned off the water, lowered the big ladder, & headed back to the firehouse.  In the afternoon, after everybody had left, I walked over to see .  I found 2 basically gutted once-lovely Victorian houses, 2 more houses with major damage, & a 5th with only siding damage visible (on TV they said there was some roof damage too) (http://www.owegopennysaver.com/site/news.cfm?brd=2564).   All the houses had been divided into apartments so I knew a lot of people were homeless.  A young woman kept going into the worst-damaged house looking for things to add to a pathetically small pile of rescued titems.  Walking around the block, from a parking lot, I could see some totally destroyed remains of barns/garages & burned out cars behind the houses.  Listening & talking to people I learned it started in an old barn & that nobody was injured, although kittens & birds died.  During the week they arrested the owner of the barn the fire started in (& the house in front of it) for conspiracy to commit arson & another man for setting the fire!  It seems the owner, who has a long criminal history, had been ordered  by Code Enforcement to remove the old barn. (People around here seem to refer to the former stables behind these Victorian  houses as barns). 

The previous weekend I went to Bath, where Gretchen & Chris were competing in a lumberjack meet (http://the-leader.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=520071&CategoryID=37508&ListSubAlbums=0).  It was on the county fairgrounds, with most ot the competing on the racetrack between a stage & roofed bleachers.  I had planned to keep Teresa in the bleachers out of their way, but she was not interested in watching them (she doesn't really understand the difference between competing & the practicing they do at home) & we really couldn't bring all her toys to the bleachers.  So we ended up hanging out under the shelter behind their car, which was behind the stage.  Especially after it started sprinkling then raining.  She kept calling to Mommy & Daddy to hurry up & get out of the rain.   Her vocabulary has dramatically increased since I saw her last. 

I had a wonderful time with all 3 grandkids (as well as my daughters & sons-in-law).  (OK, Chris was sick with a cold & ear infections & not really fun, but he managed not to be too grouchy.)  I just wish it wasn't so long until I'll see them again. 

Well, by now it's into the low 70's outside, & it's time to go to bed.  Thanks to fans in the upstairs windows it's not bad up there.  When it got into the low 80's I went out & mowed the front & side yards.  I've also eaten dinner & watched TV--I haven't spent all afternoon & evening writing. 


* I tried to find the playhouse on the internet--I suspect it's discontinued.  May have already been discontinued when I bought it.  This one http://www.amazon.com/Giga-Tent-My-First-Playhouse/dp/B0018ZTHF0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1212895133&sr=1-2 looks similar. 

When I pulled into the driveway this evening I saw crocuses blooming on the south side of the house! It got into the 40's Sunday & the 50's today, so I shouldn't have been surprised. They may have bloomed yesterday, but it was my pass day & rain kept me inside. I didn't walk over for a closer look today because it was pouring rain, with a strong wind.

We basically had a mild winter this year without much snow, but I've been getting sick of it just hanging on. But on TV last night they said the maple sugar harvesters are having a great year with lots of cold nights & above freezing days, & not getting warm long enough yet to make the trees leaf out & end the season. I'm always happy when local farmers do well.

We had near-record total rainfall for March this year. Luckily it was spread out over the month so flooding has been limited. And since homes in the lowest areas have all been rebuilt on stilts, demolished, or are awaiting demolishing, there's been no damage I'm aware of.

My cold turned out to be not nearly as nasty as the December one, & I'm now recovered.

One cold day in February I started searching this site http://mysite.verizon.net/vdziadosz/ looking for a nestcam far enough south that the nestbox would be occupied. I found this, http://watch.birds.cornell.edu/nestcams/camera/view?cameraID=C100016. It's been fun watching it partly because owls are nocturnal so in the evening when I have time to check it out mama owl is active--stretching, eating, etc. And now there are chicks! 

I've got a nasty cold.* So today about noon I lay down for a little nap--then heard a siren stop on my street. I looked out a window & saw volunteer firefighters heading toward houses down the street that have been divided into apartments. When a firetruck arrived Katy, who was also looking out a window, gave a meow of protest & ran toward the far end of the house--I guess she didn't like that siren. I went out to investigate.

I never saw any smoke but when I got next door to the house the firefighters were going in I smelled it. A young woman standing by the curb told me she had gone out on the 2nd floor screened porch to smoke & she saw smoke "coming out of the paneling". Whatever was burning, they soon had it out (using only 1 hose & not connecting to the hydrant) & put a fan in a basement window to air it out. I was impressed at the size of the response--3 firetrucks, the fire investigation truck, & lots of volunteer firemen plus some EMTs & police--there were uniforms all over the place. Some of their Easter Sunday dinners must have gotten delayed.


*I consider this most unfair because I already had one this winter, over Christmas, & although I got a lot of colds when I had school-age kids I've gotten used to hardly having any.

Today was a nice, quiet, day at work and I was getting a lot done. Then, in about mid-afternoon, somebody shrieked something about Gov. Spitzer and a prostitution scandal. We rushed to look at CNN.COM on her computer & spent spent much of the rest of the afternoon talking about this & looking up different news web sites trying to find more information. Every so often we reminded each other "He's our boss!". It was really a total shock. He was "The Sheriff of Wall Street", "Mr. Clean", the man who was elected to clean up New York government. I'm still stunned.

Merry Christmas!

Skip this if you don't want to read about office politics.

Last week my supervisor K___ told us we were getting a new supervisor. She was shocked that we already knew--she thought we hadn't noticed that she had talked for a long time with B___, who everybody knew had demanded a lateral transfer after 5 years in her position because it became clear she could never get a promotion unless she got back into a supervisory position.

K___ was nervous about her new position--basically a liaison between the computer geeks & the rest of us, translating computergeekeze into English & fixing all our computer problems that she can so the computer geeks can concentrate on the tougher problems. But I'm ecstatic. I've never gotten along with K___. Not when I was put in her unit because my wonderful supervisor had a heart attack & they wanted him to come back to a smaller unit, & K___ was a leader in making me not welcome in their clique. (I felt like a kid sitting at the "wrong" table in a junior high cafeteria. I requested a transfer but was refused perhaps because I declined to "narc" and get specific about my complaints).

Then only months after I was finally moved to a wonderful new unit where I received a very warm welcome, my new unit's supervisor was promoted & K___ was promoted to replace him! She proceeded to "help" me by standing or sitting in my cubicle all day talking almost constantly then writing me up because I wasn't getting much of anything done. My fellow unit members kept assuring me I didn't deserve the treatment I was getting. I didn't request a transfer because except for her it's a great unit & new supervisors generally get sent to QA after about 2 years. But finally, after almost 1 1/2 years, she's gone. (In the meantime K___ gradually had too much else to do to spend much time in my cubicle, and her supervisor finally came back from a lengthy sick leave & in a meeting with both of them I requested that K___ treat me with courtesy & respect which was followed by a long meeting in her supervisor's office & some improvement, & more recently someone in my unit told her supervisor that they didn't know how I got anything done with such frequent interruptions & for a while she was hardly talking to me).

Anyway, today she was to start training in her new position & my unit was to get a "filler" from QA until B___ has trained her for a couple weeks. (I wasn't at work today--it was a "pass day" for my compressed work schedule.) Friday we gave K___ the gift we'd bought to be our Christmas gift (it's customary to take departing supervisor to a nice restaurant for lunch). We all assured her she'll be just great in her new position & one person said she would miss her as a supervisor--definitely a minority opinion.

B___ & I were in the same unit years ago (the unit with the supervisor who had a heart attack) and she was always pleasant and cheerful. In her computer position she was very knowledgeable & always cheerfully helpful--she never sounded like a question or goof-up was ever "dumb". I feel like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders.

Katy the kitty is spending the night at the animal shelter, having been taken back there for her spaying. We got ice last night but not like some parts of the country--my sidewalk and driveway were walkable with care, my car was easy to scrape, and the roads were fine. And the traffic was very light. I did get lost (again) driving there. The shelter is just down the embankment from the highway--I've driven by it hundreds of times--but to get to it requires driving back roads & I didn't quite remember how I got there last time (as opposed to all the other roads I went down when I was hunting for it when I went there last month & adopted her).

It was nice this evening being able to set my dinner on the table and step away leaving it unguarded, but other than that it seems really empty here. She has been a joy. She's pretty quiet--she rarely meows. She meets me at the door when I get home & follows me everywhere (as long as I stay away from the vacuum cleaner). She loves sitting in my lap and getting "scritched". She is (so far) a much quieter sleeper than Callie was so is welcome in my bed. (Callie used to get evicted for shaking the bed with vigorous grooming).

When I took her for her first checkup with a local vet (part of the "package" from the shelter) the vet thought she looked more like 6 months, not 5, & was concerned that the shelter was not having me bring her back for a month for spaying--afraid she'd go into heat before then. Today the woman at the shelter was sure the "5 months" written on her papers would have been her estimated age when she arrived as a stray at the end of July, not when I adopted her in November. But she agreed with me she looks small for a 9 months old. And I do believe the shelter would have spayed her at about 6 months if she had been about 5 months old when she arrived. (Katy's age was an issue because she was wondering if she needed another booster shot. She decided not to since the new vet said she was all set till next summer.)

Anyway, I'll pick her up tomorrow morning.

 Happy Thanksgiving everyone!