Love Is

Nine PM was approaching. My wife and I were focused on a German television show, “The Nordic Murders”, depending on the captioning to understand the language. An entertaining show, we were commenting on the clothing and differences from American television while guessing motives. Two of the house’s three cats slumbered on the floor.

A sudden hard thumping from under the house drew our attention. Grabbing the remote, I froze the screen. “Under the house,” I said. “The skunk.”

We rushed the window and drew up the blinds. The night was dark. Two lights with sensors had been installed outside for events like these. They remained unlit.

The room fell silent. I moved toward the room’s doorway and began speaking, looking back as I did. Behind my wife, on the room’s other side, I saw the outside lights go on. Pointing, I called, “Lights, lights,” and strode toward the window.

My wife leaned over and looked out. “Something ran out. It headed toward the front door.”

I pivoted, hurrying toward the front. “Come on.” As I went, I detoured left. “Flashlight, wait.” My wife kept on to the door. As I joined her, I flicked on the outside light. She unlocked the door and opened it, saying as she did, “It must have been two skunks because I don’t — “

Skunk smell slammed me in the face. Back-pedaling, I shouted, “Skunk, skunk, close the door, close the door.” My wife whipped it close.

We stood there, staring at one another as the skunk’s spray wafted around us. “Get the air purifier,” my wife ordered. “Hurry, hurry.”

As I returned with the air purifier from the other room, she turned on the bathroom fan. “Do you think the purifier will help? Should we turn on the furnace fan?”

The smell was rising and engulfing us. “No, let’s just use the room exhaust fans and the purifier.” I went around turning them on.

A few tense hours were endured as the scent rose and fell. The purifier labored through the night. Morning brought relatively skunk-free air.

Outside, I put the board back in place. It’s there mostly to make noise when the skunk goes in and out to alert us about her activity. We speculated from what we’ve read and learned that something had gone under the house and threatened the skunk. She retaliated. But what really happened that night, we’ll never know.

February 2, 2021 0

A Repairing & Painting Dream

I was in a place of business. What business? I knew in the dream but that knowledge wasn’t transferred when I awoke.

We were fixing up the place. I’m not certain if we were preparing for visitors or if we were selling the place and moving out. That seemed uncertain, like it was possible that both were happening. We were painting the place a soft white in some places and a pale blue in other areas. I was directly doing or organizing most of the work and explaining to others what had been done, what’d failed, and what needed to be done. Walking around, I pointed out places where damage had been painted over on the walls, especially on the wall to the right, by the corner, and ceiling, telling them, “That needs to be redone. We need to fix it before it’s painted, because you can see the damage, and if you can see the damage, it’s probably worst underneath.” All were nodding and agreeing.

Later, I changed clothes and walked to my car to leave. My new clothes were a light blue shirt with tan pants and jacket. When I reached my car, I realized that I didn’t have the key fob; I’d left that in my other pants. Irritated with myself for overlooking the key fob, I stood and debated about what to do, as if there was a choice, right? Accepting it, I began walking back.

February 1, 2021 0

Needs

January 31, 2021 1

Raisins & Mushrooms

One of today’s questions: does peanut butter come in a jar or a can? My wife and I are certain that it comes in a jar.
The can/jar question rose because it’s time for the bi-monthly food donation to our town’s food pantry. Bi-monthly is one of those ambiguous expressions that often causes more conversation than it saves. “Do you mean twice a month or every other month?” Raised eyebrows often accompany the question, along with a still expectation as everyone waits to hear, which is it?
COVID-19 has caused our food bank to decree “cans only”. Why not jars? I don’t know. They quarantine the cans; couldn’t they quarantine the jars? I haven’t researched the issue. Did I miss a Fauci about cans and jars? “By the way, jars are not safe. Cans are.”
The food bank puts out a list of needs. On that list is peanut butter. That’s why we’re perplexed. PB comes in jars. Of course you’re going to need peanut butter if you’re only accepting cans. What’s wrong with you?
Anecdotally, I’ve never heard or read someone say, “Go get me the can of peanut butter,” so I think we’re right on this. I wonder if they’re changing the way that we think of cans and jars, like they changed the way that we think of literally by changing the meaning because misusing the word became so commonplace that everyone agrees, easier to change the definition at this point.
Guilt has set in. Others are raving and recommending television shows. I’ve tried them. I don’t like them. I want to like them, for their sakes, for the world’s sake. I feel like I’m undermining the social order by saying that, “No, I don’t watch that show. I don’t like it.” “The Tudors” was one of those shows. Friends raved about it. I turned it off.
Among shows that underwhelm me are all reality shows. Never got into any “Survivor”. Yes, I do like the “Great British Bake-off”, or whatever its name is. I wore down my molars, gritting my teeth as we streamed two seasons of “The Masked Singer”. My wife wanted to see them all unmasked, even as she shook her head at the show and snapped, “If I hear them say that one more time…” She never specified the threat. She didn’t like hearing the hosts bubbling again and again and again, “That was wonderful. You’re amazing. Who are you?”
My wife wants to make mushroom stroganoff. See, she likes mushrooms and she’s a vegetarian. I do not like mushrooms. They’re an abomination. I can accept them steeped in cheese and buried with real food on pizza. When I encounter them elsewhere, they remind me of slimy fungus. I do like mushrooms grilled on meat, or grilled with other mushrooms.
The question is, will I eat the mushroom stroganoff? Sure, make it; I’ll try. If I don’t like it, I’ll eat something else. She’s bought the ingredients. She understand my mushroom dislike; she feels the same about raisins. Mushrooms are my raisins, if you follow.
Food. We all need it, we all want it, we all might not like it.

January 31, 2021 2

Friday Laments

More first world blues…I’m just cryin’ in my coffee.

One problem with the local C-19 vaccination plan: teachers are a high priority. Great! Many agree with this. But, boo, the shots are being administered during school hours. It’s not a dash and do, either.
Our biggest issue in Oregon is as it is elsewhere, just not enough C-19 vaccine to do the job. People are generally accepting and patient, because that’s how it goes for now.
I went for years without a doctor. Then I had trouble in Peckerville and ended up with a urologist. The trials exposed my hypertension, so I ended up with a GP. Each prescribed medications for conditions – BHP and BP – that I’ll probably take for the rest of my life. Less than three years later, both of these medical professionals are gone. They’d moved into the area, it didn’t work out, and they moved away. I liked both and they did a good job, but I’ll need to find someone new when my prescriptions expire this year.
The healthcare insurance front grows more expensive for me. As a veteran and military retiree after twenty years, I had good healthcare insurance via Tri-Care. There were no premiums. That went on for years. Now, starting this year, I must pay $25 per month premiums. Not bad. But, since I’m turning 65, I’m required to get Medicare Parts A and B in order to keep my Tri-Care. A is free; B is about $150 per month. Guess this is all due to that wonderful ‘support the troops’ rhetoric that I often hear. As it so often happened, big promises were made with great patriotic fanfare and furor. Then, when the bill came, everything changed.
I’ve ordered meals online from restaurants three times in the last three months. Each was to give us breaks from what’s in our larder and breaks from cooking. It’s a treat. But each time, they’ve offered a coupon, and then, each time, there’s no place to enter the coupon code when the order is processed. Small matter, but irritating: like a lot of modern life, it seems like a false promise.
What I’m watching: “Baptiste” on PBS via Prime — terrific series; “His Dark Materials” on HBOMax, very strong, good production values and acting, faithful to the trilogy; “Doom Patrol” on HBOMax but it’s falling in our appreciation as the characters become sillier and seem to take forever to come to grip with matters; “All Creatures Great and Small”, a remake of the first series of that name, based on the books, and it’s almost as entertaining and charming as the first go-around. We’re not watching “The Undoing” which just seemed too insipid in too many ways after three episodes; we prefer more dynamic and intelligent characters. Just recommended to us is Portait of A Lady on Fire and Mary Shelley, so they’ve been added to the list. Still working through the last of “Vera” and “The Wire” during late night down time.
Hulu manages to continue to irk me. Their system often seems to think we’ve watched an episode that we haven’t and wants to jump us ahead. It’s happened enough times that I don’t just click and go, but make mental notes: what’s the season, episode number, and title that I’m watching now? What was the last one watched? What’s the summary? Did we see this? No. I saw others experienced this. The fix is the digital equivalent of a hard reboot or a hammer to an appliance: sign out and sign back in. That works most of the time, it’s claimed. Guess I’ll try it. Haven’t done so yet because logging in with a remote is a pain, you know? I’m such a whiner.
Meanwhile, Prime Video, the service previously known as Amazon Prime Video, has the opposite issue, insisting that I haven’t watched an episode when I’ve already watched it.
Got my coffee. Time once again to write like crazy. Meeting Text for the first time today. She’s the late Zipper’s daughter. Looking forward to what she has to say.