wishing for a ghost, goblins

My ballot is sitting here on my desk. I've got it about halfway filled out. I should get to work on the remaining bubbles, but I'm hanging out here instead.

This last week was another fine one in my little world - trying not to think of school shootings and embarrassingly short-term press secretaries, among other things...

• A couple of my tutor students are trying my patience. One, I'm sure, does next to nothing (probably actually nothing) outside of our single 1-hour weekly tutor sessions. She's been warned that she's on track to fail. It's like she doesn't know or doesn't care that she canNOT pass a class if she turns nothing in.

Her advisor has reached out several times, but has gotten no response. And I'm a little jealous. Why does she not ghost me too?? Seriously, ghost me! It's fine that she will inevitably fail, but why did she sign up for tutoring? She's wasting our time. 

• Okay, vent over. I am grateful for my easy going tutin' job. Work is typically fun, more like a hobby, and I did have this little dialogue with another student:

Me:  How do we get the sine of x all by itself?

Tutee: Offer it some candy?

HA! I needed that after Miss Do-Nothing.

• Coworker Kitty mentioned that she's looking for a new OB/Gyn to monitor her "AMA (Advanced Maternal Age)" pregnancy. That is the term for pregnant women over 35. She was also over 35 with her first pregnancy, which was characterized as "geriatric pregnancy" at the time. Somebody wised up and changed the term. 

• And speaking of which, I hear Hillary Swank is pregnant at 52 years old?! So, was it IVF? Otherwise, that's a very old egg, and maybe should be referred to as geriatric.

• On that note, I've noticed some older ladies at the gym have been striking up conversations with me. The (adults only) gym has a pretty diverse age range, but many are 20- and 30-somethings. I imagine these elderly ladies want me to be part of their gang.
  
  
• We've continued cleaning up Helms Deep these past two weekends. Today, we prettied up a particularly gnarly part of the road.

I didn't take a "before" photo, but trust me when I say this is mucho better. Our truck nearly high centered upon our arrival, but our departure was smooooooth sailing. I think we're getting the hang of this Land Manager business.

The cows have returned to their rightful home. Most of our trail cam captures are of the dear deer family - Mom and The Twins. Haven't seen any more owls. 

• Our flatland neighborhood, however, has several new occupants as we get closer to Halloween. I find this one wonderfully creepy.

howdy, neighbor

chirping, freecycling, personhood

It's nearly mid-October. The fall semester is halfway gone. Time really does go by faster as we get older. A little wrap up of last week feels in order: 

• That tutee who crashed his bicycle on the way to tutoring a couple of weeks ago? He's fine. He did go to the ER and was diagnosed with a mild concussion. It's not his first, and he knows he needs to be careful.

Bet five bucks he still rides to school without a helmet.

• On the learn-something-new-every-day front, I learned that [mountain lions chirp] - sounding much like random bird calls. Who knew? 

Now, when we're up at Helms Deep, I might feel less Snow Whitey about the friendly "birds" chirping

• I offloaded all of those spare bicycle tubes we no longer have bicycle tires for. I advertised them on a local No-Buy group on face's book, and a woman pounced on them. I left them out for a porch pickup, and the woman pulled up in a vehicle with a 4-bike bike rack. 

Looks like they went to a good home. Saved me a trip to the bike co-op.

• Our 30-days of AI Ring descriptions expired. I'm no longer described as a child. Back to being a person.

• On Saturday, we got together with Meego and Wolfgang for our monthly-or-so breakfast catch up. Always a good time. Went for a bike ride, and I got a flu shot. The day was complete.

 

hair, a bun, hooter

Happy Fall! Swap out your toothbrush heads? Flip the mattresses?

It's getting noticeably cooler around here, no complaints from me. It was a good week. Let's see if I can remember what happened.

• I had feed-the-cat duty for Wolfgang this week as he was once again on a travel adventure. So it was good to have Honey, my new bicycle, as cat duty adds a few extra miles to the commute. I thinks she's well broken in now (the bicycle, not the cat). And that was another reason to welcome the cooler temperatures
  
  *on a side note, the Ring camera still calls me a child. Apparently anyone riding a bicycle and/or wearing a backpack is a child*
  
  
• The previous week at work in the testing center, Party Girl was all gung-ho on the idea of cutting her hair and getting a 20-inch wig. She often gets these "obsessions", some come to fruition, others peter out. We all have those bad hair days when we just want to "cut it all off!" I think she'd had a couple of those. Went so far as to research wigs, and pick one out online.

Her hair is long - 23 inches she claims. She's mid 50's and her hair is not that of a young woman. She told me she likes having her hair long, though, because her controlling mother made her wear her hair short while growing up. 

"It's revenge hair".

This week, I heard nothing further of the wig acquisition.

• In other coworker news, Kitty is pregnant once again. Recall that Kitty had a "shotgun wedding" a couple of years ago - brought about by her and her now-husband's surprise daughter.

Things are working out so nicely, they decided to go again. A boy this time. Kitty's intention was a little sister for the 2-year-old. The universe had other plans.  

I asked her if her parents were excited. 

"Oh yes! Lots better than the last time I told them I was pregnant..."

•  In reading news, I'm up to 35 books for the year (my goal was 26, yay me). My recent completions:

Recognize any? My pace has slowed somewhat since the fall semester started. I'm currently reading a couple of books about Sam Bankman-Fried and his whole cryptocurrency sham. Love me some white collar true crime.

• Lastly, Magnum and I went up to Helms Deep earlier today. More roadwork. The trailcam shows the usual suspects - mostly deer. 

This hooter was new, though.

door cams, ham cams

Tuesday that feels like a Monday. I've got tutees this afternoon, and appreciate not having any  responsibilities until then. 

I was on a grateful bicycle ride this morning, and there was a bicycling woman on the pathway a few yards ahead of me. A guy riding an e-bike went past me - on the left after beeping his horn, all very cordial. I waved my hand in acknowledgement.

He then did the same with the woman in front of me - beeped before passing on the  left. She seemed about to similarly wave in acknowledgement, but as he went by, I saw that she instead raised her hand to flip him off.

What was THAT about? There are some reckless e-bike riders around, typically riding powerful e-bikes that aren't allowed on the bike path, but who's gonna catch 'em? Because of those hooligans, many bicyclists and pedestrians don't like e-bikes in general.

But this guy was not going super fast, his bike looked legal to me, and he was following the rules. I don't think he even noticed that she had flipped him off.

Then it was my turn to pass, so I'm thinking, "is she offended by ANYONE who passes her?" I dinged my bell and went by her, possibly flipped off. I didn't check.

We had a nice 3-day weekend. Saturday was very low-key. We went downtown and hung out at the Farmer's market. Sunday, our front door ring camera had crapped out. It's quite old and just didn't seem to have any get up and go. We laid it to rest, got a replacement from Best Buy, and Magnum installed it. We're back on front door surveillance,

Yesterday, we went up to Helms Deep. Meego joined us, and Wolfgang met us after for lunch. 

I've mentioned here that our "driveway" on the property is in rough shape, so I wanted to get a feel for just how rough as we've been considering hiring a contractor to clear and smooth it out for us.

So I took to it with a couple of hand tools to estimate how many "Man Hours" - to coin an outdated cost estimating term - it would take to shape it up.

Here is a view of what most of it looks like while entering.

Then I took a pic of the area I cleaned up without too much effort in about one "Old Lady Hour".

We have a dollar amount that we're willing to pay someone to clear it, but it's not like we need to have a whole road built. There's a road there, it's just been neglected for a while and needs a little makeover. We'll probably do it ourselves like old time pioneers.

The trail cam showed more deer. No cows this time, and still no mountain lions, but we know they're around. 

This guy shows up frequently. Must be a favorite branch. 

Either that, or he knows there's a trail cam there, and he's a total ham.

wrap it up

And so it begins.

Students returned for the start of the fall semester this week. It's nice to see the increased activity on campus after the lazy days of summer. I've already gotten a few tutees filling my tutor schedule.

Today, I noticed the adjunct instructor breakroom whiteboard has awakened:

We stuck around here all summer, and I'd say my highlight was purchasing Helms Deep and getting to work cleaning up its rough edges. Plenty to do in that regard.

We were up there last weekend, it was nice to have Wolfgang along to help out. We got a few more captures from the trailcam, mostly deer. But they were eventually usurped by these party animals.

They didn't just dine and dash, however. They left us some fertilizer... until next time.

end of a waiting, talking to the trees, bones

Yesterday, I sat through a 5-hour Zoom recording in half the time. Doncha just love 2x speed playback?

It was a semester kick-off tutor meeting, and thankfully, the bosses recorded it so we could watch it on our own time if unable to attend live via Zoom. Honestly, I could've managed to make the meeting live, but when we were told the recording would be available, I opted for that.

• The semester begins on Monday, and I've had a nice 2-week break since summer finished. This week, I managed to sort through a few items to donate or trash and also $$old a couple things we no longer need but have good resale value. That felt productive.

• Got the mammogram off the to-do for another year.

• Met another of our neighbors at Helms Deep. He told us they bought their property after the 2012 fire, then built their house and now live there full-time. Betcha he got a good deal on the land. They still had a house in town at the time, and also lived in a shed - like the kit kind from Home Depot - while building the house. 

We're still in early brainstorming stages of some sort of shelter for us. We just have a windowless tool shed, and we would need to evict the mice if we want to move into it. Maybe we just dig a hole in the ground, like the hobbits or Teletubbies.

• On that note of living primal, I will give a product shout out. For the first time in my life, I bought one of those devices for women to stand up when nature calls.

Once I got past the cultural paradigm shift, because it was weird at first, I realized I wished I'd have gotten one years ago for camping and hiking. Not gonna post a pic, it's basically a flexible [funnel].

When I was a kid, growing up in a neighborhood full of boys, my playmates would often head into the woods to "talk to the trees". Well, now I'm making up for lost time, having some good conversations. 

• Lastly, this week, we met another marriage milestone. 36 years?? I googled to see the gift material of choice for year 36. The answer: bone china.

"Bone china is a type of soft-paste porcelain made from clay, feldspathic rock, and a minimum of 30% bone ash derived from cattle

Well, seems fitting. Since we've got them cow neighbors.

drumming, reading, watching

As I sit here, there is much drumming. 

School starts next week for the local kids. I've noticed activity has begun at the nearby high school. This morning, on my morning jog, a large pack of teenagers -  x-country practice, no doubt - made their way along the path. 

And now, the drumming. Marching band percussion sectional happening. Yep, summer break's as good as done.

My two-week break is coming to a close as well. I've enjoyed the lack of commitments. As mentioned, my reading challenge continues. I've completed 31 of 26 (goal) books so far this year. Here are the latest titles since the last report.

Bad Tourists was a mystery thriller that I audiobooked while doing boring things around the house. The rest were book books. I've started writing down quotes that I like from books I'm reading. I'm not much into the mystery thrillers, but will get an audiobook, figuring there won't be anything I particularly care to write down.

Note that there were a pile of DNF's in the meantime, and none of these 6 that made the cut disappointed me.

Hotshot and Wildfire Days were both memoirs written by women firefighters. I learned some stuff about fire suppression and mitigation while also getting some good drama. I am currently reading [Lab Girl] by Hope Jahren - another memoir with stuff to teach me about plants and dirt.

So speaking of which, Magnum and took another play day and went up to Helms Deep yesterday to commune with the plants and dirt. 

I love the quiet up there - no sounds but our struggles and wheezing as we smooth out a few areas for us humans - along with the animal noises. No cows this time, but some deer came along to be nosey. Adolescents loosing their fluffy fawn fur in patches. A couple of hawks circled overhead looking for lunch/sizing us up.

We have a trail cam in place, and had several captures - mostly deer.

See the twins trailing Mom?

Daddy?

Trail cam also picked up a few individual members of this strange pack.

seize the moooment

I'm sitting here in long pants, long sleeves. We had us a cold front! 

Monday got to 100^o F and yesterday topped out in the high 60s. Magnum and I took advantage and went up to Helms Deep to do some trail bustin' in the great outdoors. We hadn't gone up there in about a month mainly because of the heat, wimps that we are.

The hill in the background took on a
fire in 2012,
so those are our burnt trees

It was a nice day and felt very productive and good to be out in the hills. I feel I'm getting better at the business of trail-building looking back on my sorry initial efforts.

We also checked our footage from the trail cam. Plenty of captures in the past month - mostly all dear deer.

Others in the area have reported bears, rattlesnakes, skunks, and a lone moose. We can personally vouch for the mouse population.

We didn't see any deer during yesterday's visit, but as we were leaving, we came upon this garden party going on at the neighbor's.

We'd heard the moos, but didn't spot any of the moocher cows while we slaved away on the trails, but there was a big old bunch of them just up the road. Too many to count.

This particular princess looked at us as if we were the intruders, inconveniencing her. She did reluctantly step aside just enough to let us through and leave her alone.

While there, I took a few pics of what is essentially our driveway. 

We're interested in getting some quotes on having it cleared out and smoothed out somewhat, as it's pretty weedy and rutty.

If only we could train the cows.

ghost bike, pensive pets, alcohol fail

I was thinking I might go for a quick bicycle jaunt to the library, but it's sunny and 97 degrees, so i said "nah". I realize 97 doesn't sound so bad to many, but here, it's a whine worthy temperature. I opted to stay here in my dark house, measuring 77 degrees. No need to turn on the AC just yet.

We did get out for a coffee walk earlier, so I haven't been totally holed up like a cavewoman. 

SOURCE

• Speaking of bicycle jaunts, [a woman bicyclist was killed] last week in a local traffic mishap. I've been following the story as it happened at an intersection undergoing a construction project. I had biked through the area about an hour before the tragic accident.

So far, from everything I've heard about it, the woman did everything right. She dismounted her bicycle, she was led through the intersection by one of the construction workers. Still, she was hit by one of the trucks involved in the project. So strange.

There's an ongoing investigation. Bottom line, she's gone.

• I happened to be in that area because I was feeding Wolfgang's cat again last week. Wolfgang and Meego traveled to California to visit my in-laws. Chaco was there too as he had come out for a little over two weeks and had a preplanned trip to visit his CA friends.

Ella on a walk,
prior to the dreaded BOOMs

Meanwhile, we were the pet sitters. Chaco's dog, Ella, stayed with us. She does NOT like fireworks.

Fireworks are illegal here, especially in lieu of half the state currently being on fire. But that never stops the criminals.

So it was nice to spend some time with Chaco. A lot of his time was spent working at his local office and visiting friends, but we got quality time in as well.

• The five of us did make it up to Helms Deep - our property in the hills. Helms Deep is what we call it, so that's it's real name as well as it's blog name, so be it.

It was nice having the extra muscle to do some trail bustin'. We haven't been up since because... well... whining about the heat again.

• Lastly, Magnum and I have proven, once again, that we are failures at alcoholism. We had somehow amassed a collection of undrunk beers - bottles and cans. We just don't drink the stuff at home. Some of it was leftover from potlucks that ended up at our house. Others, we'd bought thinking we'd drink it. Pffft.

I pondered if there was a way to donate it, but food pantries don't accept alcoholic beverages. I mentioned it at work yesterday, wondering if maybe the college food pantry would take it. But we're pretty sure they wouldn't. Then Party Girl mentioned her drinking running group had an upcoming camping trip and would gladly take the cans. Problem solved!

We also had a few bottles of Modelo in stash. I checked the expiry date - November of freaking 2024?!

Down the hatch drain.

That's the end of the two years beers.