Irake

Before this world turns green, it's taupe. And this portion of meadow was covered with fallen oak leaves all the way along this tiny flagstone path to the back area where stands the bluebird box.

Bluebirds begin hunting for homes in late February, but  won't settle anywhere that's covered with leaves. They need bald earth, mown grass, or plowed soil -- because they seize bugs and worms and pin them to the earth, and that's how they eat. No bare ground, no bluebirds. Last year, after securing the bluebird box in a concrete foundation, I was too lazy to rake and had no bluebirds. As you know, they bring happiness. Thus raking equals happiness.

This might not look raked, but on the photo's right see the carpet of fallen oak leaves I've cleared away. The gray brushy stuff needs a chainsaw or, better, a controlled burn. The white things on the left are opaque ground cover held down by jugs of water. Ground cover will retard the growth of grass and weeds on those spots so I might plant collards there.

So this is really a picture of potential. In my mind I see it green, blue, and thriving.

I'm No Longer Going to Save You From Yourself

Friend has heart attack but still smokes. "I've cut way down, to about five a day." I say, "We so much need you to stay with us on this earth. I will help you quit smoking any way I can." He still smokes.

Sometime friend can't sleep because a belly the weight and size of five bowling balls suffocates him when he lies down. He buys a new ultra-super-duper mattress but still suffocates. He phones the mattress dealer demanding a refund because he's heard that sleeping on a bad mattress causes weight gain and his weight is the fault of the mattress.

Friend, age 50, has never seen a dentist. Complains about and shows me a painful infected wisdom tooth. I said, "I have a great dentist, right in this neighborhood." He says no thanks, it really doesn't hurt that much.

Person pays me to edit a book manuscript so it will be of publishable quality. I do it. Then he asks me, is there one button he can push to undo all the edits, or does he have to reject each individual edit manually?

Friend who has lived in apartments all his life buys on Zillow a $200,000 house in Maine, where he has never been, from its owner. "Don't you want to go see it first?" I said. He said, "It's perfect, exactly what I want, only half a mile from the ocean."

Friend writes a brilliant book manuscript and I say so and am so excited I look up names of agents. "Thanks," the author replies, "but I know the critics will tear this book apart, I'm such an outlier, they don't want to hear what I have to say."

"I have such terrible stomach pains," said Mom. "Have you called the doctor?" I said. "Oh, doctors. They don't know anything. All they do is take your money," said Mom, who finally goes to ER two years later, in March. It's Stage 4 and she's dead by June.

Friend tells me, "Eskimos eat only fatty meat and they're very healthy and never get fat, so I will eat only meat, no carbs, and ketosis will burn my fat off," and I say, "Fat cannot burn in the absence of carbohydrate," and they say, "What?"

Friend says (this is the condensed version), "My daughter moved back in with her baby and the house is chaos and she is never home, and here I am at 60 forced to parent all over again." I say nothing.

Acquaintance says, "My son punched in all the sheetrock in his room again this week after I just had it replaced. I got mad and he started breaking my stuff and screaming he would strangle my parrot, and I don't know what to do." "How old is he?" "Thirty."

Friend says, "I am so sick, but I won't take this poison the doctor prescribed, and I'm using essential oil in my diffuser but it doesn't seem to be working."

Demetrius, panicking, shows me blood blisters in his mouth after he eats grilled hot dogs or Spam. He develops esophageal cancer. With surgery, radiation, and chemo, it is cured. He resumes eating, in secret, pounds of bacon, bologna, ham, hot dogs, and black licorice. Died 11 years ago this week.

Six of these people I never see anymore. Feel kind of sad I couldn't save them from themselves. But I see now it was wrong of me to try.

I Run Over A Deer

Once, along the two-lane road, I and the drivers behind me were stopped and blocked by a police car. Some vehicle had hit a fawn, injured but still standing. A policeman took his handgun and shot it in the head. It collapsed, convulsed, then died, and that was the best choice.

Who'd have picked up that fawn and driven it to the vet? Paid for its treatment and rehabilitation? What for? If permanently crippled, returned to the wild it'd be hit again, or coyote meat. Not even the oh-poor-Bambi folks would give several grand a year from their own pockets to keep it in a sanctuary. Unfortunately the increased "development" in this area is herding deer down toward the road. I see about one dead deer per week, and each dead deer might have been a dead person. You have to choose.

Yesterday, after 18 years with about four near-misses, it was my turn with a deer. On the same two-lane road about 6:00 p.m. my car's headlights illuminated a dead doe, a fresh one, lying across my lane with her back toward me, and at 50 mph it was too late for me to swerve. Thump-thump. I heard bones cracking. Sickening. The car seemed fine so I kept going.

Came home later, halted the car to hop out and pick up the mail, and saw that the back license plate looked cracked or "crazed." Poked at it. It was deer hair, sticky. Hair all over the back bumper and a spot of blood. Did not think it wise or see any point in inspecting it further, or taking a photo for you. Next morning, first thing, to the car wash, leaving a nice tip in the tip container for the nice young people about to hose God knows what from beneath the car. Later, concerned about damage, I had the oil changed and hoped they would tell me if they saw bones and meat stuck in the undercarriage.

The Christmas Miracle

Hairy-stemmed poison ivy grew all over the garage's northern wall and wasn't visible until the foliage was gone. Ivy overgrowing a structure not only crawls all over it, but pulls with incredible strength. It can pull whole trees down or part the stones in a stone wall. It was gathering under the garage roof in a conspiracy. The ivy had to go. And nobody else was gonna cut it down, so it was on me.

Trouble was, I could barely move or think, being so burnt out from work it was too much effort to raise my arms overhead, much less pick up a cutting tool. Was limping around. Couldn't stay standing for long. Couldn't think of words, either. I had healing to do, but how? Stupid woo-woo advice from the Internet said sleep, meditation, yoga, little or no Internet (the net generates decision fatigue), and replace the Internet with books.

Okay, then: waking shockingly late, exhausted on waking, feeling corny every minute of the yoga DVD and meditation app, working as much as able (about 1/4 the normal), drinking coffee (it didn't help), and the rest of the time reading, starting with McCullough's hefty Harry Truman biography. Sprinkle in a few meetings or meals with friends and four days of cat-sitting. Three weeks and this morning I get out of bed saying, "This is the day I tape down that one carpet" and even before morning coffee it was done, and I still had energy. With temperatures in the high 50s I dressed in long sleeves and long pants and gloves, and bushwhacked behind the garage (all overgrown) to the ivy-covered garage wall and started severing the vines.

Took about an hour. It was a miracle: I still had energy. Severed some honeysuckle vines along the lane. Still had some energy. Shampooed and showered in case any poison ivy touched me. While on the bedroom floor putting on sneakers I saw some spaces all dusty and cobwebby. Dragged out the vacuum and vacuumed them up. Then -- then! -- I still had enough energy to cook a baked potato and an egg in butter. And eat them! And then write this post!

It's a miracle! Merry Christmas, happy holidays, blessed solstice.

The Joys of the Fake Fireplace

Ever see a fake electric fireplace like the one my boyfriend's parents had in their basement "rec room" in the 1970s? The "flames" were a piece of paper like a piano roll with a light bulb behind them.

But now I have one and it brings me incredible joy. First, it's a rather long and large "fire"; second, I can change with the remote control the color of the "logs" and "fire" to suit myself; third, I can make the "flames" larger or have them burn low; fourth, it has built-in bluetooth speakers that really rock. It offers heat, if I want; warm air will blow out of its vent, and there's a temperature control and timer. It works and is very energy-efficient -- the problem is insufficient electrical wattage in the Divine Cabin's system, and when it's overloaded the warmth shuts off automatically. But the fake fireplace also offers fire without heat and I like it.

Look -- a fireplace. No chopping, buying, or carrying wood, no poking at it, no worries that the chimney or the house might catch fire. Everyone with a wood-burning fireplace -- although it is the most romantic of housing features -- must build and tend fires carefully, and get a chimney sweep and safety inspection, and keep the kids away when nothing attracts kids more, and even better, the fake lets no woodsmoke into the atmosphere. Around the holidays here, the usually pure air gets thick with the neighbors' woodsmoke, and very unfortunately I've grown allergic to it. (I can't even stand incense. The irony. I mean, there was a time when INCENSE was my LIFE.) When I first moved here I got an estimate to fix the awesome native stone Divine Fireplace so it would burn propane. $8K.

This will do. A friend liked mine so much she bought herself one -- not so rustic-looking, more vertical and tailored and classic. They have fake fireplaces that fit in corners now. For those who like nostalgia, today's fake "woodstoves" look and act very real.

I taped down an orange runner rug right in front of it to "extend" the fire.

Making the Cut

I used to spend hours and days outside with these tools saving the property from invasive cedars and Japanese honeysuckle vines, and after about seven years the clippers and weed whip, dulled and unusable, sat in the garage until I realized a while ago, "I can now pay to sharpen these," and, to be honest with you, also thought, "When the apocalypse comes, any day now, I will wish I had sharpened these tools" to cut a clearing in the underbrush and clip and trim branches to build my lean-to, and so on.

Nobody else, I was sure, ever let their tools get so dull. Embarrassed to bring them to the sharpener, I prepared a fib -- "I bought these at a garage sale" -- in case the sharpener said, "Whee doggie. I've never in my life seen garden tools in such a deplorable condition." I wasn't sure whether the weed whip, my favorite, with its double-edged and serrated blade, could even be honed. I never knew anyone who cleaned or sharpened garden tools; Demetrius left his crusted with clay and soil. Also needing treatment were two lopping shears and a very old pair of hedge shears with wooden handles. The hedge shears were already here, rusted stiff, blades blackened with time and handles sticky with dust, when I moved in long ago. I wondered whether they could be salvaged. In the garage when I moved here was also a scythe, an actual scythe, but I think it's gone.

The sharpener sharpened and spiffed up all four and covered the freshly honed edges with paper, a courtesy unexpected and appreciated. Here they are back home, and out I go because I like cold weather for doing the heavy work of cutting.

Country Caulking

On a chilly night the new acrylic indoor storm windows leaked cold, so feeling around the single-pane window frame and catching breezes, I looked carefully and saw all three layers of the window frame needed caulking, right now, in the ever-narrower space in Missouri between hot summer and cold winter, neither of those good for caulking.

In September I spent three days caulking a historic single-pane window real nice (with "antique white"), but this one is 1969 in an aluminum frame and it rained yesterday and it'll rain tomorrow so instead of having fun I got the stepladder and drop cloths, plastic bags, nitrile gloves, wet rags and caulking gun and worked quick and dirty. Nearly every inch of this 85-year-old house needs caulking. Aproned and teetering and reaching overhead and messing up, I do it about every 10 years. This time I noticed caulk technology has changed; now soap and water will get it out of your hair and off your gloves and pants.

Inner critic: Your caulking stinks.
Me: Shut up. It's better than yours.
Inner critic: Should have cut the the tube a narrower tip --
Me: I didn't see you lending a hand.
Inner critic: Slow and steady. Don't smooth beads with your finger; use a craft stick! What a mess! Don't you have a sponge? Don't poke at that, it's almost dry! Now it's worse!
Me: The caulk didn't fill it up the first time.
Inner critic: It would have, if you'd been patient --
Me: Cram it.

The photo is AFTER I caulked and while it's curing. Yes, it's hoosier, but it looks a lot like the art downtown at the Pulitzer. In the right light.