Screaming

Pulling the trash can to the roadside a couple of days ago, I came within inches of stepping on this.

In the instant it took me to leap over it (how did I even manage to DO that?) many thoughts ran through my mind.

Aaaaaack! Snake! Brown snake, could be rattlesnake, only half a snake. Who cut a snake in half and left it here? When I find out, I'll kill them. Wait, it isn't dead. Oh shit! I'll have to finish it off or try to save it. I hate this!!! Hate, hate, hate, when I find out who did this I'll kill them. Head isn't square.

Can't be a rattlesnake.

Wait. Isn't a snake.

WTF? Is it hurt, why isn't it moving? At this point I went back in the house and got my camera. The thing just stayed there.

Tiny little legs, like it's just growing them. What kind of lizard grows legs like a frog? Do I have an empty aquarium to put this in, under a light, and feed it mealworms until its legs finish growing? That's stupid...lizards don't grow like that, what am I thinking? I don't want to catch this thing, just leave it the heck alone, take the garbage can to the road and when I get back it will be gone.

Except it wasn't. It stayed right there until I put a small rock on the end of its tail, then it slithered off. Not ran off, like a proper lizard, but slithered like a snake growing legs. No, half a snake growing legs and maybe a tail, too.

The next day, when I brought the garbage can in from the road, the critter was in the driveway again, in a different location.

I don't know what it is, haven't checked on the Internet yet. I was more interested in my response to the critter than in what it actually is.

First, I leaped over it. I don't leap these days, I mostly stumble around and have to watch my feet all the time. That's why I didn't see the lizard until I was putting my foot down. Brain said, step over that stick. Stomach said, leap!!!!

Screaming is a function of the respiratory system, right? A scream starts in the lungs and comes out the mouth? I don't scream that way. It starts just below my belly button, a little to the right, and ends up maybe where my gall bladder used to be. No one else can hear it. No girly screams here, just visceral screams.

I'm not afraid of snakes, by the way, I just don't like for anything to sneak up on me. Or, conversely, I don't like it when I inadvertently sneak up on a critter. I like to see what's coming.

Anyway, I had been wondering about the screaming stomach thing. This morning I ran across this on Facebook. It's from this site, if you'd like to read the entire thing: http://psychologyofeating.com/the-brain-in-the-belly/.

Here are some snippets from the article:

Modern medicine understands the head-brain to be “command central” – the place from which our entire life receives its marching orders. But there’s another kind of intelligence that’s an equally potent metabolic force, and it’s found in the belly. Some call it the “gut-brain,” others proclaim it to be the “brain in the belly.” 

Have you ever had “butterflies” in your stomach? A “lump” in your throat? Have you ever been moved by a strong and undeniable “gut feeling” about something or someone? Few people would say they had an elbow feeling or a kidney feeling, but gut feelings are highly regarded as a source of intuitive knowing and insight in many cultures around the globe. As it turns out, gut thoughts and feelings are not a fanciful notion but a physiological fact. Rather than the one brain found in our head, scientists have revealed that we have two brains – the other one is located in the digestive tract.

In Japan, the midsection is considered the seat of wisdom and the locus of our center of gravity, both physical and spiritual. Known as the hara, this place of ultimate balance is centered around a point just below the navel. The Japanese quite literally refer to the hara as their place of higher thought just as Americans might point to the head as the location of “central command.”

So, see, you learned something today. Now I'm wondering if this has some relation to "hara kiri."

Recyclers

I'm sure some of you recyclers cringed when you saw all that wood cut up in yesterday's post. Some of those pieces looked pretty good, didn't they? Well, yes, there were a couple of pieces that probably could have been used for something else. I had pulled out a 2x12, for example, and set it aside. While I was in the house, the handyman cut it up. Well, okay. Let it go.

Maybe this picture will give the recyclers something to grin about. Bob and Anna went through the piles last weekend and pulled out a few pieces to make themselves a coffee table for their apartment.

Anna has already refinished an old table for their dining room. Bob made a corner unit for their TV. This is their first project together. I'll post a picture of it when it's finished. Right now, it looks pretty good, and it's very sturdy. It's not often one uses 4x6s for legs on living room furniture, but they wanted a strong table so they could throw some pillows on it for extra seating when needed. Or Bob's friend Kyle could use it as a bed...he's been known to sleep on a foot stool.

For anyone who has seen the inside of my garage over the past 25 years or so, and was amazed at all the clutter, please note how tidy it is. I mean, you can actually DO something in there now. Like fix a tractor, or make a coffee table. Or throw some wood in the little stove that's out there and play board games with your friends in the winter.

Crap Stacking

The view from my bedroom window, which is at the back of the house.

Those wooden fence pieces have been leaning on the chain link fence for at least 7 years. The stack of junk in the background has been there for probably 25 years.

At one time it was all decent wood. The fence pieces were put there when a section of fence blew over. They were going to be used to repair it. In the building in the background there are at least 4 more sections of a wooden fence that came from elsewhere and were stacked out there to use for repairs.

See the little section of new fence on the back of the building? That was just constructed. I told the fence builders I had lots of wood they could use. They didn't want it. They wanted to work with new wood.

This is the problem, see? The person who picks up good pieces of building material here and there and stores it in a crap pile for future use is never the same person who ends up doing the repairs or building something new.

There have always been piles of crap on this place. When I was young, there were a lot more buildings on the property than there are now. They were taken down, one-by-one, usually by my mom. She cut them up into stove sized pieces and burned them in the winter.

Today I took a page out of my mom's handbook. I hired a fellow to come and cut up all the junk wood stacks.

I have already hauled 4 loads like this to the wood shed and stacked them.

There are about 6 loads left. I will be stacking wood for a few more days.

The nice fellow also fixed the door on the wood shed for me. These are things I asked the crap stackers to do over the years. Somehow they never got done. No one...NO ONE...would ever just come out and tell me "No, I'm not going to do that," when I asked for help. If they had, I could have hired someone else to do the job years ago.

The helper guy had to leave a few really big pieces of wood. He hadn't brought his chain saw and said the wood was pretty rotten and full of red ants. Sounds like a job for the forklift and a trailer. I don't know how to run a forklift.

I could take another page out of my mom's book, borrow her very favorite technique. If anyone left something in her way, she just set it on fire. Someone dumped tree trimmings on the creek levee once. She threw gas on the pile and tossed a match on it. In August. The grass on the levee was dry as a bone, it exploded into flames that quickly ran to the opposite end of our levee and burned the tires off a tractor parked there.

Those were the good old days.

Wiley Wes

Wesley gets into everything. I have these cabinets in my kitchen and dining room. The ones in the dining room are taped shut. I store things in them that I don't want to find all over the floor in the morning. Like my art supplies. Tubes of watercolor with cat fang marks, dripping their essential juices on the floor. Dead paint brushes, all of their hair chewed off and only the handle left.

Wesley likes to get into the cabinets and push everything out.

I don't tape the kitchen cabinets closed because I need to get into them too often, myself. Also the cat hasn't figure out how to push the pots and pans onto the floor yet. (Not that I'm challenging him to learn.)

To keep him occupied and out of trouble, I've given Wes a new job...official greeter.

He has a chair directly in front of the screen door, where he can watch all the outside cats come and go (there is a food bowl on the porch), and direct their activities.

Biscuit thinks it's a drive-through. He's ordering milk and kibble.

Flood Insurance

I live in an area that is highly flood prone. At one end of my long, narrow 80 acres is the Cosumnes River. At the opposite end is Deer Creek.

I've lived here all my life and seen some really high water and some levee breaks. But the main damage that has been done is to levees that must be replaced. It's very expensive to replace a levee.

About 20 years ago people in our area were offered flood insurance through a National Flood Insurance Program. I believe the first bill I got from them was for $300. Over the years that amount has gone up every year. Last year it was up to $1600. This year it's $3300.

California is in the middle of a bad drought. I understand quite well that could all end in one year, with severe flooding. I've seen that happen. But $3300 for flood insurance? In addition to $1500 a year to belong to a levee district?

I'm pretty sure if there ever was a flood, the flood insurance would not pay a dime to restore the levee. They would probably refuse to restore my house as well. Because it's painted green, perhaps, or some other reason they'd make up to be sure that didn't happen. I doubt it could be rebuilt anyway because the county wouldn't issue a building permit on a floodplain. (Yet developers were able to build all over the Natomas floodplain north of Sacramento, which borders the much more dangerous Sacramento River.)

So what does a person do?

Tax Time

I found a local lady to do my taxes this year. That's the only part about the entire process that didn't send me into a tailspin. I've said before that I want a tax bill that has boxes I can check to designate where I want my money to go. Seeing the faces of our representatives in Congress, and knowing that my money is going to them and their priorities, makes me ill.

And now we're starting to see who's going to run in 2016. Gag. I mean, really, gag.

I was never a fan of Richard Nixon, but I feel showing Ted Cruz in the same graphic is an undeserved insult to him.

Bozos like Cruz are the financial puppets of people who have more money than brains. Who knows what their agenda is, but it certainly does not promote the advancement of our society.

Unfortunately, there appears to be no shortage of "politicians" who are willing to take money and make asses of themselves.

I have an idea. Put everyone's name in the pot who actually pays their fair share of taxes. Doesn't matter how old they are, or what their station in life is. And hold a drawing. Local representatives will be chosen from the local tax base. State representatives from the state tax base, and national ones from the federal tax base.

President and Vice President will be chosen from the federal tax base also. Actually, how about a dozen candidates, then have a TV show to winnow them down to the winning pair? There should be a talent component, a dancing component, maybe an interview with an idiot reporter component so we have an idea how that will go.

Sometimes we might get an 18 year old President, other times maybe a housewife or a farmer. Vice President will be the person who places second.

Tell me this wouldn't be a better way.

Pisces Time

We are officially out of Pisces and into Aries now.

The sign of Pisces shows two fish swimming in opposite directions. I haven't studied the astrological reasoning behind this for some time, but I believe it's because Pisces is one of the signs that represents people who have a dual nature. The sign of Pisces suggests that a person of this background is always at war with him/herself.

While I am an admitted waffler, I've never felt at war with myself. This would be a more realistic depiction of my version of Pisces. Two fish headed in the same direction, a person who can clearly see both sides of every issue.

I mull everything over in my mind(s) for a few days, and make a mental list of the good and bad points. IF I actually care about the outcome, I make a decision and move forward with it.

The problem is there aren't very many issues that really deserve much thought. Where to meet someone for lunch or dinner? I truly don't care. Which route to take to a destination? Unless there's snow involved, I really don't care, I've seen so many unexpectedly wonderful things when I've been lost. Lost is fine.

When issues are involved, I generally support the side of truth and reason. Politically, that side doesn't exist any more. It's just a question of where a politician gets his buy-off money. Often I don't choose either side in a political discussion because neither of them is based on truth and reason, and usually both sides simply have a plan to screw over the populace to further their own interests.

If I find something or someone who I think does deserve my support, it's full steam ahead. You can ask anyone whose agenda I've opposed how that works. Because their arguments are not often based on truth and reason, it's pretty easy to derail them. That doesn't mean you win, they just go underground and make decisions at public meetings that aren't well publicized, so the annoying people like me aren't there.

It used to be that we could rely on our news sources to keep us informed. That doesn't appear to be their goal these days. While sitting in a waiting room on Tuesday, the always-present TV was on and I saw Hilary Clinton's "press conference." (I will preface this by saying I don't care one way or another about HC, and I don't hate any politician just because Fox News says to do it.)

I saw a person who gave a well-prepared speech, obviously self-serving. Then when the event was open to the "press" it reminded me of high school. The teacher would cover all sorts of material in a lecture, but the only questions from the class were things like, "How many questions will be on the test?" "How many essay questions?" "Are they T-F or multiple-choice?" These were usually from students who had no intention of studying.

The news people at that press conference impressed me the same way. I don't want people like that asking stupid questions, over and over and over again, as a representative of my interests. What was their goal? The days are gone when press questions can make a politician look bad. George Bush was probably the last one that method could be used on. With him, it wasn't that hard to provoke an off-the-cuff remark that involved misuse of the English language, or something else amusing or terrifying. The people who buy candidates seem to have learned to pick people who are more robotic. (Sarah Palin isn't being supported as a candidate, she's more like comedy relief, or an opening act, to say absurd things and get the mindless rabble roused. "Look, she's stupid like me! She must be right.")

The guys who buy everyone seem to have created a hive mentality, where they can easily steer opinion back and forth with any kind of simplistic ploy.

Animals are smarter than humans, I think. A real hive couldn't function in that kind of chaos. A side effect of this is to turn off people who actually still think and reason. I guess those of you who live long enough will see how this turns out.

I got to celebrate my Pisces birthday this year at the poultry show in Utah. It was a while before Bob, Anna, Beverly and I got to have dinner together at Cattlemen's and celebrate.

We had a great dinner and spent too much time trying to figure out how old we actually are.

A Lovely Gift

One morning when I was dashing around here getting ready for one show or another, this arrived in the mail.

It's a quilted sampler made from a bird-themed fabric. It came from my friend Linda in Colorado. I love, love, love it.

She sent me a handmade rose a while back, it has been on my sideboard next to a handmade rabbit from Kathy, Jonathan's mother.

Thank you so much, Linda. I hope we get to meet in person someday.