Serving on the water board

It is raining heavily today and it is almost as dark as night. My little cat went to the door, looked outside and went back to her bed on the hassock. She knows where her options are Usually she can't wait to get outside, but today she is content to be inside where it's warm, and I can't find fault with her judgment. I myself haven't walked outside for almost a week. Bill did walk down to the creek to watch the water rush past and reports that the creek is pretty high. Sometimes the road down below the house floods out and no cars can get through. One year I was visiting Judy and George in their house up here and I couldn't get out for ten days. We washed diapers in water we caught from the rain gutters (the power was out and we had no water or electricity) and cooked on the wood stove. At first it was fun but we were very relieved when the power came on again. The water board has obtained a generator so we don't run out of water now due to electrical shortages.
I served on the water board for a number of years, and distinguished myself by obtaining tax free status for our water company and if someone asked me now how I did it, I would have to admit that I have no idea. It took about three months of research and correspondence with the tax board, and when I finally got the papers affirming our tax-free status, I could hardly believe I had done it. That was several years ago and I doubt if I could do it today. It involved typing up the by-laws and getting them printed out and given to each of the members, among other things.
Serving on the water board was a pretty daunting task in any case, since if the water tested out unsafe to drink, we had to drive around and leave notices on the door of each residence using the water. One time we had to do it during a pouring rain, with me checking out the addresses and Bill trudging up to the houses to affix the notices. The driver of the car had a pounding migraine headache and went home sick afterward. Whatever crisis developed, the water board was responsible for fixing it. When I broke my hip, I had to resign, as I could no longer be of any help.
We have lived up here for over fifteen years - It seems like only a year or two. How time flies!

A momentous event happened today - the Kennedys endorsed Barack Oboma! At least it seemed momentous. The Kennedys still wield a powerful clout in spite of all that has happened. They have good speech writers, of course. And when Ted Kennedy sends forth his powerful voice, it makes quite an impact. It makes Hilary Clinton seem pallid in comparison. I have already cast my vote, so I suppose it is a waste of time for me to watch the debates and related events, but I still like to keep abreast of what is happening out there. We lead very quiet and sheltered lives here in our little community, so thank goodness for television!
It has been unseasonably cold for the past few days, so I have taken to wearing my husbands thermal underwear, which on me looks like I am wearing a jogging outfit. It is so warm that I don't even mind that we have run out of logs for the woodburner and are constrained to keep warm with a small electric heater mounted on the wall and a portable DeLongi heater in another room. Bill gets along by wearing a couple of sweaters and an outer jacket. When he goes to bed he has an electric blanket, three single blankets and a comforter, and he tops it all off with a throw blanket that surely was intended for an Arctic outing. Believe me, when he goes under the covers, he is there to stay!
A flock of birds was outside my window again today. My neighbors cat was prowling around amongst the rose bushes but I think she went home without catching anything. It is only the end of January but the return of the birds makes us think that Spring is going to come any day now.

An experience to rememher

When I wrote about fragrances yesterday, I remembered one odor that I didn't mention - that of ammonia. Fifty years ago I worked for a newspaper where my job was to read and proof the full page ads printed by the newspaper, and these pages were processed in an ammonia bath. After I had perused these pages with the attending fumes for an hour or so, I was almost intoxicated. It usually took me about three hours to finish this task, and it would take me a good hour to recover afterward. My job was to read for accuracy and I was expected to catch and correct any misprint that I found. Since the printers were not averse to enlivening their lives with a few jokes, sometimes I was treated to some pretty narrow escapes. I particularly remember one Saturday special which featured a local celebrity, both an heiress and an adventurer. Her name was Louise Boyde and her mansion was a prominent feature of the San Rafael landscape. The front page of the Saturday special featured a frontal photograph of Louise, or it should have. But one of the printers inserted a snapshot of some decrepit old gentleman making a face showing off the fact that he was toothless. The magazine came out with the wrong picture on it, and our usually unflappable editor was livid when he saw it. "Who proofed this?" he demanded, waving the picture in our faces. I remembered reading this, but couldn't remember if I had corrected it. I nearly sank through the floor as I confessed that it was I who had read it. "Go get the proof," he demanded. Down the corridor I hurried, all eyes upon me. Ah! Here it was! To this day, I can see in my mind's eye that proof. I had indeed read it, and I had circled the picture in black pencil, with the words scrawled in large letters "This is Louise Boyd?" The editor snatched the proof and I can only imagine the tonguelashing he gave the printer. I must say, however, that Louise was a good sport. She bought all of the copies she could get her hands on and gleefully gave them out to her friends and family, Another ad, this time a full-page ad for a local market, featured a special on fresh crab. Unfortunately the b was printed as a p, giving the ad a totally new meaning. The market manager was given a corrected ad at no cost, and put the erroneous ad in full sight in his window, with the notation underneath that it was indeed a bargain. The poor soul who proofed this ad was so mortified that she quit and we never saw her again.
Some apparent errors, though I suspect they were made on purpose, included a memo that some local speaker had been given a round of applesauce (applause) for her speech, and the notation that two of the local duck hunters had been pleased to bag their limit of five ducks, with the letter f inserted instead of the d. All of this was long ago, but I am happy to remember them now. Those were the days!

Fragrances

I spot-cleaned the carpet this morning, and the fragrance from the cleaning agent stirred some old memory of perfume or the scent of flowers, but I could not resurrect the memory completely. It made me think how much of our memories are tied to fragrances. The scent of Old Spice aftershave, the fragrance of a wild rose bush or the faint scent of the lily-of-the valley, all conjur up memories. There used to be a wild rose bush beside the road on the way to Aunt Marie's house, where we lingered for a few moments to enjoy the scent, when it was in bloom, of course. My husband used to use Old Spice aftershave, and if I caught a whiff of it now it would bring back memories of those carefree days sixty-two years ago, when we were young and romantic. The daphne bush growing outside my windows sends forth a strong fragrance that can be enjoyed all the way out to the street.
Some memories are tied to particular places. My grandma's soap always smelled like lemon. My Aunt Kate's house had huge lilac bushes growing in the yard. My family home had a fairly good-sized apple orchard which sent forth the smell of apple blossoms in the spring. I will never forget the fragrance of Pond's cold cream. It was advertised with a slogan that read "She's lovely! She's engaged! She uses Ponds!" I found to my discomfort that Ponds did not make me lovely, nor did it lead to my being engaged. It gave me a severe case of exzema which caused me to be sent home from school, and took weeks to clear up. It had a strong fragrance that I well remember.
The scent of the cleaning solution has faded now, and I still cannot remember what it reminds me of. It gave me something to ponder on, and did get out the spots, so I came out ahead, anyway.

The Debate

Spent last evening watching the Democratic debate on TV and must say Obama and Clinton made me think of two six-year- olds pointing fingers of blame at each other. They won't win my vote that way. They both seem well-informed however.
But enough of politics. The stocks and bonds are in an uproar, everyone is worried about a recession, and I can't find anything to watch on television anymore. So I am going to concentrate on my knitting and my cross-word puzzles, and try to compose my mind by meditating.
I never really learned to meditate. Even when I attended Sandeepany West and studied the art of meditating, the best I could hope to do was to fall asleep during meditation. I suspect that many of the other students did the same. The dark room, the melodious chant of the teacher, the soft breathing of the other students, all soothed my restless thoughts and sent me into a trancelike state, but that was about it. But I remember with great pleasure my annual sojourn to the center on the Eel River.
My knitting is coming along very well and I am almost done with one good-sized blue blanket. I plan on making two, using different stitches for them.
I hope to find some omments from time to time. It is fun to keep in touch.

The Big Game and a Small Adventure.

Spent most of the afternoon watching the Packers battle the Giants in the frigid air of Greenbay, wondering how they kept going with their bare arms and tight uniforms. A rousing good game, and I especially enjoyed it because I watched it propped up on pillows, covered by my electric blanket (turned on, of course). I had no chocolate candy to munch on, nor did I have any wine or brandy, but I did have some walnuts and raisins, which I consumed. I ignored my household chores, and since the game went on past dinnertime, I let Bill do the cooking and he made a memorable meal. Such luxury!
We had a small diversion in our lives yesterday, although it will seem minor at best to others who lead more active lives.
What happened was that our absentee neighbor called and asked if we would go over to her house and check to see if her hot water heater was leaking. Her electric bill was almost four times as large as usual, and she was worried that the water was leaking out and using an inordinate amount of electricity. We were happy to help her out, but to be honest, we wondered just how we were going to do it as she has a high fence with a locked gate. Still, we ventured forth and luckily Bill was able to jiggle the gate around and it actually opened up. A couple of cars went by while we were breaking in, but no one seemed to think that two old seniors breaking into someone's yard was unusual. We closed the gate again and found our way down the path to the house. It was like going into an area that had been hit by a huge windstorm. Limbs and clumps of needles and leaves were everywhere and we had to push our way through banks of ivy and low bushes. It was peaceful and quiet and the house was empty and silent. My neighbor has been in ill health and only comes up a couple of times a year, so the yard work has really piled up. We couldn't see any leakage under the water heater, but when we checked the electric meter, we could tell that the meter reader had made a mistake. She had given us the latest reading when she called, and the numbers were far out of line. Good news for her, and a very small adventure for us. The view from the back of her house is spectacular. As we walked home, we felt as though we were back in time, two young, foolish people going somewhere where we were not supposed to be. It brought to mind the time that Bill led a group of us through the forbidden temple of the Mormons. A serious transgression.
Otherwise, everything has been going on as usual. I wonder how many thousands of people watched the game today.

Cold weather

Watching the weather channel this morning I see that frigid air is sweeping over the midwest, bringing the temperature down to as low as twenty degrees below zero. I well remember my sibllings and I struggling through the snow to school, wearing the thin cloth coats and snowboots that were grossly inadequate for the cold we were enduring. When we got to school, we took off our coats and boots and gradually warmed up. On particularly cold mornings we were allowed to sit by the woodburning stove to thaw out. Walking the four miles to high school was a particularly dauntng experience. I had a typewriting class immediately after arriving at the school, and my hands were usually so cold that I could hardly type, let alone get up any speed. Why didn't our father drive us to school and save us from the freexing walk? I can't say but only remember that he never did.
Be that as it may, we are now ensconced in warm California, sun shining brilliantly in the windows, the little cat snoozing under our little electric space heater and Bill snoozing in the reclining chair. The reclining chair was given to us by a generous neighbor, and at first I really didn't want it as it takes up so much space in the family room, but it has proved to be a blessing to Bill, who can relax there and nap whenever he feels the urge. I grab it and recline in it whenever I get a chance.
Never in my wildest dreams did I envision the llfe of leisure and tranquillity that we now enjoy. Would we trade it for anywhere else on earth? Not on your Nellie! We have taken root and are here to stay.

An expensive meal

Today was shopping day, and Bill brought home a pound of beef tenderloin, which cost $28.00! Believe me, we cooked it with great care, and luckily it was good. Since I don't eat beef steak, Bill has a couple of hearty meals coming up. We didn't want to fire up the barbecue, so we seared it in a cast iron frying pan, and cooked it medium rare. Everything is so expensive, we have lentil beans and split pea soup a couple of times a week in order to keep to our budget. We console ourselves with the knowledge that legumes and foods with fiber are good for us.
We are listening to a book tape and I am knitting as well. I have completed six inches and have about fourteen inches further to go. I knit about four inches a day.

Junk Mail

I, like everyone else, receive unbeliebable amounts of junk mail, most of it requesting sums of money. Some of the pleading letters I find hard to throw away, because I truly believe they represent helpful agencies. The Easter Seal Society. St. Jude's Hospital, the Cancer Society, all call for my help not once a year, but over and over again. I feel guilty if I don't respond, but I can't send money each time it is requested. I tried tossing it all into a paper bag and keeping the bag in the closet, but that made no sense. Why clutter up my closet if I wasn't going to take any action? Then I hit upon a fairly simple solution that seems to be working. I simply hand the letters to my husband, who feels no guilt whatsoever if he doesn't respond, and he throws them away. Somehow that relieves me of the responsibility of refusing aid, and I can assure myself that it wasn't I who threw the letters away, but my husband.
I am making great progress on the blue baby blanket I am knitting. The baby is due in March and at the rate I am going I will perhaps get two blankets completed in time for its arrival. Since I do not purchase articles made in China, I try to make all of my baby gifts myself. Of course, the yarn was made in China! So I defeated my own purpose.
Had a lovely, sunny day today. Somewhere in the neighborhood there is a tree or shrub that is blooming because when I stepped outside, I could detect a fragrance in the air, but couldn't exactly tell where it was coming from. It was perhaps from my neighbor's Daphne bush, behind the wooden fence out of sight. It is getting a little warmer every day.

I tend to my knitting

I finally got down to the yarn shop for more yarn, and am now once again knitting away. There is something about knitting that is soothing and comforting. Eleanor Roosevelt knitted everywhere she went, even knitting as she conversed with Clementine Churchill. It is especially satisfying to someone like myself who thinks she has to always be busy - one can sit comfortably on the sofa, knitting, and feel usefully employed, even if only ones hands are occupied. I don't do any complicated patterns, so I don't even have to think as I knit. I do have to watch while I knit, or I drop stitches, which is another story!
Remembering my days at the United Nations at Lake Success, (my brief career only lasted six months) I remember seeing Eleanor Roosevelt scurrying along the hallways, carrying a tote bag which probably contained her knitting. The site was a converted manufacturing plant (the old Sperry-Rand plant) and we used to worry that she would fall down the steep metal steps that led to the second floor. I had to leave my job there when our son was born. It was a fabulous place to work.
The sun has been shining brilliantly all day, but now that the day is almost over, it is darkening outside. My little cat is curled up on the ottoman sleeping and we have the woodburning stove going and the house is warm and cozy. We are lucky because this little house is easily warmed. We don't heat the bedrooms but our electric blanket keeps us warm at night.
We hope that the winter storms are over. Spring can't come too soon.

A short day trip

When I started posting on my blog spot, I wondered if I would have enough to write about, since we llive a quiet life here. But each day is different, and so far I have had no trouble putting down my thoughts. Today was no exception. We had to go in for Grandpa Bill's checkup, so we took a trip to Santa Rosa, down the back road through Forestville. This is one of my favorite seasons, with lambs being born and little calves grazing in the fields. The acacia trees are beginning to bloom, as well as crocuses and yellow mustard. It was sunny and fairly warm, and we stopped on the way in and I bought some yarn to knit a blanket for Erin's expected baby, and we had lunch at Narci's in Coddingtown. Grandpa Bill didn't get exactly what he was hoping to hear, but will have to come back in three months. But that is better than the dreaded injection treatment.
I am posting later than usual because I got stuck in front of the TV set until almost nine O'Clock. Well, to tell the truth, I fell asleep for about an hour. Then I roused up and started the dishwasher and it is churning around right now. What a pleasant sound. Well, more tomorrow.

The Birds

We looked out of the window in the family room this morning, and there were the juncos, back again. They come every year, in a flock, and feed down below the house by the fuschias and rhodendrons, and in the roses just outside the window. We get to watch them for about fifteen minutes, and then, as suddenly as they came, they go again. They will appear every day at about the same time for awhile, and then we won't see them again for another year. A few stay around all of the time, but only a few.
We used to have a bird feeder hanging from a limb on the apple tree, and then one day we saw a big river rat eating out of it. He sat calmly on a branch, his long tail hanging down and swinging back and forth now and then. He looked defiantly at us from his perch, and even though we shouted at him and banged on a pail, he wouldn't move. Bill finally poked at him with a broom and knocked him off the tree into the rose bushes. We took down the bird feeder and put it in the garage.
Why does the sight of a rat or mouse strike such terror in our hearts? They actually make good pets and are surely more afraid of us than we are of them. I think it is that long, naked tail that so repels us. Anyway, we never saw him again. There are towhees, robins and juncos in the neighborhood, but we have only seen the juncos so far.

A quiet day

Gray and gloomy all day, but no rain fell. We composed ourselves from the drama of the wall heater and tidied up the house. I actually tried a new recipe for dinner, one featured on Rachel Ray's TV program, and to our surprise, it turned out pretty tasty. I am not one to cook unless I have to, but this dish was easy and only took about forty minutes from start to finish, so we are now settling in for the evening. Maybe some television, or a book tape. The cat is up and about, outside right now. She is very old, over twenty-three years old, and we pamper her beyond all reason. She will only eat canned salmon, and will only eat it if is warm, so she has everything pretty much her own way.
Our absentee ballots came in the mail today, so I must study the issues, and make up my mind how to vote. I used to enjoy going down to the local polling place and meeting all of my neighbors there, and casting my vote in the little booth. Since I don't drive now, it must by done by absentee ballot.
It's wonderful to have electricity again!

I rejoiced too soon

I'm afraid I rejoiced a little too soon at the power coming back on. It is true that my refrigerator, dishwasher, TV, and so on are working fine, but the heater in the living room never did begin working again, so this afternoon we took the thing apart (with great difficulty) and exposed a totally demolished heating element. We had to take it apart with brute force, as they are not meant to be dismantled. We took out screws, forced seams apart and at one point used all of our combined strength to pull the back of the thing off. All to no avail. The heating element is not only burned out but twisted and broken in two. Why the house didn't catch on fire I do not know. We will make no attempt at repairs, as it is far from new, but will replace it with perhaps a better model. I will put in a claim to P'G&E for reimbursement but I doubt if I will get anything as I didn't have a surge protector on it, so it is my fault really. We didn't get to eat dinner until almost eight and then we only had pancakes because I hadn't taken time to cook anything. Luckily, we were too hungry to care what we ate.

A great relief

With great relief we welcomed the return of electrical power this morning. We had been without electricity for four days and made do with a propane camp stove, a gasoline- powered generator, and a wood-burning stove. We were among the lucky ones who had generators and wood stoves, because we were able to keep our refrigerator operating and we kept the house nice and warm. We couldn't take showers or do laundry and god help me, I had to revert to washing dishes by hand with water heated up on the wood stove. It took me back to the days on the farm where we not only had to heat the water on the stove, but we had to carry the water into the house in buckets and lug the wood in by the armful. It seems to me that bringing in the wood and water was a chore allotted to the younger members of the family, anyway I remember pumping the water when I was short enough that I had to jump up to get the pump handle down again. Pumping water into the tank for the cows to drink from was a chore no one wanted to do. About half the time the cows would tip the tank over and spill all of their drinking water onto the ground.
We came out lucky from this power outage, although our electrical wall heater now does not turn on, and we had to drag out our little portable heater, which actually does a pretty good job of heating the living room and kitchen. We lost no food and the hot water heater seems to be working O.K. Sometimes a surge of power will wreck appliances, but we had everything protected except the heater. Why we didn't unplug it I will never know. We both forgot about it.
During the outage, we could step outside and hear generators chugging away all up and down the street. There was much visiting back and forth between the neighbors as the more knowledgeable ones helped the beginners adjust the choke and fuel systems to keep the generators running smoothly. Even so, it was noisier than usual around here!

A Slow Day

We have been incredibly lazy today. The rain fell steadily, although not as hard as had been expected, and all we did was listen to book tapes and watch TV. I waited until evening to write, thinking maybe the "big" storm might arrive after all, but it is hardly raining at all now. I checked the TV a moment ago, and Obama is the winner for the Democratic party and Huckabee is the winner for the Republicans. This had been predicted all day, but it is still kind of exciting. This will be an interesting year.
I was working for a consumer publishing company in New York the year that Thomas Dewey was predicted to beat Harry Truman for the presidency. People everywhere were reading poll results that clearly indicated that Truman couldn't possibly win. But he did! And resoundingly. It taught everyone the lesson that polls can't always be trusted. That was a long time ago, in l948. The company I worked for was doing surveys on consumer preferences for different kinds of packaged goods. When it closed up I went to work for Fireman's Fund insurance company down on Wall Street. When five o"clock came, everyone came out of the big skyscrapers and walked in the streets because there were so many people coming out of work that the sidewalks couldn't hold them all.

Big Storm Coming

According to the weather report, a huge rainstorm with high winds will hit us tomorrow, so we are checking the generator to see if it is in good running order, in case of a power outage. We usually ride outages out in good order because we have a small propane stove and the wood burning stove to keep us warm. Usually we rather enjoy our storms here unless the road below floods out. Then we can't get out by car and have to just sit tight and wait for the flood to go down. One year, my neighbor tried to drive through the flooded area and got stranded and had to be rescued by rowboat. We were housebound for ten days once and since I happened to be at my daughter's house at the time, we rather had fun cooking on the woodburning stove and washing diapers out with rainwater. Since the power was off, we had no water from the local water supply, so we had to improvise to get water. Luckily, we had a good supply of bottled water for drinking.

Cold Weather

This is one of the coldest days we have had so far this winter. We have had trouble warming up the house and I am going around swathed in a warm hooded robe and slippers. Usually this house is easy to heat and in fact gets a little too warm when the wood stove is going. We elected to not light up the stove but I guess we will get it going pretty soon if we still feel cold at noon. That's when we usually turn off the electric heaters to save on the electric bill.
We are thankful that we don't live in the midwest, though, where cold weather really means cold. I remember walking home from a neighborhood party late one night and arriving home with both feet frozen. I didn't want to wake up my parents (since I was home later than I should have been) and simply went to bed to let my feet thaw out under the blankets. At that time it was thought that frozen hands and feet should be thawed out by rubbing them with snow. (Bad idea). My method actually was the best way to thaw out, but I couldn't walk for a week and had to miss a week of school. My feet turned black because blood vessels had burst from being frozen. Once I was O.K. again I made sure I took no chances with the snow or cold.
Although cold, it is a lovely day today and the sun is shining in my windows and everything is sparkling outside.

New Year's "Day

Happy New Year. Watched the Rose Bowl Parade this morning. Every year it gets more elaborate and larger. I enjoyed it from my bed, with my little DeLongi heater on, and I couldn't have been more comfortable anywhere in the world. As I wrote in my last blog posting, we have no desire to join the crowds at these events, even football games, but enjoy them on TV.
I wonder what this year will hold? Good health and happiness for all, I hope. Blessings to all.