“Remoted” – Day 424 (Friday)

The Friday feeling was in full effect. There was a laser focus and work tasks were completed for the pure joy of crossing them off the list. The presentation for the Public Speaking class final next week was practiced and timed and a full minute needs to be shaved.

As a test, I tried starting the gas mower that wouldn’t work last Friday. After three or four attempts, it cooperated. Maybe it’s the arm strengthening effects of multiple shifts with the push mower earlier in the week, maybe it’s the phase of the moon, maybe it’s the empowering effects of anger and rage, who knows.

White violets on the prowl.

Mom and StepDad are coming tomorrow, and it was important the lawn be neat so that StepDad wouldn’t feel compelled to mow it. Thanks to the gas mower, the front and back yard grass is now evenly cut and free of the lush clusters of faux grass. The front yard has a minor invasion of white violets creeping into the lawn. I love them, and mowing around them was the goal, but dang, that is harder than it seemed it should be and there were some casualties. 

Groceries were delivered, which is still my favorite pandemic luxury. The bags were set on the doorstep and a text arrived saying the driver needed help. There was no help needed. The text continued with a note saying the order was delivered, thanking me for the order, and saying that a five-star rating is very important to the person who delivered it and their family, and telling me to have a wonderful day. After seeing the note, I don’t have the heart to complain about the cracked egg that leaked all over the bag and everything else in it. Nicely done, delivery person.

The evening's entertainment consisted of the Netflix series Halston, which sent me back to the days of high school and college when I cared about fashion and W, a consumer publication of Women’s Wear Daily, was my bible. The series touches on the emerging designers like Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren,  and Halston saying he won’t put his name on jeans "because they are a fad." There are days I wish that had been true. 

In my fashion obsessed days of college, the walls of my bedroom were covered in collages featuring the top models and designers. A male friend of the time had remarked that other girls he knew had pictures of male singers and actors on their walls, but my walls were "a lesson in style." Looking back, it was fun to care about fashion and designers and perfume and lifestyle. My, how life has changed. Now, my life is dominated by dogs and pet food and medications and lawn mowing, and  I couldn't name one contemporary designer if my life depended on it. So sad.

“Remoted” – Day 423 (Thursday)

Today offered some very welcome breaks from the usual routine. It still involved sitting at the desk all day, but the brain requirements were altered and in some cases, refreshing. First, there was the meeting with my manager for goal setting. Who doesn’t love a to-do list with high stakes?

A half hour later, it was an online team event involving team names and trivia and rapid-fire questions, and other games. It was really fun, and my font of random knowledge bits helped my team score points. Of course, knowing the answer to Brad Pitt’s first speaking role in a movie (Thelma and Louise) has colleagues thinking I'm a Brad Pitt fan and know a lot about movies. Neither of these perceptions is true. I got the Swedish word for winter correct (vinter) when I remembered Mummu telling me when I was a kid that there is no "w" in Swedish or Finnish and her mother used to say, "vill you put my sveater on?" It was luck from the fountain of random.

There was accidental learning involved in the event – and I now know another area in which I am way below average. The question was “how many hot dogs does the average American eat each year?” and the answer was 87. Seriously – 87? How in the heck does this happen? I can’t even remember the last time I ate a hot dog. Even in my prime hot dog consumption years, I doubt I came close to that number. And now it’s all I can think about. In the end, my team and I, the aptly named “Better Than the Rest”, beat the other two teams. Colleagues had to bow to us. We rock.

Kira!

Then, as if the day wasn’t exciting enough, after work, it was the YWCA of Northeastern Massachusetts' Tribute to Women 2021. It was a virtual event with an online auction and my friend and colleague Kira was an honoree. The online event was pretty neat and several of us from our team had a pre-recorded shoutout that was done to congratulate Kira. She rocks. 

“Remoted” – Day 422 (Wednesday)

Murder show.

Tonight, I finished watching the third season of Hinterland, a crime show set in Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales, (a real place!) that I have been binge-watching for a couple weeks. It has the basic premise of many other crime shows – big city cop has personal crisis and flees to a small town and quieter life, and ends up constantly busy solving crazy, bloody crimes. This was also the idea behind Death in Paradise, which was set on a pretty island in the eastern Caribbean Sea. 

According to the Wikipedia page for Hinterland, “The series reflects the commitment made in April 2013 by the Director of BBC Cymru Wales, Rhodri Talfan Davies, to show more Welsh language, life, and culture on the mainstream BBC channels.” Wales looks lovely and drizzly and moody, and based on the sheer number of violent crimes depicted in the one rural town in this show created to depict Welsh “life and culture,” I don’t think I want to go there. Ever. It is interesting to note that every show was filmed twice – in English and in Welsh. That’s a lot of work for the actors. I wonder if they were paid for the equivalent of two shows.

As for the pretty little island in Death in Paradise, I’m not so keen on that place either. It looks lovely, but everyone there ends up dead by rather unnatural causes, so that’s not going to be on the top of my travel list any time soon. I guess it’s a good thing that show is set on a made-up island.

The crime show switch has been forced by the Hallmark Channel lineup which suddenly transformed to endless episodes of Reba and Last Man Standing and a bunch of other series once the calendar flipped to May. Thanks, Hallmark. Now instead of sappy movies with happy endings that might teach me how to meet a life partner, I’m looking at grim police procedurals and learning all the most gruesome ways to kill people. Not cool.

“Remoted” – Day 421 (Tuesday)

Cut back, but still big.

The wind returned today. This did not please me, especially when I noticed it was blowing long enough and hard enough to have removed some of the flowers from the bleeding heart transplanted in the back yard. The original plant out front is quite large, even after what was clearly insufficient thinning as it was first coming up. There was not much time spent lingering in the yard with the Canine Overlords due to the wind. A few weeds were pulled from the flower bed, but it was quick and done and not very much fun. 

Work saw several things making progress in the to do list, which always feels good. After work there was a board meeting held via Zoom, which is the clear highlight of the social life, and as entertaining as it can be, the one hour has a lot of pressure riding on it doing double duty as volunteer work and social scene.

While driving recently, in addition to noticing cars I might want to buy, I have noticed that men’s fashions still have not improved. I had hoped that the cyclical nature of fashion would lead to a return of the waistband to the actual waist, but this has not borne out, and man butts and underwear are still on full and disappointing display. 

Not my real neighbor.

While my dream of men wearing their pants at or near the waist have not fully returned, there has been a revival of a previous accessory. The men congregating at the end of my street have added a new layer to their fashion-forward low-slung jeans and baggy coordinated sweat suits in the form of the fanny pack. The update to the fanny pack is that they are not worn fastened around the midsection, and instead it is worn either over the shoulder like a purse, or crosswise on the torso like a cross body bag. Perhaps most amusing, is that they wear it while sitting on the porch of their own home. 

Is this the current comical direction of menswear? What do guys carry that won't fit into any of the dozens of pockets with which their clothing is already blessed? Should I start taking my purse out to the deck when I sit there? Does the man purse match the shoes, or should it coordinate more with the general outfit? If the men are going to be carrying purses now, does that mean the wife or girlfriend can ditch her purse and have him carry her keys and wallet, or do the couples coordinate the purses? So many questions.

“Remoted” – Day 420 (Monday)

Today was the perfect day to shake up the inertia. Work-work got done and there was a test run of the “share screen” feature in our conferencing software for my final presentation in the public speaking class at work next Tuesday. This was a relief.

After work, a couple home-work things got done, partly prompted by a planned visit from Mom and StepDad this coming weekend. Things have really been allowed to slide around here, and I need to get it together so Mom doesn’t see that I am really a slob. It's hard to cling to the illusion that I might have my crap together when it’s laid out on every horizontal surface of the house.

In addition to the general rule that the best way to get the house cleaned is to have people over, the sunshine and nice air temperature helped get things in motion. The weather inspired the planting of half the pansies into the three-tiered planter on the deck. There are still eight more pansies to be planted, which are now in the front porch. Maybe tomorrow they will be set into the earth. At least I’m no longer constantly relocating them from one end of the kitchen counter to the other.

Instruments of torture.

The remainder of the back yard mowing abandoned on Friday then ignored both Saturday and Sunday was tackled. It took a solid hour of hard labor thanks to the thick clumps of faux grass and their ability to halt the push mower/torture device. As a point of pride, only once did I say aloud, “I hate this effing lawn.” Usually, it is much more frequently uttered, as if a mantra, but I heard kids playing a couple yards over and made every effort to stifle my bitching. The suppression of swearing was at least as great a triumph as the completion of the mowing and the workout. 

While I labored, Winston lounged in the sun on the deck, and Moose wandered the yard, following the random paths of mowed grass, which briefly resembled a labrynth. The way the dense greenery winds through the yard made straight and even rows difficult to impossible, and the mower was pushed in any direction it could pass though. To any neighbors observing, it certainly must have looked like a drunk did the mowing. Out of curiosity, I clipped on the pedometer, and it was 800 steps to mow half the back yard with the push mower. The next mow should be easier, because clumps of the yard will not be six to eight inches tall. I hope.

After the mowing and several glasses of ice water, I happened to catch the beginning of a live tarot reading on Facebook that I had no idea was happening. It felt like a sign. In the space of thirty minutes, the intuitive reader did readings for questions submitted by four viewers. There was a question about career, a mother-in-law, and two about romance/relationships. One of the questions was mine and the outlook seems very favorable.

“Remoted” – Day 419 (Sunday)

It was Mother’s Day, and a planned trip to Mom’s. Before leaving, I pulled a sneak attack on Moose to trim his much too long toenails while he napped. After one nail was cut successfully, I boldly moved to a second, which I cut too short and it bled. Moose didn’t react at all and it was the blood on the couch that indicated what I had done. Bad Mommy. Not only did I feel terrible about it, I had to chase him around the kitchen with tissues and corn starch to stop his bleeding then wipe up the blood spots on the floor. 

The traffic was a bit heavy on the way to Mom’s but the reward at the end of it was a relaxed visit in Mom’s yard in the sunshine with my sister, brother-in-law and two-thirds of the nieces in person and one via Facetime. The sun was warm until blocked by a cloud. It was nice sitting outside, which I don’t do nearly enough, and it was nice to have conversations in person, although I don’t recall many specifics. We definitely talked about cars – the ones we own and those I might want to consider buying. The Saturday visit from Chicken was shared.

After a couple hours, my sister and her crew left to other adventures. StepDad grilled burgers while I planted a bleeding heart and some lilies of the valley dug up earlier from my yard and set them in Mom’s back yard. There were the burgers and cole slaw and potato chips for lunch, followed by strawberries with pound cake, and brown sugar cinnamon pie crust pinwheels. 

It was an offline day and there are no photos of the people or lunch or desserts or the transplanted flowers. Just like the low-tech times of the “good old days,” we’ll have to hold the memory of the day in our hearts and minds until sooner or later (but probably sooner) it slips away. It was a great day.

“Remoted” – Day 418 (Saturday)

Chicken in the yard.

Around 6:00, Moose wanted to go outside for his post-dinner business, and as he rounded the corner into the back yard, I spotted a white bird in the driveway. From the front it looked okay, but the rear feathers were pretty messed up and pink flesh could be seen on most of the butt. The feet indicated it was a chicken. 

I rushed to close the gate so Moose couldn’t get near the bird. His vision is poor, so it would probably be purely an accident if he encountered it, but why take risks. Chicken followed me and tried to peck my shiny, brand new, navy blue loafers. Brand new as in, arrived Thursday from Prime Wardrobe and worn today for the first time, which, until Chicken arrived, was the highlight of the day.

After a few minutes, the chicken crossed the road. I do not know why. It went into the neighbor’s yard, and I was a bit relieved it was no longer my situation to deal with. 

Half an hour later, the dogs next door were barking like crazy, which is unusual. They are generally as quiet as statues. I thought of the chicken, and went onto the deck. Neighbor guy was at the fence looking into my yard with a puzzled look. I asked if the chicken was back, he asked if it was mine. Chicken came to me as if we were best buddies. Moose and Winston barked in the house. I texted the neighbors on the other side of me to see if they knew of anyone with chickens. Nope. 

Chicken in a box, pre-screen.

Chicken enjoyed a feast as it pecked in my yard, and the neighbor dogs were ready to knock down the fence with excitement. Growing worried about Chicken’s welfare overnight, a friend with several chickens was consulted. A Prime delivery box was lined with batting that was insulation from a produce delivery that had been saved because “someday this could be handy.” Reasons to be a packrat, chapters 11 and 12. 

Somehow, Chicken was coaxed into the box and the box moved to the deck. Multi-grain bread was pulled from the freezer and the oats and seeds flicked into the box. Cute, tiny peeping sounds came from the feathered guest.

After another series of texts with my personal poultry consultant, the box was moved to the enclosed porch and topped with a screen from the basement. I went back inside to get a bowl of water and discovered dog poop in the kitchen.

Houdini Chicken in a porch.

After a frantic search through the cabinets for a bowl, I returned to the porch where the screen was still on top of the box, but Chicken was wandering the porch freely. Chicken might need to be renamed Houdini. The plastic, non-breakable takeout bowl of water was a hit, with happy drinking and much flicking and eventually stepping into the bowl and spilling it all over the floor before having a poop/pee release. More water in a heavier bowl was fetched, but the bowl was clear glass and seemed to confuse Chicken.

Chicken was coaxed back into the box with a third, non-spillable but rather small dog water bowl. A child/doggy gate, heavier than the window screen, was placed on the box and the overlap arranged so Chicken’s head would not get stuck. The tiny peeping noises were growing in volume and tone and it seemed Chicken was stressed out or maybe it was me projecting my own stress. The dogs were still going nuts inside. 

At 8:00, the neighbors across the street arrived home. After their car was unloaded, I could hear talk of looking for the chickens. It turned out, they had gotten Chicken and a companion earlier today with plans of nursing them to health. It seems like the first thing they need to plan for is securing the fowl. Over two hours, they had both escaped the yard, and one had scootched under the gate to enter and exit my front yard and later, magically escape a box with a screen. The other one was found under a vehicle in a neighboring yard.

It was sad to see Chicken go back across the road, and unfortunate the poultry Air BnB accommodations were not used. In the end, the lawn was not finished from Friday night, and  I was left with chicken poop in the porch, dog poop in the kitchen, a wet porch floor, a wet box with poop and water-soaked insulation, and two confused barking dogs. It was the best Saturday night in the past year.