Disasters and other eye openers

March 10, 2018

Fog, cats, a dog, and a country run amok

Karl the fog came to visit and the leadership of my country has run amok. Of course I’m thinking of one in particular, but that name shall NOT contaminate this blog. He’s running amok and no one will stop him. They’re either silent about him or aiding him. It’s the same either way. I’ve tried to keep politics (aside from social issues) out of the blog, but it’s going to creep in and this is one of those times. Between threats to our LGBT friends and our friends from sh#thole countries, I’m just sick. Sick and tired of the bigotry and racism from a jerk running his “mouth” off on Twitter and enabling all the other bigots and racists. I can only hope that the 2018 mid term elections bring about some much needed change. It’s going to take years to correct the damage that’s been done. Of course, that’s provided he doesn’t get us all blown up before then.

In things, life hasn’t been all bad. Karl the Fog decided to pay a visit for the last few days and Lastech got some cool pics.

This is from before the fog rolled in with Coit tower and the Bay Bridge lit up

The fog makes everything look quiet and mysterious

Not fog, but it fits in with the others.

Of course, we haven’t forgotten the critters. They’re doing fine. They didn’t appreciate the cold snap we had, but I told them it could be worse. They could be living in the NE part of the country or in Canada. They have a heated blanket, so they don’t suffer.

Titanescu gets two pics this time.

Not to forget the dawg. She doesn’t have an electric blanket, but her crate in well insulated and she has a blanket collection.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ll try to post again sooner.

September 16, 2017

Bleeping ‘canes, effing distracted drivers, and cats

A distracted driver, two hurricanes and more storms to possibly follow. Holy cow! I’ve spent the last couple of weeks keeping track of my friends and/or their families that were in the path of these things. Now there are more storms to worry about. Ugh! As for us, we appear to be past the worst of our heatwaves, thank goodness. Along with that, our air quality has improved as well.

As for the effing distracted driver? People need to put down their phones and pay attention to the road. If you need to read a map, pull over. If you need to text someone, pull over. Distracted driving is becoming a bigger and bigger problem. My phone lives in my pocket when I’m driving. I don’t even have it hooked to the bluetooth as I don’t want to answer it. Whoever pings or calls can wait. My life and that of others is more important.

I don’t like driving, at least in the city, but out in the boonies, I’ve no problem. It’s leftovers from an accident back in 2006. Anyhow, I’ve been doing ok with it. I was on my way home the other day though when it happened. I was sitting at a signal waiting for green light when WHAM! She never hit the brakes. I calmly said a bad word, then we pulled over to exchange info. She was young (18-20) and headed home from school. I was patient. She was uninjured and I was fine. Our poor car goes into the shop on Monday for repairs. I think the damage is just to the back bumper and muffler/tailpipes. We’ll know more then. I will have to bite the bullet and get behind the wheel again.

As for the girl, I don’t know that she was on her phone. It’s merely a guess, but I had been stopped for a good 15 seconds before she hit me, so she had to have been distracted by something. Sadly, the car was registered to her parents and I’m guessing that, like us, they’re working class. That makes the loss of the car harder for them. Lord knows what it will do to their insurance rates. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in her shoes when she showed up at home with the car. Ouch.

It’s a ’99 Mercedes. Or it was. I think it’s totaled. Our car looked much better, in spite of the damage.

Now it’s time for the pointy-eared people and the floppy-eared one to shine.

Everybody look right! I mean left…your left.

No Pepi! The the other way!

Never mind! You’re all confused.

Speaking of confused, I can hear a male Anna hummingbird doing his mating dive outside. The normal breeding season is Dec thru June. Go figure.

September 4, 2017

Bleeping weather, fecking smoke, and Pepi

The smoke from the fires has blown in and is awful. Back to that in a minute. First, the weather

A very odd thing happened Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It was hotter in Concord, CA than in El Centro, CA. El Centro sits near the Mexican border in the Sonoran desert and is below sea level. These temps are normal there. Not so much here. San Francisco broke an all-time record with 106 degrees on Friday and we topped out at 109. Blech! We did the same on Saturday. In plain English, the weather is hotter than hell.

The fecking smoke was almost worse than the heat. It was blowing in from the fires up North. Then it blew in from the fires to the East. I couldn’t get two feet away from the inhaler, but I was ok. I used it when I needed it.

Lastech took this photo of the smoky sunrise

Continue reading “Bleeping weather, fecking smoke, and Pepi”

August 19, 2017

Caturday: Jenny the housekeeper

Rudha-an here. Before we get to the more lighthearted fare involving Miss Jenny and her housekeeping skills, I have something to say. This last week has been an eye opener and not in a good way. Oh, I knew things were bad, but I had hoped for better. It appears that America’s effing Nazis have been given a voice. We need to drown them out by shouting louder than they can. I don’t endorse violence, except in self defense. We cannot ignore them either.

Many people advocate just ignoring them and they’ll go away. They won’t go away. Bullies never go away until they’re forced into it. Stand up and shout. Shout for your neighbors and your friends. Do not be silent. I leave you with these two quotes.

Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph. ~Haile Salassie~

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. ~Martin Luther King~

I now return you to Lastech and his story about Miss Jenny’s housekeeping.

Miss Jenny’s housekeeping skills may lean more towards Mrs. Doubtfire than Mary Poppins, but she deserves an A for charming mayhem. After I’d gotten home from work, I unwrapped and balled up the bandage off my foot and left it on my side of the bed before passing out.

Some hours later, still in the dark, I woke up to scratching and thumping. I reached out blindly and touched soft fur and a rather solid body, which triggered some heavy purring. Miss Jenny. Whaaa…? She was batting at something until she picked it up and dropped it on the bed, waiting. Since I’m so well trained by Tito, I half-consciously picked it up and tossed it across the bedroom. She leapt after it and brought it back a few times until I returned to sleep in short order.

Some time later, scratch-scratch-scratch… “Baby no, what are you doing?” Purr-purr… I covered my head with a pillow and went back to sleep. I vaguely remember her stepping and farting around my head, crop dusting as I petted her… Amazing what you get used to, really.

Miss Jenny looking satisfied with her housekeeping

Living with the furry ones, I’m well aware of the need to watch where I step, and that includes checking my slippers before putting them on, a good idea that morning, since cat logic dictates that’s where writing implements belong… I should mention that the balled up bandage vaguely resembled a potato and Jenny loves potatoes.

Miss Jenny very carefully placed the pens in my slippers. The alignment was almost perfect.

And now for the rest of the fur butts

Tito looking like he’s about to start chirping

April 15, 2017

Caturday: Maniacal beeping and a melted outlet

Hello world. Last week was interesting. I was puttering when I heard a loud beeping. I looked around and saw nothing. Awhile later, I heard it again. Aha! The microwave. I reset it and went about my business. It was beeping again. It even beeped at 4 am. I finally flipped the breaker that controlled it and the beeping stopped. Then the modem kept turning off, followed by the power shutting off at 5:30 am. As soon as the sun was up, I went outside to check on things. I was quite startled to find that our 30 amp plug and the outlet it was attached to had burned and melted. Evidently melting shore power outlets is not that uncommon. The manager managed to get the electricians in to fix things up.

Melted 30 amp shore power outlet. It was stinky

Needless to say, the timing for these things is never good. Oh well, the Endurance is powered up again. Now it’s time for the pointy-eared people and the floppy-eared one to shine.

Lastech managed to get a couple of fun pics from the pier and a sunrise

Sea lion getting ready to join the others

We plan on being back next week, provided WW III hasn’t started. Happy Easter to all who celebrate it.

February 25, 2017February 25, 2017

Caturday: kamikaze hard drive and crappy hearing

Yep, I’m losing my hearing and my hard drive bit the dust. In the middle of all that, Mother Nature was trying to reshape half the state of California.

My hearing was always tenuous at best. I was born mostly deaf and even had an eardrum replaced back when I was in high school. I managed my later years without too many problems, learning how to avoid ear infections and things were going well. Then last November when we got the flu, the resulting infection migrated to my ears. It’s been an ongoing battle ever since. On Monday, the doc will probably prescribe a more powerful antibiotic as one of the three bacteria critters is a bit tougher and really, really likes me. Once we get rid of the infection, we can schedule some tests to see how bad the damage is and I don’t expect it will be good news.

As for the hard drive? It was working fine and then it wasn’t. It’s dead Jim. I went out and got a new one, put on my computer repair hat, and went to work. As you can see, I’m up and running again. I lost a lot of pictures that were on the drive. It’s my own darned fault. I’m going to be setting up an account for online cloud backup. That way I’m covered if this ever happens again. Lucky for me, most pics were backed up to Google Photos, although not in their original size. I want to be able to save everything as is. I kept the old drive and when the budget permits, we’ll look into having a pro look at it to see if the files can be rescued.

So that’s why we were missing for a week or so. We didn’t wash away. In spite of the frustrations listed above, life isn’t bad. We rode out the storms and we’re fine here in our little trailer. We’ll see what kind of crucible 2017 turns out to be.

And now for the stars of our show.

Titanescu giving Lastech a stinkeye…with drunk overtones. Hahaha!

Miss Jenny looking reflective. Seriously. Look at her eyes. 🙂

In spite of the rains wreaking havoc, we managed to get out and commune with mother nature. It was cold and wet, but good.

The creek which is usually a trickle, was flowing nicely. Photo by Lastech

Yes, we saw river otters with fishy noms

If you look closely, you can see the other otter peeping out on the left side of the one in front.

Black Phoebe. They’re graceful gnat catchers.

Now for a few birdies viewed from the trailer window

Tufted Titmouse gathering nesting material

Between the time I started writing this and now, I set up an account with Backblaze and my files are backing up as I type. Here’s a good review on Backblaze as well as another one (same author) comparing it with 23 others. So far so good.

January 28, 2017January 28, 2017

Caturday: sadness, anger, refugees, and fur kids

Before I get to the kitty pics, I have to speak up.

I’m beyond sad and angry that the country of my birth is refusing refugees again. Yes, again. My country has a very sad history when it comes to refugees and non-white people. Slavery is the first to come to mind as we’re taught about it in school. Once the slaves were freed, it was followed by segregation. In the middle of that, we had the awful Trail of Tears. Native Americans were thought of as “savages” and were treated as such. Later, we didn’t want the Chinese and other Asians coming, so we built Angel Island as place to keep them while trying to refuse them entry.

Now let us fast forward to WWII. Thanks to George Takei, many have learned more about the Japanese Internment camps than might have otherwise. Out of fear that there might be an enemy hiding among them, my country rounded up Japanese men, women, and children and confined them to camps. Most lost everything they had. They lost homes, businesses, and even lives thanks to inadequate medical care. Pssst, they weren’t the only ones we put in camps. We rounded up the Unangans of the Aleutian Islands and put them in camps as well. As for the Jews? If they weren’t already here, tough. We turned away many Jewish refugees and Anne Frank was one of them.

Now we’re refusing Syrian refugees and more because there might be terrorist among them. We’ve banned refugees and people holding Visas from several Middle Eastern countries. Our 9/11 terrorists came from countries that have no restrictions placed on them, so using them as an excuse doesn’t fly with me. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an attempt to start a Muslim registry. I would hope it doesn’t happen, but I’m not holding my breath. I’m a white woman and fairly safe throughout all this. However, my grandparents were immigrants (one from Mexico) and Lastech is an immigrant. I can’t sit still while my friends and neighbors are afraid of the future and I won’t keep my mouth shut. I will do anything and everything I can to help, even if it’s just calling my congress critters.

Ok, that’s my rant. I would say more, but I’m not eloquent. I’m just angry as hell.

Update: A Federal court has granted a nation-wide stay on the ban of Muslims and refugees. It’s only a stay, but it’s a step in the right direction. The fight is just beginning though. In addition to Muslim refugees, Mexicans and my LBGT brothers and sisters also have targets painted on them.

Now I can get to the pics.

Miss Pepi: I didn’t lick the street! Honest! (She licks everything)

December 10, 2016

Caturday: dingle balls, shake it all the way…

Dingle balls, also known as dingle berries, thankfully are not our daily bread, else we’d all go fruitcake. But two instances this past week’s a bit much. First, during our walk through the autumnal glory of the Markham arboretum, Pepi indulged in her ritual pee and poo, in that order. Given that she hoovers anything she can*, I’m surprised she doesn’t ingest the occasional long hair more often.

Anyway, after she was done burying an elf, she began darting and squatting, darting and squatting. On closer inspection, I noticed a broken off turd swinging off her chocolate starfish like Tarzan at the end of his vine (“I COMING, JANE!”). Did we ever mention I’m borderline OCD when it comes to such matters? I went to my happy place, a German pop tune from ’82 playing in a loop somewhere.

Naturally, Rudha-an remained functional, retrieving a paper napkin from the car and proceeded to remove that attacking nugget from Pepi’s butt. That’s what we get for having opposable thumbs, I guess. “Oh. I ate another of your hairs. Take care of it, won’t you, Jeeves?”

By the way, not pointing fingers, but I’m bald as a cue-ball.

Later this same week, at oh-dark-whatever, a ruckus. It sounded like furniture crashing. Pepi was in her crate, Jenny and Titan were both on the bed… Even in the fog of sleep I suspected something horrendous, involving crap. Not puke, they do that on the low-low. But Tito has priors when it comes to ingesting and “passing” human hair (“that ain’t no mine..!”). Jenny’s half his age, so perhaps she’ll catch up in time, but there she was brutally awakened on the bed like the rest of us.

The fracas lasted maybe five seconds, then silence. We didn’t speak, it wasn’t necessary to spell out what we already sensed. As Tito dropped butt burritos in the litter box (which Pepi would treat as a buffet if we let her), the worst “knock-knock” joke played out against his arse. “Bad touch! Bad touch!” And Tito went-a-racing with the stranger-danger tethered to his poop chute until escape velocity threw the turd back near the litter box.

Or so we think. That is where Rudha-an’s forensic exploration located the morsel, but there’s no telling where that thing had been. Tito raced from the box to the dinette, down to the floor, through the kitchen, into the bedroom where he bounced against the wall before running across the bed and back to the rear of the Endurance where the litter box is.

Da-da-da..!
Ich liebe dich nicht, do liebst mich nicht
Da-Da-Da..!
Ye gods.

Heard this morning,during Pepi’s early pee walk: “Pepi stop licking the car!?!”

And here’s a kitten being the dingle ball.

December 3, 2016December 10, 2016

Caturday: Fur people, lights, and a fire

I awoke this Caturday to see news about a tragic and terrible fire in nearby Oakland. At this point there are 9 confirmed dead and approximately 25 missing. If there’s one thing I truly fear, it’s fire. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims as they wait for news.

The fur people have been enjoying the windows more these days. The mulberry trees that gave us so much summer shade have been pruned heavily for winter. That makes the windows sunnier to the delight of the pointy eared people who soak up every sunbeam they can find.

I was playing bird sounds (black phoebe) while trying to ID some birds I couldn't see. Tito went to full alert. — I was playing bird sounds (black phoebe) while trying to ID some birds I couldn’t see. Tito went to full alert.

Jenny licking her chops at the thought of birds

Titan giving me the I-know-those-aren't-real birds stinkeye. — Titan giving me the I-know-those-aren’t-real birds stinkeye.

Miss Pepi was sleeping and didn't care about the bird sounds. — Miss Pepi was sleeping and didn’t care about the bird sounds.

Our weather has turned rather cold (for us) and the heaters are working hard at night. No rain for a while, but soon we hope. We didn’t make any day trips this last week as other chores got in the way. However, Lastech has been taking a few pics here and there.

See ya next week

November 5, 2016

Caturday: Halloween and rotten brains

Yes, rotten brains… As in Abby Normal. This past week had a definite Halloween theme, with my waking up from dreams of epileptic sheep in the back of an ambulance early Monday morning, my brain not firing on all cylinders. All day at work on Sunday, I’d complained of a headache. Got home, wolfed down a cheeseburger, still felt weird, popped a couple glucose tablets and the lights went out before I finished the second one. We got home at 4:20 a.m., I emailed work to let them know I would need a few days off.

Rudha-an here: The fur people will have their moment before Lastech continues with his story. I’m going to add though, that it scared the living crap out of me. Lucky for me, my friend came and hauled me to the hospital and “held my hand” as it were. And now for the furry stars of the show…

I did some rearranging and shortened the cat tower. Then I put it in the window on the dinette seat. They seem to like that much better. They have bird watching marathons now.

Now back to Lastech’s Halloween story

It’s at times like these you find reasons to feel fortunate, strange as it may seem. For instance, I learned the reason why someone working in my department has been out for the past two weeks: seizures revealed a tumor, which returned after surgery. Stage 3 brain cancer. Then one of the kids we newly hired had to take emergency bereavement leave after his father committed suicide.

So I’m thankful my passing out pales by comparison, even with a 6 months driving license suspension due to the risk of recurrence.
Also, thanks to modern technology, I now have this nice photo of my rotten brain showing dead tissue from 40 years ago. They had to take a drill and relieve the pressure after a nasty motorcycle crash, and it must have been a little like this: NSFW

As for that rotten brain? Here ya go

Rudha-an here: Lastech goes back for more tests on Monday. We’ll keep you posted.