Faces

This is a new feature on My Geminiacal Life. Not a new feature IN my Geminiacal life, but I've decided to begin keeping these here. So there.

Pareidolia is a type of apophenia. It's fun, and I have non-suffered from it my entire life. Here for your enjoyment is my most recent collection. I've added a little something to each one in case you don't have the same condition I do.

Please do not scroll down if you are easily offended. I cannot be held morally responsible for what my brain sees when I look at these objects...or pretty much for anything else in my life.

 

 

Pilgrim's Progress (which was surely slow since they didn't have cars back then)

I've spent the past couple of weeks using wood putty and sandpaper to nurse the existing trim boards around the doors and cupboards in the hallway back into some semblance of non-shittiness. There were four we just HAD to remove because the tiny bit of wall space around them would have just been too difficult to work on, but I didn't want to replace more trim than absolutely necessary. So I've ever-so-slowly been re-molding the moulding.

At one point, I encountered a nail that had worked its way out. I tenderly tapped it back in with a hammer and the trim board suddenly split from the floor to about 10 inches up. After evening rumination, I decided I could fix that too. Sorry I didn't take a before pic, but the after shows that

I can build an entire perfect house from wood putty! 

I'll post another after it's painted. Hopefully the repair will be invisible.

Having completed that, and all the sanding to follow, and all the wipe-down and vacuuming following that, I spent two days applying the primer. It had to be split into two days because of all the up-and-down on the ladder. My stupid broken body just couldn't complete the job in one day but eventually it got done. Then...

Thanks to the primer, I could then see every spot that was still sub-par. Try as I might to accept mediocrity, I just can't. As it turns out, Steve admitted he did THREE coats of mud in his "little room" whereas I only had TWO coats on the hall before priming. Yesterday I mixed up a new batch of mud and went after it again.

Fall is in the air and Satan is in my car

The weather has begun to turn. After "triple digit temps" last weekend, we've had rain, overcast and chill the past few days. Naturally this means I must make applesauce cake.

Applesauce Cake

Ingredients:
1/2 cup Crisco
2 eggs
15 oz. unsweetened applesauce
1-1/2 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon ground cloves
2 tablespoons powdered baking chocolate
2 tablespoons cinnamon
a veritable butt-load of raisins

Directions:
Grease and flour sugar a square cake pan (or 2 loaf pans or muffin tins or whatever else floats your boat). Mix shortening, eggs, applesauce and sugar together until well blended but still lumpy. Sift on top the remaining ingredients except raisins. Fold until well blended. Stir in raisins. Bake at 350 F for 50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Serve naked.

My car is surely possessed

It's doing that thing where it doesn't make that clunk when I take the mechanic for a little joy-ride, so he says it's no big deal. Meanwhile, I believe I received a sign.

Uber-Goober

In spite of that, to save the cost and hassle of a rental, I loaned Lainie my car while she was in CA for a week. She came down to accompany me, Steve and Margaret to Marshall and Judy's 50th Wedding Anniversary party. I was their flower girl when they married in 1968. Don't do the math.

This photo of my late father's wives is evidence that 

my propensity for befriending exes runs in the family.

From the party, Lainie accompanied Ma and Cory back to Modesto, and then I drove down to pick her up on Monday. We had a nice lunch (unfortunately Cory was working at the time) before schlepping back to Sac. It was at the cafe that Ma tried to get a nice posed shot of us together and we pissed her off with this:

She hates it when we ham for the camera

Not a lot of obvious progress, but fun instead

The mudding, sanding, lather-rinse-repeat continues in the hallway. This ball is in Steve's court and I am unable to help or proceed with paint or flooring until he completes the work to his perfectionist standards. (Thank goddess for his perfectionist standards.)

Even after his diligent curtaining-off of the hallway, plus vacuuming and flat-surface-wiping, there is a thin layer of dust all over EVERYthing in the house. EVERYthing, I tell you. I'm trying hard not to stress out about it but it makes my OCD itch.

Debbi came to Sac over the weekend. We originally scheduled her visit so she could help me play with glue goo and put down paper flooring, but since the hall isn't ready for that yet she and I were forced to shop, chitty-chat, eat, drink and lounge. Oh, woe.

Ain't we hot for a couple of old broads

Franky, Winnie and Katy

We did another Doobert run yesterday. Oh my stars, it takes quite some effort not to bond with these adorable, sweet pups, even in the short time they are in our care.

 If she could have, she would have been purring.

Left to right: Winnie, Franky, Katy

Makin' Messes - It's What I Do

Tyvek-type fabric was used to protect the (dismantled) light fixtures from the mess. I didn't want to completely remove them because we'll need the light to work in this dark space.

The sky continued to fall. (It didn't really take that long at all; I just wanted to give credit where credit was due.)

Afterward it looked like a bird had pooped down the front of the linen cupboard.
 

The chair rail is now gone. The hallway was the only placed in the house with chair rail, and why? No one puts chairs in the hallway.

Popcorn was everywhere!!!

Bailey was somewhat flummoxed.

Since two of the doors that open to the hall have already been refinished, and since we discovered what a mess happened in the linen cupboard when we started this work without protecting it, we decided to wrap that cupboard and the two finished doors before proceeding. Brilliant.

So now the ball is in Steve's court. He will start sanding, mudding, sanding, mudding and sanding the ceiling and walls. I won't start the floor until that's all done and painted but I have at least one and maybe two volunteers to help with the papering. Which is vastly appreciated since my feeb self breaks for 3 days if I spend longer than about 15 minutes crouched on the ground.

The Sky is Falling

In response to Kashi's advancing age and related incontinence, we have extracted all the pee-soaked carpet and padding from our hallway.

Also gone are the baseboards and chair rail.

The master bedroom will be next, but not until we update the hall as we have the bathroom and Steve's (sarcastically named) "sewing room." This means removing the outdated, dirty and ugly popcorn ceilings first.

You'll have to stay tuned to see what comes next!!

Holier Than Thou

WWJD

The other day Steve and I were eating at our stand-by, home-away-from-home Mexican joint down the street, and a homeless woman wandered in. She wanted to use the restroom but of course they wouldn't let her since she was not a paying customer. She smelled so bad that her mere presence immediately cleared the place. Two families and a single guy all exited pronto. The homeless woman left soon after them but her musk lingered.

The only patron left, aside from me and Steve, was a woman standing at the desk waiting for her take-out order. Ms. TakeOut kept making eye contact with me in an attempt to bond over facial expressions of disgust and repulsion. As we went up to pay for our meal, I made a small comment about how sad that poor homeless woman's situation is. "After all, she is a person. She is someone's daughter." As we exited The restaurant, Ms. TakeOut said, "I'll pray for her. That's all we can do, right?"

It was a good thing for Steve that I already had momentum in the direction of the parking lot because what I really wanted to do was turn on my heel and say, "No, that is not all we can do. That is all we are willing to do."

It left me kind of pissed that this woman evidently thought she was such a wonderful Christian and yet, what would Jesus have done? Wouldn't he have taken the hand of the smelly homeless woman, given her a chair and some cool water and washed her feet? Why didn't this "Christian" woman do as Jesus would have done? Why didn't she offer the homeless woman the opportunity to come home with her for a shower, a glass of water, or a meal? Why didn't she at least reach out to the homeless woman, convey to her that she is recognized as a human being, a child of God, maybe order a little something for her to eat or quench her thirst?

Don't get me wrong. I realize I didn't do anything either, but at least I'm honest about not stepping in because sometimes if you bring a homeless person home with you and offer them a shower and a meal then you might Never Get Rid of Them. (I know this from personal experience.) It's just that it struck me as such a cop-out to say "I'll pray for her because that's all I can do."

Postmortem

This week I attended two funerals. Or maybe it's more accurate to say I crashed a funeral for two dead guys.

I RSS the obituaries in my area and when a homeless vet dies without family the funeral home publishes the details so the public can attend if they so wish. I so wished.

They had both served in the Vietnam war. They were both homeless. We do not know if they were drug addicted or had struggles with mental illness, but an assumption can certainly be made.

The funeral home was crawling with American Legion and VFW members and bikers bearing huge American flags. Those two homeless heroes got their official military send off, complete with the flag ceremony, Taps, Amazing Grace played on bagpipes, and three rounds fired into the air.

By chance, I sat four chairs away from a woman who rocked to-and-fro in her seat, held her open hands skyward, praying under her breath and saying "amen" in all the right places. It made me think about our experience in the restaurant and I wondered how this crowd would respond if either of these two homeless men walked into this clean, nicely appointed funeral home (while they still alive), covered in filth and smelly from living on the streets.

Homeless or not, veteran or not, why do we wait until someone is dead to treat them right?

retirement, heartbreak and mending

Guilty Pleasures

The pervasive theme of my entire adult life has been to keep everyone housed and fed. To that end, I have consistently and diligently exercised, if I do say so myself, a stellar Protestant work ethic.

Now that I'm retired I find myself spending a long, peaceful mornings on the patio, listening to the water in the pond, keeping Bailey company while she chases butterfly shadows, drinking coffee and reading, with Kashi napping nearby.

While this activity is exactly what I want to be doing when I'm doing it, I find there is some small ridiculous ember of guilt glowing in the background. And I don't know why. I put in my time and I deserve this now. I am not taking anything from anyone in order to indulge in this way. So what is it that gives me that feeling?

Disdain for Stain

After attending YouTube U to learn what's involved in staining a concrete floor, I say fuggedaboutit! Decision made: I'm going to have to paper what isn't going to get carpet.

Fractured Fairy Tale

For the life of me, I cannot understand how my family, those who were raised by me, can spend long periods of time isolating from one another.

Last night was rough. A conversation that had to be had was had. It was prickly, uncomfortable, scary and difficult. I was left feeling like I was on death row for a crime I did not commit. I lay in bed for hours, unable to shut my brain off, even after it occurred to me that the accusations were ludicrous.  (That is not me!) Injustice is a hard pill for me to swallow. I had to force myself to focus on the sound of the fan and visualize all my cares flying away into the night like fireflies.

"You'd die for them, happily. Your family. But at the same time you think, Chist, I can't die! What might happen to them if I weren't here? And you know bloody well that you mostly can't help them anyway; they've got to do it – or not – themselves."
– Hal Grey, in Written in My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabledon

Update: Breakthrough

My daughter has come to the conclusion that we cannot move forward if she remains in the past, so she made the simple decision to leave it behind. This is great news for our relationship, although I do worry she may retain lingering thoughts or questions that will gnaw at her. But I hope not.

What's Up... Vance and Molly

It's been over four months since I posted that I should be writing more, and the most I've written in that time is a grocery list. Sad!

Mom finally sold her house in Oregon and was packing to move in with my sister, so there was a semi-mad dash to finish some things at Cory's place to make it ready. Over three weeks, I helped  clean and paint what would become Mom's sewing room and install a shopping bag paper floor in the basement so she can make that her fortress of solitude.

Then Corbin inked a deal for a commercial space where he and Nancy are opening their new business. (Shameless plug: go to www.SacramentoCerakote.com and give them the business!!) Steve and I helped them paint and prep the space, interspersed with spilled paint disasters (thanks, Bailey!) and squirt gun fights (thanks, Nancy!). They'll be opening for business SOON!!!

I've been doing a lot of home improvementy things around my own abode. Small things. Probably not noticeable to others until I physically drag them over and say, "LOOK WHAT I DID!"

I show them the front door where I scrubbed off 20 years of cat pee and repainted and now it looks all fresh and clean.

I show them the address sign I painted but haven't yet put on the house.

I show them the other address sign I painted on the curb because I'm too adamantly DIY to pay $5 to the vagrants that come to the door and offer to paint it for me every couple of years.

I show them the bathroom we finished (finally! with a little help from our friends).

Note the exemplary paper floor.
I show them the glass lanterns I've collected and, recently spruced up by painting the insides with nail polish, hung from the patio roof.

They make kind, appropriate sounds. "Cool," say they.

Not as cool are the big patches of my w-w carpet that I've had to cut out and discard because my 15 year old grand dame

"What."
all of a sudden thinks it's much more satisfying to pee on carpet than in any of the potty boxes. I'm trying to decide what to do with those areas and when. It would be dumb to have new carpet installed, only to let her pee on that; we're wondering if we want to try staining or painting the concrete sub-floor to see if we like that as much as the floor at Nugget Market. Anyway...TBD.

Some time back I became a Verified Doobert Transporter. You can read about the organization at doobert.com, but I'll save you the trouble. It's an animal rescue thing. Once they vet you and decide you're not a cat/dog murderer, you can volunteer for any relay legs you like for a given transport. For example, earlier this month Steve and I drove to Colfax to pick up Vance, a 2 year old Treeing Walker Hound, and Molly, a 4 year old Beagle/hound mix.

We schlepped them back to Sacramento and handed them off to the next volunteer. The dogs' trip originated in Minnesota and would end in Santa Rosa, so our part was small, but they were very nice passengers, it was a very pleasant volunteer gig, and we can't wait to do it again.

Oh, also, I'm teaching Bailey to ride in a shopping cart. Because she's cool and I like taking her everywhere with me.

"Hey lady. Try the Oolong."
The kids and grand-kids are all fine, although there's always the on-again, off-again saga of who's speaking to whom and whom isn't. It seriously blows my mind that this happens in my nuclear family. I don't understand it, and it stresses me out to think about it, so I mostly don't. They're all traveling down their own individual paths and they must have a reason so I just leave it alone. When they want to talk, or visit, I figure they'll let me know / invite me. In the meantime, I just respect their privacy and love them from afar.

And in closing....today would have been my 35th wedding anniversary. For what that's worth.

Resurrection

 I have not been writing enough and that needs to change.