On Being Larcened (is that a word?)

Car break-ins or thefts are considered larcenies not burglaries. My reaction after discovering the window broken on our car in San Francisco and our possessions gone followed 6 of the classic 7 phases of grief.

I quickly passed through shock and denial. It was obvious what had happened. There was no actual phase of bargaining, it didn’t apply. But the guilt aspect did set in and remains through the other phases. I knew better than to leave anything visible, but never having a car broken into I didn’t think seriously that it would happen to me. The vacation was going so well that I relaxed too much.

Anger of course followed. I am saddened that there are people that prey on others and see them only as a source of money with no regard to the effect they have on those people’s lives. I’m mad at myself for being so stupid. We will absorb the loss, accept what is gone but forever have that act mar the memory of what otherwise was a wonderful vacation.

The next phase depression sets in when I remember what we did lose. Wonderful pictures ; Penny’s laptop and embroidery software ; Most of our large SD Memory cards; Our Bluetooth earpieces; Our nice backpacks and good laptop case; Both of our travel binoculars; my digital voice recorder; an SDHC card reader; a 1 GB jump drive; Penny’s prescription sunglasses; 1 of the set of 6 flashlights we got at Christmas, a plastic bottle full of quarters a windbreaker and a hoody. This list may grow as we remember more or try to use something we don’t have.

Finally there is acceptance (and hope). Both Penny and I are not letting this spoil everything. We focus on what we have and not what was lost. We will replace those material items we lost. Penny gets to shop for a new laptop and we all know how she likes to shop. I’ll hopefully not get lazy about security.

I do find it interesting how something like this affects you. Both Penny and I did not sleep well for a couple of nights after wards. I kept going through all the little stupid decisions I made and hoping that in some way we might recover some of our stuff. I found myself thinking about what I should have done. This incident was caused by my actions but I can understand now how people who have not done anything wrong and have some physical or material harm done to them still feel guilty and somehow responsible when they aren’t. It is just the way we react to these situations. The little ache in my stomach will fade with time. We don’t have some photos but we have fine memories that cannot be taken from us. Penny took the biggest hit in this yet she was the one who had to rein me in emotionally and put things in context.

Home Again

We are back from a wonderful trip to San Francisco. The trip would have been perfect but we had some stuff stolen from our car and lost ¾ of the pictures we took, Penny’s laptop with all her quilting stuff on it and our Bluetooth earpieces among other stuff. Just about everything else on the trip went better than expected and we have the experience and memories that can’t be stolen from us. So overall it was good.

I just checked the stats on the GPS and we covered 1174 miles in California – 37 hrs driving with only 28 hours moving. That’s ¼ of the time in the car being stopped either in traffic or in pullouts at scenic places like 17-mile drive and Yosemite.

I didn’t know what condition my garden and yard would be after 2-weeks of no attention. I picked any tomatoes that were even beginning to ripen and cut back the basil to keep it from going to seed the day we left. I was pleased to see that many ripe tomatoes were ready for harvest. Here is what I picked.

There were about a dozen or so tomatoes that were overripe and going bad.

I also lost a section of the front lawn where the grass grew tall enough to block the sprinkler spray close to the sprinkler head.

I’ll probably give a day by day run down of our vacation during the next couple of weeks. I don’t have any pictures for ¾ of the trip but that’s life I guess.

The cat feeder worked fine and still has about a weeks worth of food in it. No cats have shown up tonight but the food has been being eaten. It usually takes a few days for them to return in any regularity.

Kitty Update

All 4 cats showed up tonight.

Starting to Get Excited

It’s getting close to the time we will leave on our trip to San Francisco and I’m spending more and more time each day on planning. Today we went shopping and got some clothes for the trip. Since the airlines charge for every checked bag I bought some light easy to pack shirts and pants. We will probably only check 1 bag between us for the trip or as we did when we went to Italy only have carry-on.

An incomplete list of potential things to do in the SF area is:

Seal Rock / Cliff House/ hiking trails
Golden Gate Park ( Japanese Tea Garden, Arboretum, Museum of Natural History…)
Cable Cars
Golden Gate Bridge and N’tl recreation area.
Fisherman’s Warf
Pier 39
Ghirardelli Square
Coit Tower
China Town
Little Italy
Bay Cruise
Point Reyes
Muir Woods
Alcatraz
2 aquariums (not including Montery Bay)
Monterey / 17 mile drive
Big Sur / hiking trails
Wine Country

There is plenty to keep us busy. We will do what we can without wearing ourselves out.

Yesterday after an early morning kayak I spent some time mounting a larger container on the cat feeder. I want to make sure the cats don’t go hungry. I’m not sure it will be necessary, however. The cats haven’t been around much since we had all the rain a few days ago and a power failure messed up the timing on my sprinkler system and got them wet a couple times. Last night no cats showed up. The night before only Meredith showed. The one before that only Buzz. Before that just Buzz. Before that just Velcro. Before that just Marmalade. We’ve had 5 dry sunny days with no power outages and the sprinklers are back to normal with a fresh battery for backup. Now we will see if any cats show up.

The garden is doing fine. We had more eggplant parmigiano yesterday and the tomatoes are turning color. I smartly but unknowingly planned our trip to coincide with the bulk of the tomato crop coming in. We will probably pick any ripening tomatoes the day we leave and bring them with us to ripen off the vine in J’ville. We also may be gone when we are supposed to act like bees and pollinate the new squash plants.

We made our usual Target run this morning but unusually we bought nothing. They had no good or even slightly tempting deals today.

Tomorrow is Waffle House!

Kayaking Again

I got Penny to go kayaking out on the bayou this morning. It was a beautiful morning to do it and she felt well enough to give it a try. We didn’t go far but we had fun. At one point we just pulled up side to side and sat there and chatted. We listened to the birds and could hear the road noise off in the distance of those going to work, traveling the same road that I probably drove 10,000 times in the 32 years I worked here.

At 8 AM a ski boat entered the bayou and that made Penny antsy. We headed back in.

I spent a good part of the day doing stuff with or for Penny. We went to fabric shops twice and I cut out some acrylic squares and triangles for her to use as cutting guides. The good news in this is that Penny felt well enough to do that and also do some quilting today.

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be a repeat performance. If we get up early enough to beat the ski boats we may kayak again.

Ready, Set

I drove to Chipley this morning to get the wood for Sophie’s bed. It was an easy drive with no issues. I had to keep reminding myself I was dragging the trailer. The people at the wood place were all friendly. My order was ready and they quickly loaded it onto the trailer.

Unloading the wood and moving it to the backyard and then into the shed was hot work. We are in the 4th day of sunny hot weather. I got a good workout yesterday loading and hauling the jon boat. Today it was moving lumber. Now all the lumber is in the shed and I’m ready to begin.

The bed, when completed should look like this (except this is a full size and the one I’m doing is twin).

Tuesday is also my weekly garden day. I fertilize and do whatever the plants need. I picked 2 of the watermelons, 2 cucumbers and there are more than a dozen large tomatoes beginning to ripen.

I was going to cut some plastic cutting guides for Penny tonight but my thumbs are complaining. I decided to give them a break and do that tomorrow.

No Fishing

My morning venture in the jon boat turned out to be a flop. The motor wouldn’t run consistently. It would start, run and then quit. I couldn’t get it to keep running so I quit and went home. Later, back at home, I cranked the motor and it ran fine. I’ve got to do some troubleshooting before I try to take it out again. The 2 possibilities for the problem are the backpressure from the exhaust being in the water may change performance or, more likely, the handling and transport I did caused a problem with the carburetor that went away after the motor sat still for a while.

The power was out when I arrived home and that made it difficult to do much inside. I relaxed some and then did some yard work. When the power came back I called the lumberyard in Quincy and ordered the lumber I need for the furniture I’m making for Sophie. I’m going there to pick it up tomorrow.

I spent a bunch of time planning our California trip. We will have no problem filling our time while we are out there.

Pasta Cruda Again!

This is not a complaint. It is an exclamation of joy. We finally got a sufficient quantity of tomatoes, grape tomatoes in this case, to make the dish. I finally have a tomato crop coming in. Penny made the Cruda in her normal fantastic manner. I ate too much.

I may go out in my jon boat tomorrow. We are having a nice spell of weather and I’m going to take advantage of it and give my refurbished outboard motor a try.

Strange Morning

I woke this morning out of a dream about my 2nd trip to India. On this trip they were watching Slumdog Millionaire everywhere we went. What was strange about the dream was not the movie but the fact that I could recall quite vividly many details from my first visit to India. I don’t know if those memories were of a dream I once had or were fabricated on the spot by my brain. I am fascinated for some reason when I have memories within a dream. I don’t understand how or why the brain does that. My brain also works differently in dreams. I don’t search for words as I do when I’m conscious, the words are right there. Many times I use words that I don’t normally use. It makes me wonder what we all could do if we learned how to unlock our brains’ abilities.

The other strange thing about the morning was caused by a power failure we had last night right at 2 AM. I woke up as normal at 6:30, went out to the den and turned on WJCT on-line to hear Karen’s voice. We go to Target at 7:30 ish so I got Penny’s breakfast together and brought it back to her. She was acting a little strange. She woke up when I did but didn’t come out to the den. I didn’t know why.

When 7:30 rolled around with no Penny I went back to see what was up. She said she was going to do some quilting in the 2 hours she had before we went to Target. She thought it was only 5:30. The reason was that the clock she was using reset at 2 AM to midnight. It was almost exactly 2 hours off so TV shows were beginning and ending at what appeared to be normal to Penny. When I told her what time it was she said, “Well, I’d better get moving then!”

Yesterday we went to Mobile for Penny’s annual checkup with her ear doctor. Nothing out of the usual. The waiting room has well-used chairs with leather cushioned seats. Each empty seat had the double kidney shaped inprint in it from all the butts that had sat there.

When we got home and were watching the evening news we saw that there was a terrible accident on the I-10 bridge in Pensacolla. We missed it by maybe an hour. There was an accident with a big truck on the westbound side that caught fire and caused a black billowing cloud that could be seen for miles. This was followed by a 3 car accident on the eastbound side in which someone was killed. Penny and I usually stop somewhere in Mobile or Pensacola after her doctor’s visit but yesterday we just came straight home. By doing so we missed getting tied up in a huge traffic mess.

I discovered today that the lumber company where I got the hardwood for the crib 2 years ago is no longer in operation. I did some calling around and found a place in Chipley and one in Baton Rouge (they both deliver) that have what I need. Now I have to make an accurate estimate of what I need and make an order.

Barring any power failures tonight, we should be at Waffle House in the morning around 7 AM.

Sad News from High Springs

Our Daughter Christy had a bad day yesterday. A storm caused a branch and a live power line to fall on her car while it was in their driveway. The electricity burned a hole in the roof, melted the rear tires and fused the wheels to the axle. That’s not the worst of it. When she went out to inspect the damage she found that her cat “Chicken” was also killed because it was under the car.

I know how much it hurts to lose a pet. It’s happened many times and I always had to be the “strong” one and bury the remains. It hurts a lot and for a long time.

I wish I could ease her pain but I know there is nothing I can do but listen and weep with her. I’ve had a knot in my stomach since I got the news. Dads hurt anytime their child is hurting.

The power company says they will pay for the car. Christy, being the caring person she is was worried about the other outside cat “Dumpling” and how it would do.

Please keep Christy in your thoughts and prayers.

Rainy Day and Eggplant

It was a dark and stormy afternoon--but not to worry, I had already harvested eggplant, basil, parsley and oregano from the garden. Penny turned it into more fabulous eggplant parmigiano. We ate it in the sunroom watching the rain outside.

I used the rainy day to clear paperwork, pay bills, do some housework and track our budget. I also did some planning on the furniture I will be building for Karen. We’ve settled on the design of a twin bed (it will match the crib) and side table. We are still defining a storage unit for the room. As soon as designs are finished it will be time for another lumber adventure to Quincy (if the place is still there) where we bought the lumber for the crib.

Congratulations are in order for Tory and Sam Nelson. Little Olivia was born today. Perhaps she will be friends with little Megan Reagan Feagins someday.

Today’s Garden Report is Brought to you by the Letter J

After kayaking I had to attend to some garden chores.

We are ready for another eggplant meal and more is coming.

I picked some of the deformed cucumbers. Sophie can you find the letter “J”? There are some normal ones growing now.

The grape tomatoes should be pickable within the week. Penny is talking about pasta cruda using them when they are ready.

The other tomatoes are still growing properly.

The basil is going crazy.

There are 2 cantaloupe sized watermelons.

I figure the tomatoes will start coming in when we are out of town.

Back on the Bayou Again

Penny ran off with her girlfriend Kitty today so I took the occasion to put the kayak in the water. I took fishing gear with me just to make things interesting. One reason for going was to check out the blackberries. Lexi commented on facebook that the berries in her area were ripening so I wanted to see how the ones here were doing.

This is the 2nd day in June and both days have been beautiful. This makes 3 great days in a row. No complaints from me.

It was good to get out in the kayak again. When we first started kayaking there was always this uncertainty about whether we were doing things right. Now it’s just jump in and go and who cares about correct. If I move forward and enjoy myself I’m correct.

There was nobody else on the water for the whole trip up to the head of the bayou. It was as if I had my own private lake. I caught a couple pin fish and fished with them as bait along the way. No luck. Fishing from a sit inside kayak is a real adventure in space management. I wanted to see how it went. If I use the kayak to fish again I’ll probably make or buy rod holders and a paddle holder, too.

When I reached the head of the bayou I went up the stream that feeds it. The water level was way up due to the amount of rain we’ve had. The stream was deeper than I’d ever seen it. I was able to go deeper into the woods than ever. After I couldn’t get in any deeper I turned around and slowly drifted back to the bayou with the flow of the stream.

Sadly there were NO blackberries. All last year’s plants were gone with no new ones. I guess there will be no blackberry adventures this year.

A strong headwind had kicked up while I was up the stream so the paddle back was much more work. It was made interesting, however, when a group of 3 dolphin popped up quite close to the kayak and played around me for a while. They headed down the bayou so I chased them all the way back hoping to get a good picture of them playing. They were faster than me but they followed the shore. I made a bee-line to try to get ahead of them. I got a good work out and did catch them as I reached the park where the car was.

.............. Dolphin, dead ahead!

I took a couple pictures—not worthwhile—and then things went still. I thought they were gone. I turned off the camera and just as I was setting it back in the plastic bag one of the dolphins jumped completely out of the water just like they do at Seaworld. I was thrilled to see that but disappointed that I missed a rare shot. That’s the first time I’ve seen one jump like that.

Sunday Surf Fishing

I got off to the beach a little later than expected but still early enough to catch the incoming tide. My modified golf bag carrier worked OK to get all my stuff to the beach. It could use a little modification to carry the rods more easily.

Lots of people were fishing but nothing was being caught. I tried out my sand flea rake and caught one on the first try. After catching 2 of the buggers I baited up my line and started fishing.

I didn’t catch anything but it was a beautiful beach day. Just before I left 2 dolphin leisurely cruised by just beyond the breakers (about 100 ft out).