Category: May 2018

My friend has a little old dog, about the size of mine. He’s old, partially blind, completely deaf, and very sweet. One day she started noticing that her little dog was going through quite a lot of water. She kept having to refill his water dish. Uh-oh, diabetes?

A few days later, she heard her parrot going, “Hello, hello!”, like her parrot does when someone comes into the house. Except there was no one at her house.

The next time she was home alone and heard her parrot greeting someone, she ran downstairs to see what was going on. She heard the doggie door flap go clickity-clack, and looked out the window to see a disappearing bobcat. No. Really? She figured, no way.

A few days later she was once again upstairs when all of a sudden she heard her husband downstairs, hollering. She came running downstairs and there it was, an enormous bobcat in their laundry room. It had been coming in for the dog’s water.

It’s been a dry spring.

I didn’t actually intend to post those camping photos with no commentary at all. I apparently confused the “save draft” button with the “publish” button. And no point going back to remedy it now, because most of you just look at the auto-email you signed up for, and that goes out the minute I hit “publish”. Any changes I make now you will never see, unless you log onto my blog (not happening, I know).

But actually, I didn’t have a lot to say. We had a very nice time camping. And it turns out, good thing we went (despite always being too busy for that sort of thing), because now the forest is closed 🙁 🙁

Yes, they are closing the entire Santa Fe National Forest, which includes several large areas across northern New Mexico, including the wilderness area where we went over the weekend. It’s closed starting the day after tomorrow, until further notice, due to drought and fire hazard. (And also, apparently, due to non-compliance with previous campfire restrictions)

“SANTA FE, NM – May 30, 2018 – For Immediate Release. The Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF) will implement a forest-wide closure order at 8:00 a.m. this Friday, June 1, 2018, prohibiting public access to the 1.6 million-acre forest. Fire danger on the SFNF remains very high to extreme due to acute drought conditions. The closure order will remain in effect until the forest receives significant moisture and conditions have improved. The closure order prohibits all recreational activities on the SFNF. Campgrounds, trails and trailheads, and National Forest System roads will be closed to the general public…The SFNF implemented Stage 2 fire restrictions on May 7 which prohibited campfires and other activities. In spite of the Stage 2 restrictions, forest law enforcement and fire prevention personnel have counted more than 120 abandoned campfires across the forest, including at least 84 over the Memorial Day weekend.”

They will probably close the Sandia’s soon as well. At which point, I’m going to be like, why am I here? I truly love New Mexico in the fall and through the winter holidays. But I was downright depressed during January and February, and then came the spring dust storms, and now the forests are closed. Ugh!

In the space of about a week earlier this month, the weather went from insanely cold (below freezing) and ridiculously windy, to completely hot (80) and still windy.

At least I am enjoying the lovely evening out on my back patio, which is quite sheltered from the wind. There’s nothing better than bread and cheese on the patio. (No, Sam is not done with the brick yet!)

At least I still like my job – sort of, mostly. It’s getting kind of tricky. There’s recently been personnel and hiring drama that I can’t write about on a public blog. I’m trying not to get involved, but sometimes I’m caught in the middle because of the role I’m in.

In other news, my Mini Cooper had to go back to the shop again, to fix a second oil leak, but it is now definitely fixed – I hope. And no snake or other living thing ever dropped out of the dashboard onto my feet. I had mentioned to John (back when there was strange knocking noises coming from approximately the dashboard area when the car was turned off and parked in Placitas), that if some critter dropped on my feet while I was driving, I wasn’t going to be able to keep the car on the road. John looked at me with a concerned expression and said, “Maybe you should practice?” Yeah right. Let’s all practice driving with snakes dropping out of nowhere onto us. Anyway, that didn’t happen! But knowing Placitas, it could have. Because it happened once before. (Not in my car, luckily, just at my front door, where I could more safely freak out.)

Speaking of Placitas wildlife, in addition to the coyotes and bobcats I was talking about last week, there is now a bear wandering around, causing havoc. It’s been photographed by people’s night cams several times, and people are also posting pics of it’s tracks. Apparently it’s taken a couple of lambs, as well as destroyed bird feeders and garbage cans. We’re in a drought, and the bears are hungry and thirsty.

Someday we’re going to have a wildlife watering hole in Placitas, and then we’ll get some good night cam shots. Right now, however, it doesn’t look like much.

Someday that yard will be beautiful – or at least better!

 

 

John’s going to Africa! He was talking about his trip to a friend of his at work. His friend joked about it being embarrassing to travel overseas as an American nowadays. His friend told him about this shirt that says “Sorry about our president” in lots of languages. Available on Amazon! I’m getting one.

 

My friend at work buys old mechanical gadgets and restores them. She brought this typewriter in to show us. Isn’t it beautiful?

Greetings,

Currently, the IT Helpdesk is unable to access the helpdesk voicemail box to respond to voicemails left there requesting technical assistance.

Kai is fine, and got his stitches out today. While we were at his vet, two emergencies were going on. A very nice man was waiting while his dog underwent emergency surgery after being mauled by a coyote. Both coyotes and mountain lions can pose a danger to even large dogs. Small dogs are also targeted by bobcat and huge owls. We have LOTS of bobcat and owls – you see them all the time. I’ve seen owls with jackrabbits larger than my littlest poodle, Rosie.

We have a formidable looking courtyard wall, but it won’t keep out any of those critters.

The wooden part (latillas, pronounced la-tee-ya’s), are sometimes called coyote fencing because they are harder for the coyotes to leap up on (and they don’t like going up and over without seeing where they will land). But we have a mixture of block wall and latilla, and the coyotes could easily get up on the block wall and columns. (Oh yes, coyotes will definitely jump that high, easy-peasy.)

BTW, that courtyard is looking pretty sad at the  moment, but someday there will be flowering vines on that wall, and trees and pathways…

Anyway, back to the hazards of pet ownership. The other nice couple waiting for their dog were in equally bad straights. It was an elderly couple on a long road trip from South Carolina. They had put their dog’s insulin in a hotel refrigerator and it froze. They thought it wasn’t working right, so they gave their dog extra insulin. Their dog was peeing inside (which he NEVER does), so they thought he had not enough insulin and too much glucose causing thirst and peeing, so they gave him more insulin. Then he didn’t eat dinner or breakfast the next day. By the time they got him to the vet his glucose levels were dangerously low and the vet is literally trying to save his life.

I’m guessing that the fact that the dog peed in the house was probably due to a low-glucose seizure. My dog has occasionally had a seizure and it’s hard to tell what’s happening – he is just lays there and may lose bladder control. My dog doesn’t have diabetes, he just has a very occasional seizure (he’s had about 4 in his life).

Anyway, I felt really bad for the older couple, because they misjudged what was happening and did the exact wrong thing, and made it so much worse. They might have accidentally killed their dog. They didn’t want to admit that they gave him extra insulin but they knew the vet needed to know. They obviously felt terrible. There’s nothing worse than accidentally causing harm like that.

One time years ago, I accidentally gave Darren too much medication. I’m sure I was given incorrect directions at the doctors office, but I’ll never really know how the mix-up happened. I was supposed to be gradually increasing his dosage, so there weren’t clear instructions on the bottle. Darren was fine in the end, but it was scary. That was years before my sister became a doctor. Now we have a built-in second opinion!

Anyway, back to the vet story – those dogs were both still in surgery and intensive care when Kai and I left. I’m friends with the vet (they rented our house in Placitas when we lived in California). So when things settle down, I’ll text her and ask if those dogs pulled through. I’m hoping so.

Here’s Kai, snoozing away on the couch next to me, on this fine Sunday afternoon.

And Kira on the other side:

And Rosie on the rug below.

 

A coworker was mentioning that every summer LANL (Los Alamos National Labs) hires a bunch of summer students and there’s never anywhere for them to live. This I believe, because when I decided to go back to work last summer, I got an interview up there at LANL, so I looked into housing options. It’s awful. Prices are as bad as the Bay Area and the housing stock is depressing. There’s simply nothing available for any price. When I got the offer from NMED (New Mexico Environment Department), and I hadn’t yet heard back from LANL, I figured, you know what, Santa Fe, here I come! Even though LANL pays a lot more, I just did not want to deal with the Los Alamos housing market. Plus, there’s the whole major difference between working for the government vs. working for industry, which is a different topic, for another post.

Anyway, because the housing is so impossible in Los Alamos, a lot of LANL employees commute from Santa Fe. The students are all looking for somewhere, anywhere, to crash for 3 months. Meanwhile, I’ve got this cute little townhouse in Santa Fe, that during the summer I only use Monday night through Friday morning. In the winter I’m here more, because I don’t like to commute on the freeway in the dark, so I don’t go down to Placitas until Saturday morning and come back up Sunday afternoon. But in the summer the commute is a lot easier, so I’m in Placitas more. Sometimes I even go down to Placitas mid-week.

Anyway, you see where I’m going with this. I’m thinking a summer student would be ideal, because just when they start getting annoying, it will be time for them to leave anyway. John’s being politely supportive, but he probably thinks I’m nuts. Our finances are ok, why would I get a roommate? Mainly because I think it could be fun and interesting (yes, and probably annoying at times).

Or maybe I’m trying to substitute for my kids (see previous post for surreal Japan article). There’s a young woman at work who reminds me very much of my daughter, and I actually think that improves my working experience, to have someone around who is like Laura somehow. (I’m not sure what Laura, or my coworker, think about this substitute arrangement.)

And also – regarding finances – we are fine, but my kids are working dang hard with no help. I believe in “reward-rather-than-rescue” and my kids are really deserving. Laura’s working full time, and taking on additional duties at work, and in graduate school on top of it. Darren is taking on an additional workload because a coworker of his has been out for awhile with some sort of medical issue. Darren’s also looking for a roommate because his rent went up. And Laura just rents a room. Luckily, her roommate is lovely, but her roommate’s dogs are incontinent. The kids are both doing the very best they can, and life is not easy, and I want to try to help them.

But it’s hard for me to justify taking our money, the majority of which John earns, and funneling it elsewhere, when he wants to retire soon. And somehow, in my brain, if I make “extra” on some side venture, then maybe I would feel ok about diverting that amount. Which is also why I’m thinking about taking on another client or two (I currently have only one and my website says I’m not taking new clients). For awhile I was working overtime at work, and did not have time for clients, but I’ve recently been able to cut back to a regular 40-hour week. So I’ve put up an application form on my website, in an attempt to do a better job of screening potential clients, and maybe I’ll take on one or two more.

All of which is the backstory for today’s post about our weekend. We had a long list of stuff to accomplish in Santa Fe. You’re thinking – “I thought you were done with that house?” and yeah, the Santa Fe townhome has less that still needs done than the house in Placitas, but you know me, I’m never done.

Even before this new crazy roommate idea, I wanted a screen door to the backyard. The weather has finally turned nice (I’ve been exceedingly grumpy about the weather for 4 months; during all of January – April, I just did not like New Mexico and wanted to live somewhere else, anywhere else, but that’s a different topic.) Finally the weather is nice again, and there’s nothing better than having the back door open to the patio in the warm weather.

Now you’re wondering if Sam finished the brick patio yet. No, he hasn’t. It’s been months. He provides as many excuses as he lays brick. But it will be lovely when it’s done (if it gets done).

Anyway, back to my story. In addition to installing a screen door, there’s lots of little things (moving furniture, installing towel racks, additional shelving, etc.,) that I wanted done to make it easier for me to consolidate all my stuff into only one of my two bedrooms and only one of my two bathrooms. I had sprawled out and taken up the entire townhome. But seriously, I don’t need a house in Placitas AND an entire townhome to store all my stuff. Some of my stuff from my office will go down to Placitas, some will go into the living room and the master bedroom.

I will mostly miss the beautiful closet that John built me in the office. 

Which I had been using mostly for my shoe collection, LOL. Obviously, I have more shoes than absolutely necessary.

But I can move all my winter shoes to storage in Placitas, and my summer shoes into the small master bedroom closet.

John’s been working hard to help me with the upgrades, but things never go as smoothly as hoped. My backdoor is an odd size and the screen door ended up to be a bitch to install, involving drilling, plaining, sanding, painting – way more than just a drop-and-go installation. Of course.

It turned out great, but now we’re not going to have time to install the shelving I wanted.

John’s currently working on the master shower, which I rarely use. The temperature doesn’t stay consistent, resulting in a more interesting shower experience than desired. The hall bath is larger, and that’s the one I typically use, but that’s the one I’d be handing over to a potential roommate for her “exclusive use”.

Meanwhile, in case you’re wondering, Kai is recovering very well from his surgery, and I’m taking him to get his stitches out today!

I don’t usually just repost links, but this article is fascinating.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/japans-rent-a-family-industry