Monthly Archives: July 2011

People say they don’t want to live close together and that may be true.  We live in a townhome and seldom have neighbors on either side so we got a good deal.

We also know the people in every “block” who live here year-round.  We need to know them because of snowstorms, blackouts, and whenever the Interstate is closed.  We help each other in any kind of emergency.

As luck would have it, we have a plethora (see The Three Amigos) of great cooks in the neighborhood.  Why do you think I didn’t tell you where this neighborhood is?

One is a pastry chef and author, another an expert cook with eclectic tastes.  Add me and we have a dinner party every couple of months and just change houses.  If others are invited, they bring wine.

So, today I was mauled by three kittens, don’t laugh, at my volunteer job.  I made sure all of them had their nails trimmed as they’d mauled a staffer yesterday.  I was walking with them making sure they were all set in a room while I went about my duties and my hands were bleeding – I looked like I’d just committed a murder and was wandering around waiting for the police to show up!

A neighbor we helped as he had a fire truck and ambulance at his house a couple of weeks ago (my husband and I helped out and he’s fine) called out and laughinly asked if I needed an ambulance.  I said no but was glad that he knew people.  Close neighbors can say those kinds of things.

Puncture wounds are tricky but I’m doing my best.  Neighbors are tricky.  Some become good friends (luckily the ones who can cook and those who are interesting at the dinner table) and others can make your life miserable.  We’ve been here over two years but are not supposed to have our dog with us so certain people have made it their life’s work to make our lives miserable.

I feel sorry for the people who try to make our lives miserable as they have nothing else to live for, and that’s sad.  In another venture I campaigned valiantly for a positive cause and outcome, only to be frustrated by naysayers for years.  We gained a few yards on the battlefield but I was stalked, my tires were flattened, I got a police summons whenever I parked the car legally on the street for an hour, was photographed and defamed in the press.  All because these people had nothing else to do but go against people who wanted a few legal leash-free areas for their dogs.

We didn’t do nasty stuff in return, only got published in the NYTimes and local papers and did our best to be responsible dog owners. C’est la vie.  I’m over that now but every neighborhood has friendly people and a complainer.  The complainers tend to get their way because of the squeaky wheel theory.  The rest of us live our lives and don’t care that Cindy has blue shutters and the trend is white.

“Do unto others” is my motto.  I water plants, take care of dogs, host dinners and generally garner good will.  The negative neighbors have none of that karma going their way.  I’m always happy when I can be helpful to my husband, our familes, work colleagues and friends, and our neighbors.  To neighbors, Dee

I probably have more fights in me, but started (fighting for rights) late in life and have other responsibilities.  Food has always been a passion and now that I have someone to cook for, it is a necessity.  That doesn’t always make it fun.

Animal welfare has always been a concern and I’ve volunteered in that regard for 20 years.  Still, young bucks will question me when I say there’s a problem with my Betta.  Yes, he lost a fin last Friday.

One helps out and does what others will not do, like carry anesthetized feral cats to their crates and notice they have tapeworms so take them back to surgery for a prescription knowing they could awaken any moment and disfigure me or worse, get loose in a parking lot.

People won’t say it but wonder why I took over the Animal Control shift with the cats owned by the local pet organization that are housed at the local box store.

I wanted to do it on a temporary basis, but they don’t understand an educated, 50 year-old woman who is OK with cleaning litter boxes and making sure the cats are socialized and have a clean space so that they can find a good home.

After years of campaigning for pet owners’ rights as taxpayers I still don’t find acceptance.  I still keep helping shelter animals and always will, no matter where we live, but someday will achieve acceptance.  No reward is needed, acceptance into a volunteer cadre will suffice as I’ve created and managed many volunteer crews in the past and no-one knows and no-one cares that I even exist in this current volunteer organization.

“Thank You” would be enough.  I don’t have cats because my husband is allergic, but I clean cat boxes, for fun?  No, because it needs to be done.

The only thing this volunteer organization did for me is make me sign a liability waiver so that if I get run over my a moose while tending the cats it’s my fault.  Bravo, look what the legal system has done to charitable organizatons.

Acceptance and thanks, not questioning and signing away rights.  I think I should quit tomorrow, and call Animal Control for a replacement.  Dee

I’m at 40,025 hits today and YOU are to thank for it.  I was always afraid to write before but you let me do it.  I’ve made friends on this blog and some have joined in by creating their own blogs so there’s fun all around.

Now I don’t tweet and hate Facebook so never post anything there.  If you’ve a question or comment on a blog entry just post it and I’ll try to get back to you straight away.  I must confess I love that you read what I write for you.  I’m being told that I can get more hits for writing what a few of you read instead of writing what I see and feel and have experienced.  I write what I write, don’t make a nickel off it, and you can read it if you want.  Cheers, Dee

Jim and I have finished that 1983 miniseries written by Herman Wouk.  It was interesting but very dated and somewhat miscast, though not the lead, Robert Mitchum.

As in every life there are winds of change.  In any large family there are new lives to celebrate and deaths to commemorate.  Families are not together as much any more.  Kids leave the nest and take root elsewhere, or are always mobile.

We live in a very transient community.  There are year-rounders we can count on in a storm or with an illness.  Then there are other interesting residents who stay for a few months or a year or two and it’s always great to meet new folks.

Interestingly most are from the North Eastern US or Canada.  That’s great because it’s where I grew up and where my relatives are from.

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Lest we forget we are still in a war.  It is one that many only think of in monetary terms, not in lives lost.  Nearly a decade later we are trying to finish what 9/11 started and former President Bush lied to get us in a war for.  President Obama’s watch included the killing of Bin Laden.  There is no way we will ever broker peace in the middle east.  As much as it hurts all of us, they hate us and want us to leave so they can go back to killing each other as they have for centuries.  Let us not involve US soldiers in this war and still try to achieve peace.  UN, if it works, is OK.

Jim gets vacation time each year, most of which we haven’t been able to take.  Every year he gets a choice, in addition to vacation, of Martin Luther King Day, Pioneer Day or his birthday.

I usually get the forwarded email after MLK day in January, that leaves Pioneer Day (which is today), and his birthday.  His birthday is the last drop-ship day before Christmas and no-one gets off a day between November 1 and that date.  So birthday is out.

Today was pioneer day, when the Mormons landed in Utah in 1847.  It is a State holiday.  We missed the parade the prophet concluded, as well as fireworks.  It poured rain up here, where many people worked and it was not a holiday.

It is interesting to be such a stranger to the State we’re in.  In our community it is one of many faiths and sometimes no faith.  It is by no means homogeneous.

The only reason Jim took the holiday is because it is a “use it or lose it” proposition.  More about cooking later, Jim’s mother is coming to town and I have to plan menus.  Cheers, Dee