Jim arrived at my house late in the day on April 22nd, only to find me embroiled in projects unfinished and little time to spend together, other than finally having dinner together. On Thursday, it was more of the same. He walked, did fix-ups on his Bronco and I didn’t even know he was gone. For now, that is just the way it is.
Doug, came by to pick up a kitchen counter I had had built locally and went over paperwork and indoor paint choices and sku numbers for flooring I picked locally that he will look over when he returns to Oregon in the same chain store.
I gave him a belated birthday present, a rug that I made him 30 years ago was damaged by his cat and needed repair. After six years, the same number of years Jim and I have traveled together, I finally fixed his rug.
The job was much harder than I figured, cutting out old pieces without cutting into the lacing that holds the whole thing together and then adding new wool to old wool for a new border. Lumpy in places, but it will flatten with use. Lacking blue wool I used black and then went to a thrift store and found a beautiful blue wool skirt and was able to add some of the right color. It’s useable and in better shape now. I know he treasures that rug.
We don’t normally give birthday gifts. But, while rummaging through my stuff as I try to downsize the junk I’ve collected, I found a greeting card my sister gave Doug at his graduation from High School.
It was the biggest greeting card I had ever seen. He got it twice, once from her and now from me.
He is on the road to Oregon this morning as I write. I won’t need to make a return trip until May 8.
In the meantime, the projects never end. I’m pleased to announce that Mark Miles got my well running and the drought will be much more manageable. It is impossible to know how much water is left in the well, thus I will be using it judiciously. Today, I have a helper coming to prune trees that should have been pruned in March. And, so it goes. The march of the responsible home owner. But, I do have wisdom at my finger-tips:
Life is short-Live it.
Love is rare-Grab it.
Anger is bad-Dump it.
Fear is awful-Face it.
Memories are sweet-Cherish them.
Bye, for now.
Yesterday, I had to drive my Prius back across the river for the body and fender guy to take pictures of the inside of my vehicle so the insurance company could make their decision on whether to total it, or fix it. This time I remembered my camera. Click the picture to enlarge it and you will be able to see the line of the old road down into the canyon before the dam was built.
Here is closer shot. Tree tops are showing that once grew on the river’s bank.
A closer shot. I used to love to drive this road and was on the side of the protesters trying to keep the river scenic and wild. A guy named Mark, forgot his last name, tied himself to a rock so that if it flooded he’d drown. His ploy didn’t work, obviously. The protests raged on for months and got desperate toward the end.
Of course it is all water under the bridge, to quote a cliché. By the way, I had two people ask me why I had to drive the 18 miles to the body shop instead of an insurance adjuster coming out to make the decision. The body shop guy told me, “Oh, we do that. We take the pictures and they make the decision from there. It saves you money” Huh! Do I believe it saves ME money? Not for a minute. The woman who hit me paid big premiums for her full coverage, $100 deductible, she told me. Another short cut, downsize jobs. Ugly. I’m very disenchanted with our corporatocracy. We need some balancing socialized government, like medicare and no child left behind. Similar programs that protect people. Isn’t government supposed to be …by the people, for the people? It reminded me of a great quote from a man who lived before Christ was born. Ever wise Confucius said:
When a country is well governed, poverty and a mean condition are things to be ashamed of. When a country is ill governed, riches and honor are things to be ashamed of.
Unfortunately, we do not learn from mistakes of the past.
We moved up coast to Palacios, Texas, pronounced Plash-shus. They once counted over 250 bird species here and a shrimp fleet of 400 boats, the third largest fishing fleet in Texas. We’ll go wandering today. Yesterday, we traveled and did laundry. The recycle center was closed and the Museum was only open a few hours. But, hey, I have some unguaranteed wisdom to impart- not first hand,though. I got it from an email. Try this:
We went with friends to a restaurant on Sunday for lunch and sat in
the patio section beside the store. We happened to notice zip lock baggies
pinned to a post and a wall. The bags were half filled with water, each
contained 4 pennies, and they were zipped shut. Naturally we were curious!
The owner told us that these baggies kept the flies away! So naturally we
were even more curious! We actually watched some flies come in the open
window, stand around on the window sill, and then fly out again. And there
were no flies in the eating area! This morning I checked this out on Google.
Below are comments on this fly control idea. I’m now a believer!
Zip-lock water bags
#1 Says:
I tried the zip lock bag and pennies this weekend.. I have a horse
trailer. The flies were bad while I was camping. I put the baggies with
pennies above the door of the LQ. NOT ONE FLY came in the trailer.
The horse trailer part had many. Not sure why it works but it does!
#2 Says:
Fill a zip lock bag with water and 5 or 6 pennies and hang it in the problem area.
In my case it was a particular window in my home. It had a slight passage way
for insects. Every since I have done that, it has kept flies and wasps away.
Some say that wasps and flies mistake the bag for some other insect nest and
are threatened.
#3 Says:
I swear by the plastic bag of water trick. I have them on porch and
basement. We saw these in at an Amish grocery store
& have used them since. They say it works because a fly sees a reflection
& won’t come around.
#4 Says:
Regarding the science behind zip log bags of water? My research found that the
millions of molecules of water presents its own prism effect and given that flies
have a lot of eyes, to them it’s like a zillion disco balls reflecting light, colors and
movement in a dizzying manner. When you figure that flies are prey for many other
bugs, animals, birds, etc., they simply won’t take the risk of being around that much
perceived action. I moved to a rural area and thought these “hillbillies” were just
yanking my city boy chain but I tried it and it worked immediately! We went from
hundreds of flies to seeing the occasional one, but he didn’t hang around long.
We drove to Corpus Christi early enough in the day to find our parking spot and take a cruise downtown and visit an Art Gallery I wanted to see. Jim turned right instead of left and we saw an Eagles Club that wasn’t on Google Earth. We pulled in to say hello and found one of the friendliest guys you’d ever want to meet. And, funny, too.
His name is Larry Mills and we let him entertain us for the rest of the day. He is from Michigan, my home state, but he’s become a Texan since moving here in 1982.
He manages the Eagles Hall, here, and showed us around, though it was closed and we were the only ones in the place. It has a wooden dance floor. As a former square dancer, I nearly drooled.
A great hall, a great guy. We decided to alter our plans a stay a couple more days.
But, since we stayed in, I was remembering two signs I saw the day we were in the Brownsville museum. Both kind of surprised me.
This one is an old-time Mexican saying since the revolutionary days. With our intrusive policies, it still holds true.
And this one was an excerpt from a priest’s prayer just before a voyage. Cheerful, bugger wasn’t he? They should have fired him as their priest or burned him at stake, or whatever they did to people in 1596 when he wasn’t doing his job well.
Being on the road as much as we are, we see signs of all types and they kind of amuse or boggle the brain or leave you wondering what they meant. Like this one. From the road you cannot read the small print on the bottom as you can (barely) in this cropped photo I took while driving by.
This is the newspaper delivery guy’s sense of humor. Whoever takes the last paper is greeted with this message. The rack is located in Palm Desert, CA, a well-known vacation spot.
The door is metal and the temperature in Palm Desert gets into triple digits, and yes, the door was hot. You’d think, they’d install a wooden door, now wouldn’t you? We were wintering there and the temperature was in the high seventies.
This drive by photo needs no explanation. I knew immediately the sign maker was talking about Congress. Pathetic, isn’t it?
Another little choice bit of wisdom. Hey, we roadies aren’t waiting in line either. It’s a great lifestyle. Life is short. Come join us. Retire early, hit the road. Enjoy life, not stuff.
As a kid, growing up in rural Michigan, I never thought I’d become a world traveler. It still boggles my mind.
And looking back at this wonderful year of traveling across the United States and back, the wonderful experiences I’ve had, the amazing places and things I’ve seen, I’m in awe of my great good fortune to have met a ramblin’ man who seeks to be an adventurer and pulled out of the ruts of life to follow his dreams.
I mentioned being a world traveler as well. Before I retired, I was interested in the world, other cultures, other peoples, other customs. It was my good fortune to become acquainted with the Republic of Indonesia via an exchange student who became an integral part of my life and introduced me to a whole new world of experiences. And, today I received greetings from Linda Djamaludin, one of the nicest, most interesting women I’ve ever met.
This is Linda, third from left, in costume, with some of her friends.
Below is Linda experiencing snow for the first time, at Bear Valley, something rather rare in Indonesia. (Photo from 1986).
Linda, who is muslim, also sent me the words to a song, Stand Up For Love. There are words worth repeating:
There are times I find it hard to sleep at night,
We are living through such troubling times.
And every child that reaches out for someone to hold,
For one moment they become my own.
If we all stand together this one time
Then no one will get left behind.
Stand up for life
Stand up for love.
If we could see the world as a world full of people who all want basically the same thing. Love, friendship, family, good health and the ability to have free choices, what a peaceable world this would be. Which is, by the way, my wish for the New Year. A WORLD FULL OF PEACE AND LOVE.
Que Sera, Sera... Whatever Will Be, Will Be... 