CATCH 22

You've heard of Catch 22, right? Just to remind you, it's the little problem hatched by the devil to make your life absolute hell. You're trying to solve a relatively easy problem but wherever you turn you're defeated. The term Catch 22 comes from the title of Joseph Heller's book, "Catch 22" which has a universe of very funny problems truly hatched by the devil which nearly drove the hero of the story, Yossarian, crazy. One involved a character named Major Major Major who Yossarian needed to see at times for something very important but he could never see him. Why? Every time Yossarian walked in the front door of Major Major Major's office Major Major Major jumped out the back window.

A few days ago I met Catch 22 for real. Not too surprising, it involved trying to communicate with a particular set of government agencies. I needed to replace a health card; that was all but by the end of the day I would have happily throttled any government clerk who came within sight of me.

One of my sons lives in a halfway house. He lost his Medi-Cal card. In other states, it's called a Medicaid card but for some reason the powers to be in California changed the name--and thus--the government agency assigned to work with it.

I called the Social Services number in Berkeley I was given by Social Security and at first all seemed rosy. It looked as though that card was just about in the mail. Then the gal I was talking to said "He's living in Palo Alto. You'll have to call the Social Services office in Santa Clara County to replace the card."

I called, after spending hours trying to find the Social Services office in Santa Clara county that handles Medi-Cal--which I finally found is in San Jose. That alone nearly drove me crazy. I finally found the telephone number and called and after the usual automated voice routine I got a gal on the phone.

That's where my problems really began. I gave her my son's Social Security number and she said "He doesn't come up on my screen."

This was said very rudely. According to my husband, I should have immediately said "Let me talk to your supervisor". Seriously, that might have solved a lot of problems.

She then claimed he didn't have Medi-Cal at all. More rudeness--really unconscionable. Should I have complained? Absolutely.

I finally recalled that the agent in Berkeley had been able to bring him up on her screen. I decided I would tell a little white lie; whoever I talked to I would simply say that the Palo Alto number was temporary and his permanent address was in Berkeley. With that plan in mind I called Berkeley's office again. This time, yes, they gal I talked to found him on their screen but next to his name was a county code for Palo Alto. The county code prevents them from pushing the proper buttons to send that card through the ether which of course is necessary to get it in the mail!

That gal was lovely, she tried to get someone more knowledgable to change the county code. Can't be done. I then asked for a supervisor. A little late, but there it is. She suggested I call Social Security as my son got his card through another department of Social Security called SSI and that was apparently why that county code comes up.

The supervisor called me back some hours later. He was very helpful and very knowledgable but that county code can't be broken.

In the process of talking to the Supervisor from the Social Services Office in Berkeley I found out my son's record didn't come up on Berkeley's screen at first either.

"How did you get it to come up, then?" I asked the gentleman.

"You just go to a site on Social Security," he said.

The gal from the San Jose office could have brought up my son's record if she had known how.

I have to call San Jose back. If that doesn't work I'll have to try calling Social Security. Wish me luck. Someone in Social Security sent me to that Social Services number in Berkeley.

The Almost Final Blog Piece About My BMW

I thought I should write a blog posting about the final chapter in the history of my 85 BMW but somehow I couldn't do it. My BMW was going to be broken up in chunks for parts and that was all it was good for and I just couldn't write that. That all changed this week and do I have a story to tell!

A little back information. Before we took our recent trip to the East coast, Jerry and I left the 85 in a parking lot at the San Francisco Airport for ten days. It got there beautifully; it made the trip back beautifully. It balked a little when Jerry turned the key in the ignition but hey it started! I was very proud of it, never thinking that it would be one of the last times either of us would drive it.

I had it out the next day or so when there was a recurrence of a nasty noise which I thought had been dealt with by my trusty garage at little cost, so I called up to arrange for a time for them to check it over again.

They told me to bring it right in. On the way to H and B the noise stopped. George said he'd drive it around and hope the noise would come back; I then thought to tell him that besides the noise reoccurring, it had been very slow and cranky when it was backing up.

On returning, George said he heard no noise but he was not at all happy about the way the car acted in reverse. He was wondering whether the brakes had dropped down--which made no sense to me but hey, he's the expert mechanic.

They kept it for the day; later he called me with some bad news. The Master Cylinder was the culprit and needed to be replaced. With the cost of the part and the labor we're up to $700. That on top of some $500 to $700 we had just spent on a new gas pump, not to speak of some $1500 we had spend on the new wheels and new tires and an expensive service earlier this year.

I called Jerry and he said no. A final, unequivocal no. The expense on the car was getting out of hand. I agreed--there was no question it was costing us a lot of money. I pointed out that it was still cheaper than buying a new car, but that made no impact as we have a perfectly good Passat for me to drive and he has the brand new Audi--although it's a company car. I didn't even mention that the guy doing the last smog check had said it was a great car. I begged but Jerry was adamant.

I could not stand the thought of donating it. It would have to sit in front of the house and that was not to be borne. I guess it's silly to feel that way about a car but there it is. We're the original owners; we've owned it 25 years. There's an amazing amount of history with that car.

I asked George whether anyone at H and B might want it. With all the work still to be done on it--new rear brakes, a new clutch assembly, not to speak of the shocks which had never been replaced--all things that all cars need but still...

George asked around at the garage. No one wanted it but George said they could really use it for a parts car. They'd tear it apart--there would go my wonderful car--but I figured it would be of some use for the parts so I said yes. It would be something like a person willing over their organs, because my 85 would be dying.

Yesterday I went down to H and B to pick up the registration for the car, which I needed. I cleaned out 25 years worth of junk out of the glove compartment and the trunk--the glove compartment had to be forced open--another thing wrong with it. In there I found the missing registration, which you may remember was a problem from the previous blog posting on the 85. Oh well. That made the second one I found after-the-fact, which is a mystery.

I cleaned out the trunk and ended up spilling oil all over myself. Strange things are left in the trunk of a car, including cans of oil with holes in them from being there for years and years. One thing I had no idea was there was a jumper cable, which I could learn to use when the car wouldn't start... Oh well.


As we'd need to sell the car to H and B and I had no pink slip down I went down to AAA with the registration, as AAA can do a lot of things that need doing around automobiles and that saves a lot of standing in line at a DMV office. I was told I could simply transfer ownership and perhaps H and B could do all the work as they probably did a fair amount of this sort of thing.

Had trouble reaching Allan, the owner of H and B, who was supposed to be the expert on such things, but left my message with the powers to be.

Allan called back later that afternoon. I started with my spiel but he cut me off.

"Before you say that I want to ask you a question," he said. "Would you consider keeping the car if we made the repair on the house? You've been such great customers over the years and it's hard to see a car that's nearly drivable go down this way. Anyway, ask Jerry."

I started to cry. He also told me they were planning on fixing it up and trying to find a good home for it but he'd rather have us keep it. Of course that meant it wouldn't be a parts car! He loved the car!

I somehow managed to tell him I'd ask Jerry. I tell you, I was crying so hard I could hardly talk.

Allan is nuts about BMW's. He has two or three old ones himself--plus of course he's a great guy.

I called Jerry and told him the story. He said, "That's amazing!"

"Please say yes!" I said.

He said yes.

The car is being repaired! It will not be in pieces! I'll drive it again!

How's that for a story?

The Continuing Adventures of My 85 BMW.

Given my record with this blog has been so abysmal,I have decided to start a series to inform my readers of The Continuing Adventures Of my 85 BMW. You will recall that my car is always on the edge of disaster, given that it has 250,000 miles on it and my husband is less than enamored with it. The first adventure may be viewed by going back to my blog in April, 2010.

The last two months has generally been a good one for my BMW. The first thing worth reporting happened around the first of June when I was driving down the main street of our neighborhood in Berkeley, through what is generally called Gourmet Ghetto, which is dotted with some of the best restaurants in Berkeley. One, particularly, can claim this distinction: Alice Water's Chez Panisse. I was driving along in my 85, minding my own business, crossing in front of said restaurant when I felt another car hanging onto the rear of my car, much too close for comfort. Some nefarious driver wanted to cuddle with my 85 and I was not happy. Finally I roared around the car in front of me and pulled in front of it, breathing a sigh of relief, thinking I had left the other car far behind.

Suddenly another vintage 85 BMW pulled up next to mine with a young man at the wheel, obviously the same car. My car is a 535i; his was a 528, which is a less powerful version of my 535i. He rolled down his window; seeing he seemed to want to talk, I rolled down mine. The following conversation took place between our open windows.

"Is that an 85?!!" he asked.

"Yes, it is," I said.

"A 535i?"

"Yes." (This said proudly, maybe even a little sniffily, given mine is an 535i and his a 528).

"Did you have it painted?"

"Yes, I did, contrary to my husband's wishes." I wanted to give him some encouragement to have his painted. His desperately wanted some paint.

"I just bought mine for $700! It runs like a top!"

"They're great cars," I said.

"They are! I guess I should think about having mine painted."

"Good!" I said.

He then roared around in front of my 85, just to show me that an 85 528 has just as much power as a 85 535i.

About three weeks later my husband and I were walking our dog, Plato, through a wonderful park just up from the Gourmet Ghetto. My husband was driving the 85 just to give it some exercise, so it didn't decide to stop on me in traffic. He parked next to the park, we walked the dog, and then came back to the 85, which looked it's smashingly best because it had just been washed.

A woman walked up to us and asked--you guessed it: "Is that an 85?!!"

"It is," I said.

"I had an 83," she said. "They're great cars!"

"Aren't they, though!" I said.

"I drove my 83 all up and down the East Coast for years, it ran like a top. And then I got in an accident and broke the axle. I cried when I had to junk it!"

I just about cried too. Junking a 535i is a horrible thought.

I now realize I have to google an 83 535i. I didn't know there was such a thing!


About three weeks later the time came that I always dreaded with my 85: renewing the license when a smog check was required. If it failed my car was dust, for sure. It has always passed but there's always the first time. The last time the person who did the test simply said it passed; then mentioned that manual transmissions did better than regular, for which I held a little hope for a good result on this test, as our has a manual.

This time did not start out well because I could not find the form and neither could my husband. I looked everywhere but "Bills Folder", which is not a folder my husband set up for someone named Bill, but a folder which holds our monthly bills. A month later I found it in that folder, by then of course it was too late. I have much less esoteric places to put bills but at least I generally know where they are.

We ended up going to AAA on a Saturday, which has a special service for idiots who lose the forms for renewing their car's license. My husband growled the whole way down to AAA. I kept thinking the office was going to be closed, upon which I would really be in trouble. The office was open, at least that problem was nonexistent: we ended up paying another $25.00 or so for the license. We had to have the smog check done before we could get the license, and it was another fifteen minutes to get to a smog check place. We left the car, walked Plato and came back in 45 minutes when the car was supposed to ready. I prayed the whole way.

The car was parked on the street; that looked promising. Jerry walked up to the attendant to pay the bill. When he came back, he had this to say:

"Well, the guy said our BMW was a great car."

"Really!" I said.

"He said it burned so clean it hardly used any oil."

I knew that. The level on the dipstick only moves down when the oil needs to be changed. However, I didn't know what a good thing that was, but now I do!

Of course it passed. Am I going to hold this over my husband the next time my great 535i is threatened with extinction? You bet I am!

Adventures With My 85 BMW

I love my 85 BMW. It's my Baby. Here you see the next to the last thing that almost caused its demise--brand new wheels fitted with Michelin tires, which of course are the best kind of tires. The wheels are gorgeous, as you can see.

All right. You say you want a better picture of the car. I just wanted to show off those brand new wheels before we got to a full fledged picture of my gorgeous automobile.

Some background: we've had this car since 1985. We are the original owners; as such, we have put a lot of miles on it. How many? About 250,000, that's all. That, my friend, is the reason this car has nearly been history more times than I care to admit.

Oh--the wheels--the second to the last thing that almost caused its demise. I took it in to my garage, H and B, for its regular check-up, which happened to be an expensive one. That was the first problem. The second came when George, the Manager of H and B, called and said the car needed new wheels all the way around. I deal with George a lot and also a lot with Allan, who owns H and B. They've great guys. They know the car.

"Well, so we'll get new tires," I said--not quite understanding.

"It does need new tires but we can't buy tires to fit on the existing wheels. We have to get new wheels and that's expensive. We can skirt on the tires a little but not the wheels."

"How much will those new wheels cost?" I asked.

"With an OK set of tires about $1100," he said.

I'm dead in the water, I'm thinking to myself. Jerry will not want to spend all that money, plus there's that expensive service which I was told would cost around $800.

I told George I'd have to talk to Jerry. My husband has had a number of conversations about the car with George.

George called me back the next day (I hadn't had the guts to tell Jerry yet).

"I've talked to Allan and he has a slightly used set of wheels already fitted with four brand new Michelin tires left here by a customer who didn't want them anymore. He told us to just get what we could for them--he'd be satisfied. He has a 75 BMW and he wanted to go with 75 wheels so we can offer these to you. They only have about 100 miles on them. We think we can offer everything to you for $800."

Of course I said yes, without thinking. Didn't ask Jerry. Why should I? Those tires were probably worth $800 all on their own when they were new.

Well, the car came back looking so proud of itself. Total cost was $1600--$800 for the wheels and the tires and $800 for the service.

Jerry was so impressed with how my baby looked he said "Well, we have to fix up the upholstery (in shreds) and re-carpet the floors (holes in said carpeting). It deserves it."

Everything was fine until we were out on the freeway about a month ago with Jerry driving and the clutch sank to the floor and just sat there. I had forgotten we needed to have that little problem checked. It had happened to me right after I took it in for a small something--don't even remember what--and after using my foot to raise it from the floor I drove it right back down to the garage. Allan looked at it and said "No biggie. Just make an appointment and we'll fix it."

Well, I forgot about the problem--totally. Jerry was not happy. Here we were stuck on the freeway with a clutch stuck to the floor. Luckily I knew what to do; I told him just to put his foot under the clutch and push up--it had happened to me years ago and out of desperation that's what I did, and it worked. Voila--up the clutch came and off we went--only to have it happen again right after we exited the freeway. He tried the foot routine--didn't work.

"You'll have to get out of the car and raise it by hand," I said.

Without saying a word but with his mouth churning he got out of the car and raised the clutch with his hand.

It worked; he got back in the car. "We're parking this (explicative deleted) car and taking it down to H and B first thing in the morning to get this problem fixed."

All of this said between clenched teeth.

Next morning back to H and B we went where instead of the problem being a "No biggie" it's more like $1200. Being a conscientious guy Allan had recommended a new clutch as it already had 13,000 miles on it. I said we couldn't do that. What else could we do?

George called back and offered various and sundry scotch-tape-type repairs, one of which George felt would be very important for safety but would cost in the neighborhood of $500. I bring Jerry back to H and B the next day.

George looks at him and says "You want to kill the car."

Jerry just nods.

A week later I drive out with the immediate problem fixed--the clutch will no longer collapse to the floor but the clutch may go--anytime. It already has 13,000 miles on it.

I can't wait. We're sure to be on the freeway.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention. That brand new (well, almost brand new) set of wheels already fitted with nearly brand new Michelin tires belonged to Allan. He took them off his own car. He was the customer George talked about. He had stood proudly by me when I went to inspect my Baby with the new wheels and tires. I was so excited I hugged him.

Have I got a good garage or not? They are the best.

In front of our house right now sits a 2003 Passat which will soon be donated to some charity. It had $7,000 worth of needed repairs before I found it not starting one afternoon and it's only worth $6000. It has been the proverbial lemon. Luckily it's the company car.

Jerry drove my wonderful 85 BMW to the Oakland airport about two weeks ago and it actually started when Jerry turned on the ignition. It's been known not to--I was praying--it had been sitting there for over a week. It actually purred. It sits in front of our house so proud with those new tires and gorgeous new wheels. I'm going to see about getting the upholstery and carpet replaced next.

Baby Carrying Appendage

Here we see my grandson, Nicky, being carried around by Ba Ba in his baby carrying appendage. Yes, Ba Ba is my son, Glenn.
Nicky now gets very excited when Glenn comes in the door; I'm thinking it's because in that appendage he is able to see things at adult height. The other day our daughter-in-law, Wendy, mentioned that Nicky was very upset by something just a day or so ago; he was in his carrier on the floor while the rest of the family was seated at the table eating and he was not happy. He has an amazing pair of lungs. Wendy set him up in the highchair which brought forth a big happy smile. Can you imagine having to forever look at people's feet?

Nicky is now just over six months old: he is beginning to sit, only occasionally finding himself tipping backwards. He is prone to tipping forward onto his head which, for obvious reasons, is not a favorable position. He is also into grabbing things. My husband Jerry and I met Glenn and Nicky and Nicky's four year old brother, Theo, at a restaurant recently and the grabbing was in full flight. There wasn't a moment when those little hands weren't reaching for something. You had to be quick. At one point I saw him reach for Glenn' plate then put his hand in his mouth and immediately a very funny set of facial expressions was in evidence. I told Glenn he better check his mouth, which he did. He found nothing. Nicky didn't spit it our so he must have eaten it. Glenn was pretty nonchalant about it all. "We've got him on solid food now anyway." I think what he had in his mouth was the remains of some scrambled eggs which wouldn't be too earthshaking to put in one's mouth when you're six month's old.

Theo is amazingly good with Nicky--Nicky is his baby. He has been known to kiss him on the head.

Blame It On The Ants

You may recall a problem I've been having with ants, part of which involve an invasion by said ants into the freezer of our gorgeous, stainless steel, Bosch side by side refrigerator. We now have what may be an insoluble problem with the freezer section of said refrigerator. I can no longer open the door in the normal way: I have to grip it at the top and pull. Oh I can do this--no big deal--but this is a fancy refrigerator that's supposed to have two handles. One broke off and I am now waiting for a replacement. I started investigating my problem a couple of days ago and kept getting no for an answer: either they don't handle cosmetic items, or they don't come to Berkeley.

A gal called this morning and said they do handle cosmetic items like handles for Bosch refrigerators and they do come to Berkeley so I inwardly cheered and gave her the necessary numbers. She called back a couple of hours later and said she had nothing but bad news: first the part would be tremendously expensive and two it's on back order. What does that mean? It means, she says, that given this is a three year old refrigerator, the handles of which never break, Bosch is not interested in keeping it in stock which means that it's in limbo: she could get it in a day, a month, a year 0r never.

How does a handle that never breaks break? I'm betting it was the chemical I was spraying inside to kill the ants. Ants are malevolent: they killed the handle.

THAT CRAZY, WILD NEW YEAR'S EVE DAY

I know crazy and wild. That, I'm afraid, is how I live. I have so many things going on at any particular moment, and given I'm not a computer but a flawed human being, I tend to get a little disorganized.

I'm trying to think how this crazy New Year Eve Day started. First of all, I guess, is the fact that I had it handed to me rather casually. We hosted this event and I had nothing whatsoever to do with that part of it. My husband did.

We have dear friends who always host it but things have been difficult for them lately so Jerry offered up our home for the event. I wasn't about to say no to that. My husband has the smarts in our family when it comes to doing the Right Thing, the Kind Thing. Thank God for that because I like Kind and Right in a big way and these are very good friends.

I have another dear friend, Max, who, when faced with an important event, prepares for it weeks in advance. We go on adventures together when our husbands are off skiing somewhere. Some of those adventures have been just that--like being thrown out of Slovakia--but no matter what, she's prepared. Sweaters go in plastic bags, ditto for everything else and when she needs to pack she just throws in those sweaters in those plastic bags along with everything else needed in neat, tidy, order.

Me--I don't pack until the day before. Hey, the truth be known, I usually am scrambling around the day before frantically trying first to find what I want to take along and then to wash it or get it to the cleaners and then I pack. Frantic is the name of the game here. I often wear black and maybe it's because spots aren't as easily seen on black.

So, here we have this New Year's Eve event we're hosting. Do I even think about what's going to go on the table? Yes, I actually do. I figure it's going to be served on our lovely everyday wear, which is clean. This would have been perfectly acceptable. Our everyday wear isn't really used for everyday. I put it out for special dinners. This is a set I finally got after forty years of marriage and we paid a mint for it. Jerry complained but now he loves the set. It's Italian, and based on the dinnerware prevalent in homes in the 1400's. It's gorgeous.

No, Jerry is not planning to use this gorgeous dinnerware; he's planning to use our good china and crystal and sterling silver. He doesn't mention this until he starts hauling it in on the day of the event to wash it. Yes, wash it. That's how seldom it's used.

I should have taken a picture. He hardly knows his way around our kitchen and he actually washed and dried everything he put on the table: that good china and crystal and sterling silver. We have all of this good stuff put away carefully but everything is dirty--not put away carefully in plastic bags. The sweet guy--he washed everything!

What am I doing while he's washing the dishes? Earlier I had put on two pots with yams and they're happily boiling away on the stove; ditto with a pot of cranberries; the ham we bought yesterday is in the refrigerator--but at the point when Jerry's washing dishes I'm looking at our dog, Plato, out in his pen in the back and getting concerned. (Plato is relegated to the pen during events like this because he has a bad habit of peeing on our rugs when we're busy and not paying attention to him). Anyway, there's this huge, unsightly lump right next to his eye. I remember I saw it the day before but then it was much smaller. He didn't seem concerned about it but I didn't like it at all. It looked yukky and maybe even dangerous. And then I'm thinking again, yesterday it was smaller--yuck, it's a tick!--and I'm going into my panic mode, things are boiling on the stove and Jerry's not at all happy with me when I come running in because he's now discovered one of our myriad water thingies is spurting water down by the street and all of this is happening just hours before the guests are to arrive. The only thing to do is turn off our entire water system to the garden and I'm now begging him to go look at Plato and the unsightly lump which he does, after I turn off the water, which I have to remember to turn on again and with my track record--good luck.

The water's off but Jerry's still working with the water thingie down by the street which is still spouting water and I'm talking to our son, Glenn, on the phone about the lump. He thinks it could be dangerous--is obviously a tick--and should come out but I think you have to burn the buggers out and how can I do that when it's right next to his eye? He suggests calling the vet, which I already have but they're closed since it's a holiday. Their automated system gave me the number of the Emergency Vet People so after I say goodbye to Glenn I call them and a gal I talk to says, yes, it should come out and they could do it for me but I've got stuff boiling on the stove and Jerry upset with the water spouting on the street. She says you could do it yourself. You just reach down as close as you can to his skin with your fingers, grip it, and pull and twist it out at the same time. I said that would be disgusting and she laughed and said they could do it but that was patently not going to happen and Jerry is absolutely hopeless with that sort of thing so guess who gets to do it?

I call Glenn again, who is probably responsible for Plato getting the lump to begin with as their property, Wild Horse, is heaven for ticks and we were just there. Maybe I'm thinking he'll volunteer. Heck, he's only forty minutes away. Wendy I trust with questions like--what do I do with this unsightly yukky thing that's undoubtedly a tick other than pull and twist it out, which would be disgusting? Glenn I don't trust so much with questions like that but he's the only one there. He agrees it would be disgusting. Actually, he says, I have a perfect way to get that tick out--you do it with your teeth. That nearly makes me upchuck. Jerry, by this time, has looked at the lump and agrees to hold Plato which I pull and twist it out and voila! it comes out just like that! I should have killed it--I could see something wiggling at the top of the lump--but I just threw it. Dumb, as I'll probably have this happen all over again.

I go back to the stove, happy with Plato sans lump, and inspect the cranberries, which cooked fine until they did that obligatory popping noise and then just sat in the water. I enlist Jerry with the job of transporting them to the refrigerator where they're to get cold. I then look at the yams, which given that I was busy with the Plato lump, I didn't check as often as I should have. They are so soft it's really tricky getting them out of the pan and into a bowl. They mash very easily but given that I boiled them with the skins on they're full of these rather large lumps of skin which, given they're hot as blazes, I can do nothing about. I say to hell with it and mix the whole mess with sugar and a little sherry and pop it in the oven to cook.

Jerry has now finished washing and drying everything, the table is set and we go up and shower and dress while the sweet potatoes cook. Everything settles down, I could have even had a glass of wine it's so relaxed but I decide to wait with that--smartest thing I did that day. Jerry has finally figured out why the water thingie had been incessantly spouting and fixed that. Life is good. Our guests come and it's all worth it. We finally sit down together to that glass of wine and it's all good.

The table looked amazing. Oh--the sweet potatoes with all the lumps of skin--I still had to pull all that skin off with my fingers to serve them but at least they weren't boiling hot coming out of the oven.

They Come With The Rain.

What, you ask, comes with the rain? Blossoms, thunderclouds, slick roads and pavements? Yes to all those things, but all of them have some redeeming feature: blossoms are wonderful to look at and smell while thunderclouds are marvelous to look at and they bring rain. OK so I can't think of a redeeming feature of slick roads and pavements.

What I'm talking about walks on six legs and is unbelievably persistent. You guessed it--Ants.

When my youngest son, Glenn, was six or so he used to get rid of ants in a very creative way. His line of ants used to come up the drain in the bathroom he shared with his brother. He would run for a plain ordinary kitchen knife you use to round out a place setting at the table; then he would tap it near the drain hole and voila back down the drain they'd go never to be seen again. I think somehow they associated that tapping with a Giant right out of a storybook. I'd try that approach but the drain in the kitchen leads to the garbage disposal and as much as I'd like to turn them into mulch they'd find a way to get around the blades or they'd die and come back to haunt me.

These pesky invaders are unbelievably persistent, to the point that I now find them everywhere: I'm sitting in an overstuffed chair in a room down from the kitchen where ants traditionally make their inroads and suddenly one of the pesky creatures will appear crawling on me. I feel like I'm in the middle of the movie The Birds only with insects the terrifying spector.

One of the major problems has been I can't locate a trail (just found one crawling on my laptop). If you can't locate a trail you can't get rid of them. They used to come in through a window in our kitchen, down the wall below it ; then parade across the floor toward the refrigerator with a stop at the kitchen counter. My husband said he thought they came in a window over the kitchen sink and I dutifully sprayed around it but they came in anyway--but not from around the window, of course.

Speaking of the refrigerator. Never did we have these things inside the refrigerator. Now we have a fancy new model, a side by side with the freezer on one side and the refrigerator on the other with a little place where you can load up a glass with water and ice on the freezer door. I mean this is an expensive machine--gorgeous--the latest in technology but can it keep out ants? No. I spray the doors with ant spray and the next morning find a pile of dead ants at the bottom of the freezer door. They are pretty dumb creatures after all. They go for the freezing temperatures and ignore a much more nifty source of goodies next door.The old refrigerator, while a lot less nifty never let in an ant.

I have now taken to religiously cleaning up the area around the sink before we head up the stairs for the night, as well as spray areas where I've found them (with a spray safe for food, children and pets no less) and they still come in.

OK Reader--wherever you are--Help!

"Have I got a story to tell you!"

You may think I'm overally fond of Halloween or these kids but I have such a wonderful story about this particular picture I just had to post it again.

After snapping the picture and seeing it on my camera I said to my husband, Jerry, how wonderful it would be to be able to give the picture to these kids as it came out so well. Not by any God given talent, you understand. I just literally did the old point and click routine.

The next weekend Jerry came back from getting us our coffee and muffin fix and said "Have I got a story to tell you!"

He had gone into our favorite cafe, Belforno, which we've been going to for years. They have marvelous coffee and the muffins--well they are beyond compare. A very nice gentleman has been waiting on us there all these years. I thought he owned it he was there so much but it turns out he simply works there.

I suspect he is from Mexico; I often hear him talking Spanish with the other customers. I've tried my lame Spanish on him occasionally and he always smiles and talks to me back in Spanish. Since he is careful to use only the simplest of words, I can sometimes answer back in Spanish which of course makes my day!

Jerry walked in and got into line at the counter. The gentleman started waiting on him and then he started talking to him about Halloween. At first Jerry didn't understand but then the man asked whether he could have a copy of the picture and the light began to dawn.

The man had come to our door with those kids. Whose they are I don't know, but I'm assuming at least some of them are his and the rest are most certainly relatives or neighbors. I saw him with a mask covering his face, leaning on a cane, pretending to be infirm. Of course I ignored him totally and went for those adorable kids! He told Jerry he was so shocked seeing a customer of the cafe at the door he almost fell down the steps.

Well, I'm going to get a copy for every one of those kids and one for him and he will distribute them. In the meantime, I gave him the address of this blog so he could at least see the picture before he actually had one in hand.

Vive La Story!

What Happened To Halloween?

My family gathered for Halloween, except for my daughter-in-law, Wendy, and new Grandbaby, Nicholas, who were sick. Our son, Jeff, took a train from Palo Alto, which is down the peninsula from San Francisco; then caught our local commuter train which brought him all the way into Berkeley where he was picked up by my husband, Jerry. Our other son, Glenn, came on the freeway with our Grandson, Theo, a trip of some 40 minutes. This was going to be a big Halloween; the first one that Theo would remember so we were gathering.

We had every expectation that we would have a big turnout. Our neighbors see us on the street or heading up our steps these days and they corner us and ask if they can see our garden. Here was a chance to see it without having to grab one of us when we started up the steps. Our lights were on and that means we were well lit.

No one came, except for this adorable bunch of kids--and one other bunch about the same age--and that was hours later. No one was on the sidewalks, none of the house were lit that you would expect to see lit, even a house across the street from us who had gone to the trouble of putting out a really adorable Halloween exhibit was dark. I thought of Halloween nights in Minnesota when I was a kid--the smell of burning leaves, the crisp Fall air, groups of kids darting across dark streets. Halloween was a big deal way back when.

Glenn took Theo over to another neighborhood earlier to be with the other Grandma and the two of them went from door to door. They came back in plenty of time to see the festivities. We waited and waited. Nothing.

My husband had gone down to our neighborhood shopping street to pick up some things which were needed for dinner. He said the merchants had all opened their doors and were handing out treats. This explained part of the mystery. It seemed very strange that they would do that, actually. I have always thought of Halloween as a neighborhood thing and merchants were opening up their doors to hand out treats? It also turned out that families were having Halloween parties in their homes. The final thing suggested as an explanation was that Halloween this year fell on a Saturday when people would naturally have time to throw a party. If it had fallen on a weeknight we might have had a totally different story. I'm wondering if we're not afraid of Halloween now. Too many scary things have happened so we keep our kids close to us. Parties are fine, going to neighborhood merchants are fine, but going door to door is Verboten.

When these kids showed up I was so excited I grabbed my camera. Halloween at last!

Untended Children Will Be Given a Double Espresso And A Free Puppy.

Untended children can be cute but oh my. I thought this restaurant's bar had a funny solution.
Who would want to have their child given a double espresso and at the very same time--a puppy? Chaos would reign.

One of our group, next year, will join the number of us with children. We're so happy for you, Jen! I'm at the top of the heap having two sons over forty, but it is not always a good place to be because of the regrets. It is awesome being close to young women now bringing up their children. I wish I had done some things differently: first and foremost I wish I had fed my children in a more healthy way. Hot dogs and hamburgers and pizza are easy choices but not healthy ones. Would I change either of my sons, despite the sometimes harrowing things being a parent has brought? No and I doubt most parents would. It's like that ancient Greek story about being offered the chance to change your own set of problems for somebody else's. Most of us wouldn't change our lives, if given the choice.

Here you see my son, Glenn, pretending he's an astronaut. He took his three and a half year old son, Theo, (who now insists he's four) to the Discovery Museum in Sauselito. My husband, Jerry, joined them and took this wonderful picture. He is a wonderful, imp like creature, my son. This picture picks up that imp like quality wonderfully. He has a way with children. Before he had his own, he and his wife, Wendy, were with some friends and their children on a day of driving to one spot or another. Glenn was in the front seat of the car (not driving, which turned out to be providential). A little girl in the back asked him what the little dark spot on the back of the neck was. (I'm sure he must have a mole back there although that's not a insight gained through observation). He said it was his "On and Off Button." That of course precipitated a whole series of pushing the On and Off Button which in turn precipitated a whole number of whole body collapses by Glenn and a whole series of howls from the children seated in the back.

I would hate to have had anyone give Glenn a double espresso and a free puppy at any age, but at age four? That was the age he went tearing through our house, grinning that imp like grin, totally naked, in plain view of a host of our friends. One of my friends still remembers that exhibition with a bit of shock. I thought it was hilarious. He hasn't lost that wonderful, imp like quality and I hope he never does.

Strange and Inexplicable Event Posts--Whenever!

My husband, Jerry, and I have been taking a trip down the Sierras starting in Tahoe, finally ending up in LA. As we were leaving Tahoe we couldn't get over the fall colors. I had left my camera at home but since I had my iPhone with me I started snapping pictures madly with it's amazing built in camera. Given we were driving at 60 miles an hour or so, all I could do was point out the passenger side window or through the windshield and snap the picture. Later, when perusing them at leisure on the iPhone, I came across this strange picture. I'm adding it to my Strange and Inexplicable Event Posts because of the strangeness and beauty of it and because it was totally a mystery. Once I put it on the computer and blew it up I solved the mystery.

It will become clear very soon that I took a picture out the passenger window of the side view mirror. What do you see?

How Much Detail?

I have been told that I don't put in enough detail into my stories. I have come to think that this is mostly true. I have been working on writing the last chapters for my middle grade/ Young Adult novel RUN!! and have run through them quickly, as is my typical approach. When I've gone back through them I've been dissatisfied with what I've read. I've finally come to understand that there isn't enough detail in the story to engage my attention.

Recently I had a critique on RUN!! that mentioned I had too much detail in the manuscript and that the detail slowed down a very important part of my manuscript--the first page. I went back and unhappily cut out the offending paragraph, only leaving what was absolutely necessary which I often found was in the story further on anyway. I'm now writing with more detail and enjoying it and it is difficult cutting it out. I am pulled more into the story as the writer and that, in turn, makes any further writing I do more true to the story. What my wonderful 4Corners writing friend pointed out was all too true, however, so I cut!

I used to write short stories and in those I found myself easily weaving in the necessary detail. Then I turned to writing for children. Writing for children is--contrary to a lot of people's beliefs--a lot more difficult than anyone could imagine. You can put in too much detail, as I just pointed out. You can leave out necessary detail to give the breath of life to a character. You have to think of your audience.

If you write for children, which child do you write for: the four year old, the eight year old, the twelve year old or the teen and how does that determine how much detail you bring into your story?

Strange and Inexplicable Event Posts--Whenever!

Monday Sep 21, 3:25 pm ET

Forest, Miss. Officers had to use a stun gun and handcuffs to capture an emu running loose on Interstate 20 in central Mississippi on Sunday. Police Officer Keley Culpepper told WLBT-TV in Jackson that motorists had been calling 911 since Friday to report sightings of two Emus on I-20 and nearby U.S. Highway 80.

Authorities had been unable to find the animals until Sunday, when one was spotted near the I-20 ramp. The big bird was dodging traffic. Culpepper and deputies were able to surround the animal but had to sue the Taser and handcuffs to finally get it off the road.

After being captured, the animal was taken to the ScottCounty Forest Coliseum.


This post is to introduce what I hope will be a regular event on this blog--Strange and Inexplicable Events!

When will they post--whenever! How else could they be strange and inexplicable?

The Emu is native to Australia, and stands six feet six inches tall. They run at the economical speed of 31 miles per hour. There are a lot of them in Australia--but how was one found on a freeway in Mississippi?

Strange and inexplicable!

Jeff's Desperate Odyssey

I was hunting through my photographs and came across this strange one I took up at Tahoe, sometime last year. It was obviously sometime during the winter and I have to think it was as recent as this last winter, because of the pitcher you see in the lower left of the picture which I bought at a thrift store quite recently.

Somehow, my son Jeff was caught peering out of that snowbank. He probably was behind me in the kitchen as I took the picture and his image somehow ended up as you see it. The picture of the penguin above it is one of a set of drawings he did a few years ago which I loved so much I put it on a recent Christmas Card. The penguin is Jeff, it has his sad eyes.

We just celebrated his birthday last weekend and finding this photograph seems appropriate. Coincidentally I also have been reading an excerpt from a book called "The Water Giver" by Joan Ryan. The author talks about having difficulties with her son from an early age and making up all kinds of excuses as to what she felt were her failings in her dealings with him. Then, today, during the last excerpt we learn he suffered a serious head injury falling of his skateboard. I know I'm going to have to buy this book after reading this excerpt. It is that powerful.

At one point, when she's trying to talk to him through a drug-induced coma, she realizes--perhaps for the first time--how much she loves him. That statement had personal resonance with me, for we had a moment, Jeff and I, when life changed and would never go back to how it had been before when I, too, discovered how much I loved him.

My husband and I knew Jeff had some mental health issues but they were manageable. He was a very gifted tennis coach and had a very loyal clientele. Then, one December, perhaps at the end of 1998, he began to gain weight and act strangely--not wanting to answer his phone being the most disturbing. This went on until March of 1999. One day in March I went over and cornered him in his apartment. What I saw and heard disturbed me terribly. He was talking about a young woman he fancied himself loving who was beyond his reach, totally. He told me she had told him to wait patiently and she would come to him. I asked him how long he had been waiting. He said "Forever."

All of this said very coherently but with no ability to look me in the eye, his eyes, instead, ranging far and wide. He also seemed unusually excited. I remember getting home somehow, sitting at our kitchen table and screaming desperately "I need help!"

I called a therapist he had been seeing and told him what I had seen. He said "Don't worry. He's probably fine. I'll see him on Thursday."

The next morning he was gone, driving away in his car. Thus began Jeff's odyssey, the horrors of which I only learned later. I only knew he was gone when I got a call from a mental health facility in Southern California. Jerry and I flew down and brought him back. I remember we went out to dinner that night with his brother, Glenn, and Glenn's girl friend, Wendy. Again, he acted very strangely, frightening us all.

A friend of mine who worked in a mental health facility told me to not leave him alone, whatever we did. The only problem was, someone in Jeff's condition will lie very convincingly. The next morning as I was going upstairs he told me he was heading to the kitchen for some cereal and again he was gone.

It's amazing how someone with a serious mental illness can fool everybody, when they feel they need to. Jeff is extremely bright and personable. He walked to a car rental agency in downtown Berkeley and convinced them to rent him a car. How were we to keep track of him, know where he was going? It seemed impossible to do so, so I called on my niece, who is a medium. Never for a moment did I think she could really help but we were desperate, so we called Sandy, who gets privileged information from an Indian Deity named Babaji, who has been dead thousands of years. Sandy has been known to find dead bodies. She has an amazing talent but a talent I find so strange only desperation would have forced me to call on her.

We thought Jeff was headed for Palm Springs as the particular fantasy he was immersed in--a young South American woman tennis player--was playing there at that particular moment. Sandy said he wasn't headed for Palm Springs, he was headed for Southern California. She also told us that we could keep within a day's reach of him by following his movements via credit card. No details would be there, but the city or town and the nature of the merchant would be, the next day the details would be there. We had given Jeff an American Express Card and given that his card was off our account we were able to track his movements with the help of the son of the friend who had worked in that mental health facility. He worked for American Express in an upper level capacity. We soon found out he had been staying in a motel in Santa Barbara the night before.

Jerry and I got on a plane to Santa Barbara, praying desperately that we would get to Jeff in time, asking through the Stewardess to let us deplane first. We missed him by just hours. Again, he had fooled the authorities. Someone at the motel had thought he was acting strangely and had called the police, to no avail.

I have always thought Jerry was the strong one, but I soon found we needed each other and sometimes I had to be the strong one. Jerry wanted to wait at the motel, thinking Jeff might come back. He had left wet clothes in the shower so it made sense. I insisted we head south, toward Los Angeles, where Sandy had told us to look for him.

The woman who fielded calls in Jerry's office for everyone--a true jack of all trades--became Jeff's savior. As Jerry drove, I took calls from Verna as she talked to a American Express agent over the phone. We found out Jeff had just checked into the Disneyland Hotel. Now, that choice seems terribly poignant to me. Jeff was living a nightmare and he desperately needed to escape so Disneyland became the obvious choice.

We were now right on his trail. He had been acting very strangely from the moment he had checked into the hotel. When someone is obviously in as much trouble as Jeff, hotel managers put an agent on them; the agent then follows them around. We got to the hotel and met with the individuals in charge of him. When they asked if Jeff's trouble had been diagnosed, we told them what the doctors at the first mental health facility had told us: Schizophrenia.

We followed them to Jeff's hotel room. They knocked on the door and Jeff soon answered, seeming at that point quite normal. They asked Jeff if he would like to go home with us. He said yes.

We were exhausted and wanted to stay the night with him but the hotel refused. We got Jeff in a cab and drove to the airport. Jerry ran ahead trying to hold the last plane for San Francisco for us. I followed with Jeff. The progress was slow as every few feet he wanted to be hugged.

Jerry, frantic, had managed to convince them to hold the plane. A few hours later we were in San Francisco. We managed, with an amazing amount of difficulty, to get Jeff into a hospital in Berkeley. Again he was convincing everyone he was perfectly OK. Jerry managed to get a doctor to hold him for the 72 hours allowed by law.

Jeff's odyssey was truly horrendous. The first trip south he had driven nearly all the way to Santa Barbara in his car but at some point the car lost its clutch. He was stopped along the major north south freeway to Los Angeles. Two policemen pulled over to help him and he ran from them across the freeway. They finally managed to catch him in the center divide, where they pepper sprayed him and then got him to the mental health facility.

The second trip south he somehow managed to get all the way to Santa Barbara in the rental car but by now he was so disoriented and frightened he sat in an all night cafe and cried. Again, police were called. He ran from them, through a creek; then fell down an embankment and sprained his ankle. He convinced the policeman to let him go, again convincing him that he was OK.

From Santa Barbara he bought an airline ticket to Los Angeles and then it was a simple cab ride to the Disneyland Hotel where we eventually caught up with him.

It is now ten years later. Jeff lives in a half-way house after a suicide attempt, in one of their apartments. He is doing very much better but I am tired--tired of it all, tired of feeling so sad for my son. I thought perhaps writing all this would help and it has. I want so desperately to care for him without pain.

He is fortunate in that he is a very talented man. He is a gifted artist and photographer and an amazing writer. During the first year after his initial diagnosis he wrote a complete novel and began another and nearly finished it. This novel is my favorite: he calls it "Soul In An Empty Landscape." I wish he could finish it. It is his story.

It is very unusual for a Schizophrenic to complete a novel in a year. During that year he exhibited traits much closer to Bi-Polar Disorder. I thought at one point that would be a better diagnosis. I've since changed my mind as friends of ours with two Bi-Polar sons have had agonies with one of their sons far surpassing ours with Jeff.

How does Jeff feel about his illness? He now accepts it, which is paramount to eventually being able to live a productive life. His therapist at his halfway house asked him once how he felt about being Schizophrenic. He said "I'm angry about what my life has become."

In a few weeks he will begin a course in Philosophy at Stanford University--in a Continuing Education Program. My sister, Carol, who is an artist, has been very supportive and loving toward him, encouraging him with his art and for the last two years he attended an art class in Palo Alto and he is going to take a photography course next semester. Before that, in the halfway house, he drew the marvelous animal you see at the top of this post.

You have to have hope for and love someone who so desperately needs it, but it is hard. It was during those long moments in that airplane terminal in Los Angeles when he reached out for those multitudes of hugs that I realized how much I loved him.

I'll Have to Ask You To Not Go Near The Baby's Head, Theo

Here you have our daughter-in-law, Wendy, and our grandson, Theo, at a Mexican restaurant we all found ourselves enjoying together recently. My husband, Jerry, took the picture with his iPhone. I'm going to assign him all future photographic jobs when the family gathers. I think it is an absolutely wonderful photograph.

Theo had just eaten a full paper container of jam; the remains of the jam are still on his face. The comment, which is repeated as the title of this blog piece, I heard over the phone a day or so later during a conversation I was having with Wendy. I envisioned truly horrible things happening to the baby's head and Wendy was so calm about it!

Well, things are often very different from what you imagine. It turns out when Theo goes near the baby's head he does it like this: first he hugs him and then he gives him a kiss. Maybe Wendy was afraid Theo would give the baby a cold or worse yet, the flu? A flu bug is again running rampant at Wild Horse and Glenn is the sufferer.

Wendy doesn't know what caused her comment but I think Theo was trying to kiss the baby. I'm just glad it wasn't close to what happened to me when our oldest was eighteen months old and Glenn a newborn. I was holding Glenn in the front seat and our oldest, Jeff, got miffed and hit me over the head with a whiffle bat. I may have the name of the bat slightly wrong; it's what a child uses to hit a light weight ball called a whiffle. It didn't hurt; I was just startled. Oh, the travails of being a parent!

A Feat of Derring-Do

I took it upon myself the other day to turn a rather ordinary day into an extraordinary one, but not by intention. The damn thing just grew.

We were up at Tahoe. I had left my husband preparing to walk our dog, Plato, along the Truckee River while I shopped for dinner. My husband is used to giving orders. I don't think there's any other way he knows how to communicate. Oh, that's not really the case, it only seems that way sometimes.

The particular order given to me was "I want you back here in thirty minutes." I told him I couldn't promise such a thing and he would just have to sit on a nearby log if it turned out I was late. He just ignored the comment totally and walked off with Plato. He's not good at small talk.

I don't like to disappoint and he's really a nice guy so I decided to give it my all. But things kept getting in the way. It was nearly impossible to get out on Route 89, and I needed to get on Route 89 in order to shop for dinner. At last I fearfully worked myself into the traffic. Then the traffic eased by some miracle and I soon found myself driving down the main street and into the parking lot in front of Safeway.

I parked in the very outside lane, the best place to burn a little rubber on the way out. I then walked into Safeway pushing a shopping cart. I immediately worked myself toward the back where the meat section was. I love meat sections. You always know where they are. I was planning on buying a nice rib eye steak or two to serve for dinner.

That went rather uneventfully, but after I picked up the steaks, I attempted to push my cart toward the produce section, only to be stopped by a veritable sea of shopping carts. I have never seen as many shopping carts in one place. I finally worked myself through them, turned down into the produce section and immediately found myself unable to find what I wanted, what with all the endless varieties of lettuce and cherry tomatoes and mushrooms. I finally picked up what I thought I needed and headed back toward the meat section because of course I had forgotten to shop for tea or crackers or some such thing and those strange appendages to a shopping experience are always next to the meat section.

More shopping carts but somehow not as many, now people clogging the aisles, some of them bigger than me so, being a total coward, I went back to the produce section, with the intention of making my way around to the front of the store so I could enter the aisle where the crackers, or whatever, were stashed.

Of course I had to go by the check-out stands and, if you've ever been in a Safeway, this is where shopping cart mania really starts. This wasn't a sea of shopping carts, this was an ocean of shopping carts.

I finally got the crackers, finished my shopping and headed back toward the ocean of shopping carts. A miracle occurred! I found a checkout stand with hardly anybody in it!

I had long since given up any hope of actually getting back in thirty minutes. I had given up hope so dramatically I hadn't even looked at the clock. Now, by some miracle, there seemed to be a chance--just a chance--to get back in time.

Everything worked smashingly. I headed for the door happily, a young guy pushing the cart for me. I was so organized I even had my own shopping cart person.

We started down the aisle toward my car when what did I see but a semi-truck backing down the aisle toward the garage where Safeway's goods were unloaded. I had, in my stupidity, chosen the lane where Safeway's trucks delivered their goods! The truck was humongous!

I found this amazingly funny. I had been faced with an unending series of things to thwart my mission, seas and oceans of shopping carts and people that insisted on blocking aisles and then, just as I thought I had a prayer of being on time, a semi-truck!

The gargantuan semi backed down the aisle toward the garage; got the rear end of the truck to the point where it was almost touching the roof of the garage; then apparently not being in quite the right position, pulled up and backed down again. And so it went. Finally he backed the truck into the garage with about an eighth of an inch to spare. A real feat, let me tell you.

Believe it or not I was on time and my husband was late.

Paradise Invaded

I spent parts of the last two weeks at my daughter-in-law's and son's home in Green Valley helping with the new baby. This bookshelf is full of strangeness like that face peering out at the upper left corner which actually belongs to a mask owned by Wendy's late father. The bookshelf is very Dickens, which makes total sense as the bookshelf belongs to my son Glenn. Glenn teaches English Literature and is a fan of anything suggestive of Dickens. It seemed very proper to introduce this post with this picture as this story is strange. Maybe not Dickens' strange, but J Conan Doyle strange, Speckled Band strange. Don't you feel like Sherlock Holmes could be standing next to that bookshelf, pipe in hand, peering out, ready to confront some dastardly villain?

Last weekend Diane, the other Nana, spent four days or so with Wendy and Glenn to help while my husband and I went to Tahoe. While they were there, Paradise was invaded.

Just outside the front door to the house Wendy planted a rock garden and filled it with herbs. A wonderful green frog I bought at my thrift store stands on a lily pad regarding the space with interest. That poor rock garden has had multiple problems--our dog Plato pooped on the Parsley and Wendy and Glenn's cats pooped there as well. Wendy has been wringing her hands about that rock garden which took hours of her time to plant. In the center there is a little round bench and small table. It's a lovely spot.

Wendy and Diane were coming back from a walk on the property; Wendy had the baby in a sling; Theo was in day care. They came up on the side of the rock garden toward a set of steps that led to a side gate to a deck when they heard a loud rattle. Diane, being a good mother, pushed Wendy up the steps. "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!"

Then they noticed Pip, Wendy's and Glenn's big cat named after a Dickens' character, becoming very interested in whatever let out that rattle. Wendy frantically ran inside and grabbed some kibble. Luckily, Pip likes to eat and with a little persuasion he was lured inside.

Glenn came home. He investigated and informed them there was a four foot Rattle Snake caught in some netting in the Rock Garden--it was the biggest Rattler he had ever seen. Coincidentally the netting was over the Parsley. The Parsley has suffered more than it's share of mayhem.

Usually Glenn would have killed it. He had helped Wendy's father, Clyde, any number of times doing just that. But this creature was caught in that netting and ever more dangerous because of that.

They called Animal Control, who came out promptly. Animal Control does not kill Rattle Snakes; Rattle Snakes kill rodents so they're useful. They carefully snipped away the netting from around the snake, put it in something--what I don't know--and relocated it thirty yards away.

Thirty yards away! Wild Horse is a big property--15 acres or more. They could have released it farther away than that!

This was the second Rattle Snake in that Rock Garden since February. Apparently they stop there on the way to the creek that runs through the property. That's two too many Rattle Snakes but at least they rattle and tell you they're there!

THOUGHTS ABOUT TWITTER AND FACEBOOK AND FRIENDSHIP

True friendship are rare, and even rarer, perhaps, in a time of Facebook and Twitter.  It used to be, with correspondence between two people, that true friendship could grow out of nothing.

What do Twitter and Facebook do in terms of friendship?  You make quick circuits into a person's life.  That can be fascinating but does it further friendship?  

The amazing thing about Facebook and Twitter is you can connect with people you haven't heard from in years and then the correspondence with that friend can begin once again.  Not in a standard way, with a pen, but with an email.

With an email you can truly begin a correspondence.  I began to think about this about a week ago because I made a new friend recently with one of my blogs.  His name is Jim.  He was exploring the Sierra's in the early 1930's so he probably is in his nineties.  He is an amazing correspondent--witty, with thoughts about the world that wouldn't occur to anyone but someone who's been around more than ninety years.

I haven't heard from him in about five days and I'm worried about him.  He told me recently that he felt lost without one of my emails to read--like something was missing, now I feel lost without one of his to read.  He went to Reno to say goodbye to a cousin who was dying.  I imagine he's busy talking with old friends and family members, but still I worry.

THE ESSENTIALS OF A GOOD ENDING

I've been thinking about endings lately. My middle grade novel RUN!!! will have a surprise at its close. The surprise has to be believable and right in the guts of it--the guts being the story.

A good ending has to pull together all the elements in the story in a satisfying way and end it, if not with a twist, with a punch. It has to be believable. It has to be told in the tone of the story and it has to extend the reader beyond the story--into the future.

Here are a couple of endings which fit those criteria. "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd about a teenage girl from the south fleeing the abusive T. Ray, looking for a mother in the desperate days just before blacks were given the vote.

"This is the autumn of wonders, yet every day, every single day, I go back to that burned afternoon in August when T. Ray left. I go back to that one moment when I stood in the driveway with small rocks and clumps of dirt around my feet and looked back at the porch. And there they were. All these mothers. I have more mothers than any girl off the street. They are the moons shining over me."

"The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro about a butler in a proper English household trying to shed a lifetime of rigidity which has denied him happiness. One of the symbols of this rigidity is his inability to "banter."

"It occurs to me, furthermore, that bantering is hardly an unreasonable duty for an employer to expect a professional to perform. I have of course already devoted much time to developing my bantering skills, but it is possible I have never previously approached the task with quite the commitment I might have done. Perhaps, then, when I return to Darlington Hall tomorrow--Mr. Farraday himself will not be back for a further week--I will begin practicing with renewed effort. I should hope, then, by the time of my employer's return, I shall be in a position to pleasantly surprise him."

Finally, "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte about the doomed love affair between Heathcliff and his beloved Cathy narrated by Heathcliff's tenant, Lockwood.

"My walk home was lengthened by a diversion in the direction of the kirk. When beneath its walls, I perceived decay had made progress, even in seven months--many a windows showed black gaps deprived of glass; and slates jutted off, here and there, beyond the right line of the roof, to be gradually worked off in coming autumn storms.

"I sought, and soon discovered, the three head-stones on the slope next the moor --the middle on grey, and half buried in the heath--Edgar Linton's only harmonized by the turf and moss, creeping up its foot--Heathliff's still bare.

"I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

What are your favorite endings and what makes them good and right?