Janet’s Ordinary Life

Sometimes you have to ignore the old advice not to judge a book by its cover. I saw this when I was on the way to the checkout at Barnes & Noble and couldn’t resist the cover. I mean, it’s perfect! Just look at it! The title makes me curious, and just look at that cow! If I take the sticker off, there are ducks, and on the top are a cute Golden Retriever (I think) and a parrot.

And on the back, there’s an intriguing description of what goats eat, with a pig at the top and a cat standing on its hind legs.

I mean, this cover makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I’m reminded of the cow that jumped over the moon, Duck Duck Goose, Charlotte’s Web and Puss ‘n’ Boots all in one fell swoop. It makes me want to put on feetie pajamas and get into bed with a flashlight. Heck, I may just do that for old times’ sake. At this point, the book could be terrible and I wouldn’t care-if it’s bad, I can always take the cover off and tape it to my wall.    But I have a feeling it’s gonna be good.   Excuse me while I go find my flashlight.

I read about this NASA program to send peoples’ names into orbit around the moon and put my name in. I printed out my certificate of participation, too. A little corny maybe, but this is probably the closest I’ll ever get to flying in space.

Last night I saw the raccoon again, and got my camera and tried taking photos through the back door-jalousie and screen and glass, which wasn’t successful, and through the dining room window which was a little better. When I downloaded them, they were all black, and I brightened them with my Paint Shop Pro program. For some reason, the zoom wasn’t any better than a regular shot. I guess the only way I’d get a good, clear shot is to be outside on the steps, and first off I am NOT going to do that, and second, the raccoon would run off and not come back as long as I’m there. And third, if I’m outside, Spot has to be, too. So this is probably as good as it’s gonna get. The raccoon doesn’t come every night so next time I see it I’ll try getting better photos. Meantime, this is all I got. Click to enlarge.

It’s just to the right of the lilac bush in the one below.

Had an interesting morning. We ran a few errands, last of which was a stop at Lowe’s to get bird seed, and Mom saw a hanging basket she liked. We stood in line at the garden center (outdoors). It was about 48 degrees and windy, and we waited and waited while someone at the front was having some kind of difficulty that required the (young) clerk to consult a SKU book, probably ordering something for which there was no SKU. Waited and waited, and I and other people in line looked around for another clerk, but none were to be seen, naturally. A couple of people gave up and went inside to the registers there. I was watching Mom’s hands actually turn blue, she was cold. I would have taken her inside or to the car, but I had two 25-pound bags of seed and no cart, and she needs me to walk her, and it would have taken about half an hour to get her and everything inside, and God knows how much longer waiting in another line at the checkout. Finally we got through and went home-I turned the car heater up high and she warmed her hands at the vents.

I put the birdseed in the back yard and filled the feeders, and I wanted to get inside and go to the library before I had lunch, I was hungry. Then I noticed that a bird had shit on Spot’s back. So I had to put soapy water in a bucket and clean him off, then rinse out the bucket, put clean water in it and wipe the soap off.  I finished that and went to my room to get a tote bag for the stuff going back to the library, and when I walked back out to the living room, I was taken aback to see the Jehovah’s Witness woman from a couple weeks ago standing with a very nattily dressed man at the door (we didn’t close the wood door since I was going out again.) She waved merrily, and I’m proud to report that, because I was still in a bad mood from 1) standing in a wind tunnel at Lowe’s worrying that my mom is going to develop pneumonia; 2) I get home and a bird shits on my dog; and 3) I wanted to get to the library and 4) get home to eat lunch, that I walked straight to the door and said “I’m sorry, I’m not interested”, and closed the wood door in spite of her surprised and disappointed expression. (for some reason, Spot didn’t know they were there, I got there before they could ring the doorbell and freak him out.) BTW, my mom had just brought her lunch to her chair by the door and didn’t look at me while she was on her way back to the kitchen-she knew they were there and didn’t want to deal with them. Coward. I sat in the living room for a few minutes, not wanting to get buttonholed when I went out to my car. Fortunately they’d left. I hope they don’t come back.

I’m just wondering something: yesterday when we were driving to the store, a black cat ran across the street in front of my car, and I wonder if there’s a statute of limitations on the bad luck-is the bad luck supposed to last just the first 24 hours after the cat crosses your path, or is it open-ended?

Some guy in a pickup with Public Services on the doors picked up the branches and logs and emptied the yard waste cans this afternoon.   Sorry, Holly, you lose the bet!

I’m on pins and needles, wondering if tomorrow morning my dream will come true and all that wood at the curb will be gone when I wake up.  Or if the nightmare will continue with yet another orange tag affixed to something telling me what I have to do to meet the requirements of the yard waste program.  And whether I could get a lawyer who can use the PMS defense if I load it all into my car and dump it at City Hall.

Last night I was letting Spot outside to go potty before I went to bed, and when I opened the door, I saw something moving near the bird feeder closest to the door, and it leaped onto the fence and disappeared-all I saw was a tail.  I thought it might be a cat, but I’ve learned that nothing is ever that simple in Ordinary Janet Land.  I went outside with Spot, sat on the steps while he did his business, and thinking about how fast I could get the hose if the raccoon decided to attack my baby.   I watched Spot as he walked along the fence but he didn’t make a fuss so I guessed the raccoon went to find quieter yards.

Much later, I’d been watching TV and went to the kitchen to smoke.  I like to check out the yard to see if anything’s going on, and I was surprised to see a raccoon in full view, nibbling on sunflower seed under the bird feeder.  Man, that thing is big-it’s about half Spot’s size!

I can’t remember seeing a raccoon here before.  Years ago, we had a problem with something getting into our garbage cans during the night-the lids would be off and garbage strewn around, but if I remember right, that was a possum because we saw one.   Last time I saw a raccoon was when I went camping with a boyfriend over 20 years ago.    I’m having visions of Spot innocently going outside to go potty only to have a raccoon leap onto his back and cause a bloody fight at midnight.  (I have a very active imagination.)  I know Holly (Creekhiker) has had experience with raccoons, but the ones she has photos of look much smaller than the raccoon I saw last night.

I thought of getting my camera, but I was afraid that the noise of the camera powering on would excite Spot who would want to go outside, and I wasn’t really up to watching a fight at 12:30 in the morning.  Maybe next time. In the meantime, I think I’ll look up raccoons and see if there’s anything I should know.  I hope there’s nothing there that’ll fuel my paranoia.

the branches and stuff is still here. Looks like it’ll be Tuesday after all.

update: I emailed the city and this is part of the response I got:

Unfortunately, the yard waste crews are working with limited staff and
resources because of the overwhelming amount of yard waste this time of
year.  Please leave the yard waste bundles out to the curb so a crew can
be sent back around as soon as possible.  

If the yard waste is not collected by Saturday afternoon, please contact
our office to check the status of your request; however, it may be
possible that a crew will be sent next week on the collection day.

Looks like it’ll be Tuesday after all. I don’t mind. It didn’t even cross my mind that they might be extra busy because of the recent warm weather. That’s what happens when you have neighbors who don’t care about their landscaping. You forget that there are people out there who do.

(sorry about the tiny font-I can’t get it to be any bigger.)

the tree wasn’t picked up today.

So this morning the yard waste truck came, and I put on shoes and went outside all ready to help the lone guy toss stuff in the truck (which is one of the garbage trucks).   Before I got out there, he went back in the truck’s cab and came out with an orange tag, and told me that the branches had to be bundled, and to call the number on the tag when they were ready for pickup.   Oh, shit, okay.  He did empty the 4 yard waste cans, though.

I got some twine and bundled the longer branches that I couldn’t break over my knee and quickly filled up all 4 cans again.  When I got down to the thick, heavy logs, I was running out of twine and went in and had Mom call the number on the tag to ask if they’d take the logs loose.   The woman Mom talked to must never have done a lick of yard work in her life because she said I had to bundle the logs, and I said “but they’re heavy”-it would be easier to pick them up individually and throw them in the truck than to heft a 100-pound bundle of logs-I estimate they each weigh between 10 and 50 pounds.  She said, “You can put them in the yard waste cans”.  Excuse me? They’d punch right through the bottom, and it would break the back of the guy who had to lift the cans!  “Or you can buy the recyclable yard waste bags”.  Huh? Lady, those bags are paper!  What planet are you living on? It’s a good thing I wasn’t talking to her on the phone or I’d have called her every kind of idiot the thesaurus has listed.

I told Mom to tell her to send the truck back to pick up the bundles, and she asked if I was finished. I said I’d be done in a few minutes, all that was left were some thinner logs I’d (grudgingly) bundle.  She said to call back when I was done.   Okay, I know damn well that the truck wouldn’t appear within seconds of Mom hanging up the phone.   It was really a good thing I wasn’t the one talking on the phone.  So I go back out and bundle the thinner logs, muttering to myself all the while, and when I was done, I told Mom to call them again, and she got a different person (I think).  The truck will be here sometime later today.  Unbelievable. The stuff gets tossed into a garbage truck and compressed anyway, it’s not as if everything winds up at the recycling place all nice and tidy and bundled.