Sturmz, Frank's 11-year-old Shepherd/husky mix, and Falstaff, my great Dane/lab puppy, play whenever they have an audience....




Falstaff tries to hold his ears up, but they're just too heavy...

Despite his serious look here, Falstaff has quite the sense of humor, and a nearly constant joie-de-vivre.

Oh, no! I forgot to blog!!

I can't believe it's been over 2 months.

Biggest thing has been a problem with my hands -- 8 or 9 years ago I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome (numbness and pain in my hands) with moderate nerve damage from bad computer setups. I've been having a BIG flareup since I've been working at the Senior Center. Combination of bad computer setups (get a donated desk, slap a computer on it, call it a work station), stress (tight shoulders & eating too much of the wrong things), bad diet (too much dairy, chocolate etc) and Falstaff pulling on the leash. The food thing bugs me the most, because I know that some of the things I eat are bad for my body, but I eat them because I associate them with calming and relaxation, two things in short supply these days.

Frank and I are both working too much -- he's starting out in real estate, I've got too many commitments. One of mine -- respite care for Michael, twice a week after my Senior Center job -- will end in mid-December. Not a moment too soon for me. I really like Michael, but it's time to have a bit more time for myself.

Let's see if I can post a couple of photos.

The more things change....

New dog: He's really great. I worry about his dominance, of course, but he's so darn cute. When he sees something he doesn't understand or needs to study, he sits very straight and puzzles over it, his ears attempting to stand up straight and the wrinkles in his forehead becoming more pronounced. You can just see him going, "Hmm, what's this?" So far he knows "sit" and is pretty good at "down," especially for the jingle ball or a treat, and he goes into his crate and settles down when bribed, but "come" is abysmal. He definitely seems to have a sense of humor -- the other night he went racing in circles around the living room furniture, grabbing pens or papers in his mouth without even stopping. I was in hysterics. He's killed all the stuffed toys by shaking them (high prey drive), and had his butt kicked repeatedly by Sturmz and Hazel the cat. Huey the rooster ran at him the other day too. I figure he needs all the limit-setting from any quarter that he can get. He still growls at me sometimes and puts his teeth on me when I try to get his leash on, tho less frequently. He plays well with other puppies, I was relieved to see, even though I won't be able to take him to puppy class (not enough vaccinations yet, not enough bucks yet, time conflict). More photos soon!

New job! I started at the Redwood Coast Senior Center on the day after Labor Day. My title is Outreach Worker, and for 30 hours a week I answer questions about various services, assess people for home delivered meals, schmooze in the lunch room, keep track of contracts with the county social services department. It's very laid back, and my direct supervisor is more like a friend. I actually know her from Big Brothers/Big Sisters. The difference between this non-profit and the private business I was with before is like night and day. There, I couldn't do enough, know enough, do anything right. Here, they're so grateful that mostly I know what I'm doing and take initiative. It feels great! They're also willing to train me in areas I'm weak in or interested in, so today I went to a seminar on communicating with clients with dementia.

Old jobs: I'm still looking after Michael 2 afternoons a week, and getting Todd up on weekends, so effectively it's still 7 days a week, but feels more spacious. Frank is getting set up in real estate (is working for a broker in town) and we both feel quite hopeful about his prospects, like there's some sacrifice now, but at some point things will change for the better -- like we'll be able to buy some land and I can quit the weekend job (which is in trade for part of the rent).

Say hi to our newest family member...

Falstaff is an 11-week-old lab/great dane mix. He came from the Coast Animal Control office, where these pictures were taken. He's been home just about 24 hours, and we're all learning fast. Frank's dog Sturmz sets constant limits and the little guy tests them mercilessly. Falstaff retrieves fairly reliably, and uses his crate with moderate good will. The pound lady told me he "sleeps through the night," which is kind of a relative phrase. I went to bed at 9:30 last night (Frank was driving for the County) and when Frank got home at 4:30 am, Falstaff decided it was morning. After all he'd been asleep for more than 7 hours! I took him out and aftere much whining by the side of the bed, he got to snuggle in with me, and we all slept a few more hours. Then, about 6 am, Huey started crowing. Through some glitch, most of chickens, including Hugh, had spent the night outside the coop, and he was announcing MORNING. Usually he doesn't get out till about 8 am,and then he doesn't crow as much. I decided it was indeed morning, and I got up and took the puppy out, then got Huey back in the coop where he was quiet. Trying to run Falstaff's energy off is going to help me lose some weight....



Falstaff (Sir John) is a character created by William Shakespeare. He first appears in Henry the 4th, Part 1. He's a disreputable guy, but brings much-needed humor to the history play. We think the puppy will grow into his name, tho he's already adding humor...

Time vs. Money: The eternal conundrum

So now I have lots of time. I feel GREAT about that. I've been sleeping till 9 every day, putting minimal effort into finding work and keeping up the house, going into town to get my mail, and working on beaded jewelry. I feel like I could be happy like this for a long time. Problem is my checkbook, while not yet running on fumes, is rapidly being drained. The unemployment folks are going to call me on Thursday for a phone interview, to ask me why I was fired. ("Was I warned?" "No.") Then hopefully the payments will kick in. The whole thing right now reminds me of some elaborate game of "Chicken" -- how long can I hold out before the on-coming train destroys my credit rating...

Ahh, Unstructured Time

I used to think I handled my time well, but not this time around. Yesterday my big accomplishment was sorting through the mountain of clean laundry and matching up all the socks. That and buying Beth a new mouse to replace the one that died.

Then I saw my job advertised in our local weekly, about 5 inches of classified liner ad, ending with "Training & Support provided." My, my, they must've changed something since I left.

It looks like I will go back to one of my previous gigs -- doing respite care for Mike, one of my favorite kids. (If this post goes right, there'll be a picture of him in it, taken just before I left for the full-time debacle.)



He's a fun and interesting kid -- hears perfectly but talks like a deaf person, has extra sensitivity in his hands, feet and head, so cutting hair and nails is cause for screaming fits. Thus the long-ish hair. He uses some sign language and I do a running translation to make sure i've got his meaning. As a respite worker I'm not allowed to transport him in my car, so we spend our time together walking to the playground or the ice cream store or just walking the alleys so he can indulge his fascination with cars and trucks and heavy equipment. On rainy days he turns over the two living room swivel chairs and we go for long "truck rides."

Too bad the fun factor doesn't correlate positively with the pay -- in fact it's the opposite: The more fun the job, the less you make.

The Universe has the Last Laugh

Remember at the beginning of this blog I said I wanted to sort out what in my life had to go? The universe was listening. So on 7/7 it said, "Whssht. The job is the thing to go." I was fired. "Things aren't working out." Fat severence check. "Oh, by the way, write up a report of where things stand so the next person will be able to take over easily." And on my way out of the boss' office, "Oh, and thank you for all you HAVE done." I couldn't muster a reply. It crossed my mind to do a bit of sabatoge. wipe out some scheduling records, maybe for the entire month of July. But instead I called each of my employees and told them what had happened, and that I appreciated their work with our clients.

For several days I felt "irrational exuberance" -- then one of the office people called asking about the status of a particular case, and boom, I started crashing. I got so ANGRY, mostly with Frank unfortunately, but then grief for me has always contained equal amounts of fatigue, sadness and irritability. Talking with Frank I figured out it isn't the actual job, the reality of it that I'm grieving for -- it's being told in essence, "You didn't learn fast enough. Now your chance is over."

Ironically I felt like I really was getting the hang of it. The venting here actually helped. I got back on good terms with the bi-polar client, the word just hadn't reached my boss.

Now I've applied for unemployment, Frank and I went to the City last weekend with his mom and nepehew, did the frantic tourist thing, and now I'm logged in from a cafe in San Rafael, near where we're house-sitting till Monday.

I was already contacted by someone from one of my old gigs and asked to come back. Too bad it's only a few hours a week at half of what I was making as a supervisor...

After that, I plan to get some "healing time" in every day, going to the ocean mostly, trying to quiet the buzzing in my head.
Then Frank and I are starting in on a business venture together. More on that soon.

This is a Keet

A keet is a baby guinea fowl. This one is in good hands with Frank.

And something even cheerier

The newest baby chicks, summer of '05. In this picture, they're about 2 weeks old. The small blonde one is Marilyn (as in Monroe); the black one is Chess (Frank had one similar years ago that he called Checkers); and the big blond one is a rooster called Supper (for now).

Beth on her first long ride, summer '04

Posted by: goingwalkabout on Buzznet

Beth on her first long ride, summer '04
That's Beth (between the ears), when she was about to turn 6. She's 7 now, and we've been matched in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program for over a year and a half. For her 7th birthday I took her riding again, and this time she didn't need anyone to lead her horse. The outing that this picture was taken on was a big group of Bigs and Littles.

What I Hate About My Job

On both hands, maybe toes too:

• Dealing with crazy people, with no support -- none -- from my boss -- everything that happens, I should've done something different
• Dealing with crazy people, with no training -- none -- except what I came by naturally, and it's not all that effective.
• Having to carry and answer the pager every other week. Staff and clients call with emergencies, or sometimes situations that aren't even urgent. Even when the other staff member carries the pager, I still have to respond when she calls me. It's like I'm never "off."
• The "life & death" nature of the work we do. There are some clients that need us for their very survival, have no family, no friends, no one but us. Someone's car breaks down or their kid gets sick, and this client has no food in the fridge and that client may fall trying to get to the bathroom and the suicidal one may finally do it.
• The way it tests my faith every single minute of every single day. I have to come face to face with my lack of belief in people, and my lack of belief in myself, and my lack of belief in any real pattern that the universe operates by. If you ask me in other situations about all those things, I would say, of course I believe, I believe in the people who work for me, I believe in my ability to at least learn what do in most situations, I believe the universe is orderly and runs on real, often-easy-to-observe principles. But this job tests every one of those beliefs, and today I don't feel like dealing with the struggle at all.

Here's how it goes: I'm doing my job, matching caregivers to clients, scheduling, re-scheduling, re-re-scheduling, building and re-building my little house of cards, and a client and caregiver get into a disagreement. Each one says, "I can't talk to her, tell her this" or "I can't talk to her, tell her that." Against my better judgment I get pulled in, and I'm not good at handling mentally-unbalanced people. The debacle du jour involves a bi-polar woman who periodically goes off her meds and gets mad at everyone, just like today. Only in the past she's called to apologize and said she's going to a hospital, to get her meds adjusted, and we all forget about it. Today, instead, she's made an appointment with my boss. I know where I'll come out, on the shit end, because he seems constitutionally incapable of supporting me. "Oh, yes, dahling, it's a terrible job" is the extent of his understanding of where I am.

OK, I'm finished venting, I'm going to lunch.

What I Love About My Job

On the fingers of one hand:

• The view from my office window (trees and a bit of the Noyo harbor)
• A regular paycheck (after deciding each month which bill to defer, it's nice to pay them all)
• The things I've learned (how to think more linearly, how to organize a to-do list, how to make a lot of phone calls without thinking about it)
• Seeing the same people each day and hearing continuing stories

Today's Tight Itinerary

This morning I got new eyes at 8:45. Glasses AND contacts are now updated, so I can see the world again. Whew, all that foliage out my office window -- I was missing that.

Work has its usual share of bizaare-nesses -- a client and a caregiver feuding, with me in the middle. The last supervisor did all the communicating between client and attendant, I prefer to let them talk to each other. Whatever I do, I'm wrong anyway, so tra-la-la.

At 1:30, I go for a brain-drug check. My anti-depressant and anti-anxiety meds are working well, so I'll tell him that and get charged $45 for the 5 minutes.

But after that, things get interesting. I have a job interview at 2:30 with the Mendocino Art Center. They need someone to do publicity. I know the executive director from another context (I babysat her 40 chickens, pot-belly pig, and several dogs and cats a few times). Hopefully the image of me with mud and chicken feed on my jeans will be erased by my current gussied-up state!

The bottom line is I have to believe in the work I'm doing, and the more I see around here (at the home health company) the less I want to be associated with it, the more I want to have an organization I can respect and be proud of. I know there will be challenges anywhere, I'm just looking for a place where I don't feel morally challenged on a daily basis....

As The Rooster Crows

Baby Huey is a rooster. And as such, he has decided to crow each morning. Frank heard him first and tried to describe it -- humorous -- but when I heard it myself I doubled over laughing. Huey jumps to the top of the big wire cage we have in the chicken yard, stretches up to his full 14-inch height, flaps his wings and emits a sound that is something like

• a crowing harbor seal
• someone messing with a comb and tissue paper
• someone playing a kazoo.

It's missing a syllable too. Err-a-ruh.

Somehow the hens are not impressed and run after him pecking.

Pictures soon.

Critters: Hazel the Cat

I met Hazel 3 days before Christmas, 2003. She was about a year old and living in a posh cage at the Humane Society in Fort Bragg. When I let her out and picked her up, she drooped over my shoulder with loud purring, leading me to think perhaps she's part "rag doll," a breed that's bred to relax when they're picked up.

I delayed my decision till Christmas Eve day, when I decided I had to have her, because if I didn't I'd be thinking about her and regretting it. They were closed on Christmas Eve day. What if someone had already adopted her?

The day after Christmas I went to the mobile adoption fair in Mendocino to see if she was still available, and there she was, ready to become mine, as much as a cat ever can.

Hazel turned out to be a bit of a comedian. When Trudie arrived, Hazel sniffed her tail and then smacked her nose, sending Trudie yelping away. The dog never fully trusted her after that, rarely looking at her directly, but Hazel was comradely in her superior position, and when I opened the garage door after a long day, she and Trudie would run down the hall together toward the kitchen. Hazel would hear the jingle of Trudie's tags or the click of her toenails on the kitchen floor, and she'd crouch down just out of sight around the living room corner and jump out at Trudie with a body laugh. She later did the same thing with the 2 big chickens, just to see them flap.

(When we got the baby chicks we had to start squirting water at her when she stalked them. She's gotten the idea, I hope.)

Playing "mighty hunter," Hazel has brought home her share of dead little trophies, sometimes making the gesture of sharing them with me -- the headless gopher on the front porch, for example -- but mostly she enjoys her kills in solitude. The songbirds (about 4 in the time I've had her) always make me feel sad and conflicted. I rescued one from her, setting the poor shaking thing in a bush next door, but I held out little hope it would live.



For a long time she didn't know her own size when her veldt fantasies took over. I saw her stalk a raven, the huge black bird nearly twice her length. When it flew up to the feeder board on the back deck and scolded her, she got up on the railing and swatted at it. My heart was in my mouth because the beaks on those things are about 3 inches long and the birds are known for their ornery ways. That one flew away, but a few days later I was watching some deer browse in the back yard, and saw Hazel start to creep up on them! I wasn't close enough to hear, but the little buck swiveled his ears at her and I got the feeling she was talking some trash. He came closer to her and she rolled over on her back. I had the feeling he was going to stomp her, and sure enough, a delicate and precise flash of the hoof and she beat it back under the deck.

When Frank first brought his dog over, Hazel wanted to play with Sturmz as he dozed on the floor. Frank, unsure about how Sturmz would react, bellowed at her, "NO!" For months she remained offended, glaring at Frank at every opportunity and spurning any attempt he made at friendship. (Now she deigns to let him pet her.) Meanwhile she went through a phase where she viewed Sturmz only from the roof. Then she came down and made her way past the big black nose to get where she was going, stopping to sniff his brushy tail and bat it once or twice. It's an unresolved relationship, one in which Sturmz seems to see "prey" and Hazel seems to see "playmate." We try to keep them both safe, but sometimes it feels like touch and go.

Sometimes Hazel can be patient and forebearing -- I've seen 7-year-old Beth, my Little Sister, pick her up and haul her around like a sack of potatoes while Hazel just purrs. Sometimes Hazel acts a bit more like a dog than a cat -- she comes running to meet me when I drive up.



There are times when I look at her and she takes my breath away, the lines of her body or the sapphire of her eyes. I tend to fret if she doesn't come in before I go to bed, realizing how much I love her and how I'd miss her if she didn't come back. Trudie awakened my compassion, but Hazel opens my heart.

Link to Frank's website. (He's famous!)

www.frankhartzell.com

He's used to being more in the spotlight than he is up here, people telling him off and praising him over his controversial editorials. The picture is from before he lost all that weight, but the writing's still splendid enough to make Rush Limbaugh sit up and take notice, even if His Ditto-ness did put us on the wrong coast.

Critters: Trudie the Dachshund

Trudie, the little Prussian as I called her, was 9 years old when I got her from a small-dog rescue group in January, 2004. She was 10 1/2 when I had her put down in May of 2005. The final episode was a diagnosis of pancreatitis, an extremely painful condition in which digestive enzymes get backed up and start to digest the pancreas. In dogs this shows up as a puke-and-poop-fest with extreme dehydration, outside every 20 minutes all night, and she had it 3 times in 6 weeks. (It may have started with the way her original family overfed her -- she was quite obese when I got her -- but later the vet was thinking tumor and blockage.) Each time she had it, restoring her cost me $500. The second time, they sent me home with an IV setup and showed me how to give her subcutaneous fluids. The third time, I'm afraid, was the charm.

When I first got her, she was diagnosed with a bladder tumor, which turned out to be a thickening of the bladder wall due to chronic urinary tract infection. She announced that by peeing blood on my carpet.

Even when she wasn't mortally ill, she seemed extremely depressed. The only times she appeared happy was certain moments running with Frank's dog, Sturmz, and Betty Lou's dog, Ruby. She didn't particularly like either of them, but she loved running with a pack. Looking back, I think she must've been in pain most of the time -- if one of them accidentally stepped on her or bumped her, she'd go into "land shark" mode, snapping and snarling but never making contact.

The way she appears in the picture was pretty typical. She loved the oval, sheepskin-lined cat bed, and as she was always cold, she also loved Mark O'Brien's old plaid blanket. The bed was like home base for her, and she'd race over to it and jump in, even when I wanted to take the bed in the car.



Quirks she had: She'd never come to me. I had to turn away from her and start walking, and then she'd follow me. She growled at men with loud voices (my landlord) but didn't mind women or men with soft voices (my landlord's Mexican helper and Frank). When I first got her she lay in the recliner chair all day every day for about 3 months. I had to put the leash on her and pull her out of the chair to get her to go outside. She was so completely inert that when I mentioned to a house-call vet that the adoption people had said she was "no trouble at all," he said, "Well, neither's the carpet." (She came out of her shell a bit after those 3 months, but she was never truly happy.) She was seldom affectionate with me, but she kept a close eye on me at all times, getting anxious when left her sight and often following me back and forth from room to room. Toward the end she got very close to Frank too, keeping track of him as carefully as she did me.

I felt terribly guilty about the thought of putting her to sleep, but after I made the decision she seemed to come out of her fog of illness and on her final beach walk the night before, she raced up and down the dunes like a puppy for about a half-hour. She seemed genuinely joyful that I was going to set her free.

That man o' mine

I love telling people this: Frank and I met on Yahoo! Personals.

He found me. My search criteria had the ages settings set to exclude him (he's 9 years younger than I). His opening (email) line was "You have very alluring ... words." Turns out he's a newspaper guy from way back (reporter in Ohio and Yuba County, CA, and managing editor at Napa Valley Register) and a former college professor (journalism at Dominican College in Marin County).

When we met for the first time at a Fort Bragg cafe, I thought, "This is a face I would like to look at for a very long time." He likes Christmas and baseball and animals, and had just moved to the Coast a couple of months before we met. He was living 2 1/2 miles from me.

On our second date, I went to an abalone barbecue at his mom's house and met several visiting relatives.

The stats: He's 6'8", 275 lbs (he's lost 60 pounds in the past year on the low-carb approach), red hair, blue eyes. He laughs with his whole body, and he laughs often. The phrase "gentle giant" was coined for him, but there's a confidence about him, perhaps from years of athletic training as a football player in high school and college.

We have words, digital photography and gardening in common, as well as having moved around a lot as kids. We are far too much alike in many ways. Both of us often have trouble recalling where we put things (keys, wallets, gardening tools). Makes for some interesting living conditions. Politically we're both lefties, though he has a touch more anarchism (is that a word?) in his philosophy than I do. Although he is the youngest child (by 9 years) he acts like an oldest, no problem taking charge of various situations or having a game plan for any eventuality. He's wildly intelligent and maddening absent-minded. We have fun giving voices to the various critters we have (his dog, my cat, the chickens).

He spent more and more time at my house (had been living with his mother after Dominican) and when we bought the chicks together it was more or less official, we're living under the same roof. It works out pretty well, now that we've done some rearranging and he has the spare bedroom to use as an office. (Since I've been working full-time, I have no desire to be on my computer at home.) It's still a small two-bedroom house, but the price is right -- I pay less than half the market-value rent of $900 by trading several hours a week looking after my neighbors' brain-injured son and spending the nights next door when they travel. Frank pays for a lot of the groceries ("I eat the most," he says), and it works out.

Right now he's working at the local weekly newspaper as a reporter; for the Fort Bragg schools as a middle- and high-school substitute teacher; and occasionally drives County mental health clients from Fort Bragg to wherever there's an in-patient bed for them. He recently got his real estate license and is looking for investors for buying a local motel to convert to a board-and-care facility for elderly folks.

Ever since I really got to know him I've felt like we are "forever." He's helped restore my faith in a future. There's a steadiness about him, along with that whacky humor, that is just perfect for me. He's brought a lot of fun into my life, and he's a great cook.

We sometimes play the "what if we'd only met when we were younger?"game, but the answer is always the same -- we wouldn't have been ready.

What all this means
One evening during the worst of my recent cold and sinus problem, we were eating dinner and he said, "How come we never talk about getting married?"

"Ubh....." I said, acutely aware of my complete unattractiveness at that moment -- my red nose, stuffy head and yucky cough -- and was immediately also very moved. We enjoy spending time together, value one another's opinions, already feel "committed."

We don't feel like there's any rush, but we've been talking about getting married.....


Frank with his nephew Jack and Frank's dog Sturmz

Anyone can comment now

I reset the "comment" setting, so anyone can enter a comment without having to join and create a blog of their own....

The Grumpiness Factor

I've been even grumpier than usual lately -- I've been sick and the office manager has been on vacation, so I've had to answer the phone every day, all day. I feel like I have a head full of porridge still, but my voice is back. It's fun to croak out, "Caregivers, can I help you?" when someone calls, as in "I'm at death's door, but I can help you with your home health needs. Just let me come over for a few minutes and hang out and in a few days Grandma won't need us anymore."

Also, it's raining. It's June. We never have rain in June. Usually it quits in April, early May at the latest. Eveyone forgets from year to year, though, and there are many discussions about this everywhere I go. Rain in June here on the Coast would be like snow in June other places. Rain is a winter thing here. Time for it to stop.

I was glad not to have to water the yard tho, and, actually, the landscape is incredibly beautiful in the mist. The cypresses that lean inland away from the sea breeze have lost their tops in the fog, and the fields near my house have a silvery-dewy look.

The young chickens don't seem to care about getting wet, and were foraging merrily when I left, stopping to shake themselves every few seconds. Negrita looked the worst, her little ostrich plumes drooping down sadly. We've determined that Baby Huey is a rooster. We took him and a Brahma hen from Frank's mother's flock and gave her LaVerne, the brown Americana, and LaVerne's best friend, another Brahma.

Huey's first public relations move after he was dropped into the new flock was to attack every single hen, and he was pecked back without remorse. Even tiny Negrita flew up at him, to his utter surprise. When it got dark everyone but Huey went inside the coop, and he sat in the pen cheeping miserably. "Betcha wish you'd been nicer to all these girls," I couldn't resist telling him. We've instituted an intensive taming program for him now. Clipping his wing was the first step, and now we catch him regularly and carry him around the house and pet his comb a lot. (Their combs and wattles are the most sensitive parts of their bodies.) We are trying to keep him from becoming the kind of rooster that terrorizes small children and pecks cats' eyes out. Time will tell.


Next: How this man ended up in my house, my life, my heart

Spot the omitted paragraph

My first encounter with this client was her yelling at me over the phone because her caregiver had asked to be taken off her case. The second encounter was when she complained about the replacement's "attitude problem" when faced with cleaning up 8 weeks worth of cat hair and uncleaned litter boxes. The client sent a scathing evaluation of me ("send susan to intensive people-skills training") and suggested that I had ruined her relationship with her previous home helper. By the way, this client is not disabled or elderly -- she collects insurance money from an auto accident several years ago for people to wash her hair and vacuum her house. But you'd never know anything was wrong with her physically. In response to the evaluation my boss and I agreed I'd write a letter to try to salvage this account.

Can you find the paragraph I didn't include in the final letter?



Dear MV–

When H asked me to read the evaluation and letter you sent, I could feel your frustration coming off the page like heat waves. It was quite eye-opening and humbling for me to see the impression I made on you when I was a brand new supervisor.

I'd like to chop your body into little pieces and feed them to piranhas. I’d like to tie you up and roll you on your cat-hair-covered rugs for about half an hour. I’d like YOU to have to clean up someone else’s pet-shit and 8 weeks of accumulated fur and see if you could do it with a smile on your face. You won't even clean your own house. You are totally unreasonable, and every caregiver knows it. The fact that L could be nice to you was just evidence of how good a liar she was because she knew just as well as anyone how many caregivers you burned through just to keep that bogus insurance payment coming. And don’t blame me for ruining your relationship with C. I’m sure you were capable of doing that all by yourself. But because you are the client and no one backs me in this job, it is up to me to eat shit and come up smiling. Soooooo…..

While reading your evaluation was painful for me, I’m glad you wrote it, because it gives me a chance to try to correct my mistakes – a chance everyone would want, and which I hope you will give me.

I want to assure you that I have heard your concerns and will do anything I can to restore your relationship with our care agency. This includes attempting better communication (for example, I have passed on all your messages to C) and prompt return of your phone calls. I am willing to work with you on any problem that I am aware of (for example, if a caregiver is consistently late, I cannot address the problem unless I’m notified of it).

I’m very sorry we got off on the wrong foot, and I intend to do better in the future.

Sincerely,

Long-Weekend Fallout, The Exploding Breakfast and The Great Chicken Chase

Long-Weekend-Fallout
So Memorial Day, Monday May 30, was the my second full day off since I started with Mendocino Caregivers on February 21. (Weekends I get my neighbors' brain injured son out of bed and ready for the day. That's a trade for part of my rent on the great 2-bedroom cottage with the fenced yard and "white water" ocean view, which Frank now shares with me.) After I slept in on Memorial Day (aaahhhhhhh), Frank and I went to Orr Hot Springs to soak and to Montgomery Woods State Reserve to hike, and it was all glorious and sunny and I could feel my real self coming back, and then on Tuesday I got to work and it was like I had never done the job before. Scheduling program? Never seen it before. Phone calls? Oh, well. I swilled around for a while and after an unpleasant meeting with my boss, who seemingly speaks to me only when something has gone wrong, I realized, "Square peg, round hole, I've been here before," squashing my artistic sensbilities into the tight box of the bureaucrat or the narrow slot of the "helper." That night I had a dream about some sick, dissapated people who were trying to rip me off, and on Wednesday I applied for a publicity job with the Mendocino Art Center. It closes June 10, so I'll keep you posted.

The Exploding Breakfast
I had left my car at Frank's mother's house and he had an early meeting at the Fort Bragg Advocate News, so we were in a hurry this morning. I got out of the shower to the smells of bacon and boiled eggs (Atkins diet, dontcha know). Something was humming away in the microwave as Frank made his dash for the shower, and then *pop* *BAM* something happened inside the microwave. I opened the door to find a fine mist of boiled egg yolks and chunks of whites sprayed all over the inside. It felt good to laugh so hard so early in the morning.

The Great Chicken Chase
Lest the only story be told on Frank:
When I got home yesterday, some of the chickens were in the yard, some locked in the chicken house run. We keep the tiniest ones in there all the time so they don't fall prey to one of the neighborhood cats or a hawk or raven. The others are big enough now to put up a fight.

I got it in my head that I would put them all in the run before I left for Frank's mother's house to meet his best friend from Iowa and his wife and their baby.

Now, chickens have basically three thoughts -- "food," "brood," and "panic." All their interesting behaviors stem from variations on these three things.

Ours aren't laying yet so they are too little to be "broody," which happens when they decide to try to hatch eggs. They become coo-y and soft and sit in one place and talk to themselves and they also become very defensive of that spot and chase other chickens away. Which leaves "food" and "panic."

We've conditioned ours to associate food with "Here chick, chick, chick" or "Here chook, chook, chook" and it works. So I got my bowl of chick scratch (coarse corn meal) and scattered some at the open gate to the run, saying the magic words and they came running -- from both sides. The ones who were in came out and half the ones who were out went in. The other half of the ones who were out continued to pick at the clover like nothing was happening.

I made a big, slow circle and shooed the ones who were out toward the gate, while the ones who were now in ran flapping out. Hazel, my long-haired Siamese decided this was a good time to get in on the action and did a butt-wiggling crouch followed by a pounce that sent the ones headed for the gate into "panic." They scattered.

This time the big, slow circle netted me 2 in and 4 back out, and I caught my pants on some chicken wire that was patching a hole at the bottom of the fence. The next attempt resulted in the tiniest ones out and the 2 biggest in, and I caught my pants on a zig-zag piece of barbed wire that was protecting some new vegetable plants. Then I swore at the top of my lungs. Big Mistake. PANIC! Chickens in all four corners of the big yard, racing past the open gate and into the little cul-de-sac by the deck, cowering in the corners of the deer fencing. I finally resorted to catching them one by one, and to their shrieks of indignation and protest, tossing them into the chicken house run, closing the gate after each toss.

I used to say of something chaotic, "It's like herding cats." I think from now on it'll be like herding chickens.

Chickens

Notes from the North Coast

This blog could well be only about chickens. I have 11 at the moment, 2 "legacy chickens" that my sister gave me when she moved, 7 teenage chickens that Frank & I bought as day-old babies at the feed store and 2 pre-teen chickens.

The two old galz, Buff and Red, still lay eggs most days, even though they're over 7 years old. Red is pretty benevolent towards the pesky little ones -- she mostly ignores them -- but Buff shows them no mercy. "My food!" *peck* "My water!" *peck* "My space!" *peck* "I'm bigger!" *peck* "You're annoying!" *peck peck peck*

Once I get up to speed on putting pictures in here, I'll include some. But for now the thousand words will have to do. There are 2 Brahmas, beautiful black-and-white speckled feather-footed birds that will reach 9 pounds. Two are Rhode Island Reds, kind of the classic "little red hen" looking ones. They were the first to eat from our hands and taught the others we were ok.

One is a Black Austrolorp, a black hen; PJ is a Buff Orpington, a pretty golden-cream color; one is called a Gold Sex-Link, a cross between 2 kinds of leghorns in which only the hens are gold, so you don't get any pesky roosters unless you want them.

The 2 babiest ones are an Americana and a bantam Black Silkie. The Americana, LaVerne, is a cross between an Aracauna, a Chilean breed that lays blue, green or pink eggs, and some American breed. We have no idea what ours crossed with, but she looks like a little Kiwi bird, kind of speckled walnut color. The bantam Black Silkie, Negrita, is a tiny busy black ball of fluff, with another ball of fluff for a tail. Her feathers won't be like average chicken feathers, but more like tiny ostrich plumes. She has feathers on her feet too, and will have a swanky-looking top-knot when she's mature.

LaVerne and one of the Brahmas got sick with a disease called coccidiosis, a protozoan that lives in their guts but which can make baby chicks sick. So we had the two of them in a hospital cage in the garage for several days and medicated the water that all the chickens drink.

Frank's mother, Betty Lou, has half of the chicks we originally bought and raised in my dining room. Hers are all the same as ours except she has a bantam White Silkie named Danni and a bantam Salmon Favarole, a feather-footed dark-gold hen. Her Americana is more gray than ours, and it's named Baby Huey because even as a 2-day-old chick it was a huge handful, with gigantic cheeks just like the cartoon character.

At various times we've suspected that one or another is a rooster (there's a 10 percent error rate in sexing standard breeds and a 50/50 chance with bantams) but so far we're not really sure. The oldest are about 3 months now and the youngest are about 5 weeks. We should know soon.


As you can see we took chicken-taming very seriously. If you don't get them early, all they wanna do is play Tetris. This one is learning to Google.

Seen in Rush Hour Traffic

Notes from the North Coast

Now that I have a regular schedule, more or less, I leave my house at the same time each day, and each day on Highway 1, I pass the same car coming in the opposite direction. It's a small blue sedan with no hood, the engine gloriously naked as it churns down the road. There's a "For Sale" sign in the driver's side rear window. Depending on whether I'm early, late or on time, I might pass it close to my road, or near the little grocery store and gas station in Cleone, or closer to Fort Bragg. Each time I wonder, Why doesn't he get a hood for that thing? Who does he think would buy a car with no hood?

Hello, again, all

The last time you heard from me about life up here on the Mendocino Coast, I was keeping a hundreds-of-addresses email list, and that was quite a while ago.

Even though, or perhaps because, my life has speeded up a bit since I got here, I decided to jump in and try this method of updating. Hopefully it will keep me motivated and entering a few lines won't seem like such an undertaking.

I live in paradise, at the edge of the earth -- the Pacific coast 4 hours north of San Francisco -- and also sometimes on the edge of existence -- the economy up here is a tourism economy, plenty of low-wage, no-brain jobs, lots of money in the hands of visitors, very little in the wallets of locals.

For two and a half years, I clung to the economic underbelly of this place, combining several part-time jobs and never making ends meet. I did respite care for a county agency, looking after disabled kids so their parents could have a break; helped older and disabled people in their homes; took care of people's yards; declared myself a specialist in bulk mailing for several non-profits; wrote plant descriptions for a local nursery with a nationally-distributed catalog; wrote thank you letters and news releases for a charity out to get kidney dialysis services on the Coast; wrote and designed a couple of newsletters. I also had to make monthly decisions on which bill to defer. And when I met Frank, my sweetie, his unemployment checks seemed like notable regular income. But somehow in the midst of all that I still had time to go to the beach!

In February, challenged by my partner Frank, I applied and won a full-time job as supervisor in a caregiving agency. I hire and schedule workers, keep track of their hours for payroll, enroll new clients and market the business, all with varying degrees of skill and success. I also work weekends and some overnights as a partial trade for a lovely two-bedroom cottage with a fenced yard and an ocean view. I also see my Little Sister, Beth, once or twice a week. I am also still involved with the dialysis charity. I also daydream about retiring early, collecting a bunch of animals, planting trees, and getting an unlisted phone number.

So I intend for this blog to be snapshots of my life on the North Coast and also of the strange rat-race quality my life has taken on. In documenting that, I hope to be able to sort out what's essential and what can go. And maybe I'll entertain a few people along the way.