Sanna's Bag

“I never seem to have what I need when I need it. I’m going to make a belt-bag that’s bigger on the inside than on the outside, and just carry everything with me.”

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Shoesday is bluesday 'cuz blogger is bad.

I've been fighting with Blogger for two days now, and it still won't post pictures so poop on it! Friday, Ben kitty went to the vet to get - ah - tutored. His voice was cracking on the drive to the vet, so we got to him just in the nick of time. (NICK of time - get it?) We have had other cats who were neutered too late an developed nasty habits, so we are devoutly hoping that the slight but inerradicable smell will not give him ideas. Is inerradicable a word? We can not completely erradicate the essential esters from the floorboards. Reminds me of the frenchman practicing his english. He said, "My wife can not have children. She is impregnable." No photos of our no longer ballbearing mousetrap, but then you didn't want any, did you?

Sunday, DH took me out into farm country to get our pumpkins. I got lots and lots of nice photos. Blogger won't let me share them. Bad Blogger! Another time perhaps.

And shoes for shoesday. They are nice, comfy, practical ,black, old hippie lady shoes. Oddly enough, I seem to have a number of comfortable, practical, black shoes. That gives me more cash for wild and happy scarves.

Monday was the whole day at the jail. In the hallway on the way to the classroom, I passed a young man with a black eye swollen tight closed, and colored like a plum . Never have I seen such a spectacular black eye as this young man was sporting!

One of my spanish-speaking students had a question for me, and the teacher, who usually translates, wasn't available, so I asked some of the other guys to help. Turns out,as an illegal immigrant, he was being returned to Mexico the next day and wondered if he should bother to take the test. "You may as well," I said. "It's paid for, you're here, I'm here to give it to you, and it's not like you had anything else to do right now." The english speaking guys roared. One of the bi-lingual guys translated, and the spanish-speaking guys roared. Evidently, the question, "Did you have some where else to be right now?" is a standing joke in jail.

And today is doing its best to prove that October is the wettest month of the year. The green leaves cling to the trees with the tenacity of octegenarian widows, and the red and yellow leaves get beaten down and washed into the gutters. I have heard that in other states, you can rake the leaves into big dry fluffy piles and play in them. Around here, you rake the leaves into heavy, soggy mats which you then scrape into the yard debris barrels. Then the garbage company takes it to the composting plant which processes the leaves into compost and sells them back to you at $25 a cubic yard next spring when you want to lighten the heavy clay soil in your garden. Yes, it would be cheaper to do your own composting, but there IS a bit of an art to it and you need to tend your compost almost as much as you must tend your tomatoes. I'd rather go to the farmer's market and pay someone else for the labor and skill required to produce fresh local veggies. Anyhow, with my black thumb, I could work like a coolie and still not get a thing fit to eat. No, if you want a thing done right, get a professional to do it.

9 Comments:

  • At 5:38 PM , Blogger Donna Lee said...

    We let our two male cats become full grown with their male-ness intact. Big mistake. But they were beautiful. Muscular and with big fluffy ruffs. Two weeks after the snip, snip, the muscles were slacker and the ruffs were gone. The women in the vets office were all thrilled to see full grown male cats. They don't often see them anymore. Most people are smarter than we were. We shred out leaves with the mower and till them into the clay, which is abundant here in NJ. I have a lovely pitcher made with local clay. It makes me laugh everytime I look at it because we try so hard to grow things in that clay!

     
  • At 5:57 PM , Blogger Willow said...

    Ah yes, I remember raking wet leaves into wetter piles in the rain, standing on a soggy lawn while the mud seeped into my shoes and the raindrops trickled down my neck and the damp cold oozed into my bones. No, I don't miss Oregon winters.

     
  • At 7:27 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Actually, what you need to turn all that biomass into compost is...a bunny! Even Leonore, the black mini-rex, provides enough to heat that compost right up!
    Which is not to say that Mr. W. doesn't haul away truckloads of debris - but it is mostly hedge clippings. As for the leaves, we are a little like the Frog and Toad story. Wait long enough and a good percentage blow away, even though they are wet. Or, they blow into leaf drifts, for easier access.

     
  • At 7:29 PM , Blogger Lucia said...

    I hate raking wet leaves, my arms ache just thinking about it, and hadn't considered how lucky I am. From now on I'll give thanks for dry leaves.

    Ineradicable is a perfectly good word, but to spell it with more than one r is an eror. Er, error. To eradicate is to pull out by the roots, from the Latin e-, from ex-, out, radix, root.

    Do you think I've been living with my husband too long?

     
  • At 8:54 PM , Blogger Shan said...

    Our Zebby is off tomorrow for the ole snip. I'm hoping it will take a bit of the bounce out of his step and maybe he'll stop hunting down the girls like they're zebra on the Serengeti.

     
  • At 3:31 AM , Blogger Denise said...

    Oh I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN - I'm hopeless at compost too, a great source of shame to me with a mother who just about LIVES in the garden and is nearly 100% self-sufficient, and a brother who is a Greenie through and through... I end up with piles of rotting slush. Ick.

    I only own 3 pairs of shoes, and 2 of them are nice black practical things (designed to take really deep orthotics). Black shoes go anywhere :)

    Hope Ben isn't too sore!

     
  • At 6:30 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Hm, your besides pix problems, I could've sworn Bogger wasn't showing this post both times I checked sometime after 5 last night, either. Unless I'm remembering Monday night, which is entirely possible. ;)

    Hope Ben recovers nicely - at least wrestling a young cat to the vet is much easier than a wrestling directly with a young calf! (Do-it-yourself veterinary work is not fun with unhandled beef cattle.) And the jail story - ROFLMAO! My, you've had an interesting weekend and start of the week, haven't you? [g] Leaves - don't forget them clogging up the drains and turning street areas by the curbs into creeks!

     
  • At 7:37 PM , Blogger Amy Lane said...

    Don't worry, darling...big fluffy piles, big boggy mats, the one thing they have in common is the slugs.

    Okay--the "Do you have anything better to do?" was GREAT! I need to pass that on to my students!!! Well, darling, I want blogger to get better for you...every day I look for you and there's no Roxie kinda puts a damper on my day:0(

     
  • At 5:37 AM , Blogger Susan said...

    Good thing I've been back to blog reading or your comment about going to jail would have really confused me. Did the knitting police come for her? What was the offense? Will they come for me too? Yes, officer! I DID use a substitute yarn with a yarn company-published pattern.

    I'm supposed to tend my composter? And my tomatoes???

    Speaking of which, it's National Fried Green Tomato month.

     

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