Category Archives: doing it wrong

I was at Mom’s a couple of weeks ago and she is having a raccoon problem.

She moved all the cat food and secured anything else a raccoon might get into.

Except these milks. We found this in the yard.

On the complete other side of the yard we found the straw.

I guess that’s why the raccoon had to chew it up.

By the way, the garage smelled like funky wild animal. Raccoons may be cute but they smell.

I had this brilliant idea that maybe we could scare it away with some bells or something on the door.

All I could find was some aluminum cans and I made a pyramid by the cat door.

Cans were knocked over when we got up!

But I set them up the next night and they were knocked over again plus one of the cans was carried outside. I guess the raccoon wasn’t scared.

Mom is reluctant to block the cat door because : what about the cat?

We are exploring some modern cat doors for a solution.

These are photos from months ago when it snowed.

I can’t even remember the exact sequence of events. I think it snowed and then a day later we had an ice storm.

Or maybe I’m confused from December.

It’s pretty. The steps are from me running out to feed the birds.

I think this was one of the neighbor cats, probably Noah, sneaking through hoping to find a spot without snow.

I had a whole robot themed post planned. Originally there were 3 robots but I can’t remember the third one.

These are robots that deliver food at Oregon State. They are really cute. I loved how they waited to cross the street.

This is Jarvis the barista who make drinks at Muji in downtown Portland. I tried to make a video of it for my robot themed post but I pressed all the wrong buttons because I am an old and technology is hard. I did not get a successful video of him making me my drink.

Clearly, I am not ready for the robots. Or maybe I need them more than ever.

When Dad was in the hospital he kept asking for a drink.

We got the idea to bring him some mock gin and tonics. Even the nurses were in on it and if we couldn’t be there, we would leave the can and they would bring a cup of ice and make him his drink.

He eventually complained about the fake drink and asked for a real one.

We resisted for awhile but when he was feeling better we brought him real (weak!) gin and tonics — mostly tonic and a wedge of lime. Every afternoon I would show up at skilled nursing with a mini-cooler so I could give him his happy hour drink.

When we were sick and couldn’t get over there he called me once and asked if this was a dry county because no one would bring him a drink.

We knew all the reasons it wasn’t the best idea because he was taking medications and so forth. But also he’s 92, he wanted a drink, and it made him really happy.

This was the little container we re-used to make the drinks.

This was back in December on Christmas Eve when we had the ice storm.

I was worried about my apple and fig trees but everything did fine.

According to my dashboard I have over 3000 posts and in my dreams I would like to go through them and clean up some weird formatting that’s happened over the years. Maybe fix some titles and dead links. Maybe just delete stuff.

Not a priority. I’d like to clean out the garage, too. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed. haha.

I have all kinds of photos from the end of last year and beginning of this year that I’m going to try to post over the next couple of weeks.

These are socks that my sister made for me. They are so pretty I can’t bear the idea of wearing them.

She told me to wear them.

But also as I have aged I realize that when you save things what are you saving them for? Like a pretty candle sitting there for 10 years and starts to look grey and droopy and I realize I should just light the candle and enjoy it.

Another pair of tiny socks she made for one of the bebes:

Here are some pretty tulips:

Decades ago my mother-in-law gave me a bundt pan and also a recipe called Black Magic Cake which I have previously posted about here.

This recipe has been a huge hit every time I make it. It’s dense, very chocolatey and freezes well.

The reason I post about it again is that, the original recipe calls for 8 – 2.05 oz Milky Way bars. I’m sure there are places to get big candy bars but not at my usual grocery store. So I had to buy and unwrap a whole bag of itty bitty bars.

I have used other chocolates to fill out the recipe — various odds and ends of baker chocolate and half-full bags of chocolate chips I have in my cupboard.

It’s never gone wrong.

Driving in the Dark

As I am getting older, it is harder to drive in the dark. Especially when it is dark and raining.

When Dad first went to the hospital back in December, we had a to get to the hospital late at night and then again early the next morning and both drives were in the dark and driving rain.

It was miserable. Especially when it seems like half the cars on the road are driving much faster and more aggressively than conditions would warrant.

On a different night, after a series of long days, I left the hospital after dark. I was really run down and hungry. The rain was spitting and the car windows and my glasses were all foggy, so I struggled to see.

I grabbed the mask that I’d used all day to wipe off my glasses, and this was a mistake. It was like I had wiped Vaseline on the lenses.

All I wanted was to get home and put on some fuzzy pants and eat a bowl of soup but first I had to get home squinting through the glaze.

I made it. I also put lens wipes in the car.

Here’s a good hospital story: Peacehealth plays a little harp song when a baby is born. I stopped by to hang out with Dad for a couple hours on my birthday and I heard the harp song. A birthday twin!