You're Doing It Wrong

These two are looking playful — what do you think, friends or are they making some baby raccoons?

Last year at this time I started working from home at some point during the spring I noticed a raccoon hanging out in the hedge outside my window. At first it was cute and fun but I was worried about a family of raccoons nesting right there next to the house. It appeared on and off for a week or two and then disappeared. So hopefully it found a nice place somewhere else to make a home and not someone in the neighborhood moving them out “to a farm.”

I get a digest of posts to NextDoor every afternoon and some people freak out about wild animals going through their yard.

I still haven’t managed put in a garden or gotten photos of my daffodils yet. There are no tulips yet. I’m not sure there are even tulip buds. It looks like nothing but lots of greenery. It seems like when I have time to get out there it’s raining or I have some other critical thing to take care of. Like taxes.

Ugh. I hate doing Oregon taxes so badly. When I retire the first year I don’t have to do Oregon taxes I am going to hire a plane to fly over Salem and with a banner that says: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

This year I can make a calculation for the days I worked from home. I don’t have to pay Oregon for those days. And I kept a very careful record of how many days I worked from home. Except Oregon has some whackadoodle quadratic equation to figure out what you owe them. “A train going 100 km/hr leaves Chicago at 3pm….” I would let them keep the refund if I didn’t have to fill out the form.

Did I report here about the mustard of the month club? One of our mustards was root beer and I tried it this weekend and did not agree with Bob’s assessment that it “wasn’t too bad.” It was like eating candy and mustard together and I made a face then switched to a spicy brown.

I actually went to a burbot hatchery but I keep calling it a factory in my head.

I am never in Idaho in February so this is the first time I was able to see the burbot and it was really cool. They are pretty. The Fish & Wildlife staff gave us a ton of interesting information that I am not smart enough to convey except to say, the hatchery is doing great and they are learning a lot about this species.

When your job is mostly paperwork, it’s fun to see that paperwork translated into a real life successful project.

Back at home I caught some fun wildlife action during the snow but nothing that would look great posted. Bunny came through at least twice. I never spotted the opossum but there are a couple of a raccoon galomphing across the yard.

I had the camera too close to the bucket so there were a number of not great clips. One of the raccoons was on the deck for about a half hour maybe cleaning a wound? I couldn’t see well enough to be sure but it seemed awfully detailed for regular grooming. I have another clip of one stirring the slush in the bucket.

There’s an open space in our neighborhood where the powerlines go through. There is a row of houses where the backyards face this open space. Yesterday we were walking and two pooches (Bailey and Igor) spotted us. They ran part way and I thought they would go back but nope, we had two friendly dogs very happy to see us and completely ignoring their people hollering for them to come back.

They eventually went back to their people. Then ran back to us. Wandered back to their people. Then ran back to us. We kept encouraging them to listen to their people and they cheerfully licked our hands and jumped on us to assure us we were friends.

Finally, Bailey had to be carried back home in disgrace and Igor happily followed.

Photo from one of the main medical buildings looking out on what’s left of the barge building business that closed a couple of years ago.

A couple of weeks ago I went to OHSU at the South Waterfront to get some doctor tests. (Everything is fine!)

Part 1 of my old lady status is that for my tests I wasn’t supposed to wear any metal and I was unsettled about the idea of wearing sweat pants downtown. (I did but changed into real clothes as soon as I was back at the office.)

It was my first time down there. It’s quite a complex.

Part 2 of my old lady status is to mention that when I first moved to the PACNW 30 years ago I worked not far from this medical center only then it was all industrial. No high rise condos, no medical buildings.

My final old lady observation is that an awful lot of people venture out in the world in sweat pants and slippers — like the kind of slippers you would wear around the house.

The medical center was hopping. That was the most people I’ve been around in almost a year. Should we believe that a medical center is going to be safer or a bigger risk?

I attempted to nostalgia watch Grease the other night and did not get far. That movie came out when I was about 15 — the perfect age to LOVE it. We would have seen it numerous times if we could get someone’s mom to drive us to the mall. I had the soundtrack. The dancing! The story!

What a messed up ending. Was I supposed to think could find a dreamy guy, if I put on some black spandex pants and smoked a cigarette?

My nostalgia watch didn’t make it past the first musical number.

I went to the airport a couple of weeks ago.

As I arrived at the parking garage I passed a parked airport police car.

All the parking gate arms were open with a green light.

Obviously, this was some kind of test. I stopped my car and tried to take a ticket. The machine would not give me a ticket.

It seemed absurd that the airport would be offering free parking but it’s The Covid, who knows? Then I thought the police were laughing at me because I didn’t even know about the Covid free parking.

I parked my car.

As I exited, I saw people at the parking kiosks, paying. Uh oh.

Colleague was also at airport and I asked him about it. “That’s weird. I got a ticket.”

Now I’m worried because what am I going to do when I have to leave? Is there some way to go back and get a ticket now? Are they going to send me to the basement to shovel coal until I pay off my parking?

I called the Port of Portland and they were actually helpful. There was a medical emergency and the gates were open for the emergency vehicle to get through. Just go to the cashier window and tell them when you came in and they will charge you accordingly.

I was still anxious about it and turns out they treated it as a lost ticket which apparently they do on the honor system, but also collect all your data, driver’s license, license plate, etc., which I would guess to discourage people from always losing their tickets to get out of paying for long stays.

But I was also kinda mad because I did not lose my ticket.