Bluster(y) fall(ible)

No sooner than I hit "Publish" on that last little piece, a blast of rain and wind, the likes of which I haven't seen in a good while, came through and the wife called downstairs, "How do you think the gutters are?" She meant, "Have you checked the gutters this fall? Are there leaves?"

You see, if the gutters don't take the water down under the house, through the smaller pipes and into the six-inch pipe that empties in the ditch/creek out back, the water spills out into the basement window wells. They, in turn, fill to a point where the water starts to come into the house around the bottom of the window frames. I know this because it happened the first year we lived here.

Since then, we have been fairly vigilant regarding the accumulation of leaves. But since the leaves are still on the trees, my answer was more of an assurance than an accounting of my recent actions or inaction.

So, you know what comes next, right?

Better I get wet in the rain than spend my evening with a wet vac.

Remember two years ago when I spent a day and night standing guard over pumps to keep our basement from flooding after a big snow was followed by a big rain? Well, I remember it and thought to check the drain in the laundry room. Good thing, too.

But spotting a problem and assessing the problem are two different things. There was plenty of water around the drain but the water was draining. Still, the water level wasn't going down. That was when I saw there was quite a bit of water making its way under the door from the outside. There's a sloped brick area outside with a grate drain right before the doorway. It gets clogged as well.

Or rather, it gets covered in leaves and such. It didn't help that we had compost sprayed into the flower beds last week and the clean-up in that recess was less than stellar. And I knew it.

While I did the gutters, the wife cleaned the grate. I mopped the floor and all was well.

Except the lights kept flickering until just an hour ago. Or, perhaps I should say it's been an hour or so since they last flickered.

A mighty wind

First off, the dog is better. Not completely, and maybe never 100% again, as if a 14 y/o dog can be. Still, thanks for the kind thoughts.

We've got some wind and rain. I'm thinking it's much too early but what do I know? Maybe it's merely a yin and yang thing with the weather coming in to the east side of the country. Cooler and wetter over the last five or six years is all I'm saying. Early tomatoes were split and they stayed that way throughout the season.

Accordingly, the buzzards started doing their circle and file off south a couple days ago, before this thing hit. Geese and cranes have been in route for over a week. In that the gusts are coming from down that way, everything else gearing up will have to hold tight for a couple days, so says the red lettering on the weather sites.

We lost power earlier today and I would imagine it'll happen again before this is all over. Estimated time of a return of service was 2.5 hours. Pretty good, I think, and well before dark. The wife thought the assurances optimistic, so I brought in a bucket of wood. Not that we need it quite yet, but a light overhead does make things seem warmer. I figured I'd wait it out on the couch with my eyes shut, the return of power to wake me up. "I give it an hour." I said.

Sixty-five minutes later but I said nothing.

Some things just ain't worth mentioning, especially when it's guess work, and even less so when you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

There, I said it.

Dog and such

The wife is asleep on the couch and the dog is on her pad and there both will stay until one or the other needs to go potty, at which point my spouse will rouse and stumble to the john, but the dog will require assistance. I will have to carry it out to the yard, put on its harness and lift her so that she might approximate walking on her own.

The vet told us it was Idiomatic ("Old Dog") Vestibular Disease. Think of it as being so disoriented that the world appears to be on a 45° angle. She has a nystagmus, which no doubt complicates the situation.

We've just finished day two of carrying her around, feeding her by hand and giving her water via a syringe. According to the vet, while this disease comes on quickly (overnight!), it may take a month or more for it to resolve itself. They don't know what causes it and therefore there is no cure (not that those two things always go hand in hand).

We had a cat die a couple years ago due to another type of vestibular issue, a parasite, and the wife is therefore in association mode. If you knew her and her attachment to these animals, you would understand how traumatic this is for her.

I'm being a guy. My pain is reserved, and when not, only for my wife in these situations.

To mention anything about my trip next week to Illinois would be selfish. In fact, it is on hold until we see significant improvement. And the notifications to Illinoisans, while begun, will be timed to that improvement. But right now, things look grim.

Not for me, mind you, for as I say, I'm being a guy, but to varying degrees for those expecting my presence, and with my wife's current state, for the dog. Between the two of them, it is uncertain whose misery is greater. It is also a quality of life issue, although different for each: emotional pain that seems to be unrelenting with the demise of three beloved pets in the past two years and an aging animal who has been under the knife three time this year.

It is times like this I am glad I was raised as a farm kid, yet —and this wasn't always so, so it's not always easy— I am also grateful to have learned that a guy can also give comfort and show love.

On a lighter note, the electrician that came today told us of the yuppies up north who all seem to have fly fishing gear mounted somewhere in the house.

Back

Five days in the big city doing big city things in a small town guy way, mostly hanging by myself or a bit of the one-on-one and rather fulfilling conversations, and when in urban mode, a few of the hit-and-runs, not much more than an hello with the other looking about to see who else there is to talk to. It's okay, this latter interaction, the glow of the former lingering.

Yes, I wrote. Quite a bit and not so much, meaning that deadlines demanded that I spend as much time as possible at the 'puter but a few hundred words shorter than the usual, and the quality just as suspect as those latter engagements mentioned above. I covered myself by making it rather clear I did not particularly like either assigned exhibit. Yet, I did have a bit of fun with one, whether at its expense, I'm not certain.

There was more good and bad to be had as well. I saw a dance performance that blew me away, so much so that I insisted a friend attend the next night's performance with me just so I could watch her be similarly left in awe. And the bad? A building façade that I consider a landmark (in my own mind) had been altered with a mural of a face. Disfigured, really, the thing is.

So, now I have another essay to write.

I could get used to having an opinion.

Of course, a fair amount of scotch was thrown in the mix as well. Not while writing, of course. (Note-taking, yes.) I have a perch I like to take when weather permits, and there I sat in the wee hours. Or, when due for a bit of the 'baccy, in my rig, the view not much save for the homeless woman who seemed to have a monitoring type of relationship with the solar-powered trash can/compacter on the street corner.

And not surprisingly, I've been sleeping a lot since coming home.

Scroll through this for my articles and a flavor of this fest. I saw some of the other pieces reviewed.

Let me see if I have any photos to share... Nope.

Rollin' rollin' rollin'

 Not that you folks expect a daily missive from me. Those days are long past. It's just that I see it's been a few days and it's likely to be several more before I get around to posting something.

Of course, that may change, for as I have for the last couple of years, I am headed north to cover an arts festival. No doubt there will be oddities that I will feel obliged to share.

How could anyone forget the self-flagellating woman from last year's foray?

Hope you have an interesting weekend.

At it

I was beginning to embarrass myself, unable to find the above image among my photo files, searching further and further back and still not seeing it. Could it have been more than two weeks since I took the photo? Then I remembered it was on my phone.

No, I shot it a mere six days ago, long enough for me to get up the gumption to return to the building and continue my task. Long enough to not feel it in my hands and shoulders.

I took the photo after I removed all of the old tape from the seams of each panel on the bottom row. It was well past time to take care of this matter, and as it was, I spent three hours one day and five the next to complete the row.

The clouds are nice.

Today I hit the next level of panels. A six foot ladder leaning against the sides was of sufficient height to reach. And I worked at it a full seven hours. Until done. And now my arms are just-flew-in-from-Chicago tired. Hands pretty sore as well.

I think I'll do something else tomorrow, like paint the remaining weeds blue before ordering four units of compost to blow in. I could have it just dropped,  move the thirty yards around with my front end loader and then spread it by hand.

I could. But then I doubt I'd be able to finish the greenhouse. Beside taking off the rest of the tape, which should be fun as I will be climbing onto the structure itself, I then have to scrub it and re-tape. And then, if I have time, install flashing over the tape, a feature I wish would have come with the kit when we bought it ten years ago. Many of the wood panels need replaced as well.

But then the yard is going to look better than it did when we bought the place.

(Note the freshly painted roof in the background.)

The fact that I'm leaving in three weeks for another three might have something to do with the pace.

Not that it means anything

I found out this week that some of my art has been published in a book. While available at the linked site, I have not bothered much with the particulars of the publisher, leaving it sufficient that I am familiar with the editors of the anthology. Yet, I was not surprised that copies of the book were not freely forthcoming to those included within its pages and ordered a couple copies, one to peruse and the other to tuck away.

In preparing for this announcement to you folks, I went to the above site to get the link. It was then I discovered the price has dropped from the list to about four bucks less, this in its first week. Sure, I could have saved a few dollars but that's not the rub.

And there is a second volume in the works.

While he's away

I don't have all of the details, and even the broad strokes might be missing components, left behind in the second and third hand telling.

He, the wife and kids moved to the country. Wife hooked up with another and left another after a brief fling, meaning that she jumped the gun, yet it was too late to return. The boys left but the daughter stayed behind. Then her teen years came and she went.

Then his heart gave out and the place went to shit.

Now he's off spreading his mother's ashes.

We offered to watch his place.