Crenellated Flotsam

During my housesitting something I barely noticed has caused some alarm.

I think it was Saturday when I was up on the deck reading and writing when I noticed one or two guys down in the yard doing some yard work. I didn’t think much of it (lots of people have gardeners, even me at one time) and the dog I was watching didn’t object, either. Since she goes nuts whenever anyone approaches the home she guards or any stranger ventures onto the driveway and paid no attention this time, I shrugged and considered it normal.

They hadn’t parked on the driveway, nor in the little “visitor” area at the end of the fifteen or twenty meter driveway that runs from the street past the front yard, the house, the carport, or half of the backyard (a drop of ten meters, easily), and when I glanced at them were raking up loose vegetation and bits of hacked up plants.

Later, I saw one (and there may have only been one) wrestling with a trash can, but I didn’t get a clear view because of the deck I was on. Some time later, he was gone and the area he’d been working in looked neater.

Turns out, he was stealing mulch.

This just freaks me out. The home isn’t on a through street (it’s a loop), and I can’t believe this was the result of months of planning a daring, daytime robbery. Nor can I give much credit to its being a opportunistic event. It just blows my mind that anyone would venture onto someone’s property, work awhile, and cart off the results. It’s as if someone showed up, mowed your lawn, and took off with the clippings.

If there’s mulch missing, it’s obviously my fault.

My life here is ending, and that’s a little sad. There’s good news, however — the coffee machine worked this morning, so I get to say “it was working when I left.”

I kid.

Here’s disturbing news:
“IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 3.9 PLANETS. ”

That’s what these people figured out, and I’m ashamed.

I will miss the company of the dog, the continual and required exercise going up and down stairs to get anywhere (a feature, I believe, of hilltop living), and the serenity this place surrounds me with.

And, I found some scissors, but I think they’re cooking ones since they’re in a drawer with melon ballers and lemon zesters.

This morning I woke up early and promptly broke the coffee maker.

What happened is I removed the filter wrong, in spite of the training I received, or, to put it another way, the filter was awkwardly taken out. In either case, the water reservoir filled with spent grounds and, after rinsing the chamber out a few times…nothing. In the end, I risked somehow ruining the tea kettle and poured the water over the last of the freshly milled coffee by hand. Where there’s a will…

I’m sure they’ll be kind and say something like it was old or needed replacing, but that would just be kind. It’s an elegant machine with buttons and features that don’t exist in either ofmine.

After fiddling with theirs for awhile, I got it to display the correct time, but that’s hardly its purpose.

I said “risked” in regards to the tea kettle because it meant I used the stove, easily the best home range I’ve ever seen. God knows what I could do with that if I put my mind to it.

After drinking three or four cups of coffee and completing my pet duties (including meeting a neighbor’s dog who came bounding unbidden by me into the yard), I laid back down and slept some more. This home is easily the most tranquil, peaceful place I’ve been in years, and I’m wondering if there’s something to all that “animals killed in anger” stuff.

While not precisely pastoral, I’m a few hundred feet up a steep hill, I think. The neighborhood is quiet unless police helicopters are circling the nearby reservoir and it’s impossible for me to walk more than ten feet outside in any direction without destroying a spider web. I hadn’t realized I was staying in the silk capital of the Western United States.

There are nearby art galleries and design centers, greasy food places, and a 7-11 where the people standing in line were explaining to each other their lack of recent film work by admitting “at the moment, I’m more into my music.” Then, something about a busy producer “doing other works” at the moment.

There’s a wonderful hammock here.

I’m writing tonight from a new place.

I’ve assumed the role of dog and house sitter for a few days, and I haven’t been in this position for years. I did a fair amount of it, four or five times, when I was in college and occasionally since, but this is the first for years.

I like it.

This is a much nicer and fancier home than mine, with many things that I can break. I never used to worry about that, but I guess responsibility means more to me now. Also, much of this home is newly redecorated and I’d rather not be the one associated with the first stain or chip.

What’s great about housesitting is it’s like camping out. Only, camping out in somebody’s else’s home. One assumes they have everything needed for living, but what I like is having no idea where anything is. Kitchens are the biggest challenge.

For example: scissors. I assume they have one, everybody does. The thing is, much like moving into a new place, where would you put them? The thing that makes this more exciting is that the couple for whom I’m providing the service isn’t me. It matters not where *I* might think a pair of scissors should go, it all depends on where they put it.

There are a million such delightful mysteries awaiting me. I’m not sure I’ll be able to pull myself away from all the reading that beckons me to solve them all, but it will give me a good time and prevent boredom.

Also, they have a deck, and word has it I can blog from there!

It’s true that I seek out ways to differ from the masses, but I don’t consider that a virtue. Still, I’m often reminded how successful I am at it.

Me:
I find the overwhelming majority of message boards to be filled with people who think in ways quite different from mine. I’m struck over and over again by the certainty of those around me, by the simplicity they demonstrate and I cannot. I guess these are the masses to whom the politicians speak when they reduce complex issues to soundbites.

Myself:
I wonder if I use humor as a weapon. I’m cynical, jaded if you will, and don’t often demonstrate seriousness. It’s not that I don’t care or hold things dear, but I don’t find much in my life that deserves reverance. I think, though it often offends those around me, anything can be poked fun of, but I do so by reducing it to an absurdity, not because I’m mean. I have a hard time with people who can’t see the humor in their beliefs.

I:
One reason I hate the Republican party is because it caters to corporations. Yes, I know we all need to work and corporations hire tons of people, and, yes, they aren’t really independent entities but, instead, are run by flesh and blood people with hopes, dreams, fears, and loved ones hired to serve their investors, but it’s all too greedy for my liking.
But I also, often, hate the Democratic Party for its prevailing notion that we should all serve the state.
Maybe it’s just that I hate politicians, who rarely listen but simply parrot what their party’s insist they say. If any of them takes a non-party line, they suffer the loss of the party’s backing and can’t be elected. Both parties pander to their equally large supporters, both worry more about being elected than in serving, and Mr. Smith is nowhere near Washington and never has been.

I’m afraid I’ve painted myself into an unlovable corner in my effort to be true to myself. But, it’s summer now, and no time to be worrying about that!

Now that it’s summer my thoughts can return to things not related to love. This may prove beneficial, since I find it as hard to consider both love and everything else as I would driving while talking on the phone.

Also, love is a touchy subject and one I’m not so good at. I love the thrill of it, but I have a hard time keeping it going. It’s not a fault, and I don’t look at it that way, but it’s annoying.

It keeps getting harder, too. I’m becoming more used to being myself and while I still think I do a good job of making considerations for others I may not be as tolerant as I once was. I don’t actively dislike anyone, but I seem to inspire increasing amounts of frustration in those around me. It’s not intentional, but I think it’s there.

Someone I knew was recently married, and I think that’s great. I’m a sucker for weddings and a huge fan of love, but it’s summer now and I need to start worrying about my abs, I guess. That and my tan. There’s little sense in paying all this money to live in Southern California if I’m going to be fish-belly white.

This year I hope to visit and swim in the ocean more, unless I’m lucky enough to be gainfully employed. I was never a surfer, but I body surf, which I consider natural and healthy. It’s also good for one’s heart since that typically gets plenty of exercise racing when it seems likely I will drown or become injured.

It’s kind of sad to put love back on the shelf, but I hope to dust it off and see it as an old friend next year. By then I might even be reasonable!

here’s a pic

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that’s it

It may work if I add more text … so now I will

Oooh! The text flows around it, but the pic shows and works as a popup, too! Now I wish I’d picked a better pic to test with.

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Although you can’t tell by looking, yesterday’s post was a failure.

Unless you were very quick you may not have noticed troubles with yesterday’s post. Oh, sure, the written part came up okay (and continues to be an insightful commentary on Michelin’s woes), but the picture never came up as easily as advertised.

I couldn’t leave my blogging software alone for too long, so I added some plugin that facilitates posting of pictures. After several tries, it failed differently than it had originally, and while I was encouraged by the progress I was in no mood to wrestle it further.

So I loaded yesterday’s pic the old fashioned way, typing in the links and stuff.

Today one might expect another a nice picture, but one would be disappointed. I may tack one on later, but I’m content today to leave well enough alone and just go back to what I can do easily: ramble.

I’ve heard that the theme-switcher thing is working for some people, staying permanently fixed, and it is for me now, too. To the best of my knowledge, Half-Dozen is a non-intrusive, privacy aware site. I don’t rip names or e-mail addresses from your browser, I don’t collect time zones or much other than IP addresses and how you got here.

Also, I don’t even worry very much about my site stats. I’m not in this for numbers, only trying to leave a record of my passage on this planet the least-intrusive way I know how and to amuse myself.

Not only is this blog not working the way I’d hoped (user selected Themes don’t stick), but the US Grand Prix held today was…”weird.”

It all started Friday when two Michelin-clad Toyotas suffered tire failure in practice.

As neutrally as I can put it, Michelin warned the teams using its tires (who are seven out of the ten competing) that their tires weren’t safe. Then things got interesting.

Michelin, somehow, managed to produce and overnight a bunch of tires it Indianopolis. These, I believe, were also bad, but the main issue is that F1 regulations require a car to start with the exact tires on which it qualified. Also, they cannot change tires during a race.

The FIA (the governing body) stuck to its guns and said the Michelin teams couldn’t swap tires. Overnight, and before today’s race, the teams that run Michelins came up with other ideas, including putting a last-minute chicane in the course (that’s the name for those quick right-left series of turns in the middle of straightaways to slow cars down).

The teams, naturally, are required to furnish safe vehicles for the races (even outside the litiguous US), and weren’t about to compete with tires that they’d been told were unsafe. FIA wouldn’t consider changing the track to suit teams which couldn’t follow the rules and otherwise and compete, and a sham resulted.

While all twenty cars took to the track for the “parade lap” just before the start of the race, as they approached the starting grid the Michelin cars peeled off into their garages. As the lights signalled the beginning of the race, only six cars were in place.

The Ferraris, who’ve been having a bad season, run Bridgestone tires, and handily won the race. The only other two teams that run Bridgestones are Jordan and Minardi, who fight to stay off the bottom.

Fans booed and moronically threw debris on the track, and the six cars that started ran the race distance without incident.

The drivers and teams who chose not to race, rationally for both safety and contractual reasons, apologized to the fans, but Formula One, today, shot itself in the foot.

If you hadn’t noticed, you can now make my blogs look any way you want. Well, as long as what you want is reflected in one of the Themes I’ve so far made available.

When industriousness, or boredom, returns, I’ll be able to offer more choices. Also, some of the themes have new stuff (such as a bio) for me to fill out and I still need to get the theme-switcher thing to look good on all the pages.

Who am I to decide how my blog looks? The content will be mine, and when all’s said and done, that should be why anyone visits. With that in mind I’ll more carefully consider what I blog about, and no more of this rambling stuff.

Starting with the next entry, that is.