Rain

It's starting to rain . . I guess that's why I've been feeling so bad all morning. 'Just can't seem to get started' kind of feeling. I have all the energy of a plate of half-cooked dumplings. Blargh.

Farm-wise, the rain is a good thing. But I think I will go lie down.

Right there with you. Except it's not actually raining here yet.

It's one month 'til the end of the semester, and Son has been STRESSING about keeping up with studying and also other life tasks (like vehicle maintenance). Yesterday I was, not nagging, but trying to nicely help him find a way to fit an oil change into his schedule. But also, you know . . all the studying. Ichthyology has been a Shitshow.

We decided that I would go with him to the dealership and, while they changed the oil and rotated the tires, we could sit in the lounge and do fish flashcards. Lepomis gibbosis, anyone? Making the most of the time available, anyway. So, we did that.

There are so many darters. And sculpins. yikes.

Maybe NOW I can lie down for a bit. I'll take some tylenol and curse the falling barometric pressure.

"You can't make friends onli-" I would defend any of my Tumblr mutuals to the death with only a pocket knife and random rock, you heathen.

Book Lovers

Delighted with my success in offloading some elderly but fascinating books, I started vacuuming and carefully wiping dust this morning. Which led to me cleaning other books from the (very dusty) top shelf of my own shelves. Which led to me looking inside this book of "collected literature" called The Woollcott Reader (1935). Which led to me discovering Alexander Woollcott being a little Bitch about people criticizing his taste in books.

I just. cannot. I. "ruffianly yarns"? "Deplore"? Sumbitch got criticized for reading Alice in Wonderland? Although the bit about putting his favorite new books in a wheelbarrow and running from house to house to make sure everybody has one is . . pretty cool.

People really HAVE been people for longer than we realized.

I was telling a friend about this and she instantly looked him up on her phone and showed me pictures. I don't know why I didn't think of that, but . .

Ooooookay, this guy was Dramatic™. I get it, now. Next step, look up Dashiell Hammett and figure what made his Yarns so Ruffianly.

OH SHIT LMAO

Yeah, ok, ruffianly.

Frosty morning

We had a hard frost last night, temps well below freezing. Man, were the dogs ever worked up and ready for zoomies when we went out! Rosalie was trying to Zoom on a short leash and mainly managed a flurry of legs. No, girl! No zoomies for a pup with a broken leg!! I'm glad her pain is so well managed that she feels like running, but I wish she could understand why she's not allowed to run.

Hero and Missile were waiting by the barn for hay. Missile was looking like he had some zoomies in mind, too. The chickens, tropical fowl at heart, are not fans of delightful, icy mornings. I put extra loose hay in their box.

I want to do 5 different things today. All at once. I think I need to prioritize.

It is quite a problem that Rosalie feels GREAT and wants to run. Yesterday Chance and Lady spotted a squirrel and went bolting hell-for-leather across the lawn to bork at the tree it ran up. Rosalie was frantic to join them. She wanted to whippet! And I had to tell her Nae-nae!

Book Lovers

Delighted with my success in offloading some elderly but fascinating books, I started vacuuming and carefully wiping dust this morning. Which led to me cleaning other books from the (very dusty) top shelf of my own shelves. Which led to me looking inside this book of "collected literature" called The Woollcott Reader (1935). Which led to me discovering Alexander Woollcott being a little Bitch about people criticizing his taste in books.

I just. cannot. I. "ruffianly yarns"? "Deplore"? Sumbitch got criticized for reading Alice in Wonderland? Although the bit about putting his favorite new books in a wheelbarrow and running from house to house to make sure everybody has one is . . pretty cool.

People really HAVE been people for longer than we realized.

I was telling a friend about this and she instantly looked him up on her phone and showed me pictures. I don't know why I didn't think of that, but . .

Ooooookay, this guy was Dramatic™. I get it, now. Next step, look up Dashiell Hammett and figure what made his Yarns so Ruffianly.

When I was a child, I counted the books in my mother's library. It was thousands. She couldn't ever bear to purge or part with any. They stayed there, on the shelves, for the years that my father lived there alone. Gathering Dust. And now - Hurray! - they're my problem.

After his death I spent 6 months cleaning relentlessly, then burned out big-time. In that period I did manage to weed the books quite a lot, and found many that could be thrown away, donated to the high school art program for art projects, or donated to a free library at a nearby store. Now I'm back at it. The top two shelves, here, have cracked loose at one side. Although it's hard to tell in the picture, they are sloping backward, and need to be shored up.

When I cleared books off, I found a lot of them were college textbooks, literary collections, history books, and even highschool/junior high texts. Many I was able to simply throw away. However, a history or geography textbook that is sufficiently old can go out the other side of being "outdated" and become of interest again as a time capsule.

"College Geography" and "The Human Face of Changing Africa" - from the 1960s. A four-volume history of England - from the 1860s (Jeez). United States History published 1909, with a school board sticker inside. "The Essays of Elia" by Charles Lamb, which is only of interest to me because it's mentioned as an important plot point in "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" (which was SO GOOD,and it was made into a movie, too)

Anyhoo. Point is, I will give any of these away to anyone who wants them and can send me a few bucks for shipping costs. As far as shipping goes, It would probably be best to keep it to North America.

This is working! The US, Roman, and English histories are spoken for, I've had questions about The Gift of Friendship, and I'm about to start vacuuming and cleaning up books so I can pack to ship.

There’s this guy in town who owns this little house, and a while back he rescued a street dog that was going to get put down. Turned out she was pregnant.

Problem is, he has mental health & drug issues and couldn’t afford to get them all spayed & neutered, so now there are 6 grown bitches with 15 puppies total, and they’ve dug under his fence in multiple places but he can’t afford to fix it so they go roaming all around town. (When I say can’t afford it, I mean his house is currently running on a generator because he can’t afford his electric bill.) He’s also a day laborer so he cannot take multiple full days off work to take them to the vet an hour away. He’s in a really rough spot.

He’s not a bad person. He’s just overwhelmed.

And this little conservative town with 6 churches for 300 people, have they tried to help their neighbor? Have they adopted the puppies he’s been trying to give away? Have they offered resources?

NOPE! All they wanna do is talk shit about him and complain about the dogs but never lift a finger of their own. And they come to his house to yell at him and cuss him out about the dogs, which does not exactly engender in him a cooperative attitude, as you might imagine.

So after a while of this going on, my mom gets fed up with all the NIMBY bullshit and starts talking to the guy, because she’s done animal rescue for 20-odd years and has Connections. He’s resistant at first, but when he realizes she’s not being an asshole to him on account of his addiction or the dogs, he decides to let her help.

She gets to work organizing and networking. Finds a non-profit that will cover vaccinations, spay/neuter, and flea treatments for all the dogs. Talks the next-door neighbor into paying for materials to fix the fence, since this guy can do the work of it himself. Gets him in touch with another non-profit that will adopt out the adult dogs.

Less than 2 weeks after she decided to do something, all puppies have been to the vet, 10 puppies and 4 adult dogs have been adopted out, and the second non-profit is coming by next week to pick up the remaining 7 dogs to ship them out for adoption.

I’ve learned a lot of things from my mom—some good, some bad—but I think the most important positive message she lives as an example of is this: sometimes, when something needs done and no one else is willing, you gotta stand up and say “I’ll do it.”

The most mind-blowing revelation I received on this lesson happened to me when I was in college.

I was driving along a mountain road with a person I kinda knew in the passenger seat (like a roommate of a roommate or something). The road was very narrow, very twisty-turny, steep cliffs on both sides. I came around a blind curve to see a huge tree branch in the road. I managed to swerve just in time to avoid it, and also not veer the car into the sheer cliff face going up on the left, or of the sheer cliff face going down on the right.

"That's so dangerous. Someone should move that." I said.

"You're someone." said my passenger.

I very slowly pressed the brakes, my car slowly rolling to a stop as what he'd said started to sink in to my brain.

It had never occurred to be before, in all my life, that I could be the "someone" who could fix the thing. Not ever.

It was dangerous to stop here. If another car came, they could easily hit me, as it was a blind curve. We talked about it, decided it was worth the risk to possibly save a life, and we quickly ran to the branch and moved it to the side as best we could, then hurried back to the car.

It changed my life. After that, every time I have the thought "Someone should _____", I now hear that voice. I'm 'someone'. Now I evaluate whether I'm able to do something about a situation- that doesn't mean I always can! Sometimes I truly don't have the energy, knowledge, or time or money to fix something. But I should at least think about doing it myself- consider that I could, and weigh the options, which I never did before that moment.

as a person who is sometimes someone who could do something, and sometimes someone who wishes someone would do something: yeah. exactly. you're someone.

the world's state is not entirely under your control, but it is not entirely out of your control, either.

you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.

A few years ago, while my father was still semi-mobile, I had to take him to a morning appointment. When we were coming home, on the narrow, windy back road we live on, we came up behind a van that was stopped. In front of the van were three young men in their twenties, staring at a tree down across the road. It was not a terribly big tree, but fully and completely blocking the road. I, age fifyish, side-eyed the three young men who were getting back in their van to try to turn around and go back. "I think we can move this, all of us." I told them very firmly. They were not terribly enthused. However, with a fiftyish woman and an eightyish man walking decisively toward the tree, I think they were too embarrassed not to give it a try. And, whattaya know. We were able to push/rotate the tree enough to the side for traffic to pass. I'm reasonably certain the three of them could have done it without us . . but they didn't think they could. (My husband went back later with the chainsaw to fully clear it) I hope they learned that they could be "someone" that day.