next year

 Well, my Cubbies are done

    They picked a bad time to fall apart.  My hopes, our hopes, were built up and then smashed, flattened, like a blind, deaf skunk on a 4 lane interstate.

    There is always next year.  As a Cubs fan you have to accept that.  I am just happy that once in my 75 years I saw them play and win a World Series.

    I will be pulling for Baltimore and Atlanta to make it to the Series.  I think Atlanta will win it' all,  if they get their pitching healthy.

    We had some margaritas tonight.  Julia made them along with fajitas and a couple of us sat around and talked, drank, and ate.  It was a lovely evening.

    Aside from that, it was pretty much a normal day, if anything is ever normal around here.

    Tomorrow it's off to the cemetery!  And no, I will not be staying.

Peace and Love

shots shot

 Jackie and I got our shots yesterday

    No, I did not get distemper and kennel cough , although maybe I should.

    We got our Covid and flu shots.  Emily was very gentle in giving them to us.

    The mystery of the tree occupied much of my mind time yesterday.  Well, that and watching the Cubs blow another one.  We got so discouraged we switched it off and watched the latest episode of Only Murders in the Building.  By the way, if you have not watched it, it is on Hulu and is a neat series. It's funny, and mysterious, and has three great stars in Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez and I think I spelled her name wrong.

    But I digress.  Again.

    I felt a little uncomfortable in the middle of the night.  I slept, but was up about 4 times for various reasons. I did keep checking the back yard for deer, bears, and Yetis.  Non appeared.

    When I woke up this morning every muscle in my body hurt.  I felt queasy and was tired.  Jackie, on the other hand, was fine.

    I took it easy because I hurt so much.  At about 2:30 I sat in my chair  to read and ..... well, I did not read much.

    Julia had an appointment at 4 and left about 3:30.

    When I got up, I looked around and noticed there was no Julia.  Jackie was watching TV but she did not know where Julia was.

    Julia had come upstairs from work, showered, dressed, let the dog out, and left.....and Jackie and I slept through it all.

    Funny thing is, I am still tired.  My muscles don't hurt and I am not queasy, but I am dragging my butt around the house.

    Hopefully this will be short term.

    I did go out and take some pictures of fungi in the front.

    I lay down on the ground for a better angle......poor choice for a 75 year old.  Getting up was hell!

Peace and Love

Looking down

Please, Mr. Holmes?

 I have a mystery to solve, I need Sherlock Holmes

    I don't function well in the morning.  I don't get up early.  So the details may be a bit fuzzy.

7:45

    Knock on the bedroom door.

    "What, what's going on?  What's wrong?"

    Door opens.

    "Dad, your tree is gone."

    "What?"

    "Your tree is gone."

    "What are you talking about?  My tree?  What tree? What do you mean?"

    "The little one in the back yard."

    "Huh?  Little tree.  I don't have a little tree."

    "That;'s right, cause it's gone.  Come, look."

    I got out of bed and looked out the back door.

    And sure as shit, my 12 foot gingko is gone.  All that is left is a 2 foot stump. And a small bunch of leaves.

    "What the hell!"

    "See, it's gone."

    Not knowing what to do in this situation, I called the nonemergency sheriff's department number.

    "Sheriff's office.  How can I help you?"

    "One of my trees is gone."

    Dead silence.

    "Excuse me?  Did you say a tree?"

    I then explained what I found.  I told them I did not expect a deputy to come out, but I wanted them to be aware of it in case someone has a similar problem or finds my tree in their yard.

    They said, "I'll make a note that you called," but I could tell by the voice it was not going to be a serious note.  At least I did not call 911.

    I showered, got dressed and went into the yard.  Julia pointed out here was a trail of leaves from my house across my neighbor's yard and toward the detention pond.  I followed it and found the stakes that held the tree in the ground, my suet feeder, the bamboo pole to keep it straight and what was left of the tree.  In little pieces.  No leaves.  

    I contacted Morton Arboretum, and they said it would be unusual for a deer to do this at this time of year because there is so much other food available.  And for sure, my hostas were intact as were my carrots.

    I don't think it would be a beaver because we are quite a distance from water.   Plus beavers generally gnaw, not snap, a tree.

    There was a green watering bag on the tree.  Julia found it and it was full of what looks like teeth marks, which leads me away from a deer because they have flat grinders, not choppers.

    I know it was not a person, because people don't eat trees.  Well, generally they don't.  It could have been a crazy person, but if that is the case we are all in trouble.

    What could it be?  A deer in rut?  A moose?  A bear????  A T-Rex?  Yeti?????

    Like I said, I need a Sherlock Holmes to solve this mystery.

Peace and Love

And pictures

there used to be leaves and branches on this part

The trail ended here

This little one was in my tomato plants and was not afraid of me one bit.....so I wondered if it was hurt or just a baby.

do unto others

I had a great day with people today 

    Jackie was fitted with a brace to try to straighten out her left ankle.

    As we were leaving the office, a man opened he door and held it for us.  I thanked him.

    As we were getting in the van, a woman parked next to us and watched me wrestle Jackie into the lift chair.  She got out of her car and asked if we needed help.  She was walking with a cane and offering help to us!

    I am a recycler.  I don't throw away dead batteries because I think they could be recycled.  I took two containers to the Battery Plus store in Rockford and asked a lady at the counter if they recycled batteries.

    She came out to the car and looked at the batteries, which were mostly AA and AAA.  She said they don't recycle these and I should just toss them in the trash.  Then she explained that lithium batteries and rechargeables  do get recycled.  She took both containers and said she would sort through them and toss or recycle as needed.

    I stopped at a Starbucks in Rockford.  I sasked the youngster if the 2 for Thursdays were still on and she said yes, but today was Wednesday so I would have to come back tomorrow.  She said it in such a nice way!  I know, that's her job.  But we had a good laugh about my inability to remember days.

    When I meet people like all of the above, I get reminded of how much good there is in the world.   We all just want to make this journey through life without bumps in the road, and being nice to others is one way to do it.

Peace and Love

oops

 We made a huge mistake today

    I set the alarm for 7:30 so I could take out the recycling.  I went aback to bed, resetting the alarm for 8:30. 

    When it went off at 8:30 I turned it off and went back to bed.

Jackie woke me up at 10:30!!!

Now, normally I would have gotten up at 8:30, but she was still asleep so I turned off the alarm, figuring the cuckoo would wake her at 9.  No such luck.

    By the time she was ready for breakfast, it was after 12:30.  

    So I had a short day.

    I did manage to partially destroy Emily's spreader  The one wheel does not turn, so I thought taking it apart may help free it up.  I have put rust destroyer on it over and over and over, so my next  course was to take it apart.

    You all know how mechanically inclined I am.  I can't get the parts off that need to come off, I can't get the parts on that need to go on, so after an hour I gave up.  I have to get a hammer to complete the dismantling of the spreader.

    Jackie said to just toss it and buy a new one.  I mentioned they were close to $300, so I have the go ahead to keep working on it.

    To recap:  The spreader plate that tosses the seed or fertilizer does not turn.  Because it does not turn, the one wheel does not turn.  It does turn backward, but I can't spread fertilizer moving backward.  There is a lot of rust on the parts and that seems to be the problem.

    So I thought taking off the wheel, taking apart the turning mechanism, and taking apart the spinner then using rust remover and then WD 40 would solve the problem.  But, and there is always a big butt, I can't seem to do what I want.

    We had  a storm tonight.  There was lots of thunder, a continuous rolling thunder in the sky.  Then lightning, which was strange because I figured the lightning would come first.  I just checked the rain gauge and we have over 1 inch of rain and that was since 5 p.m.  

    Come to think of it, now I am not sure if I emptied it after this morning's rain.

    O well.

Peace and Love

sit...stay

We had our first dog obedience  lesson today 

    It's not that Beth is not a good dog.  She is.  But she has some behaviors we want to change.

    Like jumping up on people.  Or being nicer to other dogs when she encounters them.  And staying.

    Like I said, not a lot.

    Turns out during the training she either catches on quickly or has learned some of that in her past.  But she is easily distracted, and bored, somethings we both have in common.

    Our trainer is a former student of mine.  They were in my class the year I had my real heart attack, which was 2006. It's funny that she is now the teacher and Jackie and I are the pupils.

    I managed to get my bird feeders back up and filled.  That may not seem such a big deal, but it has been over a week since I took them down so the yard could be dethatched.  I did not expect it to take me so long to get a round tuit.

    We topped off the night with a birthday dinner with a friend.  We had Chinese food from in town and it was pretty good.  I ate too much.  Emily brought some cupcakes, I think from Small Cakes?, and they were awesome.

    All it all, it was a pretty darn good day.

Peace and Love

telly time

 I did not spend a lot of  time watching TV

    I did watch most of the Cubs win.  It was an exciting end to the home stand.

    Over the seasons we have noticed people I the park.  The pink hat man who sits behind home plate, for instance.  We also noticed that unlike other years, he has not been to a lot of games.  We wonder if he is ill, or just too frustrated to attend.  He has several expensive seats and people always seem to be in them.  Just not him as often as previous years.

    I think I remember reading that he now lives in Florida and his family won't let him attend games in extreme conditions because of his health.  Then again, sometimes I remember things that have not happened.

    In previous years the cameras used to focus on an elderly woman during the seventh inning stretch.

    This year a guy in left field seems to get a lot of camera time.  He has long hair and seems to be at a lot of games.  He  bangs on the wooden part of the sign just to the left of the bleachers during Go Cubs Go and the stretch.  Today the announcers said Ian Happ gave that fan $100 for his enthusiasm.  Lucky guy!

    I watched the Bears until it was 14 - 0, did something and came back it was 21 - 0 or something like that, so I mowed the lawn.  I did not miss much.

    I am not a talent rater or a game planner, but I think I would fit in with the current Bears' staff because they don't seem to be either.

    I did watch a show that put me in a somber mood.

    WTTW started their new season of Chicago Stories with a documentary on Our Lady of the Angels.

    On Dec 1, 1958, a fire started in a cardboard trash box in the school's basement.  It took 20 minutes for flames to slowly creep up the stairs and hit oxygen on the second floor, where it flashed down the hallway.

    The second floor had 9 classrooms, but only one of them had a fire exit.  All the fire drills they had assumed the hallway and stairwells would be passable, but they weren't.

    Three nuns and 95 children died in the blaze.

    I remember that day.  I was 10 and I actually feared my school would burn.

    Fire inspectors had been at the school months before and noted some fire code violations, including no fire door at the top of the stairway.  Since the school was built before the fire codes were established it was grandfathered in and the door was not mandated.  If it had been installed, the fire might not have been so deadly.

    Several survivors of he fire were interviewed and recalled the horrors of the day, a day in which friends and siblings died.  One man lost a brother and a sister.  He jumped from the second floor window and told his sister to follow, but she never did.  He lives with that guilt.

    The priest in charge was featured in a news clip after the fire  and said the fire was "God's will."  I hate to think that God would will such a horrible fate on innocent children.

    The father of one of the survivors told his son to "Keep on believing."  Years later that boy would become a keyboardist in the band Journey.  He would draw on his father's phrase to write the band's  biggest hit.

    Good did come out of the fire.  Laws were enacted, safety standards established, inspections of schools more vigilant...........but nothing can replace the lives of those children and nuns.

    Like I said, a somber reminder on a somber night.

Peace and Love