The Story of Jenny Lind

When I moved to Arnold, I soon knew that I wanted a dog. I loved living in the silence of the forest, but that silence is of course full of noises. The sound of a raccoon, a deer, a chickoree, a Stellar's jay, a bear, maybe, would startle me, and I wanted a hint as to the noise's danger potential. A dog is perfect. They have enough sang froid to ignore the unthreatening, and enough protective sense to warn loudly of danger's approach. That was the theory, anyway, and it's just a good thing that I didn't get one of those dogs that bark at everything. I looked at the Humane Society of Calaveras County but didn't see anything that fit; I drove to Fresno to bring home Arnold - a pony sized dog who was completely untrained, and who I took back to Fresno within a few days. Then I was driving past Gene Miller's Rockyard in Avery, just down the road a mile or so from Arnold, and there was a sign that said, as I recall, "Part Jack Russell puppies, free." I also wanted a dog to give me motivation to get up and go, and I thought a Jack Russell would be perfect. And cute.

All puppies are cute. Good advice would probably be to not choose a puppy on the cuteness factor. But Jenny Lind, born September 18, 2001, at eight weeks old, stole my heart.

Queen Mary and Vollendam

Today I met Alwyn for lunch on the Queen Mary, which, as you may know, is permanently docked in Long Beach (take the 5 to the 170 and you're there) and is a tourist destination. Her ship, the Vollendam, was parked? berthed? docked? right next to the Queen, and here's a picture of Alwyn and the Vollendam.

She's standing in the gazebo in I think the stern of the Queen Mary, and her ship is behind her. She sailed with them down from Vancouver, and took off at sunset today for Hawaii. She'll fly home for a few days and then fly back to Hawaii to join another ship. Ruby and I talked the other evening about the fact that since we're both newcomers, we deserve to go to every tourist spot in LA. There's a Russian submarine docked with the Queen Mary, and I really want to see that, and do a tour of the Queen as well. I don't know if I believe in the La Brea tar pits, but then I didn't really believe in Burbank not long ago. New worlds!

On another note (pun intended - or at least not avoided), I sang tonight for the first time with the BSAC chorus. A group of seven, plus the pianist/conductor. I am sorry that Dan and Ruby were sick and couldn't come to either lunch or to the show tonight. I would really like to hear their comments! We sang only one song - That's Entertainment - and the rest of the show were guest artists - singers and comedians. Think Marigold Hotel, please. It was nice to find dressy clothes, black and white, and spruce up a bit. I've worn nothing but shorts and t-shirts since I've been here. Oh, yes, a dress last weekend for the Pacific Symphony concert. And I'm sure that it was because of my elegant attire that I was asked to come to the BSAC players this Wednesday. Quite a whirl.

Statue

Because this was taken at night, it's eery. But the sculpture, on the bike/walk/run path is quite marvelous. I will take a daytime version. It makes me think of railway children, playing here when the trains ran. The darkness of it brings a sense of the coal powered trains that covered the children and their play with soot. The sculpture is the work of W. Stanley Proctor, and is dated 2005. There are two more sculptures, and pictures will be forthcoming. The bikeway is two-miles long, and I've only been on a short bit of it.

Home late

11:30 and all's well. I spent the evening with my grandaughter - we ate, walked, played a game, talked. Then Daniel came home, and I came home here. They live on a street that used to be a railroad. They took the tracks out and built a bike/run/walk path that's well-lit and well-used all the time. A perfect place for a late-night stroll, it is. We walked quite a bit farther than I thought we had, it was so easy and pleasant to be there. A house for rent caught our eye. It looks like a play house, all painted in colors and fancifully designed. I thought all the houses were original railway housing, but it turns out that this one was designed as a studio in 1967. I don't know when the railroad was taken up. It rents for $2200 a month, two bedrooms, two baths, 893 square feet. The picture does not do justice to the paint job on the house itself - it's quite striped.

GPS v. iPhone v. Me

First iPhone picture! And yes, the picture is sideways. And yes, pictures of dogs taken from above do make their heads look big. And yes, that is a box being used as a coffee table in the upper right. And yes, dogs do look at your sideways when you have a camera in your hand.

I did have a day of electronics challenges. Woke at 5 am, having set three alarms that all when off at the same moment and totally confused me. Picked up Alwyn, and she drove to LAX. I love going to airports! I was all set to drive back the way I came, when the GPS told me to take a road called World Way. Well, that's what the GPS thought it was called, but no. Went through the airport again, and took a guess as to how to get out of it. iPhone is still too new for me to be able to use it reliably, and besides, I should be looking at the road, not at that totally fascinating little blue dot that's me crawling along the blue line that's a road. Back to GPS, whose major advantage is getting me out of whatever confusion I've gotten myself into. I can do no wrong, but I do think I hear it heave a great sigh as it says, "Recalculating." It took me through some less-than-salubrious neighborhoods and then took me through an oil field! I followed its directions faithfully, although I was almost always sure it was wrong. It wasn't, and I got back home quickly - well, 45 minutes, I think - and with no traffic. That's a miracle.

Took a nap to recover. Woke to a phone call from someone in the office who wanted me to call someone about some music. I swear, I did not join the chorus. But I guess around here, asking about the chorus is tantamount to auditioning. So I guess I've joined the chorus. At least through Friday, when there's a 5 o'clock rehearsal (right after Social Hour - remember that free meal?). And through Saturday when there's a performance! There's clearly going to be more to this story.

Took off with iPhone and GPS at quarter to six, to get to a 6 o'clock meeting. GPS doesn't work in the garage, and I somehow managed to turn off the GPSing, and couldn't figure out how to turn it back on! So it was giving me virtual directions. Feels very secure. Meanwhile, the iPhone was giving me directions, if I followed that blue dot carefully, but wasn't telling me the street address - just "Destination on Winona". Sounds like a thriller title.

Finally shook the street number out of one of the devices, and began looking for 3217. Almost got into the Bob Hope Airport; just barely avoided parking in a lot that said "No Audition Parking." Sounds a little unwelcoming to me.

On my way home, I missed a freeway entrance, but why would I take a freeway for a half a mile? I had wondered that on the way there. So city streets it was and very easy, too. More and more I am arriving at places that look vaguely familiar and that always warms my heart.

Have I mentioned that I love being in the city? So exciting, so stimulating!

Hello Apple World!

I planned it, really I did. It was not an impulse purchase. I said that when I moved to LA, gave up my landline, I would get an iPhone. And I did! It sure is cute. But how to get my contacts from Google to the phone? Haven't a clue. 

Today I found just about everything I needed to find soon - decaf coffee and pumpkin. We're all set now. Tomorrow I'm getting up at 5 to drive Alwyn to LAX, as she takes off for her first solo cruise. Dan, of course, stays with Ruby, and I stand by. Life did change in a hurry. It's all good. It's all better than good. It's exciting!

I did take a picture with my phone, but I don't know how to get it from there to here. Maybe tomorrow.

A Time to Sleep

The excitement of the move, and settling in to a new life, hit me yesterday, and I slept almost all day! I thought I would not be able to sleep last night, but surprised even myself. I woke to the 7am (ever hopeful) alarm and went right back to sleep until the phone rang. It was the program director reminding me that I had signed up for a free flu shot - provided by Rite Aid, right downstairs in our clubroom. I threw on clothes, told my hair to lie down, told Jenny Lind to wait for a little bit before going out, walked the half block to the clubroom, got a "little pinch" (why do they say that? Why not call a spade a spade and say a little stab?). Then I went for a walk and home to coffee! All the windows are open to the cool outside air. XieXie loves watching traffic from his cushion under the window. And I find that the noise of traffic and passersby does not annoy me at all. I remain amazed that all three of us seem to be city folks.

Another Sunday in Burbank

The box of kitchenware that I spread out on all the counters is still there, but the big moving activity today was removing a whole stationwagonful from my apartment to Alwyn and Dan's. I'd brought it all on purpose, and had talked to Alwyn about it, of course, so it was no surprise - but it was a surprise to see how much of it there was. I decided today that I was going to give away all the stainless tableware and I am glad I did, but it was a little harder than I expected. In fact, this little piece of letting go was in general a challenge. Maybe it was because it was Alwyn I was going through it with. I felt as if I were saying to her, and to each little object, "I'm not who you think I am." Of course I am really saying that to myself, as I join new communities of new friends and acquaintances. And that has been a theme over the past three years - I am not who I think I am. Or who I thought I was. I really don't know who I think I am and I am probably not at all who I thought I was nor think I am now. 

Passing my kitchen on to my daughter changes me as a mother, as a woman. It's an honor, a relief, a sadness, and a joy. 

Concert

Out this evening to a Pacific Symphony concert - Strauss, Strauss, Brahms. The Brahms was his second piano concerto with Andre Watts. What a treat! Watts is a powerful pianist, and it was beautiful. Alwyn was playing in the concert, Dan, Ruby, and I had great comp seats. And to continue with musical notes (ahem), I'm pasting in here an email Alwyn got today:

"I heard Liebesleid on Sirius this morning, played by Itzhak Pearlman.
Naturally I turned up the volume to compare it to yours. “AH! I get to compare Alwyn’s with one of the masters!” I thought.
Naturally Pearlman played it with ease and total command. It was very beautiful, to say the least. (And – as you would expect.)
But – If you don’t mind me saying so – I still liked yours better!
His transitions from one note to the next were always smooth and predictable.
Many of your transitions were smooth where appropriate but others provided a crisp captivating flare.
Also – His accompaniment was clearly in the distant background. This was a “Pearlman showcase,” not a “Liebesleid masterpiece.”
Your accompaniment showed a humble violinist who is not afraid to share limelight with the accompaniment.
Great job!"

On another note, I have not mentioned reading in a while. Since I started to pack, way back in Murphys, I've been reading - minimally - Fire in the Lake. It's wonderful, and opens all kinds of thoughts about our country in the 60's, and of course most specifically about the Vietnam War. I guess I don't have a lot of reading energy, because I keep not getting very far with it. Tempting to put it aside and read one of the light books I've gotten from bookbub.com, but every night I return.

One more thought for the night. I just read my last blog and it's full of bad typing! Sorry about that. I'll work on a little light proofreading.

Just for today

Query: Why does the maintenance man, Oscar, carry a pair of handcuffs in his maintenance cart? And why didn't I ask him? He fixed my shower for me in no time at all, first thing in the morning after I'd called the evening before. That's service, but where do handcuffs fit in?

At the start of a meeting, all rushed from their places around the table to watch the shuttle being carried overhead, piggybacked on a very large airplane. I just caught a glimpse of it over the shoulders of the other glimpsers, and I must confess that I didn't even know it was happening. I thought - seriously - that someone was jumping off a roof. Cries of pride and surprise sound very much the same as cries of horror and surprise. Yes, they were cries of pride in our country. Surprised me.

Went to join the Philosophy Club. It was four or five of us (how hard is it to count to four or five and remember that number for a few hours?) and all that happened was that we watched a neck-bending TV show with Morgan Freeman talking about before the universe started - before the Big Bank. New theory is that the universe is made us of 'branes (short for membrane) and they exist parallel to each other, and they cycle through a gentle bumping of each other which creates the energy to fill a universe, and that universe expands and flattens out (kind of like a sheet of paper on a pond) at the same time as the 'brane next to it is doing the same thing and then gravity (?) pulls them together for another bump which starts the whole thing over again. The gentle bump is important for the exactly right amount of energy. There were terribly obscure and invented equations on a blackboard providing the mathematical basis for the theory. But none of it answered the question of what came before? Disappointingly, there was no discussion afterward. Maybe I'll just have to start talking. Next week we're going to watch another in the series, this one "Can We Eliminate Evil?" Just watching is not enough for me.

Jenny Lind and I met Homer today. I'd seen Homer and hisp.erson, Ron when I first visited here in July (I think it was - maybe August). Homer is a seeing-eye dog, and a shaggy golden retriever maybe - anyway a big shaggy yellow dog. Just the breed that Jenny Lind has had most trouble with in Arnold (where I lived before Murphys). Both dogs were perfectly behaved, and Ron and I chatted for a few moments before Jenny Lind and I went up the elevator. I've got Jenny Lind to sit in the elevator and hope that by so doing, we won't startle anyone else getting in. While I was talking to Ron and Homer, a man, his wife and daughter, came into the lobby, and the man startled yelling, "Dog, dog!" hysterically. Clearly he has a issue with dogs, but it didn't faze anyone except him. Ron later asked me about it - I guess it's not happened to him before.

Today at 4 was social hour. There were maybe 35 to 40 residents in the clubroom and a meal was provided! I was ushered to a seat by Carol, who I met in the Philosophy Club. I was sitting next to Betty, who is the choir director. Oh, dear, I think I've volunteered. It's a group of six or so. During the supper conversation, I started to think of excuses I could pull out of the hat if it turns out to be awful! Thank goodness for Ruby - an instant excuse for anything I don't want to do!

I think I've landed in the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. 

GrandmaAbigail's gratitude

That would be me!! I am a grandma to three children of Mathew, step-grandma to three children of Cedar, and now I'm step-grandma to Ruby, Alwyn's stepdaughter, and Dan's daughter. I think I'll leave out the steps from now on! Tonight was our first evening together, as Alwyn played for Pacific Symphony and Dan played at his regular Thursday night job at Bistro something. Or Something Bistro. Ruby, whose transition at 13 from Australia is somewhat huger than mine, finished her third day at school, and we went home and had supper and she (and I) did her homework. I had a computer job to do, and that took me til Dan got home. It's late now - way past my bedtime. This is what I have been looking for - family, work, usefulness, meaningfulness. I am very grateful.

Ah, Burbank

Tired today - kind of a jet lag. Thank goodness for necessary dog walks, or my muscles would be atrophying! Today's events: Hung the shower curtain that Alwyn gave me - with hooks - and discovered that I can't make the shower work - the little thing that you pull up to go from tub to shower is stuck. The tub, however, is excellent. Narrow enough to require gymnast skills to get my head under the faucet. Good exercise, right? Have all the required bathroom accoutrements in place. So what is in that big box marked "bathroom"? Still can't find my coffee filters, but bless Kate for giving me five loose ones. So I found Ralphs supermarket. With CVS, my pharmacy, it's cattycornered across the street from Trader Joe's - and a half a mile from my house. (Like Murphys, there's no apostrophe - I checked.) I couldn't believe Ralphs. Even the SaveMart in Angels Camp, which is a huge store next to Sierra Market, would fit in one small corner of Ralphs. Oddly, I found everything very easily. Jenny Lind continues to behave like a lady on her muzzle-less walks. There was a little dog that growled as we passed, and Jenny Lind did react, but not even slightly seriously. I could show you scars from earlier times. Maybe Jenny Lind thought that the dogs in Arnold were wild animals that had to be subdued, but these sidewalk companions are her kind? I am grateful!

And we do have tickets to Pacific Symphony this Saturday! I'll have to miss Midsummer Night's Dream here at BSAC. Such a hard life with hard choices. 

Our American Cousin

After sitting staring at boxes (none of which emptied themselves!) most of the day, after sleeping late in the morning, I took myself down to the theater (I think it's on the first floor, but I'm still a little confused about which is first floor and which is ground floor). On the boards tonight was a reading of the play Our American Cousin, which is best known as the play that Lincoln was attending when he was shot by one of the actors, John Wilkes Booth, at a moment of great laughter in the farce. The reading was by a group called Theater Neo. I loved it! There was a narrator, or commentator, sitting to the side of the stage, and he explained some of the more obscure passages, told us what had been left out of the original production, which was four hours long, and made topical political comments along the way. None of those comments were right-wing or redneck.

The audience was small, I thought, but I was told that it was a good turnout. Some attendees seemed a little bewildered, or asleep, but the rest of us found it very funny! It is still mind-bending to be able to put my keys in my pocket, walk down a wide, picture-lined hallway and find an event like this. 

One more positive note: I've taken Jenny Lind's muzzle off for our walks. She seems calm around the dogs that we pass, and the more that happens, the more calm we both will be. City girls, both of us.

Full Day in Burbank

As promised, I spent most of today in sleep. I didn't put a thing away, and I cannot spend too many days like that. I think that last sentence could read both ways - meaning I'd better get cracking, or meaning there could not be enough days like that! Take your pick. I did, of course, take Jenny Lind on two walks. She seems to be perfectly comfortable with city walking. This might be the first time she's ever met a sidewalk! 

And then tonight I went to Alwyn and Daniel's for supper - cooked by Ruby. A wonderful salmon in wasabi sauce, real mashed potatoes, salad, cheesecake for dessert. Ruby, who arrived here on Wednesday from Australia to live with her father and step-mother, starts 8th grade tomorrow. My first grandmotherly job will be Thursday night, when Daniel and Alwyn both work. Many new beginnings operating in synchronicity. 

I need my old friends, too, so if you're reading this, please let me know. It's not great literature, nor even a moving memoir, but it is the days of my life, and they are precious to me. But most precious if I share them with you.

Burbank!

I'm here! I would have written First Night in Burbank last night, but it took until this morning to get the internet up and netting. Of course I'm tired, but Jenny Lind, XieXie, and I all feel peaceful and sleepy. It was a good drive down here - six hours door to door. XieXie slept on the console, in my lap, on the futon, or in Jenny Lind's bed with Jenny Lind. And he hates car rides! I've taken four or five walks now with Jenny Lind - a wonderful city neighborhood for walking. They have (who are they, I wonder) have black iron benches on the sidewalks and people actually sit in them. Some dour couples, I'm sure wondering what happened to their Marash (my new term for the home we left behind), some happy young people. A couple of blocks down, a bar was televising a boxing match and the bar and the street were both crowded with happy viewers. Too bad it wasn't a symphony, but you can't have everything.

I still don't feel it's all real, but it's all good. Apartment challengly tiny. I already sent my bed back to Sonora to be consigned, since it didn't even fit in the elevator! Ikea here I come. I'd attach a picture, but the thingie that connects my computer to a camera card is still packed. And might be for some time! 

Whew.

Last Night in Murphys

Well, this is it. With the strength of ten, my two friends Gail and Kate spent a third day packing me up, and all is ready to go except for what I'm going to throw in the car tomorrow. A dog and a cat and a coffee pot and a futon. I will spend tomorrow night in Burbank, and the moving truck will arrive Sunday morning. That's the plan right now! There have been many changes of plan along the way, so I'm ready for anything, just about.

Last night Gail and I ate at El Jardin, outside, beside the creek that runs down the mountain and into Murphys Park - I've shown pictures of it in the park. And then tonight - my request - Barbaranne joined us at Alchemy, and we all had dessert (oh yes, as well as dinner). Tomorrow Gail and I might have one final meal together at breakfast, but that depends on the moving truck. I've seen many friends for moving farewells, and I feel so fortunate to have had such wonderful spirits by my side these last 11 years.

Tomorrow I hope to be on the road by noon, Burbank by 6, and an exciting step into a new today.

Love to you all, Murphys.

A Book Story

I was having a goodbye dinner tonight with a friend who've I've known for about as long as I've been in Calaveras County. She had a wonderful small used bookstore and I worked for her once a week. The store was in what was the ice house of the long-gone general store in Arnold, and the walls were brick. We heated it with a dragon of a wood stove in the winter, and spent time shoveling ourselves out the front door. Jenni told me that today someone brought in 14 bags of books, and as Jenni was going through them, she kept having a very eerie feeling. About three quarters of the way through, she realized that they were my books! A neighbor had done me the great favor of packing up books that I'm not moving to Burbank and taking them to the Humane Society Thrift Store that Jenni is now the manager of. Sadly, I can't take all the book, nor, really, do I need them all. I do love to look at a wall of books, though. Jenni has a very special connection to people, and I'm sure that is how she recognized me through my books. Of course there were a lot that I'd bought from the bookstore when I worked there, and that was surely a clue. 

So good-bye books, good-bye Jenni. Good-bye Debbie and Bill and Jenny and Nate who we ran into at the restaurant. Good-bye to Judy, my therapist, who I saw for the last time today. She saved my life two and a half years ago. A long good-bye to Murphys. 

Uprooting

I see that I haven't written since Friday! My head is full of a thousand details about moving. I'm going from 1750 square feet to 650, which might give an idea of how much stuff I need to get rid of. Yesterday and today are a challenge, as I go through my desk and find papers that make me sad, and go through boxes that I haven't looked at since I moved here two and a half years ago. Opening them, I feel foolish and wasteful that I have so much stuff that I don't even know what I have. But I also feel nostalgic (the pain of remembering) as I look at things. The dress that I was wearing the day my mother-in-law (who I loved) died. Coats, snow clothes, special shoes for a special occasion. Linen for a family of six. Jeans in all sizes - all mine! And none that fit today. 

It's been okay til yesterday - feeling free as I see things fly out the door. But now I need my people to be with me. And they will be, I know.

Music in the Park

The last First Friday Music in the Park for the summer, and the last before I leave for Burbank. 

The gazebo, waiting for the bank - Swing Gitane - to arrive.

The crowd is settling in and lining up to get dinner. $8 for a fabulous chicken, salad, special bread and a cookie from Alchemy, one of our favorite restaurants. You can see in the foreground the back of our favorite bench - right in front!

The lead singer, Susie Easley, just behind the kayak that was raffled off tonight. The kayak was donated by SNAC - Sierra Nevada Adventure Company, our local outdoor outfitters. Susie has a voice that comes up from her toes, and as she lets it out, she shapes it in a hundred different forms.

My dear friend Colleen (in the green dress) dancing with a friend. She was about the best and most beautiful dancer there. By the time the dance floor (asphalt) was crowded, it was too dark to take pictures. I am sorry that I didn't capture a little girl, Liliana, who attached herself to Colleen and her group of friends, and danced with them or alone for the rest of the evening. One couple brought their own dance floor! They explained to us that the last time they'd danced on the asphalt their legs were very sorry. They danced from the first note to the last.

Memories and moving

I sit here now while the piano movers take my piano away. It's not sad, it's freeing. There was a time when I was studying music, singing and piano, three or four years ago, when I got the piano, and it was one of a most eager and hopeful. Then things changed, and music became very difficult, emotionally and physically - too much stimulus, I think. I never did learn to play very well. Sloth (procrastination in one syllable) kept me from practicing, and then my life changed.

But music is back. If I want to play, I'm sure there's a piano I can use at the Burbank Artists Colony, or I can use my son-in-law's. I do plan on checking out the chorus at the Colony, and I'll see if that's a fit. I did sing - I might have mentioned it - in the reunion Memorial Choir, and was delighted, not so much with my voice, but with my ability to read and sing. I have put a lot into that skill, and it would be wonderful to exercise it.

Tomorrow night is the last Music in the Park, and my friends and I are going to be there. It's Swing Gitane, a group that performed earlier this summer and we loved them. You can check them out and listen to some of their songs on their new album, at swinggitane.com and think of me. I have lived in an amazing place, with some amazing events.

Moving date is set - Sunday the 16th of this month. I've got butterflies!

Lists

As I sit, facing my day today, my mind is making lists of my tasks for the day. I can easily panic at the thoughts of all that needs to be done in the next ten days, before my son gets here with a truck to move me to Burbank. 

Seventy-two years are being looked at, each piece of thing that is part of that link looked at and evaluated. I realize that I only need a symbol of memory at most, not an entire museum. There are some griffin candle holders that will always remind me of my childhood homes. There is a Humpty Dumpty wooden puzzle toy that will remind me of childhood toys. There is Corduroy bear that will remind me of my joy with my small children. Tokens that will comfort me as I move fully and wholly into my eightieth decade. I need not recreate my life with things, but allow the spirit of my life to flow onward with beauty, joy, peace, serenity.

End of summer

It's Labor Day, and although schools now begin sometime in August, I still think of Labor Day as the last day of summer, with Fall beginning on Tuesday Back to School. Sometimes we drove back to Baltimore on the Labor Day weekend so that we could have the last few hours in New Hampshire. Maybe that's why I always felt unprepared for school. Maybe in reality we stayed in New Hampshire until the first Monday in September, but maybe it was only in my mind that I didn't arrive in Baltimore until just before school. 

My recollections are of wearing fall clothes that first Tuesday, but Baltimore in September is still summer, and summer clothes would have been more comfortable. And I recall never feeling as if I had the right notebook or pencil, and somehow scrambling to get what I needed - or perhaps what was popular -  after school started, and thus being one step behind for the whole year.

I remember New Hampshire as always being perfect. Everything I needed was right there, always, year after year. There wasn't any start to it, I slipped into my real skin, as into a perfectly cool lake.

Once in a Blue Moon

If I have a yard sale once in a blue moon, it will be too often. It could have been fun - seeing people and chatting - but I was so tired I could barely enjoy it - not even the money coming in from my junk, although I'm grateful for that. I could not have done it without Barbaranne, who managed to leap to her feet to enthusiastically greet the stragglers at 3:30. Labor Day indeed.

There were yard sales all up and down Route 4, from Angels Camp to Arnold, about a half hour drive, in communities, churches, fire stations. There were people who were hitting them all. I have this image, swirling in my head, of one person's trash becoming another person's treasure, all the pieces in elliptical orbit over Calaveras County. 

Listen to me now: I will not buy anything just because it appeals to me. I will not buy materials for a project unless I plan on going home and starting it immediately. Ever again. I swear!