The Goings-On At My House, Well, Outside My House

Part 1

I am just in from raking up pine needles. They fall from my neighbor's three pine trees that stand close to our property line. I have filled my garbage can with needles, but I haven't made a dent, as they say. Have to do more some other day. As if I could ever get them all. They COVER my lawns.

Can you guess how I feel about those trees? I could mention that they receive no "care." But why bother?

Part 2

On the sidewalk, directly behind the post my mail box sits on, was a dead, hairless, headless something. I thought, at first, a baby mouse. Too big for that, though. Rat. I didn't like that thought.

It's been there--this is the third day.

Today, while raking pine needles, I called Ron and Janice to come over and see. They agreed, too big for a mouse. He said gopher. I said rat. She said rat. Hard to tell since it had no head. But the internet has me thinking it was a rat.

How did it die? you ask. (I knew you would.)

Ron and Janice said there's been a great horned owl around the last few nights. Ron said ,"Yep, it ate the brains." I didn't ask why not eat the whole thing.

Ron picked it up with a twig from the pine tree, examined it, and said, "Do you want this?" Guess what I said. He took it home. Probably going to dissect it, or something.

Part 3 Way outside my house but in my neighborhood.

I went walking outside today, weather permitted such a thing, and I saw something I didn't know ever happened. The nearby McDonald's has closed. Not one single car in the parking lot, that was a clue, so I read the small sign on the door: This McDonald's will close December 15, 2015.

Heavens! It's February 25, and I'm just noticing.

The name is torn off the building, no golden arches anywhere, the children's play area inside is gone.

The little sign suggested four other nearby locations.

This is quite long

Here's every detail, as I remember it.

In the women's dressing room--temple workers' dressing room--I was putting my packet away when a woman on the next shift, midshift, spoke. She had just put on her white clothing and was really talking to herself because she couldn't find her name tag. I spoke to her and asked where she thought it might be. "At home or in my bag," she said. I said, "I'm going to hope for the bag."

She found it, in her bag, and gave me credit, you know, just kidding. I said, "You're a Tanner, aren't you?" She answered, "Yes. How do you know?" I told her I had seen her before.

As she put on her name tag, I looked to see her first name. Christine.

"Are you . . . " but she interrupted. "I'm not related to all the famous Tanners around here. Too bad because they sound like fun."

I said, "You're probably a decent person anyway. Carlene is her name, right?"

"Yes. But my husband is not from here. He's from Milford."

"Milford, Utah?"

"Yes."

"I've been there," I said, which we both agreed was quite remarkable because Milford is not famous or big or even known at all by most people.

So we were connected, sort of.

I said, "My roommate married a Tanner. She was from Carey, a Benson. Lauralie Benson."

"Lauralie Benson married my husband's brother, Gary."

Now that got me. Small world, as they say.

I said, "Wow, I feel like we're kind of related."

Then she told me Lauralie's husband had died soon after they got home from their mission. He had severe dementia. Lauralie, she told me, is doing fine.

I asked, "How's your husband?"

"He's just fine," she said. "One brother died of cancer, one of dementia, another of cancer."

"Is he the only one left?"

"Yes, but he's fine."

It is all quite remarkable to me because two days ago I was thinking about Lauralie. Our speaker in Sacrament meeting was from Carey, so I told him I'd been there and mentioned the names I knew from there: Benson (That's Ezra Taft Benson's brother, Valdo, Stake President and Lauralie's father), Barton, as in John Barton, Lauralie's boyfriend when she was my roommate, and as in Barbara Barton, John's sister--who married Blaine Tingey--and who was our other roommate.

At that time I could not remember Lauralie's married name, Tanner. I remembered it last night, Tuesday. So is it weird? Or was it "meant to be" so that Christine Tanner and I could make this little connection? Not that we'll be long friends, just that such things are very nice.

A Fine Idea

Go here. www.gofundme.com/BigBrotherSaxby
It's the web site Alyce's friend established to help fund another ivf try for Alyce and Ben. And Saxby.

I had never heard of such a thing, but I approve. I like the site, like the idea, like Erica Howard, who is the friend.

The site has a lovely bunch of pictures of that little Larsen family and a narrative about them, their hopes for another child, and why this fund has been established.

People are good. Yes, this is something very good about the times we live in.

Territorialism

Red-shafted flickers, three of them, all male, on my roof, heard before seen, because they were poking through the snow while I read in my living room. So I opened the blind a bit, saw them, all puffed up against winter's cold (our high today:15) pecking--it's what they do, which is the point.

They are beautiful birds, and I love them, in theory, would love them a lot more if they were poking at someone else's house. You may not recall the damage they did to my house several years ago, which caused me to watch for them every year. But I stopped watching because for all of so many years they have not been here. Why now? I wonder.

These three, I shooed them away, and I will shoo them away any time I see them. And I hope to discourage them entirely.

It's my house!

Perspective

Our house in Caldwell had floor to ceiling windows on the sunny side. In Spring a robin flew directly at one of the windows many times a day, knocking himself out, and falling to the ground. I wondered why knocking himself to the ground didn't teach him to stop this behavior, why he kept doing it. I thought at first he wanted to get inside the house.

Days and days he did this, and I finally I decided upon a reason that made sense to me. It was because he could see his image in the glass and had fallen in love with himself. He wanted to be with that beautiful bird.

I wrote a poem about it and expressed that idea in the poem. I took it to my writing group. My friend told me she had the very same experience one year. Her conclusion was nothing like mine. She concluded the robin could see his image in the window and wanted to fight that other bird. His flying at the window was an attack.

That also made sense to me. I'd like to think I'm right, but it's likely she is.

Here at Greenwood Circle

It's quiet now. Thirty minutes ago four dogs were barking, maybe five, all at once. I have made a count of the dogs in my immediate neighborhood. Eleven. Three of my neighbors have two each. Is that really necessary?

I did not go outside to see why the barking, just stayed in here muttering about it.  When I did go out a few minutes ago to get my mail, the new little dog next door yipped and yapped and full on barked, as he/she always does if I come outside. Always is misleading. That dog has only been here for three days, and I don't know whose dog it is. Dash doesn't seem to mind the companionship. I mind the barking. It's persistent. I explained to the little dog that I was here first and he has some nerve barking at me. I'm the one who belongs here. He's the  newcomer, and, after all, who is he anyway? He paid no attention to my explanation. Typical.

I get a little tired of Dash and his frequent squirrel chases. They're never silent, but at least I know what's going on and sometimes even hope he catches one. It's the big ugly dog on the other side that I can't tolerate. He's loud and intrusive. I don't see him, and I'm pretty sure he can't see me, but if I step outside, or if anyone comes near this part of the block, he starts up. He has super hearing and smell, no doubt. I have been known to tell him to shut up. Rude, I know. Beneath my dignity, I know.

Swell, he has started up again, and his pal chimes in. Something has started them all up again. Hardly worth writing about.

I have a life, so don't tell me to get one.

Encounter In The Bathroom

Spiders can hear. At least I thought so when that white spider crawling down my bathroom mirror answered my quiet "Well, hello" by ducking behind the mirror. I wasn't close or loud, and, by the way, I wasn't speaking to make friends. I had murder on my mind. I pounded on the mirror, shoved a narrow comb behind, trying to scare him out. No luck. I came away from this morning encounter convinced that spiders can hear and their hearing is good.

I came away a bit worried, too. Was home for that spider behind my mirror? This is a big mirror. No lifting it from the wall.  Would the spider sneak out at night and do something nasty? Would I wake up with it spinning a web around my face? Given its size, I felt sure it could bite. Would I never find it? Would I one day discover a whole line of baby white spiders traipsing across my bathroom ceiling?

Well, the day was upon me. I could not hang out in my bathroom, stalking a spider who might be smarter than me.

That was Thursday morning. Saturday came, and I was changing the bedding on my bed. I pulled down a quilt from the top shelf of my little bathroom closet and there was the white spider, hanging on a string of web attached to the top of the door. It scurried upward and disappeared. I tried to reach up there with the toilet wand, make him come down again. No luck.

Now I was really worried. This guy (don't know the gender, of course) gets around, probably knows my bathroom better than I do. And he likes it here. Or she. I spoke to him again, louder this time and let him know he was not welcome in my bathroom. Or in my house, for that matter. What do I pay those Orkin people for, anyway?  I think he heard me, or I thought he did. But he made no reply and didn't show himself again for about a half hour. 

At that time he made a fatal mistake. Yippee!

He was sitting on the wall above my hamper. This time I said, "Oh, there you are," but not out loud. I didn't want him to hear me and run away. I quietly grabbed some toilet paper, moved close, and got him. The toilet received him, and he was gone.

So I am relieved. But because I knew I wanted to write some kind of report on this personal triumph, I did some research on spiders and their hearing capabilities.

There are no such capabilities. Spiders cannot hear. They don't have ears. They feel vibrations. So say the people who know these things. I suppose they have dissected spider after spider to discover that they have no ears, but how do they know spiders feel vibrations? Have the spiders said something about that? Not to me they haven't.