Rachael

When I’m tired, I’m such a dumb-ass that I scare myself. Yesterday work sucked. Big time. The phones are being upgraded. Unfortunately, that meant they weren’t working well, if at all, for most of the day. Imagine a 911/police department communication center without working phones. I got so stressed out that I went beyond stress and entered this amused zen zone. I just giggled. The new 911 ring-tone sounds like that Close Encounters tone, and it cracked me up every time it rang. Boo-bee-boo-BOO!

Worked overtime, too. And trained all day on the radio, on a really busy day. I was driving home when I realized I had my cell phone open and to my ear. I had been holding it to my ear for at least seven blocks. There was no one there, it hadn’t rung, and I hadn’t dialed anyone. I was just listening. This was so funny to me that I called work (hoping they’d be able to answer) and while I was waiting at the stoplight for Brandy to answer, the guy behind me honked for me to go. I looked up to see if I’d missed the green light. I WAS AT A STOP SIGN. Not a light. And I only go through that intersection eight times a week. So when Brandy picked up the phone, it was to the sound of honking and a maniacal giggle.

I came home and didn’t sleep. No, that would have taken the fun out of my sleepy-high. Instead, I sat on my couch and went through all the ring-tones that I had downloaded to my new-fangled cell phone. Oh, my god. The choice! But technology hasn’t quite caught up yet, at least not with the $79 (upgrade) phones from Verizon. You can download almost any popular song, but each one sounds like it’s being played by some guy with stringy dark hair playing his 1985 electronic keyboard in his mother’s basement in Bakersfield. Pretty much only Coldplay and 80s pop/techno tunes sound good. And if I had Coldplay as my ringtone, I’d…. I’d….. Well, I wouldn’t be me. Let’s just say that.

But 80s tunes, hey. Let’s talk. I could NOT decide between Depeche Mode, the Cure, and A-ha. Oh, the Psychedelic Furs were in the running, too. (And my GAWKs, Cannonball was way up there, but sounded kinda stoopid. Must stick with 80s electronica.) Finally went with “Close to Me” by the Cure. Upbeat. A little silly. With that nostalgic I-wore-Madonna-bracelets-and-I-know-you-did-too kind of thing goin’ on. I would call myself, just for a thrill, but my home phone decided to break today. Lord.

It’s the (my) weekend! Yow!

It’s going to be at least a week before I get the new color Koigu Kersti from darling Rob, which will be a closer match to my dye-lot, hopefully. I love Cromarty. I adore Alice Starmore. But hell, I’m tired of eensy cables. I started the Retro Prep (see IndiGirl Amy for fab examples of this one) in Noro 55, that stone beach colorway. It’s the most muted Noro I’ve ever worked with and I’m in love. TOO excited that I’m going to be doing miles of stockinette. Could not be happier.

I actually cast it on Saturday night, knowing that I’d be training for the next four working days (SMFS). This is the same trainee that I had about four months ago. I got her at the beginning, when she knew nothing. Police dispatch is such a ridiculously detailed, difficult job that it usually takes 4-6 months to learn, and it’s a slow learning curve. At the beginning, I talked all day. I had four weeks of just talking. Just teaching. I never knew you could talk for ten hours at a time, teaching, and still have a million more things you’ll never cover. You’ll never go over every contingency, every emergency, every way things can go wrong. But she’s back with me now, an (almost) proficient dispatcher, and I’m merely listening to her while she dispatches on the radio. I can’t type for her, I can’t talk for her, I can only correct her when necessary. I must have yarn in my hands for this. And I tell you, Noro in stockinette? The perfect thing to keep me from wringing my little hands together. The trainee is really doing amazingly well, but almost every dispatcher is an opinionated person who does things her way, which is, of course, the only right way. It’s SO hard to not take over when things get heated. To let her flounder a little. Oy.

I want to show you a picture of the finished front of Ms. C. But that means I have to dig out my camera, plug it in, download the snaps, choose one, resize it, save it, yadda yadda. Don’tcha just get freakin’ lazy sometimes?

Oh, all right. Hang on.

There. Here y’are:

And one for scale:

Thanks for all the condolences sent to Christy. It shows (again) the loving side of blogdom, and it means a lot to us. Really. Think of her some more if you can. It’s lonely, losing a friend like that. Love you, Christy. I’m proud of you.

The kitties are adjusting. Slowly. Digit howls a lot in the morning. Oh, does he howl. Oh, do I howl back. But in the old place, they were NOT buddies. Occasionally Digit would accidentally sit next to Adah and then think better of the choice. When they’re at my Mom’s house, however, they’re the best of pals. Any friend in enemy territory, I guess. I’m going to try to foster that here. It may mean letting Adah outside sometimes, along with Digit, even though I hate to do that. She has a bad habit of moving in with other families without asking. She doesn’t care who loves her, as long as someone does. Slut.

But in this new territory, they’re still pals. I love this one:

They’re sleeping, by George.

Ha!

And this one’s good, too:

And in the next one, they’re bonding over their inability to KILL THAT HUMMINGBIRD that’s just outside the screen.

And I had to get a new cell phone for embarrassing reasons like
1) discovering that tile floor really IS that hard
2) needing to get a phone number off old, broken phone (Verizon dumps your old numbers into your new phone – tell me your cell phone isn’t your real phone book, too).
So, while I was there, I upgraded for $79 to the photo phone. I know it’s crap quality, I’ll be kicking myself when the technology’s better (in about thirteen minutes or so) but here’s one of the first snaps:

So, as you see, my kits are doing well. BUT-

RIP Sebastian

My sister Christy’s kitty Sebastian, however, had to go over the Rainbow Bridge on Wednesday. He was a rescue kitty – Christy adopted him from a vet’s back room. He had been dropped off and never picked up. Bastards. But their loss was her gain. He was just shy of nineteen years old. She loved loved loved loved him so much that she made up for the time he had spent in that little box waiting for his new, loving mama.

With her permission, I give you the email she sent family and friends. I was going to paraphrase it, but she says it just right. I daren’t change a word.

Hi friends- I am sad because yesterday I had my little kitty Sebastian put to sleep. he became really sick pretty quickly, until he could not longer sit up or hold up his head, so instead of more expensive vet treatments that were not likely to prolong his life more than a few days, I made the very hard decision that he had lived his life and it was time to go. Thank you all for being so kind and nice, and for caring about my little kitty. I only had him for a year and he was in pretty beat-up shape when I got him, but he was a darned good cat, tough as nails and sweet as pie, and I will miss him. He was probably about 20 years old. Good night, Sebastian. -Christy

* “My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.” Richard Adams, Watership Down.

Home now. We had a lovely warm drive up the coast. The cats and I both do better with the top down. They don’t cry as much and just stare out of their carriers at the trees flashing by. It must seem like a really great big TV. Or maybe they’re so terrified that they can’t open their mouths to scream. I don’t think it’s that, though.

They’re prowling now. Digit is upset. But hey, he’s always upset about something, isn’t he? Adah has settled right in, and she went straight to her new scratching post and scratched it. How does she KNOW to do that?

Mom and I had a wonderful day yesterday, chock full of things neither of us had to do. The best kinds of things, like lunch at Robin’s in Cambria, sitting on their outdoor porch, avocado and melted jarlsberg on a wheat croissant…. Shopping idly at Ball and Skein, buying nothing (what is this world coming to?). Wandering up the coast a little farther, to Piedras Blancas, where the elephant seals lay out. Holy cow, I love those things. They’re just too silly looking to survive, and yet, they do. The big males are pretty darn disgusting (they can reach over nine thousand pounds), but all the moms and babies are hysterical. They yell and bawk and squish over each other, and they make me laugh.

A bunch of ’em:

One smiling:

Two smiling:

Yes, the shower is fabulous. I was rather ridiculous, really, adjusting the way it [what – pulses? Jets?] shoots water out, depending on what I was doing. I used the pow-pow action for my back and neck, the reg’lar old hard shower for most of the body, then switched it to gentle mist for my face, and back to pow-pow to wash the soap out of the washcloth.

That kind of routine could get old really quickly. But it was fun for the first time.

I’m right now sitting on Mom’s back porch, my laptop on my knees, my two babies at my feet. Digit didn’t RUN at me this time, he kind of ambled thoughtfully when he heard me calling. “I want to go see her, but I know what she did. And she might do it again.” He’s forgiven me now that I’ve shared a little clam chowder with him.

It was the most remarkable drive. I think I always forget how perfect this time of year is for driving down the coast. It was warm inland, but not broiling. I put the top down about two hours out of San Luis, just north of King City. (Then I had to pull over and repack the pillows which threatened several times to lift off.) The low hills are so violently GREEN, and the sky is that clear pale blue. My favorite wild flower, the mustard blossom, is everywhere, making golden swathes across the green. Cows and sheep and the occasional llama, oh my! When I came over the Cuesta Grade and dropped in San Luis Obispo, it got a little too warm. But the best part of being too warm here is coming up the slight grade out of San Luis and catching your first sight of the Pacific since San Francisco. The air instantly (no exaggeration) cools and I pulled off the freeway to drive the surface streets. Joanna wrote about it recently – the way convertibles offer so much more in the way of olfactory fun. It doesn’t make that much sense – you would think you would smell almost as much with all the windows down, but you don’t. And in Shell Beach, I could smell salt and fog and dirt and fresh mown grass and gas from the freeway and lumber from a new hotel being built. And jasmine.

Oh. Oh, oh, oh. My friend Trish said the other day, “Rachael, I think you have a good life.” I’m scared when people say something like that, lest we jinx it and I end up horribly maimed and/or paralyzed after being struck by a sink stopper that has fallen from a passing Southwest jet in need of bathroom repairs. (If that does happen, however, I am opening a psychic center, and you will all be my first customers.)

But I don’t think we jinx ourselves. Or if we do, we can also jinx ourselves into happiness. It is such a goddamn beautiful kind of world, and people are so INTERESTING. Go out today and see something fabulous. Then tell me about it, kay?

Mwah.

https://rachaelherron.com/yes_the_shower_/

Ahhh. It’s the weekend. My weekend, that is. I slept late this morning (till eight), and I’m now sitting in the living room with the blinds drawn, eating apple pie that Kira made, and drinking strong Italian coffee. I’m going to blog, pack, and get the hell outta Dodge, so I’m not even bothering to open the blinds. I’d just have to draw them again in an hour. And even with the blinds closed, this new apartment is still so light. I adore it. I’ve always considered myself something of a mole, having always lived in places with very little natural light. I thought I liked it that way. But I like it this way, too. It’s a happy sun-dance kind of place.

Anyway, this morning I’m off for a drive down the coast to the little mama’s house. She’s doing super, for those of you keeping track. A couple of weeks ago the endocrinologist determined what Mariko’s wonderful friend had already figured out – she had had a virus attack her thyroid, causing the thyroid dump which then led to the five months of being so terribly sick. Now she’s just getting better and better…. And she was better enough to watch my kitties while I moved! I had hoped for a two week break from them, but actually got a three week one – what with moving, visitors, and DMV woes, I haven’t been able to leave town until today. I miss those stupid cats soooo much. I’ve been sleeping like a rock, no Adah to claw my lip at three in the morning when she wants food, no Digit to howl at the windows at five, but I miss them like CRAZY. I’m a little worried about moving them into the new place, but hey. They’ll adapt. Right? All their stuff is here (and a new scratching post, too!), and everything’s unpacked…. The only trauma they’ll have to deal with is adjusting to the space itself. And one of my favorite things in life is to get to Mom’s after the kitties have been visiting, if I’ve been out of the country or somethin’, and to walk to the back door, calling Digit. He gallumps gallumps gallumps all the way up from the back yard, tearing up to me as if I’m The One. Then he brakes, skids, takes a pet to the ears and saunters away, all cool again. But those little thumping feet, racing toward me….. I love that.

But before I leave, I have to take a shower. When I moved in, the water pressure out of the shower was pretty bad, but in the last week, it’s become just too horrible. I stand every morning under this drip of water, half the time skipping washing my hair because it just takes too damn long to get all the soap out. Last night after work, I went to the miracle all-night Longs and bought a shower head. I looked at the four dollar ones, which looked just fine. Matched the one I already had. Then I looked at the Cadillac, the WaterPik Adjustable Mister Spa Handheld. Yup. I got that one. AND put it in by myself, thank you very much. When it comes to knitting tools, I’m no slouch. Real tools, eh. I could take ‘em or leave ‘em. This required a wrench, which I don’t believe I own. But my hand and an old washcloth seemed to get it tight enough, and it worked on its trial MistTheTub experiment. And oh, the pressure!

In fact, I have to go now. The Mister’s calling. And I ain’t talking ‘bout no mister.

(I put up some Bethy pictures….)