Weather above freezing, or back to winter in Ohio

Temps have been below freezing temperatures since before Christmas. Wisconsin was below freezing for the entire visit. Easily forgiven; it’s located in the middle of winter. But, we came home to another week plus of below zero weather. I know, the east coast was hammered, but I don’t live there.

I can remember writing before of polar vortexes and Alberta clippers, and having to explain the latter, as it is a more local term for a cold temperature system out of Alberta, across the plains of Montana, the Midwest, the Great Lakes, where it increases velocity, decreases temperatures and adds snow from the open lakes.

The current weather system is out of reckoning. In retrospect, I am grateful we escaped Milwaukee with two de-icings and one airport closure for plowing. I didn’t expect to return home to snowed in. Or out, as the case may be. Before we went to Wisconsin, I hired a twelve year old kid a couple of doors down to shovel my drive and my neighbor’s, and clean our stairs and decks.

We came home to an impassable drive, and parked in the street. Laura shoveled one path and cleaned the porch enough to get in. The next day she spent two hours cleaning both drives, porches, and cars. Or, ten bucks an hour. I put aside another forty dollars to get through the current spate of drive shoveling, and have ten left. Laura turned an extra fifty dollars since we got home from Christmas. My young hireling has not appeared.

School recommenced last Wednesday, and was cancelled Thursday and Friday because temps were well below zero. It was good small children were not waiting for buses or walking to school, but I had appointments to keep. I just counted—ten  since last Tuesday. I am so grateful my car battery died and was replaced last year.

I went to lunch with a gentleman friend to a new restaurant I thought I knew enough about. But the grade was slightly downhill and the pavement sneaker sole deep in that salt melt slush. I eyeballed at least a hundred and fifty feet to the door and was reaching back in for my cane when my friend parked next to me in his ostentatious red four door Chevy truck. I would never set foot in that truck, but I gratefully accepted an arm.

I came home, and little miss neat informed me she could not put away the Christmas tree because the storage boxes are in the shed and the shed key is frozen. I stopped at the market last night for a frozen “dinner”, having left the cook to overnight at a friend’s. I read the labels.

Everything I might have selected had well over five hundred grams of salt! I came home and steamed the last bag of spinach, which I ate with an obscene amount of butter and stale bread to soak up the spinach juice. On the way down the apple aisle I notice the train is still circuiting the tree. Perhaps their shed locks are frozen, too.

Minus four overnight last night, below freezing yet today and tomorrow. But it seems by Monday we can unlock the shed door and store Christmas for another year.

The Party’s Over

I count myself among the millions of us personally responsible for inching the rudder of the ship of state. Today Doug Jones was sworn in as the Senator from Alabama; the advantage reduced to 51 to 49. Don’t think the phone calls, the post cards, the background noise were of no use. Every pebble tossed into the water starts half a hundred ripples on the move.

Those are the ripples we see. Never discount the ripples of kindness. A helping hand. A firm opinion.

The party’s over; the new year is rung in, the work is begun. Several time’s I’ve mentioned the American’s of Conscience ActionChecklist; a weekly summary published by Jenn Hofmann, of things to do this week. Check out the current issue, pick one job and do it. Subscribe and see how easy it is to help magnify the ripples.

My two issues this week were opposing the appointment of Thomas Farr to the US District Court. In all fairness, half of my senators already are opposed, so I can ring Portman’s phone twice as often and nick him on a laundry list of issues he needs persuasion of.

The other issues are national voting by mail and DACA. This last will never go away until it does.

Ms. Hofmann began the current newsletter by advocating being kind to yourself. She gave a list of self affirming  actions, and I will double my efforts on my favorite one—lunch with a friend! I’m with Bilbo on this one. There is nothing wrong with two breakfasts in one day, and surely nothing wrong with lunch with two friends. Or two lunches with two friends.

You see what I mean. Let’s get busy again, or I’ll be playing Joe Hill in my posts. Forty four weeks to midterm elections.

Wheelchairs and haircuts

My last Wisconsin story, until we go back again. This is about wheelchair transport through airports, but it has a flash back that women will recognize and men won’t, I think.

Imagine four or five women, sitting around a motel room in the nineties, drinking wine, sorting world problems. All artists, passing a couple of evening hours before getting a night’s sleep and opening booths the next day.

The conversation turned to the question, What if You Run Out of Clean Underwear? One of us, a real life nurse accompanying her artist friend for the weekend said she had done so, at a convention, and solved the problem by turning them inside out the second day and adding a panty liner she found in her purse the third day. Now her purse was never without panty liners.

At this point in my life I didn’t recognize the word, but did locate and lay in a supply. I’ve used them from time to time ever since. Over the course of the major brain injury that changed my life last spring, I learned “panty liners” start as large as adult diapers and grade on down to a minute panty liner. In between, they are called pads. End of back story.

When I booked the flight to Milwaukee, I added wheel chair assistance for me. My single other wheel chair assist flight was an assist disaster; the wheel chair wait exceeded the fight time; Ann was stranded at baggage claim and couldn’t even go through security with a chair to set things right. So, I was persistent about the service beyond courtesy.

The little Travelociy gnome was polite beyond belief, but every time I ended the phone call he must have beat his gnome hat to dust in frustration. Yes, there would be a chair everywhere I wanted a chair. And, there was a chair, and a uniformed chair operator. I was a grand sight in two terminals; me in a chair, a uniformed chair mover and a granddaughter keeping pace while maneuvering two suitcases through crowds.

At airport security, which I’ve handled on my own in past, my handler presented credentials, my granddaughter supervised the luggage brigade, her shoes and our coats down the conveyor. I joined the wheelchair line. Only one chair at a time goes through security. I paid no attention to the two ahead of me; I was keeping an eye on the conveyor belt.

My turn. I stood in the machine and set off all alarms. I qualified for shoe removal and a full pat down. This, for me, was basic What the Effing Hell, but I zipped my lip, followed instructions, got my shoes back and we went to gate C27 in Cleveland. Poor Laura. Poor wheelchair pusher.

The incident totally slipped my mind until the return flight. I stepped into the scanner and set off all the alarms. Except shoes. Shoes passed. This time I had to know, and the pleasant mid-western body patter said “Do you wear a pad? They set off the machine and trigger a pat down.” There you have it ladies! An itsy bitsy, teeny weeny liner scans as “Underwear Bomber!” Leave all of them in your luggage, where they pass unnoticed. 'Nuff said.

Laura had a haircut this morning. I sat on a chair and read my email. Then I looked across the room and realized I’d not seen a haircut of this magnitude before. Her verdict: the longer it is, the more fun to cut off A Lot.

A cook’s trinity

Ann and Pat each work long, hours. Ann manages the kennel; Pat is a lost wax engineer for a major foundry. Ann enlisted Laura at once last week as Personal Assistant. They made a shopping list for cookies and meals for a week, and the PA was left mostly to her own devices.

Laura is the cook here at Dale 23, and a stubborn little cook. She believes Pinterest and Mr. Google only. No suggestion of mine ever has been entertained, though my three edicts remain: neither soy nor Worcestershire will be an ingredient, and there will be a vegetable with every supper. And we rub comfortably along.

Ann, however, is a person of awe. Laura has heard about her for years. Grandma has slipped up to Wisconsin once or twice a year for most years Laura has known. Ann must be a real force in the universe. Not to mention, Ann taught Grandma to make Burning Love, one dish Laura serves because she confirmed it on the internet, and it is good.

Laura was tasked with Christmas dinner, turkey and trimmings. Her expertise was limited to mashed potatoes. She swallowed hard and forged on, with Ann’s instructions.

At my request, there were no Brussels sprouts. The first time in thirty odd years I have not endured Brussels sprouts at a holiday meal, nor agreed, “It wouldn’t be (name of holiday) without Brussels sprouts.”

The turkey duly buttered up and confined to the oven, attention turned to sides. Laura scrubbed up potatoes. “Not peeled,” she announced. No dissent. Ann produced a bag of stale bread for dressing, Laura produced other ingredients Ann called out. “Now, you chop the trinity,” Ann instructed a very blank face. “The what?”

“The cook’s trinity. Celery, carrot, onion, for the dressing.” Laura went on to prepare fresh green beans, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce (which flipped from Yuck to Yummy in her repertoire, having learned to make the real deal), gravy, and a dish of peas and carrots. “Your Grandma loves them!”

An entire drumstick, the chief cook's reward. And cranberry sauce to dress a week of leftovers!

And for John, Scotch eggs at a restaurant on the way to the airport. In Wisconsin they are made with bratwurst and served with mustard and sauerkraut. Good.

Everything I know about dogs

Our week in Wisconsin was wonderful. Laura's first plane trip wasn't exactly a disappointment as much as ninety minutes of nothing, each way. We departed in dense fog, we returned in dense snow. Our trip home was delayed so long by two de-iceings and concurrent closure of the Milwaukee airport for runway plowing I was afraid the flight would be cancelled. It was merely late.  Pilots want to be home as much as passengers.

If you've been here a while, you know Pat and Ann. They help people and rescue dogs. The former is their nature; the latter came their way their first winter in Wisconsin, twenty years ago. Pat realized half a dozen huskies kenneled behind a barn he passed going to work actually were abandoned, no humans left. 

A veterinary friend helped him free the dogs and move them to a kennel erected at Pat and Ann's old farm. The huskies had several more good years, though never socialized. The last year they presented their saviors a litter of pups, one of whom survived. Fluke became a house dog, and has been gone only a few years now. 

All the dogs in the house learn their place in the pack. Some go to the outdoor kennel, which has become an eight pack unit with insulated dog houses and heated water bowls. Let's just say they failed at living in the house, though some Malmutes, huskies and Samoyeds  only came in to say hello and gratefully return to Wisconsin winters outdoors.

Probably my best group portrait of some house residents. Back left, Shotzy, back right, Chica. Front left, Sawyer, front right, Freija. Shotz and Chica are border collie mix. Sawyer is a shaved to the scalp golden, Freija is a husky mix. 

For the last ten years Pat and Ann own a commercial kennel and grooming business. Shotz was boarded there, and abandoned by her owner. Freija was found along a road several years ago, injured and pregnant. She was rescued by the ASPCA, but failed several adoption attempts. Saved by Pat and Ann.

Sawyer is a golden retriever with  textbook ADHAD  to an elevated degree. He has flunked out of three aide dog schools. According to Pat, he is brilliant and unfocused. The last school that sent him back was Cadaver Dog school. He could find them, call for assistance, then leave to chase a butterfly.

Chica is an ASPCA reject. Pat and Ann occasionally fostered for them. Chica was returned from her adoptions. Ann says "she's a border collie; what do they expect?" Of course she herds anything that moves.

Here we have Henry, Sawyer and Freija. Henry is a full bore Springer. Another "what did they expect?" story. An old couple owned a Springer from their younger days. He grew old and sedentary; they thought they'd get him a companion. They forgot their old guy was strong and on the go in his younger days. They couldn't handle the new pup. Henry is probably five or six now, and I make sure I am fastened to something when he comes by.

Here are Chica, who you're already met, and Shikera, a Yorkipoo. She's likable, but  I've never grasped the attraction. Shikera also was not reclaimed from boarding. All these dogs are in constant re-training, through no fault of their own. In the picture with Henry, Pat is giving a hand signal to one or the other of the dogs. 

The dogs earn their place in the home and the pack through good behavior. It is their misfortune the original owners acquired them for the wrong reason. It is their great good fortune Pat and Ann will see them through to the end, or find them a suitable adoptive family.

Pat and Ann used to say to the dogs, five hundred dollars and you're gone. Do you remember the beautiful silver husky, maybe five years ago? He had osteoarthritis at a young age, broke a hind leg that did not knit well. Eventually it was amputated. Pat or Ann helped him up and down the steps for another year or two. The ledger pages apparently disintegrate at five hundred dollars.

If you take in an animal, the responsibility is until death do you part. 

Shikera spent the week with Laura, on the sofa, while Laura and Pat watched (or re-watched) Pat's extensive collection of everything cinema.

Miscellaneous left over dog pictures. I never had a head on opportunity with Henry; always in motion unless commanded to sit. I never got in front of him. He is fifty pounds of muscle and steel, waiting to be sent on a job.