Keeping an eye on the neighbors

This morning my eastward neighbor woke me up as usual.  I don't talk about the neighbors much. The house is a rental and seems to rent to a pretty tatty demographic.  The selection gets worse with every new set that moves in.  The latest ones are pretty impressive. 
They are oil patch workers, and their hobby is a truck that they take to shows.  The tires on the truck would pay for a furnace, and the rest of the truck seems to be of the same sort, fearfully expensive and high maintenance.
I have talked to the guys on occasion.  They are polite and pleasant and look like they spend their time off drinking and playing music that would sterilize frogs at forty paces at a decibel volume just under a jet takeoff. 
They are gone for a week, here for a week, with someone who stays here to keep care of everything. 
I have seen her twice in the seven months they have lived here.  The first time was seeing her out on the back porch shrieking and banging on the patio door about " lemme have my stuff! I need my stuff! Goddammit you almighty f^(%head, Gimme my Stuff!"  This was about 11 at night in February with the below zero temps.
she did get in and who knows what it was about.
The second time I saw her she was shit faced drunk and fell off the back porch.
So, not someone that I would find a kindred spirit.

So at 7 am this morning, when I would like to take the one day I can to sleep in a bit, I hear one of the guys coughing and hacking with a rising volume until he begins to retch.  This is loud enough to sound like he is on the back porch.  I check out the window.  Nope.  He is producing his magnificent volume of noise from the bedroom.
It's been a long summer living next to them.  I hope the heat breaks soon. 

sacrificing grasshoppers to the poo bah

some how after a very long time in stagnation things are moving along with a vengeance.
A long time ago I applied for weatherization and we had our application accepted.  Not very long ago we called and asked if anyone would be coming out to do anything ever. I guess that we poked them in a tender place because we got a notice not long after, that someone would be out on the 24th, which at 8:30 this morning they were. 
Three guys examined and tested and climbed into attic spaces and looked (god help us ) at the furnace.  Some of the numbers are in, and some of the numbers depend on how many grasshoppers they sacrifice to the grand government Poo bahs.  If the grasshoppers and the numbers add up we get a new furnace, the attic insulated, the crawl space vapor barriered, and a new refrigerator.  We might also get a new hot water heater, it depends on the government to grasshopper ratio.
My water says that the furnace is a go and the heater is a maybe, but they have guaranteed that I will by gum get a new refrigerator.
The Footless Man supervised all this from his wheelchair looking as forlorn and crippled up as possible, as well as footless.  They told him that they would clean out underneath the house to put in the vapor barrier, so he gets the crud pile under the house removed and doesn't have to hire it done.
I await developments breathlessly.

That was wierd

I wanted to go down and have an afternoon with the Erstwhile Child.  We thought that a treat such as the Real Pirates would be a nice decompressing afternoon.
Somehow the nice calm afternoon together turned into an outing at the Museum that included the Mother-out-law (a very nice lady) and the youngest son.  The family tree is messy.  Anyway I spent a lot of time with two people that I never thought I would be able to spend time with at all, due to some circumstances that could only be engineered by God. Then I got tangled in traffic and ended up spending the night in Boulder with my parents, Nothing I had planned at all.  I got back to find that we have been approved for weatherization on the 24th.  God's Steering cause I sure ain't.

Retro fitting

The process of taking a reasonable but meh piece of clothing and making it fit, removing things that make it look frumpy and generally making it over in your better image.
I have come to the conclusion that the mid summer weeks deserve a wardrobe of their own.  This is a new idea to me, but I come to things slow.
My usual manner of getting a wardrobe begins by taking a tour of a thrift shop.  My usual budget runs about twenty bucks.  Then I take my findings and do whatever needs to be done to make them into things that I would wear.  I like capri pants for summer wear.  I prefer cargo pockets.  Baggy is ok up to a point, the point being looking like I am wearing  clothes that belong to my mom. (she has excellent taste but she is bigger by six sizes)
Shopping in a thrift store means that sizing is as varied as the brands that land there.  I am looking specifically for linen.  It wicks sweat and it does not cling.  I actually found a pair of linen pants that it would be easy to take up around the waist.  It has a cargo pocket and looked like a simple retro fit.  Then I looked at the hems.  Oh holy heavens what designer thought this up?  The bottom of the pants had ruffles.  army green linen pants with ruffles.  Then I found a nice shirt.  Purple is a good color and the tag says XS.  again, right fiber it was linen.  so I get my goodies home.
The pants took about an hour to tighten the elastic, remove the ruffles and shorten and finish them off with a bias band.
I think the extra small was the size of the whale the shirt was supposed to fit.  I looked like I was second hand Rose.  It took three hours to open the seams and get the sleeves off and to cut four inches out of each side.  It took fifteen minutes to resew it all.  next week I visit another store and do it again.  By the mid week in August when the heat breaks, I will have a whole mid summer wardrobe of linen shirts and pants good for the next year.  I can pack it into a box and let it wait until the thermometer hits the ninety's next summer.

I don't know what to say

Time has come to address the issue of the cabin at Conifer Hill.  I know it, I understand it, I get it.  However.  I also am dealing with the following things. Work and work related issues including sharing my office with two other people,  Bills and finances, Brad and the increasing unstable blood sugar problems.  The heat and my health. refinancing the house and the repairs that will take.  I am tired, tapped out and overwhelmed.
We don't need to do anything until this fall, back off and cool off. of all the things I need to do this one can wait.  We need to get things down and distributed but we don't need to do it now. 
Mom, please don't tell several people that they can have the same things, it causes confusion and discord. 
Boys, please have a think about what would be important for you to have.  nothing there is worth a fight, trust me this is so.  I am thinking about what can be done to make this as fair as possible.  please back up it isn't the end of the world and we have time.
love, Mom

RELEASE THE FLYING MONKEYS AND BRING ME MY BICYCLE!

For Michael

Light a candle for Michael

who dive bombed heads and toes

and was mightily plagued by bed mice and laundry lumps

Light a candle for Michael

Who played peck-a-tail with magpies

and tag team chased squirrels with Merry

Light a candle far Michael

who came bearing gifts of snakes and mice

and decorated chairs with feathers

For Michael who slept on James

and followed him,

a shadow in the grass

a tail tip above the seed heads

escorting him out to play.

For Michael who stayed behind 

as his brother and sisters slipped away

who stayed on as his people grew up and moved on

and kept company with the ones left behind.

Light a candle for Michael 

who stayed on with aching hips

and dimming eyes and muffled ears

to love and cuddle and keep company

Light a candle for Michael

sitting at the edge of life

looking into the distance

waiting for the fading night to set him free.