2009-10-19 - 3:52 p.m.

January 16, 2000

It's been terrifically cold the last few days. Yesterday, the warmest it got was -11 C. The soil is like iron and, now, the air has warmed up just enough to snow. Fine flakes are sifting down with a deliberateness that indicates we're going to get a good ground cover, finally. So far, it's been an "open winter." That's hard on the old folks; seems like more colds and flu get spread around when we don't get much snow.

Kate and I went out for a walk last night, before the snowstorm rolled in. The moon was just a bit larger than 1/2, yet so bright that it made strong shadows. The Hunter (Orion) was high in the southern sky and the moon was close to Aldebaran, like a target for his bow. The whole sky was amazingly clear; the stars so brilliant that I stood gawking like a tourist until the cold began to penetrate my three layers of pants and jackets.

It always pays to go out after the neighbors have turned off their yard-lights, and Kate usually tells me that she would like to take a spin around the neighborhood some time between 10 and 11 p.m. Last night, it was -24 C when we were gallavanting about in the moonlight, admiring the stars. Kate was keen on getting into the warmth of the house, even though she told me that there were some of those "strange llamas" (white-tailed deer) up in the orchard that ought to be in the barn on a night like this.

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January 17, 2000

9:15 a.m.

Wow!!! Went out to get the van started and shovelled out a little over an hour ago, all bundled up, with gloves and all. After 15 minutes in that wind, my hands were so stiff and cold I couldn't work any more. When I got back inside, I had all I could do to get my gloves off. Hands were cold and numb. After warming them over the teakettle, they stung and prickled to such an extent that I wondered if they were frost-bitten. Guess I stopped in the nick of time, as they are functional now, though pink and a bit strange-feeling.

Called Lea and said I wouldn't be in for a while. This seems like a good day to stay put. Kate refused to go out at sunrise for her usual neighborhood patrol. She came out with me when I shovelled, but wanted to huddle in the van, not run around. I shall have to force her out for a walk with me when the sun gets a bit higher, just to keep her bowels "regular."

Right now, Kate is politely begging for my toast-with-peanut-butter, sniffing and rolling her eyes between the toast and me. She will do about anything for peanut butter, even let me cut her toenails.

The weatherguy said we got 7 inches of powder in this area. Yup, that's probably right, but it's blowing and drifting like crazy. It was packed so tight against the van's wheels that it took quite a little effort to dig it out, like digging through the ridge that the snowplow throws up in the mouth of the driveway.

This snow ridge is called a "heater bank" locally, pronounced "HEE-tah baynk." This term comes from the days when the roads were rolled for sleighs, rather than plowed. The farmers took turns, bringing out their teams of horses or oxen to pull the town-owned roller along their share of the roads.

10:30 a.m. Weather update; wind 32 mph gusting to 40, temp 9 F [-13 C], which adds up to a windchill of -35 F or -37 C. So the windchill was most likely -40 when I was out there. I've heard that Inuit hunters stay indoors when it's that low. The surprising thing was that the van started, abet with a lot of tries and encouragement from me. That battery is halfway through its third winter.

Just checked the temp in the bedroom, 47 degrees F [8.3 C]. Last night, I closed off the back of the house and slept on the couch. The pepper plants look a little droopy this a.m., but most of the plants in the sunroom seem to be taking it well. The furnace is running a lot, but I've still got about 80 gallons of #2 fuel oil, which is good for a week of this kind of weather. I generally keep the thermostat at 65 F [18 C], except for an hour or so around the time that I take a shower. Makes for an easier adjustment to the outside; at least that's my theory.

9:40 p.m.EST(US) The wind has slowed to around 10 mph, but it's still Arctic air out there: 1 degree F/ -17 C. I stuck my nose out a few minutes ago to put coffee grounds in the compost. Kate looked at me as if I were nuts. Dolly Parton, one of my cats, (she's little, but she's loud) is on my lap and resting her front paws on my left forearm. A great help! ;-) She is a blond, with long eyelashes, and has a way of looking from under them with a sort of thoughtful, calculating manner that is rather disquieting.

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January 18, 2000

23:00 /11 p.m. -- It's 4 degrees F /-15 C out there. Good thing I didn't look before Kate and I went out to play in the snow in the moonlight. It's gorgeous tonight. Moon's nearly full and, with the snow cover, visibility is really good. The wind swept most of the snow off the field just south of the house, especially in the area where the llamas grazed last summer. So footing was good and we capered around in great glee. Kate loves to run full tilt directly at me and veer just slightly at the last second. I crouch and whirl like a bullfighter, and applaud her. Then she charges from a different angle, with a big silly dog-grin on her mug. Ten minutes of that leaves her well-warmed up and panting great clouds of steam.

David, who's house is in the pine grove next to the apple orchard, knocked on the door around 7 p.m. and asked if I'd like my yard plowed out [for free!] He and his brother were there, and he said not to bother to come out. He'd be glad to move the van for me. What a sweetheart!!! He is Maurine's nephew. (She's my best friend here in town.) When I went out to thank him for doing it, he said that if that storm predicted for Thursday warrants it, he'll stop by and brush it out again. He's the nicest one of Richard's kids. He's the one who helped me move Theeny's body out to the burial ground last November.

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January 19, 2000

22:30

A horde of cats are besieging me! Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm eating a teriyaki chicken sandwich. They got the trimmings while I was making it. BIG mistake!!!

Possum, the alpha queen, gets to sit on my knee and give me the "big eyes." Remember those big-eyed kids and pets who inhabited those kitchen kitch pictures 20-odd years ago? Well, that's what she's doing, practically weeping for a taste of my sandwich. Her children and grandchildren are hovering around, hoping I'll drop a bit.

I'm trying different things and working on developing a template, so's I can get away from using FrontPage Express. From what I hear, FrontPage X is hard to view in some browsers, so I'd really like to hear from any of you about what this looks like. I made this page in Notepad.

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January 24

This morning I got off to work later than normal, after quashing two, yes 2, telemarketers! Since when do they call in the morning? Credit cards and books they were selling... I'm afraid I was a bit rude to the book lady, "I don't want any more books. I've GOT to leave for work! G'bye!"*click*

So the fuel oil man called me at work to tell me that he couldn't deliver for $1.02 as promised. It's $1.30 a gallon now, and will be $1.50 at least, when he gets his next delivery. It appears that the big oil refiners are going hog-wild, jacking up prices to the independent retail dealers. Possibly, that's because they are locked into contracts with the larger institutional buyers, but I have me doubts. Their track record is bad.

I work for a small weekly newspaper, sort of a "Gal Friday," in that I answer the phone, deal with the public, do the bookkeeping, and assist the editor, Lea. She and I are the only paid staff. Two advertizing salesmen work on commission, one graphics worker is an independent contractor (that's the new term for a journeyman typesetter). He creates the ads and sets up the pages on a computer. Everything else is done by volunteers! And thereby hangs a tale...

The Town Line, our 'paper, used to be a regular newspaper, with an owner/publisher and so forth. The founders decided to retire, sold the paper to a pair of fellows who ran it for ten months and shut it down because they were losing money. A group of the local townspeople were so upset at losing "their" paper that they started a fund-raising drive to buy the physical assets and begin publishing again. The lawyer who got the paper incorporated as a non-profit became our "angel" by loaning us money and space in her office building. So, now we serve the six towns under a Board of Directors drawn from the membership. The paper's organization is still evolving; the Board is working on Bylaws, and we intend to get 501(c)3 status (so people's donations will be tax-deductible). March will mark our first anniversary under this arrangement.

It's a slow process, building the business back up. We're a good team, though. Lea has been the editor for over ten years, so she knows the business and the area we cover very well. The sales manager, Carl, is full of enthusiasm and ideas for building advertisement sales. He had retired from being sales manager for a large insurance company, but you just can't put a good salesman out to pasture.

Our volunteer coordinator, Faith, is an human dynamo in her 70's who also writes a column for the paper. She's not the oldest columnist, though. A retired newspaperwoman in her 80's writes for us regularly. Beatrice grew up in our area and likes to "keep her hand in." Marie and Gladys donate 4 hours on Tuesdays typing news stories into computers. Marge comes in every Wednesday to proofread and do drawings to go with stories and ads. Sandy, a mother who home-schools, is an experienced layout person, and donates her Thursdays to create the "mechanicals" that we send to the printer. Fridays, a varying crew, led by Faith and Larry, prepare our bulk mailing (450 subscribers), and Priscilla and Fred deliver the 3,500 free copies to stores and other public places in the six towns. Larry and Nancy also help me with filing and organizing things in the office. All in all, a grand crew with which to work!!!

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January 23, 2000

My parents (who are in their 80's) and I chatted by phone last night. They are getting thru the flu season with only minor sniffles. They traded the grey Cherokee for a wine-red minivan, which is easier to get into. It's front-wheel drive and Dad finds that it takes a bit of getting used to, but he really likes it (the way it "pulls" thru snow rather than doing the "hoochy-coochy.")

Kate and I delivered the papers to the stores this Fri./Sat. as Priscilla and Fred went to Florida for 2 weeks. They were well out of this very cold weather we've been having. Friday, it was a "pocket blizzard," not much snow but blowing hard, gusts to 60 mph, and 12 degrees F. while it was snowing. When it passed by, it pulled in arctic air behind it and temps dropped to -24 F. at night and single numbers Sat. Winds slowed to 25 mph, gusting to 35. I bundled up and did the deliveries, listening to cancellation announcements on my van's radio and getting concerned comments from storekeepers. It was a nasty little storm, only a couple inches {5 cm.} of snow, though. Coming south by the broad fields of French's market gardens, the snow was swirling like surf, 10 meters in the air. When I drove into it, I was driving by memory, not by eye. Visibility was about 3 meters or ten feet. The wind was so strong that it was tearing up the snow deposited 3 days before and mixing it into what was falling at the time. I got most of the route done Friday, but held off on Albion and the east side of China Lake to do on Sat.

I had my copilot with me. Kate looked rather tense, hunched forward, and glancing at me whenever the wind buffeted the van. Kate hasn't been out in anything like that before.

Sat., stopped in to visit with San on the way to Albion. She was just pulling cookies out of the oven!!! We had coffee and cookies, and gabbed for an hour or so. She resigned her job Fri after driving home in the bliz, with a paycheck she described as "one week's pay for two weeks' work.". She had been working at the Digital plant in Augusta. She gave me Nana Butler's date-filled cookie recipe, and I'm going to post it to my website.

Sat. was clear, but the wind was bitter. Kate needed a rabies shot to get her dog license, so we went to the one-day clinic in Albion. There were over 70 cars there, most with multiple dogs. [One guy had 8!!!] We were #43, so sat in the van for half an hour, then stood in the wind for 10 minutes, longer than I wanted, for sure. I dressed Kate in a sweatshirt, and nobody laughed. She buddied up with an elderly "mama" dog who looked like she was part Airdale and part coyote, with completely grey muzzle and wise eyes. The clinic was at the town hall and was orchestrated smoothly. Three of the vets from the Windsor Vet Hosp. were there in the Town Hall lobby and were averaging 4 dogs a minute in the 10 minutes I stood outside, including the paperwork.

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January 25

Wild day! The hard drive crashed on the bookkeeping computer when Lea tried to get into it. Troy quit; he's the other ad-salesman. The Mac that I do classifieds and obits on had a tantrum, and the printer decided to print everything in tabloid format rather than normal 8.5 x 11" size. And then there was the blizzard. This was a fullfledged nor' easter! Snowed like crazy; it took me half an hour to drive home [normally takes less than 10 minutes]. I sure was glad to get into my warm house.

This evening the snow turned to sleet, which sounds neat as long as it's slashing at the outsides of the windows and I don't have to go out in it. Kate and I did our evening walk during the little gap between the snow and the sleet, just before 5:30. She was wild to gallop and had a wonderful time during the few minutes of non-precip.

I grabbed the mail out of the box by the road and got into the house fast when the sleet started, you can bet! Kate didn't stand on ceremony either. She scooted right in. In those sort of circumstances, I open the door and stand back, so I don't get knocked over.

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January 26, 2000

I'm trying to write between answering messages from a friend in Melbourne. Yes, Australia! Isn't the Web a gas? Talk about multi-tasking...I'm also cooking supper and food for tomorrow. Sauteing chicken thighs and garlic-&-onion sausage in my old cast iron frying pan, and stewing green beans in spaghetti sauce {something I learned from a Lebanese lady}. It's the garlic and cheese spaghetti sauce, thinned with a little of the water that the green beans come canned in. Sure does wonderful things to plain old green beans!

The part of Maine that I live in has lots of different ethnic groups, so, for those of us who love to try different flavors of food, it's great. Hunan and regular Chinese, Thai, Korean, French-Canadian, Lebanese, and REAL Mexican eateries, are all within an easy drive. Actually, it's only a bit over a half-day drive to Quebec, one of the most European cities of North America.

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January 27, 2000

Poor Baggins is getting his rations down cellar ever since he got the notion that he was going to stink up the house and make advances on the girls. I stopped by the dairy and got him some Jersey milk, which mollified him somewhat. I do miss him sleeping on my feet and giving me a "facial," but can't afford any more kittens. Have to go borrow a cat carrier and make a date with the vet to transform Baggins into a "cat of peace."

The computer [at work] came back from the shop with a new hard drive, but no Office or bookkeeping program installed. I called Intuit and asked them to send us Quick Book Pro 99 via overnight express, so have my weekend scheduled to start reconstruction. [This entry will have to be short as I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, and have to deliver papers tomorrow.]

Happy Trails!!

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1 February 2000

8:50 p.m. Hayden's Cello Concerto #1 is galloping gracefully on the radio. Kate and I have just come back from our romp in the snow, and she is now content to bask in the warm for a while. I brought her some left-over chicken soup when I came home from work which pleased her mightily.

I'm struggling with the new bookkeeping program at work. Right now, it seems like I'll never wrap my brain around the logic of it, but I remember feeling the same about the other program, last summer. I lugged the instruction manual home tonight and need to put in some serious time with it. Lea is taking some of the receptionist load off at work so's I can concentrate, which is helping a lot. But I don't suppose that I can really expect to have it down cold in 2 days.

I gave myself until the end of the month to have everything down pat and squared away. Just today, Lea told me the Board of Directors is meeting the 18th, so I had a well-disguised panic attack, thinking of trying to have proper financial statements ready by then!! AARRGGHH!!! Well, at least I've got the payroll entered correctly for January, and have started entering the Jan. receipts, rebuilding customers' files as I go. Lea thinks she may be able to get a volunteer to do data-entry some mornings this week. Reconstructing all the Jan. invoices should be fun...not! Yet, all it really requires is re-entering the data from the ad insertion sheets. They just won't have the same numbers that I assigned them originally...we'll have to identify them by the newspaper's issue dates.

Carl had a stash of customer statements, everyone who owed us money at the start of January, and I'm reconstructing their files first. Then, when I finish entering the receipts from them, the balances should be up-to-date relatively painlessly.

Well, working with a volunteer is always a little adventure in personal interaction, discovering the best way to get ideas across. The two who re-organized the filing system were great self-starters, needing nearly no supervision. All I had to do was tell them what Carl and I wanted (we're the ones who use the files most often). Then we brainstormed the best tactics to achieve our goals most efficiently.

Back to the basic pleasures of life: I got some Cortland apples the other day that I just can't let alone. I've eaten a whole bag in 3 days! Guess I'll have to go get some more. Don't know what's come over me. I don't normally eat that many apples in a winter.

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February 5, 2000 [8 a.m.]

I've been just too brain-worn to write the last few days. The load at work has been incredible. In addition to trying to rebuild the books, I had to do most of the lay-out Thursday. Sandy's kids were sick, and the car she was using lost its brakes, when she tried to come in and help me get set up.

Yesterday, Priscilla couldn't do the paper delivery. I set out to do that late, as the printer didn't deliver until 11:45. Rush, rush, rush! At 3:35, my van lost its brakes going down a hill toward an intersection and I steered it up a convenient snowbank to stop. I was buckled up properly, but Kate wasn't. However, she is smart about assessing situations and bracing her front feet against the dashboard when it looks like we're going to make a rapid stop. Sadly, there was a traffic light control box in the same snow bank which got nudged slightly. The shop beside the snowbank I landed in turned out to be owned by a lady who has advertised in our paper. Waiting for the police gave us a chance for a good chat. We found we had experiences in common, and she made me a nice cup of coffee to settle me down. I had the shakes after all the excitement. That phenomenon of time slowing and mind racing to deal with the emergency [the adrenalin rush] sure did a number on me.

It took the police 1 & 1/2 hours to get there. (My good neighbor who has a tow-truck was not pleased, either. He said it would be a good time to commit a crime, at shift-change in the police station.) The nice young fellow in a cop suit who showed up was apologetic and said I'd done the right thing to call, even though there was no actual damage. {Apparently, these control boxes are built to take little pushes, such as might be delivered by a snow plow pushing back hard old drifts.}

Kate got to ride home in the van's driver seat, riding backwards. She regards it as her duty to sit in the driver seat when I'm not in the van. She was very pleased to get out when we got here. Bondo took the van down to his repair shop, after dropping us off at the house. It's very handy for me that he lives and works within a mile of my home.

Once I got home, at 5:25 p.m., I called Faith, the volunteer coordinator, to set up a way of getting the rest of the papers delivered. She gave me Neil's phone number, and said she'd do it with me, if he couldn't. Neil has delivered in the past, so he seemed like the most likely candidate. He agreed to do it, starting at 10 o'clock this morning.

8 p.m. update: Neil arrived at 9:30 with his son Bradley and we finished the route by 12:30!!! It's amazing how more hands get work done so quickly. We sorted and counted bundles as Neil drove, then I'd run in with the right amount for each stop. We really had a good time.

I was so well exercised that I took a good long nap this afternoon, after listening to most of "Traviata" on the radio. It was good, but I just couldn't keep my eyes open. When the news came on at 5 p.m., I woke to find 5 cats and my dog patiently gathered around the bed and looking expectant. It was their supper-time. Baggins was cursing down cellar. I gave him some Jersey milk and a dish of "Kat Krunchies" as well as a good head-scratching. Poor old rap-scallion!

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Occasional Thoughts

February 12, 2000 ... Noon: Pete called this morning! Wow, I got so excited that I talked his ear off. It was so heart-warming to hear his voice. He is still in Phoenix, Arizona, at the Dahn center [for 3 months, now], and membership is growing. They have gained over 60 new members, recently. He is teaching exercise and meditation, helping the Korean monks learn English, and being generally helpful.

Last fall, he worked on a video filmed in Sedona, up in the Red Rocks country of Arizona. Made some really good friends and learned a lot about the spiritual growth going on in that area.

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February 16

We certainly have had some wild and wooley weather around here lately. Got a good foot of snow with freezing rain on top of it on Valentine's Day. Prior to the snow, and after it too, the temps were down around Zero F or -18 C. People are having an awful time with the high fuel prices. I've been putting blankets and heavy curtains at the doors and windows when it's really cold. They predict -22 F/-30 C tonight. My heart aches for the tornado victims in Georgia.

It snowed a bit today, but couldn't keep it up when the thermometer nosedived. A great big Arctic high came down from Canada and pushed it all out to sea. John will be getting it in England in a few days, I fear. Seems like he gets gales and storms just about a week after they pass over Maine.

When Kate and I went down to the feed store to get cat and dog food this morning, the sun was out and the trees were asparkle with the ice. The sun hit at the right angle to create twinkles of rainbow colors, like all kinds of jewels were hanging in the branches. What an amazing sight! It's marvels like that which make living in Maine such a joy. Sometimes I gripe about the cold and the storms, but for me, these marvelous flashes of beauty make up for it, and then some!

Last week, Lea and I were driving down the Bog Road at sunset and saw a flock of wild turkeys flying up to roost in the trees on the edge of the swamp. Actually, most were settled on their perches as we came by, looking like big fluffy clumps way high up in the skeletal trees. The sky was sort of a peachy, yellowish orange, with the trees stretching their black limbs up against it.

Turkeys are becoming a common sight in central Maine in recent years. They seem to be acclimating very well. Last fall, a flock went strolling by the windows of the newspaper office quite nonchalantly, just as if they weren't in the edge of a village.

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February 22, 2000

Just let Kate out for her evening patrol. As she started down the snowy path, Lion leaped into the walkway. She stopped to sniff him and he stropped up against her legs, wrapping his tail around her muzzle and smiling so that his eyes were just slits. Then she set off in a purposeful trot to do her rounds and he bounded after her. How a cat and a dog can have such a friendship is beyond me.

Lion is the boss tomcat here. When Kate first arrived, he immediately loved her and has been her most constant companion ever since. They do have their differences. He doesn't like kittens and she loves them. But when they are outdoors, they run together, except when neighbor dogs come to visit. Then, he climbs up on the shed roof or ducks in the cat door. The neighbor dogs just aren't trustworthy in Lion's view,... not like his dear Kate. They usually sleep together, a big lanky yellow cat with a white chin and a rusty-red Rhodesian Ridgeback.

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Journal By Sil

March 2, 2000

Not feeling too healthy today...ear-ache. It has been bothering me for quite a while now. I've been taking aspergalus to boost my immune system, which seems to help. But still it grumbles and makes it hard to concentrate. [Whenever I have a pain in my head, I just can't ignore it like a pain in another part of my body.] At any rate, I had so much comp time piled up that I took off from work at 2:30, came home and took a 2 hour nap...with a small blanket wrapped around my head to keep my ear warm. It feels a lot better now...not cured, but better.

It's been spitting and sputtering snow and freezing rain all day, not enough to add up to much, just enough to be obnoxious. Sure makes me grateful to be warm and cozy inside, but dissuaded me from going after groceries this evening. So Kate and I made do with popcorn (zapped in the microwave) as I just had no ambition to fix anything more complicated. I stopped at the dairy farm right on the way home from work to get a gallon of milk. The farmwife filled a jug for me directly from the big milk pail, so I know it's fresh! But any expedition to get foodstuffs was not in the cards today.

Mud season has begun. We're up to our ankles in it. Not much fun...but, if Mud is here, Spring can't be far behind! Kate and the cats are starting to shed hair all over the place. The birch branches are getting ruddy. One of the locals saw a robin (although the hardy ones have been known to winter over, or perhaps they weren't hardy, just too fat and lazy to migrate). Someone ran over a skunk last week. So, maybe the groundhog was wrong, and spring is just around the corner.

What a quiet house tonight! The noisiest thing in the last 15 minutes was Baggins tramping through the living room. He chirruped at Eleanor on the couch, but she just gave him the "get lost" look. She's up there with Kate and Pinkerton. Lucy Light is on the dog-bed in front of the couch, and Lion is snoozing on the upholstered chair. Dolly Parton and Bluet are probably on my bed. That's their usual hangout, along with Farrah. Possum is under the couch and Sassquatch is on top of the refrigerator. Farrah's sisters, Bridget and Colleen, are in the sunroom and their mother, Blinkie, is in the linen closet. I think Blazette and Dragonette are outside...they are developing into great little hunters.

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