Marilee J. Layman

08:52 pm: Is Your Fountain Running?
Mine is! I got the 50 pounds of seed into the metal container, too. Now my wrist hurts, but I hope sleep will fix it since we need to leave at 11am for the dental vets tomorrow. The shop was still fiddling with the exhaust when they closed tonight, so they'll do what they can tomorrow (maybe fix it) and have it ready for me to drive at 11am. I have next week quite open so I can leave it there Monday night if I need to. The van already qualifies for two of the rules for exemption on emissions; the third rule is that the repairs would be more than $652. So maybe it will be exempt.

Spirit has hit another level of blindness -- she has to hoover the floor for snackies (Shiva is still not eating hard things). It sounds funny: snuffle snuffle snuffle crack chew snuffle snuffle. But the odd thing is that she's started play-disembowelling the gator again. When she runs across it on the living room floor, she disembowels it, then sticks it partway under the couch, then pulls it out and disembowels it again. She does that a few times a day. And then Shiva rolls around where she's attacked it -- I think the catnip essence must be strong there.

Tags: birdseed, cats, fountain, van

08:12 pm: New Holes In My Arm
Shiva didn't hurt me while I gave him his meds (although I had to explain the yelling to Luke), but I didn't direct his escape after very well and his hind claws dug in my right arm for a good takeoff. I'll have to be more careful. We're seeing the dental vet on Tuesday at noon and Shiva has to stop the antibiotics Sunday night and food Monday night (he hasn't started eating solid food yet, still the AD slurry).

I took recycling out and then had lunch at Ruby Tuesday's with chocolate cake and ice cream to remember Henry. Where I was sitting, there was a deep bass rumble, felt and heard, and I asked the waitress about it and she said she hadn't heard it until she listened on my side of the restaurant. The manager came and I told him it was probably an air handler and he pointed to a vent on the line of hearing. I told him vibrating like that was not good for a building, plus it was a low D# which tends to scare people, and he went and turned it down a bit so it stopped. The rain poured just as I left and then stopped. As I got home, a fill-in mailguy was at the clusterboxes before ours, so I kept my shoes on and when he went past, gathered Luke's keys and went to get our mail. The mailguy told me that we may not have a permanent mailperson for about six months and he wished us luck. My last two BFAC wins came -- the "Last Trail" horn & necklace and the Saragaro-style netted necklace. They're really great!

You'd think courting mourning doves -- the male chases the female, trying to peck the back of her neck, and we have four pairs now -- would be enough excitement, but a while ago, one of the four crows wanted badly to eat at the feeder, even though I'd put some seed on the porch. There was a squirrel sitting on one side eating and a mourning dove sitting on the other, also eating, and he started dive-bombing them and they both ignored him and his CAWs. Then he carefully stepped down onto the other end of the side the mourning dove was on, and she flapped her wings at him and made him go. So while the crows and mourning doves usually co-exist, clearly the doves are higher in rank.

I've been planning to set up the porch fountain for a couple of weeks and had to keep moving it down the list, but it looks clear for tomorrow. We're past frost so it's safe, and it's nice to have the sound and look of the fountain, and of course, the birds like it.

Tags: beads, birds, cats, fountain

06:09 pm: Honors for Jimmy Stewart
The 27-year military veteran has been honored with having a technology center named after him at Bolling Air Force Base. He's also getting a stamp in his honor on Friday.

When I got up yesterday, my back hurt a lot and I thought it was from hauling the books back and forth from the bedroom floor to the desk to the bookcases, but then I realized it was lifting the top concrete element of the fountain four times on Monday. When I got home from my errands, I saw the water was low enough it wasn't falling, but rolling down the side of the pieces, so I brought a bucket out. I know I should pull over the pretend-wicker chair and sit down so I can put the water in controllably, so I don't push debris against the impeller intake, but the last couple times I'd poured as carefully as I could from standing up, I was okay, so I did that. Well, the fountain stopped. I pulled the chair over and leaned the top element to the side and wiped debris off the impeller, which made it go again, and settled the tube back in, and then leaned the top element back. Nothing. So I leaned it aside again and felt for the nipple on the bottom of the top element, which has gradually eroded over the 11-12 years I've had it, and it was gone. I lifted the top element off and managed to only drop it the last few inches to the porch. I cleaned out the hole, thought there might be enough ridge left to work, and put it back up -- to my lap first and then the fountain. I leaned it to the side and positioned the tube where the ridge was and leaned it back. Still nothing.

I fiddled some more and finally realized if it was going to work again, I had to put a tube up the inside metal tube of the top element. So I lifted it off again, dropping it a few more inches to the porch, but still no damage. I remembered that I had a damaged nebulizer hose and if I cut off a section from one of the larger ends, it would probably fit into the tube from the impeller and the narrow flexible tube at the other end might fit into the top element internal tube. I brought the hose and scissors out and tested it -- the large end fit securely into the impeller tube top and the flexible part fit into the internal top element tube. So I left the tubes in place and picked the top element back up (lap, then fountain) and positioned the bottom of the tube on the impeller and sat back. Water! I'd been figuring this might be the last year I'd get out of the top element and I'd have to buy another one, but this should give me several more years.

I was up early for Lucilla to clean yesterday, so I took a nap as soon as she left (middle of LJ) and slept for six hours. Since I had two days worth of online to catch up on, I was up until 7am and decided to set the alarm for 3pm. If I woke up earlier because of the nap, fine, but if not, the alarm would wake me up. Spirit tried a couple of times, but it was the alarm that got me up.

I took the recycling out and then had lunch at Ruby Tuesday's (white bean chicken chili and baked potato). The waiter had been joking with me and he told me I had to eat my crackers and I told him I couldn't and explained that I could only have 40gr protein and I'd had a lot of it with the chicken in the chili and the cheese and bacon on the potato, and since I'd had beans in the chili, if I had grains... and he interrupted and said "they make a protein together." I've never had a waitperson know that before when I've had to explain. So he jokingly grabbed the crackers and the piece of bread (I don't know why they serve toast with a baked potato) back.

After I got up from my nap yesterday at 8:30pm, I realized I hadn't eaten yet and should eat something. So I got one of the Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers from the freezer (4 for $10 at the Giant this week). It was salmon with a creamy dill sauce, plus penne and broccoli. It was really good. Unfortunately, neither of the bowls are recyclable here (or anywhere else I know) so I'll finish these and not buy more. I wrote Healthy Choice a letter, but the steamer bowl said "patent pending" so I don't know that they'll change.

Have you ever seen a moose in a kiddy pool?

Tags: errands, food, fountain