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June 16, 2001
It is hot time in this valley now. We have hit
about 100 - several days in a row. Power has stayed on. The fans drone
into the night. The steering wheels on the cars are too hot to touch.
The airconditioners in the car do nothing but blow air at you - hot air
- for at least 15 minutes. So on short trips....you bake. Temperature
inside the car register above 140 degree. You cannot hold the steering
wheel.
Heat saps your strength. You become a couch zombie.
I become absent minded - running the sprinklers for hours instead of minutes
since I can't hear them inside the house. I am easily distracted. Lay
down for a minute and wake up an hour later. Heat does that to me.
Especially since I've been working 16/7 (16 hours
a day 7 days a week) on a project and trying to grow tomatoes - all old
women are supposed to grow tomatoes. Somebody said that.
And running back and forth to the hospital.
And my spa pool is down - no time to clean it and
put it up. I am debating the wisdom of yanking the deck out of here -
getting a better one - more sturdy - more shade - outdoor room instead
of rotting handyman's nightmare. I am contemplating this adventure - maybe
that will get the contractor back to finish the last job. The more traces
of the rat that lives under the deck I find the more likely I am to do
this. That and the fact that the top slats on the deck are starting to
fall off. Yikes.
I managed to get up and go water the drooping flowers
- the onions are blooming. So are the roses and the Gladiolas. And Day
lilies. And the purple iris from the San Diego house. I put iris bulbs
in the ground but so far no additional ones. The small pink Calla lilies
are dwarfed by the wild geraniums. The red geraniums came up by themselves.
I have to whack them back. The cutting grow more geraniums if you stick
them in moist ground. I do that. I have multicolored fancy geraniums in
pots.
I have bushes of mums coming up and they will sprout
as well.
The big white 4-5 foot high white Callas are about
done with their first mad rush to bloom. In the heat they all fall over,
as if gasping for breath. So one weekend or evening I will have to go
whack them back to about 6 inches and they will start all over again.
Watering the beejeebers out of them doesn't help - they faint in the heat.
I have potted petunias and I feed the snails constantly.
They damaged the potted red Amaryllis anyway - they or the earwigs that
I must also spray for.
I cut gladiolas - which also keel over - and found
ants and spiders and earwigs in the blooms - and this after dropping special
flower garden fertilizes on them - the kind that kills sucking bugs.
The spider had the nerve to jump down on my kitchen
counter. Oh I think not! This house has tons of spiders webbing all over
the place and I have no patience for those rude enough to come in the
house.
I do put out birdseed. And the big jays were very
grateful. They nicely denuded the house of wasp nests. (Yellow jackets
I think.) I saw one with a nest in its beak. Banging it on the driveway.
Knocking loose its snack. Good. Maybe the wasps will stop building nest
in my van.
Nothing like sliding open the side door to the van
and have angry flying things in your face. There was a nest in the crack
of the door. When I sprayed that one to oblivion, they then tried nesting
in the side mirrors. And one group tried the hole between the house and
the addition up under the eve. Of course a big spider had taken residence
there as well. I sprayed that for about 5 minutes! Get off my house already!
Especially get off my front door. I have a thing about spiders on my front
door.
It was also grooming day. We lost our regular groomer.
After a year of operations and medications, they diagnosed her as being
allergic to animals!
I tracked Little Bitch (feral cat) down in my son's
room. It took a broom, a water gun and a blanket. And she still got me
- as she descended into the carrier cage. Last time bozo!
Having tried Prozac on her we are at the end of the
line.
She is what is called "feral".
I chased her first to the couch where I could see
her tearing up things. I upended it. There is a reason that the seat is
collapsing. She nests in there.
I chased her into the third bedroom which is now
a wardrobe closet. It has a closet where I put my evening gowns. She was
in there. I closed the doors. One door fell off its track. One more thing
to remember. Then she headed for the kitchen and around the island. I
had the broom. She went back down the hall and under my son's bed. I grabbed
her cage and closed the door. She was everywhere - including trying to
go up the back of the computer desk - in the G4's cords.
Then she went into the overstuffed closet. We have
shoved everything in there.
She was vertical but still moving. Then she tried
to climb on the night stand - which is covered with soda and bottles and
the urinal, and dishes, and junk. And one mad cat.
Zap. I got her. And she got me.
You may have heard the news. We have an older woman
who was trying to "save" cats who bought them a house and put
about 180-200 unspade and neutered cats in it. She went everyday with
food. Someone should have come everyday with cat litter.
They were breeding and running wild. When the authorities
got in there, it was in HASMAT suits. They "rescued" the cats.
They arrested the woman. It's been about two weeks and they have started
putting down the cats. The feral ones. And the too-sick-to-cure ones.
Most of them.
Well, this cat is feral. She let us hold her for
a few minutes the first couple of weeks and she has never done so since.
My younger son knows they would put her down.
So, needing to get health certificates from the vet
for the new groomer, I went to the vet and asked what to do. "Put
her outside and don't bring her back in."
Now, not being happy about being scratched, this
morning I had taken the brat into the bathroom and hosed her down in her
cage. They have told me to do this since no groomer will touch her. First
bath she's had all year.
She was in the truck, wet, when I went to the vet.
It was hot enough in the truck to act like a hair dryer.
The vet said to not trim her claws.
OK.
So I went on to the groomer. And made a note. Not
again. The new ones - oh dear! Not clean - there was hair all over the
floor. And tables added. And three groomers stumbling (no exaggerating)
around. I left two animals, Ranger (the 12 lb orange puff ball) and Trim
(the sheepdog flower digger cedar tree killing hassock), for baths and
went home and called the vet. They go to the vet in four weeks for baths.
Much better. Time to change when they can't remember which animal is which
and what cage you came in with.
And I took the brat back home. She was still wet.
My hand still hurt.
I let her out in the back yard. She ran out of the
cage with the speed of light ....... and froze. I left her alone. She
scanned slowly back and forth, assessing her situation. Then she lowered
herself to the ground and skulked. She went for the fence and went under.
Haven't seen her all day. (She tried crying to get in later, and the next
morning tried to pull a screen door open. No dice. Ranger, smelling new
smells on her, hissed. I tried getting her to come to me - and she just
bolted. Oh well.)
She came back last time I put her out and wanted
in. Would not in fact go back out. Unlike Ranger who will bolt at a moment's
notice.
Too bad for her. I have water dishes out there. I
will put food out at night when the dog is in.
And Lord have mercy on the rats!
Ranger, meanwhile, has a new collar. Ranger and Trim
are staying in the family room - where the room airconditioner is. My
son even stumbled out there today.
And I need a bath.
I am waiting for the heat to drop. When the sun goes
down, there are no clouds. The heat will dip. The air will be cool enough
for a jacket.
And it is only June. The bad days are ahead. Bad
days are when it does NOT cool down at night. At least these days you
can stay cool with fans, drawn drapes and staying indoors. It's driving
that is the bitch. Bad days are when it becomes so humid that you can't
breathe never mind move.
But, unlike Southern California, this heat is moist.
It's the humidity that gets you. Even so it is fire season because it
is dry enough at the moment for that. And the hills are brown.
Yep. Time for a deck. Time for the pool.
And time to service the cars and get their airconditioners
charged.
You can tell that it's time for all that - I have
tomatoes on the vine.
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