Guard cat

    Yesterday was a red letter day for Amelia the cat. There was a bad outside kitty! In the yard! At dusk so she could see him better! And he walked the whole way around the house, so she could follow him from window to window! And then he went away, so she's still the best guard kitty ever!
    It must have been a red letter day, because then she was totally full of beans all evening. I played with her with string, and generally made a fuss over her, gave her scritches endlessly, played with her with string again and again and again, and she was STILL full of beans. It may be because she hasn't seen a yard cat in a long time. The other yard cat is much more shy; this one is pretty much a kitten and is still pretty bold.
    She may still be full of beans. She just got herself caught up under the sheet on the bed and had to be freed. Cats do not embarrass, however; her expression was entirely, "I meant to do that!"
    She is not such a fearless guard cat when the perimeter is broken, however. Because my back has been acting up slightly, I've been spending more time lying down lately. Because I'm 98.6 degrees, she likes to lie on my chest. My friend Gypsye came around the other day. When she knocked, Amelia launched herself from my chest, claws working overtime. Probably the last time I'll lie down when I'm expecting someone to come visit.:)

One-liner delivery boy

    I had this great dream last night. Anyway, it was a great dream while I was having it. Upon further reflection, it's more than a little disturbing.
    I was delivering all the one-liners I had saved up to all the people who needed to hear them. In practice, this meant a girl I had a crush on in high school. In real life, I haven't seen her in 25 years or so, though I've seen on Facebook (though even that was a while ago) that she is happily married with a child. And even in fantasy life, I've been well over her since high school. My brain just wanted somebody safe for me to dream about, I guess.
    No, the aspect that is disturbing is something I posted about before: that I sometimes seem, even to me, less of a person than a joke machine. I guess that's OK, but it's somewhat dispiriting to find my subconscious mind endorsing the idea. Unless of course it's warning me off from the idea. Yeah, that's the ticket!

War zone

    Since even before it was a national park, the rangers at Congaree National Park (though they may have been monumenters when it was Congaree Swamp National Monument) have maintained a Mosquito Meter near the office/ visitors' center. It goes up to 6, or War Zone. Today it was there, for the first time ever in my memory. I think the rangers must think the visitors are really hyper-sensitive; all summer the meter readings have been much higher than they used to be, while I haven't noticed that the mosquitoes were particularly bad at all.
    Still and all, I didn't make a very long visit. Congaree NP features an elevated boardwalk, a low boardwalk, and miles of trails. In general, if the bugs are bad, you keep to the elevated boardwalk. They're worse on the low boardwalk and intolerable on the trails. It's probably just me, but I never have any problem with mosquitoes, because I keep moving. It's buzzing and bombarding flies that make me crazy. I'm not a big fan of them going down the back of my shirt, either. But today there was almost none of that. I made the entire boardwalk loop, including both elevated and low, and had very few flying insect problems. I also went about ten feet on a trail, but the buzzing of flies was so loud that I decided that trail season was probably over once and for all (I know I've said this already) at Congaree NP.
    I dunno; I found it a lovely morning. Maybe the rangers just got tired of visitors. Or maybe they're selling "I survived the War Zone!" t-shirts-- I know I would!

Life of crime

    The first rule of being a crime kingpin is never to put anything in writing. Clearly thus I'm disqualified. (Never put anything in writing MUCH does not count.) Tuesday when I picked Dad up from dialysis, it was raining. It had been really, really pouring, but by the time Dad came out it had slackened a lot. However, it was still a significant quantity of rain falling. The dialysis facility has an overhang over the front door which is quite sufficient for nearly every circumstance... unless an ambulance driver has put his/her ambulance right in front of the front door. That was the case Tuesday, meaning that Dad had to get in the car in the rain.
    Thus, I pulled my car absolutely up to the ambulance to get him as nearly out of the rain as possible. One of the ambulance attendants came out and said, "You know you hit that ambulance, don't you?" I said no, that I was just touching it, which was quite true and quite different. (There was absolutely no impact, and certainly not any damage.) She was on the cell with her dispatcher and strolled back to get my license. I've been expecting the flashing blue lights to turn up at my door ever since, but nothing of the kind has happened. And I took Dad to dialysis today and no one mentioned it. However, the same ambulances tend to serve the same facility, and I'm not looking forward to seeing her again. Ambulance drivers don't have arrest powers, right?:)
    Dad went to see the dermatologist yesterday to check on the recovery from the previous procedures. Unfortunately he already had another lesion on his face that needed to be removed. Tests aren't back, but inasmuch as it grew in less than a month, no one will be surprised if it's cancer. We are at least relieved that it is gone.

Not at my best

    I got the CV boots replaced on the Camry. I'm not thrilled about the $500 expenditure, but I feel a bit safer. I could have gotten a ride from and to the mechanic's shop, but I like to walk and it's only a bit over a half-hour walk one way. Picking up the car at 1 in the afternoon was a bit of a steamy walk, though. Then for lunch, I ate some elderly beef stew and have been feeling urpy ever since. So while I certainly do not feel particularly bad, I'm not sure that this is going to be a great day for adding to world literature. So long as the urps stay down, I think I'll consider it a good day.
    One thing that was especially good today was music. The radio was good. Heck, even the canned music at Publix played one of my very favorite songs, "Been to Canaan" by Carole King. This almost made up for my inability to find "Jennie Jenkins" by Estil C. and Orna Ball anywhere on the Internet. I'm sure everyone has had that problem before. (It was a song I taped off a library CD called "Sounds of the South," many years ago; recorded by one or another Lomax many, many years before that. Now apparently regarded as a children's song, owing to a refrain largely composed of gibberish. So just up my alley.)

Putting the punk in punkin

    Some of the Crazy People on the Internet suggest that nearly all the canned pumpkin sold in this country is in fact butternut squash. Even admitting that we aren't exactly rabid about agricultural inspections here, I don't see how the corporations could get away with this. However, having tried canned organic pumpkin, I'm starting to think that maybe I could get pretty enthusiastic about canned butternut squash. Could it be that actual pumpkin actually tastes like ass? Or do I just not know what I'm doing? (Naaaaah!)
    Regardless, two tries at punkin muffins failed, one slightly and one abysmally. So I spread out the remaining crust on aluminum foil and covered it with the remaining pumpkin filling, which turned out fortunately to be pretty skimpy. Thus, the resulting dish, which I decided to call punkin crisp, is pretty tasty. Once again, all the sweetener is in the crust; I've got to stop doing that. Or to put it another way, I need to throw out all the recipes and wing it. Well, it's almost always worked in the past!
    Margaret had a short in the light in her bathroom, which I told her ages ago that she needed to have fixed. A few weeks ago the fixture finally gave out entirely, and they had to rely on light from the corridor (and the window, in the daytime). Her son-in-law is a whiz with electricity and could replace the fixture. I got into it only insofar as taking her to Lowe's to find a new fixture yesterday in between the thunderstorms. We couldn't find one with the same kind of base (round instead of oval) so it seemed like there would be an unsightly unpainted place. But Rick installed it and you can barely notice the difference. And Dad and Margaret again have an illuminated bathroom (with no electrical short to worry about). So yaay!

Gotta get out of the libel business

    OK, the dudes at Precision Tune weren't so hot at speaking English. However, it is true that the CV boots on my car are split and need to be replaced. So I apologize for suggesting that there might have been any dishonesty involved. Moreover, I'm very grateful to them for pointing out the problem before it got bad enough that the car started making any noise. And I'm sure they would have done a fine job fixing the problem.
    Then again, I'm all but certain that Precision Tune doesn't use Toyota parts, and my mechanic does. Also, the fact that the mechanic literally didn't know what he was talking about (or at least what it was called) did not inspire confidence. My mechanic had a full garage this morning, but was pretty confident he would be clear Wednesday morning, so I'm bringing it by first thing. Hopefully the broken CV axles don't get up in the transmission before then.
    Punkin mini-muffins turned out awful. Apparently it really makes a difference using organic instead of Libby's Libby's Libby's and low-fat coconut milk instead of first pressing. I used the latter ingredient out of both sets above when trying to make pumpkin cobbler and the results were a lot sweeter. But I shall persevere!