Post Season Play

They were dead to me.  The series with the Yankees was a bit painful to watch and the ceremonial broom is coming to my house today.  It will live in my kitchen for the year and be returned to that Yankee fan family member when my Sox sweep a series.   But in the mean time they were dead to me and I was ready to hang up my Red Sox Cap for the season.

Hood Ice Cream has a bunch of flavors: Comeback Caramel, Green Monster Mint, Fenway Fudge and Peanut Butter Nation.  I thought they should add some more.  Wishful Thinking Vanilla, Fat Chance Fudge, and Tough Luck Toffee.  I was none too happy with the team.

Then this morning, I awake and it is like it is Christmas,  Mister!

We are in the playoffs for the Pennant!  I can’t believe it.   We actually get a spot as the Wild Card because the Rangers lost to the Angels.    And who says there isn’t a God?

Otis

I went to the Green Mt. Pug Rescue Social this past Saturday up in Stowe and met a lot of interesting characters.  This guy here was biffed by a car and has a wonky right front paw and is missing part of his jaw, which is why his tongue is hanging out.

This is Lisa.  She adopted him, proving two things.

1. There are good people out there, with loving kind hearts.

2. Pugs are the funniest looking dogs.

I like pugs and saw an add in the paper this week about adopting a 10 year old male.  I told my office mate Linda about the add and on a whim, called him Otis.  I called the number listed in the paper and left my office number and home number as a call back.   I headed home and got a  secret coded message from Linda.  “Otis was still available for a meeting”.  Then Lorraine, the dog’s foster mother also left a message saying,  ” This is a return call from the afternoon, and Yes. “  ( I had left a message that I was interested in the dog and to leave a message either Yes or No  to if the dog was still available. )  Bub intercepted the messages and said, ” you had two messages, something about an Otis and why was Loraine from the hospital calling?  Are you getting a tractor or a dog?”  I was busted.

I confessed and said that Otis was a pug.  Bub groaned.  The next day I got a hold of Loraine and talked to her about the pug.  He had been a stud muffin for a breeder and was purchased by a couple that three weeks later separated and were divorcing, so they put the dog up on Craig’s list.  The Green Mt. Pug Rescue guys saw it on the list and snagged the dog. He had been living with Loraine and Max as a foster dog.

What was his name?  OTIS.  True, I had called it in a freaky, 6th sense kind of way… it must mean that it was meant to be.

I would take the Otis for a test drive and picked him up.  I was warned that he was a bit keyed up on car rides, so I secured his leash to the back seat, just enough slack so that he could go from window to window.  He chose instead to stand on the back seat with one paw on drivers side headrest and one paw on the passenger’s seat head rest.  Men in Black style.  First stop to the office.   He met everyone and was pretty hyper.  Friendly but hyper, ADHD on speed.  Really wound.   I put him in my office after he made the rounds, twice, and returned less then two minutes later to find Otis having a party on my desk.  He had gotten up on my chair and right up on the desk, drank all the water out of a water glass and was standing in front of the monitor barking at the screen saver.

It was a picture of Mr. Toes.

Strike one.   Pugs have little dog syndrome and feel a need to be at top of any piece of furniture at any given moment.

I took Otis home.  He just loved, loved, loved Jigger.  ( and what dog wouldn’t?)  But then he met Mr. Toes.  He didn’t love him. He got aggressive and started to go after him.  Strike two.  Otis made it about 2 hours total.  Complete bummer.

Pugs are great dogs.  The people that rescue them and rehab them are saints.   But with two three legged cats and a gimpy old lab, I have made my quota, meant to be or not. 

Red in the morning…

Sunrise from my view the other morning,  followed by a good stiff rain yesterday. We actually need the rain and fall is finally here.  I love the fall.  The colors, the coolness of days, the clean air. The pace slows down and so do I.

I need to slow and have been for the last few days.   I need to be back in balance.  The pattern of equilibrium and disequilibrium is something that I find current in life, going in and out of balance.

I tried yoga last week and found that I could not balance well on one foot. Then we found the mold and busted hump all weekend to get stuff out.  Monday came and calls to the insurance company, Casella for a dumpster, the register at UVM to drop class, and the builder to help fix the damage.

I was going to go back to Pat on Monday to get some private instruction, but was spinning and sputtering much too much to focus.  Too stressed to do yoga.   I have been weepy for days.

It has been about a year without the sheep.  It no longer looks like a farm here and I miss them.  Transition, going from one state to another, is not always pleasant. Not always easy.  You go out of balance as you stretch and grow, pushing your boundaries and learning new limits.  Moving from the known to the unknown.

I think I will find a bongo board on Ebay today.  Yoga is tonight as well and I think I am in a better space to give it another try.   Ommmmmmmmm.

Spacement

Everybody needs their own space, a place where no one else will mess with your stuff.  Bub’s space is his workshop in the basement.  It is the Spacement and I basically respect it.  Well, until an overwhelming smell of mold developed.

There are dreams of projects yet to come and the beginnings of project already started all in strategic plies that only Bub understands. I am discouraged to go into his lair and root around, potentially upsetting the gentle flow of his projects in motion.  But Bub has not been interested in doing any projects of late, and  his spacement has become a bit of a catch-all for stuff, overflowing into the rest of the basement . I have been busy this summer doing my own thing and basically have ignored the situation.

However,  about a month ago there became a notable  odor of mold coming up from the spacement, I was convinced that it was from some of the wood that he has stickered in the corner.   And there was a strong smell of gasoline on a couple of occasions, so I was more than ready to get started on hoeing out the spacement.  Last weekend I convinced Jed that he should come up and help out with some “projects” around the house.

Painting upstairs,  touch ups in the downstairs bathroom and rehabbing my office….. so we went around the house and he agreed that the basement smelled moldy and that we needed to clean it out and find the source.   So we did 4 dump trips and discovered a thin film of mold over almost everything down there. After pulling almost everything out of the front part of the room we found ground zero.

Jed bleached around everything and we saved only the things that we can treat with bleach to kill the mold.  Everything else has to go.  Then this morning we took the plunge to see how bad the problem really is. No wonder I have been having really bad headaches for the last month, only when I am home for a while……

All of this damage is from the sill on the deck off the kitchen.  Even with cleaning off the snow and ice every winter, we think that the flashing was not done properly when they built the house resulting in damage directly under the deck.  I have called Bernard, a local contractor that I trust, and hopefully he will help us get through the home owners insurance puzzle.  At least we are hopeful that this will be covered.  If not,  well a second job for me.  Can I get anyone a drink before dinner? ( I hated being a waitress, but you gotta do what you gotta do!)

Jed has been wonderful.  He moved all of Bub’s wood out the workshop today and has re-stacked it outside.  (don’t know if it can be salvaged for the flooring project Bub intended on doing) The rest of the wood that is bad needs a roll-away-dumpster which I will call for tomorrow.     I am hopeful that the cleaning and sorting will help Bub actually get some of his projects done, instead of overwhelming him when he gets too lost in the clutter.   Jed will build some shelves so that Bub can find his tools and projects.  Then perhaps he will come back and help me with the rest of my projects.    For now I am really grateful that Jed came up and that Bub is dealing with all of the cleaning and pitching well.  Thank goodness we found this now and not in a month when the weather would complicate everything.

Funny,  but I feel really lucky to have gotten to the bottom of the smell and now there is a clear problem that must be solved, Bub is on board and actually willing to have someone come in and help out.  Go Jedi Go!

PS.  Jed is 29 and single.  He is a hard worker and is really easy to get along with.  He lives in Andover NH and is looking for work, specializing in painting and light construction.    If you need any work done around the house, call him.  603-254-2143

Yoga

Yesterday I took my first Yoga class…ever.  Yup,  at 44 this is my first yoga class and I am slow to get on the band wagon.  I figured that I should have some sort of regular exercise thingy this winter and I am not too sure about the community gym with all of the nasty bugs that are out there.  I will continue to walk and run and hopefully x-country ski and snow shoe, but when the weather is just plain crappy, I thought Yoga would be a nice addition.  OMMMMMMmmmmmm and peacefulness in the place of the gym techno-pop, TV blaring, weightlifting grunters.  Heeerrrrgggggggggg..

Pat is very nice and completely understanding when I had told her that I was a newbie.   I followed along as best as I could, but much of what she was asking us to do was in new language,  puppy pose, cat pose, strong warrior…. add to that I am lying on my back, hugging my knees and trying to look over and see what she is doing in front of me… and being dyslexic trying to move to the left, oh the other left,  got to be a bit of a challenge and messed up my breathing.. you don’t hold your breath in Yoga I guess.

But I hung in there for the 90 minutes and found that I have terrible balance.  I wasn’t so good at standing on one foot, lifting the other foot to the knee, hands out like a T, one palm up and one palm down… now bring your hands up, clasp them and point up.   Had a hard time with that.  I know I am generally off balanced,  but I haven’t stood on one foot for a while. I am simply not in practice.

I am also hoping that the yoga will help keep my Lupus symptoms in better control over the winter.  I found that the Yoga, Kripula, was not the beginners class as promise. Note to Yoga Center Owners:  When a person comes in and says that they have never taken a Yoga class before,  offer a beginner class so that you don’t scare them away. At a gym, you are not allowed to use the machines until you get a class about each of them……. Pat later confirmed that I had gotten into a class for folks who already knew Yoga technique.  But I enjoy Pat and she spent time with me after class and I think that with a little private instruction on Monday, I can perhaps learn some of the poses and some of the language. There were times I was so lost in class, I felt like leaving in frustration.  But I am pretty tenacious and figured I would continue and do what I could.

With all of the new stretching yesterday, I figured that I would be pretty sore today, but I am not and I slept really well.  And, even with the feelings of being lost, with a little instruction, I think I will like this Yoga thing.  Ooommmmmmmmmmm……………