Friday Cats Blogging

Dam.

There is a 40% chance I'm going to get woken up by rain tonight.  My basement is still wet and the ground is saturated. There is no need for more rain.

It was suggested that I get myself sandbags and I block off the basement steps. Good Idea. I went to my neighborhood home improvement store and girded myself for the buying of sand bags. Many sandbags. Insurance, self protection. Happiness.  They don't sell sandbags.  Hurricane season starts June 1. and they aren't in the sandbag business?  This doesn't make much sense to me, we get hurricanes here, we get a lot of rain here and flooding is a year round concern and they don't keep sandbags on their shelves. I could buy play sand, but that isn't the right kind. Its "soft sand" and you need "sharp sand" for proper sandbag construction. The sand they had was also in plastic bags. Proper, useful sandbags are filled with sharp sand in burlap bags or some other permeable fabric!

It was suggested that I run down to another hardware store and buy sandbag bags and then fill the bags with sand my own self. This is difficult to by ones self, it is suggested that this be a two person job. I've done some research on this.

I left empty handed and frustrated. Even more frustrated than when I came in. Insecure, and unhappy.

Here is my dam.

There are four plastic! covered bags of dirt, two very heavy plastic bins and two concrete blocks.

Here is why I need a dam

In a heavy rain, or any rain really, all the rain from the roof comes spilling down from there and comes crashing down onto the pad at the top of the stairs ( where it pools) and then goes rushing down the stairs to the drain at the bottom - I assume this was a design decision made lo many years ago and was a good idea in theory, if not in actual practice. Maybe weather was not as harsh back then.  During a heavy rain, it does not go obediently into the rain gutters as you would imagine, it jumps that little fence and crashes down. I have watched it do it.


My research has shown me this marvel, which I think I am going to get for myself :Quick Dams, Sandless Sand Bags  . Have a dry week end.

Wednesday

Today was Administrative Professionals Day. I celebrated by leaving the house at six ayem to drop off my rental pump and then drove cross town to the doggy daycare to drop off the dog and it was off to work for an extra special fun day because today was not on APD it was also our  monthly meeting which means the day will run an hour longer than usual. Yay! I walked in the door almost exactly twelve hours later.

This year, in a departure from a field trip to a lovely restaurant or for several  years, a visit to a country club, we ate in one of our conference rooms and lunch was salad with cold turkey and ham. Cold. There was also a cake from Wal-Mart with THANK YOU written in icing across the top.

We stood there in the doorway looking at the salad on the table wondering when the rest of the luncheon was going to turn up and were we in the way. Last year we ate in the conference room as well, and were also disappointed in the lunch, but  I think it was catered from somewhere. It was at the very least a hot meal.

So that was fun. My boss did give me a gift card for a meal at Chili's, so that was nice.

I picked up the dog from daycare, late, because I had some work to finish up, and took him home and before I picked him up I got gas in the car.  I had been hopeing to get home and be able to sweep the basement but it was still too wet for that, it needs to be pretty dry for sweeping, so at least one more day with the fan for it. I also noticed on the way into the house that I need to mow the yard, I said "I will do that after dinner".

Who am I kidding?

I changed clothes and watched TV and  remembered that Target told me that I could pick up the dogs meds two days ago, do I went to Target - not close by, but I was up for the adventure. I had been watching a show about a guy who turns peoples sheds into  $150 a night rentals, but I got realy over watching him turn SHEDS into rental units, I was a little aghast. I think it helps a lot if you live in Vermont and have rustic out buildings available. I had to leave.

I went all the way to Target, this is my second trip all the way to Target and again I came up empty. The last time they wouldn't give it to me because I was two days shy of the refill, this time they didn't have the whole scrip on site but they would have it tomorrow. They are lucky I am so tired and frankly, a little depressed right now or I would have gotten really upset about having to make two trips up there for NOTHING. I went to McDonalds to make myself feel better. It worked.

I drove home and managed to miss my driveway. I took a trip around the hood and saw two dogs out for a stroll by themselves. I parked in the street for a while watching them wander around, they had collars on and seemed to be together, they seemed to know where there were. I drove on and looked for open gates or people looking for them but didn't see any.

Got home, unloaded the dog, ate my dinner. I started to loose my McDonalds buzz. What about those dogs? What if I missed my driveway because I was supposed to help those dogs and I blew it? What if God Forbid, my dog got out?, would I want someone to just sit in their car and think about helping or would I want them to help? I failed those people and their dogs. I suck and whatever happens to those dogs happens on my head. Or in my head, which is worse.

I went back out and retraced my steps in the car and didn't see them. I drove around the hood looking for them and never saw them, I also never saw anyone looking for them. I checked Next Door for anything about them being missing and didn't see anything. There is a good chance a neighbor saw them out and either took them in or put them back, or their people saw they were out and out and put them back. I am not hearing dogs barking, which would be a give way that other dogs were around. I need to not go to a bad place.

Maybe by stopping in the street for as long as I did, that was how I helped. I don't know. We don't know how we are useful, or when we are used. That is not ours to know. I know I wish I had done more when I was there and I can know that the next time I will be more proactive when faced with the same problem because the next time it might be not me with my dog.

After the Floodette

And so it rained for a couple of three days and that sucks under normal circumstances, but it really sucks when they have built a behemoth behind your house and it has taken up the entire lot and there is no more actual ground left and thus, there is nowhere for the rain to go and now it has to go into my basement, and my neighbors yards - pretty much everywhere except the yard of the behemoth.

 I'm sure they weren't pumping water out all day today like we were.

My new best friend

It weighs more than I do and its the size of a spaghetti  pot . The hose is also heavy. They didn't mention how heavy they were at the rental space, the pump looked so small I thought it was "small", I thought it was be light and easy to work with. It was easy to work with but its made of led.

It worked miracles though, it along with my sump pump got all the water out.

If those are the After pictures, we need the Before

Garden 2017 Update 1

My plan for today was that I was going to go to Lowes or Wally or Lowes and Wally and buy my veggies. I was going to rush home and change clothes and immediately set to tilling the old garden up, then I was going to move on to till the other garden, first removing the Ha! weed barrier! that I never removed last spring when the last plant died.

I don't think I'm going to use the new garden space this year, it may get too much sun. I was so excited about it last year and I had such high hopes and everything I planted in it died. It was not a good year for the garden. I got not one single tomato, I bought a bunch of fancy varieties from a girl near here selling fancy versions I can't get in stores. She sold her plants way too young and they died young. I bought a second round of plants from big box stores and while they grew up, all the  baby fruits got eaten by critters or critters unknown before they had the chance to mature. I killed the critters and then the heat killed the plants.

The peppers were in  the overflow plot and they did not get eaten and they did give me some harvest, the entire lot drowned in the flood from the Hurricane. I lost everything from the entire summer, it was really heartbreaking.

I am not excited about planting this year because why bother I could just lose it again and its getting so late in the season. Its been so ugly there hasn't been a good weekend of decent weather yet to do anything in the garden.

I was supposed to do it today. But it rained.  I couldn't go get plants because they keep the vegetable plants outside and I don't really want to get rained on and I haven't really even thought about what I want to plant! I have entirely intentionally ignored my pile of seed catalogues and usually by this time I have  made my  order and have everything in the ground. I should have those catalouges memorized and planted acre and acres of  imaginary farm land by now. I haven't even thought about what I'm going to  do beyond,  basic tomatoes, peppers and spaghetti squash, if I can find it.

Its just kind of sad. I want to get this stuff done.

#ScienceMarch

Saturday I, along with Alphagal, Broskey and their kids and many, many, many don't-let-the-lame-stream-media-tell-you-otherwise-looking-at-you-News-and-Observer- "500 people"- bull shit.

I know it was odd to march for "science", it was odd, but the Cheeto administration has shown a shocking lack of respect for facts and truth and sometimes you have to stand up for them. And sometimes that means boots on the ground and an old fashioned show of force. Also, when we wrote signs, we spell them correctly.

Because that is exactly what it is: a show of force: We're here, we're real, and we are out here in great numbers.  You can't steal this, you can't misrepresent this' I am here. He is here, she is here. They brought their kids. And we all took pictures. And we are posting them everywhere. You walk away feeling rejuvenated,  stronger and again, not alone. It doesn't matter how many Face Book groups you join, how many Twitter Gawds you worship, how many post cards you send, how often you call your senators and representatives there is nothing like being in a crowd of people who think like you think, feel like you feel and are disgusted by the exact same things that disgust you .

The constant tippy toeing around you must do even now, even after everything we have learned, after everything we have seen - its shocking. At this point we shouldn't be the ones having to be polite about where we stand. We should be loud and proud with our truth, but no we are forced by years of being taught by the FAUX news cockservitives that we should be ashamed of our beliefs and we must always be careful of offending our cockservitive brethren because , well, why? again? Really? Have they ever been careful of offending us?! Has any cockservative ever apologized for spewing their "truth" at you? Nope! Because they would never think of it, because they don't care about offending us, because we are beneath them, we are "snowflakes or libtards" and if we take offence , they take it as a sign of weakness.

But Gawd forbid you offend them! Jeebus!

 Have they ever tried to be not offensive to us? Never. They never try to be non-offensive to us? NO! They continue to hurl  creatures like Anne Coulter at us and now just about every slime eater in the Cheeto Administration at us and we're supposed to watch what we say? Bastards.  If you have the opportunity to march, MARCH. Be a public Liberal, let your Blue Flag Fly.