Whacked by an Eagle, Circus, RIP Scissors

October continues to be busy.

Had a bit of an adventure at work last week.  Martha the bald eagle tends to be territorial and screams at us when we go to clean the aviary.  But this time she took it up a notch.  I had finished cleaning (with her screaming at me) and when I got to the gate I bent down to pick up the bowl of uneaten meat.  Suddenly WHAM!!! on my back!  She hit me and then flew off.  Fortunately it was chilly that morning and I had sweatshirt on - also, she didn't talon me, but just hit.  I didn't freak, but I was a bit unnerved.  Especially when you think of the size of an eagle's foot.

It's just coming up that time of year - courtship/nest building season, so she's feeling her hormones.  Note to self: maintain eye contact.

Last Thursday I went to my fourth circus of the year, because my young friend Faith was in it again.  Besides, I like circuses.  This one was Halloween themed - my favorite act was the trapeze artists, because they were all in skeleton unitards and makeup so all you could see were flying skeletons.  And Faith was happy to see me.

It was a fun evening, until I got home.  I went to put the chickens up - and saw a pair of shining eyes in the chicken coop.  Big ass raccoon - not my little Miss Sassy.  The chicken run has wood fencing about thigh high all around it, but the masked bastard had actually managed to push in one of the boards.  I beat the crap out of him with a broom that was in there until he ran off.  Then I had to deal with the mostly-eaten remains of Scissors (I used to have Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard,and Spock, plus Malcolm in the middle).  She was the one who had figured out that if she flew up and perched on my arm that she would have first grabs at any treats I was bringing in.
I'm now down to two chicken from the seven I had a few months ago.  You just can't stop a determined raccoon.
But I'm trying.  I've spent many hours since then screwing skirting boards around the inside of the coop.  I still have a few to go (my back gets tired, and I rain out of screws) but I'm mostly done.  I'm also putting cinder blocks all around the outside of the coop - only a few a day, because they're really heavy.

I was doing some recycling for the skirting boards.  What I needed was 1x4 lumber.  I found some in Bob's stash and used that, then was thinking I should go to Lowes.  But then I thought of another big project on the Things to Do list - take down the butterfly garden fence.  We made part of the front yard into a butterfly garden in 2010 (hard to believe it was that long ago) and put a picket fence around it to keep the peacocks out.  The fence was in panels, which had to be replaced from time to time - the last time I did that was in 2020.  But most of the fencing has rotted away since the hurricane.  I've been debating between taking it all down (I don't have peacocks anymore) or buying another 20+ panels and replacing everything.
I've gone for the easy route of taking it down (which will happen with various fires this winter).  But those last 3 panels are still in good shape - and it hit me that the pickets are made of 1x4 lumber.  So I've been knocking those off and reusing them.

And then I got sidetracked for a bit.  I have to cut them to length on the chop saw - and I had problems sliding it all the way back because there was stuff piled up on the table behind it.  I dragged it out - one thing was a large storage bin.  I opened it up and, sure enough - it was filled with empty jars, boxes, Skyflake cracker tins.

I went a little weak in the knees - why, Bob, why?  Then I went on a short rampage until I had piled up enough stuff to fill the car and then made a run to the dump.  It's still so hard - because it's Bob's stuff.  Except that it isn't any longer - it's mine, and I don't need dozens or hundreds of empty peanut butter jars.

I've been wondering when I'll ever stop feeling a pang every time I put a cardboard box or yogurt container into the recycle bin.  The answer to that came to me yesterday while I was fixing dinner - and it's never.  I will always feel that twinge.  What made me realize that is because I was having fresh asparagus.  One starts by bending it so that it snaps at the point where the stalk gets woody.  But my mother never did that.  As a child of the Depression, she couldn't bear the idea of buying asparagus (a splurge) and then throwing away about a fourth of it.  She would cut off the very hardest woodiest part of the base, and then cook it until the stalks were tender enough to chew.  Therefore, I hated asparagus.  I remember it being stringy and slimy.  Now - those snapped woody portions get chopped up for the chickens, and I enjoy my tender crispy asparagus.  Mom passed away in 2012 - but I still feel a little guilty and profligate whenever I snap those stems.   So I assume I will continue to feel the same way about empty but still useful jars that I nonetheless take to the dump.

Pizza, Bat Box, Dream

 I had pizza after the Harry Potter concert.  That's hardly noteworthy, but it's one of those things that's so normal that it's completely strange.

When I got out of the concert, I was getting hungry.  I was ready to go home, so I didn't feel like having a sit-down meal out anywhere.  I didn't particularly feel like cooking (I don't keep things like microwave meals around, because to me they taste like the cardboard they came in).

It suddenly occurred to me that I could do take out.  Pick up a pizza!!

That's hardly earth shattering.  Except - when was the last time I did that?  It would have had to be before Bob started chemo - so over four years.  Things have changed; I found you don't call in an order anymore - you do everything on your phone, including paying, and then pick up at the drive through.  Most people probably know that by now.

But I had takeout pizza, and it was good.  Even cracked open a beer.

I took a woodworking class yesterday.  I know the basics, but it's been a long time since I used anything more than the chop saw and a drill so I thought brushing up would be a good idea.  It fell into the category of "getting out and doing something different."  I also had a thought that it would be nice to spend an afternoon with some like-minded people - other makers - have some conversation.  Maybe even go grab some dinner together afterwards.

That last part didn't quite work out, as I was the only student who showed up. But that gave me one-on-one instruction, and the goal was to use multiple tools - jig saw, table saw, scroll saw, drill press, while keeping all body parts intact.

It's more fun to learn if the pieces actually make something, so the class project was a bat box.  A large, quite heavy, bat box.  So now I have a big heavy bat box, which I do not need.  I have so much natural habitat that bats have never moved into the two bat boxes I already have on the cottage.  Now I need to find someone who wants a bat box.

So I had a good day yesterday, and the weather is nice and not hot, and I had planned to work on - something (halloween costume skirt, maybe some foam work) today, but have basically done diddly squat.  I did the trash run, put away laundry, had a good talk with Mike and Margo.  Spent way too much time on the laptop this morning because both RedBug and Stumbles were on my lap, and honestly, I was just enjoying it too much.

But energy level was low.  I just didn't feel like moving.  I think it was because I dreamed about Bob last night.  We were at some sort of fair; we had gotten separated but I eventually found him.  We were just walking, looking at displays.  He paused at a table to talk with someone.  I walked ahead a little bit and then waited for him.  I had my back turned to him, and I was listening to the sound of his voice, the cadence of it.  I wanted to turn around and look at him, but I was afraid that he wouldn't be there, so I just listened.  And then woke up.

That's common when I dream of him (which isn't often enough).  Even in my dreams, I know that he really isn't there.  But it's the only way that I can see, hear, and sometimes touch him again.  And it's the only way that I'll do anything with him, make new memories.  So I tend to be quiet afterwards, just to hang onto the memory as long as possible (I also have a dream log, so I can remind myself later).  It's not that I'm depressed - I just want to stay in the dream mode.

Catching up; Harry Potter and Invisibility; The Time Warp

 A month.  This is really going to annoy me in future years when I look back.
Honestly, it wasn't a whole month.  I wrote a post a week or two ago.  But then the format got weird - some of it was black letters on a black background, some in black letters outlined in white, and it got weirder the more I tried to fix it so I got mad and trashed the whole thing.

What was on it, that Lost Brain Dump?  Some more pretty flowers (fall is sort of a second spring here)

Some Bob memories.  I was cleaning some stuff in the barn.  Now that I've tossed so much stuff over the last 3+ years, there are a lot of storage boxes out in the barn, and I at least organized them.  One of the most convenient sizes are the plastic shoeboxes; we both used them.  An annoyance is that anytime we went to buy more, the style had changed, so that the boxes and lids weren't interchangeable. And, over time, like socks in the laundry, either a box or a lid would end up without a partner.  At least a lidless box could be used to store something.  Just a lid - not so much.

But he couldn't throw a boxless lid away, of course, because at some point the matching box might show up again.  I searched his room and my cottage and the closet, and gathered up all the boxes and lids and matched them up.

There were 14 lids that didn't have boxes.  They went away on the next trash day.  Thing is - he would have kept them in case the matching boxes miraculously showed up.

And that was the thing about Bob.  He always believed that if you waited long enough, things would work out.  And I suddenly remembered one day, many years ago, when we had some eggs in the incubator and a chick died upon hatching.  Poor little thing never even fluffed up.  I found Bob holding it, crying.  It was stiff and cold, but he was trying to warm it up in his hands.  I got some cloth and reached for it to wrap it up for burial, but he stopped me.  "Can we wait a little longer?  Just in case?"  That was just how he was.

Me?  I'm the practical one.  So the box lids, like junk mail that I no longer keep in case it matures into something usable, or the yogurt containers now empty of yogurt but could still be used to hold Something Else, went to the trash.  And I still feel a pang when I do it.

Now to the Invisibility.  I have spent most of my life feeling, if not invisible, at least standing in shadow.  It started with having an unusual last name: Chalifoux.  Dad was a colonel, with, shall we say, a well-defined personality.  Especially in my high school years, living in the Azores with a rather low American population, I was "Chalifoux's daughter."  Meaning be careful around me.  Maybe just leave me alone.

I also grew up being "Chalifoux's sister."  Mike was a bit of a child prodigy, little boy genius.  This made him both a blessing and a curse to his teachers.  Then, a year or two later when I would have the same teacher, they would see my name on the roster and ask "are you Chalifoux's sister?" with a tone of "oh dear God not another one."  They would be relieved to discover that I was just an average student.

It was so very strange when I first went off to college.  I would introduce myself as Ann Chalifoux - and get no reaction beyond "how the heck do you spell that?"  I was no longer in the shadow of my own name.

Then I moved into another shadow - because only a few months later I met Bob.  Face it - when you walk into the room with a human grizzly bear, people don't see you.  If we ever went shopping for anything (say, a refrigerator or car) if I asked a question, they would still just talk to Bob (if they bothered to listen to me at all).

And then there's the fact that older women tend to be invisible anyway - I won't go there, because there are countless articles to be found on the phenomena.

Then I went to a showing of Harry Potter - an unusual treat, because it was at the Civic Center, and the sound track in the movie was replaced by the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra.

As I was in the crowd heading towards the seats, one of the ushers looked at me.  "Weren't you the one with that big puppet?  I took a picture with you."  Suddenly I felt like I snapped into focus.  "Yes," I answered.  "I can't believe you recognized me.  I remember you - we were downstairs, outside the hall before the costume conference."

After the concert (which was quite wonderful) she saw me on the way out and came over to give me a hug and say she hoped to see me at another event.  

That's when it hit me that I'm not the only invisible one.  She works at events at the civic center, where hundreds of people walk by without seeing her (unless they need to ask where the restrooms are).  So to meet someone's eyes, see recognition, hear "I remember you" - well, maybe that works both ways.

On to the Time Warp.  Shelby (one of the keepers at the museum) was having a birthday party at a local bar that was having a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Of course, my first natural inclination was to say no (my sort of knee-jerk reaction to any invitation, especially if it involves driving at night).  But some former museum people that I haven't seen for awhile would be coming, and other people that I knew and liked, and it's such a fun movie.  We were even given bags of props (noisemakers, glow sticks, rice, confetti, squirt guns).  We yelled at the screen, and all got up to dance the Time Warp.  Basically, it was a blast.

Only downside was that I had gotten up at 6:30 to go work at the museum, came home to rest a bit, shower, and change, then went out and didn't get home until 11 p.m.   I am possibly getting a little too old for that sort of thing.  I've been a bit muzzy today.  Totally worth it.