Pretty or Tasty Orange Things in Everyday Ramblings

It may be a little less than three weeks until the solstice but it sure looks (and feels) a lot like winter out there.

Yesterday we mostly walked Frida through a residential neighborhood that has some truly spectacular trees. The crowning glory is a huge heritage Scarlet Oak. The small house next to it is on an unusually angled corner and the redish orange leaves cover the whole roof and yard. They are master gardeners with rows of beautifully kept (and labeled roses). We’ve walked here before.

It is close to where Mr. Sherlock goes for tests and treatments and Mrs. Sherlock goes out and explores while she is waiting for him. It is a much less densely populated area on the other side of the river from where they live.

So this is one of the areas she leads Trails Club hikes through. We were doing a little reconnaissance yesterday. We are good at doing that together. We head off on dead end streets looking for secret pedestrian routes. Last year we found a spiral pedestrian bridge over the freeway.

Yesterday as we were approaching it an older woman with a yoga mat stopped to admire Frida. She told us that she has seen an increase in people using the bridge recently. There is a homeless “issue” with spots underneath it and as she was saying that, a man clearly living rough, possibly mentally ill was heading towards us. He saw us looking at him and turned and wandered away.

There is a lot of construction going on in this neighborhood. It looks mostly like medium range condos butting up against the freeway wall. The main freeway that goes through town that the state is seriously considering putting a toll on.

Which of course affects folks at the bottom of the income level, just up from the man we saw yesterday substantially more than those of us who live middle class life styles like me.

I listen to this progressive podcast every Saturday called The Zero Hour that I like because the host is a nice guy and not ashamed of it. He sounds kind of bumbling (and he certainly digresses but in ways that appeal to me having to do with science fiction, space, and rock n’ roll) but I think he is actually pretty smart.

He usually has on authors, activists and journalists from a lot of great organizations doing good solid work but yesterday he had on my Senator Jeff Merkley.

He is sponsoring a new bill about pharmaceutical price parity with other nations. It makes me crazy that people here in the U.S. have to pay so much for insulin.

Anyway I was listening to Merkley and thinking how grateful I am (and how unusual) that I feel good about my senators. I don’t always agree with them on everything but I often agree with him and I agreed with everything he said yesterday. It seems to me that this country would be a lot more caring and equitable if people like him had power.

Maybe we could provide some services that would benefit that man that turned away from us. I am not saying it would be easy, these issues are so challenging but we could do something.

I worked a bunch of overtime this last week. I always work overtime but I also had to make up the time for my audiology appointment. My boss, who has literally not engaged with me for weeks (except once when I took something in for him to sign when Saint Joe was in Mexico) made a snarky comment this week about thanking me for making management decisions for him. He followed it with a comment about how he knew he wasn’t available but the edge was bright and clear.

He talks to Saint Joe and Saint Joe doesn’t tell me he talks to him. He gives Saint Joe projects that Saint Joe doesn’t mention to me. It is yucky, sexist ageist crap.

But I need to choose my battles and my number one battle is around energy management and not working overtime the last year I am there.

Thank goodness I have an active balanced life with good things in it (like all the discussion and consuming of perfectly ripe and yummy Fugi persimmons) to kept me in touch with unexpected joys.

Last updated December 02, 2018