Would You Like some Daffodils With That Uncertainty? in Everyday Ramblings

Hope you aren’t sick of crocuses yet. :) Especially ones open in the sun. We are having a mini preview of a gorgeous dry spring, but the rains return on Thursday and will hang around for a time. This morning though there was frost, and it was below freezing.

I bring the bird feeder in at night so as not to encourage a range of wild creatures to think of me as a food source. Yes, I know, it is a species favored activity, but my excuse is that the birds provide enrichment for the cats. And honestly, me.

In the morning, at the time I call “Crows”, maybe 10 minutes before sunrise, the crows, huge numbers of them, leave the inner city where they roost at night for parts south for their day, if I am up that is when I put the feeder up. I catch early juncos and finches before the squirrels get too active.

This morning I noticed red lights flashing when I pulled up the blinds and at first thought it was a utility vehicle. When I went out on the patio with the feeder, I saw that it was a fire truck and the door to Charity’s building was open and I could hear people talking outside. I grabbed a mask and stuck my head out our main door and Charity was talking to a few of her neighbors.

She was wearing shorts, crocs, a tee shirt and no mask and it was 28˚ out. A fireman came out and confirmed what she was telling me that in the apartment next door where they had the fire caused by the Christmas tree lights that they have been rebuilding for months, the water heater had blown and flooded the apartment, shorting out the electrical system and setting off the fire alarm.

She said her apartment was fine. She is now convinced that apartment is cursed and after listening to her for a few minutes I told her to go back inside. It was freezing and although she is one tough cookie, she will be 75 in July and will be getting her second shot this Friday.

We are walking tomorrow, and I will hear the whole story.

You live your life simply and with integrity and try to take care of those you love and yourself and stuff happens.

My sister, Kes, is waiting for some lab results in the next few days that could make a difference in her life and the rest of ours as well. It could be a small thing or a big thing or nothing at all. But it is a thing.

Right now, I am waiting for her to get back from having her eyes checked. She jumped on a cancellation because otherwise, with healthcare resources being deployed elsewhere, she would have to wait until May to get seen.

Charity was supposed to have her cataract surgery last April.

I have a new gardener orientation webinar to watch and am making a list of what I will need. I will go down again to the community garden on Thursday. They don’t turn the water on until April 1st.

Everything, (we all know this), is so uncertain. If the church doesn’t reopen until the fall where will I teach in person classes until then? Do I require all the students that want to take in person classes to be vaccinated, to wear masks, to social distance? Can I find a room with enough light and air flow, with wifi and with a decent floor and a dimmer switch? Do I need to buy a ring light so I can livestream the in person classes from this mystery location?

Do I even want to livestream my in person classes? How do I keep the community together? What I do know is that I will continue to teach online no matter what happens. And probably will add a morning class that is accessible from Europe.

But the rest… I have ideas. Enough that some of them woke me up in the middle of the night last night. I had enough presence of mind to say, oh, hello, you can be here, but I am going back to sleep and eventually I did under a pile of cats.

At least they are warm.

Every year it seems I comment on the flower clock that I am seeing blooms earlier and earlier. It is not true this year. The ornamental cherries in the park were in full bloom this week last year. They are just budding now.

Still, I am thrilled to see many of the trees budding, the maples and the pears. And there are daffodils everywhere.

That’s more like it.

Last updated March 16, 2021