Even a Little Blue Sky Helps in Everyday Ramblings

We finally have blue sky again this afternoon, at least for a couple of days, and can see our late spring beginning to unfold.

I have the departure dates cleared for the displacement from my apartment for repairs. 18 days from now. The plan as it stands is to be gone for 9 days but I have not a lot of faith things will be done in that timeframe. I now have the key to the storage area across the hall and it is spacious enough to take everything from the kitchen.

They have asked me to rearrange my living room furniture as well, so it is easy for them to move the cabinets in and out. I am not sure I have enough boxes, but I should know a few days before if I need more. How many half-used boxes of a wide variety of teas does a person need, after all? Some culling is in order.

So, this next thing in the long saga of the missing wall is beginning to unfold.

My biggest concern is Carlo. I know he will be fine, but I hate the idea of him being cooped up in one room; granted, a fairly large basement bedroom, for over a week. When I got him, he and his brother were living in a double cage and had been there for at least three weeks. They got a lot of attention, and I believe I remember a story about an overnight escape.

I am sure Diego was behind that.

They greeted the volunteers at the door the next morning. Oh hi, did you say breakfast?

We’ll see how it goes with the other two boy cats that live where I am going, Henry and Jack. I have been reading about feline introductions. They have all met on Zoom. But it is not the same.

We had a wide-ranging conversation in the monthly discussion group for the League yesterday. We have this county wide initiative on the May ballot that creates a program to provide free legal representation to individuals receiving eviction notices.

This would be funded by a small additional percentage of the Capital Gains tax. Oregon has the fourth highest Capital Gains tax rate in the country, but we don’t have a sales tax. It all seems pretty pie in the sky to me, but I do think that if it can get operational that it will help keep some individuals from becoming homeless.

The local League has endorsed the measure but a number of us had concerns about the funding mechanism. Our City government is going through a huge reorganization that was approved in our November election. We talked about the complicated timeline for that. It means big changes for our troubled city.

I feel so much more knowledgeable about all this stuff and feel like I have a handle on what I can say to encourage folks to vote in this coming off year election.

Walt is back from New York and the guys, and I are meeting again tomorrow morning for coffee, (even though I don’t drink coffee), but I am only going to stay an hour because I am going to Zoom with my yoga teacher’s group right after.

We are going to have someone come from Women for Peace to the guys coffee group next month to talk to us about the war in Ukraine and what small things we can reasonably do to support peace. This is going to be the kick-off of the “Peace Salon” that will meet regularly.

And next week I am getting the Helenium roots planted in the garden plot. I have these adorable, sweet pea starts going here and I need to set my cold frame back up in the next 18 days so they can acclimate. I got all of the seedlings staked yesterday. I am going to buy an inexpensive movable bamboo lattice for the plot to see if I can grow vines.

I don’t think anything makes me happier than watching healthy seedlings grow into mature plants and thrive. It is my inner 5-year-old, I guess.

In the meantime I am continuing to have many opportunities to practice staying calm and rolling with what comes next.