Mini-retirement Flying By

Blast! How can two weeks fly by that fast, without me getting neck whiplash?

Oh well. Got nothing done this weekend, but it was fun anyway. Birder buddy Don came in late Friday night. I was totally unprepared for company - La Chez Claire at its worse. The unassembled cabinet sprawled across the living room, cardboard everywhere, dishes piled high in the sink and me - unsure how things went to hell so fast without even a hand basket to show for it.

Still, we had fun. Saturday morning we headed east to Ice House Road to look for Mountain Quail and found none. Bugger. Then we headed for Markleeville in search of Pinion Jays, and found even less than none - but had a lovely little lunch at one of the tiny town's cafes. The big birder highlight was finding an American Dipper, bobbing it's bum along a Sierra Mountain stream. The bird was so far away it was like watching a ping-pong ball out for a swim - still, I was tickled that Don had managed to find the bird - only the second Dipper I've ever seen. This is astounding when one considers how often I've searched Sierra Streams without finding any Dippers. In future when visiting Sierra streams will just look for grey ping-pong balls & hope for the best.

Yes, I know, the bird is not much to look at, but
Dippers 'walk' under waterNow how cool is that? photo by Robin
We did hit one hot spot for birds, near a high mountain meadow where Mountain Chickadees, Clark's Nutcrackers (score!), Nuthatches and Brown Creepers & every jay, save for the ones we looked for, shot through fir & pine trees. Lastly, we drove into Nevada state, looking for Black-billed Magpies - suspiciously absent.

The day came to a splendid end when we returned to my house, then darted out again to Davis. We saw Man of La Mancha, the third of the Davis Musical Theater Company's season productions. I think it may have been their best yet. The staging was impressive - the Spanish Inquisition Jail with a humongous staircase that lowered periodically so evil guards could access their terrified prisoners.

In the lobby, before the play began I noticed the lead's photo on the list of cast members. He was Asian, and when a young Asian man is cast as an elderly Spanish man, you know, like Smucker's, he's got to be good! And yes, he was wonderful, his voice was rich. Also great was Quixote's adorable & fat squire Sancho and of course, Dulcinea was bedraggled and sweet. Damn. I wish my description of musicals could match my bird descriptions, but there you go. If the musicals want my full praise, singing is not enough, they had better sprout feathers too.

Oh gaw-%$^*!

One of the zillion reasons I took time off for a mini-retirement was to work on my kitchen. My kitchen looked great a few years ago, when the cabinets were painted baby-blue, and shelving was put in over the stove. But several years passed, and the shelves, & every other horizontal surface in the kitchen, are cluttered & dusty, and the baby-blue cabinets are as streaked with dollops of gravy & egg yolk as a baby's chin.

Yes, I know I painted a pretty picture there.

In a revelation, I realized the kitchen's main fault is not enough cabinet space. So, while Barbara was here last week, we had a one day on-line shopping fest. Barbara bought S.A.D. Lights, undies & x-mas gifts. I bought myself a big-arse, free standing kitchen cabinet that ought to fit right in.

The cabinet arrived in a box labeled 'Made in Brazil', but had loads of literature swearing that in the production of my shelf, no Brazilian Howler Monkeys, Tapirs or headhunters were hurt, no primordial forests were denuded, and all was obtained via renewable agricultural forests. Strange, because the cabinet - in about 100 pieces - arrived in enough cardboard to have denuded 1/2 of the rainforests of Brazil, and enough Styrofoam to keep afloat any ice-deprived Polar Bears in the arctic.

Polar Bear carrying Styrofoam packaging, you know, in case ice gets sparse
So I got busy stuffing cardboard into my recycle bin, and burning offerings to the Brazilian forest gods for the offense of the Styrofoam packaging. I started assembling the cabinet where I do all such projects, on the living room fugly rug.

Aha! Yes. Of course, I might have guessed. One of the shelves - not an adjustable shelf, but a permanent lynch-pin shelf, arrived split down the middle; 2 pieces. ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

I am literally speechle

The Toilet Adventure

This week my buddy Barbara is in residence at 'Chez Claire', where we pride ourselves on providing guests with a nice wholesome breakfast. One morning our breakfast fare was hot spinach omelets, other days it's freshly baked waffles or French toast with real maple syrup. This morning we had freshly baked banana bran muffins washed down with loads of coffee. Then, being Saturday, we headed out to the local Farmer's market for farm fresh veggies & fruit.
The Farmer's Market
One of the Fruit Vendor Boothes
Alien Life Form disquised as a Chestnut HuskBarbara treated herself - and her Monterey Garden - with some Native California bull rushes for her little backyard pond. I opted for a tiny White Sage shrub, to take the place of one of the many beautiful White Sages, I and my not-very-green thumb, have murdered over the years.

Barbara buying a Bull rushes From the Native Plant Seller

By the time we returned from the Farmer's Market, the morning coffee had filtered through our intestinal plumbing. I took care of business and then goofed around on the computer, I noticed Barbara - normally a bubbly, talkative person, had disappeared. She was locked away in the guest room and I could hear watery, splashing noises. Hum...

My guest room has a bathroom, in miniature. It's a bathroom so minuscule, so infinitesimally eensie, just closing the door behind you and gyrating your bum onto the toilet requires the sort of acrobatics that made Cirque De Soile famous. Below is a photo of it taken from inside the shower.

The Ensie Wiensie Guest Bathroom

Eventually Barbara came into the living room, looking sheepish.

"Something really, really BAD happened," she said.

EEEEEEEKKKKK!

Yes, the toilet had overflowed and stalwart Barbara - figuratively only - dove right in, taking up the ancient plunger that hasn't seen service in ten years, and plunged for all she was worth, but the water poured out the guest toilet.

Unfortunately, as already mentioned, we'd drunk our body weights in coffee. So, I encouraged Barbara to give the hall bathroom a go and off she went.

Several minutes later Barb raced into the living room. "Something ELSE bad has happened!"

EEEEEEEEKKKKK again! When she flushed the hall toilet, the pee-laden water ran out of the base of the toilet.

Shortly thereafter we were off to the Home Depot for a new, uncracked plunger. It was a beaut - curved flanges, space-age design but damn it, it made no difference, the toilets remained plugged.

So calls were made and a couple of hours later a plumber showed up. My mind made mental calculations on costs that would, on the bad side, ruin me, but on the plus side would allow the plumber's children to attend Cambridge. And lo! A miracle happened. After checking around outside the house, the plumber made a proclamation.

The sewer plug up was not in my house's plumbing - it was instead, the County's sewer lines that were gummed up and the county would come out and fix it all - for FREE!

Still, the toilet adventure had screwed up the hall bathroom and after an hour or so, the plumber had repositioned the hall toilet on its wax seal to the tune of $229. Expensive beyond any possible logical explanation (are wax toilet seals comprised of platinum? Does repairing toilets require a Yale Degree?), but I will not lose the house after all.

Meanwhile a County Crew came out & plunged the County Sewer lines that lead to my home's plumbing. Of course, when the County guys scratched their heads and mentioned a shite load of bananas and bran running freely out of the County sewer lines, Barbara and I had the uncommonly good sense to shut-the-eff up.