The POC (or Numbers Eight and Nine)

Several years ago, I received an invitation to the Party of the Century: a New Year's Eve party in the Crossroads with friends, friends of friends, and their friends.  At the time, I wasn't much for staying up all night with people who could drink more and dance better than I...in fact, it might just have been that I wasn't keen to spend the evening with that many people period, drunk, sober, or dancing.  I opted for a more tranquil evening (that I don't regret).  

Time, as they say, gives one perspective.  This year, the perspective was way off.  On the one side was a much too benign evening at my parents;' on the other was the opportunity to people-watch to my little heart's content.  I am a sucker for observing other people's silliness; call it a vice, if you will, but I chose to attend the sixth annual POC (number 8), anyway.  

The night started at the pre-POC, where I met a gal who was in the middle of a project to write and video record a song every day.  As she only had a few hours left of the day, she wanted to record her song at this gathering, so I was able to be a back-up singer for her video about New Year's Eve. Let's just call that "number 9: be a back-up singer in a music video."  Thankfully, no dancing was required.

Upon arriving at the POC, I began to wonder if I had made the right decision to attend.  I am honestly not comfortable in those types of environments, but I was determined to enjoy myself.  I just wanted to find a "quiet" spot where I didn't have to yell in an effort to make small talk with people who were unlikely to remember me in the morning.  I spent some time scoping out the space but became a bit dismayed when there was no where to sit and munch on my olives and cheese.  My feet became so desperate for relief that I twice found myself in the bathroom just for the opportunity to sit.  My luck changed when I discovered the wooden folding chair, which I danced across the floor to a "quiet" nook and found great entertainment watching my friends dance.  When midnight struck, I grabbed my champagne and fellow-wall-holder-upper, and we found ourselves busting some moves we never knew we had in us (sans shoes, of course).  After a couple hours of watching people "dance," we realized that dancing requires very little more than a willingness to move in a quasi-rhythmic pattern.  What the heck; it's a new year. 

Only 7 of 30?!

When I made the suggestion to myself last August that I should attempt to do 30 things this year in honor of turning 30, I thought that would be a piece of cake. It probably is to some people, but I found myself trying to come up with a list of things to do before doing them. At that rate, I'd be 43 before my 30 things were started. Oh, I have a working bucket list, but I decided to go easy on myself and count things as they come. As of tonight, my total is seven. Yes, seven things I'd never done have been accomplished in four months, and here they are:

1. I had my gallbladder removed. It seems it decided to stop functioning, so I paid a guy to cut it out. I'm much happier being able to eat again.
   
2. A month and a half later, I was attending a Navy Ball with a guy I hardly knew. It seems that the friend (my date) of the sister of a friend of a friend of my mom's (yes, I'm serious) was in need of a last minute date. I don't normally agree to situations like that, but he came highly recommended; I needed an item for my bucket list; and what gal who loves sea stories can resist a whole room full of men in dress blues? Interestingly, we didn't dance at all, but it was a lovely evening.
   
3. The evening was so fun, two weeks later, we decided to attend an opera at the new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
   
4. In the midst of Navy Ball-ing, I took a two-Saturday class on making yeast breads because until now, yeast was beating me in the face. Now, however, I can show it who's boss and make my own sandwich bread.
   
5. Food is one of my favorite pastimes, so when I had the opportunity to go to the Nelson-Atkins with a friend a few weeks ago, I decided we should eat at Rozelle Court, mostly because I had always wanted to do so.
   
6. One thing I never really thought I'd ever want to do was attend a KU women's basketball game. However, I was convinced to go a few weeks ago because of the half-time show: Russian acrobats. In fact, the game was a lot of fun, so I went the next week, too, and learned the secret KU "hand clap."
   
7. I also discovered the secret of trouser socks this week. My sock stock is rather measly, and I noticed that the socks I was wearing the other day were just awkward. So I scrounged around at the store the other night and found the appropriate type of socks to wear with long pants. I feel my life has changed.
   

Hopefully, I'll fill the other 23 spots on the empty list by next August. If anyone knows how I can do any of the following, let me know:

1. Go ice fishing.
   
2. Visit a state I've never visited.
   
3. Attend an opera at the Met in NYC.
   
4. Go sailing (tentatively planning a trip in late spring/early summer).
   
5. Learn to like beets (got any good recipes?)
   
6. Read Jane Jacob's The Death and Life of Great American Cities (I know; I know; I can't believe I haven't read it either.)
   
7. Learn how to play the piano at a very basic level.
   
8. Take French lessons.

Yard Progress

The house, as it looked in March.

 APRIL 2011

First order of business was to remove part of the ag fence, in order to let my "tractor" through.  I also cut back a bunch of trumpet vine.

MAY 2011

There were four living 80+ year old spirea right next to the house.  We (and by we, I mean mostly my dad) divided two of them into seven individual shrubs and moved them to the crest of the hill next to the crown vetch.  They were cut back too much by previous tenants, and they were either going to die in place, die in transplantation, or maybe they'll live.

We also removed the weeds and grass from a portion of the yard and replaced with layers of cardboard, newspaper, and mulch (which the guys at Lawrence Tree Service donated to my efforts).  This mulch will eventually be covered with dark finish mulch, but that may not be until next year.

The south side of the house needed to be regraded a bit, have stones relocated, and the remaining spirea shrubs removed.  The hay, which was sold to me as straw, was one of two bales I bought before I knew how to get free mulch.  My roundup is now taking care of the hay sprouts.

On the north side was a lot of random concrete with no rhyme or reason and the stepping stones were misaligned, so we mulched over the random concrete to create a path and aligned the stones with the concrete path we created.

 JUNE 2011

My day laborer working on the south side of the house.

The remaining (live) two spirea shrubs were divided into six new shrubs and transplanted in front of the propane tank, with the intention that they will eventually hide the submarine.  We used soil from the regrading to fill in a large hole in the yard (where the hay is).

Ta-da!  The smooth, clean, south side.

Dad taking a mojito break after all the work.

The yard between the spirea and the house on the east side.  Eventually, the area around the spirea will also be mulch instead of the cocktail of clover, poison ivy, and trumpet vine now growing.

My archeological finds from the yard.

Anyone Want to Buy a Maniacal Router?

Basic telephone etiquette was out of the question the day "Bob" called me.  By the time I was able to extricate myself from the confusion, I was convinced that the sheriff's posse was ready to haul me away for inadvertent mayhem.  When I calmed down, I became suspicious that the call was a prank.  How could I be personally responsible for taking down the internet tower?  I wouldn't know where to even begin if I had even the slightest inkling to try it. In the carpool on the way home, my techy coworkers also thought the technician who called me was full of it.  My computer wasn't even on, and it would seem that they would have better safety nets on the tower to prevent this from happening.

I called Knology as soon as I got home to verify that I wasn't about to be arrested.  The woman I spoke with was perplexed how the problem could be my fault and couldn't find any record that I had been contacted.  That is, until she spoke to the dispatcher, who hadn't put the record in my file yet.  I wondered if there is a manila folder with my name on it filed in a black cabinet with "Malcontents, Hackers, and Tower Taker-Downers."  She scheduled a technician to come have a look the following day, and I still wasn't wholly convinced that I wasn't being taken.  No matter.

The following evening, armed with all the logic and skepticism I could muster, I faced-off with the technician.  When I asked what was going on, Mr. Supervisor laughed and said, "Well that's what we want to know."  I just stared at him, willing my fists to stay at my sides.  I then told him that I was happy he didn't feel it necessary to bring the sheriff after all, that I don't understand how I could be personally responsible for this, and that he wasn't allowed in my house until he apologized for the way the situation was handled over the phone the previous day.  To my relief, there was no more laughing.

As he was playing at being a technician, I asked how long this was going on since I hadn't experienced any interruption in service.  Apparently it had started the night before I got the call and only around 100 people were affected.  While I pondered my disappointment over so few being affected, he pointed at the router, and said, "Well, there's the problem; you've set it up wrong!"  (The antenna on my roof connects directly to my router, and it was plugged into an "out" port.)

My turn to scoff.  "You set it up."

"Well, the "in" port on the router didn't work."
"Mm, hmm.  So how exactly does a 4"x6" black box take out an internet tower?"
Silence.  Thinking.  Then, "Uh, well, see: since the antenna was plugged into the wrong port, the router was sending out its own IP addresses back to the tower at the same time as someone else's router who was sending the same IP address, and POOF!  And the antenna is supposed to filter that kind of communication, and it didn't!  So, Outage?"
"Mm, hmm, right.  So then if you set up someone else's router the same way, why aren't you at their house, too?"
"Uh..."
"It seems to me that if your tower isn't very secure and that the antenna you installed on my house isn't working properly."
"Well, this is a very rare occurrence."
"Can you guarantee it'll never happen again?"
"Oh, it won't."
"Uh, huh.  Well, where do we go from here?"
"You have to get a new router."
"Which I will then plug into a faulty antenna?  No, that's not really going to work for me."
"I'll replace the antenna."
"That's a start.  I would also like your company to investigate the problem more thoroughly and get back to me on what happened since you're just speculating at this point."
"Well, here's my card."

A week of internet fasting went by before I wrote the company.  In response to my letter, "Bob" called me and asked if I needed help setting up the new router.  No, I don't really think I do.

What I Love About Snow Days

01 February 2011

no alarms

sleeping late

breakfast for lunch

finishing a book

watching the snow

cat naps with napping cat

pajamas 'til 3

no makeup or hair doing

baking cookies

bundling up to go out to play

no bills in the mail

animal tracks in the snow

starting a new book

simple hearty dinners

finishing a movie

darning a sock

early to bed to do it all over again.

Survey Coordinating

I celebrated my two month anniversary as a state employee last Saturday.  Within my first week, I was in Prairie Village investigating ruts that were formed by the Oregon Trail.

See that depressed area?  That's a rut.

The next day, I headed up to Marshall County to investigate more trail ruts at Alcove Spring.  This was a stop along the Oregon Trail because of its natural water source.  While travelers waited for an appropriate time to cross the Blue River to the west, some carved their names in rocks around the spring.

"Alcove Spring" carved into rock by Oregon Trail traveler.

We went to Marysville for lunch that afternoon, and drove by their old Spanish Revival Union Pacific Depot (did you know that Marysville is a huge U.P. hub?) with its fabulous tile:

The medallion says Union Pacific System, Overland.

A few days later, I drove out to Scott State Park in Western Kansas for the dedication of Kansas's first Historic Byway, Western Vistas Historic Byway.  Driving down to the park was similar to a video game where the scenery doesn't change, the road doesn't turn, and no one is around.  Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, these appear:

Monument Rocks.

We spent the night in Mountain-time Goodland, only 10 miles from Golden Colorado.  We considered taking a detour to the Rockies, but I had to get back for such an insignificant event as moving.  Not knowing it was an hour earlier than we thought, we ate dinner on Main Street at Buddy's BBQ (where don't even think about wanting white meat), and strolled down the street for the traditional site visit treat, ice cream.  Being the last day of September, The Vault Creamery was closing for the season October 1.  This meant homemade ice cream for $1.

Home of the $1 ice cream.

The next day, we headed home, and made a pit stop in Cawker City, home of the world's largest ball of twine (yes, it is a National Register object).

He stopped twining in the 1950s. 
Guess he figured it was big enough.

Just last week I found my favorite little house in a tiny little town called Beattie.  According to the date on the front of the house, it dates to 1878.  Isn't it precious?

James Fitzgerald House, Beattie, Kansas.

Hard to believe all of this is in Kansas, isn't it.  More hard for me to believe is that I am paid to go hiking and looking for historic places in Kansas.  What a hard life.

The Old House

She wishes she could remember his name, what he looked like. All there is to remember is how she felt around him, yet they were hardly five or six years old at the time. He spent some unspecifiable length of time impressing himself on her heart the summer he visited his grandmother – she believes it was his grandmother, anyway. Then he was gone. Or was that the year she moved? She cannot remember.

As a child she measured time by the intensity of her experiences not by something as uncreative as the measureable hours, days, weeks that have come to rule her life now. She smiles to herself as she wonders whether her penchant for tardiness is simply her child-self, asserting, "I am still here!" Indeed the days are few that she forces herself to stop daydreaming about the little house in which she spent her happy first few years.

In the neighborhood today, she impulsively decides to drive by the small house, which she does three times before recognizing the ash tree out front. Ironic, she thinks, to remember the type of tree but not the name of the boy.

For a moment, she considers walking up to find the concrete patch where her father encouraged all the neighborhood children to imprint their tiny hands. Maybe their names were still there; was he there that day? She lets her hand fall from the door handle as she remembers her mother telling her a few years ago that the now-dilapidated garage replaced the patio and handprints made so long ago.

The patio. Yes, she can remember that. And the white trellised fence that separated it from the driveway. Her old cat used to pace on top of it after tussling with the snakes in the honeysuckle shrubs. All are gone now: the honeysuckle, the snakes, the cat, the trellis, the names. She stares at the garage, and it is suddenly replaced by the trellis again. There she is, small enough to stand on the bottom of the little gate while he swings her gently. What do they talk about? She is too far away to hear, but she can once again feel the breeze on her face.

She regrets not remembering much of what she said, though to be honest, that is a trait she still shares with her younger self. Her memories are as silent as her photographs; in fact, they are photographs. As her eyes move to the front door, she sees the small wooden front porch. Violets used to bloom in the crack between the porch step and the concrete sidewalk. He would pick them and offer them to her as if offering her a slice of an apple. She never felt the need to keep them. They would spend the hot afternoons lying on the porch, side by side, knees hanging over the step, faces upturned toward the shade of the ash tree, holding his right hand in her left hand and the violets in her right. She cannot remember speaking, but she remembers being.

Sometimes, they would walk down to the backyard and sit in the shade there. The backyard was immense and full of trees. She recalls the giant cottonwood in the center of the lower portion of the yard. Her father always thought it strange that the tornado plucked the small cherry trees out of the ground but only stole a few branches from the cottonwood. She looks to the small area between her house and the neighbor's. She strains to see into the backyard, but her view is blocked by weeds reaching to the eaves of her small house. There is her old bedroom window. Central air must have been installed; the old window unit is gone. She remembers lying on her bed for afternoon naps. Her head at the foot of the bed, she would let herself become drowsy watching the roof vents turn in the wind on her neighbor's house.

She cannot see the vents now. She sees the curtain slightly move in her front window. Afraid she has stayed too long, she shifts her car into drive and slowly coasts home, remembering to say goodbye to the boy without a name.