Category Archives: doing it wrong

Our office overlooks a multi-story parking garage that’s shorter than us so we look down on the top floor.

Back in the before times this parking lot would fill up.

Fairly often, in the mornings, I would notice a car that drove to the roof and stopped in the driving lane. I can’t remember exactly but it was a small car like a Mini or maybe one of those little Fiats.

The driver would sit there. Sometimes they read the paper. Or sometimes they wrote in a notebook.

After a few minutes the car would drive back down.

What do you think was going on with that? Maybe just a security person who … drove through the parking garage to do his rounds?

How about a break from the deer and checking out some opossum clips? No matter how many photos and clips I post about opossum, I have to look up the spelling every single time.

Did I ever write about pickleball?

If you read any mainstream news you’ve probably heard about pickleball. It’s the fastest growing sport in the US.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s kind of like tennis but on half the court so I guess you can be less fit and still enjoy it.

The articles say it’s addictive. People love it. I’m not drawn to sports with rackets and aiming at things or being competitive so I have no personal experience.

We live down the street from an elementary school and there are 2 tennis courts there that weren’t abandoned but not in high use and were not maintained.

I don’t know who’s in charge but 4 or 5 years ago the courts were spruced up and if it’s good weather, there are people playing pickleball there. On the weekends they start early and it goes all day. There are cars and vans parked everywhere and people in folding chairs sitting around the courts.

I feel bad for the people who used to live next to a quiet, crumbling tennis court and now have all that activity and CLOP! CLOP! CLOP! of pickleball going all day long. But also I walked by there recently and it wasn’t that loud, so maybe the neighbors don’t mind. Plus it’s nice to have a wholesome activity bringing people together.

I was at Mom’s a couple of weeks ago and she is having a raccoon problem.

She moved all the cat food and secured anything else a raccoon might get into.

Except these milks. We found this in the yard.

On the complete other side of the yard we found the straw.

I guess that’s why the raccoon had to chew it up.

By the way, the garage smelled like funky wild animal. Raccoons may be cute but they smell.

I had this brilliant idea that maybe we could scare it away with some bells or something on the door.

All I could find was some aluminum cans and I made a pyramid by the cat door.

Cans were knocked over when we got up!

But I set them up the next night and they were knocked over again plus one of the cans was carried outside. I guess the raccoon wasn’t scared.

Mom is reluctant to block the cat door because : what about the cat?

We are exploring some modern cat doors for a solution.

These are photos from months ago when it snowed.

I can’t even remember the exact sequence of events. I think it snowed and then a day later we had an ice storm.

Or maybe I’m confused from December.

It’s pretty. The steps are from me running out to feed the birds.

I think this was one of the neighbor cats, probably Noah, sneaking through hoping to find a spot without snow.

I had a whole robot themed post planned. Originally there were 3 robots but I can’t remember the third one.

These are robots that deliver food at Oregon State. They are really cute. I loved how they waited to cross the street.

This is Jarvis the barista who make drinks at Muji in downtown Portland. I tried to make a video of it for my robot themed post but I pressed all the wrong buttons because I am an old and technology is hard. I did not get a successful video of him making me my drink.

Clearly, I am not ready for the robots. Or maybe I need them more than ever.

When Dad was in the hospital he kept asking for a drink.

We got the idea to bring him some mock gin and tonics. Even the nurses were in on it and if we couldn’t be there, we would leave the can and they would bring a cup of ice and make him his drink.

He eventually complained about the fake drink and asked for a real one.

We resisted for awhile but when he was feeling better we brought him real (weak!) gin and tonics — mostly tonic and a wedge of lime. Every afternoon I would show up at skilled nursing with a mini-cooler so I could give him his happy hour drink.

When we were sick and couldn’t get over there he called me once and asked if this was a dry county because no one would bring him a drink.

We knew all the reasons it wasn’t the best idea because he was taking medications and so forth. But also he’s 92, he wanted a drink, and it made him really happy.

This was the little container we re-used to make the drinks.