How Many?

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

Massive raccoon tour group traveling through SW Washington this summer. I’m surprised I never heard them. We sleep with the windows open in the summer. You think it would be tough to move a family of that size without anyone hearing.

Side story: I’ve been mildly distressed about how dirty the bathroom sink and bathtub look. I’m only a medium housekeeper but I couldn’t figure out how they were getting so dirty.

Then I realized it’s me. I’ve been doing some big projects in the backyard and I get filthy from head to toe. This afternoon I was scrubbing my feet in the shower and watching the dirty water draining away and realized: that dirt is me.

Posted in garden | Comments Off on How Many?

Blueberries!!

Posted on August 17, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

It has been amazing how productive our berries were this year. Lots of raspberries and then a pretty decent Marion berry crop. My next door neighbor has Marion berries and they used to be by the fence and I took the shoots that ended up on my side and added them to my berry patch.

We planted our blueberry bushes in 2017 and they’ve never been very productive. This year: so many blueberries. I’m still picking them but we’re down to the end.

I kept throwing them in the freezer until I had enough.

I made raspberry jam, tri-berry jam, and then this weekend I made blueberry jam.

I use the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving and nothing thrills me like scooping out 6 cups of sugar and then blending it with the fruit.

It seems impossible and I stir and stir. This time I was certain it was going to be grainy but nope: it is perfectly delicious.

We are not huge jam eaters but I am putting PB&J into my rotation. A nutritionist once told me that a half PB&J is more nutritious and better for you than a granola bar. Is that true? Maybe, but PB&J is for-sure cheaper.

I filled my jam jars and I still had more so then I found a pint jar and I still had more so then I found another jam jar in the box and filled that to eat now and I still had more so I found a big jar to scrape the last of it in to eat now. We now have 16 jars of jam and 5 are pint.

Dad loves fruit jam so we will share with him.

Posted in doing it wrong | Tagged | Comments Off on Blueberries!!

Loss Prevention – Out Today in Apex!

Posted on August 13, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

Generated with AI ∙ August 11, 2024 at 4:41 PM, then I tried to noodle in it with Photoshop but the software has changed so much and I’m so out of practice that I just clicked around the menus for 15 minutes before doing a filter then giving up. (This image isn’t associated with Apex — I just thought it would be fun to try make something that goes with the story. This is pretty close.

My short story Loss Prevention is available at Apex Magazine now! This is the story that they put up on May 5 for MMIP Day.

I haven’t been very productive the past few years so I am pleased I have something out there and I am very proud of this story. Hope you get a chance to check it out.

(Also, if you try and it isn’t there, it’s because I goofed. Sorry. Hopefully I will notice and fix asap.)

Posted in doing it wrong | Tagged , | Comments Off on Loss Prevention – Out Today in Apex!

Book Lists

Posted on August 10, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

I wanted to do a representation of my “to read pile” except I couldn’t figure out a good way to do this. My eReader doesn’t have any great way to show my list. This is not my complete paper book to read pile — it’s just a shelf area. There are other shelf areas and unread books mixed up with already read books. I don’t mind a little chaos with my books.

Someone should invent a way people can show their TBR piles of ebooks.

If someone has, and you think I would understand it, please forward the info.

The NYT did a list of 100 books of the century or something like that. Like many people, I had to go through and see how many I’ve read. Only 22. For example: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. I recommend! The HBO series, too.

There were about a half dozen that I tried and quit. For example, Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald. As I recall, I had something going on at the time and couldn’t get into it. But I also recall there were no paragraphs. The wall of text was overwhelming.

Most of the authors that had more than one book, I had read at least one.

And there are about a half dozen currently in the TBR pile.

I did a little better with the Reader Top 100. I read 33 of those.

I don’t care a lot about lists — it’s all arbitrary and a good way to get clicks. But it’s fun to see what makes the cut.

I am surprised by popularity of Elena Ferrante. I got the My Brilliant Friend series as ebooks and then could not make it through the first 50 pages. I hated the voice. I have been convinced to try again and it’s back in the TBR pile.

Posted in doing it wrong | Comments Off on Book Lists

Sprechen Sie?

Posted on August 4, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

My dad gets a small German pension, or I should say he did get a small German pension. Every year they send a proof of life form and last year I did the form and called a mobile notary to come over and give it an official stamp and then I mailed it. Dad got one pension check and then they stopped.

I emailed all the documents again. I wrote a snail mail. I sent all the POA documents in case they needed power of attorney to deal with me. I emailed all the documents again. No response.

I had pretty much given up. What else could I do?

Then, I got a letter at my house addressed to me that said I need to do a proof of life form. While I was navigating this packet, I found a letter at Dad’s apartment from them explaining that they couldn’t mail him his pension checks because they had been returned as undeliverable.

Can we all just pause for a second on this? Let’s send a letter to the address where we’re telling you we can’t send things.

I filled out all the paperwork, got all the signatures, gathered all the things they wanted. I also took a picture of Dad holding their letter: that’s Proof of Life.

According to the instructions you can submit this all online but it’s not in English. FINE. I understand a little plus its 2024. We have Google Translate.

I commence with the website. There are lots of things to translate. It was a long and tedious process but also kind-of funny because it was like all the aggravation of doing a bureaucratic process via a confusing-to-navigate website, but also frantically cutting and pasting back and forth with Google Translate.

Inevitably, I got to the part where I had to “choose one” to tell them what form I was completing and you’ll never guess what happened? Mine wasn’t one of the choices. The form that I was filling was not there. But I had to translate about 16 choices to be sure. If you asked AI to go through every episode of I Love Lucy and then write an episode where Lucy needs to use Google Translate — this is what it would come up with.

I gave up for now. I’m going to try again after I’ve reviewed all the paperwork again and my brain is fresh.

Posted in pamily | Tagged | Comments Off on Sprechen Sie?

Raccoon World!

Posted on August 1, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

I knew there had been activity out there because the water in the bucket was dirty and the pollinator water dish was nothing but dirt.

Look how many have been out there. I think this is a mom and her almost grown babies. I’m not an expert in raccoons so don’t quote me. They are cute but so destructive. All my pumpkins have been chewed on.

They even tried to steal the camera. I guess they don’t like being spied on. I need one of those signs to warn them they are on camera.

Posted in garden | Tagged , | Comments Off on Raccoon World!

Just a Fraction of the Tater Situation

Posted on July 31, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

There are A LOT of potatoes in my yard.

This is because every time I have a yucky potato or a tiny potato from a previous crop that I deemed to small to cook, I bury it in the yard.

My yard loves to grow potatoes.

Since I took this photo, I cooked about 1/4 of these. I have given away several pounds. But still, lots of potatoes.

Somehow, I cut one of my toenails weird and then it grew and somehow I wasn’t paying attention and it was like a talon. My foot was dangerous. I scratched my own self with my pointy toe nail.

I know, this is a weak post. See the manager for a refund.

Posted in doing it wrong | Comments Off on Just a Fraction of the Tater Situation

I Missed Having Back Teeth

Posted on July 28, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

I’ve had time to go back through some old non-priority projects at the office and I found this note to myself: a true classic. After reviewing the situation, I think I recall my thought process and I think it’s both incomplete and a duplicate. If we’ve lived without it since 2021, not sure it’s critical but I’m going to spend a little more time with it.

I had a tooth pulled last October (bottom of post). It was one of the very last ones in the back.

Initially, I decided I would not get the implant. At least one person advised I was unlikely to miss the tooth and I felt like I didn’t miss it.

Until,

on the other side of my mouth in the very back, the crown failed. That was a whole other not-wonderful dental adventure that I’m not going to detail here. But while I waited for the new crown I had only a nubbin for that tooth.

I missed having back teeth. Try eating a carrot without back teeth.

If you’ve ever read Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself there is a character San Glotka who was tortured and they pulled every other tooth so he can’t eat anything but soup and soft things. That’s not a spoiler. He’s in that condition when the story opens.

I had more appreciation for his problem and it was just two bottom back teeth.

I am getting an implant. Also, I’m not sure what dental insurance covers but so far it seems like nothing that I am doing with teeth.

Posted in doing it wrong | Comments Off on I Missed Having Back Teeth

We Went to the Port!

Posted on July 25, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

You can’t take pictures in the port. This is a free-to-use photo by donauwood. Pretend these are Subarus fresh off the ship. The ship holds 6000 in 13 stories. Only longshoremen are allowed to drive them off the ship.

We have been wanting to the Port of Vancouver, USA tour forever. But the tours fill up fast and we’ve never been able to get in.

This year, Bob was on it right away (in April). But when he went to get the tickets they were already half gone. He asked me if the July date would work.

Me: YES! Hurry!

I loved every minute of it. Top exports? Grain, corn, beans, scrap steel and other bulk materials. Top imports? Cars, Steel, windfarm parts. Do they call them wind mills?

The port imported almost 100k Subarus last year. When they come off the ship, they have little hooks in the back that are used to tie them down on the ship. When the cars are processed for you to buy, the hook comes off and they put this little patch on. Now you know.

The port also do environmental stuff including creating a purple martin colony.

“Purple martins are rare migratory birds that winter in South America and move north into the U.S. and Canada in the summer. The primary purple martin nesting and foraging habitat in Washington is open land near water.”

They have these plastic gourds for the birds to nest in. They even ended up modifying the “door” to make it too small for predator birds.

By the time we were done, I wanted to get a job at the port. A little late for a career change, but I would do the tour again.

Posted in doing it wrong | Tagged | Comments Off on We Went to the Port!

The Good News Is

Posted on July 21, 2024 by Pamela Rentz

The good news is: I figured out how to upload pictures again. The bad news is that it took all the time I had set aside to write some catch-up posts. I have pictures and all kinds of notes sitting here.

Here’s a quickie:

This is one of my rhododendrons. It was looking kinda peaked in the spring but I thought it would bounce back. After those few days over 100 degrees it said good-bye and now looks sad and withered and brown. I am in the process of cutting it down and will plant a native tree in that general area.

A similar thing happened to the one if the front of the house. I asked the landscaper if he could help me get it out and he pushed it back and forth and it broke right off. It took some work but I dug out most of the stump. I hope this one is the same.

ALSO UPDATE: my story, Loss Prevention, is not available yet. It will come out on August 15th and I will remind you then.

Posted in doing it wrong | Comments Off on The Good News Is