The term “burnt sugar” may bring any number of sensual images to my mind.  Maybe a taste of burnt sugar cake or burnt sugar frosting or the smell of sugar being reduced to a thick molassesy syrup.  Maybe a kitchen accident.  Maybe the sound of a jazz/funk/rock improvisational band by that name. 

Reading today’s news in Cleveland, the term “burnt sugar” has taken on a very literal meaning.  The Domino sugar warehouse burned last night (or rather in the early morning during third shift).  SWEEET!  Apparantly, fire broke out in the molasses room that has large gas heaters on the ceiling.  Luckily, the fire did not spread next door to the Pierre’s ice cream factory.  I guess that would have been a very unfortunate domino effect.  (sorry—couldn’t resist)

In any case, Cleveland’s near east side must smell candy-coated right now – a welcome scent to a community that has such a bad rep as the country’s poorest city. 

If one were to order a day with perfect weather, that day would be like today.  The temperature is in the 70’s, the sun is out with absolutely NO clouds.  The air is filled with the sounds of birds chirping and happy squirrels nibbling on acorns and getting ready for colder weather which threatens to move in just days or weeks from now. 

There is a very gentle breeze, which beckons me outdoors, but alas, there is a house that needs cleaning. I did spend a few hours outside this morning under the guise of retrieving the garbage cans and the recycling bin from the tree lawn.  Before going outside, I packed a few peanuts and almonds in my pockets to feed my squirrels who were invariably waiting for me to feed them, as though they would starve to death if I were not there to fill their tummies with food more exotic than freshly fallen acorns that litter the yards and driveways in our neighborhood.

I’m gonna go now and quickly clean the house so I can once again go outside and enjoy this perfect day. 

 Just got back from dropping #1 GS off at school after his weekly night at grandma’s house.   I have forgotten what a seventh grader is like—and 7^th graders today are so much more worldly than I was, and the world has changed dramatically.  Gotta watch every site he visits on the internet, listen to the music he listens to.  

Anyway, I love having him spend the night.  I still read to him until he falls asleep, though the books I read are now young adult lit.  Right now, he is reading “Monster” by Walter Dean Myers.   Good book, great author!    Having him spend the night keeps me current on teenagers today, gives me a refresher course on YA lit, AND it forces me out of bed early.  If I don’t have something that gets me up early, I roll out at 10 something.   This way, I can get things done that need to be done.

I stopped at the pet store on the way home to get food for my cats, mice, and fish.  Of those three species, the only ones that seemed eager and even grateful to me were the cats.  I even bought special treats for the mice, and only two of the three even bothered to come out of their ‘den’ to check things out.  The other two seem to be not getting along right now.  Maybe they need me to rearrange their house so they have something else to pay attention to besides each other.  The fish are kind of deep in the pond and slowing down due to the weather, so they were not exactly rushing to nibble on the pond sticks like they were two weeks ago.

Besides cleaning the house and my car today, I don’t have a lot to do.  Writing my blogs seems to be not as exciting anymore—maybe because my life isn’t as dramatic as it was a few years ago.  A blog about my pets seems a bit ho-hum, but it what it is.

Gotta go clean my car.  I’ll try to write tomorrow. 

Once again, it seems like the lives of those around me are going through their own private hells as I breeze through by some lucky stroke of chance (or some chancy stroke of luck).  Is it mere coincidence or the results of choices we make or some combination of these things that lead to horrible or at the very least undesirable outcomes we face at various times in our lives. 

First my friend and neighbor, N- - - -, chose to file for divorce from her husband of 10 years because she has fallen out of love for him and has decided that maybe she never truly loved him at all, or at least not for a really long time.  It has gotten spiteful, as divorce will, and both have shown their malevolent sides.  And she is normally such a kind and peaceful person, and she is a good friend and I listen to her vent.  She will get through this.

My friend, Linda, whose mom died a week short of a year ago (see blog for September 1, 2006), is once again facing the death of a loved one. Her husband, Dave, was out riding a motorcycle on the 12^th, didn’t see a stop sign and was hit in a country road intersection.  I suppose Linda should be grateful that she had a migraine that day and didn’t go with him, but right now, Dave lay in a coma, with his left temporal lobe and skull removed.  Linda will be pulling the plug today or tomorrow.  It’s gonna take a long time, as she is feeling she can’t live without Dave, but she too will get through this.

Three days ago, I hugged my grandson’s friend T----.  She’s a sweet little girl of 10, always smiling.  My daughter called yesterday to say that T---- had been molested by a neighbor who lives 6 doors down in their not-so-great neighborhood.  The police were at the T---‘s house at that moment.    Today I learned that the cops had confronted the guy who became suicidal saying he’d rather die than go to jail, and then took a few steps toward the door.  The cops missed their mark by a foot or so when they shot him in the leg and arrested him.  T--- will probably never fully get over this.  Children rarely do.

As a sympathetic person, I grieve for my friends and the horrors they are facing and the innocence they have lost, the wounds that must now heal.  At times of dreadful events, their minds are probably turning to the “what ifs?” They are probably wondering what they could have done differently to make the outcome any way other than the way it all unfolded.  In the end, they all will turn around and put their lives, different now, back together

  

Everyone who has lived longer than 40 years old knows that over time, a person’s center of gravity changes—not to mention his—or in this case-- her energy level diminishes a bit.  For some reason, I just have to keep proving that to myself—refusing to believe that my abilities have been altered too much. 

 

Maybe this is a case of nostalgic longing, but I had been remembering back to the old days when my mom would drop us off at the Champion Roller Rink on Saturday mornings, then pick us up in the afternoon.  We would spend hours gliding around in circles effortlessly—so long our feet would feel strange when finally placed back into our shoes.

 

When Dan asked my what I wanted for our 18^th anniversary, I said “roller skates”—not roller blades.  Then, once I got my wits about me, I said,  “Maybe I should go to a roller rink and see if I can even stand up on skates.”  It had been, after all, nearly 35 years since I had seriously skated.

 

The roller rink is open on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings from 10-noon, and mostly older – and I mean people over 60 – skate at that time.  So, off Dan and I went.  We rented the skates and it’s a good thing we did that before rushing out to buy any.  Dan was steadier than I, but then, he’s 8 years younger.  I was shaky like a toddler on skates, every muscle in my body fighting just to stay balanced.  I am surprised I only fell twice in that 50 minute trial “run” around the rink 5 times.  I’m going to be sore tomorrow, I know.  Right now, I am just exhausted.

 

Now the question is – do I return from more skating and adult lessons or do I hang it up?  Maybe it’s time to admit that wanting skates was just a way of saying that I want my youth back.  Maybe I should just move on and continue with things I know I can still do—like walk and bicycle for exercise.  The price of admission and skate rental is a small price to pay for that huge lesson. 

I just had a glorious bike ride of 8 miles.  With gasoline prices the way they are, anywhere I can ride my bicycle, I ride.  It hasn't rained here in a very long time, so the riding is perfect.   I made use of the MapMyRun space to calculate the mileage.  I would like to embed the site on this page, but not quite sure how to do that.  Help?

 

The 16 babies are doing well.  What I wanna do is keep all the females and get rid of the males.  The females will live in peace and harmony, but the males, if kept together, will fightIt wil still be a few days before they become obviously male or female and a few weeks before they are weaned.  At that time, I am gonna make a trip to the pet store with all the male mice except for Harry, who has his own cage.

Romeo is gonna break my heart!  In a desperate mission of mercy I took the poor little white mouse way out into the woods in back of our house to set it free to enter into as many inter-species at it could ever desire with the little dark-gray field mice, since it can never have the fair Princess Hermione to whom he was briefly introduced last week before King Harry (the male partner of Hermione) let him know in no uncertain terms, that Hermione was HIS woman and therefore off limits.

            I removed little Romeo from his aquarium solitary confinement and took him through the castle walls and into the woods, lowered him to the ground so he could scamper out of my hand into the leaves covering the ground.  He remained on my hand for longer than I expected, then cautiously set his tender little paws on the ground and took shelter under the leaves.  I quickly turned away and came back into the house and told Dan that the move just about broke my heart.

            Five minutes later, Dan came in and asked if I thought I could find the spot again, as he is teaching Biology this year and thinks Romeo would be an excellent addition to his classroom.  We both trekked back out to the woods and had no problem seeing a bright white mouse’s nose poking out from the leaves.  I reached down and picked up Romeo, who seemed very grateful for the rescue.  I put him under my shirt and he remained there comfy and cozy during the trip back into the house.  He now is comfortable back in his terrarium sanctuary.

 

By the way, Princess Hermione is VERY pregnant, so I cleaned the cage so she can have her little ones in a clean environment.

Here’s an update on the mouse/pinkie/snake situation:  I still have my two mice originally obtained for breeding purposes, but they still have not produced any young. And, as I said in a previous blog, the snake doesn’t care for pinkies anymore since it has had a taste of field mice.  Of course I sort of have adopted the mice and given them to Gavin to name (Harry and Hermione) and keep as pets. 

In the meantime, the snake still needed to be fed, so I bought a small mouse and dumped it into the snake cage, and then hung around watching to see if the snake would come out of the fake foliage for the kill.  I waited and waited, then thought maybe he didn’t realize dinner was there, so I took out one piece of plastic greenery at a time.  Then I took out the small camouflage-duct-tape-covered PVC pipe.  It was then I realized the snake was gone!  The damned thing had run—er—slithered away from home.  We tore the upstairs apart looking for him, but we will never find him, since he’s so small and can hide anywhere. 

So what to do with the spare mouse?  I kept him in a spare cage for a day or two, then when I had to clean the cage, I dumped the creature in with the other two and kept a close eye on them as a cleaned the main cage.  After ten minutes of butt sniffing and otherwise checking on each other, the big male mouse started picking on the young’n and I knew that what they say is true: you cannot put two males in the same cage.

With heavy heart, I decided to free the little guy to the outside world.  I scooped him up in a container, took him out by the bed by the pond in the back and freed him into the mass of shrubbery and plants.  He immediately dove down a chipmunk hole and I came back inside, wondering if white mice breed with field mice, and thinking they would make for very identifiable babies.

Back on the inside, the she mouse was hunting frantically for her boytoy, climbing the walls and creeping across the ceiling of the cage.  Eventually, she settled into the house inside the cage possibly reconciling herself to life with one man.  I could identify.

In the meantime, the young Romeo had freed himself from the captivity of life in the wild and found his way to the garage, where Dan was working.  Dan ignored him for awhile, but the mouse kept finding his way back near Dan.  Dan picked him up and brought him inside, where he has been relegated to a life of abstinence alone in the old snake cage.

So it goes in the twisted life of animals in captivity.  As in the wild, the alpha male claims the woman.

 

This is a great video of everything a mom says to her kids.  Watch and enjoy.

Today, June 20,2007, Dan cleaned up his computer are, rerouting the wires -- AND DID NOT USE A SINGLE ZIP TIE!!!  You have to understand that Dan is nearly fanatical about zip-tying wires together to the point that anything hooked up to the wires are virtually unmoveable!  He said I should write this date down because it will never happen again.  How many times I have wanted to move my monitor over and inch or get to the back of my computer, but zip ties have it locked in place.  No wonder the cops use them.

Who would have thought there would ever be a festival to celebrate duct tape?  The Manco company and the city of Avon, Ohio, of course!  The celebration was this past weekend, and it afforded the perfect opportunity for a Friday night out with our grandson. When we pulled into Veteran’s Memorial Park, we found a parking place that, had it been rainy, would have been a mudhole, but the weather was great and we pulled in, my Beetle being dwarfed by the surrounding pickups, minivans, and SUV’s.  

 

We scaled a hill and could see the normal carnival attractions: rides like the Tilt A Whirl (my first vomiting experience at the Trumbull County Fair around 1965), the Paratrooper, a merry-go-round, and various other rides that I have been unable to ride (since the 1965 experience).   Grandson went on a few by himself while we waved to him as he passed by.

 

At basically 2-3 dollars per ride, the number of rides was the limit set by us.  Wow!  The carnivals have gotten expensive!  We got one elephant ear and shared it.  It was delicious and I was thinking it was something I could make at home for a lot cheaper.  

 

Free stuff:

 

*We went to a tent called “Duck Tape Saves the Day” and got out pictures in various scenes.  

*We went to the duck tape fashion gallery, where various outfits, all designed by fashion students, were displayed all made out of Duck Tape.  Quite impressive, I think, but there is no way they could be comfortable.  Okay, I admit it—I tried to cover a miniskirt in camo duck tape and it does not stretch at all, so movement is limited.

*We each got a free roll of duck tape  and we all chose the green camo

*We went to the after-dark laser/fireworks show.  I expected a more spectacular display than we got.  Avon is a country town and the music was mostly country.  Everyone around us was familiar with  the music and was singing along.  One woman directly behind us was a half key off.  The show was dedicated to Jason West (the recently fallen police officer and my former student) and to the men and women in uniform.

 

After the show, we went home and collapsed into sleep.  It was a good time.  The video above shows a bit more about it, ass does the link in this text.  I know that the Manco Corporation has done a lot to help the local schools, including the move from the old high school to the brand new one, where they hold their company talent show every year ion the auditorium.

 

Everytime you pick up a roll of Duck brand duct tape, look inside the ring and see the logo and the name of Avon, Ohio.  It’s a good product and it’s a good company.  Check out www.ducktape.com.

 

 

I love this city!  Cleveland has so much--- strength?  The people here are fiercely proud of their city and everything associated with it—except maybe the poverty thing.  Our sports teams are not usually the greatest, but the fans never say die and neither do we give up on our city.  We are traditionally working people from many different cultures who have slaved in steel mills.  Since that has been taken away, it’s been a tough road, but Cleveland has yet to surrender.   When Ian Hunter wrote and recorded “Cleveland Rocks” in 1979, I had already named my son after him (and Ian Gillan—of Deep Purple) and took great pride in all things Cleveland.  The song brings tears to my eyes, so when Drew Cary adopted it as the theme song for his show, the pride of this city came swelling back to many of us.  We truly rock!

 

The Indians are not too bad this year and what can I even say about the Cavs?  I didn’t watch the Indian’s game today.  I was instead mowing the lawn—my favorite chore (NO I’M NOT KIDDING!), but I see they lost to the Reds 1-0 – the only run being scored in the 12^th inning!  The Cavs play in a few hours and I do plan on watching that – for sure.  Ask LeBron about Cleveland pride.  We just need to beat these Spurs, which is a tough one when the game is not in Cleveland, but it can be done, I’m sure.  Every eye will be glued to the set at 9.

 

Go Cavs!  Go Cleveland!

I taught for 14 years in what was considered a small school.  Most of the students I had over those years were ninth graders.  All together I taught about 1450 freshmen.  Two of my former students have died by taking their own lives and one died last week in the line of duty as a police officer outside Cleveland.

In a few ways the students who took their own lives were typical suicide cases: both were substance abusers, both were raised by substance abusers, and they were both males.    Jason West was one destined to be a peace officer.  I always had my freshman do a paper entitled “My Life in 15 years” and the future police officer said he wanted to be a police officer.     As I drove through Avon yesterday, the streets were filled with uniformed police officers who had gathered at a local funeral home for calling hours. The following is a clip from The Morning Journal   yesterday.

 

… West, 31, was killed Friday evening while responding to a fight on Altamont Avenue in Cleveland Heights.

Outside the funeral home, friends related stories about West, who grew up in Avon and attended Avon High School.

Margie Logar of Sheffield Village, who worked as a bus driver for Avon Local Schools, remembered West's love for playing sports as a child, especially baseball and football.

''He excelled in whatever he did,'' Logar said.

Logar said West's mother, Georgine West, often talked of her son's ambition to become a police officer.

''It's just too bad it ended like this,'' Logar said.

Tess Wearsch, an Avon teacher, said she taught West and he was very close with her family.

''He was uplifting. He was never serious in school or at family get-togethers. You could always count on him to pick you up. He'd just liven your spirits. He was very special.''

 

Schools in Avon are closed today and major roads are closed to restrict traffic. Rest in peace, Jason.

Help me!  This menopause s*** is driving me crazy!  How does anyone deal with hot flashes????  I know what triggers them most of the time—any kind of stress or pressure.  I spend about ten or fifteen minutes of each hour soaked in sweat.  I have a little handheld fan to aim at my face (and elsewhere when appropriate) when this happens. Showering every hour seems a bit much, and changing my shirt so many times a day is unrealistic – not to mention the toll that washing takes on the life of clothing.

I have read extensively about these hot flashes and I realize that I may be perceived as a whiner, since mine are not as bad as those that many get them  I am on Estroven, which maybe is making things better, plus I am taking vitamin B6, which I read was supposed to make me feel better. 

I used to enjoy having my grandkids over and now everything they do gets on my nerves.  Well—not everything.  I guess they can just ask me for things they can’t ask for at home and I will do anything—almost—to satisfy them.  If they wanna get something to eat from somewhere, I will gladly go get whatever they want. 

What I really want right at this moment is a Valium!

 

We have found ourselves in a moral dilemma.  You know?  One of those situations when there are two ways to go and both of them could end up disastrous?  My grandson has a friend who lives with his father and younger sister.  The decision is whether to just ignore the situation or to call in children’s services.  Let me explain the situation and how we even got involved.

“Bobby” was over at my daughter’s house playing with my grandson, and had brought his little sister with him.  My grandson asked me if I could take the little sister home as Bobby was going to spend the night at my daughter’s house.  Not wanting to see the little girl have to walk the mile to her house alone, I said I would.  My daughter rolled her eyes – a curious response that would be explained later.  My daughter asked if their dad was home and Bobby said he was. Bobby came along for the trip.  When we got to the house, Bobby asked his sister if she had her key.  I thought it strange that he should ask. 

“Is your dad home?”   I asked. 

“Yeah”, he replied.  Sister got out of the truck and I waited until I saw her disappear inside the house.

When Bobby and I got back to my daughter’s house, I pulled Aubrey aside to ask what the deal was.  She explained that their father was a drunk and left the children alone in the house every night until the bars closed, they had no food in the house, and that Bobby is the only one who cared for little sister.  In fact, Bobby’s aunt gave him $20 for his birthday and Bobby went to the grocery store to buy food.  What he really needed was a new pair of shoes since my daughter saw he was wearing an old pair of shoes which had belonged to my younger grandson.  Aubrey told him the shoes looked too small for him and he said, “They’re all right.  I wear anywhere between a size 5 and a size 7.”  But the shoes he was wearing were a size 3!

            My son, my daughter and I got in to a discussion about options, and they both agreed that to call Children’s Services could be disastrous since if the children were put into foster care, they would be split up, and foster homes are, by reputation, tough places to be.  Dan and I got into the same discussion and, while we agreed that foster homes are tough, the life they are now living is tough.  We decided that Dan would talk to the guidance counselor at school, who would contact the guidance counselor at Bobby’s school to see what could be done.

            In the best of all worlds, friends, neighbors or some loving relative would step in and take charge of these children.  But this is not the best of all worlds – this is reality.

 

 

 

 

The weather here in Cleveland is absolutely perfect!  It’s 76 degrees and sunny.  I (shhhhh) have been hanging out laundry on a clandestine clothesline stretched across my back deck.  That’s against code in my fair city, but it smells so good and does save money. 

 

We’re going to Streetsboro in a short while to meet my sister-in-law and her family for dinner.  That’s the halfway point.  We’re meeting at the Dairy Queen parking lot to decide where to eat.  Streetsboro is so rapidly growing that it is impossible to know exactly what places are available.  Unfortunately, all the choices are probably franchises.

 

I did 75 minutes today on the treadmill, but yesterday did 6.54 mile (mapmyrun.com) on my bicycle, and the day before that walked 3.57 miles in Lakewood, which, while nostalgic, was not real enjoyable since #1 I did not have my tunes, #2 the sidewalks are old slate sidewalks and are not easy on the legs, and #3 the sidewalks are uneven so no the best for people like me who have balance issues.  So today I was back to the treadmill.

 

Gotta go get ready to leave.  Leave a comment if you wanna.

 

 

Today is a day that I have not exercised nor eaten, but am researching family history to try and make sense of dreams I have.  My dreams are very vivid, and often my dreams are so realistic that I cannot tell the difference between what actually happened and what happened in a dream.  I may dream that my husband stopped at the store and bought certain groceries, then I have to ask him whether he really did or not.  Anyway, on to the recurring dream I have . . .

I was told (or was I?) some years ago that my original family home in Keene Township here in Ohio was a stop on the underground railroad (unlikely since the house was probably built around 1890) and I have often dreamt of a secret room in that old house, and last night (this morning) the room appeared in a dream again. The house is, in my dream, much bigger than it really is (and it still stands, barely), and is scarcely visible, so overgrown it is with foliage.) In actuality, it is a normal-sized house which sat on 40 acres of farmland, and housed my branch of the family—my great-grandparents and their 9 children: Walter, Bessie, Truman, John, Mary, J. Blaine, Lester, Richard, and Elmer.  (Lester was my grandpa)

IN MY DREAM, The secret room is part of an old house with a covert door off one of the bedrooms.  If I open the door and climb up a few steep steps through the cobwebs there is a room with two double beds at one end five single beds, a junior bed with side rails and a crib along another wall.  Every time I have my dream, the room is the same, but something more is uncovered.  Last night, there were dressers added and I discovered postcards sent from various places to the matriarch of one of the secret families who took shelter in that dream room.

IN TRUTH, parts of my ancestral family were active in and even jailed for being Abolitionists, but not my particular string as far as I can tell, but it is a great dream.

I’m being a bad girl today!  I am tired and have decided to NOT exercise.  I’m entitled to a day of rest, right?  Despite the fact that I always say that we, as human beings, are not ENTITLED to anything,  I am taking the day off.  My treadmill needs a rest too after all the pounding I put it through everyday.  I wonder if there is some kind of maintenance it needs?  I want to treat it right since it certainly treats me right.

I had to put my dog, Dharma Bum, down last week.  That’s not even the one we were concerned about—that’s Webster!  Dharma’s legs collapsed as he came back in through the dog door.  That had happened before, but when I straightened him out to help him stand up, they merely collapsed again.  He dragged himself across the floor with his front legs.  He was 14 years old and the time had come.  I took him to the vet and stayed with him as they injected him with the syringe of yellow fluid that would help him to pass quickly and painlessly.  I know it may sound selfish, but I wanted my voice to be the last sounds he heard, and my face to be the last one he saw.  “Mommy’s here, Bum.  It’s okay.  Mommy’s here.”  And then his heart stopped beating.

The Indian’s home-opener was truly a crazy situation.  If you go to newsnet5.com you can see a slide show of the huge flakes of snow that fell off and on throughout the “game.”  It seemed insane that they didn’t call the game sooner than they did.  People sat in the stands bundled up like they were attending the Iditarod or a Browns game.  The umps kept looking at the sky and talking to Eric Wedge and Mike Hargrove about whether or not they could get this game finished.  It was quite obvious to the people like me who were watching what transpired on TV.  The players were having trouble seeing the ball. One pitch shy of the time they could ‘legally’ call it a game, they called it – then they called off the game the next day and the double-header that would have taken place today.  There is a foot of snow on the ground here—and we aren’t even in the Snow Belt!

Happy Easter to those who celebrate this holiday.  I’m going to curl up on the couch in a warm blanket.

I am hooked on watching this pair of nesting eagles on a real-time cam!  I got the link from a friend who sent it to me in an amail, and it's hard to walk away from watching it continuously.  Of course, it is only visible until the sun goes down, so I have only as few more hours to watch them today.  I have learned so much about eagles in the few days that I have been watching them grow because of course I had to research eagles and their nesting habits and other things.  There are 3 eaglets in this nest and always one of the parents. The link is www.wvec.com, whiuch is a news station, but if you scroll down to almost the bottom of the page, you will see a link to the eagle cam.  Check it out and see if you don't find them as fascinating and precious as I do.

 

Speaking of precious, Dan bought my grandson a California kingsnake-- very young one -- yesterday.  Dakota named it Stripes.  It's only about 8 inches long and very narrow right now, but it's only 4 months old.  It will get up to about 30-70 inches long.  Right now it's very cute, and the breed is docile, which is good.  We've had a snake that was NOT docile, but just plain mean!

 

Diet is going well.  Made Dan shaved beef tonight, but I had none.  I have lost 13 pounds and continue to pound the treadmill everyday.  It's easy for me right now, but there is no getting around the 'diet and exercise' formula for losing weight.