Remeber Ten Things?

Feeling a little cranky these days (ya think?) Summer is the absolute worst time of the year to live in a suburban neighborhood.  Now I know why folks go on vacation.  It's not to take a break from their jobs.  It's to get away from their neighbors.  So just for grins, let's compose a "ten things" about neighborhood living.   

Ten Things to Hate About Living in a Suburban Neighborhood

1    1.)Power washers—people will power wash anything: driveways, fences, decks, siding—usually starting at some ungodly hour in the morning, and droning on for H.O.U.R.S.

2   2.)Gas-Powered leaf blowers—the most ubiquitous form of traffic in neighborhoods is landscape maintenance trucks.  And every one of those million landscape trucks contains at least two gas-powered leaf blowers, often hauled out at the same time, for double the decibels.

3.  3.)Chain saws—someone always needs to cut down or trim a tree—at 7 am on a Sunday morning.

4   4.) The Fourth of July—Don’t get me started.

5   5.) Neighbors—Doers of all the above dastardly deeds.

6   6.) Neighbors’ dogs—barking at nothing, for hours.  Doing their business in neighbors’ yards. Declared by the owner to be “friendly” while foaming at the mouth, straining at the leash, obviously on the attack.

7   7.) On-street parking—Every house on the block has a double-wide, sometimes triple-wide, driveway.  Appearing as bleached concrete “moats” between the houses and the street, because , evidently, the street is where one parks cars.  Preferably not in front of one’s own home.

8   8.) Lawn maintenance…or not—None of the front yards on this block is larger than about 2000 square feet.  Not huge.  What is so hard about cutting the grass before it gets a foot high?

9   9.) Night marauders—the human kind.—Nothing is safe in your front yard or not locked up at night.  Things will disappear.  And cars parked on the street will be vandalized.  For no apparent reason, just for kicks. (Which leads one to wonder about the wisdom of the “park your car on the street” fetish…)

1   10.)Neighbors—Once again, those humans on the other side of the six-foot fences who believe the entire neighborhood exists for their pleasure and convenience.  Everyone else be damned.   

Borrowed From My Friend

I borrowed this from Jackie, who is still blogging away (much more faithfully than I, I'm afraid) at Walking With Hope.  

Memes being what they are, I honestly can't say for certain whether Dan George actually uttered or wrote these words.  

We tend to ascribe hyper-nobility to Native Americans (actually, George was born in Canada, so that would make him "First Nations".)  I'm not sure the humans indigenous to North America were any less...human...than the Europeans who exploited and ultimately destroyed them.  Perhaps their saving grace was that they were not as "civilized" as the Europeans when the two groups embarked upon their disastrous relationship.  "Civilization" encourages all the worst aspects of the human spirit...greed, selfishness, and the compulsion to dominate EVERYTHING being chief among those.  It seems the farther a culture is from what we think of as civilized, the less it is controlled by the mad drive to gather all the "goodies" for oneself  and beat the snot out of any challenger.  Still, it's not as if the indigenous people were strangers to the concepts of "enemies" and "war" before the Europeans invaded.  They just hadn't taken those concepts to the same level of mass destruction that the Europeans had (and would.) 

So I guess I call bullshit on the concept of all-good, all-loving and all-peaceful Native Americans.  Let's not romanticize them into something they were not.  Human beings are human beings.

However, all that doesn't really change the sentiment of the quote.  No matter who said it or invented it, it's beautiful and valid.  And is infinitely more worthy of spreading around than 99.99% of the garbage disseminated on the internet these days.

Can't hurt to spread a little love, can it?   

Not my Favorite Solstice

 

I am not a very good pagan.  In fact, I'm not sure I'm pagan at all.  Like every other term in the orbit of human religion, "pagan" has been co-opted by a subset of believers in a particular non-mosaic religious dogma; rather than referring to "a [any] person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions," as pagan is defined in the Oxford dictionary.  

Nowhere is my lack of dutiful paganism more apparent than in my observance of solstice.  I'm all about the Winter Solstice.  I have my fire, I chant and sing, I symbolically burn the things that no longer serve.  Winter Solstice makes sense to me, it appeals to me to have a celebration right in the middle of my favorite time of year.  That I'm supposed to be celebrating the "return of the light" seems entirely beside the point.  I'm actually reveling in the starkness and darkness of the time of year that best speaks to my stage of life.    

I'm generally not in the mood to celebrate the summer solstice.  Summer lost its appeal for me a long time ago.  When I was immersed in a seasonal business, I was too busy during the summer to pay attention to much else.  Now that I'm semi-retired, summer is a time of year that is too hot, too fast, too noisy and too social for me.  

This year, our region of Oregon has had a wet, cold, depressing spring.  Every morning I get up and look at my weather app (I really should delete that thing, for all the good it is), and it either promises rain and unsettled weather, or it hints at a less than 50% chance of precipitation that gets quickly drowned in the quixotic reality of Oregon meteorology. Oddly enough, today--this year's Summer Solstice in the Willamette Valley--is the first day we've had unfettered sun in...it seems like months.  I suppose I should be grateful, and hopeful that today is a sign of better weather to come...but I'm just...meh.

What's to look forward to besides the constant crack of legal and illegal fireworks throughout the neighborhood between now and the end of August?  Or the stagnant heat that keeps me from getting a decent night's sleep?  Or needing to stay far away from any of Oregon's more beautiful natural areas, because this time of year they are crawling with tourists?  Or neighbors throwing noisy parties that might as well be right in my own back yard, in this environment of squished-together houses with tiny yards? Or being unable to enjoy the back yard on a summer evening without being beset by a horde of ravenous mosquitoes? I can think of SO many reasons that the thought of summer just leaves me cold.  Or wishing it WAS cold, anyway.

Be all that as it may, I'll wish all a Happy Solstice. Enjoy the summer, if that's what you're into.  Me?  I'll just put my head down and charge through it, until I can get to the time of year I really like.       

Assessing Risk to Reward Ratio

 Three counties in the state of Oregon have been designated areas of high spread of COVID.  Douglas (Roseburg), Jackson (Medford)—with population centers in the reddest of red areas of the state.  And…Lane.  That’s   right.  Good old Eugene-Springfield.  My own back yard. 

Here in Lane County, we combine deep red with indigo blue. Here reside some of the most rabid, anti-mask, anti-vax Trumpers in the state--irritated to such radicalism, one would suppose, by being forced to live in close proximity to the very, very blue community headed by the University of Oregon.  Yes, the state university...where they practice all that librul indoctrination stuff; and where they additionally entice countries from all over the globe to send their athletes, their money and their COVID to spread among the general population.  We are doubly cursed.

The Oregonian states that “People in those areas [of “high risk”] should wear masks in public indoor settings, according to the Centers for Disease Control.” 

I wear my mask.  I have never stopped wearing my mask.  I have laid in a supply of N95 masks, which I will probably continue to wear in public for the foreseeable future.  

But I am here to tell you that, regardless of CDC recommendations, the good citizens of Lane County are DONE with COVID in general, and wearing masks in particular.  

We went to a business meeting last week, and we were the ONLY folks in the room wearing masks.  When I walk into any store, I am usually the only person within my sight line so attired.  Yes, I HATE wearing the mask.  It is annoying, it’s uncomfortable, and the pressure on my jaw joints can sometimes trigger a jolly migraine.  But it’s not going to kill me to wear a mask…while I STILL don’t know what effect a COVID infection might have on my abused old body.  So…I’ll choose the mask, thank you very much.  

My supply of trusty N95’s has given me the confidence to venture out into public more than I have for over 2 years.  I’m almost to the point where I go out as much as I did pre-pandemic.  Though I still have no intention of eating indoors at a restaurant any time soon (maybe ever),  I’ve indulged in plenty of shopping—at garage sales, resale shops,  home centers and grocery stores.  For the most part, these have all been positive experiences…except for the grocery stores.   

Once upon a time, I would pull into the parking lot at Safeway, eye the prime parking spots designated for grocery pick-up, and scoff, “Who is so lazy that they even can’t go in and shop for their own groceries?”  After 2 years of pandemic protocol, I know with absolute certainty the answer to that question:  Me.   I am that customer. 

And it’s not so much that I’m lazy.  It’s that the entire experience of shopping for groceries is riddled with annoyances.  Track down a shopping cart that never seems to be present at the entrance you choose.  Navigate the obstacle course of oblivious, stupid, or downright rude other shoppers who don’t realize or don’t care that they’re not the only shoppers in the store.   

Try to unravel the mystery of what the actual prices are, dependent upon whether you do or do not possess the cherished membership card of whatever store you are in.  

Stand in a checkout line that never moves because the person in the front of the line is busy arguing with the checker about prices and coupons, or the checker is busy providing a chatty social experience for every customer.  Try the self-checkout line, only to have it freeze up at the slightest provocation, and then stand and twiddle your thumbs while “help is on the way.”   

I never realized how much I DETEST shopping for groceries until COVID-19 showed me that I could completely eliminate that arduous chore from my life and not starve to death.  And the idea that an N95 mask now magically enables me to indulge in an activity I clearly loathe holds no appeal whatsoever. 

So…you see that lady sitting in her car in one of those cherished close-in parking spots, waiting for someone to bring out  her groceries and load them in the back of her tiny SUV?  That is me.  And I don’t feel one iota of bad about it.  In fact, I’m giddy with delight.  I grin ear-to-ear all the way home. 

If nothing else, COVID has shown me what is worth risking for, and what is not.  Even if it’s not actually my health that I’m risking, but only my sanity.  So there is indeed a silver lining in every cloud, I guess.