Saturday, September 09, 2023

My dogs slept soundly without even a peep from early evening yesterday clear through to this morning. That’s because earlier, they had run their buns off with Ryder, a young Aussie belonging to our friend, Rachelle. She and I were strolling and chatting while our dogs raced without pausing for more than a few seconds occasionally.

Rachelle is athletic–a devout, dedicated swimmer. She’s ridden horseback in the past and is interested in riding again. That’s welcome because I mostly ride alone. There’s so much to discover every second in nature that a riding companion sharing the “finds” increases the fun.

Riding horseback can bring “new sights” in very familiar surroundings. A new sight might be because the weather has changed or natural lighting has shifted. What appears new, different, and pleasurable creates special moments out in the open spaces.

Today, my dogs will continue sleeping off yesterday while I’m back to work and indoors.

Speaking of equines, my donkey Pimmy has healed and is walking normally. I must learn more about why her hoof has a tendency to abscess and how to prevent that from happening again.

Dear Friends: Enjoy these perfect fall days and this gorgeous weather. Diana

Friday, September 08, 2023

Yesterday, the super handyperson, Gustavo, demonstrated how to repair my sagging horse fencing. He chose one section and undid all the staples on the top rail and posts. Then, he stretched the fence fabric upward and pounded in new staples. That made the previously sagging section tight and secure.

I didn’t know old fencing could be renewed. Fencing folks have given me estimates for re-fencing without mentioning making repairs instead. Gustavo nods and says that’s what they do in their business. Well, ahead, my fencing needs are mapped and understandable.

There are alternatives to replacing, regardless of the issue. Recently, while feeling forced to consider rebuilding my failing septic field, I learned the area could be cleaned and renewed. That process proved beneficial and saved thousands of dollars. I’ve been advised to replace the septic tank itself to avoid its slow collapse on itself. To that, Gustavo says, “Baloney!”

Well, okay, G! Even if only for now.

My point is to become more educated about alternative possibilities. At work and talking with customers at Home Depot, many refer to their learnings from “YouTube University.” Even the customers HD refers to as Pros sometimes describe their gains from online learning.

It’s one thing to know and another to do. Today, I’ll tackle a portion of the horse fence myself to learn if I’m knowledgeable and robust enough for the work. I’m primarily curious, for knowing and doing can stand separately. Knowing enables searching for alternatives, and doing could be about addressing personal goals.

Dear Friends: I’m on my way outside with a nail-puller and hammer. Diana

Thursday, September 07, 2023

Today is one off from my part-time job. The very handy person, Gustavo, will be here to finish repairing the horse fence before shifting to another project.

Yesterday, I wrote about “spider wrapping” but skipped explaining what it is, and a reader has asked. The wrap is an unbreakable and uncuttable string with an alarm. The string has a lock and secures a package. Before a spider-wrapped product can be purchased, a store employee using an unlocking device must remove the spider.

In today’s retail environments, theft is a huge issue. Some of our most iconic businesses are reporting lower sales and/or closing their brick-and-mortar stores, reporting high theft rates as a key reason. The three main categories of theft are insider theft, outsider theft, and internal mistakes in the accounting of inventories.

We who work in retail focus on potential theft and carefully avoid slippages in our “accounting activities.” Those include returning customer-tossed items to their proper places, reporting broken packages with missing or empty pieces, and staying alert to customer behavior.

I’m learning that theft is a huge driver of rising prices. Stealing by individuals seems as much about personal inclinations as ring theft is about “free money.” It’s astonishing to see tossed small packages holding two screws or bolts and costing about a dollar, broken into, and having one piece missing. Who needs to do that?

It’s about human nature, stupid, and if that’s true, the thieving part is on steroids. Our pocketbooks feel it. Businesses try fighting back by putting products under lock and key, and yes, making spider-wraps endemic. Some ideas for retail’s future suggest having all products available upon request and sliding from remote holding areas in a chute. Sounds fantastic?

Dear Friends: Product locking and spider-wrapping are costly and unpleasant. Diana

Wednesday, September 06, 2023

Yesterday at work, I practiced putting a “spider wrap” on boxes of high-priced new tools. The process wasn’t easy for me, because manipulating bendy spider wires to fit correctly and lock securely needs one to visualize abstractly. My coworker/trainer, Laurie, was reassuring, saying that at first she found working with the spiders very confusing, and adding, “You’ll get it.”

Using many physical and mental skills in my part-time job makes me feel more rounded. For example, putting away parts forces me to stretch and reach upward and exercises neglected muscles. Learning to navigate the store’s complex array of nails, screws, tools, and parts, and discussing them with customers exercises my brain.

All that and more is helping me feel stronger and capable, also feeling younger than my years. It’s a big deal because, in my post-retirement jobs, I’ve been confronted often with negative ageism, and surprisingly, more from people who are elderly. Individuals outrightly have demanded that I shouldn’t be working at all. Or have asked, “Does standing on your feet hurt,” or “How do you read without glasses?” The list of negativity is unending, and whether it’s delivered in demands or as questions, highly dislikable.

That’s given me insight into being in public and reminded me of being “different.” The physical symbols of being elderly among the young, black among light-skinned others, identified as following a non-Christian religion, and others, are unavoidable. Unfortunately, many differences activate old learning and habits in watchers, stuck mentally in their pasts and learnings.

Those include me. Yes, I long ago thought of “old” as being Old. No longer, and I always try to avoid being openly critical of differences visible from the norm.

Dear Friends: Ha! Learning to spider-wrap initiated a rant. Diana

Tuesday, September 04, 2023

I finally have downloaded the photos that Susie and I snapped evenings ago as we watched the Super Blue Moon at its fullest rising from behind a dark ridge. A moon’s first glow breaking the darkness is a magnificent sight. This moon’s appearance was extra thrilling because of its added “Super” and “Blue” components.

Here’s an associated fact: another fourteen years will pass before the next Super Blue Moon shows up.

Here’s the view from one of our favorite spots for seeing the moon rising over a distinctive ridge.

Getting into position has had us parking and waiting among discarded vehicles in a small, isolated-appearing field. We take lightweight portable chairs and wait to cheer and capture. To our surprise, this time, the field’s owner came to question our presence and fortunately allowed us to stay in the special spot and photograph.

Meanwhile, the cameras we had were fairly new and unfamiliar. We practiced with them while awaiting the moonrise. Last night, while I downloading the evening’s images, turned out that one isn’t a photo at all, but is a recording–a hilarious capture of us trying to decide how to operate the cameras.

Suddenly though, moonlight appeared and little else mattered. We simply clicked away, and the resulting images actually are good. Thanks, cameras!

Today’s header photo, from our zoom camera, captures the moon, then high in the sky. Luckily, images from our non-zoom camera, although small do look good, from the moon’s first light over a barely visible horizon, and through its ascent.

Yes, we’re at it again–your moon-chasing photographers. With thanks galore to a kind landowner.

Dear Friends: Later this month, we’ll go capture the annual glorious Harvest Moon.

Monday, September 04, 2023

Happy Labor Day!

The last few evenings while coming home from work, it’s been a delight seeing the still-fabulous Super Blue Moon, overhead and huge. Even when dusk partially has buried the Globe in clouds, Heaven’s gift to our Earth has lit my pathway.

I have today off from my part-time job. Starting tomorrow, I’ll work during earlier hours–a good thing. When I clock in during the late afternoons, I’ve already done a full day’s work at home. By store closing times, holding up my head is an effort. The other evening, I was beyond embarrassed to feel myself repeatedly nodding off during the team’s closing meeting.

Yesterday, a mailing from Home Depot announced that last June my hourly pay rose by a dollar. Nobody has mentioned that, and I never felt the increase. Many events that should be notable these days are handled very differently from my long-ago youth.

Finally, my friend, Ava, has joined the ranks of ex-Winco employees. Today, she will start on a road trip to San Antonio, where there’s a house that’s her very own. Ava’s story reveals more differences about living in these days; such as the massive obstacles and headaches associated with buying a home. Ava says she’d wish not to live in Texas, but regardless, for a hard-working, deserving person, attaining one’s own home is a great win. Yep, I’d go to Texas, too.

Dear Friends: Yesterday, HD sold lots of BBQs; have yourselves a good holiday! Diana

Sunday, September 03, 2023

Finally, my entire horse fencing is sturdy and doing its job again. The one who repaired it, Gustavo, has experience and creativity. He fixed it by re-supporting some of the sagging posts instead of pulling out and replacing every less-than-sturdy post. Broken posts and their bases buried in concrete can be very heavy for digging up and hauling out of the ground. By installing new posts to support several wobbly ones, Gustavo avoided having to dig and haul out all the bad post bottoms.

He did a great job. I like the fence’s look, and best of all, that there’s no give when I’m pushing on it. Ahead, there’s bigger testing from my horses. They lean their behinds into the fence and scratch itches. Gustavo will also renew the fence’s failed hot wiring.

Watching him work has taught me more about fencing. In the future, I won’t repeat past mistakes, as now I know how to counter some fencing wear and tear when it starts again.

Now, Pimmy’s hoof. She’s better following another veterinary visit. The doc recleaned the infected hoof, took x-rays (didn’t see anything frightening), and retaped it. We received a stretch of antibiotics and relatively easy-on-the-system pain meds. Medicating Pimmy requires preparing a complex mixture and then administering it. Pimmy is cooperating, now puts some weight on her healing foot, and walks almost normally.

Dear Friends: With fence issues off my mind, I can relax and do some gardening. Diana

Sunday, September 02, 2023

On a whim, I’m going to do something that feels special. I’ve enrolled in a Zoom class to try and learn to speak Yiddish. It was the language of my grandparents, of my father, and a secondary language for my mother and her siblings. As a child hearing it spoken, I never tried learning it. In my very early years, public notions didn’t think anything good about being an immigrant. I wasn’t encouraged to learn to speak like a Jew.

Through the years since my early days, Yiddish has become much less spoken and also less read. I’ve been aware of this, gradually understanding that I missed a grand opportunity. Learning Yiddish also would have been an opportunity to learn more about my grandparents’ early lives.

My maternal grandparents immigrated with their small children from Odessa, Russia. I’ve always been interested in what their “early Odesa” might have been like; I’ve always wished to visit contemporary Odesa (pre-Ukraine war). The current war especially has put these feelings more on my mind.

Maybe it was no whim that motivated me to enroll in the Yiddish class. Maybe it was more about trying to realize some long-held wishes. It’s a complicated mix of past and present.

I can’t think more about that now, for Gustavo is arriving soon. He will finish repairing my horse fencing, and I must help him. But stay tuned, for soon the learning will begin.

Dear Friends: A challenge for a “no other languages” type who speaks only English. Diana

Friday, September 01, 2023

Last year, for months, I worked at Winco as a cashier. That’s where Ava and I became friends. She had been working at that cut-rate supermarket for years and helped me know how to perform my role more effectively. All her co-workers trusted her as our go-to for advice.

Last fall, I quit working at Winco, and suddenly, for reasons I can’t fully understand, except that occasionally, I can become sort of a drop-out. Afterward, I stayed home, concentrating on property and animals. Months passed before I sought outside work again.

Back then and feeling guilty about quitting my job suddenly, I avoided shopping in Winco and lost touch with folks working there who had become friends. Including Ava.

Weeks ago, a chance meeting in Home Depot with Stacy, another friend from my Winco days, blew open my resistance to returning to Winco. I began shopping there and swapping greetings with acquaintances.

A couple of days ago, Stacy texted me that Ava was leaving soon and moving to Texas. I barely could absorb that because Ava has been a staple–besides Winco, she’s very close to her sisters who live here. Plus, her daughter frequently travels here to visit Ava.

What I appreciate about Ava, besides her intelligence and dedicated work ethic, is that she’s highly relationship-oriented, in other words, she’s a real friend. Stacy’s texts explained that Winco is in a state of chaos over Ava’s leaving. Here’s a funny thing, I am, too.

Yesterday, we met, and Ava explained why she’s moving. Her daughter has just closed on the purchase of a house which was affordable and is for Ava. It’s located in San Antonio, where Ava’s son and his child live. Her son is a working single parent, and Ava will assist him with her eight-year-old grandson.

She was edgy because of tasks she must complete before departing next week. Her sisters will join her on the drive to Texas and stay there a while to help arrange the new household.

Like many others, I’ll miss her. A good thing is that Ava follows this blog, so, we will stay in touch.

Bon voyage, Ava. I’m thrilled that you will have a house. I hope we may meet and catch up again when you’re here to visit your sisters.

Dear Friends: The great co-workers at Winco make me feel sorry I left. Diana

Thursday, August 31, 2023

Yesterday, your Moonchasers returned to their business of capturing the biggest and best full moon risings. We were working with new cameras and had too little practice using them, so couldn’t capture accurately the whole show as we had planned.

Nonetheless, a show it was! This year’s rising Super Blue Moon made a beautiful appearance while rising above the dark horizon of Horse Ridge. We were parked out on the desert side, east of town, in near-darkness where we could see the lengthy dark Ridge, and practiced with our cameras while waiting for that special moon’s earliest glow.

It didn’t disappoint. Susie has great sky sense and was quickest to spot an emerging light. And we watched, awed, as the oversized globe rose and brightened a great darkness. Susie quickly spotted Saturn above the moon, dimly apparent to the naked eye. We took pictures and peered through binoculars. And then, we sat and watched the moon’s ascent while talking and catching up with each other.

We exchanged happenings in our little worlds and in the shared larger world. I began thinking of not having fully appreciated why the moon offers inspiration and reassurance. Its darkness-breaking appearances certainly touch our most inner-human selves, relating us to all humans since before time immemorial. We’re affected by a new light and a sense of renewed hope.

As we chatted, I dreamed more contemporarily about the moon’s impact on us humans. Maybe its power is because it has constant behaviors–routine and predictable. That’s completely the opposite of Earth’s current social, economic, and political turmoils.

The moon is a visual icon of genuine dependability, with a constancy that reassures a larger universe with genuine order. Despite today’s confusing world, we can become soothed by reminders that orderly behaviors and processes exist.

About today’s header photo, it’s a hint. I’ve not yet had time to download all our photos. More will come.

Dear Friends: September’s wonderful Harvest Moon will send us chasing. Diana