Ravaging Burros

Yesterday, I went back to Lake Pleasant for National Public Lands Park Cleanup Day. I'm fairly certain that the wild burros were culprits behind all of the trash. They were clearly feeling surly about the fact that we were removing all the tasty styrofoam cups and Capri Sun pouches:
The day was strictly volunteer; I wasn't serving any community service for wrongdoings (despite the constant and very real urge to do bodily harm--or at the very least, curse at--the folks who frequent my place of work), and I wasn't having a guilt attack for tossing a huge pile of garbage out of my car window while driving down the highway (NEVER!). I just wanted to get outside, do something I could feel good about, and maybe meet some cool folks in the process.

So I took a floating holiday--and a lot of flak from my co-workers for having another Saturday off after having just been on vacation--and hauled myself out of bed at 5:30am in order to get to the lake by 7am. It's only a 30 minute drive, but a girl has to bathe and eat you know. I was paired with three other "singles": Krista--a girl about my age, Beverly--an older lady, and Arthur--a much older gentleman with what appeared to be Parkinson's. I only mention that because I was so amazed and impressed that he was out there climbing around and bending and lifting and shaking visibly the whole while.

Our little posse spent about 5 hours picking up junk from a day camp site and a big ravine on the side of a roadway. It truly is amazing how many Capri Sun pouches we found. As many or more of them than beer or soda bottles. True story. Another odd fact: plastic cups and lids disintegrate at a touch after sitting in the dry Arizona heat for a few weeks or months. So many times I'd reach for one of those quick stop plastic lids, only to have it break into a thousand teeny pieces at my touch. Oh the humanity! We found socks, flip flops, a couple styrofoam coolers, feminine hygiene products, lots of diapers, and tons of plastic bottle caps and plastic shopping bags, among other things.

At the end of the day, I looked like I'd stuck my left
arm into a clump of these.........................................
(which I guess, sort of, I had)
and I was more tired than I recall being in a very very long time. More tired than I was after chasing my best friend's 2 year old all over Kansas City! I actually laid down and took a nap after lunch. I never nap!

So I got out of work, got out of the house, got some scratches, and got some sun. I didn't get Krista's number, which I should have, because she seemed pretty cool. My friend Shannon would have done it, because she's outgoing that way. I need to take some more lessons from her on that front. Despite coming away without any new buddies, I had a really good exhausting day! And yes, there is water in Arizona!

The 21st Street Duplex

So as I mentioned a few days ago, I lived next to a psycho in that little brick duplex. I can't even really tell you how I discovered that he was a psycho. Maybe I just knew it all along. Sometimes you can just sense these things. I could probably count the number of times that I actually saw his face on one hand, but I immediately remember beady little eyes in a balding head--a sure sign of psychosis, right?

There were the long, long, long nights of extraordinarily loud music until about 4am (at a time when I had to be at work by 6am), and conversations that I listened to through the apparently thin wall separating us. I don't think he ever had anyone over to the apartment, so I *assume* he was on the phone, but you just never know. I couldn't hear everything, but I'm pretty sure I heard the words "score" and "rocks" on more than one occasion. I'm also pretty sure he wasn't talking about sports or music.

And then there was the night that he pounded on my door at around 3:00am demanding that I fix him something to eat. It had been a night of loud loud music, and he was obviously drunk/in an altered state. And he was pounding on my door. My door that shook visibly when pounded. My door that, I'm fairly certain, was less sturdy than even foam-core--"air core" if you will. And it wasn't a friendly "Hey, got any food in there?" Oh, no. It was a mean, drunken "HEY! Get up and make me some FOOD! Come on, damnit, I'm HUNGRY!" I happened to have locked my pitiful front door that night, which is a good thing, because he actually rattled the handle a few times.

Needless to say, I did *not* make him any food. I'm not even sure I responded to him at the time, at least not directly. I may have told him to go to bed. The action I did take consisted of protecting myself. I pulled my phone into my bedroom (this was back in the dark ages of land lines) and shut and locked the door. I think I stated before that from that point on, I slept with a steak knife under my pillow, but that was a lie. I was living alone, and I don't eat beef. I owned no steak knives! Besides, I'm far too much of a klutz to sleep with something so easily dangerous so close to my head. No, I slept with a cloak pin. Because that's safer than a steak knife, right? Thanks to an exboyfriend who happened also to have been a blacksmith, I had this little dandy in my Renaissance Faire repertoire. I'll pause for a moment to let all that sink in.

Renfaire geek with blacksmith boyfriend ---------> Recovering WoW addict with interactive web designer boyfriend. My how the times change.

Anyway. I called the property management place the next day and told them what had transpired. He remained there until long after I moved out (he was, in fact, still living there when I returned to Lawrence 3 years later--my old apartment was up for rent again and I would have moved back into it in a heartbeat had it not been for his presence), but the loud music ceased to be a problem and the drunken hunger rages were never directed at me again.

Didn't stop me from sleeping with my cloak pin for a long time afterward, and I *always* remembered to lock my door from then on.

There are more, slightly less life threatening stories from that apartment. Like the time I chiseled ice from my freezer and put it in a big metal bowl between my bed and a big fan because it was 115 degrees outside and I had no A/C. For three weeks it was over 100 degrees. I used to go hang out in the library for relief. So all winter long I saved and saved and saved and bought myself a really nice programmable window A/C unit for the following summer. And it never got above 90 degrees.

Good times. Good times.

We Interrupt This Program. . .

...because I've been distracted...

yeah, I've traded one video game fixation with another. It's purty. But it gives me bad dreams if I play too close to bedtime!

At least it doesn't make me want to sleep with a steak knife under my pillow like the psycho that lived next door to me in this Lawrence, Kansas duplex:

I'm off tomorrow, and after I spend most of my morning waiting for my windshield to be replaced, I'll have pretty much all day to relay the story. So you'll just have to wait.

A little. Bit. More.

Hold That Thought

The second installment of musing on past housing situations will have to wait. I ended up working about an hour late tonight and I've got a nasty headache. I'm tired and cranky (yeah, I know...what's new?), so your storytime will have to wait until I'm feeling cheeky enough to do it justice.

I have great news though...I just saved a TON of money on my car insurance.

No joke. I switched to AAA; I'm going to be saving almost $600/year for the same coverage I had under Progressive. Nice.

Memory Lane

One of the other things when I did while in Lawrence was visit my old apartments/houses.

This little stone dandy I shared with 3 other folks, Annika and John and a boy named Kerry. Then he moved out and was replaced by a real jerk whose name escapes me. Annika's folks owned the house. They were from Dubai and her mom told me my toe ring was inappropriate because it meant I was married. Except that I was wearing it wrong because there were supposed to be two, etc. etc. She was actually quite lovely about it, and now I have that little tidbit to dish out. I lived in the basement. Those two little tiny windows at the base of the house? That's me. There used to be a giant tree smack in the middle of the front yard. I wonder why they removed it?

Annika volunteered at a wildlife rehabilitation place, so we always had odd critters in the house--sickly squirrels, baby owls and bats, rabbits with broken legs. . . When I found an abandoned nest of Starlings, though, she told me that the rehab place wouldn't support them--apparently they are considered the cockroaches of the bird world. Or something equally disdained.

She did, however, offer to show me how to take care of them. She showed me how to use a paintbrush to feed and water them (watered down and mushed up dog food--but you really have to jam it down in there. It's. . .disturbing!!), and I took them to work with me every day for at least a week or two in order to feed them every two hours. These were baby baby birds!

When they started to fledge, we put them in a laundry basket and created a screen to place over the top of it. Eventually they got big enough that they could fly up and push the screen off of the basket, and they actually used to fly (hop/flap) around my room and return to the cage on their own. Soon after this we figured it was time to start the release process, so I'd take them out to that front porch and remove the lid from the basket. They'd hop up on the edge and have a look around, but for the first few times, they'd just as quickly hop back in. Soon enough, though, they ventured off the basket's edge and out to that now-missing tree.

For one of the babies, that was that. He (she?) never came back. Just sat in that tree and cried and cried. The other one sat for a few minutes and decided he just wasn't ready for that much of a challenge and came back to the "nest". I left the basket out for a while longer, and while he jumped up to the edge again to sit and ponder the wide world, he didn't fly off. I brought him back inside for the night and we tried again the next day. Maybe he missed his brother/sister, or maybe he'd just decided the time was right. Whatever happened in his little bird brain, he took off for that tree, sat for a few minutes, looked back at me (I swear!), and flew away.

Tomorrow: Apartment #2. . .The Psycho Next Door

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Memory Lane

When I visit Kansas City, one of my primary destinations is always Lawrence, Kansas. I lived there off and on for 6 years or so, and it holds a lot of good memories for me. Plus, there's good eats and good shopping! While I missed visits to *both* Papa Keno's and La Familia, I did get to visit one of my very very favourite non-food places: Clinton Lake. I sent a photo/post from my iphone that day. I'm far too lazy to create a link at this moment...just scroll down a bit; it was only about 4 posts ago! I took a bunch of photos with the regular camera as well, and I love the green green green path, so I'm going to spam the rest of this post with some of those shots. Enjoy!

This is the stealthy trail. Off to the left there, going up that slight embankment. Just south of the dam, on the west side of the road.No marking on any map that I've ever seen. I couldn't even tell you how I know about it. It was very overgrown, which sort of made me happy in that sort of "it's my little secret" way...and kind of sad in that "no one else knows about this wonderful place" way.

This is actually on the way *out* of the trail--the entrance would be just 20 yards or so on the other side of that very sunny ridge. Sorry for the sunspots, but then again, I kinda like the feel of 'em.
This one, it's just a close up of the rocky top of the trail. It can be a bit challenging to get down without fallin on yer butt. And it's the primary reason I never tried to take my mountain bike on this trail. :)

Just look at all that green, will ya? it's just...mmmm.... Bit overwhelming. Sort of like trying to work all these photos into one post. Blogger is not being friendly about the entire process, so I'm going to leave it at this for now. Trust me, there will be more!

In Flight

Okay, I'm not actually *in* flight, as that would be both dangerous
and against the rules. I am, however, sitting in the Dallas airport,
awaiting my boarding call. If I may fess up to a most macabre facet
of my personality, I'll just say that I always check out my flying
companions, and wonder what it would be like to be stranded on a
remote island with them. Who would the leaders be? Who would cause
trouble? Who would try to steal my remaining protein bar, and my
bottle of water???

Yes, I'm ready for the new season of Lost.

And the plane? It's now ready for me! Next stop, Phoenix!

Sent from my iPhone

It's A Dirty Job. . .

I mowed *part* of the ginormous lawn at my parents' house today, and
this is what I have to show for it. Those are NOT tan lines--that, my
friends, is layer upon layer of dirt and grass and, well, hair (I
haven't shaved in... a week?). I imagine there is even a chigger or
three (thousand) in there somewhere. I was actually talking to
someone in Arizona a few weeks ago who had never heard of chiggers, if
you can believe it! Another person had heard of them, but had assumed
they were mythical critters. I wish! Before mowing, I was picking up
walnuts, and I'm certain I felt the little buggers creeping around and
munching on my ankles. Ahhh, green stuff! How easy it is to recall
your beauty, but completely forget the terrors harbored within!!

Well the upside of doing all this work is that I'll have a mighty
appetite for the all-good-things-injected smoked turkey we are having
tonight, not to mention the Mad Mad Mud Pie ice cream and homemade
cookies coming up a little later this evening!!

Current View

This is my current view, off the back deck of my parents' house. I
don't get good (any?) reception out here, so this will likely get to
the Internet *after* I've entered a blog from the computer proper. . .

Best seat in the house

This is the view I have right this second. I'm at Clinton Lake--one
of my favorite places in Lawrence. When I lived here, I frequently
brought my backpack, a journal, and much more hike-friendly shoes out
here for the day. The point off in the distance there is the very old
site of a very old
home. The foundation created a secluded and oddly mystic place for me
to sit and read or write for hours. There is always a good wind off
the lake, and the constant lapping of the water is so soothing-- even
mixed with the cacophony(sp?) of all the seabirds that have somehow
found their way here.
My best friend was good enough to lend me her car for the half day she
is at work, so I made my "all the places I've previously lived" tour
and came right out here. If I have time when I've gotten my fill
here, I'll hit Mass street, but for now I'm really content with the
sounds of the lake.

Mini Calzone Maker

When she told me that we were having mini calzones for dinner, I
assumed she meant that she had a mini calzone maker... This was not
what I had in mind.

Back east

I made a comment to a couple from Louisiana the other day that they
were from "back east", which they did not find nearly as amusing as I
did...but I still maintain that, relative to phoenix, it is indeed
east--and since I grew up in the general region, I can certainly
qualify that description with "back".

So now, at this very moment, I am Back East. I'm in my best friend's
guest room, thumbing out this blog entry on my phone just for the
challenge of it. We stopped on the way home from the airport for some
Taco Bueno and caught the second half of the Princess Bride. It's
already shaping up to be a great trip :D

It's nearly 11 here and everyone else is fast asleep. When in Rome...

Sent from my iPhone

'spearmintin

bear with me as I attempt to figure out this mobile blogging thing. yes, that's right! it's not enough that I neglect writing from the comfort of my own home. I want to compound the guilt I feel about not keeping up with the blog by enabling myself to blog from *anywhere*! :)

the photo of Bucket was supposed to have a line of text, which I do not see, so apparently there are kinks to work out. If things look a little whacky today and in the coming week, you now know why.

Witness: Clouds of DOOM

I don't recall which day this was, but here is my Cloudy Sky shot taken on the way to work recently. It's so rare to see a single cloud in the sky here, much less this leaden blanket...it was an absolute joy to witness. A bit bass ackwards, I know, but such is life.

And yeah, I got my email and phone linked up, so I should be able to post a few photos from the road to keep ya'll interested. And then of course there will hopefully be an album of sorts when I get back.

Hooray Vacation!

gear head

so, what does it mean that the first things I made sure were absolutely ready to go for my trip were my iPhone, the digital camera, and my DSlite? I've thought about what clothes to take, and even what book(s) to take, and tonight I bought some airport/plane snacks...but the first things actually packed up and fully ready to go with no tweaking were the electronics.

I'm not the hippie chick you used to know...but then again a lot of me still is. It's an odd amalgam I've turned out to be. Gimme my organic foods and none of that earth-killin beef, but I'll be damned if a day passes by that I don't engage in horrific abuses of electricity and airwave pollution. I'll happily soak in a patchouli scented bubble bath whilst I toil at the remaining unsolved Sudoku puzzles on my portable game system.

yeah, I said whilst. omghax! :P

Surprise!

You thought since I took two days off that I was gone for good, eh? Oh ye of little faith! I'm back with not much to say, except that I leave for Kansas City in less than 3 days and I'm SO excited. Thinking about all of the places I want to visit....La Familia, Papa Keno's, KCRF, Bloom Bath and Body (try as I might, I couldn't find a link!)...
And of course I'm excited about visiting my best friend and her hubby and Sweet V, and my folks. It will be lovely to be out in the sticks again, although I'll almost certainly be put to some sort of strenuous work by my father, whose sole delight in my visits is handing over a giant To Do list. I've tried to explain that these visits are my vacation time, but that doesn't seem to carry much weight. And besides, there is a sick sick part of me that actually likes those projects. I'm a tasker, so seeing something get crossed off a list really soothes a part of my soul that gets no relief in a life of retail. Also, my dad's not the mushy sort, so these projects are really the only quality father/daughter time we have. And, I usually learn something useful while doing them. So I'll whine and complain, and end up with blisters and a giant backache, but ultimately I'll look back and love the fact that I picked up 30 pounds of walnuts from the back yard, or flushed the gutters or helped patch a hole in one of the boats. Or something.
With any luck all that backbreaking labour will be offset with some time in the kitchen with my mom (and no, I don't mean cleaning out the pantry, mom!). We both love to cook/bake, so maybe we can whip up some goodies while I'm there. And of course, shopping. There are always fun little odd shops out in the middle of nowhere. I don't know how they stay in business, but I'm glad they do. And I'm glad my mom knows where they all are. And even though we've tried--and failed-- everytime I've seen her for the past three years, maybe *this* time, the knitting lessons will stick. :)

OMG 3 Days in Row!

Another lovely shot of yet more cacti, clouds and mountains. From the same jaunt as yesterday's photo--heck from the same perspective, almost identically. I really liked the way the clouds shaded some of the mountains. I like the way the clouds shade *anything* here, if you want to know the truth. A few weeks ago there was an absolutely glorious dark, rainy, cloudy day (I have a photo on my phone to prove it, but haven't managed to get my email set up and working on it yet), which I much bemoaned missing out on as I was headed into work. Far cry from the days when it only seemed to rain on--and ruin--my weekends. It's a topsy turvey world.

That's all I've really got to say for now. I've just dyed my hair, and I'm anxious to go look at it. Again. And in true Shanny fashion, I want to go start planning what I'm going to take/wear to KANSAS CITY! The land of GREEN. And TREES. With LEAVES! H'ray!

So I went for a drive last week on my day off. I had originally intended to actually *leave* the car and go for at least a short walk, but when I arrived at Lake Pleasant (roughly a 30 minute drive from the house--not really all that bad when I had always assumed a general dearth of water in the entire state), I realised that I didn't have the $5 required to actually enter the park. So I drove. And drove. It was an atypically cloudy day, and as I popped over one hill Iwas startled enough at the view to stop and snap a photo. The Lake, hidden by such hills (mts?), is to my right. I was able to sneak a tiny peek at one point in my drive, but it didn't really translate on the camera to much more than a streak of shiny blue, so I didn't take the photo. I'll go back sometime, cash inhand, and manage to take that walk by the water. And I'll bring you photo documentation lest you continue to believe, as I did, that there is no water in Arizona.

twig?

Since my writing has been less than regular, perhaps I should invent a term for those like me..the sporadic bloggers. No longer writing Web Logs, we now can only manage Web Twigs. Or Web Detritus.

My humour. Obtuse, I know.

So it's a (relatively) new month and it's nearly fall, so I'm going to give this being a regular blogger thing another go.

I've been in a fairly decent mood lately, what with all the bike riding and the looking forward to my fast approaching trip back to Kansas City and the 'rents. They go together, you see. Because although it's still hitting 90-100 degrees by 10am, I've been riding my bike again--all with the aim of getting a little shape back before my trip. My best friend and my parents love me, but I don't need them worrying about whether I'm going to singlehandedly put the all-you-can-eat food bars out of business when I come to town.

Besides, bike shorts tan lines rule and let me know where to put the tattoo.