12 Oakdale

As soon as the pounding started, Annie went to ground under the guest bed and hasn’t been seen since. Gracie (yes, the new kitten now has a name) roamed around, finally going to sleep under one of the rattan swivel chairs I retrieved when my stepmom Marcella died. They were Mom’s, and Betsy would like to have them. Since it’s extremely unlikely anyone is going to ship them to her in New Zealand, they are my living room chairs.  Our roofer had warned us all the scrapping and hammering would be loud, but I didn’t understand it would be relentless until the workers finished. I escaped to a Tree Board meeting, where we voted to buy the services of a company who will use LiDAR (3-D laser scanning) to inventory every tree in the Town of Windermere. I had suggested we do this, but previous inventories had been on foot and extremely expensive. Tonya, head of town maintenance, found a European company that wants to get a toehold in the US market and would give us such a deal. Well done! We ...

Except for one clue, I finished this cryptic puzzle from the Wall Street Journal. My first ever! I started trying cryptics about a year ago, and usually figured the answers to 3 or 4 clues. The rest were mysterious. At first, even when I had the answers and tried matching them to their clues, I couldn’t understand how cryptics work. This was galling. I do the New York Times crossword puzzle and Spelling Bee every day and always finish. I play Wordl, the new word game of 6-chances to figure out the day’s 5-letter word, and usually get it in 3 to 4 tries. Cryptics just stumped me.  Perhaps this one was particularly easy, but I’d like to think my brain now understands the approach I need to take for this kind of game. Since the WSJ rotates the type of Saturday word puzzle, it will be a few weeks before I get another one to try. 

  I’ve always said I can’t afford a free cat, or even a free dog, for that matter. But what were we to do when we got home from camping, and a young cat began entwining itself around our legs as we tried to offload our truck? Purring, friendly, and almost tripping us, it scooted in the house every time we opened the door. Annie was not impressed. Plus, the temperature was predicted to drop to freezing that night. I took its picture and posted a “found” notice on NextDoor. We decided to let it sleep in the garage, with the door just barely open so it could leave and find its way home. Just in case it were hungry, I gave it a scoop of cat food and a bowl of water. The next morning, my NextDoor notice had several “likes” (?), but no one was missing a cat. This is not a feral kitty. It loves people and expects to be petted and picked up. Annie is still not impressed, even when the kitten hisses at her. We decided to buy flea medicine for both cats and move the wool cat bed which Annie ...

Once again, my sadness of being too late to reserve a waterfront campsite has turned to joy as the winds blow across the bay, and we are tucked into an interior site. The last time we were here, it blew so hard that some people parked their cars and trucks sideways at the water’s edge in futile attempts to block the wind. Others just packed up and left. We were fine. Of course, even though I knew better, I tried for waterfront. Fortunately, no sites available. We are here to test our new Coleman Instant Tent that pops up with just extending 4 corner poles. And it did. It was also easy to move when we realized one of the guy-lines was too close to the electric box to stake down easily. We are also testing the foldout cots Grant ordered. They opened easily, are a comfortable height, and support us well. If only our vintage sleep pads held air. Those will be repaired or replaced when we get home. All good. With the gentle rain now falling, we are also getting to test how waterproof the te...