My housesitting adventure has officially come to a close. Now it's time to return to some normalcy here at The Big Blue House. I have a slew of things I need to be doing more than writing this blog post, but they'll keep for now. I just had a few photos for the last days worth of adventures. My friend had so much trouble getting and returning from Orkney. Because of flight delays on her return trip, I almost had to stay over another night. And I almost had to drive her car to the airport in New Orleans to pick her up. Thankfully neither of those things happened. And it should be said that The Sister and I have old friends. Not old as in good friends we've known a very long time, though we do have those. No, I mean old as in older than us by fifteen or so-ish years. The place where The Sister is currently housesitting? We're not entirely sure, but we think if they are not already sixty then they are pushing it by a few years. The friend I housesat for? She just turned 60 this year. It should also be noted that our parents are 68 and 69, though dad's going to turn 70 the day after tomorrow. These people are closer to our parents' ages than our own of just turned 44 and is about to turn 38. I do not mind being friends with older people, but not many people are I have come to realize. It should also be stated that our parents with their conservative and somewhat rather backwards views would not get on well with our older friends. Which makes me giggle a little bit thinking about it. Like The Sister and I are little rebels or something. Anyways, I just wanted to clarify that because it's a weird and interesting little tid-bit, as opposed to her being my age or something. She is spry for 60 and we don't really think of her as being so much older than us, but in our minds we refer to her as Auntie. Not sure how she'd feel about that if she knew though. Which also makes me laugh a little. So, we'll start with that first photo up there. I mentioned in my previous post that I would look for bird feathers while filling the bird feeders. Specimens to add to my nature collection. So, here they are, except for the tiny blue jay feather that was featured in the last post. So, that one that's blackish-grey with some white on it? That was from a near kill. I was sitting there one morning, enjoying my coffee, and I heard all this rustling from the bushes to my right. More rustling than just the cats lazily coming through. Then out popped Astro, my friends black cat, with a bird in its mouth. "Oh Astro...." I gasped and then covered my mouth. I know that nature happens whether I'm around or not, but it doesn't mean I enjoy witnessing it. I don't enjoy witnessing animals mate, nor other animals catching or eating their prey. It's why I won't watch animal documentaries. So, I'm well aware that cats hunt small rodents and birds, but I don't want to see it. I also can't scold or get mad at them because they're just doing what they do. Instincts and all. However, my instinct a few day before this was to loudly proclaim "fly away!!" when her other cat Bodhi pounced towards a bird. I just couldn't help preventing nature from happening since I was witnessing it. So, Astro had a bird in its mouth and I was sad, but couldn't and wouldn't reprimand him for it nor try to save it from him. But then something happy happened. Astro either decided it was dead and was going to drop it for me, or to play with, or else he lost control of it, because it fell out of his mouth and flew away so fast with Astro in fast pursuit, but it flew up and away and was gone. Whew! Close call. Sure hope he didn't do any real damage to it and it'll be OK. However, I did find where the assassination took place. It was the side yard toward the back, and there was a whole messa feathers there. I took one that wasn't gnarly for my collection and picked up one for my friend. Buddha's holding three feathers for her now instead of for me. It'll be mine and Astro's secret that one of those feathers are from the bird he tried to kill on that hot morning near the end of July. This seems like an odd photo and not something to be included among a post referring to adventures, however, the kids in her neighbourhood had set up a lemonade stand. My initial instinct was that of course I would buy lemonade from them and support them. I even gave them the rest of the jingle change I had in addition to the fifty cents owed. I'm not sure if I would be so gung-ho in supporting the very kid thing of selling lemonade if it hadn't been for the fact that I remember being that kid, trying to sell lemonade in my neighbourhood... and no one supported me. Not even my parents. However, what is odd is that the friend I was housesitting for saw the photo and commented with, "Don't encourage those little Trumpsters." And I'm not certain if she was being mean or if she was making a joke that I just don't understand. Sure I dislike our current president as much as the next non-conservative person (probably less because I can't bother to fill myself with rage and hate really), but all I can see is that these are kids trying to make money in a true kid fashion so they can pull the money together between the ten of them and I don't know... buy ice cream from the truck or go get a comic book or something? They're just kids who are bored and want money to buy kid things. I don't see anything political about it. Perhaps their parents are Trump supporters (because I'm still unsure why she said what she did), but kids aren't their parents. They may grow up to be their parents, but they aren't them at this age. Anyway I'm glad I supported these kids even if my friend was possibly being mean. I entered a giveaway for this Apple Watch being offered by a local-ish business solutions center... and I won. It wasn't a mega huge giveaway (only 115 people), but I was ecstatic to win... and I'm not even certain why I entered. I don't wear watches. I'll wear this one, but apparently I need this? Anyways, I was super excited to win and they even put up an official post about who won. The giveaways I might win don't do this, as only the large ones do I've noticed. Also, I'm a dork, but yes I do have my name listed like a filing system. Last, then first and middle. It makes me happy that it's all mixed up and not like it should be. So I was even more excited and gave a "Huzzah!" when I saw the photo with my file name listed. So, they said they were shipping it today which means it should get her tomorrow of Wednesday. I can't wait! At the gardening center with dad the other day (still housesitting, just helped him get the tire replaced on moms car), I spotted mushrooms that had burst out from inside a bag of potting soil just growing and doing their fungi thing. I had to take a picture and was happy to see this. Here's Bodhi all happy and contented with the warmth. That's also part of my leg in what The Sister calls my crazy pants, that pattern there in the bottom left hand corner. The blank spot of cement between Bodhi and I is about where Astro lost is prey, or else was putting it down for me. Anyway, Bodhi's cute and slight floofy and slightly chubby and he has permanently resting bitch face. He always looks so grouchy with his underbite, it's so adorable! And here's Astro hiding in the Mexican Heather. Nutter. And I received gifts from Orkney! An art print of "Kissing Puffins" by Jon Thompson and a rock from the Yesnaby Cliffs. It smells like fishy salt ocean, which I find fascinating because all of my rocks, not being sea rocks, smell like either dirt or wet cave. She just purchased a whole bunch of different art prints and had us choose what we liked. Immediately in my head I said, "That one!" when I saw these puffins. And we could choose from the rocks and again it was an immediate decision. But now I'm home and while it feels terrific to have slept in my own comfortable bed (I slept ten blessed hours) with my window A/C blasting air on me and my cat Scully cuddled up to me, I've also been trying to tend to some cleaning.
I've been working for a month on trying to rearrange the office to me more efficient. Finally it's almost there, but it's kind of a trying job trying to figure out exactly where to move stuff. And there's some dusting and hoovering that needs doing and laundry (like a lot of my clothes!) and unpacking and such. The Sisters currently have a car catastrophe as one place she's housesitting (yes there are two places, but I don't know these people), one of their cars is dead, so I'm needed to shuttle the battery charger and a wire brush over to her. But still. Though I had a great time and was paid and that was lovely, and received some great travel gifts, I'm elated to be back home.
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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