End of the World. Beginning of a new one. The Life of Amberwolf.

[amberwolf]

Oh, and it was already a few degrees below freezing outside when I posed the above...before dawn it was just above 20F. Now, this morning at 9am, it's still jus below freezing; even the direc sunlight doesn' feel warm.

iny and Yogi don' like saying outside very long cuz of the cold ground; will have to star using their pawtectors (still have o make some for Yogi; Tiny's will only fit his back paws, just barely--not even close on his fron). I think if it hadn' rained they'd still like the cold ground but with it wet/damp and freezing it's another hing.

They do like licking the frozen ground though.

 

[dogman dan]

I'm amazed they need pawtectors. My dogs love this stuff, but we do get a freeze every morning for months. So they quickly adjust each year to cold ground. They do like froze better than very cold and wet. Their feet are so fuzzy they handle walks in snow with no issues, and love it. We got an inch, but it was on top of a skin of frozen rain.

Anyway, I don't think your dogs are suffering much, except from surprise at the wet or frozen ground. It does depend some on their fur, Daisy much thicker fur than Barry. Barry will come inside to nap after the mornings romp, while Daisy will go lie in the shade when it's 25F out there. You'd think she'd at least go lie in the weak sun, but no, her spot is the coldest place in the yard.

We had a fairly quiet New Years here. Barry not skittish, but Daisy really hates the guns and fire crackers. This year it was so cold we had a few pops at about 8 pm, then nothing else all night.

 

[The fingers]

Oliver gets cold fast, his paws are only about the size of a Mexican jumping bean. :lol:

 

[amberwolf]

I'm amazed they need pawtectors.

Need? Not really, but in the rain or with muddy days afterwards they keep me from having to remove a pound of mud from each paw before they come in and smear it all over the house.

And they'll stay out and play longer with the pawtectors/socks with the freezing ground than without them--the rest of their bodies seem to do better in the cold, but I guess they do get cold toes.

(though the antimud part doesn't work except when I am actually going out there with them; if they go out on their own via the doggiedoor then it's just normal doggiepaws. I could probably leave the pawtectors on Tiny, and at worst they would come off at some point, but Yogi sometimes just randomly eats things, and he's not fond of leaving stuff on his feet. So he'd probably eat her pawtectors if they fell off, and almost certainly pick at his and eat them, and might pick at hers too (you know how dogs pull at bandaids on people? Like that).

My dogs love this stuff, but we do get a freeze every morning for months. So they quickly adjust each year to cold ground. They do like froze better than very cold and wet. Their feet are so fuzzy they handle walks in snow with no issues, and love it.

Because I have the slick wood/plastic/whatever laminae floors, I have to keep the fuzzy stuff on the botoms of their paws trimmed, or they slip and slide and have a hard time even just standing in one place, or sitting without their front paws sliding out forward. So they lose the fuzzy toe-insulation on the botom, alhough they sill have it on the tops and between toes.

We got an inch, but it was on top of a skin of frozen rain.

We havent' got any snow yet (not that hit the ground anyway; I didnt' see any come down either), though we got a freezing drizzle a few days ago before it got sunny again.

Anyway, I don't think your dogs are suffering much, except from surprise at the wet or frozen ground.

Oh, they're not suffering; I am just overly empathetic with them. :lol: Both of them lay out on the cold ground for quite a while sometimes, even at nigh when it's belwo freezing ou there, after they run around and play and burn off some energy and ge hot. Tiny does it more than Yogi, cuz he tends o want to hang around me more than TIny (who is more of a litle-miss-independence). And boh of them lay ou in the sun for long periods, until a noise or whaever makes hem ge up and see what i is or bark a it.

(note: i got tired of the T key problem, and went to find some grease to put on it's stem, so it now works better, dunno for how long).


They do, however, need some cleats for running around on the frozen ground. THe areas that don't get any direct sun now get pretty slick cuz of the dew that freezes out onto them doesn't evaporate, so they are getting wetter and then frozen over, adn staying that way till around or past midday. WHen Tiny and Yogi go running around after each other, they try to turn when in one of htose areas and end up sliding out just like me in that hairpin turn in the Undead Race a few years ago. :lol:

Tiny just gets up as if nothing happened, but Yogi usually looks like he thinks someone pulled the rug out from him on purpose.

It does depend some on their fur, Daisy much thicker fur than Barry. Barry will come inside to nap after the mornings romp, while Daisy will go lie in the shade when it's 25F out there. You'd think she'd at least go lie in the weak sun, but no, her spot is the coldest place in the yard.

Yogi does that too--he lays down to chew his sticks and branches under the big tree in the area that not only stays shaded from the house all day in the winter, but is also the damp area from the shower/bath greywater exhaust.

TIny does it under the tree at the northeast corner of the house, near the graves, where the sun warms the ground all morning. When the sun isn't there anymore, she lays south of the orange tree instead.

OF course, those are both when they aren't trying to steal each other's sticks and drag each other around the yard by them. :lol:

We had a fairly quiet New Years here. Barry not skittish, but Daisy really hates the guns and fire crackers. This year it was so cold we had a few pops at about 8 pm, then nothing else all night.

I wish. It was definitely way way quieter than normal, but not completely stopped. Definitely some folks around here that don't mind the freezing drizzle and stuff.

However, unlike last year (up at Bill's) there havent' been any waves of fireworks in the days following, other than a few the day after (1st).

Tiny still wants nothing to do with the outside when it's dark out there, and is also back to "leaking" cuz she holds it too long, not wanting to go out even in daytime till it's too late, though at least she *will* go out on her own in daytime. At night I still have to take her out on a leash, and she's still jumpy.

Oliver gets cold fast, his paws are only about the size of a Mexican jumping bean. :lol:

We sometimes have people bring in their teacup Chihuahuas, which can sit in the palm of my hand and not hang over the edge. We have HAMSTERS bigger than some of these dogs!

I think Yogi's NOSE is bigger than some of them. :lol:


I imagine there's not enough body mass to hold in much heat. Needs a little doggie "spacesuit" with heater backpack and glass-bubble helmet. With little heated pawtectors on it.






IN other news, I've managed to somehow put a little crack in the top edge of the laptop screen. :/ No idea how, since I only carry it around in a padded laptop bag, and then only to work nowadays (as a lunchtime book reader and to type up thoughts, draw things, etc) since I have the neighbor's wifi at home. ANd here at home, it sits in the docking station up by the window on the dresser, with extension cables down to external monitor, keybaord, and trackball, and the lid stays closed. Oh, well; it doesn't affect using it yet.




Speking of wifi, it's still working the same using the DISH dish with the USB dongle at the focal point. No progress on the wifi-router-as-adapter project.


No progress on teh solar water heater, either. Partly I get lazy with the cold weather (much more comfortable to lay around in bed under the warm covers with the dogs curled up near or on me), partly cuz I"m still getting over this stupid cold (actually I think there may have been 2 or even 3 different ones, back to back), and while I feel a lot better I'm still achey and tired and my voice isn't normal yet.

Plus am now working the midshift so I don't get much in the way of daylight hours to work on stuff outside, except for really early in the morning when it's still too cold for my hands to work with things without gloves that prevent me gripping or manipulating things.

SO there's my list of excuses for not getting outside stuff done right now.



INside stuff...havent' worked on the CB2 wiring harness in a couple weeks now I guess, and I need to.


With the sustained cold temperatures, even with sunny days, the house has been getting down to 50F in the front room and kitchen with a high of 56F after I've been cooking, bedroom down to 54F at warmest while I'm home, and 51F when I'm not (temp it's at when I get home from work). The back room gets down to about 41F, and a high of 46F.

This is with air temps outside of mid-high 20s F before dawn, and highs of 45-55F. Today is supposed to be about 62F high, and 36F low, but it's been consistently ~10F colder lows than predicted so far. Highs don't reach prediction, either, but are closer than the lows.

I'm avoiding running any heaters, cuz of the cost, so first I insulated the double-layer-glass windows of the back room, front room, and bedroom by putting layers of styrofoam box lids/etc in them. There's also the blanket-curtains in the bedroom, but the back room just has regular slatted blinds that do nothing other than keep some light out when used. Front room has the big picture window with vertical blinds that also don't do much other than keeping light (and heat) out, but not keeping it in (drops to same temps with them open or closed at night, though it can help warm the front room a couple of degrees with them open in the day when I'm home).

Now the low is 52F in the front room and kitchen with a high of 58F after I've been cooking, bedroom down to 56F at warmest while I'm home, and 53F when I'm not (temp it's at when I get home from work). The back room gets down to about 42F, and a high of 48F.

It's not much, but it's something. (of course, the data samples are not very big for either before or after, so it might not even be making as much difference as it seems to be).

The one catch is that with the stuff in the front window, little heat gets *in* either, during the day, when the sun does directly strike the window, and taking the stuff out and putting it back is at present tedious as it's individual pieces. I'm considering a simple frame structure behind it to make it a one-piece thing to stick in the window when no sunlight is hitting it, and remove it when there is, but haven't decided if it's worth the work yet, partly because the pine tree right in front of the window *just* blocks all the direct sunlight from around 1030am-ish to around 130pm-ish, I think it is. So there's only sunlight on the window itself for a couple hours each before and after that time, and the rest of the time it is letting heat out instead.


I've considered a heat chimney of some type that would be insulated on the in-side of it, painted black on the out-side of it facing the sun, and placed in the window and front doorway when I'm home. (can't leave it when I'm not cuz I don't have a good way to secure them so dogs cant' get out or poeple get in). If I could cut holes in the top and bottom edges of the wall I'd just put it on the front porch, and put ducts in the wall out to it (and block the ducts in summer), but that's not an option. So whatever I make has to be removable and use the door and/or window to get the cold air out to it and warm air back in from it, *and* be secure enough the dogs cna't just push it out of the way if they suddenly get interested enough in something out there to try (never hapened yet, but given their size, if I can move it, so can they).

 

[amberwolf]

As the oranges are about as ripe as they're gonna get (they're about golfball sized), I picked a panful of them, and Tiny was interested in the smell, so I gave her and Yogi a little piece of one. Yogi didn't care for his that much, but Tiny loved it, and after I stopped picking, TIny decided to harvest her own:
[youtube]99yA6B0rydk[/youtube]

Before I was able to go get the camera to get that video, she'd already found a few oranges that she liked, and by the time I got video rolling she had gotten interested in the spots I'd plucked some from, and began eating the bit of rind still stuck on the tree at each point. :lol:

 

[dogman dan]

True enough about the mud. I don't usually trim the foot fur much in winter, so they sure bring a ton of it inside after a romp in the backyard. Like your yard, most of mine is dirt. So they come back in with balls of clay between their toes. Snow only lasted a morning, leaving the mud behind.

Now that winter is here, we use large pieces of plain ol cardboard to insulate our windows at night, allowing two pieces to cover it, or one can be slid to the side to see out or get some light. When the solar gain is at it's best, the cardboard is just removed to get some warm.

Unfortunately your house is not so great for morning solar heating, when it does the most good. Pure luck my house is that way, with the big front room window pointing southeast, towards the spot where the sun comes up in Jan. We still run heaters, but mostly just the small one room radiators in the back of the house.

 

[amberwolf]

Now that winter is here, we use large pieces of plain ol cardboard to insulate our windows at night, allowing two pieces to cover it, or one can be slid to the side to see out or get some light. When the solar gain is at it's best, the cardboard is just removed to get some warm.

That's an idea: I could probably attach the boxes the styrofoam boxes are shipped in to each other, and stick that in the window as a single assembly, with the styro boxes in them. Then I wouldn't need to modify the boxes themselves.

I could also just use the boxes disassembled into cardboard "sheets" but the styro definitely makes a difference and I dunno how much the cardboard would.

I am sure I also have air leaks at doors and such that don't help. And the air ducts are in the cieling; even completely closed I'm sure they leak heat upwards; I haven't tried to seal them off yet but I should, since I can't use the main A/C unit anyway. (I keep forgetting to do it).

Unfortunately your house is not so great for morning solar heating, when it does the most good. Pure luck my house is that way, with the big front room window pointing southeast, towards the spot where the sun comes up in Jan. We still run heaters, but mostly just the small one room radiators in the back of the house.

It does get some in the morning in winter, just not a lot cuz of the angle and the doublepane window with it's somewhat reflective tint/coloration. At midday when the window doesn't get direct light, the front door still does, beintg to the side of the tree, but to get that into the room requires opening the door. If there's no wind then it works fine, but any breeze and it tends to end up either no increase in heat or colder than I started, depending on outside air temps.

It'd be nice if I still had a screen or better a glass front outside door, but I don't have anything but the actual front door anymore. The black metal screen door that used to be there was pretty helpful on cold days; kept a fair amount of breeze from swishing air around at the interface and being black metal would pass the heat it got from direct sunlight into the house really well. Part of why I have considered making something like that tube "wall" you have talked about before, to put there.


So far I have been able to avoid any heater use, and it was nice and warm today and even now is still not *that* cold (though it's getting there quickly) as I was able to ride home an hour or so ago without zipping the jacket, putting on the gloves or my snowboarding "legsavers" pants as windbreakers, or closign the helmet faceplate, and was still reasonably comfortable by the time I got home (wouldn't've stayd taht way on a longer ride, but 2.5 miles isn't too bad like that).

If weather stays like this the house won't get that cold cuz the sun and air will heat it up in daytime enough to make up for the losses at night. But if it gets cloudy and cold in daytime, and clear and cold at night, it'll get colder inside and after enough of that I'll have to use a heater. Mostly I just wear layers and gloves to keep my hands/joints from hurting as much from the cold, when it doesn't restrict whatever I'm trying to do.

 

[amberwolf]

Wed night TIny had another siezure, I think it's only her fourth since starting the meds about a year and a half or so ago. I"d just gotten home a few minutes before, and we all went out back for the usual playtime and greetings.

She and Yogi were running around the yard playing, her chasing him since he had a stick, and I was moving some plastic chairs out fo the middle of the yard where I'd put them a day or two before to set pillows/blankets on to air out in the sunny and breezy day we'd had (wasn't enough room on the clothes line for them all). I'd just moved all but one chair when I didn't hear them running anymore, so I turned to see if they were watching someone or something moving, which is usually a precursor to barking at it and I try to discourage that if it's just the normal people across the street and such.

But I only saw Yogi, staring at a tree, it looked like, then I saw Tiny was laying under the tree on her side (which is an atypical way for her to lay down), and I jsut "knew" something was wrong. Hobbled over there as quick as I could, and she was obviously in the last moments of a siezure, just beginning to wake from it. So I sat there with her for a bit until she stood up on her own, and we went inside, with Yogi following apparently wondering what the deal was.

Took her a few minutes to get back to bouncy normality, but she was ok again after that, just like usual, other than being "tired", which is also normal for her after the siezures.


It's probably unrelated, but because of the colder weather she's been leaking again: since I haven't been going outside much, she's also been staying inside with me more (as has Yogi). So she stays with me even though normally she'd get up to go pee somewhere in there, and then when she's sleeping she dreams and leaks (usually a lot cuz she holds it too long), and typically wakes up right after she does it.

I have been trying to remember to get us all out there every half hour or even more often, but it's been difficult to get myself to get up and make them go out, cuz they are just so adorable when sprawled out sleeping, especially when they do it next to each other on the bed, sometimes sprawled on each other as well as me.... By the time I overcome the cuteness she's often already leaked.



She's been due to go in for a checkup/bloodwork for a couple weeks or more but the people from the rescue have been pretty sick with the stuff going around, so we've had to cancel and reschedule a couple times. Should be happening for real this week, though.




In other news, while I was at work today, taggers have vandalized the cloth "fence curtain" I'd put up a while back to keep the dogs from seeing stuff in the street to bark at it. I have no way to clean it off, and painting over it isn't an option cuz it's cloth.

Thick cloth, but you can also still see shadows of stuff on it thru it, whcih also means I can see the stupid graffiti on it from inside the fence, and it frightens me everytime I do, because it brings me right back to the time I was mugged more than a decade ago, and also back to the after-the-fire time when people were coming into my yard and going thru my stuff and stealing things, and the police wouldn't do a damned thing about it even when they actually caught them red-handed.


Even though I can't remove the graffiti, I also can't just take the cloth down, cuz the guy that's the biggest problem causing them to bark is still staying at the neighbors' across the street, and he still wanders day and night around the streets and sidewalks on both sides, (including my driveway, not just on the sidewalk part of it) smoking horribly stinky cigars and throwing the butts everywhere, without any concern for what grief it causes the neighborhood people and dogs, even though it's been discussed with him by more than just me--he simply doesn't care.


Anyway, so I guess the neighborhood (and me) will have to just live with the graffiti on the fence, since I can't remove it, and I can't afford to replace the cloth either. (not with more cloth, nor with an actual wall)


It does make me wonder though: The day before this, as I left for work, there was a police SUV at the house across the street (next to the one where the guy wanders around), but no officers in it, so they must've been inside one of the houses. I wonder if whatever they were there for resulted in someone tagging stuff around here as "revenge", since my fence faces that house, so they'd have to see it?

 

[The fingers]

See if the city or county has a spray over program that with your owner's signed consent they automatically come by and match the color and cover it up, works real well in this area. If they don't, lobby for it. Around here the little taggers wear fancy backpacks and ride expensive-looking BMX bikes. They look like well-dressed spoiled schoolkids who pimp their paint from Lowes or Home Depot. Hope they'll move on eventually and grow out of it. :x

 

[amberwolf]

See if the city or county has a spray over program that with your owner's signed consent they automatically come by and match the color and cover it up,

Hard to paint over the cloth. It'll just end up peeling off as it moves around in breeze/wind, with heat and sun and rain.

AFAIK here they use the leftover buckets of (mostly house) paint that gets turned in to the hazwaste collection points, mixing it all up together to end up with a generally tan-ish color. One can actually go get the stuff from the city for this purpose, to paint over grafitti, and if this was a regular wall or wooden fence that's what I'd do.

Here's some pics:






THis is what it looks like from inside the fence, even with the sun on *this* side of it.




But the dogs are still happy, and that's wha'ts really important:




THe plants aren't looking all that great after the freezing weather, but I think they'll all recover. These pics are from before the tagging:










View attachment 2

View attachment 1

.

 

[amberwolf]

Tiny's vet checkup went ok, though the PB for her siezures is being upped by 25%, adding 1/4 tablet to the whole tablet she already takes every 12 hours. It's made her hungries way worse than before (kinda like when she first started on the PB). I'm sure she'll get used to it in a few months, but for now she's laying here next to me as I eat dinner practically dancing with the effort to stay laying down instead of leaping up to snarf from my bowl like she wants to (she had hers a little more than an hour ago, with the meds).

(I don't feed them while I eat, but the hungries from the PB have turned her into quite the beggar-monster, since she first started taking it. Yogi hangs out too but he just dozes, not actually expecting anything like she does.)


Speaking of Yogi, he really wanted to go on the road trip, too, so we took him along, and we all sat in the waiting room at the vet's, and they both got lots of attention from other people (and some dogs).

They both had fun on the ride, too, though I had to keep Tiny laying down cuz she doesn't do so well with the "ground" moving under her while she stands, unlike Yogi who seems to do fine. He kept turning around and around looking at all the stuff moving past on the roads. I think he wanted to get out and run after some of them. :lol:

 

[amberwolf]

Weather's been warmer last several days, nearing 80F for the highs, but around 40F lows.


Hours cuts at work, losing a day a week right now. Am looking around again for a second job; hard to find one because my work schedule changes every week and doesn't even get made till late Friday or Saturday right before the week it's for. Haven't found any place willing to work with that to give me a day or two each week.

If I do find one, I expect that as tired as I am now, it's nothing to how I"ll feel when I don't have any days off each week to catch up on naps.



To add to my sleeping problems, I found another wiring problem with the house, that makes me wonder how many other loose connections there are, and which one of them might eventually start a fire:

I got up in the middle of the night a couple nights ago cuz I couldn't sleep and was hungry, had skipped dinner cuz lunch had tided me over well enough. So I thought I'd fix something to eat, went in the kitchen, turned on the stove light (which is all I usually use to save power, as it's the dimmest/lowest-power light in there, a small CFL that I swapped out for the incandescent it started with), and it turned on, then flickered and went out.

Then I turned on the main ilghts (which I don't normally use at all unless I really have to see, cuz it's four 60W incandescents, one near each corner of the room), so I could see well enough to get the plastic cover off the stove light and see if the bulb was seated or burned out or whtever, and when I turned them on only 3 came on--the one next to the stove did not. :?


This led me to believe (wrongly) that maybe a breaker had popped, so I went out and checked, and all were fine (except the one for the smoke alarms that has never stayed on as there's something wrong with the system since before I moved back in after the rebuild, and landlord never responded to the message about that (or came back to put the fuses in the A/C unit on the roof)).


Next step was chekcing the bulbs; seemed a wierd coincidence that two would go out at the same time. Turns out it *is* the bulb for the main lights, so easy to fix.

But it wasnt' the bulb on the stove light--the fan didnt' work either. So I opened the cover on the wiring area (one screw) and found this:


The wire nut has some copper showing for the mains wire going into it, becuase that wire is not threaded into the wire nut, it's just sitting in there, like the wire nut was twisted onto the two wires going to the fan and the light, but just had the mains wire set into it like a plug, which won't work.

As soon as I touched the wire nut to push it back to see, the light and fan started to come on, so it was obvious the connection problem was there. Even very gently pulling the wire nut pulled it and the other wires completely away from teh mains wire with no resistance at all.


THere are scores on the wire that look like a wire nut was threaded on at some point, but it wasnt' done correctly or it wouldn't have come out like this.


The two stranded wires for the fan/light didn't come out when I tugged gently on it, just the mains wire. I had to unscrew the wire nut to get them out:




I unscrewed the wire nut from the light/fan wires, parallleled the mains wire with them, and screwed it on there, easy as pie, tugged just sligthly on it to be sure it was secure. 5 seconds of work. Too bad whoever did the original job couldn't be bothered with that.

It was just like the wire nut issue on the water heater, which I found and fixed when I moved in (because it didn't work at all, it was easy to find immediately).


How many more are lurking, waiting on vibration or cold enough temperatures or enough temperature change cycles to fail?




Nightmares about the fire have come back in force since then, unsurprisingly. Am really stressed when away from the house cuz I'm afraid of what I"ll find when I come back; I am probably just going to start shutting the main 200A breaker off to prevent worries while away from the house.

Dunno what I'll do for the dogs' noise-distractions though: the clock from Bigmoose that makes marsh sounds is what I run for them when I"m away, so they don't pay as much attention to the outside noises.

Also dunno about when it gets hot again; I'll need to use power for the window A/C unit to cool the bedroom off for them to retreat to.


As I have time and my hands work well enough, I'll have to take all of the covers off all the outlets and switches and verify their wire nuts. Have to figure out how to move the loaded refrigerator out from the wall / cabinet recess it's in to get to the ones back there.

Assuming the fans are wired with wirenuts at the boxes above them inside the cieling (which is how the ones in the house before the fire were done), I'll have to figure out a device to clamp to the ladder to hold onto the cieling fans when I take them off the cieling to verify the wiring in the boxes above them, so their wiring doesn't get pulled on by the wieght of the fans. I'm not sure I can hold the fans and deal with their mountings at the smae time, so I may not be able to do them at all.

Then I have to rig up lighting to get into the attic crawlspace and verify all the ones up there, too, wherever they may be.


:/

 

[arkmundi]

Nightmares about the fire have come back in force since then, unsurprisingly. Am really stressed when away from the house cuz I'm afraid of what I"ll find when I come back; I am probably just going to start shutting the main 200A breaker off to prevent worries while away from the house.

I was involved in just one house fire in my life. I'd recently moved from Georgia to Massachusetts and was bunked up with 5 other dudes in a shared house rental. Middle of the night awoken by one my housemates to screams of fire and get out now. So I did, in my undies, in the middle of a NE winter. To watch the house go to ruin in the span of minutes. Lost everything I owned (except my undies and one precious book). I was working on getting a business up & running, so my office in the basement, where I had computer and all my records also went up in smoke. So I was reduced to nothing - no money (which I had all-in for the business), no clothes, no furniture, no keep-seeks, no books, no pictures.... literally nothing what so ever.

After the fact, when the fire department came back with its report, it was deemed an electrical fire. The old house had old wiring. All 5 of us had some form of office in the basement and we were running a lot of wire. Sure we had over-loaded the circuit and that we probably melted a wire, which sparked and then caught fire. But it was also old wire, not up to code and only-god knows what.

Its good to worry. Its not good to loose sleep. Fixing what might be wrong is a way to relax and then get good sleep. You're the best. Keep on rid'n!

 

[amberwolf]

I'm sorry you went thru what you did; you lost more stuff than I did...but I would have traded EVERYTHING else to have saved the dogs.


But...I would never have met Tiny (or Yogi) and Tiny would probably still not have a home, and she's had a hard enough life of misunderstandings for such a long time that she sure deserves one; Yogi too.


About the only way I'll get any peace is to actually inspect and fix it all myself; I obviously can't trust any of the people involved in doing the wiring for the rebuild in the first place. :/

There's just so many points to check, and it's not as simple as it seems when first contemplating it.

 

[amberwolf]

Today was not a good day.

First I woke up a lot, not just the nightmares but my right upper arm feels badly bruised inside, and I cna't figure out what I did to it. All I can think of is while I was asleep, maybe it was at an awkward angle and Tiny or Yogi or both stepped or laid on it while I was so wiped out that I didn't wake up for it. But I did wake up to the aching at some point, and had a hard time getting back to sleep at all, much less sleeping thru it till morning.

I could barely move it when I got up, and couldn't use it to get out of bed or do most of the things I normally do. It was bad enough when it was just that my elbow's ligaments (in the "funny bone" spot) hurt from the stress I'd put on them from heavy cane usage with just my right arm, as that limits my lifting or pushing significantly, but this hurts to even move it if I don't keep moving it.

As long as I keep using it and moving it around it's not quite so bad, but if I leave it in one position, it's hard to move it out of that. Basically just likea really deep bad bruise.



So work was harder than usual, even just standing at the register as cashier (actually this made it worse because when I walk around and am able to keep moving and doing things it helps *all* of me hurt less, vs standing in one place all day, which hurts less as long as I don't move but as soon as I do it's a LOT worse). It's also more depressing to just stand there, unable to go help people, but only able to point htem the right direction (if they'll even listen) and page people to the area, and hope they're free to go and not with someone else (cuz there are never enough of us to help everyone when it's even slightly busy).



Anyway, so by the time work was over, time to go home, when we closed the store I put my apron away in my locker, and went home...only to find no keys to open my front door.

I must've been so tired that when I pulled the keys out of the lock on the locker, I stuck them in the *apron* pocket instead of my pants pocket, before I took the apron off to put it in the locker.

So, hurting like I was, I had to struggle and wiggle and fall a few times trying to get onto the large alleyway trashcan so I could flop myself over the fence into my backyard. The good thing is that end of last week when the picked up the garbage, they moved the container real close to the double utility pole at the northwest corner of the yard where the fence is lowest (or ground is highest, take your pick), making it significantly easier for me to get down without really hurting myself.


Then it was "simple" to hobble across the backyard, then in thru the doggie door, where Yogi and Tiny heard me trying to fit thru, but they sounded like they were going to eat me until they smelled it was me.

At least I know what kind of greeting someone else would get coming in that way. :lol:


I dug out my spare keys and made a new set in case I *didn't* leave them in hte apron, and hopefully I won't lose those, too, or I'll have to replace the locks on everything cuz most of them tha'ts all the spare keys I have left.



(it's also depressing at work because most of the poeple I've known there for qutie a while, since before the fire, including the only two that were there almost as long as I have been, have all gone to other stores in the last few months and weeks. And only one of htem bothered to even tell me they were leaving, the others I only found out because I happened to overhear a discussion between others, sometimes *after* they'd not been at the store a while (and I'd assumed they were on a vacation).

My hours have also been going down again, even though we have less people there to spread the hours budget across. I've asked about it with no resolution. I guess I'll have to step up the second-job search. (wish I could find one where I could do something from home, via internet, at just whatever times I am physically able to do it, kinda like the moderating and helping thing here on ES, but for money).


I'm not sure how well a second physical job will work out given my frequent exhaustion, and trying to schedule it around my main job. (so far none of hte places I've checked with in the last few months have been willing to even discuss working around another job's schedule at all, which doesn't give me much hope).

Still...I"m looking as I can.

 

[amberwolf]

Keys were in my apron as I thought; now i've got both sets back.

Arm is better by a fair bit, still hurts and can't bring myself to move it in certain directions, angles, or distances/positions, or put a lot of load on it. Rest of the time it's just an ache that comes partly close to what my knees and ankle usually give me. Is worse than any of those in the bad positions.


Guts are not ok. Stress causing the usual painful roiling guts full of gas and related liquid exits, gas started early at work yesterday and liquids not long after I got home, still going on intermittently today and will probably continue for days, till I can get my mind to accept how things are, again.


Dogs are helping; they're both curled up next to me on the bed snoring (there were some shots in the area that scared them inside and they have zero interest in leaving my side, finally they forgot to be scared and fell asleep).

Now if *I* could get to sleep, other than just dozing for a minute here and there. Maybe its a good thing work didn't have hours for me tomorrow. I can try to sleep instead.

 

[The fingers]

Work stress has been giving me the dry heaves in the morning leaving me to eat with no appetite. Hours cut also, and the only manager that tried to give me a few extra hours a week just got fired. :x
Seen on T-shirt at work: "I don't need a Psychaitrist...
I have a dog!"

 

[amberwolf]

I have two...what do I do when each gives me a different diagnosis and prescription? :lol:


(i.e.: Tiny thinks it best to go for walkies, and Yogi waffles between I should either let him play keepaway with his stick, or have him curl up next to me and have me quiet and still so he can sleep....)


Sleep happened, around 7am was the last time I remember seeing the time, so I guess that was when I finally slipped off. Didn't wake till about 1030am when TIny and Yogi dragged me out of bed to get them breakfast. After I slowly managed to do that, I must've gone back to bed cuz I don't remember anything else until I woke up after 1pm.

My arm is a little better today, so that's something, though I still can't put it behind my back down low or behind my shoulders up high, or anywhere between.

I am probably not going to accomplish much today, unlike my planning had estimated. :/

So I decided to splurge and fix some of my precccccioooouus baaaaaaccccoonn :lol: and have some scrambled eggs w/ cheese, and strawberry "jelly" to dip the bacon in, and some fresh oranges off the tree (Tiny picked a couple of her own while we were at it).

I'm munching on that now while reading ES and posting this, and TIny and Yogi had been dozing here next to me once they got bored with staring at me waiting for tidbits they know they won't get. :/ THen Tiny woke up but as usual too late, and got up dripping froma new puddle, so now she's out back with Yogi to get rid of the rest.

Gonna have to wash her back end off (usually this is a several-times-a-week thing; have been considering how I might be able to make washable diapers for her that will absorb the oopsies without soaking her, too.

 

[amberwolf]

Work has not been much fun lately. No days off since that ride a week ago with Wayne, earliest I might get one is tomorrow, then back again next day. Get part of one Saturday, but right after lunch with Bill I gotta go back in. This week that's good for paying bills with the few hours of overtime it should get me, but not for getting rest.

Then the next two weeks, I only get one day off each week, but I only get 36.5 actual work hours (not counting unpaid lunchtimes). Usually if one has to work extra day(s) a week, one gets extra hours, too, rather than just having their usual (or less than usual) hours spread out over more days.

Without at least one day off a week to catch up with myself, especially for sleep, I won't be functional after a short time of that. So that nixes the search for a second job completely, as there are now no days I can use to work one.

So now I don't have time to work a second job but I still don't make any more money, and didn't make enough to start with...as if I didn't already have enough stress and nightmares to keep me from sleeping well enough to function at work (or at home).

Since I'd already previously had this whole discussion with the manager, I'm assuming she either just doesn't like me and my dogs and wants to torture us, or is trying to make me quit or go elsewhere (many other people already transferred to other stores for various stated reasons; I'm beginning to suspect it wasn't entirely or even maybe at all for those reasons). I wish I knew what the problem was....


Since the company just closed one store that wasnt' doing well, I'm also having plenty of nightmares about them closing our store, too--typically they start with me riding to work and finding the building empty, and no one I knew from work will take any calls from me as I sit there in the parking lot, and the company just puts me on hold. Then I go home to find someone else moving into my house, with the dogs missing and none of my stuff anywhere to be found, and when I try to ask I get pushed off the sidewalk, then find myself just sitting in the middle of the street with nothing at all--no dogs, no bike, no home, no job, nothing.

Sometimes I wake up then, and sometimes the despair just goes on. Sometimes I start walking and find the rotted corpses of the other dogs lost in the fire tossed out in the street, along with Bonnie's bones, but no sign of TIny or Yogi. Sometimes they're there, too, just a pile of dead fur and flesh. THere is never a version where anything good at all happens.


I don't think I've had a good dream in so long that I cant' even remember what it might have been, or when it was.


If I didn't actually really have Tiny and Yogi here for real, I dunno what life would be like, or if I would even care. Yogi is snuggled up next to me snoring right now and it helps more than I expect anyone reading this could possibly imagine...yet it still is not enough to stop the despair from building inside every day.

I wish I could just not have to go to work anymore, and sit around here with the dogs...but doing that means I wouldn't have this place to be with the dogs, or a way to feed them. So...life plods on.


I know I'm getting grumpier and grumpier these days, and I am probably going to have to stop moderating here because sooner or later something is gonna snap inside me with all the moronic crap people do and say to each other, especially the simplest stupid things like not bothering to READ THE SIMPLE RULES...

Not caring enough about selling things to simply put a PRICE, or put the ad in the RIGHT FORUM isntead of someone's discussion thread when they KNOW BETTER because they've been here for YEARS.

Or to not PM with crap they KNOW they should be posting in a thread, or is ALREADY ANSWERED if they could only be BOTHERED TO READ.

Or to simply BE CIVIL to each other.

If it were my own forum I think I probably would have just locked the whole thing by now to keep it as a knowledge base instead of a place for people to crap on each other all the time.


:?

 

[amberwolf]

I survived work today, but not by much. The main manager had to leave to do something (she'd said she was coming back but not exactly when; I figured no more than an hour), so only me and another manager were left after ~4pm.

But she didn't come back at all (or call us to tell us she wasn't), and it stayed busy all night, me at register and the other manager running around trying to help everyone *and* finish cleaning the reptile habitats and feed the snakes, etc. (which by itself is a whole shift's job for one person, not counting helping anyone).

So neither of us got a break, until 8pm (an hour before we close) I finally got a lunch...but the other manager never really did....


I was exhausted wehn I started work, and by the time I got to sit down I was ready to pass out. I dozed off not long after I sat down and almost didn't wake up in time to come back--if it werent' for a nightmare about being swarmed at the register by theives and robbers, I wouldn't have.


I almost dozed off on my ride home, too, but managed not to. But now that I'm home, got the dogs fed, and lay down, I dozed off and then had another nightmare about losing the house and dogs, and now I can't sleep, though I feel like falling over.

I started to setup the bike off-groun don kitty litter pails full of old parts, so i could get it running until the battery runs to lvc, but after almost knocking it over on Yogi who had come over to investitgaate I had to give up on that.

maybe tomorrroww i'll get it up there and drain the pack down. i'd like to test traciton and ligthing packs both and watch cell voltages under load as they fall and tenh watch them rise again during charge.

i wish i'd collected this kind of data from the start though--i'd meant to, it just never happened and it seems like yesterday but i guess it's been more than two years now, maybe three? seems Like everthing is all messed up in my head since the fire, for timelines of things...all kind of a long blur. has it really been almost two years since the fire? mostly it feels like weeks, days sometimes. other rarer times it feesl liek decades.

 

[Dauntless]

Darn, I really get the part about the danged dreams. I get so tired of all the variations on climbing the ladder on the side of the mile high tower only to have the tower widen at the top so I'm hanging backward, then I have to somehow pull myself over the edge with the flat surface with nothing to hang onto, the alternative being to slip off and fall the mile height. Like they built so many of these just so I'd be stuck climbing them in my dreams. (And I just keep doing it. I really AM Dauntless.)

Oh, but maybe it's time you took the next step. Becoming your own country. http://www.molossia.org/microcon/index.html

 

[amberwolf]

Then I would have to create a bureaucracy just to make myself even less efficient than I already am. :wink:


I got some actual sleep last night, at least, about 9 hours of oft-interrupted but better than none, dragged out of bed by TIny to get her breakfast around 10am I think it was. Been working on the bike's battery testing (see CB2 thread for details), yardwork, clothes washing, etc since then.

Had a little brunch typing up the first bike post, now sort of a linner or dunch sort of snacky thing now while I rest from the yard work and type this up (along with another bike update).

Tiny and especially Yogi "helped" me do some weeding of the yard, by carrying off the stuff I was piling up behind me as I pulled it out and/or cut it off. Yogi likes to chew on the thick stems and roots (Nana did too), and Tiny likes to do whatever Yogi is doing, if she isn't napping in the sun or following me around. Especialy if he has something she can try to tug-o-war with (though these don't tug well, they disintegrate, which is why they can't all just be pulled out).


I forget what it's called, but its' a big bushy broadleaf plant that only grows in winter here, sometimes up thru spring if it stays wet enough but after that it's too hot for it. If you let it grow it'll get chest-high and easily several feet across at the base, with main trunk around 1-1.5" thick and many thumbsized branches up from the base at ground level, no flowers, but eventually will grow little burrs for seeds. They're not pointy but there are lots of them, so I try to never let them get that far.

However, they do well on covering up smaller plants to keep them from freezing completely (like lantana bases, aloe vera, etc), so I usually let them grow until around the start of February when they start to seed. That's now.

Often I have lots of extra time cuz of hours cuts at work this time of year, but since I've only got one day off each week (but not really any more hours than I'd have with my normal 5 days of work for two of them) for at least a month (starting last week, thru this week, and the next two, at least), it's gonna be a challenge keeping up with them.

Normally I'd be doing yard stuff in the early pre/post-dawn morning, when the dogs first wake me up for the day, but nowadays in winter it's too cold and I hurt too much for it most of the time, especially this particular kind of yard work, which involves lots of getting down on the ground, shearing the plant bases around me and pulling smaller ones out, tossing them in a pile, getting up, moving over a few feet and doing it again.

It's possible to do it with the mower or weedeater, but since I can't see the rest of the ground/plants under these things, and they are almost always only where I have other plants (cuz that's where I leave them alone), I risk destroying the plants I wanna keep. So ti's safer to do manually, but a lot harder.

So instead of a couple of weeks of doing some each day off, I'll probably end up doing it over a month, and some of them will be in full seed by the time I'm done, even though I'm starting with the biggest ones already closest to seed.


Anyway, that's most of the yard work done today, about a bedroom-sized (100-120sq ft) area cleared of these plants, mostly around the southeast mulberry tree.

(last week I did the front yard, just mowing it except for right around the few lantana around the front edge of the yard, since there's little else there. Need to use the weedeater to get around the bases of the lantana and stuff, but it's ok for now and not as bad as the backyard.)


Been a lot of activity in the neigborhood today--some orange treetrimmer/cherrypicker truck driving around, stopping, crew gets out and sets up surveying stuff, packs it up, drives a few feet, does it again, repeated over at least a couple of hours, eventually they go down the alley and do some treetrimming several houses down from me. No idea what company they're with, unmarked except the Asplund cherrypicker brand name, no commercial or gov plates.

City garbage trucks with bulldozers on trailers driving thru the area, but not stopping. Usually that'd be for bulk trash pickup, but our area isn't scheduled for a while yet.

Skinny smoker lady (?) dragging a pile of stuff on some sort of plastic container lid around and around the block, stopping every few dozen feet to smoke another cigarette, driving dogs crazy thru the whole neighborhood.


And I'd meant to also do dogbaths, trims, nails, etc. today but I forgot about it until I was typing all this up. Since i also forgot to turn on the water heater till now, and it's 5pm, it'll have to wait till some other day, cuz now it's into the more expensive power time.

(I only turn on the heater when i know I am going to use the heated water, and only long enough to warm it up to usable temperature, which saves a LOT of power vs leaving it on all the time even on a low setting. Must be helping a fair bit since my electric bill was only about $33 lat month, similar the previous two and estimated to be even lower this month).

 

[amberwolf]

Did some battery testing on CB2 today.

Also I"m getting yard work done in small bursts, as I have energy. At least it's warm outside so it doesn't hurt so much, but not so hot that I melt.

In between am getting Tiny and Yogi shaved and trimmed from chin to chest to tummy to butt, along the bottom. THen I gotta do their claws.

Yogi hates that (doesn't like the shaving either but hates it less than claw trimming), so we'll see how well that goes, as I'll probably be pretty worn out by then.


A few days ago I did msot of Tiny's trimming during a bath, after I got home from work and was greeted by her splattering oopsie everywhere with her soaking wet tail. She must've been drinking a lot of water and not going out for potty. Happens a fair amount, which is why I keep her back end shaved and trimmed down even when I'm not trimming her chest/belly, to keep the possibility of skin irritations and/or infections down from having urine in her fur for whatever time I"m at work.

Makes her look funny but at least she stays cleaner.

I don't have to do that for Yogi, since he doesn't leak like she does, thankfully.

 

[Green Machine]

Your dogs are sooooo sweet. I never heard of a dog eating fruit off a tree although i heard about it in esobs fables. Good for you man you found some new pups that fill the void of ur missing pups. Humans should never outlive there dogs...same as parents not outliving there kids. As long as ur healthy amberwold im happy I am greifing a lost dog....and its always the same remedy....get a new pup......this one here looks sweet but he gonna be a mailman terrorizer guaranteed like my gone dog. My new pup.....3 months old in a dogo ranch in argentina...weeks away before boarding a plane to his new home here.

 

[amberwolf]

My lantana and other stuff that got frostbitten in December is already coming back like late spring, with the weather so warm now. It's only mid-February but temps are April-like, with 80F+ days, and 40Fs-50Fs nights. Been like that most of the month already, and probasbly not gonna chill down again this year unless we get rainstorms.


Am already having to water things regularly again, becuase the breezy days are blowing and baking moisture out of the soil so newly-grown stuff would wilt otherwise.


I've managed to finally get almost all that broadleaf plant removed everywhere. None have yet sprouted back up.

Some of the smaller lantana I'd planted not too many weeks before the freeze may not come back, and might have to be regrown from scratch. But most of it is ok and the front yard stuff mostly looks like it never stopped being green, cuz of the warmth from the asphalt in the road, the sidewalk, and house, all heated by the winter sun.

I actually heard back from my dad a few days back, so I guess he isn't dead (I'd figured he'd died and no one bothered to tell me, since it's been so long). He sent me some pictures of Bonnie from most likely around 2005, dunno since the dates on the files are the camera default of 2000, before I even had gotten her. I was going to post htem but internet is so slow right now I'll just have to wait till later, after I get home from work (getting ready to go in a little while).


Nothing new on the work-hours thing, dunno what the next weeks' schedules will be but the boss never did change this past week's or this week's 6-day-for-37-hours schedule, other than to add in an hour or so on one night so that the manager wouldn't be closing alone.

Am hoping I can get at least 40 hours in only 4 or 5 days for coming weeks, but I won't know till the new schedule is written and posted, later this week. Hopefully before Saturday (day before the week the schedule is for, and usually when I find them posted, making it hard to plan the non-work stuff in advance).


Boss continues to change things to make them harder for people to do, for reasons that aren't apparent to me, and never get explained. The most recent is to take away the rolling cart we used to keep the supplies for bagging fish for people. So now because I can't carry much I have to walk from the tank the fish are in to the cabinet, get the little cup and net from the cabinet, walk back to the tank, hang it on the tank, catch the fish, and then go back to the cabinet and get a bag and rubber band (oh, and the boss won't order supplies as needed so someone had to go to a store and buy an assortment all of which are way too big and hard to use), and walk back to the tank to bag the fish.

If in the middle of the process a fish is elusive (common) and I have to remove the plants and rocks from the tank, I then ave to take them in small groups or one at a time over to the cabinet, and when I'm all done with that tank I then have to walk back and forth again to put them back. This is all time-consuming and stupid, cuz we don't have that time to waste (or at least, I don't, as it takes me a lot longer to hobble around than most people. WIth the cart I just set them on top till I was done, then put them right back.

If there are other fish in other tanks I get to repeat the process, and then go back again to put the net and cup back.

Of course, the reason given for removing the cart is that people didn't keep it clean/neat. Well, I did, but I'm not usually the one over there. So again I get punished for what other people do or don't do, like usual. She COULD just train them right instead, but that's not how she works--she seems to prefer to set people up to fail intead of to succeed.

ANd also, now that the cabinet was setup to do that stuff, it changed again, and a very ugly white plastic shelf was setup in a little cubby at one end of the tanks with all the stuff instead. Well, the cart looked basically just like that stupid shelf, except it was black and had wheels to be able to move it around and use it wherever it was needed.


And that's the kind of thing I have to deal with all the time, is people who change things for whatever imagined reason, without ever thinking about the consequences to others, and the longterm consequences to the store, or what customers think, etc.

Oh, well, it doesn't really matter since nowadays I'm almost always at the register anyway, so I guess she figures whatever I have to deal with doesn't really matter anyway.



Essentially, except for rare times one of the managers is able to let me do my various jobs, I'm still stuck cashiering, knowledge and skills wasted, and hurting lots more every day because I can't really walk away from the register to do things. When I have to stand in one place for even a short time, it hurts enough to get moving again that I can't really go fast enough to get anywhere before I have to go right back to the register, so I can't go face things or stock things or help people very much. It takes too long for me to get back to the register and people get mad waiting for me. Not all people, just some of htem, but any mad customer is a bad thing.

Unfortunately, becuase many of my shifts have only two people, me and a manager, me staying at the register also means mad customers because they cant' get help cuz the manager can only help so many people at a time and only so fast, and others that are not close enough for me to help have to wait. We need a third person that's really just a cashier so I could go help them, but the boss doesn't schedule things like that anymore even though we are more than busy enough to need it most of the time. Sometiems we need at least four people.

I've never wanted so badly to quit a job that I used to like, but I also am determined not to, as I want to outlast the bad people like i always have so far. I guess we'll see how that goes. It could take years, but I hope not.

And I'm getting older and gimpier, and nobody wants to hire old cripples, which is how they see me and people like me, so I don't think I'd even be able to find a different job that would be any better anyway.

Lots of jobs out there that pay the same or worse, couldn't do those. Lots of jobs out there that are more stressful like call centers and computer-related, couldn't do those--I'd blow up and get fired or worse. Haven't found any others yet that aren't this stressful and also pay more (cuz I don't make enough right now to meet even an unreasonably extremely frugal budget), and would be a certain long-term job, not something for a few weeks maybe if that sort of thing.

So I'm stuck where i am, pretty much.


Have been looking at others' suggestions like onforce. I talked to some of the temp-agency places, and since I can't give any of them a certain schedule to work around none are willing to work with me, especially for at best only one day a week. Since I can't give up days at the dayjob to make room for at best potential work that probably would never come, I can't just tell the dayjob that i can't work on a specific day cuz that might be a day they need me instead of someone else, and i would then completely lose the chance of that whole day's work in the week, reducing my total hours down by however many that was, and i simply cant' afford that.

That's why I'm stuck working 6 days these last couple weeks to not even get 40 hours. if I said I couldn't do the 6 days, I'd not even have 30 hours, probably, even though I'm "full time" and and supposedly required to be given more than 30. She's already done that to me several times, cheating me out of hours I needed last year, putting me farther in the hole, eating up more of what very little emergency savings I have (which are all only there thanks to ES members that donated to the fire rebuild fund).



Bah. I'm still depressed and anxious and stressed out, and no end to it in sight since late winter/spring/summer are usually lean times at work anyway, so things will probably only get worse.