Why Siri is an essential worker but most Boomers don’t know how to abuse her properly.

 

 

I am drinking an Arnold Palmer already, at 10:22 in the morning. I usually wait until at least the afternoon…

You need to know that.

 

This morning, after having cooked up some local ground beef that DelRae and Steve had given me from their freezer (COVID19…we look after each other here, yes we do!) I grabbed the mason jar of homemade lemonade out of the refrigerator, added some sun tea and sat down to write.  My brother and I had already exchanged a couple of emails. Apparently, he gets to work EARLY, so I checked my mail to see what he had to say next. 

 

(I do NOT use the PUSH function on my phone except for texts. 

STOP THAT!

That is not abusing SIRI that is abusing YOU!

One thing I have learned is that nothing is so important that I have to be available 24-7.  If it is, I will get the four-in-a-row texts or phone calls soon enough.  I also have my ringer turned off because Buddy, in his advancing age, now 12, HATES the sound of it.  He pants, and paces, and begs to be at least 50 feet from the offending noise, which in my house, means outside.  Someone suggested I add a new, custom “ring tone” to my phone; howling coyotes. Sadist.)

 

My brother had this to say after I had queried him, “Why are you feeling inadequate?"

 

“It's all your fault! 😘I'm amazed and discouraged, with how you find the time and energy to build a house, raise a garden, build a blog and post daily (beautifully I might add,) run an art gallery, create the art that goes into it, organize shows, and have friends. All I assume while the laundry gets done, the meals get prepped, the dogs get fed, the firewood gets gathered, and life goes on. So...Keep doing what you're doing! (Until it kills you? LOL) Yes I'm always at work by 8:00. Usually a little earlier.”

 

He had been reading my mind.  That was supposed to be my next blog theme, doing it all by myself.

 

I thought of it yesterday while I was still puzzling over my snake blog. I was running late to the gallery and had yet to fix lunch before I headed to town.   I retrieved a chicken from my refrigerator that I had roasted on the grill a few days earlier and began to pull the schniblits off the 🍖 🦴 🦴  to make a chicken salad.

 

But first,  I put on my apron. Uniforms help things run smoothly.  They really do.  If I had not put on my apron then I would have been worried about getting grease on my silk blouse.  I would not have been able to put my full concentration into the 🐓 salad that I was making and I, then, would have certainly spilled mayo down the front of me or, carelessly wiped my hands on my slacks.  

 

Think about it.  What happens when you start painting your house but you DON’T put on your paint shirt?  Or, when you go out to work in the garden but don’t change out of your good jeans?  Or instead of wearing your bathrobe while you are brushing your 🦷 you are wearing your 👔 ?

 

See what I’m saying?

Gotta take that brief moment for the details to make the rest of the day go smoothly.

I call that, “taking care of my future self.”

 

So, I put on my apron and I cleaned the chicken carcass of meat. Then, I minced some 🧅 🧅 , tossed in a handful of cranberries, tore up some fresh basil (from the plant I keep in my front window,) pulled out the mortar and pestle to grind some rosemary and threw in a dollop of mayo.  A quick grind of Pink Himalayan 🧂 🧂 (I did not use the salt that I had harvested from the Salinas lakes east of Estancia.  I’m saving that for special occasions), and a snappy twist of the pepper grinder and I had the ingredients covered.  

 

Stir.

Spread on bread. 

Add a couple of pieces of lettuce and, voilà, a 🥪 .  

 

I set to work on my salad dressing next.  I make my own.  I used to buy salad dressing at the store but I don’t always feel like eating salad.  I can literally go for weeks without eating anything fresh.  I actually love fresh vegetables, the flavors, the color, the textures so it’s not about that.  Indeed, I can’t explain why I don’t often eat them.  I just don’t. (I’ll probably die next year because of it.) When I finally feel like a 🥗 , the two month old, store bought dressing with the lumps of dried herbs and milk product stuck to the lid is not very appetizing. I have resorted to making my own.  A little bit of this.  A little bit of that and, again, voilà, a delectable topping for some 🐇 food.

 

Notice how I added details about all of that homemade stuff (true stories, all) just to drive my brother crazy?  I am so nice.😇

 

So, yesterday, in the middle of fixing the 🐔 🥗 , I got onto my rant (with myself and the dogs) about how people are often expected to “do it all,” cook gourmet meals, have a Mr. Clean shiny floor, a well manicured lawn, be a perfect partner, raise perfect kids (which includes driving them all over the state for their sports interests,) have the perfect haircut, and clothes with no stains,  AND show up 5 days a week to a CAREER (not a job), and earn enough money to buy a 2700 square foot home and a new car every few years. Never mind that we have a subsistence level minimum wage…

 

Phil had said,

 

“I feel inadequate…

 

We all do.  At one time or other we all feel inadequate.

 

But how do I do it?

 

BADLY!  

 

Did Phil NOT read my blog about the mice and my garden?!

 

It was not my intention in writing this blog to make ANYONE feel inadequate or guilty.  I just wanted to share some stories that I think are funny.  And since I love to write and am horrible at telling stories aloud I chose this venue.

 

AND, how do I do it?

 

I have to.

Having chose the lifestyle I have chosen, in the place that I chose it, I do what I do out of necessity.  And since I live alone, the onus is on me.  If I don’t do it, it doesn’t get done.

 

And finally, like my brother, like all of my siblings, I was raised this way.  Me and my 10 opinionated, wood chopping, cooking, constructing, designing, engineering, writing, painting, drawing, digging, teaching, singing, gardening, siblings were all raised this way.

 

Phil is an excellent artist in his own right. He employs, eggs, copper, paint, and canvas to create some of  the most lovely and unique (and radical) pieces art that the red state of Wyoming has ever seen.  He is also a cook, sharp shooter -kills his own meat and packs it out of the wilderness-an avid birder, HVAC expert at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, expert fly-tying, camping fly fisherman, writer, poet, musician (so shut your freaking mouth, Phil,)  who lives in Cody, Wyoming. 

 

Here’s a story about Phil…driving along the state highway in Wyoming he suddenly stops.  “See that, there?”  I look out the window at the vast expanse of open prairie now golden with Autumn colors.

“What?  What am I looking at?”

“The elk.”

Elk?  Where?  Serious the prairie is devoid of four-leggeds. I see a bird gliding just below the horizon..

Phil points. “There, about 2500 yards out, over by that cluster of trees.”

I squint. 2500 yards?  My eyesight is good but, 25 football fields good, looking for a single dusky brown animal at the edge of the trees?

Phil tries again, describing the landscape, using degrees and clock directions.

“It’s about 45 degrees to the left of that cluster of rock.”

Which cluster of rock?

“It’s at two o’ clock from the stream.” 

“Did you bring binoculars?”

Why would he?  He doesn’t need binoculars.

 

Shut up, Phil.

 

He and his wife, Jackie live far enough away from me that he has never been able to come for a visit. (That’s changing in September if COVID doesn’t kill us all.) He doesn’t see me in my day-to-day life, running late, forgetting commitments, or…

 

talking to SIRI so she can remind me of my calendar.

 

It’s all about knowing how to use your resources.

 

 

Me: “Hey Siri,” pause.

SIRI: ding

Me: “in 20 minutes remind me to put buckets on my plants.”

SIRI: ding “In 20 minutes remember to buckle up your slits on the ants!”

 

 

Later:

 

Me:“Hey Siri,” pause.

SIRI: ding

Me: “tomorrow morning at 8:15 remind me to call Hilda about the birdwatching trip.”

SIRI: ding “Ok! I’ve set a reminder. Tomorrow morning at 8:15  call Matilda about the bat washing lip!”

 

Or:

 

Me: “Hey Siri,” pause.

SIRI: ding 

Me: “On Thursday at 5:00 remind me to stop at B Street Market to pick up lemons.”

SIRI: ding “You’re all set.  On Thursday at 5 o’clock  remember to stop at Bees Treat Target to pick up some gems!”

 

SIRI is always so excited about being helpful! You can hear it in her voice.

 

 

What Phil really needs to know is that, once I started writing this blog I have not stopped. I just keep writing.  I have a big problem. 

 

I’m not getting anything else done. I either need a twelve step program or a shrink.

 

You think  I build houses in the middle of writing, Phil?  My windows are sitting in the shed.  My studs are, too.  And they are not actually going into a new building.  The windows are going into the buildings I currently have on my property; the dome and the studio shed.  When I finished the addition I QUIT building houses.  Done.  Kaput.  So I am not doing everything ALL at once.

 

Do I feed the dogs in the middle of writing a paragraph? 

 

Well, actually, I do. And, I get up-and-down-and-up-and-down-and-up-and-down with the dogs every time they whine or bark to go outside to warn off the coyotes.  

 

(Why did I did not put in the doggy door?)

 

I interrupt my “routine” for the hummingbirds, too. Early one evening, I was sitting on the patio after I had cleaned out the hummingbird feeder. I  was letting it dry in the dish rack while I took a moment to admire the New Mexico sky. In an instant, a  black chinned hummingbird buzzed my head and hovered five inches from my face. He stared me down.

 

“Feed me, NOW!”  So I did.  Before the feeder had a chance to dry (it’s recommended so as to help prevent the spread of illnesses from bird to bird) I was up refilling and rehanging it. It’s a wonder I get ANYTHING done.

 

(But you did read The Little Prince didn’t you, about when a person tames something, about when one tames a fox, it becomes her responsibility to care for it because, now, it can no longer care for itself? It won’t survive without it’s tamer.  

 

I LOVE that book, The Little Prince.)

 

For the dogs, for the birds, I do it because I made a commitment.  I do it because I have to.

 

Getting side tracked as I do, I lean heavily on SIRI to be my memory for things I do not want to neglect;  my friends, the gallery, checking on George’s house.  After that, I just get up and do what needs to be done.  

 

I have so many freaking projects of which I am in the middle that I no longer do any of them unless I have to (that does not count roofing projects.  I fix the roof as needed, mostly.) I have a list on the phone that I have dictated to SIRI. She also keeps track of my grocery list, and, coincidentally has a list of over one hundred topics that I will be covering over the course of the year stored in The Cloud; things like,  “I give parties like Mary Tyler Moore and other reasons why I am boring,” and “the law of attraction; why it’s a bunch of bullshit,”and also, “we are all just trying to survive (aka, while yelling at me about Trigo was anybody screaming at the meat processing plant for leaving sheep heads lying around so my hunting dog could eat them?”)  

 

There is so much to do that it’s hard to prioritize.

So, I have recently begun to let my inclinations choose the task. 

 

I have found, that if I MAKE myself do something then I quickly begin to find it a chore.  Things start going wrong.  I smash my thumb with the hammer.  I break off the faucet in my hand.  I cut the stud too short for the wall.  I rip my good jeans.

It becomes a long backward slide that is difficult to dig out of. And I get pissed, snake charmer pissed.

 

However, as Queen of All I Survey, if I work on the project that piques my interest that morning, and work on it until I, variously, stub my toe, cut myself, spill the paint, or collapse with exhaustion then I have a great time.  I move into “the Zone” and time slips by.  I don’t stop for anything, not anything.  Those of you who have been there know this.  There is no eating, sleeping, peeing, drinking water, nothing but what fits into the small circle in front of my eyes. 

 

(Phil might be right about the “until it kills you,” part.)

 

And it’s wonderful.  That’s why I have so many unfinished projects…that and the bank account but THAT is SO secondary to the desire to create that it doesn’t even register as a blip on my IPhone…

 

“Hey, SIRI…,” the little 🌈 line at the bottom of my phone screen gently, slowly moves back and forth, hypnotic, and she cannot understand the question, “bank account?”

😂 😆 Does not register at all.

 

It’s a celebration when I finish something BUT it’s also a celebration while I am doing it.

“Wow, one more latilla placed on my hallway ceiling, just 500 more to go.”

“Yay, ten more tumbleweeds pulled, looking good.”

“Five loads of sand hauled; won’t be long now.”

It is so fun I can’t stand it.

I get to have fun and be proud of myself even when I don’t complete a job.

 

 

Don’t think I am kidding.

I am not.

 

Bill subscribes to the belief that, “all good things take time.”

I like that.

I’ve adopted it.

It’s very forgiving. It both implies that, whatever I am doing is good, and that, the longer it takes, the better it is, right?  Whew.

 

Even then, with that great platitude as my North Star, we all still have to live.  There are things that must get done sooner, rather than later, in order to actually function.

 

So, thinking on necessities, here’s how my day began:

 

I got up after two hours of sleep, the dogs having barked off and on all night at the coyotes, whom I could not hear, but who must’ve been having some sort of ZOOM meeting because both Linda and DeRae commented about the coyotes this morning, too.  Linda lives 10 miles from me, 5 as the ravens fly, and DelRae lives 16 miles from me; 16, period.  All of the Torrance Coyote Pack #847 must’ve been in on that ZOOM meeting.

 

Besides coyotes I had my own noise in my own head bustling about.  Once my brain starts going,  it does not stop for months.  Sleep is elusive.

Two hours is a good night.

 

Yesterday,  thinking on sleeplessness while I was cooking I decided that I might be manic. I might be manic/depressive or have bi-polar disorder or ADD or ADHD.  I haven’t been diagnosed  yet but I am thinking about checking into it.  Also my brain might be shrinking.  Look how I rely on SIRI for everything?  And I can’t tell you the number of concussions I suffered from as child.  Literally.  Literally I suffered from them and, literally I can’t tell you how many I had.  I forget.  

Should get that checked.

And, until 5 days ago, before blogging, I believed that I was one of the most boring people in the world and that’s why people didn’t like me. (I am rethinking THAT, both the boring and the rejection but I still should get that MRI.)  

 

When was the last time I went to the doctor?  I can’t remember. I know that when we get to a certain age things start going wrong but I am not that old. 

 

A typical morning (a good night sleep or no, like kids, pets don’t care how tired I am) looks like, getting up at 5:30 or 6:00 and heading downstairs to brush my teeth. (NOT! Don’t tell Dr. CS; DDS but I feed the dogs first.  There will be NO peace unless I feed the dogs first.)

 

Buddy: “Pant, pant, pant, pant,” wag the tail, wag the butt, stand on my foot, have a stare-down, “woof.”

Po: “Grrrrr-uuu-fff!”

Me: “Mornin’ boys, how was your night?” HAHAHAHA 😂

 

Pant, pant, ruff, ruff, drool, drool, drool, drool everywhere, drool, (that’s Buddy, he washes the floor for me everyday, Phil, so that’s one thing I don’t have to do, EVER.)

 

Having fed the dogs,  I put on the water to boil for my coffee.  The pot is a drip thing that looks like a big chemistry beaker and has a nice wooden handle around the neck that DelRae gave me but I can’t recall the name of……. (this is something that SIRI cannot help me with, I’m sure.  It’s all about knowing how to query properly.)

 

Me: “Hey SIRI,” pause.

SIRI: ding.

Me: “What’s the name of the coffee maker that looks like a science beaker, has a nice wooden handle around the neck, comes in various sizes, and drips coffee through a filter?”

 

SIRI: Ding. “I found this on the web.”

 

                        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemex_Coffeemaker

 

(Whoops.  I was wrong.  Sorry, Siri.)

 

SIRI: “Hey Boomer.”

 

 

Coffee made, NPR on the radio (yes, Generation Z, radio, spelled: R-A-D-I-O.  I live in the middle of freaking nowhere and don’t have WI-FI.  I have a limited data plan. I need a radio. It has a cassette tape player that doesn’t work, a CD player that doesn’t work and an antennae that has a wire, complete with a piece of tinfoil, attached to the end to assist in the reception.  If Buddy stands in front of it all bets are off, just interference. Google it. Photo to follow) I sit for a moment to savor the java and listen to “Morning Edition.” Then I brush my teeth.  7:30 is walk and sniff time. I walk and the dogs sniff. They sniff animal burrows,  bushes, trails, the road. They pee a little, poop a little, pee a little more and then we head home, usually arriving  by 8:00. Buddy can’t take long walks anymore.  Now, besides his blown knees, he has a gimp in his right elbow.  

 

At home again, I make the bed, wash the dishes (typically saved from the night before, having adopted that habit from Phil and Jackie,) dump the dishwater on the baby Piñon trees, wash out the hummingbird feeders and make new hummingbird food, maybe catch-up on email, maybe check FB, pick-out my wardrobe for the day, think about making breakfast but decide against it, make lunch, pack my bags, grab my purse and run out the door at 9:45 to head for town.   I usually do not schedule anything before 10:00.  I can’t get out of the house before that and, then,  I’m usually a few minutes late.

 

And, crap, I forgot to bathe, again!

Living alone, squeaky clean skin and floral smelling hair is just not a priority.

 

Oh don’t you screw up your nose.  I’ve heard what’s going on during the COVID-19 quarantines.  I am not so different than any of you.

 

Truth is,  I really only bathe EOD or EOOD.  

Deal with it.

Americans bathe too much.  It harms our skin and our hair.

 

I’ll clean the toilet when I get home tonight.

 

And it’s Wednesday?

Forgot the trash, AGAIN. Saturdays and Wednesdays are dump days where-in everyone living outside of town gets to haul their trash, as much as an entire pick-up bed full, to the transfer station; a holding station on the outskirts of town where all of our crap is collected to haul, later, to the county dump. Townies have trash day on Thursdays and it gets picked up curbside.

Rough.

 

Is it still morning?

 

At the gallery, or where ever I have gone, I get busy with whatever is in front of my face.

Lots of times it’s people.

Too many people not wearing masks.

REALLY?

 

OOOOOH! I am getting political today.

 

I might write a letter or send a card.  My address list is all neatly tucked in my phone. Once upon a time I knew the addresses and phone numbers of my friends, my Dad’s office, my cousins…

238-1419

433-3236

422-2373

233-3236

237-0808

Now I can barely remember my own phone number.

 

Me:  “Hey SIRI”

SIRI: ding 

Me: “What is Linda and Tom’s address?”

SIRI: “Hmmm, let me see………which Linda?”

Each contact that has the name “Linda” in it pops up on my screen.

 

I start over, remembering that when I want to bring up Linda and Tom’s address I have to just say, “Linda.”

 

Me: “Hey SIRI”

SIRI: ding

 

Suddenly it’s 5:00. (If dictated to, SIRI says “5 o’clock,” have you noticed?) It’s time to go home.  Where did the day go?  I’m lucky if I step into my studio at all throughout the day to tear up paper and stick it on a board.  I am probably not going to be ready for the landscape show that’s coming up in September.

 

SIGH.

 

Sometimes I remember to eat the lunch that I’ve packed.

If not, it becomes dinner.

Home to feed the dogs, turn on NPR, water the plants…I haul water with 5 gallon buckets which takes a bit of time.  

 

I have to haul water because I put the wrong spigot on my 1600 gallon water catchment tank. I need to empty the tank before I replace the spigot.  I don’t planning on wasting the 1200 gallons still left in it in order to replace said spigot so I have put that project on hold. But, soon, the monsoons are coming so the tank will fill back to 1600 gallons again.

 

I could be hauling buckets for awhile.

 

Truth is, I think there is an attachment that I could buy, probably from Gustin Hardware, as a matter-of-fact, that would fit between my current spigot, one that won’t hold a hose, to my new spigot, one that does fit a hose. 30 minutes, including drive time, to buy it.  Another 10 minutes to attach it and, abracadabra…no more buckets.

But, I haven’t done it yet.  I haven’t reminded SIRI to remind me so, instead, I am sweaty Mickey Mouse in Fantasia running back and forth with buckets  brimming with water.

I can’t explain why I haven’t yet added the attachment, except that…

Well, like Mickey, sometimes I just want to fall asleep and not do my chores so… I have to haul water. Some people call that lazy. 😔😔

 

There’s also another possible reason I haven’t replaced or repaired the spigot…

 

I can’t fucking do it all by myself.

 

It looks like I can.  I put on a good face, and really, when I add 1 + 0 and get 8, I can feel pretty good about what I’m accomplishing. Really I’m doing alright!

 

I know people like to talk about how I am not getting along. I have actually heard them.  Apparently I can’t keep my house warm enough! I am living in a tent. I am struggling to keep going on my own.

But I can.

I am.

I do.

 

After the dogs are fed, and I am, and I’ve put all the food away, now that I am doing this blog, I sit down to write…for hours.  I am not going to be able to make this a daily blog, as much as I’d like to.  I just can’t keep up.

Then I go to bed and hope for sleep, for uninterrupted coyoteless sleep.

It usually comes.

 

 

But humans were not meant to function like this forever, by themselves.  In the olden days, if a person was not living in a clan that person usually died. (See, Phil IS right.)  I think the indigenous communities, and the Mexicans, and Spanish, and Greeks and Italians, and whomever else I have surely missed, got it right.  We are supposed to live in groups, (often related groups but not always) that work together to get everything done.  Everyone contributes so that everyone can relax and play Words With Friends without feeling fucking guilty. (I don’t play that game but I know a lot of people who do and if I had the time, I just might.)

 

We aren’t really supposed to do it all alone, especially living in the country.

And we are not really meant to live in a “nuclear family” (spelled n-u-c-l-e-a-r-b-o-m-b) where two adults and two kids comprise the community.  Even back in the day, after WWII, when one parent stayed home (if you were middle-class and white and the family was still intact) the nuclear family, all perfect, and white picket fence, was failing.  

 

Just ask Mother’s Little Helper. (Ask SIRI. It’s not the song, it’s the pill; Valium, the Great Generation’s precursor to hydrocodone.)

 

Now, (and long before now if you are not white) both parents have to work, sometimes, two jobs or three, while trying to get food on the table, the kids showered and teeth brushed and off to school, parents showered and shaved themselves, (who has time for that?) pets, bills, grocery shopping, lawns mowed (what a freaking waste of time, who’s big idea was that, Kentucky Blue Grass lawns for everyone, gawd I love New Mexico,) clothes bought, cars waxed (hah!)…the list is endless.  And we feel guilty when we can’t get it all done and then have a relaxing game night around the dinner table.

 

Is it any wonder Amazon has taken off the way it has?  We all just want to stay-home-for-one-second.  Let somebody else do the running around, for once.

 

Here’s one of the few reasons I can appreciate COVID19; we, businesses and individuals alike, are being given an opportunity to learn what is actually necessary and what is not. And, having learned, we can start doing what really moves us, what we love to do, as much as we do the things to which we feel obligated.  Make the world a better place by following our bliss? Maybe we can all start taking the extra time we have, if we have it (are you an essential worker? then you probably don’t) to do what we love to do until it kills us.

 

I hope.

All good things take time.

 

And here’s a final word on this rant…

 

It might look like I am doing it all by myself but I am not.  I have a support group, if somewhat distant.  I still advocate close knit, close-in communities but, until we actually achieve that we have the option of picking up the phone, mailing a letter, calling a friend, asking for help, playing Words With Friends.

 

I am not doing it alone, Phil.

No one lives in a vacuum.

 

It takes a village.

 

Here’s a list (I hope comprehensive but my memory fails me so forgive me if you were erroneously left out,) of people who have helped me during the pandemic:

 

            🏆🏆🏆 think of the Academy Awards, since we missed them this year.🏆🏆🏆

Nobody wins the big one without help.

 

DelRae, who called every single morning early on in the pandemic, when I got sick, to make sure I was alive.  I did not get THAT sick but I was sick and I self-quarantined and she checked on me.

 

Linda, who checked on me and texted, and kept the gallery going without me until we were forced to close.

 

And Linda and Tom who both helped me to rip all of my latillas (200?) in half so I could start my work on the hall and kitchen ceiling and who loaned me a nail gun and compressor to complete the work.  I was going to nail it all in by hand. 😩

 

Julie, and Daphne, (and others who I do not know)  bought my art work and cards to keep me going because I STILL HAVEN’T GOTTEN MY STIMULUS MONEY and Sheila and David and Nancy and Jack, and Pam, and all the others who have bought work from La Galería @ The Shaffer to keep it from permanently closing the doors. We are doing OK!

 

Jim and Monica for delivering, during COVID19,  no less than four pieces of artwork to patrons in the Denver area

Hilda, who has bought art, furniture, cooked, bird-watched for and with me during this time.  AND, she gave me a quilt!

 

Roy gave me sawdust for my composting toilet.

 

Bill hung the steel gate at the end of my driveway.

Pat and Del, for sewing me my COVID19 masks.

DelRae, for sewing me an apron and a purse.

 

Jamie texted delicious recipes every time I asked.

 

Thanks to, Pat and Sandy  who texted and called on me and fed me, and kept our lifelines open.

Steve and DelRae and Linda and Tom and Daphne have also fed me and put up with my moods. I get them, moods, now and again.😉

 

Kudos to Miqui of Southwest by Miqui, a business associate and friend, who helped me by alerting me to the announcement (and sending the link) that the State of New Mexico finally had the unemployment site updated for the unemployed self-employed.

 

Dr. CS in Belen and his office staff for my gap-less smile and my “payment plan.”

 

Chuck and Bev for the extra firewood, to get me through next year, just in case, and for checking on George’s when I have not been able to. 

 

Lori and Jim Williams who gave me a wringer washing machine…don’t have to leave the house for that now.

 

Steve and Erich.

 

Ed, for letting me pay the studio rental fee late. (Thank goodness I didn’t have to.)

 

The State of New Mexico.

USPS

 

All the people who are wearing their masks so as to keep everyone safer.

 

SIRI.

 

 

 

 

 

 

                             My radio.  Do take note of the VCR.VHS and DVD players behind it.

                My new washing machine standing next to my 1600 gallon                                    water catchment tank.

 

                                                      My wood pile.

 

 

My charcoal grill sitting on top of a future project, an outdoor kitchen. Interesting venture, roasting a chicken in this little

                                                                        My latilla ceiling.

SIRI