The Big Green House

I am a slug

Trust me, you wouldn't want to read what I'd be writing these days.

Vay-cay-shon

First things first, though: Martin’s tests came back better than any of us expected, I think. His kidney levels, while still higher than one might want, are back to where they were in March. We will take that. He’s obviously feeling much better; he’s been eating like a champ, and has even taken to jumping up on Science Girl’s lap while she’s reading the morning paper again. He still sleeps a lot, but not nearly as much as he had been. And the daily subcutaneous hydration continues to be traumatic for all parties, but as we adjust our strategy to counter Martin’s wriggling, it becomes better than it was. Can’t ask for much more than that, can you?

Of Coyotes and Kidneys

Well, that was a busy weekend. First, the good stuff: Science Girl’s NW Coyote Tracker has really taken off. KOMO never ran their piece about the situation, but there was an article in today’s P-I about urban coyotes; the site gets mentioned at the very end. Also, the local NBC affiliate, KING-5, came out and interviewed SG this afternoon and ran their piece tonight. Still pending is an interview she gave to the Seattle Times. As I write this, around 7:30 PM, NWCT has had about 1600 hits today alone. SG says she’s got about two dozen coyote sightings in queue to be posted. Congratulations to SG for providing an outlet for people to share their information, and for getting out the news that people need to keep their pets inside.

Speaking of pets, we come to the less-good news. Martin, our 19-year-old cat, spent the weekend in the hospital. He’s had kidney disease for some time, but the extreme (for here) heat last week sent him into the beginnings of kidney failure. So he spent Wednesday – Sunday getting IV and subcutaneous fluids. Since there is no such thing as dialysis for kitties (and if there were, it would probably be kinder not to administer it), the idea was to sorta flush out his system and get the kidney values down. The BUN (blood urea nitrogen) got down to acceptable levels, but the creatinine is still elevated. It’s down from where it was, of course, but it’s still high – normal is under 3, and I think he’s around 5 and change, if I recall correctly. We brought him home last night, and have been administering all sorts of new meds plus pushing subcutaneous fluids on him, daily. That involves sticking him with a needle and dripping fluid under his skin. Oddly enough he doesn’t like it, and we’re both a little wigged out about it, too. I think we’ve gotten the hang of it now, though, and can get through it so that it’s minimally painful for all concerned. Thankfully, Martin is a pretty forgiving guy.

We take him back to the vet on Wednesday, to get his creatinine levels checked again. Hopefully they’re continuing to trend downward. They’re never going to be normal, but lower is obviously better. So we do our thing and hope for the best.

Wet Weekend

We took a long weekend, Science Girl and I, and got the hell out of town. I was feelin’ the screws coming down on me, in a big way, so it was time to light out for the sticks for a bit and recalibrate. We got a cat-sitter for Martin, packed Lucy in the car, and spent a few days at a cabin near Sunset Falls, just outside of the lovely town of Index.

It was quite nice, if somewhat wet off and on. It rained most of Saturday. Aside from a side trip into the town of Index*, we spent most of the day hanging out at the cabin, reading and playing Scrabble. It was very relaxing for us, but between the sound of the falls (about 25 – 30 yards away; given that it had been raining for awhile and the spring melt was just beginning, it was amazingly loud), the rain, and the occasional freight train rumbling through the night, Lucy was a little nervous.

Sunday made up for that, though; we went to Wallace Falls. The only thing Lucy likes more than snacktime is running up a trail and playing Forest Dog. We’d been there before, a couple of years ago; since SG is still recuperating from an injury to her Achilles tendon, we stopped at the picnic shelter this time. That made it about a three mile round trip, I think, all of which Lucy took as fast as we would let her. Aside from a couple of off-leash dogs who gave Lucy some grief (and the pea-brained owners of said dogs, who frankly don’t deserve them), it was a great outing for all of us.

We came back home yesterday, stopping at the Serpentarium on the way. SG had been wanting to go there since she was a kid. Reptiles aren’t really my thing (venomous ones less so, and spiders of any sort even less than that), but this was fairly painless & SG enjoyed it, so there you go.

It’s a quick trip up to Index – about an hour, I think – so I imagine we’ll be back that way sometime soon. In the meantime, I’m back here in the salt mines. I still have pictures to look at, though, which I will share with you. Mine are here, and Science Girl’s are here. (This is quite possibly my favorite photograph ever.)

*Apparently I’m unable to take a trip like this without finding some dubious commercial venture to fall in love with and compulsively fantasize about for the next week or so. This weekend was no different; the historic Bush Hotel (which doesn’t really look like that anymore – these days it’s set up more on the lines of a mid-century motel more than anything else) is on the market. It was a B&B in it’s last incarnation – 10 rooms (two with private bath) upstairs, a restaurant and bar downstairs, plus what looked to be at least one and possibly two small houses in back. The price for the property wasn’t at all bad, but when you factor in getting a liquor license, remodeling the place (I saw at least one broken window, which means water damage), and the fact that, while Index is a nice place, it ain’t exactly booming, PLUS neither SG nor I having any experience in what is euphemistically referred to as “hospitality”… I mean, it was never gonna go any farther than a pleasant diversion for mental vacations while back in the world, really, but that all kinda works to keep it that way.

Goin' up the country

Something along the same lines as our fantasy of running a goat ranch (but much more likely to eventually occur) is the idea of buying some land, probably over by Hood Canal, and building a cabin. Not having it built for us, mind you, but Science Girl and I actually doing as much of the labor as we could ourselves.

Folly? Probably. Neither one of us has framed so much as a doghouse in our lives, for one thing. That’s the aspect that sorta gives me the willies, to be honest, but there are places to learn such things, or at least the basics thereof. And, y’know, we’re not talking about replicating Versailles or anything, just a modest cabin. 500 square feet, probably one and a half stories, tops. Smaller, if we can get away with it.

And, as it turns out, there’s a fair amount of land available in Mason County that’s pretty reasonably priced. Some of it is in what I think of as vacation home subdivisions, where you have a whole bunch of small lots very close to each other. The prices there are usually the best, but who the hell wants a cabin with next-door neighbors as close as they would be in town? Plus, a lot of those places have Codes, Covenants and Restrictions, which I refuse to even consider. If I want to paint the place purple with hot pink trim that’s what’s gonna happen, and no “homeowners association” is gonna tell me otherwise. (Not that I’d ever think that purple with hot pink was a good idea, of course. That example is strictly for illustration purposes.)

Then there are places that are 100% off the grid – no power, no water, no septic/sewer. A challenge, yes, but not one that’s insurmountable. Believe it or not, I’ve been reading up on cisterns today, just for fun. I also found out how composting toilets work. I’m still looking into the solar panel thing, but I think it could work for the sort of application we’d be thinking of – minimal power, used on weekends and maybe one or two full weeks out of the year.

All of this is still strictly academic, of course. We’ve got a couple of capital-intensive projects that need doing around Science Manor before any sort of real estate acquisition could take place. Still, it is fun to think about. And who knows? We could win the lottery this week.

Escape from Blue Angel DEATH!

As it turns out, where we stayed wasn’t precisely in Lilliwaup; we were much closer to Eldon, actually, but the post office is in Lilliwaup so that’s the address for the place. Besides, Lilliwaup is much more fun to say, don’t you think? LILLIWAUP!

Right. OK. The trip over was pretty simple, although once again I was working on not much sleep. I was pretty wiped out by the time we got there, but really I think we spent maybe two hours on the road, which includes waiting at the Edmonds ferry dock and the incredibly quick ferry ride to Kingston. We barely had time to finish our lunch and get back down to the car before we docked.

At home, he's a tourist

I’ve started a series of tourist guide type pieces at #1HS; the first one is right here. Those of you who live here: if I miss anything, let me know. Those of you who live elsewhere: if you have any questions you want answered, let me know. Comment there, comment here, or leave me an email – it’s all, as they say, “good”. I’m hoping to get a few pix of some of the neighborhoods this weekend, but we’ll see how that goes.

Heatmiser

It snowed today. I think it started around 10:30 this morning. I was out with Lucy and we noticed some fine powder coming down here and there. It took a long time for it to stick. This picture was taken from our back deck around 2:15 or so this afternoon; five minutes before that, there hadn’t been any accumulation on that railing at all.

It’s stopped now. They’ve got the snow advisory on until 10 this evening, but where I am right now (a different neighborhood from the one we live in, about 20 minutes away by car) it’s looking pretty dry. Everything that had fallen has melted. I’m just hoping the roads don’t ice up before I can get home.

Beach, boy

As of midnight tonight, I am on vacation. And not a moment too soon. I’m running a cumulative sleep deficit that’s really messing with my head, man. (For example: I actually thought that sentence was funny.) Being able to go to bed at a normal time like an actual human will no doubt do wonders for my disposition, which right now is somewhere between that of a fussy toddler and a tweaker on a week-long mission. I’m tired and grumpy and I’d much rather be home with a cocktail and some nice music playing than sitting here at work, watching the clock tick down to V-hour. This deferred gratification thing is the shits.

Soon, however, I’ll be watching the pelicans flying in formation over First Beach as the sun sets behind James Island, with the roar of the surf and the wild scent of salt air washing my feeble brain clean again.

Just not soon enough.

I'll be back on the 29th, unless I drift out to sea.

Well I went to school in Olympia

We’re back. Obviously. It was a nice, if entirely too short, three-day weekend. Highlights included:

• Watching the tide roll in and out of Oakland Bay. No, really. It’s a fairly narrow, shallow bay, so the change is pretty dramatic. The cabin we rented was down near the end of the bay, (opposite that green lump projecting out into the bay – it’s actually a golf course) which became an enormous (and thankfully not too fragrant) mudflat when the tide was out. One of the houses across the bay had a sailboat anchored in front of it; the tide receded enough to leave it completely beached, about 15 feet from the low tide mark. When the tide returned, it partially flooded a small wetland area adjacent to the golf course. Maybe this makes me a dork (maybe?), but I truly dig witnessing things like that – the awesome power of nature in the everyday miracle and blah blah blah.
• Waking up early enough to watch the mist creeping in over the cedars across the bay from us. Watercolors really were invented to portray the Northwest.
• Watching Lucy swimming. Well, not so much swimming as wading, but still. She really enjoys doing it, and it is fun watching her (as long as she doesn’t try to drink the sea water).
• Science Girl’s oyster rescue service. Yeah, she eats ‘em, but she’ll also return them to the water if she finds them stranded by low tide.
• Having Science Girl show me around the Evergreen campus. SG spent the early part of her college career there, until she finally decided that it wasn’t really the right place for her. It’s just as she described it to me: while the campus itself is quite beautiful, all lush native greenery and such, the architecture is the hideous concrete-box crap that was so popular in the early 70s. You know the stuff. It always looks like a “futuristic” prison set from some cheesy Sci-Fi flick. So it was an interesting juxtaposition of the natural and the manufactured, with Mama Nature coming out miles ahead. As usual.
• Having my picture taken with Sleater-Kinney. Yes. I’ll post it as soon as the film comes back from the developers.

Less fun:

• The fish and chips lunch that just didn’t sit well Saturday afternoon. I’ll spare you the gory details, but I will mention the white-knuckle drive back to the cabin just in the knick of time. Yeesh.
• Being stuck in traffic from Olympia all the way to the other side of Tacoma. Rough estimate for that 35 mile trip on I-5 yesterday – 1 ½ - 2 hours. In 90 degree weather. Science Girl said her eyeballs felt hot, which really disturbed me in a way I don’t think I can accurately describe.

Mostly, though, it was a quiet weekend away from town (and the horrors of Seafair), so in that sense it was a huge success. And, in a mere thirteen days, we’ll be heading off for La Push again. Yay!