I’m back. I called my internet provider on Tuesday and the tech said that the signals coming from our modem were very weak and he scheduled an appointment with another tech yesterday afternoon.
In the meantime, the modem was in and out all morning long yesterday, so each time I started to write a post, the wifi/modem would go out. I finally gave up, posted on IG that we had internet problems, and hoped you all would check there. If I can’t post and I can get to my IG account, I’ll always let you know what’s going on.
The tech arrived, couldn’t find anything wrong with the modem (though we agreed that it’s probably time for a new router) and he went outside and checked the cable going into our house and then drove down to the road and climbed a huge ladder. At one point I heard voices and realized my neighbor was out there talking to him. I ran outside to chat with her and, sure enough, they were having problems, as well. Then, as I was headed back inside, my other neighbor walked down her driveway and talked to the tech. Clearly, it was a neighborhood thing – which the tech confirmed. He found out there had been a crew working all morning elsewhere in the neighborhood and everything looks okay now. A day or so before I called them, I noticed them working at another neighbor’s house. So it’s been ongoing for a week or so. More info than you really needed, but there you go.
Leaves and more leaves. Today it’s supposed to be a bit windy…so more leaves. But it’s awfully pretty out there.
I’ve started reading Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers. I’m not too far into the book yet, because my time has been taken up by wifi/internet. But I like it so far. Oh, forgot to say, yesterday’s impending visit by the tech necessitated a major desk cleanup by my husband because that’s where the modem and router are. I had been gently asking him to clean up his part of the office for quite some time – to no avail. It was a MESS of stacks of paper, photos, mail, files, memorabilia from the run of Escape to Margaritaville, camera stuff, etc. With a deadline, Don had no choice but to go through everything with a ruthless hand. Huzzah! It looks much better now.
I’ve never seen the limelight hydrangeas look as spectacular as they do this year. That color is so intense! Gorgeous.
We’re into Season 2 of Goliath on Amazon Prime. We really love it. I’m partial to Billy Bob Thornton, who is one of the most honest actors I’ve ever seen. Not a false move. And Tony Award winner Nina Arianda, his costar, is the same. She is simply wonderful. (Don’s crazy about her.)
I just finished Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnick, a series of essays he wrote for The New Yorker, when he and his family lived in Paris 20 years ago. I recommend it highly if you’re at all interested in Paris, Parisians and the differences in our cultures. Gopnick still writes for The New Yorker and I’ve been a fan for a long time.
A reminder that I’ve disabled my comment reply plugin, so you’ll need to check back if you want to read my reply and the comments of your fellow readers. Thank you!
Okay. Glad to be back!
Happy Thursday.
Claudia, that could be a picture of my Limelight! The color this year is amazing!! I have never seen it look like this, and others I see in town look the same. Must have been the cool and very wet spring maybe??
Internet problems are awful. In a weird way it is “nice” when neighbors seem to have the same problems at the same time, it always makes me feel it isn’t just us, because that usually means bigger problems and more money for something we will have to fix!! And if nothing else, it helped move Don to clean his desk area. Nice when a good thing occurs as a result of a not so good thing!!
Have a good Thursday, kiddo!!
I think that’s what it was – so intensely wet for a long time – that wet didn’t help some plants, but it sure helped the hydrangeas!
I am SO happy that corner of the room is now presentable. It was driving me crazy!
Claudia – those hydrangeas are gorgeous! Mine didn’t do well this year. I think too much rain in the spring and summer.
Have a great weekend.
Love,
Judy
We had a lot of rain in the spring – more than ever – and ours did well. But we have cooler temps, so maybe that made a difference?
Thanks, Judy.
Glad you are back, too!
Thank you, Cathy!
such beautiful pictures!
I’m glad your technical problems are solved! xo
So am I! So far, so good today. Thanks, Tammy!
Can we have a big cheer for the limelights? Mine too…best ever. That’s a gorgeous picture.
I have a love hate relationship with technology. When it works it’s the best. When it doesn’t…grrrr.
Ours leaves are starting to fall, but, there isn’t a lot of color yet. Maybe after this weekend when frost is threatened. We are part of the big storm in the plains….we are fortunately on the rainy side, not the blizzard side. Enjoy your day! ;)
Yep. And tech problems make me especially edgy because I only have so much knowledge – not nearly enough, in this case.
Thanks, Donna!
Glad your internet problems are fixed now. That first photo of your house with all the leaves is simply gorgeous. I think I’d print and frame that one. And those limelight hydrangeas…just stunning. I might have to think of planting one of those by the side of our porch next year. I’m just not sure if we get enough sun in that spot.
They’re really wonderful. Mine get sun, but they’re also shaded a bit by the house and the big maple.
Thanks, Melanie!
I can sympathize with you trouble. AOL Gold is awful We are constantly getting frozen or not responding. It is so frustrating. We are seriously thinking about changing internet service.
Marilyn
Is AOL Gold the internet service or the browser/mail platform? I didn’t know AOL was an internet provider, Marilyn.
Three cheers for solving the internet problem. Well done!
Although spending time off line and sitting on that lovely porch or in your garden on a sunny day (with or without an extra sweater!) isn’t a bad alternative. It’s absolutely beautiful!
I’ve started a new mystery you may (or may not) be interested — The Long Call, by Ann Cleeves — the first in a new detective series with the police detective Matthew Venn. I’m about a third of the way through and so far, so good. (They take place in Devon).
I’ve heard of Ann Cleeves, though I can’t remember if I’ve read any of her books. Thanks, Jeanie!
I always worry a little when you don’t post, yet we told you to not worry about it and you’re under no obligation!
Just got thru reading some headlines and I know of one book I really want to read RIGHT NOW and that’s by author Ronan Farrow, key words in some commentary online about it: “How unchecked power can infect a workplace.” I’ve been a victim of that power when I was a more timid woman in my 20s who didn’t want to lose her subordinate job but who simply couldn’t believe what was happening, knew nobody would believe it and absolutely didn’t know what to do. We’ve had those discussions here during the Weinstein horror.
So, another subject – – the media/weather service has been scaring us (for good reason) about the coming Santa Anas (easterly winds off the desert, blowing toward the coast east to west, at least where I am in SoCalif; common thing at this time of year; it’s just that now, more than any other decade, any of us associate these winds with monumental wildfire most of all, since our wildfires are now different and more catastrophic, and we just went thru a horrible, destructive fire less than two years ago where ‘little me’ who doesn’t even KNOW that many people, became aware of [current count] 36 folks in my realm of acquaintance who lost their homes, which is just unbelievable but it was like the thigh-bone-connected-to-the-knee-bone thing where almost anybody in Ventura County and Santa Barbara County or L.A. County knows someone who knew someone, who knew somebody else; the loss was just too vast; people’s lives ruined). We’ve been getting a lot of headlines about emergency preparedness, and advance warning that the power company WILL shut off power at some point to reduce the risk of sparking power lines in these hellacious winds. (I know you remember a Santa Ana, Claudia; you’ve lived here!)
So, my husband and I thought we were okay; didn’t find our location on any of the maps on the power grids. Then they changed it and we got alerts on our phones last night that we could be cut off at any time but most likely Friday (tomorrow) morning. Got another one just now that it will probably be late morning. So, yesterday, we brought in ice, got out the coolers, did all the usual even though I kinda felt like I was stumbling over it (we’re not ‘the greatest’ when it comes to preparedness although we should be for earthquakes; like, I left my getaway bags packed [from when we thought we were going to have to evac the fire in Dec-’17], then just last month went thru them, threw out expired stuff, etc. and hadn’t repacked them again – – there was quite a run already on ice last night, in the local stores, but my husband HAD brought in a lot of bottled water since Tuesday). And, for three days, we’ve been watering down the hillside, exterior landscaping, anchoring trees with strong cables, etc.
The wind started up hard this morning at 9am and, so far, I’ve lost my young cherimoya fruit tree despite its anchored, solid-wood, teepee frame; it’s on the ground, so my heart is broken just like its trunk. Was 7-ft tall because it was still a baby; they can grow to 30-ft in height. (My husband had to go to a job out of town today and he said he counted ten trees down on the hour commute.) We lost the heavyduty ‘canopy cover’ we have over the feral cat feeding area; it’s in shreds (canvas-like fabric) and the frame is bent (not salvageable). I’m so mad. It’s expensive to replace and we’re not planting any more trees; can’t afford it, was a OTO opportunity. My jacaranda is only five years old and if it goes, my hope is that it will bow/bend, not break; it happened once before. Gonna prob lose all the new tarps we just put over exterior sheds and seven cat shelters when they told us RAIN was on the way, which then never happened. Grrrrr. We can’t get up on the hillside now to do anything; it’s ‘way too windy.
While I still have power, I’m obviously trying to get various things done that require electricity, and I took another shower while I still have hot water. It’s same as people like you who have to think ahead about nor-easters; those who suffer with hurricanes, flooding potential, etc. Sure does shake you up, though. When I lived on the Gulf Coast for a couple of years, tornado threat scared the heck out of me. Despite readiness, it made me feel so powerless.
The wind here has been the topic on anybody’s lips I’ve run into the past couple of days (bank, market, post office, card shop, etc.) and everybody agrees that the power shutoff has to be endured to reduce wildfire risk; if we lose the contents of our refrigerators/freezers, it’s just gonna have to be what happens. It’s for our own protection. So far, it’s not the 85mph tornado-like wind we had in the last fire, but it’s still vicious, dirty. I hate it. I do not like wind and, Claudia, I know you understand; you don’t like it either! An hour after the wind started today, we already had a fire at the base of our one southerly section of mountain near the riverbed but they put 14 engines on it and it looks like it’s out; I’m not seeing the smoke now. It’s 3 miles from me.
I worked on my husband exhaustively after the Dec-2017 wildfire to get the heck out of California but he.just.won’t.leave. Clearly, there’s nowhere safe from a number of climate/weather/’Earth’ events in the U.S. And we-get-what-we-get for living in SoCalif, so just can’t keep complaining about it. But it’s scary and nobody will rest tonight because the wind is so darn loud and for as much as you try to batten down the hatches, it’s bang-this and clunk-that; impossible to sleep, yet wearing earplugs isn’t smart either when needing to remain alert.
So, that’s life here thru Saturday; I’m hunkering down and hope it remains a 3-day wind event. East winds/Santa Anas can often last a week although I remember from my youth that they sometimes seemed to last as much as two weeks, just neverending (and we’d get so sick of it). The temps aren’t ultra-high the way they might have been last month; it’s only 88 degrees (f) at the 4pm hour; could be worse on that front. I’m supposed to stay indoors due to my asthma and the wind exacerbating it but, you know, the wind makes me so restless; I don’t like feeling confined and have to fight the urge to get out and see it, own it; look at the larger space; see what’s going on around town for myself (although you’ve gotta be careful where you drive; avoid stop signs with a tree overhead that could fall on you!). It’s a howler this time (shakes the house). They’re not kidding when a wind can be described as a screaming one. My poor dog is so nervous. So is her mom!
Ah well, nice to see your abundant hydrangeas but I don’t envy you all those leaves despite their singular beauty. We have some (ornamental?) maples around town and I noticed yesterday morning that the green leaves were doing the ombre effect into yellows, oranges, reds with several dried up and on the ground; so, with this wind, any turning leaves are now probably off the trees. There’s just so much grit everywhere; too long since rain. There were two mountain lion sightings last week, one of them on someone’s roof, because the wildlife is coming down the canyons and barrancas trying to get to the river basin on the valley floor which, unfortunately, only yields a trickle of water for them (the river right now looks like a small ditch). Poor dazed beasts are thirsty. Must make them go out of their mind.
See ya on the other side, AKA ‘hopefully windless’ Sunday…
Just read that we’re at 5 percent humidity and they’ve issued a air-quality alert due to the damaging particular matter blowing around in the wind. Lovely. (Not!) Oh, to be a kid again and not have the worries about weather: I remember on Halloween being a little-one buffeted in these winds, having taken my asthma medicine and getting the okay to do a bit of the door-to-door ‘trick or treat’ in the neighborhood, my biggest concern being my flapping princess costume that wanted to balloon in the gusts while I was trying to hang on to my precious paper sack of candy. That, and any ghosts and goblins in the windy-spooky, black-clear night; who could, at any second, fly right before our eyes!
Auto-correct; another thing I ‘hate’. What is in the wind is damaging PARTICULATE matter.
xo
Oh to be a child again indeed. Things were simpler then.
Thinking of you, Vicki. I was reading up on the outages this morning. I don’t envy you, my friend. Stay safe!
Those hydrangeas are out of this world! Never have I seen a color quite like that! I wanted to chime in about Billy Bob Thornton. So glad to hear your opinion of his acting skills. I’ve always been impressed by him and I’m always surprised by how slight he is since he carries such a big impact on camera. I think he’s often overlooked because he doesn’t chew scenery. Enjoy your upcoming weekend.
And thank goodness he doesn’t chew scenery. Those actors that do are definitely not in my favorites column. Thanks, Nora!
your home is so warm and welcoming! lovely, lovely limelights, too!
sorry you (and some neighbors) had to deal with internet troubles. glad the problem is fixed.
nice benefit to have some tidying up done of don’s desk, though. :)
as someone living in a very small place with no spare bedroom or even a nook who must then put her desk and a i’m-never-parting-with-it sewing machine in the living room, who is sometimes disorganized and always, always loved/loves getting school and art supplies and who wanted to be an english major/teacher, i like seeing how people organize their desks and art things. if you ever wonder “what could i post on instagram?”, that would be one of my requests … a photo of your desk set-ups … if you like. please, thanks and no pressure intended! :)
hope you have a nice night.
kathy in iowa
I will definitely do that someday soon, Kathy. Thanks for the suggestion!