Tuesday, December 19, 2006
doom and destruction
Hello, holiday readers. Things have been whacky, possibly more whacky than necessary. Thursday of last week there was a massive windstorm and the power went out here for a few hours. (We live 1 block from the power company, so if I don't have lights chances are they don't either. They get theirs restored, mine come on.) Around 1:30am we were looking out the bedroom window at the trees on the side of our yard swaying... and witnessed one just keep going, straight down. The end result of the storm was that the last two trees on the side of our yard (you may remember we'd had two others removed) went down diagonally through Lillian's back fence and they hung over Ruben's side fence. Also, the tall tree in the corner of Lillian's yard, which is mere meters away from our bedroom window, fell parallel to our two, and amazingly none of the three trees hit a house. Photos of the carnage are below: the first one is the right tree through the fence, the second one is the left tree broken off at the 8 foot mark (and the first time we came to realize the inside of that tree was totally rotten), and the third one is a view from the other side of Lillian's yard (taken while chatting with Ruben about damage and cleanup) showing my two trees going through/over her fence and hanging over his fence. The mound at left in the third photo is the top of her tree, which landed 15 feet from the corner of her house.
Paige's brother Boyd came over with his trusty chainsaw, and within two hours he had both of the trees cut up into manageable pieces, which Paige and I dragged into our own yard, and both of our neighbors' yards are free of major debris (or ours anyway). Yeah, now what to do with the piles of crap in our yard? I'm not sure what will be done about the fence; I'm willing to buy supplies and fix it myself, with or without Lillian's son's help (this is the guy who was supposed to replace the short fence separating our properties in the front yard last summer and hasn't), but she said she's had her insurance company do fence repairs before so they might take care of it. Ruben's fence was not harmed at all, because the trees landed on Lillian's apple tree and didn't make impact on the planks.
There have been some amusing stupidities encountered in the shopping binge I've been on in the last few days, but as usual I can't think when I'm at the computer. Okay, here's one that wound my clock: I was in this thrift store in the Hilltop neighborhood that I'd never seen before, bought a flock of ornaments and such, and I found a couple records I wanted. (You can never have too many musicbox albums, though some would reason that even one is too many.) For some reason I decided I needed this Christmas album by Living Strings, but -- totally unlike me -- I didn't pull the record out to confirm it was the Living Strings Christmas album. I got home, turned on the turntable, and... uh, it's not Living Strings, it's this German children's chorus (oh boy, screechy kids and an accordian!). At least it was still Christmas music, but the kind I prefer to go to Leavenworth to hear over loudspeakers while shopping rather than play in my own home while wrapping gifts. And on that note, I have finally decided upon a gift I want this year: my record player sounds horrible lately, like there's a short or something inside or my needle is blunt (well, that part I already knew), and Crosley [you're there!] has been marketing some CD/tape/record/radio consoles -- one of which will burn CDs of your records -- that we've seen in catalogs and for half-price at a department store chain locally. I dropped that on Paige yesterday, now let's see if she gets on the ball and goes shopping for one while they're still (hopefully) in stock. Anyhow, witness the photos.
Paige's brother Boyd came over with his trusty chainsaw, and within two hours he had both of the trees cut up into manageable pieces, which Paige and I dragged into our own yard, and both of our neighbors' yards are free of major debris (or ours anyway). Yeah, now what to do with the piles of crap in our yard? I'm not sure what will be done about the fence; I'm willing to buy supplies and fix it myself, with or without Lillian's son's help (this is the guy who was supposed to replace the short fence separating our properties in the front yard last summer and hasn't), but she said she's had her insurance company do fence repairs before so they might take care of it. Ruben's fence was not harmed at all, because the trees landed on Lillian's apple tree and didn't make impact on the planks.
There have been some amusing stupidities encountered in the shopping binge I've been on in the last few days, but as usual I can't think when I'm at the computer. Okay, here's one that wound my clock: I was in this thrift store in the Hilltop neighborhood that I'd never seen before, bought a flock of ornaments and such, and I found a couple records I wanted. (You can never have too many musicbox albums, though some would reason that even one is too many.) For some reason I decided I needed this Christmas album by Living Strings, but -- totally unlike me -- I didn't pull the record out to confirm it was the Living Strings Christmas album. I got home, turned on the turntable, and... uh, it's not Living Strings, it's this German children's chorus (oh boy, screechy kids and an accordian!). At least it was still Christmas music, but the kind I prefer to go to Leavenworth to hear over loudspeakers while shopping rather than play in my own home while wrapping gifts. And on that note, I have finally decided upon a gift I want this year: my record player sounds horrible lately, like there's a short or something inside or my needle is blunt (well, that part I already knew), and Crosley [you're there!] has been marketing some CD/tape/record/radio consoles -- one of which will burn CDs of your records -- that we've seen in catalogs and for half-price at a department store chain locally. I dropped that on Paige yesterday, now let's see if she gets on the ball and goes shopping for one while they're still (hopefully) in stock. Anyhow, witness the photos.
