Withering Heights: Oh what a tangled web it weaves

 

While it is not Halloween or the season for Pumpkin Spice - which comes earlier every damn year - it is spider web season here in Withering Heights. 

When we first moved in, they were all over the outside and inside of this house and its lot.  Then they went away and came back in the spring. Then they went away and cam back in last two weeks. 

We're not talking bout a cobweb here and there.  We are talking jumbo webs.  These are the type of spider webs that you see in illustrated children's books. 

Webs that take over doorways, outdoor stairs, and the like. 

The explanations we have heard are:

a) once they get in and around your house and lay eggs, it takes a while to get them gone, but be persistent, and

b) You bought a house on a deeply wooded lot - what did you expect?

And the spiders? Big juicy orbit spinners.  Nothing poisonous, just big and juicy. 

Neither Cookie or The Husband hate spiders unless they are poisonous.  But we would rather not kill them, as they do important work. On a couple of occasions when we have had to remove the webs, we relocated the spiders to a less confrontational place. 

Still, Cookie for one would rather not walk through one of these webs and then launch into a childish panic over getting it off him. 

Currently, however, there is a big old spider on the front porch and the postman won't deliver if he has to swat at them on his way to the mailbox. 

In other news, Cookie is feeling overwhelmed by the house.  We are stuck in a purgatory of hoping to get the remodeling done soon, and not being able to move forward because the builder hasn't gotten our final project updated. 

 

How the French prepared us for ultimate evil

It was not French. It was The Fuckening.

 

Cookie usually loves the closing ceremonies for an Olympic event. But this year, the whole thing was a total downer. 

And it was French.  Very French indeed.   

When the French closed the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, it was a scene best watched while stoned out of one's gourd.  People on stilts, large shapes, and acrobats all set to atonal music. The only thing missing was Red Ballon guiding us mutely through the whole event.  

And Albertville's show was magnificent because it was FRENCH.

But last night? Pfft. Maybe it was designed to what the zeitgeist was when it looked like Marine LePen was going to take over the whole shebang.  

The worst part was watching it waiting, and hoping for something better.  And hoping that piano wouldn't drop from the sky.

And who told Ralph Lauren that he needed to clad Team USA in ski jackets.  They looked so out of fashion for Paris. They stuck out like a sore thumb.  No wonder Pariaisan's look at American tourists with disdain.

But the morning after me - Cookie - is that perhaps the entire French Dystopia thang that left everyone feeling depressed was actually a preparation for the ultimate evil to come: Tom Cruise.

That was the moment that the event went from being weird and depressing and turned into The Fuckening. 

Look, let's not mince words.  Not since the Reagan Era's Department of the Interior's head James Watt sang Wayne Newton's praises has a choice been so ridiculously bad. But Cruise adds a layer of "creep" to the whole affair. 

Why would the L.A. Committee think that using a cult member, and spousal abuser like Cruise in its effort to promote the 2028 Olympics?  I mean, it's like holding up aging and dated Red Hot Chili Peppers as a national example of entertainment culture.  Oh, wait, they did that too. 

Like I said, The Fuckening before our very eyes.

Frankly, I would have just assumed to watch the faceless French Mimes do an interpretive dance to Faust. 

Well, one thing is for sure, Cruise is aging, and it isn't aging well.  And the long shag cut looks as ridiculous as Pepper's Anthony Kadis wearing a "stoker" from International Male while he lipsyncs lyrics from Can't Stop, even though we wish they would. 

So now, we should all hope and pray that last not is not a portend for the 2028 Olympic Games.  Los Angeles, do better.  Don't Fuckening this up.

Who the hell are these people?

 

Today Cookie had to get some images for the moving company claim we are filing. That's normal enough, yes?

I took the pictures with my iPhone and then had to use Photoshop on my PC to turn the images into *.jpgs for the claim.  

Well, when I went to Apple to bring the image up on my PC, there were someone else's images.  Mine were there, but this was like a subfolder of about 16 images from the 1940s to 1970s.  Vacation photos, a house photo, some sort of celebration. 

And my first thought was, who are these people? And then upon closer inspection, I thought, who are these dreary people?

Now Cookie collects other people's old photos that he finds, but none of these photos.  I have better taste.

I mean, these people had horrible taste in clothing, eyewear, and from the looks of it, Myrtle Beach.  Cookie does not do Myrtle Beach. Their house was Tudor styled, kinda of cute.  Maybe it was grandmother's house. Who knows. 

Anyway I did not copy their images because I am sure that they have no idea I could see them.  

I don't share my ID or passwords with anyone.  So this is really puzzling. 

So I call Apple support, and I tell them what is going on.  And they can see the error on my screen.  And the guy says, "That's, odd."

And that's why I placed the call. 

Now they're trying to figure out what the Hell is going on with my What the Hell is going on issue.

Well, the claim is filed.  Now we wait to see what Apple finds, and if the claim gets accepted. 

The Wind Done Blowed, or a Taco Warning

The wind, the wind, dear God the wind!

Welp, when you live in Ohio, tornados are a possibility.   

They usually travel from the west and southwest to the east and northeast.  Unlike the slower hurricane and its downgraded kin, the tropical storm gives you models and paths on weather stations so you can prepare and if need be evacuate to someplace dry.  

Tornados and their equally scary kin, the straight-line wind derecho, are fickle.  Here one minute - which can seem like hours - and gone the next.  Both leave a path of destruction.  But a tornado on the ground is deadly, and it can flatten one town, or pick off houses in a subdivision.  

Cookie remembers the big July 4, 1969 storm, and the Xenia Tornado that erased half of the city of Xenia and left us in fear for the the family we had living in its path.

On Tuesday, we were supposed to get storms, and many either disappeared from the radar or shifted course.

In the mid-afternoon however, we started getting a lot of thunder that lasted for about a half hour, and the milky gray sky looked dark to the west-northwest.  Radar showed a large line of thunderstorms heading south over Lake Erie*.  Cookie shut his computer down, went downstairs, made a cup of coffee, and flipped on the TV.

Within minutes we were in a tornado warning, then the heavy rain started, and then the wind done blowed, hard, and it was a prolonged blowing at that.  

Now, let me explain something.  A Tornado Watch means that the weather can make a tornado.  A Tornado Watch means it's happening right now, take cover.   A lot of people don't take a Tornado Warning seriously because of the haphazard way they form, so the state of Pennsylvania came up with this taco explanation because everyone gets it:

So Cookie called the husband down from his office and told him to bring Kevin with him - we were going to the basement, NOW.  By the time he got downstairs, the rain was moving sideways.  And we stayed down there, each of us holding a small dog - until Betsy Kling - the weather Goddess of Cleveland's WKYC showed that the front moved to our east. 

There were a few small limbs down in our neighborhood, but the power was on, and so were cable and internet. 

However, on the west side of Cleveland, things were a bit messier with large limbs and trees down on houses, cars, etc.  A few large buildings (rec centers) lost roofing.  In Willoughby Hills, to our east about 8 miles or so, the fire department sustained damage.  All in all, it was mostly straight-line winds (84mph at Bratenhal along Lake Erie) and two confirmed smallish tornados. No deaths were reported, which is always good. 

The electric grid is not so great.  

We never lost power, but the next-door neighbor did.  To our south, blogger Blobby reports power was/is out at his house.  All in all, at its peak, The Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company (CEI) - such a wonderful name for a utility - parent company, First Energy (an organization that is so corrupt that it almost brought down state government in a massive kickback financial scandal) announce that over 400,000 were without power after the storm.  Yesterday, that was downgraded to 300,000, but today people are getting updates that it could be next week before they are restored. 

So we are safe, the dogs are good, and nothing came through these massive original picture windows that we have.

On a final note, Weather Goddess Betsy Kling did issue a warning against playing in the pooling storm water.  "Kids do not play in that stormwater...it is Mother Nature's toilet overflowing."  She ain't kidding.  Like the Taco analogy, that is something you remember.

But now I want Tacos. And we are thankful we don't live in states were tornado sean brings massive destruction.

*For those of you not in North America, the Great Lakes - Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario follow the naming convention of Lake then Name. Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, Ontario is the smallest, and Lake Superior, the largest, isn't really a lake is an inland sea.

Beaver Tail - or - "I want to get my hands on that hair."

The Greek Church in Cleveland Heights had its festival weekend before last, so we went to see Aunt Voula, but only got a beer and some souvaki. At the height of the festivities, we bumped into friends who invited us to their area of the festival tables and ate.  Then, several of us saw "it".

It was an elderly white woman, in Jackie O sunglasses, her grey hair frizzing in the humidity of the last summer afternoon.  But it wasn't the hair on her head that caught our attention, and made my husband's eyes as large as saucers, it was the flat beaver tail of matted hair that went down her back.

Others in our group saw the beaver tail as well. It had to be nine or ten inches wide and flat as the great plains. 

One member of the group is in the beauty industry and does hair and makeup consulting.  She works with women who want a change, but can't decide what that change should look like.   Allison brought the wine glass (that they brought from home, along with the wine) and held the glass there as she stared at the beaver tail. 

I leaned in and said what are you thinking. 

Cooly, and not breaking her gaze, she said "You know damn well what I am thinking.  I want to get my hands on her hair and cut that damned thing off."

Another friend, Lori, joined in.  "Is that just one giant pancaked dread?"

"It's a very long beaver tail," said I, Cookie.

"How does one do that," asked Lori, "and why?" 

How long did it take, asked someone at the table who we didn't know. 

At that moment the woman stood up and the whole length of the beaver tail was revealed - it was below her ass.

I asked, "Was she sitting on it?" 

"Has she ever shat on it?" asked the woman I didn't know.  Lori started to giggle. I was appalled, because I was thinking the same nighmarish thing.

Allison, who still hadn't sipped the wine in front of her "I think it probably started out as a fat braid, a braid that got wet over and over, and instead of undoing the braid, over time, it 'felted' the hair."  She finally drank a sip, almost as if saying what she was mulling over in her brain released the hold on the wine. "Or it could be a fashion choice or a sign of her faith. But that is what commitment looks like."

Ok, that was the why and the what. So we moved on to speculation of the how.

Allison then addressed the question of hair growth.  "If you are healthy, human hair grows at the rate of about a half inch a month. Twelve months in a year, six inches overall.  I am assuming it's about four feet long, that's eight years.  The thing is..." Allison took another sip of wine, "but I think that felted hair would be even longer if it were possible to unsnarl it. So I would venture to say twelve, maybe twenty years.  Longer if someone trimmed it at some point."

The ick factor had kicked in by that time for Cookie.  Before I was agog, but now it was just gross. 

The conversation went in another direction, but Lori's eyes, and yes, my own, kept darting back to the beaver tail.  

Allison caught on and reminded us that it was her choice, but "I want to get my hands on that hair, but its not happening. I could cut it off and she would feel pounds cooler.  But that isn't happening." 

We outlasted the woman's party at their table, and she got up and left. 

Still, Allison remarked "It looks like something you would see in the Moss Eisley tavern.  But I will always regret not being able to get my hands on that hair..."

The News from Withering Heights: The Skunkening

 

SKUNK?

We have had a lot and I mean a LOT of stuff going on at Withering Heights of late, and thus my absence. 

Between the unending loads of laundry, which are washed with care and must be carefully folded - Cookie is not a clothes horse, but we buy high-quality basics - my care has provided them with a long shelf life.  I just hate buying clothes and then having to replace them shortly thereafter. And then daily chores of hunting and gathering, there has just been a lot going on. 

The Great Covid Scare of 2024.  We had family come in from the West Coast, and that called for a family gathering.  While great fun was had, and family gossip was shared ("Wait, he told his daughter what?"), also passed around was COVID.  So the husband and I laid low, masked, kept our distance from people, tested, and somehow only four people from that gathering didn't get sick, and I am relieved to report that we were half of that foursome that didn't get it.  People were so effing sick.  Thank god that recovered and thank God no one ended up in the hospital or at death's door.

Work Stress.  There has been a lot of work stress in this house.  Suffice it to say that we are eagerly looking forward to retirement. 

Local Travel.  Cookie has tried to give the husband a continued look around NE Ohio, and he seems to love every moment. Let me amend that to read at least I think that he is.  No comments like "Just now where do you want to drag me to," haven't been heard aloud and it is in good spirits. 

Reconnecting.  I have been reconnecting with old friends that we have missed since leaving Ohio. One such serendipitously happened last week in Columbus. This friend is someone I have known since OSU and it seems all strange that one minute were young and talking about career paths, and now we are talking about what we hope to do in retirement. 

Doctors, dentists, oral surgeons, and therapists, oh my!  Cookie now finds that I have a calendar that is nothing but medical appointments.  There is still post-surgical blood work to make sure the cancer has not spread.  Then there is the therapist that urologist said I needed to deal with ongoing post-surgical issues.  The therapist is handsome and makes my heart flutter-flutter, but he is there for my mind not as a sex surrogate. Besides, I look at my husband and I love him more today than I did when we first got together way back when.

On the dental front, we are trying to repair damage that happened way back in the summer of 1970 when a bicycle accident nearly knocked my front teeth. Well, 54 years later, one fractured and snapped out, so what was left had to be removed, and now we hope the other one holds until I can pay for a second implant. It has been painful and expensive. 

The Skunkening.  Our neighborhood is very wooded.  And one thing that never happened to us before happened the other night.  The dogs have been stirring at about 3am for the past month.  But what they have been smelling is the scent of a Skunk, or multiple skunks.  How were we to know.  They're old, we thought they, like other men in their golden years needed to pee in the middle of the night. Well, yesterday morning we discovered what a dog who has been sprayed by skunk smells like.  And it was Kevin who got it.   The odor is a cross between burnt coffee, rubber, and burning tires.  And it gets worse with each inhale.  We started giving him baths with Dawn dishwasher detergent at 4am.  

By six AM we needed something more. The American Kennel Club had a recipe for a concoction comprised of a quart of hydrogen peroxide, a half cup of baking soda, and a tablespoon full of Dawn to break down the skunk odor oils.  The Wal-Mart on Warrensville Center Road is a scary place at 6AM, because it isn't well stocked, and it's not well organized.  It certainly isn't "clean". And the people like me who shop there out of necessary deserve better.  Anyway, the homebrew worked reasonably well, but Kevin needs a day of beauty.  Poor little stinker.

WARNING! NEVER, and I mean NEVER make this up and put it up on a container so you have it on hand should you need this.  Everyone, from web sites to my high school chemistry teacher, AND including our vet says it creates an unstable and dangerous compound that can explode. Wash what you don't use down the drain immediately. You have been warned, and admonished, and Cookie assumes no responsibility if you don't follow that instruction.  People, just make it fresh, period.

So that, and even more stuff, is what Cookie has been up to.