Population reduction...

Grandma Is Finally Doing Well

Sweet Pea & Lucy  In Their New Home

This One's New Mom Is A Teacher

Going Home Next Week.

The trick this week is to trap Dead-Beat-Dad and the Hussy that escaped. Dead-Beat-Dad has an appointment on the 26th to have his reproductive facilities halted, as long as I can entice him into the Have-A-Heart cage.   I have failed once already.  With normal cat food.  I am thinking medium rare filet...

Tears of Shared Compassion

Yesterday, on the way to the vet.

When I called the vet's office yesterday, at the specified time, to make sure both cats made it out of the surgery and were doing alright, the vet tech, a kind soul detected behind the voice, told me both were coming out of the anesthetic normally.  She then went on to say that the 'older' female  - the one we have been calling Grandma -  has to be six or seven years old, and by the shape of her uterus appeared to have been having kittens since the time she was of that certain age.   This explained why, while she had been inside, she is the only one who has gone from feral, to wanting nothing more than to be spoken to and petted. The vet-tech said, "She is just plain weary."  My heart broke. 

Grandma today.

Today, after arriving home, both crawled from the cages directly into prepared cat carriers with clean cat clothes.   I waited an hour to make sure they were alright to leave for a while, then left to return the borrowed cages.  Incredibly enough I didn't lose my way on the least important trip of them all.  Grandma's daughter had started wandering around their room, while Grandma rested, so I thought it safe to leave.

Unfortunately, later I would have to make an emergency call to the vet hospital.

Unlike a call I took at work once. An elderly woman was screaming for an ambulance, while being extremely evasive concerning who it was for. She just kept screaming, "I don't know what's wrong with him, he JUST KEELED OVER."  I sent the ambulance right along, along with the info they had an hysterical relative on their hands as well, at which point they requested an engine for extra manpower. Three for the 'patient', three guys for the hysterical relative. When the bus arrived on the scene I heard nothing on the radio for a minute. A really long time considering someone had allegedly keeled over, and shouldn't I be notifying the hospital of a possible code or something?  I requested a status check.  What I got was, "We'll land-line ya."   OK.  Apparently the elderly woman's ancient German Shepherd had died right in front of her eyes. She knew of no other way to get help immediately. She had no car, hadn't driven in decades.  Her husband was twenty years dead, her dog was all she had.  While I was being informed of this by the EMT via land-line, I was listening to the background noises of not only firefighters consoling the poor woman, but a strange combination of things like, "Hold it right there,"   "OK a bit to the left,"  "Hold on I need another hand here." I had to ask ,"Hey what is going on there anyway?"  

This was an important question due to the fact that I was tying up and ambulance and a fire truck with their operators, we only had two full-time ambulances to use before we were forced to call for mutual aid from nearby towns, all of which were volunteer departments.  This may not sound like a big deal, but it is in a city where unrelated incidents seem to happen in quick succession.  If someone breaks their leg, then ten minutes later some poor soul has a heart attack, twenty minutes before an auto-accident, we were up the creek.  Hence the 'dump (at the hospital) and run' routine. 

The EMT went on to inform me that it was the woman's dog that had keeled over, the woman was old and on the verge of a heart attack and they could not simply leave her in the house with the dead dog, who was extremely overweight...  They had loaded the dog on the stretcher and were attempting to maneuver the body down the stairs from the woman's bedroom.  It was taking three  EMTs on the downhill heavy end.

"If you need us we're ready to run."

It was one of the many times that my heart swelled with gratitude for those guys. Despite rules strictly forbidding anything of this nature, their compassion overwhelmed the fear of a supervisor's complaint.

It's not often I turn out to be the recipient of comparable compassion.  I'm the one that gets the call when desperate help is needed, when the one asking is so overwhelmed all they can do is call someone for help.  Like my Dad. The strong silent type.  Only when it was determined my mother had so many strokes in the course of nine or so hours her EEG was a flat line, he called me.  I had never heard him so broken and beaten. He was sobbing. It was hard to make out what he was saying until I heard clearly, "They want me to unplug her."

He just couldn't do it. After over 45 years of a beautiful marriage, he couldn't let go, despite my mother's wishes. I had to tell the doctor to do it.

Its seems, the older I get, the more deeply I am affected by the compassion of others.   Especially strangers.

After dropping off the Have-A-Heart cages, I still had time to swing through Wal-Mart and pick up (what else) cat food and litter.  One can never have enough in this house these days, and it was nearly right on the way home. From home it is eighteen miles.  After loading two 34 pound double boxes into the cart, I noticed the price on the 14 pound boxes. Wait a minute. Two weeks ago it was less expensive to buy the double boxes, now it was actually over ten dollars cheaper to get four of the 14 pound boxes. 

While my brain was on overdrive doing the calculations I sensed a body next to me.  Muttering.  I turned to face an elderly lady who looked directly at me and said, "Ya know, last week these cans were thirty-seven cents each. Today they are fifty cents. I'd like to speak to Raoul from the commercials and let him know he's rolling up, not back." 

I explained that was exactly why I was unloading the 34 pound boxes back onto the shelf, and reloading four 14 pound boxes.  At this point he daughter, who was probably in her forties, came rolling around the corner, joining in our discussion of Raoul needing a reality check.  They told me of the four rescues they own.  Naturally, due to the sheer amount of cat stuff in my carriage the conversation turned to my animals, at which point I explained my goal  of having all the feral farm cats fixed to save them from a tortuous life of living and breeding. 

This woman and her daughter were stunned and I noticed the daughter was welling up.  She swallowed hard and said, "You are doing good work, so few care about animals these days, as a tear rolled down her cheek, while next to me her mother was sniffling and trying to fish  Kleenex out of her purse.  Well that did it. I felt my throat constrict. I was welling up too.  The woman's mother frantically passed out tissues.  Each in our own minds thinking of the abused and abandoned animals we can't help. We stood and talked  for a while longer, they asked what vet hospital was doing such good work (Thank you H.O.P.E Clinic for caring), in case they needed the information for themselves or others, and we parted.

It seems like such a little thing, but it's not. It was a really big thing, not because someone had acknowledged what I am doing, but because I have received confirmation there are others out there who care just as much, if not more, about animals as I do.  One doesn't run into these types often, but you know when you do because the conversation always focuses on animals.  I continued to well up on the way home.  Just plain thanking the powers that be, the woman and her daughter, and the vet hospital that charges forty-five dollars for feral cats, all shots and flea treatment included, with a tattoo and and ear notch for ID purposes. 

My mother had done the same thing near the end of her life.  My parents were living behind a woman who had un-neutered cats that kept breeding.  My mother would make an appointment with her vet, sneak out early in the morning, nab a cat, and whisk it off to the vets to be fixed.  She would keep each one in the house until they were safely over their surgery, at which point she would release and catch another one.  She did this with thirty-six cats.  That belonged to someone else.  Just because. 

When I arrived home I checked on my victims of surgery, and went out to the pond to see if I could get a picture of Fred, the enormous bull frog (as usual, bull frog Olympics, perfect swan dive into the water before I am ready).

When I came back in I discovered Grandma had vomited.  It's a bit hot in the entryway so I moved her into the spare bedroom with her food, water and private bath (A.K.A. litter box), turned on the A/C, and raced to call the vet.  Though now friendly, she isn't having any of me checking her gums to make sure they are pink (indication of no internal bleeding). The vet informed me the only alternative is to race her back to the city,  put her "under" again, and she is too old for this.

I'll be spending the rest of the evening trying to look down Grandma's throat.  Wish me luck.

If Ya Don't Like The Way I Drive...

Stay off the sidewalk, or the highway, better yet just stay home.

My wheels were clean when I left this morning. This is one of my front wheels covered in black brake dust. I needed to get these...

To transport the ferals tomorrow, on loan from HOPE.ORG.

I had to drive to the city to get them. I am not a driver, nor was my mother. This apple fell directly under the tree. I get in the car, aim it, and make a serious attempt to get where I am going without inflicting injury on myself or others. These days its hard. One has to watch the rear-view constantly to avoid being hit by vehicles speeding up to the rear of my car while they nonchalantly chat on the phone at their ear, failing to notice my brake lights, which I am frantically tapping trying to trigger their brain into figuring out something different is happening before they drive over me. 

Not to mention the fact that I can navigate a mountain and never get lost. Oh alright, never deal in absolutes, I have not gotten lost to this day.  Yet put a car under my butt and somehow I am able to become completely disoriented three miles from my home. So yup, what was supposed to be a forty minute road trip, or thereabouts, turned into an 85 mile journey. Three postman and a kind gentleman later,on the phone, I interrupted his call with my frantic screams at a five way intersection (yes FIVE way , obviously the designer of said intersection never intended to navigate it), I landed at the place I needed to be, twenty minutes early.  I failed to mention if I am headed to unfamiliar territory I give myself a two hour head start.....

Yet this is not the reason I am here today...

This is... looming on the horizon while I was finding my way out of the maze of the city.

I an directly descended from a line of human lightening rods.  My grandmother had grown up with the fear, as only one who has witnessed the wrath of a killer lightening strike can manage.  Official accounts of the incidents were passed down to each generation in order to forestall yet another death by dangerous electricity. She had grown up hearing the story of her mother's uncle, a peculiar character who managed to make a living carving things out of local wood. He made beautifully detailed figurines of wildlife, frames for pictures, even jewelry.

While searching for the perfect piece of fallen cedar one summer afternoon, he failed to notice an ominous cloud approaching from the north. When that cloud let go, probably just over his head, it loosed a bolt of lightening into a nearby tree. The unleashed power traveled through the tree and it's root system upon which he had been standing.  They knew this because someone finally went out to get him when he failed to answer the dinner bell. What they found was his boot melted to a large, sooty, exposed root, while he lie twenty feet away, dead as a doornail.

If his death had been the only one there would be no legacy concerning my family's 'human lightening rod' status.  The next would be my grandmother's father.  During an attempt to dispel the curse theory that had been rolling around since the first confirmed kill, he became the second.

While the women stood on the porch nearby as instructed, a black thunder cloud rolled over the top of Mt. Belknap.

As shadows  the cloud created crept over the lawn, inching nearer each minute to the barn, he stepped up the ramp, slid both barn doors open on their, ah, metal runners, and placed his rocking chair in the doorway, just under the eaves to avoid the incoming rain.   Still on the runners.  Lightening began to streak across the darkening sky, and as the tension in the women watching caused them to wring their cotton aprons and fidget with their jewelry, a lightening bolt struck the old, copper rooster weather vane on the peak of the barn roof.  The rooster spun with wild abandon as electricity raced unchecked, sensing the barn's runners nearby, and latched on.  It was all over in a matter of seconds that would seem an eternity for the women on the porch.

Their eyes widened when the bolt struck the rooster, knuckles turned white as it began it's stationary whirl. My grandmother's father sat in the rocker with his smug grin, his eyes said, "See, I told you so." The bolt shot through the runners, permanently affixing his boots to them in the form of melted blobs. While the women's jaws dropped, no sounds issuing forth, the electricity continued through him, cementing the smug grin on his face forever in the women's minds, and with a poof of gray smoke from the top of his John Deere hat, it was over.

The second confirmed kill, as well as justification for my mother instructing my sister and me to never say, "I told you so."  My grandmother did her part in passing on the 'healthy fear' (yes, they had the audacity to call it that), by refusing to be alone if a storm was  was approaching. The neighbors would see her scooting down the street, every so often hyper-extending her neck to peer at the sky, violet hair floofed straight behind her due to her sheer speed, on her way to our house. 

The Victims.

VICTIM # 1

VICTIM # 2

Last but most importantly, having lightening rods installed after the second incident.

So you see, it's a darn good thing I wrote down directions before leaving after I had picked up the cages, because I really needed to get home before the absolutely wicked electrical  storm that passed over two hours ago found me.

I turned on the weather channel upon arriving home to hear...

"Always remember, if you can hear thunder, you can be struck."

Mending Fences

Resisting the urge to add Literally. Used far too often these days...


When we moved to this farm the building, as well as the surrounding area, was in a sorry state. In fact, I met a woman at the library last week who happens to be the great-granddaughter of the second owner of this place that was built in the 1700's.  She confessed she and her family have not driven by the place in fifteen years due to the steady decline. "It broke our hearts," she said.  I promply advised her to have the whole family take a Sunday Drive, drive in, in fact.

Since moving in last July, my son has not only landscaped the entire front and back of the house lot (lot of New England rocks lying around he had fun with),  but taken care of drainage problems around the foundation by hauling sixty-seven thousand pounds (OK, I exaggerate, but that stuff is heavy) of chopped railroad  bed gravel we found two piles of near the farm shed.   I told her the pond was my assignment (not to mention the farm cat population control), which of course is taking a bit longer.    She was delighted, thrilled even, though surprised that we are doing all this as simply 'tenants.'  

The Son has a foot of gravel surrounding the entire,enormous foundation of the house. This is one of his front porch gardens.

A lot of people exhibit surprise and confusion. The first summer the farmers trapsing back and forth with their equipment in the course of their work, would stop and ask my son if he bought the place.

Discarded metal fence rails the son turned into a trellis for his cow-bean seeds.

They attract hummingbirds.

He also turned a huge brush pile in the front yard into yet another rock garden.

And left the tree the brush pile killed for me. Reminds me of the desert.

I guess what seriously offends me is the fact that so many people don't care anymore. Whether its a lack of pride in their surroundings, laziness, or just not being willing to help others for the sake of it. I just don't know.   What I do know is that so many here before us left so much junk in overgrown areas of the farm it someday will cost a fortune to have it all hauled away.  We took care of the house lot junk last year.

Anyhoo, Due to the sorry state of my hands, as well as my entire life being somewhat akin to a constantly running episode of I Love Lucy (or Rosanne, depending on what my kids are up to), I try to stay away from power tools.  (And uncontrolled burns, don't even ask why I never fry chicken...).   And about that fence...

The state of the cute, weathered fence in the back separating the yard from the pond that has been falling apart since we moved in, has been awaiting my attention.  The split rail surrounding the rest of the pond has endured at least 75 years.

Lovin' that old piece of sewer pipe I turned into a planter!

 I decided the best way to deal with replacing the missing slats was to use the ball of shrinking twine I have had in my sewing box for longer than I care to remember.  I also cannot remember for the life of me why I bought it in the first place. Nevertheless, it has come to the rescue.  So before the raging thunderstorms that are due to hit this state later this afternoon arrive, I spent the morning mending the fence. 

And hope that my son doesn't come home and make a remark about Daryl, Daryl and his brother Daryl fixing the fence...

The cat-tail problem is an ongoing project for me. Aside from a total kill chemical (which Fred, the HUGE bullfrog would not appreciate) my only alternative is grass and weed killer.  Pruning around the pond has halted until the massive amounts of wasps I am severly allergic to go away in the fall.

My drainage pipe (also abandoned years ago on the property) is working great, but...

Did I mention the anticipated rain storm is sorely needed?

And just because....

Tara Farm has produced a Leopard.

Who did not in the least appreciate being forced to display his spots.

Now if we can only convince the owners to buy some exterior paint for us...

Einstein's Aether

Regardless of the fact that modern physics decries Einstein's Aether theory,  I have simply always adored the thought of it.  That electromagnetic waves (or any other matter such as protons, or my blog...) need a transmitting medium, such as air to arrive at their appointed destination.

I've had a few weeks to think about this.  I was waiting for my new router to arrive. When it finally did, and after jumping through the necessary hoops ( "No biggie," the AT & T salesperson said.), to get the darn thing hooked up, not to mention reconfiguring the three computers in the house (sadly two of which are embedded with Windows VISTA, boo), I really just wanted the aether to be there to magically transmit my words.  Unfortunately this is not the case. 

After calling tech-support to inform them there was no green data cable in the box they sent, the brutally honest support person informed me they have "color issues" and to use the grey wire. Huh, OK.  Naturally after the many cords were draped and plugged, and assuming Internet service would magically commence, nothing would work without the yellow cord physically plugged into the computer being used to set the whole mess up.  At which point the discovery was made the phone would not ring while this process was ongoing.  Shut the whole thing down and recall tech-support ( Thank You AT & T for having all English as a first language employees that I can understand ).

By this time I was on serious tech overload feeling as if I had used the last wrinkle available to store data in my brain.  When the nice kid finally was on the line after a six or seven minute hold, I advised him I was in the next to the last age bracket one is asked to check off on questionnaires, that I have a slight heart condition and was on the verge of a stroke.   He genuinely guffawed.  Normally this would bring my shattered nerves and overheating brain down a few notches, alas my Internet withdrawal was far too progressed.   He said he understood, his mother had been the same way two months ago when she was changing services.  He said he could simply hop into my computer and just do it if I gave him permission.  Now we're talkin'.

It was a strange Big Brother Is Watching experience.  As I sat amazed, not touching my computer, the mouse whizzed around clicking on this and that, and after less than ten minutes everything was in working order.

While I was in Internet Withdrawal I had a lot of time to think about a lot of other things aside from the aether, such as...

IS there a cure for empathy?

Edgar and his charges, waiting for good homes.

I really need to finish this lap quilt for the CAT-FARM-AID yard sale.

(We are going through two 14 lb. bags of food a week)

A Granny should know how to crochet Granny Octagons.

Luckily the library had an instruction book I could borrow.

And how I really don't need to find a cure...

COLD. The Long Way Around.

Family Photo.

The Women...

My mother was never one to procrastinate.  When she had broken her long toe on the middle leg of the antique sofa three times she decided it was time to send the thing off to its final resting place.  Who put middle legs on sofas anyway?  She waited for the old farmer that drove by the house everyday in his old, falling to pieces pick-up truck.  She knew this man because he had lost a substantial part of his truck one day in front of the house, and she had dragged it to the side of the road for him to retrieve on his way back through.  Which he did. 

She sat on the porch steps and waited.  When she first heard, then saw, the rickety truck chugging its way down the road she, in her calculating manner, slid down to the curb and began frantically waving the farmer down.   He, thinking something was awry, immediately pulled over to the curb.  "Somethin' wrong here?"   "Oh,' my mother purred,  "just that I really need to get rid of our old living room set, and we don't have a truck.  If you take it away for me you may have it."     

Old guy thought he died and went to heaven when he saw it.  He called his brother ( 'Bubba', my mother had a memory for hilarious nicknames) to come over and help, the two guys loaded that antique living room set into their truck faster than you can say free.  Before they left the farmer said to my mother, "But lady, what are you going to sit on?"    "Oh, I'm sure I'll figure something out..."  

She promptly raced off to the furniture store and bought a new living room set, minus any middle legs.  My father was used to this sort of behaviour.   He once arrived home to find a new BMW sports model in the driveway, instead of my mother's Karman Ghia.  "Wheres your car?" he asked.  When she told him it had been making a funny noise and decided to get something new he said, "You got a loan that fast?"   "Oh dear, no, I wrote a check for it..."      My father used to say he knew then and there he had an extremely strong heart muscle. 

When my mother made up her mind there was no changing it. When she decided that things were boring around the house after my sister left for college (yuh, I took it personally, though she said not to!), she decided we should have a new color TV.  She had it delivered one early winter evening.

She turned it on and we sat transfixed. Hypnotized even.   It was incredible. Our first show was Gilligan's Island, and when all that gorgeous blue water appeared on the intro, while we occupied the two radiators in the room trying to stay warm, we realized we suddenly felt warmer.  Eventually we would remove the folded towels we used as seat cushions from the radiators and migrate to the couch to see the 14' screen better.

From then on during the winter we would watch shows that were situated in warm places if Dr. Kildaire, Ben Casey, or Perry Mason weren't on.   These programs were mostly indoors, hence considered neutral.  This is why I tend to take vacations in the winter.

Calgon Take Me Away.

For the past three nights I have not only been looking for casserole dishes to bake for dinner (warms up the kitchen), but I have been plastered to the Travel Channel in my flannel shirts and Uggs watching vacation spots in warm locales, surrounded by cats stealing my body heat.   I usually just wear the Uggs on long flights as they are comfortable and keep my feet warm. 

My Favorite Sight.

Disappearing Snow.

The man who came in a huge tractor to put the vegetable seeds in the garden was outside beeping this morning.  I went out and said, "Gee, didn't know these things had horns."  "Oh heck yeah,'  he replied, 'even got a ste-ree-o radio with the weather band. Ya look like my wife all bundled up like that. Like Nanook of the North."      Crap, I forgot to ditch my winter parka on the way out the door.    "Well, just wanted to let ya know I'm here workin,"  and off he went into the field. 

I really need to stop typing. My fingers are nearly frozen, not helping the arthritis at all.  In Parting...

Scenes from last evening.

Farm Kittens with the Babysitter...

58 Degrees.

54 Degrees.

Electric blanket on LOW.

49 Degrees.

They are all under there...

And just because...

He Brought His Toy.

The X-Files

My sister was always a bit strange in her choice of reading materials.  Which I didn't understand because she had two degrees and I always thought once a person starting studying, no matter what it was, there was always more to learn so one should maintain the learning aspect.

Later in life she took to reading romance novels.  Barbara Cartland of all things.  Don't get me wrong, there is a place for these books besides my basement, its just that the writing is mundane to say the least, the plots centered around  lovesick females, the endings always perfect.  The day I was visiting her and found one of these 'novels' beside her chair I felt the need to be socially responsible and confront her.

"Are you actually reading this?" I asked.    "Oh, ah, yes."    "Your kidding me right?"      I was in a bit of shock.   "Well, no.  I really like them, you should try."

A few weeks later my daughter and I were stalking yard sales and found an entire carton of Barbara Cartland romance novels for a quarter.    We looked at each other, shrugged and thought why not.    I could not make it through the first.  My daughter made it through two and said, "Talk about a dreamer writing those things. Can't imagine how the world actually looks to the writer."

Leave it to my daughter.  Now I had the insatiable urge to investigate Barbara Cartland's background just to see if her childhood had been so horrendous she hid behind storybook endings, and what for gauds sake, had driven my sister to reading diarrhea of the heart stuff?

So I called her.   "OK, I really tried, but I just cannot get into this stuff.  What on earth appeals to you about it?"     "Oh,' my sister replied in that matter of fact tone she always used when something was supposed to be simple to comprehend, ' everything else is too real." 

Realization hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks.  When a friend's brother was dying he started making stuffed bears. The closer he got to the end the thinner he got, and the fatter his, now overstuffed, bears were.  My sister had been told they had gotten 'all the cancer,'  but I know now from my own experience no matter what they tell you, the thought of it never goes away.   My sister was escaping through these books describing lives with bumps in them that always ended romantically perfect and hardly anyone ever died.

 Some time later I called my sister.   What I got was, "I can't talk to you right now, the new X-Files are on.  Call ya later."    Huh?   My son was into that show but my sister?  She was eight years older than me and way off the generational scale.  Now I was really confused.   I had seen a few episodes and was just not on that wave length at all.   I even picked up couple of books on the bargain table.  One claimed to be the Official Guide to the X-Files, the other the Book of the Unexplained.  I read them.   I still didn't get it.   And then she finally returned my call, apparently she had been having an adventure.

"You really should get into the X-Files.  This weeks episode was great."   
"I tried, I can't.  Its that whole alien-takes-over-a body thing, but the person is still in there somewhere.  You never know who is talking.  The alien or the person."     "Oh, by the way,'  my sister said,  'I have to talk to you about something. You have to promise not to tell Mother and Dad."    "Um, OK."
"Promise on Gunga's grave."    "You couldn't stand her at the end."     "All the better, maybe if you tell the heat will get turned up."    Huh?  The alien is never far from the surface.   "OK already, I can't stand the suspense."    

"I got arrested and I need to know what's gonna happen."      "What?  Who are you, and what have you done with my sister?"      "Very funny, it started as some silly little traffic ticket."      She went on to explain that she had gotten a ticket for speeding.   Despite the fact that she had a lead foot and a vintage car with a 351 Cleveland, she had driven over forty years without a ticket, so why now?  

Apparently she had been driving on an unfamiliar road and didn't know where the speed traps were.  She had gotten the ticket, and after discussing the recent NASCAR stats with the cop, threw it in the glove box and drove home. 

Over a year passed and she would be stopped again, only this time the cops would say,  "You are under arrest, you have an FTA on an outstanding traffic violation."   

"Well they handcuffed me, and put me in the back of the police car, right in the center of town.  They had my car towed away, I was mortified. The poor homeless man I buy lunch for every Saturday showed up with five dollars to bail me out.  Of course I didn't need it.  Then once I had signed all the papers at the police station they cut me loose' - there was that darned alien again,  my sister didn't talk like this -  'and told me to call a cab."      Her husband was out in the middle of the forest in Maine marking selective cutting areas about 300 miles away, totally out of touch for the momentous occasion.    "And now I can't drive until I go to court."     Whoa.  She was right.  Our parents need not ever know about this.  They were old.   They would collapse.  

Our parents left this world blissfully ignorant of the incident. 


When my sister left this world, my brother-in-law said, "See if there are any books under the bed you want."      My sister had our grandparents bed.  It was an antique mahogany, four poster fancy thing of the style she was fond of.    It was high off the floor to begin with, but when she became too ill to get out of it most days, blocks were put under the legs, four inches at the head of the bed, two inches at the foot.  This resulted in the side boards and slats being about 15 inches off the floor.     I lifted the bed skirt and was confronted with an absolute mountain of Barbara Cartland romance novels, years worth of Royalty and Majesty magazines, and a few X-Files magazines.

A lot of the time,  the most important aspects of people are hidden under the bed a protective veneer that has been polished to perfection by life's obstacles.  One has to dig deep to find the person.  It's important to remember the fact that there is a reason behind the reference to 'human error.'  And as I told my sister,  "Just because you were arrested, does not make you a bad person."

Oh, and check the glovebox...