Someone came along to brighten my week.

On Wednesday, we started to hear a kitten hollering under the sheds behind my office. Feral cats aren’t unusual out there; there’s a crazy cat lady who feeds them, which just makes the problem worse. In fact, one of the only things I took and kept while doing the building inspections this week was a clean cat skull (hey, nobody else would have wanted or found it)(oh and I’m not running around and stealing things. I also picked up a hat which had blown onto a roof.)

But I digress.

Ralph and I do love the office creatures, so we each spent an awfully lot of time on our hands and knees, peering under a three-inch gap. He shared his lunch with it, but it turned its nose up at spaghetti, so I brought it some cat food from home. It cleaned the bowl, but I forgot to bring another bowlful this morning.

So when it finally cooled off this evening, I took some crunchies out to bribe the hungry critter with.

After sitting quietly for about an hour, feeding it one kibble at a time, I finally got my hands on it (him.) Once he decided that I was allowed to pet him, everything was OK, so I scooped him up and drove home.

On retrospect, going to catch a feral kitten in shorts and without a box may not have been too bright, but we got home and he’s safely ensconced in the bathroom until he settles down a little bit. I have to fish him out from behind the toilet, but once there, he rubs and purrs and acts like a normal kitten.

I don’t guess he’s more than six weeks at the most, and first thing tomorrow, I’m making an appointment at the vet. He has fleas and looks wormy and stinks to high heaven and is undoubtedly going to yammer all night and be a complete pain in the ass.

I think I’ll call him Mouse.

Because Grampa died today.

I don’t know the whole story yet; Dad just called me to let me know, and he hadn’t gone up there yet. I guess Gramma went in the hospital, so both my Mom and my Aunt were there. I don’t know anything else, and I also don’t know what kind of time off I’ll be able to take or when the funeral is. Dad says he doesn’t think they need me just now, so I guess I’ll go back to work and vomit out these inspections that solely exist in my brain before they are lost forever.

I’m glad I got to say goodbye. I knew I wouldn’t see him again. He was ready to go.

edited to add: Well, everything seems extremely calm up there. Mom says there’s no need for me to come up and they’re not even going to have a funeral. He said all of his goodbyes while he was alive, after all. She said it meant a lot to him that I came up on Sunday. Good timing, that.

Gramma’s going to have him cremated and pop him in a box in the church where he used to sing in the choir.

See where I get the practical side?

It started out nicely. I had a couple of hours off on Friday to relax a little, and then I headed up to Eric’s.

Yes, Eric is still around, and he’s the reason why I’m not writing bad date stories lately (because there’s nothing bad to write, which is a nice switch.)

I’d hoped to get to ride along with him on Saturday, but the mill was closed, so he had the day off. I’d like to see how this whole logging thing works up close and maybe take some pictures (the new camera came on Friday) but another time will do. I’m not sure that he’s comfortable having his picture on the internet just yet, but here’s his ride:

Instead, we went up the hill to clean out his family’s hunting cabin, which his dad has recently sold. Which, of course, meant that I got to meet his dad and step-mom.

I’ve had my share of meeting the parents, and it definitely gets easier as I get older. Both of these people were very easy to get along with, and of course, I’ve already met their great galumphing dog (who’s calmed down quite a bit.) Eric’s stepmother strikes me as someone who would hit it off well with my own mom; in fact, they only live across the mountain from each other. I have a feeling that they used the same interior decorator too, but if not, they’d like each other’s choices.

After we’d done all of the sorting and moving and packing, we went back to their house to unload some stuff and to have dinner. I felt right at home already, and would have happily lingered over the table longer than we did if it weren’t for the nagging worry that my dog was out carousing the neighborhood (he wasn’t, turns out.)

They’ve got an incredible view, and as the sun went down and turned the sky purple, we went from watching the hummingbirds duke it out over the feeder to watching the bats put on an air show catching their breakfasts.

Eric gave me the nickel tour of their house, and each stop was more impressive than the last. They have a fantastic kitchen since they both cook. A master bathroom I could lose myself in. A comfortable and beautiful house, but then Eric took me outside to what I’d assumed was a guest house, and it is, sort of. But there’s a loft in it, and it’s filled with bookshelves. And what he showed me on those shelves was like walking into my childhood. It was filled with my favorite books, some of which are pretty obscure. And he didn’t show it to me just as one more stop on the tour either; I think he was saving the best for last and bringing me to his treasure. I bet we spent an hour up there looking over the titles and finding out which were each other’s favorites.

I told him it was like walking into a room filled with old friends, and he got a funny look in his eye. I don’t gather that it’s a side that he shows very many women; I know it’s not the first thing I bring up with men. If they hear of my book habit, they either brush it off, not understanding, or they picture having to help me move and their backs start to hurt. I don’t exactly date men that are typically really into reading, but to find that one I’d already liked had this addiction too, well, that was a huge bonus.

The more I get to know this man, the more I like him. We haven’t had a lot of face time, I know, but that’s working out OK. I feel like I’ve spent the last couple of years either looking back over my shoulder or wandering aimlessly, and now I’m going forward. Slowly, to be sure, but there’s nothing wrong with putting on foot in front of the other but only after we’ve checked to make sure we’re not stepping into a hole or a cowpie.

After such a nice weekend on Saturday, I had to face tears today.

I’ve mentioned my grampa before; he’s 91 and dying. Mostly of old age, but he’s got heart trouble and non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma that they just can’t treat because of his age and condition. I saw him a couple of months ago, and he was as thin as a little bird, but still creeping around.

My dad said that they’ve been asking casual acquaintances not to come because it just wears them out, but that I should go (mom was already there.) So I drove north two hours to pop in on them, but not to stay too long.

Today, I saw him in his jammies for the first time. My grampa, who will wear a suit if it’s 110° out and dresses for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, was camped out in his recliner in his pajamas and bathrobe today. He didn’t feel good enough to get dressed; hasn’t for some weeks as I understand it. He was terribly thin, and had an oxygen tube in his nose.

He’s still in there though, and cracked a few jokes at me. I could see that he was wearing out, so I didn’t stay too long. As i was leaving though, it hit me that this was probably the last time I’ll see him, and I fell apart a little. I ended up in tears out on the front porch, where my poor gramma tried to console me. As if she doesn’t have a heavy enough load!

They’re both exhausted, and getting ready for the end. My mom and my aunt are taking turns staying with them, because if he falls, Gramma can’t get him back up and they have to call the paramedics. Hospice needs to send someone out to spell them at nights, which is when he gets really restless.

I want to say that the women are circling the wagons as the patriarch is circling the drain. It’s a horrible thing to say, but I have a pretty good idea that Grampa would wheeze his little giggle at it if he weren’t so tired and doped up on morphine.

Poor Grampa. I’ll see you in the clearing at the end of the path.

Man, am I swamped - no time to surf the internet at work even. How deprived I am!

I like being busy, really I do, but I find it just a little irritating that I can go for months with hardly anything to do and then all of a sudden, BAM! I’ve got guys over here doing stuff and guys over there, and oh yeah, they want the buildings reinspected this month. ALL of them. Which normally takes more than a month without other things going on.

Going in these abandoned buildings is interesting, I’ll give it that. I do it every year (some years more thoroughly than others) and it’s fascinating to watch the urban decay. Some of these places have been completely vacant for thirteen years now, and they’re really starting to show it. The worst ones were demolished a couple of years ago, but I’ve got some more that should go on that list. There are a couple that I won’t go upstairs in for fear of breaking through the floors.

When I say unoccupied, I mean by people, of course. Over the years, I’ve run into all sorts of beasties making homes out of them. There’s a jillion stray cats on base, but they mostly make themselves scarce when I come around. I know where one skunk lives and I’ve successfully avoided him so far, but I may yet run into his friends. I’ve seen foxes, bee hives, wasps!, and I think I came across some homeless person’s squat one year. People, yes, but doing maintenance on the building, not so much.

Normally, I take the dog with me and send him in first to roust the creatures. Well, and because it gets just a little spooky in some of those buildings and I like the company. The power’s off and they’re all covered with dust and cobwebs, and I have to poke around and look into every little closet and drain with my flashlight and camera and spider stick. I inspected an occupied one this week and was amazed at how clean and well-lit the boiler room was. I’d never seen one that way.

But with the other job going on, Angus has to stay home. The guys would get a kick out of him, but we’re working at a federal prison site and they’ve asked me not to bring him. Since they’re the ones with the guns, I’ll comply, but I miss my travelling partner.

I especially missed him today. I was in one of the worse industrial-type buildings. I usually keep an eye on the footprints in the dust out of sheer habit. Sometimes the only ones are mine and Angus’, but today I had to stop and take a closer look. It seems that that building is home to a raccoon, of all things. I hadn’t heard anything, but there were tracks all over the place, and poo too. I wasn’t real thrilled about poking my head into rooms with old furniture in them - Mr. Raccoon would probably get pissed if I disturbed his nap. And those things are vicious when they’re cornered. It was a little odd, since this building is in the middle of a concrete jungle, but I guess if a fox finds it handy, a coon might too. Still, having the dog around to get bit first would be better than getting a mad masked demon in the face.

Angus wouldn’t have been able to help me with the bees at the next place though. We’ve run into hives before, and while bees generally leave me alone, they really don’t pay me enough to stick my head into that room. Good thing they weren’t wasps; I can walk right under honeybees, but wasps chase.

I’m now caught up to where I was two days ago, when they threw a bunch more at me with short deadlines. Now I’m on to the routine stuff, which will still take me a couple more weeks. Let’s hope I don’t find a bobcat.

Ten years.

Ten years (well, more like eleven) that I’ve lived in this county; seven in the same house. That’s the longest that I’ve stayed in one place as an adult.

I may not have known it before, but I’m starting to think I may have a little bit of a wandering soul. I’ve never been in one place long enough to feel it before.

I’ve sort of been counting down the years until I can blow this popsicle stand and find somewhere to live that would suit me better. Like Wyoming, or Texas. I figure it’s going to be at least ten more years, until the youngest goes off to college. The day after that, my shit will be packed and I’ll be heading out the door. The soonest case scenario would be in four years, when he’s old enough to legally choose which parent he wants to live with, but it would take extreme circumstances to make them make that choice.

But things keep popping up. I got a job posting for Quincy, which is in the north end of the state, past Chico. It’s high desert/mountain forest sort of country up there, wild and beautiful. If I lived there, I might find myself staying in California for the rest of my life after all. And it’s a good job, and one that I bet I could get. With that salary in that kind of area, I could eventually buy me a house.

But I can’t take the kids out of the county, and I won’t leave them.

I’ve got the urge to just hitch up the trailer and run off on a vacation too. Someone I know remotely is holding a gathering in northern Montana, and I want to go. But 48 hours of driving while trapped in a vehicle with two kids on a five-day weekend just doesn’t quite mesh with my idea of fun. By myself, or with even a couple of days more time, it would be great. Maybe next year.

I sure would like to take a few weeks off and just drive through this country though. See the western states at my own pace; sometimes things like that are best done alone. Nobody to argue about the radio stations with, nobody to ask, “Are we there yet?” when we’re not even going anywhere in particular. I could see the pieces that I want to see and ignore those that I don’t. I could follow my nose and see where the road goes. I have the rig for it and I could probably even afford the fuel; what I’m short of is the time. Anyone got any extra I could borrow?

Yeah, I just got into it with a school bus driver.

They use this place to train the new drivers - normally, they do all of their stopping and sign holding and whatever out in the middle of nowhere, say, in a giant unused parking lot. They don’t bother anyone out there.

Today, however, they chose to do it right in front of my office, blocking in both the entrance to the parking lot and all of the spots out front. So I went around them. I know damn well they’re training and don’t have any kids on the bus; I can see that.

Well, the trainer started cussing at me at the top of her lungs. And then when I parked, she got out of the bus and came and got my license plate. I went out and met her—I was all sorts of pissed, but I decided that it might be politic to apologize instead of calling the sheriff’s office down on her ass.

Man, was she a cow. She got all bent and told me that I was lucky that they didn’t have a highway patrol officer onboard. Well, maybe so, maybe not. I was in the wrong, yes, but that doesn’t mean that she was right. A highway patrol officer might have had something to say about them blocking traffic for no reason; not when there was a perfectly good location with marked crosswalks and everything not a hundred yards from where they were.

And the thing is, I’m always one of the only ones who stops when I’m supposed to; when there’s actual kids. Lots of people don’t, but I always do. Technically, since they had the arms out, I was supposed to stop, I know. But let’s not let common sense get in the way here.

I’ll probably get some kind of warning or ticket in the mail. Stupid!

Last night was the local Little League’s night out with the Fresno Grizzlies, the local minor league ball team.

I brought the kids and Marci and her kids; I thought it would be a great Moms and Kids activity.

And it was!

Sure, we got there a little too early, because I’m afraid of Fresno traffic. We had to sit in the heat and wait for the gates to open, and then Seamus and I had to stand around in the sun and wait for the LL parade to start. There weren’t nearly as many kids as I’d thought there would be, but at least there was one other from Seamus’ team (the one with the cute dad, no less.)

I helped herd kids into a line, and got to go down on the field with them so I could take pictures. I got a little wrapped up in general crowd pictures and managed to miss my own kid walking by me.

And the game? Well, I think we lost, but it was so much more about the whole experience than the actual game that it didn’t matter. I threw money at the boys and told them when that was gone, it was gone. So they picked and chose what junk food to spend it on, and spent most of the game hopping up and down to go buy something new. I myself only had a beer, the remains of one kid’s burger, and a bowl of Dippin’ Dots for dinner—more sugar than I’ve had in months, and I’m feeling it today!

The kids paid more attention to the shows they put on between innings than the game, but that was OK. The whole thing was fun, and we’ll be back. Maybe without the kids someday, but we’ll be back. The fireworks show at the end was the highlight of the kids’ time (and mine as well I think.) Fresno may be quite a city, but it still likes to think it’s a small town, so fireworks set to country music was a natural fit. The grand finale set to Gretchen Wilson’s All Jacked Up was especially cool. That’s my kind of fireworks show right there.

So, pictures to follow, after I get the film back.