In a transparent and pathetic attempt to kick my own self in the ass and get going, I’d like to invite all of you all who want a holiday card to email me with your addresses. I’ve had good intentions about sending cards for at least eight years now, and it’s high past time that I got off my duff and did it. I figure having some people who expect them and will give me shit if I procrastinate will do wonders for my motivation.

Thanksgiving was even less of a big deal than it usually is, and that’s really relaxed, considering this family. Other families fight and fuss and put on huge productions, but not us, man. We just sort of get together with whoever can come, coming; and whoever can’t, not. No drama, no recriminations, just good food and hanging out.

My mom had gone to get my gramma the day before, so it was just the six of us. Gramma and I ganged up on Mom a little to let me cook the gravy; three generations of women who don’t like to share their kitchens in one place is a scary sight to behold. My sister has a daughter, but I suspect that tendency will die out with me, as Bonnie has no problems at all sharing her kitchen. Someone else wants to cook? She’s all for it!

But the turkey was cooked (and it was from the farm across the road) and the side dishes were made and I brought a cheesecake and it was all good.

My mom kept the kids busy by setting them loose on Photoshop. I’ve always known that I was behind John on the video game curve thanks to poorer reflexes and a large dose of not being interested in them, but until now, I’d always had the jump on him on regular computer programs. Not any more. In two hours, that kid had figured out to do all of the stuff that I have wanted to learn. Gramma gave me Grampa’s old copy of it, so I installed it when I got home and gave him specific lessons.

See, this is what happens when you give a twelve-year-old photoshop and two hours:

Aren’t we pretty?

“Learn how to blur faces,” I said, and in ten minutes, he had it down and showed me. Cool! I can use his learning curve instead of mine!

I kept myself busy by being annoying with the camera, as I always do. A doe and her fawn sauntered up in the evening, but it was just a little too dark for publishable pictures. I enjoyed myself trying though.

And to cap it off, my dad talked my mom into surrendering the turkey carcass (he’s not a huge soup fan) so I brought it home and cooked me up a vat of turkey stock on Friday. I’ll freeze a little, but that will keep me fed for lunches for the rest of the week.

A nice day, that was, and the rest of the weekend was equally low-key. I’m waiting for the kids to come back from their father’s, where they’d gone to watch a football game, and then we’ll all continue to fart around the house and get stuff done that I’ve been putting off.

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Oh, and Jeff IM’d me today. He’s in Iraq; I don’t yet have an address for him, but if you want to send him a care package, email me and I’ll pass it along when I get it. So far, all he needs are batteries and copenhagen, which I will take care of. 

Yesterday as I was minding my own business, driving to lunch, the truck started to make an odd squee sort of sound. It sounded like air getting by somewhere, so I figured it would make it home and I’d check it then.

But the noise suddenly transmogrified to an alarming whapwhapflapwhack noise under the hood. I pulled over into the Walgreen’s parking lot and popped the hood. It was fairly obviously the belt coming apart, and I congratulated myself both on finding the problem and for it being a fairly simple one.

I checked with Marv, and he said that since it wasn’t in pieces yet, I could probably make it over to the parts house and pick up a new one, and he’d help me put it on. Four parts houses later, I finally found one in-stock, and forked over the money with relief.

But once Marv and his son got the old one off, they discovered that there wasn’t a belt diagram anywhere. Not in the owner’s manual and not pasted somewhere under the hood where it should be. And it’s not obvious how they go back on.

OK, back to work, after Connie nicely fixed us each a sandwich, and to call around to the dealers to get a diagram faxed over. The first three didn’t even have the right number of pulleys on the picture, but we finally got the right one and went back on over to Marv’s to pop the belt on.

Or so one would think. But when they had it almost good and were tightening the tensioner,  a tiny little pot-metal alignment pin snapped right off. So there goes the whole tensioner assembly. And does anyone in town stock this? No, of course not, not even the dealer. I got an order in at a truck supply place, but we’re crossing our fingers that it was in time to see it on the delivery truck this afternoon. Otherwise, it’ll be Friday at the earliest. It shouldn’t be this complicated.

So I’m without a vehicle yet again. Marv picked me up for work this morning, and he’s going to kindly lend me his truck to get the kids up to my mom’s for Thanksgiving tomorrow, but it’s still on the inconvenient side. I don’t know when I’m going to be able to get to the store to pick up the stuff for that pumpkin cheesecake (maybe at lunch?) and I feel really awkward borrowing someone else’s truck for a whole day. Getting my second job done is going to be just a little tricky too. I wish Jeff had taken me up on my offer to store his truck at my house instead of the air base; at least then I’d have a backup.

But at least I have friends willing to help me. Had I taken it to a mechanic, it would have cost three or four times as much and I still wouldn’t have it yet. I may give him (the truck, not Marv) the evil eye this afternoon and threaten to trade him in on a Ford.

I swear, I don’t know what I’m going to do with that boy. I keep his oil changed more regularly than the manual says to, I take him out for all sorts of fun, and I just gave him new windshield wipers on Monday. I beef up his parts every chance I get and if his bed’s a little greasy, well, I’ll wash it when hunting season is over. Besides, bear grease is very moisturizing. It’s like he’s hitting the teenager phase of truckdom and he’s feeling very cranky.

On Saturday morning, we split up into two parties, each with a dog rig and a full-size diesel following. Not intentionally; that’s just how it worked out. While Todd went around one side, Don and I went around the other, circling that same apple orchard and old ranger station that’s proved so profitable over the last month.

Todd’s bear was treed close to the road, and while we were on our way over to meet him, Don’s dogs struck, and hard. He turned Chalk out to see if it was worth chasing, and it was, so the other three went out too. We heard them go over a ridge, but then they came back, and Don sent me down to listen further than he was, near where I had faced rattling brush that turned out not to be a bear a few weeks ago.

When I stopped and listened, it was clear that Don and I had them bracketed, and they were coming my way. What’s worse is that they were headed down into some majorly rough country, the Lumsden Canyon which goes right down into the Tuolumne River. At one point, I could see the hounds running just across the canyon from me. We leap-frogged back and forth, the dogs and I, and every time I stopped, I’d holler and honk at them to try to get them in.

But they know damn well that I’m not their person, and why should they listen to me? My heart sank when they got in front of me past the gate down into the Lumsden. I didn’t want to be the one responsible for a long, hard day of trying to get the dogs back out of that impossible place. Don was too far behind me though, and they had to be stopped, so I kept racing them, watching the road get narrower and narrower and the banks get steeper and steeper. I knew the sheer bluffs were right around the corner.

Finally I could hear them over the diesel, so I knew they were close. I stopped the truck and stepped out to listen one more time, and there they were, not ten feet from me. Only when I looked closer at the rattling brush this time, I clearly saw a brown back, not a tri-colored hound. I squirted back into the cab of the truck, having stepped out completely unarmed (not even the camera) although a really pissed-off bear would have come right in the open passenger window, which was right at eye-level to him on the bank.

Fortunately, he saw me too, and flipped a quick U-turn back up into the brush. It happened so quickly that I had to look around before I got back out of the truck and to check the road to make sure that he hadn’t crossed either in front of or behind me. I wasn’t sure that he hadn’t, but the dogs weren’t continuing to chase, so I sincerely hoped that he’d given them the slip.

The dogs popped out looking like they were worn out, and I snagged two. The third one was bleeding from her ear, probably from running through the brush, and she’d flung it all over her face, making it look much worse than it really was, and it took me a while to catch her. I could see the fourth dog, Shady, right up the bank in the brush looking at me, but she wouldn’t come. I was starting to suspect that she was hurt too. Right about the time I was weighing the odds of going in after her with a bear right close, Don pulled up, and managed to coax her down the last ten feet after ten minutes of talking to her. Sure enough, she’d been grabbed on the back. She’s got a few puncture wounds and is holding herself as if she hurts internally, so Don took her back home to doctor her up tonight. She’ll be all right.

But once again, I was grinning from ear to ear. That was the first time I’ve actually seen a bear on the ground during a chase, and to actually be close enough to smell him was high on the excitement scale.

After we all met back up and admired Jim’s bear, we all convoyed up through the apple orchard to see if we couldn’t get a strike while going back to camp. Sure enough, we did, and turned a couple of dogs out on it. In no time at all, we couldn’t hear any of them, and split up to triangulate them by ear. We eventually ended up almost across from camp, just over the ridge from where I killed my bear, with a very nice brown bear in an oak tree. One of the other hunter’s daughters wanted to shoot it, so we hung out and took pictures while they got there. It was nice, and close to the road, but nowhere near the adrenaline rush that I got by being out on foot with one running towards me.

I may be just a little bit hooked. I’m going back up in two weeks, and the guys have suggested that I postpone the trailer repairs so I can go varmint hunting with them. Oh yeah.

It’s been a quiet week, I know. I took the kids up to Roseville this weekend to drop off the bear and take my Gramma to lunch, and I had a whole post written about that, but WP ate it. Oh well, it wasn’t very well written anyway, so I didn’t bother to rewrite.

The taxidermist, though, Aaron at Western Wildlife Taxidermy, really impressed me. I’d spoken with him on the phone, but you have to see the work before you know if you want to drop off your trophy with someone. Once I saw his stuff, it was decided. I was having a hard time communicating what exactly I wanted to do with the bear, but he understood me. He flipped through the forms catalog until what I wanted jumped out at me; I hadn’t seen any examples of that on the internet, but apparently it’s done enough to have a stock form available. He seems to be quite an artist, and I’m completely comfortable leaving ol’ Big Bastard in his hands. I expect to get back that once-in-a-lifetime mount that really shows off the white spot.

I’d asked Aaron to send out the skull to be cleaned too. He uses Skulls Unlimited, which the kids thought was pretty neat, as they were profiled in Dirty Jobs this summer. Hell, I thought it was neat too; I’m as big a fan as they are (although with much dirtier undertones…call me, Mike!) But one Aaron got the head skinned out, he called back. I knew that I’d broken the jaw and one of the canines with my first shot, but he said that there are two more holes in it. The thing’s just too shot up to hold together well through the cleaning, and it really wouldn’t be worth the money. He’s going to saw off the three remaining canines so I can keep the yellow old teeth.

Seamus wants one of the claws, which Aaron said he’d pop off the back feet for me, so maybe I’ll make him a necklace with a tooth and a claw on either side of it. John too, although I don’t know that he wants one. You don’t even want to know about the penis bone, which will eventually get hung from my rear-view mirror.

I had no idea that 1) bears have a bone in their penis and 2) that it’s tradition to keep it. My first bear was female, after all. But when we were gutting him, Todd whipped out his knife, sliced the thing off, and handed it to me. I was sure that they were yanking my chain, especially with all of the double-entendre jokes that we flung back and forth for the rest of the day, but I dutifully (and dubiously) stuck it in my shirt pocket and carried it back out with the rest of the bear. Apparently the thing to do is to boil off the flesh (and wasn’t that just disgusting!) and then keep it as an odd, redneck sort of conversation piece. They all said that I might have the biggest one of them all, which struck them as terribly funny, and will be even funnier when I whip it out to compare sizes, which I’ve obviously never been able to do before. Dennis says that it’s a real thing, to keep those, when I cold-called him on it, but he may just be in on the joke. Could be the bear hunter’s version of snipe hunting, but it tickles my funny bone even if I am the target.

I just got word that my friend and partner, Big Jeff, who’s been retraining for military duty in Wisconsin, got the worst possible assignment that the powers that be could have handed him.

In ten days, he leaves for Iraq, for convoy duty in the Sunni Triangle. You know, where all of those ambushes and IEDs are killing our guys every day, and in fact, killed one of my friends around this time last year. But my friend was in the infantry, and guarding convoys made sense at least. Big Jeff’s a Master Sergeant in the Air Force, in Civil Engineers. The guy makes water, for chrissake, which you’d think would be in fairly high demand in the middle of a fucking desert. But no, apparently his best use is to hold a rifle on a truck and to try not to get blown up by something that he can’t even see.

And of course, his bar-whore girlfriend has chosen now to escalate the lying and cheating, and he’s finally had enough and is booting her ass out. Which is a little hard to do from there, so it’s up to us, his backup team, and our contingency plans. So we have to swoop in, grab the horses and the dog, and somehow see that she moves her shit out while leaving his shit there, and get the locks changed. His mom and I discussed this in detail before he left, and fortunately, his ex-wife’s current husband is a cop and is willing to help. I may have to take off Monday to meet him there and get the new keys. Jeff doesn’t think that she’ll clean him out, but the rest of us wouldn’t put it past her.

Just what he needs. I saw it coming, but I’m sick about it, especially the timing.

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edited to add: I talked to him again this afternoon, and he waved the ABORT flag at us. It seems that when he called her, she begged, cried, pleaded, and promised to repent (as if; that’s as likely as a dog repenting from licking his ass) and finally pulled the “you’ll have to evict me” card. Well, he can’t very well start legal procedings from out of the country, and since she has a child there, he’s hosed. He said he’s just looking at it as having someone take care of his house and is trying to remain emotionally detached. He’s got to concentrate on remaining alive, after all. 

A friend and I were talking about internet dating last night, and it inspired me to go look at the site this morning, which I hadn’t done for some time, even though I’m still a paid member. And I did see someone interesting, and I emailed him and even turned my ad back on so he could see who was checking him out.

But you know, I don’t know that I’m ready for this again. I make all sorts of excuses; that I need a break from men (and rejection) or that I’m just too busy with hunting season. That’s all true, but it’s not the whole truth.

The whole truth is that I’m just now starting to feel somewhat healed again, and I’m afraid to start all over with the business of getting hurt. You break your leg once, and it’s always in the back of your mind that slipping on the sidewalk will break it again.

I could try to date while keeping my heart to myself, but I don’t know if I really see the point in that after a while. I kept myself distant enough from the logger that I wasn’t much more than a little ticked when he vanished, and yet somehow it’s still a small, sharp stab when I see him online cruising for someone new. He has my phone number and we talk now and then, but he’s obviously not interested enough to take that step towards me.  I shouldn’t be bothered by that, but I am, just a little. And do I want to give someone new the opportunity to stab at me too? And after that, someone else? And someone else?

I guess I’m just still afraid. I don’t want to be crippled by it for the rest of my life, but for now, that’s what it is.

 

p.s. Happy Birthday Bonnie!

This season’s been so incredibly mild; it’s terrible hunting weather, but really nice for camping. I went up to get my trailer and move it down to Anderson, where Don was parked. I’d hoped to have the whole crew around to use as my guinea pigs for cooking over the fire, but half of them stayed up on the other side of the highway. Turns out that they had much better luck than we did; we didn’t see any game at all. The only strike we had was way too close to the park, so we didn’t risk turning the dogs loose.

But we drove around all day, Don and Dean and I, and I got my head on straight again over the job thing. I spent a lot of time taking mental pictures; since I wasn’t driving, I didn’t want to ask Don to stop every half-hour so I could jump out and grab one. I did get some though, again playing with the low-light settings around the campfire.

The sky was unusually beautiful going up in Friday morning, so I did stop my truck. This is near where my friend Big Jeff lives.

After some teasing sprinkles on Friday afternoon, Saturday turned out to be one of those clean, clear fall days that are usually obscured by smog and woodsmoke down here in the valley. The airplanes were certainly busy too, but they made the sky interesting.

I took myself off to get firewood when Don and Dean were getting desperate and going out into some really rough country. I realized when I came back to camp to have a nap that I’d dropped my pocketknife somewhere up there. I went back and looked for it and got lucky and found it lying right in the road.

On Saturday night, I alternated between cooking a peach cobbler over the fire, playing with the camera, and dreaming out loud with the boys about starting up a guide service. They’d be good at it; I’d just like to go along once in a while to take pictures and maybe to cook in camp. It’ll never happen, but it’s fun to roll around in my head.

It turns out that cooking with a dutch oven is a little tricky with a time-sensitive dish. Stew could have bubbled as long as it wanted, but cobbler went from not-done to a little burned in no time flat. It’s really fussy too, lifting the lid with a tire iron, shovelling coals out of the fire (and damn near losing my eyebrows in the process) and trying to keep the heat even all around it. Next time it will be better, but it wasn’t horrible and it was very satisfying to cook that way. If I were going back up there this year, I’d try it again, but I brought the trailer down to show the insurance agent, and I sort of doubt that I’ll have my portable house available in two weeks, one way or another.

Besides, it’s long past time that I got some work done around the house. I’ve been slacking all season, but it’s been for a good cause. My head’s on straight and I got my money’s worth out of my tags and all of those payments on the trailer this year. This is the time of year that I live for, after all. I’m a little disappointed that it’s gone, but maybe I’ll take a day or two after I get things to order.

The week, that is.

But after the kids and I got home (we went out to dinner) and I was done doing the cooking for this weekend’s camping trip (now that I’m not hunting, I have time to play with cooking over an open fire) I finally had a chance to open the mail.

And there it sat.

A rejection letter from the County. Damnit, I’ve never failed to get a job that I’ve applied for, and I really thought I was a ringer for this one. C’mon, with me they get all of the corporate history of the Air Force base that was just transferred to them this month.

Fortunately, I have also found out this week that my funding’s been approved for the next year, and with my only coworker cutting back to every other week, they’re going to need me to stick around. But I’ve got some serious scrambling to do anyway; it’s going to be extremely tricky finding a job in this county that pays anything even close to what I make now. It would be ideal if I didn’t have to throw away my decade of experience to start in a new industry too.

I have a job waiting for me in Texas, or wherever they think they could use me. But I’m better off staying here raising the kids while being grossly underpaid than I would be leaving them. It’s tempting though; the same pay rate but half the living expenses in some other part of the country calls to me. I’d have to win the lottery to be able to afford the lawyer to bring them with me though.

Craaaap.

I’m gonna take tomorrow off, go get my trailer, and play with my friends in the mountains. I’m making chili verde and peach cobbler, and hope that the raging case of poison oak doesn’t turn them off to my cooking. Hey, I washed!