Disaster Magnets?

It's been a week now, since we first collapsed to sleep, surrounded by cardboard boxes, in our new home. So far, two houses have burned to the ground and two dead bodies have been found in a nearby park. There's a high likelihood that idiots playing with fireworks, on a hot and windy afternoon, ignited the long dry buffalo grass on the hillside and that wildfire devoured the houses. There were loud explosions when the propane tanks went up and news photos showed blackened rubble and barely recognizable skeletons of family cars that never had a chance to leave their garages. Sirens, firetrucks and helicopter rotter-blades provided the sound track to which danced the pillars of black and, later, white smoke. Prelude to the Fourth of July.
The bodies appear to have been a murder-suicide. It seems callous to feel relief, but as sad and difficult as that must be for all concerned. It is a self-contained crime. There are no retaliations or repercussions that might affect us. There is no unidentified murderer on the loose.

Our house is a "Fifties-Modern" box with windows. It's all on one level and has mature trees shading the front, creating a cool privacy set-back from our cul-de-sac. Children play in the street in the afternoons, fighting for turns on their scooters and making up imaginary games, for which there is, as yet, no "App" or "i".
my desiccated bird of paradise flowers stand scarecrow sentinel, waiting their chance to flourish now that someone will be watering them again.

This house comes with a secret treasure, barely mentioned in the advertisement. There is an enormous workshop on the property that will allow The Artistic One to organize his hoard and play two-fingered torture on his piano without driving me crazy. It also means that the double garage is mine, for laundry,  garden tools and dog supplies. There will be shelves around the perimeter and a table or two that can be for ongoing projects of my own. Imagine that!

I had a very sad task on early on Sunday morning. Abby-Rose's adoptive Mom, Barbara, called from Hawaii where she was on vacation with her adult children and their families. Her dog-sitter, Valerie, had told her that Abbey wasn't doing well and she was going to see the emergency vet. Barbara asked me to accompany them and see if I thought Abby could make it through another two days until Barbara could get home to be with her.
I got in my car and drove to meet Valerie and Abby at the vet's, leaving a u-haul truck, our muscle team and a stupefied husband in my rear view mirror. As I headed out, I put out Mayday! calls to two good girlfriends. At 8am on a Sunday morning they dropped everything, left their homes and families and came to take over the helm of The Move-Boat for me.
Abby-Rose needed to be given The Final Rescue. She was not a young dog when she was pulled from the shelter, at the eleventh hour, and she spent almost a year with me in training, before going to live with Barbara. She had three really good years and found and gave a lot of love during that time.
After a long phone consultation with the vet, pet-sitter and myself, Barbara knew that she must let Abby go. I thanked her for adopting Abby, for loving Abby and for releasing Abby from all discomfort. 

I cried my way back home to hugs from my champion girlfriends and sympathy from my employees who knew Abby, as she always came to work with me. I was glad of the distraction of boxes and moving in need of my attention. Little did I know...

For now, the garage is crammed with paintings and boxes that our employees unloaded randomly when we left them alone to take TAO to the hospital during the move. TAO had fallen full length on Friday and, seemingly, escaped major injury. That Sunday, two days later, when I returned from saying farewell to Abby-Rose, he was sitting pathetically in a chair, with an elbow swollen like a cantaloupe. He didn't want to leave our crew without supervision, until the truck was packed to exploding point and we'd made it to the new place to show them what came next. By then, it was mid afternoon on a Sunday and we were lucky to be able to get a Doctor's appointment at the last minute. The doctor sent us to X-Ray, with a follow-up referral to orthopedics for the next day.
Monday morning dawned with TAO's wrist now as swollen as his elbow. The orthopedic department called to try to schedule us a day later, as they were slammed after the weekend. It was a case that couldn't wait, due to TAO's age, past reconstruction surgeries to restore that arm and hand, after a severe crushing trauma long ago, and regular prescription of blood-thinners. The medical assistant heard me out and put us on hold to go confer with someone who could write up an appointment where she had no time slots and no authority to bend the rules. We were asked to come in right away and told that they would somehow fit us in, leaving a red-flag at reception to get another x-ray as soon as we arrived.
The Technology in Ortho. had a Monday morning moment in reaction to us arriving, and we were shuttled to the main hospital radiology department in a small electric vehicle with a parking security officer as make-it-work chauffeur. We boarded the more official shuttle bus for the return trip back to the consult.
As strange as it may sound, we were happy and relieved with a diagnosis of internal bleeding as the cause for the swelling. The fall had caused movement in joints that had long been fused by arthritis. The seepage had nowhere to go and wrist and elbow expanded painfully. TAO cannot take any anti-inflammatory meds, so his fall-back treatment is ice and elevation, with some gentle exercise to keep things circulating. It's a slow process but much better news than we had feared. Surgery of any kind would be a nightmare.

Since then, our first painting has been hung and we've carved pathways through the boxes, between kitchen appliances.

We've managed some pleasant meals on the covered patio. It's so much easier when everything is on one level.

The cat has adapted well. She's located a spot where she gets a cooling breeze, out of sight of the aggressive mocking birds that are entirely focused on dive-bombing her and squawking loud warnings that there is a feline in "their" territory. 

We're exploring a bit, trying new trajectories to see if we can duck traffic jams on our increased commute. We've been carpooling, although we don't agree on temperature control or radio stations. Air-conditioning on for me, window open for TAO etc. 

We shot home early today to meet the cable guy and receive delivery of the last pieces of furniture that were in storage since the flood.

I'll be hitting the road in the opposite direction soon to drive another hour to my regular Friday ride, then drive back home once again. Little bits of the new plan are shaping up, but it's still far from perfect. We'll work it out, I'm sure.

As they say here: "It's not our first Rodeo".....Did I mention we now live on Palomino Drive?

Reverse Gardening

The weather has been truly idyllic lately. Warm temperatures mitigated by breezes. The trees bounce and swirl their bright fresh-leaved branches and there's a small ripple stealing moisture across the surface of the pool.
I was at the barn on Sunday morning, an hour early for my ten o'clock ride. The school horses have a fifty-five acre pasture now, with a rolling topography that hosts well-spaced oak trees, a coyote den and several rather territorial deer. It can be quite a hike to gather up one's horse and bring him back to civilization. My ride was already in, so I was able to sit in the shade and be a spectator for a while. There's always something to observe and learn.
Boots was the horse listed next to my name on the board. I'd never ridden him before. He had some unexplained discomfort in his mouth on Friday and they've been working him in a bit-less bridle, to let him get over whatever it is. He's a visibly forward ride at the best of times so I didn't know quite what I was in for.
Transitioning to a new horse is always interesting. There's the initial comparison of how much horse you have underneath you. Is his neck longer or shorter than the horse you're used to? It's a bit weird to have less in front of you than you're used to but it only takes a few minutes to get past that disorientation. The roundness of a horses body affects the position of your legs. Again, as soon as you start working to apply your aids your muscles adapt and you find yourself on a familiar planet.
There's a short test period, learning how sensitive a horse is and how much leg or hand are likely to get the desired results. Having no bit, on a horse who usually had both bit and martingale, I was somewhat tentative about our first trot and canter. I was not sure I'd have the option of slowing down again once we started going faster. I asked for trot and worked on returning to walk just by slowing my body rhythm down, no rein contact at all. We achieved that a few times and I started to relax. 
Riding is ideally a mind-body experience. We look inward to achieve "The Zone" of harmony and communication with another, much stronger and larger species. Sometimes, if we "think" what we want a horse to do, we can make it happen with subtle muscle movements and shifts of weight, to which the horse responds. That is the Nirvana of riding.
The opposite end of the spectrum is when a horse anticipates or does something we weren't quite meaning to happen. I've been known to pretend that that was what I wanted, just so that (in my mind) the horse, and others around me, would still think I was in charge.
The lesson went well. We didn't disgrace ourselves riding a course of trotting poles and then canter work with simple change transitions and a few small jumps. We finished before the day heated up too much, washed down our sweaty horses, applied fly spray and released them back into the pasture. We always watch as they canter gently away up the hill, in search of the rest of the herd.
Back at home, after my shower, I had a peaceful lunch and then forced myself to pack a few boxes. Our move is looming. We will have to step it up a bit once TAO comes back from France.
The sunshine was calling me outside and I felt I had earned a respite. The birds have flown from the nests on our balcony so I didn't feel guilty about taking my book and lounging on the chaise for a while. It was quickly too hot and I have no desire to be a lobster red example of sun-stupidity. I went down to the pool, at the bottom of the garden, for a very quick first dip of the year and a significant cool-down. As I luxuriated in the relatively chilly water lapping around my shoulders, a family of Orioles perched on the phone wires above me, looking questioningly at me as if wondering why i was bathing in their pond. It's rare to see these dressy gold and black birds. I'd never seen one in my life before moving here and I've never seen more than one at a time. I don't know if our new neighborhood is Oriole territory. This visit made my day.
When I move, I have a lot of plants in pots so I have an instant garden that comes with me. I'm surrounded by familiar faces, although in a new setting. Landlords and realtors forget that the sumptuous floral surroundings are mine, and portable. They are left with the clean, but naked seeming, architecture that was there when I arrived. Not all is taken. There are some specimens that have grown large and been planted in the ground. I do leave more garden than was there before. There's a Rhododendron near the front door, and an azalea in the back garden, that was first given to me as a hostess gift, to put on the dining table. It had already expanded into my largest pot at our last home. it is a permanent resident here now and will stay behind when we leave.
There's a Cecil Bruner climbing rose that I planted last year. I had one that accompanied us from house to house for a long time. From 4" pot given to us on Lovely Daughter's first birthday, by my best friend's mother, to the rambling climber in a half barrel that embraced the chimney stack and made the front page of a local newspaper for an article on curb-appeal. We stayed ten years in the last house and the roots grew through the bottom of the barrel and anchored that rose to the ground. I trained the branches along the wooden fence and it spread out on either side. It would have been cruel to move it but it was hard to leave it behind. Both our daughter (then in her early twenties) and the Mother of my best friend were sad that the relationship had ended. I drove by that house yesterday. It's being demolished. They're down to the foundations and the garden is a wasteland. My current Cecil Bruner is being transplanted and will change neighborhoods with us. My other rescues will be my Hawaiian Ginger plants. I already have some in pots but will cull half of those that have spread to embellish the slope above the pool. I'll divide out some flag iris as well. I have a variety of unique colors that I enjoy too much to abandon.
The rest will be decided by time and energy. I have some native plants, such as Mallows, but they're easily replaced and grow quickly so I'll probably not reverse-garden those.

Gladiators

From the perspective of our old premises, our move is complete; the building is empty; the vacuum cleaner that I used to spruce up the offices is in for some life-saving servicing at the vacuum repair shop and the pigeons are undisturbed in the rafters. We even dismantled our mail box and put banners on the building proclaiming our new location.
From the perspective of our new home, much remains to be accomplished. Let's leave it at that, for now.
During our transition we had help from various people whom I came to think of as My Gladiators. They waded into the arena of battle day after day right beside us.
There were items to be broken down, recycle what may, and taken to the dump; there were fragile but oversized construction-art antiquities to be handled with care; there were load, after load, after load of stone slabs and miscellaneous materials and we capped it all with a voyage for our bridge-saw; hanging 4 ft (1m20) over each side of the truck bed and too tall to pass under the freeway.
Our plan had been to move it when traffic and authorities were least likely to be disturbed but it all came together at commute time on a Friday evening. I tore up the office curtains to make instant red-flags (burgundy/brown but it's the thought that counts) and off they went, the long way around, with an interminable conga-line of understanding (?) motorists in-tow.
Our greatest achievement of the move was that no-one was injured or killed. There were times when I had to leave as some of the unorthodox maneuvers involved multiple fork-lifts, chains and scary crashing and banging noises. When things are beyond my control it is better that I have faith and walk away. No good would be served by my staying and I would find out soon enough in the case of a catastrophe.

Mini-Stories

Our move is on-going, at the packing-up end at least. We are still waiting on the keys and the final lawyer-tweaked version of the new lease. I called in payroll hours this morning. Our guys each put in 32 hours of overtime, in a two week period. 250 shrink-wrapped palettes of stone-stuff to show for it.

A familiar face popped up today. One of our "Go-To" trucking people who helped us once before, heard we might need him again. I have a hard time remembering mundane names but this gentleman of the highway is called Rocky Road (for real). I keep restraining myself but one day I will have to ask if he has a brother named Dusty, or Bumpy. I suppose there are other career paths he might have taken with a name like that, psychotherapist maybe?

My sister called me back this morning. Not a thing to be taken lightly. She isn't enamored of technology or communications. We live in different time zones and she has a life, a son and a horse. If she never heard from me again she might think of calling in a year or two, but then again she might not. No animosity, just who she is.
I was poised on the edge of a construction site in the hills when my cell phone rang. I was stuck, teetering on a wobbly rock for the whole conversation as I was in one of those areas where, if you take a step, you can lose the connection. Sister is fine and reasonably happy. She hadn't listened to my message telling her that Monty Roberts was in her part of England. Monty is a true horse whisperer who lives in Solvang California. My sister had originally heard about him in England and had been to one of his clinics. I learned about him from her and later signed us both up for his news letter. Knowing that she doesn't check email, I called so that she wouldn't miss his U.K. tour. now I know that she doesn't listen to phone messages either, I may invest in a carrier pigeon or two.
(By the way, there was an interesting Monty Roberts documentary on The Military Channel, this week, regarding his therapeutic work with soldiers who have Post Traumatic Stress disorders). 
Part of our chat was about Megan, the pasture ornament, who is lame again. Sis said that she and the other barn ladies are not as upset as before when their horses go lame. There is a handsome new vet to help ease their pain. They call him "Lovely Grey".

The Artistic One got into one of his little scrapes again yesterday. He went to the hardware store to buy some new jeans and decided to put them on in the back seat of his car, as the old ones were torn. At this stage of his story telling I was expecting that the police had been called for indecent exposure, but no. Thank goodness. The problem arose once The Newly Jeaned One tried to exit the back seat and found out about the inconvenience of child-locks being engaged. His keys had been tossed on the floor in the front foot well, out of reach.
It's probably unkind of me to laugh at the image of his ungainly struggle with gravity and tight spaces, and the contortions of a man who is past the lithe and supple age for such acrobatics. I'm just glad his jeans were on already and that everyone in the parking lot was not exposed to his tidy-whities stretching over the seat-back. If anyone got this on video, please share.

We are told to expect beautiful weather this weekend. We are off to meet up with Boomer and his forever folks on Sunday. We will lunch by the Ocean in Half Moon Bay at a place with outdoor seating. Boomer was one of my foster collies. He was with me for almost a year, until collie rescue came up with the right home for him. It's been four months since he jumped into their car and went to live by the beach. I wanted to wait until he was truly settled before going to see him. I am looking forward to hearing all their stories. I believe that Boomer has decided that the stairs at their house may be inhabited by Trolls, as are ours.
When you have a split level house on a hill and a dog who is selective about which stairs freak him out when others don't, there is only one conclusion. Trolls! That and many expeditions around the perimeter of the house in good weather and bad, to get the dog to the level that you all want to be on. Carrying is not an option, Mr.B weighs 85 lbs and is the tallest collie aberration you ever saw. But he's a sensitive soul:)

A Moving Experience

"Lucy" the Humanobile metal sculpture in front of some French limestone column shafts and clay pots from Morocco.

Slabs and palettes of stone and terra-cottas, in front of a 3 part bronze fountain (French circa 1910). The fountain has horses, lions, dolphins and a cherub. 18 ft tall over-all x 15 ft wide. This is a consignment piece. It belongs to a well known American Football player (name begins with M and is the name of a State with a large sky) who purchased it by phone-bid at a French auction and was never able to make it work into his landscape plan on his 600 acre estate.

The early stages of a bas-relief carving that will fit above the front door of a spec. house nearby. This is about 20 ft wide. There is a smaller section in the works to top the garage doors.

Our big table saw has cut miles and miles of stone since we first got it. It has been letting us down a bit this past few weeks. We can usually get advice from the people who custom made it for us. Unfortunately, it being August and them being at the beach, with every other self-respecting Frenchman, we have been waiting until work resumed. Today's advice was to put a fan in the electrical cabinet in case it was over-heating. My office in a corrugated metal building, mid afternoon on a 97 degree-in-the-shade day swiftly became unpleasant 'cos they took my fan!

A few days have zoomed by since I began this post. August has turned into September. The days are speeding up since we were told, earlier this week, that the property housing our business has been sold and we must vacate by the end of the month.

We've been working like demons to finish as many orders as possible. Once we start moving it will be at least a couple of weeks before we can gear up again. We've barely had time to look at a couple of alternative spaces. Tomorrow will be spent driving around different areas to see where we might find a part indoor, part outdoor, properly zoned and customer friendly spot that won't break the bank and is available right now. Of course, we will have to wait until Tuesday to contact anyone because of the holiday weekend.

So why are we not panicked and distraught? Because we've started from scratch before, I guess. We know we can get through this. Change almost always turns out to be good. In this case we are talking about structuring things differently to free up The Artistic One from supervision of all things work-shop. We'll have other people make some custom orders in France and ship them rather than doing it all ourselves. The designs and customers will still be ours. I might even get a cleaner, more presentable showroom-like environment. It must still be bohemian and interesting but the leaky roof and indoor pigeon-infestation were hard to spin into charming accessories. I've always had to watch that The Artistic One didn't run over any clients as he stormed around on his Formula One fork-lift.

We are not bored! We are no longer stuck in a rut! "Why the Heck Not?" is our watchword for now. (Of course any chance of time with a horse just galloped away into the distance for a while. "Equus-Interruptus" that's me. (Take that, spell-check!)