First Summer Vacation 2012

drought

The heat wave ended this past weekend. The drought has not, not even with the rain we had Saturday night. My lawn is an ugly brown, except under the big maple tree, and a few patches in which the plants are not grass but weed. So there has not been any need to mow the lawn, which means a loss of exercise for me.

dead tree

The heat and the lack of water have finally killed the maple tree next to the driveway. The leaves are brown, dry and crumbly. I know that the tree is now dead, because the other trees are still green, even the small ones. This is an annoyance, because I tried to make it better for that tree: Putting fertilizer stakes around it, removing half the tree to give the other half a better chance, and closing the wounds with tree tar to keep the insects out. Now there is nothing for it but to cut the tree down. The problem is that Madre objected to my wanting to cut it down. So I had to turn back the tree folks I called to cut the tree down — $30 is not a bad price to avoid six months of painful chainsaw elbow. I will leave the tree alone until next spring.

neighbors gone (again)

While I was examining my tree and calling someone to cut it down, I learned that my neighbors are moving out of the house next door (across the driveway), and will rent out the house to a young couple. That is too bad, because the family was okay (well, I don't really like the kid, who acts like my yard is really his, but other than that, …). The family rented the house a couple of years ago; they wound up fixing up the house and moving back in after the house got trashed. Maybe they will have better luck with the new family (local cop with wife and 3-year-old kid). I suppose it was a bit of luck to find them: Honestly, with the town saturated with empty houses and rental properties, the family will have had a hard time finding anyone to move in.

vet time

This past Monday was my cat's annual visit to the vet. It was also the annual cat hunt, as Thyme simply did not want to go. I stalked the cat through the house with a thick towel to catch her with, but every time I got her, she slipped out of my hands. I found I could not do it alone, so I called Madre and my sister the editor: My sister mainly because she has experience in catching cats, and Madre for moral support. Anyway, after forty-five minutes and a rearrangement of my furniture, we finally caught the cat. I had to reschedule the vet appointment. Thyme behaved herself during the examination, and turned out fine after she got her shots.

I do not think my mother and sister recovered from the experience. In fact, my sister told me that she posted a non-public weep-and-moan on her LiveJournal page. (She is one of the LiveJournal veterans, starting in 2001 back when LiveJournal blogs were by invitation only.) On the good side, they have actually seen close-up evidence that Thyme actually exists (she hides from visitors).

library budget time

This summer is once again budget time for the library and other governmental entities in Indiana. We work under the constraint of having the smallest tax rate among libraries in the county (5½¢ per $100 assessed property) supporting a brand-new library. (The next smallest, at 8½¢ per $100, belongs to a tiny rural library northwest of us, while for the rest of the county, the rates are over a dime per $100.) And this, while bearing the burden of an old building (now called the Annex) that we cannot really sell, but which we like to use as a community meeting place.

And yet, I hear tales of people whining, Why don't you sell the old building and use the proceeds for your budget? Because the State forbids it, that's why. Besides, as I mentioned above, the real estate market is saturated, and there is no money for home loans, and no money for the improvements the building requires. Also, nobody is going to come downtown just because there is more parking space where the building is now (an idea some have floated); Muncie has learned that lesson the hard way!

But, alas, nobody will listen to such arguments: We live in a part of the State where everyone cries in vain for the return of the $30/hour union factory job with full benefits. Such jobs will never return; no corporation will ever offer such jobs anymore; and politicians have to lie that they will come back to get elected. This is the land of wishful thinking.

friday visit

Friday I spent the day in Muncie doing miscellaneous chores: Determining whether I stored a local Friends minutes on my work computer (I did not); getting a haircut; eating good pizza at Greek's in the anemic University Village; determining what I need to bring to my first visit to the new doctor (photo ID, insurance card, medications); and a visit to the strip mall north of campus for more mailing labels and for better thread to close that hole in my new jeans.

I have learned that one of our more important people, our systems administrator, is leaving a couple of weeks from now for personal reasons. I assume we are not to blame, or he would not have given two weeks notice. That is not good for us, anyway, because he was one of the best sysadmins we had, and he would be hard to replace.

patio cracks

Finally, I had to refill the crevasses cracks in my patio and front sidewalk. The cracks have expanded so much that the sealant no longer keeps the weeds from growing in the cracks. I needed to fill them with a fresh bottle of sealant. I found it took three bottles of sealant to close the cracks in the patio, and I am still not finished! A couple of years from now, I will need to use real cement to close the cracks.