From my desk, which faces the front of the house, I see lots of people out walking each day as they escape their quarantine for some moments of sunshine. Most of them have become familiar. There are the joggers, who used to pass once a day but now make multiple runs. There are the dogwalkers, many of whom we’re familiar with because of Hazel and our own morning route. There are old couples, young couples, family groups and singles, baby strollers, bikes, electric skateboards, wagons, carts, scooters, and skates. I’ve grown familiar with them; they tend to come by at predictable times.
Beginning last week, a new family appeared around dinnertime, and they were a bit different. They were dressed in what I’d call Amish chic: definitely churched up in a Pennsylvania Dutch sort of way. The mother had a sister-wife vibe going: long floral dress, buttoned-up hair. The kids looked like cosplayers from the turn of the century—the boy was wearing a flat-brim hat. The dad wore a button-down collarless shirt with suspenders. And they carried signs, both of which I couldn’t read until I passed them in the Scout on the weekend: the first read “HONK IF YOU SUPPORT OUR FIRST RESPONDERS” and in smaller text, as if we needed the clarification, “police, firefighters and nurses.” The second read, “HONK FOR THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA.”
Yup.
At first I thought maybe the Westboro Baptist Church had maybe opened a satellite in Catonsville, and I was excited about brainstorming ways to fight their bigoted bullshit on my own turf. But after a quick google search, my hope is that maybe this is something less sinister. Either way, I wonder if their compound is nearby and whether or not they’re stockpiling weapons in there.
This is progress. Hazel still gets worked up when Nox comes around, but she’s getting better and better about letting him exist within her perimeter. Nox rolled around on his back for a good five minutes before getting bored and leaving, and Hazel mostly left him alone. This encounter ended peacefully, but at any given time there’s a 33% chance Hazel will chase after him to sniff his butt.
Here are 85% of my seedlings in one place; there are several others in less healthy shape in another flat on the side, but these are the ones that will get planted and cultivated. They’ve been hardening in the greenhouse for the past two nights, and I’m hoping they’ll get nice and healthy so that I can plant them in containers this weekend.
The sun was out today, warming up my morning walk with Hazel, so I loaded up the Scout with the giant pile of construction debris from the front porch and and a nervous dog, and headed to the dump. It felt wonderful to get out and drive on the freeway, do some errands, and see the outside world, even if it was only within a 10-mile radius of the house. It felt so good to be out, I drove into Catonsville and went through the Krispy Kreme drive through for two donuts and another cup of coffee. At home, Finn had completed her homework, so we sat at the table and enjoyed our treat together.
Krispy Kreme had about eight donuts to choose from, down from a normal selection of about thirty. That was a little worrisome.
Hazel is wearing her headscarf again, because one of her ears started scabbing up. She’s been battling warts under her chin because the medicine for the vasculitis is lowering her immune system. The antibiotics for the warts upset her stomach yesterday, so she’s off the vasculitis medicine and only on her behavioral pills; she hasn’t eaten all day and has been moping about the house and sleeping. This fucking blows.
The front porch is waiting for about an hour with the block sander. All of the long seams have a second skim coat of mud that’s been dry since Sunday, and if they clean up well I’ll be able to roll wall paint over them and call the walls done. Then, it’s on to the floor.
Monday I had off from work, and I intentionally made it as laid-back as I could. I spent a quiet morning with Jen while Finn was at school. We relaxed around the house until about 11 and then she ran out for errands while I walked Hazel down to the local café for a bite to eat. The two of us sat in the sunshine and watched the cars pass, and I fed her a little bacon from my sandwich, and then we walked home the long way, up the trolley trail.
I then drove the Scout into Baltimore to the local Grainger storefront, where I had a pair of rocker switches waiting for me. About three weeks ago I was using the bench grinder in the garage for something and the switch on the front broke in my hands. I flipped it on its back and did some surgery to pull the broken switch, then sourced a couple of articles online about a bench grinder with the same issues. From there I was able to find a rocker switch which mostly matched my needs.
While I was in the city I stopped and took some beauty shots of Peer Pressure in an urban environment. The best two setups I found were a line of loading docks facing a huge empty apron of concrete, and an access area adjacent to the train tracks, surrounded by warehouses. The sun was out and the day was warm so I shot about 100 pictures, about a quarter of which I’m happy with.
Back at home, I fiddled with the grinder until I’d sorted out the pins on the switch, and filed the opening on the front out until it accepted the switch housing cleanly. The original switch had a circuit where a lead for the power and a lead for the light shared the same pole, but I couldn’t find a switch that matched it. I went with a three-pole switch and hooked the light up to the center pole, so that it’s always hot (simply leaving the light disconnected prevents the circuit from closing) and unscrewed the bulb. In the summer I’ll solder the power and light leads to the same wire but for now it’s back up and running.
Up in the bathroom I continued painting and finishing small bits of trim. The baseboard behind the toilet is the last major piece to go in, and I’m having issues getting it in cleanly—I should have put it in before the toilet. I cut a test piece and I think I’ve got the shape down, and I’ll have to loosen the cabinet one last time to get it in place, but once that’s done the rest should be easy.
She has to wear the ear wrap because her ears will fall off if she doesn’t. She goes into a full-body shake every two minutes because it feels weird/hurts/itches, the force of which opens up hotspots on her paws, leaving blood trails around the house. When she starts shaking, whoever is on duty needs to basically tackle her to get her to stop, which means someone needs to be with her at all times.
We’re back to the fucking quarantine days again. I know I don’t speak for myself when I say I am so over this shit.
Well, the site is back up again, after several conversations with my hosting provider. Somebody injected my site with some malware, putting a script in place that was sending my Archives link to a Canadian pill pharmacy site. It’s still there. I had the admins rebuild the site from a backup and run a scan for malware, and it looks like we didn’t catch it. I’ve got some more sleuthing to do. I also think I’m going to finally move hosting providers to the company that hosts my namesake site; I like them a little better and their pricing is more competitive.
About two weeks ago, Hazel came back from the puppy daycare with a chunk taken our of her ear missing. The daycare was horrified and notified Jen right away but we were pretty relaxed about it; she’s a dog who tries to punch above her weight. We know she’s going to het her butt kicked now and then—and that’s good for her.
But the nick in her ear wouldn’t heal, and we noticed that she was leaving drops of blood all over the house as she shook herself off (she shakes herself at least 20 times a day). Alarmed, Jen took her to the vet, where she was diagnosed with “ear crumble“, a condition where an allergic reaction to a vaccine causes the capillaries in her ears to go necrotic and die off, which, untreated, can lead to loss of both of her ears. She came home from the vet wrapped up in gauze like a Civil War casualty, and then immediately proceeded to shake most of it off. Jen took her back where they sedated her and re-wrapped it and then put her in the Cone of Shame; she returned home stoned to Venus and staring off into space.
Jen ordered a product called a No Flap Ear Wrap to replace the cone and gauze. The first one she ordered was the size recommended for her measurements, but was too large. The next size down was still a bit large. Jen got back online a third time for the next size down, and the manufacturer immediately responded to refund her money and ship us a new one specific to Hazel’s size, requesting we donate the current one to the vet’s office. It’s not often to get customer service that good or that prompt; I was extremely impressed with them.
She’s about as happy with the wrap as she was with the cone; she tries to shake it off about every five minutes.
Sunday Hazel got us up and out the door at 7:15 and Jen and I took her on a long walk all the way down to the café near the junction, where I got us a coffee for the return trip. After Finley woke, we jumped in the car and drove to the top of the trolley trail, then walked all the way down into Ellicott City for breakfast. Everyone else in Catonsville had the same idea, because the trail was busy. But it was lovely to sit outside and have breakfast with my three girls, and Hazel was about as patient as she could be under the circumstances. We then walked back to the car and headed home, where Hazel passed out in the hallway and we all split off to our own pursuits.
I took advantage of the warm weather and a fresh bloody mary to break down the door on the Accord and swap out the door lock mechanism. After working on the junkyard Accord it was quick work to get the door card off to expose the mechanism. The bolts came off easier with a larger screwdriver—we stripped two of the four bolts in the junkyard—but I still had to drill one of the bolts out.
Once that was done it was a simple matter of pulling the faulty mechanism, replacing it with the new one and testing it before buttoning up the door. Confirming it worked, I put the card back on and put my tools away. Then I stood to the side, used the keyfob to unlock the doors, and enjoyed the fact that the rear door unlocked as it should have the day we bought it.
