I’m Alive

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Sorry to have been absent so long, but there was cleaning, and moving and setting up and …. we’re ALMOST moved now.

From reading comments the other day: this IS five years. Though we wouldn’t have moved except for major family incentive to move, plus the fact the new place will allow us to walk (our almost-old place had a lovely walking path, which got taken over by an invasion of homeless which I suspect followed us from Colorado. (Do you have a better hypothesis?) and use the pool. (Not OUR pool. We’re not made of money, but there’s a pool.)

There might have been a knife in an account and again, it wouldn’t have happened except for family … well, I wouldn’t call it needs precisely, but it makes things better for everyone concerned.

More importantly, since last year I realized I could make a go of fiction writing after all. This job comes with a weird glitch. I disappear into the made up world, and…. forget reality exists. Reality like, say, a garden path that gets so overgrown with weeds that packages get delivered outside the gate. Or I forget to weed the vegetable beds and raise a fresh crop of weeds and noxious saplings. Or–

The house wasn’t proving too much work for us because of age, but because my tendency to disappear into imaginary worlds became a liability.

So. This works better. Though Dan still needs to train the electric sheep.

So we’re now here, with the cats, though I’m still spending a lot of days at the other place, packing, cleaning and such. Not as bad as last time (not nearly) and we should be done in 2 to 3 weeks.

The cats seem to like the new place. Circe talks to herself walking around, making comments on the new place. “Wow, did you see? They brought in the old cat tree.” (We did because we want them to have familiar smells, but We’ll buy them a new one for Christmas.)

Anyway, it’s been busy and crazy and I was talking about something that happened yesterday and thinking it was a week ago.

I will resume normal posting on Monday, and should even be able to write.

I will keep you apprized, so you know I’m alive. Or dead but still writing. Whichever.

Love you guys.`

33 thoughts on “I’m Alive”

  1. Yay for progress!

    The header image reminds me of the old story …

    In the 1970s, a tourist was wandering the Vienna Central Cemetery, and in an out of the way corner, came upon an immense pile of hand-written musical scores.

    Shocked, the tourist exclaimed ‘What’s going on here?’

    Stepping closer, he saw a desiccated hand in the midst of the pile, wielding a large eraser scrubbing at the scores.

    Again distressed, the tourist began to stammer, but stopped short. He was finally close enough to hear mumbling (in German). Listening more carefully, he could make out

    “Fear not; I am Ludwig von Beethoven, and I am decomposing.’

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  2. Glad to hear the chaos is being tames, and progress made!
    May it all go well, and you find the Right Box, with the thing you were looking for, every time!

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  5. When we last moved, (five years ago this November 1) the teapot and electric kettle were among the items that were packed in the car, along with a full tin of my favorite loose tea. I also had teabags for the three nights we stayed in motels, so I could brew up a quart in the room microwave to sip as I drove.

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  8. We love you right back. And I’m so glad y’all got to move. All who pray, please pray my family and I will also be permitted to move, because life in Devil’s Prostate still sucks and we all still want out with a purple passion. I hate SW GA more every fargin day.

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    1. Have driven the route through SW Ga (Columbus to Albany to Tifton) and while I haven’t lived there I can understand your feelings.

      Out son’s feelings were stronger after he drove through. Don’t recall the details, but he seemed to feel it’s another place where, “Drive faster, I hear banjos,” is appropriate.

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      1. Hmm, place full of obstinate SOBs*? Check. Far away from so-called civilization? Check. Friday nights are when the traffic signs get shot at? Check.

        Sure you aren’t talking about my corner of Flyover County, Oregon?

        (*) Protocol in Oregon when a fire evacuation is called. When it’s Stage 3 “Go Now”, you can leave, but you can’t return. We left at Stage 2 “Get Set” on Friday when we were getting black cinders falling from the sky. Sunday Morning at 12:45, they called Stage 3. Setting off two of our cell phones. It was getting too smoky where we evacuated to (no immediate notice, but the air quality was somewhere between horrible and “SCBA would be nice”), so we went back home. Air National Guard Volentolds were at the offroads to other Stage 3 sites, keeping people from going back in. When we got home, the absence of the ANG people was notable**. It took a week before Stage 3 was reduced. $TINY_TOWN has a reputation. Somehow, I still love it.

        (**) Except on the one road that was not only Stage 3, but led straight into the fire zone. Some residents were in the non-fire portion of the road, and they got a free pass. AFAIK, no looting happened.

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          1. Refrains from finding link to murder case where the perp talked her neighbor into bulldozing her trash pile. With the rather likable town drunk’s* body buried deeper. The ‘dozer operator got off (“I didn’t know!”), the perp got the Cuckoo’s Nest treatment. Not sure if/when she’ll get out.

            (*) No shortage of candidates, but he was the likeable one. Hard to get a DUI on horseback, too.

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          2. And WPDE moderated me. (Mentioned one of the more colorful murder cases around here. Perp in mental hospital, preferably until ice skating in Hades is popular.)

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  9. Ir’s good to hear from you. Now get some rest so you don’t hurt yourself unpacking!

    We’ll keep ourselves entertained in the meantime …

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  11. Talking about training the electric sheep made me wonder. There have been robot vacuums for years. Has anyone brought a robot lawnmower to market yet? In theory it would be simple; the problem lies in the details. Because a house vacuum is a pretty safe device, it’s not going to harm anyone if it runs over their foot. But a lawnmower has sharp blades underneath, so the liability of putting such a thing on the market is a lot higher than a robot vacuum.

    … But I just searched “robot lawnmower” and there are plenty of products mentioned, so I guess the problem has been sufficiently solved recently, more recently than I had ever updated my knowledge of the US home market. So I guess the answer to my question is yes, and the better question is, does anyone here have experience with the things yet? Is the “electric sheep” that Sarah mentioned actually a robot lawnmower, for example?

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    1. Robin, robot lawnmowers are widely available and “getting better.” Some years ago we saw one that had slipped its leash and gone walkabout on a public road; by the time we saw it all that could be surmised was that the defensive weaponry had either not been fitted, or was inadequate against the half-ton pickup truck parked next to the remains.

      More recently, though, the robots have gotten more circumspect, and I mean that literally – most use GPS instead of the old “invisible fence” on the perimeter, many use AI, and some even LIDAR to stay as carefully in their assigned areas as a dedicated gardener.

      It’s a start; I’m watching for a snow-plowing robot (none observed yet) and my wife and I would appreciate one that could keep the windows clean without intervention. O brave new world that has such clankers in’t!

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    2. I saw some being trained when I was in … Riga? No, Tallin. They were Husquvarnas, and under the watchful eyes of two “trainers,” because they were mowing near a pond. The barriers had been set up to discourage unplanned swims, but apparently the electric shepherds were not entirely confident in the effectiveness of the wires. (Sheep are sheep, na ja?)

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    3. Faint memory says they were a thing 30-40 years ago, but I suspect the advent of Lithium powerpacks made the setup more viable. My first cordless electric mower did fine for small yards and not needing to trim much (12V gel cell battery). The current one (40V packs. DO NOT DROP) balks at brush, but grass is no problem. Neither one is a robo-mower.

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  12. Sarah, after our last move I joked to my wife that next time I’d prefer just to have a good natural disaster and start over; it seemed likely to be less tedious, maybe even less jarring, than filling, transporting, and emptying all those boxes. 😉

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    1. I had to look at that possibility in the eye for our fire. Do not recommend. As Ben Franklin wrote: “Three removes is as good as one fire.” (Somewhere “good” got turned into “bad” in quote books…)

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  13. Have not moved in almost 38 years. The very thought makes me go “nope”. Even new flooring is stressful because it means “moving” things in and out of rooms.

    Part of the problem is age (plus health). We just cannot do what we could the last time we did major floor change throughout the house (2001). We have to hire the packing up and unpacking.

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    1. I’m fond of Martha. More and more, though, when I read Luke’s I hear her with a Southern accent. (“Lord, I’m working myself sick to take care of you, and Mary’s just sitting there! You tell her to get up and help me!”

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