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What I did yesterday
1. Walked the dog
2. Drank a little bit too much coffee
3. Ran 5K, with a stop at around 3.5K and walk and doubling back to where I stopped running to start again. Dressed too warmly.
4. Received 500-gigabyte hard drive in mail
5. Installed 500-gigabyte hard drive in computer
6. Cut back a year’s worth of growth on Santa Barbara daisies, flowering stems from kangaroo paws. dead stems of bunchgrasses and other casualties of our extreme summer in the front yard.
7. Decided against putting same in compost due to billions of Santa Barbara Daisy seeds; placed in green waste bin.
8. Demolished dry-rotted wooden portion of retaining wall out in the front of the house, which has been leaking soil into our neighbors’ driveway since we moved in in 2002.
9. Put all wood in truck for transportation to landfill
10. Demolished brick portion of retaining wall out front, which has been broken and leaning precariously over the sidewalk since we moved in, and it’s a marvel that some kid hasn’t knocked it down inadvertently and broken a shinbone.
11. Put various large discarded items (plastic pots, odd composite metal-plastic items) in truck atop rotted wood.
12. For the tenth time, debated throwing out the blind person’s cane that was here when we bought the house.
13. Attempted to ask my neighbor César, in Spanish, whether he knew any broke blind people who’d appreciate a cane. César said no, then we discussed whether the cane was too tall for most blind people, and determined that it was longish for tapping several feet in front of the user. Attempted in Spanish to answer César’s questions regarding how much weight I had lost, how much I weighed now, how much I used to weigh, what my goals were, how I was getting the exercise, and why we had a city council election campaign sign in our yard for the law and order candidate.
14. Remembered that our neighbor Naomi, with the dirt-littered driveway from our broken retaining wall, attends a church whose congregation engages in charitable works. Offered her the cane. She said they’d been meaning to buy one for her sister.
15. With sledge and crowbar, reluctantly broke half-century-old brick into rubble after deciding it was nonetheless too new to be valuable as anything but fill for the new retaining wall.
16. Answered several questions from passing neighbors as to the health of the dog.
17. Carted rubble around side of house and piled it where large plastic items had been. Swept up.
18. Ate dinner.
19. Did web research into particular type of retaining wall block I plan to use.
20. De-skunked dog, not entirely successfully. Determined that there is no store within twenty miles that sells hydrogen peroxide after 11:45 pm. Withstood pleading eyes and eventual withering glares from bathtub-confined dog.
Posted by: Chris Clarke
Note: A database glitch in 2008 ate a bunch of archived comments. Don't be offended if yours isn't here, or confused if the conversation seems disjointed. Thanks!
Busy day! Damn, you hyperactive people make me jealous.
Hey, what’s Zeke doing getting skunked at his age??
By: By Hank Fox on 2006 08 26
Hey, what’s Zeke doing getting skunked at his age??
I informed him last night he wouldn’t pass his current age if he kept this shit up, I tell you what.
By: By Chris Clarke on 2006 08 26
did you try tomato juice?
By: By Roxanne on 2006 08 26
Tomato juice doesn’t work, from what I hear. We didn’t even try. Instead, I recalled that Hank Fox had on this very blog given a recipe I think he had used on the late lamented Tito: peroxide and baking soda with a little dish soap as a surfactant. We had some old, weak peroxide and a very small amount of baking soda in the house last night, which was enough to knock the stench down to the point where we could sleep.
Today I went to the store (and the dump, where I left the retaining wall from yesterday) and bought a gallon of peroxide and about six pounds of baking soda. Mixed a quarter cup baking soda per quart peroxide with a squirt of soap, hosed Zeke down a little, then worked the stuff into his fur as best I could, which he hated. That took care of his front end. Mixed the same amount up for his back end. He smells like a regular stinky old dog now instead of the recently-skunked kind. The stuff works wonders.
By: By Chris Clarke on 2006 08 26
Max was too much of a coward to go after a live skunk, but he and his buddies found a dead one after Spring thaw one year, and rolled around in it with much enthusiasm. Not as bad as a direct hit from a non-ex-skunk, but pretty malodorous nonetheless. He also shied away from foxes (which his friends chased to no avail), but funnily enough thunder didn’t cow him. I suspect he thought it was a large dog, and he barked quite angrily at it.
Now, after reading about your day, I have to go take a nap.
By: By Rob G on 2006 08 28
So, why do you have a sign up for the law & order candidate?
By: By Charles on 2006 08 28
Is Zeke blonder in his blond parts now?
Hard to tell. He’s pretty white to begin with, and that’s gotten truer as he gets older.
So, why do you have a sign up for the law & order candidate?
He’s running on the law’n'order thing because he can: he’s a San Francisco cop. His sign’s on our lawn because he’s 1) a relatively liberal guy, 2) a gay man and having openly gay politicians in the ‘burbs is a good thing, and 3) a neighbor and friend.
By: By Chris Clarke on 2006 08 28
Not that you need, want or expect my approval, but it seems to me that is an excellent set of reasons. Carry on! :coolsmile:
By: By Charles on 2006 08 28
incidentally, treepeony, my hike down into the grand canyon and back out last year was done in the company of a woman who’d recently had a total hip replacement, and it was her second hike down to the river and back since the surgery.
So I’ll expect to see you at the Mount Diablo trailhead to hike to the top with me in, say, March. Do we have a deal?
By: By Chris Clarke on 2006 08 28
Dude, you have waaaaay too much energy. (Maybe that’s the heat and humidity out here talking.)
I’m glad you managed to de-skunk Zeke. Until this year, I’d never fully grasped how awful a skunked dog must be; I’d always assumed that it was a slightly stronger version of the smell you get when you drive by a dead skunk on the road. Then we had a skunk under our front porch have a bit of a moment, and MAN was that a powerful odor! You could actually taste it wafting through the air, and it was strong enough to induce near-gagging. I can’t imagine what it’s like dealing with it up-close and personal. Yikes.
By: By Rachel Shaw on 2006 08 30
Categories:
Zeke
Garden
The Neighborhood
