Where there's smoke

The night following the formal school band concert we had the informal school talent show. No auditions were necessary. Anyone who could come up with the requisite $5 fee could sing, dance, play or whatever with a captive audience of the parents of the other artists. We even served pizza and canned soda. I went with my talented child so he could perform and I could listen. I was quickly roped into the pizza operation. Fortunately it did not involve cooking; the pizza showed up ready to eat from the local pizzeria. We sold slices of pizza and drinks and tried to watch the show. Unfortunately my boy took his turn I was off acquiring more pizza. Fortunately, I had heard both his pieces many times at home and earlier this week at his recital. He was unperturbed by my absence. I thought that was the exciting part of the evening. How wrong I was.
Shadow wanted to go for a walk as soon as I returned home, so I took her for a stroll. I heard a helicopter in the area, so I decided to take her somewhere I could see around. In case you are still unfamiliar with the wilds of northeastern California, a helicopter only means one of two things. Someone is hurt badly enough to be evacuated by air, or something is burning. We have had a series of lightning storms for the last week, some of which have started fires. One was rather serious, threatening structures for a few hours on Wednesday night.
So, there I was out with the dog, and I saw two airplanes and a helicopter working on the mountain a couple of miles from home. Happily for me, the smokes plumes were very slight and uphill from us. In fact they were about 1000 feet higher than the road, which gave us a nice safe view. I still had my camera in my pocket from the talent show, but first I took out my cell phone and called home (from ½ mile away) and reported on what I saw. Note the helicopter against the mountain in the upper right of the frame.
My son and my husband came out to join me. My girl was spending the night at a friend’s house, watching Pirates 3 and preparing for her raft trip the next day. I took as many pictures as the fading light and battery would allow. We saw 7 smoke jumpers exit one of the planes. We saw a second helicopter join the first. The two planes left after the fire crew landed, but we heard later on a scanner that there were two ground crews up there too. One of the ground crews had called for the helicopter backup because they were concerned about the cliff they had to climb down to get to the fire.

Last Sunday after church we had a business meeting. My children have a low opinion of business meetings, so each sought escape in a different way. My boy borrowed my cell phone, called Dad and asked for a ride home. My girl found a ride to a friend’s house to hang out until girl’s Bible study later in the afternoon. Her friend’s parents were at the business meeting too, which left the girls on their own. The scene was set for a couple of hours without parental supervision or assistance. This could be a fun thing, or not.

Several years ago, I recall a query about what weighs less than an ounce yet can lift a 300 pound person a foot off the ground. The answer of course is a bee. Why do such little things scare us? Is it their potential to inflict pain, or is it the seeming randomness of their behavior? Personally they do not bother me, because I know that when they are indoors they seek light, usually in the form of a window. Outdoors, if I stay still, they fly away when they figure out that I am not a flower. Since I do not wear perfumes or scented lotions, they have little interest in me. Even if they show an interest, they do not sting if I hold still and relax.

Explain that to teenage girls sometime. They did not understand when I told them.

Soon after the young ladies arrived at said friend’s house, they entered and found a bee. According to the story, it was an unusually large one. I know my daughter is afraid of little things that move, especially the ones that sting, but I did not know her friend was equally scared. When two scared girls get together, whatever is scaring them gets bigger and scarier each time they look at each other and try to think about what to do. In this case, I believe what to do involved going outside and using a cell phone to call a friend who lives around the corner to vanquish said beast. The third friend was ever so much braver than the first two. She was willing to have a go with the bee, but first she had to get dressed. It seems that she was still in her pajamas after noon on a Sunday. The first two girls impressed upon her the dire nature of the situation, so she pulled herself together and came over.

While they waited, they armed themselves with Swiffer mops, in the absence of brooms. The bee merrily did whatever bees do in the house. I could not ascertain details of its behavior during this time, but I would guess it was attempting to escape through a window and bashing its head on the glass in the process.

When the brave friend arrived, she said that the bee had best be a big one to be worth all this difficulty. When she laid eyes upon the creature, OMG she was impressed as well. Now there were three scared girls in the house. The girls attempted to corral the bee with a bowl without success. It finally found a window to attack which opened from the outside. The girls went out and opened the window, managing to trap the bee between the fixed and sliding panes. Clever as bees are, it found a way between the two panes and escaped into the great outdoors.

I asked how she would handle such a situation if she were living on her own. The gist of the reply indicated that there would necessarily be a hot guy living nearby who would be available at all times to vanquish bugs. I hope that is the case, or at least that she lives close enough to home that her father can still take care of them for her. Her brother is good at trapping buzzing flying things with a glass and a piece of paper and letting them out. Maybe I can send him off to college with her.

Driving Mother crazy

This week we had our first lesson in a standard transmission vehicle. My girl is doing quite well with the automatic, so we decided it is time for the next step. The next step is a rather large one, but we had a go. One major driving force in her desire to learn to shift gears is the price of gas. Everyone knows that one gets better mileage with a standard transmission than with an automatic. In this case, the automatic runs about 12 to 15 MPG and the standard transmission gets between 30 and 40 MPG depending on who is driving. This has something to do with the size and weight of the vehicles, not just the transmission and driving technique. She feels the price of gas when I make her pump it, even when I am still paying. She just knows that someday she will be using her own money instead of my credit card.

So off we go. I backed the car out of the garage and pointed it up the driveway. This is the same driveway that I shovel 300 feet of in the winter. I do not shovel the whole thing. We have about 400 feet with a tight turning circle at the top, kind of like a squashed lollipop. I put it in first, turned the car off and walked around to the passenger side. I am only 4 inches taller than she is, and she likes the seat really close to the pedals, so her first lesson was where to find the manual seat adjustment lever. My car came with the basics. The big automatic she has been driving has power seats. Perhaps part of fuel economy comes from leaving those extraneous motors out. In my car you wind the windows up and down yourself. There is no air conditioning unless you do.

Properly adjusted (unlike Aunt Billie) she started the car. I attempted to explain how stepping on the clutch pedal disconnects the motor from the wheels and selecting a gear tells the motor how fast to drive the wheels, but she was lost. I just told her to come up slowly on the clutch and down on the gas at the same time. She said she had been told to only use one foot. I assured her that the other foot was necessary, but it only had one pedal to worry about. First, she tried the foot rest. When she moved to the clutch, it worked much better. After a few attempts, she moved the car, and killed it. She started again. I had her stop before the turn and try again.

It kept getting better, so we took it out on our private dirt road. We stayed in first gear and stopped and started a few times up the road, sometimes with more success than others. We spent about a half hour drifting up and down our road in first gear. After one Y turn she could not get the car going. After much frustration, I moved the seat back and gave it a try myself. Lesson number two: getting the car in the correct gear. She kept blaming the car for various difficulties, but I believe it is operator error when she tries to start in third gear. I kept telling her it is not the car’s fault. She is motivated to learn, but there are a lot of things going on all at once when one is shifting gears. Driving my car involves much more than just aiming, as some of my friends have learned when I throw my phone down in the middle of a conversation to turn a corner and shift gears with both hands. Bluetooth headsets are a good thing. Her progress was not helped by our next door neighbor who was out watering plants with his dogs. I know most of you use a hose, and he had one of those too. This is the neighbor who called me and expressed surprise that the little girl next door was driving. He said it made him feel old. The dogs were lolling in the shade by the road. They were excited by our Shadow in the back seat. Of course, Shadow was happy to see her friends too. Maybe we should leave the distractions home next time, but she does love car rides. The novice driver was bothered by the extraneous creatures outside the vehicle. We managed to progress up and down the street several times without harming the dogs, and I kindly avoided making her stop and start in front of an audience.

Having made several circuits of the dirt road, we progressed to the paved county road which experiences very little traffic. I can walk my Shadow and see fewer than a dozen cars on an hour long walk. I have seen dog droppings unmolested in the middle of the street for days. Where else would people drive around those? We stopped and started many more times, this time experiencing all the gears up to fourth. Can you explain in 10 seconds or less just how to shift, as the girl is doing it? I am missing that skill. We stopped often and just ran the shift lever through all the positions to find out where they are. I tried to explain the spring and how it makes the lever want to go into third and fourth, but to no avail. With more practice, I know she will improve. I am still concerned when she looks at the lever every time she moves it.

She has had a couple more lessons with her father, and made it all the way home from town, only killing the engine once. The world is slowly becoming a safer place, and I am doing my part to keep it that way.

School concert

Last night was the spring concert at my boy's school. He plays more than just the piano. He is now taller than his horn.

A short boy and a long horn.
At the end of the concert, a rainbow. At the end of the rainbow, a golden school bus.
The dog takes me out afterward for all the good stuff. We have had two evenings of thunder and lightning storms, complete with a few small fires. Summer is coming early this year.

America's love affair

My life is not tied to big weekend schedules, kids events at home help to further distance my from travel plans when the rest of the world is going places. I sometimes forget what America does to commemorate special occasions. I was reminded in a big way yesterday when I took what I thought was a routine drive to the big city 80 miles to the south. My son and I were making a routine trip to visit the orthodontist.

For those of you who have never been to my little abode, I must insert a note that the road is a two lane US Route, similar to the famous Route 66 age and quality, but not in location. By two lane road, I mean that there is one lane serving the northbound traffic and another to serve the southbound traffic. Some of you big city folks seem to think that two lanes implies only one passing lane in each direction. For us, a passing lane makes three and is a rare luxury.

Caltrans, in their infinite wisdom has undertaken to widen our road this summer. Locals would define widening as adding additional passing lanes, or perhaps another traffic lane in each direction. Caltrans defines widening as increasing the shoulders from 4 feet to 10 feet. This may mean a lot to the bean counters in Sacramento. It means we have more space to evacuate on the side of the road before we hit the dirt when someone traveling the opposite direction at 70+ miles per hour fails to complete a passing maneuver in time. To those of us in the country, it means we are still stuck behind the RV with the boat, the RV with the quads, the RV with the jet skis, the Hummer with the boat, the guy with the bike and the kayak on top, and all the other guys and gals who think it is their right as Americans to consume as many hydrocarbons as possible on their days off. We still are choking on exhaust back here, waiting to get to the passing lane to attempt the passing maneuver around the 60+ foot long monsters driven by amateurs, blowing and weaving in the wind.

I was caught at various times on the trip both north and south in huge rafts of vehicles, 15 to 20 at a time, and Caltrans did not even have their flaggers out, because flaggers enjoy spending the long weekend doing something other than disrupting traffic. They were probably taking their toys to the lake too.

I stopped for gas on my way home. I am fond of Nevada gasoline, because they sell it for less than California gasoline. There was a crowd at the station at Bordertown. Several of the other parties seemed to know each other. My favorite rig was the RV with the over large boat in tow which occupied two pumps. The station manager was not complaining, as they were filling the boat too. I did not check the total, but I would guess it far exceeded what I put in my Corolla.

Gas may be expensive, but who wants to stay home now that we have the boat and the RV and the jet skis and the quad. We can go out and waste money on fuel and risk life and limb in pursuit of happiness guaranteed us by those who fought and died that I thought were being remembered this weekend. Of course, the main topic of conversation for the weekend is the high price of fuel.