The squirrel gang

Our lovely back yard is host to all sorts of cute wildlife.  We have a multitude of birds such as finches, California scrub jays, mourning doves, even some east coast robins have visited over the years!  Quail join us too as do rabbits and Disney cute brown ground squirrels.

Recently the Missus planted two Dahlias: a red one and a yellow one.  I had just done my shoulder operation so the Missus and Young Son dug the holes, moved the dirt and gently laid the flowers in place.

They bloomed and thrived and all was right in the world.  Until the Missus noticed that something was biting the buds right off of the Dahlias.  Not only that, the rose bushes were being stripped of their leaves as was the poinsettia!

We first blamed insects.  Of course the hapless insects always get blamed.  I can just see them now, at the insect bar having a brew with the snails and slugs saying 'you hear we're getting blamed for the Dahlia buds?  Again with the buds?  Why I wasn't even in the neighborhood that day...'

Then we noticed a new squirrel in our back yard.  It was thin and shifty looking.  Gray with a long skinny tail.  More menacing than cute.  Then another, and another!  Soon we realized a gang had moved into our back yard.  The gray squirrel gang.

Just seeing them cued music from "West Side Story".  They were either the Sharks or the Jets; I couldn't tell which.  They undoubtedly had a switchblade concealed in their fur somewhere.

The Disney-cute brown squirrels fled.  The Grays ate everything in sight.  We put fencing around the plants and they tunneled under.  I buried the fencing below the ground and they tunneled over 20 feet to reach one of the Dahlias!  I sprayed animal repellent everywhere.  They laughed.  The Missus spread cayenne pepper everywhere.  They shrugged.

I didn't want to do it but I had to do it:  the bird feeders were taken down but we left the finch feeder in place.  Apparently squirrels don't like thistle seed.

The poor birds wondered what happened to their free lunch and left for more lucrative yards.  One morning after several days sans feeders the Grays didn't show up.  Nada.  They had moved on.

About a week later the brown squirrel came back, cautiously, tentatively checking the territory.  He got a sniff of the pepper and shook his head and ran off but he came back the next day to poke around.

These days the Dahlias and rose bushes are thriving and the mourning doves and quail decided they like the thistle seed dropped by the finches.  The rabbits are back to grazing on the grass and the insects are no longer being slandered.   And the Grays?  They've moved on to terrorize someone else's flowers...for now.  

Update to the update!

Since my last post:

1. House is sold to a nice young couple with two little boys.  They are calling our house their "forever house".  My eyes misted up at this.

2. I visited NC and picked a house that the Missus can accept.  2400 sq ft on a 1.5 acre lot for less than half of what our current house is selling for.  I also got to visit with Oldest Daughter and family.  What a great time!

3. Youngest son found an apartment and moved most of his stuff out today.  Still some stuff left but in the next couple of weeks he will be living 52 miles from us.  I am proud of him but so very sad to see him go.  Our baby!

4. We are having dual home inspections today on both properties!  Hope neither inspection turns up any issues. 

 Such a sad time but also an exciting time.

Home for Sale update

We currently have three offers on Grouch estates!  Our agent is going to call us tonight from his poker game to tell us if offer #3 is the winner.   Stay tuned.

Goodbye "Code Black"

The season finale for "Code Black" was a tear-jerker of the first water.  Both the Missus and I were dabbing our eyes and sniffing as many relationships were healed and the series appeared to be wrapped up and saying goodbye.

We have always enjoyed this show even with the sometimes gross surgical procedures and horrific injuries that the staff of Angels Memorial in Los Angeles contended with every Wednesday night right on our TV screen.

We're happy that the show was able to do a true finale and bring happy closure to the open issues in the lives of the series regulars.

We'll miss you.

Home for sale!

Because our home is now for sale I find myself checking Zillow and Redfin several times a day to see how many 'saves' and 'likes' we've achieved.   I'm excited to see the saves and irritated at the three 'X' we've gotten on Redfin.  The nerve of some people!

The number is still going up which is a good thing and so far we've had 4 agents with clients look at it plus a well attended open house.  Now we need an offer and a contract so we can go back to our usual 'casual' living style!

Leaving the nest

The Missus and I traveled with Young Son to Pasadena this evening to look at an apartment that he is interested in renting before we sell and move to NC.

He was excited about the prospect of having his own place and I am excited for him but sad and a bit apprehensive too.  He's not been on his own before and the task of being a single man in the world is something that he will have to grow into. 

The next hurdle will be figuring out how to get his bedroom furnishings plus the couch, table/chairs, and bookcase that we are passing along to him from her to a second floor apartment with only a tiny elevator to hold the stuff.  Stay tuned for updates!

Moving On

The process to sell Grouch Estates and move east has begun.

The de-cluttering whirlwind hit us on Monday and now the house is about 60% empty.  Stuff has been tossed, donated or moved into storage pending the sale.  The house echos now.  Some of the echos are from our 30 years of memories.  No house besides my childhood home holds as many memories as this place.

Today the pictures were taken for the listing while the cleaning crew was here!  It was quite the dance to coordinate the photographer's efforts with the cleaners.

Tomorrow the carpet cleaner show up as well as the sign for the front yard.

Sunday is the open house and when we visit the potential apartment for Young Son to move to.

It is all almost too much at once.  Poor Kerby the best dog in the world can't understand what is happening to her life.  I think the Missus feels the same.

Guess I better find us a house to move to!

Getting humbled

So, because of my shoulder surgery I have been sidelined from doing the home gardening.  I have always done the grass and bushes at our various homes.

 When I was in high school I had a burgeoning lawn service that I ran for a select group of clients who brought me more business by word of mouth.   I also cut the home grass, attacked the grass and honeysuckle vines on the hill behind the family abode with a sickle, raked the enormous amounts of leaves that the oak and maple trees dropped in the fall and generally made myself useful outside of the house.

I couldn't even escape grass duty when I went off to the Army.  When the Grouch family moved into government housing in Germany I volunteered (because no one else would do it) to cut the grass around our apartment building.

Here at Grouch estate there are slopes around the house to weed-whack, grass to cut and trim and trees to trim too.  I've done it for 30 years here in sunny SoCal.

So anyway, no grass cutting and trimming for me due to my surgery.  Young Son and the Missus have stepped up to cut the grass but they aren't checked out on the weed-whacker so the slopes were getting unruly. 

We're putting the house on the market so I had to sub the work out.  Oliver the gardener showed up  this past Friday when it was literally 117F.  He labored for at least 4 hours and when he was done everything was dress-right-dress, cut, trimmed, edged, and weeded.  I have never in my life done such precise work.  And he raked everything up, filling both of our giant green waste barrels. 

I supplied him with water and the Missus handed over an ice cold Pepsi while he worked.  The heat bothered him not at all.

I am amazed and humbled at the extent of his work and I realize now I have been a gardener poser all of my life.  This seems to be something best left to the professionals.

At least until I get to Grouch estate east and I get to buy and use a riding lawn mower!

Hey, it's me again!

Hi there, Grouch fans!

So I guess it has been awhile since I've checked in. Some things have happened since we last visited with each other:

The Missus and I went on a Caribbean cruise for a week in which we piloted underwater scooters -    the Missus was very brave

             And we visited the only Star Wars themed museum in the Caribbean - on St. Maartin

 I turned 64 in April

 I had rotator cuff surgery on my left (dominate) shoulder so I learned how to do everything with          my right hand.  Thank goodness older son gifted an electric toothbrush to me for this very purpose

  The Missus, Young Son and I spent the weekend in the Danish heritage town of Solvang and ate        scrumptious Danish butter cookies!

https://www.solvangusa.com/

 We started the process to pack up the house and put it on the market July 15.  We'll be moving across the country to North Carolina.

There, now we're caught up!

I fall to pieces...

I just learned that I need rotator cuff surgery on my left shoulder.  I'm left handed of course.  The doc says that there is a six week no moving it at all and then a 4-6 month limited movement recovery time.  I absolutely don't want to do this but the pain is now keeping me awake at night so it appears I have no choice.

The surgery will take place in about a month so I am in a count-down to do the things I like to do and want to do before I am immobilized.  Did I mention no driving for at least some of the time after the surgery?

I feel this will be the times that try men's and women's souls.  I don't do well as a patient and the Missus is good for about 3 days of being a nurse.  After that her first sergeant persona kicks in and she expect the sick, lame, and lazy to get out of bed and get back to work, or else. 

This isn't going to be fun for anyone.

Stay tuned.

Written in concrete

On my walk today with Kerby the wonder dog I noticed someone had written their name and date in the concrete of a driveway, presumably when the concrete was poured.  It was from the 80s. 

I've seen this sort of thing many times over the years in my daily rambles.  In the older sections of Los Angeles I noted where the sidewalk constructors had stamped the company name and date from the 1920s.  In Glendale I saw the same thing from the '30s.  One route that I walked 5 days a week from the train station to my job and back had the outline of baby shoe soles, a name and a date from the mid '80s.  That baby is possibly a father himself by now.  Does he take his child to see his shoe marks that his parent did for him 30 years ago?

The sidewalk not too far from my house used to have the names of two boys and the date of 1971 scratched into the then-wet concrete.  One boy was Lance and the other name escapes me but it seemed so perfect for the era.  In 1971 I was a junior in high school.  What grade was Lance and his pal in?  Where are they now?   Sadly, several years ago the city had to do some work on the that section of the sidewalk and Lance's name was jackhammered out and carted off.  So much for eternal fame.

Somewhere around Grouch estates the Missus inscribed young son's name and date in wet concrete on one of our building projects.  I don't know where it is but when the next owner moves in, will they wonder about his name and date and ask the same questions that I have when I see this sort of thing?  Who was he and where is he now?

Movie review: 'Annahilation'

Young son talked me into seeing the movie "Annihilation" this past Saturday.  I must admit I was cool to the idea of seeing it as I had seen the trailer for it previously and it seemed like the usual monster chase/women in distress/science mumbo-jumbo type of movie.

I was wrong.

The movie is a very thoughtful yet suspenseful movie that will require you to pay attention, connect the dots, and understand why things are happening in the movie.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/annihilation-2018

It has gotten great reviews and has resonated with people who see different meanings in the purpose of the movie.  One blogger feels that it is an analogy for the experience of cancer in people.  Another sees it as a metaphor for emotional depression.

Don't let the trailer fool you - this isn't a monster horror movie (although there are some scary parts) 

I must admit that the main character greatly shocked and disappointed me in a personal choice she made in her life, but that choice was integral to her motivation.  Pay attention - the clues will be there as the movie unrolls.  I missed them until the choice was revealed.

A great movie and one that I will keep in my emotional collection of great flicks.  Go see it.

4 out of 4 stars.

The Mysterious Light

In our bedroom resides a ceiling fan that is a marvel of modern technology.  It has no switch nor pull cord to turn it on and off.  Rather, all functions are controlled through a remote, just like a TV.  This remote does all sort of nifty things such as turning on the light that is in the base of the fan.  That is, we turn on and off the light and use the remote to do so.

At least, that's what we thought until about a month ago when the Missus told me that she was finding that the light was turning itself on around 6:30 in the morning about 2-3 times a week.  Then it stopped.  Then it started doing it again.  But never on the weekend (thank goodness!).

So, I thought the remote's batteries were getting weak and causing the light to come on (why, who knows?) but no, even with a change of batteries the light still came on randomly during the week, now between 6:10 and 6:30 in the morning.

I finally broke down and called for help.  I spoke to the nice lady at the fan company who reminded me that the remote is, after all, a radio transmitter and the fan is, after all, a radio receiver.  Furthermore, due to the limited frequencies available to such devices it is conceivable that someone else's remote device is triggering our fan's light!

Since this just started in the last couple of months possibly our neighbor installed a similar fan in their house and when they roll out of bed around 6 to 6:30 in the morning and turn on their overhead light, it is turning on ours too!  Why, the nerve of them!

So what's the fix?  Change the frequency settings via the teeny, tiny DIP switches in our remote and fan.  No sweat for the remote because even with my weakening eyes I am able to see those teeny, tiny switches (all four of them) and turn one of them from 'up' to 'down' and presumably change the device frequency.  No problem.

The problem lay with the fan itself.  It is a low clearance model which means it is smack against the ceiling.  The teeny, tiny DIP switches are in a tiny opening that is on top of the fan housing with no way in God's green earth to actually see them!

The fan.  Isn't it lovely?

The solution?  Yankee ingenuity!  The tools?  One each aluminum stepladder (check).  One each stainless dental pick (check).  One each Samsung Galaxy 7 phone with camera (check).  Ok, ready to deploy.

the tiny port to access the teeny, tiny DIP switches.  Notice the ceiling?

Standing on the ladder with my head scraping the popcorn ceiling material off and onto my hair, I positioned the phone over the tiny port for the teeny, tiny DIP switches and used the view on the phone to probe with the dental pick.  Of course the image was reversed so I had to move opposite of what I was seeing on the screen.  Most of the time the image was out of focus but randomly and just for about 5 seconds it would solidify into perfect clarity at which time I carefully positioned the dental pick by a switch - any switch, it didn't matter dagnabbit, and tried to pull it to the down position.  Let me say it was harder than it sounds here, and I think it sounds hard here.

Ultimately I succeeded and after coordinating the remote to the same setting, everything worked!

The true test is if the light comes back on again.  If it does, I'm going next door and telling my neighbor it is his turn to change his DIP switches.  Good luck to him.

Happy 40th!

Happy anniversary today to my love of 40 years.

The Missus followed me across the ocean and then across the country as we made our home in Germany and five states.

She has been my everything and my reason for being for these 40 years. to paraphrase a movie character: "She makes me want to be a better man". I love you so much, dearest!

Lord Huron

Notice how TV shows these days employ songs as part of the show?  I don't mean like as in a musical but as part of the dramatic flow of the show. 

I've listened and liked several songs from various shows and used my mad internet skills to find a website that identifies the songs from the shows.  It is Tunefind.com

All that said, here's my latest find, the group Lord Huron.  Their videos are pretty cool too!

The Corporate world and stress

Regular readers of this blog know that I recently exchanged the life of a wage slave for that of the contentedly temporarily retired. 

The upside of this change has been for my health:  While laboring as the before mentioned wage slave my blood pressure was regularly in the 135/90 range and that is with leading a fairly active life with walking 3 miles a day and eating sort of ok.   Since leaving the daily grind my blood pressure as been in the 120/80 or less  when checked at the doctor's office (I'm doing a lot of catch-up on doctor appointments).  I also lost average weight since stopping work at the stress factory.

Once I knew I was leaving my job I was able to watch and really listen to my colleagues during the boss's staff meetings.  The anxiety in their voices and on their faces was telling.  They too were being squeezed in that stress vise. 

Stress kills and we all need to somehow figure out how to negate the effects of it on our bodies and our lives.

I feel very fortunate to have escaped before it did me in.

Where am I from?

The Missus got each of us the Ancestry.com DNA test for Christmas.  The family story has been that we are German/Irish although my maternal Grandmother's maiden name was Pattison which is an English name.  None the less, here's my DNA readout:

Europe/West (the German part): 37%
Ireland/Scotland/Wales:              35%
Great Britain:                              14%
Scandinavia:                                 9%
Africa, North:                               2%
Everything else
(Spain, Eastern Europe, etc):      the rest

So let's stop for a moment and contemplate the human history that brought this mix to be me.  Sure, we get the German part and the British Isles part, but what's up with the Scandinavian business?  Interesting bit of history there, involving marauding Danish Vikings who terrorized the British Isles for centuries and who colonized parts of Great Britain and intermarried with the locals.  The Vikings were so feared (and very rightly so) that a special prayer was coined just for them: "God save us from the Vikings". 

So there is a good chance that some Viking men hooked up with some women of the Brit isles not all that long ago historically speaking and shoved some of their DNA into my family make up.   I guess I have the Viking DNA to thank for my lifelong desire to explore (but not to conquer) the far reaches of the world.

So, now that the Danes have been handled, what's up with this 2% North Africa strain?  I remember as a kid my uncle announcing quite loudly to a family gathering that my nose was 'Jewish' much to his great amusement.  He was a very loud Irishman and loved to announce things at great volume.  My parents were at a loss to defend my somewhat large and oddly shaped (for the German/Irish family) nose.  Actually my nose may be the only remnant of a North African Berber who found his way into my family tree.  When did this happen and how? 

All in all my DNA results were more interesting than the German/Irish heritage that I expected.  That is of course if they are indeed factual and not spiced up by the boys in the lab to provide an interesting story for me!  If I had the dough, I'd do the test again and see how it comes back the second time around.

Can't wait for the Missus' results!

How did this happen?

Who's watching "Victoria" on PBS Masterpiece theater these days?  Great show, the Missus and I enjoyed season I and we're most of the way through season II.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/shows/victoria/#

A new character was introduced in this season, an elderly woman who is the Duchess of Buccleuch and the Queen's mistress of the robes.  Also a scold and someone who the young queen Victoria finds to be stodgy and grumpy.  As I said, we are enjoying the heck out of the show.

I was watching the credits for the show when I saw that the Duchess of Buccleuch is played by....Diana Rigg!  How can this be?!  Mrs Peel, what happened?

Mrs Peel?

Every teen boy of my era was in love with the kick-ass, sexy, and enigmatic Mrs. Peel from the TV show, the Avengers.  When she moved on from the series we all mourned her absence from prime time TV.

We all age and it is great that Diana Rigg is still working and having fun with her role in Victoria but until now, she was eternally youthful in my mind.  I guess I see my own aging in her.  May she continue to be seen by audiences across the world.  She is still the fearless Mrs. Peel even in her golden years!

Mrs Peel!

We were young once...

Hey there! Anyone still checking Citizen Grouch?

On the off chance that anyone is still regularly checking this site after an absence of about 5 months, I'm back.

There's been a few changes in my life, the biggest being the departure from my job at the trash yard.  February 9th was my last day.  I really couldn't take the absurdly long hours, the 6 day work week, the attempted bullying by my boss (bullying, really?  At my age?) the swarms of rats and flies ( I had rats in the walls and ceiling of my office and flies falling into my open can of diet Pepsi), and the pressure, always the pressure.  So one day I said 'enough'.

 I realized that all of the above kept me from doing many of the things that I like to do, this being one of them.  So now I'm back.

Now the next worry: how to pay the bills without a job....Nah, I'm not going to worry!

Stay tuned for some updates.