Occasional Jots and Tittles

Remember how, on I Love Lucy, no matter how simple a task the girls set out to accomplish, it always turned into a huge production that (usually) ended badly?

That’s how I feel about things around my house. Jonathan and I both enjoy projects, and we’re actually getting a lot better about tackling one at a time and finishing them, but still, each one grows and grows until it’s spiraled out of control.

The latest is our back yard and garden, which took a major hit in the freezes of January. Now, I know it got a lot colder in a lot more places, and some of you were buried under feet of snow, but it’s a relative thing. Down here in Baton Rouge, we seldom go below freezing for more than a few hours on one or two nights at the peak of winter. As a result, while plants like banana trees will freeze back and drop their leaves, quite a few of our tropical plants will thrive through the winter. It’s a big help particularly for our wintering hummingbirds, but beyond that, the walls of greenery helped to shield our sitting area in the back yard from the alley behind us, where we park and where neighbors stroll all the time.

Not this year; three nights in a row below 20 degrees and barely going to 32 during the day was enough to freeze back nearly every tropical shrub we had, leaving a mass of black and brown mush drying out and offering no privacy (not that we need much, in the winter, since we’re not outside often). A good many of the plants will come back, but not for a few months. But in a way, that’s good.

Because we’d already lost a huge hackberry tree during Hurricane Gustav in September of 2008, and in the subsequent winter our cherry tree died. We still had one tattered Chinese Tallow tree left, but that tree should never have been planted, and we really wanted it gone, too. So… a month or so ago, we had a tree service take down the dead cherry and the live Tallow. Coupled with the die-off in the beds surrounding them, it gave us a rare opportunity to re-evaluate the layout of the plants. Many of the tropicals had just been shoved into the ground wherever there was a space, with no idea how big some of them would get.

And we wanted some new trees to replace the dead ones, so all in all, it seemed a good time to just rework the plants.

But then… in doing so, we realized it would also be a lot smarter to move the old, original watering system from its “snake through the bed” location and re-route the trunk line along one side of the bed, so that we could easily find it for repairs (and miss it when we dug holes for new plants). Likewise with the low-voltage electrical lines for the outdoor lights, the main line for which also snaked through the beds kind of wherever there was a spot.

And then… looking it over, we realized that we’d only put the pool sand filter and pump for the koi pond where it was because it was the only spot we could fit it around some existing banana trees. It wasn’t the ideal spot – it wasn’t even a good spot – but it was what we had to work with. Finding a better site for the filter and pump now, while everything was dug up made a lot more sense than leaving it where it was.

You can see where this is going. At this point, there’s now hundreds of dollars worth of PVC pipe and fittings, low voltage electrical line (with new fixtures to follow, I’m sure), and even more hundreds of dollars of plants to put in, while the beds are being cleared back to the bare dirt except where established plants may come back. We’re facing at least a couple of LONG weekends busting butt to get the watering system back in, to get the pond filter back online, to get the lights back in place. Not to mention that we so overfilled the two 96 gallon garbage carts provided by the city that the truck wouldn’t take them; we’ll have to remove some of the excess before Tuesday in the hope that it will be deemed “acceptable”. Meanwhile, we’ve got another couple of cartloads (at least) just of branches leaves, and other yard waste – on top of the normal household garbage. And no place to put any of it until the garbage folks take the other loads away.

Still, I have to say when it’s all over, it ought to be worth it. The pump will be completely hidden, we’ll have more room for plants than ever, and perhaps by summer 2011 everything will have grown back big enough to really screen the yard.

It’s two days before Christmas, and this is usually the time of year, rather than Thanksgiving or New Year’s, that I take stock of the year and life. Thanksgiving is really a Yankee holiday, anyway, and New Year’s always has seemed too busy with other things – in recent years, getting ready for the Christmas Bird Count, but even before that, it seemed like something was always going on. But nobody does much in the days leading up to Christmas, anyway (except last minute shopping) so it’s a good time for reflection.

As much as most people I know and I like to complain about this, that, or the other, we are all incredibly lucky and have so much to be grateful for. By a chance of fate, we were all born in the (loosely defined) West, where (compared with where about 75% or so of the world lives) we have unparalleled freedom. Even in a country where several million of us are denied the right to legally marry our partners, we at least don’t have to worry about being taken away in the middle of the night for protesting injustice. Though most of us don’t have every single thing we want, most of do have the things we need – food, clean safe water, shelter, clothing… Some of us may lose our jobs temporarily, but the chances are, in the long haul, we’ll all be fine; millions around the world will never have a job doing more than providing subsistence for themselves and their families.

I grumble sometimes about the quirks Jonathan has, but at the same time I can’t imagine what my life would now be like without him. For every little problem that comes up from a quirk, there are at least a dozen moments of joy that more than compensate.

I have a good circle of friends who enjoy my company and whose company I enjoy as well. Whenever I gripe that I haven’t gotten to see people lately, I need to remember that at the same time there’s nobody (that I know of, at least) who really detests me and I don’t have to watch my back around others.

I have only minor health complaints, none of which seems that serious, and the same is true of everyone in my immediate family – including parents, sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces, and nephews. Having lost a first cousin (just three years older than me) a year ago to a heart condition and an aunt to complications of renal failure, cancer, diabetes, and too many other problems to list, that’s no small feat.

And it’s not that I live a charmed life. As I noted above, most everyone I know has plenty to be grateful for. Christmas is supposed to be about the arrival of hope, but that’s something I have in abundance; it’s still a good time to be reminded of that hope, and all that’s good in our lives, not the petty stuff that we can’t control anyway and usually isn’t worth getting worked up about.

For all my friends out there – not that many of you will find this message, since my blog readership is relatively small – I hope you have as joyous a Christmas holiday as I hope to.

I’d honestly thought finishing the legislative session would have freed me up to have more time for my blog. Instead, it seems like it’s been non-stop one project after another.

First was the anniversary party for my folks, which took us up to July, and I hit the ground running launching our new software company. It’s one of those specialized products that only a handful of companies are likely to need, but for those who do, it could be a no-brainer to buy, so I’ve got my fingers crossed. The preliminary modules and the framework for the system as a whole have been released.

That’s involved Jonathan going to Houston for a week to train staff at one of our first installations, and I’ll probably get to go over there myself soon. Hope to head west from there to pick up some west Texas birds this fall.

Then there was the Feliciana Hummingbird Celebration, at which I’ve helped as a banding assistant for the last four years. Numbers were up this year from last year, though not to what they once were; we banded 18 new birds and had one returnee female from two years ago. It was an interesting turnout and I got to answer a lot of questions for folks. A crew from the Rural Broadcasting Service (which provides regional content to small cable system operators) filmed a piece on the festival, including a nice section on us banding the birds.

I’ve also been mapping out travel plans for the rest of the year. Originally I thought I wouldn’t be able to travel much, but I’ll be making a short trip to San Francisco and the Wine Country with my friend Damon in September. While there I’ll get in a few days of birding with my friend Kevin, and hope to have dinner with the Woofpup boy. Later in November, I’m going back to south Texas with my friends Jeff and Jerry, and my brother-in-law Mark, for some border birding. So vacation is taken care of.

Lastly I’ve actually been using my Facebook page to keep up with what other people are doing, although I haven’t posted much to mine.

I’m done.

Not with the blog, mind you; just with my annual 3 months of grueling work when I actually have to be in the office every day, all day (and well into the evening or night). This year’s legislative session went well enough for us, with few major glitches (a few here and there, but nothing too serious), and a lot of prospects for future growth. Can’t ask for much more than that.

Additionally, my parents’ 50th anniversary has come and gone. My sisters and I started planning a party for them a year ago, and were able to get a good many of our living relatives into town for it. Sadly, four of my father’s six siblings are now deceased, as are all three of my mother’s, so there were few people of their age bracket left. But my dad’s brother and sister (and their spouses) made it, along with a great many nieces, nephews, and cousins.

Given that for several years now, most family gatherings of any size have all been for funerals, it was really nice for this one to be for a happy event. The food was good, the company was fun, everyone liked Jonathan (many of them had never met him before), and my folks really liked the gifts we got them.

The best part for me was that with the session on until two days before the party, I could avoid any major work requirements (other than idea-contributing) until the morning of the event. During which time I pulled off carving a watermelon basket for fruit, making three pasta salads, picking up the main dish chicken, sculpting and decorating a cheese ball, and a handful of other details. It’s great to have a queer in the family when it comes to parties.

Unfortunately for me, this doesn’t mean I can now relax for the next six months. I’ve got to capitalize on those contacts made during session, and I’ve also taken on another software development project that threatens to swallow all my free time for the next month. Can’t complain too much, though, since this one may help Jonathan’s career along a good bit too.

After our little barbecue soiree a few weeks ago, I figured we’d take it easy for a bit, especially since we’d had it primarily to show off the work we’d been doing in the back yard. Today, however, was another “let’s tackle the world” day, with Jonathan first mowing and edging the entire yard (mowing doesn’t take long, but edging is a bitch with all the beds we’ve put in). Then he decided it was time for us to act on his idea for rearranging the living room.

We have a good-sized living room, but it’s hard to arrange. For starters, it’s long and (sort of) narrow, so a full-size couch won’t really fit across the narrow dimension easily. With the couch thus restricted to the longer walls, that means the TV has to go opposite. Which itself is okay (it’s a flat-panel set) but Jonathan has two large speakers for the stereo it’s all hooked into. Make that huge speakers. Giant ones. To be effective, THEY have to be balanced on opposite sides of the TV, preferably far apart. Throw in some other living room pieces, including some bookshelves, and add in the fact that there are four windows, two doorways, a big archway into the dining room, and a wall panel gas heater to work around, and it becomes almost impossible. When you factor in the window unit AC that cools the room…. well, the fact that we came up with any sort of workable arrangement at all speaks well of our three-dimensional space aptitudes.

Did I mention that we undertook this changeover while there were still big totes full of Christmas decorations that needed to be put in the attic? Or that, since we live in the upstairs half of our duplex, we can’t bring stuff out the front door temporarily to make room?

Again – kudos to the boy for figuring out how to make it all work. I added a few details, and verified some measurements, but most of the work was his.

We had a party Sunrday.

It wasn’t to celebrate anything in particular, officially; we’d spent a good part of the weekend finishing adding another bed to the gardens and on the spur of the moment, Jonathan suggested we have a cookout and invite several of our friends, and even a few of our neighbors.

To understand why this was momentous, a little background is necessary – most of which you couldn’t glean from reading my blog, spotty even though it is. Jonathan and I have been partnered for a little more than four years now, and the last year, in particular, has been very tough for him. He’s been profoundly unhappy in general – not grumpy, just increasingly unhappy, manifesting itself in all the classic signs of worsening depression. Work, in particular, has sucked for him – he endured a three-month furlough at his office last year, was brought back primarily because his office knows they can’t function without him, and yet since then has been mostly treated like a red-headed stepchild.

Finally, a little over a month ago, he agreed to see his doctor and seek help. I’ve fought depression at times myself, and always managed to fight my way back to happiness on my own, but even I know that’s (a) not always possible for everyone and (b) a lot more work than it has to be.

Jonathan’s doctor gave him a screening test which showed – no surprise – serious depression and anxiety, and he prescribed some medication for him. It kicked in almost immediately, but after a week or so, it seemed to “plateau” in his system, and it wasn’t helping much any more. I pointed out that he was on the lowest dose of the medication, and perhaps it needed to be adjusted, but when the doctor didn’t return a message left for him with a nurse, Jonathan – again, no surprise – decided he was through dealing with the doctor. He stopped taking the medication altogether.

Luckily (or thanks to divine intervention, or serendipity, or something), he realized that even though the low dose wasn’t helping as much as it did initially, it was obviously still working – because going off made things worse, not better. On the second visit to the doctor to discuss his dosage level, I went with him, and was able to describe the changes I saw in his behavior – and the doctor agreed immediately that a higher dose was probably necessary. (In further discussions, he also (praise the Lord) agreed with me that if Jonathan improved his diet from the junk-food-dominated meals he was having, his body would feel better, and he’d feel better about it – something I’d been telling him for years but which he ignored.

He even agreed with me that Jonathan’s irregular sleep schedule – napping from the time he gets home after work until mid-evening, staying up till past midnight, then trying to sleep again until 5:30 AM for work – was not conducive to good health, physical or mental. And it’s funny, but when your doctor tells you the exact same things your partner’s been saying, and all of a sudden you listen…

No matter. I don’t need the recognition, really; the important thing is, Jonathan listened, and he takes his doctor’s advice. That was Thursday. So two new prescriptions later (one for a higher dose of his antidepressant/antianxiety medication, the other to help him sleep at a normal hour), Jonathan’s already almost a changed person again with a new lease on life.

So, the suggestion for a party was a sign, to me, of just how far he’s come. Two months ago, if I’d suggested having people over, the idea would have been met with an almost sullen, “I don’t wanna”, “please don’t make me endure that” attitude. Now, he’s suggesting it himself. This, in short, is the man I fell in love with.

What a wonderful way to begin Spring.

We haven’t eaten out in a long while, for a number of reasons – chief among them that Jonathan has mostly wanted to hibernate at home lately. But he felt more outgoing this evening so we went out to eat. Since I’ve eaten out on my own a bit lately or with friends, I let him pick, so we ended up at Macaroni Grill – which, by all rights, shouldn’t be a bad compromise between my preference for local eateries with distinctive cuisine and his hankering for predictability.

But this is Macaroni Grill we’re talking about, and it’s often a comedy of errors to eat there. Tonight was no exception. We’re seated, our waiter writes his name upside down on the paper on the table, and takes our drink orders. He returns with the drinks and takes the meal orders – we each get a “Trio”, which includes a salad, a slightly smaller portion of one of several entrees, and a dessert.

We then watch as others are seated and their waiters (including, sometimes, ours) bring them the standard bread and olive oil. When our waiter returned to refill my drink, I asked about the bread. He surveyed the table and for a moment gave us that “OK, did you eat the plates as well as the bread?” look before realizing I meant we hadn’t gotten any yet. He apologized, took my glass, and said he’d be right back with it.

30 seconds later, he’s back with the bread, but no drink. Next pass by the table, Jonathan asked him about my drink. He looked at me, snapped his fingers, and went back to get it.

About five minutes later, he comes out with two steaming hot plates of food. What he put in front of me was clearly meant for Jonathan, so he swapped the plates, and left. After about three bites, Jonathan commented, “You know, this is the strangest tasting salad…” Yep, he’d forgotten the salads. And the plates looked suspiciously large. And mine, while tasty, was awfully spicy for the fettucine alfredo I’d ordered — and I’d never known that recipe to use sun-dried tomatoes. Not to mention that mine had big penne pasta in it instead of flat noodles.

We stopped the waiter again, and asked if there was an issue with the salads. He gets that familiar “oh shit” look on his face we’ve come to recognize, and we pointed out that we think our plates are probably the full entree size, not the “Trio” reduced size. He agreed. Then as I was pointing down at my plate, he said “And I think you have the wrong dish, that’s Penne Rusticana and not Fettucini Alfredo.”

By this point, we were almost laughing at him, because he was clearly flustered (he later mentioned he’d been working since early that morning and he was a little spacey). But the bigger dishes of food, as far as we were concerned, outweighed the lack of salads, and I was just as happy with what I got as what I’d ordered. So we told him to just leave it all, and we would be happy with it.

A few moments later, we overheard a waiter at another table nearby, who’d brought out four of five entrees for that group, tell the fifth person “Your Penne Rusticana should be out in just a moment. It takes a little longer to fix than the other dishes.” Nice cover, but bullshit, I’m sure that I got her dish when our waiter grabbed the wrong one.

Still, we got our desserts, and considering the entrees we did get should have cost more than the Trios we ordered, we came out considerably ahead. But as I tell people, you never know what your’e going to get when you order there.

Once, a group of eight of us went there for my birthday. The waiter brought out the food – seven entrees. He served them around, disappeared for about five minutes, and then came back to see “if we needed anything else.” I raised my hand, pointed at the empty table in front of me, and said “Yes, food.” That dreaded “oh shit” look came over him, he scurried to the computer, and realized he hadn’t put my order in. They hurriedly worked up mine, which was marginal being rushed, and then had the gall to charge full price for it.

This time, at least, our waiter was apologetic at every step, and I know what it’s like to work when you’re exhausted. And as I said, we came out ahead, with more food and less salad, plus (essentially) free desserts, so we gave him my usual full tip.

(with apologies to Norma Desmond)

Christmas, and the post-Christmas weeks, were incredibly busy this year, so apologies to my hordes of fans (all three or four of you) for the lack of updates recently.

Jonathan outdid himself again this year with the Christmas lights.

We spent most of the Christmas week driving back and forth to my sister’s and my parents’ houses, for one event after another. Between the driving and the overflow of children (whom I love, but really….), and the time demands, we’ve already decided to cut back on family events for next year.

In the midst of all that, I did two Christmas Bird Counts this year. I’m the compiler for the count in Baton Rouge, which is usually a well-attended but not particularly exciting count. However, this year, I found an Ash-throated Flycatcher, which was only the second of this species ever recorded on our count (another party had the third, in another section of our circle). Unfortunately, no pictures of this bird yet.

Jonathan is now off at MAL, assisting good friends at their vendor booth this year. I’m sitting here freezing, as Baton Rouge has finally had a couple of sub-freezing nights, which have largely frozen back most of the hummingbird plants. However, that’s driven what may be a new hummingbird to the feeders; I say “may” because she (a female Rufous Hummingbird) appears to be banded, and there’s a chance that she’s the bird I’ve had since Election Day, but having lost her color mark. Or she could be a returnee from some other point in the past. We won’t know unless we recapture her to check her band number.

After some minor traffic issues leaving Baton Rouge today, two friends and I headed down to Alliance to chase after a Fork-tailed Flycatcher that had been reported last weekend. Once we found the correct spot, we had no trouble locating the bird and got great looks at it for almost an hour (although it stayed out of camera range for me). While looking for the Fork-tail I also picked up Western Kingbird, making those birds 292 and 293 on my ever-so-slowly growing life list.

Otherwise, my back is completely screwed up; I slept in an odd position last night and woke up with it already messed up, and then a couple of hours in the car each direction finished the job. Thankfully Jonathan had some painkillers left over from something because when I got home I had trouble moving at all. Hopefully tonight will be better – I’m kicking the cats out of the room so I can sleep in a straight line in the bed.

The birthday’s over (43, in case anyone’s wondering) and it was nice, mostly quiet. As usual, there was a considerable clusterfuck about birthday meal(s)–it wouldn’t be my birthday without one. In this case, I was supposed to have a seafood lunch with my parents on Monday when I got in at the airport, but they had to skedaddle back home for a funeral, so that was postponed. Jonathan was going to take me to dinner on my actual birthday (Wednesday), but he had to swap his Wednesday off for Thursday.

So… the parents decided to take me out on Wednesday night instead, and Jonathan was going to take me to lunch today. Then his work called right at noon, and insisted he come in to drop something off right then–which took up basically the entire lunch period at all the places we’d talked about going. So post-birthday lunch today was Subway. Meatball Mariana. Yay.

Last night’s dinner, however, was at Fleming’s, a prissy steakhouse chain. I will say right off the top, the food was excellent, and the service was generally very good. A few things I’d have pointed out to the waitress about reaching across people’s dinner plates to reach the inside glasses, but still nothing to really complain about.

But still. $185 for three people? with no wine or liquor bill? in Baton Rouge? I’m aghast. It’s true, we ate well, the food was good, I even had enough left over to bring home for a quick lunch later, but… I’ve eaten food almost as good, and pretty much as well served, for more like $25 a head. That final 5% of food quality improvement shouldn’t have more than doubled the cost. And for $185, again, the waitress’s sleeve shouldn’t be dragging across a plate to reach another person’s glass.
Of course, I suppose we were paying for the prissy atmosphere. I keep using that word, because I can’t think of a better one. Fleming’s obviously aims to be a cut (okay, two cuts) above the noisy, active, “bar-centric” sort of Outback/Lone Star/Longhorn steak house. No peanut shells on the floor, for one thing. Tablecloths. You know the drill. But there are so many hard surfaces (dark wood walls, hard floors in some spots), and with the kitchen not completely and thoroughly closed away, there’s still a very perceptible level of background noise. If I’m paying $60 a plate for dinner, I expect enough quiet that I can hear a harpist playing across the room (which, of course, there wasn’t).

I’m going to start back the Top 10 list with a list of Top 10 restaurants I like, here in Baton Rouge or in New Orleans. I’ll probably follow it up with a Top 10 list of places to avoid (with reasons, in case they’re things you don’t mind).