New Car

Sometime in August I think it was....I bought a new car. It's a Toyota and it's black. It's also a little used but that's fine with me because I could afford it and I really needed it. 

When I started driving it to work everyone kept asking me how do I like it and some asked me to show it to them. I still remain confused over these reactions to my car. I don't like or dislike the car...it runs fine; it saves me a lot of gas; it frees me to travel more. I have filled a need in my life, nothing more. It's no more impressive than buying a new stove as far as I am concerned. And when people at work want me to show it to them my reaction is to bring them to the closest window, point at all the numerous small compact cars that are in the parking lot and tell them it looks pretty much like any one of those only it's black. 

I'm not trying to be obnoxious, I just don't identify myself with my cars. I eventually will form some kind of affection for the vehicle when I've had it for a long time. I'm assuming it will feel somewhat like a friend some day. However at this point in time I am still very much aware that I was forced to trade down when I bought this car. It doesn't have the ride or the power that my Buick had and that's a pretty noticeable difference. So while I've bought a car that is practical and saves me money, I have had to let go of a car that I had a deep sentimental connection to and that protected my bum from every bump in the road. 

My Dad helped me buy my Buick (pictured above) and at the time I bought this car I had no idea how much my life would change by the time I bought another car. For one thing I had no idea that the car would outlast my Dad and therefore become more important to me than it normally would or should. 

But you can only hang on to things for just so long and no longer. I had to get a newer car because I intend to travel a hell of a lot more than I have been. 

I donated the Buick to a place that sells the cars and uses the money for Veteran services. Dad was a veteran of two wars and a purple heart recipient. I'd like to think that he'd approve of the car going to help veterans. 

Putting The Best Foot Forward

On October 10th I had foot surgery...bunion surgery to be more precise. I don't like that they call it bunion because that sounds like something that grows on the foot and is easily removed. Just lop it off and all is well. Bunion surgery is not really that simple and it's a hell of a lot more painful than I expected too. Bunion surgery usually involves cutting or shaving off whatever bone is sticking out from base of the big toe for starters. I was hoping the bones would just be kind of shoved back where they belong and pegs inserted in strategic areas would hold it in place. I was way off, although I still prefer my surgical ideas over the actual surgery.  With the actual surgery as I said, they cut off the offending protruding bone on the side and then make v-shaped cuts into the bone of the big toe area to insert pegs (2 in my case) into the bone to help keep it in place while it heals. The pegs are made of a very thick cat gut so it dissolves over time. 

That's a very nice incision picture right there by the way....doc said so.  The funny little white lines are bits of string that got caught on the tape when the dressing was removed. 

This is the best picture I could get of the colors that showed up all over my ankle and foot although it doesn't show much. I didn't think to take the picture until a lot of the bruising had gone away.  I don't know how they held my foot still during surgery but when I started to see the amount of bruising and swelling I was getting I started thinking they must have put the foot in some kind of a vice. 

This is another picture that was taken late. It's part of the old bruising I got when I ran over Bell on my scooter. My dogs do NOT get out of the way! I cut right; she cut left; I clipped her and she yelped...while the scooter fell over with me on it and it all was captured in slow motion in my mind. This was my 'good' leg until that day. The other spots that were bruised could not be photographed. 

This is the nifty surgical boot I got right after surgery. Unfortunately I am STILL wearing it. The swelling is way down from what it was and mostly all the bruising is gone now too. However, putting a normal shoe on is still difficult and something I can only do for a little while each day. If I do a lot of walking in a shoe the pain just intensifies to the point of no return so I wear a normal shoe every day for a little while and then after massage and ice I put the surgical boot back on.  I also do range of motion exercises every day. That's a ton of fun too and causes the foot to swell more but it's got to be done. 

This is how my foot looks when it's happy. Covered up to stay warm and not being walked on.....aaaaaahhhhhhh, that's much better!!

A Long Time Ago.....

 When I was still working in Hartford, across the street from my building was a nesting site for Peregrine Falcons. There was a couple of cameras set up to record all nesting attempts; failures and successes. When I discovered the webcam on the internet I would periodically forward the pictures to my co-workers. I think I was more interested in the birds than anyone else. This went on for a few years. I'd check every Spring and then follow the results of the nest via the pictures and the cameras. As you can see these pictures are from 2011 and I believe budget cuts among other things have contributed to the shutting down of the cameras for the last two years. It has been a source of frustration for me to keep looking at the website only to see that there is no camera action going on at all. 

Another thing I never liked to see (but realized it was an unavoidable part of their lives) was the baby birds sitting out in the rain...especially because the rooftop that held the nest would often flood somewhat. Not the best design for a roof I guess but come to think of it that nest is nothing more than a shallow box with mostly rocks in it...how comfortable can that be?

So this was the last successful family of Peregrine Falcons that I was able to get photos of. It was a family of 4 this time. In years previous I rarely saw more than 2 live baby birds. Sometimes they would have more eggs but for various reasons (mostly unknown to me) the babies would not hatch or would not live. Some times the people monitoring the nest would post notes as to what happened to the eggs or the baby birds. Sometimes there were no notes. One year the baby birds were all eaten by another bird of prey and the adult birds didn't stay much longer after that. I was so upset to read that! But the adults did come back again the following year. It is my understanding that they come back every year.  

Knowing that the babies are so vulnerable, I watched almost every day for new still shots and even tuned into the webcams so I could watch the birds live. When I first saw these babies all splayed out like the one in the corner above, I thought he was dead. He wasn't...I think they exhaust themselves moving around and then just lay there until they gain their strength back. 

Then as they got bigger they moved more. Sometimes they would move out of camera range and that may be for days. My heart was in my throat every time I tuned in....thinking someone had died. Then they would pop back up in a picture or suddenly peek into the camera lens and I would take a deep breath and relax once again.  

Mom and Dad would take turns feeding the babies. They are considered to be good parents in the bird community but they never really cut the mustard as far as I was concerned. In a perfect world they would never lose any babies if they were good bird parents. 

But at least they came back faithfully and brought food nearly every time too. 

See....the fella in the corner by himself is fine....just faking it. :)

Mom (or Dad...I can't tell the difference) has brought food. The babies are lining up for a meal. Boy are they getting big! It must be hard to keep them all fed. 

And in this picture if you look around the edges of the rooftop you will notice the babies all standing on the edge looking around. They are HUGE for babies....but still babies none the less. At this stage I imagine they are learning to fly and will be finding their own food soon. Sometimes I'd see the large birds flying around when I went out to catch my bus. I never could tell if it was a parent bird or the babies...they grew so fast. But I also noticed that all the pigeons in the area made themselves scarce when the silhouette of a Peregrine Falcon was in  the air.  

Shovel Head Halloween 2013

Carol was kind enough to bring me out for a little sight-seeing on Halloween. We went to a well known, although new to us, house in Enfield. A side note is that one of the members of the band Shovel Head happens to live at this house. He also made ghoulish replicas of the band members and they were sprinkled through out the lawn display too. This fuzzy fella jumped up and scared the crap out of Carol....I enjoyed seeing that I must say and so did several other people who witnessed it. 

Now I can't say that I know the band members and I've never listened to the band actually either. I will be taking an interest in the band now that I've seen their alter egos.....kind of would like to compare for accuracy if nothing else. 

This fella introduced himself by jumping out and saying boo at Carol too. It's like she had a bulls-eye on her or something but he failed to scare her. His name is AJ and he seemed to be VERY impressed with himself and expected us to be just as impressed with him. Well low and behold he made me aware that I needed a picture of him with his Halloween replica! And me, not being able to say no....really, he wasn't about to hear no, took the lovely photo shown above. 

I have since spoken to a few other people about meeting him and was told they also met him and did not appreciate his love affair with himself either. Ah well...it takes all kinds. 

This guys eyes lit up and he spoke but I couldn't hear what he was saying......probably programmed to tell everyone how awesome AJ is. 

Now this table was interesting...it's hard to see but that's a skull in that container, boiling in some kind of yellow liquid. Very gruesome. 

What would a Halloween house be without some poor soul being electrocuted  all evening? He's gonna have a wicked headache in the morning. 

Another good reason for going to the Halloween house is that instead of taking money for the experience they charge a food donation to be given to one of Enfield's local shelters. They are aiming for 600 lbs but I'm sure they've gone over that amount. I brought a bag of food only because bringing one item felt cheap and then every item I selected really needed something else to 'go with it'. 

Another good point in their favor is that the donation at the Halloween house also served as your payment into a haunted house further down the road. Carol and I stood in line for a little while and after viewing the crowd I started becoming more and more nervous. Too many people running out screaming coupled with standing in line too long made me realize I don't want to get my foot stepped on and I can't take standing for long periods of time yet. Next year we'll go before Halloween...but we'll see it. 

This creature was amazing...not because of what it looked like, we've all seen them before. No, this was amazing because it was floating far above all our heads....way up near the top level of the telephone pole. Now how do you suppose they got that up there??