Category Archives: Personal

L.Z.S.P.

07 Monday May 2018

Posted by in Anxiety, Audiobooks, Zelda

≈ 12 Comments

dog picture

On Thursday, I got nothing done. Zelda had a vet appointment at 4PM and I spent the day trying to drown my worry in puttering. Laundry, re-organzing cupboards, washing dishes, wiping down the floor, folding clothes in different ways… Eventually, we made it to the vet, who ruled out a urinary tract infection or kidney problems. That left, as I had suspected, hormone-related urinary incontinence.

Or dementia.

Don’t ever google canine dementia.

It’s not something you want to know anything about if you love a dog, not unless you’re forced to.

Zelda started the incontinence medication on Friday morning. It takes between 5-10 days to take effect, so the fact that she’s peed in the van multiple times since then does not mean that she’s got dementia, not yet. But the incontinence really is getting dramatically worse — she went from an unexpected accident inside in February to peeing on my bed on April 13th, to doing it again a week later, then three times within a week, then yesterday three times within the day.

I am… well, somewhat distraught, actually. It’s not just the peeing, although that’s obviously uncool. Yesterday she managed to pee on two fitted sheets, two pillowcases, and a top sheet! Plus the floor, plus a rug, or maybe two rugs. Fortunately, I’m parked in a friend’s driveway, so there was a washing machine nearby.

But she’s also not eating well, she’s doing weird things like burying bits of food around the van (so not okay), she’s sleeping on the floor instead of my bed, and, of course, every odd thing she does now looks like a symptom of dementia to me.

I don’t think I could possibly be living a worse lifestyle for a dog with dementia. And my vague thoughts of settling down by renting a room from someone are obviously impossible with an incontinent dog — I can’t imagine how stressed out I would be, if I was that tenant.

After I lost B, I realized I needed to develop a Zelda Loss Survival Plan. I can’t remember if I wrote about it, but I really did take it seriously. I knew that if losing B was bad, losing Z was going to be… well.

Anyway, I was walking her this morning and realized that the fundamental problem with my ZLSP is that it also needs to be a LZSP — a Losing Zelda Survival Plan. If her loss isn’t a lightning bolt, but a long, slow nightmare that includes the possibility of her no longer recognizing me, no longer knowing who I am, becoming aggressive… yeah, I need a different plan.

I have no idea what that plan looks like, but it probably starts with taking one minute at a time. And in this minute, it’s a lovely day in Florida. It’s probably going to get too hot, as always, but my window is open, I’m listening to clucking chickens from the neighbor’s house and chirping birds, and there’s a cool breeze.

I haven’t managed to get any writing done at all in the last week — haven’t even tried! — but I am working on a project that I should finish my part of today, and then I’ll try to get back to Grace. And the project that I’m working on — well, maybe I should save the details for another blog post. But for me it involves listening, not writing, so it’s a novel experience. WordPress just tried to change “novel” into “lovely” and I wouldn’t describe it that way — I actually find it sort of uncomfortable and torturous — but I think the end result is going to be excellent. And in the moment, it’s a really good distraction from worry. Perhaps my LZSP should include immense focus on work?

Just a cold, really

23 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by in Boring, Personal, Vanlife

≈ 4 Comments

On Saturday, I texted my friend L and said, “This illness has moved incredibly quickly from ‘maybe I’m sick,’ to ‘Death is inevitable and I can only hope it comes quickly.'”

Yesterday, R called. I said, “Hello,” and he said, “Oh, you don’t sound good.” I said, “Yeah, I thought about calling you earlier, but all I really have to say is ‘whine, whine, whine.’ And now I’m done. How are you?”

So yeah. Whine, whine, whine. Being sick in a van sucks and I would truly like… oh, a real bed, a hot bath, some good drugs — Dayquil would be nice — and another box or two of tissues. And some chicken soup. And Zelda would very much like someone to take her for a walk.

It is oddly peaceful, though. In a house, when I’m sick, I’m always in search of something to help me feel better. The hot bath or a more comfortable pillow, a distraction or a drink. I turn on the television, turn it off again. Pick up a book, put it down again. Walk to the kitchen, go back to the bedroom. Try out the couch for a while, then move to the recliner. It’s a fretful search for comfort. In the van, there’s nothing I can do, except stare out the window and wait to feel better.

So that’s what I’m doing. Waiting to feel better. Fingers crossed that it’s sooner rather than later.

The wisdom of a feather

29 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in Campground, Randomness, Serenity, Zelda

≈ 5 Comments

I started counting the number of birds I could see from my window — like, right outside the window, fifteen feet away — and then something startled them and they swooped away and I realized that all the things I thought were dark leaves on the ground were actually small birds. I’m going to say — 200? 300? Not a countable number, that’s for sure. Sadly, they’ve now all moved on, but that’s probably a good thing for my productivity, since I find watching a flock of birds to be surprisingly compelling.

The last time I was in Arkansas, I got the very last space at an absolutely packed campground, Lake Catherine State Park. It was lovely, but it was spring break and it was crowded. Since this is Easter weekend, I decided that this time I’d be a little more proactive and I made a reservation at Lake Chicot State Park for five nights, taking me safely through Easter.

Ha.

I’m going to say that last year, lots of Arkansians looked at the weather, decided it was a glorious time to go camping, and headed for the park. It was a glorious time to go camping. This year, those same Arkansians looked at the weather and decided it was a fine time to hunker down in their houses. It so is.

The campground is pretty close to deserted and also pretty close to drowned. The puddles are like lakes. The lake is not overflowing its banks, fortunately, but there are a lot of semi-underwater trees. Even Zelda, who doesn’t usually mind getting wet, stood at the open door of the van this morning and then decided against her walk.

Fortunately, my deserted rainy underwater campground is also very green and pretty. Loads of trees, all in early-spring mode instead of tail-end of winter mode. Light green leaves and life bursting out all over the place. So I’m not finding it spooky, I’m finding it charming. I’m helped just a little in this by the fact that I checked out the bathrooms this morning and they are terrific. I might have to take a shower every day just because the bathrooms are so clean and nice and new.

I’m slightly less enthusiastic about the fact that even though I paid for a full hook-up site — not a thing I do very often, so in the nature of a pleasant luxury for a holiday weekend — the separate pieces (water, electric, sewer) are positioned poorly for Serenity. Technically I have all three, but I have to choose which one I want to be connected to at any given moment. My hose isn’t long enough to reach from the water outlet to the van intake while the power is plugged into both the van and the power outlet, and ditto the sewer. So it goes, I guess. At least I have access to all three if I need them.

And I’m feeling pretty fortunate on at least one of those three. When I got here yesterday, I couldn’t get the electricity to work. I called the campground host, who sent someone down to take a look, but it was raining and he couldn’t figure it out. They moved me to a different site, and then a third site, so it started to look like the problem was Serenity, not the campground. I was not so happy. I can live without power for a while if I have propane, but because I expected to have power, I hadn’t refilled the propane tank. Frustration!

And then, for no reason I could see, the electricity started working. Based on the symptoms, the smart people in the Travato Owners FB group suspect that I might have a problem with my Automatic Transfer Switch — maybe a loose connection? — but it’s working now, so I’m just counting my blessings and hoping for the best.

blue jay and cardinal feathers

Speaking of blessings, did you know that it is illegal to own most bird feathers? It still feels magical to find them, though, especially when they are truly beautiful. It would never have occurred to me that picking up a feather could be a crime, but after I’d picked up the above, I was remembering the park ethos — take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints — and so I left them behind. Well, first I googled to find out whether something in nature would use leftover bird feathers — was I leaving them behind to simply decay and rot? — and that’s how I found out that feather possession is a crime. They probably will simply decay and rot, but I’m glad I got to appreciate them first.

Along the way, I stumbled across all the many spiritual meanings of blue jay feathers. I suspect the spiritual meaning of feathers is sort of a choose-your-own adventure spirituality, because wow, people sure have found a lot of deep significance in some poor bird having a misadventure. But I was pretty amused by one site that told me the meaning was to “Choose a couple of the many projects on your plate and complete them.” How perfect is that?

Time to listen to the wisdom of the feather!

Being angry

17 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by in Personal, Zelda

≈ 14 Comments

I expressed my anger today. I was surprised at myself — I am someone who rarely admits to being angry, even when I am. I try to talk myself out of it, I tell myself it’s not justified, I look for the other person’s point-of-view… but this time, I was just too pissed off to not say something. I suppose that might be because it was on my son’s behalf, not my own, but still, it was unusual for me.

A few years ago, I did some intense therapy workshops where we did “anger exercises.” I was not good at them. Like, seriously, terrible. I mostly just cried. Completely incapable of defending myself with anger, even when it was justified. And even with this — I’m so angry that my hands are shaking, but I also feel like, oh, I shouldn’t have said anything, I should be more understanding, blah-blah-blah. But I think the therapist at my anger workshop would probably be patting me on the back and saying “good job.” Since she’s not here, I will do it myself. Good job, me!

The details: his paternal grandmother died this week. They were close; he’d spent a lot of time visiting her one-on-one. I would say that she was the grandparent that he knew best and certainly the one that he spent the most time with. His father and uncles scheduled her memorial service for two months away — on the weekend of his college graduation! This is a kid who was diagnosed as profoundly learning disabled at 8, who was maybe never going to learn to read because his disability was so severe. His college graduation is an achievement, a triumph. And they care so little about it, about him, that they plan her memorial service for the same time. Yeah, I’m angry.

When I started to write this post, I was actually going to write about how the nature noises of my campground — many nature noises! — have changed to neighbor noises with the weekend. Loads of people on spring breaks, I think. Lots and lots of little kids. I liked the nature noises, but I like watching all the kids on their bikes, too. This morning, when I took Zelda out for her walk, it was also the time when moms of toddlers take the toddlers out so everyone else can get some sleep. Toddlers can have southern accents. That should have been obvious, but wow, a toddler with a southern accent is adorable.

I’d intended to go for a good walk. I brought the camera and even the water bottle for the dog, so that we could hike for miles. But Zelda refused. It was both funny and charming. She sat down, head cocked, ears up, indicating quite clearly that she was not walking the way I was headed. I think the boardwalk probably has fewer interesting smells for her, since it’s above the wetlands and less used, but she was determined that what we were doing instead was wandering around the campground and letting her smell every interesting post. There are many posts. It was a slow walk. Not at all what I’d had in mind, but the toddlers made up for it.

The first day…

05 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by in Depression, Grief, Personal

≈ 6 Comments

I’ve been joking with two different friends about every day being New Year’s Day. It’s not just that all my resolutions have gone nowhere — did I even make any resolutions? — it’s that 2018 is slipping away while I feel increasingly stuck, grinding my gears deeper and deeper into the mud.

The mud is obviously metaphoric, but I’m not even sure what it is. Depression? Maybe. Grief, sure. Lack of productivity leading to self-loathing leading to inertia leading to the dirty dishes piling up in the sink and a blue hair tie sitting in the middle of the floor day after day after day. Why don’t I just pick up the damn blue hair tie? I don’t know. It seems like too much work? It’s an interesting dash of color in the gray? It reminds me that I should brush my hair? Not that I do, I just think, “hmm, maybe I should brush my hair” and then I start browsing the internet again.

Today I picked up the blue hair tie. And I washed the dishes and put them away. And it’s a Monday and I’m going back to blogging on Monday and Thursday, regardless if I think I have anything to say, because it was good for me to have that structure in my life.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life, cliche as that statement is, and if it was the last day… well, I would want to know that I’d used it wisely. Which means not browsing the internet for hours, not reading books that I don’t care about, not playing mindless internet games, but yes, taking good walks with Zelda, yes, eating healthy food, and yes, writing some of my own words. And yes, making sure that my tiny house is comfortable and cozy and clean.

Time to get started.

sunrise through the trees at Lake Catherine, Arkansas

Sunrise through the trees, from March of 2017. It’s a metaphor, I suppose.

I would rather not

17 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by in Bartleby, Personal

≈ 6 Comments

About eighteen or nineteen years ago, the director of Rory’s preschool caught me on the day they distributed school pictures, and as I opened the envelope, said, sort of apologetically, a little anxiously, “I hope you don’t mind his picture, it’s sort of… well, it’s not really… we usually try… but…”

And I interrupted her with my mouth dropping open, clutching the photos to my chest, and saying, “Oh, it’s so him! I love it!” He looked both disheveled and mildly exasperated, with his hand against his head, like he was just about to roll his eyes and tell the photographer what he thought about the whole business.

Oh, I bet I have the picture on my computer. Yep, it was this one:

It was so him. And the director knew it, too, so she gave me a big smile and we admired it together and discussed what a fantastic photo it was and also probably a little of what a fantastic kid he was, because that was one of our favorite topics of discussion. Well, one of my favorite topics of discussion, and she was usually willing to join in.

I was reminded of this story today, because I picked up B’s ashes, and… well, some background first.

When B showed up in my backyard, I called him Mystery Dog. For a while, it looked like that would become his name but it never felt quite right. My nephew suggested Bartlebee, after a character in a book he was reading, which in turn reminded me of a Melville short story, “Bartleby the Scrivener.”

I didn’t remember the story all that well, but I knew the character came and stayed. And that he had a line, his response to all requests, which I thought was, “I would rather not.” (It’s actually “I would prefer not to” but I’ve had it wrong all along.) Mystery Dog promptly became Bartleby. It fit so well. When B was dying, the vet asked about his name and I told her that story. And, of course, she also heard everything else I said to him as he was going. So I hope she knew how much I would love this:

photo of box of ashes with engraved plate that says "I would rather not"

“I would rather not”

When I saw it, I burst into tears. But they weren’t bad tears, and I will treasure it. Not the ashes, which I will scatter somewhere appropriate, because carrying ashes around indefinitely feels unhealthily obsessive to me, but definitely the box and always the reminder.

Life without B… well, I’m getting used to it. Slowly. It’s strange to discover how much he dictated our schedule and routine. More than once, I’ve forgotten to feed Z her dinner until quite late, because she doesn’t remind me. B usually spent the half hour from 5 to 5:30 staring at me intently, trying to psychically convey how nice it would be if I got up and got him his dinner right away. He was a very precise timekeeper in general. At 11, it was time to be outside. At 3:30, time for a chicken strip. And he needed to be lifted on and off the bed, so was often my motivation for getting up and moving. Without him… well, my life is easier, I suppose, but so much emptier. He was a very big presence for such a little dog.

In other news, I’m still hanging out in Florida. I’m caught in what a friend described as a medical escalator, where one thing leads to another thing leads to another thing. At this point, I am very much hoping that the last step on the escalator will be a doctor’s appointment in early March. Google actually managed to reassure me today, when I finally gave in to the impulse to do some research, so that was nice. Doesn’t usually work that way!

And I am definitely counting my blessings. Yesterday I sat in a waiting room with my dad for an almost absurdly long time — I think he probably wound up in there for about four hours. And the television was playing infomercials! Hell. Except a young couple in the waiting room had time pressures. And also, they were young, which, in context, probably meant they were not there for routine care. And, of course, when a doctor is running hours behind schedule for a minor procedure, it’s probably because someone else’s minor procedure has turned major. All in all, it reminded me of how very lucky I am, to be reasonably healthy, to have such a flexible life, to have people who love me taking care of me.

Bartleby

06 Tuesday Feb 2018

Posted by in Bartleby, Grief

≈ 10 Comments

I hate the euphemisms — put down, put to sleep, even euthanize. The reality was, I would have stayed forever with his warm head cuddled against my shoulder, stroking his soft fur, whispering love into his goofy ears. But he was slowly suffocating, fighting the fluid that was filling his lungs and heart, and I couldn’t bring myself to be so cruel. So I let him go. Helped him go.

When the vet was injecting him with the sedative, I was stroking him and telling him what a good dog he was and then I stopped myself and I told him the truth. “Actually, B,” I said, “You peed in places you shouldn’t, and sometimes you snapped and snarled at people, and you were very stubborn about refusing to learn any commands, even the easy ones. So I’m not sure I can say you were a good dog exactly. But you were very good at loving me.” I think that’s probably the only skill a good dog really needs.

Today is the sixth anniversary of my friend Michelle’s death. As his gasping breaths finally slowed down, I told him to find Michelle and take her to a beach. I would like to think that they are there right now, and that B’s knees don’t hurt and he doesn’t get tired after three minutes of running and he isn’t scared to play with toys and sticks. And if he wants to go swimming, that she has a warm towel waiting for him.

I will miss him so. I already do.

The beginning of a roll in the sand…

Radio Silence

21 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by in Books, Personal, Reviews, Vanlife

≈ 8 Comments

This is the longest I’ve gone without posting to my blog in at least two years. I’m hitting the point where staying silent is easier than breaking my silence, which is sort of silly. I have no real reason for not posting, I just decided to give myself a break. And continuing my break is easier than connecting my phone and looking at the pictures I’ve taken or thinking about what I had to share.

Realistically, too, it’s been sort of a boring couple of weeks. Not uneventful, but the events have been things like taking Serenity in for service and discovering that she had a leak in the transmission; taking the dogs to the vet and finding out that yes, B is dying, and yes, said death is getting closer every day; taking myself to the dentist and getting a cap replaced. (Was it a cap or a crown, I wonder? I don’t actually know the difference.)

Not exactly the most scintillating or joyful of events, none of them, although the first was fixed under warranty, the second was not a surprise, and the third is actually kind of a relief. The cap (or crown) was loose on a front tooth and I was getting tired of feeling like a six-year-old, poking it with my tongue and wondering when it would fall out.

On the other hand, I also had a lovely dinner with my brother, dad and stepmom in Sarasota; went to the Ringling Museum for the first time; enjoyed dinner and writing time with some of my local writing friends; cooked sous vide honey mustard chicken and quinoa for some other friends; and worked on my writing, my taxes, and some book translations.

Life, in other words, has been happening. Some good, some bad, some fun, some sad. And that was an entirely unintentional Dr. Seuss imitation. I haven’t started writing with long streams of semi-colons mixed with sentence fragments in my fiction, just in case you’re worried about this trend!

Actually, probably the most interesting thing that has been going on — at least to me — is that I’m re-working how I use the space in the van. Shortly after New Year’s, I got myself a queen-size memory foam mattress topper. I’d hit the point where I felt like I had to do something about how horribly I was sleeping, and the something was not going to be using sleeping pills. I’ve spent the days since experimenting with how to most conveniently fit it into my limited space and the answer is, it doesn’t conveniently fit into my limited space. Period.

On the other hand, I’ve actually slept several hours in a row since it entered my life and so it is staying in my life. But my “office” and my “bed” — aka the positions in which I sat when I was writing/not writing — just don’t work the same way. You’d think that it wouldn’t be a big deal to just sit in a different way/place, but in fact, figuring out how to get comfortable writing with an unwieldy memory foam mattress topper taking up a ton of room has been difficult. Figuring out how to snuggle down into reading comfort has been much easier.

As a result, in the past ten days, I’ve read:

The Dark Days Club (A Lady Helen Novel) – Slow going and not one where I have any interest in reading the sequels, even though the story felt like set-up for the series more than it did a stand-alone.

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are – Interesting reading, although I suspect it would have been far more useful for me about ten years ago. Still, I do still struggle with perfectionism, so I’ll probably be trying to follow some of her advice.

Shatter Me – Not for me, but it had a great cover.

Ink and Bone (The Great Library) – Pulled me in, didn’t let me go. The moment I finished, I went looking for the sequels. I’m on the library waitlist for both of them. I thought at first it was going to be a Harry Potter knock-off, but a) I have no real objection to that, as long as it’s done well, and b) I was totally wrong, with the exception of the characters meeting in a school-type setting. Totally wrong. If you like fantasy, this one is engrossing, interesting, suspenseful, and maybe a little on the dark side, in a late Harry Potter kind of way.

Steel’s Edge (The Edge, Book 4) Also read Fate’s Edge, which means I have now officially read everything Ilona Andrews has published. These two aren’t my favorites (I like the Innkeeper series best, I think) but I enjoyed them while reading. And the fact that I’ve read all of the authors’ books — four or five series, at least twenty books — says something.

Neogenesis (Liaden Universe®) – The classic example, for me, of a series that I keep reading because I know the characters too well to stop. If you haven’t read the first 20-some books in the series, you definitely don’t want to start here. If you have read the first 20-some books, you’re probably wondering why nothing much ever seems to happen in these books anymore, even in the one where huge ongoing plot threads get tied up. Or at least I was.

Wild Horses – Modern Dick Francis but also classic Dick Francis. I’m not sure how I missed reading it when it first came out, but I enjoyed it.

I feel like I’m missing something in this list, but if I can’t remember it, it probably isn’t worth recommending. Not that I’m recommending all of these! But if you need something to read, Ink and Bone (The Great Library) is worth a try. If you’re not caught by the end of the first chapter, in which a truly grievous crime is committed, I’ll be surprised. Well, not if you’re not a fantasy reader. But if you liked Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, Ink and Bones is worth adding to your TBR pile.

And now I think I’ll get back to my TBW pile (To Be Written). It gets longer all the time, but I am definitely writing! In between reading, anyway.

A new year begins…

03 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Personal, Randomness, Vanlife

≈ 7 Comments

Sunflower honey from the Ukraine

Sunflower honey from the Ukraine

Today’s honey was sunflower honey from the Ukraine. I wasn’t sure about it on my first taste — it was definitely less sweet than the clover honey I’ve been eating — but I was sold by the end of my oatmeal.

In my head, before I took this picture and realized what the real name was, I was calling it “sunshine honey.” And it’s a good day for sunshine honey, because, wow, it is cold and gray and wet and bleak outside.

I love the sound of rain on the roof of the van, but taking the dogs for their walks in cold, gray drizzle and returning to the van means wet clothes, wet jackets, wet towels everywhere. The van isn’t big enough for rainy days. And it’s actually cold enough today that I’ve closed off the cab and the bathroom to try to keep it warmer, making it feel even smaller.

An interesting irony: tea is an obvious pleasure of a cold, rainy day. Mmm, nice warm beverage to cuddle between my hands. But I usually heat water on the propane burner and I don’t use the propane without opening up the overhead vent and running the fan. Today is not the day for that. I don’t actually know what the risk is — explosion? carbon monoxide poisoning? — but I take my warning labels seriously. Fortunately, I have an induction cooktop and electricity, so tea remains an option.

I’m currently at Lake Griffin State Park, in central Florida. I’ve stayed here before, so don’t have a lot to say about it — it’s a small park, but cozy and pleasant. The sites feel more cramped and close together than the average Florida park, but there’s loads of greenery. My view right now is all palmettos, although if I turn my head, I can also see the trailer in the site next to mine. If the weather was nicer, I could rent a kayak and go out on the river for a while, which would be lovely but is totally not going to happen today. I’m not adding any more wet clothes to the pile already slowly steaming up the front.

Some of the RV blogs that I read have done end of 2017, beginning of 2018 posts: miles traveled, places stayed, money spent. Plus plans for the new year. I’m not going to do that, except to say that I came pretty close to 20,000 miles in 2017. I think I drove through 38 states, and I know I visited four different coasts — Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf, and Caribbean. Can I count the Caribbean as a coast? I think so.

As for my plans for 2018 — I’m going to watch my son graduate from college in May. I’m going to celebrate my stepmom’s birthday sometime around July, somewhere unknown, but maybe Ohio. And I’m going to write a lot of words. Apart from that, I honestly have no idea what I’m going to do or where I’m going to go. Adventures await!

Early morning surprise

22 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in Personal, Randomness

≈ 1 Comment

R’s neighborhood in Sarasota is an interesting mix of small houses; some run-down and worn, some polished and sterile, others quirky and whimsical and obviously loved. I’d guess much of the first are student housing while much of the second are vacation rentals. The third category is the best, of course. Lots of interesting artwork and sculptures. Maybe someday this week I’ll do an art walk and bring my camera, so I can post pictures. The neighbors across the street have a big purple sculpture in their yard; down the street, people have old records lining their fence; today I passed a house with about eight different pieces of artwork in the yard. Even the Christmas decorations are interesting — fewer of the inflatables that are so popular in other places, and more ornaments dangling from pine trees or along roof lines.

This morning’s walk was my favorite, though. I wandered down a road where the yards changed from bedraggled grass and gravel to rain forests of ferns and palm trees. At the end of the road, a small sign said something like, “John Smith Memorial Nature Walk.” And at the end of the nature walk…

sunrise on the ocean

It was a total surprise. Ocean! So close, so beautiful.

It was a lovely way to start the day.

Less lovely, I’ve got no electric hookup in R’s driveway (there’s no outlet within reach), so yesterday I took my coffee maker inside to make coffee. I left it there, assuming I’d do the same thing this morning. Alas, I left the keys inside, so this morning my coffee is on the wrong side of a locked door. I’m very ready for R to wake up!