More and more, we find ourselves putting things down, and later not remembering where we put them. That happened again a couple days ago. Judy took out her hearing aid and went on about her business. The next morning it was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t sure exactly where she left it. She remembered taking it out while she was doing something else, so she put it down in a spot she doesn’t usually put it. That much she remembered. We have a way to locate lost things. We get out the CSI light. (Really, it’s just a flashlight, but when we’re looking for lost articles we call it a CSI light.) It helps a person focus to do a methodical search with a bright beam of light. Well, the first problem we encountered was that we couldn’t find the CSI light. What can a person do about that, when they can’t find the thing they use when they can’t find something? The extended search for the CSI light was successful when we found it in the backyard where we had used it the day before, put it down, and forgot all about it. Now, armed with the CSI light, we CSI’d this place to death and couldn’t find that hearing aid anywhere. We looked in every logical place. Then we looked in every other place. It wasn’t even in the refrigerator. We finally had to give up. Next day we looked again. Nothing. It might be gone for good. Today, Judy started moving furniture. Again. Not just a little like yesterday, but completely relocating furniture around the room, and there in the living room, underneath the couch, there it was. For no reason. That was surely not the place she put it down when she last took it out. Closer inspection of the recovered artifact revealed tiny little bite marks on the flexible bits. (I should also mention that coincidentally, in this re-searching, Judy picked up off the kitchen counter an avocado she bought yesterday, and there was a hole on the underside of this brand new avocado with tiny little bite marks along the edges of the hole.) And now it all comes clear. We have a mouse. A mouse that likes avocadoes. A mouse that likes avocadoes and tiny trinkets. A mouse that stole the trinket off the kitchen counter and took it under the couch to test all the little parts of it for flavor before moving on to avocadoes. So this story has a happier ending than the John Steinbeck novel does. Nobody had to shoot anyone in the head. A happier outcome for us anyway. Not so much for the mouse; we put out traps for him. I guess he’s playing the part of Lennie.
Along the way
Pygmy nuthatch.
It’s a tiny little thing.
Got close to one in Northern Arizona this year.
It’s a tiny little thing. Got close to one in Northern Arizona this year. Morning light
I was just wondering
All these political polls and early voting. I was just wondering how the polls account for people who have already voted. Polls are predictions of what people are going to do. If people in the sample have already done what they’re sampling for, then it’s no longer a poll of what people are going to do, it’s a report on what people have done. But if the pollsters don’t include people who have already voted in their sample, then they’re sampling something other than the general population. The people who have already made up their minds and voted might be different from the people who have not yet been motivated to vote, or are still undecided. Pollsters have to be clever enough to quantify what they think has already happened, combine that with their conclusions about what they think has yet to happen, and come up with a projection of the combined results.
Bumps and bruises
We’ve decided to go all-in with this “local” approach. The two cockpit chairs are worn out and they’re terribly expensive to replace. The motor to move Judy’s seat is broken. The repair shop near San Antonio told us it would be too expensive to fix; we should just replace the entire chairs. Jacinto knows an upholstery guy in Brownsville who will reupholster them in leather for a fraction of the cost of new. Jacinto says he can fix the motor. Our old couch is worn out. We bought a newer one from a friend here in the park and delivered it to Jacinto. He’ll switch them out for us. Jacinto noticed that the chrome bay-door latches and some other parts were showing corrosion. He’s got a guy that will come up to the border from Mexico to pick them up and re-chrome them. There are pieces of our motorhome scattered all over now, and we’re not dealing with large well-established organizations. Who knows, we may never get all the pieces back together in the same place again; but we’ve decided to take that risk, and take what we get. It’s an adventure in trust. We’ll keep you posted.