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Average Jane’s Weekend Plans…and a Giveaway!

I'm already looking ahead to this weekend and one of my must-do items is to attend Greek Fest. I'm planning on going at noon on Saturday if anyone is interested in joining me. Admission and parking are free, if that helps you decide.

It's kind of mind-boggling that this is the 51st year of the annual festival. I've never been before, but my Greek friends have been talking it up and I was considering it even before I got the opportunity to score some free food there in exchange for blogging about it.

There will be ample amounts of dancing, homemade food and imported Greek items for sale.

Even if you can't attend, you can win a Greek cookbook by leaving a comment on this post and telling me your favorite Greek delicacy. I'm a big baklava fan myself.

Comments must be received by Sunday, September 9th at 6:00 p.m. Central Daylight Time.

UPDATE: Comments are now closed. Thank you to everyone who entered! Winner will be announced in tomorrow's blog post.

September 6, 2012
The Rest of Average Jane’s Weekend (No Actual Resting Involved)

On Sunday morning, the crew came back bright and early to finish taking out the giant locust tree. Sorry, neighbors.

Every time one of those huge logs hit the ground, I could feel the house shake. Dr. Jones had been standing at the screen door watching the activity until a limb landed on the sidewalk and the branches came up onto the porch. Then he ran away and decided to mind his own business until it was all over. Toby mostly sat on the couch and looked concerned.

The guys told me that the tree was completely rotted in the center, so my decision to have it taken out was the correct choice.

I went away for a while toward the end and returned to find nothing left but this big pile of mulch. In the meantime, the phone company had come out and replaced their utility pole.

Goodbye locust tree!

After Saturday's rain and tree drama, I needed to pack a lot of fun and work into the next two days. I spent a couple of hours at Santa-Cali-Gon with my sister, niece and nephew.

I didn't ride any carnival rides, but we did go on a mule-drawn covered wagon ride.

Later that same day I went to a retirement party/birthday party, then met up with my husband so we could go see The Quivers play at Greaserama. After that, we went to another party to finish out the evening.

The next day was all about housework. I got up early and started hauling stuff out of the basement and putting it at the curb. Out went old stereo components we'll never use again, a broken microwave that probably only needed a new fuse, our original TiVo from before we got the HD one, and other miscellaneous stuff. The scavengers were out in force anticipating Big Trash Day, so it was all gone within the hour.

Once I'd freed up space on the basement shelves I set about rearranging my music gear, kitchen overflow and holiday decorations so my husband could have two full sets of warehouse shelving for his drums. I also cleaned up the wooden pallets that we'd been storing and put them in front of the shelves to provide extra space for stacking bass drums.

At the same time, I also started doing laundry and tidying up the rest of the basement. I began eyeing the duct that leads from the dryer to the outside and thinking that the tree was an omen regarding household maintenance of things that can kill you. I decided to go to Lowe's and pick up a new dryer vent duct and some other miscellaneous hardware items.

When I got home, it turned out that the duct they'd sold me was a full two feet shorter than advertised. I returned it to the store and decided to just clean out the old one. I took it outside, hosed fifteen years' worth of lint out of it and left it to dry on the deck.

Another task on my list involved the mulch pile left from the tree removal. I got out the wheelbarrow, a rake and a shovel and set about loading the mulch and depositing it in various flower beds. It was really hot out and I had to stop frequently to cool down and hydrate, but I managed to clear off a good two-thirds of the mulch.

Apparently Toby was very concerned with my mulch shoveling because he stood at the window and barked at me the entire time I was out there.

Finally I had done all I could, so I showered, made a cheese ball, and headed to A Librarian's house to play Cards Against Humanity and drink beer.

I got home in time to grab a pizza with the hubby and watch "Grimm" before bedtime.

So that was my Labor Day weekend. I'm sure the sore muscles will be kicking in any time now.

September 4, 2012
Average Jane vs. the Tree

This morning while I was drinking my breakfast shake and thinking about a pre-yoga class shower, I heard a muffled crash.

Hurricane Isaac had a little gift for me.

Now, of course I knew that a huge portion of this locust tree was dead. In fact, I had been meaning to call for a quote from a tree company that had left a flyer on my door not once but TWICE in the past week. The first flyer is sitting right here on my desk with some key sections missing thanks to Dr. Jones' penchant for chewing on paper.

So once the rain came after months of drought, the rotted section of the tree probably took on water like a sponge. And then it fell on top of the phone/cable lines, just the way I'd pictured it in my mind's eye a zillion times when I was telling myself that I needed to "do something" about that tree.

Once I looked out and saw what had happened, I went in to tell my husband. He had only been asleep for maybe an hour, so he was no help at all beyond a promise to pay whatever it cost to deal with the issue.

I stood out in the rain, gazed at the fallen tree blocking the street and honestly had no idea what to do.

Even though I was in my pajamas and robe, I went out to see if I could move enough of the tree so that people could drive by. The answer to that was "no." And now my robe needs to be washed.

I went inside and called the guy from the flyer. Fortunately, he was just about to leave the house anyway and he said he'd be right over. Then I called my sister and let her know I wouldn't be coming to yoga class.

It wasn't long before someone drove into our dead-end street and needed to get by. Fortunately, the neighbor she was coming to visit had a chainsaw, so he drove up from the other direction and cut enough of the tree away to clear a path.

My guy arrived about twenty minutes later. We talked through the options, ranging from just dealing with the immediate aftermath of today's incident, to trimming the dead parts off and hoping to keep the rest of the tree going for a while, to taking the whole tree down. I had him give me a variety of bids while I thought about it.

This is not the only time we've incurred expenses thanks to this tree. The first time a limb came down, it knocked the guttering off the porch and we ended up replacing all of the gutters. The time after that, a limb shattered our rusty old water main, which had to be replaced to the tune of about $5,000. Basically, having this tree in our yard has been like sitting on a pile of unexploded ordnance.

As tempted as I was to try to save the tree, I decided it was time to let it go. His quote for the entire job was less than I expected, which helped tip the decision in that direction.

He started cutting up the fallen section of the tree while I went in and attempted to reach the phone company to let them know that their utility pole had snapped.

It took a number of attempts to get through to a person and explain what I was calling about. I could tell that there were severed cable TV lines involved as well, but after the phone company ordeal I decided I would let them deal with notifying the other companies whose services were affected.

Because there was nothing left for me to do, I went ahead and met a couple at the pet store so they could meet one of my rescue group's kittens, and then had a late second breakfast and coffee. By the time I got back, the tree crew had removed most of the branches from the tree and was starting to run them through the woodchipper.

They weren't able to finish the tree removal today, partly due to the unceasing rain and partly because our neighbors need to move two non-running cars out of the way in case one of the big tree sections falls in just the wrong place.

However, as of tomorrow we will have a treeless front yard. It makes me sad to see such a big, old tree taken out, but nothing lives forever. I'll start thinking about what kind of tree I'd like to plant in the front yard next.

September 1, 2012
Average Jane Celebrates Toby’s Gotcha Day!

Today marks one year since we brought our little doggers home. It took everyone a while to settle in, but I think we've developed a pretty good routine and he seems to love us a great deal.

We have lots of daily rituals. He and I usually go to bed around 10:00 p.m. and he paws at the blanket until I lift it up so he can go underneath and curl up against my ribs.

Right now his inner alarm clock is set for exactly 6:35 a.m., and that's the time he crawls out from under the covers and gives himself a good tag-jingling shake. I grab my glasses and spend a few minutes talking to him and cuddling before we go outside for his morning constitutional.

He gets his breakfast when we go back in and I take him out one more time before I leave for work. He receives a Virbac chew stick as a reward for that piece of doggie business, which keeps him busy while I'm making my way out the door.

Barring long walks, which have fallen by the wayside a little due to a combination of overly hot weather and chronic foot pain on my part, we still have a lot of places to walk up and down our street and one street over. He likes to greet Dolly, the shih-tzu next door. I do my best to steer him away from another neighbor's giant pit bull because Toby doesn't have enough sense not to bark and carry on when we see bigger dogs.

I imagine he sleeps most of the day in his bed on the couch, but sometimes he plays chase with the cats (particularly Dr. Jones and Velvet) or chews his stuffed toys first. My husband gets up in the mid- to late-afternoon and takes him for his next potty break.

Suppertime is a little more complicated. Because my husband and I tend to stay pretty busy in the evenings, Toby gets double-fed more often than is good for him. I think we need something like this to keep track.

If the birth dates listed on his paperwork are correct, he's now nine years old. He's gotten a lot more white hairs in the past year, but I'm sure that the transition from the home he'd had all his life to our house must have been stressful.

The new vet has given him a more or less clean bill of health, but we do need to have his teeth and ears cleaned soon and I'll probably have them remove a couple of small skin growths while he's already out. I hope he gets to keep his few remaining teeth. The poor little guy has so few that his tongue hangs out whenever he's relaxed or sleeping.

House training is still a constant struggle. Some days he's perfect and other days he's inexplicably bad (and sneaky about it, too). Things have gotten a lot better since we instituted a treat reward system, though. He's improved enough that I'm ready to do a good kitchen floor scrubbing and re-sealing of the slate this weekend.

Ultimately, the best thing about having Toby in our lives is the companionship. He loves to hang out with us. He has his own chair in the TV room (stolen from poor Trillian) where he lies so he can be with us while we're watching television. Wherever we are, that's where he wants to be. The cats are like that as well, but the dog takes it up a couple of notches.

I'm glad we're able to be Toby's family in his later years. He's cute, cuddly and a fun little buddy to have.

Happy First Gotcha Day Anniversary, Toby!

August 31, 2012
Average Jane and the Squirrels
The squirrels in my yard are not very good parents. Yesterday was the second time this year that I found a baby squirrel on the ground under the locust tree in my front yard.

The first time was on July 24th. I went online to find out what to do and multiple sources suggested making some kind of soft "nest" and putting the baby back up in the tree to give the mother a chance to retrieve it.

I also learned that the whole "the mother won't take the baby back if you've touched it" thing is a myth. However, it's obviously best not to handle baby wildlife any more than necessary.

The first squirrel was very young, hairless and pink. I put it in a makeshift nest and went to work. When I got home it was gone, which I like to think means the mother came and got it.

Yesterday's squirrel was slightly older and furrier, but still had his eyes closed. (If he were just a little bit older, I might suspect that he was the same one.) I followed the same protocol as before, made a cardboard box "nest," put him in it and placed it overhead in the tree.

Unfortunately, he was still there when I got home.

The local wildlife rehabilitation centers were already closed, so I brought the box inside, covered it with a washcloth for warmth, and placed it in a cat- and dog-free location for the night.

Another thing the wildlife rehab sites advise is to refrain from trying to feed a baby critter you find. It's too easy to do something wrong and harm them, so if it's only going to be a day, the baby is better off going unfed. You can try to give them a tiny bit of water, but I chose not to risk it since the baby was curled up sleeping most of the time anyway.

Here's something I learned today: Kansas and Missouri have separate wildlife centers and they'd really prefer that you keep any animal you find within its own state.

So for you Kansas City area folks, if you find an orphaned critter:
- In Missouri, take it to Lakeside Nature Center in Swope Park
- In Kansas, take it to Operation Wildlife (there's a drop-off in Shawnee and the main facility is in Linwood)
This morning I got up and took the squirrel to Lakeside Nature Center because I didn't know any better. They were very responsive and immediately checked him for any injuries and put him in an incubator. I'm sure he received his long-delayed Friday breakfast right away. The staffer estimated his age at 3-4 weeks and I saw her write down that he was a male.

While she was attending to her new charge, I wrote a donation check. It seemed like the thing to do.

If you find yourself in a similar situation with squirrels or other wild animal babies, I highly recommend calling a wildlife rehab center to ask questions before you do anything else. There was one information sheet in particular at Lakeside about special handling for litters of bunnies that led me to think that a call would save a lot of time and effort on the part of the rescuer.

I hope the little guy does okay. If I weren't already so committed to companion animal rescue, I'd enjoy volunteering for one of the wildlife centers. Perhaps when I retire…
August 25, 2012
Average Jane’s First Place

Last weekend, my husband and I drove out to the town where I lived when we first met, to get our favorite Chinese fast food. While we were in the neighborhood, we decided to cruise by the horrible little duplex where I lived back then.

Surprisingly, it had been significantly improved since I lived there. There was new siding and a new roof and my guess is that the property had to have changed hands because I can’t imagine my old landlord paying for those kinds of updates.

When I moved in I had just turned 23, so I was obviously a late bloomer in the “leaving the nest” department. I’d found the place in the newspaper and my first walk-through was enough to convince me that it was worth the $275 a month rent even though it was the only place I looked at. I guess I was really ready to move.

My first act as tenant was to convince the landlord to remove the horrible carpet, which covered perfectly acceptable hardwood floors, and to pay for paint so I could repaint the living room and bedroom. I also had him haul away the unspeakably hideous mattress that lurked in the living room closet behind a Murphy bed frame that I had no intention of using.

For a first apartment, it wasn’t too bad once I’d made a few improvements. I spent my own money to buy a couple of boxes of sticky tiles to cover the ruined kitchen floor. The paint and some curtains and Wal-mart blinds did wonders. I covered the bathroom windows in frosted plastic film.

When I moved in, the inside of the oven was so dirty that I thought the enamel was brown. It turned out to be blue once I’d dissolved all the gunk away. I imagine the fridge was horrid as well, but I’ve blocked the details from memory.

I had minimal furniture, but I did my best to make things match with spray paint. Faux stone finishes were popular at the time and I went through several cans of a teal and black color to complete the early ’90s style I was going for. My tiny bedroom had only a twin bed, a dresser, two PA speakers and a mixing board.

The only piece of wall decor I had was a print of Robert Rauschenberg’s Rebus that was already there when I moved in. I left it for the next tenant when I moved out.

One of the worst things about the place was the water pressure. There was practically none. In fact, every time I needed to do dishes I would start filling the sink and just walk away because it took so long. I accidentally let it overflow more than once.

The place also lacked a shower, so I was forced to purchase a hose/shower head device that attached to the bathtub faucet. It wasn’t really long enough for a proper shower, but it got me by. Of course, the water pressure was just as bad in the bathroom as in the kitchen…

When I moved in, I had one cat named Kato. I could tell he was lonely, so I got a kitten from my vet’s office to keep him company. Friday was a pee cat, and her 16-year reign of stinky terror began with the destruction of a really cool mid-century sofa that a boyfriend’s parents had given me. Sigh. Fortunately, she was otherwise a lovely kitty.

I liked hanging out in what passed for a yard and I even planted daffodil and tulip bulbs. It’s possible that the daffodils remain today.

Because I’d grown up away from the city, it didn’t occur to me that it was a bad idea to simply leave my bicycle outside my kitchen door. I didn’t notice that someone had stolen it until one day when the boyfriend I had at the time came over to pick me up to go bike riding and it was nowhere to be found.

Later on, after I met my husband-to-be, we decided to get a place closer to where we both worked. The rent at the new apartment was $375 a month. A huge increase! But I could afford it and not long after that, the company where I worked moved less than a mile away from the apartment, which made things even more convenient.

No one was more surprised than I when I received a check for my original deposit on the duplex shortly after I moved out. I hadn’t known it at the time I moved in, but I later discovered that my landlord was the most notorious slumlord in the area. From what I could gather, I might have been the only tenant who ever got a deposit refund. I guess my improvements must have outweighed the cat pee smell!

August 23, 2012
Notes To Average Jane’s Dog Regarding Our Workouts

Hi, Toby. Your Gotcha Day is coming up next month, so that means we've been walking and running together for nearly a year. As your coach, I thought this would be a good time to give you a few performance tips that will undoubtedly make things go more smoothly from now on for us both.

Let's start with etiquette, which could use a little refinement in your case. When we encounter a jogger, I know you find it very inspiring. However, you can take my word for it that it makes people uncomfortable when you strain at your leash and try to chase after them. I'm sure your bark is meant as a jaunty "Good morning!" but it usually only serves to startle them.

Then there are the other dogs. While I imagine that your episodes of leaping about and barking furiously are very aerobic, they are really not appropriate behavior in a residential area at the crack of dawn. Also, you weigh 20 pounds and almost every dog we see could eat you for breakfast, which is something you should really have realized on your own by now.

Jogging is something we both enjoy – at least until you abruptly stop to smell something. Our route is 3.4 miles at minimum, so I'd appreciate it if you would consider skipping just a few of the olfactory signatures along the way when we're going full speed. If you trip me and I fall on you, you'd better hope I have my cell phone on me and someone we know is awake to come and scrape us off the pavement. Either way, it would be bad on all counts.

Finally, there are your pit stops. I certainly don't begrudge you the opportunity to avail yourself of them; after all, that's one of the reasons we're out and about. However, it would be great if you could do a little advance planning and get your biological business taken care of when we're either in a neighborhood that has trash pickup that day or downtown where there are plenty of trash cans.

Otherwise, I think we're both getting a lot out of our walks. They're good bonding time, although I understand that as a sighthound you have other priorities while we're outdoors that take precedence over interacting with me. The exercise is great, though, and I think we both enjoy getting to know the neighborhood, the neighbors and their dogs.

Thanks for being my workout buddy and I look forward to traversing the area with you for years to come.

August 22, 2012
Average Jane Hits A Minor Lull

Things are slowing down a tad as the summer begins to wind down. I'm still just as busy with volunteer work as ever, but the weeks don't feel quite as hectic. Little tricks like squeezing in a quick haircut during my lunch break help make the evenings and weekends less crowded.

That's not to say that I've completely recovered from overscheduling myself. This Saturday alone has four calendar entries.

Still, I'm looking forward to my favorite season and anticipating more crock pot meals, festivals centered around apples and pumpkins, and cozy snuggles at home with the cats and dog and iPad.

I know that's still a month or so away, but I can be patient. In the meantime, I need to get with my sister to schedule a wine tasting that I impulse-purchased over the summer and I'll bet my niece would like to go horseback riding with me when I use the LivingSocial coupon I bought to do so.

Are you looking forward to fall? What's your favorite season?

August 16, 2012
Average Jane’s Glowing Dog

I live on a dead-end street that is not big on infrastructure. There are no sidewalks and the streetlights are spaced far apart. Thus, when I need to walk Toby after dark, we can be pretty much invisible, especially since I generally wear dark colors. One of my neighbors even made a point to caution me that the dog and I were hard to see when we walked up the street at night.

When I saw a blogger outreach call for Safe Glow dog collars, I was immediately interested. The company sent me a free collar (a $29.95 value) in blue, and Toby and I have been using it for several weeks now.

As described by the company, the collar is made from "wear-resistant nylon and it houses a flexible, light-transmitting polymer core that illuminates when the collar is turned on. A reflective stripe adds additional safety by providing passive reflectivity. Powered by a super-efficient (100,000 hour) LED bulb."

It has three "on" settings, two of which make the lights flash, which I don't personally like. However, the regular non-flashing setting is impressively bright and provides enough light to illuminate the ground in the front of the dog. I don't know what it looks like from a distance, but I imagine that between the light and the reflective strip, it would make an oncoming driver at least pause to see what was up.

The collar is rather wide, so when I put it on Toby above his other collars (thin leather collar with tags and Sentry Calming collar), it rides pretty high on his little neck. Thus, I only have him wear it for outdoor excursions. The clasp is nice and solid yet easy to release, so that hasn't been a problem.

I happen to have a lighted leash as well, but I like the collar a lot more because unlike the leash, the light glows uniformly in a wide strip around the circumference of the collar. The leash has LEDs spaced several inches apart and I wonder if that's ideal for visibility.

Now that sunrise is coming later, I think I'm going to start having Toby wear the collar for our early morning walks. I'm always concerned that a sleepy driver might not see us crossing the street, but it feels as though are odds are better if the dog is sporting a bright blue glow.

I was quite impressed with the quality and operation of these collars and I'd recommend them for anyone who walks a dog on the street. Visit the dog training collars site to check them out!

Standard disclaimer: Although I received this product at no charge, the opinions noted here are my own.

August 14, 2012
Average Jane Has Her Work Cut Out for Her

My husband has been running his recording studio for quite a few years now and his persistence has finally started to pay off. He's had a busy year and he's starting to look around the studio and figure out how to optimize it for more steady business.

One of his hobbies is trading music gear. That makes sense in this economy because no one is really buying much musical equipment. Trades allow musicians to get new (to them) gear to play with without any exchange of cash. However, he's done a few too many trades of small things (snare drums, guitars) for large things (drum sets). So now the studio is almost literally wall to wall drum kits. They're stacked up, but they still take up a ton of room and they need to be moved somewhere else.

This morning, my husband announced that he was going to get a storage unit for his drums. Now I've seen enough episodes of Storage Wars to have a strong negative opinion of the idea of taking a bunch of your valuable stuff and leaving it in someone else's possession. Not only does the expense add up, but the risk and sheer hassle factor are high.

Seriously, if you're going to spend $840 a year to store drum kits, you might as well just give one away every year until they're gone.

I countered that he should store his excess gear in our basement instead. That's where all my music gear resides. It's secure behind two sets of locked doors, a consistent temperature year 'round, and we have a dehumidifier running 24/7.

The only problem is that the shelves are currently occupied with a bunch of my dad's old business records and outdated printed materials. The majority of it can be discarded now, but it will need to be shredded, preferably on-site or in some other secure fashion.

I'm sure you can see where this is going. We've netted out with me agreeing to get the shelves cleared off within the next month or so.

I really do think that the basement is the best option for this. It may need a little visit from the exterminator first, just to keep the spider levels to a minimum, but otherwise it's perfect. Or it will be.

August 10, 2012