Alkahest my heroes have always died at the end

“Before enlightenment, chop wood, haul water.  After enlightenment, chop wood, haul water,” is one of my favorite zen aphorisms.  Okay, so no hauling water for me – at least not unless the drought gets worse, but there’s going to be a lot of wood chopping in my future.

On Saturday, margaretc’s husband, ‘A’, came by and took out two of the trees that have been worrying me.  They border our drivway and both had holes in their bases.  Since they’re not small trees (40-50+ feet tall), I was worried that they would either come down on the house, the 500 gallon propane tank, the cars, the well, the power lines – you get the idea.  It seemed better to take them out on our own terms.

The removal went well.  It’s a great comfort to have a certified master arborist doing the work 🙂 .  ‘A’ climbed the trees – rope climbing the one and spiking the other (impressive!) and sat up top cutting the major limbs.  After that was done, he rigged a multi-pulley system so that we could pull the trunks down to a location that wouldn’t  cause any harm.  It went perfectly.

Now I have to finish cutting up the two trees and chopping the rounds into firewood.  Looks like we won’t need to buy wood for a year or two.  Surprisingly, chopping wood isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  I need to work on my technique, but it could wind up being fairly enjoyable.

Next tree project – order and plant some replacement trees.  I’m thinking a couple of walnuts might be nice.

It’s been about a week and a half since the attempted break-in.

On Tuesday, I replaced the window they broke out.  I called around to a couple of different places and everyone said that they could send someone out to give an estimate, but it would take a few days and then the part would be on order for another 3-5 days.  Fortunately, on local glass shop said that if I brought them the sill in the morning, they would be able to replace the glass that afternoon.  So I spent the morning taking apart the window.  It turned out to be easier than I thought, but I did have to take off the lower sill to get to the upper.

I got the sill to the glass shop and they managed to replace the glass by the 5:15.  I brought it hope and replaced the window in just a half hour or so.  Yay!

Today I found out that the same morning someone was broken into down the street on the same day as our attempted break-in and in the same way.  For a variety of reasons, they suspect contractors at the two construction sites in the neighborhood.  They’re chasing down the details of who was on site, etc.  Hopefully they can track down enough information to identify the burglars.

Some weeks it just doesn’t pay to leave the house. As K and I were getting ready for bed last night she noticed that the bathroom window was broken. Being a wildlife rehabilitator, her first thought was that some bird (maybe a hawk) had smashed into the window. I went out to check. Nope – someone had removed the screen and smashed the window with some junk they found on the deck.

It seems they broke the window in order to unlock it and sneak in to the house that way. Fortunately, they didn’t succeed. In breaking the window, they knocked the window lock latch off and couldn’t unlock the window. They tried prying it up (first?) but failed there too. I’m guessing between the frustration and the dogs barking like mad, they gave up.

We called the cops and filed a report.

What I don’t understand is why the window. Sure, the doors have alarm company stickers on them since the house has an alarm system, but why would they assume the window wasn’t alarmed? If they had managed to open the window, it would have set off the alarm.

This is the second break-in or attempt in my neighborhood recently. With the number of gun owners out here, if the person(s?) keep it up, they’re going to wind up shot.

While I’m happy they didn’t get in, I’m still pretty annoyed and upset by the whole thing.

Okay, it’s only Monday, but it’s been about a week since wrote anything here.  In that time:

• The non-profit I work with and on whose board I serve has gone bat-shit crazy.  They say that academic politics are so petty because the stakes are so small.  Trust me, academic politics haven’t got anything on non-profit politics
• A friend at the university has announced her resignation to move on to a different job.  This is probably good for her – she’ll be happier, but it means that half the people I know took it hard.
• I got a call last week from a lawyer representing my old employer, letting me know that I am a witness in a case against them.  Go me!  *grumble*
• The thing at my new job did go through and I now do people management for six staff members.  Oh, and their performance evaluations were due in November, can we finish those soon?  They’ll be done and signed tomorrow, but what a pain.
• Finally, I went to (sort of crashed) a holiday party for the school of arts and sciences at my former employer.  That was a lot fun, but odd.  Particularly when I ran into my old boss and then the woman who inherited part of my responsibilities when I left.  Theoretically, she was doing the job until they hired my replacement.  It’s been four months – I don’t think the position’s been posted yet.  Regardless, I talked to a lot of people and confirmed my original statement – the thing I miss most is the people.

Now if I can only get through this week: finish up the last part of a project and put the presentation together, I’ll be in good shape for taking some time off.