Our New Baby

Ever since I was a little kid I loved cars. My parents said I could name every car on the road by the time I was five. I was obsessed with cars. My favorite toys were cars, I spent hours drawing cars, I clipped pictures of cars from magazines and I dreamed of the day when I would own a car of my own. When I was about 10 years old we visited my Aunt Ruth in Yakima and my cousin Sid, who was just out of the service, showed up with a sports car, an Austin Healey. "What a cool car!" I thought. It was smaller than anything I'd ever seen before and looked like it was going 100 miles per hour sitting still. Along side of the giant American car my parents owned it looked like a gazelle next to a cow. From that moment on I wanted a sports car in the worst way.

When it came time to buy my first car I really wanted a sports car, but my parents could barely afford the insurance for a 19 year old, much less a 19 year old with a sports car. I ended up with what I thought was a sporty car, a Renault Caravelle. As it turned out it was a sporty looking car with a piece of junk for an engine. It didn't even last a full year. The brakes failed, the clutch went out and finally the main bearings gave out, stranding me in the San Fernando valley on my way to pick up my girlfriend.

As the years have gone by I have owned many cars, some good, some bad, but I've never stopped wanting to own a sports car. During the 70s and 80s there were some pretty awful cars manufactured and the sports cars that had existed in the 60s gradually either disappeared from the highway, or were neutered. The convertible disappeared and the fun went out of motoring.

Then came the 90s and foreign sports cars again appeared in America. Porsche came out with a Speedster, Honda created a roadster, Mercedes introduce the SK, and even the Corvette became a roadster again after a few years with a lift out roof. But the car that captured my imagination was the BMW Z3.

It premiered in the James Bond movie Golden Eye and it looked like it was going 100 miles an hour sitting still, just like my cousin's Austin Healey. It was the only time Bond drove a car other then an Aston Martin, but boy was it expensive! I checked it out at the auto show and looked at the price tag and knew I would never be able to spend 40 grand on a car. However, as the years have gone by I've watched the used car market and followed the price on Z3s gradually decline until at last they became affordable for me to consider.

One of the effects of the rain in Seattle, is that many sports car owners only drive their cars during the nice weather, which as we all know is usually about 3 months during the summer. Therefore, their sports cars sit in the garage for a good part of the year and are pampered and babied. For this reason, you can find low mileage sports cars, which after a decade can still have less than 100,000 miles on them.

One day my boss, Maynard, came into work and told me about a car he had seen near his house in a church parking lot. It was a BMW Z3 with only 22,000 miles on it and an asking price of $11,500. I was suddenly very excited. "I'm going to go by and look at it at lunch time!" I told him. He said, "Why don't we go out there right now and look, I have an errand to run out by my house" So we drove out to the John Knox church and there it sat. He took a picture of me standing next to it and I noted the phone number and vowed to call about the car. I placed a call and waited impatiently, but received no return call. So I tried again, but received no answer and no response to my message. I was very disappointed, but started looking on Craigs list and the Auto Trader for another Z3. However, most of the cars had a lot of miles, and much larger prices. I became resigned to the fact that it might be a long long time before such an opportunity came along again.

Then about two weeks later I went to Craig's List and typed in BMW Z3 and there was the car from the John Knox church parking lot. I quickly e-mailed the person with the ad and scrolled down to see what else was listed. There was another Z3 in West Seattle with only 49,000 miles on it and a price of $11,750. I decided that it would be a good idea to check out more than one car and called and left a message. This time I received a response from the person with the car at the church and set up an appointment for my lunch break. Then I watched the clock and probably didn't accomplish much work until it was time for my break. I drove up to the church and the man was already there with the car. I walked around the car and examined it closely. I sat in it, not at all sure whether it would be comfortable enough for me and discovered that like many small German cars, it had plenty of leg room and seats that enfolded you like an easy chair. He asked me if I wanted to take it for a drive. I said that I would love to drive it. Then he handed me the keys and let me take it for a drive by myself. It handled so well and was so tight and maneuverable that I immediately thought I have to have this car. However, I told him that I also had another car to look at and proceeded to ask him a number of questions about the car. It turned out that he was selling it for a woman who had just been divorced and that she had been the original owner. It was only a four cylinder, but that low, low mileage really spoke to me. At some point the woman owner had clipped the side of the garage and scratched the rear fender and put a chip in the mirror, so I told the man that if I decided on this car I would offer $11,000.

When I returned to work I received a phone call about the car in West Seattle. The man was in Port Angeles on business and had a work schedule that didn't leave much time for me to see the car. We talked about meeting on Friday after work, then he later called back and told me he thought he could meet me at his house in the Admiral district at 4 PM. So I stayed after work and drove to the address and waited. He was a bit late due to traffic on I-5, but finally he showed up. I could hear him coming up the street. This car was six cylinder model, and was much nicer than the 4. It had a power top verses a manual top, wood grain dash verses plastic and most important, a more powerful engine. There were some scratches where someone had fumbled in trying to put the hardtop on the car and one ding the size of the tip of my index finger in the rear fender. He told me it had originally been purchased by a man for his wife as a present for her 60th birthday. At age 70 her husband had passed away and she sold the car to the present owner since she only needed one car. The car had been garaged with a car cover ever since it was new. It had never been driven in the rain and was immaculate. He asked me if I wanted to drive the car and I jumped at the chance. This time the owner accompanied me and we drove up California Avenue and turned around at the lookout above Alki. It was obvious that this car had a lot more power than the 4, and it was just as tight and drove just as well. I told the owner that I had looked at a 4 cylinder with only 22,000 miles earlier in the day and would tell him when I made a decision.

It was a difficult decision to make. On the one hand, the 4 had extremely low miles, but the 6 was the definitive sports car. I called JJ and asked him what he knew about the Z3. He said that they were both great cars, that the engine in the 4 was the same engine that the Mini-Cooper was equipped with. He said that they were extremely reliable cars and it was just a matter of which I preferred. He said either choice would be great.

That night I went on line and read everything I could find about Z3s. I soon discovered that the 6 was worth much more than the 4 even with the lower miles taken into consideration. The retail list for the 4 was just about what the woman was asking for it. On the other hand, with the options the 6 was equipped with, it was worth three to four thousand more than than the asking price. I went to sleep that night still without a decision. At two thirty AM I woke up with the cars on my mind. I weighed everything I had learned. As it turned out, both cars were the same color, silver, but the 4 had a red interior and 6 was equipped with a black interior. Finally, I knew that I wanted the car with the best options and the one that had the highest performance. I e-mailed the man with the 4 and called and left a message for the owner of the 6 and told them my decision.

Of course, Joyce asked me, "Do we really need a sports car?" And I told her, "Honey, no one needs a sports car. But I sure do want one." When we went to Seattle to finalize the deal, Joyce saw the Z3 for the first time. After we had closed the deal she went to sit in the car. I didn't think I was going to get her out of it. The next evening I asked her if she wanted to go for a ride since she had not yet had a chance to. As we drove along in the warm evening air with the top down, she turned to me and said, "This is the best idea you've had in a long time." I'd have to agree with her and I do every time I fire that engine up and hear that purr that becomes a growl as this car accelerates. Finally, my dream has come true.

Cedar Waxwings enjoy our bird bath

Rat Tales

After many weeks of sunshine we finally have a much needed rainy day. The garden looks refreshed and we have been experiencing that rare weather system in Western Washington, the thunder storm. While I am frustrated, since there is a lot of work to be done in the garden, this does give me a chance to write in my blog.

One of the things I have learned about gardening is that there is something called the law of unintended consequences. Just try taking out a tree sometime and you'll know what I'm talking about. Suddenly all the plants that were under the tree have a brand new environment to survive and some of them don't. But who would have thought that doing your bit to encourage wildlife, I'm talking now about birds and butterflies, would have unintended consequences.

I mean, it sounds so nice to be visited by birds of all kinds and it was for quite awhile, and then one evening I was finishing a burger while seated at the patio table with my neighbor Steve, when a BIG BLACK RAT came wandering out from between some flower pots. "Did you see that?" Steve asked. Indeed I had, and upon investigation I discovered that he was feeding on the seed that the birds dropped on the ground under the feeder. I had seen squirrels raiding the feeder and had run them off, but rats? So I started watching the feeder and discovered that not only did we have a black rat there was also an acrobatic gray rat that could climb the tree and go directly to the source of food rather than waiting for the birds to spill.

Naturally, I sprang into action! The next day I went to my nearest sporting goods store and found my way to the gun counter. I told the young man behind the counter about my problem and he said, "So you've got varmits, huh? Suddenly I felt like Yosemite Sam! Yeah, I got varmits and I want to blast em!" Twenty minutes later I left the store with a pellet gun with a scope and the assurance from the clerk that I could definitely finish off a rat with the lethal force of my weapon.

That evening I crouched on the deck waiting for the rat to emerge. Suddenly I spotted the acrobatic rat scamper up the tree. I cocked the gun and fished out a pellet, put it in the cylinder and closed the gun. I took the safety off, took aim, and hit the side of the barn twenty feet beyond the rat. He looked around as if to say, "What the hell was that?" And went back to raiding the bird feeder. My next shot wasn't much better, but it did scare the rat away from the feeder at least. Discouraged, I told Joyce, maybe we should hedge our bets and get some traps as well. So we set out some traps in the car port and garage, the great big kind that are about four time the size of a mouse trap. Joyce came up with a concoction of chocolate sauce, molasses, and peanut butter and it really worked pretty well. The day after she set it, she had a gray rat. So she set another trap and caught another gray one. After four rats I began thinking, "Oh, oh, we've got a whole village of rats, not just one or two."

All was quiet for awhile and I began to think, maybe we'd scared them into deserting our yard and going some place where the bird feeders weren't so well guarded. Then, one night I was sitting on the deck with Joyce enjoying a glass of wine, I looked in the direction of the tree and there was a gray rat sitting on the feeder stuffing his face. I ran for my gun and came out onto the deck ready to blast him. Joyce said, "You know I used to be a pretty good shot, would you mind if I tried?" I loaded the gun and passed it to her. She rested the barrel of the gun on the railing of the deck, slowly took aim, and squeezed off a shot. I heard the shot, and then a thud. "You hit him!" I yelled as I ran toward the tree. Then I heard a rustle among the hostas and ferns and I realized that she'd hit the rat alright, but she'd only stunned him. So much for the killing power of my mighty weapon.

The next day I bought some rat poison at the hardware store and put the trays in the crawl space of the house. In a few days there was a bad smell coming up through the vents in the master bath and when I checked the poison, the tray was completely empty. I don't know how many there were, I wasn't curious enough to crawl under the house, and within a week the smell was gone. Joyce continued to use the traps until an unfortunate chipmuck got whacked! That threw her into a funk for a couple of days and she swore off the traps. We stopped feeding the birds for awhile too and we think we've wiped out the rat village. But just in case, I still have my pellet gun at the ready even though now I think I'm a lot more like Elmer Fudd than Yosemite Sam!

The Arrival of Lucky Zander

Exactly two weeks ago today, right before dinner, we received a call from Tammy. She told Joyce, "I think I might be in labor." That's all it took! A smoothly oiled machine rolled into action as Joyce marshaled her troops (me) and began issuing orders. Phone calls were placed and arrangements made for dog feeding and walking and an alert went out to our respective workplaces. There was no packing to do, the suitcases were already in the car, as they had been for two weeks.

In less than an hour we were speeding down the freeway as if the hounds of hell were in pursuit! By 7:30 we were stopped at a roadside rest stop placing calls to Sarah, Geoff, Shelly, Kathy and JJ and then we were sailing up Snoqualmie pass and on to Spokane. We stopped in Ellensburg for gas and searched in vain for an open Starbucks, but by 10:15 they were closed down and settled in their snug little beds I guess, so we settled for a coke for a jolt of caffeine and pressed on.

At 1:30AM we arrived at the hospital, which we found locked down. We had to enter through the emergency room by the psych ward and after much bumbling around we found our way to the birthing center. By the time we found Tammy, she had been given an epidural and seemed pretty mellow for a woman in labor. Of course, Tyler was focused on food, not having eaten dinner before coming to the hospital. Scott came to the rescue with a late night run to a fast food
place he knew about. At about 2:15 I said, I'm going down to the car to see if I can sleep for a bit. The other reason I went to the car was that I was not all that sure that we were parked legally (Joyce couldn't be bothered with such minutiae as a legal parking spot) and didn't want the car towed away. At about 4 AM Joyce called me and said, "You need to go to the house and let the Pugs out" I drove through the deserted streets to Tammy and Tyler's and took my blanket and pillow in with me. I found a comfortable spot in the recliner in the living room and went back to sleep with the complaints of Gunther in my ears. However, there was no way that I was about to let Gunther get up at 4:30 even if he did protest a bit. Finally he settled down and we all went to sleep until 7 AM when Joyce called again with instructions for feeding the "boys".

Tank and Gunther seemed to sense that something was up. After breakfast and a jaunt into the back yard for their morning poo, they settled down on the recliner focused intently on the front door. There they sat in anticipation of the return of their family unaware that everything would be different when Tammy and Tyler returned.

At 7:30 I gassed up the car, found a Starbucks open and got my caffeine fix, then I was rolling back to the hospital. When I got to Division Street Joyce called again, "You better hurry!" she said. Of course, it didn't take that long to get to the hospital, but finding a parking spot and my way back to the birthing center took awhile. After joining Scott in the waiting room, and reminiscing about the births of our children we were ushered into the birthing room just in time to meet our grandson for the first time. He was in fine form, with lots of black hair, which they promptly covered up with a beanie. He reminded me of his uncle JJ without the braided beard.

Tammy looked exhausted, but radiant, and Tyler just stared at Zander with a look of awe. All the while, Grandma Jo was making like a paparazzi in pursuit of a scandalous rock star snapping photos of little Zander over Tyler's shoulder, from under his arm and around the side of his head. I managed to snap a couple of shots myself, although it was hard without a flash since everyone insisted on rocking him when they held him. Joyce and Shannon were glued to their cell phones calling one person after another with the glad tidings! And I probably don't need to add that everyone was beaming.

Pretty soon we were ushered onto the other side of the curtain so that they could deal with Tammy in private. That's when Joyce came to me and said, "Tammy wants you to hold your grandson before we go home." What a wonderful surprise. I took him from Joyce and it all came back. Holding my own children for the first time and my grand daughter for the first time last year and now my grandson. He didn't cry or fuss, I guess I still have the feel for holding a baby and then he stuffed his hand in his mouth and started sucking his fingers.

All too soon we had to scramble for the exit and start the drive back to the wet side (we had an upcoming audit scheduled at work and there was more prep to do). As we drove through wind and driving rain Joyce and I basked in the experience we had just shared. We were both tired and sore from sleeping in awkward positions, but elated! Then as we were closing in on Moses Lake and the car was set in cruise right at the speed limit, we began to climb a hill. I pushed down on the accelerator so we wouldn't slow down... That's when I spotted the Highway Patrol car in the median. I looked down at the speedometer and saw the needle pointing at 80. Of course then I saw the red light flashing in the rearview mirror and pulled over. I got out my driver's license and registration all the while thinking "How much is it for doing 80 in a 70 zone?"
The officer looked at my license and said, "Mr Bunch, the speed limit is posted as 70, but when the weather is bad we generally expect drivers to slow down, not speed up." I lamely replied, "I had the car on cruise and was trying to compensate for the hill." Even I thought that sounded lame. Then came the moment when the officer goes back to his car to write the ticket and to check to make sure you aren't a wanted terrorist or drug runner up from Mexico on his way to Yakima. He came back to the car, handed me my license and registration and said, "You will slow down, won't you?" "Yes, officer." and that was it! No TICKET!

As we headed back down the freeway, at a slower rate of speed, we started talking about the strange streak of luck that seemed to come in the wake of Zander's birth. Even before he was born, Joyce had opened a piece of mail just before Tammy called and found a check for back child support, but instead of the typical 20 bucks she found more than $600. Then Tammy called and we were telling her about the good luck when she told this amazing story. After Tyler had settled Tammy into the birthing room he had to go back to the car for some things. On the way back from the parking lot he spotted a piece of paper drifting around in the breeze. He grabbed it and found himself holding a hundred dollar bill! Talk about a lucky baby. He has two wonderful parents, an extended family who dote on him and a couple of adoring Pugs (or at least one) all here to welcome him to our clan. But Zander brings his own special brand of luck. If I were Tammy and Tyler, I'd be buying lottery tickets with his birth date, and vital statistics for numbers. Who knows, he might just win enough to pay his own way in this world!

The Sun King

Awhile back someone said to Joyce, "Your skin is so smooth, how do you manage that?" Of course what was left unsaid was "your skin is smooth for someone of your age". Nevertheless, I've noticed that neither one of us has many wrinkles yet, and the secret is not some rejuvenating lotion or treatment. All you have to do is live in a place where the sun shines less than a third of the time.
As we all have been told repeatedly, the sun damages the skin and causes aging.

Of course there are other factors at work when you live in cloud country. Joyce and I also recently discovered that we have a vitamin D deficiency and of course, vitamin D is supplied by sunshine. In fact, Joyce was so depleted that with a normal range of 30 to 80, she tested 9. I was much better, probably because I spend time in the garden and get more sun. However, my results was 19. So, we are both taking 5,000 units of prescription strength vitamin D once a week for the next 12 weeks.

The really interesting thing is that lack of vitamin D causes all kinds of symptoms that we both thought were simply the result of the aging process. For example, dry skin, painful joints and muscles, depression, high blood pressure, type 1 diabetes, kidney problems and a pasty face are but a few. So I am hopeful that this course of vitamins will make us both feel better, or at least more energetic. I've always noticed that I have much more energy when the sun shines and usually a rush of optimism and euphoria. Of course this doesn't last long since the sun usually disappears after a couple of days.

This also might explain why I feel so good when we are on vacation in a place like Hawaii or Spain. (I mean besides not having to work and being able to do whatever we feel like.) In fact, my own personal prescription for vitamin D deficiency is frequent trips to the tropics. Wish I could get the doctor to prescribe that treatment and have it covered by my health insurance. Oh well, at least they covered the blood test and gave us a break on the price of the vitamins. In this day and age I suppose you can't do much better.

THE KILLING MOON

There are legends surrounding the moon and tales of madness associated with its' light, and we are under the influence of the full moon as I write this. The past few days as the moon grew steadily larger we have seen an unprecedented killing spree sweep across America. We had the slaughter of immigrants in New York, the family and cop killer in Oakland, the mother who shot her 20 year old son in the back of the head at a firing range in Florida and then put the gun in her own mouth and pulled the trigger. Then closer to home, Monday night in Graham a man killed his 5 children because his wife wanted a divorce. Oh, and then he killed himself in the parking lot of the Indian casino as his grand finale.

And that's not even the full extent the mayhem. Alabama seems to be a favorite place for these family mass murders. You remember the guy who killed his family and then drove 20 miles to his old place of work killing people along the way. I think the cops killed him in the end. An hour ago there was another family killing in Alabama. We don't know the details yet, but we will, thanks to 24 hour infotainment.

You really can't blame the moon I suppose. Only some of us are superstitious enough to believe in the influence of the moon. But it's about as good a theory as any to explain this growing phenomenon.

Some people say it's because of the economy. After all, people are losing their homes, their jobs, their savings, their dignity and they just snap. This makes sense, except that virtually all of these killers are middle class or working class. I mean, how much in real terms did they have to lose? They probably didn't have much equity in the house, and according to everything I've read over the past few years most Americans don't have any savings. What they do have is debt.

The other thing about the economy as a motive, is that during the Great Depression you didn't hear about people killing their families or strangers and then killing themselves because they were out of work and were about to lose their homes. The ones who did kill themselves during the panic on Wall Street in 29 were rich folk. There was a wave of suicides as wealthy brokers and bankers threw themselves out the windows of skyscrapers when they discovered they were broke.

The guys on Wall Street in 2009 aren't the ones killing their families and then themselves. That's because they still have a bonus coming in after they destroyed the economy, I suppose. Besides, they really haven't failed yet. The government is keeping them alive in their Zombie banks while in Alabama another red neck kills his kin.

The other theory is that these guys are paranoid. Right wing talk radio has been telling them that now that we have a black communist for our president the next thing coming is the confiscation of their guns. That being the case, you might as well use your guns to make sure the government can't come after you with their damn unemployment checks and other such socialistic plots. It's kind of like the black sheriff in Blazing Saddles when he holds the gun to his own head and says "If you take one step closer I'll kill the nigger." The theory here is that these guys think that the government is going to put their children in re-education camps after they confiscate the guns. They know this is so because we've got a congresswoman running around saying it's true and besides they saw it on Fox.

My own theory is that America is crazy! The whole goddamn country is one gigantic madhouse. We no longer manufacture anything. We sent those jobs to the guys who were our mortal enemies just 30 years ago. Does anybody remember Red China? Guess what. They're still Red! So we shipped them all of the decent paying jobs and in return we're receiving inferior products, toxic even, which we can buy at bargain rates at our local Walmart.

Oh, and we can't have a decent health care system because that would mean some oligarch couldn't get rich and we all know what a crime that would be. In fact, we tell ourselves we have the best health care system in the world when what we really mean is that we have the most expensive. By any other measure we are not even in the top ten when it comes to health care.

And how about refusing to face the fact that oil has been running out since the 1970s and what reserves are left are controlled by people who want to destroy us.

Or maybe someone can explain why we transport food from around the world to our grocery stores while paving over our best farm lands right outside town. Or why we can't run an election anymore without screwing it up. Or why when you call for assistance you get someone who can't speak English in an English speaking country. Or why we think buying and selling debt to each other is the basis for an economy. Or why we let sexual predators lose on the streets and lock up pot smokers. Or why contracts for speculators are sacred but contracts for workers can be renegotiated. Or why we spend more money than all of the other countries in the world combined on our military. Or why we think everyone is entitled to their own gun. In fact, according to some Americans, the world would be a better place if everyone was armed with a gun.

You see what I mean? These are not the actions of mentally stable people.

GARDEN DETAILS

Something new has been added! I have just created another blog (it's been raining an awful lot and I can't get outside to work). It's called GARDEN DETAILS or WAY MORE THAN YOU WOULD EVER NEED OR WANT TO KNOW ABOUT MY GARDEN. I did this because I want to blog about my garden in detail, but realize that not everyone is into gardening as much as I am. Garden Details will feature pictures, plant lists, plans, projects, observations and all kinds of things that will probably bore anyone who is not a gardener.

Garden at the Edge will continue to be about all the exciting things that happen to Joyce and I here in Cloud Country. zzzzzzzzzzzzz Oh, sorry, I dropped off to sleep for a moment. Anyway, I've created a link and you can check it out if you are wide awake and need to read something that will bore you enough that you can fall asleep.