Bits & Pieces

Haven't been blogging because my depression has had a huge upswing - the tear duct in my right eye is infected, and my very nasty recurrent case of shingles is back, making every moment painful.  But enough griping.  The world continues to turn no matter my personal condition.
   My cats are here, loving me to pieces.  It's an overcast, rainy day here in Boulder, with an expected high temperature of 66.  Our usual high on 7 August is 93 degrees.  I have on a pair of sweatpants instead of my usual shorts. A fine mist of rain is falling and visibility is limited to about 600 feet.
   In need of laughter, I have been watching news clips and YouTube videos...  not to mention listening and watching the Randy Rainbow musical videos.  (He is a fantastic singer, and his videos are such a hoot!)  A few of my favorite videos have included a fawn and a rabbit playing together in a suburban yard; the rescue of a foal who tumbled into a huge ant bed; the Muppets performing Bohemian Rhapsody; and a trio of pathetic mental incompetents.  Unfortunately, all three of the people are female.  One video shows a woman who believes that drinking a bottled water branded "Smart Water" will actually raise her IQ level.  The second video is of a woman who is asked how many slices she wants her large pizza cut in.  She firmly states 8; when asked if she'd prefer 12, she insists on 8.  Asked why 8, and not 12, she says because she can eat 8 slices, but not 12.  Hunh?!?  The third video just shows a deer crossing sign - but the audio is from a radio call-in show, in which a female driver (who has hit three deer crossing the road with her car) is complaining that the deer and other wildlife crossings need to be moved off of main roads and interstates to somewhere safer, like a school crossing area, or into small towns where the speed limit is 25 or so.  This woman believes that the deer and other wildlife cross the roads because the wildlife crossing signs are there.  She can't understand that the wildlife crosses the roads in those areas naturally....
    With the cooler temperatures, the three hummingbirds that I recognize are coming multiple times to my hummingbird feeder.  There are three distinct ones - two females and one male.  On warm and hot days they don't visit the feeder except early morning and dusk.  All three have been here multiple times this morning - and I counted as the male dipped his beak in 43 times at three different "flowers" in one visit.  I was particularly happy when I observed a small air bubble flow up to the top while he was sipping away.
    I called the emergency 911 police number Saturday evening.  A new tenant moved into an apartment on the third floor two staircases north of me.  Each building has a staircase, with two apartments on the ground floor, and four apartments on the second and third floors.  Beatrice, my room mate, and I are friends with our maintenance man, Chris, and Chris tells us things he feels we should know about neighbors.  The new tenant, a Caucasian woman, came to be known because she was screaming and yelling at a cleaning crew in an apartment across the hall from her.  The cleaning crew was made up of two whites, two Hispanics, and an African-American.  She was hurling nasty racial slurs at everyone.  The next day, a Hispanic man was doing heavy-duty carpet cleaning - and had his hoses running between the apartment he was cleaning and the new tenant's.  Suddenly, none of his hoses were working.  He stepped out to find they'd been sliced through - completely severed - and the woman was threatening him with a large butcher knife. He locked himself inside the apartment and called the police, who came and took her away.  She was back inside 24 hours.
   The lady had been pointed out to us at an apartment community meet-and-greet on 1 August.  The night of the 5th, she was at our door around 7:25 - she rang the doorbell three times, then pounded on the door, then laid on the doorbell again.  Our neighbor who lives diagonally across from us has multiple medical problems, and we thought it might be her, so Beatrice opened the door without looking out the peep-hole.  It was the new tenant.  She placed her hand on the door, as if to push it open further, and yelled, "Andre?!?  Where's Andre?  Does he live here?  I need him now!"  Beatrice immediately said, "No Andre here," and abruptly closed the door.  She went next door, rang the bell and pounded, and they opened the door - she began yelling about Andre, and all of her stuff, and it was in her place, and where the hell was Andre?  They closed their door on her.  Across the little hall from us lives a couple with their dog and new baby.  Luckily, they weren't at home, but she took a while trying to get them and the lady with medical problems, who was also gone.  Then she came back to our door, ringing the bell and hitting the door with her fists.  That's when I called 911.  Apparently the folks next door were also calling, because the 911 operator told me they were taking another call about her at the same time...
    We ended up with four "squad cars" (although most Boulder police vehicles are actually SUVs) in the lot.  I had called 911 at 7:29; the last car left at 8:05, and called up to us that everything was OK...  I don't know what exactly happened.  One of the neighbors called and said one of her neighbors claimed to have heard a gunshot.  I heard doors slamming before it started to pour rain, but no gunshots....  Life is always entertaining in Boulder!