Mortaine’s Blog

John and I went out for dinner with Ken and Jill. I guess they even set a date for their wedding now– Sept. 6. I think that’s pretty quick, but hey– whatever makes them happy. They’re both old enough that perhaps getting on with the married part of their lives is worth more than having a 2-years-in-the-planning wedding.

Anyway, after dinner, we went to another geocache, this time in Cupertino, not too far from Ken’s house (which is why I picked that one). Mind you, this was after dark, which made it especially challenging.

With four of us, I divvied up the gear– Jill carried the item we were going to leave in the cache, John and I fought over the GPS unit (grin), Ken had the powerful flashlight, and I had the directions/coordinates/clue pages. There was an odd grate thing that looked promising, and lots of piles of pineneedles that we thought might be concealing a smallish tupperware box.

We kicked around in the bushes for a long while before John finally located the tupperware box, tucked underneath some ivy. I had thought it wouldn’t be in the ivy, since the ivy has to be maintained by landscapers, but I guess I was quite wrong.

There were seeds (both plant seeds and birdseed), little veggie-themes toys, a ribbon, etc. We took a little fake blueberry branch and left a can of pineapple, cause the cache theme is produce/agriculture. I wrote out the log while they rooted through the box and tried to get the pineapple to fit. We also took Raspberry the Ladybug, a travel bug from the geocaching site (who was initially placed in Fruit Cocktail). She’s on her way to Florida. Sadly, won’t be going until July, and although he’ll be driving at that point, he doesn’t geocache, so I can’t have her hitchhike along with him. Ah, well. I’m going to put her in the Banana Slug Meadow cache to see how she gets along with banana slugs for a while.

Afterwards, we went to Marie Calendar’s for PIE! The pie was good, but by the end of dessert, my tummy was not agreeing with me. I won’t go into the gruesome details, but suffice to say, I am still not fully recovered today. But no vomiting, which is good, but means I can’t justify staying home to drink fluids and rest.

[which reminds me to save this as a draft and get myself some tea before I continue....]

On Saturday morning, we had some bad news. Our realtor’s grandson died sometime between Friday and Saturday, and she went to be with her family. The realtor who is taking over our case until she comes back was the one who called.

This upsets me on several levels. Of course it’s an inconvenience that our realtor won’t be able to work on our case for a while. The new/temporary agent did not impress me during our initial phone call, largely because she seemed unprepared to discuss our situation when she called. I don’t know– we might just want to put the whole thing on hold until our realtor can return.

But there’s more, of course:

Diane’s cultivated a great relationship with us– I consider her an actual friend. So, obviously, this upsets me because, well, her three year old grandson died, and that’s a terrible, personal, tragic loss.

I’m going to add grandparents not having to outlive their grandkids to my “laws to make when I am queen.” I can already hear the ballots being filled out with my name, people.

When we bought the rental from her a couple of years ago, her stepdaughter and grandson were living with them, and it was a troubling time, but things were starting to work out with the baby’s dad.

This time, when we got back in touch to talk about selling the rental, she was so happy that her stepdaughter had reconciled and married the baby’s father– even though it was sad for her to not have them around anymore (they moved down to the LA area). And she said that she’d been completely surprised by how much she cared about this grandchild, when she didn’t even have a biological bond with the mother, and had never planned to be somebody’s mom, much less somebody’s grandma.

And yet, it made absolute sense to me– when Austin was adopted, Mom and I just fell head over heels in love with him. It doesn’t matter how your family comes together, whether through marriage or adoption or deep friendship– family is the people who love you and who you love in return, and all that crapola family drama is just that– crapola. People who love you don’t make you feel that way, don’t make you choose between one person you love and another person you love– if they really love you, then they love you without being pissy that you love someone else, too.

Obviously, I’m talking about non-sexual love here– for many, sex complicates things on a very primitive level that I’m just not gonna meddle with, not gonna discuss right now.

My mom is supportive of my sister’s decisions to move, but of course she’s going to miss her grandbabies and her daughter!

So. . . . . you can understand, I think, why my reaction to Diane’s news is just utter, profound sadness. I haven’t written another word in the sestina yet, and I’m honestly terrified. How can I write now, when this sestina has already stood witness to the deaths of two kids who didn’t have a lot of advantages when they started out, but who were loved, unconditionally and totally, by people who I care about, people who are my friends. How can I finish a poem about a little kid, when all I want to write is the profoundness of their loss?

My poetry contest ends tomorrow!!! That means that tomorrow is the last day that you can submit a poem!!!

Don’t forget! Enter today!

Note: A question came up re: number of entries. One per person, please– it’s just easier for me to keep track that way. Thanks.

My journal was reviewed yesterday. Overall, a very good review. Part of a review on is subjective about the content of a journal– and I got a reviewer who is somewhat particular about what she likes/doesn’t like in a journal.

I don’t need validation. I just crave it from time to time.

It was nice to get today.

John and I went geocaching today. We bought a GPS unit last night at REI and decided to try out one of the easier caches in our area.

The cache was on campus at UCSC. I printed out a map from Mapquest because I wanted to get as close as I could by road. Remember– I’m pathetically out of shape. I didn’t want to go hiking all over to hell and gone today. I also wanted my first geocache to be a success– no use in having an early disappointment.

So, I picked an easy cache with an easy terrain rating. The cache is called “Dead Presidents.” Basically, it’s a Where’s George? exchange point. I registered a bill before we left so I’d have one on me.

Before we reached the cache site, I stopped to take a picture from the great lookout point on Coolidge Dr.:

We drove up the hill, passed the site where the cache should be, and found parking up at Crown College. The meters weren’t working today, so we just left them and walked down to the cache. The cache is at a T intersection, and we started hunting around for it. We knew it was up high– somewhere above my head, almost certainly. Also, the cache was marked wheelchair accessible. Eventually, we concluded that it must be on the stop sign at the intersection, so we checked it over. Nope. No cache. Was it that weird-looking thing bolted to the light pole? That’s above anybody’s head!

John pointed out that there was a water drainage pipe directly underneath us, which I had dismissed because it wasn’t wheelchair accessible– from the road. Of course! It’s wheelchair accessible from the other side, over by the Bay Tree Bookstore! Ta da!

We went down into the pipe and John pulled out his little LED flashlight. But that was pretty useless, as there was just as much light coming in from the ends of the pipe. This pipe, by the way, was about 20′ in diameter– we were in no danger being down there.

Eventually, we figured out about where it should be, and we were looking above our heads. I found it– a little film canister resting on some sort of unused bracket, about 7 feet up. John jumped up and grabbed it, and we opened it up.

There was a dollar bill, a log sheet, and a bunch of little plastic trinkets (why? I don’t know) inside. We took the bill and replaced it with the one I’d already registered. I looked around in my pockets for a pen, but hadn’t brought one with me, so I couldn’t leave a log note. Note for next time I go geocaching: bring a pen always, and a more powerful flashlight. Also, don’t forget little outdoor notebook, cause that’s always handy to have along.

I took a photo of John replacing the cache:

On the way back to the car, I had to stop– scrambling back up the hill was not fun to my lungs. It was yet another wheezy, painful reminder that I am dreadfully out of shape. Sigh.

Don’t forget to enter my poetry contest– Deadline is April 1– that’s Tuesday, folks! Only 4 days away!