Baby Steps (first written 6/09)

I think I am learning that the first year that one owns a new property should not be the year to decide where everything goes or exactly what the logistics should be for the property's layout. The more I think about where I would like to put things, or how I would like to change things, the more I realize that there are so many options and possibilities. Just as when I first surveyed the place and thought that I would never be able to get my trailers in the drive, let alone have room to maneuver them (I have plenty of room!), I am having a hard time envisioning my barn fitting in the back. When I realize that 36 feet is the same length as three of my portable horse panels, there is plenty of room. I thought that the front which used to be a lawn would be a good place for a round pen and more sage. Now I think a spot of grass under the tree might not be all bad. Or, I could leave all of it grass except where the round pen goes so the horses can have a few minutes of graze time now and then. Surely someone out there knows how to get my sprinkler system up and running again and it would serve dual purpose keeping the dust down and keeping the grazing grass green.

Found it!

After dropping my Blackberry in the steamed milk for my morning coffee and killing the camera function, I have been without viewfinder and searching for my old digital camera. I finally found it where I had neatly packed it. It was put carefully back into it's original packaging and thrown in a bigger box containing my clock radio and the old Play Station. Since the Blackberry I no longer used any of those three items. Until my ATT contract is up for renewal it's back to the old school Fuji Fine Pix. Now, if I just had a new battery....

What the ???

Early this morning I watched a dust bunny roll across my floor. It presented itself about 5 feet in front of my chair. Curious, I got up to look at it. Upon further inspection, I realized it was a juvenile? scorpion, amber in color, almost opaque which helped it blend very well into my hardwood floors. I know this isn't Arizona, but it looked a lot like one of these....

http://phoenix.about.com/od/arizonapicturesandphotos/ig/Arizona-Bark-Scorpions/Scorpion-11.htm

I don't know where it came from but it sure gathered some dust and lint amd a few cat hairs along the way. It didn't appear to be feeling very well. Maybe it ate some of those termite carcasses the one-armed bug man chemically "treated" when I bought the place.

My street, from the end of it looking north. Looks like my house is the end of the road.

Maybe this is my mid-life crisis but I have decided to start training for a some 5k and maybe some day, 10k "fun" runs. There is one on August 1st that I don't think I'll be ready for (at least not to run) but in October the Susan G. Komen race for the cure comes to Reno. I will at least be ready to walk that one! It's hard to train consistently with my schedule especially recently where I have been working until very late at night or very early in the morning and then having to start all over again at 0730. It's taken me two days to recover from working through the weekend. Today I am off and feel pretty good but it's going to be very windy which makes my hike unpleasant and more difficult navigating the hills.This is the view looking east from atop a nearby street about two miles from the house. The near rooftops are in the Fieldcreek development. Sound familiar?

Thistles along the fence of the golf course. This is what they look like right before they shoot their alien pod people spores into your face.

First Bloom

I noticed the first rose bloom of the season yesterday on my way out the front door. While I think roses are very pretty and fragrant, I would never purchase rose bushes. I despise bees and wasps and yellow jackets a whole lot more than I like flowers so personally, I would never plant sweet things that attract them. Besides, roses are a pain in the a** to prune. I realize that these haven't had any attention for a year or so, but if I get impaled much more by those razor sharp thorns, I'm gonna rip 'em all out! In fact I'm gonna offer them to people at the hospital along with my three other major commodities of the property, rocks, weeds, and horse manure. You come dig it up, you can have it!

Right Under my Nose

Last night I fought off my desire to flop down on the new sofa and vegetate and instead managed to drag the hose around the yard and get some plants watered. I have given up on figuring out the fancy drip irrigation system that the previous owners installed. Guess I'm gonna have to call somebody in to look at it. With temps reaching the 90's this weekend I thought I'd better give whatever plants survived the long vacant summer last, a chance at survival this year.

As I was watering along the patio, I noticed a familiar fragrance that I love. As I looked/sniffed closer for the source of the perfume, I realized that what I had first thought as some sort of sage gone to weed in a valiant effort to survive, was in fact the plant that I was planning to go purchase and plant, already there in sextuplicate awaiting a long needed drink. Lavender. Even in it's gone-to-seed state the water rehydrated their fragrance, subtle yet unmistakable, lavender. Ahhhhh.

Oh boy, look what I bought.........an acre of weeds.

I am finally starting to settle in to the new house. While I am not just thrilled with the house itself or the set up of the property, I am thrilled with the location and as they say in real estate, "Location, location, location." I drove back to Lemmon Valley last night to clean out my thrift store donations which I had left in the old garage. I remembered my original intent to move to Golden Valley and after going back, I am happy that I never quite found the right place there. It's always amazing to me how the universe takes care of me if I just let it.

My biggest project is still my one acre of weeds. I made the horses corral larger and they helped clear a good portion, but it's pretty hard work moving 12 foot, six rail horse panels around by myself so the push mower, my back, and if I get really desperate, the neighbor's belching weed-eater, will have to take care of the rest.

So, now I concentrate on cleaning up this place and making it as cozy as I can. Today I have some furniture being delivered, this is the first new furniture I have ever bought, (R C Willey has some occasional good bargains in their clearance section) a leather sofa, an entertainment center and a hutch for upstairs linen storage. My old round screen T.V. is going to look p-r-e-t-t-y small dwarfed inside the middle of an entertainment center built for today's monster flat screens.

close to closing

Last Wednesday the pest control man, a one and a half armed local who grew up just down the road from my new house, and is totally into all bugs, not just termites, treated the house and soil for the beginnings of termite infestation. He dropped a few names of his friends in the horse and vet business, I may have picked up a cheaper hay source from him.
The water filtration installer was also there. I now have (or will have), a whole house reverse osmosis water filter. It even includes the two exterior water spigots. I guess that across the valley where the arsenic level is high, the untreated water out of the hose kills any vegetation that you might try to nurture.
As I mentioned before, I have been incredibly calm throughout this entire home purchasing process. That is my universal indicator that it is the right thing for me at this time. I get an occasional hint of trepidation, usually upon awakening over one little thing or another, like how will I get those boulders out of there, or realizing that I don't have any outbuildings,
or wondering if there's enough room to make a "drive" on the south side of the house between it and the neighbors fence, so I can make a horseshoe to pull my trailers around the back. These are all logistics.

I also have to decide where to install the above ground oil fuel tank for the furnace. I am going to have the below ground tank abandoned and filled with slurry so that it can no longer haunt me with the threat of possible, eventual underground leakage. Here's some information that I never knew, if the square footage of a house is too great, you will have to have not one, but two furnaces to heat the place.

The actual commitment to purchase the house is a little thrilling? scary? as the closing date nears, but I wouldn't say it was stressful. The biggest stress stems from all of the work of moving and coordinating minor repairs found at inspection and the arrangements for the addition of outbuildings. But hey! What else do I have to do with my summer?

Weigh-in

Bubba circa 2003.



Bubba circa last month!



Finally bought the diet kit-teh food, 10% less fat than regular. Started mixing with the old food so maybe they won't notice. The first time I weighed Izzy she was a mere 11 lbs. Last night she tipped the scales at 13 pounds! And in the blue corner, weighing in at an impressive 19.5 pounds, the one and only Bubba-licious.

Izzy,dreaming of being as big as her
brother one day.

What Bubba thinks of of diet food.

Uh oh, I think I just bought a house.

Well, it looks like this may be it. I may have actually bought a house. Compared to all of the stress and agitation that I went through last year when I was searching, and had in fact been in escrow at one point, this purchase has been, well, very mellow. Despite all of the obstacles, all of the little annoying repairs and revisions that must be made before taking possession, I've only been the slightest bit concerned. In fact, I can only remember three nights that I lost any sleep over the entire process.
My Realtor, an exclusive buyers agent, is totally committed to getting me the very best purchase price and not her very best commission. She is very Zen and I have been recommending her to everyone that even thinks about buying a house.We looked at a lot of frogs before we found the prince.

This house bragged that it blended in with the landscape. I guess they weren't lying because the window has been cut to incorporate the boulder. The "house" also bragged that it was "...unique horse property tucked away....," another truth. We almost couldn't find it because it sits off the pavement on a dirt trail and has trees growing literally right next to the outside walls.

This picture shows how most men remodel kitchens. It was really the only upgrade the old home had to offer but if you look closely, there is literally 8 square feet of space in the area behind the cook top.


Look, another charming kitchen. I couldn't believe how many otherwise decent sized houses had these narrow, crowded galley kitchens. I've discovered that part of the reason that I don't like to cook is because the kitchen becomes so cluttered and I become agitated because there is no space. I don't like clutter. This kitchen couldn't even accommodate the microwave. It has to have it's own piece of furniture.




I think I deleted some of the more
hideous pictures along the way,
but here are a couple of decorator ideas for cheery rooms. Note the use of dingy yellow on yellow on the right, and that fancy paint "technique" used on the bedroom on the left.





Next is a house that I almost made an offer on. The house itself was very clean and the exterior very low maintenance. While it wasn't fenced for horses, the property was laid out with lots of room in the back and even had a little shelter/tack room. I went back to look at it twice because something kept nagging at me about the design of the house. Here is the dining area just off the kitchen and breakfast bar.


This is the view from the dining area looking at the living room. The chair is against the wall. He took out the wood burner so he would have some place to put the entertainment center. The space just past the chair is the stairway up, and to the left, the hall to the master bedroom. Try reselling this house to a family!


And so, I finally came upon the house I'm buying. While it isn't perfect, and it isn't even really my style, it is in an exceptional area of town. There is a ton of work to do. The property itself where the shelter and horses will be is littered with boulders. Thankfully it seems that a lot of people like boulders and some have offered to come collect a truckload or two or three for their own landscaping adventures. Still, I'm not quite sure how I am going to unearth the ones that are only partially visible above ground.
The bank that owns the house (it is a foreclosure) has agreed to install a whole house reverse osmosis filtration system to counteract the (very low) arsenic level in my well water, and to pay for treating the small termite infestation. That only leaves me responsible for paying for chimney repairs, oil furnace flu repairs, installation of an above ground oil fuel tank and abandonment of the giant underground tank, a GFI circuit in the kitchen, some minor electrical in the dining room, replacement of the electrical wire from the well pump to the house, and the purchase and installation of a range and a dishwasher. I don't want a dishwasher but unbelievably, the bank won't finance me without one.There are a lot of little things that need to be done also, but they can wait.

Speaking of small galley kitchens, this one is mine and there is a definite remodel in it's future. It will get new paint in the very near future.


This is the dining room and yes, that is a fireplace in the dining room. These are both parts of the original 1964 home. The hardwood flooring is original in this half of the house. I will forgo the fireplace and have an approved wood burning or pellet stove installed before next winter.


I keep forgetting to take pictures of the other rooms when I am inside the house. There is a 1/2 bath just past the kitchen breakfast bar on the right and on the left is the laundry room. If you walk ahead past the bathroom you are in the first floor "bedroom". It is classified as a bedroom because they added a closet and a bathroom. It used to be ? . I'm guessing it was the original master bedroom (sans bathroom) and perhaps a very small second bedroom. It is such a bright room and it will become sort of a leisure room/activity room. That exercise equipment that I have put off buying until I find a house, is going there. There will be a TV set and the not-so-attractive sofa bed handed down to me from a friend, will live there. The spare table, I'm buying a new kitchen table, will fit well in there for doing jig saw puzzles, and the room may have it's own microwave, my soon to be spare, for pop corn or other snacks. If I had a family, I guess you would call that the family room?.

There is a second smaller bedroom downstairs which will become the office. I can finally buy a real computer workstation and bookshelves! It is a decent size room but it is smaller than all of the rest. With it's street level view perhaps I won't be so inclined to daydream while I should be working.

Here is the formal living room. I find it to be the least interesting room in the house for some reason. I think the hardwood floors, which I really love, give the room a not so cozy feeling but I'm sure that can be remedied with some area rugs and warm colors. I can finally buy "real" furniture! A comfy sofa, an overstuffed chair, a living room table (!), an entertainment center (!) an HD flat screen (!), the possibilities are limited only by my creativity and checkbook balance.

Upstairs are the two main bedrooms. The master has an eastern exposure, good for morning light, and it is huge. Using my feet to measure, I estimate it to be 500 square feet! There is a very elaborate bathroom and a walk in closet. When you open the door to the closet it activates the light switch built into the door jamb, much like a car door activates the dome light when you open it. Outside of the north-east corner is a small balcony good for sunning or watching the sunrise. (That's my friend Joe)


I don't have a picture of the second upstairs spare bedroom. It is also a very large bedroom, about 350 square feet according to my bipeds. It is currently known as the "Blue Room." It was the childrens room complete with crayon scribbles on the west wall. It has a ceiling fan with multiple light fixtures which are all a different color. Even the private bathroom has brightly colored tiles. It is the only other room in the house with carpet. All of the bathrooms and the laundry room have tile floors, and as you have seen, the rest is hardwood.

I have waited for so long to make myself comfortable in what I can finally call MY home. I can decorate my way, furnish with non hand-me-down (antiques accepted) or disposable or goodwill furniture. I can go antique or modern or rustic or anything I please. I can FINALLY unpack everything I have hauled around in boxes for the last 30 years. And the best part is.... no one can tell me I have to leave. I will finally be the one staying. This is the proverbial beginning of the rest of my life. It's like everything I have ever been waiting for is cumulating with this house. Who knows, I may even finally find some romance! (The structural inspector was kinda hot.....)

diet time

OMG! I am going to have to take the food away at night. Or I am going to have to take the food away while I'm at work. Or Something! Bubba has gone from 18 pounds of Bubba Love to 19.5 lbs of Bubba Love since the new kitty arrived. I thought that perhaps with some extra exercise thrown in, chasing the young Izzy kitty around the house, he would actually have lost some weight. But noooooo, seems the preferred exercise now is competitive eating!

Time for another semi-annual post. I could make a resolution to post here more often, but that would just put more pressure on me which would ultimately drive me further away from posting. So, we'll just see how it goes.

After Bubba and I lost Rowdy, I have been feeling sorry for Bubba having to be all alone while I am off at work. In the back of my mind, I know he just sleeps all day curled up in the recliner with the "warm fuzzy" I leave there for him, but for those brief waking moments when he may wander through the house, I wondered if he was lonely. Although Bubba and my relationship had not changed at all after Rowdy, I know that I felt the void quite often. I couldn't stop thinking about "It's just you and me now." and, "All we have are each other." and various depressing cliches. So, not wanting to go through the agony of having to put down another dog, I opted to get another kitty....for Bubba, of course. I know it will be agony losing my felines also, but for now I have no real point of reference for that event.
Since the economy has become so horrible, the local no kill shelter is overrun with homeless quadrupeds. Several times a year they offer reduced price adoptions. Dogs are $35.00 (?) and cats are $25.00. That price includes an already spayed or neutered pet, with all current vaccinations, worming, and an implanted microchip. On Halloween day, I went to the shelter in search of our new addition to the family.
Let me say that the experience was a bit overwhelming. There must have been about 250 cats alone awaiting homes (I was very careful not to go where the dogs were waiting). Some were in large common rooms with about 19 others. Kittens were in cages with what I assume were their litter mates, in the front of the building. There were very few kittens left. None of them especially called to me which I actually found very odd. Who can resist a kitten, right? The others were housed in individual rooms, in individual cages, with glass windows facing the hallway. There were three rows of six or seven cages on both sides of the room. You were allowed to enter the rooms and remove any one kitty at a time from it's cage so as to get better acquainted. How to decide on just one!? My heart ached for all of them! When you walk into the room, the ones that weren't sleeping immediately started mewing. As you walk by the row of cages, they would reach through the bars of the cage with one arm and plead with a batting paw for you to pick them. If you paused in front of the rows and bent over to peer into the third row of cages at floor level, the occupants of the cages above you would reach out and snag your hair, your clothing, anything to turn your attention back upon themselves. It was a bit horrific for me.
I must have spent three or four hours at the shelter. I started a list of names of possible matches so I wouldn't lose track. I wanted a female, believing the transition with Bubba would be less dramatic or competitive. I wanted a young kitty for selfish reasons. I know older animals are harder to find homes for, but I was going for longevity, hoping for 15-20 years of vitality.
Once upon a time, I had one totally awesome dark calico when I lived in Oakland. Her name was Misha and she was the most devoted, loving kitty. Stan probably remembers her. He found her when I was away for the day, after she had been hit by a car, and he took her to the vet for me. If I never thanked you for that, I apologize and thank you now, Stan. She had a broken or dislocated hip (I don't remember which now). I made a bed for her on the floor in a box, right next to my bed. The first night home, injured hip and all, I awoke to her pulling herself up onto the bed with her front claws, dragging her damaged, splinted hip behind her, so she could join me on the bed. I didn't sleep the rest of night for fear that I would crush her. I've had a fondness for calicoes ever since. I kept that thought in my mind as I searched for just the right feline, but every calico I saw, which were very few, had too much white. I must say that black cats were plentiful. Black cats are a good bet too, but there can only be one Bubba.
My experience with kit-tehs has also taught me what I want to avoid in personality and design. Too much talking, too demanding of attention, can't get enough attention, too scared or hateful, too much white, and what I call "Clarence Cats" ones with long noses and an almost cross-eyed appearance, much like a Siamese, and Siamese cats proper, were all eliminated from my choices. That narrowed the choices down to about 160.
By now my list consisted of about three names. None of them actually felt right. Well, there was one. His name was Domino, one of the more clever names given by the Humane Society staff, an older black male with perfectly symmetrical white markings on his face. When I held him over my shoulder as I hold Bubba, he was perfectly calm and content. He never squirmed or protested. Totally mellow. I liked that. He would have come home with me if I hadn't decided to make one final stroll around the large building.
I came upon a room that I had missed earlier. By this point I was tired and depressed and I just wanted to leave. I almost didn't go in, Domino had made such an impression, but still, he was an older male, two strikes. As I entered the room, she was the first kitty I noticed. On the bottom row, first cage on the right. A little dark calico with extremely little white. She was awake and as I approached she simply looked at me. No pleading, no retreating, just an intelligent gaze. The tag on the door proclaimed that her name was "Dot" 1 1/2 years old, DSH, female. She just kept gazing at me as I opened her cage. She waited for me to lift her out. I threw her over my right shoulder. She didn't try to jump off or squirm away. Mellow, I liked that. I set her on the counter in the room and the told the young boy volunteer that happened to be in there with us that she was the one. He returned shortly with one of those cardboard transport boxes and off we went to the front counter to fill out the proper paperwork.
She never fidgeted in the box. I began to fill out papers and was suddenly overwhelmed by emotion. My vision became blurred by tears and I couldn't read what was in front of me. At first I tried to keep the tears from rolling down my cheeks, as if I could reabsorb them back into their respective tear ducts. I had to restrain myself from completely falling apart and decided to send the welled up tears rolling with a blink of my eyes. I reasoned that the staff had probably seen this response many times before. Fortunately no one paid any mind, and refrained from showing me any sympathy which would only have made my emotion less controllable.
Paperwork completed and reviewed, I grabbed my Box O' Dot and headed home. She never made one peep during the ride home. The literature they give you tells you to keep the new kitty in a separate room where they can smell each other under the door until they get used to one another, maybe for two or three days. Then gradually introduce the two cats together. I left her in the box on the kitchen floor until Bubba lost interest and then I let her out. She explored, Bubba watched. Then Bubba began to follow her. Then she became annoyed with the constant surveillance, then she swatted Bubba, then Bubba swatted at her, then Bubba ignored her, then she used the new cat box, then Bubba used the old cat box, then they swatted at each other, then they chased each other around the house, and then we all went to bed.
This photo represents day two. Once they were warmed by the mid-morning sun and reached out to each other with that first tentative, affectionate, exploratory touch, they became fast friends. Friends that is, as long as "Dot" recognizes Bubba's supremacy and his rightful place on the throne.
It took me about three days to revise "Dot's' name. Dot didn't even make sense to me. I tried to come up with something clever for a Halloween kitty. Nothing common or simplistic like spook, or goblin, I thought of C.C. for candy corn, then it got revised to sissy, after all, she was Bubba's new sister, then some other brand of Halloween candy, Snicker's perhaps, or Reese's (peanut butter cups) and it became pronounced as ree-cee, and then, somehow ree-cee morphed into Izzy. Izzy Borden Bot. Bot short for robot of course. She sometimes contorts into these herky-jerky movements when she is excited, like a robot. And Izzy Borden because despite her initial demure attitude, she is rather whacked out.

Back in early August, I took a trip to Wyoming to pick up a horse trailer that Clark has been tempting me with for quite a while. The bonus, to fill it with hay. Although it has become very stressful for me to take extended periods of time off from work, I finally was able to coordinate a trip with my time off mirroring some time off taken by two of the docs I work with. I was still anxious about leaving my animals behind, horses and cat, but, like Nike says, I had to make up my mind to "Just do it."
Most of the trip was business with much to get done preparing the trailer for the road and taking a morning to load it with hay, but there were a couple of days of relaxation.
On the way up I took a very minor detour to visit Stan for a night and see his house and garden. After a mid-day nap and a walk with the M-dog, we went downtown for First Friday. First Friday is a monthly event highlighting local artists and galleries. While the art was mildly interesting, the local college crowds are much more fun to watch. Fort Collins is an odd, yet engaging mix of old west and new age. I like the town more each time I visit. If only it were west of the Rockies....
At Clark and Mona's house I decided to "save" a bunny baby from those wascally putty tats of Mona's. She saw the kit-tehs chasing it through the yard and managed to catch the little bunny before they did. It was sooooo cute and scared. Clark immediate warned that they usually don't survive captivity but I was sure this one would be different! I found a big box and we put a metal grating over the top. I expected the bunny to die over night, but the next day he/she (how do you tell with a baby bunny?), was alive and well. Couldn't really find any obvious external injuries and I got on the Internet to see what they eat. Seems they like grass so I plucked some from the yard, filled a jar lid with water and corralled the bunny on the kitchen table and there he/she would nibble grass and drink water. Every several hours I would put the bunny on the table, marvel at how adorable it was and offer some food and water. By the end of the second day, little Jr was trying to jump out of the box. I thought this was a good sign. We decided to release our captive over at the hay circle thinking that over there at least the bunny would escape lunch with a kitty.
The next day was spent in town finishing preparations to the horse trailer. What we had hoped would be a short time in town, turned out to be an all day affair. Upon arriving home, the first thing I did was peer into the box to check on bunny and to my horror, what I found was a stiff puff of fur. Clark was right. Sadly, the very next morning was the planned release at the circle. The little thing was still warm and I imagined that I felt a faint heartbeat. I watched for a moment to see any movement indicating breath, I held the soft furry chest to my ear in hopes of hearing a tiny rapid beating but there was neither sign of life. I swaddled the baby bunny in my arms and clothes, somehow hoping that if I could just warm him up, he would come around. I knew better but I couldn't quite let go. **Knowing that I contributed to a little bunny's demise by my good? intentions was really sad for me. I held on until there was no more hint of heat left to be found and carried him at dusk, weeping all the way, to the field on the east side of Sybille Creek Road. I said a Native prayer for my departed friend and finally let go. As I was walking back to the house and I neared the front porch, I could hear another baby screeching as it ran for it's life from the persistent cats. I said aloud, "Wow! Those Native prayers work quickly!" And I had learned my lesson.
The horse trailer, as road worthy as it was going to get at this point, was ready to be loaded with hay. I had forgotten about the humidity in Wyoming. One wouldn't think of it as a humid state, but compared to what I am used to and comfortable with, it was drenching. Your pant legs quit sliding over your legs, and your sweat provides a place for the alfalfa leaves and dust to rest. Enclose yourself in a trailer with no breeze and add some physical exertion and it's not pleasant for long. But thanks to help we got it loaded in minimal time.
Next morning, after goodbyes, it was time to hit the road. Apprehensive at first about hauling this 3,000 lb horse trailer filled with another 5,000 or more lbs of hay with just a hint of trailer brake to stop me, the trailer hauled like a dream, just like Clark promised, and my mighty Cummings diesel helped to hold us back on the downhill side. Even all four of my trailer tires stayed round until I got home, then one deflated within a week.
The trip home was uneventful and pleasant. Well, except for this. This little cloudburst turned into a black downpour that came down so thick and fast and furious that even semis were pulling off onto the shoulder. The wind was howling and whipping thick sheets of rain across the windshield. Wipers were worthless. Even though it was full daylight, you literally could not see the road for an instant at a time. There was an over-sized load on a flat-bed in my rear view mirror and he was riding in the passing lane and holding steady there. I had the slow lane and between the two of us maintaining our lanes and not having to worry about passing vehicles alongside either of us, we made it through without stopping. I played tag with that truck all the way to Evanston, where he exited. After surviving the torrent, I saw a bike headed east bound for it. Man, was he in for a surprise! I fortunately only encountered one more cloudburst in Wendover, Nevada, but it was just a normal summer thunderstorm. Not something out of the "Wyoming Triangle."

**exactly what the title of this blog refers to.