Life is What Happens

Tip of the Day:

If you're having a garage sale, good signs are KEY! If people driving by can't read your sign, they won't find your sale. If you write too much on your sign, they won't be able to read it. If you include your address on the sign, few people are going to know where the street is unless they live on the same street.

Here's some tips for making signs that will bring people to your yard/garage sale:

• Use high contrast colors - black on white works best, or to really get attention, use black on some neon green poster board
  
• Write in BIG letters - big enough to read from across the street without squinting
  
• The sign should say, quite prominently, "YARD SALE" and have a BIG arrow. "Garage Sale" is too long. Shortening it to "SALE" works well, too!
  
• Some additional information is good, like the time (8-2, or 9-3, etc. - don't put 8:00am to 2:00pm, or 7:30am to 3:30pm - people driving by will not be able to process it).
  
• Adding address and street is OK so those who DO know the area or are already on your street can verify their proximity. But keep in mind the only thing that really works is a big, fat arrow (pointing up for straight ahead, left for left, right for right).
  
• Place your signs high up and in such a way that the next sign is visible immediately or very soon after passing one.
  
• Do not list all your items that are for sale on your signs ("furniture, clothes, toys, electronics, computers, kitchen stuff, tools!") since there is no way anyone will be able to read it while driving by, especially since you would have to write too small to fit all that in. It might be OK to have this information on your LAST sign, posted AT your yard/garage sale location so that lookieloos don't stop if you don't have the kind of thing they're looking for.
  

That's my rant, er, tip for the day.

On to more serious stuff...

My wife and I just returned from another trip to Grass Valley, CA. We want to live there. The Yuba River is so fun and nice and healing. We also rented a little fishing boat and zipped around on a nice lake.

We were debating whether to take this trip or not, because my mom's significant other, Jim, took a turn for the worse. He was diagnosed with cancer just a few short weeks earlier and was lucid and coherent just two weeks before, but the cancer had matastasized (did I spell that correctly?) and spread like wildfire and he went downhill fast.

My mom said she didn't want us to come out and my sister had flown out to be with her for a couple days, and we already had our trip to Grass Valley scheduled, so we decided to go. My mom called last Thursday afternoon while we were driving up toward Sacramento. My sister had just left to return to her home. About two minutes after I hung up from that call, Jim's sister called to tell us that he passed away and were heading to my mom's to tell her the news.

Jim was 84 and was one of the nicest, jovial people I have ever known. It is sad when such good people are taken away so quickly. He and my mom spent much time together, travelling the world, over the past 12+ years. It's hard to see my mom have to deal with such a loss for a second time. At least he died peacefully, so his sister said.

My mom had talked to Jim the day before, in the hospital, and said she gave him permission to "sail away in his little blue boat." He was the kind of man who had expressed that there be no heroics to try to save him or keep him alive under such conditions, and it was such a touching, loving gesture for my mom to have said that to him. Jim's sister had told my mom not to come in a day or so before, thinking he was going to pass away that night, and because he was so out of it, it was as if he was gone already. But I tend to think he was holding on so that my mom could say goodbye to him. I know I would have wanted it to transpire that way if I were in that position.

My wife and I travelled around the lake as a tribute to Jim's life and his metaphorical "sailing away". We stopped near one rather interesting spot and said a silent prayer for him. I know he's off to bigger and better things.

Farewell, Jim! You will be missed.

We returned home safely late Sunday night. The next day, yesterday, after work, the car died while my wife was driving it home. She stopped at Whole Foods and couldn't get the car started. She got a jump start while I drove down to meet her at her next stop, which was a place to get dinner. We left the car running, but I noticed an occasional blip like the battery was disintegrating, so I insisted we stop at Pep Boys or Kragen on the way home and buy a new battery.

We made it to Kragen just before they closed and bought a battery. Then the car died and refused to start, even by jumping it. The guy at the store was very generous about letting us use some tools to swap out the battery (even gave us a discount on a $5 socket wrench set on a last-minute purchase), but he finally had to close up before we completed the operation. And in a Mazda Protoge 5, it is just that - an operation!

The shorten the story, I successfully resurrected the car and we drove home and ate our dinner (thank the gods for microwave ovens). I forgot to mention that while I was at the river, I ripped the nail on my big toe almost completely off. Also, I got the call about the car dying literally the very moment I had kicked my shoes off after coming home, just before putting my aching foot up. It was one of those days that didn't want to end.

Anyway, I'm back. I will be going to Tucson at some point, but I just don't know when. We bought tickets to go over Labor Day, then my mom called and said not to come, that she'd rather come out to see us. So, now we have to decide whether to cancel the trip or not (which the airline will allow us to do for $11 if we cancel tonight).

Ugh. Life is what happens while you're making other plans.