One year ago today: May 27, 2015, St. John’s River.
Five years ago today: May 27, 2011, hand-made components.
Nine years ago today: May 27, 2007, west coast beach.
Random years ago today: May 27, 2013, trillion-dollar time bomb.
MORNING
The next paragraph in my silver fantasy tale from the trailer court. See today’s chart? You are looking at the flat part of the little green line. For reasons unknown, trading stopped in London for an hour, between 6:00-7:00AM. This only happens under specific circumstances. One of which is to halt excessive computer flipping. Another is when some regulatory commission spots something funny going on. Or that commission has been bribed to halt trading at a fortuitous moment. .
The event of the morning was finding my missing glasses. After a few hours of looking, I narrowed it down to my desk area. That’s where I’m typing right now. Don’t laugh—without glasses, I can’t drive and I have deadlines to meet. And no time to go get a replacement pair before I have to leave. Only one solution. Get JZ over here.
That worked, he found them in ten minutes. I had swept the floor and somehow, my glasses got swept under that small work stool I use for working on the motorcycles. Last place I would have looked. There’s your vindication that the “second pair of eyes” works. I must have walked past the spot fifty times. That made my morning, because we had time left over to plan the next move.
And that won’t happen until next week. We decided against a rush trip to the new property (Delta Ten), or just “the cabin”. This Memorial Day weekend is too unevenly observed to take a chance all the offices I’ll need will be open on a long weekend. We went over the planning for the new footings and I don’t understand why we can’t just pour new pylons. It seems to me that a footing is overkill since I’ll just die in that house. When I asked how the footings would get under the house, he said we dig. I was afraid he’d say that. Ha!
Trivia. Of all the guns on the planet, 20% are AK-47s. And a quarter of all new computer hard drives crash within 18 months due to manufacturing defects. If I didn’t say, my sidecar tire now goes flat in a week rather than a day. So that’s progress. And there won’t be more until we find a 27.5mm wrench. The crown nut on the axle is 27.5, and no, I’m not using any other kind of wrench because where would a find another nut like that if it gets stripped? Kiev?
Andersonville prison.
NOON
Tuesday, we decided that’s the best day to get out there. I want a bargain on the termite tent if I can, considering it is ideal for a “between jobs” day for the exterminator. Think about it, a vacant house where he can take his time and overspray to make good his warranty. I’ve read how they have been compelled to use less than effective dosages due to ecology concerns and some kid who got brain damage. Hey, zap the place. I’m not even considering moving until July.
I have no flowery ideas about relocating to a smaller area. Besides, it is still a city. The way I’ve chosen to live since early retirement does benefit me to incur the expense of living in a larger population center. I rarely travel more than ten miles from town except to get out on the open highway. Generally, the idea is run up there with the truck and a load of basics. My most necessary basic is a coffee-maker. By the way, I looked up the appliances. The oven is self-cleaning, the fridge is self-defrosting. And that heat pump in the living room is a $700 unit. Who could ask for anything more?
Jasmuheen: Literature, 2000. Born Ellen Greve, this lady was the Aussie who said people don’t need food, they can live by breathing only. Hey, she’s a real trooper, she almost died four days after trying to prove it. Claims her DNA “expanded” from 2 to 12 strands to “take up more hydrogen”. Her followers not so much. Four of them starved to death.
Everything is in order for Tuesday. Good, because my jet lag returned, meaning I stayed home like a good boy and read for several hours. Here is a passage I found to be hauntingly poignant by an author called Sandra Cisneros. Who really needs to get out more.
Linoleum Roses
Sally got married like we knew she would, young and not ready but married just the same. She met a marshmallow salesman at a school bazaar, and she married him in another state where it’s legal to get married before the eighth grade. She has her husband and her house now, her pillowcases and her plates. She says she is in love, but I think she did it to escape.
Sally says she likes being married because now she gets to buy her own things when her husband gives her money. She is happy, except sometimes her husband gets angry and once he broke the door where his foot went through, though most days he is okay. Except he doesn’t let her talk on the telephone. And he doesn’t let her look out the window. And he doesn’t like her friends, so nobody gets to visit her unless he is working.
She sits at home because she is afraid to go outside without his permission. She looks at all the things they own: the towels and the toaster, the alarm clock and the drapes. She likes looking at the walls, at how neatly their corners meet, the linoleum roses on the floor, the ceiling smooth as wedding cake.
If you ask me, it is well-written. It doesn’t give the point of view of the marshmallow salesman so one supposes that doesn’t matter toward the point the author is making. Talking on the phone is the source of a lot of marital troubles, and I’m curious why the window thing? And I know I did not like even one of my wife’s friends, though I politely tolerated them. How does a sane and stable lady like my own have a circle of friends who are useless, uneducated, gossipy, and frustrated? Guess I’ll ever know.
Hmmm, is the author suggesting he should risk divorce by letting her yak on the phone. I mean, she already visits with her friends while he is away at the office, ahem.
ADDENDUM
I’m glad to see Trump pushing a Constitutional issue despite the flak he’s getting from commentators to take a position on minor points where they know any answer will offend some group. This time it is the “transgender” hokus-pokus now introduced by the Liberals as a campaign issue. They’ll try anything. The same Libtards who tried to sell the American public that the biggest issue facing our crumbling economy was nonsense like global warming and the human rights record of Vietnam. Puh-leeze! But Trump is giving the right answer—let the individual states decide.
Not that they would be any better at making decisions, but the Constitution forbids the federal government from ruling on anything that is not specifically spelled out. And continually handing tiny but vocal minorities more and more rights to do as they please is about as undemocratic as you can get. NPR loves to put queers on the air and this transgender nonsense is just fanning the flames—exactly the something-for-nothing crap the Liberal media loves to death.
What’s funny is to hear the queers on NPR who make statements like how they “won” various gay rights issues in the past, as if it is a given. Complete bunk, people finally quit arguing back hoping the queers would STFU. That hardly counts as a victory, you floofs. If you really want to hear the end of the issue, go back in the closet. In your case, that’s what closets are for.
The best NPR guests are the ones who claim the most ill-done-by. The ones who say the world is a big bad blue meanie out to get them. I can agree with the meanie part, but not that the world singles out any specific group. It’s like listening to guitar players sing about how hard it was to get to the top. Read my lips, there are millions of others who have been through everything you have, every tribulation, sometimes worse and sometimes longer, but who never got a break. You are preaching to the choir.
Except for your self-inflicted wounds, you’d have one tough time indeed convincing me that you’ve been through anything unique. Hell, you’d have to convince me that you’ve been through at least what I have and still somehow had the opportunity to learn to play music as well. Music since 1985 has been almost exclusively a rich-boy’s or pretty-girl’s playground. And if they don’t smarten up, they’ll soon be taking a leak in each other’s public toilets.
As for my stance on transgender toilets? Anyone who is “not sure” which to use, default is the men’s room. Women and children need to be protected against weirdos, and anyone who has not noticed most weirdos are male is not paying attention. When in doubt, you get the smell seats. If you don’t like it, stay at home. In the closet. I simply think minorities should not be denied special rights provided they are prepared to pay for it themselves. Democracy is the greatest good for the greatest number. Start treating small groups favorably and there is no impetus to assimilate, that is, to become part of the greatest number.
Last Laugh
Return Home
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
