One year ago today: November 15, 2015, world’s oldest functional DVD player.
Five years ago today: November 15, 2011, St. Augustine, Florida.
Nine years ago today: November 15, 2007, my hero, the bassist.
Random years ago today: November 15, 2010, remember the duckwalk?
MORNING
Welcome back to civilization. I had to put the space heater on this morning. Don’t read me wrong, I live year-round warm weather but so do cockroaches and other creatures from the Caribbean Islands. They’re always there, they breed like rats and live off the crumbs of society. Here’s something else that immigrated here, the citrus blight. This tree up at the civic center should be in full bloom. Instead, the leaves just keep falling off. You’d think by now the US would have learned to stop anything harmful from crossing the borders.
Cooler mornings means I’m more likely to curl back under the covers for a few extra winks. I still found time to go over the books this morning concerning the new place. If I remove the extraordinary expense that has occurred each month, it is beginning to look like the long-term living costs of this place are around $140 per month. That’s $450 less on average than the old place and it will not be long before that begins to make a difference. Notice, I avoided saying “Smithsonian”.
That $450 is still a guess, it has to be determined more accurately because that is how I intend to buy and operate a car after 2017. Let me quantify this a little, pay attention if you ever want to move to Florida. There is no other source that can give you as honest an answer as right here. The basic components of the $140 per month are cost water, garbage, electric, and taxes. Optional items like the phone are not included. Food and entertainment are separate budget items.
Remember my contention that it costs $600 per month to “do nothing” in Broward or Dade county. That’s above and beyond the costs above. It works out to $20 per day that just evaporates. If I could only find another bingo, I’d be operating at a surplus. And that, my dear readers, is an exceedingly exceptional lifestyle in these parts. Surplus means that right now if there was any interruption in the earned income situation, most people would begin to sink like stones while I would actually start banking money. Wouldn’t that be nice?
When you see it.
NOON
Uh-oh, I do believe I’ve come down with a back-to-back flu. It’s that library. Kid’s these days have never been taught to cover their sneezes or blow their noses. Which reminds me I still can’t find my headphones, the beautiful set that blots out the world. I’d like those in the library even when not listening to music. Overall, the libraries here are a dream compared to Miami.
Minutes later, I spot him. It’s one of the juveniles from the summer. Slightly smaller and not quite as red, but more red than the brownish shade last time he was a few months back. That’s a good sign, I felt so rotten about cutting down the trees. I don’t know if they lived there, but they disappeared the next day.
An unusual topic of research today was the concept of a tree house on that stump. It still rises ten or twelve feet above the ground and wood is solid. Did I tell you the trees rot from the top down? Yes, I did. Well, if I did the calculations right, I could have a 12’x12’ platform up there. I even saw plans on how to make a spiral staircase right into the tree stump. But that’s far away, just remind me to peel the bark away, it’s all disintegrating. And then varnish the wood. Yeah, that will look nice when it is varnished. I always wanted a tree house and I think it adds immensely to the house price when you sell.
AFTERNOON
The moment at least some of you have been waiting for. The naughty parts of the Rose, the seamy underbelly of the monastic rituals, when the friar’s play hooky. Adso puts the rod to the peasant girl in the kitchen in return for a beef heart. He describes the encounter in these [slightly redacted] words:
“She wore a threadbare little dress of rough cloth that opened in a fairly immodest fashion over her bosom. Her head rose proudly on a neck as white as an ivory tower, here eyes were clear as the pools of Heshbon. Her tresses seemed to me like a block of goats, her teeth like flocks of sheep coming up from their bath.Damn, I don’t know whether to get that gal’s address or go bake a cherry pie. Yeah, Adso is the guy’s name. Whatever I call him otherwise, that’s the same dude. The book is written as if Adso, the assistant, is telling us what he observed. And he seems to observe a lot about how unworthy and inadequate he is. This gives the book a “Confucious say” aura. The ideal apprentice, Adso is so damn humble it drives you up the castle wall.
“Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate. My head was throbbing as the trumpets of Joshua, she smiled with great joy, emitted the stifled moan of a pleased she-goat, and undid the strings that closed her dress. Her breasts appeared to me like two fawns that are twins of a roe, feeding among the lilies; her navel was a goblet wherein no mingled wine is wanting, her belly a heap of wheat set about with lilies.
“A rosy perfume breathed from her lips and her legs were like columns and jewels were the joints of her thighs. Her loves were more delicious than wine, thine eyes are doves, the smell of thy breath is of apples, thy two breasts are clusters of grapes, thy palate a heady wine.
“Suddenly I saw a brilliant light and in it a form which flamed up in a sweet and shining fire, and that splendid light spread through all the shining fire, and this shining fire through that golden form and that brilliant light and that shining fire through the whole form.
There’s been a third murder, another monk from the library, or actually the “scriptorium”. The monks can’t enter the library. The plot friction is that the Pope has sent an envoy who is arriving shortly. If there are unsolved killings at the monastery, the envoy has the power to take over the place from the Abbot. In 1342, this is a terrible fate. Michael and Adso must find the perp before that envoy arrives.
It took me a bit to catch on, but the various hours of the day have names. Maybe that’s how monks tell time. Each chapter is divided into these blocks, kind of like Morning, Noon, and Night, except in Italian.
NIGHT
I ran to the market for goodies but I’m getting foggy, this is flu season. Instead of some barbeque sauce, when I got home it was a $3.00 bottle of A1 Sauce. You like that stuff? Not me, it tastes and smells like medicine. And I didn’t notice until I opened the bottle and doused my pork chop. It cleared my sinuses, at least temporarily. Maybe it is medicine.
I said to myself, stay home, take aspirin, drink plenty of fluids. So I mixed up some grapefruit and lime. The small Persian limes, I have that custom squeezer. Not bad, you’ve heard of sweet and sour? This is kind of like sour and sour. This flu is moving fast, by 8:55PM my shoulders are cramped. I’m making tea out of cough drops. And by midnight I can’t taste anything except garlic. I’m stuck at home with nothing to read except a book on medieval Catholic propaganda. And an Almanac.
Worse, I’m not tired. I stayed up and tested all my DC motors, buzzers, and fans so I would not have to read that book. Or varnish anything. Mind you, I’m beginning to like varnish, it is actually a nice way to finish wood that makes it look like I know what I’m doing. It’s a good thing I’m stocked up on food and tea. I suspect I’m going to be home for a few days. My head feels like a basketball. AAAAAA-chooo!
PS: By end of the second day, that turkey thawing in the fridge is still solid as a block of ice. It says you can thaw it in water. What, in the bathtub? When is Thanksgiving anyway? Next week? Well, I’m hungry now.
Last Laugh
Return Home
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STOP HERE
