One year ago today: October 2, 2018, the veto power.
Five years ago today: October 2, 2014, calculating the Sun.
Nine years ago today: October 2, 2010, remember “Anything But Tequila”?
Random years ago today: October 2, 2006, the wall, nothing new.
I peeled out the best photo of the old place from the video, here is the picture of Wally’s Folly as it stands today. This could have been our free headquarters for trips to Miami, renting out the front area for a thousand a month and keeping the entire back room, with its private entrance and, if I had been allowed to continue, private facilities and kitchenette. But, now it is easier to understand why the word ‘squaw’ became a derogatory term.
What’s scarier is the ID. Although I’ve done nothing wrong and am not under suspicion, they demanded blood tests. Everybody on medical insurance in Florida is now required to up date their file, which includes showing ID, twice a year. This is abuse of power. Some say it is to prevent fraud, but that is just how they sell the program. If they took a fraction of the money required to inconvenience all the innocent people, they could easily catch all the cheats and have millions left over. But, catching criminals is not their agenda.
Since I had to stick around for those extra blood tests over this, JZ and I went to a pawn shop where he is certain he’d seen a Milwaukee table saw in prime condition. Human memory. It was a Ryobi with a broken depth adjustment and missing the blade guard. What’s evident is that when I’m around, his daily expenditures drop to a quarter of what he’ll throw away when he’s on his own. I found him a nearly new DVD player (Magnavox) for $5 and got the reminder my pal is a no-tech. I had to hook it up and show him how to work it without the missing remote.
This next photo, if any, is out of sequence, chronologically. During my absence, I used the quiet yard to temp the red cardinals back. If it worked, I can only hear them. All I’ve seen is the feeders swinging after my approach has been detected. I’ve set up a smaller feeder outside the kitchen window with the camera trained. If you see bird pictures nearby, that will be the result. That reminds me, feed the chickens. They insist.
I’ve put them to work By sprinkling the seeds around my favorite plants I’ve got the hens scratching away the weeds I used to pull by hand. For all I know, they might be good fertilizers as well. We never raised chickens on the farm. Now, if I could only train one of them to play guitar. They have the brains for it.
Neat bird house.
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I got out of town by 6:00PM, with the happy news that was expected. I am recovered and in some ways cured; my tests show every level except triglycerides is ideal. The tryiglycerides are well in the normal safety range, but somewhat above average. There, I told you it could be done. Around two years ago I started having really good days regularly, though unpredictably. (Same, however, with bad days.) It’s been three years since any obvious symptoms. None of this is saying I’m back to being an athletic spring chicken. I still require more downtime than I feel is right. But I can now walk into a room full of people my own age and be the youngest one, ha! By ten years. Here’s the flower at the Pinecrest library. In that place, I’m the oldest.
Despite the two days delay, which caused even other things I should have been doing, I drove back home, arriving here at 9:30PM, having stopped at the Goodwill in Clewiston for DVDs, books, and this weird car antenna that I must try out. It’s one of those whip antennas you see in old movies that you reach out the window and place on the car roof. If it doesn’t work, I’ll have an excellent troll magnet.
That’s about it. I listened to some more chapters of “Saving the World” which is not getting any better. The neurotic 50-year-old lady is going on 8 years old in her head. I’m aware of how shallow most people’s thinking can be, but at 50, I don’t know anybody who wakes up at night wondering if her husband “has had enough to eat”. The depictions of poverty, I don’t care for those either. Textbooks on the subject all have the defect that they leave out any hint that people in poverty have some hand in their own conditions. They do and I’ve both seen it and lived through it.
Example. The book goes on about how the airport washroom at a nothing town in New Jersey would seem like unbelievable luxury to poor people in the Dominican Republic. Maybe so, but I’ve seen what happens to clean, sparkling facilities when you open the floodgates. While I can’t define poverty any better than the ivory tower crowd, I can point out dozens of elements that poor people have in common that they have complete control over changing, but refuse to do so. For instance, no respect private property, no appreciation for matching sets, and non-recognition of personal effort—but only in other people.
When it comes to credit-based living, it is easy to note how people with major on-going bills share many characteristics of those in poverty. One thing I learned at the phone company was that people up to their necks in debt rarely agree with me on anything and never vote the same as I on major issues. Another distinguishing feature of poverty is when they talk problems the pronoun is “I”, but when talking solutions, it changes to “we”.
JZ says he’ll be here next Monday. I got ten bucks says it won’t happen.
