One year ago today: April 13, 2025, lithium, already my favorite.
Five years ago today: April 13, 2021, a dinner allocation.
Nine years ago today: April 13, 2017, what’s a matchbook?
Random years ago today: April 13, 2007, giant peppermills.
Y’day disappeared on me. I don’t like that and I’ll spell some things out, see addendum. Here’s this morning’s start, real biscuits and gravy, with the sausages and fresh onions backed right in. Has anyone else noticed the increasing criticism of Starbucks coffee? Maybe it really does taste better poured over cigarette ashes. Florida is first to require driver’s license tests be in English only. Say good morning to the young woodpecker, grabbing a fabulous breakfast of almonds and hazelnuts. This is the large of two species, both infrequent visitors.
Howie was over for a visit and helped get the bowl back on the birdbath. He’s got a commercial grade weed whacker, the thing will take out undergrowth. Admit it, he likes to crank that thing up and set the Florida boscage in its place. I managed an hour and got part of the scooter shed braced better. It started as a canopy and proved a pleasant workspace. I began a general tidy-up of a yard that will take weeks to get ship-shape. I have a lot of perfectly good leftover parts from the renovation that I’ll looking a using or selling. I have put on the brakes over buying new lumber until some order is restored. My back yard at this time is best described as “there appears to have been a struggle.” I know, I’ve used that one before.
Around noon, I took a look at real estate. Nothing is selling, really, and the ads are dominated by big buyers offering cash. They sift through everything worthwhile and only the problem properties and dogs remain in the listings. In central Florida there seem eight parties advertising cash for any worthwhile property. To me that indicates the market has fallen to a new type of low. I just don’t know which type, but yes, I hope the whole racket collapses.
People who live on borrowed money need to learn a hard lesson. Today there were roughly 2,000,000 houses for sale, but only 1,200,000 looking to buy. That imbalance won’t last long. Don’t buy in Kearny, Arizona. They built a town where there isn’t enough water and now want your tax dollars. I might follow that story, but meanwhile they can fix it themselves, using the money they normally spend on rigging elections.
Brandt Point, Nantucket.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Texas in the news again for another female schoolteacher and her underage boyfriends. It’s a crime model invented and protected in the lone star place. The police are now taking her statement, for the sixth time. Masked gunmen, you are not supposed to know they were Blacks, shot up another restaurant. A Chick-fil-a. There is something ironic about that which I just can’t quite make out in the distance.
The original box was designed to minimize wastage and the varying thickness [of each picket] of the lumber means one picket, one box. At first, the box bottoms were two full width cuts and a smaller strip to fill in the last little bit. You can barely see this box now has three equal-width bottom panels. A better-looking balance with a drawback. There is no way to cut that single piece out of the remaining picket. The leftover piece is one long and narrow strip.
The bottom slats are not that critical, so you can eyeball a suitable piece from scraps, though often every three boxes means a sacrificial fourth picket. I was, of course, measuring my performance and the result is so-so. I was able to cut and frame three boxes but it took an hour. Slightly more than half-speed. (Is it time to consider something more “sellable”? I would not have to make a living at it.)
However, the box bottoms are fussy enough that it is often left as a separate step. And it is a step that evolved, so it takes too much time. Even the trim saw needed is in another room (often requiring 4 or 5 trips). This activity worked up such an appetite, I was back in the kitchen by dark, chomping boneless port chop sandwiches, the kind with horseradish. Looks like another quiet time, maybe a movie. What’s that Cortez A.I. documentary banned in Hollywood. Something like that.
For a treat, do a search on the Sirius Harmonica Ensemble. It is the only time I have seen the two-thousand dollar Hohner Bas 78 used. No link because not only does their best material get moved around, their home page does not show any video of their hits, such as the theme from “Green Hornet”. It’s an experience. But find a video, or you don't get the effect of multiple harmonicas.
ADDENDUM
One big annoyance of this bypass is that the recovery does not follow any slow, steady program. Nothing like before in most people’s experience. I remind you that this operation has only a 50% survival rate and I was in intensive care for 21 days. There was a spot where I might have died if nobody had been in the room. The “code blue” alarm rang seven times during my stay (though I only know of one death). I was digesting blood for a week and there were long hours when I knew I was just drifting along.
After discharge, it was clear I had some hospital-type infection that was very serious but nobody would say. I landed back for surgery that kept me in another week. They are just now, 11 weeks later, weaning me of preventative medicines and the bouts of weakness/fatigue can easily throw off your balance and your day. Most “good” days, like y’day, turned out nothing but a lull for the next day’s discomfort.
I have even slower healing secondary injuries that signal I am no longer capable of any rapid mending. My skin chemistry is completely off kilter, everything is dry and flaky, and I have two modes of lingering paralysis in my thigh and fingertips. The only thing recovered 100% is my thinking that everything is fine.
