Short Takes from a Short-Circuited Brain

Because my brain is short-circuiting, due to all the calories going to long-overused muscles, this entry is in the nature of snippets…

I have stepped back in time, in a wonderful way -- the local library is still using the card-punching process; I haven’t seen that since I was a page at the Westfield NJ library in the 70’s! My job was to pre-datestamp the cards to slip into the books: the cards had large numbers 1-4, which if I remember meant the number of weeks they were checked out for… no receipts, no online tallies… I’m going from a system where they send automatic email warning me when the books and DVDs will be due, to a place that I have to look at each individual book! And they don’t even trust me with the card! Apparently they just keep my number, and I give them my name every time I walk up… that’s a small clientele!

I have so far been unable to unscrew the tub drain that has a chip in it, so I finally got desperate and used some of my modelling clay to fill the gap… should hold until I get the contractor in (he came the first week, but since he has other pending clients, it‘s scheduled for after Christmas)… I went ahead and got the exterminators to spray -- if the repair work continues to slip as it has, the toxins will be pretty much soaked in by the time he gets under the house…

I can barely move to type, having just ripped up three wall to wall carpets and their underlayment in the space of about 5 hours… this from a woman who would often have to fold her laundry in shifts because she couldn’t keep her arms up long enough! Not only torn them up, but got two of them into the bed of my truck and over to the dump -- if I wake up tomorrow and find I can’t push myself to a sitting position, I’ll know why. That, and my hands feel like they are so dry they are sucking moisture out of the air…I could probably dry dishes with my bare hands at this point.

I also shovelled out the gutters; apparently the last time was about 1960... if I was counting the tree rings correctly. I’m not sure if it was fertile soil, but there were actually a couple worms up there -- the vermiculture version of Penthouse dining… and that’s got to be gourmet stuff if they devoted a decade or so to climb the gutterpipes… they got impatient with trickle-down theory, too, I guess…I took the toilet brush up onto the roof to brush off the moss -- I’m not saying the moss balls were oversize, but they put up such a defense that it felt like the Attack of the Green Tribbles.

I toasted my first night here with wine -- boxed wine, of course; it’s only fitting.
Now I have to go blow up my bed again so I can keep far enough away from the dust to be able to breathe through the night. A bien tot!