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Friday, November 6th, 2009
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12:30 pm - Small Victories
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Tuesday morning I took Truck to town. It was one of those do-it-now impulses that I am prone to, and I reasoned that 9am on a weekday morning would probably give me the least amount of traffic to contend with. (Not that there's much traffic out here at any time. If I pass three cars on that road it rates as rush hour.) There are some curves on the winding road down into town that I don't even like in the Toyota, since they don't have a shoulder and there is a steep drop on the outside. However, I reminded myself that Truck is only six inches wider than the Toy, and off I went. No problem. I drove to town, turned around in the museum parking lot, and came back--for a total round trip excursion of twelve miles. Now I feel a lot more relaxed about driving the thing.
This morning I bagged Chuck's three-piece suits for the trash. He worked for IBM for 17 years and I worked for Xerox for 18. When we moved up here, we both brought along our suits, and I packed my high heels as well. Naturally we never wore any of it, but who was to know? My suits are still in boxes in storage, somewhere, but his suits were hanging in the closet covered with a film of dust. They were beautiful wool suits, and Chuck got them from a Hong Kong clothier who was recommended to him by another IBMer. We called the guy Hong Kong Harry. He came to the Los Angeles area every six months or so and took a motel room. Customers came into have their measurements taken, selected what fabric they wanted, and handed over a check. About a month later some absolutely gorgeous wool suits showed up in the mail.
I kept putting off doing anything with the suits, telling myself that I could offer them to the local Little Theatre group, or maybe recycle the cloth. Some women do that; cut their husband's old clothes up into largish squares and sew them together into comforters. I finally faced the fact that I was never going to do either of those things, so away they go. It has only taken me nine months.
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| Thursday, October 29th, 2009
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3:46 pm - A Little Too Helpful
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The remodeling project is complete! I have a kitchenette downstairs where I can make hors d'oeuvres and mixed drinks if I want to throw a wild party. The stairs and half of the upper deck are roofed over, and so is the new redwood deck that Adam built downstairs. He finished on Tuesday, packed up his tools on Wednesday,(leaving the place looking rather empty -- he brings along everything he could conceivably need) and left this afternoon for Italy.
Filled with enthusiasm, I went to the hardware store this morning to get a couple of gallons of white paint for the deck railings. I was looking for fence paint, but they didn't seem to have any. A helpful clerk spotted me peering at the paint cans and asked if I needed assistance. I explained what I needed. He proudly showed off his white house paint at $29 a gallon and pointed out that it contained silicone. Okay. I guess that's good. I said I'd take two gallons.
"Flat, semi-gloss, or gloss?" he asked. That was easy, flat. "Do you want white, or TRUE white?" he asked with a gimlet-eyed stare. Responding to my dubious expression, he explained grandly that all white paint has black in it. Now, I am aware of white that tends toward blue, green, red, or anything else you care to name, but white with black in it is usually called GREY.
Sensing my hesitation, he trotted out his Explain to the Little Woman manner and showed me two sample swatches. One of them was a nice brilliant white and the other was... grey. At that point I gave him my best fluttering-eyelashes look and said, "Maybe I'd better ask my husband exactly what he wants," and left.
I went to Mendo Mill, the local builder's supply, and bought two cans of their white Barn and Fence paint for $17 a gallon.
current mood:  amused
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| Friday, October 23rd, 2009
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6:39 pm - Don'cha Love It When Things Come Together!
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Adam The Contractor has about a day's worth of work to do on the roof, a couple of hours on the kitchenette, and however long it takes to install a new exterior door. He's also going to put in a Malibu lighting system along the stairs, so I won't be as apt to slip and break my neck on dark nights, and replace some wood that's afflicted with dry rot. He expects to be done by end-of-day on Tuesday, and is leaving for Italy on Thursday. We both reflect on the niceties of fate, which fitted my projects to his available time.
There haven't been many glitches. The first one was when he installed the faucet in the new sink and it only dribbled. He took it apart, removed a bunch of grit (probably washed into the system from my rural water supply), and put it back together. The second glitch was a bit more serious, as he discovered that the wiring to the outlet where the new stove goes was only 10 gauge -- too light for the current building code and a fire hazard to boot. Undaunted, Adam ran a new 8 gauge line from the breaker box to the outlet.
The new door is a proper exterior one, metal sheathed and painted white. The door it replaces is an interior style with wood veneer, and should never have been there in the first place. Since it was not under cover, the bottom of its frame rotted out over the years, to the point where I shoved a wad of steel wool in the hole to keep out the mice. Besides rodents, the new door will also keep out the millipedes, which are harmless but disconcerting, being six inches long and creepy.
The cats and I are all looking forward to this project being done. Adam's tools are spread all over the downstairs, along with a medium-sized compressor. He forgot to turn the compressor off one evening when he left, it came on automatically at about 8pm, and I went downstairs to find Bubbles mildly apprehensive and Neo looking like she was staring death in the face. After that, I moved the cats back to the studio at night. Only a few more days, and they'll have their downstairs quarters back again. We will all rejoice.
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| Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
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9:22 am - The Rains Came
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For the past several years we haven't had any significant rain until November, but last night a large storm rolled in and is supposed to give us at least an inch of rain. The fire season is over! Now all we have to worry about are mud slides and floods.
A few days ago Adam the Contractor mentioned that he's working as a part-time English teacher in Italy, plus doing night work as a casino security guard. He says that he'd like to open a small hotel with inexpensive rooms and internet connections. A laudable goal, but it sounds to me like he is planning on getting out of the construction business all together. That being the case, I told him to go ahead with the kitchenette that Chuck and I had decided to put in downstairs -- small sink, two-burner stove, and compact 'fridge. I had planned for him to do that the next time he came back from Italy, but the next time he's in town, he might not want to do any construction at all. It turned out to be a really good idea, because now he has indoor work to do while the weather is bad.
Chuck and I planned to put in the downstairs bathroom and a kitchenette against the time when we would be too physically feeble to use the exterior stairs, although I have put off that evil day for a while by having the stairs roofed over. In the meantime, friends and relations who come by for a visit will be able to make a cup of tea or heat a pot of soup in the kitchenette.
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| Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
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9:39 am - Winterizing
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Several weeks ago I bought a length of black foam insulation for the standpipe on the slope -- the one where I had to have the faucet replaced. Since yesterday's and today's low temperature was about 34 degrees I decided I had better not put it off any longer. So, I got my insulation, scissors, and duct tape and headed up the slope. (I knew to use duct tape because when I bought the insulation the clerk asked me if I had any. Of COURSE I've got duct tape; country living depends on it!) The insulation, I discovered, is scored so that it can be opened up like a fillet. I cut two pieces, put one on the top, one on the bottom, and wrapped the two together with tape. Total time expended -- about five minutes.
The other project was to repair the cottage window, where two of the four panes of glass had fallen out. The glass isn't broken, but I decided that it was too cold to try tapping in glazier's points and puttying the frames. I found a largish scrap of translucent greenhouse plastic, grabbed a jug of roofing nails, my trusty scissors, and a hammer, and covered over the entire window. Total time expended -- about five minutes.
I still need to repair the back of the greenhouse, where some creature -- probably a raccoon -- ripped two large holes in the plastic sheeting a couple of nights ago. I thought I had thwarted the beast by putting three-foot-high wire fencing across the back of the greenhouse the last time I repaired it. Obviously not. I am thinking of either putting in another row of fencing above the existing one, or covering the entire back of the greenhouse with wooden trellis.
I do not have to worry about winterizing the stairs and deck; the contractor is taking care of that. Since I was still feeling flush after a munificent tax refund, I'm having my favorite contractor roof over half of the deck, the stairs, and the small slab where the door leads into the downstairs. That means I can go through the downstairs, up the exterior stairs, and inside again without dealing with the rain or snow. It should cut down on the chances of me breaking my neck on the icy stairs.
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| Sunday, September 27th, 2009
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6:43 pm - De-uglification
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Overcome by some kind of "do it NOW" impulse this afternoon, I decided to paint the pegboard. There was a standard unpainted 4'x 8' chunk of pegboard fastened up on the east wall and it was covered with an amazing collection of stuff. I took everything down, including the hooks, and painted the board off-white to match the north wall. I also painted the ugly dark gray breaker box cover (being careful not to get the hinges stuck). When I was done, and the paint was dry to the touch, I consigned about half of the tools to the garage and re-hung the rest. Over the years it seemed like every small object that we bought which had a hole in it wound up on the pegboard. It looks much more tidy now. The tools are a lot more accessible too. I hung everything so I can reach it without getting the step stool -- a vast improvement.
I also hung some more pictures today, including two framed original comic strips of "Rex Morgan" and "Apartment 3G" from the daily L.A. Times. I'm still missing some art work, including a lovely little acrylic by Morry Scott Dollens, but it will turn up eventually. I've been taking boxes off of the storage shelves that look in most danger of collapse, and it's amazing what I've found. For one thing, Chuck's poker chips. One year, for either his birthday or xmas, I forget which, I bought him a set of custom poker chips. There was -- and probably still is -- a company in Los Angeles which makes chips for the casinos, and they also sell to private purchasers. (Yes, they keep records to be sure that an order doesn't duplicate anyone else's.) We had friends over for poker parties at our house frequently and it was one of those bits of one-ups-man-ship that Chuck could flaunt his own chips.
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| Saturday, September 26th, 2009
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11:51 am - Today I Hung Pictures
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When I went to the hardware store on Thursday, I bought some heavy-duty hollow wall anchors. They have a sharp piercing point, wide threads, and a philips top. You pound them into the wall up to the thread and then turn them the rest of the way in with a philips-head screwdriver. This morning I started hauling pictures out of storage, pictures that I haven't seen in fifteen years.
Two of the pictures I unearthed are a pair of batiks that a friend sent me from Viet Nam when he was stationed over there in the late 1960s. (He wasn't in the military; he was with some organization that tried to help the war victims get their lives back together.) I had them framed about ten years later. One is a geometric abstract in browns and grays, and the other is a kneeling figure in greens and blues. The friend who gave them to me, a well-known science fiction enthusiast, died about three years ago of leukemia and I will think of him when I admire them.
Another of the pictures is a delightful print of three Spanish galleons, presumably Christopher Columbus's fleet, sailing over the edge of the world. I bought it at a decorative arts convention in the early 1980s. It's amusing to realize that it could now pass for an illustration from Terry Pratchett's Diskworld series, because the Diskworld IS flat, with an ocean pouring over the edges.
The largest piece is one that I haven't been able to hang yet. It's called "The White Tower," and is a picture of Saruman's Orthanc, from "The Lord of the Rings." I've got the wall anchor and screw in place, but at 3' x 4' it's too bulky for me to see around it to get the wire over the hanger. It's not heavy, merely awkward. A friend is coming over in a couple of days to take away a mower that isn't working, and I'll ask him to help me get it on the wall. He's 6'4" so it should be a snap for him!
Besides these, I've hung several smaller pictures, including some of my own artwork, and my downstairs now looks much more friendly and "lived in." It soothes my soul.
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| Thursday, September 17th, 2009
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9:55 am - Postage
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Chuck was a great one for not giving the government a extra penny if he could possibly avoid it. That particularly applied to postage. Of course, email has made big inroads on snail-mail, but there are always a few bills and some small packages that one has to send. We had (and I still have) a postal scale and we always bought a new roll of stamps when the first class postal rates went up. Chuck would scour every drawer in his desk looking for the right combination of stamps so he'd avoid overpayment. I discovered yesterday that I not only have a nearly-full roll of 44 cent stamps, I've got half-rolls of 23s, 37s, 39s, and 42s. I wouldn't give you odds that there aren't a few others around as well. Since we bought but never used the stamps, it looks to me like the Postal Service is well ahead on the deal.
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| Saturday, September 12th, 2009
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3:35 pm - A Rural Buffet
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Earlier today I noticed that three of my cats, who had been lolling on the deck, were heads-up and staring at the slope across the creek to the east of the house. I didn't see anything, and they settled back down for their naps so I didn't think any more about it. When I went outside a few minutes ago I saw a flurry of movement in that direction and thought at first that it was a small flock of wild turkeys, until a couple of them flapped away and I realized that they were vultures. I got out the binoculars and could see that they had been feeding on a deer carcass. Not good. It's within sight of the house and apt to draw a bigger scavenger. So, I pulled on my leather gloves and walked up to take a look at it. I didn't get TOO close, and I stayed upwind. It's a small deer; not a fawn but one of the yearlings, and the birds have made good inroads on it. I was going to drag it further up the hill, but I think they'll have it pretty well stripped by sunset. They're reasonably efficient.
My other two cats spend their nights in the studio, which is in a separate small building. I think it was the original structure on the property, and it has some very strange construction details. (For one thing, the builders shingled it by starting at the top and shoving subsequent rows of shingles under the ones that were already in place. They didn't seem to have a good grasp of the concept.) I'd been thinking about moving said felines to the downstairs, because it's warmer down there in the winter. So, I moved all of their gear this afternoon. They won't like it, but then they don't like anything that smacks of change. Cats are very conservative.
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| Thursday, September 10th, 2009
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5:19 pm - Labor Day, Fic, and a Few Pears
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I had a very nice Labor Day weekend. My beloved Chazpure and Odogoddess drove up from Los Angeles to get away from the wildfire smoke for a couple of days. We chatted, rested, ate big meals, and relaxed together. We're all hoping that someday the high-speed train from Los Angeles to San Francisco will be a reality and that leg of the trip will only be two and a half hours instead of the current seven by car.
Today I went back to work on a piece of fan fic for one of the exchanges I joined. It's a fun way to pass the time, and this particular piece isn't too angsty so it's easy for me to do. I have a difficult time writing about hurting people--even fictional ones. I think betrayals are even harder for me to write about than physical pain. There are times when I think I should just sit down and force myself to write about absolutely horrific things happening to a few imaginary people, on the basis of familiarity breeds contempt. Incidentally, I asked my commercial publisher if she has anything in mind for me to do next and she merely said, "More of the same?" Hokay.
I took off time from writing to poach more pears. I suddenly remembered that I had two sacks of the things hanging in the tool shed, and when I checked them they had all turned yellow. So, I cut, cored, poached, and froze them. That's about 15 lbs. of poached pears I have in the freezer now. It's a good thing that I like pears.
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| Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
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1:09 pm - Minor Tribulations
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I rejoiced this morning that the bear hadn't knocked over the trash can again, and then went into the orchard and discovered that the 12 Elberta peaches I had been cherishing on my young tree were mostly gone and one of the tree's branches was broken off. The peach pits were on the ground. I picked the remaining four peaches, so the bear won't have another go at it, but I think they're too green to ripen off of the tree.
Next, I noticed that the overflow from the water tank, which I run into a large terracotta saucer for the birds, wasn't flowing. It tends to get a sort of vapor lock, so I walked up the hill to jiggle the hose -- and found two small fountains jetting into the air. There were several incisor marks on the black plastic pipe that comes from the main tank. Why, I do not know. The overflow tank is only about ten feet away, and there is always water leaking out of it. I turned off the water, smeared the damage with lap cement (read "tar"), and left it to set up. In a few hours I'll go back and tape over it. This has happened before, and it's still annoying.
I intended to drive to the town's only florist to order flowers for the funeral of my last remaining aunt, but there was a road crew in the way and the flag man said there would be a twenty-minute wait. I came back home, and got on the florist's website. Practically the first thing the FTD page wants is the recipient's zip code. Sure, like I'm supposed to know what zip code Forest Lawn occupies. I don't even know their street address. I closed out of that and phoned instead. The florist and I had a nice chat and it turns out that her son lives less than a quarter mile from me.
Aunt Theresia was the last of my mother's family. It was a large family by today's standards, with seven kids; eight if you include a half-brother that my grandmother left behind in Hungary when she immigrated to this country. I remember how out-going and vivacious Aunt Theresia was as a young woman, always laughing, joking, singing. I can almost hear her singing "Froggy Went a Courtin'" to a cousin and myself when I wasn't much more than seven. She always dressed well, kept her hair permed, and wore more makeup than her sisters. She was fashionable while they were not. She and her husband, Paul, bowled a lot and as a child I was fascinated by the trophies they had sitting around the house.
It occurred to me, as I was writing this, that the "older generation" is completely gone now. My father and his two sisters died years ago, as did my mother and the rest of her family. Aunt Theresia was the last, and now my cousins and I are the older generation.
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| Monday, August 31st, 2009
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2:11 pm - Little Victories
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A couple of years ago the hasp on the metal lean-to broke. Instead of a loop for the hasp, it had a little twistable fastener and that fell off one day. We had been using the lean-to for trash sacks, storing them in there until we had a truck load to take to the transfer station, and after the gadget broke I had to brace the doors shut with a chunk of two-by-four.
I bought a new hasp back in May, and it had been sitting on the shelf ever since. Today it suddenly occurred to me that I didn't have to replace the whole hasp, just the broken piece. So, I charged the drill, got out my screwdriver, took off the old piece, and mounted the new one. It's not on straight, and I can't claim it's a good job, but it does hold the doors shut and now I can put trash in there again and not have to worry about the bear knocking over the can!
Every time I get some small thing like this done, it restores a bit more of my self confidence. Everyone needs a few little victories along the way.
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| Friday, August 28th, 2009
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10:46 am - Pears, pears, pears
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I've got pears. Boy, have I got pears. At this time of year, pears around here are like zucchini; everybody has them and no one can get rid of them. I called the one neighbor that I know doesn't have a pear tree, but someone had beat me to it and she already has a bag full of them.
If pears ripened sensibly in cool autumn weather like apples do, everything would be fine. They don't do that. No, they start ripening when it's 85 degrees and there isn't a prayer that you can keep them for more than a week before they turn yellow and gooshy.
Bears love pears. I have six pear trees, scattered around the property, but only one of them is close to the house. That's the one that I try to strip every year--before the fruit gets really ripe and someone large and furry comes around to harvest it by breaking off the tree's branches. I picked three large net bags full of pears and there are still some left on the tree.
My neighbor was sympathetic but adamant. Uh-uh, can't use any more pears. She's going to make pear sauce (like applesauce) out of some of the ones she has, and turn some more into pear jelly. I asked about freezing, and she said yes, if you poach them first. So, I simmered some with sucralose and a bit of cinnamon, and then packed them into a gallon-size plastic bag to toss in the freezer as a test case. Tomorrow I'll slice some of the riper ones and put them in the dehydrator.
I've only got 15 pounds or 20 pounds to go.
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10:43 am - A Lingering Feeling
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I dreamed that Chuck and I were in the pickup truck and he was driving along some city street. I had a stack of corner-stapled flyers in my lap. He stopped at a red light, next to a corner coffee shop and I asked, "Now, what am I supposed to do?" He said that I was to put the stack of flyers on the table with the other handouts. I was aware that we were doing this for some acquaintance. I hopped down from the truck and went inside. He drove away when the light changed, but I knew that was all right, because he would drive around the block and pick me up again.
There were three six-foot tables in the coffee shop, along with a counter and a table holding all kinds of pamphlets and flyers. Foursomes at the end of each table were playing bridge, and I began handing the flyers out to them, commenting that it would be something to read while they were dummy. They were all affable, took the flyers, and began looking through them. When I saw the truck pull up again, through the big front window, I tossed the remaining stack of flyers on the table with the other pamphlets and left.
As I was climbing back into the passenger seat, I realized that I was in my stocking feet and had left my shoes in the truck, but the shoes were Chuck's sturdy metal-toed boots. He asked me a while later if something was wrong and I said not really, but I had a lingering feeling that something was not quite right.
Odd dream. I never did read any of those flyers, and haven't the slightest idea what they could have been.
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| Sunday, August 23rd, 2009
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12:04 pm - Bete Argent
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When you're suffering from anxiety, everything assumes monumental proportions and seems like some kind of gigantic hurdle that is not only stopping your progress but threatening to topple over on you. Little by little, I've gotten past most of the hurdles. One of the remaining ones is Chuck's Truck. It's a full-size silver GMC 4x4 and Chuck had a lumber rack put on it. It always looked *HUGE* to me. We got it new in 2000, and it has less than 11,000 miles on the odometer. That's still practically new compared to my seventeen-year-old Toyota, and I need to learn to drive it.
I was scared enough of trying to drive it that after I loaded it with cardboard, papers, and plastic, I got one of the neighbors to take it to the recycle center for me. I felt paralyzed at the very thought of getting on the road with it.
Last week I got up enough courage to move it from behind the the house to a niche by the garage. "Hey," I thought to myself with a great deal of surprise, "this isn't so bad!" I can see out of it and reach the pedals just fine. Chuck was 5'10", I am 5'5', and we both drove the Toyota without moving the seat or the mirrors. It hadn't occurred to me that the same thing would be true of Truck. It's longer than the Toyota, and taller, but I don't think it's much wider.
This morning, as a gesture of good will (or a symbol of ownership; take your pick) I ran it out into the driveway and washed the grime off of it. There was actually moss growing in some of its crevices. I think we'll get along just fine, Truck and me.
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| Thursday, August 20th, 2009
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4:16 pm - Inspiration Dawns
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It's been a quiet day. The propane truck filled the tank, and I did the grocery shopping. The only thing of note that happened is that I came up with a setting for my next book. I haven't got a plot yet, but at least I have a place. Oh, and the name of a protagonist. Hey, it's a start.
I was thinking about fan fiction a few days ago, and wondering what it is about certain series that make them so popular with fan writers. Aside from affection for the main roles, I think the prime attraction is that there are LOTS of characters in the series. The more characters there are, the more romantic/sexual combinations there can be, and the more latitude there is for writers to play with those combinations. Given the time travel element that exists in one way or another with so many series, all of those characters, past and present, are available to the creative fan writer. Wow!
These musings were probably brought on by re-reading the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. I'm up to "Sourcery" and am newly amazed by how many named characters the author has tucked into his books. Even the walk-ons who are created and killed off in only a couple of paragraphs have personality. It's a wonderful feat of writing.
Yep, that's it. The formula for success must be the application of crowds. My next book will have a cast of thousands.
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| Friday, August 14th, 2009
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1:32 pm - Lipstick and Fangs
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My first vampire novel, "Lipstick and Fangs," has just been released by Renaissance eBooks. I had fun writing this, when I was finally able to concentrate enough to finish it. It's my response to the traditional view of vampires as high-powered males with tons of money. I think it's time that feminism made a few more inroads in the world of the undead. I am sure that Carmilla would approve.
Lipstick and Fangs
When I sent it off to the publisher I told her to use a different pen name than the one I usually write under, since it's a soft-core book and not what I normally write. So, what the hell -- Irena Candy goes commercial!
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| Sunday, August 9th, 2009
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9:48 am - Decisions, deciscion, decisions...
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I finally finished the first draft of my vampire book and will start revising it this afternoon. I also finished one short piece of HP fan fiction, and will do another one for an xmas exchange. The big question is what to pick for my next long piece of fiction. At the moment I feel like my mind has turned to mush, which happens once in a while. I think I'll do NaNoWriMo again this year, which takes care of November, but I still need some kind of glimmer of a plot, or at least a theme and a direction.
For those of you who aren't familiar with it, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is a challenge to produce a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. There's a web site where you can sign up, forums where you can discuss your progress with other exhausted writers, and a word count program that tallies your final product. There aren't any prizes, just the satisfaction of getting it done.
Over the past couple of years I've written science fiction, murder mysteries, fantasy, and horror. I have no particular prejudice for or against any particular genre, but each of them has its own conventions and I feel more comfortable with some than I do with others.
The two things I have never tried are romance and westerns. I was raised on Zane Gray and I have a stash of Barbara Michaels romantic suspense books in the library so I suppose it's a possibility. I even live in a rural town where about 1/3 of the residents own horses and half of them own guns. It's fertile territory, that's for sure! Decisions, decisions, decision...
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| Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
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3:59 pm - A pleasant Afternoon
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My neighbors, Kimball and Maud, and I walked over to Ellen's for our monthly book club meeting yesterday. The temperature has fallen over the last week, and it was barely 70 degrees under a clear blue sky. It takes us about twenty minutes to walk over to Ellen and David's house, catching up on local gossip along the way. There are five of us in the group, but Patty lives on the far side of Ellen and always drives over.
David and Ellen have a nice garden and we had tea, gazpacho, and strawberry shortcake out under one of their apple trees. David isn't part of the book club, so after we all said hello, he went back to cultivating his blackberries and wetting down his compost. He's a dedicated compost enthusiast, and has a walloping great three-foot thermometer to prove it.
Originally we all read the same book and discussed it, but we've been getting together every month for five years now and have gone back to the childhood scheme of reading something and giving a report on it. Maud had re-read "The Red and the Black," which she loved as a teenager, but had to report that this time she couldn't even understand what the author was getting at. Patty is reading "The Great Influenza" aloud to her husband, who is having trouble with his sight, and Kimball is half way through a book on the Huchnom indians, who used to live in this valley. Ellen is reading an algebra book. I reported on a biography of C.S.Lewis (which Kimball promptly borrowed) and "The Elf King's Daughter" by Lord Dunsany. I also borrowed a book on autism that Patty had just finished.
It was a pleasant afternoon and at 5:30 we strolled on back to our end of the valley. Next month we're meeting at Maud's house, which is only about ten minutes from here. I guess I should pick something improving to read.
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| Friday, July 31st, 2009
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12:42 pm - The Joke's On Me
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I have not bought a new radio, although I've looked at some ads. My little plastic Cube is still playing the Spanish language station. I grew up in a Spanish-speaking section of Los Angeles, so it's kind of comforting, like going back to my childhood and hearing the neighbors.
Besides the Cube radio, I've got ten other electronic units in the house. There's a CD player, amplifier, video tape player, LP turntable, and two satellite receivers in the living room, one of which is for service that Chuck discontinued years ago.
There's another amplifier in the bedroom, along with the TV, DVD and audio tape players, and a laser videodisk player that takes 12" disks. (I've got a fair-sized collection of those, which we bought before DVDs became the norm for movies.)
Everything's in working order, but we hadn't used anything except the DVD and CD players for years. The other devices just became part of the scenery, as such things do. Last night I was reading in bed, and happened to look at the big laser disks stacked in the cabinet, wondering as I did so if I should pack them away so that I'd have more room for DVDs. My eyes strayed to the amplifier. It has a tuner display across the front? I blinked a bit and stared at it. "That's a radio," I said slowly, as my brain finally kicked in.
The only excuse I can make for this is that we never used it as a radio. The switch on the front has always been set to aux/TV and it handles the sound output from the other units. When I turned it on, set the switch to FM, and twiddled the tuner, it obligingly brought in some rock station. Of course, the skip was in last night, but when I tried it today I could pick up all sorts of stations.
I have a radio.
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