It Worked!
7 JunLast night, I trundled the wheelie bin out to the road, and put it carefully beside the mailbox. I lowered the handle so the lid wasn’t locked in place and moseyed back to the house in the dark.
When I opened the shades this morning I was annoyed to find the bin was exactly where I’d left it last night. Either the recycling crew hadn’t been around yet (they normally come through about half past four) or they were in a snit and had passed us by. The latter more likely than the former, frankly.
Mea culpa, and all that jazz. The bin had been emptied, and was positioned – upright and with the lid on – a few feet further up on the lawn. Maybe the expression “over my dead body” really meant something. I’ll have to leave them a box of cookies or something next week.
So Far Out I’m In
6 JunA few weeks ago I wrote about an article I’d read that listed the things that made your house look dated.
I had all of them except shag rugs.
One of the blogs I follow (http:/ajoyfulchaos.blogspot.com) had a list of things we all had ten years ago that are obsolete. Among them are bookshelves (say what?), drip coffee makers, alarm clocks, file cabinets, desktop computers, printers, printed phone books, answering machines, fax machines, paper shredders, a Rolodex, CD racks, CD burners, china cabinets, home phones, entertainment consoles, DVD players, calculators, takeout menus, incandescent light bulbs, and cable TV.
Well, now. We still, obviously, have our bookshelves, an alarm clock, file cabinets (four of them!), two desktop computers, a printer, and a couple of old paper phone books. I guess the part of the home phone that takes messages is an answering machine; that’s what I call it, anyway. Where will I put my dishes, if not in a china closet? A calculator sits in the corner of the desk; it’s plugged into the same “octopus” as the paper shredder. The takeout menu is on the side of the fridge; I can read it and call the number faster than looking up the restaurant online, if only because I can never remember the name of the place. And of course, we have cable TV. I guess you could say “The Squire has cable TV” as I don’t particularly like TV and he does.
I’m so far behind I think I’m way out in front!
It Figures
5 JunThe weather has been really hot for the last few weeks, so I took the winter spread off the bed and replaced it with a lighter summer weight cover.
Last night, the overnight temps were in the 50s. I had to go get a blanket.
All Grown Up!
3 JunEldest Daughter has gone south to help her daughter and son-in-law get moved into their new house. We were all really concerned that the little ones would have a hard time settling into their new “digs”. From this shot, it seems things are going quite smoothly, thank you.
And all of a sudden, the baby of the family is a young man! (And I wish I could figure out how to resize this picture!)
On Tyranny
2 JunI am currently reading a book by the above title, written by Timothy Snyder. He points out the various methods by which dictators in the twentieth century have come to power – all of them by legal means. I’m just going to quote one small section:
“We believe that we have checks and balances, but rarely have we faced a situation like the present: when the less popular of the two parties controls every lever of power at the federal level, as well as the majority of statehouses. The party that exercises such control proposes few policies that are popular with society at large, and several that are generally unpopular – and thus must either fear democracy or weaken it.”
Hie thee to the public library. This is some serious stuff.
Water, Water, Everywhere
28 MayBy now I’m sure everybody has seen videos or read the news about the flooding in Ellicott City. This little town was founded in 1772 by the Ellicott brothers, and was originally the “end of the line” for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, where the train picked up flour from the Ellicott’s mill, as well as timber from the surrounding hills.
It has been plagued with flooding since the beginning. In 1868 the Patapsco River rose ten inches in five hours – and it wasn’t raining! The water came from severe storms further back the river.
There was a horrendous storm in 2016 which did major damage, and then again yesterday, which officials think is even worse. Below is a link to videos and pictures from the local TV stations.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/flooding-devastates-ellicott-city-again/vi-AAxUk0j
There are other films and links on that page, but a search for Ellicott City flooding will bring up many, many more.
Just to ease your minds – this is on the other side of Baltimore City from us, and we were never in danger.
The Trashman Cometh
25 May
The crew that collects our recycling seems to have it in for us. They never put the bin back next to the mailbox, or even on the lawn. Their favorite trick is to drop it into the ditch. Said ditch is so deep that we cannot see the bin from the house, and must get down on our knees to pull it out. First of all, we are little too old to be crawling around in the grass – not to mention I’m usually stuck down there until The Squire comes to rescue me, or I creep over to the mailbox to haul myself up. And second, ditches – and wheelie bins – are often full of dirty water.
If they don’t drop into our ditch, they toss it into the neighbour’s ditch. This takes some doing, as their ditch starts on the other side of the drive – about eight feet behind this shot, and then past their mailbox. The neighbour never puts out trash or recycling, but drops it off at the dump himself. Don’t ask me why. The first time this happened it took us two days to find the fool thing.
Another trick is the leave the bin in the road, where it gets hit by passing traffic, and destroyed. We are on our third bin.
After bemoaning this to a friend, and she offered a suggestion.
I am no longer allowed to take out the recycling.
Don’t Do That!
20 MayWe have all interesting character quirks, but my mum was just plain weird.
She made it very clear that she raised us the same way she was raised, but I don’t buy that theory. I mean, my sister and I weren’t allowed to get a driver’s license until our 18th birthday because that was when she got hers. And if we wanted to stay after school for French Club or a play rehearsal, we could find a way home, because she had to find a way home when she was in school. Never mind that she lived in the city and could “find her way home” on the streetcar; we lived in the suburbs and not taking the school bus meant a five mile hike.
It was the other odd things that baffled even her own mother. I’ve already discussed making the bed (April 10, 2012) and washing my hair (January 18, 2015) but other things she wouldn’t allow were mysterious.
On one of the blogs I follow (http://ajoyfulchaos.blogspot.com/) the writer discussed a birthday cake she made for her mum. It is apparent from her blog that she helped her mum in the kitchen a lot, and felt fairly confident that she could manage making this cake by herself. My mother very seldom allowed anyone in the kitchen with her. My sister and I were expected to do the dishes but the only cooking experience I had was peeling potatoes, and in the summer, peeling squash to put in the freezer. If it hadn’t been to Home Ec. classes in school I’d have hardly known which end a spatula to put in the frying pan. One year – maybe 1986 or so – I took my godson to visit my parents in Roxboro and before we ate, Steven started to set the kitchen table. My mum told him to cease and desist, as he was “making her nervous”.
The big, big thing was that my sister and I were never, ever allowed to touch each other. When we went on vacation we usually had to share a bed in the motel, and we took turns sleeping on the floor, because we were too worried that our bodies might bump into each other during the night. We always packed a cooler and camp stove and ate at roadside stops, rather than in restaurants, and sometimes the family would take one of the nature walks set out in the woods. We were trekking along and Lynn stumbled. I reached out to grab her hand, and from the back of the line came our mother’s voice. “Don’t touch your sister!”
It’s a wonder I don’t have even more “interesting quirks” than I do.
Book Review
16 MayI am about halfway through the most delightful book. If you can, get your hands on a copy of The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules, by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg.
Five elderly people, friends since childhood, break out of a poorly-run senior home, and go on a mad romp across Sweden, having the time of their lives.
I promise you, it is a HOOT!
