It is a good thing that a fire is comforting and relaxing because carrying the darn wood in is not hard, but time-consuming, especially when you’re carrying it to a basement fireplace. You can only tote so many logs at once so it’s up and down and up and down and better do it again or you’ll have to stumble around in the dark because you’ve wanted to think, Oh, that will be enough.

I have been digging out old VHS movies and watching them. Some are better than I remember them being. I think when not so many movies were made and we watched the old ones on TV over and over again, we didn’t realize that it was a good thing. You really got to appreciate the aspects of the film. Now, for the most part, I watch a new movie and that’s it.

The complication of watching these older tapes is the previews before the movie; I think Oh, yeah, I’d like to see that one again or, I missed that one. Easier said than done.

Of course, I don’t know if I’d be able to watch any new movie as many times as I’ve watched Casablanca. Actually, I’m not sure that was a movie; I think it is a phenomenon that makes us feel deja vu when we stand in a fog or see a trench coat or hear a piano in a cafe or fold some important papers in our hand – our letters of transit, dontcha know. Whatever, it’s been a beautiful friendship.

Who is Fredrick Small? A man who murdered his wife and was hanged for the crime a century ago. I know this because I fell into a “click a connecting link” pattern and wound up at a news page, which I am citing here, but which may not be available forever because it is a news page. I’m certain that a Google search will bring up an account of the story if anyone stumbles on this post in the future and the link does not work.

A lot of men murder their wives and have done so for eons; they probably will continue to do so and I imagine there is some sort of parity with what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The reason the Frederick Small story caused me to sigh is that while justice may be blind, the hand of fate can reach out and get you and laugh in your face.

Fredrick was a weasel of a man, according to the news account, and ran a few scams as well as perhaps losing money in honest ventures. It was 1916 and without TV, no one would be yelling “CSI, CSI, CSI!” when his wife was killed in a fire while he was far off in a theater.

He was clever; he put together a time bomb for igniting the fire, murdered his wife, left her on the bed and went off to his alibi. He wanted everything to burn up; it almost did. However, as the fire progressed, the bedroom floor collapsed, dumping his wife into the basement where her head fell into a pool of water. The water was there because he did not want to pay to waterproof the basement. Just a small pool, but her head wasn’t that large and so people found a lot of ashes and a head – with a bullet hole in it and signs of beating and strangulation.

Tales of marital discord added to situation and the police of the day found evidence of a bomb, such as a clock and gasoline, etc.

The town in which this happened was named Occipee. I can just see someone decided since he was caught out, the town name presaged the head in the pool by a bit of punning: O see me pee.

Yes, I’m sorry; dreadful pun. Awful. You aren’t going to hang me, are you?

I wonder if I could claim that I have been up for almost two days? Last night I had a long, dull, frustrating dream about chores that I do during the week. This was not a dream where I analyzed those chores; no, no, this was a dream in which I performed those chores in a tedious manner. There was no fast forwarding.

What is so truly annoying is that I spent the night doing them, but they were not done this morning. However, I guess it is better than a all-out nightmare, complete with frantic, fumbling incompetence and things you cannot reach no matter how fast you run . . . or trying to run and having your legs move as if in sticky deep goop.

I walked into the kitchen today and found someone had made popcorn with an air popper and guess what, there was popcorn on the floor. Did they not notice these big white clumps; was there no tug of conscience to sweep them up. Well, we know the answer to that.

I need a punching bag, a big one.

When I was looking up information on Amelia Earhart, I automatically typed AmeliaJake into the search bar, and I found myself staring at:

Okay, I guess it’s a sign.

Then, wondering what would happen if I searched AmeliaJake images on Bing, I found this from The New Yorker:

Yep, I must have posted that somewhere along the line.

I have now backed away from search engines and think I’ll just go check Amazon.com. Of course, that can be unnerving; they track what you have viewed and offer suggestions based on that. Sometimes, I look at what comes up and drop my head. I suppose I should seek out some “normal” things on the site so maybe I’ll slip below the radar of those Internet police looking for candidates for the Group W Bench (made famous by Alice’s Restaurant. Okay, now I’ve gone and done it.

Everyone who knows me is very much aware that we lost a beloved Australian Shepherd a year ago last October. Actually, the hurt is still so big that when a lady form the Noble County Humane Society called me, I misspoke myself and said last October.

Actually, it feels like yesterday. Shane was himself, the clown, the cuddler, the teaser and he was also a link to other loved ones.

Anyway the lady from the shelter called to tell me they had a sweet dog, already spayed looking for a home. But I don’t know where I’m going to be living and what the rules are going to be, and another member of the current household already got a dog.

Her name is Maggie and if you’re interested in a furry friend, well, go meet her and please pass the word to others. I’m not going because it wouldn’t be fair; I’m not in a position where I can assume the responsibility of a dog.

I remember watching Chinatown way back when. That when was a long time ago; Jack Nicholson had hair. I’m not certain I followed the plot too well the first time I saw it; then later came The Two Jakes and renewed my interest in the earlier movie and I sort of got everything figured out.

Somewhere in this timeframe, I had become aware of the actual nitty-gritty convoluted story Los Angeles and its water supply. At one point, I came across a book about the St. Francis Dam collapse that killed over 400 people as a giant wall of water raced 50+ miles down a riverbed to the Pacific Ocean. It was one of those fascinating soft cover books that had a lot of pictures and illustrations and diagrams.

The one thing, though, that I remember most vividly about the dam was that when two boys/young men climbed a remnant of it, one fell off when the other threw a dead rattlesnake at him, which led to that remaining section being torn down and my being wary of anyone walking around with a dead rattlesnake, ready to toss it at someone.

But, anyway, today on the Kindle book list, the Floodpath book lured me in. I’m a long way from the rattlesnake part; in fact the Owens Valley Aqueduct has just been completed so I’ve a long, long way to go before I finish.

I also started a book about the smallpox virus and other contagions and while I am fascinated by what I am reading,I find that I have been corrupted by the well-written mystery, crime novel and overall literary fiction. It’s so relaxing to just sit back and let a story flow and not have to worry about hydraulic uplift and bio-hazard suits.

I’ll probably just wander over to the free section and download some sort of pulp. I admit it; it’s like Twinkies – just so tempting.

Just a few years back, TV ads and magazine pages showed cows in pastures sharing their thoughts about the Contented Cow Contestants. What happened? I miss those clever little, and maybe snide, moo-ings of the pasture?

Whoa, this isn’t one of the commercials but it sort of fits in with the Iowa Caucus time period and primaries to come:

But back to the Contented Cow Contest. I can find nothing right off the bat as I search the Internet. Certainly, it can’t be revisionist history at work. I continue to look . . .

OKAY, here we go. It started out as the happy cows in California and promoted cheese. This one is from (gasp) 12 years ago. I particularly like the “she’s been tipped one time too many” line.

I may have a version of that put on my tombstone.

I haven’t really thought about why I don’t use FaceBook. I have a page, mainly because someone asked me to quite a while ago, but I never really got the hang of it and I’m not certain if I triggered something that shows other people’s posts. I may have to go look.

Still, while looking around on the Internet, I occasionally find myself directed to someone’s FaceBook page and when that happens, my little face and notifications appear at the top of the page. I see I have some friend requests, but I don’t know if they are real or generated by Internet cookies.

I remember when I did register on FaceBook, I used this picture:

AND PEOPLE COMPLAINED

Now, why would they do that? I think it is very representative of my personality.

We are north of the blizzard, quite a bit north, although I believe if I still lived in the Cincinnati area, I would be on the northern edge of it. The sky is blue here; I am not sitting in a bogged-down car on an interstate nor bracing against a pelting wind. That’s good.

However, this morning, after being up late last night, I got up at five to run some people to work and then I came home and worked a Sudoku and looked at the weather mess, highlighted on the Internet sites and thought, Now, what would I do if a blizzard were raging outside while I’m feeling a bit tired?
I was fairly certain that I would find a warm spot and cuddle up and close my eyes and sort of “rest it out” for a while.

There isn’t a blizzard here, of course, but it occurred to me: I can fake this. I then put my little head down on a pillow, grabbed and afghan, closed my eyes and thought, Oh, it is so great to be all warm and cozy. I did a great job faking it and dozed off.

I haven’t done any chores today; actually, I recovering from reassembling things after an all out hunt for someone’s phone yesterday. Despite protestations that I had already looked carefully in some areas, I found myself following behind the phone’s owner who was searching like a dog dig a hole – in everything.

The phone was found – fortunately before I had gone through more than two bags of trash.

Actually, a lot of stuff is still strewn about so I probably will be shoveling anyway, just clutter, not snow. It is tempting to build a nice fire; heck, it’s tempting to read in front of the fire, were I to build it. And maybe throw a little clutter in . . .?

I wouldn’t do that; no not at all. However, I am thinking it would be fun to get a woodchipper and bring it inside with the chute aimed out a window and just, oh, toss a few things in. I suppose I could put a big piece of plywood outside that window and spread glue on it and develop a new genre of modern art. Why throw paint when you can use a woodchipper? It would be a painting/sculpture thing and just think of all the little hidden themes art critics could discover. Oh, yes, this was her anti-demim period, reflecting a need to spruce up her later years with more stylish clothing. Or: She is creating an archaeological* representation of her civilization after it has been trodden over by following nomadic tribes. The observant with find pieces of what were commonly known as “knick knacks” in this era.

The spell checker led me to research the two variant spellings of this word: Archaeological and Archeological, What I found is HERE, if you give a darn.

I suppose this says a lot about me: If asked who I would like to have been in history with the initials MT, I would answer Margaret Thatcher, not Mother Teresa. At least I’m truthful.

Oh, Lord, this says even more: I just bookmarked the BBC’s 60 Second Shakespeare.

I really am that EMPTY.