Well, this is just great. i bought a MAYTAG because I had one that worked for a quarter of a century. This MAYTAG BRAVOS has started grinding gears or whatever after a few months. And reviews written about MAYTAG BRAVOS are now calling it a disaster, a piece of junk, something only suited as a boat anchor.

Did I mention this washer is a MAYTAG BRAVOS?

We have one of those newer washers that has no agitation blades in the center. What it does have is a narrow crevice at the bottom of the tub. That crevice can catch coins, and when one is just the right shape, it will cause a horrendous screech as part of the washing process engages.

That just happened and I found out part two of this problem; a coin can slip all the way down in the crevice where it can’t be seen and the only thing you can do is take a very skinny knife and slide it around, flipping the end upward every few inches of the circumference. It took a few trips around, but finally a worn penny arced up in the air.

Because this coin was hidden, I had to take out all the clothes to be able to do a full investigation. Usually, you can see the offender sticking an arc of his little round head up.

Gee, it was a fun time.

I was all worried about Peyton Manning and then, BOOM, what happened to the Super Bowl commercials? There were no Budweiser horses with puppies, trainer or little colts. What the heck?

And three of the commercials were for medicine: constipation, diarrhea and aches. I particularly was taken by the diarrhea spokesman – who (what?) looked like a Pepto-Bismol colored garden hose twisted into a giant knot with a face and and legs. Maybe there were arms; I don’t remember.

But, at least Manning won.

I woke up this morning thinking that Peyton Manning will either feel really good or bummed out tomorrow morning. When I opened the regular newspaper, right along the banner was the comment that Manning legacy was on the line today.

I cannot get a good reading on my psychic-o-meter and so I wait nervously.

I sat in my house and I watched Zombie Beavers, one of those ridiculous shows my grandson is famous for finding. I’m not certain how it happened; first he came out and asked if I wanted to watch Sharknado 3 and I replied I would rather be hit over the head repeatedly with a chunk of firewood. So he sighed and said it would be Zombie Beavers.

I didn’t really catch what he said and when a few minutes later I wandered through to get something, I was struck by the scenery. I asked what he was watching and he told me and I was incredulous; it seemed impossible anyone would make such a movie, let alone watch it . . . and so I sat down.

Well, I’ll be darned if someone didn’t spend a bit of money on decent sets, sort of decent, and then have beavers and people turn into zombie beavers. It was as if shock held me in my seat. I even ate popcorn.

As the credits rolled, they showed outtakes and one was of the little dog swimming with the fake beavers and the director yelling, “THE DOG IS SUPPOSED TO BE AFRAID OF THEM.”

I hope I do not dream tonight and eat my way through a door or coffee table or the teak elephant my husband brought back from Thailand that can serve as a seat or an end table. (There is a story about him and his crew wrangling said elephant into the bag of a Thai cab, but I’ll leave that for him to tell. It ain’t light-weight. He also has stories about mongoose and cobra fights – they take the teeth out of the mongoose to make it more fair. I’d probably faint headfirst into the combat pit. Now there’s a nightmare for you.)

I missed the phone call, but she left a voicemail and a text. I texted back could I call back; she texted back “Sure” and so I did. And it was really good for my spirits. Especially since I had just spent time picking up soda cans for recycling that were out of the bag because I backed over it.

Of course, the downside about being outside picking stuff up is that you see so many other things that ought to be taken care of pronto. Do I take my good spirits and tackle them or do I grab some firewood and go watch a movie in a warm cozy chair? Some decisions are so incredibly tough.

I’d say the post title is self-explanatory. I really like the Hooked on Houses site and I can spend a lot of time looking at all the different homes in different areas. However, I do miss the highlighted Bad MLS listing section that used to have its own tab; now you have to search for examples.

My house would be a bad listing because it is outdated. I have always found that concept ridiculous. Life is certainly more than trends. Who cares what the wallpaper style is as long as you have a roof over your head? Well, I suppose that shows the difference between me and those with class. I don’t really care; I can live with a lot of things.

Now that is not to say I would not appreciate having someone come in and put really great furnishings and decor here, but it’s that wishes and horses thing. There is another consideration: just who is going to keep everything in order and clean? MOi? I don’t think so. If I had a spectacular house I think I would live in one room where I had all my favorite things.

That brings us to the problem that I have too many favorite things. I need to downsize – both me and my stuff. If I used the energy it would take to organize all my stuff – including getting rid of some of it – I would probably downsize myself in the process.

You can compare cleaning to writing. When you are assigned to write on some topic and you have not a word down and the clock is ticking, it seems so overwhelming. However, if something is already written and you are going through to polish it, it ain’t so bad. Dusting a clean room might be like that. Doing housework here, now, would be like the former – so overwhelming I couldn’t stand it. In fact, I can’t, so I don’t.

I need to rent OCD people who need to clean. Their families are upset with them for always bustling around, so they can come to my house and work their heads off and lie about being at a spa. Hey, I’ll be an enabler for an OCD housekeeper. Maybe she might even pay me.

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.