Last week I decided I would take one hour early every morning – when it is cool – to straighten up the garage. Not going to happen. HOT – that’s why. Hot in the morning, hot in the day, hot at night.

Yesterday it was 91 degrees and felt like 102; those of us in Northern Indiana are not used to such linebacker humidity. Sets you right on your rear – sends you scurrying for the AC.

Oh, gosh, the spectre of a power outage is the new monster under my bed.

Some time ago I wrote a post about transcribing – Okay, I have written more than one over the years –  but this one Karolina found and sent me an email telling me she was in the throes of it today.

I sent “touch the screen” good vibes to her, but maybe she thinks I just said it – so here’s a picture.(Now, those aren’t real age spots; they are my vitiligo. Really. Honest to God.

I really like digital cameras; I like the way you don’t have to worry about film usage – rationing out shots. I think it’s great for instructional uses and a tremendous tool when you are dissembling something you really would like to put back together correctly.

I think it’s great.

Yet, I have this box of old photos – black and white, early color ones, Polaroids. My grandma,  my folks, a couple of shots of my elusive-to-a-camera grandpa, my aunt, me little, me teen-aged, my dad with Robert William in front of the house in Kingman when he was just two, Quentin with his grandpa and Miss Alice. I can see these pictures in my head almost as well as I can see them in my hand.

What if I had hundreds – thousands – of shots of all these people? With Photoshop Actions?  I don’t know. In a way I think they might crowd out the memories of the heart.

I used to wonder about the families of  movie stars – watching someone look so alive and yet be so dead and gone. Now everyone is edging closer to that possibility as videos go way beyond the holiday get-togethers

I do like all the pictures – but I think I like them to share with others here and now. But I cherish the old ones – one snip in time – sometimes creased and folded at the edges.

A moment caught in a locket around my neck – a small frame sitting on the end table where I always sit – a face in special wooden box along with a keepsake or so.

When my mother died I slipped a picture of her mother, her father and a snapshot of her, my daddy and me in her casket. They were ones we had all looked at many times . . . ones that linked us together.

I figured with the little thing of the washer being on the blink and the tiny laundry room with which I had to deal, I’d be stopping and updating often. No. I just kept at it  – I think for the heck of it. I moved the dryer out by myself – there’s a certain trick to it that I only partially remember each time so there is a period of time when I am studying the wedged-in-the-door-dryer. But eventually it emerges. And now it is sitting in the kitchen.

I talked to the repairman and they are coming on Monday between 11 am and 1 pm. I will use the time until then to admire the fuzz-less floor of the laundry room and the cleaned and re-organized shelves. I told the repair guy right up front that I wanted him to move the dryer back in, mentioning that I was almost 63 so he would be determined to do it and not be shown up by an old woman. He is going to make a tight attachment for the dryer hose because it keeps popping off and in the small space, it is so hard to get back into place. That is undoubtedly why the floor is a fuzzy fur of lint.

I hope he can fix the washer – it is a Maytag and only a couple of years old. My first Maytag lasted about 27 years. Sigh. This new one came close to having a grand mal seizure last night. THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! Oh, it was a powerful thing – I thought perhaps it was transmorphing into a werewasher. It would not drain or spin, but I found out it would let more water in. I lunged for the control when that happened.

I suppose now I will search the internet for possible washer phenomena and if it’s bad, I will write Maytag a letter. You’re laughing, aren’t you? It will be a letter akin to the Egyptian tomb curses. I will feel better.

Der Bingle came early; I knew he was here because Shane was desperate to get the door open to come in so he could run around to the other door and meet him. His little whimpers were heart-wrenching: Oh, Oh, he’s here. He’s here. HE’S here. It’s Little Ann syndrome – she jumped chest high when Der Bingle returned from San Diego.

Okay, Der Bingle and folks who live with me: DO NOT PANIC. This is not a flares out AmeliaJake day; this is an OKAY, I’M HANDLING THIS  day. That means no snide remarks, no growling, no complaining . . . just dealing with getting the washer fixed and the issues that problem brought to the forefront. Such as the state of the laundry room.

I am dealing with fuzz and overloaded shelves and gunky soap scum and I’m not taking any pictures to blog – before or after. And because I have to stack things in the kitchen, I am tackling that room too.

I’m thinking of it as dealing with the nation’s economic practices. It may be therapeutic for me. Tough decisions for staying and tossing, getting into hidden corners . . .

To be Continued

It came today because I added four dollars to the cost for shipping and it took less than 24 hours to be delivered. Why? Well, my father always said, “I never could teach you patience” and because I wanted to be able to have it up and working before Der Bingle gets here Friday evening.

I had the idea I would have to do all this registering stuff and transferring from my computer, but no, it came with ALL THAT DONE. My granddaughter – when she was four or so – thought Amazon. com was Amazing.com. I’m beginning to think she was right.

So today I did true Kindle reading; it is a little different from reading on my laptop, but I think it is just a matter of adjusting from one format to another. I guess this device will do other things and I will experiment with that later.

Maybe I’ll sign up for the New Yorker on it; it’s supposed to be cheap, but until I let my subscription run out I was getting it for between $25 and $36  a year. I would hold out renewing until they hit their rock bottom price; I think I just didn’t renew a couple of years ago because at the crucial moment, I got irked with some article or attitude.

Der Bingle pointed out that your Kindle will read to you. Okay, I have never liked to be read to and reminded him of that and he pointed out well . . .  there might be a time . . . when . . .  uh . . .  infirmity . . .  and all that.

So  . . .  well . . . okay.

I heard rumors that Cameron was riding with his grandpa down I-75 connected through 3G to news stories . . . but, then again, I get carsick. My folks used to take a coffee can with us and to this day, I do not drink coffee and hurry past shops where it is sold.

So, maybe the being read to thing is not the bad option I assumed it would be – as long as the reader doesn’t act – just the words, please, nice and clean and non-committal.

I don’t write much about politics here – other than the “I can’t stand Joe Biden” refrain, but I want to say something now. I don’t have to say it; I want to say it. I’m being perfectly honest about that.

I am disgusted by President Obama announcing if people don’t do what he wants, there will be a reprisal. Saying it loud and clear to hit the headlines and reach those people who made it through the Depression and the war and worked.

I think that’s being a mean bully.

I once lived in John Boehner’s congressional district; I lived there before and after he was elected. My husband and I were invited to meet him at one of his first appearances at our neighbors’ home. I asked him a question – just like a real Washington reporter.

He said if he got to Washington, he planned on not just sitting around. Well, he didn’t.

I hope now he can stand up to the switchblade threat of Give me your money or the little lady gets it.

I have decided to go Full-Kindle. Yes, I know. But I suspected this would come, just as I gave up all my protestations about not being able to write without the pencil in my hand, connecting me intimately with the paper.

I have read so much more with the Kindle for Mac application on board, and overall I feel better. I would not be surprised if, for me, reading crosses the brain/mind barrier and does –  for lack of a better, more accurate term – good things.

Once I had started reading on my laptop, it only made sense to transfer to a device geared to that specific purpose. As Der Bingle  indicated, toting  a thousand dollar machine chock-full of files and applications around  just so you can read isn’t too bright.

Oh shoot, I just saw myself as a stick figure with a light bulb head . . . that transformed into a stick figure with a new-fangled light bulb head – you know the ones that coil around. Maybe I would be a log figure . . .

Well, I didn’t expect to start the morning by grinning because of a light bulb, but there you go.

I have a very small backyard, which is good as far as mowing is concerned, but not good for growing tomatoes – especially after we moved the tall wooded fence to incorporate the small entirety of it. And definitely tree growth decreased sunlight. One early year Der Bingle planted “a whole lot of” tomato plants and I developed canker sores from eating so many – then production went downhill and then we gave up.

Dandelions started to flourish and slowly I built up a definite enmity toward the modern yellow peril; they were, I think, unaware of the one way feud until I turned to chemical warfare. Then it got serious, evolving into outright hostilities and alliances and double triple secret double agents. That’s where the Iowa gnomes came in; they sided with  the dandelions. LZP was the Supreme Allied Commander of the Gnome Foreign Legion and  . . . hey, I’ve told this story before & I’ll tell it again next spring, so never mind.

Okay, back to tomatoes. I can’t grow them; LZP can – and does so with vigor . . . and some secret compost recipe. He told Der Bingle they were chest high and I scoffed. Propaganda! I knew it, just plain old propaganda.

So here comes this picture:

Yes, so they are chest high; we argue LZP is short. I also asked the guys here at the PBC & R if they thought this little blue giant looked like someone with a master’s degree. I asked, see, because I was myself green with envy.
Der Bingle called about then and I told him about the photo and he checked his email and after a moment, declared LZP had evolved and was now a garden gnome. Or he said something to that effect. And I said, “Of course, I just didn’t recognize him without his pointy red hat.”
Since it is late, I am not going to venture into Photoshop to draw one.
***
Joe & Sloane

Joe & Sam (the tall and lanky gnome)

I will use an alias here so no one, nobody at all, will know of whom I speak. Someone wants to earn money and comes to me frequently with the question, “Got any jobs for me?” After I have corrected the grammar, I launch into my spiel about Someone being old enough now to get to know the nitty-gritty jobs, and the need to do them competently.

We are negotiating about longterm jobs, such as scraping, priming and painting the garage door, but today she wanted a relatively quick job. I asked if she wanted to clean a toilet. You know, get down there with her head next to the bowl, reaching around and spraying and wiping the sides and the little bolt covers – not to mention the toilet bowl gel and the brush. Well, she agreed.

She called me to inspect her work and I pointed out a couple of spots she had missed and she took it not as criticism but as instruction and used about 30 seconds more scrubbing power – so I gave her a tip along with her wages. I made certain to point out the tip was for her attitude.

She went out into the hall and, heck, I decided I needed to go to the bathroom. So I locked the door and proceeded to do so. I hear a voice – Someone’s voice: What are you doing in there?

I told her.

Then I heard a tormented “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I almost felt sorry for Someone.