Yes, for months I have been getting emails about burial and funeral costs and now, while looking at one site, this little headline popped up in a sidebar box.

I’d say the results are in and statistics seem to indicate that I am getting older, which is better than getting not so. However, even at this late date, I am thinking that maybe this aging thing could have been thought out better, but it would probably get all political. It seems only the Grim Reaper has the trump card.

I went yesterday to arrange to have my car repaired and, wow, if I play my cards wrong, I can get two accidents being taken care of at one appointment. It is supposed to be icy, icy and icy and I have to go out this evening.

It is raining right now and the temperature is 31, so it is a good thing we don’t have many hills here as we did in northern metropolitan Cincinnati.

I have a lot of firewood in the garage and vestibule but the rest is getting wet. It should be all right, however, because the wood is seasoned and a hot fire from the dry wood will make it burnable – it’ll have a hissy fit, but it will burn.

They are selling something odd at the grocery: a slice of a tree trunk with sort of an asterisk cut into it. They say it’s an instant bonfire. I think I’ll let someone else try it out. If I were a good kindling maker, I could make a little money on the side, chopping up my logs. A pack of kindling (small) sells for six dollars. It looks like it is mostly fat slivers of wood and I think it would burn up fairly fast – don’t bother getting the hot dogs out.

I wouldn’t make roasting hot dogs tonight, but I don’t feel any enthusiasm, although people would probably show up when I stuck my roasting stick in. I keep intending to rig up grill to fit over the fire – or a spit to hold a bean pot, but then I forget. I think it would do people good to have some beans cooked in an old cast iron pot over a fire. We could eat them in pie tins and say things like, Boy we had a hard day of cowboying.

But back to the winter storm; I have this fear that the easy winter is going to turn into a spring that refuses to make a commitment and we will have precipitation and 30 degrees temps every other day or so. Last week, 50 cars slid off the road in this county in about two hours time.

I’m looking out the window and that rain, well, it’s looking like sleet and the neighboring roof is starting to look glazed. Rats, now what did I do with the scraper? Oh, it’s probably in the car which will ice up and the doors will refuse to open, necessitating the hair dryer technique.

I want a Hummer. No, a tank would probably be better. Best of all would be a beat up old Volvo that would tank its way along and if you slide into something, it will be able to take it. Actually, that reminds me of the winter Quentin and I aimed an old Volvo at the space between the two towers of snow at the driveway entrance. More than once, we bounced off and had to re-aim. That was the year Quentin had to rescue the Cocker Spaniel Little Ann from a monstrous drift. And she’d try it again. Sigh.

I usually have something to gripe about all the time, so why have I been so silent for almost three days? Heck if I know – people got lucky I guess.

I did get my dent looked at and guess what? It popped out on its own; the repair guy thinks it was because of the change in temperature. It was an odd looking dent to begin with – sort of a hollowed-out space as if a bowl had been caught up in the fender making machine. I definitely will have to post a picture of the original injury; I’m glad I took a picture because I don’t think anyone would truly believe me otherwise.

However, it still needs fixing and so next Tuesday it is scheduled for some procedures. My main concern is getting it all cleaned out because I tend you use the car as a carry-all bag. It’s going to be like a archeological expedition.

It’s a given that AmeliaJake is sarcastic, and can be so in an extremely cutting way. It comes so easily.  I am going to show you a picture:

I will type: Hi, I’m a vacuum, but AmeliaJake’s the sucker. Now, of course, there is not much to that. However, if I chose to do so, I could walk the situation six times around the sarcastic block and still have trips left in me. But, I cant . . . sink . . . that . . . low. But I want to. (Oh, by the way, it has nothing to do with any sort of vacuum review)

Now, if I had real true blue, prime time, award-winning character, I wouldn’t write anything at all. I have middling character so I had to mention it OR I WOULD EXPLODE. I still may; this may not be enough. Sigh.

As I sat in the laundromat last night because I did not want to spend the entire night catching up on the wash, my phone popped up with a weather warning. It does that a lot; it’s usually not for me, but perhaps they have refined it now – zeroed in, so to say.

A lady came in and starting talking snowstorm and my mouth scrunched up and my eyes darted from side to side in a moment of “Oh, rats – was that weather notice maybe valid?

This morning the snow is coming down at 31 degrees and it varies  between pelting my face and jacket and splatting them. It is heavy snow and I brought in lots of firewood. I had so much that I didn’t order any more this winter and so I have very dry wood of two years and seasoned wood from last year. Because that seasoned wood has had an extra year, it burns well and fast. What I need is a big, old, gnarled knot that is freshly cut and will go in a hot fire and sit there forever and just radiate a slow heat.

Ah, the wind is picking up; wet snow and wind. Limbs and power lines. Nothing to do but wait and let my boots dry before another OHA- Outside House Activity.

Not a name that I think of daily, but of late the first line of one of his poems has been marching through my head in a continuous loop.

I sometimes think of all the crosses in the cemeteries at Normandy and other battlefields and wonder that each one represents a mother’s heart – and I guess a father’s too.

And maybe I am thinking this because I would like to die for something. After all, dying is inevitable, why can’t it stand for something as well. Perhaps that is what we should put on our tombstones – what we would have died for. But, then, like a beauty contest, so many would put world peace. I think I am not so altruistic;  if it were necessary I would die for someone I loved. Not even have to think about it; do it in a heartbeat  . . . or the lack of one.

The repairman came; the washer is working although I have not given it a real test run yet. I took scads of laundry to the laundromat, because I couldn’t trust my luck. The fellow had to replace the guts of the machine. He asked how long I’d had it. I told him since October. He frowned and said it looked as if it had been used for ten years – all the parts worn out.

But he came. And for that I am grateful. Tired but grateful. And Jeff Piraino, if you had anything to do with it, thank you, thank you, thank you. (You know, the Jeff from the Dooce Maytag Saga.

Maytag preparation did not get a Day Five post all of its own because my typing fingers were attached to a really tired body that had moved a too big dryer out of a too small laundry  room. Do you know how the delivery guys got the washer into that room? They lifted it up and over a corner of the dryer. It was not an option for me and at one point, I found myself wondering if being found dead lying over a dryer like they used to bring back corpses tied over a horse would make the news.

But, finally, I got it out. AND THE DIRT BEHIND !!!! I made a half-hearted stab at it last evening and then let it wait until this morning. Lint and dust and uneasy access make a great combination for clean GUNK. I know I wrote dirt – in capital letters, no less – but actually soap bubbles and fabric softener sheets gone missing plus lint make something that only looks generically disgusting. When you get up and close and personal with it, it’s not like anything you’d pull out of a clogged pipe or out from underneath a bed in a college dorm. It just sort of colonizes an area and smells not bad. This is totally uninteresting, I know; let’s just call it free association typing. That’s so much  better than calling it crap.

Now, on Day Six, I am starting to get nervous that something will go wrong on Day Seven when they are supposed to fix the washer. There is also the matter of getting the dryer back into the room. Well, were I up to speed on rocket science, I would realize the importance of an extra quarter of an inch. But, if I look at it from a psychological perspective, I can realize it’s just my lack of fortitude and mental stability.

I need to add a little aside here, since I took a dig at Little Miss “Psychology isn’t rocket science.” I have great admiration and respect for those people who offer a helping hand to people struggling with worries and phobias and the like; what I cannot abide is someone who judges a man. Oh, wait, I do that all the time, but I don’t charge for it .

Psychology is not rocket science

Someone made that statement a couple of weeks ago and at the time, I thought, Boy, are you right. However, I agreed for a different reason. The speaker was implying that it was not all that difficult, but I think she is way off base.

In rocket science, people know what they know and are aware that there is a lot they don’t know. If they want to try and figure something out from their equations and come up with a theory and test it – – -well, they do it in a controlled area because what we really don’t know can really blow up.

In psychology, people think they know some things and are willing to guess that they know the other stuff that hides in the length of synapses and the amount of chemicals and goodness knows what. When they come up with a theory, they put it out there and declare new facts.  They don’t put fences around their brand new band wagons; they don’t state that Dr. Phil’s opinions are his own.

And people get hurt because psychological theories at this point in knowledge are like dirty bombs – they not only can blow up but they can leave fallout, the half-life of which is usually longer than a lifespan.  Then, maybe, decades later, some psychologist will say, Oh, that’s wrong; hook up the clydesdales to a new band wagon.

No, psychology is most certainly not rocket science, but, by gosh, you can get a mail order DIY kit so easily. Sometimes the requirements is the belief that two and two don’t equal four because so and so says so. (A little alliteration to analyze at your leisure and come up with an AmeliaJake theory.)