Author: Claire
I have no business being disgruntled or depressed. Here it is, November 15, and it’s still shirtsleeve weather. The sun is shining. The air is still. The critters and I are reasonably well. There’s really not a thing to complain of and quite a lot to be joyful about. But it’s been a discouraging few weeks, for reasons too petty to go into. If you got me started, I’d produce an embarrassing rant and I don’t want to do that. So early this afternoon I shut the computer, packed Ava into the car, and took her out for a latte…
Commentator Gerard Van der Leun is — was — a resident of Paradise, California. Now, burned out of his home along with another 30,000 people, he’s taken refuge in Chico. He writes beautifully about the individuals and businesses of the town “leaving it all on the field” for their bereft and desperate guests. A must read. There have been a lot of dramatic and moving reports out of Paradise. But nobody says it better. Van der Leun concludes: They all were leaving it all on the field everywhere in Chico. From Penny’s in the Mall to the Birkenstocks Store downtown…
I intended to include this in last night’s post, but it didn’t quite fit. You won’t be surprised to learn that Mssrs. Harris, McHenry & Baker, homebuilders of 1925 disapproved of renting. Sorry, renters but aside from the full page of sentimental and financial arguments they print in the back of their plan book, they go so far as to sniff at you for not exercising your full rights of citizenship. Still, they had a point. To wit: Click to embiggenate if you can’t see the figures, but they’re showing what a household’s “rent-paying habit” (yes, that’s what they call…
I don’t indulge in the boxes of freebies the thrift store puts out; they’re usually loaded with junk. But Friday morning, a huge number of the freebies were … art books! Oldish art books, but in good shape; once obviously some painter’s cherished possession. I grabbed seven or eight, and along with them the book on the right, 101 Classic Homes of the Twenties, with floor plans and photographs. 101 Classic Homes is one of those marvelous books Dover does, where they find some quirky, usually artsy, material in the public domain and reprint it. In this case, it’s a…
Yesterday’s news item about the 69-year-old man who “identifies” as 20-some years younger and demands a legal date-of-birth change has sparked some creative (albeit sneaky and slightly felonious) thinking. Sure, the guy’s claim is Onion-worthy. But the most ridiculous self-identity claims are being taken seriously enough now for claimants to extort money out of victims — with the assistance of so-called human-rights tribunals (must read; that news out of Canada is as absurd as it is scary). It may soon be that the only way to compete in a world gone mad is to “identify” as something totally self serving…
Note: This first got published without its ending, a fact I caught 10 minutes later. My apologies to anybody who saw it in its naked state. —– I mentioned the other day that life at the moment is pleasantly dull. That’s still the case. After an extraordinary October, we’ve begun an extraordinary November. Cold, foggy mornings, but blue skies all afternoon. Perfect weather for winter preps and completing fall projects. Yesterday I hauled out my little Honda inverter-generator to give it its seasonal checkup and run under load. I’ve never had to use it in an emergency, but it will…