Today is another busy day of construction and deconstruction here at Ye Olde House. A note from a friend summed matters up perfectly (I paraphrase): “Old homes have character — and sometimes are characters.” Ayup. These things must be coped with! Today again I won’t have a lot, but with luck the time spent painting and drywalling will be meditative and will produce Brilliant Thoughts. Later. So I’m throwing another question at you: How prepared are you to deal with unprepared people? This is a perennial question of course but I bring it up because of something a non-political friend…
Author: Claire
Unexpected work struck today. Oh no! And it’s not even the kind that pays. Still, it’s the kind that has to be done during today’s five-second bursts of sunshine. So just some quick stuff for you: Manhattan-sized manmade floating island. Um … okay. Wonder how far that $50,000 will take the project? Wonder what that whiz-kid actually plans to do with it? Old-timers have seen this script before, but one of these days somebody’s going to succeed with the notion. “The prosecution rests, but I can’t.” Eloquent statement by a victim of “justice.” (Why do people always say they don’t…
Or what I did while not blogging yesterday. I need a Ouija board. Or a medium. Yeah, a seance is in order. I really, seriously need to have a talk with the ghosts of the long-dead folks who built this house! I’ve got hard questions for those old haunts. I mentioned the other day that the living room floor had already surprised me with an “issue” as I prepared to rip the wall-to-wall carpet out. You old-house mavens told me what I was about to encounter. You were right — as far as that went. Today was the day the…
What would you do? The upstairs room needs a new floor. It’s going to be laminate. I’ve found exactly the flooring I want for $1.89 per square foot at a tiny family-run business in my town. Obviously, there are cheaper laminates. And more expensive ones. But this is a good product at a modest price and it’s the type that already has the underlayment attached. So not bad. I’ve looked for it online and, once you factor in shipping, the local price is competitive. But. I can drive 90 miles to a chain store and get the same stuff for…
(And the coolest brand name ever.) During the recent discussions on bug-out bag supplies (here, here, and here), several people suggested I should teach the dogs to pack. Though I don’t think it’s realistic to plan to strap all three dogs into packs, then try to manage them all on leash during a “head for the hills” emergency, it did make sense to train at least one to carry a backpack. The pack arrived today and here’s Ava wearing it: Ava is the smallest of my dogs. I chose her because she’s the youngest, sturdiest, and best on leash of…
Seriously. How many more times? Me: (To some near stranger.) Please don’t put me on a mailing list without asking first. And if you must send mailings to multiple recipients, please, for the sake of everybody’s privacy, use bcc or create an alias for the group that hides the addresses. Other person: (If the mailings are political.) I can’t believe you don’t want to receive My Glorious Truths!!!! You’re a big phony! You don’t care anything about freedom!!!!!! Okay then. I’ll take you off my mailing list! You don’t deserve to be on it anyhow!!!!!!!!!! Other person: (If the mailings…
You’d think, you’d really think, they’d learn to use PGP. Police pepper spray a second grader. “I think there is a problem, but it’s with school and Aidan,” Mandy Elliot [his mother] said. “It only happens at school. It doesn’t happen at soccer. It doesn’t happen at swimming. It doesn’t happen with babysitters, with family members.” “How slavery really ended in America.” (NY Times link) Deathbed confessions work better if you confess to somebody honest, rather than a fellow member of your gang of crooks. And if your country has an actual, you know, justice system. (Odd timing. I was…
Sometimes ya got it, sometimes ya ain’t. The deep part of winter — my first back in the NorthWET — wasn’t bad. But late winter and spring are dragging on like the worst of January. Cold. Gloomy. Eternally wet. I can’t remember the last time I saw sun. I have vague recollections of spotting blue sky last week, nuking a cup of tea with the intention of sitting on the deck — then discovering it to be pouring rain when I walked out the door. I went to the hardware store yesterday and bought yellow paint for the garret room…
Last weekend I mentioned that if I fix some desired item in my mind garage sales would soon provide. That was in reference to a haul of stuff for my grab-and-go kit. It should also be noted that garage sales provide items that one would never think of fixing in one’s mind. Not if one were sane and sensible, anyway. To wit: I’m not sure what it is. A candy dish? A planter? Who knows? I just know it made me laugh, and that alone was worth the two bucks I donated to the church hosting the sale. I’m not…
Hilarious. “World’s largest army.” J. said this gave him a “much needed big warm fuzzy feeling.” Me, too — mainly because it gives Schumerites cold, prickly feelings. It’s a comforting thought. But if push ever comes to shove, I wanna know what the “army” is going to do about those domestic invaders. Emergency preps on a shoestring. While there’s probably not a lot there that you don’t already know, it’s still food for thought. And it’s definitely help for those who feel they can’t be prepared because they don’t have a million bucks to buy up everything at Cabela’s, Lehman’s,…