Burro

The yellow thing to the right is the ballast car. For a bit of reference, it is the better part of seven feet tall.

Pumpkin

What have I done?

Through various family and friends and the generosity thereof, I have come by a new couch. That is to say, I have come by a couch that is new to me. In reality it is about six years old or so. Big, black, leather, and comfy. I was told it was a leather sectional. It has two recliners built into it, and a hide-a-bed. I can deal with that, thought I. Is it comfortable, I asked? My mother has sat on it any number of times and she thought it was. Good enough for me. After a few phone calls I discovered that all the help I thought I would find were otherwise occupied. Luckily for me, help that I thought would be busy was not. And he had a truck. I should have been well warned by the fact that it took two trucks to get the pieces home. Once I finally got the thing put together, I discovered that this couch is absolutely gigantic. It takes up more than half of my rather large living room. I turned Charlie's couch around to sit back to back with the far side of my sectional. The long side of my couch faces the incredibly large television on loan from my sister. The shorter side faces the stove. Charlie's couch now backs to that side and faces the fish tank and the wall that will eventually hold my piano. I used to think that my eventual move out of here would be easy. I didn't used to possess anything terribly large. Now I can't say that.

To my dearest friend Kris

You suck and I hope you know it. I refuse to accept the fact that any place whose state animal/flower/motto/mascot/slogan/bird/hero, or any such thing as a "hoosier" might have anything resembling dole's pineapple goodness. Your lies are more disgusting than the decapitated squirrel I found in my car yesterday.

House = well appointed barn

Chance wants to be a house cat. He's nice enough as cats go, but he wants to be where I am. He's made it a habit of sneaking into the house when I am carrying groceries or jugs of water into the house. I don't mind it as long as he remembers that his home is the barn. He is welcome to visit, but he is supposed to leave when I ask. Now, he's pushing his welcome. Last night he tried to crawl in through my open bedroom window at about three in the morning. Then this morning I got up off the couch to make my lunch before leaving for work and the cat jumped through the living room window, ran down the couch and started exploring the house.

She still is not always to be trusted however

It never matters how things happen, but when all is said and done, you still have to pay the piper. There was one small matter that I didn't take into account. Small bottles of sunscreen left on the seat you mean to place 160 pounds of water jugs on makes for quite the mess. You never truly realize the mess potential of sunscreen until it is too late. Those little tubes just seem so cute and innocent as they sit there, plotting against you.

Providence...I love that chick, and the goodies she brings

My house is just at the foot of the hills were the quicksilver mines used to be. As such, the water in my well is poison. That being the case, I have to schlepp large jugs of purified water to my place from a store a good number of miles from my door. It costs money and its heavy. Add to that the fact that I am lazy. From time to time (read "always") I get a little behind in changing the water in my fish tank. Changing it as often as my little aquatic friends deserve keeps me driving back and forth to el casa de agua. Ha! No longer! My brother in law is stuck in a contract with arrowhead water for four five gallon jugs a month for two years. He doesn't go through nearly that much. His kitchen looks like it's been annexed by the water company for storage purposes. Or porpoises. He has enough water to store them too. He, out of kindness rather than despiration, no doubt, has graciously given me twenty gallons of water with the promise of more, if I but bring him back the empties. My fishes will thank me as soon as they realize that their new fresh water is better than the cloudy algae choked mess where they currently abide.

Just a thought...

but not necessarily a good one. The old saying states that eating an apple a day keeps the doctors away. I don't eat an apple a day. I eat half an apple a day. So. This begs the question, does eating half an apple a day keep half the doctors away all of the time, or all of the doctors away half of the time? These are the questions that keep me awake at night.

Genius

Porch friends

A few mornings back I found the cat on the front porch, a flock of thirty wild turkeys just on the other side of the kitchen window, and three deer next to the barn. That night I fell asleep listening to the yipping and howling of coyotes. The next morning was filled with the sound of lowing cattle. I love the country.

Good times

I just got back from an afternoon and evening with a group of friends I haven't seen in one place at one time since 1993. Some of them followed me into Highschool, but most fell out of contact. We were to meet at Kevin's house first, then move on to other things. I was the first to arrive. Kevin's front door was open, but no one answered the bell. Sam and Chris arrived a few minutes later. They had no greater luck getting an answer at the door than I had. We called Kevin's cell phone and discovered that he and Abhay were some ten to fifteen minutes away still. So the door was open and absolutely nobody was home. It was uncomfortable waiting in an empty house, so we waited on the porch. After an hour or two of talking about old times and our current occupations, we went for a short hike at the quicksilver mines. Kevin did not spend quite as much time in the hills with us, and hadn't heard all the old stories yet. It was good to hear them being told by someone else for a change. They seem more real that way. From there we went to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. More stories were told during dinner. After dinner we ended up back at Kevin's place for yet more old stories. I hadn't realized how much I miss those guys. I met Sam twenty-two years ago. It doesn't seem like that long. The number seems absurd, but I checked my arithmatic. Chris and I met perhaps twenty or twenty-one years ago. I was in fifth grade when I met Abhay, and Kevin and I met in Jr. High. Chris, Kevin, and I all live in the same city still, and are planning to meet up more often now, perhaps for a good weekend hike in Quicksilver. I'd like to re-establish our old friendship. We all fell back into it quickly enough today. I haven't felt this relaxed at the end of the day in years. Old friends are comfortable friends.