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Friday, November 30, 2001
In South Louisiana we are now in what we call "Cane Season". The sugarcane farmers are harvesting their hard-fought-for crop. It's an eerie time of year. The farmers burn the fields for reasons that no one seems to agree on. The smoke hangs low to the ground on some days and adds a dramatic effect to our already dramatic culture. We learn to quietly accept the down side of cane season. We stay perpetually stuck on curvy roads behind slow moving tractors taking product to market. The air has a horrible odor that covers the entire town. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you it smells like dog shit. People come here from out of town and as soon as they step out of their cars they sniff the air and immediately check the bottoms of their shoes. Aside from the oil industry, our local economy is based on the sugar crop, so we tolerate the inconveniences with minor grumbling. Thursday, November 29, 2001
Be careful what you plant in your yard. A few years ago we decided to plant a fig tree. I've always felt that an old house should have a fig tree in the yard, like when I was growing up. There was an unusual variety in the nursery, a Black Fig. Keen on variety and novelty, we bought it.
Apparently the Black Fig is best suited for the tropics. Now, in November, it is starting to bear fruit. This is not a fluke. On the rare occasions it has borne figs in the past, it has always been at the end of the Fall. What's worse, the poor tree just can't produce. This is a record year. We're about to get our third fig. They come ripe one at a time. When the first one blackened (which meant it was ripe. Hence the plant's name), we took a knife and split it in two, so Janice and I could both enjoy the bounty of the harvest. The second fig was for Janice's pleasure alone, since my enthusiasm couldn't possibly match hers. The third is ripening now. We're not sure if we'll split it or make a pie. If we don't get a freeze, there may even be a fourth.
For over a year, we had almost completely stopped going to restaurants. Janice was on sabattical and money was a little tight (though not as tight as Janice insisted). When sabattical ended, we didn't get back into the habit again until Janice bought one of those school fund-raising coupon books. It included discounts at several nice restaurants. Of course, it wouldn't do to use a coupon at a trendy eatery, so they issue a card that looks like a credit card. It works like a coupon at the nice places. The cheap places use regular coupons.
Today we went to Baracca's in Lafayette. I had seafood-stuffed veal and Janice had seafood-stuffed seafood. I suppose I like eating out more for the experience than for the food. When you're married to a good cook, restaurants don't impress. We're not really saving money, because we're eating out rather than cooking, but Janice loves a bargain and we're getting out of the house again. I peeked in on the troubled diva today and saw that he had mentioned me and Janice and linked back here. Hello from America, Mike. Wednesday, November 28, 2001
Last year, Janice cooked Christmas dinner for my office. She prepared her famous Chicken and sausage gumbo. Janice is an excellent cook, and her gumbo is so good it'll give you goosebumps.
Today, the women in my office were discussing that gumbo. The topic comes up often, almost a year later. Pat said that she had started using Janice's secret ingredient, and now all of her friends use it too and swear by it. The ingredient? Salsa... right out of the jar. One day Janice was cooking her gumbo when she noticed that her recipe had many of the same ingredients as salsa. Figuring it was worth a try, she experimented. She added salsa right out of the jar. Well, she made the best gumbo anyone has ever had. I tell you this because the "secret ingredient" is catching on. At this rate, all of Louisiana will be adding salsa to their gumbo within a year or two. I just wanted to document that Janice did it first. Tuesday, November 27, 2001
Today I discovered a website dedicated to saving the memories of anyone who chooses to share them. It's called Random Access Memory. Of course, I had to particiate. I chose my most significant childhood memories. To spare you the trouble of looking it up, I'll paste it here for you:
My most cherished childhood memories are those of my hospital days. All told, I spent a few years in Shriners' Hospital for Crippled Children in Shreveport, LA. In those days, the 1960's, when you went in the hospital, you stayed for months. Once I was there for 11 months. I feel very blessed to have lived in that old World-War-One era institution. My childhood resembled many movies I've seen. The hospital was right out of the Victorian Age, with starched white nurses uniforms and wards with rows of beds all in one long room. The rear of the ward looked as if it had originally been some sort of terrace, which had been closed in to make an annex. The ends of the ward had a smaller version of the same thing, holding only two beds. These outlying areas were highly prized locations, doled out only to the oldest and coolest kids. Or maybe they became cool by virtue of the location. So what do I remember about the place? Geez! I'm 42 now and I often find myself trying to preserve some of those memories. One of my favorites was the days outdoors. It was a major production to take the kids outside, so it didn't happen often. Picture this: young children with 1950 haircuts, and shirts with pictures of cowboys on them, walking and wheeling in the sun around an oval brick track on the hospital grounds. The non-ambulatory kids were brought out in their beds or wheelchairs, or those wooden reclining wheelchairs used for body-cast kids. We strolled in the sun, pushing the beds and chairs around the path and enjoying the day under the watchful eye of a cadre of highly starched matrons with tall, stiff hats. When I remember those days, I feel like I must have grown up in the 1930s, not the 60s. At Shriners, there were no Catholics, no Jews, no Pentecostals, no Lutherans. Those religions stopped at the door. While you were in Shriners, you were a Baptist. This was never questioned. My mother was always amused that I'd come home from the hospital singing my Baptist hymns. The Old Rugged Cross, I Saw The Light, it's hard to remember them all now. Then there was Mrs. White, a local lady who, as far as I know, had no official connection with the hospital. Once a week, she'd bring a truckload of toys for all the kids to play with. She stayed all afternoon, then collected up her toys and shook every child's hand before she left. She's the one who taught this left-hander, which hand to shake with. Not that we lacked toys. Every child was given a bag of toys upon admission, which became his permanent property. Another bag of toys was given on the day before surgery. The bags were large fabric sacks of colorful fabric, made by volunteers. They closed with a drawstring. I'm not joking when I say that we actually looked forward to surgery, just for the toys. Kids were so easy to please back then. A few rituals: Every night, all children recited The Lord's Prayer, the longer, Baptist version, in unison, in the dark, after lights out. Sunday dinner was always chicken Every evening, all of the children received a snack of fruit in a bowl. I don't know why I loved that event so much. To this day, when my wife suggests we have some fruit in the evening, she knows I'll be thinking about the hospital. Pears especially. Pears take me right back there. Bath time came but once a week. It was boys' heaven. On bath day (Saturday) a huge clothing bin was rolled into the ward, and we could choose our clothes for the week. (No one had his own clothes. Upon discharge, our parents were instructed to bring something for us to wear home.) Periodically, the students from the barber school came to cut everyone's hair. Once I asked for a crew cut. I had heard the expression, but didn't know what it meant. My parents walked right past me on visiting day. Mom was horrified that they'd shave my head. I never could get her to believe I asked for the crew cut. Admission to the hospital always followed the same sequence. After saying goodbye to a tearful mother I was wheeled into a special room and bathed. No matter how old you were, you were not allowed to bathe yourself. The tub was about four inches deep, made of stainless steel, and mounted at counter-top level like something you'd see in a morgue. You sat on that table/tub and endured an antiseptic scrub by a nurse who was often too pretty for my taste. I think hospitals do that on purpose. Indignities have to be at the hand of the beautiful. After my recent surgery, they sent the most beautiful nurse they had to remove my catheter. After the bath, ambulatory or not, you were placed in a wheelchair and rolled down the mile-long corridors to the ward. Whenever I hear the term "wet behind the ears" I think of the new kids on the ward, who literally were wet behind the ears. Looking like a drowned rat in a wheelchair, the new kid never made an impressive entrance. He looked and felt like the bottom of the kid hierarchy, which he was. If he had been there before, though, he knew he could gain status quickly, because he was about to receive a new bag of toys. There were so many memories; I can't possibly pull them all together. I don't remember anything negative. It was the place where being the crippled kid gave you no measure of peculiarity. The hospital was a bulwark of consistency and predictability. It was an isolated community with a one-room school and people who really cared, without making a big production about it. In the 1970s, the old hospital was torn down and replaced with a modern facility with private rooms. I never got to go back and see it one last time. A while back, after months of searching, I bought two picture postcards of the old hospital from a guy on eBay. They're the only pictures I have of the whole experience. Saturday, November 24, 2001
Here's an idea I like:
I just installed a program called Total Recorder. It captures audio from any source that can be used by your computer. You can record internet radio stations, etc. with it. Right now I am recording a Prarie Home Companion show. RealAudio is doing its annoying rebuffering stuff, but Total Recorder eliminates those gaps so I get un-interrupted sound in the finished product. I liked this program so much, I actually paid the money to register it so I could have the full version. That's a rarity for me. Go to prariehome.org to hear a great radio program. Go to highcriteria.com for Total Recorder
It's been a busy holiday week. Thanksgiving with my family, and various family gatherings with Janice's folks. Just got back from dinner with almost all of her family.
Messed around with boat projects yesterday and today. Added those whipped coverings to the mast-raising poles. Bored? Well, stop reading! Wednesday, November 21, 2001
As I mentioned a week ago, there are plenty of people out there posting weblogs like this one. I noted as well that too many of them are lame attempts at creativity. When I found one called troubled_diva: "Dermot O'Leary does the South Bank Show", I was certain I had found an excellent example of crap to prove my point. I was, however, delightfully surprised.
A polar opposite of my Mainstream-American-Main-Street-Working-Stiff bloggery, the Troubled Diva is a gay man in London who documents his life, as I do mine, on his web page. He has a Brit's flare for getting his point across with well-worded pinache, and his life is interesting (to us on Main Street. He finds it all very boring, I'm sure). I've been reading his page for a few days now, and I can't help checking in on him de temp à temps to see what's going on in his universe. Vacation update: Not much happening. I built a worthwhile mast-raising system today. We also bought some pansies (which may have inspired me to mention the Diva), and Janice planted them. A good day overall. Our Thanksgiving pies are in the fridge, so we're ready for dinner tomorrow with family. Tuesday, November 20, 2001
Vacation Day 2 (or 4)
Unproductive day. I stripped some paint from the house, made a couple of monkey's fists on my dockline for the boat, and downloaded an entire album (no names, please), which hasn't even hit the market yet. Burning the CD now. Monday, November 19, 2001
When does a vacation really start?
I've been off work since Friday afternoon, but today was the first day that I was actually away from the office when I would have been there. So does Monday count as the start of the vacation? I cleaned my workshop today. After night fell, Janice and I sat in the kitchen and cracked pecans and ate them as we listened to A Praire Home Compainion. We started listening to PHC about 18 years ago. Back then, there was no internet, so you had to use a real radio, like in The Depression. Now we have the Internet. You can listen to Saturday radio shows on Monday. What a great future and a great vacation.
A real show
I’ve been looking forward to the Leonid Meteor Shower since I first heard about it. The predictions reported that it would be the most significant astronomical event of the 21st century. Who’d want to miss something like that? I had seen meteors and meteor showers before. When we lived in the country we were avid stargazers, but since moving to town, we haven’t had the opportunities. My own most significant experience came one night many years ago. Janice and I had just gotten back from Baton Rouge, where we had applied for our first mortgage. We were practically newlyweds. Worried about the loan, I was lying awake in bed, with the window next to my head. Suddenly I saw light from outside, I turned in time to see a huge fireball in the sky. It had a long streaming tail that sparkled many colors. Hollywood would have rejected it as being too colorful to be believable. I was in awe! It was so big that it appeared to be moving in slow motion. Janice was facing the other direction with her eyes closed. The light was so bright that she could see it through her eyelids, while facing away from the window. This week’s meteor shower didn’t eclipse this event for me, but hell, how could it? I don’t really believe in omens, but I seem to have them on a regular basis, so I don’t ignore them. I knew we would get the loan. This Saturday, I kept an eye on the forecasts. South Louisiana was right on the edge of the best viewing area. There was a chance we could have stayed home and gotten a great show, but it was not guaranteed. We didn’t want to take chances, so we decided to go farther east for clear skies. We had no sooner decided this, than Janice’s brother Glenn called to say he was coming over to return my riding mower he had been repairing for me (I missed that mower). When Janice told him our plans, he said he’d like to come along. Two hours later, Glenn, his wife Susan, and their teenage daughter Kim were at our house. We stopped to pack an ice chest and we were on the road. Planning by the seat of our pants, we decided to go to McComb, Mississippi. In a couple of hours we were there, scoping out a good viewing spot. We drove into Percy Quin State Park and found a golf course, which was already vacant for the night. It was perfect except that it was west of McComb. There was light pollution to the east, where the meteors were predicted to be. Not satisfied, we decided to go east of McComb, but first a meal and sleep. We ate at a new Ruby Tuesday’s restaurant and got a hotel room. The alarm rang at 2:30 and we headed farther east. Since we hadn’t found a spot in advance, we had to try to find one in the dark, while missing the beginning of the meteor shower. As Glenn drove, I looked out the window and kept everyone posted on what they were missing. There were no ideal viewing spots to be found, so we pulled off the road and laid a blanket on an embankment on the side of the highway. For the next two and a half hours we marveled at the show. We saw hundreds of shooting stars. Every time we saw one, we all said, “That was a good one”. There were no bad ones. The spot we found still had light pollution to the east. The golf course would have been just as good, or even better, but as Glenn said, “They can run you out of a golf course, they can’t run you out of the roadside.” Some of the meteors were so bright that they lit up the sky like lightning. It seemed like they were always behind us. By the time we turned around, a dust trail was all that was left of them. All the brightest ones left a lingering trail in the sky. Eventually, some really bright ones did flash right in our field of vision. Luckily, all five of us were looking right at them every time. As the hour grew late and the shower had passed its peak, the inevitable happened. I was expecting this; a Mississippi Highway Patrol car pulled up behind Glenn’s truck and turned on the flashing lights. As the senior member of the group, all eyes turned to Glenn to be our spokesman. Janice concealed our brandy bottle as Glenn walked down the incline to plead our case. The officer was very nice, and told Glenn that he assumed we were stargazing, but had to check it out. He was a little surprised that we had driven so far to sit on the side of his highway, but he was satisfied that we were harmless and went on his way. We watched a few dozen more meteors and headed back to the hotel room, where we crashed till checkout time. In all, we saw hundreds of meteors and missed thousands. You can only see a small slice of the sky, and a small percentage of meteors. I suspect that wearing eyeglasses limits one’s field of vision as well. When we got back to South Louisiana, we learned that the skies had been perfectly clear, but we had no regrets. It was a fun trip, and a great experience. Friday, November 16, 2001
Marital Bliss
A husband and wife watched TV news: The cleanup at the World Trade Center and Pentagon; the videos of different countries around the world; crying with Americans over the events of the past few weeks; reporters updating and attempting to analyze political strategy; President Bush making speeches; the country coming together united; the decisive action President Bush is taking. The wife turns to the husband and says, "I'm so thankful that George W. Bush is our President. He is doing such a wonderful job and showing a lot of character and strong leadership." The husband turns to the wife and says, "Oh, shut up, Tipper."
Weather.com is now predicting clear skies here for the meteor shower, but the local weather guy is saying it will be foggy. Clear skies are worthless if you have fog under them.
Dag nabbit! we'll end up waiting till the last minute to decide where to watch the meteor shower. I don't know if there's a website that will tell you where viewing is best. No time to drive to Arizona!
Trust me. I am making progress on the Old House web pages. Earlier this year, we were given some old photos from when the house was new. We've wanted to have old pictures since we bought the place. Thank goodness the original family waited so long to send them. If they had given them to the previous owners, we never would have seen them.
Even though they are treasures, I feel honor bound to pass them on to new owners if and when we sell the place. They should stay with the house. I got some work done on the house pages last night, but I need to dig up the research I did several years ago. My memory is too faulty to rely on. But, as you will see when the pages are posted, research isn't that much more reliable. btw: my vacation starts in less than eight hours!!!!!!!! YEEEEEEE HAAAAAAA!!!! Thursday, November 15, 2001
I'm finally taking a vacation next week. We had originally plannned to take a trip, but there was so much uncertainty after 9/11, that we didn't want to commit to reservations that might not be cancellable.
Now that the junk is out of the library, I think I'll spend the week building those bookcases.
I just downloaded a neat little application that makes it easier to post my messages here. It's called Blog Buddy. A little box pops up and I type in it. Then I click a button and my message becomes part of my homepage.
I love living in the future!
Now that the new Harry Potter movie is out, kids can finally stop reading again. Wednesday, November 14, 2001
Shane says that he's not likely to go to Houston this weekend, so Janice and I need to keep an eye on the weather, a full tank of gas, and our overnight bag packed. Reason? This weekend is the Leonid meteor shower, which is predicted to be the best since 1966. It might even be a meteor storm! According to the forecast, we may have cloudy skies, so we'll leave the state to go to a clear spot if there's one within driving distance. Check back here to see how it works out :) Tuesday, November 13, 2001
When you have a CD burner, you soon lose track of what's on all those disks. I've been trying to find freeware that'll catalog the contents of my CDs. There's plenty of $40 programs that will do this, but I'm cheap. Here's my new plan for making my own catalogs:
1. Create an empty folder for each CD you have. Name each folder to match the label on the CD, like "Our Pictures". 2. Do a Windows search for *.* in that CD. It will list all the files. 3. In those search results, press CTRL-A to select all. 4. With your right mouse button, drag the files to the folder for that CD. When you let go of the button, a menu pops up. Click "Create Shortcuts here". That's it. Each folder is now a catalog of a CD
I just discovered weblogs this week and started one of my own (it’s what you’re reading now). Weblogs are more popular than I knew. There are several sites where you can browse people’s logs. Sadly, most of them are written by people who seem to be desperate to appear creative, blathering on about angst and shit like that. They remind me of the words to the Leonard Cohen song... “All the lousy little poets gather ‘round, trying to sound like Charlie Manson”
If you ever catch me posting garbage like that, feel free to come to my house and slap my little crippled ass all the way down Main Street. Monday, November 12, 2001
Laura Griffith posted her TSBB Roster today. She's apparently been working on this for a while. Laura's been one of those characters like Norm's wife on "Cheers". We all heard about her, but she never showed her face on TSBB. One day a couple of weeks ago she started posting and nearly replaced her husband Charlie on the board. Her TSBB roster has pictures of TSBBers along with pertinent info about them. Still in its infancy, the roster has a fraction of the TSBB group. I need to add my name and picture. Someone pointed out that Laura didn't include herself in the roster.
Another windless race day!
Janice and I arrived at the Point for the regatta Saturday morning ready to crew with Ed, our usual captain. When we got there, Shane had already arrived and was rigged and ready, but crewless. He invited us along as his crew. We checked with Ed, and he didn’t really need us (we’re not that valuable as crew anyway), so we joined Shane on his Neptune 24. A rarity, the club had coffee and donuts. They also had Bloody Marys for $2.50. I wish they would at least do coffee on regular race days. At the skippers meeting before the race, they changed the way they plot the course. Ordinarily, they set the course before anyone sets sail. This time, they waited until all the boats were in the water, sent out a committee boat, and held up a sign indicating the course. I’ve been on races where this has been done, and I’m told that it is standard practice, but not at our club. We were left completely confused. Shane was convinced that the course was one direction, but it turned out to be the opposite way. We learned this as the rest of the boats sailed off to the west as we sailed east. With almost no wind, it seemed to take forever to sail back to the starting line and tack back into the race. By the time we joined the race we were far behind the pack. As calm as the winds were, and as bad a start as we got, we actually started to close the gap. It took time, but we eventually started to feel like we were in the race. As I said, it was more or less windless. The first leg of the race was upwind, which meant beating in slow motion for hours. Finally, we approached the mark. After one final tack, the wind died even more. We were a few hundred yards from the mark and practically sitting still. It was excruciating. The boats ahead of us, after passing the mark, were dropping their sails. We knew what that meant. They had decided to end the race at the first mark. They all started to raft up and party. It was killing us, just sitting there. There was a nice big Benneteau trying to make the mark as well. They weren’t moving at all. We managed to pass them, and were getting very close to the mark, when suddenly the Benneteau started to move and we stopped. It made no sense. We were all in the same wind, but they were moving and we weren’t. They should have been in our wind shadow! We sat helplessly while the big boat passed us and crossed the finish line. Later, someone told us that big boats could suck the wind away from small boats, even when the small boat is windward of the large one. It still doesn’t make sense to me. After rafting up with the others and waiting for the last boats to finish, the committee decided to make the second leg of the race into a second race. We weren’t very excited about it, given the lack of wind, but we popped another beer and hoisted the sails, only to watch them slat as we sat trying to approach the very same mark, which now marked the starting line. As we sat there, trying to keep the boat at least aimed in the right direction, we saw a tugboat headed in our direction. The mark we approached was a channel marker, and the tug pilot wasn’t going to budge outside of his channel, even though it was an imaginary channel in the middle of the bay. He actually picked up speed as he approached the tangle of sailboats. We were sitting ducks in his path. There wasn’t enough wind to move us out of his way, and the sailors were reluctant to start their motors, not wanting to be disqualified from the race. As luck would have it, most boats were just out of his path, but he steamed faster and blew his whistle as he approached the one boat that was in “his” channel… our boat. He wasn’t going to alter course an inch. He sped toward us, blowing his whistle like a train on tracks. The guy was demented; he must have had some hatred for sailors or something. As the huge boat raced toward us, I still couldn’t help thinking that this wasn’t even the strangest thing that had happened to me this week. Shane jumped for his outboard, which always starts easily, and we just managed to get out of his way. Other sailors jumped for their cell phones and radios to report the jerk to the Coast Guard. After this, we sat becalmed again trying to point the boat toward the starting line. We were all thinking the same thing. I said, “let’s drop the sails and go to the club. Everyone agreed. As we furled the sails, a voice from another boat called to us. “Please take me along”. We motored over to him. He was an elderly man, a lifelong sailor and founding member of the club. He knew how long the second race would take and wanted no part of it. We picked him up from the beautiful Island Packet on which he had been either a passenger or crew. I’m not sure. But on a windless day, his extra pair of hands wouldn’t be missed. His name was Walter, and it turned out that he was the wisest man there. The boat we removed him from was the last boat to make it back in the second race. It came in a few hundred yards behind the second to last boat, but it missed the mark! They were stubbornly determined to finish the race, so they tacked to circle back to the finish line. Having missed the mark by just a few feet, they took over an hour trying to get back to it. There wasn’t enough wind to overcome the outgoing tide. We stood on the balcony of the club watching the boat drift sideways as the sun set and night fell. They turned their lights on and kept trying until the committee boat called the race and picked up the buoy. Back in the clubhouse, we had our annual meeting, in which I was not elected to the board, and we all ate steak and crawfish. They announced the race results. Hold on to your Levi’s… second place… Shane Wallace!!! And on his very first race. Not bad. Everyone told him that if he’d gotten a better start, he would have won for sure. They said they’ll have to adjust his PHRF. Shane asked me to ride along with him to Houston next week to pick up his new trailer. Not a day on the water, but could be fun. Friday, November 09, 2001
This has been a strange week. If you know me, you know that I am an amputee, but I don't seek out the company of other amputees any more than I seek out the company of other left handers. This week, I made the mistake of visiting a website for similarly afflicted Asymmetrical Americans. I posted on their bulletin board, and almost immediately got an email from the most bizarre person I have ever had contact with. His name was George, and he wanted to know all about what life was like as a handicapped child. It wasn't just a passing interest. He is a 76 year old man who has dreamed since childhood of being an amputee. His dream was more of an obsession, and nine years ago he achieved his fantasy by taking a shotgun and blowing off his leg. "Life for me since the amputation has been nothing short of beatitude....I am free and resident in my body" he said.
This was so outrageous that I had to verify it. I did a Yahoo search with his name and sure enough, I got a hit. A fetish site published his story and included two scans from tabloid stories about him. I ordinarily discount anything printed in a tabloid, but George himself had confirmed every word of it in the three emails I have gotten from him so far. I had to share this story with someone, so I emailed my friend Mark. Maybe I shouldn't have. He was very disturbed by it. After a few emails, he told me that this story had consumed all his waking thoughts. He just couldn't believe that anyone would mutilate himself in such a way. He wanted to cling to the idea that George had been tormented by unbearable pain in his leg, which could only be assuaged by amputation. But no. George simply wanted to be special in some way. He now lurks in the amputee websites, offering guidance and support to others. He has found a place for himself. Yesterday, he addressed a group of physical therapy students at a local school. I think it's probably all he has. On a more banal note: for weeks I have been planning to declare a war on junk. I live in a huge Victorian house that I bought on impulse nine years ago, and for years have been both restoring it and stuffing it with every piece of junk that I would have thrown away if I lived in a smaller home. Less than half of the house has been restored, and we have gotten to the point that every un-restored room has been filled with junk, mostly books. I told Janice that when I die, my books should be donated to the public library. They'll fill an entire wing, which could be called the A.D.D. wing. It's amusing to see how many strange diversions I've passed through over the years, all of them researched through the purchase of books. Well, the war on junk started in ernest. I threw out three large garbage cans of junk, plus boxes and old electronics, last garbage day. Already, I have those three garbage cans filled and waiting for the next garbage day... plus lots of junk that won't fit in the cans. I'm keeping the books! The house has become a biohazard with all that junk. You can't clean it, so it gathers dust and mildew and dead roaches. You wouldn't believe how much better the house looks already. There's still much to do. When I'm done, I'll get back to my restoration work and finish my library. Archives11/01/2001 - 12/01/2001 12/01/2001 - 01/01/2002 01/01/2002 - 02/01/2002 02/01/2002 - 03/01/2002 03/01/2002 - 04/01/2002 09/01/2002 - 10/01/2002 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005 12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006 02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008 |
