Popularity

You want to be wanted? Go into the air conditioning business. We had a person scheduled to come out today to fix ours. We've been without for three or four days now. They no-showed. When I got home late this afternoon, I found a warm house, a dejected spouse, and a phone book. On my second try, I felt I had struck paydirt. But I had found a company that was, as the representative put it, a "victim of its own popularity." Unless we had a standing maintenance contract with them, it would be three weeks before they could get to us. Yikes.

Tonight, with profound thanks to a benevolent Creator, we are cooler, the air is clearer, and by gosh we are going to be fine. We're going into work after church tomorrow. The air conditioning operates there. Somehow, we will get this fixed before Thursday, when family begins clustering here like iron filings on a magnet. We're entering a long stretch of company. This is good. Old Casa Coalbear is getting a pretty good cleaning and we're paying attention to things that apparently have not troubled us for longer than we can remember. Spending time with family and friends in a place we've learned to like all over again is going to be very tasty icing on a welcome cake.

THAT is Childhood

I looked out on the freshly cut grass this evening and saw two white blotches. I didn't plant any blotches. If you've heard anything of my horticultural prowess I'll probably get a rousing "Amen" on that.

Squinting to get a closer look (because that's how things are done after 40), I noticed they were socks. A visiting seven-year-old friend had headed down the hill to feed the horses. Who does that with shoes on? En route he divested himself of anything that separated him (or at least his feet) from Nature. That's so cool. I nearly had the damn things bronzed so we could leave them on the front yard as a reminder of how to be young. Childhood is sweet.

Be kids, kids.

Back in the Swing

I've been away too long. Blogger has a whole new interface since I last logged on.

The "shhhh" work is nearly in the bag. As is often the case, we're down to a tug-of-war between those who want to rush to press and those who think it might look better if we read the whole thing and made sure all the words are spelled right. Some days it's good to be the soldier and not the general.

The weekend was consumed with indisposition. I had the house to myself on Mother's Day, staying near the porcelain amenities. J & K blew out of here as quickly as they could, attended church, and hung out with my in-laws all day. They celebrated their freedom by shopping and dining at Pizzaria Uno's. Meanwhile, I was relegated to the homestead, eating bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. I'm not the best patient even when I'm the doctor, so I supplemented the prescribed diet with Pop-Tarts, ice cream, and honey roasted peanuts. I still got better, so a big "So There!" to any nay-sayers.

The big accomplishment of my down-time was that most of one big book of CDs is now residing on my external hard drive. Everything from Alan Parson Project to Ralph Vaugh-Williams is pretty much recorded for posterity. I felt as if I was starting at the wrong end, though. So I went to the library last night. The letter A is now brought to you by Aerosmith. Mr. Buffett is representing for the B crew. He will soon be joined by Ludwig and Mr. Sam Bush. Just a few to finish with at the back end of the alphabet and we'll be rolling through the other two books.