Monday, October 15, 2007

So Trivial It Hurts

Dang, but it takes me a long time to make the rounds these days. There just might come a time when ALL I do is read blogs. Nah. Real Life has its appeal, too. But the fact remains that there is simply SO much good stuff out there. Everyone has a story to tell and with the advent of the ‘net and blogs many more than a few people are taking the time to tell those stories. I think they’re fascinating, to say the VERY least.

It was cold when I woke up this morning…something like 43 degrees outside. OK, that’s not really cold, it’s just chilly. Chilly enough for me to drag out the ol’ auxiliary heater from its summer storage place and fire it up. I love that lil electric heater…it puts out just the right amount of warmth (when strategically placed near the ol’ tootsies) and saves on the propane consumption. I’m thinking I just might grit my teeth and have Cortez Gas set me a large propane tank this fall. When it gets really cold… a relative thing, ya know… I fill El Casa Móvil De Pennington’s ridiculously small tank about once a week. The convenience of a large tank is certainly alluring, offset only by the necessity of dropping a couple of Franklins (or more) to actually get the job done. I hear tell propane is gonna go up by about six or seven percent this year. It’s always sumthin’.

Now that the weather is turning chilly the frickin’ flies seem to be swarming, and they’re doing their damnedest to get into the house. Seeking warmth, and all that. There must have been two dozen of the nasty lil buggers hanging out on my screen door last evening when I began to button up. And I exaggerate not a whit, Gentle Reader.

I’ve developed a fun new game to deal with ‘em, though. Involves a can of Raid and said screen door, with me standing on the inside of El Casa Móvil and the flies on the outside of the screen. I think my record, so far, is about ten kills with a single burst. I derive a great deal of satisfaction from killing the nasty things and the Raid drives off the survivors just long enough for me to open the screen, reattach it to the main entry door, and shut the assembled contraption…all without allowing the flies entry into the house. Good fun, it is, but it’s a lot like spitting in the ocean. There are more flies in P-Ville than in any Middle Eastern souk I ever walked into, and that’s sayin’ something, believe me.

What a remarkable illustration of how absolutely mundane my life has become…

Today’s Pic: SN3 in his highchair, circa Fall of 1997, when he was about six or seven months old. This is a scanned photo from back in the days before I got my first digicam. The interesting thing about this pic is the good folks at our local Wegmans (where we got our film processing done) asked for and received our permission to use this photo in their advertising. The photo was still on the wall at their photo kiosk/counter when I left Rochester back in ’99. It may still be there today…who knows?

13 comments:

  1. It is a nice photo and probably still there. It says all the right things about film and photography. Nice shot.

    Also I answered your second comment on the Sendai-shi blog a while ago. Basically, I was once stationed on Hokkaido and it was all snow there. You can read the answer on the blog. LOL

    Thanks for the visit.

    ReplyDelete
  2. SN3 is just so darn cute - I can see why they wanted to use his photo.

    ReplyDelete
  3. SN3 is such a cutie!! Watch out, I'll be setting him up with one of my girls in a few years!

    Flies: Yup, we got 'em. The feed store up on Ave D (Creightons) sells an awesome fly killer that the dairies use. Forget what it's called, but its a bigger can than the raid, and safe to use around things like cows and animals.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks, Ladies. While I AM just a lil bit biased (!!), I agree with you.

    And thanks for the tip, Jenny. Even though it's late in the season I'll swing by there tomorrow and buy some of that stuff. The frickin' flies are SO bad at the moment it's hard to sit outside and enjoy an adult beverage and a cigar. Which I dearly love doing...as you know.

    Abraham...saw your reply on your blog. Amazing, that (about the rifle bolt). We had Jamesways at Wakkanai...those old-time, fully-enclosed passageways between buildings you see in Arctic environments. And we NEEDED 'em, too. Our average annual snowfall at Wakkanai was 220 inches, or nearly 20 feet. That's a LOT of frickin' snow!

    All that said, Wakkanai was one of the best assignments I had in the Air Force. I pulled some strings and got sent back there a year after I left. I was there three months and then the USAF, in its infinite wisdom, decided to close the site and sent me to Turkey...which sucked mightily. That taught me to NOT try and game the system...but GOOD.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi buck! Oh, I know exactly what you mean about blog-visiting, it's too easy to swallow the day up, isn't it? I seem to be getting up earlier and earlier and going to bed later and later, just trying to fit real life around it - how sad am I?? It work's for me..

    I love that pic, that boy is a future heart-breaker in the making (if he isn't already there).

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hey, there. I just happened upon your blog. I love New Mexico but never knew it got cold there until recently.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Also in the high desert - watching the cold flirting with us, too!! We have the wood stove fired up!

    Damn Flies - had one in the house that followed me room to room!!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Buck, I'm with you on the blogs...there are a lot of interesting people out there and too much to read...real life has been getting in the way lately though :)
    SN3 really is a cuite, you're not just biased.
    I've been having fly issues lately too, but not as bad as you...the next door neighbor's added a few horses. More horses=more flies, yuk.

    ReplyDelete
  9. At which Wegmans? I'll look for it :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Carol: Thanks for stopping by! I SO envy you...living in Douglas. And I love your blog, too.

    Rhea: Thanks for dropping by, as well. We do get a lil bit chilly here on the High Plains...even to the point of having snow every so often!

    Flag Gazer: Yep, winter is in the air, ain't it?

    Triple E: Thanks also for your kind words about SN3.

    Laurie: It's at the Perinton store, quite near the intersection of 31 and 250. Big plaza, and all that. They used to have a big photo display board right behind the counter where you drop off your film. You can't miss the pic (or you couldn't, anyway), as they enlarged it into a 5x7.

    ReplyDelete
  11. cute boy - great choice for a photo ad!

    ReplyDelete
  12. by the way, I also meant to mention that you need one of those personal hand-held bug-zappers for hours of sadistic, bug-killin' action. Crisps them up nice for salad toppers, too. *wink*

    ReplyDelete
  13. by the way, I also meant to mention that you need one of those personal hand-held bug-zappers...

    Dang. Never seen one or even heard of 'em. But it's obviously something I NEED. I see googling in my future...

    ReplyDelete

Just be polite... that's all I ask.