And we're just waiting for something to do
This is my new wood. I can't start stacking it until a few things happen: it stops raining, my old rotten box spring disappears from my wood shed so I can move the leftover wood from this year into the shed, and the bugs become bearable so I can work outside long enough to stack it. These are factors that must be met simultaneously, like having the planets line up perfectly. I can always think of obstacles when it comes to stacking firewood. I've never had to stack 6 cords at once before, I've always bought 4 cords at a time. This year I'll buy 12 cords, so I have to get this load stacked pretty quickly because the second load will need time to dry before temps settle below freezing. Once the temperature stays below 32 the sap freezes in the wood and it no longer dries. Or so I've been told.

I had a conversation with the dogs this morning at 6:15. I told them I'd like to stay in bed until 7 but that I had to get up because someone in the house has to have a job to make money to buy dog food, dog biscuits and Nylabones. Tess said she could work at Stewarts, the regional convenience store chain (one in every town of note--famous for their good ice cream, cheap gas and bad coffee). I agreed, she would be great with the customers and could run a cash register. As for Chances, we agreed that piecework was about all she could do, given her visual disability. Or she could sweep up hair at a beauty parlor. Then I really had to get up and let them out. It was pouring ran and they came in all wet and smelly and rubbed against me and the couch. My couch smells really bad and needs to be washed with my carpet steamer but it's not dry enough outside for it to dry inside. NOTHING CAN GET DONE UNTIL IT STOPS RAINING and it just won't stop raining. Now I guess it's supposed to rain until Monday.

I got a tax refund from NY State yesterday. I thought it would be a refund for my 2005 taxes, about $150. Noooo, it was for 2004, which I filed in April 2005, having filed an extension on in 2004. I paid $250, they refunded $500 to me yesterday. They refigured my taxes and did something really strange which I think is wrong but all they send you is a listing of what lines they changed, no rationale for the changes. Argue with the government? Has never made sense to me. What to do with my newfound riches is the question. I should either put it in a savings account or get the front bumper of the car fixed or replace the 2 seatbelts in the back seat that new Stewarts employee Tess chewed. I can only make one of the repairs to the car with the money: each of those things will cost $500. I also want to buy a tent of some sort to sleep in this summer in my yard. This sounds like a very strange thing, but there are a lot of nights when it's just really, really nice at my house--warm and still, and I want to sleep outside. I don't have a screened-in porch, so I want to get a tent of some sort, one with a floor that I can sleep in. Sometimes I think I am turning into a very strange person, that eccentric woman who lives on the hill with her dogs and plants. But as long as I continue to have relatively normal human contact I think I'll be ok.

I had dinner with Ken last night at the Redford Diner (I'm debating whether that qualifies as normal human contact--you should see the tattooed waitress). I had a tasty cheeseburger and he had a hot pork sandwich with the most vile looking gravy I've ever seen. They served the World's Worst Cole Slaw, a huge disappointment. Cole slaw is one of my favorite foods, and usually diner cole slaw is wonderful. This cole slaw was pink, however, and was mostly tangy mayonnaise with tiny bits of cabbage. Oh it was awful. We both ended up dumping our cole slaw into the doggie box I took home to the chocolates. They loved it: pronounced it the World's Best Cole Slaw.

I just got back a bunch of stuff from one of the member libraries with notes written all over it explaining why the MARC records I did or did not provide are wrong. A two volume copy of The complete Sherlock Holmes should have 2 separate records? No, I don't think so--any more than a 32-volume set of the Encyclopedia Britannica should have 32 records. But I will examine each record and each note to see if her comments have merit, then I will humble myself and kiss her member library director ass. It's raining, I have a sinus headache and I have to leave early to get to the AuSable Forks post office to pick up my plants because they weren't delivered to the right address. But I think I'll make an afternoon of it, get some money and go grocery shopping with reckless abandon. That will give me time tomorrow after work to buy a new fish. Mrs. Guppy died. I think Mr. Guppy hounded her to death. Or she died because of a difficult pregnancy (they're live-bearers). Or she was a geriatric fish. Everyone else is perfectly healthy, including Mr. Guppy, who mourned for a night but is now perky and looking for someone else to focus his romantic attention on. I don't think I'll get another guppy, I'll get a danio to keep cute little single danio company. But first I must get a disguise to wear so the fish salespeople won't recognize me. She was actually still covered under warranty, but I can't be bothered to collect $1.29. Maybe I should investigate fish life insurance.