Over and out

So what day is it? FRIDAY! And it's time for my famous time-to-myself vacation, until next Thursday. Let's hear it for me. I would ordinarily plan to spend forever getting out of town tonight, stopping to do errands galore, but NO. I'm planning to visit Martha in the hospital, then go home. I'm coming back to town tomorrow, hoping to stop at the dump on my way in. I've big purge plans for my time off. Though as Joe pointed out to me, each trip to the dump will cost the minimum ($18), so my approach is not the soundest fiscally. But I have to get rid of some of my things--like broken chairs and broken lamps and an old lawn mower that needs a new carburetor and so on the list goes. We'll see how much headway I make.  I've talked and written about it enough, let's hope I actually do something.


Just as important are my plans to paint in the living room and kitchen. I'm really hoping to get my cabinets painted, though I've yet to select a color. I'm so sick of Woods Run Green! I have just 1 piece of furniture left to paint, a small chest, but must must must get to the kitchen. I was going to paint cabinets, etc. black, but I think maybe that's not so wise after all. Very appealing, it would cover the green easily enough, but I guess I'll go for something lighter.

I also have things to plant. Plantlets. My acre of cosmos plantlets is doing well, plants are strong & eager to make their way in the world. I have too many lilies to plant, and some containers yet to fill. I may also get more/better geraniums and get to the cemetery to plant there. No more do I do the aunts & uncles who weren't nice to me or my family, I only do the NICE people now. I was thinking of putting alyssum on Spaulding's & Henry's graves (got the idea from Joe). That would do well without constant deadheading.

It poured and stormed yesterday in Hawkeye--there is debris all over the road, and evidence of a big pine limb down near OHR. Nothing at Woods Run got damaged. Duncan's dock parts arrived without incident, nice delivery man left them covered in plastic to protect from wet. Because docks shouldn't get wet.

The big news for me is that yesterday Joe put up my new mailbox. This is a major deal, I've been trying to figure out how to get it put up for a year or so. My old mailbox had no door and was very sad. I got a Fix It note from mail lady this week, which prompted me to whine about it at Pat's. Joe offered to cut the right size board for mounting it, then took it further yesterday and put the box up. Let's here it for helpful & caring friends. I see a big bottle of Bombay Sapphire in the future. Mail lady left me a note that said "Looks great. Thanks." She's always good about my mail.

I've been working on cleaning up our book collection, starting an inventory of the non-fiction. What a pile of crap I've gone through so far, and I just started this week. We use a PDA to scan the barcodes, then when we're all through Dewey the system will tell us not there that's supposed to be. Swell, how many books have been stolen over the years. Good to clean up the data base, though. So far I haven't even made it to the self-help books. Old books on how to publish your own book (as opposed to someone else's?), important essays of the 20th century (not), Ann Landers, Bill Gates, a huge bunch of old computer books. I've banned Windows 98 from CEFLS. No more help for people using it. Likewise for the Apple IIe.  Geez I've been here a long time.

Annie Holt may come this weekend, I don't know for sure. I believe Ann & Kathy are due in from Baltimore for a week to open Sally's camp. Brian & Ginny Ruder will be here. Fred's in camp. Linda? A mystery no one knows the answer to. I'm sure there will be more people I haven't thought of yet, though Memorial Day is not as busy as 4th of July. I hope to stay in the boat house some, but I'm pretty sure I'll have to walk down. The road was a mess before yesterday's storms, I can only guess what it's like now. Boot sucking gravel & mud.

Work is going well. I worked at Plattsburgh Public a bit this week, cataloging some pretty boring stuff. Until I got to the stuff on Junior Plattsburgh. Account of an encampment in the early 20th century. Other things on the Plattsburgh Barracks. Again, the beginning of Dewey is deadly dull. I plod along. I'll go back to Tupper Lake in 2 weeks, then to AuSable to help figure out a classification scheme for her local history collection. And finish up cataloging a few odds & ends there that I missed.

Next week I go to the dentist for new wires for my braces. My second replacement trip--I go every month. My front teeth are amazingly close together--I feel like saying "Take them off, all is as it should be now." But there's more to go. My journalism teacher once told me to never start a sentence with BUT or HOWEVER. Or, of course, AND. And that "over" means above, so you don't say "over 20 people attended," you say "more than 20 people attended." That was in high school, and was such good advice I've kept to it. Anyway, I also have an appointment with my GP next week. He'll be proud of me, I lost more weight. Hopefully have walked away some of the cholesterol in my veins.

Dogs and cat are thriving. All are shedding. Last night I opened the drawer where I keep the furberator (brush) and Tess ran outside to hide. And yet (oh no! did I just start a sentence with "and?") when I finish with Chances, Tess presents herself to me like a gift. Kitty likes being brushed, rolls and purrs. Chances tolerates it, reminding me of someone who's having a procedure done that she knows is good to have done, but must it really be necessary? Last night Kitty appeared in the bedroom in the dark, and just after her arrival I heard Tess crunching something. Yum, delicious rodent. I told her that's how you get tapeworms (don't make that face or your face will freeze that way).