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My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
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5:05 p.m. - 2013-03-06
This entry is apt to be as mixy as today's weather has been. This morning it snowed. Then before lunch it warmed up to become misty rain. Then the sun came out. Now the sky is grey again and the wind is whooshing so hard I feel like there might be a pair of ruby slippers in my future. (For the record I'm a Good Witch.) Gotta say though, despite the wind my sturdy little house doesn't creak or groan. Something which is not true about its owner. And I'm only half as old as my house too. Casa Sage is the least noisy home I've ever had. With its stone foundation jammed into a niche carved into the stone hillside, its maple floors, plaster and lath walls, thick timber beams and solid tin roof my house was built to last. At the neighbor's Christmas party I finally found out why this little pocket neighborhood had so many identical houses. Not kits from the Sears catalog as is usually assumed, the houses on our street and the street next over where built by the railroad. For foremen and above, thankyouverymuch. The guys who actually drove the trains, maintained the tracks, shoveled coal and loaded freight had barrack-style houses over the hill in Teensytown. Mini-dunk was where the suits lived. I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand my pro-union, pro-workers, egalitarian side is a bit squicked out to own a boss's house. On the other hand I'm pleased as punch that 103 years later my house is still as snug and solid as it was when it was built. I guess my house isn't to blame for the horribly unfair labor practices of 100 years ago. And my how far we've come from the days when a lofty few owned and controlled the banks, the businesses and the government...not! Oy, don't get me started on what horrors the 'Reagan Revolution' ushered in and how it paved the way for the return of the robber barons. All I want to do is hunker down and do my bit to nurture the seeds of the U.S.'s third revolt against the tyranny of the rich. To all things there is a season. May my sons and their children live in the upswing back toward educational advancement, societal progress, and the hope of earning a living wage. Amen. In other news...Mick and I attended his friend's wake last night. Butch got a decent, if not extravagant, send-off. You'd think by now I'd truly get how big and smushy my husband's heart is. But I am surprised by his depth of feeling all the time. Beneath my hippy-dippy exterior lies a really chilly soul. Sure, sure, I'm forever stuffing bills in red kettles and buying raffle tickets and adopting strays and loading up on Girl Scout cookies and rarely have an unkind word in my mouth for anybody, however deep inside me is a block of icy stone. Cross me, hurt me or my kids, snap the overly generous leash I give people, do me a dirty in any way, and I will cut you dead without a single regret or backward look. Doesn't even have to be that drastic, I'm not a one who calls old friends or looks them up on Facebook. If you're gone, you're gone. That's it. It's rare for me to indulge in regret of any kind. Not over my choices or anyone else's. Mick's grief for his friend who'd put himself in an early grave with his addictions and poor decisions seemed outsized to me. But that's me, Ms Chilly Britches. I know Mick is far more kind and loving than I am. So he was hurting. Big Time. I did what I could to be there for my beloved. Gently easing his way back into his former life and the people who came together to honor Butch. Using my slick sales ability to finesse things when the conversations got awkward. Making small talk. Giving Mick his space to hug and cry as he needed. I might not feel things as regular people do but neither am I Mary Tyler Moore in 'Ordinary People' chiding her husband for wearing the wrong color shoes to their son's funeral and shoving my other kid's breakfast down the garbage disposal. I do my bit for the living. The dead can take care of themselves. Went to the chiropractor this morning. Again with the good and bad. (Long wait, onerous in-processing.) In the end I walked out feeling better and have what I was really after- the postures and exercises to help me not get into this ouchie place at all. Turns out the stretches and such I was already doing just needed some fine-tuning. Go me for intuitively understanding what my bod wanted. Go Dr R for refining my untrained attempts and for shoving my pelvis back into place. Since I felt so much better and the dreaded blizzard seemed to be a no-show after my appointment I toddled off to Sears. Gleaned the clearance racks in the fatso department and scored two gorgeous crocheted sweaters and two pair of grey fleece 'at home' pants. The pants have big pockets- a must for my slop-around-the-house wardrobe. The sweaters were just too pretty to pass up. $5.00! I dare you to resist $5.00 sweaters. Or $4.00 lounge pants for that matter. What I'd really gone to Sears for was a vacuum cleaner. After exhaustive research and begging my friends for their thoughts I regretfully gave over my dreams of a Dyson and settled for a Kenmore Progressive. The lime green one. Hey my cleaning lady has one and it's like 6 years old already. I bought bags and the service agreement too. My luck with vacuums is miserable and I figured at $7.30 a year for the next three years I was doing myself a favor. Now when this vacuum goes toe-up I can just bring it back and they'll give me a new one. Or fix the current one. Whatever. I mean it about the 'when' and not an 'if'. Since my poor beloved Electrolux went to vacuum cleaner heaven I've had the shittiest luck! I fully expect this new one will die within the year. My lousy record with vacuums is what ultimately decided me against the Dyson. Just couldn't see throwing $600 at a lost cause. Tomorrow is the first day I'll be able to stay home in a week. Don't know when my status as a bum without a bra or make-up on went away and I became this Sage-Around-Town but boy howdy am I looking forward to tomorrow! I want to clean out my fridge and do some laundry and play with my new vacuum cleaner. On Sunday I bought a new bookcase for my office, my stuff has wildly exceeded my storage space and this new bookcase (after we assemble it! yikes!) will go in the corner near the door and replace the heavy and pretty but not terribly space/use effective sewing machine cabinet that's there now. This is mostly what finally got me off my duff to buy a vacuum. The cleaning lady (who's on hiatus until further notice) doesn't do my office. It's a filthy slum in here. No fricken way I could install the spiffy new bookcase on top of the nearly ankle-deep layer of scrud on the floor. I'll vacuum my office for the first time in years and begin the process of shifting the towering stacks of books, files, and dvds around to make ready for their new home. Ridiculously excited to be finally putting my space in order. We're still at least one potential blizzard away from Spring but the need to tidy my nest and make ready for the coming season is fierce!
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