errands « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

errands

Oh, lovely, sweet Friday

Today I purchased the 2013 sticker for my car tag. Take that, Mayans.

My DMV experience lasted 33 minutes, which was the longest I’ve ever waited in my two years visiting this particular office. But it is the end of the month.

Usually the post office here takes longer than the DMV. I’m pretty sure I’ve tapped my toe in our post office for longer than 33 minutes.

This was nowhere near my longest DMV experience. I seem to mention the DMV every year. Once, in Bessemer, I read the better part of a book while in line. I seem to recall I took a two-hour lunch break to mutter at the DMV in Homewood one year. The other times I’ve bothered to quantify it have all been four, six, 20 minutes or noted as “painless.” I checked.

I’ve had a big week, coupled with a long few days, where I did too many things and now my shoulder is informing me I regret those decisions. Can’t wait to tell the ortho about it next week.

Suffice it to say, because I’m tired of even writing about it: I’ve figured out it takes precious little to aggravate my collarbone, the muscles in my one shoulder and, when that really gets going, across my back into the other shoulder and up into my neck. Maybe I should do less.

Maybe I should do like these guys:

hammocks

This is studying on the Samford quad. Hammocks are a big part of the culture here. I’m surprised the administration allows it to continue, but I’m proud they do. I’m also surprised the hammock scenes don’t make their way into more of the promotional literature they send out.

I should write a memo about that …

Nah. I’m taking the rest of the evening off from writing.

Tomorrow: the return of an old friend!

Auburn / errands / iPhone / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
16
Aug 12

A day out

No. A thousand voices scream out at once. No. The voices were all kids and kids-at-heart. No one is ready to see hints of fall. The left, logical, side of the brain says: Squash. The right, intuitive, side screams: Autumn!

And that, in mid-August, is not cool. There will be a time for it, late September, perhaps. That day is not now.

This was at the locally grown, artisanal vegetable place where we purchase an exceedingly abundant basket of vegetables each week. Fresh food, charming people, delightfully disorganized basket procurement process.

That was our last stop of the day. We bought gas, which is riveting. Riveting!

We shop at Sam’s for gas as often as not. They’ve reduced the entire petroleum purchase experience entire an almost sterile environment. Sterile for stone, cement and gas, at least.

There are eight pumps, allowing for 16 customers at a time. There is no store, no cash, no distraction. You focus entirely on the task of purchasing the cheapest gas in town. (Only the prices are going back up again. Cheap is relative.) They have one person staffed there, presumably in case something catches fire.

It is interesting how you can grow so accustomed to the absence of that interaction. The pay-at-the-pump model has removed every human interaction from fueling your car. At Sam’s they’ve stripped it down to solitude. One nice lady, unlike the rest of her colleagues who just stand around, actually mingles with the customers. The first time she does it can take you by surprise. In the last two years, though, I’ve been learning about her life in 15 second increments. I’ll have to start writing that down.

We visited the pharmacy to pick up new medication. We drove through the worst traffic in town. Three of the biggest intersections downtown had no power. Also this is the first week of the semester crush — too many extra families and too freshmen who are still learning their way around town, when to drive and when to lose their keys — that overburdens the local roads.

Police officers were directing traffic. You wonder how long they spend on that at the academy. Do some of the cadets adapt to it better than others? Is there a special commendation? When the intersection goes dark do the dispatchers call him in to run the show?

Does he then think “And I really wanted to take a nap under the overpass today!”?

We visited the meat lab. You buy select cuts from the university at big discounts. It gives you the feeling of living in an old-time company town, spending your income at the company store. But who cares? We bought two New York Strips and four pork loins for 20 bucks.

If only there was a charcoal lab on campus. We’d probably grill every night.

The next, and last stop, was to the market for the vegetables and seeing the squash above.

This, believe it or not, was a big day out. (I can’t complain because, you know, summer … ) Sitting inside for more than a month now hasn’t been ideal, but I’m bouncing back. I wasn’t exhausted when we got home. But I was sore.

I blame the vegetables.

Those baskets are heavy.

Later: Grilled the steaks in a mild, moist August evening. Put on just enough charcoal to kiss the meat, we had okra and mashed potatoes, both from the vegetable basket. Everything but the seasoning was raised nearby. I feel like I need an imported dessert, just to throw things off.

adventures / collarbone / errands / iPhone / Monday / photo — Comments Off
23
Jul 12

One thousand words, and a picture

The alarm went off, playing some carefully calibrated and focus grouped pop tune that I’ve already forgotten. But I had to figure out how to get to the alarm. You see, it was my wife’s alarm, on her end table. She’d already gotten up — she likes to scoop me on the planned news events. Since my left arm is kaput, rolling is not a good idea. Oh sure, I could get half a roll, and then be stuck in the middle of the bed, still listening to the carefully calibrated and focus grouped pop tune of imminently forgettable quality and unable to roll either direction.

So I waited. And after a moment she came back in and turned off the alarm, apologizing. Not to worry. The carefully calibrated and focus grouped pop tune that was already forgotten.

Also, Penn State, she told me, got hosed.

I could write a great treatise about this, but others have done that already. I’ll just keep it to four sentences.

The people involved are getting theirs as a virtue of the law, as they should. This precedent-setting action, based largely on a report that would get laughed out of court, is one other universities will come to regret when the NCAA comes calling. But congratulations, NCAA, you declared you are against sexual assault; very bold. This, meanwhile, simply punishes everyone else at Penn State.

I’ve been fighting headaches today. First a bad one that faded away with the necessary pills. It returned with an ice pick that could pierce both eyeballs. This required a dark room and a nap. At the end of which I had a dream about the world’s worst spy, who was trying to break into a family member’s home. I watched her every move, being about as obvious as possible, but the dream person never caught on. I woke up cautiously. Is this headache still with me? For the most part, no. I’m still not sure what the dream spy could have been looking for in that house, or why she was wearing teal and black and white socks.

Did get out of the house twice today. Visited the drug store to pick up a refill of medicine. A student pharmacist from the Harrison School of Pharmacy at Auburn handled the transaction. She needed to see my driver’s license, a new thing for this prescription, her supervisor told us. A brand new thing, because they didn’t card me last week. Why my driver’s license is an important part of this transaction escapes me.

I said, “You should see what we’re cooking up in our basement!”

The Yankee quickly said, “We don’t have a basement!” (Most places in town don’t, for some reason.) I wondered about this ID rule. If you can’t get your drugs without a photo ID, how do the politicians against Voter ID laws think their constituents are getting their necessary medications?

The student pharmacist interrupted the thought — the nerve of her! — and asked if I had any questions about the pharmaceuticals. Yes, how many are in there? She told me, and then said “I hope you feel better” in this soft and sympathetic way.

I’ve never heard an Ole Miss pharmacist say it that way.

After my second headache and my nap and my dinner we went out for ice cream therapy. The young man that served us was snappy, happy and eloquent. We were the next to last customers. They closed in 15 minutes and they were ready to clean up, but you couldn’t phase them. Pleasant young kids who seemed happy to work. What are the odds? I asked one of them about two different ice creams that I had no intention of ordering. I was pretty sure, but you still need the descriptions. He took it with ‘How could you know, otherwise?’ ease. And then I ordered something that wasn’t even on the menu.

“Not a problem.”

The Yankee and I meet smart and charming young men and women every year in our classes. They are optimistic and cynical. They are serious and silly. They never seem like the stereotypes you might read about or conjure in your mind about “kids these days.” One of them, at 23, is running for city council in his hometown. I read the story today. The guy gives good quote, as they say.

Anyway.

We sat under the umbrella at the round picnic table eating our waffle cones. I mentioned the waffle cone is disruptive to my ice cream eating system. I work my way around a round cone, to stay on top of any potential dripping issues. Waffle cones don’t have that perfectly round top, but rather taper into something that suggests hand-crafted with care and quality. So I have to come up with a waffle cone system, because the traditional method isn’t working here. Also, there was a lot of ice cream in this cone.

We talked about the Aurora shootings — bad, and too many journalists own jump to conclusion mats — and the Chick-fil-A non-controversy. I don’t know why any executive’s stance on any issue should carry weight in how you choose to do business with that company. Ask around and you’ll find someone in every business that supports something that you hate, no matter what it is that you like or hate. None of this changes the fact that the waffle fries are delicious.

[Strunk & White note: the phrase “the fact that” is regrettable, and should only be used when emphatically pointing out something requiring great attention (e.g. waffle fries are delicious).]

If there is a company, however, that explicitly puts revenue towards some cause with which you disagree, that is another thing. But, still, we must consider the quality of what they are serving.

The ice cream therapy worked, by the way. The pain is gone and you can barely see the incision! Why, it is almost like a carefully calibrated and focus grouped pop tune that I’ve already forgotten.

Until the meds wear off.

adventures / cycling / errands / iPhone / memories / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
14
Jun 12

Wheels and bolts and things

My bike at rest. It deserves it.

Not because I’ve been riding a lot, but because yesterday was just hills.

Lots of hills. I rode this one over and over again, finally quitting when my times stopped improving.

So I did 15 miles of hills yesterday. That’s a lot of stomping on the bike for a guy with big feet like me. Thirty more miles today. Just as I got back home I glanced down at the odometer.

That’s for the year. So I’m only about 450 miles behind where I want to be on the year. I’ll catch up eventually.

The story about the faucet: This would be a great entry to the running page on fixing things in our house. I don’t have a category for it. It is too late to add one now and I’d probably just name it something hateful anyway. But we can now add to a list of repair jobs that include the air conditioner (twice), the shower, refrigerator, dish washer (twice), washing machine, the toilets (three times between them) and more.

We’ve lived here for less than two years.

So the kitchen faucet developed a drip. We found a certain way that you could turn the nozzle and the handle to minimize the problem. This worked for a while. And then it stopped working. And earlier this week the drip almost became a stream.

I’ve tried to take the faucet apart before so I could replace the washers, but the water is so hard here that all of the innards (plumbing term!) were fused together. I tried this for a few days. I tried this with WD-40 and various other things found in the cabinets and garage.

Having failed at this simple task I decided to just replace the entire faucet. So out from the cabinet came all of the cleaning supplies. Under the sink went my head. The supply lines, I discovered, were also fused on the faucet end. OK, then. I’ll just take it apart and pull the supply lines up from the top and buy new stinking supply lines with my brand new faucet that has to be installed because I can’t take the old one apart to install $.75 worth of rubber gaskets to it.

I’m thrilled.

The supply lines were disconnected from the bottom. I disconnected the sprayer nozzle. I freed one of the nuts that attaches the faucet to the sink from underneath.

The sink, you’ll notice if you spend enough time in the cabinets, is a great two tub cast iron deal. This is the most sturdy thing we own, I’m certain of it. That and the other nut that is attaching the faucet to the sink. That joker was fused with the bolt in the worst way. But underneath that nut was a concave washer type thing (more plumbing terminology!). It, too, was rusting.

And so it was that I found myself donning goggles, grabbing a screwdriver and just stabbing the crap out of that washer type thing. The plan was to punch out so much of that rust-crusted impediment and then just pull everything out from the top.

Which, eventually, I did.

So we went to Lowe’s and bought a new faucet. Nothing they had matched exactly, but that’s OK because we needed a working sink.

And we got in trouble at Lowe’s too! They have those rolling ladder step things and we moved one into the aisle to inspect the faucets above our line of sight. An old guy with a ponytail and a red vest took exception to this. I understood his point — safety is important — but he also understood mine. There is no one around in the store to give you any help. I know this because I’d done this exact same thing on this exact same aisle for more than 10 minutes last night. There were no red vests to be found. So I went to Home Depot, which is literally right across the street. And I stayed on their faucet aisle for even longer, and there were no orange aprons to be found.

Which brought up a great conversation about all of this online. In the middle of which came the Home Depot social media person with the “Oh no! Sorry to hear that! Which store were you in?” It might have been rude, but I said “Is it unfair to say “All of them”? Based on the responses I received from others the rep on floor help is staggeringly poor.”

The social media person did not write back to that.

The Lowe’s red vest with the ponytail came back later, as we were wrapping up our choices, and commiserated on the faucet problem. He knew they had a floor problem. I’m sure the Lowe’s managers do too; they just don’t care. Home Depot? Same thing.

But it gave me time to see things like this, the paper towel holder!

You’ve never seen such excitement for such a prosaic tool! It holds your paper towels! Above the countertop! It holds! Paper towels!

This, at a glance, is simply disturbing:

A jaundiced hand emerging from the wall, holding some sort of Matrix device. Or is it from Alien? Or is it Elvis’ alternative universe microphone. Don’t sing into this one though, you’ll just drown.

Or you could go into our backyard:

It rained a lot today.

Oh, and I installed the new faucet. Took eight minutes. It better work for years.

cycling / errands / iPhone / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
16
Feb 12

These stories have thin morals

Eggs. Eggs. Must get eggs. I’d been tasked with this important task because it wouldn’t be a weekend without breakfast.

To the meat lab. This is all in the timing. If you went early the eggs would not be there yet. If you show up late they’ll be gone. (They are a good deal, and popular with the in-crowd. They have a sign with the bad news that they’re out of eggs. They do not have a sign for when they run out of pork chops.)

I walk in. There is one flat of eggs left. Thirty delicious eggs at a terrific price and these are the last ones for the evening. I ask the lady working there if they are spoken for. She says yes. Crestfallen, I glance around at other things and, having failed at the original mission, decide to purchase nothing. I turn to leave.

“You’re not going to buy the eggs?”

Didn’t you say they were someone else’s?

“No. I meant that’s the last of them.”

Well. They are spoken for, then.

Moral: Don’t count your eggs before they are in your refrigerator. (If you count them in someone else’s refrigerator, you should get permission first.)

Visited the big blue box store, because I had to see what the hubbub was about. The place was packed like Christmas was coming or snow had arrived. It was all very orderly though, with people stopping and staring at exciting things like brushes and notebook paper for the longest amount of time.

I checked out behind a handsome elderly couple. They just managed to sneak in under the draconian Express Lane rules that most people do not bother to acknowledge. The lady staffing the register checked them out in silence. And then she struck up a conversation with me, offering me a credit card application and asking about my day and wishing me well. She did none of these things for the couple. Maybe she just talks to every other customer.

Moral: A leopard can’t change his spots, but you can pick yours.

Also hit the local bike shop, where I needed their help making two small adjustments to my bike. They have a tool I don’t — they have a lot of tools I don’t — which is required to make this particular pedal-to-crankset change. I learned this important, and costly, lesson last spring.

Picked up some new shoes, talked about chain lubrication and the upcoming chain replacement that I’ll be due. Chain work, he said, can sometimes open a Pandora’s Box. Because, really, my repair-and-upkeep luck needs the help.

“It might be more than the chain,” he said. “There could also be problem with the cassette.”

Or the derailleur. We could find out I’ve been riding around on the wrong tires. There could be a problem with the satellite in a neighbor’s home, and this responsibility to fall to me.

“But it could be just a chain,” he said.

Moral: It is never just the chain.