errands « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

errands

Today’s high point is a low bar to clear

We’d been out to Lowe’s to pick up paint swatches and items for plumbing repair. It seems there is a slow leak in each of the toilet basins, and so there is the middle-of-the-night sound of water filling the tank. That’s an easy enough fix. In most houses.

At home, I fix one easily enough. Turn off the water, disconnect the feed line, pull up the old flapper and tug the new one into place. The water is hard enough to do serious damage to the rubberized flappers over time, and I suspect these are the originals.

I move on to the other restroom, pulling out the old flapper, putting in the new one and discover … there’s a little leak in the basin. Nothing that a little sealant can’t fix, hopefully. In most houses. The destructive burial ground spirits that live here have been well-documented.

But, between the hardware store and my temp-job as plumber there was a visit to the grocery store, where we did our best to avoid the four plodding teenagers who’d just walked in before us. [#middleage]

We buy our things from the list, noting with displeasure that they’ve moved the raisins and the trail mix, again. They do this every six weeks or so. It is like they get bored with the aisle arrangement and shuffle things around, just to make sure the stockers get their hours. Now, 90 percent of the time that you shop there you can’t help but be besieged by people asking if you need help, if you’re finding everything OK. The day after they reorganize these people are no where around. It is a little game they play.

But we finally find the raisins and the trail mix. Aisle 6, on the left. And we head up front to play our favorite game: Find the Fastest Line. I believe today we avoided cutting anyone off in getting to the right cashier. There was an older woman in front of us with nothing on the conveyer belt. A bagger had helpfully placed all of her things in plastic and back in her cart. The receipt had been given. And this lady would not stop talking.

We had about a third of our cart unloaded before she finally decided to head outside. (Clearly she had no ice cream.) The cashier rolls her eyes as loudly as a teenaged girl can. I snicker.

“Shut up,” she said with a smile. Kids these days, huh?

I said nothing.

This was the scene just before we started the grill this evening:

Sunset

We had steaks and okra and lumpy mashed potatoes. Seems we broke the hand blender. And, no matter what you think, you’re not going to duplicate the speed of those beaters yourself.

We’re working our way through Dexter just now. I watched the first season on CBS a few years ago when they aired it during the writers’ strike. The show moved fairly slowly, and now I see why. The acting is a little stodgy and some of the dialog was written by a 13-year-old boy, but the camera angles and the writing are generally amusing. I don’t remember many specific details of this first season, only that the last episode had some amazing ending.

Unlike this entry.

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24
Jun 11

What’s worse than the post office?

Who’s giving this balloon to their kid?

I suppose one balloon of the moody sun wouldn’t be too bad. A manic three-star system … that would just be bad for more than just gravitational reasons.

This was at the Publix recently, in the produce section. They have little sprinkler systems with piped in thunder when it is time to spray the greenery, probably as a “STAND BACK!” feature, but surely they aren’t expecting these mylar stars to deliver any great photosynthetic processes.

There, there’s your band name and first album title in one sentence.

Just a quick ride today. The Yankee says there are these things called Recovery Rides. The purpose, I’ve just discovered “is to stimulate the metabolism to remove waste products and to loosen stiff muscles, not to train hard.” That page has a sub-barf quotient on it, so you know it is for legitimate athletes.

So I did a quick recovery, about seven miles at an easy pace — easy being relative as I am already not the most brisk, talented sprinter on the road at any given time.

Hit the post office to return something from e-bay. The post office here has always been one of the least fortunate places to visit. I’ve only been to the DMV here once, but I’ll take it over the Auburn post office anytime. Thought I’d timed it well, too, there were no cars in the parking lot. Filled out the envelope, sealed it up and I’m second in line. There are four postal workers at the front and two of them were working.

One of them was. The third one was busy talking cell phones with a guy who’d just shipped things.

There’s a design flaw in the building, too. While you stand in line you’re standing under a skylight. So you bake. And that’s enough to make you want the DMV any day.

Hit the sporting goods store after that, found nothing useful, and then the Sam’s Club. Picked up a forklift-full of toilet paper, an industrial sized box of gum and a box of snacks for bike rides.

Barbecue for dinner, I had the chicken at Moe’s, and the red beans and rice and the Moe’s pie, which is more like a crumbled oreo-fudge combination in a tiny styrofoam bowl rather than a piece of pie. But we tried.

And so the day has ended quietly, just as it began and held that attitude throughout. Too hot to move. Mid-90s? No one and no thing is willing to cause much of a fuss. May the weekend bring us more of the same, without searing temperatures.

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23
Jun 11

“You gettin’ wet, ain’t ya?”

“Watch out for storms,” she said.

This is good advice. Useless, but good.

I’m on my bike, about 14 miles into the ride when the sprinkling started. Oh, I’d watched out for the storms, but this did me no good. My certainty of the existence of rain did not dissuade it from falling upon me. My awareness of the clouds to my left did not preclude precipitation.

There was a gas station, though, where I managed to take refuge when the wet stuff really started falling. We need the rain so bad I would have stayed under there for a long time, but I was back on the road again in half an hour.

In that time I had two great conversations, each centering around my predicament. One guy asked how far I had to go. When I told him he just laughed. Another man asked if I was getting wet.

No sir, that’s why I’m standing under the awning.

It reminded me of the time in 1994 — during the LSU vs Auburn game*, in fact — that I had a flat tire. My jack slipped and I had to try to pick up the corner of my old Buick by my shoulder. This guy walked by and asked “Have a flat?”

No, I just rotate my tires every 50,000 miles no matter where I am.

You know, it might have been the same guy.

So the rain stopped, my ride continued. And then the rain returned for about 45 seconds. I pedaled on. Stopped at my pre-arranged place to pick up a snack and some replacement beverages. And off I went for the second half of my ride. This is an area I’ve only ridden twice before, so I’m only starting to get comfortable in the hills. I struggle my way through until it is time for a snack … and realize I can’t open the packaging from the bike. So I stop. Still can’t open it. Poke it with a stick, no luck. Find a sharp rock, and suddenly I’m a prehistoric man in sweaty raglan.

Eat my nuts and honey snack, get back on my bike and realize one of my water bottles is missing. Well.

So I backtrack. I go all the way down one road with no luck. Down a huge hill and another road with no sight of the gray and yellow bottle. And then down a third stretch of asphalt.

Where I find it sitting next to a bridge. I had squarely hit the rim-wrecking pothole on the bridge and the bottle fell out of the cage. Probably I was grunting too hard to hear it land.

Now which way? I didn’t want to go up that huge hill again, and it felt as if I hadn’t reached the mid-point so I called an audible and worked my way back home. When I got in and looked at the altered route I found it was a 41 mile day.

Didn’t feel nearly as miserable as I did from our 41 mile trek last weekend. That’s improvement.

And I was only heckled twice, so clearly I’m doing something right.

Farmer’s market this afternoon, where we bought cantaloupe, watermelon, corn (from a different grower), peaches, squash and tomatoes.

I sound so healthy, don’t I? (We had cookies for dessert tonight.)

Random things: Reporters arrested for … reporting. That’s going to court with a great hue and cry.

Publishers to universities: We aren’t the bad guys. Another tough spot for everyone that devolves to control, and impressive markups.

What’s eating college radio? Bottom line issues, apparently, though we’ve been discussing it and the prevailing opinion among WEGL-alumni is that all the good ones graduated. (And I did, too.)

Dumb commercial of the night:

* This is what I missed while struggling with my car. I remember it because the seven turnovers to win was quite ridiculous. My senior year in high school, Auburn was as out of that game as you could be when I blew my tire. By the time I got back to the radio the game was over and they’d done the improbable, and thank you Curley Hallman.

Is it football season yet?

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17
May 11

Waiting for 4.0

That tree will haunt your dreams. I want to go back to Big Lots, buy it and bury it so it doesn’t frighten little children.

Would anyone like to hang it, instead? Or maybe put it in a lake as a fish reef?

Pedaled around the southern part of town today. Again it was very cool. The high today was 68 degrees. I set out down the hill of death and up the two hills of shame, took a right at the light and raced past the back of the subdivision. Turned right, passed a school, up two huge hills where I geared up as far as I could and still had to just put my head down, grit my teeth and make mind-deals. Just 20 more strokes and you’ll be there. OK, five more.

Crossed the interstate on the narrowest overpass in town, dodged traffic on the bypass and then cruised through one of the great old neighborhoods. When I made it to campus I turned around, cruised the neighborhood the other direction, got caught by a bunch of buses on the bypass and then made it home feeling strong.

Later I went back downtown to see about a watch. The crystal needs replacing, and the jeweler at Ware’s with whom I spoke could not see through the scuffs to read who made the watch.

It’s a Fossil.

“Oh,” she said shaking her head sadly. There’s bad news here. “Fossil doesn’t let us do any work on their watches. They have some sort of warranty deal, though.”

And then I asked the wrong question. Is that pretty much a standard thing? Would that be what the rest of the jewelers in town would say if I went asking?

“You could try Walmart, but we have some of the best jewelers in the state right here …”

Right. Well then.

She was happy to not help me, though, so there’s that.

So I went to the bike story, because I have this issue with gears and hoped someone would answer my question. But the answer was no better than what I’d read. Score one more for the Internet. Now if it would just get me up the hills a bit easier … (That’s web 4.0, I hear.)

Started watching The Pacific tonight. Made it through the first two discs, thanks to Netflix. We’ve seen Guadalcanal and Pavuvu. This was all promoted, when it debuted on HBO, as the Band of Brothers of the Pacific Theater. And the men that fought there have long had a legitimate claim that their stories have gone unnoticed through all the retellings of what happened in Europe.

The series, four episodes in, is fine. It is no Band of Brothers. I’ve seen that many more times and read Ambrose’s book that spawned the series and two memoirs (Dick Winters’ and Lynn Compton’s) around it. That story was much more about the camaraderie. I’ve only read one of the memoirs (Eugene Sledge’s) that was the source material for The Pacific, and will one day get around to Hugh Ambrose’s book. So far, this one is about the sun and palm trees and firefights at night and grim desperation in the daytime. But there are six more episodes to go, maybe it will get there.

The island hopping miseries are an interesting thing. Somehow you wonder if you’re getting the full story, but if you look around at enough perspectives you realize how this may have been a period of the deepest deprivations (from both sides) of man and maybe you don’t want to know every little terrible detail.

Finished an article I’ve been working on. The task was this: write a 2,000 catching-up-with profile. And the focal point gave me a lot of coachspeak and platitudes. Not that I blame him. The interview was fine — the coach is a very nice guy and has always been an accommodating gentleman — but coaches get in the habit of speaking like coaches. They’re always a little bit leary, because you never know who’ll read the thing. That just carries over, hopefully not at home, but whenever someone breaks out a recorder or a notepad.

So write 2,000 words on a series of humble “doing greats” and “we’re excited about the season” and “one game at a time” and “we see it as a business trip.” This took a bit of creativity.

I’d written about 2,200 words and then cut a few hundred, which just made the thing better. I wrote one ending, but decided against it, so it became the end of a section. And then, to finish the story, I wrote back to where the tale began.

Sent that off, it’ll be on shelves this summer, wrote this and now time for bed.

Oh, when I took out the garbage tonight I noticed I could see my breath. May in Alabama. It was 48 degrees.

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16
May 11

I am unseasonably cool all week

This is May. And I’m writing this from the Deep South — so deep and so far south it requires capital letters — and the high temperature today was 66. Odd. But by and large a wonderful day.

I rode the bike for a while, down the big hill of death near home and then up the corresponding hills of shame past the two roads of unobservant drivers. Having negotiated all of that I pressed on through a red light and down the road a few more miles of country roads to a stop sign. And when I got there I turned around, gritted through the hills and took a left at the light. From there I pressed on as fast as my little spent legs would take me, hung a right into the subdivision and struggled up the ascent of embarrassment.

And the weather was so nice I didn’t even break a sweat.

So I cleaned up, watered the plants and went frame shopping. I have a backlog of things to frame and hang, but I am thrifty and frames are pricey. So I look for reasonable frames holding unfortunate prints, or cheap frames at places like Big Lots. That place is a closeout store, which means the tacky things that didn’t sell somehow make it there. Things like this. Who says “Oh I need that in the dining room!” Or, maybe this is more your style.

I’m putting this in our house.

Somehow I managed to resist the temptation to purchase the foosball coffee table:

They missed their price point, though. You can get a real and full-sized table for a similar amount of coin.

This was the site when I left the store:

Pretty ominous, but nothing came of it. A few minutes later the clouds were low and dramatic, but they pushed off without a peep.

Hit an outlet store, but realized they are having a sale Friday so I’ll go back. Hit World Market, because why not? Picked up a few food items at the grocery store, too. They will almost fight you to carry out your groceries when you have a cart full. You bring it to the register by hand, and they put it in two bags, and you’re on your own.

Strolled around, took a few pictures, had dinner, put some time into a project I have in the works and thought about closing the windows. It was cold. Hit 52 degrees tonight. The weather is lovely, but decidedly un-Maylike. Makes you wonder what’s in store.