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A photo (or two) a day meant to express everything that needs to be said. Don’t over extrapolate or strain yourself making too many inferences. They are just pictures.
Time to get ready for another great school year. I’ve been getting ready — email and strategies and studying up — for some time. But I bought two copies of the newest version of the AP Stylebook today, that somehow made it more real.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town:
A photo (or two) a day meant to express everything that needs to be said. Don’t over extrapolate or strain yourself making too many inferences. They are just pictures.
At rehab I’ve moved up to three pound weights! Three pounds! I’m so strong!
I also do more reps than they tell me too, because I am lousy in the gym. All the numbers you find there, to my mind, are really meant to be exceeded every time rather than a consistent goal. So naturally my shoulder protests a bit.
But I know I’m stronger than three pound weights.
It doesn’t seem possible that this is only my second week of physical therapy.
Someone in our house couldn’t sleep last night. And, for once, it wasn’t me. I fell away to the night at around 2 a.m. — which is late enough, but sadly to normal for me — and The Yankee was up even later. She tried to keep me awake, but I have a secret weapon.
I can’t say what it is, because she’ll read this and know.
So she took a nap today, unusual for her, and I woke her up in time for a late lunch. We watched a football game from Auburn’s 2010 season, the Ole Miss game. The Tigers are 9-0 after that game. Big things could happen for this team. We’ll have to keep watching to see how they fare. But we also broke my DVD player.
I bought it probably seven years ago. I’m a late adopter on entertainment tech. Because I am cheap I was trying to not talk myself into getting one, but a colleague pointed out that it’d work for a while. And, he said, if it broke, I’d be out less than 50 bucks. Think of all the discs you could watch in the meantime!
They weren’t especially expensive even then. But I was thinking about that tonight as I took off the cover and removed the metal casing that tops the disc tray. I’d read extensively — OK, two websites — that guided me through the process of fixing your DVD player. Cheap.
After removing three screws you find yourself at the laser radiation warning. Three more screws and you’re at the center of the component. This is the most accessible technology you take for granted in your entertainment center.
First you make sure the lens apparatus is moving well. That part of the equipment sits on two rails that move it from a resting position to the reading position. Everything seemed to be in working order there. You can also clean the lens. I dug out the rubbing alcohol and dabbed at the thing with a Q-tip.
I took a whiff of the alcohol, and instantly flashed back to 8th grade biology. We had to create an insect collection, and that was the preferred method of killing the critters. Some things stick with you, like trying to center a pin into the world’s tiniest thorax, and the smell of alcohol that lingered long after the grades were handed down by the teacher.
So I cleaned, re-covered, plugged in and listened to the DVD player. Click. Click. Click. The screen said “Disc Error.” It was an incredibly cold message. What do you expect for a cheap Emerson product?
I did it all again. Click. Click. Click. No change. The websites said the next thing to do is junk it and go buy a new one. The laser is too expensive to replace, they say.
I can get a new cheap DVD player at the big blue box store for $35.
We visited the pool this evening, just to dip our toes before the rains came:
We have a neighborhood pool and it is within walking distance of our house. I’ve managed to average getting in the pool twice a year since we’ve lived here. I’m no better this year, somehow. But if I hop in every night for the next week — and if I do laps — I might sleep very well.
I also did physical rehab yesterday morning. That was probably why I was so worn out by the simple task of driving around our lovely, small little town and paying for things and picking up things. I was exhausted from PT.
I cheated. The lady who was monitoring my work turned away to see after one of her other clients and I picked up the two-pound barbell instead of the one-pound. Two pounds! I’m getting ripped!
Hey, the surgeon says I am not to pick up anything heavier than a drink while my shoulder is recovering. A two-pound barbell is a big deal. Wears you right out.
Not really.
We had our weekly breakfast this morning at the Barbecue House:
This is a big deal. The guy on the left is perhaps the best short order cook in town. Everything runs more smoothly when he’s there. The blur of motion is the guy that puts together the last touches of your plate. The lady in the back … she does a bit of everything. Our ticket is the farthest to the right, and the farthest away from being made.
They’ll call our name and I’ll go get our two plates and ask for an extra fork, because we sensibly split the hash browns. The drink refills are right there for you, in the bottom right corner of this shot. In the background you can see an Alabama quarterback getting sacked. Next to that is a bucket that has clearly been beaten half to death. I’m intrigued by it. What do they do with that bucket?
I’ll ask one day, when they’re having a slow morning.
Today was Black Cat Appreciation Day. Apparently. We didn’t know such a thing existed until someone mentioned it on Facebook. Maybe that is the point of Facebook, feeling better about yourself compared to the lot in life of people that didn’t like you in high school AND made up days.
I spent a while trying to take a nice picture of her, but she was having none of it. She did not appreciate that there was no tuna for her. And she knows Catember is coming up, so she did not appreciate the attention today. She’s trying to avoid the camera as long as possible, I’m sure of it.
And that’s pretty much the day. It was designed to be a day of sitting and rest and not hurting myself. I finally did this right for a change.
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.
