fossilfreak | And Into March

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol 1 p. 595

29.9 miles

partly cloudy

334 recordings of 30 types. 2 old SVU, 71 CPD. 24% clear.

Wednesday the 28th of February I ordered A.J.'s birthday presents, some wooden track and a roundtable.

The water company finally made it to my end of the street, and put their portapotty out in front of my house. They started digging and I left for Elk Grove.

The Wee Wednesday program this day was about sculpture, solid shapes, lines, colors. Padreic talked a lot to Miss Jill at the beginning but didn't contribute when we were up in the galleries. It's such fun to see him growing every week and improving socially.

I was planning to bring the big kids here on Saturday to watch "Lady and the Tramp." Joanna kept coming up with reasons she couldn't. She "was planning to sleep in." That's OK, I'll come after lunch. Then she had some other plans for Saturday. I finally said to her "look, I know you don't like me, but you're stuck with me." Gareth heard part of this and wanted to know more, but I told him it was not his business.

The TCM movies today were "Grand Hotel" and "Tortilla Flat."

Thursday we had a record 1.5 inches of rain. Unusually enough, I managed to get back to sleep despite the early wake-up when the rain started. Then it was really pouring.

I saw a palm frond down in the street and luckily the rain was light at that time, so I went out and put it into my yard. Then, about an hour later with the rain bucketing down, I saw many more fronds in the street. They would be obstructing traffic, so I headed out to get them in. In the end, there were 24! They were down the street and in the neighbor's yard, and I got thoroughly soaked.

When I went out later for a single one (light rain again) I was only out of the house for maybe 2 minutes. It was time enough for Pharaoh to get into the kitty litter (I'd forgotten to put the baby gate back up.) Since it was so miserable outside, I sent him to bed. He knew he was in trouble, for sure.

I'd ordered charcoal filters for the kitchen compost crock. The ones that came were too big, but scissors took care of it.

The tax people called (I was planning to call them this day) so I set up my appointment.

Friday was Renaissance. My hands got SO COLD driving to the campus that I stopped at the bookstore for gloves. They turned out to be $20 but worth it. I am leaving them in the car until the big freeze is over.

The documentary was about Floyd Norman, an African-American animator for Disney. Fascinating stuff. It was more about ageism than racism. In any case, he's still there.

The time travel movie was "O Homen de Ono" from Brazil, which was a real mind-bender. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

We had more rain.

I used a can of salmon from 2010 and made salmon patties. Which were quite good.

My tax form from St. Philomene's came and the bookkeeper missed $600! I thought it was $50 more, but it turns out Mass stipends aren't included.

The TCM movie was "The Time of their Lives."

Saturday I went to the WPAC breakfast. Again, it was crowded, but it was enjoyable. I got back in time to tell the gardeners to skip the swampy back yard, so they cut up the palm fronds.

I was going to have the kids come, but when I put "Lady and the Tramp" into the VCR it wouldn't work (and it has worked with this television, on this particular outlet, before.) Worse, it grabbed the videocassette and wouldn't turn it loose. It wasn't until I was taking the machine apart, on Monday, that I discovered the control panel. (As I seem to do every time.) Anyway, I called to cancel having the kids. Sulk.

I will have to get a remote as well as speakers for the White Elephant when I set it up, because how else can I go to different inputs?

TCM movie... "All Quiet on the Western Front."