Nothing funny about feldspar

“Milk, OJ, shampoo…”

“There’s shampoo in the closet.”

“Is there?”

… Sometime later I pick up the stuff to take upstairs. Lo and behold, shampoo!

I stored it in the closet behind the other two bottles of shampoo that were in there.

We have this problem, Plagioclase and I, of trying to remember to get something from the store, and then every time we go to the store we get more, because we aren’t sure we got it before. It used to be napkins, but now, apparently, it’s shampoo.

Just as long as it isn’t something perishable. We don’t have any freezer space.

I’ve deleted the folder where I had all the pictures I’ve posted on Nothing funny about feldspar, because I’m tired of having My Space kids use my pics in their sigs and my bandwidth without even a Thank You (let alone credit or a link…).

I may put them up again sometime, once I figure out how to prohibit hot-linking.

little Bat, how I wonder where you’re at?

Right. Bat in the house last night. Scared the bejebus out of me, though I didn’t scream as loudly as I did when the starling came into the house via the chimney. I’m not quite sure where it got in, it possibly fell down the laundry chute from the attic, and flew up two flights of stairs to where I saw it flying up and down the hallway while I was watching television.

Somehow, it managed to get to the first floor, where it flew around a bit, and apparently got tired. We couldn’t find it anywhere, so we sat down with our flattened cardboard (used to encourage it to move towards the open door). After about 10 minutes it started circling again — with me ducking under the cardboard and hiding my eyes. I am not brave when it comes to wildlife in the house. I’m perfectly happy to let them have the outside, and even the attic, but not inside where I am.

Eventually, it made it to the family room where the door was as wide open as possible… circle, circle, circle. It may have actually figured out the whole door thing, or it got tired again and is just waiting for later, but it’s not flying around inside right now. I do hope it got out though — I look funny cowering under cardboard.

The (final?) update to the Washer Saga is done.¹ It seems anti-climactic. I’ve loaded the ceremonial first load (lights), and now I’m just trying to figure out why I care less about the washer shaking when I had a sympathetic and seemingly more knowledgeable person install it. (Though it is shaking a lot less.)

Maybe it isn’t entirely the sympathetic ear. Perhaps it’s an appreciation for someone who makes a sincere attempt to do a good job, even if that job involves lugging heavy appliances around with a strap around your neck.

I started thinking about this while I was waiting for my mom to have her renal atery ultrasound this morning.² The tech told me it would be at least 45 minutes. I was so happy to hear that! It meant I could go outside where it was warm — I think Shiny New Heart Hospital keeps the temp about 60°F just in case emergency surgery is required in the lobby. I went to the parking garage café³ and watched the lone woman behind the counter move efficiently to finish with each customer before moving on to the next. It may have felt slow, but it was obvious that she’d done the job long enough to know that she was better able to keep her customers happy by not trying to service two or more at once.

I took the coffee and croissant to the seating area outside, where there’s some construction going on. A portion of the street is blocked off, and there were two massive forms (say, about 10ft square by about 4 ft high) being filled with concrete. The concrete truck driver maneuvered the truck very well⁴, the whole concrete crew (about 6 men) was busy leveling and directing the slurry, nobody standing around watching but me.

It was a pleasure, sitting there this morning, seeing people who know their jobs and who know how important it is to get it right. It put me in a better mood than I expected to be, after a week of hassle, concern about my mother, and a night without sleep.

Happy Friday, everyone.

1. In case you don’t want to read all the way to the end, we have a second washer, installed by team that conducted themselves in a professional manner.↩
2. Crap. Not another artery closing up!↩
3. don’t ask me why they have a café in the garage↩
4. Really! The area between the first form and the fence was quite narrow, and he had to pass the first form to get to the second, and get the chute over the second form by articulating the tractor/trailer, which he did without hitting the fence, either of the forms, or the guy who was putting concrete into smaller forms just in front of him.↩

yami said

when giftless female hacks regularly rise to the same level of incompetence as giftless male hacks, then we will have made real progress.

Agreed!