Off the Cliff

Years begin to lose their flavour. 2017 made no impression on me at all, not even weather-wise. They say it rained all spring and most of the summer, and I noted it at the time- that the forecast was always calling for rain- but I remember no deluges like the unforgettably wet summer of 2008 or even the steadily drizzling June of 2015. I have to remind myself that I had the upper hallway tiled and the flat roof repaired, because the memory of it happening has gone. Roofs aren't something one thinks about ordinarily, but I walk along that hallway every day and as far as I'm concerned, it looks the way it always has.

I read 100 books last year, more or less, but none sticks in the mid the way 2016's reading challenge did. Mostly they were forgettable books, and I dropped the TBR challenge some time in the spring. Even the rat infestation of October and November fades: was surprised at getting an email from the exterminators saying they'd be around mid-January for a checkup. Oh, right- that was three months ago, in another life. (Well, that's the effect of snow, actually: it catapults me into another universe entirely.)

The one thing different this year is that I finally lost weight, after asserting for two years that my body simply wouldn't any more. Would like to lose more, obviously, but I've gone as far as I can with no starch in the evening. Now I must restrict intake the rest of the time; or, if my knees will be cooperative, see what walking can do. I'm in the last month before cortisone shot, which is when the cortisone effects wear off, and I've been twinging these last few days, alas.

Oh, and my house is also marginally cleaner than last year. I am in love with the edging tool on the vacuum, which lets me clean crevices and lampshades and curtains without sending dust flying, and while I'm doing that I also vacuum the floors. A kind of satisfaction there, at any rate.

Erranded in a satisfactory fashion today: the library, the bank, a post box, Doug Miller; subwayed back a stop and bussed up to Loblaws and got necessities there. It being a month till my next cortisone shot and bitingly cold, my knee likes to tell me about its lack of cartilage, but is still generally well-behaved. Heat patches took care of the hip. Shoulder and elbow... ah well. But nonetheless, after I got home, I took my trusty ice chopper and (carefully, I assure you, and very mindfully) removed the packed snow from the Indian Gardener's Son's house, and the Picket Fences house, and the Blasted Maple house, and the Nice But Messy house, quite as if it was ten years ago. Haven't done this in three years, and the inability to shovel has bothered me no end. No, this won't become a habit, alas, but is so satisfying in the meantime.

My bro and s-i-l surpassed themselves in the gifts department this year. Bro gave me a Johnson Cocktail Kit- Bombay Sapphire gin, Noilly Prat dry vermouth, Cinzano sweet vermouth, and a bottle of olives. Fretted about the lack of a cocktail shaker, but I assured him I take my cocktails stirred, not shaken. And measured by eye, which I didn't say because it would have distressed his purist's soul.
( Read more... )

Fifteen months ago I bought a water pic. I used it for the first time last night. (There needs to be a word for 'phobia about reading the instructions pertaining to a new gadget.') It's lots of splashy fun but does not, as my brother averred, remove all the stuff under the bridge that flossing doesn't get. Flossing may not get it but my mini-bottle brushes (in four graded sizes) do.

Years and years ago I bought a slanket which I rarely usedl, since it lacks the basic requirement for 'sitting in coldish room and reading', which is a hood. If I don't need a hood when I'm reading then the room is warm enough that I don't need a slanket either. Discovered what slankets are perfect for is upper body/ neck covering in bed, where head warmth is already provided by my hoodie. Warm and light and not the heavy tangled thing that blankets become, or even terrycloth sheets. Shall retire the latter until the summer.

My run of mobility luck gave out today. Lower back ached and ached and would not be stretched out or give in to muscle relaxants and the heat-pack bandages that in the past have silenced muscles for hours. So walking hurt, though no more than it did all summer and fall. The morning's grim dankness and heavy if shallow snow didn't help, but there are rumours of highs of 6 tomorrow, so I can bike to work at least.

Not a bad day. In some ways a very nice day. But I have taken a whole ativan and am going to seek that lovely world under the blankets where everything is just perfect.

1. I rarely listen to music so that when I do I find myself back in the time when I first heard that particular album or whatever. Thus have spent the afternoon in 1996 (Loreena McKennitt) and 1998 (Carols from Clare) where I didn't exactly want to be. And still can't find 1994 (Rankin Family, Fare Thee Well Love). (It's a compilation tape that has a version of Brave Marin that youtube wots not of. Thought it might have been by one of the Mcgarrigles but evidently not.)

2. Have written most of my Christmas cards. Can't remember who I sent cards to last year: have a feeling I wimped out on the local ones, but then remember someone thanking me for sending her one.

3. Having had enough of the recurring fly, I bought fly spray yesterday. When fly appeared in the study I swooshed it. fatal error: spray is headachey scented, worse than the worst anti-odorizers. Had to open window and turn on fan.

When your socks go into holes, cut the leg parts into bands and use them as elbow warmers for tendinitising joints. When your long socks go into holes, cut the feet off and use them as gaiters/ leg warmers with cropped pants.

Made it through the sneezy week, survived my early shift today, and shall now relax and let this cold/ allergy do what it will. If it stays in abeyance, shall go see aunt tomorrow (didn't last week because of blahs.) Might even go to friends' annual Christmas do Sunday, though I didn't respond to their invitation when it came because this year more than most I don't feel up for social occasions.

Am signed up for a guy's blog who distills studies on happiness and effectiveness and reports the findings. Overwhelming evidence says having close personal relationships is what makes for happiness. So I should cultivate those few local friends I have. But! Studies also show that dealing with friends you're ambivalent about is more stressful than dealing with open enemies. And I'm *very* ambivalent about just about everyone I knew from university. And these friends are. And so...

But that may just be head cold and snowy weather thinking. Shall reconsider in the morning.

Dishes, laundry, cooking- those chicken thighs on special that were best before today. Reminded of chicken in tarragon by someone's chance post (though her version had cherry tomatoes ugh) I did the classic Pierre Franey recipe with shallots, butter, tarragon, and white wine. To which I added mustard and it was yummy yummy. Used Franey's quantities which were for a whole chicken and was left with lashings of sauce as a result, so steamed three large carrots, added them to the dish, and then ate them all.

And that will be dinner for the next two if not three days.

Early December sometimes does a harkback to November, and so did today, beginning with one of our rare fogs, the chance sight of which is more likely to make a Torontonian think something's on fire. Took me back to 1962 when fog stopped the final game of the Grey Cup, back in the days when football was played in an open stadium down by the lake. "The fog was thick enough that fans could not see the action on the field, receivers lost sight of the ball after it left the quarterbacks' hand, and punt returners could not find punts until they hit the ground."

But it lifted in short order and the day became milky blue sky and mild sun and a hazy horizon, a very English kind of afternoon. Walked to the local cafe and finished The Lost Plot, whose Dragons Behaving Badly left me missing my own dragons a little bit, even if mine behave badly for quite different reasons.

And in theory tomorrow is a day off and 10C, so we will see what that brings.

My (still) laudably clean house gladdens my heart, but the vacuuming and mopping needed to keep it that way annoys my tendinitis no end. Have taken to vacuuming with two hands to spread the strain.

Have had two days off thanks to sickly infings, and achieved this and that- sent package to Japan, stocked up on soy milk against eventual snow, found- finally!- a proper foot scraper on a stick for my dry callouses. (Pumice does nothing. Pumice crumbles into tiny shreds that hurt your feet if you step on it.) Shoppers Drug & Loblaws, that marriage made in hell, are betrayers. Rexall and IDA have all your needs, for less.

Went to AGO, intending to treat me to a $25 hamburger. But it was the '5 to 7' menu and I had del Toro inspired guacamole (bland) with corn chips (unsalted). Then intended to wander about the gallery for an hour before my acupuncture, but suddenly they wouldn't let me carry my backpack with me. 'Too big!' though it was fine last summer and winter. Carrying the backpack instead of wearing it is indeed a pain, but I could cope. Cannot cope with being separated from cell phone and wallet. So I left and found a Chinese bakery to sit in instead.

( Brief memery )

1. Who says you never learn anything on FB? Someone posted a picture of the jerkface who shot a hibernating bear, and someone in the comments remarked 'Elender pisser.' So now I know the German for 'miserable prick/ asshole.'

2. Several weeks after the last vermin passed on (according to my nose) I have flies in the house. Thought it was fly- silly buzzer that dive-bombed the kitchen by day and the bathroom by night. Kitchen fly grew lethargic, so I caught it this afternoon and released it to the wilds- only to discover another lethargic fly in the evening, drooping on the living room table. Repeat. Came upstairs well-pleased, and discovered two more in the hallway, which I bashed with a broom. They disappeared somewhere to lick their wounds, and I begin to think about blocking up vents again. OTOH they're nothing like the real infestation we had at work when a squirrel died in the roof, so I shall hope this was pure coincidence.

3. Went to the local cafe, crowded as ever on a Saturday morning, but found a seat at the refectory table. Farther up the bench on my side two Japanese women were talking together in relatively comprehensible Japanese, being a little older than the rapid-fire twenty-somes who make me weep when I hear them. Still wasn't quite sure what they were talking about, which is depressing.

4. Yesterday and today were grey and white blustery November and almost warm enough for no gloves, with occasional shafts of silver sunlight breaking through. But the grey became greyer and the white vanished and I had my bike light on at 4:30. Now it rains, and they speak of snowflurries tomorrow.

5. I bought a chunk of Happy Beef of some description- all I know is it had a bone in it- and cooked it up in the crock pot last week. Having learned my lesson, I sauteed the onions and celery beforehand and parboiled the carrots. The russet potatoes I cut into chunks and just threw in, because we know that russets will go to mush with a mere five minutes of boiling and ten minutes sitting. Set timer for ten hours and went to bed. Next morning house smelled of... Worcestershire sauce, actually, of which I'd put two splashes into the four cups of stock. Very disappointing. Even more so was the just-done meat and the hard as rocks potatoes. Where is the melting beef and the veggie mush that oven slow-cooking gives you? So cooked it another four hours, which sort of softened the beef and sort of rendered the potatoes edible. I think the higher cooking temp may be what's needed, because for sure the lower one just doesn't work.

Had some of it tonight with mashed potatoes: the five-and-ten method that let me mash with a fork. The one thing I can say is that I have enough beef gravy to keep me forever, but maybe I should thicken it with some flour or cornstarch. Does flour keep in the fridge? I so rarely use it that it's a waste to buy a bag of the stuff.

1. Accomplishment for the day- 1 load of dishes, 2 loads of laundry, dust and vacuum and wash front hall and living room, finish boiling three sets of chicken bones for stock, and buy a hiking staff online. I'd prefer something thicker and more Gandalfy, but with luck this will get me through the snow more comfortably than a cane does.

2. They've taken down the inner walls of Honest Ed's, the east and west wings, leaving the outer shell. This a mere eleven months after the store closed. The other buildings on Markham are largely untouched, and could happily have stayed open through the summer, like that inexplicable health food store on Bathurst, still operating while the entire rest of the block was vacated at the end of January.

3. Yesterday was grey and warm and mizzly and wanhopey, though again that might have been hangover from Friday's marathon. Today was freezing cold and bright, and I walked down to Bloor and back with, let's say, less pain than any time in the last two weeks. Also waited till mid-afternoon when all the Santa Claus Paraders had departed, and their suburban cars with them.

4. Kipling's Tales of Horror and Fantasy is about the only thing I feel like reading these days, so a good thing there's so much of it. Eventually one gets used to his 'sink or swim' style of writing about the Indian Occupation. The Raj is what it is, though as before, when reading his autobiography, I find myself lacking sympathy for the white-skinned occupiers going mad in the Indian heat. Go back to Torquay if the heat bothers you; and no truly it was your decision to interfere in the running of the native states, so don't gripe about the officials you have to deal with. Twits.

(I must also wonder about that corpse hidden in the ceiling. Seems to me that if you put a body anywhere in an Indian bungalow at whatever season, you'll be uncomfortably aware of it in very short order.)

Even on the sickly weekend with its three hour afternoon naps I managed to Housekeep: cleaned side bedroom's fan, thick with the dust of many a year; poured furniture polish on a couple of dry wooden tables and let soak in; and swept up the 90% of the cherry tree leaves that fell on Friday and blew into the side walkway to a depth of five inches. But either the sweeping or the weather made yesterday hideous in the aches and twinge department: hurty all over and owie in the arms and elbows. Mind, yesterday was like a London February- grey and dank- and everyone prone to suffer in such weather did.

Today I wore heat patches and sailed through a long day- one staff has mono just as other staff is off for surgery, argh. But housework returns to its defaults, dishes and laundry: with which I shall be content.

1 a.m. bedtime, 7:30 a.m. text, 'am sick, can you be me at 9?' Why yes, sure. Roads were clear after the evening flurries, and if I double bag everything ('cause it's -19C with the windchill: that's silly cold in Fahrenheit whichever way you slice it) I'll be fine. Open bedroom curtain and see snow-covered street. ACK! So no time for breakfast. Into several layers of everything, plus boots, and knee at once complaining about it, oh dear oh dear, how shall I manage the rush hour transit miseries?

Look again. Sidewalk is visible, maybe main streets will be bikable, and it will certainly be gone by sunny day's end. So manhandle bike down steps and coast down the patchy sidewalk where huge drifts of newly fallen leaves are more of a hindrance than the snow. And onto the street where it goes one way south, reach the road east, brake at stop sign, and--- back brake has frozen. So I toddle along veeerrry slowly, using the front brake at need, the one that makes the wheel rub when used, is why I never use it. And for once the Bloor bike lanes are empty of muscle warriors *and* have been salted, so I arrive at work in one piece and early.

Our numbers are down, I cancel the lunch shift, and bike over to the nearest bike shop, November empty. Mechanic looks at bike. 'Your front tire...' My front tire is fraying at the rims, is the only way I can put it, and was supposed to be replaced in August 2016. Canny mechanic offers to dry my brake housings for free if I get a new tire and tube, and to have it all done in an hour. I give him an hour and twenty, and he's just finishing up when I come back. So a fast ninety bucks later and I'm set to go. Non-puncture tires have gone up ten dollars since 2010, and there's sales tax and labour as well, but I am resigned to these inevitable expenses. And much more concerned about my knees' continuing quarrel with the boots they liked so much two years ago. Ah well. I shall hope for a dry winter after this early start.

Dunno. Haven't felt like reading lately. Finished Brust's Tiassa, am waiting for Hawk to come from the library, and Vallista, whichever comes first. Reading Brust reminds me of May 2012 when I reread his up-to-then oeuvre in toto and also, flow-wise, had dinner with a visiting Petronia. So there's that nostalgia factor.

But what I do instead is clean. Largely in a spirit of inquiry: how often does one need to vacuum before one stops picking up dust? The answer would seem to be, every other day: because once a week fills a canister quite happily. As demonstrated with the bedroom and upper hallway that were pristine just last Wednesday. Those vents really need to be cleaned out. Meanwhile, living in a tidy house makes me feel like someone else. We shall see how long this lasts.

Well, that was a waste of a day, at least from a Puritan aspect. Yesterday's what-was-I-thinking? 5 pm latte was not followed by antihistamines or muscle relaxants or anything to counter the effect, so I lay in bed from 1 to 4 Old Style, got up and read some Brust, went back to bed at 4 New Style and was immovably awake four hours later. Outside was rain and mild temperatures in the teensC, 50sF, but my house and I were alike *cold*. Futzed about, playing addiction solitaire and feeling unambitious; managed to at least walk up the street to the super and back for the indispensable hot packs.

Then wrapped up in the wool blanket and comforter in the side room, ready to tackle Brust again, but my head grew heavy and my eyes grew dim and instead I lay flat and had a three hour nap. This BTW constitutes an *excellent* way to spend the afternoon, if you're Japanese. I'm not, but it's still not a bad thing from time to time.

A long and busy week- doctors, physios, acupuncture, cortisone shot- made longer by dinner with petronia on Wednesday. As I said several years ago, and about the same person, "Being in some people's company, even for an evening, is like being on vacation." Partly that S occupies a world I know very little of- corporate culture- and partly that she's an inveterate traveller with tales of otherwheres seen through an unusual eye. At least, her traveller stories are quite different from anyone else's more mundane approach. Some people talk about the cockroaches or the drinks; S talks about the look of a city post-earthquake. (It looks like Montreal does all the time: streets torn up, concrete lying about.)

I know very few people who converse rather than chat. (I don't converse myself, being too lazy to do the work required for an informed discussion.) But it's so nice to be in the company of someone who does.

Spent the weekend cleaning because someone's visiting next week, and also because I'm at a loose end in this unsatisfactory fall. The latter may explain why I started with rooms S. won't even go into, like my bedroom and the mudroom, and only today proceeded to kitchen, hallway, and bathroom. Much time was spent carrying things from the upstairs to the downstairs and the downstairs to the upstairs, as ever. I flattened all the mudroom boxes that I've been thinking I ought to flatten for the last seven years, carted large bags of throw rugs and curtains to the church drop-off round the corner ('If you haven't used it since the 90s you're not going to now'), and in passing mended several things that have been sitting in the side bedroom for weeks. So go me: but oh! what I would give for a self-cleaning house, or even a ferocious cleaning woman!

Amazingly, the dust allergies have only just started to tickle my nose. You know, I'd settle for a self-dusting house even.

LJ informs me that I did indeed read Tiassa five years ago, but it appears I didn't buy it. There's a nice trade paperback of Iorich, which I *do* remember buying at the time, but of Tiassa not a trace. No matter: library loan will get it to me soon, doubtless before it gets me Vallista. And now I feel the urge to reread Brust again. There are more worthwhile authors, but Brust is painless reading, and he does drop hints that get picked up later-- which puts him ahead of mindless detective fic.

Up- my copy of Li He's poems arrived today.
Down- Customs' random snatch caught it and levied $14 duty on a $28 book.
Up- Customs didn't catch the Clear the Air order which was worth three times that.

Up- City workers delivered my new medium sized blue bin.
Also up- workers decanted my recycles from the old bin into it.
Down- bin is actually larger than the small size- higher and wider. I thought it would be small size minus the solid foot of plastic in the lower half which is there for no reason I can see.

Up- blessed blessed central heating on this cold night.
Down- still do not dare open the study vent and the study is cold
Up- Nor the bathroom one, but bathroom walls are warm and the only window is small
( Wednesday meme on Thursday )

Dreamed last night that incandescens came to visit me at a place purporting to be my daycare, though it was more like an elementary school which was in the process of having a school fair/ concert of some kind. incandescens joined in enthusiastically, but I couldn't quite make out what the kids and staff were calling her. Turns out it was 'Lily' or maybe 'Lilith'; she explained that this was her real name, but at boarding school there'd been too many girls with the name, so the staff decided she'd be called Genevieve for the duration.

incandescens may have been in my thoughts because she sent me a .pdf of Holmes pastiche which I have been reading on my phone (once I figured out how to save it to the phone). Now I understand why people read things on their phones: a well-behaved .pdf is much easier than a webpage or lj entry.

Fly in the ointment of my contentment is Rattus Recrudescens. While the weather was cold there was nothing to discern in my study or bathroom but the smell of ground coffee. (The mice in the basement walls had their brief moments of musk in that period, and then the smell cleared.) Whether it's warmer temps or some new victim, I now get ghostly reminders even through the three layers of plastic that covers the vents. Much worse, there's an appalling but different stink coming up the kitchen vent. Must give that one another week or ten days as well. Temps drop mid-week: we shall see what transpires after that.

It's been a decade since I used amazon Japan, so I'd forgotten the sad lesson I learned there: if a company uses Fedex, run away as fast as possible. $30 US shipping for a $48 order, plus Fedex fee for border paperwork, and Customs or HST on top of that. And then Clear the Air sends me an email telling me how to use their bags, with this helpful addition, which in a spirit of spite I will share with everyone here:

If you do not want to wait for bags to be shipped to you, it is possible to make your own bags:

Go to PETCO and buy Clear the Air Cat Urine Odor Eliminator. It is in the cat section near the cat liter (sic). It is in a pink canister with a white cat on the front. Most PETCO stores carry this product. Buy at least three or four canisters. PETCO SKU # 1564420

Pour the contents of one canister into an old nylon or sock and tie it off. One 14 oz canister will make one bag that will cover approximately 75 square feet.

Hang bag in room to be deodorized and, they claim, odours will vanish within a few hours. This I very much doubt. Vanish for others; not for me.
( Still Wednesday )

Canada Post never delivers on Saturdays but sometimes it does, for packages. I do not understand this at all. But in any case, I now have The Farthest Station from incandescens, for which I am very grateful, since today was one of great wanhope. Many many thanks. Aaronovitch is a great lifter of spirits.

Have put maktak over the study/ bathroom vent and run the air ionizer, so Ratso's ghost is not quite as overpowering as it was. I'm resigned to a good two weeks of faint hints and cold back rooms, but that's how it goes.

I shall be hearing thumps and bumps and the patter of little feet for a while, since rats are suspicious of new things. But for now I can tell myself that this too will pass: and with luck, pass before any ratlings appear. Exterminator was pleased that I hadn't seen any rat droppings, and the one I did see on the window sill with glass vases on it must have been a mouse, size notwithstanding. Rats don't like climbing, and rats would certainly have knocked all that glass down.

Finished?

Not a thing. Too antsy over the weekend to settle down. Listened to ancient tapes instead, which sent me looking for certain missing ancient tapes (where is my Turandot?), which sent me looking through an archive box at the bottom of the linen cupboard, which led to unearthing a package of the vinyl tiles used in the front hallway thirty years ago, which led to wondering if they might be used again to replace a few hallway tiles that are all worn and scratched from too many bicycle tires. Must call handyman. Ill wind, as they say.

Reading now?

Somehow seem to be reading P.D. James, The Black Tower. I consider James to be fundamentally immoral and Dalgliesh not merely a very unlikely inspector but a very unlikely human being as well. Which said, there are times a PD James hits the spot, as when one is in Tokyo. We shall see f this survives the return of your regularly broadcast reality.

Next?

Maybe the escapist detective stories got from the library; maybe something else entirely. Talking to a friend lately who's reading Buddhism and philosophy, in search of the meaning of life. Told her I couldn't manage that level of heavy any more.
'But what do you read instead?' she asked.
'Detective stories, mostly.'
'I read a detective story once,' she said, 'and when I finished it I couldn't understand what I'd read it for.'

Thus the difference between the brainy and the brainless.

I thought the rats and I could achieve a modus vivendi, at least until Wednesday when the exterminator comes. For one thing, I blocked the cellar door, down which Rat 2 disappeared when I startled him with the vacuum cleaner day before yesterday. Accidentally closed the door between kitchen and bunker, and when I opened it tonight I found piles of woodchips. Rat had clawed and gnawed several inches off the width of the thing, to what purpose I cannot guess, and something else had gnawed a bit on the lamp cord in the kitchen. So have put my wildlife scarer on in the kitchen, on high. Next door is at the cottage and I shall sleep with ear plugs.

Still I'm puzzled. Heard a bang clash last night from the depths of the house, stomped down to the kitchen to discover nothing disturbed. (May have come from the bunker, after all. Who knows?) This morning came down and found a ceramic Japanese tea bowl sitting in the middle of the kitchen counter. Bowl lives in the whatnot/ shadow box on the counter pushed up against the wall. How it fell off and landed bottom side down I cannot guess. I suppose rat might have picked it up in its ratty paws and carefully set it down, the better to examine its provenance, but I doubt it. Bowl is heavy and as large as a rat's body. Poltergeists?

There are always bumps and thumps in my house, from old timber or crotchety pipes, or from houses rebuilding out front and back and echoing down the walkways. This morning there was a steady bumping coming from the side walkway, as I judged it: but as I walked into the kitchen I realized it came from the blue box I keep there for recyclables. And in the box, with its nose in an empty and washed bottle of keffir, was a sleek brown rat. I watched it for several seconds wondering what I could cover the box with to get it outside. But Ratso finally became aware of me, leaped up and out, and vanished I couldn't follow where. Not behind the fridge or bookshelf, which I at once pulled out; maybe into the living room.

Last week I found odd things fallen on the floor from the lower kitchen bookshelves, enough to wonder if we'd had a mild earthquake one night; but now all is explained. Lucky to live in the future: within minutes I was online and talking to a 5-star pest control company that seems to be run entirely by women. If not for work, they'd have been here Thursday, but now will come out Wednesday week. Have read what a time-consuming process it is to get rid of rats, so I possess my soul in patience. At least it's not raccoons moving in. And meanwhile have spread CritterRidder around the baseboards. I dislike the smell as much as critters are said to, so I hope Ratty will keep to his (I suspect) basement home for now.

1. Poems of the Late Tang, exactly where it should be, on the Chinese shelf in the study. Or one copy of same, because it's much more dilapidated and about to fall apart than I remember it being. Re-reading, am not sure why I found Li He 'Harrowing' the first time around, not in Graham's translation. Online is a different story:
( Cut for verse )

2. Grey pants. 'Could I have left them on the line?' I thought last week, glancing out the back door. No. But when I went to hang today's wash on the line, there were my pants carefully folded over the porch rail, where they'd been in all weathers for two weeks, not one. Well-aired at least.

3. Lost: went out to bring the bicycle in. My rain cape was lying beside it on the lawn. Could it have fallen out by itself? No, because my head-light has disappeared, stolen by one of the pesky youth in the neighbourhood, who seem to have made an attempt on the rear light as well before taking off. Just when I thought it was safe to leave things outside. At least pesky youth lack the skills to detach my various neighbours' bicycles from their various porch rails: or lack so far.

PS. The harrowing translations are by Frodsham, whose book I must get. Two reviews that quote even stranger verses can be found here and here .

1. The parcel I sent from amazon which amazon's ridiculous delivery service was unable to deliver through multiple attempts, was at last delivered, though not to the alternate address I'd given. Props, I suppose, to the much-tried deliveryman who actually got it close to where it should be, but lord! could amazon's policies be less use than they are? You can leave parcels with a neighbour but not, say, the one across the street you're on good terms with. Nope, must be next door- who may be away or non-existent or non-English speakers or feuding bitterly with you. Nor can you change a delivery address once five attempts have failed to find the party at home shock horror during the work week. I mean, contingency plans, guys- that's what you need.

2. I have two books from the library to be brainless with.

3. Theoretically a day off, so I slept in till 11. Muscle relaxant and anti-histamine will do it to you.

4. It's going to rain tomorrow so I don't have to do laundry tonight.

5. I got my pay cheque, swollen to an unlikely number. Check the stub and see I've been paid for 4.5 staff hours when in fact I only did 30 minutes. Groan about how I must have entered an assistant shift in the staff column, as I have in the past, and go to check the hours book. And there, added to my 'garbage cleanup' entry, was the note 'and general helpfulness', while the '1' in the assistant hour column was crossed out and a '4' inserted in the staff hour column. Solid tokens of appreciation always welcome; and now I can buy my gin myself.
( Cut for unsavoury garbage tales )