I got a good nights' sleep, in spite of the heat and humidity. I was sleeping on Moms' single bed with a fan on and I really think that I was too tired to let anything keep me awake. I went to McDs when I got up, got some coffee and a sausage and egg muffin thingie and two cinnamon rolls. Good stuff, heh. Mom only ate half of her cinnamon roll, though, she saved the other half for later. You can bet that I didn't save a crumb. Mom and I were sitting outside late last night while I smoked a cigar, and it suddenly started sprinkling. There had been a bifurcated very tall cloud formation that I'd been watching ever since I turned of I-35, about 30 miles east of Enid, and it was just about the only cloud in the sky, it wasn't really a storm cloud, probably not more than a mile in diameter, but it was producing the sprinkles. Very slow-moving, it just had enough updraft to cool the moisture it was bringing up to make a little rain. The humidity was close to 100% at the time. And it's still probably close to that, with the temp right now at 90° F. Pretty breezy right now, though. I got most of my chores done this morning, but I had to go out to Big Lots to get a light switch, Karen had picked up one at Ace in Topeka yesterday, but it was a three-way. Well, Big Lots didn't have any switches, but they did have: a set of forstner bits; a pair of houseshoes for $4; a circuit tester for $0.88; and an oak bathroom set (TP holder, towel bar, soap dish and toothbrush holder) for $8. Mom's not convinced that she wants the bathroom set, though, so I might wind up bring them home with me. So I tootled on down the street to Lowes and picked up a switch and a hollow-wall anchor set, 'cause Mom wanted me to hang some pictures for her too, including a very heavy mirror. Now I just hope that we can find her drill when the time comes to hang the pictures.... I came back home and Mom was taking a nap, so I turned off the electricity (yes, Dan, I *have* learned a few things!) and replaced the switch and a receptacle that had been broken sometime in the ancient past. I hadn't really messed with the wiring over here yet, but the insulation on the switch was in pretty good shape, plastic wrapped in cloth, probably 60 years old but still quite adequate; however, the wires in the receptacle were weird. The hot wire was copper, but the ground was something else. Not really sure what, though, I don't really think that it was aluminum, but maybe it was an aluminum alloy of some sort. And the ground wire insulation is pretty shaky, probably the same as the copper but the plastic is friable, so I didn't mess with it much, just gently folded it back into the box, and it's working OK. Of course, it won't really matter much if the ground wire is shorted to the box, theoretically, but some theories are much shakier than others. Mom mentioned maybe turning on the AC after she got up from her nap, and I was all over that, of course. And now it's pretty pleasant in here. The house is wired for cable, but Mom's pretty hesitant to have it turned on, she thinks that maybe she's better off not knowing stuff. Maybe she's right, but I don't think that I could isolate myself that way... I'm pretty much a news nut. Mom fixed a good roast-beef dinner and we had a nice lunch, sitting in her kitchen and talking. She's a really neat lady, but I already knew that. She's taking her afternoon nap now, and when she gets up we'll start hanging mirrors and pictures and maybe a toilet-paper holder? 21:55... I took Mom to a carpet store, looking for carpet for her back porch/utility room. Kinda dead-ended on that, so we went to Lowes and looked at their carpet. She only needs about 6X12 feet, and they have stuff in rolls of six feet, so that would be about perfect While we were there, my phone rang, and I wondered why somebody wasn't answering that damned phone. By the time I figgered out that it was *my* phone it was too late, of course. But it was Jess, and he knows me well enough that he called back immediately. We agreed to meet at a new Chinese buffet at 17:00, but we talked about 17:30 too. 17:00 stuck in my head, and 17:30 stuck in his. This was about 16:20 or so.... Mom bought a coupla plants, and we came home and I changed my shirt and went to meet Jess and Brenda. I got there right at 17:00. Well, they weren't there, so I got a table, but it was way in the back, but I could still just barely see the front door. At 17:15, I figgered out what had happened, so I started working with my PDA to pass the time until 17:30. I wasn't paying as much attention to the door as I should have been, evidently, 'cause they snuck in on me. My phone rang at 17:35 and it was Jess wondering where the hell I was. I told him that I was clear in the back of the restaurant, and he and Brenda spotted me, they were sitting up near the front. Had a nice meal and got all caught up... they're coming up sometime this summer and I'll be making plans for a mini-reunion of the Crane Junior High Bad People. Came home and did some work... cleaned out the gutters, hung a picture and two mirrors. Got to talk to both JD and Tyler tonight, and I'd called Karen earlier in the day. Speaking of Karen... I started noticing big clouds earlier, and they were over Wichita... about a hundred miles away. So they might have gotten some weather.... And now it's after 22:00, and I need to shower and sleep, as I'm planning on leaving fairly early in the morning.
Saturday 12 JUN 2004 13:05
Got done with chores. At least, I think so....
Main Index
last
next
today
e-mail me