Mail vans have a particular engine noise. I read this week that some company
was awarded a contract to make more. People must like the noise because the
competing company offered a hybrid, or maybe an electrical van. Possibly using
old and polluting technology is cheaper? I mention all this because just as I
was getting down to brass tacks today, along came a mail van, on a Sunday and,
were this a murder mystery I could have thought, “That’s odd,” and noted the
time in relation to some event that’s about to happen and be Important to the
Plot.
Why, you ask, is it brass tacks that one gets down to? Certainly Mimo did. I
let slip the expression and she wanted to know what it meant.
“I believe it’s got to do with decorating gunstocks, or possibly coffins, or
maybe measuring material in a shop.”
“What’s that got to do with the plot?”
“Does everything have to be connected to a plot?”
“In a good story it does.”
I changed the subject simply because I couldn’t see how to get from brass tacks
to the stimulus package. “Have you heard about it?” I asked.
Appenzeller came running up, “Chips?”
Pecorino appeared from behind me, “Pasta?”
(Both have appeared on the chickens’ menu this week.)
“Not at present.” I disappointed them. “It’s the rats you see. I want to
keep scattered food to a minimum.”
“Say the word,” said Mimo, “and I’ll minimize it.”
Appenzeller wanted to know whether or not a stimulus is pointy. “Sounds that
way, doesn’t it?” I said. “Very Latin.”
Pecorino said she thought that was a kind of dancing that squirrels do.
“Funny you should mention that,” I said, “I saw squirrels dancing earlier this
morning. Douglas Fir ones.”
Mimo nodded, “It’s seasonal. When they come out of hibernation they have that
tendency.”
Appenzeller wanted to know if this was in the plot.
“What?”
“Dancing. Are they dancing in the plot?”
Pecorino was feeling picky, “Surely that should be *on* the plot.”
“Kind of a pointed stick,” I said, “a stimulus. Synonymous with goad. Now
there’s an interesting thing, part the way between a weapon and a tool. A goad
or gad, as it was in Old English. Do you think a gadabout was someone
stimulated by a pointed stick?”
Appenzeller moved her head from side to side. “What’s up,” I asked.
“Wondering if you are currently all here.”
Pecorino, “He could be an illusion.”
Mimo, “Or a plot device.”
How in-advance of things Hereabouts can be is demonstrated by the following
link, which appeared this week:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56189600
What a tail wag of a week it has been for Hamish. After so many, many times
bursting out the door in hope, this week he got his jaws on a rat. Didn’t
quite finish the job, but mighty close. If rats are smart, at least one will
be thinking, “Is this really where I want to continue to my humble existence?
Possibly downtown somewhere might be a better option? Fewer coyotes.”
Hamish also got to play with Cassanova Di Pavlova von Omagod, D’s dog. This is
not the dog’s real name, but it’s a lot of dog, so that’s an appropriate amount
of name. The thought was Hamish might be willing to pass on a tip or two about
comportment, so the owners went up to public tennis court, made sure all doors
were secure and let them loose, expecting considerable bounding, Cassanova
being a young dog and not used to being off-leash. We got the opposite. Much
strolling in the marsh, with Hamish giving a fair imitation of a teenage boy
turning up his nose at the possibility of going out with a girl several years
younger than him. “I am waaaay too old and mature for any of that bounding
business. I am here for to offer professional ball-retrieval services. Gods
can be very careless with their balls, you know. It’s as if they lose track of
the plot. If it weren't for me they’d have lost hundreds.”
Replacing a light switch is not a repair of high order, but as with all
electrical repairs the risks are: getting a shock, burning the house to the
ground. I avoided the former and I believe I shall also avoid the latter.
Fingers crossed. Our architect was an ardent modernist, so even though I
couldn’t take the old switch with me for comparison, when I looked long and
hard at the face plate I was sure it was white and not almond. Therefore I
marched up and down in Home Depot looking for a white switch. They had them in
black, grey and almond, but not white. Oooh, here at the end of the aisle you
could buy white ones in bulk, so the white was clearly proven to exist. I
enlisted the help of a younger guy…who couldn’t find white either.
It was on the opposite side of the aisle. White things on one side of the
aisle, colored on the other. The plot thickens, if thicken is the word I want.
The reason I couldn’t take the broken switch in is my circuit detector had gone
awol, so I bought a new one…with a working credit card. The gift card thing L.
had insisted I use for payment, once again didn’t work. She put about an hour
of her life into fixing this problem when last it occurred. Some bank needs a
good throttling.
Home, switched the circuit off at the breaker box, tested the tester in a
working outlet and then tested the circuit… unscrew, unscrew, unscrew. Little
bit of cursing the stiff wires. Put the new switch in place and connect all
up. Double check everything is as it should be. Switch the circuit back
on…bingo. Light works.
It was then I noticed…the faceplate is almond. I now believe I may be involved
in a small and inconsequential plot (people so often put together the words
“gigantic” and “plot”) to raise my blood pressure, so I took some old pasta out
to the chickens and we unpacked our week together reveling in the sunshine and
making appropriately appreciative noises.
Note to self: next time, take the face plate.
David Ritchie,
Portland,
Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
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