Day: October 14, 2018

ONE RING – Marilyn Armstrong

RDP Sunday–Ring

And in the darkness bind them …
“One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them.
In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie … ”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

SHELTER FROM THE STORM – Marilyn Armstrong

FOWC with Fandango — Shelter

That’s kind of how I think of my house, these days. The roof doesn’t leak and the basement doesn’t flood. The heating system still works and I have a functional kitchen.

I even have some flowers in my wild garden.

I know it’s not going to be my personal mansion and I do not set forth from it thinking of it as the backstage area to the forestage of Life. This place is pretty much all of life and we could be doing a whole lot worse.

Today, it’s where we live, where we sleep and eat, and where we try endlessly to keep it from falling down faster than we can shore it up.

We have some lottery tickets. I could look them up, see if we got rich and I don’t know it yet. But when asked these days what we’d do with the money, I think ” A simple, bright house without steps and cleaning people to come in once a week and do the basic stuff.

And a cook.

I really want that cook!

A LACK OF UNDERSTANDING

The Message by Rich Paschall

Roy walked into the restaurant just after noon, about the same time as almost every other Saturday for the past ten years.  He picked up a newspaper from a rack near the door and came inside.  The sign in front of the register said “Please wait to be seated.”

“Oh, you can sit anywhere, hon,” the blonde haired waitress advised.  She was on duty most Saturdays but Roy did not know her name and she did not know his.  Their faces were familiar to one another but they never introduced themselves.

The restaurant was equally the same size to each side of the register.  Roy took the first booth to the right, as was his usual custom. He set his cell phone down on the table and grabbed for a menu.  A bus boy appeared with a glass of water, set it down and hurried away.  Roy turned over the coffee cup on the table, as if to invite it to be filled.  Then he perused the menu which he knew well.

As he waited for the waitress to arrive his phone buzzed the alert that he had received a message.  Roy did not look down.  A moment later it buzzed again, but Roy continued to ignore the phone.  He knew who was sending him something on Messenger, and he would read it near the end of the day, as usual.

The waitress came to booth 1, filled Roy’s coffee cup, and then set the pot on the table. “What’ll it be, hon?” she inquired in a tired voice.  At that she grabbed an order pad from her apron and a pencil from her blonde teased hair.

Roy looked up and thought that her hair style must have been in fashion 30 or more years earlier.  He guessed bright blue eye lids were in vogue then too.

“I’ll have scrambled eggs and sausage with hash browns and toast,” Roy announced.  It was his usual Saturday fare at the Golden Prize Restaurant.

“Links or patties?” the seasoned waitress asked.

“Uh…links.”  Roy thought he must have had sausage patties last time, so a change was in order.  In truth, little ever changed in Roy’s life, except for one recent event, of course.

His concentration on pork sausage choices was interrupted by another buzzing on the phone.  He glanced down to have his suspicions confirmed.  He knew what the message would say.  He would read it later.

Soon the bus boy arrived with a coffee pot in hand, but Roy’s cup was full and the young man scurried away.  Roy sipped his coffee, read through the sports section of the paper, and did not look at his phone.

Across the room he spied a couple with three young children.  The youngest was just a toddler who could not sit still. Roy stared at the group and wondered how a family of 5 could afford to eat at the “family restaurant” at those prices.  “I could buy a week’s groceries for what that  meal will cost,” Roy thought.  It was a bit of an exaggeration, but not far off the mark.

“Here ya go, hon,” the waitress announced as she artfully slid the coffee cup over to set down the large plate of eggs, sausage and hash browns and the small plate of toast.  “Anything else, dear?”

“Nope,” Roy said automatically. There was something else, but it was not on the menu at the Golden Prize.  In fact it could not be bought anywhere so Roy tried to keep it off his mind.  His phone sitting in plain view was a reminder of his situation, however.

When the meal was finished, the waitress arrived with coffee pot in hand.  “More coffee, hon?”

“Just a little,” Roy stated.  The waitress filled his cup, put the check face down on the table and walked away.  Roy sat motionless for a while, took a sip of coffee and then grabbed the check.  He calculated 15 percent of the total in his head, so he would leave the appropriate tip in cash. Then grabbed his phone off the table and headed to the register.

The blonde waitress was leaning on the counter as if she was waiting for Roy to arrive.  He handed her the check and his credit card.  She  handed back the receipt to sign and Roy was soon on his way home.

When he got home, Roy plugged in his phone to be charged and successfully ignored it the rest of the day.  When the clock had passed 9pm, Roy picked up the phone to find the battery at 100 percent.  He sat at the kitchen table, opened Messenger and began to read.  It was basically the same message he had received every day that month.

“Baby, I am sorry I had to go.  Things were not good for me and I needed to go away. I want for us to be friends, but I just could not stay any longer.  I need more freedom.  I hope you will understand and forgive me.  Please bb.”

Roy read the short message a few times.  He did not understand, so how could he?  Each night he read the message received that day, thought it over carefully, but he just did not understand.  If he could not understand, how could he forgive?

Roy sent no responses for over a month.  Then the messages stopped coming.

 

HOUSEWORK SUCKS – Marilyn Armstrong

Housework seriously sucks.

It’s not just me who thinks so. No one likes it, not even the people who are paid to do it for other people. Maybe they like it the least, but I suppose getting paid makes up for something.

Last night, Garry sniffed and said: “It smells like ammonia here.”

The recently departed carpet

I knew right away what it was. A few weeks ago, my grandkid brought over a darling and completely un-housebroken puppy who — of course — pissed on the rug, directly in front of where Garry sits.

The rug before this one

I have cleaned the rug, cleaned the floor … but the dogs have great noses and they can always smell it and feel obliged to add their own personal scent at the same site. This is why I only buy cheap carpets, so even if I have to ditch them once per year, I don’t have to slash my wrists because my hand-tied woolen rug from somewhere in Asia has been ruined.

I pondered the possibility of getting the rug cleaned. It was only a 4 X 6 so it would not have been all that difficult to haul it to wherever they clean rugs (I am sure there must be a place that does it), but the price of cleaning it would be around $30. The rug only cost $40 in the first place and once the urinating has soaked it through, it never entirely comes clean.

The rug before the rug before the last one

I pointed out to Garry last night that we needed to do some cleaning, especially floors. Even though we clean up after the dogs, they can smell it. The whole urinating becomes a kind of canine party, you know?

So when the dogs started their morning barking: “GET UP GET UP GET UP,” I got up. I turned on the coffee, gave them biscuits, cleaned the water bowl. I tried to get Garry up to help with the cleaning, but he had gotten up early to put the dogs out. It was pouring again this morning, by the way, as it has been doing pretty much every morning for weeks. When Garry said he thought he might need extra sleep to compensate, I said “Whatever,” and got to work. If I waited for Garry, it would be dinnertime and we wouldn’t be done yet.

I took up the rug and its underpinnings — the thing that was supposed to keep it from sliding around on the floor. I threw it away. It stank. It was made up of some kind of sticky foam and I think it had effectively functioned like a sponge and absorbed everything. Yuck.

I rolled up the rug and pushed it off to one side of the room, got out the vacuum. Vacuumed everything. Since we’d done this a mere four or five days ago, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I vacuumed the living room, hallway, kitchen, then took the dustmop and cleaned behind the dressers in the bedroom, another one of those jobs which needed doing for a long time. Oddly enough, it did not disturb Garry who thinks I can’t tell if he is sleeping or awake.

Back to the kitchen, I dumped Murphy’s Oil in the bucket, let it seep into the mop, and washed all the hard woodlike floors. Then I did it again, moving all the furniture out of the way. By this time, my back was screaming at me.

All the pulling and bending was taking a toll. I emptied the bucket. Refilled it with the kitchen floor cleaner and started moving everything out the way for the next stage. I got halfway through the kitchen and realized I needed help. I was not going to get the rest of it done. It was almost noon. I figured since this big cleanup was his idea, maybe he could lend a hand.

Soon to be the new rug. It’s shabby chic, just like the rest of the place.

About an hour later, it was done. Garry hauled the old rug to the trash. I changed the covers on the sofas. Duke is shedding and being white, he leaves a trail wherever he lays his body. Which is everywhere.

Duke made out well, all things considered. When I hauled the end table out of the way, at least half a dozen tennis balls emerged. One was tossed for excessive slobbering and toothy destruction, but all the rest were salvageable. I put a few back in the box where I store new ones and gave Duke three previously lost balls. Bonanza!

That was approximately when I realized I actually couldn’t move. For all practical purposes, my back had seized.

I ordered a new rug. Another $40 plus a new non-skid pad for underneath it. I considered skipping the pad, but falling isn’t a really great idea.

I hate housework. It’s never finished. As clean as you get it today, it will need to be redone in another few days. And another few days after that. It is the task that is never finished and never completed

ODDBALLS FROM IMPERIAL – Marilyn Armstrong

Kammie’s Oddball Challenge 10/11/18

If ever I run short of oddball photos, remind me to visit my car dealer. The guy who owns it is a collector. He collects a lot of stuff for charity, but he also collects things all kind of car-related stuff. He sells almost everything that could be considered an American car, and a few things that aren’t. He has to have the most entertaining interior of any car dealer anywhere.

The Blues Brother, hanging out

He also collects a lot of movie star life-size period images. Elvis and the Blues Brothers. The Sinatra band. Cars that were made to order and have nearly disappeared.

Plymouth Prowler from below
Plymouth Prowler, up in the air!

The last time I was there for any length of time, we were buying a car, so I was a bit distracted, but this time — back in hopes of getting that all-important second key for the car, I was ready to do a little shooting.

An engine in use as an end table in the lounge
Kammie’s Oddball Challenge