Garage humor

A couple of weeks ago Hubby and I drove to Ann Arbor to visit my mom. She’d called to say she had a small household item that needed fixing during the visit but we wouldn’t need to bring tools.

I say “we,” but really I mean Hubby. I inherited my fear of caulking, plumbing and anything requiring power tools directly from my mother. I feel that any time I do more than clean or decorate the house I have brushed shoulders with that guy from This Old House. My slam-dunk intimidation by house fix-it work goes so far that I include changing light bulbs if it means I have to use a step-stool in the “I have just brushed shoulders with that “This Old House Guy” category. If the lightbulb changing requires an actual ladder I make Hubby do it.

In any case, we arrive at Mom’s and the problem is immediately obvious.

“Her garage door is stuck half open,” I say.

“Could be worse,” Hubby replies, “Could be stuck half shut.”

Fall in Michigan

On Friday I announced it was time to rake. Hubby said fine. We decided to do the raking this morning.

We had our breakfast and then donned outerwear and tromped out to the side yard, rake, broom and yard waste bags in hand. We begin to rake. And to bag. Rake and bag. Rake and bag. Rake and bag. I notice that no one else is out raking their leaves. I store this in the compartment of my brain where the thought, “I am better than other humans because BLANK” is stored. Obviously, we cared more about how our lawn looked than anyone else on the whole street. I am a strong, proud, homeowner.

We rake and bag, rake and bag. One of the things that we DIDN’T want in a house, but got, was a corner lot. We have a lot of space to rake.

Two hours later, as we are rounding the last bit of front yard, a wind similar to that which sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald springs up. In fewer than fifteen minutes it looks like we never raked at all. I gaze contemplatively at the twenty yard waste bags in my garage and it occurs to me that I might have to park in the driveway until we can get rid of them on Friday.

“Hi there,” a man says as he pulls up. “Hi,” we reply. “I’m your neighbor that way,” he says, and points to a house kitty corner from our backyard. We make nice introductions. “Y’know,” he says cheerfully, “We always wait until the leaves have finished falling before we rake.” Hubby turns to me, “The trees still have leaves on them?”

I slink back to the house.

(Yellow) Bathroom Window Treatments

As long as we’re (back) on the topic of bathrooms, check out the new window treatments in the master bath. Ooo la la

“Go pink”

Last weekend I hosted the Quarterly Librarian’s Quartet Dinner – a group of four librarian friends who meet approximately quarterly for dinner and chatting. I was reminded too late that I served the same dessert as last time I hosted. Oops. Mental note: Make them something different next time!

As one of the librarians headed toward my explosion of 1950s pink tile bathroom she announced she was going to “Go Pink.” My bathroom lore grows, to my not-very-secret glee…

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What Annoys Me About Milwaukee

Milwaukee has much to be proud of. They also have an annoying habit of getting into other people’s business.

Let me begin my diatribe by saying that I was born in Michigan (thank you very much). My mother was born in Michigan. Her mother was born in Michigan (and her father, too) back to when my family was farming inside what is now the city limits of Flint. We’re from here. And we build cars. My grandfather was a tool and die maker in the factories. Hell, my GREAT-grandfather was a tool and die maker. We’re from here. And we build cars.

And I need no assistance in gassing up my vehicle. We build them, and we can fill them.

But in Milwaukee, every gas station I have ever used contains BIG, SHINY stickers warning us not to top off our tanks.

Well EXCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSE me but I have been filling gas tanks since I was eighteen years old and how I fill my gas tank is between me, and my car. Are you my car? Then shut up Wisconsin, you have no business in this.

Do I understand that in the process of topping off I might spill some gas and that’s a fire hazard? Please refer directly and immediately to the previous paragraph.

I don’t comment on how they drive their motorcycles on the rear wheel only at ninety miles an hour down public highways (not uncommon over there), because you know what? They build Harleys over there. And that’s their business. How they drive them is their business. What they don’t understand is that cars are not their business. They’re ours. And they need to lay off the “for the good of us all” stickers plastered all over their gas stations and take a nice, deep breath. I think I’ll join them on that last part.

Amazon.sales

So, how have the Amazon.sales been going with my old college books? To be honest, I’m finding myself uncharacteristically cheerful about walking to the post office on my lunch hour to net as little as 50 cents a sale.

Normally, I’m not one that counts my net worth in 50 cent increments, and yet I have found, to my surprise, that I am willing to go through the effort of selling a title if I can net at least 50 cents after shipping/packaging. I have yet to make more than two dollars on any single book.

I think it’s the “Cool” factor. I feel so positively hip selling my stuff on The Great Amazon.com, so positively groovy about being part of The Great Amazon, that I don’t mind the bother or the fact that I could take all of my books to Dawn Treader Bookstore in Ann Arbor and sell them at one shot for about the same amount of money per title.

The money I’ve made – $20 so far – has occupied a special place in my mind as well. It has seemed like true splurging money. What have I spent it on? Two used Star Trek movies – from Amazon. com of course. Did you know you can buy practically any book or movie second hand on Amazon? It’s a fact!

Bethesda Rules!!

Hah! surely squirrel! You have been bested by the Queen of the N. Family! My Alpha Numero Uno Cat, Bethesda, has learned that the sanctity of our backyard depends on her willingness to chase undesirable invaders out. Last night she shagged his ratty-looking squirrel tail right back up his sorry telephone pole and down the wires. Bye-bye squirrel, and take your acorns with you.

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What Librarians do with old (college) books

Today I put most of my old college books up for sale on Amazon. Those books were part of who I was back then, part of my identity. Asking me to sell those books would have been like asking me to sell my soul. I sold blood when I needed cash in college. I did not sell my books.

Some of it was political. The 2 volume set of the history of the African-American people in the United States? For sale! Five Alice Walker novels? I couldn’t remember the plots of any besides The Color Purple. For sale!

Some more of it is political. Haciendo Caras: Making Face, Making Soul: the only Hispanic culture textbook available when I was in school. I was assigned to read it THREE times. I threw that one in the trashcan. Man, I got tired of being assigned that book. Hispanic culture didn’t mean much to me. I mean, we’re in Michigan for crying out loud, not Texas or Florida and try as I might, I just didn’t care. (Note to non-Women’s Studies majors: this admission constitutes heresy. I may never drink cammomile tea in this town again).

Even more was political. Radical feminist texts on everything from sex to politics to religion to history to art to photography. Now on that account I kept the classics. Some habits don’t die. But anything that didn’t make me smile when I picked it up is now for sale on Amazon.com.

And many more standard English major classics: Madame Bovary and The Master and Margarita and The Stranger and Anna Karenina.

Oh, and did I really THROW AWAY Haciendo Caras? Yup. Threw out the copy of Fahrenheit 451 that I accidentally dipped in the bathtub ten years ago, too. The fate of my books that don’t get sold on Amazon is distinctly similar. A secret of librianship: Not all books can be saved. Some really are just trash. But shhhhhh! that’s a trade secret.