Greetings
Cohort:
Thought for today: We are masters of our thoughts and we are slaves
to our words.
An all out frontal attack of Spider Mites was the diagnosis as the causitive agent in the demise of the English Ivy on the galley table and perhaps also the leafy weed on the shelf above the sleeping loft in First Class Berthing.
I have just now replaced those plants with others that are not only presently alive but also more resistant to Spider Mites. We'll see.
Little mites, smaller than no-see-ums, that drift in the air, the botanizer
said. They make some people sneeze.
I have recently been using some of my collected plate blocks for postage. It seems that all my childhood stamp collecting was in vain and the plate blocks are worth less than face value to any stamp dealer now. What use to be nine cent AIRMAIL are now but a fraction of the current first class rate. But I've not tried writing to anyone over seas. I should give it a try. Half a dozen antique sellos en la carta should liven up the day for postal workers along the letters' way.
Thought for today: If electricity comes from electrons... does that mean that morality comes from morons?
It would seem so, eh?
And for the day before: Reading whilst sunbathing makes you well-red.
I'll drink to that. My tan is holding up with occasional naps at the river and on the cloudy days under my gro-lights.
The
meteor shower was not as good as I remember from last year. I did see a
few but the sky has been rather hazy with the heat. Little Jon sent this
photo of the solar disk showing a rather large cluster of sunspots. Looks
like a close up of the spider mites on my English Ivy. Perhaps this could
explain the state of the economy. They certainly are wreaking havoc with
high frequency communications. A cluster this size might be visible to
the naked eye but you'd have to be careful not to get in trouble for indecent
exposure.
And speaking of space and childhood and collections: How many rememeber
this earwig from the Kirk and Spock days of Star Trek?
I keep telling my Self that but of late it is really testing my faith. I am having a harder and harder time with this idea.
Not well. But then it could be worse. There is little point in complaining. I try to make light of the situation and beg my way out of it. But it is hard when at every turn one is taxed and penalised for being a different person, for living different to the main stream way. Despite what the adverts say about thinking outside the box, Society has no place in its charity for the extraordinary.
Thought for today, an age old question: Why do we spend so much to
cover that beauty? To counter the covering of nudes in our nation's
capitol see the portfolio of an artist
named Tedder. Stunning. Right up there with Faucon, Sturges, and Mann.
It remains to pay for all this but I'll deal with that later. My mechanic
would rather have me owe him the money than to pay interest to mastercard.
I agree with that! It also gives him a strong claim on my time to return
here and work for him next summer.
Evidence
is piling up that Sarah La Gata conmigo Mesquite is really not a calico
after all. She is secretly a blond in disguise. On more than one occasion
she has brought in toys to play with and, as with Ian, leaves them laying
around, some in pieces, for me to step on. I am forever picking up after
her. Except that sometimes her toys pick themselves up and wander off.
She will watch them get a little ways and then pounce, or she will come
round later and look at where she left them and then ask me where I put
her new toy this time.
Last night, just as I was brushing my teeth, she came bounding in with her latest aquisition. I can tell now without seeing by the distinctive mouth-full purr "Look-what-I-brought-you" sound. But by the time I got out of the head and grab'd a potholder--I keep one handy next to the fire extinguisher for capturing squirmy squirrils--she'd let go her new toy under the driver's seat.
We shook out the curtain, pulled out the chart drawers and CD file, lifted the laundry bag off the brake pedal, poked and prodded and shined a light. Nothing under there but a blond cat looking back at me asking --Where did it go? Great! I get a cat to keep the mice out of the bus and she brings them in.
With La Gata patiently poised under the pilot's perch--waiting with baited breath I suppose--I locked the cat door and left the bridge in disarray. It had been a long day of projects and I didn't even spend my usual time reading in bed. Just sleep.
Some three hours later that aforementioned purr startled me awake. Sarah La Gata conmigo Mesquite La Rubia jumped onto the bed and just as I opened my eyes and the light she drop-kicked her mouse between the goal posts of my feet and then pounced after it. Too late cat. The mouse was gone. Down between bed and board. It was about this time La Gata's true colours became apparent.
Between her clawing and my lifting we raised the mattress. No mouse.
Then, together, we saw the critter stagger across my pillow in what had
to be a desperate attempt to avoid further unwilling participation in this
game of cat and mouse. La Rubia looks at me: --That doesn't look like the
same one I brought in, she purrs.
The roof is done white (except for my sunbather mural) and the yellow
first coat is done all the way round. Today I will start the blue. Next
week a second coat of yellow. Some of the paint has puckered and other
parts went on so thick and sticky that it was pulling the fiber out of
the roller. From a distance she looks great!
There is a tear a foot or so deep along the bead where the cloth connects
to the frame. Easy enough to fix without having to take it all apart. But
still... How does that song go? When will we ever learn...
Of
late there has been some encouragement. My second letter to benefactors
has engendered one gift that doubles everything realised from the first
one. Now I have recovered the towing expense of getting the bus back to
Conway. The new insulation for the engine room is in place, the wiring
and plumbing redone, and the paint on the outside is about finished. Perhaps
today I will commence second coating the yellow. Still looking for an artist
to paint my mural on the roof. And of course still waiting on the motor.
With The Cat Drag'd Inn all gussied up like this I am going to have to redo all the photos in various web pages and brochures. I may have to consider even a new name for she no longer looks like something the cat indeed drag'd in. Once we get this new engine installed she will be something "The Cat" is pushing along. ;->
The one part of leaving here that I am not looking forward to is the
cleaning up after. In the past two months I have really spread out.
Boxes and tins, bikes and ladder, garden implements galore, all strewn
and stacked in the little alley between bus and garage. And that is not
to mention all the paints and brushes and rollers. At least the latter
stuff I will not have to pack when the time comes.
Later... Sarah La Gata has just returned from surgery to put her back
together. She has/had a most unfortunate cat-asstrophy. The front of her
elbow is shaved and has eight stitches and a drain. Probly used up at least
one of her nine lives. I find my Self overly concerned, not least for the
expense; she is gonna have to catch a lot of mice to make up for this.
I have to keep her confined for two weeks and then restrained for a month
more. There were bite marks that would tend to indicate she was in a fight
with some other animal so she had to have a rabies booster and will have
to be restrained for 45 days. We have to return to the hospital Saturday
to have the drain removed and I have to give her a pill twice a day. "Just
squeeze her jaws so and then push the pill with your finger over the back
of her tongue." Ya! Right! I'm gonna put my finger between those jaws?
Twenty-six days to go before my absolute latest departure goal. Paul says --Plenty of time. Right Paul. But then again his procrastination has allowed me lots of time to complete other projects. The bus is looking good. The worst part of her spiffy new colour scheme is that the dust shows more. That, and now I shall have to redo the photos for my resume and brochure. I'll have to try repainting the pictures instead of taking new ones.
Fryeburg Fair starts this coming sunday, the 29th, however this year
I will be staying here to push along Paul. Hoss Traders Flea Market is
next weekend already. Where has all the Summer gone?
Sarah La Gata, a.k.a. "Frankencat", has about ei8hteen stitches. The wound did not close properly after a fortnight of healing so the vet had to open it further to expose new edges and then sew her up again. She looks like a lampshade. She has to wear this Elizabethan collar to keep her tongue away from the wound.
The good news is that the vet did not charge for this visit. Thank you
very much Fryeburg Veterinary Hospital. That is worth about three weeks
of groceries and driving for me. In the meantime poor Sarah La Gata is
wandering around trying to back out of the collar she is obliged to wear
to keep her from licking away the new stitches. She canna get her head
into the usual cranies and so is bumping into things and getting her food
all over the floor.
Gardyloo, ajo
I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to
myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and
diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier
shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered
before me. --Sir Isaac Newton
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Copyright © 2003, A.J.Oxton, The Cat Drag'd Inn , 03813-0144.