You may know Scootie’s. You know, the convenience store by The U of M and RP Tracks. We used to buy kegs there. There used to be an impressive collection of fake IDs taped to the bulletproof glass. Yeah, that one. Anyway, I walked there Sunday to buy a Commercial Appeal. For the NYT crossword (which I summarily destroyed, thank you very much). And I walked past a poster pasted on the inside of the store’s window, facing out. It’s the white one on the left. Here, you can see it in the window, easily missed, I imagine.
But if you get closer, it’s quite interesting. The inks have smeared against the glass and created a piece of art out of that tacky poster. Looks a bit like this…
This morning, while I was in the area (Starbucks on Poplar is surprisingly empty at 7:30 a.m., I discovered), I swung past with my camera. The clouds were still hanging in the early morning sky, so I hope you don’t mind that I boosted these in Lightroom a bit to better convey what I see when I look at the poster in person. The world needs more accidentally beautiful things. (More photos here.)
“That is to say that horror, crime, murder did vivify all the phenomena, the most ordinary details of experience. In evil as in art there was illumination.”
~~~ Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler’s Planet
Well, today was full of sweat and fury, signifying nothing. I spoke too soon about the air conditioner. It’s out again. It blows cool air and all parts appear to work, but the house is not comfortable. The inside temperature was 90 degrees during the late afternoon, which was positively delightful when compared to the much hotter attic in which I swamp-bathed during my (failed) Miss Fix-It mission to repair the air conditioner. Whatever’s broken doesn’t appear to be a user-serviceable part. However, I am now intimately familiar with my attic’s duct work and the scent of my own steaming skin.
For the occasion, I wrote a little poem about troubleshooting the A/C.
Yep, there’s trouble.
Yep, I want to shoot it.
~~fin~~
There were some bright spots to this muggy, humid heatwave day. I did get the tree limb removed from the garage and most of the backyard’s overgrown weeds cut (under severe orders from Shelby County Code Enforcement, I might add). And I did invent a lovely new hairstyle, perfect for the glamorous repairwoman on the go.
The desk is two feet wide and he hangs off three sides of it.
I said a few days ago I would write a longer entry for my sister’s birthday when I had time. Well, I’ll probably never have the time to really do her justice. So I will have to just stop, write, post and consider it done.
Amber’s one tough woman. Younger than me by a year and a half, but older than me in every other way. Strong, strong-willed, rough, tender, loving, witty, smart, hilarious, mean, inviting, intimidating, captivating, scary, intense, amazing and never, ever, ever boring. Never. A contradiction in terms, an amazingly complex person. I love her more with every passing day. I’ve watched her layers fold out and open my whole life.
From the tiny, spitfire, stick figure kid sister…
to the hilarious teenage rebellion hurricane (hilarious because she is truly funny, not just because this picture is ridiculous)…
to the tall loudmouth beauty with a wild mane of hair and a presence that commands every room…
to the subdued (relatively, haha), responsible, devoted mother and wife.
(I would love to post some of my favorite photos of her, but they are of her making goofy faces. And considering she’s pregnant again and currently screening the entire internet for published photos of herself, I will avoid her wrath and post only the good ones. Except that 7th grade photo, which she can’t blame me for anyway.)
Like the petals of a flower and its stem, my sister’s layers are held together by a root. Hers is made of love and raw feeling. Her unbelievable, undefeatable spirit. It’s not her looks that keep folks looking. It’s that spirit. I look up to her. Physically (she’s 5’8″, the lucky rat) and mentally. My younger big sister.
Happy 29th birthday, seeeester. You will love this year, and we will love it because you are in it.
And today’s my sister’s birthday. She deserves far more than a hastily typed note on this day though, so I will come back to her when I have more time.
The a/c and hot water heater are working! Turns out MLGW didn’t fully restore my power after the outage, leaving some appliances (the 220 or 240 volt ones, I can’t recall, my mind is mush) inoperable. MLGW fixed the issue yesterday, and now I’m just waiting for the house to restore to its normal frigid temperature. The a/c was out for four days though, all told, so apparently it’s taking a while to cool back down. Funny that a thermostat reading nearly 80 degrees is enough for me to consider “cool.” But, hey! I’ll take it!
More good news: my neighbor who was also affected by the downed tree offered to haggle about insurance claims on our behalf with the tree owners. I might get that limb removed and fence replaced after all. Fingers crossed, and then those fingers crossed, and then arms crossed. With a cross look on my face and hot cross buns for breakfast.
OK so the power went out for the second time Sunday night. The outage got restored around 11 a.m. Monday, but my place got restored much later at around 3 p.m.
When I came home from work Monday night, I noticed the house was warm. I figured this was because the air had been off all day and was merely taking its necessary time to equalize the house temperature.
No.
That was incorrect.
Tuesday morning I woke up brutally early, slapped out of bed by a thunderclap and a mysteriously muggy discomfort. After a few minutes of orientation, I realized… the central air conditioning is out. After ALL THIS?! After all these problems?! My heart, y’all, it sank. My drama and problems trying to keep this house livable have been mentioned in only vague terms on this blog (seriously, y’all don’t want the details), and this was just about enough to break my spirit.
But I persevered. I went outside to check the breakers, slathering an inch of fresh mud on my canvas (read: permeable) shoes in the process. No luck. Back and forth between the outdoor a/c unit and Google on my computer. Nothing. Into the sweltering attic to change air filters and search for reset buttons. Nothing I tried worked. None of the DIY tips. Nada.
By this time, I needed to shower before work. So I step into the shower, expecting my normal searingly hot water, and….
….I bet you can see where this is going….
….wait for it….
….NO HOT WATER.
THE HOT WATER HEATER IS OUT TOO. THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE.
………………………………………………….. which led to what has to be the only logical conclusion ……………………..
The gods are experimenting on me. I am a lab rat in their science project.
Seriously, nothing else makes sense.
So, anyway, after completely and totally losing my mind for a few minutes, I scooped up the melted brainpieces and decided to leave the house. I had to, anyway. It was getting super hot, and work was beginning to call my name.
Normally I leave all my lights and fans off when I’m not home. But I quickly decided that plan wasn’t gonna work yesterday, so before I left, I went through the house manually turning all my ceiling fans on full blast. OK, I thought, that can only help. I hate to leave all this on when I’m gone, but desperate times, right? Riiiiiiight as I’m leaving the house, on my way out the door, arms full of messenger bags and things I needed to run errands, timer ticking on the “get out of the house in 30 seconds or all hell breaks loose” security system, I noticed I’d skipped a light.
So I dashed over to pull the fan chain.
And I did.
And this happened.
At which time I figured the gods were having a mighty successful day at the science fair.
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OTHER PLACES I SCRIBBLE AND SCRAWL
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