This week was much more quiet than the past thirty or so. I took some naps, then I took some more naps, then I slept a lot, and I took a sick day from work so I could take more naps.
I came out of each of the past three weekends more exhausted than I entered them, thanks to flight delays, weather, and assisting my partner with a couple of events. That made for some significant sleep deprivation, which finally caught up with me.
The image at the top of this post is from one of those events. This past Saturday, September 19, Zyra was a vendor at the Eastown Street Fair. We arrived just before 6:00 am, in heavy rain, to begin setting up. We had just finished putting up the tent and tables when one of the volunteers let us know that, due to incoming thunderstorms, the start of the fair would be delayed until 2:00 pm.
The assistance with these events involved a lot of loading things into my car, and then unloading them again a few miles away. I drive a Subaru Outback, so this is expected. The final unloading for Eastown took place just before midnight.
On Monday morning, which was the next time I started my car, I had a dead battery. My partner jumped it for me, and everything seemed to be fine. I drove to practice without difficulty, and restarted the car after it sat idle for a couple of hours.
On Tuesday, I called in sick so I could take more naps. This was well-timed, because that morning my battery was so dead I couldn’t even unlock my car using the key fob. I called my mechanic and told him, “dead battery, but maybe not.” He said to bring the car in, so that afternoon I had Z assist with another jump-start and drove the the service center. Then we drove home and I went to bed.
Wednesday morning, having no car, I left the house at 5:45 am and walked the mile and a half to From the Heart Yoga for our recently-restarted iron shirt chi kung class. The walk took exactly half an hour from door to door.
As I was walking along a stretch of road between streetlights, the city slowly waking around me, I saw something coming up the sidewalk toward me. Something big. I stepped into the street to avoid it, as this area of town is full of deer, wild turkeys, and all sorts of urban wildlife.
And also, as it turned out, dogs. This one was mastiff-sized, brindle colored, with a bright blue collar and a big dead raccoon in its mouth. It trotted past me and continued down the sidewalk head held high with pride, the raccoon carcass flopping dramatically.
A minute later a man walked past me on the sidewalk. Before I could say “Good morning!” he said, “Did you see a dog?”
“Big one?” I said. “Blue collar?”
“Yup.”
I pointed back up the street. “Back that way. Carrying a dead raccoon.”
The guy gestured in exasperation and looked to the heavens, and said “Thanks,” and continued on his way.
When I returned home I had a message from my mechanic. When I read it, all I could do was laugh.
While unloading my car around midnight on Saturday, I apparently bumped the toggle switch for my rear dome light from “door” to “on”. I barely knew I had a rear dome light, and I definitely didn’t know it had independent controls. The light is small and is almost impossible to see from outside the car due to tinted windows. Also, at night I park under a street light which illuminates the interior of the car. Thus the light had been on for two days, slowly draining my battery.
When I arrived at the service center I asked him “Is this the dumbest repair you’ve ever done?” He chuckled and said they see this issue a few times a year, and I was not even the first that year.
So thank you to Mike and the rest of the crew at Heritage Service Centre for being kind in the presence of idiocy.
That was enough excitement for the week.
I have three days left on my two projects at work. Then the new fiscal year begins, and who knows what that will bring. I have already reserved my vacation time for the rest of the calendar year, and plan to spend a lot of time catching up on things I didn’t have time to do in the first nine months of the year thanks to working 50+ hour weeks for months at a time.
Reading
In my down time I have been reading a lot. I finished Donella Meadows’ Thinking in Systems, then in quick succession finished two books of haiku, and Umberto Eco’s How to Travel With a Salmon, which was fun but light compared to e.g. The Name of the Rose. Now I am reading Lamont Arrington’s poetry collection My Heart Blues, which is beautiful.
Writing
I am still working on first drafts of poems to include in the “Hello, Future!” poetry time capsule project. The deadline might be pushed back a few weeks, which gives me more time to procrastinate.
Weekly Writing Prompt
Subject: Language, Death
Setting: Ocean
Genre: Fantasy
Listening
Siouxsie and the Banshees, “Kiss Them for Me,” from their 1991 album Superstition. “Kiss Them for Me” got a lot of play back in the early 1990s, just as I was finishing up college and working at the local Polish/Mexican fusion restaurant. I remember listening to the whole album a lot as I completed my capstone classes in Russian Studies and Liberal Studies back in 1992/1993.
Interesting Links
- “Effective Altruism Is a Misnomer Just Ask Ezra Klein” (Nat Wilson Turner, Naked Capitalism) – Excellent explanation and take-down of effective altruism and EA bootlicks like Ezra Klein, with respect to “A.I.” and the “A.I.” companies who say they want to reign in “A.I.” development but who really plan to capture any regulation of the technology.