Monday, April 8, 2013

Monday and my trip to town

A day in the life - no, a Monday in the life of a retired band director with minimal deadlines.
I hope you can find the humor of this considering I use to be a man-about-town, fashion plate, and world traveler.
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Up. Wife in shower.  Breakfast of Grape Nuts and letting dogs in and out of back door.   Me follow up in the wet place.   We are trying an experiment.  Got a plastic bucket at Atwoods.  As the water begins to flow in the shower, we fill the bucket till the temperature rises.  The bucket is emptied outside on one of our moisture starved plants.  This means 2 buckets of water per day.  The plants are appreciative.   Dressed.
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Today I chose a lovely ensemble of pale blue jeans topped with a horizontally striped black and white knit shirt.  Tiny red stripes border the bolder black stripes.  Brown leather belt and green socks.  You might wonder about the green socks.  I own them, that's why.  Plus the lighting is poor in the sock drawer and I never can figure out which pair is green.  The last time this happened I was attired in a sky blue knit shirt and was embarrassed all day long.   { Aside:  if you read below where wife tied her own shoes, it was at that moment that I lifted my pants legs to discover the green socks.  I need help in this area. }
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All dressed.  Ready to go to town.  First the dogs are placed in the dog pit.  This is 15 x 20 ft. area in the backyard with a 6 ft fence:  semi-covered, water, grass -- a nice place for the dogs to visit.  
My wife is the treasurer of our Home Owners Asso.  (HOA).  As such she is sent dues and other assessments.  Since the road was fixed and money collected prior to the event, she doesn't see many checks now.  Still, a $30 check arrived.  
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Our first task, deposit the $30.  Next a quick trip by the post office to mail letters to the 12 dead beats of the HOA who have not paid their road assessment dues yet.  Clowns.   They even pretend  no previous letter has arrived.   It is one thing to be short of cash and unable to pay - you call someone and make a plan.  But, to lie about not receiving a notice.  Despicable.    Now we do have this one guy who is divorcing his wife and selling the house.   He called and explained that he was paying half and she was to pay the reminder  (that would be "half" for those of you who are mathematically challenged.   He paid.  She hasn't.  My wife doesn't need this type of torment.
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In town - drop by the HOA'S CPA to deliver a notice from the great State of Texas, or is it State of Taxes?  Down 7th Avenue to Atwoods.   Poop.    That's right,  Poop.  Let me take you back to the Dog Pit - shorten to PIT.  The PIT is for the dogs to Poop at night - away from potential animals which might linger in the backyard.  The PIT is small enough to keep track of them at night.  We have coyotes and bobcats and foxes and killer bees - you name it (snakes, don't forget).    As you well imagine, a PooPit fills up pretty fast with 5 dogs, one of which, Fritz, is able to produce more Poo than all the other dogs put together.   That boy has a talent.
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So I have one of those little rakes and scooper thingys in the pit.  Scoop up the goo, and put it in a galvanized silver bucket lined with an appropriate sized white garbage bag.  Well that doesn't solve the poop problem in the rest of the yard.  So today we bought another scoop at Atwoods.  It has a beautiful yellow handle.  Beautiful.
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On to Walmart.  What trip to town is complete without a trip to town?  Of extreme importance is that our Highway department has just installed a new traffic light at the entrance of Walmart.  Today is the first day that I have seen it work - and, today, we went through the light on  the left signal.  We are growing up.   Bought Walmart gas - 3 cents off with the card.
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Inside to look at yarn- didn't buy any - found a plastic bowl to buy - did.   Went to the register by the back - there were these two Spanish ladies - each with kids - at the register.  It is unimportant that the 2 were Spanish except they were having language problems.  They had coupons.  They had coupons from other stores.  Each item they bought had a coupon and one from another store.  The poor clerk was looking up things right and left.  And the kids were wild.
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After 5 minutes we moved to another register at the front of the store.  So did the guy in front of us.   The 2nd Spanish lady still had a buggy full of stuff and her own coupons.    We checked out.
Next was a side trip to Tractor Supply.  They have buckets with lids.  If you get a pooper scooper, you need a bucket for disposal.
By now it was noon - we made a stopover at CiCi's pizza.  Cheap.  Breading.  salad.  It was a delight and the 2 Spanish ladies with the loud kids were not there.   The town trip ended with a short adventure at the HEB grocery store.   So the day trip ended.  
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Back home - mowed the backyard - played ball with Oscar - fed dogs - played ball with Oscar - ate left overs (good pork chops) - all exciting.
2 things before I close:
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1.   Today is my daughter-in-law Penney's birthday.  Happy Birthday to Penney.  I am not talking about age here.  They are spending her birthday at the softball field as one of their daughters is playing ball tonight.
2.   As I typed I looked for something to watch on TV.  I found a 20th century fox movie with 30 minutes left.   ROXIE HART  with Ginger Rogers, a 1942 flick.   This is the Chicago movie story with Roxie, the shooter,  and Billy Flynn, the lawyer, appealing to an all male jury.  Those last 30 minutes were a lot of fun.  I have got to see if I can find the entire movie and watch it.

and so I close.
maybe Wednesday's missive will be full of intrigue and spies and communist invaders being thwarted.   I certainly do hope so.
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P.S.   Dallas hired a new Superintendent last summer.  This year he has been trying to put his personal touch on the recovery of the school system.  The newspaper says that 9 out of 10 students in the DISD live below the poverty level.  The Dallas News had a feature article today about how they are firing Principals - moving Principals - and generally shaking up the system.  Some of the townspeople are all uptight.  Friends of these Principals are up in arms.   One of the Princes told some of his people to just hang on (I paraphrase) cause the Supt might not be there very long.   Turmoil in the Dallas ISD.  Am I glad to be out of that arena?
            In one recent parent rant, the lady accused the supt. of being a white supremist.  The News then point out that the Supt. mother is Black and his father is Japanese.  When in doubt, play the race card.   I close now.




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