Know this

  I just turned on TV to hear a Doctor of Gastroenterology, promoting her  new book on Gut Health, say "You literally are what you eat." I tuned back out.

Smarmy Weather

   For real, last night's weather report:  "Snow will be a little more intimate in nature,...then some bonus snow."   

Happenings at Home or "Do Your Job!"

     Machiavelli---Take Note

     I remain at home, but examples of people sloughing off come to me anyway.

1) I asked about exemptions from the Town, and the response was to another issue altogether.  ( Do the job. The researcher should know where and what is being researched before rendering a conclusion.

2) County Waste did not pick up the waste today because the wind had blown the container sideways in the driveway.  (Do your job, hop off the truck for a few seconds.

3) Daughter and grandson brought Maybe to the vet's today, but they were unable to do her blood work because she "wouldn't cooperate." (Do the job. Have somebody hold the darn animal, somebody not afraid of cats.

4) After several virtual visits to Social Security, I was informed that the paperwork had "gone sideways" and the mistake would be corrected.  A letter confirmed the findings. But  a subsequent letter said there was an error, and the amount would be less. Calls* to both the Jamaica office and the Troy office acknowledged that the latest letter made no sense; they couldn't explain it. SO, another call to the local office, where the agent said she would send me a letter confirming what we both knew was correct. Fine.

    The letter from SSA arrived today and all seemed well. But as I leafed through the stapled pages, I detected incorrect information. Listed as my previous employment was a list of about a dozen employers, none of which I'd certainly not worked for, some even unheard of. Looking more closely, I saw another person's name on the pages stapled to mine. That person had a limited number of days to respond to the letter, so I kindly called to advise of above. That certainly got the attention of the agent. She said that was never supposed to happen, and in detail tried to explain how it could have, even saying things there were a mess. She asked if I would return it. I said you should probably send the named person another letter, and I'd just destroy it. BUT, she said it's a security matter and they'd like it back. I said ok. A short time later, another agent, very serious, called and asked for a lot of information. I couldn't see that mine was relevant but answered anyway. He said he would send me a postage paid envelope for the return of what he called the "misdirected letter." I had to insert that it wasn't really misdirected. It was in the envelope addressed to me, even stapled to my letter. I asked both agents if it were possible that my letter also went to the other  person as well. They both assured me that no, that could never happen. Well, no, not if people Do Their Jobs.

And:

    The Tomcat Snap Trap says it kills mice, but one got in there today, and I had to wait for it to die. (Your job is to kill mice, not torture them.

   I just received a call from Ralph Tate from Amazon saying there was a charge of $1460 on my account and I should call if I wished to dispute it. (Whose job are you doing?

Lack of Concentration---New Descriptor?

     I watch the Olympic coverage, sometimes, sort of, usually while reading or doing a crossword or cryptoquip.  I thought I was still watching the figure skating couples tonight. The announcers don't over-comment, just insert a remark here and there. I do not pay rapt attention, but one of the remarks made me look up from the newspaper, when I thought the remark was directed toward the skating couples. What I heard was "He's reaching for the tail grab."  But the coverage had switched over to snow-boarding.

Was it all a dream?

    I woke up at 4:00 a.m. this morning, as usual, clicked on the outside light and looked out at the front lawn.  Everything was green. The snow was all gone. I did the wordle (in 3) and went back to bed. When I got up later , around 9:00  a.m. and looked out the window, everything was covered with a blanket of snow. 

Alackaday!

 For only the second time in my illustrious career of wordleing, I failed. And the word wasn't that hard. Then I saw something I hadn't seen in about 5 or so years, what looked like  a mouse scuttling across the floor near the kitchen door. The old saying goes that if you think you might have seen a mouse, you most likely have. So I broke out a new pack of Tomcat Snap Traps from several years ago. I slathered the death trap with peanut butter and placed it under the hutch, just in case my intuition was correct, and a rodent is present.

   I was in the other room no more than half an hour later, deciding which stack of paperwork I can trim down, when I heard the strangest sound, a kind of metallic-sounding clicking, quite rhythmic. I followed the trail of sound and saw that the mousetrap was now against the leg of the kitchen table, and a mouse had its front leg and apparently part of its jaw caught in the snaptrap. It had dragged the trap quite a distance, considering its small size, and but for being hung up by the table leg, I don't know where it may have ended up.  It was a dark brown, furry little animal, and it was in acute distress.

    I hate to see any animal in pain, but also hate even more having to deal with it. I took a large grocery bag, and somehow was able to enclose trap and mouse in it. The struggle was still quite intense so I just threw bag and contents out the front door. I looked out the window a while later, and the bag was still throbbing. I didn't look again until much later. By then, the bag had disappeared, maybe blown away by the wind, and the now motionless  carcass of the mouse was still in the trap. 

   So my last duty was to enclose my hand in a plastic newspaper bag, pick up the trap and dispose of the body in the trash can. Hey, somebody's got to do it.

Please don't....

 ...ever use the word "galentine" in any circumstance whatsoever. It looks, sounds, and just plain is an ugly construction. 

In My Dreams---of Money Orders

  When I was a child, and therefore a runner of errands, I was familiar with Money Orders. Besides hearing "YooHoo, Little Girl, Could you go to the store and get me a can of tomato paste?" from various neighbors, I would often be asked to go to the post office and redeem  the money they handed me for a Money Order. I was well familiar with the process as my mother did not have  a checking account, and it was standard procedure for her and others at the time to pay their bills with money orders.

   I don't think I ever bought a money order for myself; I have  had a checking account since I started working. But last night I dreamt that it was of great importance to find the whereabouts of a money order I had tried to send somewhere, but it had not been received. The amount was for $1.50. I walked into a building, probably a post office, though it was to a window in a much larger building. The window had bars at front, as in the old days. The person at the window was familiar to me, Lou Ann C., but she looked younger and prettier than I  remembered. She listened to my request but said she was unable to help me. Okay, I said and then I asked her how she was doing. She told me she was now divorced. When I said  I  was sorry to hear that, she told me not to be sorry, that it was for the best. `I asked about the rest of her family and she said that her son was not a child any longer; he was 78 years old. I didn't think that was possible and told her so. She said she'd had him when she was very young and she was now 57 years old. 

    So I left the counter, still determined to search  for my missing money order. 

Olympic Malaise

     No, it's not them. It's me. The endless snow and ice. Body after body hurtling down slopes, all a blur, country or sex indistinguishable, just bundled-up figures performing superhuman feats. So figure skating may be  a little less of a challenge for an athletically ignorant viewer. Narrators' comments ranging from performance great except it was " a little too little" and "He looked beautiful in the air" as the skater sprawled on the ice on landing.    A Canadian skater  had skated for the USA in previous Olympics. A female skater for China is, or was,  an American citizen. The male finalists' hair styles all resembled K-Pop's BTS. And yes I know this may sound racist and derogatory, but who needs more winter.

And, no, I don't....

 ...have anything better to do, than to notice that in her PSA announcements that have besieged the airways, Dr. Bassett is neatly and rather severely dressed in the same outfit for what seems to be the same message. But in some of the clips, she wears no jewelry at the neckline and in others she sports a silver chainlink necklace. So I speculate that either somebody suggested she needed a little something to offset the no-nonsense outfit, or else the suggestion was to lose the utilitarian -looking neckchain because it only added to the starkness of the outfit. Maybe, Dr. Bassett, something with a little sparkle.

Godzilla Ben

     After I went to bank and grocery store today, I decided to fill the gas tank at Stewart's. Keith from Roadside Assistance advised it's a good idea to keep the gasoline level from getting too low. I pulled up as usual, inserted my card, waited for approval, and then tried to unscrew the gas cap. It wouldn't budge. I think I still have a lot of strength in my hands so I couldn't understand the sudden difficulty.  I tried again and then with both hands, with my gloves on and then off. The cap stayed firm. There were a couple of National Grid trucks parked on the side of the lot and as the workers approached their trucks, I asked a tall young guy if he could help. "Sure," he said, coffee cup in hand. And he did, but not before shifting his cup and saying, "That's really on there."

  I remembered the last time Ben was here, I asked him to pour  the second  bottle of HEET into the gas tank.  Kind of like Lenny, he doesn't know his own strength.

Talking in the Library

      It may be hard to believe now, but there was a time when I was asked to sit and talk. I might go to the Valley Falls Library to get a book, and the day was slow, as it often was back then. The long-time librarian would motion toward the chairs at the table, and ask me to sit down for a while. She was not a particularly chatty person nor was she an introvert. She would talk about her early days. She told me that she had started out as a teacher. I think it was near the Canadian border. She  taught the children of the workers there. "That must have been an interesting job," I offered. But she said, "No, I didn't like it. They smelled bad."  

    Maybe she didn't have many people who wanted to hear these old memories. But I didn't mind, and I remember them now, long after she's gone.