It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Friday, January 28
Madam Public Health Director was by for our sort-of-weekly meeting in the hot spring this morning…She had a variety of talking points this morning and, because I asked, she told me conditions on the mountain were starting to deteriorate because we haven’t had decent snow in a while…She’s an avid skier and she noted that she and her husband were up there this past weekend and it was still OK, but there was more ice than anyone liked to see and the first brown patches are starting to be seen.
This wasn’t a bulletin…Regular readers of this crap may – or they may not – recall that we were moving snow at The Shire seemingly every other day there for a fortnite or so, but it’s been dry, tho brutally cold, since then…Cold enuff that is was about seven below for the walk across the pool area to the hot spring…That’s pretty cold to be sashaying out in only a bathing suit but you put your towel over your head so it also covers your shoulders and it’s actually not too bad.
The soak followed a good, but not great, troika, with weights a bit down from Thursday’s triumph…Elliptical cardio, tho, was good.
It was pretty slow at the veterans service office (VSO) today…I did get that VA medical care application in, tho not to the enrollment office at the hospital in the big city…Recall that on Wednesday the original fax number Larry gave was incorrect and the following number he offered, while perhaps correct, wasn’t answering…It still wasn’t today, either, so I faxed it in to the national enrollment office, which happens to be in Atlanta…It might hold up approval a few days, but I’m not going to be in the office until
There was a call from Glen, who loves to call me about anything that puzzles him, regardless of its relationship – or utter lack thereof – to anything VA-related…Recall he once pestered me because he was disturbingly intent on getting ahold of my predecessor Natalie, whom I’ve completely lost track of, and he regularly calls me about things that are beyond the scope and interest of a VSO…Today he was in rare form, announcing he’d received a letter from Social Security declaring his checks would be getting withheld at a 15% rate…Why is this, he wondered his tone, as always, implying it’s in my hands now.
Though you like to be of service when you can. these sorts are actually fun to shoot down…I told him not only did I have no idea why his checks were subject to withholding, but it was noted I didn’t deal with Social Security, nor did I have access to the US Treasury’s database…He sighed, plainly disappointed…The government, of course, does not withhold money just for the hell of it, so it seemed likely he owed them some money…This prospect, however, did not occur to him until I brought it up and after some thought Glen allowed that he owed the VA some money and it has to be a pretty old debt – or a long-ignored one – for the VA to go collections on a veteran…They’re usually very easy to work with.
It was slow enuff at the VSO that ol’ Sparrow was scanning a dating site he used prowl back in the bachelor days…There was good success procuring first dates, most of which sucked and you plot the number of first dates and the number of second dates on a graph you have a perpendicular line…But it always was a great way to meet broads without going thru the fuss of actually meeting them in person.
Anyway, my profile isn’t visible right now, but it’s fun to scan to see if there’s anyone you know who’s completely desperate and it’s a small town and there’s generally one or two women I know looking for dates at any given time and today there were actually three women I knew including, and I am not making this up, the Widow B, who I had a date with a couple of weeks ago, tho ol’ Sparrow declined to follow up.
It was funny…In classic chick fashion, she lied about her age – taking three years off – and her pics were not even close to being recent…You run into this a lot in the online dating racket but this is hardly my lookout and we’ll let gentlemen put two and two together.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log:
1700 Thursday until 0030 Friday
1730 Friday until 2130 Friday
11.5 hours for the day and 41.5 hours for the week, normally stellar figures heading into Saturday’s final sleep session of the week but we will be intentionally truncating the Saturday Sleep Session (SSS) so we’ll be nice and tired for the Sunday Sleep Session (SSS) prior to dinner with Julie.
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The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.
It was inspired by the 19th-century British novel of the same name.
Gaylon’s books can also be found at The Reading Salon.
