Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Saturday, May 23
I broke and then fixed the heater this morning.
I was up at more or less the usual Saturday time (see Sleep Log below) and I put some coffee and fed the cat and started in on project work and then I noticed it started getting a little chilly…The cat and I, of course, have a “No Discomfort” policy here at The Shire so I went to turn the heater on to take the chill off and nothing…I look at the LED display and it’s blank except for something that is too small to read.
Crap.
For some reason I go and check the pilot light…It’s on, tho it takes 20 minutes to find that out because it was tuff to get the cover off…So then I go and check what the display says…It’s small enuff that I have to get real close and in says ‘Low Bat.”…All right, ol’ Sparrow keeps batteries around The Shire, but batteries are one of those deals where you see them everywhere around the house when you don’t need them, but they vanish when they’re needed, tho I eventually found them in a desk in the living room…Of course the faceplate of the thermostat didn’t come right off…I tried pulling it but it was pretty stubborn and – and this is not the Upset of the Year – it took me a while before I realized there was a small screw on the bottom…Eventually, the batteries got replaced and the heater immediately came to life.
I’ll tell you what, after project work I was on the couch reading by 0530 or so and I got a nice long session in, almost five hours…Well, I was nodding off a little bit, I suppose, but still, I made a lot of progress…The Ancient Greek legal system is getting complicated enuff that the first attorneys are starting to appear.
Even tho I didn’t get my walk in today, I went for lunch in the next county anyway…Usually I tell myself I need to earn it, but not today…They were swamped, too…I was the only customer in the lobby but the drive-thru had a line at least a half-dozen cars long and maybe even longer…It was so busy my order was actually finished before it was rung up…I am not making that up…The Kid was working the counter and he knows my usual, of course, and the cook waved and immediately got my order going and there were so many cars ringing me up could wait.
I went to the retailer, too, but only ended up getting milk, my donut shop knockoff coffee and some of my veggie sausage grillers, which I am now eating at home in addition to the hotel…For the first time in my memory I paid attention to the dates on the milk, too, because I had some expired and sour milk in the frig this morning…The dates varied from May 31 to June 4 and I got a June 4 one because I don’t like throwing away food.
And the grass already needs mowing…I am not making that up…Cody was here Tuesday and already it looks like crap, the big problem being not really the lawn, but those damned dandelions…They’re not yellow anymore, merely big stems that soon enuff will be able to hide deer…I was going to do it today because I don’t want to pay Cody every four days, but I was pretty beat from reading all morning and deferred the matter to Sunday evening or maybe even Monday…It’s a holiday, of course, and I don’t have the VSO and the Legion post’s Memorial Day ceremony will take all of five minutes.
I am still using the front door, too…It’s habit now, what with the robins in residence right next to the kitchen door, so I swept the porch off and put a new porch light in, tho it doesn’t appear to be working, even when the switch is in the ‘On’ position.
In hydration news, it’s warming up and the first ice water of the season is in the books…Of course, it was in one of the new glasses I bought last week AND utilized water from the new purifier, also bought last week…The only fly in the ointment was the ice in the freezer was from the old tap but you don’t want to waste water, so we’ll use those first.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log:
2130 Friday until 0130 Saturday
1530 Saturday until 2030 Saturday
I still don’t know what the hell happened Friday night…Regular readers of this crap know it’s pretty standard to be in bed well before 1800 on Fridays but not tonight…I laid on the couch and did some reading then started yawning and went to bed but BOOM nothing…So I got up and did some more reading but I’d read enuff for the night and passed the remaining time watching some mindless drivel on youtube.
Anyway, 9.0 hours for the day and a pedestrian 43 hours for the week…I set the alarm for 2030 for the nap because I didn’t want to sleep too long.
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.
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