MY MAILBOX

MY MAILBOX

I don’t know why my mailbox is a target. I suppose it is a metaphor for communicating with the outside world. Every yard  on my street has a mailbox. My neighbors host a variety of mailboxes. Some of them are the utility ones made by rubber maid. Severe aggressive plastic tubes sticking up to receive the family’s correspondence. Just try to do damage to me, they dare you. They come in green and utility gray, putty, or whatever.

At the left end of my street resides a wonderful old fashioned mail box, like the one I used to have. Every season it is decorated with different covers to celebrate the holidays. Just like clockwork, the mailbox sits there bright and cheerful proclaiming the season. It doesn’t seem to have sustained the damage mine has endured, and I hope it stays that way.

To the right of my house down the street are several no nonsense brick columns that hold mail receptacles. They mean business. They have never received damage and probably never will. There has to be some happy medium from having a damaged old metal box and a brick bunker for your mail. I could pave a walkway with the bricks required to make such a house for mail.

I am looking around for a new mailbox. Maybe something in the shape of a flamingo, or a giant gnome would be good. But I don’t want to encourage the vandals by providing them with a temptation. Perhaps there should be a season on mailboxes. They should only be hunted during a short period of the year, so then we could budget for their replacement as a homeowner expense. We could declare a season such as: Only odd numbered houses on the Wednesdays after the new moon. If we set a different season every month, we might be able to distribute the damage fairly to everyone.

MY CHAIR

MY CHAIR

I am pretty sure that I have the only recliner in town that requires a tool box as standard operating equipment. Reclining in this chair can be compared to bronc riding. It is very rough. It operates on friction, hah, as if there were some physics principle at work in this chair.

In the first place, it is a king size chair with a seat so big and wide that I just rattle around in it. Safety standards board would probably require a seat belt if they knew how it truly worked. On a good day when I approach the seat and cautiously slide my bum across the bottom, my feet are flung up to sky. Just try going from 180 degrees to 90 and measure the Gforces at work.

In the second place, it squeaks and gronks like the Inquisitioner’s rack. The squeaking and gronking are the bolts shearing off. Eventually they are cut by the actions of the chair and have to be replaced. Hence the toolbox. It holds the tools and bolts necessary to fix the monster. I always know when the bolts go because then the foot rest flings out and hits me in the bum when I am trying to stand and walk away from it.

For now I must sit in the chair and plot its replacement. I will eventually replace it. I will have to find another chair and negotiate the removal of this beast in the sales process. Then I can stop practicing the moving dismount that I currently list among my skills, and recline in peace.

Today my husband complained that the chair practically knocked him down when he tried to get up from it. You have to do a fast dismount from the chair. “Move faster,” that’s my advice to him. Not in my budget to replace this chair yet, but I am plotting and planning. The replacement day will come.

 

THE MATERIAL RIVER

I have watched a lot of Star Trek. I conclude that the Ferengis have it right. Whatever you need is out there flowing in the material river waiting for you to use it. Everything we might need is already provided for us. Just imagine whatever you want ready and waiting for your use. This material river constantly ebbs and flows washing things upon our shores and taking other things away for someone else to use. I often find my garage full of the things the material river has deposited for me during low tide.

Eventually someone will come along and one of my treasures will be just what they need for their project. So there is a great ebbing and flowing of things that are useful to someone, but have to be transported to another location by a new owner.

If you wake up needing a supply for one of your projects, bricks for example, be comforted. Bricks are out there with your name on them waiting for you to claim them. The Ferengis, who were cast in the role of black market smugglers, defined their business as transport. Material transport,

from one location in the universe to another, is an important commercial function.

I find that transport is often the issue. Materials that I need are out there located in a place that doesn’t need them. The task at hand is often moving them from the place where they are excess to the place where they are needed.  I feel wealthy. I have anything I need. I just have to solve the materials transport problem.

 

OLD WORLD BREAD

If you haven’t been to the local farmer’s market, make an effort some Saturday morning between May and October. There is a wonderful collection of local offerings from all kinds of craftsmen and local farmers. You can buy local honey from the beekeeper, plants from the gardeners, soaps from soap makers, and bread from the local bakers. Often you can hear local talent singing, and playing instruments. It is a fun way to start a Saturday if you haven’t tried it.

There is an old world bread maker there who makes the best breads. Imagine yourself in a shop on a village street along the Mediterranean. You will see before you a wonderful selection of breads that are not sold anywhere else.  Her name is Adrienne. She is the essence of what you believe a bread baker should be. Every Saturday she displays her breads, and cookies. She invites you to try some new sample each week.

I have several favorites. Her pumpernickel is wonderful. She makes it from rye flower with caraway seeds. It is a rich color and flavorful, delicious with slices of ham and tomato on it. My other favorite is  potato  bread. There is nothing like it anywhere in town. I am addicted to it as a bedtime snack. You have to come early if you want a good selection. I am not the only one who is a connoisseur of these delights. I almost had to wrestle an old plaid shirted man one Saturday over the last loaf of potato bread.  

She asked me to tell my friends about her breads.