11-V-2006.
So, unemployed... Took the little grass trimmer, the puny 20$ thing with a rotating plastic string, to mow what grass we have on the lawn. Which isn't much, nothing grows on the bare sand under the magnolia. Still, unemployed or not, there's the snitch riding her truck around and writing reports, and if the grass gets taller than a foot, she sends a warning letter, which usually ends with „or else we'll hire some shop to do it for you and send you the bill with the fine“.
Of course I was half done in ten minutes. But then out comes Will, Les's new roommate, and offers me 20$ to mow theirs too. Okay, why not, I'm unemployed since yesterday, so just wait till I finish mine.
Will's a good guy, rather ugly since his last crash, when they patched his face quick and rough. His road cruiser, something with Flash Gordon fins from the early sixties, one of those that don't quite need to pass inspection as they're considered antique and get special license plates, is parked in the back. The motorbike with which he crashed was also there for a few weeks, until he sold it.
I finished my lawn, went to their door to replug my extension cord, and did an honest day's job. Found wild strawberries growing by their wall - small, moderately sweet but incredibly tasty. Ate almost all - couldn't help myself, so I helped myself. And I got my twenty bucks, tax free. A sign of the future, in a way.
Our internet connection was intermittent, something went wrong, and eventually a guy from Cox came and replaced the cable between the curbside box and our wall and that was it. For the last part he had to dig a little under the neihbor's lawn, and what did he find there - the magnolia roots. So we're even - their roots under our patio, our roots under their lawn.
Went to Richmond on 13th. Bought this mini pizza baker, made a bunch of them picići and ate most of them on the spot.
Ricardo is looking into something to study with stažing or some such thing, which would be the state reserves and some governance, management or whatever project... murky stuff. Now I don't really know whether that would be virginian, or federal with a seat in Richmond, or with a regional center there... dick would know it. It's just as important that they get an answer as soon as possible, so to know where to move - elsewhere in Richmond, or to Jose in Vale City (i.e. Creekwood... more murk, the adress is in Vale but the land belongs to Creekwood, both places being suburban dorms south of DC).
The thing, luckily, came to nothing.
Almost everywhere around the house we ditched the hot bulbs and replaced with wrung tubes, ie. CFL neon lights. They aren't bad, take perhaps half the power of equivalent hot ones, and they last longer. With he stipulation that the older ones last longer than new ones - one from 1999 still works. Those we bought last couple of years are now chinese junk, it's a hit or miss. One stubbornly refuses to die but also refuses to work, it shines dimly halfway, something purplish pinkish. When it started malfunctioning, this pink phase would last a few seconds, than a few minutes, after which it would gradually begin to shine properly. A couple of months later it stopped reaching the full shine phase and stayed like this, neither here nor there. We found a perfect spot for it, the upper landing, where we don't really need a fully bright bulb, because we still don't have a door pane to the bedroom, so we hung a curtain, and it shines through the crack above the curtain right on our pillows, enough to make it impossible to sleep. So this one shines but weakly enough to be no nuisance. Just the right amount, a night light for the staircase, for those times when one needs to go down at night without fumbling for the switch. So this bulb remained there, and who knows, it may still work.
The trouble with wrung tubes is that they re longer than the hots, and the lamp manufacturers still didn't adjust for that, so the shades on practically all lamps fall short. On my desklamp I even improvised an extension, glued four CDs, to avoid glare to my eyes.
Mentions: Jose Bariero, Les Paul, Ricardo Manuel Bariero (Ricardo), staž, in serbian
6-I-2024 - 23-VI-2026