Saturday Morn
03/05/08 08:02
It's Saturday morning and I am a man without a groove. Can't find any tunes to play nor any stations to settle on. I wouldn't mind a little cuban cha-cha to go with my scrambled eggs but the closest I can come to that is Seriously Sinatra on Sirius Radio. My only fuel so far this miserably cool and un-springlike morning has been a hot cup of Peruvian java and an overripe banana. My brain is a jumble of polar opposites. I'd like to take a bike ride but it's too damn cold. I'd like to have something else to eat but there is nothing to eat. The cupboards are bare. We've been out of raisins going on three days now. I'd like to put on my favorite hat to ward off the cold but that too is lost in the jumble of blankets in a bed which is currently occupied. To stir that soul would take me away from my blogging and that would not suit me at all. The problem is that there are too many things going on when Saturdays roll around and this Saturday is no different. Welcome to my life as the Ev man like to say from time to time.
Maybe the good news is that we have no real commitments this weekend. I should clean the garage but I don't feel like spring cleaning because it doesn't feel like spring. The wife would like to go to a yard sale or two. Not because we need to look for anything second hand but rather just to get a sense of what one looks like since she wants to have one. And soon. I told her I wanted no part of it but she wasn't having any of it. Not then, not now. These things always remind me of the vows I took oh so many years ago. In good times and in bad times. For better or worse. In sickness and in health. You will do what you're told. I made up the last part but it might as well be gospel as far as the wife is concerned. So much for male bravado. Will the real Juan Valdez please stand up.
I'm already thinking about how I'm going to heat our house this coming winter. I'm feeling pressured to buy wood now while it is both available and cheap. Well, maybe just cheaper. I read in the paper that some 100,000 households in Massachusetts are having their utilities turned off due to unpaid bills. I just don't know how anyone making minimum wage or around minimum wage can afford the rising prices of oil. Thank god the winter is over but the pain is far from over for a lot of people and it's going to get worse before it gets better. The good news for us is that wood is cheaper and our home is small enough so that wood works most of the time and we don't have to use oil. A friend at work told me that he spent $3,000 this winter to heat his home. I would be screaming from the rafters if I had paid that much but he wasn't because it does no good. He was resigned to his fate as I am to mine but my fate is far less painful and for that I'm thankful. But planning is the key and the fierce urgency of now tells me that I should buy wood sooner rather than later and more wood rather than less. We even looked at more efficient stoves last weekend but learned that the company selling the stoves, Vermont Castings, declared bankruptcy this past week. Maybe we can pick one up at a fire sale somewhere. Or, in our travels today, maybe we'll come across one at a yard sale.
Maybe the good news is that we have no real commitments this weekend. I should clean the garage but I don't feel like spring cleaning because it doesn't feel like spring. The wife would like to go to a yard sale or two. Not because we need to look for anything second hand but rather just to get a sense of what one looks like since she wants to have one. And soon. I told her I wanted no part of it but she wasn't having any of it. Not then, not now. These things always remind me of the vows I took oh so many years ago. In good times and in bad times. For better or worse. In sickness and in health. You will do what you're told. I made up the last part but it might as well be gospel as far as the wife is concerned. So much for male bravado. Will the real Juan Valdez please stand up.
I'm already thinking about how I'm going to heat our house this coming winter. I'm feeling pressured to buy wood now while it is both available and cheap. Well, maybe just cheaper. I read in the paper that some 100,000 households in Massachusetts are having their utilities turned off due to unpaid bills. I just don't know how anyone making minimum wage or around minimum wage can afford the rising prices of oil. Thank god the winter is over but the pain is far from over for a lot of people and it's going to get worse before it gets better. The good news for us is that wood is cheaper and our home is small enough so that wood works most of the time and we don't have to use oil. A friend at work told me that he spent $3,000 this winter to heat his home. I would be screaming from the rafters if I had paid that much but he wasn't because it does no good. He was resigned to his fate as I am to mine but my fate is far less painful and for that I'm thankful. But planning is the key and the fierce urgency of now tells me that I should buy wood sooner rather than later and more wood rather than less. We even looked at more efficient stoves last weekend but learned that the company selling the stoves, Vermont Castings, declared bankruptcy this past week. Maybe we can pick one up at a fire sale somewhere. Or, in our travels today, maybe we'll come across one at a yard sale.
