miscellany
I was giving RDC a hard time about something or other, like his not believing me that an exit existed over there such that his route included Going Backward. He told me to stop giving him so much beak.
Although we do brush our beaks at our house, there's not an equivalent for blowing your nose. "Ceres" is too unusual a word to carry over.
I thought I lost my mitten again, only one this time. Yesterday when I lifted the sheets from the top of the dryer, where they had waited several days to be washed, there it lay. I seized it.
After I thought the fleece mitten had vamoosed, I wore my lavender chenille gloves instead. Friday when I arrove in my cube I had one glove. Vaguely I hoped that I had not lost both lefts or both rights so I could wear one mitten and one glove: teal and lavender, very 1988. But I spotted the lost glove in the parking lot, and the next day the mitten showed up.
This morning I didn't leave the house until slightly after 7:30, and so I speed-walked the ten blocks to my bus stop. From two blocks away I saw the bus, and it was 7:52, so that was that--the route is served at 30' intervals. The only bad thing about walking to work, besides being late, was that I had forgot to get the next section of my book and had only 30' left: not enough for both ends of my commute or, now, even the first, now longer, part. I had crossed the major street and was about a quarter of a mile farther along when a bus passed me on its way to its next stop. I began to gallop, hoping several passengers would disembark (giving me more time to gallop), and to yell, "Ask the driver to wait! Ask the driver to wait!" The fourth passenger deigned to notice the yelling freak, the bus paused in its pulling away, and I leapt aboard. Perhaps the first bus I saw was garage-bound or otherwise out of service; perhaps it was the half-hour earlier bus severely late. So I was only a little late, and I have 15' of book left, and, I remind myself, there's a bunch of other stuff, called music, on my iPod that I could listen to instead.
I was among the first to get my Eco-Pass sticker (revalidating my bus pass for next year) so I received a pedometer (with Dot Org's name on it!*). I measured my stride last night: 33 inches, which I think is okay because it's half my height. I don't know what it registers as a step, though. There's the stride for covering distance, and the Mississippi half-step toodaloo (now I am going to have the Dead in my head) between, say, copier and paper cupboard. Before noon it had counted over 5,000 strides. That can't be right--unless it is, in which case I'm stoked. I could hear it clicking (the clicking is annoying) as I trotted up and down the four flights of stairs five times before 9:00. I wonder about amassing the "10K a Day" one is meant to for minimal health.
So many errands in such a short time is unusual. The rest of the week should be calmer, since most of my department will be away at a meeting.
Yesterday at Home Despot we gave a photograph of one side of the finished kitchen to the woman who drew up our designs. It featured the range and the fridge, which did not come from HD, more than the cabinetry and cupboards, which did (well, came through if not from). She wore a tanzanite ring and I pointed out how well the stone matched the pale, slightly lavendery blue walls.
I restrung a bought bracelet of faux silver beads of a rococo Victorian design and blue stones. Its original elastic had rotted away. I restrung it on wire with a clasp. I have been unleashed around my beading supplies: fear me.
This weekend I finished beading RDC's name to his stocking. The only bit of it I did was his name. He said, "I like the cuff a lot." (It is green velvet with paler green holly leaves and berries.) I told him I didn't do the cuff. "And I like the trim." (Gold beading hems the top and bottom of the cuff.) I repeated that I hadn't done anything to it but his name. He copped a look of mock fear and said, "My name is the best part!" Sheesh.
*Dot Org is an occasional exception, in addition to UConn and Old Lyme, to my rule about not wearing things with words on them. A couple of years ago a sponsored event resulted in blue canvas bags with our logo on one side and the sponsor on the other. I attacked the sponsor's side with acetone and a blue permanent marker.
