Burned sticks and leaves yesterday. Still have a lot to burn, but it snowed overnight and everything’s wet today.
I looked at that kettle more closely. All I see on the bottom is a T. Don’t think it means anything. While I’m hearing that people used the exact model generations ago, it was also pointed out to me that the exact model can still be bought at Target for $24.99.
But even if mine is a true antique, it has some rust on it and I don’t think it’d be worth much. I don’t think I’d sell it anyway. It came with the house. It probably used to sit on the woodstove that’s no longer there.
Two people had stories about kettles like mine, and they both said theirs were always on their wood/coal stoves.
This picture is being shared by hundreds on Facebook. It’s a picture of airport employees prepared to assist a deaf track & field team that will be coming off the plane. This reminded me of my own experience with airport assistance.
Years ago, I stayed at my brother’s house in Virginia. Because it would be my first time flying alone, my brother and his wife wanted me to have assistance when I flew home. I would land in Atlanta and switch to another plane. I wouldn’t have been able to hear anyone and my eyes are so bad I have trouble reading the boards.
I protested, but my brother and his wife insisted. The agreement was, when I landed in Atlanta, I was to wait on the plane. Someone would come get me and guide me through the airport to my next plane.
When I landed in Atlanta. I remained in my seat while everyone else got off the plane. I waited, and I waited, and I waited. Finally, I decided no one was coming and got off the plane. When I came out through the gate, there were a couple of airport employees with a blue wheelchair just like the ones in the picture.
There was no one else on the plane when I got off, so I knew they were waiting for me. I walked by them without saying a word. The airport in Atlanta is huge, but somehow I found the gate for my next flight. However, after a while, I figured out that something wasn’t right.
I asked a lady at the desk if I was in the right place and showed her my ticket. Turned out my gate had changed because my flight was delayed. She was very kind and led me to the correct gate.
It wasn’t until I landed in Flint that the stewardesses were insisting I needed help, never mind how much I protested. They even had a security guard run after me and stop me on the gangway.
Jesus Christ, it was Flint. A little ass airport that I could find my way through easily. I convinced the security guard that my dad was waiting for me outside the gate and she let me go.
The moral of this story is, if the airline hears they have a deaf passenger, they assume that passenger is retarded and crippled.
In Chapter Two of The Bourne Identity, there’s a quote I often think of. Dr. Washburn and Jason Bourne are about to go their separate ways. Washburn says to Bourne, “I know what’s going through your mind. A sense of helplessness, of drifting without a rudder to put you on a course. I’ve been your rudder, and I won’t be with you; there’s nothing I can do about that. But believe me when I tell you, you are not helpless. You will find your way.”
I’ve found that to be true for me many times. It was certainly the case when I found my way through the Atlanta airport. I did not panic at anytime during that ordeal.
P.S. Oh, and the stewardesses wouldn’t serve me beer. They were serving other people beer. When I asked for a beer, they brought me a chart with sodapop options and told me to pick one.
Last year, I put down mulch on this side of the porch, but I just put down a fresh layer. Will probably be doing that every year. I also added rocks.
I turned to mulch because I didn’t like how the flowerbeds filled up with ground cover plants every year. They would grow high and hang over the borders. I just always hated it. Some people have said it looked nice. But to me, it just looked like a mess.
It’s not that I don’t like plants and flowers, I just like them to be more orderly. My plan is to buy flowerpots and strategically position them in my flowerbeds. There will be flowers in the flowerpots.
I’m getting the rocks from this mound around the well. I’m going to flatten the mound and plant grass there. I might put something around the well.
It’s not my birthday yet, but we celebrated it today. My mom and dad got me this porch bench. I’ve been meaning to get one ever since I moved in here, I just kept putting it off. For a while, I did have an old wooden bench there, but that one wasn’t meant to be outside and eventually it started rotting. This one is steel, it also won’t hold water, so I think it’ll last a long time.
I’m going through my to-read list, and looking up the titles on Amazon. It looks like some of these books are not available in Kindle or any other ebook format.
Reading paperbacks and hardcovers and whatever else comes out in print, that has always been hard for me. Even when I was kid. I would strain my eyes when reading books. I probably would have read more if that wasn’t the case.
At some point, I started using magnifying glasses and that made reading easier, but it’s still a pain holding a magnifying glass while reading a book. It’s hard to get comfortable that way. I read George R. R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords with a magnifying glass and that’s a huge book.
Then I discovered ebooks and my reading really picked up. With ebooks, I can resize the font and make it clearer. I usually read Kindles, but I’m open to other ebook formats.
As much as I want to read one book or another, if it’s only available in print, I’m not likely to buy it, unless it becomes available in an ebook format. There are still some publishers that don’t release titles in ebook formats and I really wish they would. I feel like I’m missing out on some books, but I don’t want to struggle to read them.
