T helps make cupcakes.
T has a nice dog in the house for a change.
T sings along with the music in her head.
T sits with a sheet of paper and pretends to read the music as she sings "The Twelve Days of Christmas". (The cardboard on the floor is from the box that the subject of the next paragraph came in.)
Speaking of politics, we had the Saga of the Ping Pong Table yesterday. Called Sears the day before and were assured they had six in stock, right there, in the store, of various levels of quality. So Q and I drove down and walked in, snapping our fingers and shouting "Garcon! Bring on the tables, and be lively!" Only to find out that the person on the phone yesterday thinks that "in stock" means "at a warehouse in Poughkeepsie". So we gave them the finger, took a leak in a remote corner of the store, and headed to Dick's Sporting Goods.
Where there was absolutely no one working the floor. I rang the doorbell that calls someone to open the changing room for you, and had to all but tackle the lackey who slumped over, drooling, to make use of his key. The guy never so much as made eye contact with me until I'd said "Excuse me" three times, each time increasing the urgency. He listened, bored, to my request, then paged a sub-lackey, who never came, and then when I caught the original lackey peeking back to see if the sub-lackey had showed, I grabbed him and he himself, reluctantly, answered my questions. They turned out to have a table that was to our liking, so we bought it, thus rewarding them for their excellent inventory despite their shoddy customer service. Next problem: How to get it home.
We could think of no one we knew, or knew well enough to ask, anyway, who owned a pick-up truck or a large van. Which probably says something about the circle of friends we run in. So we got a U-Haul, which is a fly-by-night company of sheisters and con men. But they were available, on short notice. And we're going to have a New Year's Eve slumber party with three to four families all coming over, so we had to have it that same day.
As I backed the U-Haul in at our house to take the ping-pong table out of the back, our neighbor Sam Crane, three houses down across the street, drove by and waved out the window of the huge van he has, about which Janneke and I had both completely forgotten. "How 'bout them Packers!", he hollered. I waved weakly back and sighed. Ah well.
The table is installed, the guest rooms are clean, the bathrooms are clean, and tomorrow the rest of the house will be clean. And then we will have kids and adults sleeping over (it removes the need for babysitters, you see) for late-night revelry and goofiness. It's kind of turning into the fourth or fifth "Janneke Got Tenure" party. First party we've ever had where we've bought so much hooch that the guy at the liquor store gave us a box.
State of the Joints: Plantar fasciitis in both feet seems to be under control - no pain lately, despite long marches in the forest. Right knee swollen and stiff today, reason unknown; currently icinig. Left shoulder sticking and clicking and sore. Have resumed shoulder exercises I remember from physical therapy some three or four years ago. Right wrist still sore from falling on the ice while hunting.
If I were a car, you'd be able to track me around town by the dribs and drabs of oil and all the rusty bits and pieces of me I'd be leaving behind.
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