Thursday, November 30, 2017

What to do, what to do


Administration officials see Trump as incapable of coherent thought and rational action. World leaders agree, and despair or seize the advantage of the dysfunction of this country. Leaders of his party continue to patch the dyke. Affairs are shoved back to some clown version of normal on a daily basis. It’s a charade. There is no normal.

This country can impeach, or invoke the 25th amendment. Or, continue to do nothing, and wait to rectify the implosion.

In the meantime, I took the ball peen hammer that must have been my dad’s, and walked around the house, rectifying the hinges that have annoyed me for several months.



The hammer had to be heavy enough to get the job done, but not so big as to hit woodwork. I’m glad this was in the basket of tools scavenged from the old house. I wish I had the knuckle busters that came from my Mentor house, and can grip and rip off any one of those damn sealed on foil or plastic bottle or can covers. Oh, well.

I hope Laura hangs on to the tools. She’s been taught to appreciate and use them. Well, appreciate is interesting. First she has to try her way, then take the tool from me and use it. Thank you all for Kahn Academy; she wouldn’t hear it from me, but you all convinced her.

Here’s a fun look around. My Uncle Hank repaired the Westclox Big Ben for me to take to college in 1961. I used it, probably until the nineties, when Uncle Hank couldn’t take care of it any more.

Who knows how old that ball peen is. Perhaps from the thirties, when my dad bought tools, not food. I wove the scarf on the table in the early eighties, on the warp my Aunt Laura left on the little LeClerc four harness counterbalance loom.

My Grandma Rolf made the vase in her last year of school, eighth grade. She was fifteen, and decided algebra was enough math for her. She went to work at Higbees’, downtown Cleveland.



I crocheted the little pineapple doily for her, and got the vase and the doily back as a package, when she went to a nursing home. I think everything here just will go to auction someday, probably excepting the tools.

So, the hinge pins are resolved and I’m off to spend the rest of the day on my new book, Prairie Fires. It will help me forget the YA novel assigned for book club in January.

33 comments:

  1. Going round bashing things with a hammer is about the only way we can all react , at the moment!

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  2. Trump has caused great offence in Britain by retweeting material from a fascist organisation that was responsible for murdering one of our MPs because of her political views. He has not apologised.

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    1. He won't apologize, either. He's incapable of remorse or even basic human decency.

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    2. And, he bookended the insult to a murdered MP with an insult to the honored code talker Navajos with racial slurs and insults. He is lower than the least common denominator.

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  3. At least something productive came from that man. Your hinges are fixed. I hope Jenny that you are not waiting for an apology because he never apologizes for any of the stupid things he says or does.

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  4. I have never not like a person like I have Trump. I don't think he is a member of the homo sapiens...he is totally an alien to us in America. The stupid electoral college voted him in while we the people voted for Hillary Clinton.

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  5. Everybody needs a good ball peen hammer.

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  6. I am very impressed with your grandmother's vase! And all your other heirlooms. We save a lot of old tools here, and other things. And I try not to let Trump destroy my peace of mind, but it is a struggle many times......

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    1. She made that around 1900. It's all slab work, and well done.

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  7. Those foil seals do me in, too. Sometimes I can get hold of the edge using a gripper pad (like the ones they sell to help you remove jar lids more easily) but much of the time I resort to a sharp knife. What are knuckle busters?

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    1. Common pliers, with wide teeth and a good grip. What did your father call them?

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    2. Pliers. Just pliers :) If you had a new pair, they'd be clean enough to use on food items, too (after washing, of course). Put it on your wish list for Christmas! I might do the same.

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  8. I have never heard of a ball peen hammer Joanne.
    As for Trump - I try to avoid reading about him.

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  9. I wonder what will become of our stuff after our time...not that we inherited much, it is mostly stuff we likd ourselves.

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  10. So good to know that you are hinged. Unlike the unhinged, Donny John, running wild on twitter. More and more I think the 25th amendment approach would be the better way to oust him.
    Keep swinging the hammer just watch out the breakable stuff.

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  11. To bad you couldn't use the ball peen on Trump lol.

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  12. So many of our cherished items will end up at yard sales. It’s good to use them while we can.

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  13. Hari OM
    Someone somewhere will appreciate those things; maybe not who you think, but some one will... YAM xx

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  14. The foil seals can be defeated with a knife. Stab and peel it back. I don't know how to defeat Trump, who is so obviously insane.

    Love,
    Janie

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  15. I enjoyed the chatty nature of this post. It feels as though I had just stopped by to see what was happening at your place this afternoon. :)

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  16. I'm impressed you were able to fix those hinges. I don't own a ball peen hammer.

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  17. Such pretty little things, perhaps Laura will come to appreciate them in time. Along with the tools.
    I have a hinge pin that can't be smacked into place as the door hangs ever so slightly crooked, but as long as the door can be locked up when I go out and at night when I'm home, that's good enough for me.

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  18. We have a treasured ball peen hammer. When grandson was only three, he spent many happy hours in his granddad's workshop pounding large head nails into wood with it. When the kid was working on hie Eagle Scout project, we could look back to those days.

    Thnsk you for including us in your life, Joanne. We are richer for it!

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  19. That vase is very beautiful, Joanna - to think that she did it with 15!

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  20. a good hammer...a job well done.
    unlike the politics

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  21. Is the book good? We should start a blogger book club. How could that work? We used to have one of those hammers. I wonder where it went. Tools magically disappear around here. I keep a secret hammer for that reason. The vase is really good work, isn't it? It looks to be from the photo.

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    1. I think it's an excellent book. It draws heavily on the history I already know of the settlement of the west, the imperialistic treatment of natives, our complete ignorance of geography, weather, etc that produced the dust bowls. I skim read that library edition of Wilder's handwritten text and the Lane finished versions; it was too tough to follow. This is my kind of biography and history. Laura and Almanzo just occupied their first home.
      I always had my own secret hammer. Still have it. Great for pounding and pulling secret nails.

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  22. The new normal is chaos. And, of course, meanness of spirit, which is becoming increasingly normal it seems.

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  23. of course I disagree completely about Trump and wish previous presidents had heeded the warnings about nk and other countries and now Trump is left with the aftermath, I have an old hammer from my single days and it has come in handy many a time; I am flabbergasted at all the gropers in the country; what a lovely vase on that doily.

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  24. I'm beginning to hope that Trump will go down but not before he causes even more damage to this country and not just politically. he has, as Colette says, made meanness of spirit the new normal.

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  25. How appropriate that you start by talking about someone who is unhinged and then show a photo of a hinge.

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  26. I'm so pleased Kahn Academy worked for Laura. I left school with a GCSE in maths (High school equivalent in the UK?)and have managed to pass Masters Degree classes based on theory alone. I've always wanted to actually understand algebra (and balance an equation for that matter)and Kahn Academy worked for me.

    Trump is another matter. When I need some brevity on the situation I enjoy looking at photos of Trump's face photoshopped onto pictures of the queen at royal engagements. It doesn't change anything but it is diverting...https://www.yahoo.com/news/someone-keeps-photoshopping-trumps-face-192452806.html

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