Meanwhile, in other news, The Indoor Band Show

I saw earplugs distributed.

I left the hearing aids at home.

The band, streaming down the aisles,

assembling onstage.

There are more than two hundred in the band.

Onstage.

Up the stairs.

And, in the balconies.

Instead of the regular tall marching hat, many wore costume hats.

That's our trumpeter there. The short one.

More hats.

The best hat!

The kid.

Only two playoff games left.

With luck, only one.

How went your day?

My week is settling out well, but today did not have an awesome beginning. My Sunbeam toaster lever would not engage. Sunbeam, the brand of our mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers!

I had bread and butter for breakfast, not my usual warm, crunchy and evenly toasted slices of eight grain bread.

I met my accountant in town. She walks everywhere, and was walking down the library drive when I spotted her. We reset a cancelled appointment for this week. I went to work, then home for lunch before my card playing Monday afternoon.

When I opened the tap for water for coffee, there was no water. I called the office—it would be a ten minute problem. I left the coffee ready to add water, ate lunch, rinsed my hands with water from the fridge, and went to play cards with the Methodists.

Cards with the Methodists is a great start to the week. The Methodist church in town is dwindling in membership and decided to sponsor a weekly card session with anyone who wanted to play. 

Sadly, only four of us are at the table. As the only non-Methodist playing, I’ve felt a little guilty, and considered offering them an out if the three of them wanted to cut bait. But, I enjoy myself so much I haven’t put the offer on the table.

Today there were three of us. We played two fierce games that can only happen when too few players have engaged too often, recognize the bidding strategies of each other and set out to play tight, well bantered rounds. I lost the first game by two points and was devastatingly ahead when we had to call the second game for lack of time.

The best news is, in their current bulletin, Mother of Sorrows will be invited to join us.

Getting home before the school bus, I packed up my five month old toaster for return to the store tonight. I put water in the coffee reservoir and flipped the switch. Nothing. I tried an outlet further down the counter. Nothing. I went to the breaker box and located the outlets. The breaker wasn’t tripped, but I flipped it anyway. Nothing.

I moved an outlet closer to the sink, and tried resetting the GFI. Down at my toaster/coffee pot end of the counter, the coffee pot looked back with a red eye. Just for fun, I unbagged the Sunbeam and plugged it in.  The lever engaged and the warm smell of re-toasted bread crumbs wafted up. Trouble shooting electricity has never been my strong point.

Next time I will listen to Sunbeam at nine in the morning.

An old story

Long, long ago, when I was demonstrating spinning somewhere, I looked at a man’s belt buckle and looked again. Belt buckles are easy to spot from a chair in front of a spinning wheel. The man had been watching for some time, and I broke the conversational ice.

“87^th Airborne. So was my brother-in-law.”

“Yes,” he said. “And I’m a very good spinner. May I try your wheel.”

He matched my grist in a few seconds, and as he sat and spun from the roving he said he was a paratrooper in the war. A failed jump landed him the Belgium countryside, with an injured leg. He was swarmed by men and women who gathered up him and his parachute, and helped him into a farmhouse.

They examined him, pronounced him likely to live, and dressed him up as an old grandmother. Since he would be sitting out his injury in any event, they put him in front of a spinning wheel and told him to make it look good.  He taught himself to spin, behind the lines, with his Belgian underground rescuers, and eventually rejoined his unit and carried on.

I’ve remembered his story of a mission and working during the delay for these last twenty years. I’ve always been partial to the work business, and now I have a mission to go with it.  I’ve joined the Ohio Democratic Woman’s Caucus. And, Amazon will have the rest of my missing sewing machine parts in my mail box on Monday.

In short order I will be making quilt tops for sick kids to drag around and stuffing envelopes for the cause.

Don’t mourn, organize. Some pictures from this week:

The little pear tree is winding down for the year.

The mandevillas carry on. There hasn't been a hard frost, yet.

The birds won out.

My township will benefit from this election, and so will I

When I became Fiscal Officer, thirteen years ago, I continued my regular working hours. Up at seven, behind the desk by eight. I was stunned the minuscule amount of work involved in the job, part time though it was.

To earn my keep, I sorted through all my work and streamlined it for my auditors. Then I filed ten or more years of zoning paperwork hanging around in the meeting room. I looked for more jobs, found them, started them. 

That’s when I hit the wall. Two thirds of the trustees had no problem, one third screamed “Exceeding your authority….!!!”

I hit the wall so often in my first term, I lost twenty pounds. I stuck it chiefly due to the friendship of another first term clerk who had a sympathetic and knowledgeable mayor to work with.

By my second term our post office didn’t open until nine, and why should I go back at nine to get the mail when I was at the office at eight. I simply set my alarm ahead an hour to accommodate the post office. I still had the work done in three hours a day, two or three days a week. (Yes, I quit going to the post office most days.)

I kept my hand in at exceeding my authority (and taking the consequences from the 1/3). Didn’t want to lose my edge. It’s like driving fast now and then.

This third term I still get up at eight, but now I read the news, read blogs, even look at FaceBook, before I ever go out the front door. Maybe I get there by ten, if I’m going to work instead of to knitting group or cards. I can wrap it up in so little time I’m occasionally ashamed of myself, so I drag out another half hour in a chat with the Road Super.

Yesterday I brushed my teeth and showered before I turned on the computer and hit the wall again.  I ate breakfast, went to the post office, and was behind the desk by nine. I had my part of the evening trustee meeting prepared by ten, so I came home and sat in my drive until I went to lunch with the knitters, where politics are not allowed.

Today I have my grip.

We are the majority. We have a full deck. Love trumps hate, and so do grace, charity, kindness, respect.

I mailed the bills, filed the paperwork, wrote last night’s minutes and ate my lunch. I’m on my way to the sewing store. I need thread and bobbins and a lint brush and a trash can. I need to make hippie clothes. I’ve marched and stood in front of bulldozers. I can do it again.

Remember Joe Hill. Don’t mourn. Organize.

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you and me.
Says I "But Joe, you're ten years dead"
"I never died" said he.

Ultimate odds and ends

This day is so beautiful. My mandevillas are still blooming full force, and it's November 7th!

I pulled into a friend's drive today, to exchange pleasantries. I took another picture of her privacy fence.

Emily moved out a couple of weeks ago. The 17 year and 11 month old exercised her teenage prerogative to live elsewhere when not in college. Not to worry, "elsewhere" is back at her mother's. 

Laura and I spent Sunday shopping for chairs and stuff to set up a sewing room.

Jan donated back the white tables; I found a real sewing machine on Craig's list, and Laura is happy with her real sewing machine, which simply means not old. When Jan finds the five inch squares, we'll be back in the charity quilt business.

This came with the ironing board. Laura found it amusing that anyone still irons shirts. I found it amusing that anyone did not know how to fold an ironed shirt. The other side should have included instructions on how to iron a shirt, to complete the irony, but the other side is blank.