Daily Life, Part 3
Jul. 25th, 2003 07:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanThe next great deed involved getting dressed. I looked pensively at my lovely cool dress -- but it has no pocketses. And I just felt today was a Losing-Things kind of a day already. I looked at my shorts and sleeveless shirts. But only the lower nineties are forecast. Those clothes are for completely unbearable miserable weather that goes on and on. What if I wore them now for this wimpy-ass minor heat wave and then the Laundry Monster ate them and I couldn't find them when the real heat came on? But jeans would be too hot. I hauled out the big baggy green Freedom Pants from the Deva catalog and one of the really nice fine-mesh T-shirts from Junonia. All my Junonia stuff is in discontinued colors, because otherwise, even when finances are much better than they are now (buying clothes at all now is a ridiculous idea, and what a good thing that I work at home), I can't afford them. This one is a kind of sagey green. I am always amazed at the cleverness of the designers. I have a great many dearly-beloved oversized men's T-shirts from Target. They are comfy and voluminous and come in great colors. But nobody could say that they were flattering. The T-shirts from Junonia are flattering. Somebody made them for fat women, somebody who likes fat women.
To nod in the direction of the weather, I put on my Teva sandals. My sandals always last forever, because I don't like wearing them. I like socks. I almost always wear socks. If I go barefoot in your presence, either the weather is insane, I have run out of laundry utterly, even mismatched socks, or I trust you utterly. David found me these sandals on sale and I expect I'll have them for ten more years. They are recently laundered, since somebody with four feet pissed on them. They needed it anyway.
It was profoundly sticky, if not so hot as anticipated, by the time I had finished this vital and important process of putting on clothing so as not to leave the house. Ari was still lying around in my window without his bones. I turned the fan part of the air conditioner up. I collected several days' worth of mail.
A written notice about the bill I had just cleared up with HCMC.
The bank statement. Argh.
Credit card statement, ditto.
An envelope from the Department of Inspections and Regulations. Oh, shit. They must be getting on our case about the huge buckthorn that Eric kindly took out some weeks back. He sawed up the larger branches, but I haven't bundled them yet. And the Department of OWZINGE, as we prefer to call these people hereabouts, really hates piles of brush. Shit, shit, shit, it would arrive on a hot day, and they always give you a ridiculous deadline and then don't mail the letter for a week. I opened it. "Cut and remove all bushes, trees, saplings, or any other vegetation that hang over the public alley. An overhead clearance above the paved alley from the ground to a height of 14' is required." Followed by a list of ways to get rid of the branches and so on once you had cut them.
Say what? There isn't anything back there that COULD overhang the alley, public and paved or otherwise. I went outside. Gray, stuffy, everything drooping, even what I'd watered the day before. My insane neighbor to the north was mowing his lawn. I went past the neat pile of sawn branches and the larger pile of small leafy branches, past the weedy bit I once thought to make a shade garden of. Two garbage carts, two ancient green recycling containers sans lids; the driveway; another weedy bit on the other side of the driveway. No, really, nothing had grown up out of nowhere since I had brought the recycling out the previous evening. I looked at the southern neighbors' back parking bit -- they don't have a garage. Yes indeed. Firmly on their side of the crumbling retaining wall, a youngish elm is elegantly drooping its branches over the public alley.
This is not the first time we have been mistaken for our neighbors. We were chastised for keeping an inoperable vehicle on the premises, for having projecting sections in our front sidewalk, for having grass and weeds in excess of 8 inches high bordering on the public alley. All these terrific offenses were in fact the province of our neighbors. (I am not complaining about the neighbors. We have been guilty of plenty of offenses of our own, by these standards, including parking a car on the lawn and having a glorious brush pile with attendant wild grape vine and abandoned rusty red wheelbarrow. ) I figured out a while ago, when my first apoplexy had subsided, that our garage has an address on it, whereas the neighboring house has no garage, and has in front an address hidden by the jaunty slant of the porch roof. Our address ends with 1, and theirs with 7. I think I see the problem.
I called the inspector and left what I hope was a weary, patient message. I must say her voicemail message made me abandon any thought of sounding testy. She sounded harried, and pled that people leave their phone numbers CLEARLY.
My cat was still in the window, so I looked quickly at my email. A message from the splendid Sharyn November, about a bookstore in St. Paul that wants me to do a signing when my trilogy is reprinted. I hope I remember how to do that. I think I might be starting to get a little bit excited about this reprint business.
Pamela
To nod in the direction of the weather, I put on my Teva sandals. My sandals always last forever, because I don't like wearing them. I like socks. I almost always wear socks. If I go barefoot in your presence, either the weather is insane, I have run out of laundry utterly, even mismatched socks, or I trust you utterly. David found me these sandals on sale and I expect I'll have them for ten more years. They are recently laundered, since somebody with four feet pissed on them. They needed it anyway.
It was profoundly sticky, if not so hot as anticipated, by the time I had finished this vital and important process of putting on clothing so as not to leave the house. Ari was still lying around in my window without his bones. I turned the fan part of the air conditioner up. I collected several days' worth of mail.
A written notice about the bill I had just cleared up with HCMC.
The bank statement. Argh.
Credit card statement, ditto.
An envelope from the Department of Inspections and Regulations. Oh, shit. They must be getting on our case about the huge buckthorn that Eric kindly took out some weeks back. He sawed up the larger branches, but I haven't bundled them yet. And the Department of OWZINGE, as we prefer to call these people hereabouts, really hates piles of brush. Shit, shit, shit, it would arrive on a hot day, and they always give you a ridiculous deadline and then don't mail the letter for a week. I opened it. "Cut and remove all bushes, trees, saplings, or any other vegetation that hang over the public alley. An overhead clearance above the paved alley from the ground to a height of 14' is required." Followed by a list of ways to get rid of the branches and so on once you had cut them.
Say what? There isn't anything back there that COULD overhang the alley, public and paved or otherwise. I went outside. Gray, stuffy, everything drooping, even what I'd watered the day before. My insane neighbor to the north was mowing his lawn. I went past the neat pile of sawn branches and the larger pile of small leafy branches, past the weedy bit I once thought to make a shade garden of. Two garbage carts, two ancient green recycling containers sans lids; the driveway; another weedy bit on the other side of the driveway. No, really, nothing had grown up out of nowhere since I had brought the recycling out the previous evening. I looked at the southern neighbors' back parking bit -- they don't have a garage. Yes indeed. Firmly on their side of the crumbling retaining wall, a youngish elm is elegantly drooping its branches over the public alley.
This is not the first time we have been mistaken for our neighbors. We were chastised for keeping an inoperable vehicle on the premises, for having projecting sections in our front sidewalk, for having grass and weeds in excess of 8 inches high bordering on the public alley. All these terrific offenses were in fact the province of our neighbors. (I am not complaining about the neighbors. We have been guilty of plenty of offenses of our own, by these standards, including parking a car on the lawn and having a glorious brush pile with attendant wild grape vine and abandoned rusty red wheelbarrow. ) I figured out a while ago, when my first apoplexy had subsided, that our garage has an address on it, whereas the neighboring house has no garage, and has in front an address hidden by the jaunty slant of the porch roof. Our address ends with 1, and theirs with 7. I think I see the problem.
I called the inspector and left what I hope was a weary, patient message. I must say her voicemail message made me abandon any thought of sounding testy. She sounded harried, and pled that people leave their phone numbers CLEARLY.
My cat was still in the window, so I looked quickly at my email. A message from the splendid Sharyn November, about a bookstore in St. Paul that wants me to do a signing when my trilogy is reprinted. I hope I remember how to do that. I think I might be starting to get a little bit excited about this reprint business.
Pamela
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no subject
Date: 2003-07-25 07:17 pm (UTC)B
no subject
Date: 2003-07-25 07:32 pm (UTC)Pamela
(P.S. I do wear socks with them, actually, from time to time. It gives me the giggles, thinking of how many people I have heard and read inveighing against the practice. I wear white shoes after Labor Day too, and if I could think of any other clothing offenses that would not be more trouble than they are worth, I would certainly go out at once and commit them all.)
no subject
Date: 2003-07-25 08:33 pm (UTC)clothing
Date: 2003-07-25 10:33 pm (UTC)I've stopped using my pants pockets, and begun using belt pouches. I could use the pockets without discomfort if I lost about twenty pounds, but getting the belt pouches was faster.
Dan Goodman
http:\\dsgood.blogspot.com
no subject
Date: 2003-07-25 10:50 pm (UTC)Pamela
Re: clothing
Date: 2003-07-25 10:51 pm (UTC)Belt pouches have the same disadvantage as anything else not actually part of one's clothing. One can leave them behind.
I also dislike belts or anything around my waist quite a lot.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2003-07-26 10:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-26 11:24 am (UTC)Pamela
no subject
Date: 2003-07-26 07:52 pm (UTC)I love men's t-shirts from Target. XLT is a very useful thing when it comes to dealing with a large bosom. But Junonia looks like it's going to be a severe temptation.
Steeple People Re: clothing
Date: 2003-07-27 08:04 am (UTC)So, where do you keep poetry in the refrigerator?
Dan Goodman
http://dsgood.blogspot.com
Clothes
Date: 2003-07-29 05:55 am (UTC)Some things I do (that you likely already know, but I thought I'd mention as thanks (see above.)
Junonia has an emailing list (yeah it gets overuse) but earlier this summer they had two weekends of really-discounted-sales at their local warehouse that were only (as far as I know) noted in their emails.
Silhouette and Just My Size have cheaply priced clothes with pockets - I've bought their 'split skirts' and used them as loose fitting pants. They also have emailing lists. As does Lane Bryant.