Kavinsky

The song of the day is 2012's Nightcall by French musician, producer, DJ, and actor Kavinsky (real name: Vincent Pierre Claude Belorgey).

And God Said

Nothing has been happening lately. I have to drive Nuria to the USCIS field office in Norfolk, VA on Thursday next week. I think I may have a small hole in my left rear tire. I pumped it up to 35 pounds and I'll be checking it from day to day to see how long it takes to leak down. I plan to buy a can of Fix-a-Flat to take with me. I'll also be taking my tire inflator, which I always have in the back of my Jeep. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Other than getting ready for that trip, nothing has been happening to me. Oh, there was one thing. God visited me while I was lying in bed. I couldn't sleep, as usual, and then God appeared. I was alone in bed. Suddenly God stood beside my bed. He was very glowy. 

"Are you God?" I asked.

"I AM," God said.

"I think I just pooped in my underpants," I said.

"Don't worry. I will magically clean them when I leave."

"What brings you here tonight? Are you always with me?"

"I am. Always."

"Were you with me when I fell off the pier in Hickory?"

"Yes. You swam back to the pier, and you don't know how to swim. Remember? That's why you're alive today."

"Were you with me when I got swept out to sea off the coast of Nags Head?"

"Yes. I showed you how to slip into the water and kick while holding onto the inner tube. That's why you're still alive."

"Were you with me when..."

God interrupted. "What part of  'I am always with you' are you having trouble understanding?"

"You have me there. But so much bad stuff has happened in my life, that I have doubts that you were always with me."

"I understand. You had bad times. But remember, those times could have been much worse. You never got killed or killed another person with your car when you drove recklessly as a teenager. You did so many reckless things and skated through them without a scratch. I was with you."

"Will you be with me until I die?"

"I will be with you for long after your body dies."

"Thanks, God." 

"You're welcome. Good night."

I went to sleep immediately, which was strange, because I usually have insomnia all night.

Nuria Homeward Bound

My partner, Nuria, is flying back from Costa Rica to Richmond, VA, today. Her plane left Juan Santamaria International airport at 1:21PM CST and is due into Fort Lauderdale International airport at 5:30PM EST. Her next flight leaves at 10:05PM and takes her to Orlando, FL at 11:22PM. Then she gets on a flight at 9:10AM tomorrow morning and arrives in Richmond at 11:33AM.

After all that traveling and spending two days awake, I know she'll be tired. I hope, when she arrives here, she has enough energy left to go to the grocery store, buy food, then come home and cook a meal, clean the house, change the sheets on the bed, and wash and dry the laundry.

I know what you're thinking. Why don't I do some of those things? The answer is: because I'm a man, and men don't know how to do any of that stuff.

The odd thing is, before Nuria moved in with me, I used to do all those things. Come to think of it, I mostly ate frozen dinners, I didn't clean the house, but I did wash and dry the laundry. The washing machine and the clothes dryer did most of the work, but I did have to push a button and turn a dial. Cooking a meal usually involved pushing a button or turning a dial, too. That's my strong suit: pushing buttons and turning dials. If Nuria can carry the dirty clothes to the cellar and put them into the washer and add soap, I can handle the rest. "Hey Nuria, where do you set the dial on the washing machine?" After she answers me, I can handle the rest. And people say cooking and cleaning is a lot of work!

The truth is, Nuria is very old-fashioned in some ways. She feels certain things are her job, and everything else is my job. I mow the yard. I call a roofer to fix a leak (I don't climb on roofs any longer). I call a technician to clean the boiler every year. I keep the oil tank filled with #2 heating oil. I paid to replace ten windows on the ground floor ($8300). I paid for a new sliding patio door ($2430). I paid for a new garage door ($1900). If you're a homeowner, you know the list goes on and on. I'm glad that Nuria wants to cook and clean. I just hope she doesn't read this blog post and get some new ideas.

5:30PM:  

Nuria just landed at Fort Lauderdale. She sent me this photo as the jet was arriving. Next leg of the flight: 10:05PM to 11:22PM. It will, of course, be dark, so probably no photo.

Winter Monday

It's a beautiful winter day in central Virginia. At 3PM the sun is shining brightly and the temperature is 54°F. I just went out to the garage and cranked up the lawn rocket. I mean, the lawn tractor. (Sometimes when I'm driving it, it's a lawn rocket. That's when I'm flying across the yard, with the uneven earth bumping my butt up and down on the seat.) The tractor's battery still works. So I put a charger on the battery and in an hour I'll go out and remove the charger. I try to boost the charge every week instead of letting the battery sit dormant through the winter as I usually do, so that maybe, when spring and grass-mowing season arrive, the battery will still start the tractor. The battery usually lasts for two seasons, but with periodic charging and luck, I may get a third season out of this battery. 

In six days my partner Nuria will return. She left to fly to Costa Rica on January 9, but it feels like she's been gone six months. I wonder how it feels to her. She's with her family, and she's been visiting her doctors and her banker and she took a two-day trip to a beach with one of her family members—daughter, or sister, or both—and I'm glad she's getting some fun. I'm sure it makes living with me more tolerable.

I'm charging Nuria's Garmin. I gifted her with it a couple years ago. Bad idea. She's never used it. I've never used it. I've tried to use it, but it's too difficult. I used to have a Tom Tom and it was easy to use. I thought a Garmin would be similarly easy, but I was wrong. If I need a GPS on the road, I use Waze on my phone. It's easy to use and is a very handy program. It is not without the occasional error that sends me in a circle, but those are easy to figure out and get out of. In times gone by, I've driven all over the United States, from Atlantic Coast to Pacific Coast, from Montana to Texas, with nothing more than a paper road map, and I never got lost. I didn't care if I did get lost—it would simply have made the adventure more interesting.

It's almost 4PM. In other words, it's time for breakfast. Breakfast is the first meal of the day, regardless of when it's eaten. It is the meal that breaks the fast of not eating since the previous day. Hence the name "break-fast". I haven't eaten anything today and at 4PM I'm becoming mildly hungry. Until next time, stay safe.

Bob Seger

The song of the day is 1980's Against the Wind by singer/songwriter and musician Bob Seger. Seger is accompanied in this video by country music singer Jason Aldean.

Etiquette

Every day I receive a phone call from a person who sounds like a young woman, possibly a young teen, but maybe not yet a teen. The voice asks to talk to Wayne. The caller never identifies herself, nor does she state the reason she is calling. She just asks, "Can I speak to Wayne?"

I don't reply. I don't reply because I don't know who she is or why she wants to talk to me. It could be a con, a trap of some kind. More than that, I don't reply because she treats me with disrespect. I am far older than this young person, and I expect someone of her age, who doesn't know me, to address me by my last name. I think I've earned that. When I was a young teen, I called older people mister or missus and I used their last name. I would never think of calling a much older person whom I didn't know by his or her first name. That would be very disrespectful.

But of course, many kids today are not taught the rules of respect. Their parents weren't either. They are being rude and don't know it. That's not my problem. I don't take their phone calls because they don't give me enough information to make an informed decision. Who is calling me and why are they calling me? They never say. They just ask to talk to Wayne. 

I look upon this behavior as a small example of a larger problem, which is the general decline in respect and civility in our society. I see so much of our society becoming a society of savages. They have no manners and they don't care. They respect nothing and no one. People who respect no one, including me, may find that they receive little respect in return.

Children and young adults: try to learn basic manners. The effort will always be in your best interest.

Elmer

When Nuria left for Costa Rica, she put me in charge of her plants. What could go wrong?

I know how to water plants, and she told me when to water them, and how much water to use on each plant. Most of them have done well. Except for this plant, which I call Elmer.

Since the photo was taken, I've cut off all the brown leaves, which doesn't leave much of Elmer, but he does look better.

I've watered Elmer and he gets plenty of sunlight, so why does he appear to be dying? Maybe Nuria's green thumb can save him when she returns. She'll be back on Super Bowl Sunday. I hope that's not too late for Elmer.