Something Accomplished

30. July 2022 · 2 comments · Categories: Domestic

Actually, several things accomplished this week against some odds, like that of minding Wee Jamie the Wonder Grandson while my daughter did real estate stuff. I whanged out another chapter of a project I am doing for a client, got another good chunk of work done for another client, and had a meet with yet a third client and her hired illustrator, which all went well. That first project will of necessity, take a little longer to complete, but the second and third projects will be done in a week, and by the end of August, respectively.

The one other big thing accomplished was something which I had been vaguely dreading – getting the registration renewed for my car, which has been lingering in the garage for months on end, ever since I finished paying for the restoration of the hood, since it came loose and whanged up against the windshield last October. As I was tooling along the Wurzbach Parkway at a sedate 55 miles per hour at the time, this was a rather startling event, and insurance didn’t cover it. So – out of pocket for the necessary repair, and almost as soon as I got the car back, then we had the tall stack of recycled fence materiel for the back fence rebuild blocking the garage, and of course in all that time without being driven, the battery ran low …

Anyway, even though I ran the trickle charger to the battery overnight, I was still worried that the car wouldn’t start at once, or that once I turned the engine off, it wouldn’t start again … and that even if it did, and I got all the way to the place where we prefer to have oil changes and safety inspections done, that the spreading crack in the windshield where the hood banged against it last year would be counted against passing the inspection, so that I would have to save up to get the entire windshield replaced before I could renew registration and drive the car legally again; a hassle and an expense at this point that I just do not need. I coped by not thinking about it, until I really had to think about it.

Fortunately, the car started up, as per usual, although the gas tank needle hovered just above bone dry; another project for another day – filling up the tank all the way. The car gets amazing milage. I drove all the way to Houston and part of the way back before needing to gas up again, and if it weren’t for the fact that the AC system in it also needs to be topped up again (and the moon roof leaks in heavy rain), it would be in more regular use day to day, rather than the Montero.

And more fortunately, to my way of thinking, my car passed inspection – really, I have seen cars on the road with more trashed windshields, although I don’t really know if they were legal at that point – and we got home, and I successfully renewed for another year. Like Mr. T. of the A-Team, I really like it when a plan comes together …

In Dreams

19. July 2022 · 2 comments · Categories: Domestic, Memoir

The other night, I dreamt of a guy that I hadn’t seen or talked to in decades, an extremely vivid and detailed dream. We went to the beach together on a kind of surreal road-trip, embraced affectionately, spoke frankly about our various careers after we parted … and reconciled. He apologized for his ungentlemanly abandonment, and I leaned against his shoulder, the one which he once laughingly and specifically dedicated to me to cry upon … and it was all very good, although for some reason, I was babysitting Wee Jamie through this. I woke up after one segment of the dream, and when I went back to sleep, picked up the dream where I had left off. It was all very curious. I had been deeply and stupidly in love with him, over the space of three years, and wondered the next morning if this was some kind of premonition – that he had died. We are the same age, but he smoked like a factory chimney stack from the time that I first knew him, and not to put too fine a point on it; he was overweight, and to all appearances, not maintaining a healthy weight and lifestyle. Also divorced at least once, possibly twice.

Yes, he is on FB, and I occasionally check in on his page, just to keep tabs, although there is not much personal on it, mostly military and veteran memes, and odd bits of this and that politically. Turns out that he has become a rabid anti-Republican and Trump-hater, which is curious for a military veteran, which would have probably necessitated a breakup eventually, even if the ferocious smoking habit hadn’t done it earlier. Back in early 1980s, when the breakup between us was still fresh and raw and agonizing; this was the song that summed it all up.

 

 

A Nice Haul

08. July 2022 · 2 comments · Categories: Domestic

The first thing we saw when heading out to walk the dogs and Wee Jamie this morning – well, after the big trash-hauling trucks from City Public Services all staged to pick up the bulk tree trimmings – was an orange sign for an estate sale up the road, address unspecified. We took a zig from the regular route into the extension to the neighborhood and found the estate sale. My daughter took Wee Jamie with his stroller, and I held the dogs on their leashes, across the street in the shade and waited for fifteen minutes while she cased the sale. One of the items for sale – for which they were taking bids was a 1960 Studebaker Lark, in very good condition. (The auction for that car will close tomorrow, I think, and with luck they will get north of $15,000 for it.)

One of the neighbors whom we encounter frequently on walks lives across the street from the estate sale and filled us in on the retired couple whose estate it was; a retired military chaplain with an invalid wife. The husband was the main caretaker for his wife, until he had several heart attacks last year, as well as breaking a hip. The wife contracted Covid through visiting her husband in the hospital and passed away – so the family found a smaller place (most likely assisted-living from what I gathered) for the chaplain and moved out his most valuable stuff last week. The house, Studebaker and the remaining furniture and bits and bobs were all being sold. I overheard several of their neighbors and friends talking about this; they seem both to have been very well-liked. The house and yard were immaculate. The items on sale were in excellent taste and condition, and priced very reasonably, which doesn’t always happen. (The items and furniture that the family kept must have been quality indeed, if what was left to be sold was judged superfluous to needs.)

My daughter spotted some attractive bits of Wedgewood and some Danish Christmas plates, a small cut-crystal brooch, some bits of art and Christmas ornaments – very obviously, the chaplain and wife had been stationed in Germany; Japan too. As for me, with the rest of my month carefully budgeted out – I was determined to resist temptation, which lasted until I laid eyes on a matched pair of Blanc du Chine lamps, with an insanely reasonable price on a piece of masking tape stuck on the shades. I have loved the look of the classic mid-century Blanc du Chine ever since I was stationed at Misawa in the late 1970s, and they had dozens of them in various sizes and shapes, for sale in the BX annex. Alas, as a baby airman on basic pay, I could only afford the smallest, and least expensive of the lot – a mere 8-inch-tall boudoir lamp which has followed faithfully in my household goods ever since. A couple of years ago, I found a larger Blanc di Chine lamp at another neighborhood estate sale, without a harp and shade, the wiring so decayed that I had to take it all apart, hand-wash and install a new socket and rewire it entirely. (The former owners had been hoarders, and the inside of the house was indescribably cluttered. The people running that sale said they had filled three dumpsters before they got to the sellable goods.)

So, home with a matched pair of lovely ginger-jar Blanc du Chine lamps and some miscellaneous other stuff – and because it is now our rule after the experience of that estate sale at the hoarder’s house – if stuff comes into the house, an equal quantity of stuff must go out, to Goodwill, if nowhere else. My daughter loaded up the back of the Montero with the two table lamps which are now judged excess, and a box of other stuff. All the Blanc du Chine lamps live in the master suite – I would be heartbroken indeed, if the cats or the dog managed to break any of them, since it appears they are even more expensive now, then when I first drooled over them in the BX annex at Misawa AB.

A Weekend of Ow’s

27. June 2022 · 1 comment · Categories: Domestic

The Daughter Unit and I spend the weekend accumulating ‘ow’s, and the painful evidence that we are both somewhat out of shape. The Daughter Unit went off to a lake park near Austin to a class in paddle-boarding all day Saturday, a recreation which she has been interested in for some time, especially after seeing another paddle-boarder with an inflatable board having fun at Canyon Lake, where we went to spend the occasion of Wee Jamie’s first birthday.

Me, I spent the day alternately minding Wee Jamie (who most considerately went down for a long afternoon nap after about 12:30) and installing vinyl flooring in the den. Yes, I could finally finish out the last element of renovating the den, after the cave-in of the ceiling last year when the drip pan under the HVAC unit in the attic overflowed. The ceiling was repaired late last year, beadboard and cornice installed, the whole room repainted and the closet doors replaced – but the flooring had to wait until I finished paying for repair of my car after the little accident with the hood coming open while on the highway. The particular brand vinyl flooring product that I had to use – mostly because I had half a box left over from doing the front bedroom/nursery last year is not the ultimate expensive one, but I wanted to make use of those bits as it was the brand recommended by NHG in the first place because it has all kinds of good qualities including not needing an underlayment before being installed over concrete. That brand and style has gone up in price, alas, from barely under $3.00 a square foot to 3.80. We had to go back for another box of it today, as there wasn’t quite as much in the leftover box as I thought there was. But I took it in my head to do the install myself, saving a good bit of a bill from Neighborhood Handy Guy (who now has a raft-load of bigger and better-paying projects) plus the weeks and weeks and weeks that NHG would need to fit it into his increasingly busy schedule. I had the tools – a nice little 4-in saw which cuts a fine line and isn’t nearly as heavy and dangerous to manage at the big circular saw – a tapping block, a right angle and a soft-headed mallet … and having watched NHG and his #1 Minion install the first floor, and watching another series of videos on Tube of Ewe – well, why not?

It was mostly like a life-sized jig-saw puzzle, sorting out what would fit, and what I would simply have to cut, whanging it repeatedly with the mallet, and wanging again and again and again until all the joints locked into place. This project also involved moving all of the existing furniture and fittings out of the way, and taking out the closet sliding doors and the doors into the den itself and then reinstalling them once the flooring around the doorways was in place. But as noted – I have all the tools. Circular saw, square, a set of screwdrivers, a hammer, mallet, tapping block … but oh, the labor of shifting all the stuff in the den! Taking down the doors, stacking it all … I was so exhausted by late afternoon, with about 2/3ds of the floor done that I messaged Daughter Unit (on her way home from her paddle-boarding get-together) that she had better hurry up so she could give Wee Jamie his bath, as I was so exhausted, I was afraid that I would drop him.

Well, as of Monday afternoon, the last bits of flooring are in place – and yay! All that is left over is a small pile of vinyl scraps, thanks to careful fitting and utilization of all usable scrap pieces. But I still must cut all the baseboard pieces to fit, and nail them into place. Fortunately, I had bought all the necessary lengths and painted them last year, so I am not out any more money.

I am just not at all certain I am up to doing another floor install, satisfactory as this project has been. (Pictures to follow as soon as the baseboards are installed)

From Luna City 11 – An Excerpt

23. June 2022 · Comments Off on From Luna City 11 – An Excerpt · Categories: Chapters From the Latest Book, Luna City

Another excerpt from the untitled and unpublished memoir of Alasdair Duncan Magill, 1987. Chapter 53 – The Matter of Political Murder

 Miss Amory, our clerk-typist, called my attention to the telephone on a chilly spring morning, early in March, 1935. It was already past 8 o’clock, and I was uncharacteristically late, as our youngest son was teething, and had kept my dear wife and I awake for most of the night before.

“It’s Mrs. Mills,” Miss Amory said, covering the receiver with her hand. “Calling for you, personally, Chief. She says that she has just found the body of her husband, out by the alligator pond.”

“God save the mark,” I exclaimed. “The old reprobate is dead at last! What are the odds, hey? Bludgeoned, stabbed or shot by a jealous rival or fellow miscreant, do you think?”

“Really, Chief,” Miss Amory sniffed. “That’s not Christian of you to say such an unkind thing! The poor man is dead!”

“It may not be Christian, Miss Amory,” I replied. “But it is most brutally realistic; Charley Mills was a thief, a pervert, and a blight on the community of Luna City – and those were his good points. I’ll take Mrs. Mills’ call in my office.”

“Yes, Chief,” Miss Amory still sounded disapproving. On my way to my own office, I looked into the chief investigator’s small office next to mine, to see if John Drury had arrived; he had. And he was in confabulation with Sgt. Grigoriev, who’s countenance bore a worried frown upon it. John looked up at my rap on the door frame.

“Chief, it’s bad news,” he said with a grave expression on his own face, “There has been a message from the Marcus place. Sgt. Grigoriev has just been briefing me. The Professor’s oldest son has been found dead this morning – his face bashed in with especial violence – with a stone, round in back of their house. No idea of who did it the foul deed. Mrs. Marcus called us, just now. This last week the Professor was helping his son and some of their friends build a working ballista – and it’s one of those stones they were stocking up to throw with it which killed Sergei Marcus.”

“Oh, my god!” I exclaimed. “The professor – is he in especial danger, do you surmise? This is appalling news! We were charged with keeping him and his family secure!”

“I don’t think so, Chief,” John replied. “And we don’t know for certain if this was just some random mischance … or malice on the part of an assassin. In any case, I ordered Constable Vaughn to remain on guard at the Marcus’s house, until we can sort out the situation – if it is murder or merely an accident. Has there been any reports of unexplained strangers in town? We were charged with keeping track of that kind of thing…”

“Kapitan,” Sgt. Grigoriev spoke up. “There is one stranger in town … a young man riding on a …what-do-you say … an Indian motorcycle. With a sidecar. A very nice motorcycle. I wish for one of my own, Kapitan-sir. This young man, he has a dog with him, a splendid large dog. No, I do not wish for a dog. But this stranger in town – he is camping in the field by the Mills place since last week.”

“Most interesting, Sergeant,” I said, having come swiftly to a decision, knowing that Mrs. Mills was waiting to speak to me on the telephone. “John, I believe that I will go and speak to this person first while you and Sgt. Grigoriev begin investigating the death of Sergei Marcus … since I will need to go out to the Mills property anyway.” At his interrogative eyebrow lifted, I added an explanation. “It seems also that Charley Mills has also been found dead, out at his place. Miss Amory just told me. I still must speak to Mrs. Mills. We should compare notes this afternoon, upon completing a preliminary review of our respective corpses.”

John Drury whistled in astonishment. “It never rains but it pours, Captain! Two dead bodies in a single day! Some kind record for Luna City.”

“I know,” I sighed – for on the rare occasions when my police were lumbered with dead bodies, they usually arrived singly, and it was usually a matter of simple observation and deduction to arrive at the reason for their deceased state. The great (and purely literary) detective-sleuth Sherlock Holmes would have little in the way of exercising his deductive skills in Luna City; in fact, were he real, he would perish of sheer boredom, unless he took up the profession of deducing which dog or coyote was killing chickens. Once in my office, I picked up the receiver, a little astonished to still find Mrs. Mills still waiting.

“Mrs. Mills,” I said, by way of apology. “I am so sorry to have kept you waiting. It seems that we have experienced another sudden death in Luna City – but let me extend to you my sympathies on the loss of your husband …”

“It is of little import to me,” Carolina de San Pedro Mills replied, sounding as if distraught with grief were the farthest thing from her mind. “We were married as a matter of convenience only – for the business, you see.”

“I hope that he did not suffer,” I ventured. I privately hoped the opposite very much. Mrs. Mills snorted, in a somewhat derisive manner.

“No, I rather think he did not,” she replied, decisively. “There was no mark upon him, save where he had lain heavily as he had fallen to the ground. He went down to feed his disgusting caimán – those three giant lizards in the pond – at sunset last night, and never returned.”

“And you did not think it strange that he never returned? And raised no alarm? Strange that would be, for a married couple…”

I swear that I could almost feel her shudder of revulsion, at a distance and over the tinny-sounding telephone line.

“Dios mia!” Mrs. Mills exclaimed. “Think you that we shared a bed?! A room, even! No, my husband had his place, and I had mine. And that is all that you need to know.”

“One thing that I should ask, Mrs. Mills – have you touched or disturbed your husband’s body. It might complicate the investigation, so I should be informed if you have done so.”

“I did turn his body over,” Carolina de San Pedro Mills confessed. “For I thought that he might still be alive … I did not wish my husband dead, Senor M’Gill. But at the hour of sunrise this morning, he was quite cold and stiff. I … brought a blanket from his quarters to cover him. It seemed a decent thing to do. Besides,” and Carolina de an Petro, late the wife of Charley Mills sounded quite brutally practical. “Those dreadful black scavenger birds were already circling over the pond.”

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