Celia Hayes – The Accidental Texan

I actually had enough from clients wanting editing and formatting services over the last couple of months, that I could indulge in a new toy … a Paperwhite Kindle, to replace the ordinary basic Kindle that was a Christmas present from the Daughter Unit some ten or eleven years ago. Kindles were launched in 2007, to moderate acclaim from the author group that I belonged to at the time – and we were keen because Amazon opened up to indy authors, allowing us to post our books to the database, and make a bit of cash off having done so, since e-books obliviated the need for print, delivery and storage costs. And also, Amazon paid promptly for sales, at the end of the month following the month of the sale, unlike the regular print channels, who usually grudgingly dealt out a month after a fiscal quarter …

Well, anyway, I got my basic Kindle and loaded it up ever since with casual reading, and various novels that I wanted to read for the cost of a cup of coffee, but didn’t necessarily want to buy in print and then give hard-won shelf-space to … and being able to tuck the Kindle into my purse and take anywhere … a reader the size of a slim 6×9 paperback book, to read from a library – as long as the thing was fully-charged, of course. Well, the original basic Kindle eventually died the death that all electronic devices usually do, although since I got it at Christmas, 2012 and used it regularly ever since, I suppose that it gave good service. My original desktop computer carried on nobly for almost fifteen years, to the vast amusement of my computer tech friend Dave, who told me that most desktop units are good for seven to ten years, max. I guess that I am just easy on these devices. I lived in a house where the basic hot water heater carried on for thirty years, to the astonishment of the plumbing tech, when it finally did collapse entirely. Hot water heaters are generally good for ten years, so that one ought to have been deposited in a museum of plumbing somewhere.

Anyway, the basic Kindle first needed a replacement power cord, and carried on with that for a year or two, and then – just died. Wouldn’t turn on and power up … and I was sad, for a number of books on it which I enjoyed but could no longer access for pleasure reading, especially in the evenings. As soon as I could afford it, I intended to replace it with a newer one … and this morning I totted up the potential debits and the actual credits, and ordered a new Kindle Paperwhite … which most amazingly, was delivered late this afternoon by the specialty flying service. Possibly, this is a sort of neo-Victorian age, when there were two mail deliveries a day …

It’s a nice-looking unit, about the same size as the new one, and which I managed to connect and set up to my account without half the trouble that the old one demanded, on Christmas Day, 2012.  It has a touch screen, instead of buttons, which will take some getting used to, but the backlight can be adjusted, and all the books that I had on the old Kindle are ported over to the Paperwhite, Now, I wish that I had looked into decommissioning and returning the old Kindle to Amazon first, for I would have gotten a nice discount on the Paperwhite, instead of just a five-dollar credit. Oh, well – I’ve gotten enough discounted and free stuff from them – including a case for the Paperwhite, just for being a Vine reviewer.

We watched a most perfect movie the other night, having given up on a detective series which just seemed to be tailing off into grimness and futility, and besides, had gone far astray from the book series which had originally attracted my interest. A League of Their Own is in my personal pantheon of ‘most perfect movies’ – joining A Christmas Story, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Adventures in Babysitting, among others. Those certain movies evoke a particular time and place, are tightly written, perfectly cast and performed. Yeah, I am stuck in the last century when it comes to movies.

So, even if Geena Davis, Jon Lovitz, Tom Hanks, Rosie O’Donnell, Madonna and Bill Pullman were basically playing themselves, their usual selves were suitable to the characters, and they were backed up by a peerless collection of skilled character actors and they all had priceless lines. Even now, my daughter and I chide Wee Jamie with “There is no crying in baseball!” which may scar him permanently. Possibly, League marks the last time that Rosie O’Donnell was legitimately funny, and Madonna still looked like a normal person, rather than the plastic countenance she wears now. (Single funniest and most apt line – “You think there are men in this country who ain’t seen your bosoms?”) I wonder how much Penny Marshall brought to the game, being a female with a background in comedy herself. The rivalry between two sisters, one who was good at baseball without really caring much about pursuing it and the other who was almost as good and cared so much that she could taste it … that was a very subtle, female thing.

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 …

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.