April 29, 1994
Dear Everyone:
Got my state tax
refund last week.
Spent my state tax refund last week. Well,
some of it, at least.
I decided that I needed a new
clock radio.
It had finally come to my
attention that, although the
clock part works just fine, the radio part was beginning to fade.
Actually, it was no longer
capable of getting any stations except for Country/Western and
Spanish-Rap. Either of these is a
deadly combination at 3:53 am. I
can't stand C/W and I draw the line at Rap in any language.
So we went shopping. First, we
went to the mall, to look for a little of this and a few of those and,
by the way, let's drop in at this store that specializes in fashions for
discriminating ladies of a certain age and generous proportions.
After all, if I'm going to be
dressing "casual" more days of the week, I'll need more casual clothes
to wear, won't I? This is, of
course, ignoring the fact that I could wear a clean shirt every day for
two weeks before running out of clothes or having to run a load of wash.
Besides, the sales clerk told me that if I filled out an application for
the stores credit card, they could give me an account over the phone and
take 10% off everything I bought that day.
One can never have too many
credit cards, can one? From
there, we descended on a few more places (running low on fragrance, need
a plastic tray to carry things from the kitchen to the living room and
back), and still hadn't gotten around to the clock radio, the
more-or-less original reason for the shopping trip.
So, after filling the back of my car with purchases, we made our way to
one of those discount home warehouse-type places and found (guess what?)
clock radios. I picked one in
particular for two reasons. 1)
It could actually pick up FM
stations even inside the store. 2)
It had really
BIG numbers that I could read even at 3:53 am, blurry-eyed sleep.
My bathroom scale had developed a tendency to create a puddle of water
on the floor. Since I couldn't
find any other source for the water, I have to suspect condensation from
the shower steam. At the same
store, I found a new scale which also had nice
BIG numbers that I could read
without having to bend over double to see them.
It doesn't say that I weigh any
less; but the wages of sin are easier to see.
This week has been the transition between “Mahitabel” moving in with
RACS and me moving into my “Livermore” office.
I will be keeping my San
Francisco office, since I'll still be spending 2 days per week in the
City. So, Tuesday afternoon, I
emptied my bookcase, file cabinet and desk into boxes, which I stashed
in a vacant office down the hall.
On Wednesday, the movers came and took my furniture and PC down to
“Mahitabel's” new office. All I
had left was a couple of chairs, my antique cupboard and tea table and
my phone. Meanwhile, down the
hall, “Mahitabel” had a desk (empty), bookcase (empty), file cabinet
(empty), no chairs, a PC and no phone. Between
the two of us, we had one complete office, at opposite ends of the
building.
All day yesterday, I kept telling myself, "This isn't a
Sarajevo.
No one is dropping bombs on your
head. It's not the
Warsaw Ghetto.
You're just being
inconvenienced for a little while. At
least you have an office to work in." Of
course, I had a phone.
“Mahitabel” didn't.
By late afternoon, the movers had returned to bring me some surplus
furniture that I had picked out last week.
The configuration is somewhat
different. For instance, the desk
has 2 drawers instead of 5. On
the other hand, the bookcase has 4 shelves instead of 3, plus doors to
hide the mess. In the end, it all
comes out in the wash.
Today, I'll decide what to send to “Livermore”, what to keep in San
Francisco and what I can't live without in both places:
Pens, pencils, Earl Grey Tea.
The weather continues cool.
Most un-California-ish.
Usually, by this time, we've had
at least one heat-wave to complain about.
As it is, I'm still using my car’s heater every morning.
Love, as always,
Pete
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