February 27, 2020

Today was kind of a lazy day. Spent about an hour talking with an old friend, Melvin, from my high school daze. Looking back I seem to have been in a daze. Stripped my bed and laundered all of the bedding this afternoon. Moved Summer’s starter plants from southeast window to the southwest window. Cleaned up the kitchen. Drank my usual 48 ounces of coffee and ate my everything bagel. I’m really not good at having nothing pressing to do. I almost decided to go back to bed. I probably would have tucked myself back in, if I hadn’t just thrown my bedding into the washer and pulled the trigger. Too late to get them out as they were already wet and rolling over in the tub. I wandered around the house looking at the disaster in which we are currently residing.

Back into bathroom, I realize how really filthy I had let the place get. Also, I have been deferring the replacement of the wax ring under the commode for a couple of weeks. Nasty job. Swept and mopped the floor, vacuumed the the large bath rug, cleaned the sink, cleaned the commode and cleaned the bathtub. Having delayed as long as I possibly could I removed the commode. Scraped two old wax rings off the floor flange. I used my SOG Survival knife to scrape the wax. I’m pretty sure that this wasn’t a purpose that SOG had in mind for their lovely knife. BTW that wax ring under your toilet is made of beeswax. That probably explains why it is so sticky and difficult to get off yourself and your tools.

Having finished the distasteful job of replacing the wax ring. I decided to go into Homer and check the price and availability of a snow blower. Nobody had one, which suited me just fine. I really didn’t want to spend the money even though Summer is insisting that we really need one. With no one having a snow blower, I went to Safeway and wandered through the aisles and almost bought a package of spicy guacamole mix. After a half hour of walking around, I left. When I leave empty handed. I always expect someone to come after me and accuse me of shoplifting. I think that it does look a bit suspicious for someone to wander around for a long time and leave with nothing. I am always aghast at the prices of food here. Example: A package of four ears of yellow sweet corn $5.95. Same corn, but fresh out of the fields, in Alabama or Florida are 3 or 4 ears for a dollar. I didn’t get stopped for allegedly shoplifting and for the life of me I don’t understand the anxiety that leaving empty handed gives me. There was no incident in my childhood that would cause such anxiety. Maybe I’m feeling guilty for wasting their valuable time and taking up space or I’m just weird. Maybe both. The main reason I bought nothing is that I’m going to Kenai tomorrow. My every 6-8 week pilgrimage to Wal Mart and Home Depot. Need dog food, grow lights and a bunch of other stuff that we want or will need for the next 6-8 weeks. All of it is 10-20% less expensive in Kenai. Could save a lot more by going to COSTCO in Anchorage but that is a 5 plus hour drive through avalanche country this time of year. Am considering hooking up the travel trailer next October and going to Anchorage for an extended shopping trip. We get our PFD (Permanent Fund Dividend) in October. The PFD is money from the oil pumped here. Every man, woman and child who has lived in Alaska for two years gets a PFD check and still the population shrinks every year. This year it was only $1600, whereas it had been over $3000 in the past. The Tax and Spend Legislature skimmed $1306 off the top of the PFD this past year and are angling to take it all in the next year or two. The Alaskan government is in the top 5 most expensive per capita governments in the USA. Anyway, a trip to Anchorage to purchase nothing but the years supply of dog food would save us most of the cost of going.

As you know Homer buckets have many uses. This is one that I devised. I didn’t invent it, I just improved it. We don’t waste heat regardless of the source here in Fritz Creek. The bucket is about half full of water to catch the dust and lint, if you were wondering.

I’m gone. Got to check on the animals.