Seeking Persons Like Myself in Every Particular for Rewarding Social Adventures

I had a very nice week at work back in my old cozy nook.

Thursday night my book club met for the second time, after which I decided not to continue with it, for two reasons. One is that one guy who came to both meetings is an incorrigible interrupter, who several times launched into something completely unrelated to what I was saying, as if it had been dead silent before he started talking. I noticed that by the end of both meetings, I was reluctant to say anything at all for fear I’d be interrupted.

The other reason is that my reading time is very limited, so I’d rather spend it on books I know I want to read. It was slightly frustrating to plow through 600 pages of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle while three library books of my own sat temptingly on the shelf. (I’m now reading David Chadwick’s memoir Thank You and OK!: An American Zen Failure in Japan.)

I could probably have found some way to deal with the interrupter, but since I also don’t want to spend the time reading other people’s picks, that’s that.

It was a good experiment, though. I did make sure to specify that the meetings were going to be in my own neighborhood, which was smart. If I do this again, I’ll also specify women over 40 only, and that we’re only going to read books that happen to be on my list. Which is to say I’m probably not going to do this again.

Friday afternoon I went to the DMV to renew my driver license. I made an appointment online beforehand and it was amazingly fast. I was in and out in less than 30 minutes, while those who hadn’t made appointments sat unmoving in plastic chairs as if they’d been rooted there for decades, which maybe they had.

Then I went to Freewheel to have the collar, or whatever you call it, that holds my seat post at a certain height switched out in favor of one I hope will work better; i.e., that will not allow the seat to gradually lose altitude until I feel like I'm riding a kiddie cycle. That evening, Lisa and David and I had a nice long chat on the phone and got all caught up.

Last weekend, I think on Sunday, the neighbor who grilled outside my kitchen door grilled out back, and did omit the lighter fluid, but still managed to fill my place with smoke for a couple of hours. It smelled like he had burned paper to get the charcoal going. “Oh, well,” I thought, “it does beat the use of lighter fluid, and it probably won’t happen very often.”

This is the neighbor who hadn’t spoken to me for some weeks or months. I had been hoping he’d thaw—his wife had said he gets mad easily, but also gets over things fast—but it appeared such was not to be, so I had accepted it might be a long time, or never.

So I was pleased and surprised when I saw him on the front porch yesterday as I left to go grocery shopping and he said, “Hello, Linda!” as if we had never been out of touch. Unfortunately, after I got home, I realized it was yet another grilling day, less than a week after the last occasion.

Fortunately, I was cooking, and so could stay in the kitchen, away from the smoke, for the couple of hours it took to abate, and I put Hammett in the bathroom and he didn’t freak out. He’s more unflappable now that he’s a teenager. He used to get very upset, meowing in a panicked way, when he was detained in that manner, however briefly.

I decided I would have to speak to the neighbors—thank goodness the husband is speaking to me again, just in time for Round 967 of the Fume Wars, though I hope this time it won’t feel like a war at all. I would certainly like to leave the landlord and building manager out of it, and just discuss with them what we could do to have less smoke.

I know nothing about grilling, so I went online to read about the chimney starter, an alternative to lighter fluid. It looks like it still requires newspaper, but then I happened upon mention of the electric charcoal starter, including one model that gets rave reviews at Amazon and is only $15.

I ordered my neighbors one and am going to present it as a belated wedding gift, along with the glowing reviews from Amazon and see if they’d be willing to give it a whirl. I think it was the burning newspaper that smelled rather than the charcoal itself.

Last night I saw Eastern Promises, which, though I like Viggo Mortensen very much, I did not see in the theater because it looked way too violent. But I have a friend who eschews violent movies who said she really liked it, so I got it from Netflix and then had to close my eyes practically the whole time plus put my fingers in my ears plus say, “I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!” (I wonder how the sound designer knew just what fingers being cut off sounds like. Yucko.)

In addition, much of the plot eluded me, though, as my friend said when I called her up this morning to say I could not believe that was her idea of a movie with a tolerable level of violence, maybe that’s because my eyes were closed so much of the time. But Viggo certainly is pretty, I will say that, and his kiss with Naomi Watts had more chemistry than just about any other movie kiss I’ve ever seen.

My OXO Good Grips Smooth Edge can opener has somewhat given up the ghost. It’s one of those newfangled can openers that doesn’t produce any sharp edges. After only a year or less, it’s hit or miss as to whether it will actually open the can or not, and it turns out this type of can opener, not just OXO’s, is notorious for this. There is no way to replace the blade; you just have to toss out the whole thing.

OXO offered to send me a new one, but I said haughtily that I’m an environmentalist and don’t want to toss a can opener into the landfill every year. Then I went online to see what the best kind of can opener is, and it’s apparently the old workhorse the Swing-A-Way, which looked mightily like my old-fangled can opener because that is indeed what I have.

I believe I removed that can opener from my parents’ house when I moved to California nearly 26 years ago, and it still works fine. I went ahead and ordered another one, anyway, when I was ordering the electric charcoal starter, in case my old one fails after the Big One, or in case I want to lend a can opener to a neighbor, and because I have sort of a compulsive online shopping thing underway. (It's kind of mortifying. I'm trying to rein it in.)

Today I was going to do the 73-mile loop of the Grizzly Peak century, but I stayed up too late last night watching the DVD and then had trouble falling asleep (not because of the DVD, I don’t think, but because nothing makes it impossible to fall asleep like particularly needing a good night’s sleep), so when the alarm went off at 5:50 a.m., I called Tom and said I was going to stay home.

I told him I’d still pay him for the ride registration and my half of the rental car, so it has been a rather expensive day of sitting in my chair reading with my little cat on my lap. How amazing that the division of cells should have resulted in Hammett. That one gloopy little first cell could have been anything. How lucky that it was the starter cell for a soft and pliant cat.

Oh! Today I also did a caulking project I’ve been putting off. In the tub, there are metal cups that fit around the hot and cold water taps, plus around the push-pull thing you use to turn the shower off or on. The center cup had come loose, and I had obtained some caulk to fix it. Today I finally gave it a whirl, and had much trouble until I thought of calling Tom’s brother, Dan, who by all accounts is a genius in this realm.

Fortunately, he was in his apartment in Sacramento and gave me three key pieces of advice that allowed me to finish the project readily. It looks just as good as the other two, and I hope will turn out to be secure and not fall off the wall next time I pull the thing out to start the shower.