Thursday I washed my car. I even detailed the alloy wheels. Turns out this was a good idea. It now brakes and steers like it is new. Apparently there was a fair bit of brake dust on them, making them slip a bit, which makes the wheels shimmy at speed under braking. That is a nerve wracking sensation. It was hot.
Friday I detailed the inside of the car, discovering you can remove grey munge from tan leather with a damp sponge because the munge is water soluble. Dry the leather, reapply the leather protector and its much nicer. Got up about two dozen of my ex-wife's long red hairs stuck to the car's rugs and under seats. You end up pulling those out by hand. The vac only helps identify them. Much better. Found various bits of food trash that came from her as well. Its been 3.5 years since she's been in my car, but these were nooks and crannies this dirt was stuck in. Now that those crannies are clean, really clean, it is like a new car inside. And the brakes working properly means it drives like a new car outside too. It was hot.
Saturday is one of my volunteering days. It was warm. I worked at the library, but not until after I'd had a long chat with a man hoping to buy used books. Turns out I should have directed him to Pine Street Library, but I didn't know. Anyway, he's working as a civil engineer on the narrow gauge railroad with a group of Chinese investors who want to sell public utilities, including water and natural gas, along the route. The guy in question was very knowledgeable, and now that I know many of the locals go to my alma mater for college, for unknown reasons, I wasn't disturbed by his knowing the details of the ugliness where I grew up. My home town attracted Alfred Hitchcock to make several of his movies because the seedy underbelly of corruption was inspirational, as was the various Victorian houses that survived the 1906 Earthquake. MacDonald Avenue in Santa Rosa was used in Rear Window. The mansions and Victorians and Bungalows on the next street are very pretty. I would live there if I was a millionaire. Its that pretty. Despite being ON the faultline.
Sunday Dad and I had breakfast together, then a hike around the neighborhood to settle our stomachs. A nice but slightly chilly morning. Later we bought fertilizer and tomato plants at two different garden stores and proceeded to dig up a trench in the yard to plant them, put in the watering system (drip irrigation) and will plant them Monday before the rain comes. The two trees that went down from root rot have fed the strawberries well, even to the point of the strawberries roots digging into the buried wood. Usually, rotting wood sucks up a lot of nitrogen in the soil to fuel the growth of fungus, but I think its actually finished that and the fungus is doing its job so there's a lot more potential value there now. The strawberries certainly think so.
Monday. It is chilly this morning, not quite 50'F, and a strong delta breeze whipping off the pacific, up the Valley and into the foothills. You'd be surprised that from a point about 100 feet from here, I can see into the valley and tell if its foggy or not, and sunsets through the trees reveal astonishing colors over the Coast Range, about 80 miles away. CARB is useless most of the time, and the enemy of civil rights, but it has helped make the air cleaner in California. I still think we need cheaper Vespas and more safety training classes, cheaper, so more people can ride them without having to pay a third party $300 just to operate one legally. These need to be cheap enough so Mexican maids can ride to work on them, and impoverished students with useless degrees, conned into them by wishfully deluded parents who were endlessly told that "College is the answer!!" (two !! is a sign of insanity) by their own stupid parents and are absolutely wrong, those young people can get around via scooter instead of failing to make car payments on their part time minimum wage jobs, particularly since Barista jobs are going away now. Nobody has money for $5 coffee anymore. We are returning to 1970's levels of poverty. Forget cruelty about hipsters and other name calling. I'm talking actual hopeless poverty being forced on an generation ready to give back. I expect there will be more of them volunteering at the library with me given time. The Millenials are at a point where literary awareness will soon return. Maybe they'll even write. Editorials and novels and reviews. They can use their opinions for the greater good. After all, these are kids that grew up with too much of everything and managed to survive it all anyway. They deserve their chance.
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