THIS COULD BE FRIDAY

It could be Friday. I dunno. Heck, I have trouble keeping track of the days.

I had planned to drive to town on Wednesday. Got up early without much sleep. Felt more dead than alive. The more I visualized piloting those winding mountain roads, shopping at Walmart, and facing the prospect of getting stuck in the mud again on my way home, the more despondent I became.

Like the coward I am, I got undressed and crawled back into bed. 

The trauma of driving to town unnerves me so much that I find myself using any excuse to avoid it.

I'd rather be hung upside down by my toes, naked, in the public square.
Don't try to visualize this. You'll traumatize yourself.


So, I finally drove to town yesterday - which was probably Thursday. It was a lovely day (for a rare change) with no rain (for an extremely rare change) and........the very best part of all.....I didn't get stuck in the mud! 

Good thing I went yesterday, because today (which could be Friday) is suddenly freezing cold with strong winds.
The temperatures are annoyingly inconsistent: 60 degrees one day and 30 the next.

I always strategically plan my drives to town on days when it's not raining - which is nearly an impossibility - since it rains in Tennessee about 340 days a year.
Very slight exaggeration.    

I think I was the only person in Walmart who wasn't talking on a cell phone. It looked like a bookie convention.
Cell phone talkers in public places annoy the living jeeters out of me.

While I was standing in the (hopelessly long) line at the check-out counter, the woman behind me had a cell phone that started making alarmingly loud buzzing noises.  She was so close to me that the buzzer made me jump three feet.
I thought she zapped me in the ass.

For the second time in a month, I forgot to buy lithium batteries for my El Cheapo camera.
And I also forgot to buy light bulbs.

Buying light bulbs nowadays is a traumatic experience. Gone are my favorite old-fashioned "regular" bulbs. Now I have to contend with mysterious LED bulbs (which I never figured out).
And those bizarre spiral bulbs - which look exactly like a Carvel ice cream cone. They cast an eerie yellow-greenish glow. But they're supposed to last like 300 years (slight exaggeration).


 

This blog post wouldn't be complete without some uninteresting photos.
     

After weeks of gloomy weather, my cats were more than eager to bask in the sunlight yesterday (as seen from a dirty, rain-drenched window).

I took the following photos in my "back yard" today. It's amazing how completely colorless everything looks.

 Looking north toward the neighboring cow meadow

Some of the massive evergreens

Cold, bleak afternoon

CELL PHONES, HEAT, POSSIBILITY OF MURDER

Yesterday I received more mail for the guy who used to live here (see my previous post for explanation).

I am starting to get very slightly suspicious. 

I've lived here for four and a half years and never previously received any mail for him at this address. Not one thing.

Here's the Big Question (capitalized for emphasis):

Why this sudden postal surge?
It seems kinda odd.

I know the guy has a dubious past, but I genuinely believed I could trust him.  Now - however - I'm wondering if he has a plan to murder me and reclaim his old homestead.

Don't laugh. Stranger things have happened. He seems like a nice person, but.....

....Jack the Ripper probably seemed like a nice person, too. Until you got to know him. 

The rain has stopped (finally) and the summer heat has arrived a little early. Gorgeous sunny days.

On Tuesday morning the water pressure (here in the house) was very low. Finally there was no water at all. I didn't panic. This happens sporadically.
I said "To hell with it" and decided to drive to town.
By the time I got back home, the water was on again. 

I bought some good things: fresh corn on the cob and tomatoes. Roasted chicken. Ice cream. I haven't had ice cream in years. Tried some yesterday and it was heaven.

I also bought a new cell phone.

The recent Tracfone that I purchased is absolutely worthless. I seldom get a signal and can't text at all. Every time I try to text I get a "Check your network connection" message.

My first Tracfone was great. I had it five years with no problems.

Tracfone now features Alcatel phones, which are so bad that you'd do better using two cans and a string. Or Indian smoke signals.

I recently did some research on Alcatel phones:

They are designed in France.
Anything designed in France is crap.

They are owned by a Finnish company.
What has Finland ever given us but cheese and Sibelius?

They are assembled in China.
This conjures visions of eight-year-olds
working as slave laborers in Mao Tse-tung factories.

Anyway, my new phone is a so-called smart phone. Which was a big mistake - considering that I hardly ever use a cell phone. I only need a cell phone for texting - -
and for emergencies, like if a former resident of this place tries to kill me. 

This "smart" phone is at least five times more expensive to maintain than the Tracfone was. And it has loads of bells and whistles that I'll never use. You can supposedly watch a movie on it.

Who the bloody hell would want to watch a movie on a cell phone??? 

I haven't yet activated my new phone. But I did read part of the 700-page instruction booklet. Which is in about 450 languages.

Globalization, my ass.

WELCOME TO MARCH

Hard to believe that the third month of the new year is here already. The above vintage picture of Ireland is intended to put you into a March mood.

I plan to write a few more Hollywood-oriented blog posts....

I'll wait a moment until you calm down from the excitement

....but I'm presently inundated with problems and ill health (so what else is new??), which seriously impedes my creativity, wit, and irresistible charm. 

What's wrong with your health, Jon?

What's right with it ? The short version is that I feel like I died three weeks ago.

What problems, Jon?

My problems are presently so multitudinous that I use a special computerized file system to sort them.

Presently, my biggest problem is the furnace - which has been blowing cold air instead of heating.
As fate would have it, next week is predicted to be extremely cold - with frigid weather arriving on Sunday night.

I innocently thought Tennessee was a temperate southern state. If anybody had told me that there would be penguins and ice floes in March, I wouldn't have moved here.

So....
I've been doing research about errant furnaces on the Internet and learning incredibly boring but eye-opening things.

My gut instinct (which is usually wrong) tells me to check out the heating ducts, which could have been damaged by the friggin' wild animals that weasel their way under the house.
I'll try to investigate tomorrow (Saturday) - - if I can summon the courage.
I may look tough, but I'm a sissy.

Change of subject.


I sent my first text on my new cell phone last night (to my cousin Nancy).
It was a difficult procedure because the new phone is a LOT different than my old one was.

So...
everything was going fine - until I tried to send a second text. Suddenly I got a "no service" message.

Cell phone reception isn't particularly good out here in the boonies. Sometimes, in order to successfully send a text I have to go to a different room, or stand outside on the front porch, or out in the back near the forest and hold the phone up towards the east - in the direction where the town is located
(no, I am not kidding!!!!!)

Anyway, last night I couldn't send texts at all - no matter where I was. Yet - strangely enough - I could still make phone calls.

Life is one BIG, irritating enigma.

But you already knew that.

 

 

ICEBERG AHEAD

It's going to be a frigid week. That's the Big Prediction. Icebergs, indeed.

Right now, in mid-afternoon, it's 18 degrees Fahrenheit. That probably doesn't seem very cold to those of you in Nome, but for temperate Tennessee it's downright freezing. Especially if you live in a drafty, poorly-insulated house.

Despite being in a rotten mood and feeling like I died three weeks ago, I forced myself to drive to town yesterday. It was a rare mild day - before the cold front blew in.

I finally got milk (which I forgot to buy the last time I was in town). And I got enough supplies to keep me cozy and well-fed for the next few weeks.

I noticed that the stores were out of numerous things that I needed - which seems to happen quite often in this minuscule town.
Walmart has been out of my cat's favorite food (Purina Complete) for the past month. I had to substitute a mishmash of other brands, including Friskies - which they hate.

I also finally bought...

drumroll here for effect

a new cell phone!
I didn't bother to activate it yet. I'm simply not in an activation mood.

I was shocked at the high prices on the cell phones with all the bells and whistles.

I'm not a bell and whistle type person.
"Smart" phones scare (and annoy) me.

I have friends who brag about the incredible capabilities of their smart phones.

Jon, you've GOT to get a smart phone!

I have a Super Smart Alexander Graham Bell Double Entendre Deluxe Luminary Dingleberry Piston 3095 -
with golden fintails and flashing flares.

It monitors my sleep-cycle, wakes me at dawn, turns on the water in my shower and sets it to 75 degrees, reads me the news headlines while I'm eating breakfast, starts the car engine before I'm out the door, and it monitors the weather all day and immediately alerts me of a temperature change or a fluxtuation in the forecast.

It walks my dogs, retrieves and sorts my mail, stores every photo I've taken since 1956, is capable of reading  over 100,000 books to me, plays five million games, sings bedtime lullabies to my kids, does my taxes, and - when set on "warm-up mode" - initiates foreplay before I have sex with my wife.

So what kind of phone did you buy, Jon?

Heck. I have a three dollar Tracfone. 

I can make calls from half a mile away.
And I can send texts, on clear days, during months that begin with the letter "B".

I'll consider getting a smart phone when it cleans the cat's litter boxes and drives to town to get my groceries. 


Okay - it's not funny....but you can't say I didn't try. 

WHO??

 
Do you own a cell phone?

Yea, of course you do.

Do you take it with you when you go out?

Absolutely.

Do you bring it into a store when you're shopping?

Sure. Why not? 

Okay. Now here's my BIG question:

Do you talk incessantly on the phone while you're shopping - and, if so -

WHO the bloody hell are you talking to??????
WHO??? WHO??????

Please wait a moment while I try to calm down and compose myself. 

Okay. Let's continue.

I was shopping in Walmart yesterday (the most posh place in town). The number of customers in there talking on cell phones was astounding. It looked like a bookie convention.

I'm trying to look at cat food and litter, but there's a big-assed Hoochie Mama comfortably ensconced in the aisle, with her shopping cart blocking my way. She's completely immersed in a cell phone conversation and won't move an inch to let my skinny ass go by.

As I'm trying to make my way to a different part of the store, my navigation is impeded by an old man talking on a cell phone while he's walking.
And when I say old, I mean biblically ancient. Hell, I'm old, but this guy could be my great-grandfather.

He's shuffling so slowly that I'm surprised he's still able to stay in a vertical position.
I hear him say:
"I'm headed for the parking lot. I'll be home soon."

Problem is - the ol' geezer is heading towards the back of the store. He's nowhere NEAR the parking lot.

I suppress the temptation to grab the phone and yell "Grampa will be home in about fifteen years. Don't wait up."

I sure as hell hope he's not driving.

The worst cell phone aficionado is parked in the toilet paper aisle. She's a young babe with a couple of blabbering kids in the shopping cart.
She chats away on her cell phone without even attempting to move out of the way. She's in a conversational trance - - oblivious to the world.

I rudely reach around her to grab a four-roll pack of toilet paper.

"Double-ply", I say aloud, with the slight indication of a smirk. "I'll need it."

This is only a small sample of the Walmart cell phone addicts that I encountered. 

And I'm thinking:
This is rural Tennessee. I'm in the middle of frickin' nowhere. Half of these people probably haven't seen indoor plumbing.

Who the hell are they talking to? Their agents?? Their stockbrokers?? Their analysts???

I can't figure it out.

Watch it, Jon - you're starting to sound condescending and snooty.

Hey, Pancho - if my apt observations offend you - - go to the Disney Channel. I ain't here to make friends. 

I'm assuming that most of these Bozos use cell phones in public merely to look important.

I'm going to regress and take you back (whether you like it or not) to a time when I was a "kid" in Hollywood.

I occasionally enjoyed hanging out at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. Things have changed now, but at that time the Polo Lounge was the place to be seen. It was also where big Hollywood deals were often made.

Actors would sit around and gossip while waiting for calls from their agents. Producers and directors would make important calls while eating lunch.

This was long before cell phones were popular. The tables at the Polo Lounge were equipped with private landline phones.

 I mostly used to sit at the bar, on the left-hand side of the photo.

So, Jon - what does the Polo Lounge have to do with cell phone users in a Tennessee Walmart?

Absolutely nothing. I was merely harking back to better days - when cell phones were non-existent...and public telephone use had a purpose.

By the way -

have you ever tried to reactivate an old cell phone? I did it last night and the entire harrowing, nail-biting process took about two hours. It's the closest I came to having a complete mental breakdown.