Plus Two Days...

Today has been very warm in these parts -- about 85 F this afternoon when I returned home to Tether's End -- but the house had been shut up tight since 8 a.m. and it's only 73 F indoors (without A/C, mind you), and that is pretty easy to bear.  After a bit I'll go and invent some supper.  

I had to take Harriet-the-Chariot (ten year old Echo) in for regular service and some squeaks and rattles; we anticipated it would be an all day session, so there I was on the "funky" south side of Prairie Metropolis, with my tote-bag and my bus-pass and my big shady Tilley Hat -- almost a "picture hat" with a lovely broad brim.

Found breakfast, sat over LARGE coffee with a couple of newspapers (and their puzzles), some reading matter, a folio of letters to write, scrap paper for the making of notes; then sauntered along easily until I was ingested by a notable used-book-store... by sheer strength of character I was able to flee without buying more than 2 books, a Wendell Berry title and a graphic-novel-style biography of Walter Benjamin.  Walter Benjamin is my King Charles's head.  I am determined to find out who he was and what he was important for and why (and whether) I should care.  This last purchase may accomplish that.  But oh dear, I had made such solemn resolves not to buy any more bookses...at least these were not expensive, nor terribly bulky -- but heavy enough to be a proper penance to carry with everything else in my bag incl. water bottle etc.

More sauntering, and brief bus-riding, and I rendez-vous'ed with a very good friend for a lunch-hour meeting of an interfaith group, to hear a presentation by a "Faith Leader"... we came away debriefing on how intelligent, educated, right-minded, well-intentioned people can be so blithely and unapologetically ... inept. It would have made a classic case-study.  Brains to burn, degrees out the wa-zoo, and they couldn't hit the ground with their hats, two times out of three. (and the Rambler lets it get to her every time, which is HER form of practical ineptitude.)

We came away alive (thankfully, for we had about 45 people in a room which would have held 15 comfortably, and in those circumstances -- ONE doorway -- I can't help but think, "and if there's, say, a FIRE??????") and resorted to a nearby eatery and lingered over a delicious lunch, and got calmed down.

Then ambled away in the opposite direction, stopped off to deliver a book I had long promised to lend to a friend, hopped on a bus and picked up the vee-HICKLE, whose repairs cost less than estimated, AND SO HOME and into the cool, to find a phone message from yet another dear friend--coffee-date tomorrow, and a message about maybe a bit more part-time employment, and today's mail...

I think a quick library run later (two in, one out); and perhaps some laundry; and then luxurious reading until an early bedtime.

This retirement thing is a good gig!