The new trailer’s home, parked behind the new fence we had built to screen it from view. I’m fighting the urge to hook it to the new truck and drive around for no reason. There’ll be plenty of occasions to use it, and soon.
Donna says I’ve had my birthday and Christmas, not just this year but all the ones to come. I’m like the guy who wins the lottery and says screw this monthly stipend noise, I want the money now, all of it.
When I was going to college in Sacramento I worked at a gas station. The business next door rented travel trailers; they’d bring them to us to have the wheel bearings greased. We were always greasing trailers, and I got the impression it’s something you have to do often if you own one. So I asked about it when I picked up the new trailer. Every six months, they said. Back in the day that meant jacking up the trailer, removing the wheels, using a special tool to pull the bearings, swishing them around in a bucket of gasoline to wash off the crud, then repacking them by hand with thick axle grease—a dirty, time-consuming job (but one that always made me think of Ishmael squeezing ambergris in Moby Dick). Oh, boy, I thought. Then they showed me how it’s done these days: you put a grease gun to a fitting in the middle of the hub and squeeze a little in. No jack, no lug wrench, no bucket of gasoline, no dirty hands. O brave new world, that has such convenience in it!
Donna leaves Monday for Las Vegas. She’ll be there from the first to the tenth of November, watching over our grandson while our son and daughter-in-law vacation in Hawaii. I’ll be home with Polly, who starts a new job at the local school district today. She’ll be working in the cafeteria at a high school less than a mile from our house, which’ll be great for the time she’s still in our house, but the goal is for her to find her own place as soon as possible—she’s been with us four months now, after all, and we’re all ready for her to be on her own again. I don’t imagine she’ll find anything affordable in this neck of the woods, but who knows? A lot of people have casitas, small “mother-in-law” houses, on their property, and surely some owners rent them out. Friends of ours who live just down the street have one. It’s not for rent, but they’ve allowed us to use it a few times when our son and his family come to visit.
On November 12th, two days after Donna returns, I’m taking off on a four-day motorcycle ride to Death Valley, via Calexico, Lone Pine, and Lake Havasu. Thank goodness it’s cooled down.
Speaking of which, we had to close our windows and sliding patio doors yesterday because it was too cool. It’s also been raining like hell, and we’re hearing snow forecasts for the mountains (in fact it already has snowed in Flagstaff). It’s going to be a hard winter. Hard on people, I mean, but good on the land and water tables. I hope. Don’t want to jinx it before it happens, so just forget I said anything about it, okay?
I didn’t watch the Republican debate on CNBC this week, but I caught parts of it later on other news channels. From what I saw, this debate didn’t seem all that different from previous ones. The moderators probably were nasty and over-focused on the horse race, not the candidates’ ideas and policy positions, but they did ask some intelligent economic policy questions (which the candidates “answered” by attacking the media). Afterwards there was much moaning and groaning, not just from the candidates but from the Republican Party, about the hostility of the questions and the fact-checking by the moderators (who were live-Googling candidates’ statements and claims as fast as they could type on their iPads and smart phones). Huh. If you espouse hostile policies and make patently fraudulent claims, you should expect hostile questions and call-outs, am I right?
I’m sure the GOP candidates would rather be in the Fox News bubble, answering softball questions from sympathetic moderators, free to lie without being challenged or called out. I think we’ll soon see them, starting with Trump and Carson, demanding that kind of kid-glove treatment. If they’re not demanding it already.
We usually avoid parties, but we’re going to a Halloween party tonight, and in costume to boot. Donna’s going to be Tippi Hedren, with felt crows in her hair and on her clothes, and I’m going be be an identity thief. I’ll have to let you know how that works out!
My birthday’s tomorrow. I’ll be 69. I’ve already celebrated (truck/fence/trailer, remember?), so I have no plans beyond making a nice dinner and handing out candy to the few children who typically ring our bell every year. Sunday morning we’re taking our bicycles downtown for Cyclovia. Next week I hope to get Polly’s Ducati running again and put it up for sale on Craigslist.
It’s a nice time of year. I’m always happy when fall rolls around. And I love sharing my birthday with Halloween, which really should be a national holiday, don’t you think?