Sunday Domestic Photoblogging

I sprained my back Monday and couldn’t manage to stand up straight until Saturday. Still hurts today, Sunday, but at least no one will mistake me for Quasimodo and I can be seen in public again. I manage to hurt my back once every couple of years, but until now a good night’s sleep would see me up and about again. Everything takes longer when you’re old. Pissing, for example, but enough about that.

I need to get out earlier with Lulu and Fritzi. Seven in the morning is too late — the neighborhood’s up and we don’t have the streets to ourselves. Every jogger, walker, and dog is the object of furious barking. To those who are trying to sleep in, sorry!

The old guy, Mister B, doesn’t come with us these days. His hips are stiff and weak and he has trouble getting up. Once up, he stumps about like Captain Ahab and has to drag his hindquarters in and out the doggy door. He’s happy to watch from the comfort of his bed as I put the harnesses on his younger housemates. If I take his harness down from the hook, he tucks his head in a corner of the bed and pretends not to see it. He was nine when we brought him home and will turn sixteen in a few days, so I guess it’s only natural. Occasional bouts of incontinence come with the territory. We forgive him.

Got a screaming deal on two non-kink garden hoses from Amazon back in June, the kind you see advertised on TV. Shoulda known better. The first one popped yesterday and I expect the second to go soon. I knew they were crap when I ordered them, but thought we’d get at least a year or two out of them. I’ve come to hate shopping the old-fashioned way, but it’s time to suck it up and visit Ace Hardware. Oh well, we need to restock our air conditioner/furnace air filter supply anyway, and, it being the end of the season, maybe get a deal on new patio umbrellas.

Over the years we acquired a few antique clocks. The ones we kept had all stopped running, but last year Donna took her favorite, the wall clock on the left, to a clockmaker in town. He repaired it and brought it by on Friday, and it’s back on the wall and ticking away — we’ve missed hearing those Westminster chimes. Since he was here, Donna showed him our grandmother clock, the one in the middle, and he agreed to fix it as well, taking the mechanism, pendulum, and weights with him when he left. When that one’s done and bonging the hours again, he says he’ll tackle the ship’s clock on the right. I inherited that one from my grandfather Estes, who had an admiral or two in his family tree. The spring that dings the bells still works but the one that drives the clock is toast, and it needs a good polishing as well.

I must say, considering the money Donna spent having that wall clock fixed up, and what repairing the other two will cost us, I’m feeling a little less guilt over the birthday wristwatch I plan to buy in October.

Stay fresh, cheese bags!