Nov 28, 2002

Now

Then

Thursday, November 28, 2002

Fire in the Kitchen

We’ve been having weather and I love it. We don’t get weather much in southern California and when it comes, I really savor the moments. Admittedly we’re weather wimps in this part of the country. A few hours of drizzle and the media is on the streets filming traffic accidents while the perky weather girl describes the torrential 3 tenths of an inch of moisture that drooled over the last 24 hours.

This time we got drizzle with high winds causing the power to be off for 7 hours. It gave me a chance to practice using my earthquake/disaster kit that we keep stashed in the shed. All I really needed to do was heat up some water for coffee but, as expected, things didn’t go smoothly. I consider myself an experienced backpacker so it should have been a small job firing up the camping stove and sticking a pot on the burner. Instead it turned into a “situation comedy” cliché complete with a small fire on the kitchen counter and flaming napkins tossed in the sink. No real harm done though I could probably use some training at one of those survivalist seminars.

I’m still working on town hall paperwork and though I don’t mind, it’s been interesting watching the dynamics that are involved with small town volunteer work. I agreed to do the newsletter and website but somehow ended up managing the membership records as well. I'm doing that by creating a Microsoft Access data base and manually entering all 337 members. All I had was a printed copy of the membership records so I stuck on the new Bruce Springsteen album and copied the whole list. Gotta get one of those ergonomic keyboards; my right wrist is throbbing this morning. I’m not a skilled typist so it took about 4 listenings of the album to complete the job. Jerry, the well meaning town hall president, has lofty ambitions about increasing the membership so he also provided a 27 page listing of the local voting precincts. I’ll be adding those names to the mailing list over the next few weeks.

Our Chickens

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Today we had Thanksgiving dinner with Sheila and my nieces and nephews. It's become the only regular family gathering for members on my side of the family. Catherine & I really enjoy it though I wish I could spend more time talking to Sheila. As the hostess, she's too busy taking care of everybody.

Catherine and I don't have children so it's fun listening to all the kids swapping stories around the table. I guess we're the quiet ones at the party.

June 13, 1966 Monday

Again things have changed. It seems that the trip back east is off for Barry and me. They just didn’t have room for us all. I really wanted to go but I think it was the right decision because by the time we got to Japan it would be late into the summer. I want to get to know Japan a lot better before I start going to school. Now we’ve gone back to the old way with Barry and I going by ourselves.

All my friends want me to write them and it seems I’ll be spending most of my time over in Japan writing. I don’t mind at all though because I love to write and I’ll probably be able to converse on paper than talking to them personally.

We got a letter from father today and he’s over in Japan. He couldn’t say much except he thought the people were real nice. He’ll let us know more soon.

I started finals today with algebra and English. English was easy as heck but algebra I didn’t do so hot in. I can never tell until I get my papers back.

My English teacher I really admire. He’s the type of guy who has a great personality and everybody likes. I can tell he has fun, that is he’s not a drag. He smokes and drinks and he even has a tattoo but he’s a nice guy. He never swears but with his personality, even the guys at school who are bad like him. He goes skin diving and loves his work, he never seems to have any problems. This is the kind of guy I wish I could be.

When I was a little kid about 8 years old I used to be very out going. When we went across country I’d wave and say hi to everybody. I was hardly ever shy. Now I’m just the opposite. I’m very withdrawn. I hope I can even out and be natural.

I’ve decided one thing. I’m the type of guy who wants everybody to like me and in my effort to do this I become very quiet and shy. Then people think you’re strange because of that. I realize now that there will always be someone who doesn’t like something about you so I’m just going to act myself and if they don’t like it they can cram it up their ear. When I was quiet I thought people couldn’t dislike you if they didn’t know what you thought but all I did was make myself a zombie.

I was talking to Barry today about sex. Of course I know about the birds and the bees but I realize I’ve led a very sheltered life. A few letters ago I mentioned how some of the girls got into trouble and had to drop out. Well I didn’t realize how much more went on. There are certain devices on the market that allow sexual intercourse without getting into trouble. What I thought was something that happened in special cases out of wedlock seems to be a fairly common practice. My church of course condemns this as a mortal sin and with my experience with girls I think I have nothing to worry about.

There’s only four more days of school left and then I’ll be free. As soon as schools out things will start to move faster around here.

I’m going to be a usher at the wedding. I’m feeling a bit nervous about that and also I have to get my drivers license pretty fast. We want to get it before we move. I start my shots next week.