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Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Summertime?

July came in like early April. 55°F this morning and very low humidity, something quite unusual for Planet Georgia in July. Usually, this time of year, people are considering turning on the car A/C during the morning commute. DD’s pal from Norway would have approved.

A more reliable indicator that summer has arrived: The Boy moved out a couple weeks ago. A few weeks ago, he showed us the place he and his friends were looking at: a double-wide with rotting siding (not well-hidden under fresh paint) and a missing central A/C unit. The place was locked, so I can only imagine what the roof & floors were like. So they ended up renting a trailer from Mrs. Fetched’s mom… they agreed to a bunch of stipulations about alcohol and parties (none), although I’m sure they’ll have some booze hidden away somewhere. Snippet is there (of course), along with one of the other band members and his cousin P.O.D.

Speaking of P.O.D., his commute to Canton is eating him alive — why he can’t find an apartment closer to work is beyond me, but he’s Big V’s son and I’ve long given up on trying to untangle what passes for logic on that side of the family. So he started nosing around to see if I’d “loan” him my Civic (which I bought from him so he could get a truck), but it picked this last week for the speedometer sensor to start acting up. Not thinking he’d take me up on it, I offered to loan him the Virago and he jumped on it. I didn’t think a crotch rocket pilot, even a former one (he sold it after a large speeding ticket some time back), would be interested in a large cruiser. But he figured he could save $30/week in gas alone, so maybe it’s not a big surprise.

I let him borrow it over the weekend to get acquainted with it, and he brought it back complaining of it missing and acting weird. I wasn’t in any shape on Sunday to deal with it, but I checked it out last night and it acted just like it had once before, a couple of years ago, and hadn’t done since. Using the strategy, “check the cheap stuff first,” we (P.O.D. helped) quickly stunk up the garage with spilled gasoline and found that the fuel filter was beyond dirty. Mrs. Fetched picked up a new one today while I was at work, and I got it in tonight. I haven’t refilled the gas tank yet, but I’m pretty sure that will fix the problem. I figure he’ll pick it up while I’m at work tomorrow.

The blackberries are already getting ripe — and I’ll definitely be out picking this weekend when it’s not raining. There’s a new stand, where the timber people cleared an ingress point, that looks nearly as big as the one in the pasture I raided last year. There’s a smaller stand in the front yard, and that’s getting picked first because I won’t have to walk as far. :-) I’d like to get 3 gallons total, which would keep us in jelly for a while. If The Boy and Snippet aren’t too lazy to do a little picking, they could get some free food.

In any case, I’m looking forward to a three-day weekend.

6 comments:

  1. Three gallons of berries?!! That would probably go for a couple of c-notes around here. Glad to hear that the boy is settled. I wish automotive problems could all be solved as easily as your Virago's.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That much, Boran? Heck, I'd open a roadside stand for that kind of green! :-D

    Yeah, that's another one of the advantages of motorcycles — (relative) ease of maintenance. I'm hoping The Boy's move is permanent… it had better be, because I'm going to turn "his" room into a library!

    ReplyDelete
  3. [BTW, I deleted your second message just to keep things neat.]

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey FAR, the action just never lets up down there does it? :-) The way you described that trailer made me think of the one in Pink Flamingos

    (http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k244/Natalie_036/June/Pink_Flamingos.png).

    Did you ever see that? Classic John Waters...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hiya FAR.

    Yep blackberry jelly or jam would be wonderful. I haven't had any homemade since my Grandmother was alive.

    You description of the double-wide sounds a lot like the one I rented when I first got divorced and was transferred to Columbus, MS.

    Hope you enjoy your 3-day w/e.

    ReplyDelete
  6. IVG, was that the movie whose tagline was, "an exercise in bad taste"? They showed it at college when I was there, but we didn't go.

    FM, was that the double-wide with the tombstone sidewalk?

    ReplyDelete

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