Oliphant Parts
Tuesday Catch-Up
Memorial Day weekend is over, so we can all go back to ignoring the dead for another year. Unless, of course, you are the president, in which case you need to continue calling on all Americans to continue honoring the dead by providing more of them in our fight for freedom and democracy. I am still somewhat unsure how working with and promoting anti-freedom and anti-democratic regimes like Libya, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are helping the cause of freedom, but surely the president is not so stupid as to not have a plan.
Speaking of plans, the c.h.u.d.s, er, m.h.u.d.s (Mormon Human Underground Dwellers) should be moving out of the basement in another day or so. Yay!- I get my pool table back! They’ve been good guests, for the most part, but I look forward to having my house back. And not having to listen to the constant verbal emasculation of my brother-in-law.
We celebrated (or commemorated) Memorial Day by playing Croquet, barbequeing various bits of flesh and veggies, mowing, cleaning and performing various acts of household maintenance (including removing all of the large rocks from the shed roof — apparently the kids like throwing rocks over the shed to see if they can hit on another on the other side. And these are supposed to be gifted children? I’d say they’re both just one rock away from the short bus). These are the days when I look back fondly on renting.
Leftovers
The pool pump is finally in working order and I managed to clear the blockage out of the vacuum line. Now all I have to do is finish scooping out the foot-deep pile leaves that have settled into the deep end and the kids can go swimming. Right now I am wishing I hadn’t been so cheap on the pool cleaning supplies because a leaf cleaner would be really handy right now. Vacuuming entails stopping every few minutes to clear the pump of debris and cursing myself for being so tightfisted.
As Memorial Day approaches (one of many American holidays where we celebrate excessive drinking and the burning of expensive cuts of meat on various outdoor gas and/or charcoal grills, despite the fact that most of us have perfectly functional ovens and ranges indoors), I find myself concentrating more and more on the things I still have left to do. The pool is at a point chemically where I cannot (or should not) mess with it for another eight hours. I planted the Wisteria this morning. I still have several acres of mowing, the cleaning of the grills, the moving of the lava rocks and the murdering of the damned patio weeds to look forward to before Monday. Since we are expecting company, I should probably also shave and bathe sometime before then as well.
And who says politicians don’t have a sense of humour? Here’s Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas playing peekaboo during a conference in the West Bank:
(image shamelessly linked to from canada.com)
Idiots
And here’s a quick update to Tuesday’s elections/primaries/statewide flake-off: 25% of registered voters bothered to vote. That means my vote was four times as powerful as it would be in an ideal election. I’d be interested to know how many people here are eligible to vote, but haven’t bothered to vote; factoring in the lazy bastards who haven’t registered, and my vote’s probably ten times as powerful. Yay democracy. Lazy bastards. And on that note, I’m going to go feed my horrible little screaming birds. Happy whatever, world.
Voting for Something
Idaho’s holding its primaries today, so I vote again for the first time in what? A week? Considering the expense, it seems like combining the primaries and last week’s issue would have been a wise choice. Maybe then there would have been something better than the 11% turnout of last week. Like maybe the 27% turnout expected this week. Hooray for democracy inaction.
Having come from California, voting in Idaho is interesting. There are various polling places and you can vote at any of them. I assume somebody actually checks to make sure you don’t vote at all of them. If, like me, you’re a democrat, you get to do write-in votes for most positions. Now that’s a sign of a healthy two-party system, isn’t it? Maybe if they published a voters’ guide so that we actually knew what the various candidates had to say about themselves, more people might get out to vote. At the moment, you just base your vote on word of mouth and the attack ads that fill the op-ed section of the local papers. My preferred method of choice is to vote for whomever has the lowest tally of attacks.
Update: I voted, now what? My votes were cast in ignorance (see lack of voters’ guide above), so I chose the first candidate listed in each choice. Way to go, voting by alphabetical order! As a democrat, half the positions were write-in, so I voted for myself. Hopefully I’ll win. I’d really like to be whatever it was that I chose. County commisioner? County clerk? County coroner? Whatever, I’m sure it will be exciting and I will fulfill my duties with all of the thought and effort I put into my write-in campaign. That is, none whatsoever.
Too early.
The baby robins are looking and sounding more and more like baby starlings every day, and I think it’s too late to drown them in the pond. If it is true, and I have raised three starlings, maybe I can train them. Get them to lead the wild starlings to the cats. Race wild starlings through windmills. Outfit them with razor-lined outfits to cut the wild ones to shreds. Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?
Oh, the carnage!
It’s getting worse. I now have three baby robins, most likely between 9 and 16 days old. They’ve got some pin feathers and a little fuzz, but really need to fledge so that I don’t have to keep staring at the skinny old man necks and the golf-ball bodies. The latest one showed up last night under a different tree, so I assume it is a cousin. So, are these runaways, or did a bigger sibling drop-kick them out of the nest? Or could it be the work of the damned starlings? I prefer the starling theory since I consider starlings to pretty much be at the root of all evil here on my compound (now that I’ve got the chain link fence in front, it’s a compound, not just a little house on the prairie. By next week I should have the gate up, so I can start releasing the attack-pomeranian. Oooh!- scary!).
Where was I? Oh yeah, the birds. Now I’ve got a shoe box full of little grey beasts with bright yellow beaks and I’m starting to remember the carnage of last summer. Dead baby bird bodies floating in the pond. Dead baby birds on the swimming pool cover. Dead baby birds throughout the back yard. I didn’t think much of it back then, but my trees rain death. So, is it the damned starlings, or is this just nature? Effing nature. Speaking of nature, I have a raging headache today, so don’t piss me off or I’ll cry on you.
Montana
Okay, time to head out for Montana. I’d rather give up my left nut, but my wife says it’s not an option. Farewell, fine Idaho. Hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow. And hopefully the annoying little birds’ll still be breathing. And maybe somewhat less bald. The birds, not me.
Birds
I’ve become a new father again. Hopefully the little buggers will fledge quickly and fly off, though, because feeding them every half hour is getting to be a drag. Good deed, my arse; I should’ve left their scrawny mutant baby robin butts on the ground for the cats. They are cute, though, in a potato-bug kind of way. Almost bald, with a few pin feathers on the wings, some light fuzz on top of their heads and bright yellow beaks. They’re built like grey golf balls with wings and distended necks. hmmm . . . maybe it’d be easier to photograph the useless little things rather than describe them. If I get up anytime soon, I’ll try it. Maybe.
Relax
It’s Friday, and I am looking forward to a non-relaxing weekend. After work, I drive to Montana to help the in-laws move. Saturday I come back and finish a screen door, mow and put up the new gate. Hopefully sometime in there the pool pump will have been fixed, so that the four hours I spent yesterday rebuilding all of the plumbing will have been useful. Anyway, back to work — gotta get out early.
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