Ding-a-ling

Usual mind-bending surfeit of errands today (Tuesday, February 17, 2009).
We always have to attach a surfeit of errands to any trip anywhere, e.g. the park with the dog, or the YMCA.
I have other trips scheduled; and errands to attach.
Yesterday, we took dog to Baker Park in Canandaigua so she could gambol loose and hunt squirrels.
Four circuits — she’d probably keep hunting all day.
Afterwards, off to Jo-Ann Fabric to find elastic for stirrups for my new long underwear.
My long underwear are Duofold®, and don’t come with stirrups. Linda has to sew in stirrups to keep the long underwear from riding up.
Then to mighty Weggers for the weekly grocery-shopping. Jo-Ann and Weggers adds about an hour. —Home at 3 p.m.
Back to Baker Park again today; left about 12:30 (Linda worked at the Post Office this morning).
Four more circuits, then a long trip to Honeoye Falls to -a) get rubber plugs far the basement faucet-caps (garage-pipes drained); and -b) hit the vet to get some more anti-worm medicine.
That’s about 20 miles — 20 minutes.
Leaving the hardware-store I realize I’m in Honeoye Falls, and don’t have the cash to buy an HO model GG1 at a model-train show my friend Art Dana and I will attend this weekend.
Honeoye Falls is the location of a Canandaigua National Bank branch, and I’m gonna have to hit their ATM sooner-or-later.
So I might as well do it now. —Add 10 minutes.
We pull up to the ATM machine, and roll down the window. I have my wallet out already, to get out my ATM card.
Suddenly “Ding-a-ling.” My cellphone is firing off in my jacket pocket. “Now what? For crying out loud!”
I can’t just drop everything and answer the phone, but it may be the Bluster-Boy with one of his boring tirades about not having my phone on. (It did ring, Boobie.)
“Hell-ooooo,” SCRATCH-CLICK; “Hell-ooooo,” SCRATCH-CLICK; “Hell-ooooo,” SCRATCH-CLICK; “Hell-ooooo,” SCRATCH-CLICK. “Wassa matter? How come yah never have your phone on, Dewd?”
It was Victor Power Equipment; my mower-deck is in and can be picked up any time — another errand.
Linda answered the phone; it was she that parried Victor Power Equipment. I’m in the middle of trying to finesse a new ATM machine. —What am I supposed to do? Pull out and come back later? Granny the Dubya-supporter is already blowing her horn behind me, because I took 15 seconds using the ATM.
Memories of the time I was in the Porta-John at Victor Christmas Tree Farm, and my cellphone fired off.
Sure is rewarding to be contactable at any time in any location.
Home at 3:45.

Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s three-plus, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. We let her run loose in “Baker Park in Canandaigua;” which is fenced.

I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA exercise gym.

“Linda” is my wife of 41+ years. She works part-time at the West Bloomfield post-office.

“Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.

The “garage-pipes (water circuits to garage) were drained” so they wouldn’t freeze. There are pipe-drains on the faucets in our basement. They are sealed by rubber plugs, which I needed.

The Pennsylvania Railroad’s GG1 electric locomotive is the greatest railroad locomotive of all time. An ode to the GG1 is in this blog. Also a correction.

“Art Dana” and I are both retired bus-drivers from Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY; the transit-bus operator where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). He lives nearby, and has tastes similar to me. I take him places because he has Parkinson’s Disease.

“Honeoye Falls” is the town nearest to where we live; about five miles away. (We live in rural West Bloomfield in western NY.)

The “Bluster-Boy” (“Boobie”) is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He calls me “Dewd” as a put-down, and spells “you” “yah.” He claims I never have my cellphone on, because compared to him I am technically challenged. (It’s usually on, but may not be answerable — for which it has voicemail. If it’s off, it goes directly to voicemail without ringing. He can’t seem to distinguish that; only that I didn’t answer it.) —He’s always saying “Hell-ooooo” at me, like a broken record.

RE: “My mower-deck is in.....” —The mower-deck on our small Honda lawnmower rusted through, so I ordered another mower-deck.

RE: “Granny the Dubya-supporter......” —“Granny” is anyone female over 50 or so. “Dubya” is George W. Bush, our previous president; proclaimed by my siblings as “the greatest president of all time.” Dubya-supporters can be very pushy.

RE: “Porta-John at Victor Christmas Tree Farm.....” —Before Christmas last year I attempted to purchase a live Christmas tree, which Victor Christmas Tree Farm grows, but they had only cut trees; nothing live. Their rest-room was a Porta-John. (My brother-in-Boston claims to be a Porta-John authority.)