Monday Musings.

It's funny how you can think about something, talk about it, muse and mull over it for days and then - BINGO! An offhand remark parts the clouds and there is the answer, standing in a sunbeam with seraphims and cherubs flitting about.  I am obviously carried away, or ought to be.  My home phone (land line for you techies) went dead a week ago.  I didn't realize it until that Sunday, when I was madly punching in the number for the gravel pit owner who was operating ILLEGALLY on Sunday (at 6:30A, on top of it all).  Nothing.  I was speaking to my inner ear.  There is nothing more infuriating than being infuriated already and then having your phone let you down.

I called the phone company and they sent someone out fairly quickly - two days later.  But everything was fine on the outside.  That meant I would have to have them come in and find the problem.  And pay for it.  I knew it was the mousies.  It's always the mousies.  Or the ratz.  How odd, I thought, that I can get DSL service but no phone signal.  Hmmm.  How odd....hmmmm....how odd.....hmmmm.  I've just given you a little glimpse into the inner workings of me.  Scary, ain't it?  I mentioned this to Kay's hubby at our Zoning Board meeting.  He said, "then the DSL line/phone line to the box is fine.  What about your other line?"  THWACK.  Sound of palm meeting forehead.  I went home, unplugged my phone from the other, non-working line, and plugged it into the office line.  It worked.  Then the same wonderful neighbor, Kay, came up with one of those two-outlet thingys and I am now back in business until spring - when I am brave enough to crawl under my crawl space to fix the other line.  Or, maybe summer.  Of 2022.

I have a penchant for used things.  I prefer older, used furniture to new stuff.  Old furniture has a history.  Sometimes you know its provenance and other times you can just imagine.  I have two rocking chairs -  one belonged to an aunt on my dad's side, and one belonged to my Great Aunt Edie, on my mom's side.  GAE could knit complicated patterns while sipping her evening scotch, listening to the radio, smoking her one-a-day cigarette, and watching the news, AND carrying on a conversation with you.  She could knit a house and all the furniture.  She and I began the family tradition of making gingerbread men (or "boys", as she put it) in her kitchen every December.  As we worked away, she would grill me on state capitols.  After she passed away, my mom and I took it up and have been doing it ever since.  Without the state capitols. 

Okay, back to the furniture.  Sheesh.  I would guess that about 99% of my furniture is not new.  When I moved into LLF, I had nothing.  Nada.  My parents, bless their hearts, gave me one of their extra beds.  I bought a used patio table and chairs that functioned as my dining room table and chairs for months.  Then a chance encounter on freecycle led me to a nice woman who came to pick up an extra lock set I had listed.  She looked at my empty house and said, "Do you need furniture?"  She gave me a solid maple dining table, two dressers, two nightstands, and a mirror.  All of which I still have.  Slowly, but surely, I have picked up a chair here, a table there.  Lately, I have been rethinking my space and all that's in it (besides too much).  One of the things I'm eyeing - in the 'out-the-door' way - is one of the rocking chairs.  But I am hesitating because of....guilt.  Should I keep it because it was my aunt's?  I wasn't particularly (at all) close to her.  Will her spirit rattle the doors and toss pots across the kitchen if I move it on?  Being a big chicken liver, it remains in my guest room where I don't have to look at it.  What do you think?