Every year, come September, I am a prisoner in my house. It’s not just me; my neighbors are in the same boat. The f*cking swifts blow into town and everybody and his brother decide to come to see them.

Some of my neighbors are even more annoyed and actually do something about it. One got signs for the bottom of the street that say “Local Access” but that just meant that when the hill was full, people would stand in the street. It was nuts today.

But I did see a friend who hasn’t been in the gym since last winter, and my old General Chemistry professor from 1992-ish whose husband happens to meditate with my neighbor! I didn’t know that. I also saw some mylar balloons stuck in the power lines and called it in to the emergency number around 6PM because they were near some pole transformers. I wasn’t sure if it warranted a call to the emergency number, but a repair crew came about 9:30PM and took them down. The mylar balloons just being near the power lines caused a sizzling sound and could have cause a blackout.

I’ve been talking a lot about getting rid of a bunch of stuff out of the house and here’s a picture of my dad’s desk back shortly after he passed away in 2007. You can see all the stuff that I had to sort through and may understand why I gave up at some point.

There’s more of my dad’s stuff all throughout the house, and that’s the reason I took extra time off to get rid of some of it.

I knew I’d probably laze around and be lazy about doing the only difficult thing of my day (besides waking up), going to the gym. Wednesday I had breakfast with Megan and the combination of staying up late reading a bad thriller, waking up every time I rolled over onto my arm where I got my tetanus shot, a greasy diner breakfast, and way too much diner coffee made me feel kind of off all day. I figured, what the heck, I’m on vacation, and I took another day off.

Every day I’ve been taking furniture to the Community Warehouse and miscellaneous other stuff to Goodwill. Today I think I sorted through the crap that was in and on my dad’s desk because it was random and uncategorizable. They’re beginning to recognize me at both places. The guys at the Community Warehouse are more friendly, and one asked me if I just wanted a key so I could bring stuff in when I felt like it. Goodwill isn’t unfriendly, but just a lot more businesslike.

I have a lot more stuff to sort through, but at least I made a dent in things. The problem is that I keep finding interesting but useless things, like this menu.

It’s probably not worth anything, but it is interesting to look at.

I almost got up a little early today because my spider alarm went off. I’d call it a smoke detector but the only times its gone off, spiders have crawled out of it (plus, no smoke).It’s all a bit ridiculous if you ask me.

I also had my normal plans disrupted because of a trip to the doctor. What I thought was a problem turned out to be not much of a problem so instead he gave me a ‘flu shot. Then, just for fun, he also gave me a tetanus shot since he didn’t have whooping cough boosters without the tetanus mixed in. We’re protecting all the weird Republican/religious kids whose idiot parents don’t understand what vaccinations are for.

In any case, my arms were sore, more from the ‘flu vaccine than the tetanus shot, and I felt a bit tired so it didn’t make any sense to  miss the Monday night football game go to the gym so I stayed home tonight.

Oh, and I did get rid of 57 more books, most of which were coffee table books. I was going to get rid of more stuff but, hey, I can’t do everything at once, especially with two sore arms.

I didn’t get much done today besides going out to dinner for my brother-in-law’s birthday. I thought about clearing out some more stuff from the house, but really just ended up watching football. I got some gardening fabric down on my new dirt farm, also known as the front yard, but that didn’t take much doing.

Yesterday I got rid of some more furniture and a bunch of books. I tried to take the books to somewhere I like to take books (Title Wave Used Books) but they were closed, thanks to budget cuts I’m sure. They don’t answer the phone, the web site is useless, and the only way you could know when they’re open is to drive up to the sign in front of the door. Instead of driving around with books all weekend or carting all the books back into the house, I took them to Goodwill where they treated it all like garbage. I’m not sure why I even try taking anything even slightly fragile there. At least the Community Warehouse has been super nice and I expect Title Wave will be nice as well (they have been in the past).

Ah well, I’m on vacation.

The reason I took a couple of weeks off BEFORE leaving for my holiday is so I could move a pile of dirt to the back yard (done), and to take a bunch of stuff we don’t want to Goodwill or somewhere more deserving. In my head I decided I was going to do the yard work on the weekends and the getting-rid-of-stuff during the week, so Tuesday was supposed to be my first day of sorting through all the crap that’s been accumulated in the house. Unfortunately, I got sick on Tuesday and my ailment precluded any efforts that took me further than several feet from the bathroom. Or is that farther? Anyway, you get the idea. Wednesday I still wasn’t feeling that great and I noticed that my lymph nodes were swollen. Hooray, I’m sick around Labor Day again.

Today, I finally got a chest of drawers and a fine Solid-State Stereo with an 8-Track Tape player to the Oregon Community Warehouse. My sister had never heard of them, but here’s a description:

Community Warehouse is a volunteer-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit agency that collects and redistributes donated furniture and household goods to low-income people in Oregon and southwest Washington.

I’m not sure they can use the stereo, but the chest of drawers was usable. Lots of my other junk is probably going to Goodwill, even though I know they’re not the best organization, I figure they can sort through my crap and make money off of the stuff that they can sell and dispose of the left. Everything on the household necessity list (pots, pans, dishes, etc) is probably going to the Community Warehouse, but the everyday detritus of life is going to Goodwill.

My first real day off is probably Tuesday, but my last day at work until the week of Thanksgiving was Friday. So Saturday is my first day of vacation. On the first day of vacation I had a nightmare that I was getting fired. In reality, I think they’re going to have to wait two months to do that. Then, of course, I went to the gym and then I started moving a really big pile of dirt.

The picture is actually from the END of the day when I had most of it moved. The second day I finished moving it but it took all day. The reason I had the big pile of dirt is because I had a big hole in the back yard. Now the big hole has a bunch of dirt in it.

I didn’t count, but every one of those lumps is another almost-immovable wheelbarrow load of dirt. I should have hired someone to do this, but sometimes I’m not all that smart about such things.

I hope the rest of my vacation isn’t going to continue in this manner.

I went to the dentist today and I couldn’t really describe what he was going to do. I was told he was adding something and I had no real idea until I got there.

I guess my teeth are wearing because of some reason-or-another (most likely grinding my teeth while I’m asleep like my mom and my sister) and my canines were some weird shape. The red arrow points at a non-modified tooth. The green arrow points at a nice, pointy tooth that the dentist fixed.

Honestly, I’m not sure what to think of it. It’s easier to think about fixing the driveway.

I got up this morning and I was a bit tired. I bet it was because I was trying to move dirt around all day yesterday. This dirt pile is smaller than it was when I started, but still pretty darn huge. I t used to go as far as the sign.

The reason I had them leave the dirt pile was to fill in the backyard, which I am reconsidering at this time.

Instead of doing either the digging or going to the gym, I ended up cleaning up some of the overgrown curb across the street. My neighbor Richard and I usually guilt each other into cleaning the curb but we haven’t done it for a couple of years. I was lazy and I believe he had a boyfriend for at least part of the time. Today was the day for me, though, and I had to clean up 250′ of curb.

I didn’t take a before picture, so you can’t see how far the vegetation grew out into the street, but I do have a picture of how the turf grew over the curb, or a least some evidence of the sod after I threw it back into the grass.

This is all part of the school yard, and the school district can’t be bothered to do this because the taxpayers can’t be bothered to pay for the schools.

Oh, and I should mention that I cut out several azaleas and a rhododendron (once again there’s no “before” picture) and that took a bit of work as well.

And the star of the show is the new driveway. The fill dirt on both sides is something I also moved this weekend.

Any question about why I’m tired?

This morning the alarm went off and I stretched my legs. Unfortunately, when I do that a certain way, I can almost always cause my calf to immediately and painfully cramp up. Not only did I do that, but I had my shin cramp up on my opposite leg. I didn’t have to get up right away because I had a dentist’s appointment so I tried unsuccessfully to sleep it off. At the dentist I got a cramp in my neck as I was holding my mouth open.

So, there was a slight chance after limping around all day that I wasn’t in any shape to go to the gym. Lucky for me, I felt even worse by the time the afternoon came by and I skipped it altogether. I did get to run some errands instead, delivering the correct graduation present, mailing a HUGE check for the repair of the driveway, and buying coffee beans for my mom before I got home and dug out some azaleas from the front yard (they were covered with moss and only looking half-alive). I thought the digging would be good exercise, but I felt just as awful afterwards and got a new cramp between my shoulder blades.

It’s time to call it, isn’t it?

This past weekend was actually kind of busy for me. Usually when I have too much stuff going on I avoid all of it and end up doing nothing but sitting at home. This past weekend I did as much as I could. Saturday I went to the gym, tore down a room in my friend’s garage, went to an exercise seminar, then got cleaned up to go to a barbecue at an old friend’s house. Luckily, being an old friend he was also in the old neighborhood where I still live and all I had to do is walk a block to his house. His oldest son graduated from Portland State and is the one getting the kid’s safety scissors I mentioned previously.

Sunday I was beat. But that just meant I went to half of an exercise seminar with Chip Conrad and then went to a Celebration of Life for my buddy’s girlfriend who recently passed away way too young.

And then Monday I was beat. But that just meant it was a busy, busy day at work. Hooray for that.

Today I finally took a day off from the gym and scheduled some vacation time after Labor Day. Vacation just means I’m going to dig out the front yard and take a bunch of stuff to Goodwill before I leave on my big Japan adventure. Fun, huh?

I’ve wasted a bunch of time this evening trying to set up an old iPhone 4 because my new iPhone 4S has a beta OS and IT at work thought that meant it was a good time to erase all my work email and schedules from my phone. In about a month I’m on vacation, and I wouldn’t have cared, but right now I kind of like being able to check my email without starting up my laptop. I suppose it doesn’t really matter what I want.

Even better, I ordered a Cross gold pen from Amazon, who sent the order to Office Max. Office Max sent me a $2.99 pair of kid’s scissors that are, according to the label, are good for ages 4+.

So far, this week is going GREAT.

I keep thinking it’s probably some sort of blood sugar thing on Tuesdays after two consecutive evenings at the gym but I’m not completely sure. My friend pointed out again how cliquish the gym tends to be and that got me thinking. But I felt much better after flossing. I’m not sure if there’s any correlation there, but whatever.

Plus, I finally got my car back. I had another errand to run in the area of the Toyota dealer, so I didn’t want to go to work and have to come back in time to get my car. Especially since they promised me the car in the morning. I’m not sure how 3:30PM is “in the morning” but that’s not the worst of it. The person at the service desk was so surprised that Toyo was paying me for part of the tire that he seemed annoyed about the whole thing. And I guess my Extended Warranty doesn’t cover tire mounting. Whatever. I’m just happy to have my silly car back, though driving it after driving my mom’s peppy Camry makes me feel like I’m driving an underpowered wind-up toy.

Forms are up and concrete starts going in tomorrow. Things are coming up Milhouse!