The future is getting closer

It had been a tough day, and my brain was having trouble disengaging on the drive home.

Music seemed like a good idea, and between whatever algorithm iTunes uses to shuffle and my own skipping finger, my favorite song came on.

And I didn’t listen to it.

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Calling all pedants

Does this sign mean …

Flashback

There comes a time when screws aren’t actually holding anything together and copious amounts of Gorilla glue pulled out of the odds-and-ends drawer are only effective for a short time.

Which is why we now have new kitchen chairs. We’re not sure how we wound up with three of them, but our cat Sasha now has a chance to have the kitchen chair she always wanted.

The smell of spring and wasting time

I didn’t smell the mulch so much as it draped over me, like a cloak placed over my back.

The guys who we call for our lawn twice a year had arrived that morning, and that afternoon, the grass had been trimmed, the weeds cleaned out, the around the beds lined up and the mulch put down.

Lots and lots of mulch.

Portsmouth says hi

It was the kind of day you that makes you forget not just New England winter — which was actually fairly mild this year — but especially the false spring, where the weather is nice for a day or two, then lousy for two weeks.

Seventy degrees, sunny skies, a light breeze … we’ll take that every time.

Some things, you never outgrow

It is not unusual to do things that make people look at me strangely.

The latest was over my giddy reaction when the person in charge of procuring the food for the monthly all-departments, all-hands-on-deck staff meeting in my office brought something in addition to the standard bagels-and-OJ fare.

She brought chocolate milk.

The last thing

The first time I wore a mask, I just about hyperventilated.

It was early days of the pandemic, and we needed some mulch for our lawn, so we made our first “outing” where there might actually be other people either Lowe’s or Home Depot, I don’t remember which.

We had our masks on, and I just could not breathe. As soon as we got back in the car, I couldn’t get that thing off fast enough.

Most mistakes don’t matter, but …

I just wanted to read something before dinner.

Unfortunately, my iPad wouldn’t cooperate. It had frozen, and my efforts to restart it only resulted in a series of screen grabs of the frozen home screen.

All this did was make me more frustrated. I’ve had iPhones and iPads long enough to know how to restart them; why wasn’t the damn thing working?

One foot in front of the other … again and again

If I come across people playing ball — little kids outside a town building or on my way to the pickleball courts, a group playing cricket in a town park — I will almost always stop.

This was a proper slow-pitch softball game, complete with a right fielder who appeared to be something of a hazard.

No shade. I’m a terrific first baseman, but if you stick me in the outfield, you’d better pray no one hits a fly ball my way. Which is why I’d probably end up in right field — less chance to do damage that way.

A dash of color

The magnolia tree looks good this year.

It looks good every year. It’s off our deck, with branches outside our upstairs bedroom window. We first notice the buds start to form, and then the sprout into pink and white flowers.

And then, before too long, the flowers all fall away.