Monday 20070507 - Up at 0700; Up at 0900; WalMart; Home; Lunch and "Variety"; Lunch and "Variety" - "Tea and Sympathy"; CVS; Fads and Frames - Fountain Grass; Potting soil and cable ties; Home - laundry, cable ties, raking, Sunday's journal, "Heroes"
(Web work - (Tue) 20070508-1435 / (Mon) 20070507 / (Sun) 20070506)

Up at 0700 or thereabouts. Did the customary cat chores. Went back to bed.

I re awoke at 0900 and started to go back to bed, but then I remembered there were things to do.

Make bed including removing very old and very thin pair of blue sheets, which I put in the trash. New sheets. Left blanket and comforter aside for wash.

Shower, shave, lots of hair gel, lotion, etc. Dress.

Mississippi has something called the "Road and Bridge Privilege Tax and Registration Receipt" which is determined by the model and year of your car per municipality and county. For the same car, it may equal $100 if you live in an unincorporated area of a county; $150 if you live in a city in the county; and $200 if you live in a city in another county.

It's also called the car tag fee. If you want a decal to update the one on your tag, this is what you pay. The last year I owned the Nova, 99 I think, I was thinking I was going to buy a new car any day, so I put off getting the decal. The fee was only around $35. Well, I got pulled over and given a ticket for $150! At that point, I'm not sure if the car was worth $150.

Paying the fine was a Kafkaesque experience. You have to go to one of the city government buildings. There was a tiny room with five overweight women all trying to do business. I literally felt sorry for them. Turns out I did not know the amount of the fee, and did not have enough money, and they only accept cash.

I had to leave, make a return trip to the bank, where I'd cashed a check earlier and cash a second check.

I then went back to the city government building, but since I'd been in, the fine had been moved over to the general fees office. This is where they collect fees for everything: car-related, parking fees, violation of the leash law, and fees connected with criminal charges. This room was also small and hot, and you dealt with the clerks through bullet-proof glass.

The conversations were such as, "Damn, I paid that fee." "This is going to cost me how much!!!" "The judge said, I could pay off the fine on an installment plan." "But I just came from the court room." "My wife is supposed to pay half of this." "I'm schedule to go back to court next week." HOLY SHIT! I finally got to the counter and in my most southern voice said, "Sir! They said I need to pay this here fine! Yes, I've got the cash right here." When I said that I felt like a gold fish in a tank of pirana. I could see people thinking, "I wonder where he parked?" "I bet I can outrun him."

Morale of story: render unto Caesar, before Caesar wants a lot more.

(Out - Monday - 20070507 - circa 1015: $30.74 - Cash)

Tea, canned cat food, bread, room deodorizer, cake, paper towels and a package of six socks.

(Out - Monday - 20070507 - 1047: $50.91 + $40 cash back = $90.91 - Bank Debit Card)

A quick stop at home to unload. And I placed the wash in the dryer. And added new laundry to the washer.

I glanced through the March 26 - April 1, 2007, of "Variety."

Fairly positive review of Mark Wahlberg in "Shooter." I read such conflicting info, I didn't know what to think. And a decent review of Shia LaBeouf in "Disturbia."

On Showtime's "The Tudors," it says ""A big. bold. opulent gamble, "The Tutors" is not the great series that it might have been, but it's certainly a watchable and diverting one -- lustily combining liberal doses of bodice ripping with medieval geopolitics. Jonathan Rhys Meyers brings virile wattage to this 10-part project as young King Henry VIII ..."

First significant Gotham production since 1953. "Tom (Dan McCabe), a teen at a private boys schools, gets ostracized for swimming nude with a male teacher and generally behaving like a sissy, so he tries to butch it up by sleeping with the town tramp."

"(Robert) Anderson writes less about the fear of homosexuality that about the way people manipulate others to fulfill their own needs."

"Crucially, Tom never defines his sexuality. ... But it's never clear if he's gay or straight. McCabe's perf, Refreshingly devoid of lisping stereotypes, show that Tom is a symbol of ambiguous sexuality floating though a world where everyone else's roles are rigid."

Laura, the headmaster's wife befriends Tom, but not so much to protect him as for his affection not available in her marriage to a cold, cruel man. "She needs him to be the man who can love her with a masculine body and a feminine soul."

"The unsettling question lingers: What does it mean when the person fighting for an outcast uses him just as much as his enemies? The play makes it hard to tell the difference between letting someone be himself and forcing him to be what you crave."

(In - Monday - 20070707 - 1127: $7.51 Cash)

Next up was a trip to CVS for prescriptions to G.E. Alprazolam (xanax) and GE Budeprion (Wellbutrin XL). I realized it was not GE Budeprion I needed but Levacet - for anxiety/allergy/migraine headaches. I told the druggist about checking on the web and only finding ten or so entries, and six of those were from my journal. She said it was a new drug in circulation for less than six months. She even showed me the bottle, and it clearly says Levacet.

(Out - Monday - 20070507 - 1328: $23.99 - Orchard)

On the way to CVS, I'd noticed some ornamental grass at Fads and Frames. I pulled in, and the plants looked like what I wanted. (It's called Fountain Grass. It comes in a variety of colors: white, rose, purple, red, pink, green, black - I think what I've got is in the purplish range.)

There's an area along the front of house that when I started cleaning was covered with ivy. I knew that under the ivy were some 18-inch grey brick that at one point had formed the edge of a planting bed. After much ado, I finally got rid of the ivy and rescued the bricks. At some point, the old clay/concrete sewage pipe to the street had been replaced by PVC. So among the items I found were pieces of pipe, an old hose, assorted broken bricks, and lots of roots.

About three feet out from the house is an ancient growth of Ligustrum japonicum. The trunks are gnarled and split, and all the growth is about 4 feet up. Hence I was looking to cover the area underneath. So I bought four plants, and I'll see how they do.

(Out - Monday - 20070507 - 1457: $55.60 - Bank debit card.

(Pause - Tuesday - 20070508 - 1722)
(Return - Tuesday - 20070508 - 2100)

I'd noticed when I potted the plants that I didn't have enough soil. So I thought I'd make my second stop by WalMart for said item.

For the last couple of days, I've noticed that the blinds on the carport have become partly inside and partly outside the poles. The blinds were hung on the inside of the three metal poles. As I recall the poles are 88 inches apart, and the blinds are 96-inches wide. So I hung them using the center pole as the starting point. So the blinds extend eight inches beyond each pole. I knew the blinds would sway in the wind, but I thought I'd solved that problem by the use of the fishing weights I installed Saturday along the bottom of the blinds. Well, it didn't.

My next idea was to use plastic electrical ties to connect the blinds to the post. But I discovered that the ties were only eight inches long. So what I needed were longer ties. This was my second reason for stopping at WalMart. But as I was looking at the ties, it struck me that I could link the ties together to get whatever length I needed, so I didn't really need anymore.

On the way out, I picked up a bag of enriched top soil.

(Out - Monday - 20070707 - 1401: $5.10 - Cash)

Once home I brought in the blanket, put clothes into the dryer, and had a comforter on hold.

I installed, after some confusion, the cable ties, so that the end of each blind is attached to a pole.

I was not about to attempt putting out the fountain grass, so I settled for some raking: two more containers to add to the collection.

And I finished the laundry

I then tried to finish up with Sunday's journal. I took an hour off at 8 to watch "Heroes," which passed irritating several weeks ago. Are we in the future or the present? The sword is broken again??? Who is the new kid? And where the hell is the dwarf who talks backwards?

Solicitation from AARP auto insurance (junk); Solicitation from "Details" magazine (keep); solicitation from CVS (junk); Total Control Account statement from MetLife (keep)

(Out - Tuesday - 20070508 - 2200)