Good Help is Hard to Find
Got a call from Frank, my old handyman back east. He phones periodically, but always towards the end of the year to remind me about Dr. Who – I send him a CD of the previous year’s episodes every Xmas. He doesn’t have TV and used to come to my place to watch. Not welcome in everyone’s house – he just walks in, dirty boots and all, accompanied by one or more largish dogs that are stinky more often than not. But I didn’t mind – I considered my kitchen to be a country kitchen, and my own boots and dog weren’t always up to snuff (tho I cleaned up before going to other people’s places). One of my favorite memories was of getting him to collect me at the airport and driving home an hour and half in redolent truck with several dogs in that cubby-hole behind the seats and one on my lap.
But we were friends, in a weird way. Well, with a maternal aspect, as with all my handymen. (My first one, now living with a cam girl in the Philippines, sends me a mother’s day card every year; Frank said tearfully when I left that I reminded him of his mother; current handyman hasn’t said anything, but I get the same vibe from him.) (Never thought of myself as maternal, not probably sufficiently enough even with my actual children, but old age brings on the patina. Hah! – probably even grandmotherish. Tho still maternal for these 60-year-olds.)
My original handyman, the one in the Philippines, is a full-blown crank, up to his eyeballs, no, over his head, in Q crap. Recently posted that Trump will remain prez, possibly for all time, and all this riggy nonsense will be cleared away soon. I have long since given up retorting or trying to engage nicely or ANYthing. Cranks be cranks. Come to think of it, he’s always been a nut – years ago talked me into going with his then-wife to an excruciatingly boring talk about Rudolf Steiner. If you don’t know, don’t bother – unless you have serious insomnia and for some reason want to avoid chemicals.
Current handyman, Rob, dropped by this afternoon to check on next chores (cut and install some salvaged heavy plywood for platform for the enormous garbage and recycle bins the town has endowed us with), and did a mini-rant about all the gullible people taken in by *the TV* into believing in covid when clearly it’s all due to air pollution (gestured at the clouds and mist on the mountains).
Frank, without TV or internet (he’s very parsimonious), seems to be clear of all such nonsense. I miss his visits (and mine to his full-blown acres & 2 houses of hoarding, including currently 27 dogs) when we talked garden and construction and weather … and dogs. That’s how I like my handymen.
NEXT INSTALMENT – Lesser handypeople & housekeepers. The police were involved.
koshersalaami
11/16/2020 @ 10:45 pm
Welcome, Myriad. Haven’t seen you in forever.
Myriad
11/16/2020 @ 10:56 pm
Hi Kosh. I did join & check in long ago, but there was a, ah, problem. No longer, it would seem.
Ron Powell
11/16/2020 @ 11:08 pm
I am so glad to know that you’re OK and that you have joined us here….
‘Consider yourself at home…’
WELCOME!
Myriad
11/17/2020 @ 12:38 am
Hey Ron, great to connect again!
11/17/2020 @ 12:42 pm
Myriad!!
Your traveling must have come to a halt during covidian times. My local artisan bakery took up the practice of offering dessert items for curbside pick up, and they fill my instagram feed with gleaming photos. Kinda like your old posts of Austrian pastry 🙂
Myriad
11/17/2020 @ 4:00 pm
Hi Green! Yeah, not been travelling – but I could do posts about last (in both senses, alas) trip – sampling the rotten shark, feature dish of Iceland, and visiting the amazing penis museum there.
Art W. Stone
11/17/2020 @ 2:17 pm
Nice to see you are here. I moved to the coast.
Regards…
Myriad
11/17/2020 @ 4:02 pm
Hi Art. I moved to the coast (_a_ coast) too. Left the Arctic winters and tropical summers of Ontario for the somewhat soggy but moderate climate of lower mainland B.C.
jpHart
11/17/2020 @ 2:18 pm
!Mele Kalikimaka!
Blessings from
Broadway
& Big Sur
LO;}
North + South
Pole’
Gratitude regardless
Latitude! Like 98.6 =
SHELTER TWENTY-THREE
Myriad
11/17/2020 @ 4:03 pm
…speaking of nicer climate… I take this to refer to Hawaii…
Jonna Connelly
11/18/2020 @ 1:52 pm
Nice to see you here, Myriad.
Myriad
11/18/2020 @ 4:25 pm
Waves & throws a kiss
jpHart
11/18/2020 @ 4:11 pm
May rain here in our FDR Rustbelt tomorrow. I’ve maximally lack of REM pessimism. Gone too is that great moment in Blogging when Chicago Guy spun Curtis Mayfield’s ‘It’s Alright’ quickly followed by a philosophy major indexing [sic] ‘…oughten it be all right…?’ the stones the clones 30 second clips of drones….Minimally 4 more acres 18 NOV 20 but why who what where howl mosquitoes yet in the sunlight? Tiny bubbles in the warm wine?
This will be the day dear Myriad! Just sayin’ I’ve minimally 98.6 hours of CDs and I can’t locate
my J Joplin’s Greatest Hits nor Morrison’s The Future Begins here no doubt the white mouse now somersaulting backwards! All the chessmen in soliloquy…the end’s not near!
RACE FOR THE CURE
LO;}
[On the Beach (pause) The Road]