another brick in the wall

Since there are no shaolin classes Friday night, I sometimes stop at a bookstore or the local mall on my way home. Usually I'm not planning to buy anything in particular; it's more of a winding down walkabout after five days of Dwarf Rule*. And I like to ensure that I never become agoraphobic again.

This Friday was a bit different, as I was meeting a friend at Border's and I had just received my bonus. Of course it was suggested I celebrate by buying myself a little something. But, for reasons unknown, I couldn't work myself into a spending mood.

Although I did eventually end up buying a book, I actually found it a bit difficult to pay full price for it. This realization depressed me for a little while, and embarrasses me to admit it here, audience or no. I even considered going back to Borders and returning it. Have I doomed myself to be a cheapskate all my life? Or am I just out of the habit? (The book is John Lanchester’s “I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay.”)

Perhaps it's just as well I was in a penurious mood. Earlier today, the underemployed builder stopped by to diagnose the hole in the kitchen ceiling after first meeting with a potential brick mason. It's become obvious that the majority of my bonus will most certainly go for repairing the west side of the house.

Regarding the kitchen ceiling, it was one of those good news/bad news scenarios. Bad news: in addition to the ceiling's drywall being 1/4-inch thick, instead of the standard 1/2-inch material, the exposed wood had developed dry rot. Then he dug a bit further into the wood with a knife and found termite damage. The good news is that he insisted he would repair the ceiling for free, as he had so much spare time on his hands. Also, the termite damage was old and he couldn't find any active ones anywhere in the entire attic.

While I haven't decided to take him up on his offer of complimentary ceiling repair or not - I guess I'm being a typical, suspicious female - I insisted on taking him down to the Trinity Hall pub and buying him a Guinness for his trouble, which he accepted. We then got into a polite quarrel about who would finance the ceiling repairs. This was never resolved, but if he's able to find 1/4-inch ceiling drywall, he won't have to rip out the entire kitchen ceiling and replace it with 1/2-inch drywall. And we won't know that until tomorrow.

The part of all this that's causing me concern is that I don't know why he's doing this. He's only met me once before, and doing me a favor won't buy him brownie points with anyone else. While I"m not sufficiently conceited to think that every male wants to sleep with me, I'm equally bad at figuring out when someone is interested in me. And I didn't take much notice of him, except that he smelled good and drew really good diagrams of brick walls.

the flight to breathable air

A few days ago, I received my initial immigration application documents for The Great Southern Land of Australia. While I haven't really made up my mind to return, the application will probably take years to go through. An immigration attorney can speed up the process for you, but it's a pretty big chunk of change and I'm usually not in a rush.

The reason I say "usually" is that my asthma has been pretty bad all week. Perhaps Sunday's vacuuming frenzy set it off, but generally that only causes a single attack, not a week of feeling like a goldfish on the floor. Monday was so bad that the kung fu instructor insisted I take a break about 3/4 way through class.

It got better for a day or two, then returned with a vengeance. Last night I ended up sleeping at a 45-degree angle, which is another way of saying that I got very little sleep. Since last night, I've coughed so much that my back literally hurts, and I keep thinking I might spit out a bit of lung tissue during my next coughing binge. Like what you might see during a bad SNL skit.

It's still a mystery to me why it took me almost 40 years to develop asthma. I can only assume it's the poor air quality here in Dallas, as it never bothered me in Australia, and it never bothers me when I get out of Dallas for a day or two. At least I don't live in Houston or Midlothian; I hear they're worse.

Another reason to stick to Internet shopping

Although I'm not like my friends who won't go to the 7-11 without a full head of makeup, I always make sure I'm wearing a shirt and shoes. But it appears that our Anglo comrades on the other side of the swamp have decided to go the casual route. (Tesco is a large UK supermarket chain.)

Tesco ban on shoppers in pyjamas

Notice at the Tesco store in St Mellons, Cardiff

A Tesco store has asked customers not to shop in their pyjamas or barefoot.

Notices have been put up in the chain's supermarket in St Mellons in Cardiff saying: "Footwear must be worn at all times and no nightwear is permitted."

A spokesman said Tesco did not have a strict dress code but it does not want people shopping in their nightwear in case it offends other customers.

He said he was not aware of any other Tesco stores having to put up similar signs.

The signs are placed at the entrance to the store, on the city's outskirts.

bonus $, bonus chocolate

Even though my calendar says I should be in the throes of PMS, I"m still, for the most part, cheerful. Even to the point where Jena at work noticed.

I confess my mood had some help just before lunchtime, when PD* came through the department and whispered to everyone that they should take a look at their upcoming paychecks. The previous week, we'd all been told that our parent company was giving us a bonus. But since no monetary figures were quoted, we generally assumed it wouldn't be very much. So I was pleasantly surprised when I logged into the Getalife intranet and saw that I was getting a $4K bonus.

Even after taxes, it was over $3k. More than enough to sort out the brickwork on the west side of Chez Melina - something I have to do to make my insurance company happy. This meant I'd have more of my tax refund available for sorting out my mother's medical bills (she hides them, but her crafty daughter knows where). So next time I visit her, all I have to do is wait for her to take her afternoon nap and then begin snooping.

My bonuses didn't end there. About 6:30pm, I was still at work and decided to indulge in a chocolate bar, and my 85 cents got me not one, but two Hershey's with almonds. I suppose I should go buy a lottery ticket now.

upcoming vacancies for Eastern Screech Owls

After spending the last two evenings listening to Eastern Screech Owls calling - it's a relaxing sound - I've decided to try and build my own owl nesting box. It doesn't look that difficult; all I have to do is to try not to saw off too many of my fingers with my rarely-used circular saw.

The biggest problem will probably be putting up the finished owl box. Seems that, when searching for a nesting site, owls follow the rule that higher is better. I have a couple of well-established trees in the back yard, including a persimmon that has its own possum fan club, but I better have a friend hang around to call 911 if I fall out of the tree during installation. I was an expert tree climber in my youth, but I suspect it is not a talent I've retained.