The Rhythm of My Life

I am a battery-powered bobblehead!

I have had two cordless drills: one an 18V. Milwaukee
for heavy duty jobs, and the other a 12V. Ryobi,
which I bought for small screws and pilot holes.

I lost the Milwaukee. I must have put it on a bumper
and driven off, just to test its balance and homing sense.
So I have been trying to make do with the cheap Ryobi,
and with an even older corded Milwaukee, which is
powerful, but does not have an ounce of sense.
Touching the trigger makes it jump, and it coasts
until the screws are all the way through the board,
or until I have bored a hole in my shoe tops.

Money! Money! I know just the drill I want, but it costs
too much, so I have been encouraging the Ryobi with
frequent chargings. I finally gave up on the two old batteries.
They simply would no longer take charges.

I bought a new battery; just one; you know,
I really don't want to make it a full partner.

I plugged the new battery in, but the charger light
did not come on. Aha! It was not plugged in!
The people who installed some new windows at our house
had used the outlet in the garage, and left it unplugged!

I have not been charging those old batteries.
I have simply been putting them in the charger.

Now I have an unruly, old corded drill, with a passion for
running away, and an inadequate Ryobi with two old,
and one new, battery. I am, though, not discouraged.
I am stupid. Old and stupid. It is an unbeatable combo.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Friends-- My step-father of 35 years died this morning. His name was Conrad Royksund. He was 86 years old. He was born into poverty on a farm near Puyallup, WA. He was the first member of his family to attend college and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago. He paid his way through all of that by fishing in Alaska. He spent his professional career as a college professor. I met him when I was just 3 years old and don't actually have any memories of my life befor e he was in it. He was intimidatingly smart, funny as hell, and worked his ass off. He taught me to meet people with kindness and decency until I was certain they could not be trusted. He taught me to meet ideas with carving knives until I was certain they could. I will remember him as one of the bravest, most curious, and funniest people I have ever met. He left this world with a satisfied mind. We are so grateful. Dan Hubbard

Caliche Busters and Government Work

When I was young and both stronger and smarter than I am now, I put my might and brain to work doing nothing useful, unless it might be thought that hand/foot/eye coordination might come in handy. Those were skills to be learned and practiced. I found an iron bar our grandfather had shaped in his blacksmith shop. He took old car, truck, or wagon axles, and made tools from them for digging post holes. He sharpened one end to a tip, and the other to a blade. Washington State, like many places, had a hard layer of soil, probably created by water and limestone, or some such materials, that made digging holes a miserable chore. The bar chipped through the natural concrete so that a shovel could take it up. I found Grandpa's iron bar, and since I was young and dumb and strong--or so I thought--decided to punch a hole down to hardpan and ultimate truth. I knew how to do that. Raise the bar vertically with both hands, and then slam in straight down. On the second try, aimi

The Sea is Rising

Let us just step back: two hundred and fifty years ago, or so, the ships of England and Spain had drifted onto a whole new continent, as they saw it, from far north to a savagely cold south; pole to pole, as if there were such things. Millions of people already lived here, some of them still hunters and gatherers; some of them very wealthy, indeed! Gold and silver stolen from the southern Americas funded Spanish and English dreams. There was land, lots of land, under starry skies above, rich land, and oil and coal and iron ore. The whole western world learned how to build industries not on simple muscle power, but on steam and oil. We farmed, too, of course. All we needed was cheap labor--slave labor from Africa, mostly, so the ships came with slave labor. Chinese labor built railroad beds where there had been rock cliffs. Europeans, long used to killing each other for good, religious reasons, brought their religious savagery with them. Even when all they wanted to do w

SmokeSound

Search This Blog