July Sweeps - Day 536

After choosing not to come to the cabin last week (which feels like yesterday or MAYBE the day before) so I could hang out with my friend, I'm back again today.  On Saturday, the whole family will be coming up here again to do work (this time filling in the trench that is forming along the side of the house by the woodpile), and I hope that my hands are healed enough by then that I will be useful.  My brother hired someone to bring two dumptrucks' worth of gravel up here on Monday, but they dumped one of them right on the driveway, so there was no way to get out of here after I'd driven in.

I did a, I dunno, twelve-point turn trying to turn my car around and get out of here when I went to the dam, and mildly scraped the back of my car on a tree trunk, and I don't know what we'll do on Saturday, when there's three or four vehicles up here (after I came back from the dam, I pulled only halfway up the driveway and left the car there, so I could just back down the hill when it's time to go tomorrow--I guess we'll all have to line up like that this weekend).

I wanted to add something to the next episode, which I've finished editing, but only came to about twenty-nine minutes.  I thought I'd record Fake Sean doing "RESPECT" by Aretha Franklin (the song I was going to record the day that she died, but chose "A Natural Woman" instead), but when I went through it, it wasn't nearly as amusing as I thought it would be (the "Sockittome, sockittome, sockittome" bit was fun, but that's back-up singers, not the main guy).

So today, I was trying to think of what to do.  After watching the Italian Poe adaptation last week with Jeff, I had grabbed a copy of Poe's "The Black Cat," and I sat down and recorded that, but I felt like a) I had already recorded it at some point and forgotten (which IS possible), and b) didn't want to put out two Poe stories in the same year, let alone back to back.  It's a fine story, and it was really fun to act it out (I did one part super big, then I went back and did it again, trying to squelch my bombastic tendencies, and it ended up sounding like that Michael Emerson guy from "Lost" and "Person of Interest," and I think that made it better), but you probably won't hear it for a while.  Maybe I'll give it to Marshal and we can do an episode of his show about it.

I'd still like to record something (Keith Teklits suggested I do something by Stanley Ellin, who I hadn't heard of, and I looked him up, and his most famous story is "Specialty of the House," which seems like a delightful short story, but was first published in the Forties, and can't possibly be in the public domain.  We'll see), and though I wrote it to do with Renee Chambliss, I think I might do the Bryan Adams sketch I wrote last year, lost, and rewrote.

But that reminds me.  I was at the library two weeks ago, and up in the Reference section, I found this book:

It is a big, two volume set of Urban Legends retellings, and it made me excited (not sexually, the other kind).  I have always loved urban legends, especially the spooky or disturbing ones, and to find two thick books on the subject got me pretty aroused (not the other kind).  Unfortunately, because they were "reference" books, they are not to leave the library--you have to look them over while you're there, although they have a study room I could go into and peruse them in private.

So, I was thinking it might be fun to do a segment called "Uncle Rish's Urban Legends Corner" or something on my show, where I share a couple of those and talk about them.  Then I could stick a couple of them in (not sexually, the other way) whenever an episode is running short.  What do you think of that idea?

Heck, I could just look those books up and see if they're cheap enough I could just buy them, and wouldn't have to stoop to sneaking in the library with a recorder and covering them that way.

Sit-ups Today: 150

Sit-ups In July: 2289

I've been trying to do extra sit-ups to make up for the fact that my body's not ready for push-ups quite yet, but I really ought to start doing a lot of both again.

As is my tradition, I drove up to the lake about an hour before sunset (it was super overcast, though, so it got dark almost as soon as I got there).  I did my little run, up on the dam, up and then back, and suffered no ill effects.  There were two people down by the lake, fishing, and though my eyesight wasn't clear enough to make them out, I got the impression it was a father and son (of about eleven or twelve).  

Then I watched a YouTube video--the signal appearing and disappearing over and over again--and wondered if the weather affects how strong a signal you get is.  Would clouds affect a signal?

I discovered a feature on my phone to make animated gifs, so I tried it as the sun was setting.  Let's see if it will post here:

Anyway, after the fishermen left, I stood there, on the dam, in the semi-darkness, and just listened to the night.  Once again, there were owls back-and-forth hooting, which is always an exotic, magical sound to me.

Push-ups Today: 50

Push-ups In July: 2338

Right now, I'm sitting in my chair at the table, typing, and looking out the window I can see the mostly-full moon peeking through the clouds (a lot of clouds today).  It's not hot and it's not cold, and I have a single window open to just let air in, and all is quiet.  

One day, I don't know how far in the future, this will all end (my sister was saying that, when my mom dies, this place will be too expensive to maintain, and we'll have to sell it, and I don't know why that would be the case--my brother is the one who pays to maintain it now, since he makes good money and takes pride in this place, and I can't see that changing when he owns it outright [or split three or four ways between us siblings]--but there are plenty of other reasons why I wouldn't be able to come up here anymore, and it's upsetting to contemplate them), and I'll remember moments like right now, typing and pausing and hearing nothing but the buzz of the kitchen light (it always makes this ugly inner city powerlines sound, when none of the others do, so why did I turn it on instead of a quieter one?), the clicking of the (damn) John Wayne clock, and the occasional crackle of the ceiling beams above me.

Words Today: 1095
Words In July: 20,019