Randomness

photo: The Victorian Rocking Chair in question, taken by yours truly

A few random things rattling and echoing around the empty brain cave:

--In the 2010 movie The A-Team, Liam Neeson looks exactly like Carl Yastrzemski--tanned face, pronounced nose and chin, close-cropped grey hair, all of it.  They could be twins.

--After about a month of craziness, including a breaking vacuum head, snapping hoses, tubes that won't stay attached, a filter that didn't filter, a vacuum that didn't suction, and poolwater that had been left stagnant for three years to the extent that it was black, not green (and it was awesome when the tubes snapped and that three-year old stagnant, smelly, sticky, icky, foul water drenched me from head to toe)--after all that, the pool is just a ph test away from opening.  Don't even ask me about the number of man hours spent on it, or the number of nights I was vacuuming it until 11pm.

--And now to clean out the basement.  I'm not even going to get into the years of...stuff...I found behind stacks of wood and metal against the wall, but I will say that the so-called experts insisted that the problem would not die in the house after it ate the poison provided in several traps.  Are you sure? I asked them.  I think there's nests in here somewhere, and since you guys left the poison, there've been flies.  Nope, they said.  They just come in to snack and leave.  They'll snack on the poison and die outside.  So...uh...No.  Didn't happen.  Where's my power vac?  Ewwwwwwwwww...............

--At a yard sale recently, I spotted this old-looking rocking chair from about two houses away.  (I had to park a short distance from the yard sale.)  I went up to it, and, since I've always wanted an old rocking chair (and since there had been one in this house when I was younger, but now there isn't), I've been looking for one at a good price.  This one (I'll provide pictures.) has a leather seat, a leather headrest, and has been re-supported beneath the seat (you can't see it unless you turn it over).  The whole thing is very strong and very, very old but regal looking.  I sat on it before I decided I wanted to buy it.  She asked for $100.  I pointed out a couple of minor rips in the seat (which are actually no big deal; tiny drops of fabric glue will solve that problem), and the fact that the seat re-inforcement will decrease the value (it probably won't), and that one of the curved rocking pieces has been supported on the side, and that means that there's either a lack of support on that side, or that the other side will soon need strong re-inforcement (not likely), so she dropped the asking price to $85.  Then $80.  I asked for $60 and bought it for $65.  Immediately I took it to a woman I sometimes sell items to (I pick at yard sales and flea markets and then sell them for higher amounts to antique stores, consignment shops, or my own rare yard sales; purely for fun and part-time summer income), who owns her own vintage/antique store.  She said it was a (I've already forgotten the name) from the 1890s, most likely 1895, and it's worth at least $150 to $165, and she'd be interested in it if I ever wanted to sell it.  So I made a profit of $100, just like Mikey on American Pickers.  Not bad, and I'm sitting on it as I type this, and my laptop is on the 1890s library table I wrote about a long time ago.

--A guy I know just said that he had to give his ex-wife his 401k, and he said this with relief.  He explained that she could have taken half of his pension, too, but she didn't. Made me shudder in the summer heat.

--I'm just remembering now that The A-Team tv show was an odd combination of characters who were former armed forces professionals, but the show was aimed at young kids and younger teens, so they had to nix any and all violence.  So Mr T., George Peppard, et al. used to defeat the bad guys by shooting heads of lettuce and frozen vegetables and stuff at them.  Odd.  The cartoon violence of the movie might actually be more realistic by comparison.  Well, okay, maybe not.  Discuss.

--I'm happy that the bus monitor's harassers have made her rich (I'll support that irony anyday), but I'm not altogether sure she deserves over $650,000 for essentially not doing her job for the past ten, fifteen years.  I feel badly that she's been clearly (and perhaps clinically) depressed all these years, and the kids were obviously little monsters (and they got vilified because one of them thought their monstrosities were so cool that he posted it to his Facebook page, and then someone else thought it was so awesome that they downloaded his video and then put it on YouTube--all of which only reinforces my irony-fed happiness), but she was clearly not the right person for an important, safety-focused job, and the bus driver, school vice-principals and principal, and district all dropped the ball for a very long time here, as this situation had obviously been going on for many, many years.  I'm writing a treatment on this and hoping to sell it to a magazine's commentary section.  I'd better get it done soon, as it already may be old news.  And I'll write it better than I just wrote this.

--I get great sunset views from my westward windows and second-floor deck.  Cool, man.  You've gotta enjoy the little things.