No, it doesn’t work
Tommy James – Draggin’ The Line (1971)
Happy Monday and I hope you don't sing this song as painfully as they did at the very lame Cruise in at Mine Kill Pool last summer.
Waking up and seeing yourself in the mirror ☺️
After all these years it’s a surprisingly unusual experience. I mean a few more night of wearing the anti-rub goggles through Thursday but as each day irriation goes down and the vision improves. Last night my eyes were a bit irrated but with some eye drops and good nights sleep they seemed better though a few times I rolled over and the goggles slipped off.
It was a busy weekend, it seemed to end before it begun. 🐰 Honestly, my hopes for the weekend were a bit limited as I knew a big part of it would be recovering from the big snip, but I spent the balance of Saturday at Thacher Park – well into the night when the bus driver messed up and things were very late and then Sunday morning at Five Rivers then apple picking with Dad on Sunday afternoon and then a family dinner. Dad is getting up there in the years, he was having trouble getting around the orchard. I am not sure if I will be out to see them for a few weeks now if I head north next weekend through Columbus Day. 🍁
I wasn’t going to ride into work 🚴, you know because I need more time for my eyes 👀 to recover, but you know how that goes on ice filled 10 degree winter days ☃️ when I say the same thing, and my extreme mental illness kicks in and says what’s the alternative? It’s not like the express bus 🚌 runs any more, and based on my experience lately, I’m not sure if I trust the yokel-local bus to get to me to work very slowly. And I could be one of those plastic-recycling suburbanites ♻️ who doesn’t burn their trash, and actually drive my big jacked up pickup truck to the suburban office next to sewage treatment works 🚽 and not a real knuckledragger but I like riding my bike. I’ll just make sure to wet my eyes and wear the dark protective glasses 👓 on the way in. I’ll catch the Route 13 bus, which give about a 50% chance of showing up this evening and ride over to eye doctor 🧑⚕️for my final check up and vision test. Figured I don’t want my eyes too irrated when I go for the check. See Mr. LASIK Doctor I’ve been on my best behavior, I slept for 13 hours after your procedure and then hopped on my mountain bike and spent the balance of the day at Thacher Park. I was good though, I didn’t smoke any pot all weekend, because I can imagine marijuana would make my eyes so itchy and dry as they recover. Plus I only really like being stoned up at camp when I can look at all he purty leaves.
Mom asked that I ask if they’ll submit my results to DMV so to get rid of the Corrective Vision Restriction on my license, but it turns out I don’t actually have to change that until my license expires in 2029. But what if a cop 👮 stops you on the highway and demands you see your glasses? Well, technically you don’t have to show your glasses. You have the right to remain silent, and after all, are they going to check if you have contact lens in? I guess if you run over a bunch of small children 👦🏻 with your big jacked up truck the judge could require you take another vision test and they could confirm that I don’t need contact lens anymore. But maybe the LASIK place will report it automatically to DMV. I can ask.
Neighbor once again reminded me it would be fine to toss my trash in his garbage bin if I wanted. 🚮 I’m like I take the compost crap out to my parents house for their pile, 🍏 and most of the summer just smash the rest down and burn it up in woods with motor oil and lighter fluid, 🔥 though I didn’t really say it like that because you know that might be illegal. Truth is I just despite all things urban recycling and promotion of waste and hidden disposal. And I like fire, especially when I’m stoned out of my brain watching the flames flicker. 🧠 This is why some day I’ll own my own land and have hogs and other livestock to eat the food scraps and no neighbors nearby when I burn the rest – and save the occasional can for recycling. For a while I was separating out the plastic for recycling, ♻️ and I guess I could take him up on his offer, but landfills are evil and recycling kind of a scam. He’s a nice guy, I should out kayaking 🛶 one of these days once my eyes are recovered and I’m still in town.
I need to email the landlord about the door, 🚪 I taped up the rotted out bottom of the door that he needs to most likely replace before winter. It closes okay now but it’s hardly a permanent solution. I’m going to wait a few days to clean things up a bit, though I totally admit it’s a lie 🤥 to myself to say my landlord doesn’t know what a dump my unit is. But the truth is regardless of what the former landlord said about the old storm door falling off and apart and that causing the rot, and me not reporting it right away, the truth is the door is just old and rotted. Like everything in my apartment. I’m sure he’ll end up replacing the door when I report it. He’s probably busy right now, being harvest season chopping silage 🌽 🐮 but I also want to have that repaired before it gets cold. I think that door is a major source of air leaks, especially now that the landlord replaced all the upstairs windows. And trust me, I’m sure any barn yard much less silo is much dirtier 🐽 then my apartment. Silage is so pungent, especially one it ferments into good cattle feed. Smells of autumn! I do like milk in my coffee ☕ even on the coldest of mornings.
Accidentally washed my ear buds. 🎧 I thought they were in my pocket, but I could not find them when I was loading the washing machine yesterday. I ultimately found them when I got back from the laundromat. While I did my wash yesterday at my parents house, 👚 their washing machine either didn’t spin out properly or maybe it was drier, and rather then hang up my wash and deal with wet wash, I ended up running down to the laundromat putting 75 cents in a drier and hanging out for 20 minutes reading an e-book on cattle feeding 🐄 and then unpacked my clothes. I found then, but they kept dying after a few minutes of use. Charged them overnight and now they seem good. Which makes me happy, as I like tunes at work, 🎶 plus I want to be able to listen to music as I ride the Route 13 out Eye Doctor this evening for my post-LASIK check up. Glad I don’t have to go to Walmart and ask permission of a clerk to get another pair of them from behind the locked up case.
Not sure if my Adirondack trip will start this weekend, 🍁 though if I wait much longer there won’t much color left into he Adirondacks. I would like to get away, spend some time up at Horseshoe Lake and the St. Regis Canoe Area. 🛶 Except for summer vacation I haven’t done much kayaking. I also should get a new rear-tire for my bike. Maybe That can be a use for my neighbor’s offer of using his garbage bin. Not going to burn that, lest I get government worker attention with the stink. I don’t know. The alternative is go out to Schoharie for this weekend, ride the Catskill Scenic Trail and stock up at Shauls 🌽 before that’s done for the year and Columbus Day Weekend head north. As they say, to be decided. I better get in the shower, with my swim goggles on 🚿🥽 and then ride my mountain to work. 🚿 Remember I need to make some money so some day I can own a homestead that smells like Horney Buck Goat and burn barrel. 🛢️ Such a dirty hick! 💩
Autumn… It hits you 🍁
The past few weeks have had my mind filled with only one real thought, the days leading up to my LASIK surgery. I knew that date would come and go quite smoothly as a technology refined and done a million times over. But at the same time it seemed hard to imagine a world beyond it. Much like my summer vacation. Would Red make it through it all?
The summer ended dry and hot, though last week we finally got some days of much needed rain. I spent a weekend in Vermont and then Rennselaerville. It was so dry, trees were fading to brown and some colors early. I would have gone north but I had things to attend to locally. But maybe next weekend I’ll head north for a week. I’m still uncertain about my final semi big trip with Red.
Soon it will be cold, I should be on my landlord to replace the rotted out door at my apartment before the chill of winter sets in. Maybe he can tack together the rotted door like my former landlord but truth is the composite door needs replacement. I’ll find ways to keep my mind busy as the cold and darkness of winter descends as the color of autumn rapidly fades.
I know I should be looking at getting my own land or at least a better apartment or maybe a condo. I mean I make good money and saved a lot over the years. But I’m really not set on New York State – it’s more than just wanting the freedom to burn my trash out back. It’s where I make my money building and cleaning datasets and running campaigns and spend my weekends in the wilderness but there is so much I find distasteful about this state and the urban life of plastic but I’m hardly a lover of the Trumpster or AOC.
I know another summer will come after this one, I’ll build or more like buy and bolt together the parts of the new rig, travel and explore to distant places like Michigan and Northern Wisconsin. Places that do not necessarily share the same urban values but also aren’t a bunch of bible humping, Trump loving, rape the land rednecks as the news media makes them out to be. Maybe I’m too in love with the landscapes and make the noble savages, noble. But so much of recycling and solar panels is a celebration of plastic.
Old history 👴🏻
It seems like a lot of historic sites are oriented either towards long ago military battles or colonial farm times, as somehow something long before our times is more relevant and useful then what came a generation or two before. Maybe because people are still alive and remember the way things were, such history seems irrelevant. After all, the broken artifacts of such history are found in trash piles everywhere, soon enough to be smashed and hauled to the local dumping grounds.
It’s not to say some of the primative technologies of yesteryear aren’t worth exploring especially ok the homestead, discovering potentially lost and beneficial knowledge of how to better manage the land in a sustainable way. That said, science and materials have come a long ways from then and just because something was done a certain way a long time ago doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. Much of the historic obsession over the ways of the colonial and native people doesn’t necessarily seem to benefit us as a society – as much as understanding the reasons and technologies, even if flawed, that a generation or two ago adopted.
Yesterday was kind of a fun and wild day 😀
I tell you those city buses are so screwed up lately. I mean if the authority’s primary concern is to encourage people to pay fares, you know things are a bit messed up in the authority – they’re probably under paying workers, not maintaining buses properly, collecting bus fare that hasn’t been adjusted for inflation, etc.
I guess three times is a charm. 🚍 So yeah, on Friday the bus never showed up for my LASIK. Saturday morning, the bus deviated from it’s route so I didn’t get dropped off right at the parking lot where Big Red overnighted – though I didn’t protest, then the Nature Bus the driver held the bus up while he radioed in to see if I could bring the bike on bus to Thacher Park as the rack was full (normally drivers are like whatever, 🚲 even though technically it’s not allowed on city routes), and then Saturday the 6:21 PM bus didn’t show up until 7:20 PM due to the driver going to the wrong destination, so they ended up either radiopinig him back or sending another bus from the depot. 🚏And the hybrid bus was so slow climbing the New Salem Hill, the electric buses are surpringly better. ⚡ Apparently they didn’t have an electric bus ready to go for Nature Bus which is what they normally do. I think I’m going to avoid riding buses for now. 🤷♂️
But despite the busing problems, and the annoyance of having to add two different eye 👁️ drops every hour 💧 at least every five minutes appart yesterday as my eyes recovered from LASIK it was a nice day. I really tried to take things slowly, only did a bit of riding, mostly a slow and careful walk through the woods, listening to podcasts, observing nature and just chilling out. I did do a little bit of riding, and certainly getting home after dark, and riding on the road with the dark sunglasses 😎 after dark meant for a dark ride home it was fine. Must have looked like Steve Wonder riding after dark with those sunglasses on. In general my vision is excellent, but much like wearing contacts it fades in and out, though over time I’m told it will grow more consistent. The eye drops definately help. Sometimes though my eyes are a bit dry at time, but all those things are expected the first week after LASIK. Really it’s no worse then wearing contact lens.
Think I’m going to ride out Five Rivers Environmental Education Center 🐸 for a while this morning, look at birdies 🐦 and fall wildflowers 🌼 and enjoy the beautiful morning. Head home, have some lunch and then go out to see my parents and pick apples 🍏 with dad. Then do my lunch time medicated drops. I am no longer on the hourly eye drop schedule, 💧 now it’s just the medicated eye drops before each meal, and then the artificial tears 😭 as needed six times a day. Medicated drops continue through Thursday, and artificial tear drops through the month of October. I have to wear protective hard eye patches at night through Friday. My follow up visit is on Monday.
Tuesday I get my COVID and flu vaccine. 💉 I’m at high risk of COVID complications I smoked some pot the other day, and former smokers are at higher risk of COVID complications according to Bobby Kennedy Jr.’s CDC. 🧑⚕️I still have dry eye issues biking, 🚲 so I think I’ll drive in on Monday and then head to the doctor’ s office for the post-op check up and vision test, and then Tuesday I’ll head into work and vaccination appointment after. Moved my appointment up to 6:15 PM as that way I won’t have to ride home in the dark wearing my dark glasses for eye protection. I was watching my friend’s Facebook about his marijuana harvest this year. Happy Autumn Folks! One toke over the line, though as it is my eyes 👀 are dry enough from the LASIK. 👿
I am thinking next weekend of heading up to Speculator, 🛶 probably the Mason Lake area to hike, paddle and enjoy the woods. 🌲 I should bring my gun 🔫 in search of tree rats and mountain bike to ride. 🚲 I’ll still want to wear eye protection 🕶️ but sunglasses should be fine or maybe in darker conditions I can wear my shooting glasses. I could change my mind based on weather, but whatever. Then maybe take off the following week to head up on Monday morning to Horseshoe Lake for three nights, then to St. Regis Canoe Area on Thursday. Still would have to figure out where I would camp for night before Columbus Day. If the weather is bad, I could always wait another week. I always worry about having enough vacation time to roll over but I should be fine, next autumn I can work from camp 🏕️ on weekends I want to extend in the wilderness, like Perkins Clearing or Rensselearville. Next autumn, after campaign in November I think I will do West Virginia in my new truck. 🍁 Still some color, especially if I drive down to New River Gorge next year.
