WHINE, WHINE, WHINE!

Sorry I haven’t written lately. And, no, I haven’t had a bout of swine flu, nor have I been enjoying a sweaty interlude of moral turpitude in Argentina with anyone. I haven’t even been temporarily decommissioned by galloping ennui. Nope, the prosaic truth is too much work and not enough time or energy. Yeah, I know…waah, waah, waah! Everyone has that excuse. Can’t you at least whine about something exciting? Well, I would if I could—but I’ve just been busy. You’ll notice I didn’t say I’ve been accomplishing much; if I can’t be heroic or manly or lazy, I’ll at least be truthful. On the face of it, the impetus behind all this expended energy and shortfall of time is simply a planned cookout tomorrow for family members arriving overnight from South Carolina. No big deal. Except… Sunday was Father’s Day and I spent half the day doing various yard chores and the other half at my daughter’s for a meal and visit. It was dark when I made it back home. Monday I decided—given the state of the world and the increasing need to identify one’s self, citizenship, and attitude toward God, country and apple pie—to go downtown and apply for a replacement Social Security card. My original card was stolen when my Volvo was broken into in 1980. (Yes, I kept my wallet which contained my Social Security card, Driver’s License, etc.—but no cash—in the car’s glovebox. Yes, I do know this was stupid.) To save myself time, I downloaded the proper form from the Government office and filled it out. A couple of additional documents were also required. They could either be mailed in (two weeks turnaround) or delivered in person at a local Social Security office. To apply for a replacement Social Security card, one must show they were born. (Presumably, those who were hatched, conjured, or animated via test tubes and jolts of electric current, are precluded from card ownership—although, an hour spent pushing your way through any sidewalk crowd will convince you the majority of these cardless, happy souls are thriving among us, nevertheless.) Proof of one’s birth essentially comes down to waving a certified copy of your birth certificate in front of the proper authority’s nose. I have several certified copies of my birth certificate; it was locating them that proved the rub and required half the morning and a climb into the attic. The second required document is a valid Driver’s License or other Government-issued photo I.D. (Your birth certificate proves you are born, it doesn’t prove you are you.) Fine, I understood that—but I wasn’t about to mail off my Driver’s License to the Government and pray I got it back in two weeks. I'm dumb, but I ain't plumb dumb. So that item also had to be waved in front of the authorized eye as well. Hence the downtown trip. A bit after noon, necessary documents in hand, I called the local Social Security office—just to make sure I had everything. “You do,” the nice lady on the phone said, “but the office is pretty crowded right now—you might want to wait and come down in the morning.” I confess—it didn’t take another word to talk me out of the trip. Downtown in mid-afternoon on a day when temperatures were again pushing ninety wasn’t my idea of a good time. I decided I'd rather try my luck this Friday. The attic hatch was still open, so I figured I’d rearrange my work room, which included moving several hundred books in boxes into the attic, along with returning the cartons of files and papers I’d pawed through looking for my birth certificates. I then decided I’d clean some things out and make that an additional few cartons of new files and papers. All of this required rearranging the attic to make space to accommodate the storage. Attics are hot when it’s ninety degrees out. Boxes of books and papers are heavy, especially when they must be carried up a stepladder. I quit about dark, showered, and hobbled to the front porch rocker. There I watched bats swoop over the Cottage Pool, sipped an iced coffee…then later hobbled off to bed. That brings us to Tuesday, which was grocery gathering day. Two stores, four hours. Then the unpacking and putting away. After that more cartons up the stepladder and into the attic. In the late afternoon, I mowed the grass. Afterwards, my second shower of the day, a hobble to the front room for supper and a bit of TV, followed by a hobble off to bed. This morning I had to make up a batch of my barbecue sauce, write two articles, do wash. I still have dishes from the sauce making and lunch, the rest of the laundry, supper, house cleaning…and the usual bedtime hobble, which I predict will occur about midnight. See—not much accomplished, though a lot of energy expelled and time wasted. And given the circumstances of my week so far, this is the best posting I can manage. Whine, whine, whine…! (I did take a nice sunset shot a few minutes ago, however.)