Junk Mail

Sunnyvale has an "approved method" of recycling junk mail. It is this.

1. Put all the junk mail in a sturdy paper bag such as you might get at a grocery store.
2. Put the bag in your trash container and put the container out at curbside.
3. Their hand-sorters will go through all the trash at the dump and sort out your junk mail for recycling.

Some questions come immediately to mind. Do they WANT the junk mail flying like confetti all over the interior of the garbage truck as soon as the trash container is upended? Just how well-sealed is my kitchen garbage bag? How much do these sorters get paid??

[Poll #481647]

I think I'm glad it's Monday

This weekend was the first "free time" I've had since about mid-February. "Free" means only that I didn't have a scheduled commitment, not that I had nothing that needed doing. As you might imagine, after a schedule mess like that, I had lots that needed doing.

Got a lot done, too. Dumped a few months' worth of junk mail in the Sunnyvale-approved way. Ran out of paper bags. Filed bills and mail and other paperwork back as far as Christmas. Pulled ancient stuff out of the too-full file drawers (that took the better part of both days). Actually acquired a racquetball to roll the bottoms of my feet upon.* Saw the Radio Shack nearby and acquired a 15v meter I can hook up to my car's electrical system.** Plus the ordinary stuff like dishes and a grocery run. Even visited two little geocaches!

Sadly, I did not do any baking, and I'd really been hoping for that. Baking soothes my soul. It's about the only thing left that does that, since I can't run. Maybe I can bake next weekend. I simply ran out of time. It was worth it to get that filing done, though.

I think I'm glad to have the chance to relax into a normal work pace. Don't ya love those weekends after which you could really, really use a weekend? :-)

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* Why physical therapists assume that a patient who can barely walk has tennis balls and racquetballs in the house is beyond me. The least they could do for a foot problem is depend on hang gliding equipment or swimsuits!

** I want to know what condition is occurring when the battery light comes on. I'm sure some car person will tell me how little sense this makes. Some days I think that sort of thing is what my journal is here for. Heck, I'm not sure how much sense it makes to buy a meter, since I could look up the battery light in the full electrical diagram of the car for free. Maybe this is my techno-snobbishness coming out: I always prefer a meter to an "idiot light".

CJ's Recipe for Almost Brownies

0. Book with recipe
1. 3oz. semi-sweet chocolate
2. 3oz. ... oops, I only have 2oz. unsweetened chocolate
3. Another ounce of semi-sweet to make up for it
4. Butter, flour, eggs, etc
5. A nut grinder
6. 2pr. pliers
7. Oven which, on Saturday, took 2hrs instead of 1hr to make meatloaf

Open book. Realize that the worst part of this whole brownie thing is chopping up the chocolate. Get out the nut grinder. Attempt to chop up chocolate with nut grinder. Produce tiny volume of what appears to be cocoa powder. Hear bad noise. Stop.

Open up nut grinder. Use pliers to rearrange all the cutting tines. Alternately crank and pry until bad noise stops. Give up and chop the chocolate the "hard" way. Get surprised by how fast and easy the "hard" way is.

Melt chocolate and butter, add eggs etc, pour into pan.

Burn the whole thing because the oven has now decided to cook faster than normal.