Transition

Happy birthday to me! It's the biggie 65, so I'm now officially old.

However, I went shopping for new shorts and got to go down a size. Heh heh. That's a good thing. But my nasty suspicious mind says, I wonder if the manufacturers are changing their sizing again, so that the new, say, 12 is the old 14. They do that sort of thing, you know, so that you can feel good about yourself without actually changing anything. Whatever.

So, new shorts and shirts and a new pair of shoes is my birthday present to myself.

And I have to work today. No problem as I've just had three days off.

RIP Bookman

Ed Treverton has died. My good friend. A major loss in my life. I'll remember him for a lot of things -- He used to have me out to his house and ply me with Black Russians and spaghetti. He had fabulously funny fish pillows. He took elegant b/w photos. He loved to travel. He had great legs. And much more. I'll miss him so much.

Sad sad news

I learned Tuesday that an old friend has been in a terrible accident with massive head trauma. His name is Ed Treverton, a native of Asheville, and a longtime bookdealer. He was bicycle riding with a friend, their tires touched, and he was catapulted off. He was wearing a helmet but it didn't prevent the head injury. As I understand it, they thought they were going to lose him on Sunday evening but he's still hanging on. He's in the neuro-trauma ICU at Mission Hospital. He's in my thoughts continually. If the worse happens, I'll be home to say goodbye. But I'd like to be able to say hello instead; I can only hope.

General Update

Web connection is good today so I'm taking advantage. Just worked four BUSY days. The kamp ws fuller than it was on the holiday weekend. This means hordes of folk coming and going in the store, checking in, checking out, phone ringing and ringing. Hot dry weather finally broke yesterday with a nice rain (hooray).

Have followed an RV tech's advice to tighten the bolts holding the AC to the roof (this is done from the inside). The rain yesterday wasn't enough to see whether that's going to do it.

Am having a tug-of-war with the couch. Haven't been able to get it to fold out lately, which means I've been sleeping on a 20-inch wide shelf (very carefully). It's just much easier to get around in here when the sofa's closed. It actually seems spacious (relatively).

Connection is lost at the moment, so we'll see what happens when I go to save this.

Have finally started playing some music on my boombox. No music anywhere in the kamp. Have played Django Reinhardt, Dakota Staton, Jimmy Smith (jazz organ), Vincente Amigo (flamenco), other blues and jazz. The ankle is well enough for me to attempt a couple of small shufffling dance steps in my little space. In my pjs, too. Amusing myself isn't hard.

Hefty girl with shaved head, studs and tattoos looking for pencil sharpener and pencils to buy so she could do her crosswords.

Boy about 12 rushes in with desperate look, saying I have to find a bathroom. Direct him. Mother rushes in two minutes later, calling out to him, Did you find it in time? Do you need clean underwear? Probably embarrassed him mightily.

Little boy about 5 with bulldozer in hand explains the intricacies of heavy earth-moving equipment to me.

Next weekend there's some sort of huge meeting/races of black bikers (motorcycles) near Pittsburgh. Coworker says, I hope the klan stays home. We'lll have some of the bikers staying here.

TTFN

Night-time Foray

Forget to mention the expedition out one night. Suzy, who works here, is a local and said she'd take me and JR out to a bar to see one of her favorite bands. So last Friday, after I worked till 10pm, we went off to Rodney's, a lounge/restaurant/bar place. There was an $8 cover, which outraged JR. Hot as hell in there, too. Large band (7 or 8 guys) on stage, playing mostly oldies from the 70s and 80s and 90s. Lead singer plays fiddle fairly well. Suzy said he was better in the previous band.

Most surprising is that groupies were standing all over the dance floor. No-one was dancing, which was annoying as both JR and I like to dance. Humph!

After a while we hung out in the bar area and had a drink. Suzy met up with the lighting guy for the band, a friend of hers. JR and I left after about an hour. He then wanted to go to the Hotel George in Yukon, which is his local bar, and get some beer to take home. This is your basic local bar, 5 people there, dusty trophy heads on the wall, and shelf after shelf of pool trophies. Seems the owner guy is (or was) quite a player and there's a regular table in the back somewhere. It was kind of a warren. Anyhow, we spent about an hour there and I got a slice of pizza, having had no dinner. I dont' drink beer so I had ginger ale (and nobody snickered, not that I would care if they did). We got back to the camp about 1am. So endeth the night of wild dissipation.

Torque that nut

The local guy who was going to fix my air conditioning leak took my $20 for the part and never showed up to fix the ac. I understand he's by way of being a part-time drunk. Anyhow, I called a guy who's got a business fixing RVs and told him my problem. He said to try this first, before he comes out: Take off the inside cover of the AC and tighten the corner nuts; they often get loose over time and keep the gasket from being properly squished (a technical term). So I've done that, using full-body torque. We'll now see whether the leakage/seepage continues. All but one light on the "bad" circuit are now lighting again, so I think interior moisture has dried up. Also the computer battery is back up to 99%, after slowly drifting down to 94% over the last week or so.

Other than all that, I was loaned a car on Tuesday and went shopping. I found another used bookstore, Buy the Book, in Norwin. It's both new and used, no trade on new books, 4 pbs for one. I b rought in brandnew pbs and would have to give her 4 of them to get 2 for me. I thought not, so I still have them. Also went to Target looking for shorts, which I didn't find. Then went crazy in the grocery store, having been disappointed elsewhere.

Same old same old.
TTFN

Genius Bows Head in Defeat

Well, the new fuse worked for about a day, then blew. Trying another fuse caused sparks in the fuse panel. Camp owner came by today with a meter reader doojazzy and noticed a power leakage somewhere in that circuit at the fuse. That's the limit of his knowledge. The wires leading into both lights look okay. Really don't want to tear the ceiling apart to follow the circuit. Will have to call someone who really knows the scary stuff (electricity) to find out just where the short is, in the wiring or in the main panel itself.

Drat.

Genius

I replaced a fuse!!!

Okay, here's the whole story. Thurs.. pm the light over the couch went out. The bulbs were black so I figured I needed new bulbs. Fri I got new bulbs, came home and put them in whereupon the light over the dinette area wouldn't light (bulbs were fine). Also not working were the range hood fan and the skylight fan. Went to bed to sleep on it.

After my nap this afternoon, I was groggily contemplating the electrical panel. My brain said, wait, wait, maybe a breaker tripped. I opened the panel but the breakers were fine. Then I began looking at the fuses and (after getting the flashlight) I discovered one was broken. Remembered that I had some fuses in the rear storage, got them, put one in, and all is well! Yah!

However, the guy has not yet come to look at the roof a/c to try to find the leak. I'll have to remind him. It's not supposed to rain much, if at all, for a few days, which will be good, though it does mean it's getting hot so I'll have to run the a/c.

Visitor

Mary-Anne from Asheville came to visit, quite unexpectedly. She had to go to Lexington KY and thought she'd just drive another few hundred miles to come see where I'd been spending my time. There was one cabin left so I snagged it for her. These have no indoor water or cooking or bathroom, just beds, but does have a/c and heat and a little porch with a swing. She came in on Tuesday afternoon while I was at work. I had to work Wed. too, but she just took a break. We were going to order pizza Tue eve but when I called the place at 8:30pm they said they'd taken all their delivery orders for the night, so I got to cook. Cooked again on Wed. eve, too. Weather was great.

Yesterday I was off, so we drove back roads into the metropolis of Greensburg. Wore one of those new shirts I mentioned I'd gotten. She thinks it's very flattering on me. Good to know. Hit B&N for some books. Got directions (sort of) for two used bookstores in downtown Greensburg (which we'd just left). Naturally, turned the wrong way on Main and had to backtrack. Found Patty's, a warren of little rooms overflowing with pbs only. Traded in most of the books I'd been saving up and got a dozen or so. Got directions to Tommy's, which turned out to be a real bookstore, mostly hardbacks with a few pbs mixed in. Heavy on literature and history. Too many duplicates and high prices. Saw an Umberto Eco book of essays in the Language section, a trade paperback for which he wanted $20. Did get a tpb by William Martin, which he recommended. It's about a rare book dealer and historical manuscripts etc (only $10). When he found I was a bookdealer, he wanted to discuss the sad state of afffairs in the bookstore world. He and his customers discussed restaurant options for us -- we wanted a good steak and a drink.

Mr. P's was the final decision. Back out on the commercial strip, go past, make U turn and come back. Naturally, it wasn't that easy but we found it. Ate in the bar, no other women in there but several older men. Ditzy waitress. Four steaks on the menu but turns out that's the Dinner side not the Lunch side. Wound up with a burger (pretty good) and crab-stuffed mushrooms (good). Mary-Anne had a Caesar Salad w/chicken, and got really adventurous and had Escargots, which she really liked. We decided we wouldn't ever come back to this place again. I drank a gimlet (okay) and she had a margarita.

Off to Giant Eagle to grocery shop. By this time, the skies clouded over and it began to rain. It's about 4pm so we decided to call it a day. Somehow got turned around and started off in the wrong direction. When we saw the Arnold Palmer Airport we knew we'd gone wrong. Turned around and backtracked. Saw the Rt. 136 sign and took it. We knew a bridge was out and that we'd need to follow a detour. But we went wrong again and wound up out in some boonies called Versailles township (not on the map). Backtracked again, saw the Advance Auto Parts we'd already passed two times that day, so knew we were heading back into Greensburg. They gave us directions to the PA Turnpike, to I-70, and we finally make it back about 5:30. Tired.

Watched TV for the results of So You Think You Can Dance, and watched Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? before it. She went backto the cabin about 10 and I checked out about 11. She came up for coffee this am and we plotted a nice route back to Asheville. She's been gone about an hour. Naturally, lots of talking and catching up happened during the visit. It was great to see her. I miss my Asheville friends. But I'll be back in October.

The RV ceiling has begun to show seepage in the ceiling. We put Kool-Seal on the roof but I think the a/c is sagging and that's was causing it. One of the guys here is going to take a look at it. Hope it's something simple..