Monday Meanderings - 7.15.2013

One of the regulars at Fran's is a fellow everybody calls "Coach," because he was for many years a coach at Reagan High, just across the highway. He has retired from active coaching but evidently his expertise is still in high demand: the other morning he received two phone calls while he was eating breakfast, both were complicated questions - judging from the half of the conversation we heard - about rules and regulations governing the game of baseball.

After he hung up, he said the two calls were from umpires at a youth baseball tournament. I asked him if he could explain the offside rule in soccer. And he could.

July is service month for Barb's Honda. After our visit last week for dealer service, we got new tires, and the other day a fellow from church who has a mobile brake service came by to check her brakes. She's good to go, but then it looks like August will be service month for the Highlander.

Reading at Learning Ally is heating up. I mentioned that I had taken a break while they were trying to get the AC repaired at the studio. Turns out that getting the place cool again is easier said than done. The architectural genius who designed the building placed the main AC unit in an attic space, but did not plan for adequate access to it.

There is not a door to the attic big enough to get the old, broken unit out and a new working unit back up there. To compound the error, the room with the access door to the attic was converted into a server room, and there are racks of computers and miles of wiring strung through the space now.

While they try to figure out how to deal with this double delima, they are limiting readers to morning sessions only. I read mornings, so I returned to duty this week. If you dress appropriately (read: hang a sheet over the window to the booth and slip into something comfortable) and you take frequent breaks, it is doable. Toasty, but doable.

Only 34 more days until Hatch Green Chili Festival, for those of you who are interested.

After setting aside the Attic treasure that we wanted to keep, and sorting out the ten boxes of Goodwill-worthy items, the rest went into the trash, or recycling bin. If you have more trash than fits in your bin, you have to buy "tags" to put on the extra bags or the city won't take them.

So far, in the great clean-out we have used five tags. There is no tag requirement for recycling - just put it out in recyclable containers and flatten cardboard boxes and tie them into 2X2 bundles. The only problem is that they only pick up recycling every two weeks. In the mean time, we have a garage full of items to be recycled. Looking forward to Wednesday!

Found in the Attic treasures -- a to-do list with only two items:

• Take car to mechanic
• Get marriage license

And speaking of cleaning out things, Barb has moved from the attic to the kitchen cabinets. Nothing is safe. In fact, I catch her watching me with a "Do we really need that anymore?" look. I'm getting nervous.