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Jan. 31st, 2008 11:03 amThree deliveries yesterday. Now, Kerri and I had bought a new lounge suite on nthe weekend, intended to go downstairs in my office, which is to become a library rather than my stockroom of old books. I need to do a bit of tidy up before this happens.
All right. A LOT of tidy up. Basically I need to get rid of stuff so as to make room for rearranging everything else, and at the moment I have no spare room for rearrangement. Nor do I want to follow Kerri’s brutal solution of a rubbish skip. Honestly, sometimes the woman has no idea.
So I’ve been repacking books into boxes, trying to cram as many as possible in each box. If I eliminate any air pockets, I'll have room to start moving the regular clutter around to make room for the lounge suite and maybe a few centimetres of vacant carpet.
The shop hadn’t given us a delivery time, but we figured this was no problem, because there’s usually people around here at any hour, and from my point of view the longer it was delayed the longer I had to free up a bit of room.
I laboured at that in the morning, and there are now several metres of empty shelving visible. Next step is to take down the bottom levels of the shelving. And sell the books.
Mail was the first delivery. An optimistic special delivery letter from the Readers’ Digest, which shall remain eternally unopened, despite the hints of riches contained inside, and second was a check for a vast amount, from a fellow BookCrosser. A huge amount and twice the already extremely generous pledge. I was stunned. BookCrosser Exchange is working! By heavens, this thing, this idea of Sherlockfan’s, is actually working!
From then on I was in a happy haze. I’m sure that the haze will be extended when I cash the cheque and send it along to FutureCat, who is handling the money on the New Zealand end.
Next delivery was marked by a splendid frenzy of barking from the dog belonging to my wife, a little yapping, evil tempered bitch. Someone at the door, Pete! she was telling me, and they aren’t scared of barking, this is serious!
But the delivery bloke was a biggish chap, and our little dog isn’t game to try to nip his ankles, so she stays in the kitchen trying to scare him off through shrill noise and dirty looks.
I signed for the box, a box covered in airmail stickers and tape and stamps with pictures of aircraft. And the Levenger logo. Treasures inside!
Journals and punches and starter kits for the Levenger Circa system, makers of excellent travel journals. Fresh stationery makes me very happy and when it is stationery of this quality...
A flower on your head, Buffra, for arranging shipment! Flowers and a hug when I see you next.
Which left the lounge. I got a call from the shop, telling me between two and four. I start work at three, so I have to leave at half past two, and my daughter’s holiday camp job finishes at two thrity when she’ll want me to pick her up.
The holiday camp is for Defence personnel, and it is held inside the most secure location in the Russell Offices down the road, the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate, our equivalent of the NSA. She has to wear all sorts of passes and go through all sorts of checks to get inside. I think the children just run straight through. When she leads the children around, for instance to get them to a bus to go to a playground, they move in an eerie silence, because conversations stop while they go past, meetings turn into tableaux, and cameras swivel to follow their movements.
One time, the children got off the bus from an excursion just as one of the camp supervisors arrived from shopping. She had all the supplies for morning tea and lunch and activities. Each child was given a plastic bag to carry up, and they made their way through the building, Rustle, rustle, rustle. Rustle Offices.
"Good Heavens!" someone exclaimed, "Did you take all those children out shopping?"
I had my shower and shave ahead of time, and from two onwards, I was in my uniform, ready to go. Don’t want to be in the shower when the delivery truck knocks on the door.
Two thirty, and three things happen at once. The delivery truck pulls into the drive and the blokes get out. They knock on the door and the housephone rings. It’s my darling daughter, requesting that I drive down and pick her up. Immediately because it’s bloody hot, and she's frying here in the sun. There’s a dirty great truck in the drive, I tell her, I can’t get the car out just yet, and my cell phone’s ringing.
Underlay all this with the sounds of a little terrier bitch barking her hot-tempered head off, and here I am trying to point out where the lounge is to go while struggling to answer my cellphone. It’s the base, telling me my cab isn’t quite ready, and would I like to drive a normal cab tonight? I think that’s what they said, but I work on the principle that once you drive a limousine, you can’t go back, and besides, it will give me an opportunity to move more books, yeah, just down the corridor and turn right.
It was a busy few minutes for a second there, but eventually we got the lounge suite stored vertically in the spare room, the truck out of the drive, my sunburning daughter home into the shade, and me to enjoy an unexpected afternoon and night off.
Dinner was fish and vegetables, and I indulged myself in a rare midweek beer to wash it down. Nothing like a cold beer on a hot day. Then the phone rang. Car’s ready to be picked up, you can start when you like.
Normally I don’t drink before driving, but one mid-strength beer should be OK. I’m more concerned at the late start, as the best four hours of the shift have now passed and I’ll be scraping for work all night.
But I get dressed again, and I go off to pick up my cab, kangaroo dent nicely ironed out. I almost make my target, too, despite it being a very slow night. Got to say that picking up from the casino rank can pay off, especially if you pick up winners with rolls of fifties. Got a thirty dollar tip from one very drunk chap. Mind you, there were a couple of long hours when I was falling asleep in my car on a rank, only kept awake by the antics of Josh and Sam and Toby and CJ on West Wing.
All right. A LOT of tidy up. Basically I need to get rid of stuff so as to make room for rearranging everything else, and at the moment I have no spare room for rearrangement. Nor do I want to follow Kerri’s brutal solution of a rubbish skip. Honestly, sometimes the woman has no idea.
So I’ve been repacking books into boxes, trying to cram as many as possible in each box. If I eliminate any air pockets, I'll have room to start moving the regular clutter around to make room for the lounge suite and maybe a few centimetres of vacant carpet.
The shop hadn’t given us a delivery time, but we figured this was no problem, because there’s usually people around here at any hour, and from my point of view the longer it was delayed the longer I had to free up a bit of room.
I laboured at that in the morning, and there are now several metres of empty shelving visible. Next step is to take down the bottom levels of the shelving. And sell the books.
Mail was the first delivery. An optimistic special delivery letter from the Readers’ Digest, which shall remain eternally unopened, despite the hints of riches contained inside, and second was a check for a vast amount, from a fellow BookCrosser. A huge amount and twice the already extremely generous pledge. I was stunned. BookCrosser Exchange is working! By heavens, this thing, this idea of Sherlockfan’s, is actually working!
From then on I was in a happy haze. I’m sure that the haze will be extended when I cash the cheque and send it along to FutureCat, who is handling the money on the New Zealand end.
Next delivery was marked by a splendid frenzy of barking from the dog belonging to my wife, a little yapping, evil tempered bitch. Someone at the door, Pete! she was telling me, and they aren’t scared of barking, this is serious!
But the delivery bloke was a biggish chap, and our little dog isn’t game to try to nip his ankles, so she stays in the kitchen trying to scare him off through shrill noise and dirty looks.
I signed for the box, a box covered in airmail stickers and tape and stamps with pictures of aircraft. And the Levenger logo. Treasures inside!
Journals and punches and starter kits for the Levenger Circa system, makers of excellent travel journals. Fresh stationery makes me very happy and when it is stationery of this quality...
A flower on your head, Buffra, for arranging shipment! Flowers and a hug when I see you next.
Which left the lounge. I got a call from the shop, telling me between two and four. I start work at three, so I have to leave at half past two, and my daughter’s holiday camp job finishes at two thrity when she’ll want me to pick her up.
The holiday camp is for Defence personnel, and it is held inside the most secure location in the Russell Offices down the road, the headquarters of the Defence Signals Directorate, our equivalent of the NSA. She has to wear all sorts of passes and go through all sorts of checks to get inside. I think the children just run straight through. When she leads the children around, for instance to get them to a bus to go to a playground, they move in an eerie silence, because conversations stop while they go past, meetings turn into tableaux, and cameras swivel to follow their movements.
One time, the children got off the bus from an excursion just as one of the camp supervisors arrived from shopping. She had all the supplies for morning tea and lunch and activities. Each child was given a plastic bag to carry up, and they made their way through the building, Rustle, rustle, rustle. Rustle Offices.
"Good Heavens!" someone exclaimed, "Did you take all those children out shopping?"
I had my shower and shave ahead of time, and from two onwards, I was in my uniform, ready to go. Don’t want to be in the shower when the delivery truck knocks on the door.
Two thirty, and three things happen at once. The delivery truck pulls into the drive and the blokes get out. They knock on the door and the housephone rings. It’s my darling daughter, requesting that I drive down and pick her up. Immediately because it’s bloody hot, and she's frying here in the sun. There’s a dirty great truck in the drive, I tell her, I can’t get the car out just yet, and my cell phone’s ringing.
Underlay all this with the sounds of a little terrier bitch barking her hot-tempered head off, and here I am trying to point out where the lounge is to go while struggling to answer my cellphone. It’s the base, telling me my cab isn’t quite ready, and would I like to drive a normal cab tonight? I think that’s what they said, but I work on the principle that once you drive a limousine, you can’t go back, and besides, it will give me an opportunity to move more books, yeah, just down the corridor and turn right.
It was a busy few minutes for a second there, but eventually we got the lounge suite stored vertically in the spare room, the truck out of the drive, my sunburning daughter home into the shade, and me to enjoy an unexpected afternoon and night off.
Dinner was fish and vegetables, and I indulged myself in a rare midweek beer to wash it down. Nothing like a cold beer on a hot day. Then the phone rang. Car’s ready to be picked up, you can start when you like.
Normally I don’t drink before driving, but one mid-strength beer should be OK. I’m more concerned at the late start, as the best four hours of the shift have now passed and I’ll be scraping for work all night.
But I get dressed again, and I go off to pick up my cab, kangaroo dent nicely ironed out. I almost make my target, too, despite it being a very slow night. Got to say that picking up from the casino rank can pay off, especially if you pick up winners with rolls of fifties. Got a thirty dollar tip from one very drunk chap. Mind you, there were a couple of long hours when I was falling asleep in my car on a rank, only kept awake by the antics of Josh and Sam and Toby and CJ on West Wing.
