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actual fast-turnover thrift store
Monday, December 14 2015
It was yet another unusually warm day, with precipation somewhere between diffuse fog and very light drizzle. As soon as Gretchen got back from walking the dogs, I headed out to gather firewood, managing to salvage 102.85 pounds. It was so warm that I took my shirt off before starting the grueling walk back home. On my headphones I was listening to the Fresh Air where Terri Gross interviewed Richard Carpenter of the Carpenters. I hated it when Terri said she used to think the Carpenters were "corny," but I loved the part where Richard said he hated Sonic Youth's cover of "Superstar" and, when Terri said she was going to play it, Richard said, "Oh sure, lets!"
Later today I would add up all the wood I've gathered since late June and marvel at the numbers. For the woodshed, I've gathered 10168.5 measured pounds, plus an estimated 400 pounds of stray wood, plus a White Ash tally from last year of about 800 pounds. That comes to about 11300 pounds, gathered on 96 separate days. In terms of woodshed volume occupied, the first tranche was nearly full when I began, it looks like a little over three cords, though in terms of weight (perhaps altered by the White Ash), it's a bit less than three cords.
Mondays are Gretchen's days off, so I thought perhaps I should start a tradition of going into town on Mondays to give Gretchen some alone time. I parked on the street near the Ulster County office building and visited the Department of Motor Vehicles to update my driver's license. The last time I had to do this was in 2008, and the next time will be in 2016 (when we have to replace Hillary with a bald-but-faking-it Marco Rubio). The DMV moves fast in Ulster County, and I only waited about four minutes before my number was up. Evidently Gretchen has influenced me because thoughts of Dick Cheney benifitting from my parts flooded my mind when I saw the place where one agrees to donate body parts. When I'm most rational, I disagree with Gretchen on this issue, but evidently I wasn't feeling all that rational this afternoon. I did not check the box. I passed my eye test without using my glasses; my eyes will have to get much worse before I will need them to pass the test.
Afterward I went to Outdated, ordered a vegan tempeh reuben and coffee, and then dicked around with my computer for awhile. Eventually I got around to doing some client work, looking up colors from a screen grab of an application and using them to set the colors of a web application.
On my way home, I drove out to the Tibetan Center to hit their basement thrift store. I'd been there less than a week before and I wanted a sense of how quickly things turned over. The device for superimposing text on standard density television screen was gone, but so too was that keyboard/trackpad combination lacking a dongle. I'll bet the guy who bought it never thought to look. It was surprisingly how different things looked after only a few days. Clearly this is a place worth checking once a week. Eventually I did buy something there, a $5 steel watering can that I know would cost at least $20 (and be ugly) at the Home Depot.
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