If I Can Only Think of a Brick Wall
Jan. 5th, 2025 09:08 amDay 4 without a functioning furnace!
Ichabod was outraged when I spoke to him on the phone last night: “My 72-year-old mother living in a house without heat?” He wanted Iggy’s phone number so he could confront him over the phone.
“That won’t do anything,” I said. “Because he’s ordered oil and assuming that the issue is fuel, oil companies don’t deliver on weekends.”
Then Ichabod urged me to lodge a complaint with the Ulster County Rental Board. I’m considering it. The problem is that Iggy is extremely vindictive, & I don’t particularly want to move. I like the Patrizia-torium. And the Patrizia-torium is toasty enough with a space heater, & I can shower at the Y.
But I’m gonna call on Monday to see if I can start some paper trail on Iggy, something sub rosa that wouldn’t necessarily get back to him until the next time he does something egregious—which I have full confidence he will.
###
This is one of the reasons why I don’t want to move:

The housing market around here is truly insane. I want to avoid any out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire situations.
What I want is a pleasant cohousing situation with other sympatico humans. That welcomes pets!
But I’m not in a position to organize one myself. Though I will keep looking.
###
Apart from that—which I know is a bit like asking Mary Todd Lincoln, But how did you like the rest of the play?—I had a pleasant day.
I put together the bookshelf I ordered a couple of weeks ago!
The instructions said, Assembly takes 10 minutes.
It took me an hour. But then, I am not particularly handy. Wonder of wonders: It fits exactly into the space I wanted it to fit, and it actually looks good there!
I also set up the digital picture frame that Ichabod got me for Christmas, so now I am surrounded by a carousel of happy portraits of the people & things I love best—along with a few atmospheric landscapes—in a 45-second rotation.
The colors on the digital frame are a bit washed out, so I may have to end up Photoshopping the photos I upload to give them more bang.
I also watched a melodramatic adaptation of The Midwich Cuckoos, which I liked! The Wyndham novel is used as a source for an array of soap-opera-ish characters & wacky backstory—so there can be a Season 2, I guess.
I saw the original Midwich Cuckoos adaptation, Village of the Damned, when I was eight years old, and it scared the living daylights out of me. For years, I went around channeling George Sanders: A brick wall, a brick wall. If I can only think of a brick wall.
It's every parent’s primordial fear, I suppose. That your beloved child, flesh of your flesh, is secretly an alien.
Ichabod was outraged when I spoke to him on the phone last night: “My 72-year-old mother living in a house without heat?” He wanted Iggy’s phone number so he could confront him over the phone.
“That won’t do anything,” I said. “Because he’s ordered oil and assuming that the issue is fuel, oil companies don’t deliver on weekends.”
Then Ichabod urged me to lodge a complaint with the Ulster County Rental Board. I’m considering it. The problem is that Iggy is extremely vindictive, & I don’t particularly want to move. I like the Patrizia-torium. And the Patrizia-torium is toasty enough with a space heater, & I can shower at the Y.
But I’m gonna call on Monday to see if I can start some paper trail on Iggy, something sub rosa that wouldn’t necessarily get back to him until the next time he does something egregious—which I have full confidence he will.
###
This is one of the reasons why I don’t want to move:

The housing market around here is truly insane. I want to avoid any out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire situations.
What I want is a pleasant cohousing situation with other sympatico humans. That welcomes pets!
But I’m not in a position to organize one myself. Though I will keep looking.
###
Apart from that—which I know is a bit like asking Mary Todd Lincoln, But how did you like the rest of the play?—I had a pleasant day.
I put together the bookshelf I ordered a couple of weeks ago!
The instructions said, Assembly takes 10 minutes.
It took me an hour. But then, I am not particularly handy. Wonder of wonders: It fits exactly into the space I wanted it to fit, and it actually looks good there!
I also set up the digital picture frame that Ichabod got me for Christmas, so now I am surrounded by a carousel of happy portraits of the people & things I love best—along with a few atmospheric landscapes—in a 45-second rotation.
The colors on the digital frame are a bit washed out, so I may have to end up Photoshopping the photos I upload to give them more bang.
I also watched a melodramatic adaptation of The Midwich Cuckoos, which I liked! The Wyndham novel is used as a source for an array of soap-opera-ish characters & wacky backstory—so there can be a Season 2, I guess.
I saw the original Midwich Cuckoos adaptation, Village of the Damned, when I was eight years old, and it scared the living daylights out of me. For years, I went around channeling George Sanders: A brick wall, a brick wall. If I can only think of a brick wall.
It's every parent’s primordial fear, I suppose. That your beloved child, flesh of your flesh, is secretly an alien.