Left Over Bits

Just a collection of odds and ends tonight.

The latest storm has blown its way through and the only event yet to mark its passage is for my persistent gopher to burrow his way out into my driveway. It's my personal version of waiting for the fat lady to sing. A few months ago I discovered a very deep hole at the edge of my concrete sidewalk and gravel-covered dirt driveway. At first I thought the water had been left on too long and had found a subterranean passage to follow, as the local handyman has a habit of leaving the water run for long periods. But, I soon saw that the same handyman was coming along periodically and scraping more dirt into the mouth of the hole. (Though, there is certainly not enough dirt to fill the hole's depth.) Within a day or two of it being covered over, the hole would re-appear, surrounded my suspiciously fresh looking soil. This has been going on for a few months now, and the odd thing is there are no other gopher holes in my front lawn, nor are there any along the street. Wherever this persistent gopher is visiting me from, he is coming from a considerable distance.

Aside from enjoying this battle of wills as any detached observer might, I do occasionally worry that I might step in or dangerously near the hole in the dark. I would doubtlessly break something if I did as my leg could easily sink past my knee if there were nothing to stop the downward motion.

This reminds me of the time, many years ago now, when a former roommate of mine in a slightly different location waged his own war with one or more gophers in the front lawn. Out of deference, I'll refrain from mentioning his name. He ended up waging his war with a sword— an honest-to-god sharp-edged and sharp-pointed sword! With the determination and patience of a cat, my friend won that war and blooded his sword.

This afternoon I drove over to the post office to purchase a single stamp for a letter. I still have one correspondent that I write to only via physical letters, and this weekend I finished my latest missive. Arriving at the post office I discovered a big note plastered to the front of the stamp machine announcing (in paraphrase), "As of February 17th, this machine will no longer be in service. For your convenience, stamps are available for purchase at Ralph's grocery market." I can only wonder at the factors which resulted in this decision. With the USPS having recently faced the first internal lay-offs in its history, wouldn't *more* automation be called for? Now, rather than buy a stamp, stick it on the envelope, and dump the envelope in the bin—  a series of events costing me a minute's time— I had to join the line of seven or eight people inside, which cost me 10 to 15 minutes. I applaud this recent USPS change and its effort to maintain the single longest string of bad decisions in American history.

I did, however, pick up a sheet of the lovely new Lunar New Year stamps.

Until next time.

"In the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, 'Au revoir, gopher.'"— Bill Murray as Carl Speckler in Caddyshack