July 21, 2005

Bon Voyage...
James Doohan - who played engineer Montgomery Scott on the original Star Trek TV series has passed away. Part of my childhood went with him. Sigh. We used to play Star Trek as kids...I was always Captain Kirk and my older sister was always Scotty. We impressed the other kids into playing the roles of Spock, Bones and whoever was flying the ship at the time (recall that Chekov only appeared after the first season). Can't tell you how many times I flipped open my communicator (whatever toy was palm-sized, this was long-before TV themed toys) and said, "Beam me up, Scotty!" Godspeed, Jimmy! Have a drink with De Kelley and The Great Bird Of The Galaxy on me. House-viewings continue unabated, despite the threat of the hurricane which has worn itself out over Mexico. We were viewed every day last week. Today, twice. Although we're in no hurry to sell, I wish it WOULD sell. Its really tough keeping everything picked up and spotless every second of the day! Richard and I are both neatniks, but wow...We do the dishes as soon as we finish eating. We toss the laundry in the washer, not to wash, but to hide it! There's no skimming out of clothes and leaving them lying on my closet floor for a day or fifteen...Every day we do a FOD walk. That's military lingo for Foreign Object Detection - a FOD walk is done across the deck of an aircraft carrier before the jets are allowed to take off. This is so nothing loose can get caught in the intake engines and cause the 60 million dollar craft to crash. So we've always done FOD walks to put things back in their place or to make sure we've not left anything behind in hotels or camp. But in the old days before HV (house-viewing) we did it only when company was coming...or Mom. Otherwise, we lived quite pleasantly in our mess, following our own pursuits and ignoring that which didn't impact those same pursuits. Dirty dishes piled higher than the cabinets? No problem. Use a paper towel. Out of underwear? Go rummage in drawers for those sexy joke thong panties that we got last Christmas and never actually wore. Books falling off shelves? Stack 'em on the floor. And so on. Its late. I suppose I should go to bed. The dogs have long since abandoned me for their favorite spots - Flint in the chair at the foot of the bed and Echo is probably warming up my leg and foot space ON the bed. That dog is such a Princess bed hog. She grunts dramatically if I dare move after she's settled. She grunts if anyone pats her while she's sleeping. She grunts if Richard gets up and kicks back the covers...even if he takes care not to hit her with them. Spoiled rotten...Anyway, off to bed...tomorrow, another day, another dollar.