Ten-Finger Exercises

silent running

I have three things to write about briefly tonight. The first is an observation: my entry #546, which immediately precedes this one, is dated 6-17 at 11:54 am. The one before it, #545, is dated 6-17 at 12:55 am. How do you suppose that happened? They're in the correct order, but the times can't be right. My guess is that the WDC time stamp labels things after midnight as 12:55, like on a 24 hour clock, instead of 00:55. What do you think?

Okay, my second item is less profound. So much less I can't even remember what it is. Oh yes. I had to come home early today, and inconvenience on a day I like to make my northern circuit of over 100 miles. The reason was that I bought a wii on ebay. I didn't know it would come Fedex requiring an in person signature, and so I wasn't home yesterday. I called Fedex, and no, they couldn't deliver today without me even if I left them a signed note. I emailed the seller asking him to re-route the package to the hospice office, but he said he could not. Paypal has a rule that the package must be sent to the confirmed address. Maybe that only applies to higher priced items because I've never run into this problem before.

The seller told me to "just drop by the Fedex center after work" to pick it up, and have my picture ID etc. My Fedex center is 70 miles away. No thanks.

Today was more convenient than tomorrow will be, maybe. Tomorrow would be their last delivery attempt, and I didn't want to miss out. So I drove half my route and came home, fortunately in time to get the package.

The irony of it is that I had bid on several wiis without success, and although I'd been checking all the stores daily by phone, happened on one at Shopko last week. Then I won the bid. So, temporarily I have two of them, one at the $259 price the store charges and the difficult one for $330, which is cheaper than many were going for on eBay. What a surprise, to have things cost more on ebay! Interesting, isn't it? People have taken advantage of the market and the shortage. Gosh I'm glad they don't sell gasoline there, or do they?

The third thing is sad. There was an article in the paper last week about the danger of Priuses and other hybrid cars to blind people. They can't hear them, and if the drivers aren't carefully watching, a blind person may step off the curb directly in front of them. Bill sort of pooh-poohed it, saying drivers always have to watch out.

Tonight, after he pulled out of the driveway to go to the airport, there was a dead dove and an injured sparrow lying there. Lots of birds peck seeds from our gravel because the feeders are nearby in a shrub bed. The doves and sparrows are always the last to fly away as I pull in, but they always do it. I bed they don't hear the Prius coming either.

What do you do when you find an injured bird? I've taken a couple of hawks to a wildlife rehab person in town, but a sparrow? It fluttered away under the barberry bushes, and I'm hoping it was just a little battered. The dove is dead, and at least one other dove looks concerned about it. I guess Bill will have to learn to honk when he turns in.