Sunday in Castle Rock

 

Pretty normal Sunday in February here in bucolic Castle Rock. Frozen fog, overcast, drippy, cold. Normal. I walked up the drive and picked up the local Sunday fish-wrap. Seems that the Wuhan Pandemic is still with us, Portland and Seattle still have a “homeless crisis”, and their policemen are leaving by the double handfuls, violent crime is out of control, and the cities leaders are just at their wit’s end!!


Perused the sports section for any sort of update on the baseball lock-out, and their ongoing negotiations. In a normal year, pitchers and catchers would be reporting in a few days or a couple of weeks, but there seems to be absolutely no urgency to get this season under way. And no mention of the talks AT ALL in my paper. I’ve almost lost all faith in baseball as a professional sport. I already wrote off football and basketball…..I don’t get the attraction to soccer, and hockey confuses me. I still love baseball. Just not the professional variety.


Turned on Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 on Sirius XM radio, which today is from this week in 1971. Nice week. I was still stationed in Germany at the time, but recall all the songs, pretty much. The number one song that week was “Knock Three Times” by Dawn. YIKES!!


I get a Sunday e-mail update from The Art of Manliness, and it’s always a good read. This week’s highlights included the information that it really is OK to use soap on your cast iron skillet. Just not really frequently. That prohibition, it is reported, comes from the way soap used to be made—with lye and vinegar, which was bad for cast iron. Not made that way any more. So, feel free to clean up your cast iron.


Discovered to my horror that my printer has finally had the shaft. Look, I knew it was on it’s last legs so I had a replacement ready to go. I’m now printing again with a spanking new machine. What a dandy way to start the day.


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