It's Friday and it is time to rip the bird seed hulls off the carpet. My Columbus art patron and friend will be in town tomorrow. He called to see if I would be available to grab some lunch.

I have to

1. Vacuum
2. Sweep
3. Dust
4. Remove empty boxes, newspapers, cat crumbs, etc.
5. Take out trash
6. Roll lint roller over all furniture to eliminate cat hair
7. Shave

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It snowed again. Nearly every night it snows. We have a new inch of it but I believe it will evaporate by evening. Tomorrow we get 2-4 inches. Maybe more. It depends on the direction of the wind. A north wind means lake effect. Lake effect means much more.

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I see the market now has Paczkis. Pronounced "PUNCH-KEYZ." They are jelly-filled Polish pastries. I like the raspberry-filled ones, rolled in granulated sugar. They must be real fat-filled things, but I can't wait for Lent when the stores have them. The Paczki is the original jelly-filled "doughnut," and the origin of the American species of the pastry. Polish folks know baking.

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It is colder here than my ex-wife's left ventricle. I made two trips to the front porch this morning. By this time I normally have been out there five or six times. It takes too much work to put on all these layers. Yesterday I couldn't get the trunk lid of my car to open. It will remain frozen shut until the temp gets up to the forties again. This also means I can't run the car through the five dollar car wash for a while. I managed to do that two weeks ago and get some of the salt off. The big thing is to enter the wash chamber slowly to allow the bottom spray enough time to wash off the undercarriage.

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Too bad about Pontiac and Saturn. Saturn was a very successful marque for GM. The first truly plastic car body, although the Chevy Corvette had the first fiberglass body. Pontiac used to be a very popular brand. They were forced by GM's policy of having the same models across their various brands to offer vans and SUVs. But it was their racy autos that were popular. The Firebird, essentially a Camaro with better styling, was extremely popular years ago. Watching these old auto names go bye-bye is sad. Plymouth, Oldsmobile and now Pontiac. I hear Mercury nearly bit the dust a few years ago, but that brand is doing well with their smaller and compact models. I really thought GM would trash Buick before Pontiac.

My first wife and I owned a new Pontiac Catalina convertible way back when. It was maroon red and a good ride. It felt like driving a cabin cruiser. It was long, very wide and had comfortable seats, something long gone from auto design. You could drive it in two feet of snow with little trouble. But trying to park it in a normal parking space required a slide rule and four or five minutes of trial and error.

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The local newspaper is full of accounts of how the governments here are lining up at the trough to get some of the stimulus cash. There are many projects they call 'shovel-ready.' When it comes to our local elected officials, I can think of something else they could do with that shovel.


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I read somewhere that staring at a computer monitor all day will make you sterile.

Boy, I wish.


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Laterz...