1932 Boscobel & Bits

Monday, July 28, 2008

The play last night was Cybeline. I'd never heard of it before. I understood it and liked it better than any of the others I'd attended at Boscobel so far. As usual, there was the "girl dressed as boy", and the other characters don't recognize her. I may be considered an uncultured barbarian for this, but I never understood Shakespeare worship. The sonnets are good, and a few of the plays (e.g. Romeo & Juliet, and Hamlet), but I find many to be rather juvenile. Food for the masses. I like the ancient Greek plays better, and even Gilbert & Sullivan.

That reminds me - we read Hamlet in high school. One of my classmates said she didn't think the author was very good because "he used a lot of trite phrases, like 'get thee to a nunnery', and that 'something's rotten in Denmark' thing. I mean really! He's not very original."

I did have a ticket waiting for me, and no one exploded until the very end of the evening, and then it took the form of her abruptly leaving.

Roman and I ended up in a diner at a little after 11 pm. We talked for an hour or more, and it was nice. I've missed talking with him.

Today I had a very long walk with Piper, and then I took Suzy to the beauty parlor, where she got an oil change, lube, paw rotation, and state inspection. I'll have to give her an aerobic workout soon to see if she needs her paws aligned. She's been a bit shaky lately at about 70 mph.

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I occasionally find mail in my mailbox that's addressed to someone else, sometimes a neighbor, sometimes someone on an entirely different road. If it's a neighbor, I put it in their mailbox. If it's someone elsewhere, I return it to the mail carrier.

I often wonder if any of my mail is similarly misdelivered.

I overheard a conversation yesterday that infuriated me. I've heard other people say the same thing before, and it makes me wonder about the morals of the average American.

Here's how it goes:
Woman 1 mentioned that she got someone else's package in the mail.
Woman 2 asked what it was.
Woman 1 says she doesn't know, that she took it to the post office.
Woman 2 says she gets other people's mail too, but she opens it. Letters, she just throws out. If it's a package with good stuff, she keeps it. If not, she throws it out.
Woman 1 expresses shock.
Woman 2 shrugs and says that it's the law that if someone sends you something you didn't order, you get to keep it. Besides, if it's at all valuable, it's insured, and if letters are important, they'll send another.

Duh?
There's so much wrong with that statement I don't know where to start. And this is the third time I've heard something like that in the past 18 months. It makes me sick to my stomach. I can't help but wonder how much mail I never got. I'd have accosted this woman, but she was big and mean looking, and moving out the door faster than I was.

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After the across-the-street neighbors sold their house and moved, I thought my mailbox and newspaper tube were finally safe. About once a year, either they or someone visiting them would hit my box backing out of their driveway, and not once did anyone apologize or offer to fix it.

Jay had mounted the mailbox on plumbing pipes with "L" joints, so if it got hit it would twist on the pipes, rather than just get crushed. But it's got 20 years of rust in those joints, so it takes an enormous amount of force to turn it, and it needs the Hairless Hunk's backhoe to twist it back. There's no way someone could hit it hard enough to twist it and not be aware what they'd done.

When I got home last night, I found my mailbox twisted at a 45 degree to the road, and the tube leaning over. There's no note. No apology.

I am so angry I could spit nails. I'm tempted to take the binoculars down the driveway, and see if there are dents in the back of either of their cars.

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Teens outside the diner. "Want a cigarette?" "What? You smoking? You're on the team! Besides, those things can kill you!" "Nah. These are herbal. There's nothing dangerous in them."

Ack! First off, tobacco is herbal! I'm tired of people using "herbal" (or "natural") without any idea what it means. Second, nicotine affects your heart, but has little effect on the lungs. It's the byproducts of burning - the particles that settle in your lungs, the oils, the body's inflammatory response to the smoke, that destroys your lungs! "Nothing dangerous" my ass!

(Yeah, "herbal" tea also annoys me. Tea with caffeine is herbal, too. Don't you dare try to offer me "non-herbal" tea. There's no such thing, by definition.)

Bah. Bedtime.
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