random thoughts – Day 1,562 – (Thursday) – inspection day

Despite spending most of the week thinking about timelines and logistics and scheduling ads and a dozen other things that require consulting the calendar, and exclaiming out loud more than a couple times that “Wow, Independence Day is next week!” it was still a surprise (shock!)  this afternoon when I fully realized that the last day of the month is Sunday which is when my inspection sticker expires. That’s when I said “Oh, shit!” and bounced out to Hank’s Garage, conveniently located two streets from my house where I was working remotely. Friday is an office day and it would have been much harder to get to a station during the inspection hours and Saturday morning at an inspection station on the last possible day of the month is not someplace I can be (again).

There was a car in the bay when I arrived, but it was the only one ahead of me. I sat in my car in air-conditioned comfort for a few minutes until it was my turn. Then I went to sit in the office and play Woodoku on my phone while the inspection was done.

The office was fascinating. Cluttered. Grubby. A refrigerator was plastered in crispy looking yellowed and browned newspaper clippings. A book about the flood in 1936 sat on the desk nearest me but I was afraid to look at it because that would be snooping. I did sneak a few photos of the office though, which also felt like snooping, but it isn’t often I see a space like this.

Garage office.

Directories with yellowed pages were crammed into a bookcase across the office near a second desk. A crucifix hung on a brown paneled wall near a portrait, a youth league team photo, a thermometer, and a lot of other stuff. The brown upholstered office chair at the second desk across the room had a unique feature not seen before – two flattened wheels. How on earth is that even possible? Fascinating!

A breeze blew in through the open door and a bright white fan, the cleanest, most modern element in the office, spun from the ceiling. It was more comfortable than being under the blazing sun outside.

I was back home in my own desk chair with four very round wheels in about a half hour. During the two-street commute, there was another close encounter with another motor vehicle. A pickup truck blasted through the stop sign on Alma at Rosemont as I was entering the intersection on the street with no stop sign. The second close encounter with an aggressive driver in as many days has me feeling like a giant magnet for potential trouble.

In other events, tonight, Kiki has taken a sudden interest in the large floor grate in the dining room floor under the buffet. It’s the intake for the HVAC system, and she sat at full attention for far too long, inspecting it as if it is the most interesting thing in the house. Usually, she avoids the area. It should be real fun when I find out what that is all about. Can hardly wait.