Hi again.... in These titles mean nothing.

It's Saturday and I finally made my trip to town. Thursday didn't work out for going to town. Although it should have because now the Buick is full of cans and the can place was not open this morning. I really don't know when I'll get there now - since my working hours pretty much coincide with the can places hours. I suppose it will be Friday afternoon. The Buick trunk is jammed with a gigantic plastic bag of cans - loading it is like delivering a calf. Well, I'm not sure exactly why it's like delivering a calf, but it takes some care to make it fit. Back seat has another smaller plastic bag of cans and several boxes of beer bottles.

I joked to the girls waiting for the library to open that the Buick was now worth twice as much since it probably has twenty dollars worth of cans and bottles in it. I was going to tell them that I had left the keys in the ignition - which I had - but I thought better of it.

I really had thought the can place would be open today because after weekends and holidays they are flooded with cans and bottles. I thought they would want to get a leg up so to say. But they weren't. The can place is under new management and it's not as warm and fuzzy a place as it was before. I'm actually looking for another place to take my cans but can redemption places aren't that easy to find.

By the way, they are my cans because I bought most of them, not because I consumed their contents. I did break down one Sunday afternoon and drank three cans of the free diet root beer Casey's was giving away with purchase of a large pizza. I must say it was delicious. Very cold, in a clean glass glass. I liked it a lot. Nice bitter sweet edge and lots of bubbles.

But I successfully climbed back on the wagon and am satisfying my self with hot or cold coffee, water, some milk, some orange juice and an occasional shot of box Chardonnay.

I asked Jim to take pictures of me when I was loading the car with (his) beer bottles. I wanted to see what I looked like.

This is what I looked like:

Back:

Front:

Note;

1. Unbrushed hair
2. Lack of bra totally
3. Lack of breast on one side
4. Midriff roll
5. Evidence of pricey Canadian beer

That's me though and as I said I was in a good mood and ready to face the world.

The bank was open and I had a pleasant visit there. They took me as I am.

The library opened after I waited a few minutes with the potentially larcenous girls - wait, wait - I did not say that. I had a nice talk with the daughter of neighbors and friend of Deb's who works at the library. I had stopped for no good reason. I couldn't remember the name of the biography I wanted them to order, and I didn't want to take time to look it up on their internet. So I walked around. Workmen are working on the new fireplace. They had scaffolding set up and a yellow do not pass tape wrapped around the scaffolding. Scaffolding is an interesting word. I tried typing it a couple different ways until the red squiggle went away.

I found a couple things:

• A biography of Louis Armstrong by Terry Teachout. It's called Pops and I've dipped into it a bit. Armstrong is a hero of mine and the book looks pretty readable. It quotes from his letters.

• A book on tapes - the Buick is of the cassette tape era and I have about an hour a day total commute so it's possible to listen to books. This is the first time I've tried one in a long time. It's Bill Bryson's account of hiking the Appalachian trail. It's called [A Walk in the Woods.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWalkintheWoods)] I assume listening to the tapes is as close as I'll get to doing the trail - at least this year.

I'm not a huge fan of Bryson's. He is native Iowan, his mother worked for the Des Moines Register. In an early claim to fame he wrote a magazine article about the Iowa State Fair in which he rued the fact that the young girls were so beautiful but their mothers were cows. I wouldn't say hes wrong but I somehow took it personally and I've been holding a grudge ever since.

I realize that whenever you write anything, there is the chance that someone will take it the 'wrong' way, and that of course is what I did in that case. I suppose I should forgive him. Maybe at some point during our time on the Appalachian trail I will. Actually if I'm able to actually learn now to spell Appalachian I will be happy. I've got it right now but I am completely sure I'll lose it in a month at the least.

After the library I stopped at Casey's and topped off the Buick's gas tank and ordered a breakfast pizza. Then I went to the grocery store and bought a glue stick so I can work on my scrapbook. Since I was there I bought two big sacks of corn chips, two pounds of Italian sausage - bulk kind - and some red grapes.

Here's a pic of the Fareway meat counter.

There's more to the meat counter but this was just a quick photo before security got there.

Now I'm home. I hear the sounds of orange wagons clanging through the yard from time to time. Jim is hauling corn from the bins to town. He says he's not going to do that anymore. He can have a local feed store come and get it with their truck. He feels like he's running out of luck with his tractor and wagons and highway traffic. There is a lot that can go wrong.

Here's the consist - I hope I haven't jinxed him.

Think positive thoughts please.