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rowynI get Veteran's day off. Yay! This morning, I was reading ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
terrycloth's latest fiction installment, and thinking "eh, reality is overrated". But after I finished it, I decided to go experience some anyway. I decided to do some inline skating.
I haven't used my inline skates since I moved to this house six years ago, because when I moved here there weren't any decent places nearby to skate -- all the streets in my neighborhood are sloping. However, when the hotel added the waterpark, they also expanded their parking lot. The lot is almost empty today, so I figured I could take my skates over there. I got dressed, and went looking for my skates, which I remembered being in the bottom drawer of one the plastic drawer unit in the foyer. They weren't there. I went to the basement to look for them, and found them in the bottom drawer of the plastic drawer set in the weight room. So I was half-right about where they were.
On the outside, which is mostly a hard plastic shell, they were coated in a layer of dust and/or dirt and/or mold. The padded-fabric interior seemed fine, however, so I took them upstairs to clean them off. I cleaned one side of a skate, then flipped it over to clean the other side. While I was wiping it off with a damp paper towel, a small chunk of plastic next to one of the buckles peeled off. I looked at the chunk. I wondered to myself, Huh, if it'll still fasten okay if it's missing a bit of the shell? as I wiped at the rest of the side. Then I noticed the crack from the chunk that had come loose extended farther down the plastic. Then about a third of the left side of the shell came off. And fell on the floor, and broke into a half-dozen more pieces.
Yeah, that's not gonna work. Or be repairable. I threw the skates away. I'm not sure if being stored in the basement actually killed them, or if the plastic was just old. The skates were close to twenty years old, after all. I'm a little sad; it doesn't make a lot of sense to replace them, since I hadn't used them in six years, but even so ... I did want to use them today.
Since I was already dressed, I went outside anyway, to do leaf-blowing. I really didn't want to do leaf-blowing, not so much because of the leaf-blowing itself as because I'd done a couple of hours of it on Sunday and my right hand was still a bit numb from all the vibrations. Not to mention that my arms still hurt a little. But I presevered despite my misgivings, and finished doing the back yard. Now I just have to do the front yard, which is the most annoying part to do because I actually have to bag the leaves from there instead of just blowing them into the brush at the sides of my yard like I do with the back.
As soon as I put the blower away, my lower back started complaining that it was strained. Which was a funny time for it to do that, since it'd been fine while I was actually doing any work. I went to the kitchen to make cupcakes, but I wasn't able to find my cupcake pan, and only found about ten cupcake papers. I'd decided to make a regular cake when I discovered that my cake mix called for three eggs and we only had two. Since when do cake mixes need three eggs? I thought they always used two. Then I proceeded to strain my middle back trying to put the mixer bowl away. Ow. Ow ow ow. I gave up, made an ice cream float, and went to sit down.
Other than that, though, my day off has been nice.
... I just realized that nothing I described actually sounds particularly good and much of it sounds bad, making that last line look sarcastic. Oddly, it's not. It's been a nice day, which I've enjoyed much more than my average day at work. I got to read new fiction from Bard as well as Terry, I got some yard work taken care of and I'm happy to have it done, and I threw away something that was taking up space and that I haven't used in six years. The only part I'm unhappy about it my back hurting, and that's not enough to ruin my day. And I have hours left in my day, so maybe I'll yet manage to finish the sketches I've been working on. Yay, day off!
terrycloth's latest fiction installment, and thinking "eh, reality is overrated". But after I finished it, I decided to go experience some anyway. I decided to do some inline skating.I haven't used my inline skates since I moved to this house six years ago, because when I moved here there weren't any decent places nearby to skate -- all the streets in my neighborhood are sloping. However, when the hotel added the waterpark, they also expanded their parking lot. The lot is almost empty today, so I figured I could take my skates over there. I got dressed, and went looking for my skates, which I remembered being in the bottom drawer of one the plastic drawer unit in the foyer. They weren't there. I went to the basement to look for them, and found them in the bottom drawer of the plastic drawer set in the weight room. So I was half-right about where they were.
On the outside, which is mostly a hard plastic shell, they were coated in a layer of dust and/or dirt and/or mold. The padded-fabric interior seemed fine, however, so I took them upstairs to clean them off. I cleaned one side of a skate, then flipped it over to clean the other side. While I was wiping it off with a damp paper towel, a small chunk of plastic next to one of the buckles peeled off. I looked at the chunk. I wondered to myself, Huh, if it'll still fasten okay if it's missing a bit of the shell? as I wiped at the rest of the side. Then I noticed the crack from the chunk that had come loose extended farther down the plastic. Then about a third of the left side of the shell came off. And fell on the floor, and broke into a half-dozen more pieces.
Yeah, that's not gonna work. Or be repairable. I threw the skates away. I'm not sure if being stored in the basement actually killed them, or if the plastic was just old. The skates were close to twenty years old, after all. I'm a little sad; it doesn't make a lot of sense to replace them, since I hadn't used them in six years, but even so ... I did want to use them today.
Since I was already dressed, I went outside anyway, to do leaf-blowing. I really didn't want to do leaf-blowing, not so much because of the leaf-blowing itself as because I'd done a couple of hours of it on Sunday and my right hand was still a bit numb from all the vibrations. Not to mention that my arms still hurt a little. But I presevered despite my misgivings, and finished doing the back yard. Now I just have to do the front yard, which is the most annoying part to do because I actually have to bag the leaves from there instead of just blowing them into the brush at the sides of my yard like I do with the back.
As soon as I put the blower away, my lower back started complaining that it was strained. Which was a funny time for it to do that, since it'd been fine while I was actually doing any work. I went to the kitchen to make cupcakes, but I wasn't able to find my cupcake pan, and only found about ten cupcake papers. I'd decided to make a regular cake when I discovered that my cake mix called for three eggs and we only had two. Since when do cake mixes need three eggs? I thought they always used two. Then I proceeded to strain my middle back trying to put the mixer bowl away. Ow. Ow ow ow. I gave up, made an ice cream float, and went to sit down.
Other than that, though, my day off has been nice.
... I just realized that nothing I described actually sounds particularly good and much of it sounds bad, making that last line look sarcastic. Oddly, it's not. It's been a nice day, which I've enjoyed much more than my average day at work. I got to read new fiction from Bard as well as Terry, I got some yard work taken care of and I'm happy to have it done, and I threw away something that was taking up space and that I haven't used in six years. The only part I'm unhappy about it my back hurting, and that's not enough to ruin my day. And I have hours left in my day, so maybe I'll yet manage to finish the sketches I've been working on. Yay, day off!
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no subject
Date: 2009-11-11 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-11 08:30 pm (UTC)Ahem. Anyway, I'm glad you had a nice day off. =)
no subject
Date: 2009-11-12 07:05 pm (UTC)I bought a pair myself about ten years ago, but I haven't used them lately. I may use them more in the spring. I checked them last fall, they needed a bit of oil, but that was it...