The clothes dryer is back together and running quietly.
For the past couple of years, it did its thing with an irritating squeak.
Since it was relegated to the basement from the very beginning, I guess I thought it was tolerable. Carol brought the irritant to my attention a number of times and tried various techniques to quiet the squeak, such as changing its
orientation by placing a thin board under its front feet. Finding myself in charge of the laundry
chores since June 1st may have moved me to do something about the
squeak. Or. Carol has resumed responsibility for the laundry as of last week,
so my motivation may have been to provide her with a more pleasant environment.
One should not dwell on either one’s own or someone else’s motivation for any
length of time; it will only end in cognitive dissonance and intellectual chaos.

Thanks again to RepairClinic.com, I was able to successfully tackle a household repair
project. It’s a great site. Search using a model number and the exact parts come up along with a video showing the breakdown
and replacement process. I replaced the idler or tension pulley and the belt. I
figured I could salvage the drum rollers by cleaning and lubricating the
shafts. As I was breaking the dryer down the door switch fell apart. I suspect that over the course of 24 years
and 2 months of the spring loaded door banging shut, the plastic housing of the
switch was compromised so that it simply fell apart when I removed the mounting
screws. Curiously, the replacement switch is of a different design. The website
noted that the part replaces Manufacturer’s Number 388322. It was reassuring to be holding in my hand
the housing of the broken switch with the number 388322 clearly visible.

The dryer has been down since the weekend, when I did the teardown, the diagnosis, and ordered the
parts. They came in today’s mail, and the dryer was operational, before I ate my dessert. It isn’t that repair and maintenance are a standard second supper course. I just
figured apple crisp and tea would taste better once the after-hour’s chore was
complete. Carol will be able to tackle the week’s
laundry tomorrow. I did ask if she wanted me to start on that task this evening.
She told me that I didn’t have to. I took that as a clear no.

I trust that investing $66.00 in parts in the old dryer will prove to be money well spent. I’m
thinking if someone replaced my tension pulley and switch, I just might be good
for a couple more rounds. Something about tightening the belt and powering up.

As I re-read the past few posts for the upteenth time, I notice that I had better pay attention to more than lay-out. Spell-check is great, but it is limited and can not help with the wrong form of the word (advise v. advice) and words that get mistakenly cut (intra-species v. intra-species communication). It is time to attack this challenge from a different angle or from more than one angle. Stay tuned folks, the campaign continues.

Rats! As one can clearly see from yesterday's post, the spacing strategy did not work. This means I will be indenting my paragraphs from now on. Let's see if that effort can also be subverted by some unseen force or formatting.

Carol took the plunge today and applied for Social Security Retirement Benefits effective 1-1-12. That means as my neighbor puts it "We be pensioners come the new year." In Mr. P's musings, he often wonders why certain words fall out of fashion and we all have to learn the new vocabulary. Has intra-species really been improved? Part of it may well be attributed to political correctness. I will grant you that some of those changes have been long in coming. Other examples make me think of the opening chapter of "The Virginian," where the distinction is made between smiling and not smiling when one calls someone an SOB. It has been some 40 years since I read those words. I think they have real merit, but I still haven't brought myself to try that advise out when I meet a new neighbor. Maybe when I am a little older.

Now what? I just previewed this post and found that the indents disappeared. Have the grammar gods changed the rules of written discourse? I'm not asking for much; I just don't want run-on paragraphs. My thoughts are specious enough already. I think it is time to sign off, take responsibility for what I can change, accept what I cannot change, and watch the Brewer's game.

Another day - another milestone.

Today I completed the on-line application for Social Security Retirement Benefits to start with the New Year. With each one of these steps anticipated with a certain anxiety and completed with a feeling of satisfaction, the reality of the pending revised state of affairs settles in. I only hope it is a good fit all around. A few significant details remain: medicare supplement insurance for myself and COBRA coverage for the spouse. I also need to work up a 2012 budget. It will be preliminary until some of the expenses are firmed up.

What makes for a good fit under the pending circumstances? It probably behooves me to settle on some criteria, otherwise my evaluation of fit will depend upon the whim of the day. Add a dash of lifelong impulsiveness and one has the recipe for trouble.

As folks can see from my last two posts, I have struggled with the spacing between paragraphs. The extra space between paragraphs is to compensate for not indenting. I don't know why it became a problem just then. I hope I have it figured out. Do you think it might be the doings of a high school English teacher reaching back from the beyond?

So! What does one do when they find an article in the British newspaper, The Guardian, on Wisconsin's governor and his risk of recall? Blog about it, I guess. There is, in my estimation, a more balanced view and more thorough coverage of the Palestinian push for a vote for statehood at the UN.

The Globe and Mail out of Toronto is also on my Favorites list. A recent article on the Canadian Wheat Marketing Board can be of interest to any of us who eat bread--whole wheat or white.

The National Catholic Reporter has also earned a spot on my Favorites list. It's articles keep the juices flowing.

It's time to see what Slate Magazine is up to today.

My note of June 22nd spoke of the 3 week mark of Carol's summer of hospitalization. The hospitalization and rehabilitative nursing home placement continued until today--one day shy of three calendar months. Keeping with the number 3, I guess it is appropriate to post a comment. I can't envision when the next 3 will occur and prompt another posting. The situation is essentially in a holding pattern for the next 6 or more months and then there will be additional surgery. One thing we have learned is that all deadlines are no more than rough estimates subject to revision and even reversal on short notice.

The old couple's household is once again intact. The only comment Carol made with respect to the appearance of the house after a three month absence was "It doesn't look like a bachelor pad." I was thinking, but didn't say it: "I wasn't trying to impress bachelors; I was trying to impress ladies." I need to wait and see what impact rehab had on her sense of humor.

I try to reflect on what I may have learned during these past three months, and the impact this experience will have on me here on out. I find myself summarizing the whole shabang with the observation: "When it comes right down to it, one is really very much on his/her own." It is not that friends and family are not helpful, but one has to be in a position to accept and make good use of that assistance. One can not always wait for someone to offer; there are times when one needs to ask for a little help and to be quite explicit about what type of help is being sought.

The retirement planning effort now has a whole new set of variables.

It is done. Today I submitted my letter of resignation making my retirement effective as of January 1, 2012. Now I will need to work on the items on my retirement checklist, so hopefully things will be in place come the new year. As I work on that checklist I suspect the whole business of retirement will become more and more real. For now it appears as a relatively minor occurrence when placed along side of Carol's continued hospitalization, which is now it its second month. This says a lot about perspective and the relative nature of things.