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Neville chews on his own image Friday, January 20 2023
Despite it being Friday, I was better at reining in my propensity to procrastinate on workplace work during the workday in the remote workplace. I'd taken a recreational dose of pseudoephedrine, but that wasn't the reason. The reason was that I finally had a straightforward task to work on that didn't require a lot of poking around to understand. Eventually all my tasks will be this way, and I won't have to hold a gun to my head to make myself work. It's taken a year of working with this company, but maybe I finally know the ropes.
During the lunch break, I returned yet again to where I've been collecting wood a little south of where the Stick Trail crosses the Chamomile. I'd set up a staging area very close to the west end of the stone wall, and I took most of my wood from the pile there. But it wasn't quite enough and I had to go out onto the shoulder in the landscape to the east for a few more pieces. Later in the day, I would take my backpack and the chainsaw west of the Farm Road and gather bits and pieces from over there (from a small chestnut oak I'd felled as well as from two skeletonize white pines). Using the saw, I managed to cut up more of the big fallen red oak (the one I'd initially thought was a chestnut oak). But the blade on my chainsaw has become so dull that it's frustrating to use and doesn't make a cut quite wide enough for the chain bar to get through.
Meanwhile, back in the house, Gretchen was snuggling with the dogs in the living room in front of a well-stoked fire. I'd check in on the stove (and the wood I was dangerously drying on it) periodically during the many moments when I needed to get up from my computer. At one point as I was walking down to the stove, I heard Neville contentedly chewing on something. I looked to see what it was and was horrified to see it was the cut-out painting I'd made (of Neville)! I shouted No! and ran over and got it away from him, leaving him a little startled as to what the big deal was. Fortunately, Neville had only chewed away the top of his head in the painting, leaving nearly all of it intact. What little is damaged can be sanded smooth and repainted. I can also use epoxy if I want to replace some of the material he chewed away, though it might be better to leave it rounded off. Gretchen seemed to think I'd caught Neville in time. I have a feeling Neville wouldn't've been inclined to chew a perfectly rectangular piece of wood and there was something about the acute angles and such that made him select it for chewing.
This evening Gretchen went out with a group of her friends to see a local theatre performance of Rent in Rhinebeck. They all would be eating dinner at Cinnamon, the mediocre-to-terrible Indian restaurant in the village, since the falafel place would not be open (and vegan options in Rhinebeck are poor). Originally I'd planned to support Gretchen on her birthday by attending this outing, but due to ticket demand, I would've had to sit by myself in the audience. As you know, I'm not that into either musicals or local theatre productions. And I'm also not into Rhinebeck or Cinnamon, so I'd decided not to participate. I had a feeling that tucking into a plate of curry designed for old-money white Republicans would just make me miserable. Instead I took a nice hot bath.
What Neville's chewing did to the cut-out painting I'd made of him.
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