October 28, 2026: Downstairs
Pete is finishing up cleaning the kitchen. He’s doing the final chore, loading wood into the wood box. I can tell because of the sounds. The final sound, before he goes and does schoolwork, is the thunk thunk of wood hitting wood. Good man, this Pete. I should help out more but by evening time I have no remaining energy. Tonight is one of those nights. It was another long day, and tomorrow is going to be longer. Today there was nothing out of the ordinary going on. Leslie went and picked up Title Wave books. I went to what I call the chamber pot meeting. There were people there I knew – the best description I can muster is that they were Palmer Inner Circle. I do not kid myself. I am not and never will be considered such. I’m just that odd hoarder woman who insists on crashing the nonprofit party by doing things like passing out books instead of candy at a Palmer of Commerce sanctioned event. |
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But I got up there, I had sixty seconds to speak – and I quickly said what we’d been doing the past few months and then said what we’d be doing this Friday – again passing out books instead of candy. Today I had volunteers clean and stamp Halloween books. One of these volunteers trains people to use firearms safely. As she talked, the hackles on the neck stood up. I was like a dog circling another. This is because I am for banning all guns, world wide. This volunteer’s responses to my questions about gun use were nonsensical. She moved beyond my question about people having guns to protect themselves by instead focusing on recreational users. She said at one point that the problem of random shootings is not with the gun when there are accidental deaths but with the person firing it. I then made an analogy to cars and driving, saying the fault is not with the car when there are accidental collisions, but with the person driving it. This made no sense to me at all. This individual just could not see beyond the shooting range, to the world beyond. I was bothered but reminded myself that she’s a volunteer. The most amazing thing of all is that she did not take offense when I brought up gun control issues. Rather, she talked about other things – it was like being in her living room. But rather than us drinking tea, we ate Palmer Chamber of Commerce Candy. I gave her some red licorice. And I thought, well, this is a genuinely nice person. Leslie returned with the books and the rest of the afternoon was uneventful. I unpacked the Title Wave books, and she finished sorting the Halloween books. We are ready for Friday. Tomorrow I must again give my arctic entry speech. I still don’t have a writerly hook. I’m hoping that if I sleep on it, that something will come to me. |
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