A Fictional Sinnareo

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Sinnareo Plane was seething again. For what seemed like the millionth time, she asked herself, What kind of monster could do such a thing? What sort of heartless beasts would name their daughter Sinnareo?

It’s not that Sinnareo Plane didn’t know who her parents were, or where to find them. They were right there in the family cemetery plot, the same place they’d been since Sinnareo was just three months old. Yep. Dead. She could ask them all the questions she wanted; they couldn’t answer. (And if they did, it would have scared the shit out of her.) So she never got to know Agatha and Octagonal Plane, nor to ask them why they had saddled her with this ridiculous name.

Mind you, she thought her first name was ridiculous; she didn’t even know her middle name. She wasn’t even sure she had one. Her uncle Parallelogram thought she had one, but he couldn’t remember it. Y’see, Parallelogram had been on a year-long bender when Sinnareo was born. In the midst of all that bending, he was far too focused on his back pain to focus on learning a newborn’s middle name. But he was sympathetic. After all, uncle Parallelogram had issues with his own parents’ ideas of child-naming. I mean, Jesus Christ, how could he not?

…to be continued? Ehhhh, probably not.

Impending Travel (South Carolina)

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If James Brown is the godfather of soul, is “Weird Al” Yankovic the godfather of novelty records? Or would that be Dr. Demento? And who is the godfather of boy bands? And why is it always god? Are there any devilfathers out there? Actually, “devilfathers” sounds like some kind of snack food. Maybe deviled ham and deviled eggs served in a sandwich, where the bread is actually devil’s food cake. Which leads me to wonder, why is Satan so heavily involved in our food? And are deviled eggs allowed in heaven? I demand answers!

Anyway, none of the above is relevant, because I’m just here to talk about my upcoming trip to coastal Carolina! Next week, I will be heading to the south end of the North Carolina coast to spend a day or so with some long-time friends from Iowa who will be visiting the area. From there, I will be heading into South Carolina. I will be seeing Myrtle Beach for the first time, though I’ll just be passing through. The bulk of this trip will be spent around Charleston, SC. Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, Capers Island, and multiple mansions/plantations are on my itinerary. And we must not forget the Arthur J. Ravenel Bridge! On the way home, I will likely visit Congaree National Park and/or a pinball place in Rock Hill that I recently learned of. I bid you eye dew, or something.

Indoor Leaf Blowing

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There is no carpet in my house. All my floors are either hardwood or tile. I have a Great Pyrenees – a giant fluffy dog whose hair collects pine needles, leaves, and various other detritus from the yard, then deposits it all on the floor once he comes inside. And of course, there’s the hair itself – shedding. For these reasons, I make it a point to sweep the entire house (with a broom) once a week. Recently, I bought an electric leaf blower. It’s a low-end model, so it’s not very powerful. So…today I tried using the leaf blower for my weekly house sweeping!

The results were not as I had hoped. But they were also not as I had feared. I had been afraid I might end up blowing a bunch of papers off desks and tables, or that garbage might get blown out of the bins. None of that happened. What I had hoped for was to “push” a pile of leaves and dog hair to the front door and blow it out of the house. Instead, the dog hair and leaves AND a copious amount of dust went airborne. With the exception of a few larger objects (twigs and pine cones), the hair and detritus refused to be corralled. On the plus side, I was able to easily get dust/hair bunnies out of some normally-hard-to-reach places. And I made it through the whole house in much less time than it usually takes with a broom. But I’m going back to the broom next week.