Head for the Round House, Nellie

B&O Round House
They cannot corner you there, the saying goes. Dad was fond of this particular bit of Americana. I admit to not really understanding it much. In my youth, toward the end of the great age of rail, there were switching yards and two-headed diesel engines and so not much use for a turn table to reverse the direction of the engine. The steam engine with coal car went in one side, drove on to the turn table which rotated to put its load heading the right direction on the correct track or just back out the way it had come heading the other way. Confused?

It does, however, make a lot of sense that a round house, built for any purpose, would free you from being cornered so to speak. So figuratively if not literally I often head to the round house when I am feeling stalked. Life should have less corners and more round houses don't you think?

The contractor from hell tried to corner me this last three day weekend. While drinking in his favorite bar in Red River he began the rumor that he had won the lawsuit and my house was going to be sold out from under me. The news reached me through friends on the weekend of course when I could not call my legal representation or the court for verification. Too bad his building and accounting skills were not as good as his timing of rumors and stalking skills.

Needless to say I didn't sleep all that well, overate, and submerged myself in the fantasy of Netflix streaming videos. I don't paint well when bothered but I do sketch good so I did that, and read, and exercised. My version of the virtual roundhouse. Tuesday my attorney verified that he lies! But once again I have let this hateful excuse for a human being ruffle my feathers.

But it also occurred to me, while I was catching my breathe from running in circles, is that a lot of his behavior is stalking so the next time he drives his big truck down my dead end county road I am taking his license number and reporting him to the state police. The one thing to remember about round houses, in addition to you cannot be cornered, is that the person chasing you has no place to hide from the shot gun blast!

Comments

Post a Comment

I write for me but I care what my readers think. Please be polite and no scamming.

Popular posts from this blog

Swimming

Image
For much of my college career my fitness workout was swimming on the B squad of the swim team. I remember it as the days before heated pools and women coaches. I also remember being so exhausted and cold I could only lean against the shower wall and throw up. Not exactly warm fuzzy images but I was in awesome shape. Needless to say it did not leave me with a overpowering desire to swim laps. Point of fact for years my swimming became really informal: Swimming to shore after the canoe tipped over, challenging my sister once a summer to across the lake and back, seeing how long I could back float without moving a muscle, and a scuba course. I also played around with other ways of staying fit: aerobics, bicycling, jogging, skiing and dance classes. All of which seem to be bad for the knees, back or feet. After my ski accident my physical therapist steered me back to the pool. Damn if I was going to swim laps! However, aqua fit was just getting rather seriously taken so I took it. It r
Read more

The Pruning the Crown of Thorns

Image
Crown of Thorns Before I am a lover of Euphorbias . They are from the deserts of Southern Africa and Madagascar. They have evolved physical characteristics and forms similar to cacti of North and South America and are often incorrectly referred to as cacti. My big Crown of Thorns was one of my first of a growing collection of these succulents from the spurge family of Euphorbiaceae. I picked it up as a 6 inch plant in a New Iberia nursery when my sister and I were touring the northern gulf coast. I believe that was 15 years ago. I made an attempt at limiting its height a few years back to allow it to devote more energy to the new branches and make it a denser plant. That failed. And the height of the plant continued to challenge the window space and soon the long branches were leaning over and leaning against the window. I googled and found the proper way to prune this treasured plant. Still it was very difficult to cut off the four longer branches. Even with a plan. The f
Read more

Polyethylene Packaging - a Dark Times Journal entry

Image
I was in the fourth grade when our family moved from El Paso, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We moved because I could not breathe the air there. I want to say they cracked petroleum there. But what did I know beyond the sky was sometimes yellow and I could not breathe. Mom was pregnant with Debbie, and Gary and I rode in the backseat separated by a round tank full of Dad's tropical fish. Dad had a job with Sealright, Inc which made paper milk cartons. Sealright was a polyethylene packing subsidiary of Phillips 66. The petroleum company. I was rather proud of myself for learning to say that, and to not laugh when adults would stare at me not knowing what to ask about that. Albuquerque smelled better. Then. Before all the freeways were built and the shape of the valley trapped the exhaust down near the ground in the winter months. We lived in the foothills. I could breathe. I learned that if I could see the air I could not. Still it was better than El Paso though I missed our trip
Read more