1. On my way out of town late this morning, I stopped in at City Hall. I had used the City Hall drop box to pay my latest bill and somehow that check either just disappeared or got off its leash and ran away into the wilds of South Kellogg.
I went in to write another check and the very helpful employee I was working with broke the news to me that I'd have to pay a three dollar and eighty cent late payment fee.
Suddenly, in an instant, a flurry of thoughts and images went through my mind.
On the one hand, it didn't seem right that I should be charged a late fee when I dropped off the check plenty early and somehow it got lost at the City Hall.
For a second, I wondered whether I should I contest that charge.
At the same time I asked myself this question, on the movie screen in my mind, a rapid series of images flashed before my inner eye of angry citizens getting up in the faces of all kinds of public servants, say during the pandemic and in the aftermath of the 2020 election and in any number of other situations. I thought of stories I've heard of angry customers yelling at workers in restaurants and bakeries and coffee shops. I didn't want to add to any of that.
Then I thought about three dollars and eighty cents.
Will paying this fee keep me from being well fed? Will I be unable to put fuel in the car? Will I still have a roof over my head?
And then I asked myself whether this City of Kellogg employee, who is just doing her job, doing all she can to help me, and just following the rules, needs me to hassle her? I admit, it never crossed my mind to fire the tried and true local phrase THAT'S BULLSHIT! at her, but I also decided against objecting and simply wrote out the check and paid the fee.
That felt right to me.
I didn't add anger to the employee's day. I didn't contribute to the unending complaints I hear all the time about the incompetence of government, whatever the level. I won't go to The Lounge or family dinner or anywhere else and bitch about being assessed this fee.
No, I just thanked her for helping me, hopped in the Camry, and blasted over to Silver Peak Espresso, ordered a latte from another public servant -- to me, baristas are public servants!-- and headed west and then south to the CdA Casino.
2. I'm thoroughly enjoying this routine of heading down to the CdA Casino on Winning Wednesdays, doing all I can on Wednesdays to make the modest amount of money I've budgeted for myself last, and racking up double points on my player card -- that's one of the perks of Winning Wednesdays: double points!
I jumped right on Silverwood's Timber Terror today, going down, down, down and then having a good spin here or there to keep me able to play, losing some more ground, gaining some ground again, and so getting to play a fun assortment of games. It was a fun roller coaster day
I took a break from spinning reels after a while and enjoyed a ground brisket burger with fries at the Red Tail Bar and Grill.
I returned to the floor and as it neared time for me to think about heading home, I returned to a favorite game, Invaders of the Planet Moolah. I hadn't had any luck earlier on this machine, but this time around I had a pretty good spin which brought me back to even and I decided to call it a day.
I am always happy to walk out of the casino with same amount of money I walked in with!
Low stakes. Moderate bets. Good discipline. A delicious lunch. Breaking even. I had a most relaxing time.
3. I've written on this blog before that during my sophomore year at North Idaho College, I used to listen to classical music records while I read class assignments. I've also mentioned that I used to choose records sometimes by instrument -- sometimes I'd listen to a trumpet being featured or a flute or the harpsichord, and back then I had an odd love of the bassoon.
Well, today, as I was working a puzzle and listening to Symphony Hall on SiriusXM, Preston Trombly began to introduce the next piece of music he had cued up and began to talk about Mozart having composed only one bassoon concerto, the Bassoon Concerto in B Flat.
The concerto got underway and suddenly I was transported back to the Molstead Library, reading an existential short story by Sartre or Camus or possibly a story by Flannery O'Connor exploring the violent intrusion of grace or an assignment regarding the history of the Pacific Northwest, and I was amazed at how familiar Mozart's concerto was to me, making me think that I must have listened to it repeatedly because I seemed able today to anticipate every move it made and it had been decades since I had listened to it.
Listening to those albums back at NIC was a private eccentric pleasure of mine and, once again, today I was very happy that I was willing back then to entertain myself with pleasures that I didn't share with anyone else. I didn't know anyone else who dove into them and I was happy to be a little odd.
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