Numbers

Last night: falling temps, rain turning to snow that's supposed to accumulate, much colder, I ran home and picked up some clothes, I figure everyone will be late and someone needs to be there to answer the phone. I enlist myself as receptionist. The pub, after work, is a zoo, they've lost five or six employees, and John, the manager, is interviewing new hires. A scant beer later, the blowing snow had haloed around street lamps, Wrote in longhand last night and that puts us into the "real time" dilema where there is now information from a forty-eight hour period rather than just today since I woke up. I couldn't stop reading Mary's letters, and I had a legal pad on the desk. The looseleaf binders with the letters are large and awkward and I've developed my system for reading them, which is to prop them open, on my mid-thigh, leaned against the front of the desk; all my other habits within easy reach. The new Gaylord Archival Products arrived, I love this catalog, and I immediately turned to the archeological artifacts page. Three items catch my eye: Shallow LId Multipurpose Box, ideally sized for housing bone collections, chemically inert and dust -free to maintain the condition of collections; Specimen Box, partitions, sold seperately, can be used to create up to 16 compartments for separating specimens; and my favorite, the Skeletal Remains Box, keeps human remains safe and organized, nine-piece box provides seperate insert trays for skull, long bones vertebrae, etc, box features a seperate compartment that holds the removable spine tray. I love this stuff, it brightens my day. Second filling with the light-weight spackle, reading some letters while it dried, then sanding for a hour, preparation is everything. Today, D was at the museum, and we both had thought that we needed to get the photographs matted and framed for a little exhibit in the library to coincide with the showing of a film about the 1937 flood. Not a problem, we had them done in an hour and hung in another, we're scary good at this, like knife-throwers in the sideshow. What I noticed today, one thing, was that D just looks over at me and I feed him a number, and we both know exactly what that number is, what it represents. No narrative, just a glance and a number. Communication is an interesting thing.